I don't believe in "Global Warming".
No, not at all.
I've read some interesting studies about carbon forcing and others that suggest the whole thing is overblown, but at least all these peer-reviewed studies have one thing in common, they reside within the realm of science.
You just can't "believe" in them.
Science is about what we "know" not what we "predict" or "believe" but so many people these days don't see it that way. For them, this "Man Caused Global Warming" thing is mostly about religion.
They believe because they are predisposed to believe.
I have never been predisposed to faith. It is kind of like being tone deaf to music. I simply have never believed in much. But at the core of my disbelief in global warming - is Al Gore.
The truth is, I've been skeptical about preachers who wear black and hail from Memphis since I was a kid. Especially ones who call themselves Al.
In the years before 1963, a couple of buddies and I used to spend evenings in the last muggy week of summer perched on a pile of sand to watch an itinerant preacher named Brother Al hold revival meetings in central Saint Paul.
He told us at the time, we were living through the end of days and we didn't believe him, but he was right, we were.
Now I've got to admit straight out that Brother Al and Al Gore don't resemble each other. The former is plump and slick as an overfed cat, and the latter was more bird-like with a thick comb of black hair and an Adam's Apple that wobbled when he got exited, but listening to the two of them, you would never know the difference.
Brother Al ran a revival road show that blew into town the week prior to the Minnesota State Fair then pulled out before people's loose change got spent on carnival rides. The man had a sense of urgency which was understandable given that he preached the apocalypse.
At his services, Brother Al didn't waste time. He strutted on stage like a rooster, kicking up plumes of sawdust as he ripped into the world of sin from the heights of his battered pulpit.
His tent was open to the night on all sides. This allowed the cool air to wash over his audience but let Al warm up his congregation by trading insults with the deniers who sashayed in the cool blue glow and hell-fire of bar lights across the street.
He shouted for them to mend their ways - and they cussed back. He warning the lord was poised for the finalist of days as they toasted his health with cheap wine wrapped in paper bags. He loved to scold the boys, but he especially loved to pick on the girls.
Much of his audience were older women who had not much to strut and bitterly resented the younger girls who had and did. These women had been poor all their lives but poverty is rarely a matter of money, and these women had always been rich in righteousness.
"And she" Brother Al called-out, sighting some poor girl in the cross-hairs of his bony fingers, "be wearing it too high. And she" swinging his arm to draw a bead on another, "be wearing it too low".
The old ladies cackled with delight.
Each condemnation was like a rock dropped into a pool of applause and wave after wave of reprobation rolled around the tent before fading into little eddy's of derision.
Brother Al was telling people what they wanted to hear. He spoke to the righteous few, to people who lived right, worked hard, sacrificed for their family and did the Lord's work. These were people whose rewards were rare, but one reward they did enjoy was being reminded about who they were by Brother Al.
Then he spoke of things from the book.
He spoke of floods and famine. He told about plagues of locusts and serpents. He reminded people who were mostly from areas poor and rural how city folk were always giving in to things they should'a since the dawn of time.
And he warned that God had ENOUGH and THE DATE had been set.
The date was always August 31st of the current year (a handful of days after he planned to pull out of town).
After giving the date, Brother Al wondered aloud, what use people had for their earthly possession on the eve of the rapture.
What good was a Chevrolet when the Mississippi ran red with blood?
What good was a Maytag when garments of gold awaited the righteous in heaven?
What good was a cool beer when the fires of hell will flash it into steam?
Why would anyone hang onto their wealth when wealth came between them and God?
He instructed the crowd to divest themselves of their earthly goods and added - the best place to start was the purchase of an indulgence for the sacred sum of $7.77.
After all what good was $7.77 after August 31st anyway?
This is the point where things got a bit dicey for Brother Al because every year he predicted the same rapture would occur on August 31st and every year August 31st went by with an inconvenient lack of anything resembling a rapture.
Each year he had to explain away why he had been wrong the previous year - but his explanation worked year after year.
God changed his mind.
That was prior to 1963, then Al got one right and God didn't change his mind. The apocalypse came to pass but fortunately for the rest of us, it was strictly a local affair.
Every August Brother Al preached in a little Saint Paul neighborhood called Rondo. The place got its name from a quiet elm lined avenue that ran east and west through the city. In the days of real estate redlining, it was the only place where black folks could live, so houses were cheap.
Sadly in the era of the interstate building boom, a black neighborhood running in a direct path between the downtowns of Minneapolis and Saint Paul meant only one thing, a freeway.
I-94 through Saint Paul took out just about every black family in the city. It was for them, an apocalypse.
I suppose that's what gets me about preachers named Al.
They tell us to rid ourselves of our material wealth and they make billions for the rich and powerful by selling indulgences but if they keep generating predictions the odds are sooner or later for someone somewhere they just might hit one.
Last week Al Gore was at it again.
Even though the scientific journal Nature just published what amounted to a retraction by the scientists who tied hurricanes like Katrina to global warming, Brother Al declared the devastating cyclone that hit Myanmar a "consequence" of Global Warming.
That is not science. That is religion.
But then what else would we expect from a preacher who makes a pretty penny selling indulgences?
© Greg Schiller, 2008
Author: Greg Schiller
Feel free to rummage around my collection of essays and stories at Greg's Garage
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Comments: 113 ( 3 removed by Greg Schiller )
As for me, while I am interested in the science, I am more interested in the religion.
If we are speaking about Al Gore, we can give him credit for popularizing the scientific debate, but we can also say, the man is clueless as to science.
That who pays, Joe?
There are more scientists receiving public money who say there is insufficient evidence to conclude anthrpogenic climate change is occuring than there is who say that ACC is occuring.
Besides, science isn't about consensus. Science is about facts.
The "scientific consensus" in 1491 was that the Earth was flat. We all know how well that turned out.
Joe, that is a statement of faith, not of science. You can use science to test your theory about consensus by visiting the site I provided above. See Climate Debate Daily
The debate is vigorous.
Without touching on the debate (for a change), let me just say that you have written a truly beautiful and inspiring article. Congratulations. my friend, and lets see some more of these.
To the contrary, Joe. The evidence points to exactly the opposite. The evidence shows the average global temperature has actually fallen over the last 10 years, not risen exponentially as the Global Warming Alarmists would have us believe.
As Greg said, this should be about what we know, not what we believe. And, what we know is that the Global Warming climate models are incorrect.
Note: Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published a paper on the heels of Katrina that Al Gore and the media picked up on. This article essentially says "Never mind".
Nature: This Year's Model
I absolutely love your rendition of the traveling preacher!
Every time I read another article of yours, I have to claim its the best you've written. I seriously hope you publish this somewhere.
Regarding Al Gore's Myanmar diatribe : its just as ridiculous as any of his other claims. Except that Al Gore is now on his own traveling tent revival, as was your preacher in Saint Paul, years ago. Except this time, our Rev. Al has a worldwide audience. His Nobel Prize and his Oscar guarantee that. I wonder if so many on the environmental Left will still be singing his praises in a decade? I think not.
Meanwhile, in the real world : it was May 12th yesterday, and it was 49 degrees in Chicago. We've only had 2 days creep over 80 degrees so far this year. But Al Gore continues, unabated - preaching to his congregation like it was the apocalypse............
Too bad he probably doesn't agree that abortion and euthanasia are moral issues.
This will play better in July, I am sure.
I also agree with your response to Joe T. about faith vs. science. There is nothing wrong with faith, for it is faith in ourselves and a higher power that has allowed the American people to achieve wonders in the little more than 200 years of our country's existence. But, when we start mistaking faith for science, that is, believing we have all of the answers when we don't, we are headed for trouble no matter what the subject.
Your short tale of the two Als makes that truth very clear, and allows us to chuckle at ourselves as we read it.
Perhaps, this summer, as the polar bears are swimming for their very lives for islands of ice in a vast sea that was once frozen, the few remaining disbelievers will begin to open their eyes. Not likely, given that they've chosen to refuse to accept the massive mountains of documented science and glaringly obvious facts over the past 10-15 years.
More likely is that the delusional bubble people will simply continue to cling desperately to anyone who will preach what they want to hear, while our environment continues to decay and fall victim to the very issue that they so steadfastly endeavor to ignore.
Thanks for your comments. You certainly have demonstrated what I tried to describe in the article above...that the "man caused global warming" thesis is truly a thing of faith.
One would think that a commentator who leaned in the direction of science would speak of things in a scientific sense, the sense of proof and provide citations and footnotes to back up that proof, on the other hand those who speak of faith - speak of "what everyone else believes".
Darwin had this problem too. He tried to speak of science to an entire world who spoke only of faith --- even their scientists
Even tho man has put out more CO2 The Earth is warming for other reasons and just like the prior global warming cycles which put the Earth into what I feel is a more normal climate, this will be followed by little Ice age, and much consternation because of the lack of food and the movement of people and disease.
Surprise surprise. And the warming has little to do with what man has done. However, cleaning up the environment will still be a very good thing to do.
- Gosh Kimberly, I often think "going green" is really "going back to green". I remember washing cans, cutting out both ends and flattening them for recycling back in the early 1950's.
-Donald, you hit it right on the head. The science of "carbon-forcing" has become a means of "values forcing" and some interesting and contradictory values are being forced.
-Randy, you are so right. Faith is extremely important to live by - for things of the soul like morals and spiritual optimism. I would embrace Al Gore if he just said...."look this is what I personally believe"
- Richard, you are right. It was not paleolithic men driving SUVS who melted the glaciers and brought on the Holocene.
Main article: Scientific opinion on climate change
There may be questions regarding the proportion of scientists who agree or disagree on the existence or magnitude of human-caused warming. Environmental groups, many governmental reports, and the non-U.S. media often claim virtually unanimous agreement in the scientific community in support of human-caused warming. Opponents either maintain that most scientists consider global warming "unproved," dismiss it altogether, or decry the dangers of consensus science.[7][8][16] Others maintain that either proponents or opponents have been stifled or driven underground [17].
The majority of climate scientists agree that global warming is primarily caused by human activities such as fossil fuel burning and deforestation.[18][19][20] The conclusion that global warming is mainly caused by human activity and will continue if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced has been endorsed by at least 30 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences,[21] the American Association for the Advancement of Science,[22] and the Joint Science Academies of the major industrialized and developing nations[23] explicitly use the word "consensus" when referring to this conclusion.
A 2004 essay by Naomi Oreskes in the journal Science reported a survey of 928 abstracts of peer-reviewed papers related to global climate change in the ISI database.[24] Oreskes stated that "Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position. ... This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies." Benny Peiser claimed to have found flaws in Oreskes' work,[25] but his attempted refutation is disputed.[26][27][28] Peiser later withdrew parts of his criticism [29], also commenting that "the overwhelming majority of climatologists is agreed that the current warming period is mostly due to human impact. However, this majority consensus is far from unanimous."[27][30]
A 2006 op-ed by Richard Lindzen in The Wall Street Journal challenged the claim that scientific consensus had been reached, and listed the Science journal study as well as other sources, including the IPCC and NAS reports, as part of "an intense effort to suggest that the theoretically expected contribution from additional carbon dioxide has actually been detected."[31] Lindzen wrote in The Wall Street Journal on April 12, 2006,[32]
" But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis. "
Similarly, Timothy Ball asserts that skeptics have gone underground for "job security and fear of reprisals. Even in University, where free speech and challenge to prevailing wisdoms are supposedly encouraged, academics remain silent."[33]
At least one survey of the scientific community has found the opposite problem -- New Scientist notes that in surveys a much larger fraction of U.S. scientists consistently state that they are pressured by their employers or by U.S. government bodies to deny that global warming results from human activities [17] or risk losing funding.
In response to claims of a consensus on global warming, some skeptics have compared the theory to a religion,[34][35][36] to scientific support for the eugenics movement,[37][38] and to discredited scientific theories such as phlogiston[39] and miasma.[40]
In 2008, Fergus Brown, Roger A. Pielke and James Annan submitted a paper titled "Is there agreement amongst climate scientists on the IPCC AR4 WG1?" [41] It was rejected for publication by the AGU publication EOS and Nature Precedings. Pielke writes: "From this experience, it is clear that the AGU EOS and Nature Precedings Editors are using their positions to suppress evidence that there is more diversity of views on climate, and the human role in altering climate, than is represented in the narrowly focused 2007 IPCC report." [42]
Heartland Institute's list of 500 scientists
On April 29, 2008, environmental journalist Richard Littlemore revealed that a list of "500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares"[9] propagated by the Heartland Institute included at least 45 scientists who neither knew of their inclusion as "coauthors" of the article, nor agreed with its contents.[10] Many of the scientists asked the Heartland Institute to remove their names from the list; for instance, Dr. Cutter from the Old Dominion University was reported by Littlemore as saying,
" I have NO doubts ..the recent changes in global climate ARE man-induced. I insist that you immediately remove my name from this list since I did not give you permission to put it there. "
However, the Heartland Institute refused to remove any names from the list. In a statement on 5 May, 2008, Institute CEO Joseph Bast said that the title of the 14 Sep, 2007 news release announcing the list had been changed to "500 Scientists Whose Research Contradicts Man-Made Global Warming Scares."[43] In the same statement, Bast also charged that the outraged scientists
" have crossed the line between scientific research and policy advocacy. They lend their credibility to politicians and advocacy groups who call for higher taxes and more government regulations to "save the world" from catastrophic warming ... and not coincidentally, to fund more climate research. They are embarrassed -- as they should be -- to see their names in a list of scientists whose peer-reviewed published work suggests the modern warming might be due to a natural 1,500-year climate cycle. "
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_controversy)
Personally, I believe there should be serious concern regarding what we are putting into the atmosphere...some of the photo shots taken by astronauts indicate to me there are some serious gase's covering some parts of the earth...I for one am a believer that you "put junk into something - you get junk back"...and I do not feel I have to be a rocket scientist to come to that conclusion. I just wish that people would not have to make a politician a hangman for supporting a cause they believe in...just because another dose not support it...
I am not sure where you got this Donna, but it is extremely dishonest.
1) The New Scientist article DID NOT suggest that global warming skeptics were under peer, institutional and social pressure so intense that they were silenced.
2) On the other hand the article DID speak to civil servants who were prevented from speaking out on matters of policy.
3) What the New Scientist article DID NOT do is inform the reader that all civil servants in all walks of government are prevented from speaking out on matters of policy.
The very foundation of civil service depends on public servants steering clear of political issues.
Joe,
Civil servants have no right to speak out on matters of POLICY. Nor do they have a right to speak out on matters of POLITICS.
Wait until Obama is elected. I think a lot of people on Gather will SUDDENLY understand this principle the instant Obama crosses swords with a civil servant who disagrees with his policies and politics.
What if the data is wrong?
What if the prevailing understanding of the field is wrong?
Was Darwin wrong because the majority of scientists in his day had yet to accept Evolution as a valid theory?
"Consensus" is about religion......it is kind of like the clique poltics of junior high playground. It is not science.
Joe, No, you do not understand.
Civil servants cannot speak out on policy or politics. It is not a matter of neutrality. They have no right whatsoever. If they want to speak out, they can quit, then they are civilians and can say and do what they please.
if the scientists you speak of are civil servants, they have no right to voice opinions on matters of policy.
And that is the way it should be.
Don't worry, you will learn to appreciate it, when your side needs it.
Ironically (or not, as it were...I tend to believe that most of the false talking points on the "right" are intentionally constructed and presented in a purely fraudulant, Orwellian manner), it is YOU who has chosen to simply ignore scientific fact, and cling desperately to mythical fairy tales instead.
This debate is over. Sorry, but your side has lost, definitively and conclusively. There is simply no reason to continue rehashing and reproving what's already been proven. The only thing that remains at this point is for the very tiny minority who refuse to believe scientific facts to admit the err of their ways. I don't suspect that will happen as long as their are oil companies willing to pay fake "scientists" to produce fake "science" for the desperately delusional to cling to.
If you truly believe that civil servants should speak to matters of policy, let's see Barak Obama tell the military that they can voice their opinions freely on his policy of ending "Don't ask, don't tell".
I think you have to prove that Joe.
There are a great many "scientists" who are civil servants. I work with over 200 of such scientists.
Personally I really want to see this be true because if it is real, someone is going to make tens of millions in a whopping lawsuit. I would really like to get close to that kind of money.
Find me the scientist, show me that he is not a civil servant nor is under a contratual obligation not to speak on matters of policy.
This I would like to see.
Name names so I can verify.........like, let's be scientific!!!
When they express disbelieve, I direct them to your screeds --- the poor things hunch their shoulders and slouch away dejected.
On the other hand, people employed by government have to play by its rules. That is just the way it is....and that is sound policy.
I think what you heard in a political forum --- was politics.
Now can we talk about all those people who do not get tenure because they do not agree with the politics of the department?
What then were the causes of global warming in the past when the human population was small?
If the normal climate of this earth is warmer than what we see now, then getting back to the normal climate, which in warmer than now, is the norm.
Hadley expresses temperature changes in terms of deviations from the 1961 to 1990 average. In 2002 the rounded global temperature for land and sea was 0.46 above that average. In the next five years it was: 0.46, 0.43, 0.48, 0.42, and 0.40. The figures for the date centre are calculated slightly differently, but they too show no trend over the period in question.
It looks like today's Al is inspiring countless people to not take "dominion" over nature, encouraging responsibility to be taken at a basic level, preaching concern for our future generations, and giving people faith in a thoughtful and healthier way of living.
The rhetoric of both men is steeped in scientific blasphemy, yet inspires people to be aware of their responsibilities in a morally taxing time.
I say the ends justify the means.
The main regret I have with both Al's is the let-down people experience when they grow past them. All too often when that happens people throw out too much of their faith.
Al Gore is another matter.... He is in bed with some of the biggest firms on Wall Street. In many ways, he has out-cheneyed, Dick Cheney.
Lots of things. You have to pinpoint what era you're referring to. There are natural fluctuations that occur over periods of time, there are natural fluctuations that are caused by volcanic activity, there are fluctuation that are caused by solar activity, and there are fluctuations that are simply not fully understood.
In spite of the fact that the hottest years on record have occured during the past 10-12 years, nearly consecutively, we are currently in a period in which we SHOULD be seeing COOLER, not warmer temperatures.
The science is in, and it's conclusive. Not only is global climate change obviously occuring, but it's also obviously being caused by the dramatic increase in atmospheric CO2, which is, of course, the direct result of our massive consumption of fossil fuels, combined with our unending obsession with mowing and burning down forests.
As I said, there will probably forever be "scientists" willing to ignore the overwhelming evidence that's been compiled by the world's leading climatologists over the past 30 years or so, as long as there are people around who're willing to destroy their reputations and careers in order to gain a few petro dollars to publish utter nonsense for those gullible enough to swallow it.
Thankfully, the vast majority of the population now accepts reality, and once again, as usual, the "right" has found itself outside and on the extreme fringe. Is it any wonder why the populace has soundly rejected, and continues to reject the wrongful politics of the "right?"
When someone tells me that I do not believe what the majority of people believe, I smile and thank them for the complement.
> "believe" but most people these days don't see it that way.
> For them, this "Man Caused Global Warming" thing is mostly
> about religion.
So the core of your argument is basically that you do not like
science or what global warming has to say - and you do not
feel like you have to confront it scientifically, you can just
refer to what you personally believe?
You are reducing the believers in Global Warming to those
people and those arguments that you can easily deal with
to make yourself more comfortable it seems.
Then you attack Al Gore, who is just a medium for scientists
to present their findings through, because he is called Al, and
you do not like people who wear black and "preach".
This is what I call "preaching" ... you are channeling the dead
spirit of Ronald Reagan and taking a folksy down-home tone to
reassure people of their prejudices and make them warm and
fuzzy and tell them everything is all right.
Then fold in some stronger humor when people start to shift
their frame of mind away from science and facts and questioning
to what do the people around me think.
The major religion that runs the USA and is the most destructive
and the least visible is the creed of Free Market Capitalism, preached
to us by things that are not even people ... no wonder we think
of it as a religion, Corporations are the only immortal magic
entities that ever really existed on the planet.
Whether or not Katrina was related to global warming makes no difference to whether or not global warming is real. It's real. It's man-made. It's conclusive.
Bruce.
As for the quality of writing, damn good as usual Greg. You could sell snow to the Inuit with skills like this, mate.
I do not think anyone argues about whether the climate changes. We all know it does. The matter at hand is if the climate is affected by human actions, and if so by how much.
That aside, this article is not about science, it is about belief. Specifically the religion propagated by Al Gore.
The man is not a man of science. His film An Inconvenient Truth was riddled with inaccuracies and exaggerations because it was vetted by activists, not scientists. And Mr. Gore has not mended his ways, as is obvious by his outrageous statement that the cyclone in Myanmar was a "consequence" of Global Warming.
There is no scientific basis for such a statement, and as a matter of fact, the statement directly contradicts the latest science.
One can only conclude that Mr. Gore is a man of religion rather than science.
I happened to have spent some time with some Inuit near Inuvik in the MacKensie Delta of Northwest Canada. I couldn't sell them snow but I noticed that many had refrigerators.
No, the core of my argument is the quotation marks that enclose the words "Global Warming" in the first sentence.
In the next paragraph, I made it clear that my issue is not with science but with religion.
Good then agree about Al Gore.
The man is working with the most powerful firms on Wall Street to build infra-structure of China and India with American dollars -- and scape $Billions off the top for him and his friends at Merrill Lynch, and Lehman Brothers in the process.
I can understand the impulse to err on the side of caution, but one has to ask what one is cautious about. Should we condemn the third world to perpetual poverty because we fear global warming?
I find people are very discriminating about what constitutes risk. In this case, affluent people are glad to sacrifice someone else's progress to satisfy their own insecurities about the future.
The same conflict runs across the board. Should we err on the side of caution in the area of Homeland Security?
Or public safety?
I find these things usually delineate along lines of religious values. For instance, I see few people predisposed to worry about global warming, willing to err on the side of caution when society releases a sexual predator into the community because the police made a typo on a search warrant.
A rational person would shake there head and wonder why we err one way in one situation and the other way in another. It doesn't make sense on the surface.
But when one sees it all as a matter of belief and values, it begins to make sense.
I have never been one to beleive what I can't see.
I love your analogy to the "brother Al", and it was expressed beautifully.
I am not buying into the global warming either. There are scientists on both sides of the issue but I don't see any facts to say this is indeed happening.
I loved the "brother Al' analogy too!
'Those who stick their heads in the sand must beware of plucked tail feathers and high tides.'
Statistics show a sharp increase in CO2 in the atmosphere since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution not long after this nation was founded. That changes the natural trends in more ways than we know.
We do know that polar ice is melting at a much faster rate than any since record keeping began. I read a scientific explanation of what happens next. As I understood what I read, when fresh water overtakes salt water it causes stoppages in ocean currents. For instance if the Gulf Stream that brings warm water and moderate climate north to the British Islands, the temperatures there will drop, causing an ice age of unknown duration. It looks to me as if all that has to happen is for something to stop our means of making electricity and we are all unplugged and back to the Stone Age. The human race is creating its own demise.
I can always count on you to define the boundaries of the Extreme Left for me. This time you've outdone yourself and gone farther Left than you've ever ventured.
Climate scientists who call man-made Global Warming a hoax are akin to the All-Star baseball player publicly announcing that they no longer believe in The Game.
Who could support such a non-believer?
Apparently no one, as climatologists who ridicule man made Global Warming get their Grant money pulled and are immediately labeled as "being in the pocket of Big Oil". Funny that they should pick the industry seen as the most "evil" to tar & feather their former colleagues with, isn't it? It's for effect. No one in this climatalogical community can escape that kind of "Scarlet Letter"..............and that's why these militant environmental enforcers of the status quo say things like that. They make their colleagues tow the party line. Ever wonder why so many scientific papers on this subject show 100% complete unanimity of thought? Remember when you were a kid and you heard that they had an election in the Soviet Union? What was the vote then? 100% unanimity! Get the picture?
With the extremist environmental Left in charge of most University research money, do you expect naysayers of man made Global Warming to be rewarded? I don't, and probably neither do you.
Let's have a little objectivity here, folks. These "scientists" are selling an agenda - not science.
And Clark Kent is one of their most fervent and rabid believers.
There is our point of departure, Ruth. People in the west tend to see themselves as the center of humanity, this is only natural but is very wrong-headed. The Industrial Revolution in the 19th century was a localized affair that only affected a relatively small portion of the human race and had little affect on global climate. The industrial age at that time was limited to portions of Europe and the Eastern United States. Other regions such as South American, Africa, most of Eurasia, most of Asia (China, India, Indonesia) were not industrialized. The "carbon-footprint" of the entire 19th century was smaller than that of Los Angels today.
As for the polar regions, the antarctic, with the exception of the Antarctic Peninsula has shown a decrease in termperature, and the arctic pack ice is back with a vengence.
By the way, the year recorded to have the least arctic pack ice was 1922.
When you speak of the extreme environmental left -- why not tar them with being the primary cause of the rise in CO2 levels in the last quarter of the 20th century?
We would be well over 50% nuclear if they had not shut down that industry. Think of all the coal fired power plants in America, Europe and Asia that never would have been built had the environmental movement not turned against nuclear.
Global warming? Highly intangible. The great pacific garbage patch? Tangible. Real. You can touch it. So let's fix it!
As per your invitation to join you as a friend, I am gladly responding to your invitation with a resounding YES! I read your article, and was completely blown away not only by your writing, and the brother Al analogy, but your well founded opinions about "Global Warming". I am a woman of faith, however, I enjoy the ability to read, study, and then make informed decisions in matters that affect me and the rest of the world. I too don't believe in "Global Warming", and won't, until someone explains to me the Ice Age, the melting of the ice zillions of years ago and the realignment of continents, and what appeared to be a period of "Global Warming" long before men was around driving cars and burning oil, how did we have an active effect on that phenomena?
Yes, I believe we need to pick up our trash, keep the earth clean and take care of our resources - no argument there - but to believe that we actually have an impact in something so extraordinary as climate change – is truly giving ourselves too much credit – Do we suffer of over-esteem issues?
To be frank, when Al Gore jumped on the band wagon and made Global Warming not only a household phrase, but trendy, I balked. How in the freaking world can anything that spews out of that lily livered yahoo of a democrat's mouth actually be true? That was the biggest sign ever for me to point out that I need to do some more homework on the issue.
The guy bugs the crude out of me and the whole thing reminds me of that saying of Groucho Marx line, "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member." I don't want to be a member of any club that will accept Gore!
P.S. Thanks for the big chuckle with the "What good was a Chevrolet when the Mississippi ran red with blood?" My first thought was, "Well, they didn't call them boats for nothing!"
> I can understand the impulse to err on the side of caution,
> but one has to ask what one is cautious about.
"Global Warming" or something catastrophic, or inimical in the
extremely long term to human life and/or all life, or human
economics on the planet.
What we have been doing is changing many variables in the
planetary equation and using the excuse that nothing has happened
so far. That is an almost neanderthal logic. We know reality is
much more complex than that.
Greg, did you ever grow up in a place and have it ruined by development,
or have any favorite place that you saw ruined? There are a finite
number of these places, and every time one is ruined, you can never
put it back there way it was or replace the biological diversity the way it
was.
> Should we
> condemn the third world to perpetual poverty because we
> fear global warming?
The third world is doing pretty well. I just got back from a trip to
Costa Rica where they value their ecological resources. Your argument
above is fallacious, and I think you definitely intelligent enough to
have avoided saying that if you were not pandering to a certain
point of view.
You bring up a great point.
If it weren't for Left Wing NIMBY's, we'd have built a few nuclear plants in the past 30 years and reduced the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Instead, due largely to the crying and whining by environmental alarmists, no new nuclear plants have been built since the late 70's.
In addition, no new oil refineries have been built in 30 years, as well, due to a nearly identical group of whining Leftist protesters. So now our oil is sky-high because of these naybobs.
So the environmental Left is responsible for :
1) no new nuclear plants in 30 years in the US
2) higher levels of CO2 because of the greater use of fossil fuels
3) a reduced amount of cheap electricity on the US grid
4) no new oil refineries in 30 years in the US
5) higher oil prices
So basically this group is responsible of most of our energy maladies. Hmmmmm, and now one of "their guys" wants to be our President.
To chalk the lack of nuclear power or an energy policy up to Liberals is just plain stupid.
So you are also saying that with control of the White House for years, and with control of the Congress, and now the judiciary that the Republicans could not get any of this done ... so you blame it on the Democrats ... Bret, I propose we experiment on a new energy souce, Bret-o-thermal, the inexhaustable supply of hot air.
Just wait until the $ 3 trillion debt is called and the taxpayers have to pay for it. The Republicans will again blame Democrats just like they did in paying for the huge deficits Reagan and Bush, Sr created. Interestingly, it is those two radical right wingers who created al-Qaeda and the terrorism mess that we see today. Yet, it is the GOP that continually says Dems are soft on terrorism. As always, the unpatriotic right wingers cause the problem but manage to pin it on the Dems.
It'll be interesting to see if the Dems remain passive and allow it to happen again.
What next? Will you launch into a rousing rendition of Big Yellow Taxi?
Obviously Bruce, you do not understand what precisely is being predicted by Global Climate Models. When you understand it, it is not the horror show the media would have you believe.
Under the worst case scenario, the IPCC predicts by the next century, the isotherms in the United States will shift north approx 150 miles. In other words, by 2108, the climate of the Twin Cities will resemble that found in Des Moines today.
I have been to Des Moines. It is a nice town. I felt safe and comfortable there, and did not worry about the unliving roaming the street in search of humans brains to eat. I found their woodlands and prairies quite attractive and the people more than friendly.
As for your fears about "biodiversity", you sell nature short. The earth has experienced dramatic climate shifts before, most recently in the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age. During those periods the isotherms shifted further than the IPCC is predicting for the next century.
Change is an essential ingredient of nature.
the parallels between Gore and many apostles of global warming and certain fundamentalist leaders though is glaring. Both sets seem to glory in their personal comfort while advocating their followers sacrifice for the common good. Another commonality is that they have no problem savaging anyone who disagrees with them.
Only two people here have cited any authoritative source: Donna and I. Everyone else rambled on about their beliefs.
That was the point I wanted to make by writing this article. That is why I differentiated the topic of global warming from the science of global warming by enclosing the term in quotes in the first sentence of the article.
Few people have actually reviewed the science of global warming, fewer still understand it, but that does not prevent them from having absolutist opinions.
This is the essence of religion.
It is all about belief.
Few people come by their opinions as a result of study or research; instead we believe things that people like us believe.
Leave out "predict" and you're right. Science is, at its core, about predicting, then testing the prediction.
"Few people come by their opinions as a result of study or research; instead we believe things that people like us believe. " Unfortunately, you are probably right. However, there is far more to research than scientific research. A layman cannot hope to understand much of the science unless it is presented in simplified form. Simplifying it requires more than just scientific talent, it also requires some special thinking techniques and writing ability that many otherwise brilliant scientists don't have.
Still, when presented with such clarifying simplification, intelligent laymen CAN understand the science. Al Gore, for all the villification from the right (who refuse to look at the science), is such an intelligent layman who can help bridge the gap for those willing to give him a chance.
"Since the right wing members of this forum do not believe in global warming, when are you going to demand a refund of your tax dollars that have gone into the research mentioned above?
Personally, I'd rather just pay the bill, then have the right to lay the blame at the environmental Left's doorstep. Then there's no hypocrisy involved when I say that we've paid the bill, and they still cause our energy prices to increase. Which of course is exactly what has happened.
As shown in a previous thread, the Pentagon has paid several right wing universities billions of your dollars in research (and in keeping gays off the military). Shouldn't it be time to get your money back??"
Luckky, there are gays in the military. Nothing can be done about it. We who've been in the military accept that. We just don't want them pushing for any new gay rights while serving............that's all.
Anyone who has watched An Inconvenient Truth with an open mind realizes immediately that the man does not understand the science that he preaching.
The simple fact remains, Al Gore's movie and most of his statements were vetted by the activists rather than the scientific community. The mistakes in his film and public statements are obvious that his credibility is completely shot. Furthermore the man has made no attempt to change his approach as we can plainly see by his outrageous exploitation of the suffering in Myanmar.
It is obvious his sole concern is to profit financially from Alarmism.
Makes my heart warm.
No scientist worth his salt could look at that part of the movie without bursting out in laughter.
While they are worshiping Mother Earth at their church, truckers are parking their rigs because they can't afford fuel for them. As Pogo would have said, "We have met the enemy, and it is them."
> century, the isotherms in the United States will shift north
> approx 150 miles. In other words, by 2108, the climate of the
> Twin Cities will resemble that found in Des Moines today.
And now you believe the models?
What about past 100 years or is Armageddon going to end
all of this before them?
This is at current levels, which are always increasing. Also,
people can move north or south 150 miles, animals and plants
often cannot, so they go extinct.
But they will go extinct anyway because eventually we will
cover everything with a parking lot to use your analogy.
The thing is that no that humans are global, and our economy
is global along with its effects forever does not mean just until
you personally do not have to worry about it anymore.
As far as your rant about the Earth experiencing bioldiversity, yes,
on the 100 million year level. And your body can heal itself of a
paper cut too, but too many can kill you in excrusiating pain.
The nature of the human being is to expand to fill their controllable
area, and compete. I don't know why you seem to want to see
nature not preserved, or why you automatically show up at every
argument with talking points that only support the profit of the
few at the expense of the legacy of all?
By the way when the Earth experienced all those climate shifts
human civilization was not around. Our dependence on the
environment was not at stake. There was none of the current
phenomenon back then that there are now, and CO2 levels were
no where close to where they are today, and were never on a
trajectory into uncharted regions.
Why is it that in order to discuss a subject you people have to rely
on idiotic over the top insulting statements like this ... instead of
facts or conservative guidlines of behavior, or does carefullness
only apply when you are conserving the power and wealth of a few?
> No scientist worth his salt could look at that part of the
> movie without bursting out in laughter.
First even without a poltical element so true scientist ever
bursts out in laughter at theories, because historicially
so many of them have been wrong, and there is no guarantee
that any scientist's ideas will not be embarassingly overturned
the next day. Science always changes, this is basically not
even a scientific question, it is a question of conservation ...
you might expect conservatives to get that.
> Their fellow citizens are hurting, and they don't give a da*n.
Attacking those few people if any who believe that is really
no even part of this discussion, there are those on the other
side who sit sipping gin and tonics as the unsinkable Titanic
sunk ... why discuss a problem by ridiculing some irrelevant
group of people unless you are not intelligent enough to
understand it?
What do you expect the oil in the Artic Wildlife Preserve to
do to the price of gasoline, and when do you think that might
happen?
The benefit of drilling on that public land is that none of its
owners, us Americans will get anything out of it, only people
who can make more money to bribe government to give them
more handouts at public expense.
Remember my statement "Science is about what we 'know' not what we 'predict' or 'believe'"? The only thing we KNOW about climate models is what they predict. We do not KNOW if what they predict is right or wrong but we do know precisely the models predict because their predictions are published.
The prediction itself is a matter of fact.
If you choose to believe that global warming will be worse than the most pesimistic models, then have at it - but that is paranoia, not science.
100 million years - excuse me?
Again this is suppose to be a discussion about science versus religion. Obviously you have staked your position well within the domain of religion; I guess that leaves science to. I will speak of the things we know instead of what we believe or fear.
If we were to sit where I am sitting right now, a mere 10,000 years ago, we would be looking north at a mountain of ice over a mile high. Let me assure you that the biodiversity under that ice was absolute zero. Then without the help of paleolithic men driving SUV's, the ice melted.
Here is another fact of science.
Until a decade ago, the same climatologists who make outrageous predictions about carbon forcing had no absolutely no clue as to what triggered the melting that led to our modern age of the Halocene.
We now know what caused it, and it has nothing to do with SUV's or coal fired power plants.
We also know something else. The same shifts of the isotherms that frighten you so, have happened several times within recorded European history....the Medival Warm Period and the Little Ice Age.
In other words, in recorded history the Vikings grew grain in Greenland, the British grew wine grapes as far north as the midlands then the climate shifted the isotherms much further south than they are today.
While it is true that such shifts may stress some species there is no wholesale extinction. On the other hand, plants and animal adapt and get strong as a result of climate stress, and in the end, extend their range and ability to survive.
These are things of scientific fact.
Have you seen Al Gore lately???????
The Alaska pipeline moves 900,000 barrels a day. Assume $200 a barrel by the end of the year, that is a whopping $65 Billion a year in our side of the balance of trade ledger.
Look up at the top of the page, on the right hand side. See my icon? That is me standing a couple of hours from ANWR and 300 miles south of Prudhoe Bay.
I think you should get in your car and drive up the Dalton Highway to the north slope. Walk around, spend some time. See the oil fields. Then it all will become suddenly become clear.
Then for once, you can say you know what you are talking about.
Wouldn't that be refreshing?
BINGO Joe, you finally got it!!!! After three days and countless comments you hit the nail on the head.
As I said in the article, and in my comments (numerious times) I am more interested in the religion of global warming than I am in the science. Please note, "more interested" does not mean "not interested". It is obvious that I have read more of the actual science of climate change than most others in this thread.
Notice something else Joe, nothing in the article speaks against the concept of climate change. You did pick up on that didn't you?
What the article speaks of is faith and yes I did mention several facts (things we know rather than things we believe). Among the facts are: Brother Al is a real person, the Rondo neighborhood was destroyed by a freeway and Brother Al Gore did lie about the tragedy in Myanmar being a "consequence" of Global Warming.
Now perhaps we can talk about the religion surrounding global warming, and about how activist go against ev