Is this the new lithmus test?

The governor said Taylor's contradictions interfere with the state's stated goals to reduce greenhouse gases, the accepted cause of global warming in the eyes of a vast majority of scientists...

Want to hear the ultimate irony. Water vapor makes up about 95% of all green house gases. The hydrogen fuelcell car, if it can be perfected and produced at an affordable cost, will emit only one by-product: water vapor.

and this, point blank, is what is wrong with the alleged debate on global warming: those who disagree are not argued with, but silenced.

Mark, this dynamic isn't just limited to the GW/climate debate. It's pretty much the Left's modus operandi no matter what the subject of the debate is.

People like Cyberactor can deny all they want that the pendulum isn't beginning to swing the other way on this issue, but anyone who can read knows that it is.

I'd like to clear up a few misconceptions that seem to exist on the alarmist side. Mark tried late in the previous GW thread, and generated a rant of uncontrolled proportions by Cyberactor.

I'm getting more than a little tired of being portrayed as some kind of earth trashing ogre by fanatics like Cyber. If I believed EVERYTHING he believes, I wouldn't live my life any differently than I do now. As someone mentioned in the previous thread, the last thing any of us, including oil and energy company executives, wants to do is trash this planet that we live on. Energy and oil companies don't want someone forcing them to do things that are expensive and unnecessary, any more than Cyberactor would want someone telling him he must paint his house with a certain kind of paint or plant a certain kind of grass in his yard. Whether the alarmists are correct or not (and I believe the evidence that they are not is mounting), we should all be trying to live our lives in the most environmentally friendly way as possible.

The debate (and yes, by his mere presence here, Cyber admits there's still a debate) has devolved into each side ridiculing the other's beliefs. It shouldn't even be about "sides". Ricorun and I have tried in recent threads to present information and links to articles about exciting new research into alternative energy sources, something the alarmist side says that we "must" pursue. Yet our detractors have either been silent or ridiculed us for that as well.

I'm not giving up because it's an extremely fascinating subject, and I've learned a lot in the process of researching it. I'll continue to look for reasoned arguments on both sides, and I'll continue to live my life in as environmentally responsible way as possible. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go out in 3 degree weather and shovel 3" of fresh snow off my driveway.

Except, Mark, you neglect to mention that Mr Taylor supplements his government salary with income from Tech Science Station, an organization almost wholly funded by Exxon-Mobil. Mr Taylor has also received numerous speaking fees from Exxon-Mobil to - surprise, surprise - effectively deny human-generated global warming.

As far as "debate", I'm all for it. But just keep in mind that 95% of all of the world's climate scientists are in agreement on the anthropogenic causes of global warming. That does not mean that the other 5% (and falling) should not be listened to - but should we base policy on the views of such an extreme minority?

There will always be deniers and dissenters. There are those who deny that the earth is round, and there always will be. There are those who deny that evolution ever happened. With the stakes involved, are these the people you would bet on?

In justifying the invasion of Iraq, quite a few neo-conservatives have latched onto Dick Cheney's "1% Doctrine". Basically, the doctrine goes like this: even if there is only a 1% chance that a rogue state like Saddam's Iraq might launch a successful attack on the US, then we must take him out. OK, fair enough. But even the most reluctant among you would admit that there is greater than 1% chance that humans are causing most of the increasing global temperatures. With 95% of climate experts saying they have a high degree of certainty on this, surely you would admit that the chances they are right are greater than a mere 1%.

And yet you counsel that we should ignore the threat. Where is your security-minded "1% Doctrine"? Doesn't national security encompass more than guarding against terrorist attacks? The Dept of Defense apparently thinks so - they are already drawing up contigencies to deal with global warming scenarios.

Retired Spook -

"People like Cyberactor can deny all they want that the pendulum isn't beginning to swing the other way on this issue, but anyone who can read knows that it is."

Uh, no, Spook - the pendulum is actually swinging even further still in favor of the overwhelming majority of climate scientists. In case you missed it, just last week the IPCC released its latest report, the first since 2001. In it, the the probability that humans caused most of the global warming in the 20th century was significantly increased over the 2001 and 1995 estimates:

MSNBC News Services Updated: 10:01 a.m. ET Jan 23, 2007

WASHINGTON - Signals that humans are the main factor behind recent global warming are stronger than ever, an authoritative global scientific report will warn when it is released next week.

A draft of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report by 600 scientists says it is "very likely" that human activities are the main cause of warming in the past 50 years, strengthening a conclusion in their last study in 2001 that the human link was "likely".

"It is very likely that ... greenhouse gas increases (from human activities) caused most of the globally average temperature increases since the mid-20th century," one source who had seen the draft quoted it as saying.

The 2001 report defined "very likely" as a 90-99 percent probability and "likely" as a 66-90 percent chance.

The new report means narrower ground for skeptics to argue that natural variations, such as in the sun's output, are to blame rather than emissions from burning oil, coal and gas.

No surprise, I have much to say on this topic, but for the moment, let's concentrate on Mr. Taylor in Oregon. He is not the "State Climatologist." There IS no "State Climatologist." From the Oregonian:

"The position of state climatologist was dissolved by the Legislature in 1989, Abbott said. Taylor runs the OSU-based Oregon Climate Service, which performs many of the same duties that the state climatologist once did, and OSU gave him the same title."

Nice of the college to bestow him with this unofficial title. Too bad the government didn't do so as well. This is a tempest in a teapot.

Want to hear the ultimate irony. Water vapor makes up about 95% of all green house gases. The hydrogen fuelcell car, if it can be perfected and produced at an affordable cost, will emit only one by-product: water vapor.

What's ironic is that you actually think you know what you are talking about. Water Vapor is the most common greenhouse gas (making up, at most, 70% of such) but human effect on it is negligable beyond the local area. Nuclear power plants vent massive amounts of it all the time and, beyond the immediate area, there has been no effect on larger water vapor presence in the atmosphere. Those oceans that cover 70% of the planet produce far, far more of it than we could ever hope to.

Also, a simple condenser on a hydrogen fuel cell will convert the waste water vapor into liquid water. And you researched this? A basic understanding of physics alone should make this obvious much less a cursory search on the internet.

THIS is the problem with the debate. Making shit up is not, never has been and never will be a part of "reasoned debate".

Water vapor makes up about 95% of all green house gases. The hydrogen fuelcell car, if it can be perfected and produced at an affordable cost, will emit only one by-product: water vapor.

Besides that is the problem of producing the hydrogen. It can be produced by electrolysis, which requires an INPUT of electrical energy, which would have to be produced by some other means, or by a reaction known as "reforming". The raw materials for reforming are hydrocarbons, along with water (as steam) and/or oxygen. This would mean the use of the same old fossil fuels. Besides hydrogen, the products would include carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.

Since carbon monoxide is poison, it is normally further reacted with more water (as steam) to produce more hydrogen and carbon dioxide. This second step is called "shift conversion". Thus, the overall reaction is hydrocarbon (fossil fuel) + water + oxygen --> hydrogen and carbon dioxide (the greenhouse gas).

Then the hydrogen reacts with atmospheric oxygen in the fuel cell (essentially electrolysis in reverse) to produce water, which can be exhausted or recycled into the reforming or shift reactions. The overall process (reforming + shift + fuel cell reaction) is not very different from the results of internal combustion: Hydrocarbons and oxygen are consumed, while carbon dioxide and water are produced.

Let's see... the politicians are trying to get the Delaware State Climatologist as well because he's said what is accurate... we should discuss the REALITY of the situation instead of just deciding concensus was reached and therefore all scientific debate should be ended.

Bottomline is... there is no State Climatologist in Oregon, paid for by the tax payers... however, there is Oregon State University, Oregon's only Land, Sea, and Space Grant University in the State.

It is clearly the most respected research institution in the State of Oregon. And Mr. Taylor is the official climatologist of Oregon State, and since he's the senior one in the state, OSU, again, a government organization in the State, gave him a title... whether the governor likes it or not.

The only reason the governor is suggesting they take this title away is because he doesn't like someone suggesting that man isn't the chief cause of global warming. How about you google the guys name and then read the hatchet work against him and his responses.

Seeing as I've met this guy and he's definitely more intelligent that Cyber could hope to be, and he's definitely more knowledgeable about global warming than a governor who's trying to regain credibility somewhere within Oregon.

Before this post (on yesterday's thread) of Mark’s got buried, I wanted to dredge it up and deal with it. Frankly, it is one of the more illuminating posts I’ve ever read on this site and it explains so much about righty thinking that it is truly breathtaking.

Noonan: “And it pure, distilled liberalism/leftism to be so overly concerned about the future...a future you are sure you can make perfect, if only we'll radically change the present. I'm a bit more realistic than that - especially as the world really hasn't got a future.”

Bingo! You know, it has often mystified me why the people on the other side of the aisle have always seemed to me to be so flippant when it came to the planet. To pollution. To nuclear waste. To unbridled energy consumption. When I advanced the notion that maybe these people didn’t really CARE what was going to happen in the future, I was gently reminded that, hey, oil company executives have kids too. They MUST care, right?

Turns out...nope. If Noonan is any kind of representative of the right, then it turns out that my theory was right all along. The right-wing of this country is populated by a curious strain of nihilists: Christian nihilists. Noonan and his ilk believe that we’re all doomed anyway, so why not throw another log on the fire and heat the planet up real good?

Another quote: “The real flaw in unbelief is that there's no point in doing anything if you don't believe in God...why strive to save the world for future generations, Cyber? If you do save it for one more, then you've just put one more on the worthless treadmill of pointless existence which won't even be a story one day, as all will be gone.”

Geez, Mark, lighten up. Why all the doom and gloom? I believe in God and, therefore, I’d like to keep the planet he bestowed upon us nice and shiny clean. What’s wrong with that? The answer lies in Noonan’s next comment:

“If, on the other hand, you believe, then you know this world is not home, but your place of exile - the real world, the world that shall not die, is the world to come...and one must be much more concerned with getting there than whether or not a spotted owl is discomfited right now.”

Catch that? We’re only here for a visit. It’s not our real home. Guys like Noonan think of the world, if you will, as a hotel room. A place that you stay on your way to your REAL home. And hey, since we’re only going to be living in the hotel for a short while....why not trash the place? Push the TV out the window, piss on the floor, burn the sheets...have a real party! Sure, there will be people who have to use this room after us but...that’s their problem!

“I'm more concerned that the next generation be free; that it have a strong moral foundation; that it still allows men and women to turn towards God and the hope of the life of the world to come. The future will have its problems - maybe different problems from today, but problems nonetheless.”

And if we, the stewards of today, are the CAUSE of those problems...tough luck! We didn’t have time to keep the place clean...we were too busy putting cigarettes out on the run and waitin’ on the Rapture!

“Perhaps one of the problems will be significantly higher global temperatures - in which case, if they are free, have strong moral foundations and can turn towards God, they will deal with it and their lives will still be splendid, even if the Nile delta is under 20 feet of water and there isn't a glacier to be had.”

Tell me, why is it that the future generations are the ones who will have to “deal with it,” and not us? Why is it that we cannot, collectively, pull together and attempt to fix a problem that could prove to be catastrophic to future generations? Ah, because that might mean putting down the bong and actually pitching in, which is not what Noonan’s Christian nihilism is all about. Darn the luck!

“The radical revolution - regardless of the reasons used to justify it - is never the thing to do. We gradually got into this mess (if mess it is) and the only way we can really get out of it is gradually. Lets busy ourselves with figuring out ways we can clean up the environment, and leave doomsday stories to the hucksters and the insane.”

So here’s the Unanswerable Question Part Two: How, Mark, would you recommend that we “clean up the environment”? What basic steps (nothing too radical!) would you be willing to take? See if you can tackle that one.

The ultimate irony: The same guys who advocate getting “tough” in the Middle East, never waving a white flag, pulling together as one to tackle a problem that seems impossible...these are the same guys who throw up their hands and say “I surrender!” when faced with an issue that might involve them personally. Cute, Noonan. Real cute.

Retired Spook (again)

"Energy and oil companies don't want someone forcing them to do things that are expensive and unnecessary..."

"Expensive and unnesessary"... you mean like the missile defense shield?

I bring this up because again it illustrates my previous point about the "1% Doctrine". Those of us who question the wisdom of spending hundreds of billions on an easily spoofed missile shield are derided here as soft on security. However, all indications are that North Korea is not even remotely capable of creating an ICBM. It is a huge technological (and financial!) leap from being able to lob a small payload over Japan to building an inter-continental ballistic missile that can send a payload into space and have it re-enter the atmosphere over a target on the other side of the globe. We're talking the difference between a Wright Flyer and a Jumbo Jet here, so excuse my skepticism that NK will ever have ICBM capability anytime in then next few decades. More likely, NK will crumble long before then.

And even in the laughably remotest sliver of a possibility that any of the "Axis of Evil" nations will develop ICBM's, the missile defense shield will always remain easily spoofable. By definition, any nation which has the technological capabilty to go inter-continental will also have the relatively simple technology required to spoof an anti-missile system. In space, where there is no wind resistance, it is impossible to distinguish between a warhead and hundreds of radar-reflecting mylar balloons which could be released from the same payload.

And yet, right wingers retort "OK, so the ICBM scenario is a little far-fetched. But are you willing to bet Los Angeles, or Seattle, or Chicago on that?"

So my point here is that I find it rather curious that in the case of missile defense, right wingers seem to have no problem justifying the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars on the tiniest sliver of a chance to avert a catastrophy. And yet they carp about doing things that, in the words of Retired Spook, are "expensive and unnecessary", when it comes to averting the castrophies inherent in climate change, depsite the fact that the overwhelming majority of the world's climate scientists say this is a very real threat.

Why is that? I would submit to you that this different standard has nothing to do with basic ideological differences - at least not as we traditionally have understood Right and Left, Conservative and Liberal. The environment is not really a right-left issue anyway. Afterall, the two Presidents who did the most for the environment - Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon - were both Republicans!

No, the reason why the current "Right wing" is so supportive of missile shields, and so hostile to the idea of antropogenic global warming is simple: large corporations stands to gain billions from missile defense, and stand to lose money on anti-warming measures. The current conservative movement is not really conservative in the traditional sense (small government, free markets), but rather has become very corporatist (huge government support of corporations - ie, corporate welfare).

Aarontime:

The IPCC report from last week is actually an indication of the weakness of the arguments supporting the existence of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Please understand that the IPCC 'science' report is still in draft form and will not be finished until later this year, but the POLICY statement just released contains conclusions reached by bureaucrats (not scientists) which specifies the conclusions to be contained in the final edit of the 'science' report.

This is not a valid scientific methodology.

If the science supporting the existence of Anthropogenic Global Warming was strong enough, there would be no need to have bureaucrats dictate what conclusions the editors of the science report are allowed to reach.

Back on topic: The governor of Oregon appears to be a bureaucrat dictating which scientific results are to be allowed.

Once again, Cyber, you post a very insightful analysis of the Christo-fascist mind-set. These people are positively gleeful at the idea of the "End Times" - why would they care to spend a penny on averting global warming?

All money should be spent on crusading against evil-doers and preparing our souls for the End Times. Further, their whacked-out world view has left them easily manipulated by corporate interests.

Aaron:
I'm not surprised by it, but again, you'll draw as many unlike and unrelated constructs together in order to try and prove a point that isn't proveable to begin with.

Thank God you're not the national security advisor, even though I'm pretty sure you're better at stealing national secrets than Sandy Berger was.

You don't need an ICBM to launch a nuclear bomb on Japan, and you don't need that big of a missile to do it. North Korea already owns those size missiles and they also have shown they are 100% willing to destroy their nation for what they see as an imperative to have nuclear weapons.

But then again, you believe that the talking we did with them and their subsequent breaking of their agreement was a good thing.

But back to Global Warming... explain to me the following and try to not say I'm a denier... make it fit your worldview...

"For more than the last million years, the earth has been going from warm to ice age at intervals of about 100,000. We are in an interglacial period (about 20,000 years relatively ice free) right now and are cooler than during the previous interglacial when sea levels were higher than now.

There are reasons that most global warming hoaxers limit discussion to the last 150 years since only that short period of time has both minimal warming AND industrialization. Longer views are counterproductive for the hoaxers as they would then have to explain how their conjecture and theories fit the Medieval Warm Period (1000 to 1350AD), the Roman Warm Period (500BC to 100AD) and the warmest period in human history: the Holocene Maximum (5500BC to 2000BC).

When the anthropogenic global warming hoaxers decry criticism by pointing to 'energy lobbyists' or 'big oil' influences, they do so with the modern version of: 'Hear not his words, it is the devil speaking...' The message is clear: 'Heretics will not be tolerated by the Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming and must be silenced.'"

Why have we in the last 100 years dedided that the Earth is a static item and that there would never be change on the planet if it weren't for humans. Liberals like to say it's hubrist humans that think the planet is ours to plunder, yet it's their own hubrist notions that think we are the only things that impact the planet.

The problem is, you are 100% unwilling to debate the reasons the planet is warming, therefore you think we're unwilling to discuss environmental improvements and different technology.

But it's the height of stupidity to assume that our information of 100 years worth of verifiable data and millions of years of ancillary evidence that show we are playing a very minor, if not insignificant increase to the overall increase in planetary temperatures.

But again, you completely refuse to even acknowledge the evidence that indicates the Earth has warmed and cooled thousands of times when man had no impact on the globe, and that it would appear that the start of the current warming trend happened when CO2 emissions weren't significant at all, it's NOW our fault.

Commonsense would suggest there are questions worth asking and answers wanting to be discovered... instead... NO DEBATE or you're in favor of blowing up the planet.

Now that's an unhonest intellectual debate.

When and only when Cyberactor and Aaron can and will present the actual facts on global warming, including but not limited to the ratio of greenhouse gases created and released by human activity vs that created and released by natural events, they will have the ability to mount an arugment that human activity is the primary cause for the gradual warming of the earth.

When and if they can explain how the relatively miniscule amount of agents released by human activity, related to those released by natural events, are solely responsible for the changes we see, they might have a tad bit of credibility.

I'm not holding my breath. Because they can't. Well, they COULD---the evidence is out there, and they know it. But they won't. They simply ignore all of history, all of the proof of these cycles being ongoing for eons, all of the data showing the effects of solar activity and so on being the crucial factors in climate change, in favor of their pet theory. Which, of course, is political rather than scientific.

What I see from these knee-jerk automatons is a transparent determination to assign human activity the blame for a pattern of warming that has been a part of the warming/cooling cycle of the earth for all of its history. And it is not science to start with a conclusion and then adapt, include, exclude, distort, and otherwise tailor facts to support that predrawn conclusion.

Yes, it FEELS good. Yes, it can be used to manipulate people emotionally. Yes, it can be used as a political tool---check out Horowitz's description of "watermelons" for an explanation of that. (A "watermelon" is green on the outside but red in the middle.)

But it is not science. And the most telling proof of that is the old Lefty tactic of simply silencing those who disagree. Shades of the USSR!

BTW, until you can and will define "neocon" you are a fool for continuing to use the term, and a substitution of the long form, "neo-conservative" is not adequate. You sheep pick up terms you think are both meaningful and derogatory and toss them around thinking they make you look smarter, but in fact you don't even know what you are talking about.

My theory is that you know full well that most of the people in this country think of themselves as conservative. Not necessarily politically Conservative, but conservative in a general way, as opposed to radical. So you know that the simple term "conservative" is not going to scare people away from the Right, and scaring is what you do best. Yet you also know that a candid admission of the radical Liberal (Budding Socialist) nature of your own movement will repel the voters you need. So you have to try to invent some term which you can use with disdain and scorn and even hate, a term which you can imply has some sinister meaning, and you have hit upon "neocon" or "neoconservative". But you know it is meaningless.

A true "new" conservative is merely one who has become resigned to the idea that true small govenment is not possible, that the entitlement bell can't be unrung, that the country now not only expects but DEMANDS that the federal government be involved in areas not assigned to it by the Cosntitution, such as welfare and education, and is pragmatic enough to realize that the conservative movement will have to take all of this into account. Oooohhhhh. How OMINOUS!!!

If your side is so darned wonderful, why not just use IT to attract people? Why not just advertise that the Democrat Party is moving so far to the left that it can soon (if not now) take on the name Socialist Democrat Party? If you are so correct in your political affiliations and goals, why not strut your stuff, instead of hiding behind the invention of some boogy-man psuedo-insult like "neocon"?

Does ANYONE need more proof that Aaron is a true disciple of the BS movement? Look at this:

"Further, their whacked-out world view has left them easily manipulated by corporate interests."

Wos. In one sentence he captures the anti-religious fervor of the true Leftist and the anti-capitalist dogma of his movement---and tinged them with the hyperemotional paranoia and loathing that drive the radical LLL.

Aaron,

Still waiting for you to tell me what, exactly, makes a person a climate scientist and how it was determined that this clearly defined group of people are 95% in favor of the theory of anthropogenic global warming. Please don't tell me that you are just blindly repeating things you've been told...you did check into this, didn't you? You are naturally suspicious of anything that 95% of anyone is in favor of, aren't you?

Cyber,

I'm a Christian - and being a Christian means that you are waiting for Our Lord to return, at which time this world will be swept away and a new world will replace it, freed from all of the affects of our sin.

If someone is not a Christian, then they are waiting for the universe to burn out...for a time when the world, and all other worlds, will be lifeless, cold lumps of nothing.

And I'm the one who is nihilistic? I don't think so.

As for what I'll do to clean things up - first off, I've been an advocate of converting all of our electricity generation to nuclear power...heck, I'd even un-dam the rivers, if we could swing it. Nuke power is clean and cheap and we can power nearly everything we've got with it...I'll bet if you study it, you could power America for a century with nuke plants taking up less than 100 square miles of land.

Secondly, I'm all in favor of running our cars on hydrogeon.

Think of how much CO2 we'll keep out of the atmosphere if we did those two things...you'd think you global warming alarmists would sing on to that...but, no, you don't want that....you don't want us using clean energy, you want us using NO energy....make the world impoverished, punish it for the sin of having a factory...grind the faces of the world's poor because most advocates of global warming alarm are quite rich and can easily afford it if GDP drops 20%...

ATime said "But just keep in mind that 95% of all of the world's climate scientists are in agreement on the anthropogenic causes of global warming."

Thats about as meaningful as "choosy mothers chose Jiff" or "4 out of 5 dentists choose crest". A statistic pulled from your butt with no meaning and I suspect totally incorrect as well.

I'm still curious to the answer of the question I posed in the previous thread so I will ask again.

Our Drama Queen cyberactor reveals the total spectrum of liberal thought and debate in her 5:06 post. I haven't seen that many irrelevant strawmen/distorted hyperbole in one place in a while. I can almost see him sitting at his computer, frothing at the mouth furiously distorting everything Mark said and delusionaly feeling like what he wrote actually had substance.

I've got one question for her mighty intellect. If (cue the evil music) BIG OIL is behind the skeptics what is their motive. There has to be one so what is it?

To destroy the planet
Beachfront property in Dallas
Maybe they want to live in Northern Canada and its just too cold.

I have a hunch you would say (cue another round of evil music) MONEY.

So answer me this sparky....What the hell good is money gonna do them if civilization is disrupted, countries wiped out, economies destroyed and millions dead. How in your warped conspiracy minded paranoid delusions is that going to help them. You do realize that most refineries are in the areas that you believe will flood? Yea thats the ticket...Lets suppress a problem that will destroy our customers, eventually wipe our whole way of making money and doing business. What a brilliant long term business plan.

Oh and before you pop a blood vessel responding in your usual inane fashion I recycle, drive a hybrid, replaced all my bulbs with fluorescents and generally do what I can to be REASONABLY green. Please don't waste our time again saying we want to "Just dump chemicals in the streams, lakes and oceans." cause we wont join your lemming parade it graphically underscores the vapidity of your position.

I also note that you have absolutely no response to these questions and observations.

* The polar ice caps on Mars are melting. How did our CO2 emissions get all the way to Mars?

* It was warmer in the 1930s across the globe than it is right now.

* The famous "hockey stick" graph that purports to show a sudden warming of the earth in the last few decades is a fraud. It ignored previous warming periods ... left them off the graph altogether.

* The infamous Kyoto accords exempt some of the world's biggest CO2 polluters, including China and India.

* What happened to the Medieval Warm Period? In 1996 the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a chart showing climatic change over a period of 1000 years. This graph showed a Medieval warming period in which global temperatures were higher than they are today. In 2001 the IPCC issued another 1000 year graph in which the Medieval warming period was missing. Why?

* Why is the ice cap on the Antarctic getting thicker if the earth is getting warmer?

* In the United State, the one country with the most accurate temperature measuring and reporting records, temperatures have risen by 0.3 degrees centigrade over the past 100 years. The UN estimate is twice that.

* There are about 160,000 glaciers around the world. Most have never been visited or measured by man. The great majority of these glaciers are growing, not melting.

* Side-looking radar interferometry shows that the ice mass in the West Antarctic is growing at a rate of over 26 gigatons a year. This reverses a melting trend that had persisted for the previous 6,000 years.

* Rising sea levels? The sea levels have been rising since the last ice age ended. That was 12,000 years ago. Estimates are that in that time the sea level has risen by over 300 feet. The rise in our sea levels has been going on long before man started creating anything but natural CO2 emissions.

* Like Antarctica, the interior of Greenland is gaining ice mass.

* Over the past 3,000 years there have been five different extended periods when the earth was measurably warmer than it is today. Why?

Points lifted from Boortz

Michael A

"The IPCC report from last week is actually an indication of the weakness of the arguments supporting the existence of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Please understand that the IPCC 'science' report is still in draft form and will not be finished until later this year, but the POLICY statement just released contains conclusions reached by bureaucrats (not scientists) which specifies the conclusions to be contained in the final edit of the 'science' report."

I don't know what wing-nut site you are pulling this from, but you're way off here. The IPCC report is divided into 3 working groups, and a final synthesis report. The first working group's findings were published in full on Feb 2 - it is not a draft. The key conclusions of Working Group I were written by the scientists themselves, not by bureaucrats.

On the contrary, it is self-interested bureacrats bought by oil companies, like Sen Inhofe, who are fudging against the findings, rejecting them out of hand. Of course, when the other 2 working groups and the sythesis group release their reports later this year that lend even more support to the growing scientific evidence of anthropogenic global warming, you'll reject those findings too.

ZootAllure -

"If (cue the evil music) BIG OIL is behind the skeptics what is their motive. There has to be one so what is it?"

I have a hard time believing you are really this dim or naive. No, I rather suspect you already know the simple, glaringly obvious answer to this question. Heck, Retired Spook already gave it to you:

m

o

n

e

y

"I have a hard time believing you are really this dim or naive"

So answer the question your twit.

And why didn't you address any one of the list that suggests there could other reasons beyond human ONLY global warming, and you don't answer it.

Why?

Simple... it would mean there were issues to discuss meaning there is no such thing as settled.

But who cares about the last 6000 years or the last million years... our 30 year old dataset are all we need to blame Humanity First.

Sorry hit post too soon.

Damn you libs are predictable. I already said that would be your answer and as usual you ignore the question. I'll type slower this time for you and ask again.

So answer me this sparky....What the hell good is money gonna do them if civilization is disrupted, countries wiped out, economies destroyed and millions dead. How in your warped conspiracy minded paranoid delusions is that going to help them. You do realize that most refineries are in the areas that you believe will flood? Yea thats the ticket...Lets suppress a problem that will destroy our customers, eventually wipe our whole way of making money and doing business.

How is this cunning evil plan in any way a viable long term strategy for increasing profit?

The answer, Zoot, comes from Tim Robbins, "

Let me explain to you how this works: you see, the corporations finance Team America, and then Team America goes out... and the corporations sit there in their... in their corporation buildings, and... and, and see, they're all corporation-y... and they make money.

What's ironic is that you actually think you know what you are talking about. Water Vapor is the most common greenhouse gas (making up, at most, 70% of such) but human effect on it is negligable beyond the local area.

LOL, Sarcasto. Actually my statement was about half serious and half tongue-in-cheek. But you can Google "Water vapor + Greenhouse gases" until hell freezes over, and you'll find very little agreement on what percentage of total greenhouse gases is made up of water vapor. I found a range of from 36% to 95% with 95% being more common than any other number. Now, in all fairness, some sites distinguish between water vapor's percentage of total greenhouse gases and the percentage of the total effect on warming by water vapor. (and I thought there was agreement (consensus) on this stuff) Many sites don't even attempt to quantify it. For example, from the NOAA Satellite and Information Service:

Water Vapor:

Water Vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, which is why it is addressed here first. However, changes in its concentration is also considered to be a result of climate feedbacks related to the warming of the atmosphere rather than a direct result of industrialization. The feedback loop in which water is involved is critically important to projecting future climate change, (sounds really definitive, right? But then they finish with this:) but as yet is still fairly poorly measured and understood. (emphasis - mine)

But, but, but, I thought 95% of climate scientists were in agreement on the cause of global warming. Guess not. In fact, the more research I do, the more disagreement I find. I'd love to know how climate scientists can agree that A + B = C, but they can't seem to agree on what constitutes A & B. Kind of like when you were in school and the teacher asked you for the answer to a math problem, and you smuggly gave the correct answer. Then the teacher asked you to come up to the black board and show the class how you arrived at the answer. Since you either (a) copied it off the smart girl in the desk next to you, or (b) used your scientific calculator, you're up the proverbial creek, so to speak. That's about where a lot of climate scientists are right now.

Also, a simple condenser on a hydrogen fuel cell will convert the waste water vapor into liquid water. And you researched this? A basic understanding of physics alone should make this obvious much less a cursory search on the internet.

LOL again. Find me a site that deals with hydrogen fuel cell technology that doesn't contain something like the following in their FAQ:

What are the benefits of fuel cell technology?

The most impressive fuel cells benefits are their high fuel efficiency and zero emissions. In addition, fuel cell technology can help us reduce our dependence on petroleum because fuel cells use hydrogen, and hydrogen can be produced from many sources, including renewable sources. When using hydrogen, fuel cells don’t emit any pollution or greenhouse gases either. The only by-product is water vapor. (emphasis - mine)

Obviously this writer doesn't realize that water vapor is a greenhouse gas, but that's beside the point. Probably a product of public schools.

Just out of curiosity, can you think of an unintended consequence of every car on the road having water running out of its tail pipe. I suppose you could install a collection tank, and periodically use it to water your garden, otherwise you're going to have wet (read slick) road conditions everywhere, all the time. Man the body shops will love that.

THIS is the problem with the debate. Making shit up is not, never has been and never will be a part of "reasoned debate".

Now on that statement you have my total and whole-hearted agreement.

I noticed again in this thread that one of the first responses was that the author of an article skeptical of global warming gets money from big oil. Why is that an issue? Should I completely disregard all scientists who come forward with the doom and gloom predictions concerning global warming? Obviously they want to keep the controversy going so they can get more research grants to study how to stop it, and they can sell more books and more tickets to their seminars on the topic. After all, nothing sells like a good end-of-the-world story as proven by many religions. The scientists wouldn't want to kill a great source of income would they?

Remember how eggs were so bad, when nutritionists and doctors warned everyone that eggs were not a part of a good diet and were bad for your heart? Anyone who disagreed and questioned the belief were quickly silenced because so many people agreed that eggs were bad and it just made sense since eggs have cholesterol and fat. Any research by a scientist that farmers paid to get evidence to protect their business was discredited as biased. Once scientists stopped running with the masses and actually did research to answer the questions raised by skeptics did we learn that eggs are good to eat. Even now there are many people who still believe eggs are bad for the heart and shouldn't be eaten. I just hope global warming doesn't follow the egg debate's example.

Zoot hates to be ignored, poor fellow, so let’s pay attention to him before he wets his pants.

“So answer me this sparky...”

Sure, chief.

“What the hell good is money gonna do them if civilization is disrupted, countries wiped out, economies destroyed and millions dead....What a brilliant long term business plan.”

Kinda answered the question for yourself, there, didn’t you? It’s not, actually, a long-term business plan. It is a SHORT term business plan. These clowns take what they can get RIGHT NOW and screw the future. Heck, the future is all...you know...future-y. Why worry about it now?

“I also note that you have absolutely no response to these questions and observations.”

Zoot lifted these, as he mentioned, from that indomitable gasbag Neal Boortz. I won’t bother answering ALL of them (since most of them aren’t even based in reality), but let’s have fun with a few, at least, shall we?

* The polar ice caps on Mars are melting. How did our CO2 emissions get all the way to Mars?

Ha, ha! The ice caps on Mars! That’ll show ‘em! Try to get a lefty to explain how MARTIAN CARS are causing global MARTIAN warming! Ho, ho, ho! I’m so clever!

Actually, the Martian ice caps shrink and expand (at the same time) depending on which end is pointed towards the sun. This happens seasonally. And, in fact, as the lower ice cap “melts” (it actually doesn’t turn into water, just gas) it travels up to the top and the upper level “thickens” at the same rate. When the planet points the other way, this is reversed. Different eco-system on Mars, guys. They don’t have to worry about things like, you know, BREATHING up there.

For more on this: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/07aug_southpole.htm

* It was warmer in the 1930s across the globe than it is right now.

No it wasn’t. Gee, that was easy!

* The famous "hockey stick" graph that purports to show a sudden warming of the earth in the last few decades is a fraud. It ignored previous warming periods ... left them off the graph altogether.

Actually, the “hockey stick” graph is entirely accurate. Those who complain it is not like to point to two things, called the “Little Ice Age” and the “Medieval Warming Period.” But given that both of these events were regional, and not global, they factor only marginally into the creation of the graph.

For more: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=11

* The infamous Kyoto accords exempt some of the world's biggest CO2 polluters, including China and India.

Yeah, we knew that. That was the big reason why we didn’t sign on. But rather than come up with our own plan, the current Administration punted. How’s that whole thing going?

* Why is the ice cap on the Antarctic getting thicker if the earth is getting warmer?

It isn’t. For more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/02/AR2006030201712.html

* In the United State, the one country with the most accurate temperature measuring and reporting records, temperatures have risen by 0.3 degrees centigrade over the past 100 years. The UN estimate is twice that.

The UN report is a GLOBAL report, meaning that their average is going to be higher than some places and lower than others. You do understand the word “average” right?

* There are about 160,000 glaciers around the world. Most have never been visited or measured by man. The great majority of these glaciers are growing, not melting.

No, they aren’t. For more: http://nsidc.org/sotc/glacier_balance.html

Etc., etc. Boortz is a moron and, by extension, so are you.

(Sorry if this gets posted twice. I had a "TypeKey" issue.) Now, where were we? Ah, yes!

Zoot hates to be ignored, poor fellow, so let’s pay attention to him before he wets his pants.

“So answer me this sparky...”

Sure, chief.

“What the hell good is money gonna do them if civilization is disrupted, countries wiped out, economies destroyed and millions dead....What a brilliant long term business plan.”

Kinda answered the question for yourself, there, didn’t you? It’s not, actually, a long-term business plan. It is a SHORT term business plan. These clowns take what they can get RIGHT NOW and screw the future. Heck, the future is all...you know...future-y. Why worry about it now?

“I also note that you have absolutely no response to these questions and observations.”

Zoot lifted these, as he mentioned, from that indomitable gasbag Neal Boortz. I won’t bother answering ALL of them (since most of them aren’t even based in reality), but let’s have fun with a few, at least, shall we?

* The polar ice caps on Mars are melting. How did our CO2 emissions get all the way to Mars?

Ha, ha! The ice caps on Mars! That’ll show ‘em! Try to get a lefty to explain how MARTIAN CARS are causing global MARTIAN warming! Ho, ho, ho! I’m so clever!

Actually, the Martian ice caps shrink and expand (at the same time) depending on which end is pointed towards the sun. This happens seasonally. And, in fact, as the lower ice cap “melts” (it actually doesn’t turn into water, just gas) it travels up to the top and the upper level “thickens” at the same rate. When the planet points the other way, this is reversed. Different eco-system on Mars, guys. They don’t have to worry about things like, you know, BREATHING up there.

For more on this: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/07aug_southpole.htm

* It was warmer in the 1930s across the globe than it is right now.

No it wasn’t. Gee, that was easy!

* The famous "hockey stick" graph that purports to show a sudden warming of the earth in the last few decades is a fraud. It ignored previous warming periods ... left them off the graph altogether.

Actually, the “hockey stick” graph is entirely accurate. Those who complain it is not like to point to two things, called the “Little Ice Age” and the “Medieval Warming Period.” But given that both of these events were regional, and not global, they factor only marginally into the creation of the graph.

For more: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=11

* The infamous Kyoto accords exempt some of the world's biggest CO2 polluters, including China and India.

Yeah, we knew that. That was the big reason why we didn’t sign on. But rather than come up with our own plan, the current Administration punted. How’s that whole thing going?

* Why is the ice cap on the Antarctic getting thicker if the earth is getting warmer?

It isn’t. For more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/02/AR2006030201712.html

* In the United State, the one country with the most accurate temperature measuring and reporting records, temperatures have risen by 0.3 degrees centigrade over the past 100 years. The UN estimate is twice that.

The UN report is a GLOBAL report, meaning that their average is going to be higher than some places and lower than others. You do understand the word “average” right?

* There are about 160,000 glaciers around the world. Most have never been visited or measured by man. The great majority of these glaciers are growing, not melting.

No, they aren’t. For more: http://nsidc.org/sotc/glacier_balance.html

Etc., etc. Boortz is a moron and, by extension, so are you.

I tried to respond to the questions brought up by Boortz in ZootAllures post. However, anytime I make a post on B4B that has embedded links (and yes, I do know how to make embedded links), I get the message that my post is awaiting moderation. But the post never gets posted.

In a debate like this, of course it is important to link to sources. Mark, can you check into this, and perhaps see what happened to my post? However much I disagree with you, you've always been generous in allowing opposing points of view here.

thanks.

"In a debate like this, of course it is important to link to sources."

I agree but in this case its a simple request.

Explain the business rational for, if you are correct, a completely self destructive business plan that eventually results in the loss of the ability to do business.

Hmmm. Same thing happened to me, Aaron. For awhile there, I thought I had been booted off the site. Zoot, you're just gonna have to wait until Mark posts my response, I'm afraid. Keep your pants on.

I live in Minnesota, land of 20,000+ lakes, deposits which were scooped out by retreating glaciers. So what caused them to go away tens of thousands of years ago? Must have been all those diesel trucks the cavemen drove around.

Also, I visited my local liquor store and asked for a bottle of their best British wine, the kind the island was once renowned for, and was told they didnt have any. Huh, how did warm, temperate, ancient Britannia end up as a rainy, gusty, chilly, grape-free zone?

Washington State Climatologist Philip Mote, who generally agrees with the panel's findings, said that few scientists disagree that the planet is warming, and said that an "inclusive and exhaustive" study found that humans "very likely" contributed to the change.

"It's pretty much the same eight or 10 people any time you see a skeptical point of view," Mote said. "It's pretty certain that it's going to be one of those folks."

But Mote also said that scientists who work on behalf of environmental groups also should have to disclose their backing.

"I don't know what number of scientists have accepted money from environmental groups to grind their ax, but I believe it's more than the eight or 10 listed in the UCS report."

Cyber,Aaron, Zoot,

Just checked pending comments, and there's nothing else que'd up for you...My presumption would be that something screwy happened with Movable Type. Please try again.

Little Ice Age was regional? No, it was global; moraines (elliptical shaped debris deposits found in ice cores) of glaciers in Patagonia, South America, indicate a general advance finally culminating in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, coincident with the LIA. Additionally, "In such widely disparate regions as Argentina, Chile, southern Peru, southern Africa and northern China, records indicate a marked warming at the beginning of the last millennium followed by extreme cold during the middle centuries and Historical proxies for temperature — such as tree rings, ice cores and bore holes — in New Zealand, Australia and California also confirm widespread, significant warming and cooling trends." The so-called hockey stick is more wishful thinking than fact; it has many theoretical and mathematic errors.

When and only when Cyberactor and Aaron can and will present the actual facts on global warming, including but not limited to the ratio of greenhouse gases created and released by human activity vs that created and released by natural events, they will have the ability to mount an arugment that human activity is the primary cause for the gradual warming of the earth.

Almiranta, this has been asked countless times, and the reason we never get an answer is that their gods in the climatology community don't all agree on the answer. I have an even better question for AT and Cyby. What percentage of the world's population is worried enough about global warming to significantly alter their lifestyles? Seriously, outside of the scientific community, the UN and the blogosphere, how many people are even aware of the issue, much less willing to change the way they live?

OK Mark, I'm reposting my comment...

What percentage of the world's population is worried about global warming?

Well, I just soiled myself worrying that these one-world-government types will bully economic disaster to finally gain power. Economic failure, collapse of societal controls, mass exodus of populations, starvation, anarchy, cats sleeping with dogs; who was it that said that no one has ever been starved into capitalism?

World communism; Create the crisis, feed off of the devastation; regain power.

nope - still goes to "comment pending review". I'll try again without embedding links

ZootAllure -

Ah yes, you'd rather believe a right wing loon like Boortz - he being an acknowledged expert on climate change.

Even casual research on your own will demonstrate how utterly fallacious Boorzt's points are. But then again, why do any of your own DD on climate change, when you can just suck down comforting re-inforcements of your worldview?

Lets dispense with Boortz:

* The polar ice caps on Mars are melting. How did our CO2 emissions get all the way to Mars?

First, no one claims that humans can be the only cause of ice caps melting (and certainly not on other planets!) Talk about fight strawmen! Second, the Mars observations Boortz is referring to are localized and short term. Click here: www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=192 to read a discussion of these Mars observations, and why they are not relevant to the observed trends here on earth. You can even post a question on this site and have an actual climate scientist answer you. Fancy that!

* It was warmer in the 1930s across the globe than it is right now.

Absolutely false: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/
The Global Surface Temperature Trends report issued by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies clearly debunks this oft repeated claim that it was warmer in the 1930's.

* The famous "hockey stick" graph that purports to show a sudden warming of the earth in the last few decades is a fraud. It ignored previous warming periods ... left them off the graph altogether.

Nope, wrong again: www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=11

* The infamous Kyoto accords exempt some of the world's biggest CO2 polluters, including China and India.

But who is polluting more than whom is completely irrelevant to the science. Boortz reveals here that his denialist motivations are primarily political, and not scientific.

* What happened to the Medieval Warm Period? In 1996 the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a chart showing climatic change over a period of 1000 years. This graph showed a Medieval warming period in which global temperatures were higher than they are today. In 2001 the IPCC issued another 1000 year graph in which the Medieval warming period was missing. Why?

First, this is another bit of wild conspiracy paranoia featuring allegations without a shred of actual evidence. The IPCC charts have always shown the Medieval Warming Period, for the simple reason that it really happened. While there was in fact a warming trend in the Middle Ages (as there have been many times in Earth's history), "the idea of a global or hemispheric Medieval Warm Period that was warmer than today however, has turned out to be incorrect". That quote is from the NOAA's conclusions debunking the idea that temperatures were as warm or warmer during the MWP: www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/medieval.html

* Why is the ice cap on the Antarctic getting thicker if the earth is getting warmer?

Because warming increases precipitation which causes ice to thicken where the temperatures are still too cold to allow melting. And besides, I thought you people weren't denying that warming is occuring, but rather only that humans are causing it. Please get your story straight

* In the United State, the one country with the most accurate temperature measuring and reporting records, temperatures have risen by 0.3 degrees centigrade over the past 100 years. The UN estimate is twice that.

First, "the UN" does not make these estimates - scientists do. Second, the scientists are measuring global mean temperatures, not local ones. For any given place, like the US, local temperature trends may be greater or lower than the global trend. And I ask you once again: are you denying that global warming is occuring, or that it is caused by humans?

* There are about 160,000 glaciers around the world. Most have never been visited or measured by man. The great majority of these glaciers are growing, not melting.

Another incorrect assertion. 67,000 glaciers are tracked in the World Glacier Inventory. While some glaciers have increased, on the world-wide balance, more are decreasing. Again, local climatic conditions in any given place might be at odds with the overall global trends. The World Glacier Monitoring Service publishes a cumulative mass balance for a world-wide sample of glaciers - overall, the mass of glaciers is decreasing: www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/mbb/mbb9/sum05.html

* Side-looking radar interferometry shows that the ice mass in the West Antarctic is growing at a rate of over 26 gigatons a year. This reverses a melting trend that had persisted for the previous 6,000 years.

Again, ice is increasing in West Antarctica for the same reason it is increasing in the middle of Greenland: general increased precip in polar regions. Where is it still cold enough to snow or freeze on contact, ice is building. However, Greenland is losing ice around the edges, as is happening with the Antarctic peninsula. According to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the ice loss at Greenland's edges is much greater than the build up in its interior, resulting in a net overall loss in ice mass: www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2006-023 In fact, this net ice loss in Greenland is about 3 times that rate of ice increase you cite for Western Antarctica. And I ask you once again: are you denying that global warming is occuring, or that it is caused by humans?

* Rising sea levels? The sea levels have been rising since the last ice age ended. That was 12,000 years ago. Estimates are that in that time the sea level has risen by over 300 feet. The rise in our sea levels has been going on long before man started creating anything but natural CO2 emissions.

Yes, but now it is rising faster.

* Like Antarctica, the interior of Greenland is gaining ice mass.

See above. Again, for well understood reasons, the interior is gaining while the edges are losing ice. The loss on the edges exceeds the gain in the interior, resulting in an overall net loss of ice mass. And I ask you once again: are you denying that global warming is occuring, or that it is caused by humans?

* Over the past 3,000 years there have been five different extended periods when the earth was measurably warmer than it is today. Why?

Wrong. While there have been 5 warming periods in the last 3,000 years, none were "measurably warmer than today" (where does Boortz come up with this crap? Care to cite a credible reference?) The ice-core data show that current global mean temperatures are warmer today than they have been at any time in the past 125,000 years. And I ask you once again: are you denying that global warming is occuring, or that it is caused by humans?

Now it works. But I'd rather be able to embed the links... that would certainly be more convenient for everyone. Can you check on this again Mark? thanks

AT and Cyby, perhaps your posting problems are part of an organized conspiracy.

World communism; Create the crisis, feed off of the devastation; regain power.

Bane, I think that's probably closer to reality than most of the drivel posted by the likes of Wade, Cyby and At.

cats sleeping with dogs;

Well, now that's just plain wrong.

Retired Spook -

Nice retort. Care to actually debate the well sourced rebuttals to Boortz posted by both Cyber and me, or do you prefer to merely post insults?

Speaking of sources, I see that Cyber and I refer to sites by recognized climate scientists, the NOAA, the JPL, NASA, and the World Glacier Monitoring Service. Meanwhile, your sources are always from political sites like Real Clear.

Ummm... Aaron... you don't "source" anything... you just bold it. I tried about four or five of your "links" and they go to nothing that says what you purport it to say.

HMMMM... However, I'll give you a slide because I'm no better at getting a link to work and you've said you've had trouble today.

Three points that I want to bring forward. It seems to me that throughout this debate on this thread and prior ones, the debate on the "conservative side" was always about what the cause was... but liberals include that as part of the debate in order to try and get one more point to their side, as if they'll have one more thing to start the avalanche.

Second, why is it that they keep saying peer review is the only way that someone can know what they are talking about... yet at the exact same time, if they disagree with a group of people, they claim those people are living and operating in an echo chamber. I for one have been able to find quite a few scientists who are being paid by special interest groups that give themselves science-official sounding names.

Why is it okay to accept some loon liberal group as not having a special interest yet go after other groups who want to have answers beyond what the same group of people already believe.

I find it odd that State Climatologists all over the country are getting pressure applied politically by people who aren't climate experts simply because they dare to say they want to know more concretely what the causes of the current round of global warming is caused by.

Finally... why are liberals so hell bent on assuming the planet is virtually a static organism that doesn't ever change unless humanity is the agent that's f*cking it up. You can't argue that there are significant questions that still exist, but what you simply do is sweep dissent under the rug and just call people who have valid questions either a)stupid idiots b)non-peer reviewed so they can't possibly be capable of what they think or c)are corporate shills.

Why can't the debate be an open and honest one. Why anyone would be afraid of questions is beyond me.

For the record: the only link Spook used in this entire thread is from the NOAA.

Check out who the first person was to use MSNBC as their science source?

You'll find your base accusation incorrect.

I've been trying to get this posted for the last 20 minutes!
RE: Hockey Stick; Aaron wrote, “Nope, wrong again: www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=11”

The so called Hockey Stick has been proven inaccurate theoretically, statistically and mathematically.

Throw out that, and the supposed CO2 increases and the theory by consensus is exposed for what it is; junk science with an agenda.

Just looked outside and even though its freaking cold out there, not a glacier in sight. Id say whatever warming trend caused those once mighty glaciers to recede must have had some real strength. How many millenia ago was that?

The GW proponent'experts' cant even tell us how long the current and supposed warming trend will last, its somewhere between 100 and 1000 years; they tell us we will all be dead or living on Waterworld© in ten years, which is what they told us ten years ago; they cant even predict with any real accuracy what the temperature in their home state will be in two weeks...and I am supposed to trust that their word on this issue is gospel?

The data is sometimes confusing, often contradictory, and on the proponent side increasingly strident and hyperbolic. The GW believers seem ready and willing to quash non-believers through any means, and whether you believe or not, this should scare you. Science isnt built on casual agreement, its built on concrete fact; qualified debate and scientific proof will prove out whether GW is as serious as everyone would lead us to believe.

Sen. Brad Avakian, (D) Washington County, is sponsoring the bill. He said global warming is so important to state policy it's important to have a climatologist as a consultant to the governor.

Yes, not just a climatologist but someone who will be a 'yes-man' to the democratic governor. Its so important to the state that you wouldnt want somone in your administration who might possibly have a contradicting view, no no no, that would be bad. Just nod your head, agree with everything we say and things will be fine.

Better to surround yourself with sycophants, it makes things eaiser to sell to an uninformed public.

Democrats. You just gotta laugh sometimes.

Nice retort. Care to actually debate the well sourced rebuttals to Boortz posted by both Cyber and me, or do you prefer to merely post insults?

Why is it that Liberals have no sense of humor, and who is Boortz?

The ice-core data show that current global mean temperatures are warmer today than they have been at any time in the past 125,000 years.

You mean these ice cores.

AT, as you can see if you read the whole article, this is from someone who shares your views, but he's honest enough to at least include the following disclaimer:

Limitations:

Using the techniques listed above and more, climatologists can attempt to reconstruct past climates and recreate the climate system. On the whole, ice cores have proven extremely useful for paleoclimatology, and many scientists have worked tirelessly to extract every shred of information from each sample. Unfortunately, ice cores do present some difficulties and have limitations that scientists must overcome.

One major problem that has become more prevalent in recent years is summer melting of the ice fields. Recent surveys of Greenland have shown large areas of summer melt in southern Greenland, and recent visits to Peru's Quelccaya ice cap have shown melt areas where none existed only 25 years ago. The problem that melting presents is that the melted water percolates down through the ice and can destroy the even layering that regular snowfall produces. This makes accurate dating extremely difficult, and contaminates many of the naturally deposited stable isotopes and other chemical constituents in the ice with non-representative concentrations. In the large ice sheets such as Greenland or Antarctica some melt areas can be avoided by drilling in colder or higher regions. Smaller ice caps on the other hand will generally experience the same conditions overall. Some studies, however, have gained significant scientific value by analyzing cores drilled from around the Greenland ice sheet to show how climatic oscillations such as the NAO affect the North Atlantic region in different and unexpected ways. Thus, simply avoiding high melt areas is not always desired and sampling the whole ice sheet can be very important. While summer melt areas are bad, the ice cap on Mount Kilimanjaro has fared even worse. The whole ice cap is forecast to disappear within 20 years, and although the primary cause for Kilimanjaro's disappearing ice cap has not been fully determined, there is plenty of evidence to support the idea that global average temperatures have been rising and glaciers have been retreating over the past several decades.

Another limitation of ice cores is that they only represent data for conditions during snowfall. If little or no snow falls for a few consecutive years, no record will be left in the ice, which could throw off annual dating. If short droughts are a characteristic of a climatic oscillation then they will likely recur, thus accentuating the analytic errors. Antarctica has such low annual snowfall that annual dating is virtually impossible and analyses are only performed for long time periods. A different problem occurs there however, where the ability of wind to transport snow great distances and create drifts must be addressed. That is why, if possible, two cores are often extracted from nearby locations to test the upper layers for data quality and reproducibility.

One other potential limitation of ice cores is that core samples can be altered by ice flow and the effect of basal deformations. For very deep ice cores, the effect of the ice bed is important to consider and some drill sites are chosen over others because of the shape of the bedrock. Irregular flow rates, or flow around basal deformities, can cause melting, folds, and other deformations which can propagate upward into younger layers. These deformations can greatly affect how time series are interpreted and in some cases destroy the paleo-record. Fortunately, the Antarctic ice sheet is so thick that extremely long climate histories can be extracted without having to drill all the way to bedrock. The Greenland ice sheet is also very thick, and many of the longest cores have been taken from the ice divide where the ice is the thickest and flows in more predictable ways. (emphasis - mine)

Retired Spook -

OK, so if you reject ice core data out of hand as being totally useless, then what evidence do you have to support this claim made by your pal ZootAllure (to whom I was responding):

"Over the past 3,000 years there have been five different extended periods when the earth was measurably warmer than it is today".

So, if ice core data is to be discounted, then how do you come up with it was "measurably warmer" than today during the past 3,000 years? By what "measure" do you come to that conclusion?

By the way, I'd already read the article you link to that supposedly discredits ice core data. The article actually supports the IPCC's conclusions of anthropogenic climate change, and is also supportive of ice core techniques. Like any analytical tool used to estimate past conditions, it has its pitfalls. However, those potential pitfalls can be understood and mitigated for, as the article clearly points out:

That is why, if possible, two cores are often extracted from nearby locations to test the upper layers for data quality and reproducibility...

...For very deep ice cores, the effect of the ice bed is important to consider and some drill sites are chosen over others because of the shape of the bedrock. Irregular flow rates, or flow around basal deformities, can cause melting, folds, and other deformations which can propagate upward into younger layers. These deformations can greatly affect how time series are interpreted and in some cases destroy the paleo-record. Fortunately, the Antarctic ice sheet is so thick that extremely long climate histories can be extracted without having to drill all the way to bedrock. The Greenland ice sheet is also very thick, and many of the longest cores have been taken from the ice divide where the ice is the thickest and flows in more predictable ways.

So it is a gross distortion to imply that ice cores do not present useful data simply because there are technical caveats to keep in mind when doing them. Quite the contrary - it is incredible how much usable information may be accurately gleaned from them, despite their limitations.

And ice core data is but one of the techniques used. What makes the case for global warming so compelling is that multiple independent techniques all come up with measurements that are in agreement.

By the way... since the IPCC just issued its latest findings last week, we have been talking mostly about the IPCC here on this thread. Although the IPCC includes in its membership hundreds and hundreds of respection climate and earth scientists, it is by no means the only respected international scientific organization that comes to the conclusion that global warming over the last century is real and is caused largely caused by humans.

For example, the National Academies of Science for the United States, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, released the following joint statement last year: http://www.academie-sciences.fr/actualites/textes/G8_gb.pdf

Here is what the National Academy of Sciences for the world's leading scientific nations had to say:

Climate change is real. There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system as complex as the world’s climate. However there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring. The evidence comes from direct measurements of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures and from phenomena such as increases in average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes to many physical and biological systems. It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities. This warming has already led to changes in the Earth's climate.

But don't worry - it's all bunk. Because Drs Boortz, Rush, and Hannity said so.

Aaron:
Look at the last quoted paragraph of yours... and note how the ABSOLUTE-ness of the adjectives and adverbs changes from...

"Climate change is real" -Which most people participating on this thread agree with to the following "definitive statement":

"It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities."

Something being LIKELY a cause of X versus something BEING a cause of X is a HUGE difference... and after all, this debate and these papers are prepared by people who are VERY intelligent people... at least the guys who wrote this are... otherwise you'd call them stupid and wouldn't dare quote them.

Everything I read about global warming indicates that this is a cyclical issue starting hundreds of years ago and that something, most likely humans and the civilization we've created is contributing to the warming going on...

Why do you wish to make it such a huge crime to want to find out to what extent we caused the problem and to what extent we can reduce/fix the problem.

I'll repeat my statement from earlier... it seems there are a lot of peer-reviewed studies that seem to say that millions of years of Ecological history indicate a very Static Earth when it comes to temperature, yet these same scientists talk about how dynamic the Earth is on EVERY other study they produce... that's what's confusing.

What's the harm in finding out what's really going on... if you don't trust Big Oil, you should also accept our reluctance to trust the echo chamber that is the National Scientific Community.

I'm sorry, AT, I have a difficult time responding to someone who obviously can't read, but I'll try.

OK, so if you reject ice core data out of hand as being totally useless,

Do you see ANYWHERE in my post that I "reject ice core data out of hand" or refer to it as "totally useless?" ANYWHERE? I merely pointed out that even the people who are heavily engaged in ice core study admit that, while it's a useful tool in paleoclimatology, it has its shortcomings and is not the definitive measure of historical climate and temperature variations. Ice core data is merely another piece of a very big and very old puzzle.

then what evidence do you have to support this claim made by your pal ZootAllure (to whom I was responding):

I respect Zoot's opinion, but he's not my pal, and, since he's referencing Boortz, and I don't read, listen to or watch boortz, I have no idea where that information came from. Why don't you e-mail Boortz and ask him.

So it is a gross distortion to imply that ice cores do not present useful data simply because there are technical caveats to keep in mind when doing them.

Again, you're putting word in my mouth. I never implied any such thing. I cut and pasted the researcher's actual words, a researcher, BTW, that you seem to find quite credible.

it is incredible how much usable information may be accurately gleaned from them, despite their limitations.

And I referenced an article that said just exactly that. I also pointed out the limitations. I only did so because you made the blanket statement that The ice-core data show that current global mean temperatures are warmer today than they have been at any time in the past 125,000 years.

What makes the case for global warming so compelling is that multiple independent techniques all come up with measurements that are in agreement.

Can you cite any other credible study (besides ice cores) that supports your statement that it is warmer today that it has been at any time in the past 125,000 years?

Here is what the National Academy of Sciences for the world's leading scientific nations had to say:

I don't see how this strengthens your argument, but here goes:

Climate change is real.

Well, DUH! You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who would disagree with that. There's ample evidence that the earth's climate, both global and regional, is constantly changing.

There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system as complex as the world’s climate.

Boy, now that's really definitive. So much for "consensus." That supports my view more than it does yours, LOL.

However there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring.

I guess, if you consider 1 degree over the course of a century "significant".

The evidence comes from direct measurements of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures and from phenomena such as increases in average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes to many physical and biological systems.

And ALL THAT EVIDENCE points to an increase of how much? I don't have time tonight to dig up all the links, but there are a number of recent studies that dispute increases in subsurface ocean temperatures and increases in global sea levels.

It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities.

Based on what besides the agenda of people who want to control other people's activities?

This warming has already led to changes in the Earth's climate.

Where, when, how much?

I'm sorry, I don't see how this NAS statement does much to buttress your argument.

What is frustrating to me is the fact that I can't get anyone to understand that the issue confronting us is not JUST about global warming. It's also about pollution in general and the deleterious effects those pollutants may have on our children, about our reliance on fossil fuels, about our exposure to undesirable influences on our economy and national security should that reliance continue, about our ability to become energy self-reliant, about alternative energy sources, and about the economic effects and technical challenges associated with dealing with all of these things.

I'm getting a little annoyed with the concentration on global warming as if it's an isolated issue, with no effects on anything else. To think in those terms is total BS. Let's assume for a moment that anthropologic-influenced global warming is total bunk -- I'm not saying it is, but let's assume that. Even assuming that, how much does that change anyone's opinion on any of the other related issues? How does that change your concern about the deleterious effects of pollution? How much does that change your opinion on our reliance on fossil fuels? Or about whether we should consider becoming energy self-reliant? Or about your interest in alternative energy sources? Or about the economic impact of doing something, versus not doing anything on any of those levels?

I'm sure there are plenty of different opinions, and for a lot of different reasons. But that seems to me to be a more fruitful level of debate than whether and to what extent we should be concerned about global warming all by itself. Because there are many convergent concerns, the way forward in terms of policy is not critically tied to the science associated with any one of them. For example, many people here have indicated that they are in favor of various efforts at energy conservation or alternative energy sources while at the same time thinking that global warming is total BS. Given that, I have to ask: if we share considerable common ground in terms of a solutions mind-set, does it really matter how we got there?

Personally, I think there are plenty of technologies out there that could, potentially, solve all the issues all at once, at least to some degree. Some more than others, certainly. But considering them requires you to juggle multiple concepts all at one time, and to consider the relative merits and demerits of the entire production and use cycles of each one on multiple scales all at once. That might be a little too heady for those prone to thinking in black and white. But IMHO, that's what's really needed. Because, after all, that's the reality.

Ricorun,

At bottom, most people are in entire agreement with your desires - but we on our side are just ticked off at the alarmism and political skullduggery surrounding the global warming debate. We don't need to be scared into cleaning up the environment...and we also know we don't need to do massive, radical and immediate change.

Mark: "At bottom, most people are in entire agreement with your desires - but we on our side are just ticked off at the alarmism and political skullduggery surrounding the global warming debate. We don't need to be scared into cleaning up the environment...and we also know we don't need to do massive, radical and immediate change."

To be perfectly honest, I figured you'd be the last person on earth to agree with my comment on any level. The fact that you did is very reassuring. But if that's really how you feel, perhaps I've provided a rationale for you and those of like mind to start shouting it from the rooftops. DO NOT accept the debate as the libbies have framed it. Change it -- and in the process CLAIM IT AS YOUR OWN. That's what politics is about. For the last couple of months your posts have been a nearly constant litany of what's wrong with the Democrats, and have tried to blame all manner of ills on them. And frankly, some of them have been nothing short of ridiculous. More importantly, you've offered up very little in terms of what's right with us.

Perhaps this is a start. That assumes, of course, that you can put your imminent Rapture meme to bed. And IMHO, the faster you do that the better off you're go