Resisting Climate Hysteria

[trainspotter]

Would that be the inconvenient truth about Al Gore being the major shareholder of a company that trades carbon credits and he stood to make millions of dollars out of? Would that be the same Al Gore whose mansion uses 20 times more electricity and gas than the average home in Nashville? Apparently he purchased carbon credits from his own company to offset his carbon footprint. LOL ! Would that be the same inconvenient truth?

 

[white_goodman]

Would that be the inconvenient truth about Al Gore being the major shareholder of a company that trades carbon credits and he stood to make millions of dollars out of? Would that be the same Al Gore whose mansion uses 20 times more electricity and gas than the average home in Nashville? Apparently he purchased carbon credits from his own company to offset his carbon footprint. LOL ! Would that be the same inconvenient truth?

is the first point legit...


also a nice page showing that carbon in the atmosphere is logarithmic...

http://joannenova.com.au/2010/02/4-carbon-dioxide-is-already-absorbing-almost-all-it-can/)

 

[trainspotter]

Why yes it is in fact !

Al Gore defends his extraordinary personal energy usage by telling critics he maintains a "carbon neutral" lifestyle by buying "carbon offsets," but the company that receives his payments turns out to be partly owned and chaired by the former vice president himself.

Gore has built a "green money-making machine capable of eventually generating billions of dollars for investors, including himself, but he set it up so that the average Joe can't afford to play on Gore's terms,"

Read more: Gore's 'carbon offsets' paid to firm he owns http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=40445#ixzz1OpJT6SQT

Also got roasted by Newt Gringich I think who conveniently POINTED OUT THIS FACT.

Go to youtube and find it there as well. Te he !

 

[Calliope]

You can't trust a global warming alarmist as far as you could kick him. Their whole industry is based on lies and deception, and the gullibility of their disciples.

 

[Ruby]

OWG, I don't understand why you expect to see one study that indisputably proves the claim you are making. No field of knowledge progresses like that.

I am afraid it does, Ghotib. That is the scientific method. When someone puts forward a hypothesis, ie, that human CO2 emissions are driving global warming, then the next step in the scientific process is to either prove or disprove that claim. That can only be done by collecting vast quantities of observational data - which may take years. If the empirical data confirms the hypothesis, then it is accepted as fact; if it does not, then the theory must be discarded. This is proper science, and the whole scientific body knows that.

In many ways the development of climate science is like the development of chaos theory. There's a very readable account in James Gleick's book "Chaos", which shows how individuals and groups working in apparently unrelated fields gradually came to see a deep connection between phenomena they were studying in different ways through data that included population numbers, the Red Spot on Jupiter, cotton prices, turbulence, heart rhythms, and an early computer model of weather.

Yes, and when these 'deep connections' are seen various hypotheses are developed - which still must be tested.

Similarly, the understanding that human activity is driving climate change has developed over nearly 200 years.........

No it hasn't. The theory that human activity is driving climate change is only about 30 years old.

That's why Basilio refers to multiple lines of evidence: release of fossil carbon through human activity can explain the data from all these different fields of study.

'Evidence' that is full of assumptions is not proof. To simply say "Human CO2 emissions are increasing. The global temperature has been rising. Therefore the second factor is caused by first," is faulty logic, and is unscientific. The two could be happening entirely independently of one another. The cause and effect has not been established by empirical testing. An 'explanation' is not proof of anything. There can often be many explanations.

The onus is now on those who dispute this explanation to produce a better one.

No, it is not. The hypothesis is "Human CO2 emissions are causing dangerous global warming." It is this hypothesis which must be proven or disproven. So far it has not been proven correct. If it had been, there would be at least one peer reviewed study available. There is not. This is why OWG and others are asking for a link to one such study.

 

[Ruby]

Hear, hear. Funny how the people claiming that climate change is caused by humans have research to back their claims, but those opposing say, "No. You're wrong."

Lots of research, but no empirical proof.

 

[Ruby]

If you want it spoon-fed, here:

Exhibit C: (Movie) Watch An Inconvenient Truth

Now it's your turn.

As soon as I saw "Exhibit C" I decided not to bother with A and B. II, that film was discredited a long time ago.

 

[ghotib]

5 minutes on Google can produce various results...

<snip>

And 5 minutes on Google can lead to 55 hours of followup

Some months ago I spent something between 5 and 55 hours tracing links from the Geocraft website and the status of their information. As several other people have linked to it from this thread, I'm posting a piece (slightly modified) I wrote about my findings for another board. It deals only with the first of the graphics DB008 has posted, which is linked from a page called Global Warming: A Chilling Perspective, part of a website called Plant Fossils of West Virginia. The article and the site are the work of Monte Hieb.

This post is an example of the kind of checking I've worked out to help me, as a non-scientist, assess the reliability and accuracy of scientific-sounding information. It takes time and patience and a willingness to get very confused at times, but I would think most people here are capable of doing it if they want to.

Monte Hieb’s article contains several illustrations from various sources. This post concentrates on one, taken them from a 1996 article with the poetic name Remembrance of Things Past: Greenhouse Lessons from the Geologic Record, by Thomas Crowley. It’s the third illustration in Monte Hieb’s article.

Many people who have investigated climate change science or politics will recognise this graphic. It shows a reconstruction of temperatures over the last 1000 years. This is what Monte Hieb says about it:

Earth's climate was in a cool period from A.D. 1400 to about A.D. 1860, dubbed the "Little Ice Age." This period was characterized by harsh winters, shorter growing seasons, and a drier climate. The decline in global temperatures was a modest 1/2 ° C, but the effects of this global cooling cycle were more pronounced in the higher latitudes.

And here's the caption as Monte Hieb shows it. He repeats Crowley’s caption and adds a link directly to the graphic in Crowley's paper: Example of regional variations in surface air temperature for the last 1000 years, estimated from a variety of sources, including temperature-sensitive tree growth indices and written records of various kinds, largely from western Europe and eastern North America. Shown are changes in regional temperature in ° C, from the baseline value for 1900. Compiled by R. S. Bradley and J. A. Eddy based on J. T. Houghton et al., Climate Change: The IPCC Assessment, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990 and published in EarthQuest, vol 5, no 1, 1991. Courtesy of Thomas Crowley, Remembrance of Things Past: Greenhouse Lessons from the Geologic Record

So just from the text above and below the graphic it's apparent that Hieb is talking about global temperature whereas Crowley is illustrating an “example of regional variations”. This is even clearer in Crowley’s discussion (all emphasis mine):

A prominent feature found in some regions during the first centuries of the present millennium is a time of particularly mild temperatures, reaching maximum warmth in the 12th to 13th centuries. In some locations at that time, surface conditions may have been similar to today. However, it is not at all clear whether this climatic feature occurred at the same time in all places””an important distinction from the somewhat more uniform pattern in recent decades.

Monte Hieb’s interpretation of the graphic - that it shows something about global temperature - is contrary to what he source says about it at least twice. That worries me, but one case could be an oversight or a misunderstanding so I looked at some more. I can post about them separately if people are interested, but for now I’ll just say that in my opinion Monte Hieb has been misleading in his use of another writer’s work and in his implication of agreement between himself and Crowley.

Am I overstating the disagreement? Reading the conclusions to each article I don't think so. First Monte Hieb:

Global climate cycles of warming and cooling have been a natural phenomena for hundreds of thousands of years, and it is unlikely that these cycles of dramatic climate change will stop anytime soon. We currently enjoy a warm Earth. Can we count on a warm Earth forever? The answer is most likely... no.

Since the climate has always been changing and will likely continue of its own accord to change in the future, instead of crippling the U.S. economy in order to achieve small reductions in global warming effects due to manmade additions to atmospheric carbon dioxide, our resources may be better spent making preparations to adapt to global cooling and global warming, and the inevitable consequences of fluctuating ocean levels, temperatures, and precipitation that accompany climatic change.

And now Thomas Crowley:

The net impression of this evaluation of "things past" is that the future climate promises to look very different than the present and, perhaps more disconcertingly, possibly unlike anything known before.

By following up the sources that Monte Hieb has cited, I can see for myself that he has not addressed what they actually say and I can do that even without knowing much about the subject. Of course, many articles don’t cite their sources and Hieb deserves credit for the citations and links he provided. But in my view his misuse of their material makes his whole article unreliable.

Ghoti

 

[bandicoot76]

That's the way. Ignore the other points, take what you want and mock the person presenting the argument..

your post got the reply it merited, especially since you started it with a condescending line like "spoon fed", did you really expect any other response?

cut and pasted posts from 'how to debate a climate sceptic' dont cut any ice on this thread, especially when they link to propagada like hypocrit Al gores 'an inconvenient truth'!

keelings curve proves without a doubt a fact everyone here is well aware of...

atmospheric CO2 levels definately ARE rising, due, in part, to human activities such as emissions from burning fossil fuel for energy, a consequence of us living in a modern industrial society!

however that is NOT what we are debating , the whole notion of AGW climate change rests on one question, that so far remains unanswered:

"does atmospheric CO2 produced by man cause (force) catastrophic climate change"

until there is irrefutable proof to prove this point (and dont show manns hockeystick for gods sake!!!) the science remains unsettled.

so quit having a sook! :

 

[ghotib]

No, it is not. The hypothesis is "Human CO2 emissions are causing dangerous global warming." It is this hypothesis which must be proven or disproven. So far it has not been proven correct. If it had been, there would be at least one peer reviewed study available. There is not. This is why OWG and others are asking for a link to one such study.

I can't respond to your whole post at the moment, but just quickly I'd like to point out that "Human CO2 emissions are causing dangerous global warming" is not the hypothesis. It's a result that has emerged from various tested hypotheses.

If human CO2 emissions were not causing global warming, that fact would be evidence against the established (i.e. tested) understanding of such things as how heat moves, how shells form, how insect species interact. Not just one of those things - all of them. That's why scientists talk about global warming as being like gravity.

Gotta go.

Ghoti

 

[Calliope]

No matter what I say now will significantly alter your views, so I'm not going to bother trying.

If you want people to respect your views you will have to stop talking rubbish.

 

[bandicoot76]

As soon as I saw "Exhibit C" I decided not to bother with A and B. II, that film was discredited a long time ago.

i felt the same way when i read his post (at 1am after a long arvo shift)... but i read it anyway, and came to the conclusion obi-wan here just wanted to post something too show how clever he was and how dumb us "unbeleivers" are... 'the spoon fed' line put my back up straight away....

his 'keeling curve' link was actually correct in its content, but it proves a point that we have already accepted as a fact, that atmospheric CO2 is rising, but it doesnt prove that CO2 forces catastrophic climate change outside of normal variation (a fact i dont think he comprehends)

...but the context of the keeling study wasnt even meant to adress the issue carbon/climate forcing!... its simply the graph of a long term measurement of atmospheric CO2 starting from the 1950's on from a 'neutral measuring station in hawaii...

the inconvenient truth link was just the icing on the cake wasnt it!

 

[Ruby]

I can't respond to your whole post at the moment, but just quickly I'd like to point out that "Human CO2 emissions are causing dangerous global warming" is not the hypothesis. It's a result that has emerged from various tested hypotheses.

Yes, that is the hypothesis. Ask any scientist. Do you know what a hypothesis is?

If human CO2 emissions were not causing global warming, that fact would be evidence against the established (i.e. tested) understanding of such things as how heat moves, how shells form, how insect species interact. Not just one of those things - all of them. That's why scientists talk about global warming as being like gravity.

Now you are talking absolute nonsense!
(My bolds)

 

[Ruby]

..........The inconvenient truth link was just the icing on the cake wasnt it!

Yes, quite!

 

[bandicoot76]

Exhibit B: (Writing) "Researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and their colleagues have produced the first clear scientific evidence that human activity-and very little else- is warming the world's oceans.

The Scripps' report, coming from one of the world's leading ocean research institutions, may turn out to be the "smoking gun" that finally establishes the link between greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide and other pollutants) and the increase in temperature worldwide, or global warming.

The authors contend that their results clearly indicate that the oceans' warming is produced "anthropogenically," i.e. by human activities. The study, conducted by Tim Barnett and David Pierce, along with colleagues at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI), used a combination of computer models and real-world "observed" data to capture signals of the penetration of greenhouse gas-influenced warming in the oceans, a Scripps bulletin stated.

[/B]

interesting but hardly the smoking gun...

 

[bandicoot76]

i felt the same way when i read his post (at 1am after a long arvo shift)... but i read it anyway, and came to the conclusion obi-wan here just wanted to post something too show how clever he was and how dumb us "unbeleivers" are... 'the spoon fed' line put my back up straight away....

his 'keeling curve' link was actually correct in its content,

apolagies to "invisableinvestor": he did not provide link to the keelings curve, that was on another forum page i was researching late last night.

thats what i get for trying to cram too much info in a limited amount of resresarch time

 

[ghotib]

Yes, that is the hypothesis. Ask any scientist. Do you know what a hypothesis is?

I think so. How would you go about testing a hypothesis such as "Human CO2 emissions are causing dangerous global warming."?

Now you are talking absolute nonsense!
(My bolds)

Possibly, but show me why.

 

[drsmith]

With any theory, the responsibility of proof belongs to the theorist.

 

[Knobby22]

With any theory, the responsibility of proof belongs to the theorist.

Not strictly true.

In science you need to test the theory and that can be done by anyone.
The theory may then be discarded or modified to suit if the test fails.

 

[drsmith]

In science you need to test the theory and that can be done by anyone.

It does not have to be done by anyone.

Onus of proof is on the theorist.