Global warming?

[ZenGum]

!

[Undertoad]

Skeptics enjoy: from 1999 to 2009, by the same measurements that show a large amount of global warming between 1880 and 1999, there has been little to no global warming between 1999 and 2009.



The most commonly-asserted reason for this: the sun has been rather dormant during this period, with fewer sunspots than usual.

During this period, the amount of GW gases in the environment has increased a good amount.

Whether this is a temporary vacation from GW, a natural reaction to GW, or the permanent end to GW is probably a factor of your own narrative on the subject.

[TheMercenary]

Interesting...

Who Else Will Challenge Gore's 'Truth'?
By PHELIM MCALEER
Posted 10/14/2009 06:15 PM ET


Last week at the Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Wisconsin, former Vice President Al Gore took questions from journalists about global warming for the first time in years. I attended to ask him about factual errors in his movie, "An Inconvenient Truth."

You wouldn't know it from the sparse media coverage, but the British High Court found so many errors in Gore's movie in 2007 that British schools no longer can show the film without the equivalent of a health warning.

I asked Gore if he intends to correct the record. He dodged the question, and the so-called reporters defended his right to be evasive by shutting off my mic.

The encounter was disappointing but not surprising. I served years of hard time as a liberal journalist in Europe and learned that covering the environmental beat meant toeing the line of extremism — no inconvenient questions allowed.

But it is now time for journalists, and the consumers and businesses that will pay the ultimate price, to start questioning the conventional wisdom about global warming and exposing its true cost. If alarmists like Al Gore get their way, millions of American families will watch as their dreams of a prosperous and pleasant future disappear.

The evidence of environmentalism run amok abounds in Europe. Spain believed the spin that environmental regulation can create "green jobs" and boost the economy. Now the country has 18% unemployment. Britain could suffer blackouts because of policies that require the country to replace coal with fuels like solar and wind power that aren't readily available or reliable.

Unfortunately for Americans, many of the lawmakers who represent them in Congress seem unwilling to learn from Europe's mistakes.

The Senate is now considering a bill that Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., co-authored to create a European-style "cap and trade" system for carbon dioxide emissions, and he just won the endorsement of a key swing senator. International pressure on the United States to adopt such legislation also will increase in December at climate talks in Copenhagen.

That's bad news for taxpayers. The Obama administration reluctantly admitted last month that cap-and-trade would cost the average American family $1,761 a year.

That is a rosy prediction. A Heritage Foundation analysis pegs the cost at an average of $2,979 a year and as much as $4,600 a year by 2035. Jobs will disappear, energy prices will skyrocket, and the American Dream will become an unattainable fantasy for many.

Wealthy environmental elites like Ed Begley Jr., who is featured in our documentary "Not Evil Just Wrong," think that is just fine. They love to tell everyone how "happy" people are in the Third World, where poverty, disease and premature deaths are common. But if they really loved it, they would move themselves and their families to Fiji and burn all of their passports.

Instead, environmentalists live comfortably, flying around the world telling other people they should forsake air travel and drive cars that cost as much as many people pay for a place to live. All the while, the environmentalists try to scare people with stories about dying polar bears and lemurs.

Their hysteria knows no bounds. The British government is now spending nearly $10 million to air ads that feature an animated puppy drowning, a rabbit crying and a carbon monster spewing soot from the sky.

The ad is so laughable that even the journal Nature mocked it. But Britain wouldn't be spending that kind of money unless it expected a return on the investment in the form of new converts to the false doctrine of global warming.

That's why it's so important for journalists who inform the public to ask tough questions, both about the science behind global warming and the financial impact on consumers and businesses.

Americans had better hope their country's journalists start grilling Gore and his colleagues. Otherwise, more people will be misled, and the country will be feeling Europe's green-induced economic pains for years.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnal...aspx?id=509026

[classicman]

covering the environmental beat meant toeing the line of extremism — no inconvenient questions allowed.

consumers and businesses ~ will pay the ultimate price, ~ If alarmists like Al Gore get their way, millions of American families will watch as their dreams of a prosperous and pleasant future disappear.

Scary? Hell yeh, true or false? I dunno...

[Spexxvet]

Gonna cost more? How much are you willing to pay to possibly save your life, the lives of your family, and your property? An arborist tells you that the tree beside your house might fall, possibly falling on you and killing you, or falling on your house and destroying it. Will you not take action because it will cost you to have it cut down?

Don't sweat it - George Bush says your tree is falling from natural causes, and any action you take won't make a difference.
It was Bush's fault

[SamIam]

From the Times Online (emphasis my own):

The Government’s decision to show the film in secondary schools had come under attack from Stewart Dim-mock, a school governor in Kent and a member of political group the New Party, who accused the Government of brainwashing children.
The first mistake made by Mr Gore, said Mr Justice Burton in his written judgment, was in talking about the potential devastation wrought by a rise in sea levels caused by the melting of ice caps.
The claim that sea levels could rise by 20ft “in the near future” was dismissed as “distinctly alarmist”. Such a rise would take place “only after, and over, millennia”.
Mr Justice Burton added: “The ar-mageddon scenario he predicts, inso-far as it suggests that sea level rises of seven metres might occur in the immediate future, is not in line with the scientific consensus.”
A claim that atolls in the Pacific had already been evacuated was supported by “no evidence”, while to suggest that two graphs showing carbon dioxide levels and temperatures over the last 650,000 years were an “exact fit” overstated the case.
Mr Gore’s suggestion that the Gulf Stream, that warms up the Atlantic ocean, would shut down was contradicted by the International Panel on Climate Change’s assessment that it was “very unlikely” to happen.
The drying of Lake Chad, the loss of Mount Kilimanjaro’s snows and Hurricane Katrina were all blamed by Mr Gore on climate change but the judge said the scientific community had been unable to find evidence to prove there was a direct link.
The drying of Lake Chad, the judge said, was “far more likely to result from other factors, such as population increase and overgrazing, and regional climate variability”. The melting of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was “mainly attributable to human-induced climate change”.
The judge also said there was no proof to support a claim that polar bears were drowning while searching for icy habitats melted by global warming. The only drowned polar bears the court was aware of were four that died following a storm.
Similarly, the judge took issue with the former Vice-President of the United States for attributing coral bleaching to climate change. Separating the direct impacts of climate change and other factors was difficult, the judgment concluded. Despite finding nine significant errors the judge said many of the claims made by the film were fully backed up by the weight of science. He identified “four main scientific hypotheses, each of which is very well supported by research published in respected, peer-reviewed journals and accords with the latest conclusions of the IPCC”.
In particular, he agreed with the main thrust of Mr Gore’s arguments: “That climate change is mainly attributable to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (‘greenhouse gases’).”
The other three main points accepted by the judge were that global temperatures are rising and are likely to continue to rise, that climate change will cause serious damage if left unchecked, and that it is entirely possible for governments and individuals to reduce its impacts. — A High Court judge since 1998, Sir Michael Burton, 60, was president of the Employment Appeal Tribunal from 2002 to 2005. He stood in local elections for Labour in Kensington and Chelsea in 1971; Stratford upon Avon in the General Election in 1974; and for the SDP in Greater London Council elections in 1981. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, his wife died in 1992 leaving him to bring up four daughters

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle2633838.ece

I'm not sure what expertise serving as president of the Employment Appeal Tribunal gives this judge on environmental matters. He seems to be caving in to the protests of some fringe character called "Dim-Mock" who appears to be living up to his unfortunate name.

At any rate, the Judge did agree with much of the film, ESPECIALLY the danger of CO2 gases accumulating in the atmosphere. I consider $1,761/year a small price to pay to avoid what could be very serious climate impacts on the younger members of our population and our children. I am comparatively long in the tooth and have no children, so the whole argument is moot to me. I could be almost amused at the willful stupidity of the American people if the outcome was not so grim.

[classicman]

Will you pay my $1700 as well then? Remember there are an awful lot of people who will not be able to pay their $1700 and that will leave those with the ability to do so, the full brunt of the cost..

[plthijinx]

From the Houston Chronicle

[SamIam]

Originally Posted by classicman

Will you pay my $1700 as well then? Remember there are an awful lot of people who will not be able to pay their $1700 and that will leave those with the ability to do so, the full brunt of the cost..

I would if you were actually concerned about the problem, but too poor to pay the $1700. As it stands, its no skin off my ass if your short-sighted stinginess contributes to your own lack of quality of life and maybe even premature death. No doubt we can have a nice chat about interest rates and insurance in the great beyond as hell freezes over.

[classicman]

If you only knew of where my current/future financial concerns were, perhaps you wouldn't be such an asshole.

[SamIam]

Nah, I'm pretty sure that I'd still be an asshole. Thanks for trying to let me off the hook, tho.

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Interesting...

...That's bad news for taxpayers. The Obama administration reluctantly admitted last month that cap-and-trade would cost the average American family $1,761 a year.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnal...aspx?id=509026

In fact, the Obama administration said no such thing....a person from the Competitive Enterprise Institute cherry-picked data from a Treasury report...

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/09/boe...cap-and-trade/

.. using worse case scenarios and, more importantly, ignoring all the tax credits, grant programs, etc. in the same cap and trade legislation.

SO what's new.....conservative and libertarian groups (AEI, CEI...) dont like the idea of government intervention, even in protecting the environment and encouraging and stimulating the development of alternative energy.

I'm not one who believes CO2 emissions cause global warming...I do believe that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 (automobiles, power plants, etc) may contribute to global warming and certainly do contribute to environmental degradation...and being the second largest contributor, we should reduce those emissions.

IMO, it is much like the screaming of doomsday scenarios by libertarians and industry groups back in the 70s when the series of comprehensive new environmental laws were enacted...clear air act, clear water act, safe drinking water act, hazardous waste disposal act, toxic substances control act.

"All this government intervention and regulation will cost the consumers $millions...it will make the US less competitive....blah blah blah"

In fact, the reverse happened....those environmental laws stimulated innovation with no pain to the consumers and made the US the leader in environmental management initiatives, with US companies exporting those innovations all over the world...and doing a pretty damned good job of cleaning up the environment at the same time.

Originally Posted by plthijinx

From the Houston Chronicle

IMO, the weather map adds nothing to the discussion unless you believe that short term weather forecasts are the same as long term climate forecasts...and no credible climatologist would make such an inference.

[piercehawkeye45]

Climate change has no effect on short term weather. A strong La Nina, El Nino, or dose of solar radiation can greatly affect annual temperatures. The past few years have had moderate La Ninas plus low amounts of solar radiation which explains the lower temperatures (in certain parts of the US). Climate change can only be detected when comparing years and years of average global temperatures.

But looking at that map, I am ready for a warm winter. Especially considering that it has already snowed here.

[classicman]

I agree with Pierce and Redux on this point. In fact, we need data over thousands of years to properly determine anything related to a potential "global warming." A few decades of any kind of trend is the equivalent of a second in the grand scheme, as any climatologist worth listening to will tell you.