The Great Global Warming Swindle

[HOZ]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

I know this is a favorite line of the "global warming is a myth" set, but I think it's a myth in itself. I was preoccupied with other things (learning how to walk, Muppet Show) in the 70s, but I am pretty sure that the "ice age panic" or whatever you want to call it wasn't quite as big a deal as "global warming".

For one thing, we've been hearing about global warming for a long time. As a scientific theory, it's been around the block. It's not a fad or some article in Time magazine.

Also, it's fairly well accepted by the majority of the scientific community, while the "ice age in the 70's" was not.

The two things are not comparable.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94

Anyway, do you think we should not curb our consumption some amount, or do you think excessive pollution is okay?

I know the answer to that. Of course excessive pollution is not okay. I think we should curb it no matter what. Obviously burning 80 million barrels (I bring it up every time cuz it's really quite staggering) of oil every day is doing something bad, global warming or not. We all know it. We all should know that we ought to pollute less. These arguments, while always fun, are kind of pointless. We should consume less for lots of reasons. We just don't do it.

Again...it is the hysteria that I am not buying into. The idea that you must be all for this Global Warming theory or you are all against is silly at best and frightening at worst. It is that which I was refering to as to something that will blow over.



No myth and I never said there was one. So please stop putting things in my mouth. In the 70's there was a cooling trend (similar but not exactly the same as the mini ace age in the late 1800's). Now we are in a warming trend. In the 70's there were dire warnings of disaster just like there is now.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by HOZ

Again...it is the hysteria that I am not buying into. The idea that you must be all for this Global Warming theory or you are all against is silly at best and frightening at worst. It is that which I was refering to as to something that will blow over.



No myth and I never said there was one. So please stop putting things in my mouth. In the 70's there was a cooling trend (similar but not exactly the same as the mini ace age in the late 1800's). Now we are in a warming trend. In the 70's there were dire warnings of disaster just like there is now.

I'm not putting any words in your mouth. I said it's a myth, not you. And I'm not even talking about the ice age itself, but the myth that it was a widespread, mainstream and popular theory at the time. It wasn't.

The implication that "science said there was going to be an ice age, they were wrong then like they are wrong now" is garbage.

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by Lanny_MacDonald

WTF???

According to the video humans currently produce the same amoun of CO2 emmisions as volcanoes.

According to Al Gore humans should be doing enough to eliminate their carbon footprint.

So why not nuke all volcanoes, that would eliminate the carbon footprint wouldnt it?

MYK

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by Burninator

I'm sorry where did you get that information? In no way did does he state that every year the climate will worsen in the book. Perhaps you should read the book instead of jumping to wild conclusions from a synopsis. It is actually a very well thought out look at global warming.

Correct, but he does blame the "drought like conditions in Australia" on Global Warming. Katrina and the Tsunami are both mentioned in the book reviews as being causel effects of Global Warming.

Could one not then assume that if the temperature is rising, and will likely continue to rise (because of green house gasses as they arent likely to decrease next year) that those effects would be the same or worse next year?

I still have a hard time believing that if the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is less than 0.0542% as inidcated in the video, and humans contribute what appears to be much less than 10% of that, how that approx 0.003% (High Estimate) amount increase by humans would be responsible for such a dramatic shift in weather patterns.

Had it been a foreign substance to the atmosphere similar to polluting the waters I could associate more closely with it. I would have thought the earth had a larger fault tolerance than that.

MYK

[worth]

...contains roughly 78% nitrogen, (normally inert except upon electrolysis by lightning[1] and in certain biochemical processes of nitrogen fixation), 21% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and trace amounts of other gases, in addition to about 3% water vapor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_atmosphere

It is a valid question MYK.

[Cowperson]

In the new York Times today, scientists to Al Gore: "Cool The Hype."

Criticisms of Mr. Gore have come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists like Dr. Easterbook, who told his peers that he had no political ax to grind. A few see natural variation as more central to global warming than heat-trapping gases. Many appear to occupy a middle ground in the climate debate, seeing human activity as a serious threat but challenging what they call the extremism of both skeptics and zealots.

Kevin Vranes, a climatologist at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, said he sensed a growing backlash against exaggeration. While praising Mr. Gore for “getting the message out,” Dr. Vranes questioned whether his presentations were “overselling our certainty about knowing the future.”

“He’s a very polarizing figure in the science community,” said Roger A. Pielke Jr., an environmental scientist who is a colleague of Dr. Vranes at the University of Colorado center. “Very quickly, these discussions turn from the issue to the person, and become a referendum on Mr. Gore.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/sc...=1&oref=slogin

Cowperson

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

Correct, but he does blame the "drought like conditions in Australia" on Global Warming. Katrina and the Tsunami are both mentioned in the book reviews as being causel effects of Global Warming.

Could one not then assume that if the temperature is rising, and will likely continue to rise (because of green house gasses as they arent likely to decrease next year) that those effects would be the same or worse next year?

The book is not insinuating that. The author says the global temperature is on the rise, but year to year it can fluctuate. So 2007 won't necessarily be the hottest year on record. And again please stop making up arguments and drawing your own slanted conclusions from the book when you have only a read a small synopsis on it.

I still have a hard time believing that if the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is less than 0.0542% as inidcated in the video, and humans contribute what appears to be much less than 10% of that, how that approx 0.003% (High Estimate) amount increase by humans would be responsible for such a dramatic shift in weather patterns.

Had it been a foreign substance to the atmosphere similar to polluting the waters I could associate more closely with it. I would have thought the earth had a larger fault tolerance than that.

MYK

Unfortunately I don't have an answer for that. But I am sure someone else does.

Everything humans do influences the earth. We extinct animals, alter landscapes, changes cycles, by building over their habitat, poisoning their waters and hunting. Why would this be any different?

I hear the "earth climate changes and fluctuates" argument. Yes I know it does, there has been several ice ages. But when was the last global heat wave? When has the earth gotten hotter than it's been right now?

[Lanny_MacDonald]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

I still have a hard time believing that if the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is less than 0.0542% as inidcated in the video, and humans contribute what appears to be much less than 10% of that, how that approx 0.003% (High Estimate) amount increase by humans would be responsible for such a dramatic shift in weather patterns.

Okay, so if 4 grams of alcohol in 1 kilogram of blood can kill someone, how come we don't feel anything as we approach that level? Especially when it can exist in our system and we don't feel anything? Sometimes tolerance levels and saturation levels are pretty close together, so its easy to reach a tipping point?

[Magnum PEI]

Nature could destroy all the things we have created in matter of days humans are not above nature, look at New Orleans an age old city destroyed overnight the planet is a fine balance and IMO there will be a point where it can’t support us anymore and it will find a way to destroy us

How could nature destroy mankind in days? Even the largest disaster in my memory (the Indian Ocean Tsunami) killed only a few hundred thousand people, and only destroyed buildings near the coast, or a few miles inland. And it had nothing to do with global warming. I suppose there has been some pretty devestating plagues, but a certain percentage is always imune, and famines are usually confined and short-lived (relatively).

And how was New Orleans destroyed? Millions of people still live there, and it held Mardi Gras a few months after the hurricane. (I also wouldn't call New Orleans age old. It was probably founded only three or four hundred years ago).

So we could sign kyoto, laugh it up when the red chinese invade in 50 years (which isn't neccesarilly bad) because our economy stops growing (I heard yesterday Canada is 174th in the world in that department already), or we could not sign kyoto and wait until science finds cleaner energy without the economic costs.

[Ryan Coke]

Originally Posted by Burninator

Everything humans do influences the earth. We extinct animals, alter landscapes, changes cycles, by building over their habitat, poisoning their waters and hunting. Why would this be any different?

Originally Posted by Lanny_MacDonald

Okay, so if 4 grams of alcohol in 1 kilogram of blood can kill someone, how come we don't feel anything as we approach that level? Especially when it can exist in our system and we don't feel anything? Sometimes tolerance levels and saturation levels are pretty close together, so its easy to reach a tipping point?

You realize those aren't even close to being actual answers, right?

[Lanny_MacDonald]

Originally Posted by Ryan Coke

You realize those aren't even close to being actual answers, right?

You realize it wasn't meant to be an actual answer, more of a virtual cuff in the back of the head to get someone to think for themselves. With this subject matter, anyone can give an actual answer, but the reality is that the only answer that is believable is one found by the individual wading through the "all" the answers. Perception is reality.

[MagicallyAdept]

This is a great debate and all but how do we know what is really going on?

All we know is what we are told by politicians, scientists, friends, news networks etc. None of us can actually go back in time measure levels and make our graphs to prove anything. Its kind of like believing in a God/Gods. Each side has an arguement that cannot be proven.

Anyway it will all be over when the aliens come...

[worth]

Here's a response from the film maker to some of the criticisms levied on his film:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../ngreen218.xml

'The global-warmers were bound to attack, but why are they so feeble?'


Last Updated: 11:20pm GMT 17/03/2007


'The Great Global Warming Swindle', broadcast by Channel 4, put the case for scepticism about man-made climate change. The programme sparked a heated debate and charges of scientific inaccuracy. Here, its director, Martin Durkin, responds to the critics.
On March 8, Channel 4 broadcast my programme. Since then, supporters of the theory of man-made global warming have published frothing criticism. I am attacked for using an "old" graph depicting temperature over the past 1,000 years. They say I should have used a "new" graph - one used by Al Gore, known as the "hockey stick", because it looks like one.
But the hockey stick has been utterly discredited. The computer programme used to generate it was found to produce hockey-stick shapes even when fed random data (I refer readers to the work of McIntyre & McKitrick and to the Wegman Report, all available on the internet). Other than the discredited hockey stick, the graph used by us (and published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is the standard, accepted record of temperature in this period.
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A critic claims that one of the graphs cited by us, illustrating the extraordinarily close correlation between solar variation and temperature change, has since been "corrected". It most certainly has not. The graph was produced by Prof Eigil Friis-Christensen, the head of the Danish National Space Centre, who says it still stands. But if the global-warmers don't like that graph, there are plenty of others that say the same thing.
No one any longer seriously disputes the link between solar activity and temperature in earth's climate history. I urge readers to look up on the net: Veizer, Geoscience Canada, 2005; and Soon, Geophysical Research Letters, 2005.
In the film, we used three graphs depicting temperature change in the 20th century. On one there was an error in the dates on the bottom. This was corrected for the second transmission of the programme, on More4, last Monday. It made no difference. Global-warmers can pick whichever graph they like. The problem for them remains the same. The temperature rise at the beginning of the century (prior to 1940, when human emissions of CO2 were relatively insignificant) was as great, most graphs show greater, than the temperature rise at the end of the century.
So what else do they hit me with? Prof Carl Wunsch, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who appeared in the film, later claimed he was duped into taking part. He was not.
The remarkable thing is not that I was attacked. But that the attacks have been so feeble. The ice-core data was the jewel in the global-warming crown, cited again and again as evidence that carbon dioxide 'drives' the earth's climate. In fact, as its advocates have been forced to admit, the ice-core data says the opposite. Temperature change always precedes changes in CO2 by several hundred years. Temperature drives CO2, not the other way round. The global-warmers do not deny this. They cannot.
During the post-war economic boom, while industrial emissions of CO2 went up, the temperature went down (hence the great global-cooling scare in the 1970s). Why? They say maybe the cooling was caused by SO2 (sulphur dioxide) produced by industry. But they say it mumbling under their breath, because they know it makes no sense. Thanks to China and the rest, SO2 levels are far, far higher now than they were back then. Why isn't it perishing cold?
Too many journalists and scientists have built their careers on the global-warming alarm. Certain newspapers have staked their reputation on it. The death of this theory will be painful and ugly. But it will die. Because it is wrong, wrong, wrong.

[Cowperson]

An amusing wrinkle to add to the earthly global warming debate . . . . . turns out the Martian polar cap has been in retreat since the 1970's as well. That may jive with those scientists putting forth the argument that global warming has as much to do with our own sun as it does with the activities of mankind.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...y/Science/home

Cowperson

[icarus]

Originally Posted by Cowperson

An amusing wrinkle to add to the earthly global warming debate . . . . . turns out the Martian polar cap has been in retreat since the 1970's as well. That may jive with those scientists putting forth the argument that global warming has as much to do with our own sun as it does with the activities of mankind.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...y/Science/home

Cowperson

I blame the emissions from the Viking landers and Mars rovers.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by icarus

I blame the emissions from the Viking landers and Mars rovers.

Do they really need a V8 rover just to drive themselves to the landing pad every day???

[Bobblehead]

I'm not sure how good a comparison Mars is with the Earth. Mars doesn't have a magnetic field like earths, and as a result doesn't have the same protections from solar radiation.

While the end result of planetary warming may be the same, the mechanisms are different.

[Thunderball]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

I'm not sure how good a comparison Mars is with the Earth. Mars doesn't have a magnetic field like earths, and as a result doesn't have the same protections from solar radiation.

While the end result of planetary warming may be the same, the mechanisms are different.

Its not a great direct comparison... but it does indicate the likelihood that human factors are not fully responsible, or even, that they represent a small portion of what is causing the change. This is important to ascertain so proper measures can be taken. If climate change isn't a solely human induced phenomenon, then Kyoto and its "pollution credits" should be tossed out the window, and focus should be made on technological efficiency and mitigating the damage caused by change.