From Michelle Malkin: Global Warming Kool Aide drinker, New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, wrote this letter to Santa Claus:
Dear Santa Claus,
I am writing out of concern, because you may have to move from the North Pole due to the dramatic melting of Arctic sea ice. The Navy’s chief oceanographer says that by the summer of 2020 the North Pole may not have summer ice and other scientists project that an ice-free Arctic is possible as soon as 2012!
Scientists overwhelmingly agree that polar ice is melting because of greenhouse gas pollution and I am working hard to reduce these emissions. But there is probably nothing we can do in time to save the North Pole. I am worried about your safety and your ability to deliver billions of Christmas gifts if the ice cap on the North Pole no longer stays frozen all year. What will happen to your house, your workshop, the elves’ houses and your reindeer barns?
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/12/23/us-senator-writes-letter-to-santa-about/
And of course, as we speak, parts of New Jersey are shoveling out of a blizzard that hit around Christmas Day and dropped 31 inches of snow in Elizabeth, NJ.
How's that global warming working out for you Senator? Talk about irony. And stupidity.
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Pffffft!!! It's cold and snowing in December, and this disproves global warming? Dan! That is a really poor "proof" right there. Climate change (probably a more accurate term) predicts all KINDS of wacky and extreme weather, not just WARMER all the time. The overall effect is a year-long average of warmer temperatures. It does not rule out a massive snowstorm, or any other kind of weather.
ReplyDeleteI understand that this has become a left/right issue, but the "right" (and I don't mean "correct") side of this is really hard to sympathize with. The scientists who say there is doubt or that climate change is a hoax seem to be almost universally either scientists from a DIFFERENT (not climate or meteorology) field or on the payrolls of EXXON/Mobil and the like. Climate scientists who are not working for Big Oil/Energy are almost in unanimous agreement that climate change is happening.
Is it man's fault? Can man do anything about it? Is it just cyclical, normal and natural, and there isn't anything we can do? All good questions. None particularly political, until you throw big business into it, and get people pitted against one another. I for one find it ludicrous when people like Rush Limbaugh claim that man has NO effect on the environment. The big plastic garbage patch in the Pacific would belie that one. As would the skies over China or even Los Angeles. Billions of people polluting--each in our own special way--has GOT to have SOME effect on the environment, whether it's causing global warming or not.
Ironically, "going green" and coming up with renewable energy sources would be a long-term major freaking win for the US and our economy. Getting off of foreign oil? Rendering the Middle East worthless? You'd think conservatives wouldn't just be on board with that one, but steering the ship.
James,
ReplyDeleteThe reason that the current weather is relevant to the argument (yes, weather is not climate and vice-versa) is that the pro-AGW (anthropogenic global warming) folks had predicted that the opposite would happen - that the days of cold, snow-covered winters were over because of AGW.
One reason to be skeptical of AGW, and I don't completely discount it, is that it is the most flexible theory of all-time. Regardless of what weather/climate event is occurring - too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, just right - its proponents claim that it is the cause, even when the event(s) is/are the exact opposite of what they had predicted.
Remember after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, AGW proponents predicted that because of AGW we were in for even more and greater storms in coming years. Well, exactly the opposite has happened - we have experienced fewer and weaker storms than normal in the Atlantic and Gulf since. That's just one example.
Make no mistake, science is supposed to be predictive. When the scientific method is properly followed, eventually scientists should be able to say that when A happens, B results. And when A happens and B does not result, it's time to reconsider the hypothesis. AGW advocates have not done this. They continue to use this theory to predict the future and when the future invariably is different from their predictions to state that, well, that was because of AGW, too. Some of them have even stooped to manipulating data, hiding and ignoring evidence that contradicts their theory.
Your dismissal of anti-AGW scientists as shills for big business is simply an ad hominem attack and adds nothing to the discussion. There is a lot (A LOT) of money to be made in AGW and virtually all of it is on the pro side. Researchers around the world have raked in big bucks by producing research supporting AGW, some of it bogus. And climate conferences are some of the most lavish affairs mankind has ever produced.
This issue did not become political when big business became involved. In fact, look around you, many big businesses (GE, for example) are major proponents of AGW - "going green" means lots of green for them. It became political the instant that its advocates began to use it as a rationale to tell you and I how we could live our lives (where we could live, what we could drive, how we could heat, cool and light our homes, etc., etc., etc.). That's at the heart of this whole thing. It's not about weather or climate, it's about control. It's about you and I having the freedom to live where we want and do what we want. I'm old enough to remember when it was global cooling that was the problem. The solution was the same, we had to massively restrict our economic development and reduce our prosperity to ward off this great menace. Well, the problem's exactly the opposite but, amazingly enough, the solution is exactly the same!
The best way to get off foreign oil is to use domestic oil - until other sources are able to produced energy cost-competitively. There are billions (trillions?) of barrels of the stuff onshore and offshore in the US that we currently have the technology to harvest. But we don't allow ourselves to do so. The reason we use fossil fuels is they are the cheapest means of producing energy on this planet, despite the massive subsidies given to "alternative" sources, each of which has serious environmental problems of its own. (I could go into specifics on these and a discussion of energy density but this comment is already too long.)
Finally, I would worry more about my carbon footprint if some of the more prominent AGW proponents were concerned about theirs. In fact, I believe if all of the global warming alarmists in politics, entertainment and the media would simply reduce THEIR carbon footprint to the size of MINE the problem would largely disappear.
Well, that was a very thoughtful reply, thanks! That doesn't usually happen on these here internets! I'm not in total agreement with you (but you knew that), but I can see where you're coming from. I think getting off ALL oil would really be a better goal than trying to get all of our oil out first. Because our oil--once a-gotten-to--goes on the global market. It doesn't just flow to the US alone.
ReplyDeleteAlso, even if you think that burning fossil fuels doesn't cause global warming, it sure as heck pollutes the sky. After 120 years of doing this (on top of coal being burned before that and since), it's stunning that anyone thinks that man couldn't possible damage or change the environment or climate.
Since you were kind enough to be so thoughtful in reply, here is a link that backs up some of the stuff I was talking about with dissenting scientists: http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/inhofe-global-warming-deniers-47011101
As for the motive being about "control," that's where you start to go off the rails a bit. I learned some time ago, in personal relationships, that the worst disagreements come from attempting to ascertain another person's MOTIVES, based on our own inferences. It is also a way to turn a decent opinion into what sounds like a conspiracy theory.
James,
ReplyDeleteFirst, let's not conflate pollution (smog, SOX, NOX, etc.) that is generally harmful to life with greenhouse gases (CO2, water vapor, etc.), most of which are either essential to life, produced by natural biological processes or both.
I read through your link and it mostly is an attempt to discredit scientists who don't believe in AGW. Not to refute or present any evidence but to discredit those who disagree - more ad hominem. Its dismissal of AGW skepticism as a "conspiracy theory" is ridiculous and hardly the stuff of rational debate. Inhofe's characterization of it as the "greatest hoax..." falls in this category as well.
Putting that aside, two things. 1) Science does not exist on consensus. Einstein, Galileo, the list is long of scientists who contradicted the prevailing consensus of their time and were proven right. 2) That link is nearly 3 years old. In the interim we have learned there was a group of people who call themselves scientists but who acted in very un-scientific ways in order to advance their AGW agenda. They conspired to manipulate data, alter results and suppress contrary research. Far from being some minor, isolated group they were (and in some cases still are, amazingly enough) some of the most-influential, frequently-cited and heavily-sought after AGW proponents. Granted, this does not taint all climate research but certainly anything this group has participated in should be looked at with skepticism, including the IPCC, which contained many of the East Anglia conspirators and referenced a good bit of their research.
The document the IPCC, which is mentioned approvingly in your link, released in 2007 was, by its own admission, a political not a scientific document. Some of its conclusions were not supported by the contents of the larger report. There are some who participated on this panel who have since distanced themselves from it.
If the theory were so undeniable, so unassailable, so incontrovertible, there would be no need to pile on by creating or citing questionable research or fudging data. Yet it has been done and continues to be done.
As far as control - can you cite any instance in which an AGW proponent has recommended more individual autonomy or more freedom as a solution to the problem? They have invariably advocated for more intervention by governments, quasi-governmental entities and international organizations into the decisions and actions of private individuals as the solution to the crisis. In addition, an IPCC official recently admitted that it was not really about climate at all but redistributing wealth. Redistribution on this scale is not something that can be achieved without massive coercion (control).
Finally, it is telling to me that AGW should be embraced by people such as Paul Ehrlich. For more than 4 decades he has been predicting imminent global environmental catastrophe as a result of man's activities. And for over 4 decades he has been wrong every single time. However, his scaremongering has made him quite a living during that time. Not that I resent anyone making an honest buck. This is in keeping with the AGW movement in general, as none of the apocalyptic predictions its proponents have issued over the last couple decades have come true. When they get one right, then we'll talk. At least until then I remain a skeptic.
Nice comments, James and Mike. I really can't add anything except to say, I look at weather patterns and weather cycles. I think it is cyclical. We've always have had strange weather. Today, it is colder in Las Vegas than Wisconsin- that doesn't mean anything except strange weather.
ReplyDeleteBut the reality is that we have a cleaner enviroment in the U.S. today than in the 1950s when they didn't pollution controls.
Finally, the enviromentalists make this a U.S. problem but ignore China, India and other major countries. Why? It's called global warming/climate change so why isn't the entireworld being forced to clean up?