Linda Wertheimer on NPR this morning:
We officially have global warming, according to a major scientific report. And just when we get the report, all of a sudden the temperatures drop and 8 feet of snow falls on the New York towns around Lake Superior [sic]. This is an extraordinary winter and I guess that's what global warming means. Weird weather.British zillionaire Richard Branson has offered a $25 million prize for suggestions to reduce global warming by removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. My entry: Next time you get the urge to fly Virgin Airlines, stay home instead!
Or just wait, and the globe will cool by itself, as Spokane residents learned when they got last month's huge utility bill:
Unseasonably cold weather may have contributed to the spike, Simock said. January 2007 was on average 10 degrees colder than January 2006.Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at February 10, 2007 04:55 PM | Email This
Uh oh, now we finally have it, a Univeral Theory Of Everything. No matter what we observe, it has to have as its cause global warming. Must be the Holy Grail Of Science. Then again, maybe it's just Junk Science.
Posted by: Interested Observer on February 10, 2007 05:01 PM
Looks like Pelosi is too busy getting her $300,000 per trip Pelosi 1 decorated to worry about anything as insignificant to her as Iraq....
It's going to be a "Cold" day in Hell before any of that happens, so I think I'll go gas up the SUV and go for a drive.
Posted by: Jeff B. on February 10, 2007 09:43 PMHad not heard that. Wow Branson's more wacky than I thought. He should definitely be encouraged to pull his planes to the runway. It won't take long for word to get around and for "customers" to choose an airline that's actually about getting where its customers want to go in a timely fashion. And it would make for plenty of great marketing campaigns at the other airlines as well. I can see it now: "Does your airline spend a lot of time driving? Choose an airline that flies, choose United.
Posted by: Jeff B. on February 10, 2007 10:02 PMConsidering that the people pushing hardest for Global Warming™ are the same ones who pushed for the Population Bomb®, The Club of Rome's Resource Report, The Coming Ice Age®, Nucular Winter™, Ten Years to Save the Oceans, Our Landfills are Full and Mikhail Gorbachev as Soviet Saviour, I ain't losing any sleep at all.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega on February 10, 2007 11:02 PMThe scientific report has been delayed so that it can be amended from its current draft form to agree with what the bureaucrats have written. I know its weird, but this is how the UN works.
I have obtained a copy of the draft science report which was circulated in May 2006. It is labelled as being a final document and, from what I understand, was used by the bureaucrats in preparing the Summary for Policy Makers.
As a practicing scientist with about 10 years of post seconday science education I can assure you that the scientific report is pretty lean on data and rich in interpretation.
It relies very heavily on models based on anthropomorphic CO2 causing the 1.5 rise in average North American, European and Siberian temperatures since 1850.
It supports its model assumptions that CO2 is the driving force by presenting once again the hockey stick (hokey stick?) and showing the correlation between CO2 and the 1.5 degree rise in Northern Hemispheric average temeratures.
It discussion (not evidence) on alternative mechanisms dismisses without credible reasoning all natural triggers for climate change.
There is no mention of the impact of naturally occurring atmoshperic water vapor being the single most plentiful greenhouse gas.
Solar activity is dismissed as being trivial without any mention of evidence to the contrary both within existing written historical accounts of reduced solar activity accompanying the Little Ice Age, nor the increases in solar activity that have remarkably coincided with the period between 1850 and now.
Woefully absent is anything approaching a thorough examination of Urban Heat Islands. I would trust thier approach far more if they remove the urban heat islands and and Soviet Siberian data rather than state without debate these anomalies have little or no effect on how their model works.
It seems the IPCC did not want any words from their report to appear to contradict their conclusions so they simply ignored or summarily dismissed the evidence to the contrary.
The 90% certainty is made as a statement in the summary and never explained by the science. It is a "qualitative" assessment of the authors' certainty they are correct, NOT a scientifically derived level of confidence.
The final report on the scientific basis for the 2007 IPCC report on climate change is expected to be released this coming May. I certainly hope they a much better job in explaining why they are so certain - hopefully by supporting it with real science rather than the false hype contained in the May 2006 draft.
I have serious doubts the IPCC scientists will anything to contradict their politicial masters. The purges in Europe for non-believers started several years ago and the IPCC is largely composed of post-purge remnants.
> As a practicing scientist with about 10 years of post seconday science education I can assure you that the scientific report is pretty lean on data and rich in interpretation.
I am impressed, Deadwood. A practicing scientists posting anonymously here on Sound Politics and saying exactly what these people want to hear.
What is your scientific discipline, Deadwood?
Posted by: David Mathews on February 11, 2007 04:47 AM> Considering that the people pushing hardest for Global Warming™ are the same ones who pushed for the Population Bomb®, The Club of Rome's Resource Report, The Coming Ice Age®, Nucular Winter™, Ten Years to Save the Oceans, Our Landfills are Full and Mikhail Gorbachev as Soviet Saviour, I ain't losing any sleep at all.
Unlike the Republicans who have gotten the United States mired in Iraq based upon lies regarding yellow cake, WMDs, and so forth. The Republicans have killed 3,100 American soldiers and murdered 150,000 Iraqi civilians by their lies.
And there is no end in sight for the Republicans' lies. America cannot win Iraq and cannot leave Iraq. I guess that the Republicans feel that American soldiers are expendable. Losing a handful every day is ok even if the Iraq war was established upon fearmongering lies.
Too bad for the soldiers. They have died because of the President's lies.
Posted by: David Mathews on February 11, 2007 04:54 AMI bet he calls talk radio too, and starts his spiel by saying "I voted for Bush twice, but..."
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on February 11, 2007 09:32 AMGlobal Warming is fake - see
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1363818.ece
Somehow the loons will find a way to blame the continued snow and cold on "global warming". You can count on it.
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on February 11, 2007 09:47 AM"Too bad for the soldiers. They have died because of the President's lies."
If this is true, then why is Sandy Berger the one stealing and destroying classified documents?
Posted by: Marc on February 11, 2007 09:48 AMMaybe poodle pie and DM are insomniacs. That would explain how Dave finds so much time to do all of his ranting. I have heard that extended sleep deprivation can lead to paranoia and hallucinations ... it makes sense when you think about it.
Posted by: Peggy U on February 11, 2007 10:38 AMEuropean climate scientists have been fired from review panels on climate journals for allowing scientific articles with contrary theories being published.
We now see calls by environmental activists in government, both in Europe and here, calling for the revokation of scientific and professional accreditation for publicly questioning man cause global warming. Equating healthy scientific skepticism with holocaust-denail for crying out loud.
And DM wants academicly trained folks like me who do not buy the party line to post without anonymity? What kind of idiot does he think my mother raised?
Posted by: deadwood on February 11, 2007 11:15 AMAnd Y2K.
Posted by: Rey Smith on February 11, 2007 01:33 PMIf Kyoto goes into effect it will be a windfall for Exxon due to energy trade credits.
When big money is tied to an issue it creates automatic discreditation for practical concerns. Never works the other way.
The world's largest mining companies contribute heavily to the World Wildlife Fund. The WWF are generous towards our own Sierra Club.
Who, in turn, have sent thousands of college kids to our front door to decry how mining has ruined our environment.
The result is that our highly regulated domestic mining operations have nearly disappeared. Meanwhile our domestic consumption of mineral resources contines to rise.
The result? "Pollution costs" shifted to the third world and the value of domestic mineral resource deposits is now small enough that international mineral resource companies are able to purchase them at a penny on the euro.
Ten years from now listen to the Sierra Club Kids on your porch. They'll be telling you to bring mining back to North America where it's done "right". And that will be true, but by then the British, Canadian and Spanish mining interest will own all our mineral resources, but none of our heritage mining superfund sites.
Those are owned, along with their costs, rightfully by the descendants of those who are still enjoying the fruits of the mineral industry's many labors.
Posted by: Bart Cannon on February 11, 2007 02:24 PMI am a consultant to Rio Tinto Zinc, Broken Hill Proprietary and Groupo Mexico. The world's top three mining companies. As well as to the extended family of our last major domestic mining company, Newmont.
Posted by: Bart Cannon on February 11, 2007 02:35 PMSo when the furor over GW dissipates in 10-15 years, can we expect mea culpas from DM and friends?
Posted by: Edmonds Dan on February 11, 2007 02:45 PMHeavens no. Liberals never apologize. They spin.
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on February 11, 2007 02:54 PM> And DM wants academicly trained folks like me who do not buy the party line to post without anonymity? What kind of idiot does he think my mother raised?
I think that your mother raised a pretty big idiot, but that is besides the point. You don't need to reveal your name. Just reveal your discipline. What sort of advanced degree in science do you possess, deadwood?
> The result? "Pollution costs" shifted to the third world and the value of domestic mineral resource deposits is now small enough that international mineral resource companies are able to purchase them at a penny on the euro.
I am well aware of the crimes which are committed by mining companies throughout the Third World. It is too bad that mining companies are rewarded for their crimes against humanity.
If it were up to me, I'd put an end to all mining operations globally. Mining companies are distinctly evil in their behavior overseas.
Posted by: David Mathews on February 11, 2007 05:42 PMOr should I say "earth the David"?
Every millisecond of your modern life is made possible through the fruits of the mineral industry. YOU are their customer. YOU hire them to mine the earth. Without YOU and the rest of us consumers they would be doing something else. What is the make, model, year of your vehicle? I'll tell how big a hole was dug to extract the materials on YOUR behalf.
It's done better and cleaner here in North America than anywhere. High wages to boot.
If you have a conscience, you must demand that your metals come from domestic mineral deposts.
> Every millisecond of your modern life is made possible through the fruits of the mineral industry. YOU are their customer. YOU hire them to mine the earth. Without YOU and the rest of us consumers they would be doing something else. What is the make, model, year of your vehicle? I'll tell how big a hole was dug to extract the materials on YOUR behalf.
I am well aware of the crimes which the mining industry does on my behalf, and would much prefer that these crimes not occur. I would much rather live without than engage in any sort of oppression against the impoverished people of the world.
As to the mining industry in the U.S. of A.: I have seen these mining operations and they are thoroughly disgusting to me. Mining is a form of violence against Nature which should never occur. Mining is a crime against humanity.
Mining is a horrendous industry. I wish that our laws punished criminals. Unfortunately, our economy rewards these criminals for their crimes against nature and against humanity.