Everybody1 who reads this blog knows that I know that cherry-picked anecdotes of cold weather don't necessarily disprove anything about global warming. Of course, all such posts here are ironic commentary on earnest mainstream media reports which suggest that cherry-picked anecdotes of melting ice are proof of man-made global warming. For example, this one: "Climbers becoming reluctant witnesses to global warming"
Already, Switzerland's Matterhorn had to be closed to some climbing at times because of recent summer rockfall attributed to global warming and its Great Aletsch Glacier - Europe's largest - has retreated a couple miles from its peak of 14 miles in length in 1860.The Great Aletsch Glacier has been in constant retreat since at least 1870. Whatever. It's still America's fault!
We have mucked up the world's climate," said [mountaineer/geologist Maynard] Miller.1Except for a lone humorless liberal. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 07, 2007 05:37 PM | Email This
School choice, and actually punishing criminals, are two other subjects guaranteed to whip liberals into a frothing, spewing lather when they are mentioned here.
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on April 7, 2007 06:21 PM•••
And I see your issue, Stefan. You think that concern about global climate change leads to anti-Americanism. Ah! If I believed that, I might agree with you.
But concern about global climate change does NOT lead to any such anti-Americanism as it is a GLOBAL problem in which everyone -- rich and poor alike -- has responsibility.
Posted by: David Sucher on April 7, 2007 06:44 PMThose concerned about pollution, resource depletion and global warming are acting as responsible citizens. Future generations will inherit this mess of a planet so maybe we should avoid destroying the Earth for the sake of modern day luxuries & conveniences.
But Americans don't want to make any sort of sacrifice. I happened to see something horrendous today:
I wonder: Doesn't the owner of this vehicle notice that gasoline prices have been rising consistently over the last five years and are now approaching $2.75 a gallon.
I mentioned this to someone and they said, "If someone can afford to pay so much for an SUV they can afford to buy the gasoline." Of course it is true, but a day will come when these SUV owners will discover that there is no gasoline to buy at any price. Too bad for them.
I like what that website has to say about this dinosaur of the fading oil age:
"Ford announced earlier this week that it will lay off approximately 30,000 workers in the U.S. due it its free-falling market share. Customers are migrating toward smaller, more fuel-efficient SUVs from other makers as Ford has lavished development resources on gigantic gas-guzzlers and let its car line languish. If the Ford Edge crossover shown at the Detroit show is a step in the right direction, the long-wheelbase 2007 Expedition EL looks like a back flip off a cliff."
I don't imagine that consumers are rational, responsible animals. These people cannot possibly perceive the horrors that are approaching.
They are Americans. They feel entitled. But Nature is going to take that entitlement away.
Posted by: David Mathews on April 7, 2007 07:54 PMThe coldest period of the current interglacial or Holocene was likely the Little Ice Age, when land-based glaciers around the world achieved their maximum extensions and ice volumes. Once the planet was safely on its way to recovering from this unprecedented multi-century cold spell, however, they began to lose mass and recede. In Norway and New Zealand, "as in many other glacier regions," in the words of Chin et al. (2005), this recession was most strongly expressed in "the middle of the 20th century," which they describe as "a period of spectacular retreat as the glaciers responded to climate warming that occurred since the end of the cooler 19th century." However, as they add, "glaciers in [these] two widely separated regions have recently shown the opposite behavior towards the end of the 20th century."
Not All Glaciers Lost Mass Over the Past Quarter-Century
Posted by: JCM on April 7, 2007 07:54 PM> Libs are a humorless lot ...
How is that possible, JCM?
Haven't you watched The Daily Show, Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher?
Have you read The Onion ?
I'd say that liberals enjoy plenty of humor.
Who do the conservatives have? Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. Neither are especially pleasant nor happy.
We don't need to argue about humor. The mere existence of humorous liberals is enough. Conservatives probably don't enjoy these comedians, but that's natural.
There are more important matters that we can argue about.
Posted by: David Mathews on April 7, 2007 08:29 PMThe topic of the show was the retreat of glaciers in the Columbia Ice Fields located in the Canadian Rockies west of and about midway between Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta.
In between Suzuki's dire warnings about the consequences of global warming a glaciologist was talking about how these ice fields actually disappeared entirely about 7,000 years ago.
In valleys where thousand meter thick ice sheets now flow there were herds of caribou and elk thriving on subalpine meadow grasses. Where crags and snowfileds are today covered with liechen, forests were growing 7,000 years ago.
At the same time as this was occurring 500 miles north of where the Canadian now lies, the Palouse Hills of Eastern Washington were covered by pine forests. With few exceptions the only trees there today are cottonwoods along some of the streams and trees planted by wheat farmers to keep their homes cool in the summer.
How do we explain these facts in light of the "consensus" that UN "scientists" and evironmental politicians now assure us are the "settled" facts of anthropocentric (human-caused) CO2-driven global warming?
Will warming really result in drier conditions east of Cascades? Or will we see wetter conditions such as those that existed in earlier warm times? Will species die off, or will we see a proliferation of new life in areas where few species were hardy enough to survive?
We have historical and geological evidence galore that says that warming results in bounty, not starvation. But the alarmists would have us believe that only suffering lies in a warming future.
You can either see the world as a challenge, the facing and overcoming of which can bring great joy, or you can be like DM and see only your own failures and lament.
The choice is yours. Lets compare notes in 20 years and see who wins.
No one disputes the existence of radically different climates in the past. The existence of such tremendous variations in the climate do not serve to refute the notion that humankind's pollution and ecological destruction can and do have dangerous consequences.
If humankind is following a suicidal path the wisest decision is for everyone to make whatever sacrifices are necessary to avoid self-destruction.
Waiting twenty years is not especially wise. I suppose that humankind's ultimate fate will be settled by that time. Those who prefer survival to extinction must begin making substantial sacrifices right now.
Posted by: David Mathews on April 7, 2007 08:50 PMWhat you are doing is not even remotely funny, it is deliberately making a mockery of and deriding a very real issue.
But go ahead and keep it up as it just makes you all look like a bunch of flat-worlders, and undermines every other position you take.
Posted by: Daniel K on April 7, 2007 09:41 PMAnd you're worried about Stefan making a mockery of the subject?
He is just showing the hypocrisy in the subject.
And you're worried about Stefan making a mockery of the subject?
He is just showing the hypocrisy in the subject.
Its easy to repeat a mantra, half of humaity does it each day - some more than once. I'm not sure it has any impact though.
Posted by: deadwood on April 7, 2007 10:25 PMAnd one would have to have a clear bias and unwillingness to entertain contrary evidence to shun the arguments of so many legitimate climate scientists. Scientists that have made their life's work of understanding various aspects of earth's climate, and who have concluded that Global Warming is not caused by human action, or that if there is a human element, that it does not demand a crisis reaction. Even Al Gore specifically notes that if his most vigorous plans of action are followed, we may not be able to reverse the trends that he sees. And he's really not sure one way or the other. Of course a rational person would look at that and infer that it could easily be, that humans are not causing Global Warming to a significant degree as compared to other factors far beyond our control such as the massive expelling of gas from Mt. St. Helens and other volcanoes, or from Solar activity. And then it would be no surprise that humans cannot be expected to control what they are not causing.
But all dissent is shunned by Daniel K. It does not matter the credentials, the arguments, the science, or even the economic impact and opportunity cost of placing Global Warming before real crises that affect humans in the present such as cancer, HIV/ AIDS, continual slaughter of countless Africans by their governments, etc.
Nope, there is a religious adherence in Daniel's beliefs, so much that he won't even accept the right of others to present their points in the manner that they choose.
But just looks at what that means. Dr. William Gray says Global Warming is not causing Hurricanes, and the man has spent his life predicting hurricanes and has compiled the most impressive record of prediction of anyone in that line of work. Logically, it does not make sense that such a body of science could be summarily dismissed. Many lesser scientists, who had a vested interest in linking Hurricane activity to Global Warming, predicted that 2006 would be a continuance of the active hurricane year we saw in 2005. But those predictions were false, and Gray predicted that 2006 would be an off year.
Any serious conclusions on distant future climate are clearly far from certainty at this point. With so many qualified dissenters, there is definitely not any conclusive agreement. Yet anyone who questions that obvious fact, or even calls for a measured and practical response given the spectrum of problems confronting humanity, is immediate vilified as a heretic, or as Daniel K. prefers, a "flat worlder."
That's called ad-hominem fallacy, which means attacking the person, and not the argument, and it is an argumentative admission of defeat.
Posted by: Jeff B. on April 7, 2007 10:47 PMhttp://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4340135300469846467
Posted by: TB on April 8, 2007 12:15 AMDownload a copy, copy it to CD or DVD and repeat. Send the DVD or a link (like above) and repeat.
The more people who see this the better the planet will be in ten years.
Posted by: deadwood on April 8, 2007 01:18 AMTo those who are questioning whether climate change is a threat that we need to deal with:
Yes, the level of change we have induced in our climate change is frightening. Fear is a useful motivator. When you feel it -- or when you observe that others do -- the intelligent thing to do is not to ignore it, but to pay attention. If you find yourself denying the fear before you've checked out whether it's legitimate, you are acting contrary to your own interests. Mockery does not alter reality. Great book: The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker.
A small group of scientists argue that climate change is not very serious. The overwhelming majority say the opposite. A 2004 article by Naomi Oreskes in Science presented the results of a survey of 934 articles in the scientific literature found by searching the ISI database on the phrase "global climate change". Not one article disagreed with the scientific consensus that anthropogenic climate change is real.
This wiki article, Scientific Opinion on Climate Change lists over a dozen major scientific organizations that join the consensus that climate change is real, serious, and that humans are causing it. Only one scientific organization, The American Association of Petroleum Geologists, is listed on the other side.
Substantial brainpower, organizational energy, and money have been put into suppressing climate science.
Scientists and economists, for example, were offered $10,000 by American Enterprise Institute, an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank, to undermine the recent UN Climate Report. The Guardian.
The Union of Concerned Scientists has a summary of some of the cases of suppression of climate science by the Bush administration.
Dr. Hansen, Director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA testified to US Congress last month (pdf):
In my more than three decades in government, I have never seen anything approaching the degree to which information flow from scientists to the public has been screened and controlled as it has now.. The effect of the filtering of climate change science during the current Administration has been to make the reality of climate change less certain than the facts indicate and to reduce concern about the relation of climate change to human-made greenhouse gas emissions.The effect of leaving the public confused about the reality of human-caused climate change is to delay actions needed to put the nation and the world on an energy pathway that would preserve creation, the planet that civilization developed on. If these actions are taken early, changes can be phased in gradually with great economic benefit to the nation. Delay, on the other hand, means that changes will need to be made rapidly and thus inefficiently. Less appropriate technologies must be, in effect, �bull-dozed� before they are �worn out�, and our industry will not be ready with more appropriate technology. Early action would provide our industry a long-term competitive advantage. The most troubling impact of the political interference with climate change science is the potential burden that we leave for our children and grandchildren. One consequence is that, as indigenous people must abandon their land to rising seas or shifting climatic zones, they will be well aware of the principal source of the problem. Thus if we continue on this course, failing to effectively address climate change, we will leave a heavy moral burden, and perhaps a legal burden, for our children."
Love is not proud.
Since the early seventies it has been warming and I do believe in Global warming but NOT manmade Global Warming has caused little change, especially if Al Gore, who earned a D+ in scientist, who suggests that it is caused of CO2. Remember all breathing mammals inhale oxygen and exhale CO2. This entire argument is based on the premises that CO2 which is 97% natural in the environment is the cause. Man produces 3% of this green house gas so I say what part of the 3% can be reduce?
The EU started this controversy and has grown three times slower than the U.S and is a member of the Kyoto treaty to reduce these gases and produces much more greenhouse gases than the U.S of A.; which is a responsible good country.
This is criminal and highly irresponsible alarmist activity for profit because it can NOT be controlled by man and it will cause the poor to be even poorer while the rich buy green power and get richer by producing more expensive power with wind mills, solar power and the reduction in the industrial jobs in this country. They ALL will go to China than will NOT reduce any pollutants.
Any logically thinking person can conclude that the SUN has much more to do with the warming of the earth than CO2. What about volcanoes, the currents in the ocean?
This is snake oil by a snake oil salesman! The guy who invented the internet? One lie leads to another! Use your own god given brains and read the many books by scientist that will conclude that this is a swindle for profit by disingenuous humans. The USA give (4) four Billion dollars to scientist that would be out of work if they did not profess that man is causing global warming.
Have a Happy Easter with your family!
And regarding your prior comments about Al Gore addressing 'climate change' clear back into the 1970s, just what side did he take then - global warming? Or did he side with these guys:
"As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age." Time Magazine. July 24, 1974.
See, this is why people like me don't take you or your sky-is-falling positions seriously. You were wrong then and you're wrong now. But that doesn't stop you from calling people a bunch of flat-earthers simply because they've heard your nonsense before and aren't buying it anymore.
So, answer me these simple questions: Were the alarmists like you wrong in the 1970s and correct now? Or were you correct in the 1970s and wrong now? Or are and were you full of crap in both cases?
http://headlines.accuweather.com/news-top-headline.asp?partner=accuweather&traveler=0
Must be Global Warming caused by large amounts of CO2 produced by man?
This is entertaining!
Posted by: HW on April 8, 2007 10:36 AMLast time I checked, there was not a hybrid private 707, gulf stream, etc etc in anyone's fleet, not John's or Al's for sure.
Posted by: GS on April 8, 2007 11:00 AMLiberals have humor, but take themselves too seriously and believe they have the moral high ground - even though many of them worship idols instead of God, which is narcissitic - for instanceintentions are all that matters and accountability can be overlooked - maybe in an anarchistic society, but not here and thus many of their priorities are screwed/f'd up. Liberalism is their self-proclaimed religion to agnostic and atheistic liberals.
Both arch-liberals and arch-conservatives have problems laughing at humor that has an underlying ideology different than their own.
Posted by: KS on April 8, 2007 11:25 AM
Now I know some smarmy liberal follower of the religion of global warming will come along and tell us that a single data point isn't evidence against global wamring. Yet how many media reports have we seen that record breaking hot days as evidence of global warming?
"Dr. Hansen, Director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA testified to US Congress last month (pdf):
In my more than three decades in government, I have never seen anything approaching the degree to which information flow from scientists to the public has been screened and controlled as it has now.. "
This fellow has given over 100 interviews. He is hardly being "screened or controlled". He is just mad because his interview with NPR was turned down for scheduluing reasons. This disgruntled employee has been out for blood ever since.
Posted by: pbj on April 8, 2007 12:10 PMThe conservatives here talk about everything except science. They remind of the preacher that insisted upon denying evolution without bothering to examine such seemingly relevant subjects of biology, geology, paleontology and cosmology.
These conservatives are in danger of becoming ireelevant very soon. After the 2009 election the United States of America is going to have a completely different environmental policy.
Hopefully America can elect a President more closely acquainted with reality than George W. Bush ...
Posted by: David Mathews on April 8, 2007 12:37 PMSo what are talking about Dave? Or do you simply ignore the science that doesn't agree with your AGW dogma?
And exactly what country has a 2009 election where conservatives will become irrelvant?
Fact check Dave - neither conservatives or liberals constitute a majority in America. Elections are won or lost when the middle votes along with one or the other.
Intolerant ideologues like yourself do the democrats no favors. The only reason they now control the congress, and not by enough of a majority to make any great policy changes, is because the middle in America is tired of Iraq - not becasue they believe you and your stalinist thugs are right. Heck even the democratic party won't touch your hate filled die-Bush-die crap.
Posted by: deadwood on April 8, 2007 12:59 PMI don't have much use for libertarians, but that is mostly irrelevant. What you call "valid science observations" doesn't sound very much like science to me.
I'd much prefer to leave science to the scientists. The scientists have already spoken and this issue appears settled to the same degree that the evolution issue is settled.
I encourage everyone to read
"The problem of climate change is rooted in wealth and poverty. The rich, who created the problem of climate change by burning fossil fuels too heavily, will be spared, while many poor people, who never benefited from an industrial lifestyle anyway, will be vanquished."
It appears very much like millions of people are already suffering the impacts of climate change. Too bad these millions constitute the invisible population of impoverished which the hyperconsumers of the West cannot see.
Posted by: David Mathews on April 8, 2007 01:31 PM> Never mind the fact they can't explain why there's still monkeys and simple things like that.
What are you talking about, PC? You should state your argument in a manner that would make sense to someone else.
Yes, there are monkeys. Yes, they are related to Homo sapiens. Yes, evolution is true.
Thank God for Charles Darwin!
G Pascal Zachary is a Leftist who believes the world today begins & ends in the Silicon Valley. Sure he wrote for the WSJ....but like you, few of his musings were ever positive. Few viable solutions. Only complaining.
Now he "teaches" Journalism at Stanford.
Seems like you bash America types huddle together for safety. The world is coming to an end David. We all know that.
Posted by: Mr. Cynical on April 8, 2007 05:21 PM> I did not descend from the apes David.
Whatever you day, Ego. I am not in the habit of arguing with my own ego. Especially now that my Ego has left and gone to Seattle. That was a pretty drastic decision, Ego, but it is all for the better.
Incidentally, I finally got around to watching:
The Great Global Warming Swindle
The program contains several egregious contradictions about carbon dioxide's impact upon the environment and the "objective" climate scientists who happen to receive funding from the fossil fuels corporations.
The most astonishing statement in the film is found in the segment from 37:40 - 38:00, in which the scientists from the 1970's warned that continued greenhouse gas emissions from oil & coal consumption could raise global temperatures a degree or so within fifty years. It seems very much like that prediction is coming true.
There are a number of other problems in the film but those are the most important.
Posted by: David Mathews on April 8, 2007 06:04 PMThe World is coming to an end.
The World is coming to an end.The World is coming to an end.The World is coming to an end.The World is coming to an end.The World is coming to an end.The World is coming to an end.The World is coming to an end.The World is coming to an end.The World is coming to an end.
"scientists from the 1970's warned that continued greenhouse gas emissions from oil & coal consumption could raise global temperatures a degree or so within fifty years. It seems very much like that prediction is coming true." Good, that just gave the documentary more credibility.
I have a problem with the IPCC because a good number of scientists are connected to environmentalist funding benefit from global warming hysteria and as Michael Crichton says in his book "State of Fear" - follow the money.
Posted by: KS on April 8, 2007 08:35 PMIf the Earth was so finely tuned to support life isn't it insane for humankind to mess with that balance by pumping millions of tons of pollution into the atmosphere and destroying ecosystems and driving numerous species extinct?
I think it absurd when I hear creationists advocate destroying God's creation.
You know, God might care about the fate of the polar bears. God might take offense at the primate which is transforming the Earth into its own special sewer.
Posted by: David Mathews on April 9, 2007 04:22 AM1.Changing the composition of the atmosphere--even though its thickness relative to the earth is approximately comparable to the peel of an apple--will have no effect whatsoever. Despite what an overwhelming majority of the world's scientists say.
And
2. Fine; I evolved. You didn't.
You'll love this one. Record cold in Alaska. Otters are dying off in numbers.
Come on guys, drive them SUV's we need to save the otters.
Posted by: Army Medic/Vet on April 9, 2007 06:51 AMThe Tennessee Center for Policy Research (TCPR) recently generated headlines when it announced that former Vice President Al Gore's Nashville estate "devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours" of electricity in 2006, "more than 20 times the national average." This free-market think tank's phones lit up when it analyzed Nashville Electric Service's public records and identified an inconvenient gap between Gore's conservationism and his energy consumption. TCPR's one-page press release was greeted with enough megawatts of hatred to power the South.
"I was accused several times of being a 'stupid, redneck bitch,'" recalls TCPR's vice president Nicole Williams, who fielded numerous calls. "I repeatedly was called a 'whore' and asked 'Whose whore are you?' for three days straight, almost as if those were talking points... I was shocked by these sexist insults -- basically attacking my gender."
The calls continued beyond Williams's Nashville office.
"I had to change my home number and get an unlisted number," Williams tells me. "I got about 10 death threats by phone that made an impression on me. I got the 'I'm gonna get you'-type threats more than 100 times...I was worried that I would get shot walking to my car." Williams discovered her obsolete address posted online. "If they could find my old home address, it would not be so hard to find a current one."
Gore's defenders also spewed venomous e-mails. They sent TCPR nearly 3,000 Gore-related messages that exhibited the very bigotry the Left routinely denounces. Warning: These offensive, often-vulgar, and occasionally unschooled comments reveal the vitriol behind much of today's "progressive" rhetoric.
Many e-mails displayed Dixiephobia -- an intense disdain for the south and southerners.
You are irrelevant; GO AWAY!!!
> Fine; I evolved. You didn't.
Those familiar with evolution should know that extinction is the inevtiable fate of our species. Too bad for humankind, but a blessing for Nature.