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Thursday, October 1. 2009

"Cooling down the Cassandras"

George Will observes in Ugly Truths for the Warming Alarmists that, as global warming disappears, the alarmists become more hysterical. One quote:



The Post recently reported the theory of a University of Virginia professor emeritus who thinks that, many millennia ago, primitive agriculture -- burning forests, creating methane-emitting rice paddies, etc. -- produced enough greenhouse gases to warm the planet at least a degree. The theory is interesting. Even more interesting is the reaction to it by people such as the Columbia University professor who says it makes him "really upset" because it might encourage opponents of legislation combating global warming.



That's a contemptible admission, but a good example of where the Lefty academics are at. I think it is well-established that the whole subject has become politicized, ideological-ized, sensationalized, and governmentalized to the point that calm, rational discussion of the facts - if and when they are available - is difficult. There is too much money and power at stake in this crazy obsession.


Image is Disney's Chicken Little, in case you didn't know

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 14:47 | Comments (16) | Trackbacks (0)

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Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club has a good article on the debunking of the hockey stick hypothesis, in The Man Who Broke the Bank. When a scientist refuses for years to release data, that is never a good sign. When he finally does, and the new data shows his original hypotheses is bunk, he well deserves the scorn he reaps.

While anyone who has put up with TX summers of late could be justified in believing in AGW, when a cool day has a 95 degree high, I was generally skeptical about AGW. I recalled the scares of three- four decades ago, such as global cooling, population bomb and world famine, and universal resource exhaustion(Club of Rome). None of which came to light in the time frame predicted. Any damn fool with a computer can predict anything. GIGO, as they say.

What also put me off AGW was having utter fools like Al Gore preaching it. Al Gore, who wouldn't know an equation if it hit him upside the head.

There may be some truth to AGW, but the panic where "We've got to do something yesterday" reflects the certainty of ignoramuses.
#1 Gringo on 2009-10-01 15:28 (Reply)
I have always hoped there was some truth to AGW because we'll need it if the planet decides to start cooling again. The difference between me and the AGW chicken littles is that I embrace the idea.
#1.1 phil g on 2009-10-01 16:15 (Reply)
Howdy Gringo
At first blush, AGW had some plausibility. CO2 is a gas with some heat-retaining capability, carbon fuel use does produce CO2, and we had a warming trend of around 10-15 years coming up to 1988 and Hansen's speech on global warming. You're right that it was only around 1973 that magazines touted global cooling.
Global temperatures appear to have continued increasing until around 1998, for a rising trend of about 25 years. There are reasons to doubt that it really rose as some reported, but let it stand. The peak temperatures were only a little higher than previous periods, just as the cooler temps heralding "global cooling" were only a little off the curve anyway.
The gag is that it all got politicized so heavily, especially in the 2000 presidential race and following. By 2003 it was clear that the temperature rising trend was over. It was also clear -- had been since much earlier, in fact -- that CO2 couldn't produce the temperature changes that warmingists said it would.
Something plausible went from being worthy of investigation (which would have debunked it) to being beyond investigation, where, alas, it still sits for many. That would be okay of the warmingists didn't include our president, the Speaker, the Senate Majority Leader, the Secretary of Energy and the "science czar."
#1.2 Geoff on 2009-10-01 16:57 (Reply)
"By 2003 it was clear that the temperature rising trend was over. "

Clear as in that was the year that looking at a single data point in 1998 became popular?

The current decade is the warmest on record. The plateau cited in this piece is a claim made before it was discovered temperatures had actually increased at 10 times the rate that description related to.

You can certainly say politics, corporate interests and tax policy have warped the GW debate. But let's give plain old dishonesty the credit it deserves.
#1.2.1 Sans on 2009-10-01 19:41 (Reply)
The current decade is the warmest on record.

While this claim may have been valid after the hockey stick data was introduced, I very much doubt that you can still make that claim after the data is added that corrects for the hockey stick. Take a look at the graph in the Belmont Club link in my initial posting.

Make your claim on the complete data, not on the incomplete hockey stick data.
#1.2.1.1 Gringo on 2009-10-01 20:59 (Reply)
Personally I was under the impression the "hockey stick" data related to CO2 levels. Either way it doesn't interest me.

My post was in reply to someone stating that temperatures increased until 1988. Either a hockey stick graph or any other supports that statement or it doesn't...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png
#1.2.1.1.1 Sans on 2009-10-02 07:07 (Reply)
Personally I was under the impression the "hockey stick" data related to CO2 levels.
Had your level of intellectual curiosity impelled you to click on the link I provided , you would have seen that the "hockey stick" was related to temperature.
#1.2.1.1.1.1 Gringo on 2009-10-02 11:28 (Reply)
Serious scientists are always skeptics. Skepticism is what science is all about.
#2 The B on 2009-10-01 15:36 (Reply)
We will know that CO2 is a problem when carbonated drinks and beer are outlawed.
#3 Jp Blickenstaff on 2009-10-01 21:17 (Reply)
Al Gore may be a fool in the larger sense, but i'd bet money he no more believes his AGW manure than i do. There's so much on the net about this guy --but just for starters search [ molten metals technology ] and go from there.
#4 buddy larsen on 2009-10-02 04:03 (Reply)
Al Gore may be a fool in the larger sense, but i'd bet money he no more believes his AGW manure than i do. There's so much on the net about this guy --but just for starters search his name and add [ molten metals technology ] and go from there.
#5 buddy larsen on 2009-10-02 04:08 (Reply)
Third time's the charm! just go here --& take a looksee

http://www.bing.com/search?q=maurice+strong+al+gore&form=IE8SRC&src=IE-SearchBox
#6 buddy larsen on 2009-10-02 04:16 (Reply)
Howdy, Sans and Gringo
The "hockey stick" is in fact a reconstruction of temperatures and not CO2 measurements. The hockey stick, it turns out, is a knowing fraud from cherry-picked data. When a broader data set gets factored in, the already-questionable rise becomes a slight drop...
The AGW theory runs that human production of CO2 increases global average temperature and that positive feedbacks will cause the temperature to rise rapidly (by geological standards) to levels that disrupt the planetary ecosystem. For a period, human production of CO2 did track with increasing temperatures, thus the "smell test". It didn't last and, in fact, it hasn't been consistent across the last 150 years anyway. Thus NED: nihil est demonstradum, nothing proven.
#7 Geoff on 2009-10-02 11:54 (Reply)
As Geoff says, the 'hockey stick' graph is a measure of temperatures, not of CO2. The hockey stick graph was the fault of a overly hasty [the kindest interpretation of this giant mistake] predictive computer program which left out of its calculations entirely the 400 year period called the Medieval Warming Period, a period between 800 and 1300 A.D. When you factor out of the picture this warming period, [garbage in, garbage out as the old computer saying goes] you get the faulty statistics on which the global warming alarm is based. No one seems to have pointed out to the busy little alarmists that in 800 or 900 A.D., there were damn few factories around to belch smoke and 'pollute' the atmosphere with CO2. As a matter of fact, and the AGW people don't want you think about this, the human race prospered during this period, and new land areas were opened to human occupation.

What the warmingists want you ignore is that CO2 is not a pollutant but an essential gas which keeps our world functioning. It is a necessary fertilizer for all green things, from trees, to crops. Without it we would be living in a sandbox. And starving to death.

Another uncomfortable fact is that all life that breathes air-- you, me, cows that fart, dogs that bark -- we all are CO2 generators. We breathe in H2O and we exhale CO2. Planning on stopping that any time soon, Mr. Gore? I don't think so. Too much money still to be made from credulous suckers who are still buying into this nonsense.

Marianne
#8 Marianne Matthews on 2009-10-02 12:40 (Reply)
Hi, Marianne
We do suck in H20 as vapor, but we mostly suck in nitrogen and oxygen. We breathe out both H20 and C02, as well as the nitrogen and oxygen. Our exhalations contain about 75% of the oxygen that the atmosphere has.
You're correct that CO2 is necessary for life on the planet. Without it, we would have either no life at all or wildly different life forms. CO2 does become toxic at levels about -- 100 times where we are. Humans can't generate that kind of CO2 output. Not possible.
CO2 is not physically capable of raising temperatures much above where they are. Positive feedback is an interesting theory but there's no actual observation that supports it.
For a real laugh, consider this. Hydrogen is supposed to be "green" energy. Hydrogen use results in H20: water vapor. Water vapor is a far more effective heat-trapping element than CO2 is. So the greenies propose either a complete collapse of people's lifestyles (sure we'll sign up for 17th-century life) or a system that is actually far more likely to cause global warming than carbon use is.
#9 Geoff on 2009-10-02 13:26 (Reply)
eoff ... Thanks for the correction, so gently delivered. I don't know what happened... had a brain fart, I guess. H2O is water, of course. Oxygen is what we breathe. But I still insist that if Al Gore were sincere about reducing carbon dioxide he'd stop breathing. It's the least he could do.

My husband and I have been following this ginned up global warming controversy for ten years or more, partially through Fred Singer's newsletter. Neither of us is a scientist [obviously] but we're both writers and my husband is a naturalist. All of our plus-80-years of experience and generalized knowledge of how the world works tipped up off early on that something was hinky about the global warming thingie. Fortunately, more and more of middle America is catching on to the 'con.' But I'm afraid it's not soon enough to prevent passage of the cap & tax/tax/tax bill, which will further beggar our economy at its most fragile.

Marianne
#10 Marianne Matthews on 2009-10-02 19:43 (Reply)

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