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Special Report

All Seriousness Aside

By on 1.30.09 @ 6:07AM

Global warmists scramble to retain what’s left of their professional credibility.

It is like the Peanuts gang laughing in derision after yet another Charlie Brown gaffe. It is like the doubling-over at the double-stumble (video) during fashion week in Paris.

The cackles and guffaws now come routinely. Global warming alarmists, led by inconvenienced (because of cooling weather) Al Gore, are seeing their prophecies of doom dissolve. Now that big ice grows, big winter is bad (like last year), cold temperatures hit record levels, and global mean surface temperature has not continued upward — despite continued increases in that demonized “greenhouse” gas, carbon dioxide — the panic peddlers look like flailing jesters. 

Look at the recent responses to the self-caricature, Gore. The late nighters already found global warming (targeting both sides) to be fodder for yuks. But after the former vice president gave a repeat command performance before Congress this week, the scorn against alarmists is stronger than ever. The acerbic Dennis Miller, who said Gore probably is otherwise a good guy, called him a “doofus” because of his global warming beliefs. And during Gore’s Wednesday testimony one of those independent, go-astray-to-not-get-along Western congressmen dribbled sarcasm during his questioning:

Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) begged (Gore) to look further into the future. “What does your modeling tell you about how long we’re going to be around as a species?” he inquired.

(Gore) chuckled. “I don’t claim the expertise to answer a question like that, Senator.”

While the rest of us flick dandruff over why the timeframe of human extinction falls outside Gore’s Magic 8-Ball, even those in the mainstream media who once bowed before him now write in mockery:

The lawmakers gazed in awe at the figure before them. The Goracle had seen the future, and he had come to tell them about it. 

What the Goracle saw in the future was not good: temperature changes that “would bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fabric of life everywhere on the Earth — and this is within this century, if we don’t change.” 

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry (D-Mass.), appealed to hear more of the Goracle’s premonitions. “Share with us, if you would, sort of the immediate vision that you see in this transformative process as we move to this new economy,” he beseeched.

“Geothermal energy,” the Goracle prophesied. “This has great potential; it is not very far off.”

Those, skeptics and alarmists, were the observations of the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, about whom the Powerline blog’s Scott Johnson observed, “Milbank himself is generally a reliable indicator of mainstream liberal opinion. Is anthropogenic global warming not the crisis it’s cracked up to be?” 

Actually it’s the proponents who are cracking up as their theories crumble and the opposition strengthens. One alarmist blogger — an Al Gore camp counselor — devolved into a snit over the proliferation of skepticism produced by Internet search results. 

Causing them greater concern is the parade of their former rally monkeys marching into the skeptics’ camp. As word of the scientific skeptical mass mounts, the public appears to follow. A Rasmussen poll conducted earlier this month found that more people believe global warming is due to planetary trends instead of human activity. And a Pew Research poll determined that global warming gave respondents the chills, ranking it dead cold last (20th of 20) among policy priorities for 2009. 

Juxtaposed against Gore’s remarks to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, it’s easy to see why Milbank takes him less seriously than he used to. Here’s Al: 

• “We have arrived at a moment of decision. Our home — Earth — is in grave danger. What is at risk of being destroyed is not the planet itself, of course, but the conditions that have made it hospitable for human beings.” 

Page: 1 2  

About the Author

Paul Chesser is executive director for the American Tradition Institute and a senior fellow for the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives. The views he expresses do not necessarily reflect the views of these organizations.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (136) |

Robert Rosencrans| 1.30.09 @ 7:13AM

Al Gore is to truth as Bernie Madoff is to honesty.

Crusader| 1.30.09 @ 7:33AM

These guys can't even get the weekend forecast right half the time, but we expect them to be 100% correct about what the temp is going to be in 2099? Are you kidding me?

Monckton of Brenchley | 1.30.09 @ 7:46AM

Throughout the eight years of the Bush presidency, global temperatures have been falling at a rate equivalent to almost 2 F per century. In the four years since Al Gore's sci-fi comedy horror movie came out, temperatures have been falling at a rate equivalent to 11 F per century. If this rate of decline were to continue, we'd be in a new ice age by 2100. Furthermore, CO2 concentration growth is slower than on the lowest of the IPCC's forecasts, requiring all of its estimates of temperature change over the coming century to be halved. The scare is over. Will someone tell the classe politique? - Monckton of Brenchley

Karsten Duncan| 1.30.09 @ 7:48AM

I wonder how many of them have ever done anything as simple and useful as plant a tree?

El Wayne| 1.30.09 @ 8:03AM

Dear Monckton-I dare say ole boy...off with their heads!!!from top to bottom.

DaveinPhoenix| 1.30.09 @ 8:37AM

But it's the global warming which is causing the global cooling !!! Hahahahahahahahahahahahaa !!!

TomInLincoln| 1.30.09 @ 8:44AM

"In the four years since Al Gore's sci-fi comedy horror movie came out, temperatures have been falling at a rate equivalent to 11 F per century"
Here's a possible wagering pool--how long before Gore starts claiming he "solved" AGW with his movie? ;-)

Mimi Evans Winship| 1.30.09 @ 9:20AM

GLOBAL WARMING MALAISE

I’m afraid I’ve gone and gotten a Global Warming malaise.
I actually haven’t thought of it in days and days and days.
I guess I haven’t pondered, and I suspect I haven’t got,
The right and wrong of whether I should drive my car or not.

If I read in bed at night, shall I use a flashlight only?
If I turn the TV and radio off, won’t I get a little lonely?
I live in mortal danger, I should be full of dread.
Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi want to scramble up my head.

So I’m going to cook a thick rare steak, and invite some friends along.
We’ll probably enjoy red wine, and the night will be filled with song.
We’ll warm the globe with our laughter and the sparks from the charcoal grill
Will likely enrage and horrify each pathetic political shill.

I can’t take them seriously any more. Let them groan through their gloomy days.
Tell them to go away and let me get on with my Global Warming malaise.

Mimi Evans Winship

El Wayne| 1.30.09 @ 10:11AM

Has anyone seen the Berg video reference the gal the Goreacle beat out for the Nobel? Check it out at GoodnightIrena.wmv

Claire Solt| 1.30.09 @ 10:14AM

I just figure that CO2 in the atmosphere is in the process of going where it is going next. Earth processes seem to move and accumulate things to form concentrations suitable for mining. One thing I am pretty sure of is that there is neither more or less carbon than on the day of the big bang. There is a lot tied up in the Grand Canyon for a clue.

stmichrick| 1.30.09 @ 10:22AM

Ah, the political curiosity of the past 5 years.

It is refreshing to read the comments after every 'climate change' event that has been written about lately. Seems everyone but the political class is getting it.

Unfortunately, hubris, pride and political momentum being what it is, we will never see these fools admit their folly.

Where is 'investigative journalism' on the carbon credit industry and agenda-driven science?

George Bedway| 1.30.09 @ 10:36AM

While I'm Catholic and believe in the Virgin Birth, the Trinity and the Resurrection of the dead, I cannot stretch my credibility to believe in Global Warming. Went out to get my mail yesterday ansd slipped on the ice. A hard fact. Gore is (and was) a total fraud.

frost| 1.30.09 @ 10:42AM

Some fun/interesting comments. Good stuff. There is, however, one thing I've gotta to agree with the sanctimonious dope about -- harnessing geothermal power. 35-36 years ago I wrote a brochure for a company (when I had an ad-agency in Phoenix) involved in that business. Now, perhaps they were fly-by-night opportunists? Have no idea, but they paid their bill. Yet, what I learned in its research was that geothermal is a valid source -- I think..... Now, if we were only able to tap it - - - - might be helpful.

Choey| 1.30.09 @ 10:50AM

I certainly won't live long enough to see the next ice age but it would give me great pleasure to watch the glacier push Algore's mansion into the Gulf of Mexico.

Keith Kunzler| 1.30.09 @ 10:58AM

Here's the problem, folks: The Messiah and all the Dem. leadership are going to push through massive carbon taxes and Cap and Trade, whether or not AGW is true.
We're going to pay, big-time, for this hoax. That's not a possibility - it's a certainty.
To them, this is not a scientific question - they could care less about the science. This is a political question. Their agenda gives the federal government total control over our private lives. That's what this is about.

Doctor Right| 1.30.09 @ 11:09AM

Unable to secure his birthright in 2000, despite a popular President and a roaring economy, Gore decided that regardless of the voters, damnit, he's important!!!

By seizing upon the hysteria over global warming, Gore once again proved how utterly vacant his intellect truly is. Remember, this guy is no Einstein - he failed out of grad school not once, but twice!! Yet in his hubris, he thought he was perfectly suited to be the town-crier of "global climate change", an issue which requires a decent background in physics, chemistry, and meteorology to discuss on an intelligent level.

Gore reminds me of the typical blowhard from my college days, you know, the guy who thought that if he used big words and said it loudly and with confidence, people would overlook the fact that what he was saying was actually quite stupid. He used this technique to ill-effect in the 2000 Presidential debates, not coincidentally the first time that many people saw what a "doofus" he really is, and we all know how that worked out for him.

So now, it looks like ole Al might be getting his ox gored (no pun intended) publicly for the second time. "Global warming" is being exposed, finally, as the absolute sham that it's always been, and Gore, even with his Oscar and his Nobel Prize, looks like a real buffoon, a useful idiot for the cause.

I'm enjoying this...

Jeremiah| 1.30.09 @ 11:40AM

Fortunately, the anti-science prejudices expressed here and on the Rush Limbaugh show are not gaining popularity.

Science is indeed complicated, and I understand the impatience that wants clear, coherent explanations from it.

Unfortunately, science doesn't work that way. It can make claims about the world, but those claims are ALWAYS subject to revision in light of more evidence. That why science for the most part works: it's always revising itself.

Climate change is about as complicated a topic as science could seek to understand. And they don't understand it, entirely.

It's not like Fox News, where people are completely convinced of what they say, and bellow and shout and moan.

Sorry it couldn't be easier for you. That's just not the way the universe works.

Marc Jeric| 1.30.09 @ 11:44AM

As we all know, that extraordinary moron Al Gore first invented the Internet; then he re-invented the government. And now he is riding the globaloney warming hoax of the 1990's which followed closely the globaloney cooling scam of the 1970's. After 11 years of considerable cooling this scam renamed itself into the "climate change" flimflam; all three panics were produced by government-financed "scientists", almost all of them rejects of private enterprise. Well - whatever works for introduction of large-scale socialism, nationalization, unionization, expropriation, gulag re-education camps, "fairness doctrine", shutting up of opposition. See Internet for "Global warming petition project" and "Manhattan declaration" to read the names of 31,072 independent scientists (including 9,021 with PhD's) who state that human activities have no influence on our climate.

JJ JR| 1.30.09 @ 11:49AM

Y'all,

See the great article that was hot-linked yesterday from the Drudge Report on how ALBORE developed his school-boy crush on globaloney warming at the following URL:

http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/38609397.html

It happens to be written by the founder of the Weather Channel.

The mistake most of us realists are making countering the Globaloney Warmists is actually thinking that presenting data that counters their claims will bring them around to reality. For most of the true devotees, it won't. They are using Globaloney Warming as cover to institue their socialist, one-worlder nostrums. But, "facts are stubborn thangs."

Marc Jeric| 1.30.09 @ 11:52AM

I see where our Jeremiah had his usual outburst of left-wing angst - arguing in favor of science, of all things. I am one of those signatories of the Global Warming Petition Project, an independent scientist, retired, with the MS amd PhD degrees in Engineering from UCLA, with majors in heat & mass transfer and themodynamics. Please, Jeremiah, do not talk condenscendingly about the Fox News - now the only non-socialist source of news and commentary left in the country.

Neo| 1.30.09 @ 11:52AM

It is the height of human narcissism to believe that they can affect the Earth to the level required to make these claims credible. Rather, I see this as the next round of government pushed nonsense to fund the "make a buck quick" VC crowd which Al Gore is aligned with. Put this craze in the list with the cyclamates, Mortgage-Backed-Securities, ISO-9000, Y2K, and UFOs.

Pete the Mediocre| 1.30.09 @ 12:01PM

We're all just too ignorant to realize that what we are observing just isn't happening. Right, Jeremiah?

Dean| 1.30.09 @ 12:02PM

I'm in favor of putting Al Gore (and his private jet) in a lock box never to be heard from again.

It is unfortunate that his chicken little act and flawed science is making it more difficult to have rational, thoughtful discussions about achieving long-term energy independence while protecting our environment and our standard of living.

Dean| 1.30.09 @ 12:08PM

Jeremiah, just a question regarding your "anti-science prejudices" comment. Which scientists are we supposed to believe since there are scientists on both sides of the debate?

Dr Gregory Young| 1.30.09 @ 12:45PM

For a quick and astute summary update on where Global Warming now is scientifically, my I recommend two articles for those interested that I wrote recently for American Thinker, again pointing out the absurdity and non-scientific basis of the AGW hoax:

(1) Global Warming? Bring it On!
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/global_warming_bring_it_on.html

(2) CO2 Fairytales in Global Warming.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/01/co2_fairytales_in_global_warmi.html

Anthony| 1.30.09 @ 1:02PM

Is it asking too much of those morons in the senate to ask this even bigger moron, how does the U.S. maintain a $14B economy on Geothermal energy? Why is the obvious so lost on these fools and why can't someone in that chamber refute the idiocy that comes from this Nobel fool?

Anthony| 1.30.09 @ 1:18PM

Jeremiah, the tedious and ponderous pseudo intellectual that he is, once again lectures us on the evils of Limbaugh and reminds us simpletons of the "complexity of science", yet he and his fellow drones are the ones who worship at the feet of a divinity school flunky who sniffs from on high that the "science is settled". Nothing complicated about that, eh Jeremiah?

Jeremiah| 1.30.09 @ 1:48PM

Anthony and others --

Again, it's not so easy. You can't just say, "Well, scientists don't even agree among themselves, so I guess we can just ignore them."

Scientists do agree on some things, even as they admit that even those things are always subject to further scrutiny.

The science that tells us best how to build a passenger aircraft is good, hard science. If you get on a plane, you affirm that science with your life.

But there is NO way of knowing for sure that the scientific conclusions we've drawn that tell us why we think the plane flies instead of crashes are the correct conclusions.

We observe, we correct our assumptions, we observe again.

So. When scientists debate about climate change, whom should you believe?

First, recognize that YOU cannot know whether or not there is such a thing as climate change. You can't tell from personal experience -- "what you observe." It doesn't matter how warm or cold it is where you live. It doesn't matter how many hurricanes or tornadoes you've seen or not seen.

Climate change is measured considering a mind-boggling number of factors.

Most scientists believe that global temperatures have warmed in the last 150 years. There's solid, hard evidence that keeps getting confirmed by different studies -- even by different branches of science.

A large majority of scientists believe that human activity has some effect on this trend. Again, these scientists disagree what kind of effect human activity can have, and they all disagree with still other scientists (a very small minority) who believe there is not any effect.

What the ALL will tell you is this: there is no "hoax" or "conspiracy" or "group think" that is causing the majority of the planets scientists to conclude that human activity is having an effect on the climate.

Jeremiah| 1.30.09 @ 1:48PM

Anthony and others --

Again, it's not so easy. You can't just say, "Well, scientists don't even agree among themselves, so I guess we can just ignore them."

Scientists do agree on some things, even as they admit that even those things are always subject to further scrutiny.

The science that tells us best how to build a passenger aircraft is good, hard science. If you get on a plane, you affirm that science with your life.

But there is NO way of knowing for sure that the scientific conclusions we've drawn that tell us why we think the plane flies instead of crashes are the correct conclusions.

We observe, we correct our assumptions, we observe again.

So. When scientists debate about climate change, whom should you believe?

First, recognize that YOU cannot know whether or not there is such a thing as climate change. You can't tell from personal experience -- "what you observe." It doesn't matter how warm or cold it is where you live. It doesn't matter how many hurricanes or tornadoes you've seen or not seen.

Climate change is measured considering a mind-boggling number of factors.

Most scientists believe that global temperatures have warmed in the last 150 years. There's solid, hard evidence that keeps getting confirmed by different studies -- even by different branches of science.

A large majority of scientists believe that human activity has some effect on this trend. Again, these scientists disagree what kind of effect human activity can have, and they all disagree with still other scientists (a very small minority) who believe there is not any effect.

What the ALL will tell you is this: there is no "hoax" or "conspiracy" or "group think" that is causing the majority of the planets scientists to conclude that human activity is having an effect on the climate.

Jeremiah| 1.30.09 @ 1:59PM

Neo --

Your "human narcissism" argument about climate change is usually what we get from Rush Limbaugh.

The argument, to call it that, goes something like this:

The world is so big, so huge, so unspeakably large, that we little humans could never change something like its climate. And even if we could, God created the world, and he wouldn't let us.

Now, let's just dismiss the second half of this out of hand. God let us have a Holocaust in Europe; God let us have Love Canal; God let us do a lot of things that are bad.

Now, the first part of the argument is something for which actual information exists (in case you're interested).

The world actually is NOT that big. Human activity affects it all the time. We've changed the very nature of oceans -- the entire maritime ecology -- by contributing substances to it and fishing in it and so on. Coral reefs are vanishing throughout the Pacific as a direct result of human activity.

When I was a boy, much of the forested midwest was losing trees at astonishing rates because of acid rain.

Those trees are doing better. Why? Because God stopped making it rain acid rain? No. Because human beings changed their behavior, and now rain is cleaner and more nutritious for our nation's forests.

I could give you dozens of examples where human activity affects vast and complicated natural systems. If there were a thermonuclear war, do you think nature would just truck on, unchanged, the way God made it back in the Garden of Eden?

Come on, folks. Let's grow up.

Cuffs| 1.30.09 @ 2:14PM

Keith Kunzler has it exactly RIGHT.
Global taxes/control are in the works.
A new avenue for the re-distribution of wealth
among nations and also into the pockets of people
like Gore who do the globalists' bidding.
All this crisis mongering is for a reason. It has certainly filled Gore's pockets and many more.

Dave Lincoln| 1.30.09 @ 2:19PM

"The science that tells us best how to build a passenger aircraft is good, hard science. If you get on a plane, you affirm that science with your life."

Hey, Jerimiah, you're confusing science with engineering. (I mean real engineering, BTW, not software people). The guys who design airplanes are engineers. Yes, they use basic scientific principles, 99 % of which were discovered, way, way back.

Any airplane design that makes it to manufacturing has been tested and analyzed to the extreme. Some things can not be analyzed with confidence, so all kinds of testing is done. The testing is done in an engineering fashion, meaning that it is done in order to learn more about the underlying principles, not just to confirm a particular part or process will "work" the one time.

I feel that you know nothing about all this, but I'll tell you one more thing. It is damn hard enough just to make a small mathematical model of a real-world process that can be seen in action and tested. To model the whole world climate's changes due to man (not to mention the natural climate changes, which BTW are not known with any certainty) is not possible. Sure, scientists can have fun with it, give it a go, and report which portions of the model need work, etc. That is what scientists do. But, your average news reporter has not gotten through a science class in his life, and therefore, cannot read a whole paper with any understanding of the model, all the assumptions, and all of the caveats that the scientists will write to show this is all a work in progress.

So, we end up with an AlGore foaming at the mouth with no idea of science, engineering or clue to the massive rectal extraction process of his cranium that would be nessesary for a clear understanding of the world around him.

Write back, Jerimaiah, when you get a physics or engineering degree. Otherwise, you're dead to me. I have no leftwing poster.

Political Hack| 1.30.09 @ 2:31PM

It is now time to clean out the Acadame.

Those who have handicapped a generation of America's children by teaching Global Warming need to be fired.

NOW!!!

Terrence O'Donnell| 1.30.09 @ 2:53PM

Jeremiah, you are channeling Mr. Gore. "Most scientists believe that global temperatures have warmed in the last 150 years." Many scientists conclude that there has been a warming climate trend for longer than 150 years and put that in the context of centuries of warming and coiling trends. As Mr. Gore does, you conveniently (or inconveniently) pass over the whole of the arguments because they do not align with your hypothesis. Humans have an impact on their environment, as does any organism. To suggest, as Gore-ophiles have, that we can reverse our impact by proclamation or legislation is to assume a greater impact than has ever been demonstrated, the 'solving' of acid rain notwithstanding.

megapotamus| 1.30.09 @ 3:00PM

I don't subscribe to the "earth too big" argument. Obviously man effects the environment. Sometimes those effects are mitigated and sometimes they are compounded so AGW is far from impossible. However it IS impossible for you to have catastrophic anthropogenci global warming without global warming. And we have global cooling. Could this be a hiccup? Sure, only when we have warming events the media reaction is always to blame our cars and farting livestock. Now that we are in a ten year long (to date) cooling trend, and this is from the same data that NASAs Hansen used to terrify the world, for AGW theory to survive it must explain these events. Has any warmist even attempted to do so? On top of that, we have the nauseating figure, Al Gore, reaping millions from the global warming industry AND, not incidentally, living the life of a Persian monarch carbon-footprint-wise which will demonstrate for anyone that he, at least, does not consume his own product. In any event, McCain was at least as big a warmist as Barack. Nearly ALL candidates were. The one exception was Sarah Palin. If next year is even colder than this, what will that tell us? Anything? Beuller?

Doctor Right| 1.30.09 @ 3:00PM

Dear, Dear Jeremiah,

Nice try, young man...but "swoooooosh"! Swing and a miss!

Strike 3.

The "anti-science" attitudes you bemoan are found on your side of the debate, not ours. In fact, your side can't even countenance the idea of a debate (as dutifully stated by Al Gore on Larry King" "The debate is over...") because they (and you) know full well that a serious debate endangers your scientifically thin suppositions.

Like all good little Libs, you attempt to engage by purposefully disengaging. In other words, in a discussion on the merits of global warming, bring-up non-sequiters like FOX News and Rush Limbaugh in the vain hope of deflecting the issue, thus evading any serious scrutiny.

Since you're so versed in "science", please fulfill your promise and provide the "dozens of examples where human activity affects vast and complicated natural systems". Please!! I'm dying to see them.

And by the way, your assertion that we humans have "changed the very nature of oceans -- the entire maritime ecology..." is absolutely false...And patently absurd. Even a disaster like the Exxon Valdez oil-spill only affected the ecosystem of Prince William sound, and even then, the damage was NOT permanent. To imply that human activity has adversely and permanently altered the entire global maritime ecological structure is stupefyingly...Well, stupid...Kind of like the silly, alarmist theory of global warming.

Go back to school, young man, and demand better from your instructors.

The Deuce| 1.30.09 @ 3:25PM

Jeremiah:
Science is indeed complicated, and I understand the impatience that wants clear, coherent explanations from it.

Unfortunately, science doesn't work that way.

Gee, you'd make a great spokesperson. The AAAS should hire you right away

That why science for the most part works: it's always revising itself.

Climate change is about as complicated a topic as science could seek to understand. And they don't understand it, entirely.

So what you're trying to say is, all those people who claim that man-made global warming is an established "fact", and that all detractors are cave-dwelling "denialists", are actually full of hot air, and should be ignored, because they just don't understand how complex the matter is, and how science doesn't give such clear, easy answers. Amiright?

BD57| 1.30.09 @ 3:32PM

Jeremiah:

The very fact that "science is hard" is a huge reason for folks like you to be more humble in your pontificating about AGW.

At one time, science thought the sun circled the earth, that the application of leeches was an appropriate medical treatment, that the world was flat ...

At one time, science worried that a nuclear reaction could not be safely initiated and then shut down - or that exploding a nuclear bomb would set the atmosphere on fire, killing us all.

While there are people doing the hard work of applying science to climatology, the public debate over AGW has precious little to do with science - by & large, it's the logical fallacy of "appeals to authority" on behalf of people who think they know better & ought to be given the power to tell everyone else what to do.

Given their faith in our utter destruction unless they get their way, they have precious little interest in questioning their own assumptions. Their "science" feeds on itself - it's so manifestly "correct" that models are changed & assumptions are rigged to reinforce the faith, not to test it.

All the while they smear those who disagree as tools of the oil companies, etc. ... funny no one ever mentions that their paycheck comes (at least in part) from grants, etc. from sources whose goal is likewise to confirm, not test, AGW theory (go against the grain, lose your job .... but there's no incentive to stack the deck on the "pro-AGW" side, is there?).

AGW science is either right or it's wrong. In a bygone era, you tested a theory by trying to shoot it down - if it kept being the only rational explanation for the phenomenon, it had to be true.

Not with AGW.

Jeremiah| 1.30.09 @ 4:11PM

It's not that I don't respect you all for trying, but many have stepped onto the field here, but none have landed a hit.

1. There is an unfortunate difference between scientific conclusions and the language used to convey those conclusions to the public. We hear "fact" and are confused when we learn that basically scientists are carrying on as they always have, testing hypotheses.

2. Governments often have to act based on scientific knowledge. Unfortunately, science NEVER can affirm that knowledge perfect. When a large group of scientists repeatedly arrives at the same conclusions over a number of years, it often becomes reasonable to apply their knowledge to policy. We can't be SURE, but sooner or later we are sometimes forced to act.

3. DR RIGHT -- I'm sorry, but your comments are just nonsense. The idea that the oceans are in great shape is beyond foolish. You'd have to have deliberately avoided exposing yourself to any information about the topic for the past 30 years to believe as you do. Furthermore, your skepticism about whether human activity can affect large natural systems is not shared even by the other people here who are attacking my point of view. That's because it's just plain silly and completely in opposition with so much evidence I'd scarcely no where to begin. Have you ever heard of acid rain, for example?

Jeremiah| 1.30.09 @ 4:14PM

Error: "I'd scarcely KNOW where to begin"

We're always revising.

Jeremiah| 1.30.09 @ 4:16PM

One thing you might do is listen to "Science Friday" today. (This is Friday's edition of Talk of the Nation, on NPR.)

There's an excellent segment on scientific reasoning and how it works that might help some of you learn more about how scientists arrive at their conclusions.

Rush Limbaugh isn't helping you, believe me. You need to read or hear more scientists discuss these things.

Anthony| 1.30.09 @ 4:27PM

Oh Jeremiah, this is getting tedious. We conservatives, on days that are hotter or colder than "normal", do not go around caterwauling about AGW as the cause. We leave that to the Left and it media mouthpieces. Conservatives, being rationale people, recognize the difference between climate change and weather. The former is usually measured in decades, the latter, in years. Earth's climate has always been changing. Where I sit now, has been over many millions of years, covered by a shallow inland sea, or, hundreds of feet of glacial ice, and many permutations in between, and nary an SUV or a smoke stack have helped to bring this all about. Simply put, earth has shifted between 2 basic climate patterns, ice ages and interglacial periods, or warming periods. For the past 10,000 years we've been in an interglacial period. Not suprising, the sun is a major factor in both. CO2 , another favorite boogyman of the left, is a trace element that can't possibly be the culprit behind massive G.W. Look J., you either want to know the truth or you can continue to be fooled by demagogues, like Algore & NASA's Jim Hansen, in order to aide in their socialistic charade to reduce standards of living, except of course for the ultra-rich, like Gore & friends. As for me, well, I'm taking the lead of my president, so starting tonight, the thermostat is going up to 78 and will remain there until Monday. Afterall, as the left keeps telling us these days, we need to unite cause we're all in this together; so who am I to argue with Mr. Obama, hell, I like orchids as well as the next guy.

gregorbo| 1.30.09 @ 4:29PM

One of the problems with the AGW "debate" is that it has been conducted in an unscientific way--as this blog entry spells out quite nicely. We ought to be extraordinarily skeptical about AGW--because skepticism makes for good science.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/anthropogenic-global-warming-the-greatest-fraud-in-history/

Dustoff| 1.30.09 @ 4:55PM

Jeremiah:
Wow where should I start first. Ok so you eco-freaks say the world is warming yet your guys are using modeling computers that have never been right. They set these machines for the worse case. The data is made up. Anyone can program a computer to kick out what ever you want. You just have to set it up that way. Which guess what the modeling computers do. We have been seeing colder & colder temps all over the world in the last few years, yet you guys saying warming.
Jezzzz.

nur07| 1.30.09 @ 5:01PM

The climate has been warming (or cooling as seems to be the case in the last ten years) depending on what model/data scientists use and who is using them. Many tend to be faulty, missing data and very limited (and often wrong) in what they can predict. Not to mention the bias views of those concocting these models. Some have already clearly been proven false (Mann's Hockey Stick comes to mind).

There are dozens of studies out there by various sources that contradict claims that CO2 remains in the atmosphere long-term (3-12 years), not to mention the oceans near limitless ability to absorb CO2. Humans cannot produce enough fast enough to do what some claim is being done (those who more often than not are after federal funding or already have biased views).

There are hundreds of scientists that have disagreed for years with Gore's version, and yet we are being forced to adopt regulations and policies designed to make some people very rich and the poor poorer still while crippling industry and tying the hands of commerce? Not to mention gaining control over the populations?

I'm not too stupid to understand a scam when I see it.

I can name half a dozen other such scams that have been attempted over the last 50 years that predicted the end of the world as we know it that were ultimately proven false. Ones that had an agenda and were not above using fear and panic to get their way (or money).

This is no different.

Yeah, no thanks.

The Deuce| 1.30.09 @ 5:02PM

I love it.

When AGW is increasingly attacked, as the case for it unravels, Jeremiah tries to deflect criticism of the previously over-confident doom-sayers with a "Science is vague and ever-revising, and doesn't give clear answers". Presumably this is supposed to make us forget that many scientists and journalists gave us answers that they *presented* as clear, so that we won't conclude that they are full of it now that we can see that those answers were false.

On the other hand, when he wants to argue on behalf of the AGW charade, he hits us with "Scientists know that AGW is an absolute fact, and you shouldn't question them, because they know everything and you don't, and you'd realize how right I am if only you were a sophisticated person who listened to more NPR like me."

So now he's stuck trying to argue both contradictory positions at once: that AGW is a certain threat which we must trash our economy to prevent RIGHT NOW, and that science is vague and doesn't give any clear answers.

Careful with all that talking out of both sides of your mouth, Jeremiah. You'll bite your tongue.

Widget| 1.30.09 @ 5:06PM

Gore may be a total fraud but he and his (decreasing by the day) group of idiots have grown fat on the proceeds of the companies into which they have invested while he runs around the world like Chicken Little. Why doesn't someone ask him the percentage of the companies that he owns, the ones he it touting all of us to invest in so that they can reap the profits?

The Deuce| 1.30.09 @ 5:39PM

"Gore may be a total fraud but he and his (decreasing by the day) group of idiots have grown fat on the proceeds of the companies into which they have invested..."

Actually, I think he grew fat on all the donuts he stuffed in his face, but point taken.

Chemman| 1.30.09 @ 8:09PM

Jeremiah, what is your degree in. If its not in a science do us the favor of not lecturing many of us science majors on how science works. I have taught fundamental principles of Science for many years and that is why I am a AGW skeptic. The pro-AGW side rely mainly on computer models of their hypothesis which have not proven their predictive value, a basic tenet of writing a hypothesis. As to my degree(s) Microbiology/Chemistry and Project Engineering. BTW I am also a skeptic because most AGW supporters won't practice what they preach and get off the Carbon bandwagon by converting to solar, wind or geothermal energy to power their homes and lives. Something I have done on my ranch in north eastern Arizona.

Jeremiah| 1.30.09 @ 8:10PM

Actually, "Deuce," I made myself perfectly clear:

A vast majority of scientists from around the world believe that human activity is PROBABLY contributing to climate change.

That "probably" is a big word, and it's about as good as science can get.

I know you wish that we could just believe that 5,000 years ago God made the heavens and the earth, and set up Adam and Eve in the garden, and that was that. I'm sorry I can't help you out.

There is huge disagreement about the nature of human impact on climate change; about the consequences of climate change; and about the ability of human societies to alter their behavior; and even whether that alteration is worth the trouble.

All of these things -- and more -- are certainly up for debate.

But just because some jackass from Oklahoma gets himself elected to the Senate and doubts whether God would allow global warming to occur, and just because Rush Limbaugh says the world is just too big for us to have any effect on it, doesn't mean that thousands of scientific tests and studies are suddenly to be considered wrong.

Jeremiah| 1.30.09 @ 8:15PM

Chemman --

To say you are a "skeptic" doesn't lend special credibility to your claims. Science is by nature skeptical. That's the whole point. There's only faith-based science on these reactionary fringes of the blogosphere and in the Republican party.

Nick| 1.30.09 @ 8:51PM

Jermiah,

Did you really write: "That 'probably' is a big word, and IT'S ABOUT AS GOOD AS SCIENCE CAN GET." (Emphasis mine)

Like two plus two is PROBABLY four.
Or the earth PROBABLY orbits the sun.

SCIENCE is about replicable data and results.

You are an Useful Idiot spoon fed propaganda by algore.
And it was 6000 years ago, Einstein.

Jeremiah| 1.30.09 @ 9:04PM

Actually, Nick, the notion that the earth probably orbits the sun is a pretty good bet.

(2 +2 = 4 is NOT a scientific principle.)

Still, saying that the earth around the sun is a claim that has been verified by repeated observation that was not always possible.

Subsequent observation and observation technology might reveal something new. Science is an open prospect. It doesn't stop, Einstein.

But nice try, anyway.

Jeremiah| 1.30.09 @ 11:27PM

I apologize to everybody here. I'm a fake, a moron, a traitor and a crook. I'm a liberal. You're free to kill me.
What am I doing on a conservative blog?

Nick| 1.30.09 @ 11:37PM

Jeremiah,

Actually, the earth orbiting the sun is a FACT, brainiac. Mathematics was the first science, mental midget.

Who can argue against such colossal ignorance?

Osamas Pajamas | 1.30.09 @ 11:50PM

Please note that some of the environmentalist mountebanks and loontoons have begun to refer to "man-made climate change" rather than "man-made global warming." Those slippery devils have egg on their faces and now they have to weasel their way from specific "warming" to non-specific "change." Change is bad, they hope.

HotPat| 1.31.09 @ 12:28AM

Wait until that Alaskan volcano erupts with massive amounts of ash, carbon, carbon dioxide, sulphur, and all the other crap and fouls up the atmosphere blocking the amount of sunlight that hits the surface of the earth! That will engender GLOBAL COOLING. Who's gonna' get blamed for that? BTW

BOOJUM MAN| 1.31.09 @ 1:26AM

i'm doing everything i can to correct the problem. since increasing co2 level will warm up the earth (i know this because i trust and believe in al gore), i bought my wife an suv so that we have 2 in our household. i have a gas fired heater in my greenhouse that has often been running 24/7 over the past 60 days, with temps as low as -27 (not wind chill) recently. i've even tried to exhale more than inhale--- anything to boost the level of co2, but all to no avail. the average temp for the past 30 days was 3 degrees colder than the same period last year. the same was true for each of the last 5 years.
i think this problem may have been caused by my neighbor, who 5 years ago put out a sign on his lawn that read S T O P G L O B A L W A R M I N G ! !!
puhleeze--- we need to START gobal warming

Bob R| 1.31.09 @ 2:11AM

As a geologist you have to know a lot of other sciences to understand the many processes that affect our small and very wet planet Earth. When the Kyoto Protocols appeared over 10 years ago it was like experiencing a nightmare. The demonizing of CO2 which I knew to be a vital necessity in our air for the growth of plants struck a very sour note. I started researching ancient climates and found, as expected, no evidence of extreme warming, even with CO2 levels as much as 20 times our present level of 390 ppm! Wow!
Hair in the biscuits (to quote an old friend). I have looked into the basic climate science over the past 10 years and there is plenty of other evidence against the very idea of AGW. If our Government persists with "cap & trade taxation or other expensive means of coping with a non-
problem, I believe fraud can be proven if push comes to shove. (A signer of 30,000+ scientists
petitionproject.org)

GreginOkinawa| 1.31.09 @ 7:41AM

Jeremiah said "...One thing you might do is listen to "Science Friday" today. (This is Friday's edition of Talk of the Nation, on NPR.) ..."

Ah, he listens to NPR...now that exlains his biases doesn't it.

Reads1| 1.31.09 @ 8:12AM

At least we now know where Jeremiah gets his 'learned information.' From NPR, that hotbed of Taxpayer sponsered 'Truth.' NOT!

The Deuce| 1.31.09 @ 9:59AM

That "probably" is a big word, and it's about as good as science can get.

Um, no dumbass, since can quite often tell us things to a great degree of certainty. Gravity, special relativity, the 2nd law of thermodynamics, the molecular structure of water, etc. All these things are *far* more certain than AGW. Scientists can often make accurate predictions with them to an incredible degree of precision.

Not so with global warming. For one thing, it exists only in theory and in models. There is no empirical confirmation of it, since average world temperatures have been dropping for several years. When it comes to accurate predictions, the AGW model is a complete failure. You are using the word "probably" to equivocate between the mush "soft science" that is AGW and the facts discovered by actual, empirical, predictive science.

I know you wish that we could just believe that 5,000 years ago God made the heavens and the earth, and set up Adam and Eve in the garden, and that was that. I'm sorry I can't help you out.

I can only assume that you divined that I was a creationist using the same power of intuition by which you divined that AGW is such an established fact that we must rearrange the world economy, since I am not.

The Deuce| 1.31.09 @ 10:03AM

By the way, Jeremiah, put this in your pipe and smoke it, courtesy of the Pew Research Center:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/magazine/06Limbaugh-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=6

"Limbaugh’s audience is often underestimated by critics who don’t listen to the show (only 3 percent of his audience identify themselves as “liberal,” according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People and the Press). Recently, Pew reported that, on a series of “news knowledge questions,” Limbaugh’s “Dittoheads” — the defiantly self-mocking term for his faithful, supposedly brainwashed, audience — scored higher than NPR listeners. The study found that “readers of newsmagazines, political magazines and business magazines, listeners of Rush Limbaugh and NPR and viewers of the Daily Show and C-SPAN are also much more likely than the average person to have a college degree.”"

Bill Wadford| 1.31.09 @ 10:08AM

Watch out for the EPA. This is where the legislated energy rationing, economic strangulation and loss of personal liberty will come from. The Greenshirt leadership, Holdren, Jackson,Salazar, Sachs, Sunstien and Browner are either radical zealots, Malthusian idiots or card carrying socialists

Jeremiah| 1.31.09 @ 11:36AM

Nick --

Scientific knowledge is derived from observation alone.

Mathematics are NOT derived by means of observation. There is nothing in nature that you could observe that could be evidence that 2+2=4. Science uses mathematics, but mathematics is not really science.

We can now observe phenemona that suggest the earth revolves around the sun so readily that it does have the appearance of "fact."

Nevertheless, science still provides for the possibility the subsequent observation will alter our understanding of the relationship between the earth and the sun. (Since you bring up Einstein, I might point out that his theories radically changed how scientists understand Newtonian space, so that when vast distances or speeds are being measured, things start behaving in very strange, counter-intuitive ways.)

NPR's "Science Friday" is not a p0litical show. They interview SCIENTISTS about scientific topics. I know that seems like an odd thing to do to you Limbaugh drones, but that is actually the best way to learn about science.

Jeremiah| 1.31.09 @ 11:41AM

THEORY. A scientific "theory" is not the same thing as a "theory" as we use the word in every day life. It's not really a "guess" or a starting point (that's called a hypothesis). A theory is what you wind up with.

So, when people say "theory of evolution," they're talking about a HIGH degree of scientific certainty.

GreginOkinawa| 1.31.09 @ 12:15PM

Jeremiah, Uh, if the show is on NPR, it IS political, that's why it ison NPR. It's disgusting that you can't actually tell otherwise.

Jeremiah| 1.31.09 @ 12:26PM

Greg --

That's ridiculous. Have you ever listened to it?

I know the massive amount of news sources and available information creates anxiety in you. How, you wonder, could you ever get a handle on it.

But the solution of reactionaries, to simply discount most sources of information as "biased" or given over to some kind of political conspiracy, traps them in an echo box that has a difficult time getting new information.

You should calm down. Not all information is biased; not all "liberally biased" news organizations are so biased they distort all information; not all information lends itself easily to ideological distortion; and, it wouldn't kill you to be exposed to political opinions other than the ones you already hold.

If you're capable of critical thinking and judgment, there shouldn't be any problem.

Karbon Kenny| 1.31.09 @ 1:15PM

Don't take this global warming thing so seriously. Go get some a *free* carbon offset certificate. You will smile.

http://www.freecarbonoffsets.com

+

Nick| 1.31.09 @ 1:19PM

Jeremiah,

"There is nothing in nature that you could observe that could be evidence that 2+2=4."
You mean like if I "observed" two rocks on the ground and "observed" two more rocks, then computed there were four rocks? Are you really this obtuse? Geometry, calculus, trigonometry are not science, professor?

"We can now observe phenemona ..." It's not phenomena, it is what is actually happening! The only phenomena is how you can operate a computer in your padded cell.

john| 1.31.09 @ 1:32PM

In god we trust.
Everyone else - bring data.
This is how science works- genuflection at the hem of the gorebuddha's robe is not evidence.

Interested Conservative| 1.31.09 @ 2:32PM

Well - what a string of comments.

Did the Soviets ever politicize the weather like we have? Perhaps I should check KCNA for the latest reports.

As for "global wamring"/"climate change", and the science behind it, I think I speak for millions who are all for it. Scarcely 10,000 years ago, a mere blip in the historic record, according to almost universally accepted scientific proof (available to most anyone with a mind and a garden trowel) the residences of these millions were under hundreds, if not thousands, of feet of ice and snow.

Of course, it's better known as the great Wisconsonian glacial age, without which the upper midwest would not exist as we know it.

I like living here - so let's keep the heat on, relatively and thoeretically speaking.

Jeremiah| 1.31.09 @ 2:45PM

Nick --

I'm not a philosopher or historian of science, so I cannot give you a clear sense of the relationship between mathematics and science.

However, I can tell you that mathematics is independent of science. Science uses mathematics to understand relationships observed in nature, but mathematics is NOT science.

You can know the sum or 2 and 2 without scientific observation. You cannot have scientific knowledge without observation.

Mathematics is a description of mathematical relationships. It is, quite literally, all in our heads.

Science seeks to understand nature. Science is essentially a "discourse" -- a specialized use of language - used to describe our observations of nature.

Jeremiah| 1.31.09 @ 2:49PM

Interested --

Unfortunately, it is difficult to know the consequences of global warming.

It's difficult to predict if they will be good for us, or bad; if they will make the temperate zone warmer, or cooler; if things will radically change, or change not much at all.

The difference between the skepticism scientists have and the skepticism expressed on this thread, however, is vast, and most scientists now believe that the risk posed by climate change outweigh the cost of reducing carbon emissions.

Wayne| 1.31.09 @ 3:11PM

Jeremiah! Now think! You wrote the following:

Most scientists believe that global temperatures have warmed in the last 150 years. There's solid, hard evidence that keeps getting confirmed by different studies -- even by different branches of science.

Jeremiah, the little ice age ended in the 1840's> This was a period of extremely cold weather including the year without summer in the 1830's. The Little Ice Age ends and we begin measuring temperatures and temperatures begin to rise. Of course temperatures rose, but that does not mean it is man's fault or the result of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Al Gor'e charts show that both Carbon dioxide and temperatures have risen and fallen consistently over the last 400,000 years. What caused these fluctuations?Global climate change(the diaster previously known as global warming)is simply a scheme for Al Gore and the companies he represents to make billions of dollars of money. If he was so worried about this why has he not changed his lifestyle?
Your condescending remarks about fundamentalist beliefs(Creationism) and Rush Limbaugh listeners does nothing to enhance your arguements. Not everyone who does not buy your junk science is a fundamentalist Christian or Rush Ditto Head. It seems your only defense is to disparage others.

Anthony| 1.31.09 @ 3:17PM

Good God!! 28+ hours later and Jeremiah is still at it!! Give it a rest J, and get a damn life. Find a girl friend, go to a movie, read a book, but shut off you damn computer, it's frying what's left of your pea brain. You're not convincing anyone at this web site with your sophomoric logic so give it up Sisyphus.

Jeremiah| 1.31.09 @ 3:22PM

Wayne --

You're absolutely right, of course. The rise in global temperatures over the last 150 years could not possibly be entirely because of human activity, and we know that temps. cycle up and down over time.

I think what provokes such concern is that the spike in temperatures in recent decades has not followed the pattern during the previous hundred (or so) years. The speed of the increase is believed at least in part to be caused by human activity.

I didn't say any of this was cut and dry. My whole point has been it's a damn difficult set of data to get ahold of and interpret. But that should not cause us to throw up our hands and only listen to the occasional group of 7 or 8 scientists who publish a study finding something we'd prefer to believe.

Jeremiah| 1.31.09 @ 3:30PM

Unless you believe that the global scientific community is a political conspiracy or a kind of club designed to perpetrate hoaxes, you have to accept that "scientific opinion" generally supports the notion that human activity is affecting climate change.

It's just that simple. A few years ago a study of climate studies was done and found that out of thousands of climate studies NONE had concluded otherwise.

The usual response to this is that of course, scientists are a bunch of liberal socialists who don't want you to drive cars.

Well, this is absurd. Scientists COULD of course be wrong about all this. That's the nature of science.

But it is simply UNTRUE that there are large numbers of climate change skeptics among those scientists who study climate; and it is untrue that a "consensus" opinion is actually the result of political conspiracy. The idea is just stupid.

And before you all write in repeating Rush Limbaugh's obsession with the impossibility of scientific "consensus," let me point out that I am not using this word in its parliamentary sense, but rather in the looser sense of "general" or "majority" opinion, which in the sphere of public policy almost always carries some probative weight.

Grameri| 1.31.09 @ 3:42PM

Jeremiah,

Put your thumb in your mouth and tug on your ear.
The time for your nap, I feel certain, is near.

Nick| 1.31.09 @ 4:02PM

Jeremiah...Jeremiah...Jeremiah,

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

I'm glad to see you dropped the "...phenemona that suggest the earth revolves around the sun..." nonsense. That was really lame.

Now, FROM THE FISRT DEFINITION OF "SCIENCE" ON DICTIONARY.COM:
"1. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the MATHEMATICAL sciences." (emphasis mine)

Please stop Jeremiah, this is like when Paul Newman wouldn't stay down while fighting George Kennedy in "Cool Hand Luke".

Nick| 1.31.09 @ 4:13PM

I should have given credit to the Random House Dictionary for that quote. Sorry.

Jeremiah| 1.31.09 @ 5:00PM

Nick --

The certainty that 2+2=4 is NOT the same as our certainty that the earth revolves around the sun.

The insights of science are based upon empirical observation; not so with mathematics.

Of course the two are intimately related, but we started off talking about the relative certainties afforded by each.

Nick| 1.31.09 @ 5:20PM

Jeremiah wrote:
"...but mathematics is NOT science."

See everybody, Jeremiah knows more than a dictionary!

Nick| 1.31.09 @ 5:32PM

Jeremiah,

"The certainty that 2+2=4 is NOT the same as our certainty that the earth revolves around the sun."

Would you care to explain how our spacecraft arrive at the planets if we don't know for certain the earth orbits the sun, genius?

Jeremiah| 1.31.09 @ 6:20PM

For the love of Christ, I give up.

Have your way. Mathematics and science are the same.

2+2=4. Therefore, the tens of thousands of scientists around the world who believe human activity may be contributing to climate change are wrong.

Not only are they wrong, they are evildoers.

They are socialists, and communists, and they see their country as so imperfect, that they pal around with terrorists.

See? You win.

Nick| 1.31.09 @ 6:26PM

How appropriate is it that Jeremiah is posting his inanities in a thread entitled "All Serious Aside"?

Maybe he is algore.

Nick| 1.31.09 @ 6:27PM

"All Seriousness Aside" WHOOPS!

Bob R| 1.31.09 @ 9:05PM

Interested Conservative, you are right on. We are barely out of the latest Ice Age. During the last 12,000 years we have been been recovering from the latest of several preceeding Ice Ages that began only 1.75 million years ago. Rather than just calling it an interglacial and make everyone nervous (my thought), it was named the Holocene. Now the Holocene has exhibited normal weather having gone thru several warm spells, interspersed with cold spells. each of several hundred years duration. Since 1850 it has warmed up by fits and starts in normal fashion. The actual warm-up between 1900 and 2000 is only about 1 degree F. This slight warming has been hyped out of sight by the AGW crew of climate modelers into the "greatest warming on record and in great danger of becoming uncontrollable and endangering all life on earth. This may well be the mother of all lies and a disgrace to all scientists espousing this absurd point of view. Of coure they have been well paid by research grants for their futile modeling which makes their claims even more venal. The last straw is the fact that we have been in a slight cooling trend since 1989. So, Interested Conservative, I think your last sentence is right on the money.

Ben Dover N Grabim| 1.31.09 @ 11:23PM

When Al speaks, his speech and mannerisms are those of an exasperated parent trying to toilet train a misbehaving toddler. He's a pompous ass who has tied up his reputation to global warming, and stands to make a fortune in the carbon credit scams if he can convince various governments to fall in line. The governments on the other hand, stand to make a fortune selling and taxing these credits, not to mention the CONTROL that they will assume over citizens and the economy.

Bill Schumdlap| 1.31.09 @ 11:29PM

Re Bob R: The History Channel has had a facinating program on the Little Ice Age that took place between the 1300's and 1800's. Not to mention the weather changes that take place for years after volcanic eruptions. Perhaps if the globe gets too warm, we can erupt a volcano to cool things down a bit. Check out the Little Ice Age to get an idea of what will happen if the Earth cools as these GW nuts want. Hey Al, what is the proper temperature of the Earth?

Russell Seitz| 2.1.09 @ 3:37AM

Al may be playing the holy fool as he consolidates his carbon trading portfolio, but that's no excuse for AmSpec to persevere in outdoing him in the Weird Science department.

In 2008, Peter Doran, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at the university of Chicago contacted 10,200 scientists listed in
the 2007 edition of the American Geological Institute's Directory of Geoscience Departments . 3,146 responded to these two questions:
"Have mean global temperatures risen compared to
pre-1800s levels?"
and
"Has human activity been a significant factor in changing
mean global temperatures?"

In the current issue of the American Geophysical Union journal, Eos , he and coauthor Maggie Kendall Zimmerman report 90 percent believe
global warming is real, and 82 percent agree that human activity been a significant factor in the rising global temperature trend: " climatologists who are active in research showed the strongest
consensus on the causes of global warming, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role

". The biggest doubters were petroleum geologists
(47 percent) and meteorologists (64 percent). A recent poll suggests that 58 percent of Americans believe that human activity contributes
to climate change.

"The petroleum geologist response is not too surprising, but the meteorologists' is very interesting," said Zimmerman "Most members of
the public think meteorologists know climate, but most of them actually study very short-term phenomenon."

Doran said the 97% majority among climatologists does not surprise
him : "They're the ones who study and publish on climate science. So I guess the take-home message is, the more you know about the field of
climate science, the more you're likely to believe in global warming and humankind's contribution to it."
The remaining challenge, the authors conclude , "is how to effectively communicate this to policy makers and to a public that continues to
mistakenly perceive debate among scientists … the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes."

[Full disclosure - I'm an AGU member, and published an article in Eos last year myself , but then again , I began hammering Al for his rhetorical excess in the climate wars in National Review and The National Interest a quarter of a century ago.]

Trackback| 2.1.09 @ 8:21AM

The American Spectator : All Seriousness Aside, on article, links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

Bookmarked your post over at Blog Bookmarker.com!

Wes H| 2.1.09 @ 2:18PM

As one post noted "facts are stubborn things",
why no mention of actual data that puts the lie to the warming Antarctic claims? Vostock station has been reporting temperatures for over 50 years (since 1957). The only real trend is that it is still very cold down there. Mean temperatures have barely moved. Check out Icecap.us to see some interesting reports of "real" science and not the fictional computer models. I find it interesting that the AGW crowd completely ignores just how warm it had to have been to raise crops on Greenland. That is simply beyond possibility today. I don't claim to be an expert but the past does help to foretell the future. When Greenland becomes warm eough to farm, then maybe I'll give a rip. Right now I'll continue to freeze in Montana -I would appreciate some GW right about now. Oh wait, the science has been settled, evil humans are wrecking the planet and must live in poverty to save mother earth.

Russell Seitz| 2.1.09 @ 5:51PM

Wes H.

The ever skeptical Economist reported on Greenland's last successful harvest last year - not just iceberg lettuce either- they turned some of the 2007 barley into beer .

Bob R| 2.1.09 @ 11:12PM

Dr. Russel Seitz, I recognize as a member of note in the AGW controversy. I am an old fossilized product of the great U of Chicago Geology Dept. of the 1930's who's career was mainly in mining and exploration. However, I've read a bit of the basic climate science papers since the infamous Kyoto Protocols and my knowledge of paleo climates triggered instant alarm re the simplistic AGW hypothesis. I am sure you are familiar with the Brothers Robinson & Willie Soon's review paper "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide."I was particularly impressed with four graphs showing the dramatic increase in world hydrocarbon consumption starting around 1950. Fig.2 shows no change in the rate of glacier shortening, Fig. 4 shows solar irradience correlation with arctic air temperature while hydrocarbon use does not. Fig. 11 shows hydrocarbon use has little effect on rate of sea level rise and. the same holds true for glacier shortening in Fig. 12. Since these graphs do not originate with the IPCC, I trust that they support the view that human caused increase of Carbon Dioxide has very little to do with global temperature variations.

Gary McMillian| 2.1.09 @ 11:37PM

Holding a Ph.D. in Atomic and Molecular Physics, I can say with great confidence that further increases in the concentration of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere will PROBABLY have little effect on the Earth's climate or average temperature. Furthermore, the positive feedback mechanisms required by all climate models to induce significant temperature increases are unproven experimentally and will sooner or later PROBABLY be proven completely inaccurate. Therefore, this scientist believes AGW to be a complete fraud.

Russell Seitz| 2.2.09 @ 11:22AM

Bob R
I suggest you dig deeper into the much maligned IPCC report before accepting the tenor of the paper you cite, one which , I'm afraid , would raise eyebrows on the Vancouver exchange .

One can't have too many umpire assays, and it is erstwhile skeptics conspicuous failure to reply forthrightly to the substance of the peer reviewed geophysical literature that both marginalizes their enterprise and lends undue credence to Gore & Co.'s

Kenneth Artz| 2.2.09 @ 3:04PM

What is the tipping point for these global cooling deniers?

davod| 2.2.09 @ 5:33PM

Jerramiah was probable ecstatic at the recently released report in the Nature Magazine showing that the Antarctica is warming.

Unfortunately, some of the experts previously on board with AGW are sceptical "In a carefully planned coup, they then spread their tidings of joy to the believers through their media groupies in the BBC and elsewhere. The news had Newsweek's Sharon Begley, whooping with joy, crowing that this would really be one in the eye for the "deniers" and "contrarians".

The study, however, from a team led by Professor Eric Steig, immediately began to attract a good deal of attention from real experts. They quickly found that the conclusions had been produced by yet another a computer model. This one relied on combining the satellite evidence since 1979 with temperature readings from surface weather stations.

The problem the Steigists were confronting was the irritating shortage of weather stations in Antarctica. But, with their magic computer, using an equally mysterious formula, they have conjured up "estimates" to fill in the blanks left by the missing stations. By this magical, mystery process they have managed to show that, if there had been ground stations present, they would have shown that the continent was warming and not cooling – thereby completely contradicting the real data produced by satellite.

Even then, they are struggling, their alchemy stopping short of producing huge leaps. All they have managed to do is come up with a 50-years increase of just one degree Fahrenheit, smaller than the margin of error which they allocate to their own work.

But, while they have been able to rely on their media groupies to lap it up, they have not been able to convince their own. One of the first to express astonishment was Dr Kenneth Trenberth, a senior scientist with the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and a convinced believer. He wryly observed "it is hard to make data where none exists".

BOOJUM MAN| 2.2.09 @ 7:15PM

what did the climate models predict about global temps from 1998 2008?.. co2 levels go up dramatically, temps should be frying us. could it be that that original premise is wrong? just sayin'

Robert Clitherow| 2.3.09 @ 2:48AM

I wish you unbelievers would stop! Your killing my carbon credit business!

IndyJohn| 2.3.09 @ 10:45AM

The Earth's climate is dynamic, not static. The climate, when viewed over millions of years, has been through numerous macro- and micro-cycles. These cycles have occurred and will continue to occur, human activity notwithstanding.
I encourage AGW Chicken Littles to engage in some basic, non-scientific research. A Google search will provide all of the information that you need. Try 'Mesozoic CO2 level': amazingly the CO2 level during the Mesozoic Era (the Age of the Dinosaurs) was 3 1/2 times higher than it is today. With CO2 at about 1,400 ppm, global temperatures were about 8 degrees F higher than they are today. Yet life on this planet thrived and the climate was remarkably stable. For 160 million years the Earth did not experience an Ice Age. Enviro-weanie logic, of course, dictates that the dinosaurs were somehow responsible for this beneficial climate change, since such events do not occur spontaneously. The Earth's climate has been especially dynamic since the end of the Mesozoic, when CO2 levels plunged to their current very low point (380 ppm).
I find it especially amusing that believers in AGW (who for the most part express disdain for the religiously-minded) discard established scientific fact, and place wholehearted faith in something so frail and evanescent as computer modelling.
FACT: the accuracy of a computer model is completely dependent upon the accuracy of its original design and inputs.
FACT: given the complexity of the climate and all of its attendent variables, no scientist has at his fingertips the knowledge necessary to create an accurate computer model of the climate.
FACT: any error introduced, from any source, at the beginning of the modelling process will provide ever-increasing inaccuracies in output.
CONCLUSION: computer climate modelling is a scam.
So why do the leftist, environmentalist, bed-wetters believe in it? Because they can use it to reinforce their strongly-held belief that humanity is stupid, myopic, and destructive, and must be led forcibly to the glorious, progressive future that the self-annointed elites has designed, a Borg-like future in which the hoi-polloi sacrifices its individual rights for the sake of the collective.

Stew| 2.3.09 @ 3:21PM

WesH, I hope the "H" is for Henthorne--the Wes I know in Montana's employer is decidedly an AGW advocate (and family member of mine.) I'd love to find out it's you as a AGW skeptic and AmSpec reader!

Russell Seitz| 2.4.09 @ 1:45AM

Indy, you'd best engage in a little non-scientific research as to the sun's output in mesozoic times, - you just scored an own goal for the side of militant idiocy in the climate wars

IndyJohn| 2.4.09 @ 3:25PM

Russell,
Perhaps I should have added more information. Those who believe in AGW say that the Earth's temperature has increased by one degree F. over the last century because the CO2 level has increased from 340 to 380 ppm. This cannot be true if the CO2 level during the Mesozoic was 1300-1400 ppm and the temperature was only 8 degrees F. higher than today. The AGW crowd is arguing that slight increases in CO2 result in large increases in temperature. Such is obviously not the case. The climate is not that sensitive.

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Poptropica| 4.8.10 @ 7:52PM

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The poptropica island has been in the news lately after it was revealed that they would be beginning a special ‘reality tv’ project – inside the virtual world. Contestants in a variety of online games will be selected from the players of the virtual game, and be taken by helicopter to a special zone where they can compete for prizes, as well as to become the King or Queen of the island.

The virtual online games will be available to all users of the game from today, although they have been used by ‘Members’ of the community for the last three weeks. Memebership of poptropica costs a small amount per month, but allows users to take advantage of a range of offers and special deals which are not usually available. Paying doesn’t allow access to any poptropica cheats though!

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