The American Spectator : Liberals Gone Wild

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Liberals Gone Wild

By Peter Ferrara on 5.19.10 @ 6:08AM

Getting to the Heartland of their global warming religiosity.

Even though the Constitution does not include the words “separation of church and state,” liberals have long treated that concept as a hallowed fundamental doctrine of constitutional law. But no more. With the recent introduction of new Senate cap and trade legislation, ultraliberal supporters Barbara Boxer, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and others have now completely abandoned that doctrine in their quest to establish global warming dogma as the official, established religion of the United States.

Under that legislation, everyone in America will be forced to tithe to the new religion through higher prices for electricity, gasoline, natural gas, coal, home heating oil, jet fuel, food (especially meat), and every product produced or transported with such energy sources. Indeed, prices will soar high enough to reduce fossil fuel use and the resulting carbon dioxide emissions back to the per capita levels of 1870!

The legislation will further force Americans to engage in ritual sacrifices to the established religion, slashing back on powerful, roomy cars and SUVS, air conditioning, heat, PCs, laptops, big screen TVs, cell phones, iPods, backyard barbecues, manufacturing jobs, and traditional American prosperity. They will be forced to worship the modern, hip, pagan dogma with smaller “carbon footprints.” If they do not profess their true belief, they will be shouted out of public life as troglodyte “deniers,” just as those who did not faithfully maintain membership in the established Church of England were disqualified from holding public office.

But if they do faithfully follow the global warming catechism of cap and trade, they will be rewarded with the eternal salvation of a reduction in the projected rise of global temperatures of 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050, based on the UN’s own climate models. Hallelujah! Praise the AlGore!

Given Climategate, all the other recent revelations discrediting the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the emerging modern science falsifying the notion of man-caused global warming, the continued fevered embrace of costly cap and trade legislation by Washington’s ultraliberals can only be considered faith-based wilding out. The lack of scientific grounding for such policies was made clear by the just completed Fourth International Conference on Climate Change sponsored by the Heartland Institute in Chicago.

Reconsidering the Science and Economics

The conference was attended by over 800 participants from 20 countries worldwide. In sharp contrast to the ritual denunciations of those who will not believe by the High Priests of Global Warming, the conference included careful scientific presentations by such speakers as Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT; S. Fred Singer, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia and the founder of the National Weather Satellite Service; Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the Space Research Laboratory at the Pulkovo Observatory in Russia; J. Scott Armstrong, Professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; Nils-Axel Morner, head of the Department of Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics at Stockholm University; Roy Spencer, U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite, and formerly a senior scientist for climate studies at NASA; Patrick Michaels, Research Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia for 30 years and past President of the American Association of State Climatologists; Willie Soon, astrophysicist and geoscientist at the Solar, Stellar and Planetary Sciences Division of the Center for Astrophysics; David Douglass, Professor of Physics at the University of Rochester; Don Easterbrook, Professor of Geology at Western Washington University; Gabriel Calzada Alvarez, Associate Professor of Economics in the Environmental Science Faculty at King Juan Carlos University in Spain, and many others.

Heartland invited as well dozens of the most ardent advocates of the theory of man-caused global warming, but all but two refused to attend, not because they don’t think they can defend their views in scientific debate, but because High Priests don’t entertain doubt about their theological teachings.

The Collapsing Science of Global Warming

These world-class scientists are at least as good as any of the staunch advocates of the theory of man-caused global warming. Those who foolishly succumb to the political propaganda to just ignore them are now woefully behind the curve of the actual global warming debate. These scientists are not challenging the principle that greenhouse gases can cause a greenhouse warming effect, and so those who pontificate on how well established such an effect is in theory are not getting the argument.

The real argument is over how big the greenhouse effect is, most importantly from the carbon dioxide resulting from the burning of fossil fuels. As the intellectually dominating Lindzen indicates, there doesn’t seem to be much real dispute that CO2 by itself doesn’t have much effect, with even the UN models indicating a doubling of CO2 on its own would produce only an increase in global temperatures of a mere 1 degree centigrade. That should be expected, given that greenhouse gases produced by humans account for only 0.12% of the atmosphere. But the UN modelers reach potentially catastrophic warming by presuming “positive feedbacks” due to atmospheric water vapor and clouds that greatly increase the warming ultimately resulting from increasing CO2.

But what the work of Lindzen and the other top scientists at the Heartland conference has been increasingly demonstrating is that instead of positive feedback effects increasing warming, the impact of water vapor and clouds is more likely to produce “negative feedbacks” offsetting the small original increase caused by CO2. They argue that the greenhouse warming causes an increase in cloud cover and water vapor at altitudes that would reflect solar radiation back out to space before it gets trapped within the earth’s atmosphere, leaving little or no effect on global temperatures.

The rest of the body of scientific evidence is increasingly consistent with this Lindzen/Singer led view rather than the man-caused global warming view. The temperature record even as we have it (revealed as faulty by Climategate) does not show temperatures rising with rising CO2, but rather a pattern of periodically rising and falling temperatures consistent with the natural causes emphasized by the prevailing refuseniks at the Heartland Conference. That record shows an increase in temperatures from the 1920s to the 1940s, with a roughly reversing decline from the 1940s to the late 1970s. Temperatures then rose from the late 1970s to the late 1990s, giving rise to the global warming scare, but since then they have been declining with perhaps accelerating force.

Rather than following consistently rising CO2 emissions and accumulations, this temperature pattern follows the variations of natural causes such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), El Niño effects, and sunspot patterns. The PDO reflects the circulation of colder water currents from the deeper ocean to the surface, which changes surface water temperatures from warm to cold, only to be warmed by the sun again, every 20 to 30 years. Such changes in Pacific surface temperatures, along with changing sunspot activity which may correlate with PDO changes, can explain the rising global temperatures of a couple of tenths of a degree or so from the 1920s to the 1940s, as well as the reversing decline from the 1940s to the 1970s, the again reversing increase from the 1970s to the 1990s, with an assist from the spiking El Niño of 1998, and then the reversing and accelerating decline since then.

This natural causes explanation debunks the fundamental argument methodology of the UN IPCC reports, which is surprisingly weak on its face once you dig it out from deep within the voluminous reports. That basic argument is that the warming trend that was supposedly documented by the reports can’t be explained by anything other than man-caused global warming. QED (not). The upshot of the Lindzen/Singer counterrevolution is that the warming trend, such as it is, is adequately explained by the natural causes.

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About the Author

Peter Ferrara is Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy at the Heartland Institute, General Counsel of the American Civil Rights Union, Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, and Senior Policy Advisor on Entitlements and Budget Policy at the National Tax Limitation Foundation. He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under President George H.W. Bush.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (88) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

Brian Mc| 5.19.10 @ 6:37AM

Grass is green, the sky is blue, water is wet and climate change is happening all around us. Anyone who denies this is obviously and painfully ignorant; too busy clinging to their guns and Bibles to see how stupid they are. Gosh, if conservatives were only half as smart as liberals are...anyone wanna buy the Brooklyn Bridge?

GregA| 5.19.10 @ 7:33AM

My grass is brown. The sky is gray. The water here is usually hard. The only climate change happening is when painfully ignorant people like you release hot air. And Gov. Paterson already sold the bridge.

Average Infidel| 5.19.10 @ 7:50AM

Go away troll, we will talk when you are paying $10-15 for a gallon of fuel for your vehicle or are freezing in your winter home because you can't afford the natural gas of electricity, and by the way, by this time if it ever gets there, no we will not be subsudising you or your fellow clowns, bank on it.

Alan Brooks| 5.19.10 @ 9:29AM

"Anyone who denies this is obviously and painfully ignorant."

Let them find out the hard way-- when coastal areas are submerged.

Sarah| 5.19.10 @ 11:16AM

*facepalm*

Seriously? You're going on that haggard trope? If you can't figure out that mere centimeters of difference is going to make only the slightest difference, then there is no hope for sentient beings on this planet. Go read the studies about sea ice and then get back to us on the whole "coastal areas will be submerged" line. Sheesh. Chicken Little! Table for one, please!

JP| 5.19.10 @ 1:35PM

Oh yes coastal flooding! How that little tidbit of nonsense made it into the IPCC SPM is still a mystery. The actual citation orginated from a WWF (World Wild Life Fund) hit piece dated 2002. When asked where it got its info, the WWF cited the IPCC. That is, there was no documented study that had verifiable facts and numbers. It appears the IPCC used the WWF for 2 other "factoids" (melting tropical glaciers and the disappearance of the Himalayian glaciers). In all 3 cases, the IPCC had to remove these items, much to thier humiliation.

Lara| 5.19.10 @ 1:42PM

Oh I hope so, the inland tidal creek behind my home could rise two feet without ever encroaching directly into my yard. I could launch
my boat from behind my house. How convenient is that?

Robert Pinkerton| 5.19.10 @ 6:10PM

Mr. Brooks, did you ever read about how Herakles finally cleaned out the Augean Stables? So NYC, Boston, L.A. and San Francisco will be submerged. Mankind will still prevail. Of course, if your scenario does not come to pass, it will only be a premise for retro-futuristic "science(?)"-fiction.

Alan Brooks| 5.19.10 @ 8:24PM

"So NYC, Boston, L.A. and San Francisco will be submerged."

But gays aren't your favorite people-- wont some of you be glad if perhaps hundreds of gays in Frisco are drowned if Frisco is submerged?
On your own terms you like to be OPTIMISTIC, don't you?

Christopher Holland| 5.19.10 @ 8:48PM

Alan, my son - sea level is the same everywhere in the world, it can not rise in some parts and not in others. Otherwise it would mean that water can flow up hill. Are you trying to rewrite a fundamental law of physics? If you do so and it can be proved right, then I am ready to congratulate you on your Nobel Prize.

Alan Brooks| 5.19.10 @ 9:07PM

it was a joke!

geez louise in a bottle.

stmichrick| 5.19.10 @ 11:28PM

I am looking to pay a 'pre-flood prices' for coastal real estate owned by those honest leftists who believe they face impending submergence.

NC77| 5.20.10 @ 9:21AM

"Let them find out the hard way-- when coastal areas are submerged."

I guess that is why Al Gore just purchased a $9 million mansion (imagine the carbon footprint on that house) on the ocean in California. Looks like he couldn't resist spending some of that scam shakedown money he made on the AGW hoax before the ocean rises and swallows the coast of California.

Anthony| 5.19.10 @ 9:35AM

Dear Troll Brian; Climate change has indeed been occuring, perhaps for as long as 6 billion years. It's how the Grand Canyon grew from a stream to a 3,000 ft gorge. It's how Greenland went from fertile farmland to being ice covered. And all this without a single SUV, coal fired energy plant, or Algore's 4 Mcmansions and his gulfstream private jets.
That moron, is what you fools call Anthropogenic global warming. So, if you buy into AGW, you've already purchased the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Brooklyn Dodgers to boot, and made Algore a multi -millionaire.
At least my guns work, unlike your troll brain.

owyheewine| 5.19.10 @ 9:43AM

The whole premise of global warming from CO2 increases violates the first 2 laws of thermodynamics. An energy balance makes that obvious. The basic equations that the warmers use to calculate heat release from reradiated sunshine are invalid. Major causes of changing energy levels such as earth orbit eccentricity, rotational wobble and terrestrial energy release (earthquake,volcanoes) are ignored in the models.
Most of the knee jerk warmers can't explain how warming is supposed to work. So who is the ignorant one?

axbucxdu| 5.19.10 @ 1:13PM

owyheewine| 5.19.10 @ 9:43AM wrote: "...The whole premise of global warming from CO2 increases violates the first 2 laws of thermodynamics. An energy balance makes that obvious. The basic equations that the warmers use to calculate heat release from reradiated sunshine are invalid."

Moreover, atmospheric water vapor actually has two negative feedback effects. Lindzen's new work seems focused on just one, the albedo (radiative reflective) component. But doesn't atmospheric water have convective effects?.

I mean, the water vapor cycle also functions as a heat pump: the refrigerant boils at the surface and lower elevations, rises, and then condenses (rains) at altitude thus transporting and then removing the absorbed heat...

owyheewine| 5.19.10 @ 5:06PM

Actually the net energy balance of the water vapor cycle in the atmosphere is zero. You are right, water vaporizing does cool the surface, but the heat of condensation is released back into the atmosphere, just a little higher.
That affects the heat gradient of the atmosphere (energy flows from higher temperature to lower temperature- 2nd law of thermodynamics). The net effect is so complex that an honest scientist would probably shake his head and assume it to be zero. Transport of heat higher in the atmosphere should directionally reduce atmospheric temperature, but calculating the effect is above my pay grade.

BA Cyclone| 5.19.10 @ 11:07AM

Brian Mc - I think your post and the trail following is perfect evidence that sarcasm often does not translate well in print.

I thought your post was funny - because the characterization of the left (and by definition, theirs of the right) is SO TRUE.

Winston Smith| 5.19.10 @ 1:39PM

Brian Mc, pleae tell everyone you were just kidding (maybe you could use the old ;) at the end of your post); otherwise, someone might take you seriously.

Brian Mc| 5.19.10 @ 5:05PM

Thank you, gentlemen...I'll just let them spew on me for a time to help keep them in the fight and at a razor's edge! I guess I should have made it more obvious...

George| 5.19.10 @ 2:30PM

Of course climate change is happening. Little is static. It is always either cooling or warming.

Robert Pinkerton| 5.19.10 @ 6:19PM

I smell a strong aroma of "ironic acid," sauce of choice for devil's-advocacy, here. The problem with attempting parody in writing, is that nuances such as facial expression and tone of voice do not come across, meaning that one must use still more extreme verbiage to get your point across. That, in turn, exacerbates the danger that a reader might take seriously the point you are trying to blunt with ridicule.

Of course climate-change is happening all around us: Before this noxious superstition blossomed, we called it the cycle of the seasons.

Jeremiah| 5.19.10 @ 7:52PM

Silly Brian. Offering no contrary arguments, not even bothering to grapple with the data here, he dismisses it with the "everybody knows...' argument. That is the argument of choice for every hidebound estblishment suffering from hardening of the intellectual arteries throughout history. Having lost the capacity to argue from reason and evidence, they fall back on this just before they collapse under the weight of their own pom.

It is so ironic: In its romantic imagination the left sees itself as the courageous dissenters storming the barricades of bigoted ignorance. They have not quite figured it out yet - they are the barricades. And yes, the people are storming them.

Christopher Holland| 5.19.10 @ 8:43PM

Who says climate change is happening? Depends on who you talk to. I have friends in Siberia and they just told me that they just had heavy snow falls - unheard of after 10 May. Heavy snow falls in late May doesn't sound like global warming to me. Yeah, I know, weather isn't climate (unless it is hot weather and you believe in global warming).

I have as much faith in global warming 'science' as I do in Santa Claus and the easter bunny.

John| 5.19.10 @ 10:17PM

No shit sherlock. We all know the climate is constantly changing. The question is: Is it caused by man. The article clearly outlines what has been happening, but you obviously can't read or understand written thought...

PolishKnight| 5.20.10 @ 10:50AM

Maybe he's a troll, but his opinion is consistent with liberal dogma. People who don't believe in global warming are "unbelievers!" Science is not religion because religion isn't Holy Truth. It's a delightful example of religious ferver to the point of paradox. "To bring the love of our religion to the world, we must kill everyone!"

Marxism was always a religion. A religion of anti-religion (that it transcended religion with it's absolute "truth" via "science"). "Science" as they practiced it wan't established with mere facts but rather "consensus" and credibility. Absolute truth doesn't need to even follow basic logic. It's possible to spread about wealth even as they toss previous believers (white working class men) under the bus.

It will be interesting to see what the religion of marxism does after a major tenet of their dogma is openly discredited. After all, the cold war came to an end and they regrouped and are as strong as ever. Mormons have had their faith discredited in many ways but are still growing strong. Religions are about a "feeling" (nothing wrong with that) and don't go away based upon mere facts. But what about a religion that's primary dogma is a denial that it is one in the first place?

Ret. Marine| 5.19.10 @ 8:02AM

What should be of more consern to the American population, lib's excluded, it the fact that our usurper-n-theif, obama, is right in on the game with the rest of these data-brokers, the liars of global warming scam. He allowed funding to go to the power players at Fanny and Freddie to obtain not one but two patents surrounding this fraud. Raines former, head of one of these gubmint owned schemes, currently owning about 95% of all mortgages in the U.S. is not only guilty of fraud by rigging the numbers to the tune of $10 million to line his pockets, is also a friend of the "one', There is a chance if this Cap and trade legislation is passed these two crooks will gain as much as 10-trillion in profits through the Chicago Climate Exchange, yeah you guessed it, the usurpers state of fraud. If this does not raise some red flags I don't know what the hell ever will. For more information go to Glenn Becks, Crime Inc. investigation for an eye opening association of what is really going on here. We need to flip this CONgress and Senate and get the investigations started or else We the People will not deserve this title. We might as well call ourselves the serfs. As for me, I'm going hunting.

Brian Mc| 5.19.10 @ 6:34PM

Ret. Semper Fi

I noticed and liked, quite alot, your use of the lower case to accentuate our total disregard for the man and not the office he holds precariously.

If I haven't already stated in previous posts, God bless you and thanks for your service and undying devotion to our Republic.

Brian Mc
...previous member of the 71st TFS, better known as the "Flying Fist Squadron". An M61A1 is a beautiful thing...almost as nice as an F-15 that carries it!

Melvin| 5.19.10 @ 8:14AM

We're suffering from a conundrum here. The PETA types want to turn all the cattle loose and have us graze right beside old Bessy in the fields, and the Sierra Club types want us to get the hell out of the fields because they don't want us to graze.
So what is a human to do?

Louis Jenkins| 5.19.10 @ 8:14AM

Basically we are on the downturn of a global warming period. We are cooling down. Too bad the District of Crimminals don't see nor understand it. In a couple of hundred years we will be far cooler than now (if we last that long).

Vinny Angelo| 5.19.10 @ 8:28AM

Peter,

Thank you for such a succinct and useful discloser of the FACTS!

Hey out there, please read all you can about Maurice Strong, et al on this topic. It is scary; anger provoking, and must be stopped.

In Him

Vinny

Tony in Central PA| 5.19.10 @ 8:46AM

I'm glad the author did reference the religious aspect of global warming because I believe we have been witnessing the development of a " new " religion.
I used the term " new " because its not really new, but more of an amalgamation of two older relgions, a sort of Earth - worship pantheism and the Christian heresy of Catharism. I find the Catharism similarites most intriguing. Like the Cathari, the leaders of modern liberal environmentalism constitute an elite that directs its followers. Catharists abhorred all reproduction because they viewed matter as the creation of an evil deity. Modern liberal/environmentalist culture tends to limit its abhorrence of reproduction to human reproduction since it views human beings as evil insofar as the planet. Like Catharism, liberal environmentalism detests traditional marriage because it creates more humans. Also like Catharism, it endorses things like suicide and abortion. ( The Catharists actually sacramentalized suicide by starvation ).

The only good news about Catharism is that its a belief system that tend to extinguish itself. Hopefully, the same will prove to be true with liberal environmentalism.

Robert Pinkerton| 5.19.10 @ 6:27PM

'The only good news about Catharism is that its a belief system that tend to extinguish itself."

With a little help from Simon deMontfort and a crusade mobilized by Pope Innocent III.

JP| 5.19.10 @ 8:55AM

It is almost June, only 51/2 months until mid-terms. There has been much speculation as to which other piece of transformative legislation Congress and Obama would press. They are fully aware that at the very least thier congressional majorities will be whittled down; worst case scenario is that they lose 50+ seats in the House and perhaps as many as 8 in the Senate.

With that in mind, there is no reason to believe they will not try again to go all out and attempt to ram a very unpopular bill through the system. For awhile it appeared the it would be amnesty, as Cap and Trade was thought to be too toxic. But, Kerry's Bill looks like the real deal. Obama will try to do with Cap and Trade as what he did with ObamaCare. They've paid off Big Oil, Big Ag, and the Public Utilities with subsidies, and don't think for one minute they won't go the reconcilliation route. As with ObamaCare, I doubt if they will be able to get 1 GOP Senator to cross over.

However, unlike ObamaCare I don't see any real enthusiasm for Cap and Trade from the Dems. The recession lingers on; food and energy price inflation is well over 10%; and, mid terms are approaching, fast. But most importantly, President Obama has tapped out all of his political capital. As far as the Dems are concerned, his administration has been nothing but a disaster. The Blue Dogs who are up for reelection in both houses are about to get creamed; independents have bolted; and there is a good chance that Obama will be toxic by the 2012 elections, where 25 Dem Senators will be up for re-election. How many Democrats will be willing to destroy thier careers and thier party for nothing more than a bill that will likely be rescinded come 2013?

I give this bill less than a 50-50 chance of passage. If it does pass, Katy bar the door. The 2012 elections will be a political boodbath the likes we haven't seen since 1932.

Albert Hussien Gore | 5.19.10 @ 9:49AM

"electricity prices would neccessarily skyrocket"....How does this help the little guy? MMM MMM MMM!

Mike| 5.19.10 @ 10:19AM

Fools and Poltroons

You can easily change me to a supported of global warming when you can consistently predict the temperature in my back yard within .02 degrees at 3 pm next Wednesday.

Useless idiots

Mike Johnston
SFC USA (RET)

Mike| 5.19.10 @ 11:26AM

Ignorance

Prediction of temperature is weather. Weather != Climate

JP| 5.19.10 @ 1:19PM

Try this Mike,
Compare the IPCC global temperature projections from AR2-AR4 with the actual global temps (that would be from 1990-2006). Doctor Roger Pielke from NCAR did just that (using HadCrut temps). None of the 10 year projections were within even 1 standard deviation. They were all at least .5 deg C too warm.

BTW, if climate models cannot even get current conditions modeled correctly, there is no way they can precisely project future temps. If the GCMs (Global Circulation Models) cannot model cloud cover accurately or large scale oscillations like ENSO, the PDO, NAO, or the AMO then they are worthless.

Jenny Johnston| 5.19.10 @ 10:21AM

Listen to Ret. Marine. It's not about saving the planet. It's about making big, BIG, bucks through the fraud of cap-and-trade and the Chicago Climate Exchange. It's about trading air for money. It's about impoverishing the people while enriching the few cronies of the Pretender-in-Chief. I can't believe the leaders of my country are betraying me like this.
It's all about Crime, Inc.

chester arthur| 5.19.10 @ 10:22AM

The era of enviro-extremism started it's most virulent cycle in 1987,when the Montreal accords 'banned' the use of freon.Of course,that 'ban' didn't include China or India,a new window A/C unit from Wal-Mart still uses R-12 freon from China.The enviro-extremists hyped the destructive nature of freon,and then claimed they had 'saved the world' just as China and India vastly increased their use of the chemical.So get this,a complex molecule is supposed to skyrocket intact up to the upper atmosphere and destroy ozone,yet ground level ozone,a far simpler,light molecule,stays at ground level to 'pollute'?Really?Environmentalism as it is currently inflicted on the world has a credibility about as high as a carnival sideshow.It just lacks the scientific basis of the sideshow or the integrity of the carnival barker.

Dai Alanye | 5.19.10 @ 10:44AM

It strikes me that merely a small knowledge of science is needed to make AGW doubtful. For instance: Water vapor is a stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, yet the climate change people urge us to use natural gas, the burning of which makes twice the volume of H2O as CO2.

In other words, natural gas should cause far more global warming than coal. The illogic of this ought to be apparent to even Gore, Hanson or Mann.

Ken (Old Texican)| 5.19.10 @ 12:43PM

Folks,
I reject that "religion". I'm a Christian.

Let's talk "religion" for a minute.

The poor bastard muslims ...CELEBRATE SLAVERY OF THEIR OWN SELVES!
(Islam= slave)

THEIR MOMS AND SISTERS AND DAUGHTERS ARE EVEN LESS THAN SLAVES. They are merely considered "egg layer" beasts of burden.

We "people of the Book" are now considered merely infidels and enemies to the death.

Only Jesus Christ introduced the idea of "Father" as opposed to "Slave-master Allah".

I am reminded of the parable of the "Prodigal Son".
After screwing up big time and only repenting and begging to be a slave.....his "Father" wrapped him in his arms and declared a feast for his repentence.

Our "tree huggers" are truly pagans.
One group or the other will win this "holy war".

OK, folks.
We are now in a holy war. Where will you stand and die if necessary?

Our local limp "neck", (Alan Brooks), got on me and made fun of my military prowess the other day.
Heh!
I am a crappy soldier at this point in my life, true, but you know.....I can GUIDE a couple of hundred thousand vets in the right direction.

Bottom line, the communists, (pardon the shorthand), need to kill me. I won't shut up and fail to guide....till my dying breath.

I...am a free man, under Christ......only.

If I disappear....."duck and cover"...then decide where you stand.

JS| 5.19.10 @ 1:29PM

I'll disagree with you on one minor point. You say 'One group or the other will win this "holy war". ' I know who has already won - Christians. The day my sins nailed Christ to the cross is the day the enemy was defeated - he was defanged and detoothed. The enemy knows his death is eminent and he knows there is nothing he can do about it. Secular humanism and islam are of satan. I know that casts a large net, but it is true. Secular humanism - liberalism, fascism, communism (pardon the shorthand), statism, ect. are all evil. They deliberately destroy the individual for the sake of the state and islam is no different.

DW| 5.19.10 @ 1:04PM

Liberalism is the religion that provides the foundation for all of their garbage. Global warming is just one of their tenets. To follow Marxism(That's the base religion for all of it) requires faith and emotion. If you notice, facts challenging their dogma are quickly ignored or rebuked in favor of mindlessly following their Priest (Father Al Gore, who is making millions off this) and their God, Karl Marx, the supreme anti capitalist. The fact that these sheepish libs are being used by their own millionaire shepards to further enrich themselves is both disturbingly ironic and painfully indicative of their mental prowess . Chicken Little Science sponsored by the modern educational system.

MisterBee| 5.19.10 @ 1:29PM

As I have stated before, AlGore and his followers could end "Man Made Globull Warming" tomorrow if they were serious about doing so. Tomorrow, beginning at 8:00 AM, all them simply refuse to exhale until Noon. AGW solved!!

Kendall | 5.19.10 @ 1:37PM

"Let them find out the hard way-- when coastal areas are submerged."

You've got to be kidding. Where do you get your data--from Al Gore's piece of crap called "An Convenient Truth." Even the IPCC has steadily
lowedered its estimates of future sea level rise. Its 2007 report gave a range of 8.5-18.5" by 2100.
Nils-Axel Mörner, I believe, has it right--6-8 " by 2100, completely in line with the same rate of rise since the end of the last Ice Age 12,500 years ago.
The moron Gore said 20 feet, Joe Lieberman (co-sponsor of the latest cap and trade bill) said 35 feet in a 2001 speech. I asked him for his data. Still haven't gotten a response. The agenda is being driven by scientific illiterates.

DW| 5.19.10 @ 2:06PM

global warming I mean global cooling I mean warming damn it which one are we on now I forget

Choey| 5.19.10 @ 2:11PM

Oh boy, we might get to go through the Carteresque "heat or eat" conundrum again. I went through that in the '70s and it was so much fun. BTW even if you're starving the canned dog food is pretty awful. Get the dry food (kibble). It's tasteless and easy to swallow without chewing.

glenny44| 5.19.10 @ 2:33PM

Remember, people, the so-called "climate models" are nothing more than computer programs, written by the warmers. Give me a few minutes and I can write a "climate model" that will serve 16 oz. long-neck adult beverages and carry Monday Night Footbal in HD. Oh yeah, and it'll show a 2+ degree DECREASE in global temps NEXT WEEK ! glenny

Marc Jeric| 5.19.10 @ 3:19PM

Let us put this 40-year old conspiracy in perspective:
1) There was first in the 1970's the global cooling scam (see e.g. Newsweek April 28 1975 on the Internet); the government-paid scientists (90% of them are rejects of private enterprise) recommended to fight the new ice age by sending our war planes to cover the polar ice with soot in order to increase solar heat and so prevent crushing of New York skyscrapers by the new glaciers;
2) When that did not work we had the global warming hoax in the 1990's, proclaimed by mainly the same government-paid scientists (Dr. Hansen of the NOAA, for example); to prevent the massive heating, fires, flooding of coastal cities, disappearance of Florida, California, and Caribbean islands, massive hurricanes, global famine, and other catastrophic events we should nationalize oil and gas and coal and electricity companies;
3) after 11 years of considerable cooling we are now faced with the climate change flimflam where whatever happens with our climate we should nationalize oil and gas and coal and electricity companies; and why not our banks, car and insurance companies while we are at it. To prevent this catastrophe the best vehicle presumably is international agreements enforced by the United Nations world government.
As for the influence of carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas: on a normal day the atmosphere contains 20,000 ppm (parts per million) of water vapor and about 300 ppm of carbon dioxide. The government-paid scientists say that an increase of 100 ppm of CO2 over the next 50 years will result in a catastrophic warming. The thermal absorptivity of water vapor is 4 times larger than that of carbon dioxide; it follows that the CO2 increase will increase the overall thermal absorptivity of the mixture by about 1/8 of one percent. The production of methane from livestock flatulence and the rotting swamps (called "wetlands" by the environmentalists) vastly surpasses the influence of human-produced CO2.
There is the Global Warming Petition Project (see Internet) where 31,478 US independent scientists declared that there is no anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming; of these 9,029 are scientists with PhD degrees. Our environmentalists tried to sabotage this effort by submiiting phony names with phoney degrees - and then claimed the whole effort by the Petition scientists was a fraud. It took us 3 years and a lot of private money to verify the credentials of all the signatories and clean up the Petition of those saboteurs. See also Manhattan Declaration with more such signatories, plus a large number of scientific groups from other countries who state the same.
I am one of these signatories, MS and PhD degrees from UCLA, with concentration in thermodynamics and heat & mass transfer.
I think to fight this communist attempt to secure a permanent hold on power should not be fought on the narrow grounds of more taxes - that is the losing proposition; where about 50% of the population is on some kind of welfare we will always be outvoted. The battle should be fought and won on the firm scientific basis.
4) And now we have "cap™" power grab.
SCAM - HOAX - FLIMFLAM - POWER GRAB!!!

GringoBob | 5.19.10 @ 3:43PM

we find it interesting that the Chairman of the IPCC is a railway engineer and 75% of the "consenses" scientists are low level government employees - maybe it's those cho cho's making global warming ?

John3| 5.19.10 @ 3:52PM

Liberals gone wild using all of our hard-earned money! When will this stop?

theduke| 5.19.10 @ 4:12PM

Excellent and comprehensive summation of the current state of the AGW argument, Mr. Ferrara. Well done.

Wally| 5.19.10 @ 4:13PM

That's great. You mention 5 actual scientists (economists? huh?), at least of 2 of whom (Singer and Easterbrook) are paid huge bucks by the American Petroleum Institute. How about the 3000 geolotists, chemists and physicists worldwide who say that these five people are clowns? Oh, yeah, they have a hush hush conspiracy going.

Kenneth E. MacAlister Jr.| 5.19.10 @ 4:16PM

Climate change is called weather. Who controls the weather? The same Almighty GOD who created the entire universe of course. What do these drooling kooks on the left really think they can do to alter the weather & climate change controlled by The Almighty GOD? Any leftie moonbats here have an answer to that? The "religion" of "man-made glo-bull warming" is about three things: 1) Control. The loons on the left want control over EVERY facet of your life. Oboneheadcare was step #1, Crap & Tax is step #2. They want everyone at the mercy of government for everything they need in life, 2) worshipping the creation instead of The Creator (GOD). The left enjoy "the darkness" & want GOD out of public life period. GOD is a huge reminder that their warped ideology goes against everything GOD stands for & a huge reminder of the consequences they will face for the rejection of Him in favor of things of this world, & 3) enriching themselves while making everyone else poor & dependent on those with all the money (the left). The only problem with the left's plans is that they are constantly at odds with GOD's plans & will ultimately fail every time. GOD takes care of His own in ways the left could never dream of surpassing. Give it your best shot moonbats! The Creator & GOD of the universe has yet to be defeated!

Vasu Murti | 5.19.10 @ 5:39PM

Record snowstorms need two things: temperatures below freezing, and very high humidity. On a planet warmer by a few degrees on average, the Northeast U.S. will still have plenty of days below freezing; the big difference will be warmer seas producing higher levels of moisture in the air — and therefore more severe cold-season storms.

We can expect extreme weather to continue
Scientists tell us that climate change has already led to more extreme weather in the United States and we can expect stronger hurricanes, more wildfires, heatwaves and droughts, to name a few. The cost of inaction could reach half a trillion dollars a year.

The world is warming at a rapid pace
Weather in one region over days or months should not be confused with climate or the patterns of weather over decades and centuries. And the science is clear here: the last decade was the hottest on record. And to put this year’s weather in perspective, January was warmer than average for the continental United States.

“Global warming theory predicts that global precipitation will increase, and that heavy precipitation events… will also increase. This occurs because as the climate warms, evaporation of moisture from the oceans increases, resulting in more water vapor in the air.”

--– Jeff Masters, meteorologist

Jennifer Horsman and Jaime Flowers write in their 2007 book, Please Don't Eat the Animals:

Meat production causes deforestation, which then contributes to global warming. Trees convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, and the destruction of forests around the globe to make room for grazing cattle furthers the greenhouse effect. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations reports that the annual rate of tropical deforestation has increased from 9 million hectares in 1980 to 16.8 million hectares in 1990, and unfortunately, this destruction has accelerated since then. By 1994, a staggering 200 million hectares of rainforest had been destroyed in South America just for cattle.

"The impact of countless hooves and mouths over the years has done more to alter the type of vegetation and land forms of the West than all the water projects, strip mines, power plants, freeways, and sub-division developments combined."

---Philip Fradkin, in Audubon, National Audubon Society, New York

Agricultural meat production generates air pollution. As manure decomposes, it releases over 400 volatile organic compounds, many of which are extremely harmful to human health. Nitrogen, a major by-product of animal wastes, changes to ammonia as it escapes into the air, and this is a major source of acid rain. Worldwide, livestock produce over 30 million tons of ammonia. Hydrogen sulfide, another chemical released from animal waste, can cause irreversible neurological damage, even at low levels.

The World Conservation Union lists over 1,000 different fish species that are threatened or endangered. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimate, over 60 percent of the world's fish species are either fully exploited or depleted. Commercial fish populations of cod, hake, haddock, and flounder have fallen by as much as 95 percent in the north Atlantic.

The United States and Europe lose several billion tons of topsoil each year from cropland and grazing land, and 84 percent of this erosion is caused by livestock agriculture. While this soil is theoretically a renewable resource, we are losing soil at a much faster rate than we are able to replace it. It takes 100 to 500 years to produce one inch of topsoil, but due to livestock grazing and feeding, farming areas can lose up to six inches of topsoil a year.

Livestock production affects a startling 70 to 85 percent of the land area of the United States, United Kingdom, and the European Union. That includes the public and private rangeland used for grazing, as well as the land used to produce the crops that feed the animals. By comparison, urbanization only affects 3 percent of the United States land area, slightly larger for the European Union and the United Kingdom. Meat production consumes the world's land resources.

Similarly, a pamphlet put out by Compassion Over Killing says raising animals for food is one of the leading causes of both pollution and resource depletion today. According to a recent United Nations report, "Livestock's Long Shadow," raising chickens, turkeys, pigs, and other animals for food causes more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks and other forms of transportation combined. Researchers from the University of Chicago similarly concluded that a vegetarian diet is the most energy efficient, and the average American does more to reduce global warming emissions by not eating animal products than by switching to a hybrid car.

A 2007 journal published by the American Dietetic Association found "meat protein production required 26 times more water than vegetable protein on rain-fed lands." The journal further states that dieticians "can encourage eating that is both healthful and conserving of soil, water, and energy by emphasizing plant sources of protein and foods that have been produced with fewer agricultural inputs."

"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation."

---Union Nations' Food and Agriculture Association

A single dairy cow produces approximately 120 pounds of wet manure per day, which is equivalent to that of 20 to 40 humans.

70% of the grain grown and 50% of the water consumed in the U.S. are used by the meat industry. (Audubon Society)

On average 990 liters of water are required to produce one liter of milk. (United Nations)

Over 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to grow grain for livestock. (Greenpeace)

It takes nearly one gallon of fossil fuel and 5,200 gallons of water to produce just one pound of conventionally fed beef. (Mother Jones)

Farmed animals produce an estimated 1.4 billion tons of fecal waste each year in the U.S. Much of this untreated waste pollutes the land and water.

The number of animals killed for food in the United States is 70 times larger than the number of animals killed in laboratories, 30 times larger than the number killed by hunters and trappers, and 500 times larger than the number of animals killed in animal pounds.

“If anyone wants to save the planet,” says Paul McCartney in a PETA interview from 2001, “all they have to do is stop eating meat. That’s the single most important thing you could do. It’s staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty. Let’s do it! Linda was right. Going veggie is the single best idea for the new century.”

Kenneth E. MacAlister Jr.| 5.19.10 @ 8:59PM

Nice try, but 1) GOD still is in control of the universe & none of the leftist nonsense you listed can either alter the fact that GOD is in control or override His control of the universe. Not to mention your sources are not only laughable, but also untrustworthy & 2) given the choice between trusting in mankind's (leftists especially) ridiculous ideas that they can somehow control GOD's creation or trusting in GOD's judgement & control of the universe, I'll stick with GOD. His track record is perfect. Climate change is just what the name implies. Climate change. It's been going on since the beginning of time & there is NOTHING loony moonbats on the left can do about it. The left is on a collision course with The Almighty GOD & I think we all know who will win that one. ALL the answers to what is going on in the world today can be found in GOD's Word. All you have to do is open your Bible.
"You Can Lead A Leftist To Knowledge, But You Can't Make It Think!"

Nick| 5.20.10 @ 12:00PM

Vasu Murti,

Global Warming is a HOAX!

David Harvison| 5.19.10 @ 6:36PM

The report goes over the relatively recent history, but what about the just released National Research Councils four reports. Will these be reviewed, countered, or otherwise noted in your columns.

Tic| 5.19.10 @ 10:31PM

Let me wrap up the Climate Change debate in one word, and that word is:

SCAM

Moreparsimony| 5.19.10 @ 10:59PM

What is wrong with you people! It is real and it is a very big threat. Oops, I thought you were writing about AGLL (Anthropogenic Global Leftist Lying).

Nick| 5.19.10 @ 11:48PM

Moreparsimony,

"AGLL", I love it!

Mind if I use it sometime?

Russell Seitz| 5.20.10 @ 1:04AM

For Dick Lindzen to lead Ferrara's legal fiction , he'd have to find some followers.

How very odd that he has failed to get anybody else worth mentioning to do so. As to the rest of the cohort Ferrara cites , the conspicuous absence our our " Reagan White House "colleagues , presidential science advisors Keyworth & Graham testifies to the continuing inanity of the Heartland proceedings - this isn't science , it's K-Street run amok.

R Givens| 5.20.10 @ 9:46AM

Just wondering if the Right-wingers still think that unregulated banking and unregulated off-shore oil drilling are a good thing. And should BP fully pay for cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico? Or do you favor another Right-wing bail out of a corrupt business?

JeffT| 5.20.10 @ 2:46PM

If ALgore really believed what he says, he would never have bought a real spiffy $8.9 million dollar fixer-upper on the California coast. The real deniers are those who deny that they are brain dead, believing this pseudo-science of "climate change."

JeffT| 5.20.10 @ 2:49PM

The myth that things are "unregulated" has been destroyed. There is so much regulation in this country, we are driving businesses to other countries. We are over-regulated up the whazoo. The SEC was supposedly on the case with Madoff? What did all that regulation do for us, hmmm. Under regulated my rear-end. Ask any business owner about government regulations.

wt| 5.20.10 @ 7:43PM

Climate change, as with most political "issues," is a diversion. There are real measurable and proven problems with burning hydrocarbons - both to humans and the environment. The simple fact is the means that generated wealth during our gilded age are still in place.

Sara| 5.21.10 @ 8:45PM

Can I just talk about lightbulbs? I like the Edison invention. But, of course, its time on earth is limited by The Congress of the United States. The outlawing of Edison lightbulbs to save the planet subsidizes an industry that cannot by law and regulation build factories in the U.S. They cause too much mercury pollution. So who is manufacturing the mercury lightbulbs we will be forced to use in years to come? China. China, the country who already owns our nation's enormous debt. How well do you suppose the Chinese regulate the use of mercury in their factories? And after they are manufactured and sent the U.S., who markets and profits by the newly mandated light bulbs? Westinghouse, one of the most massive business conglomerates in the world. Wonder which candidates they donate to? After mercury lightbulbs fill every American home with their dim and wobbly illumination, how many pounds of mercury will drift into the atmosphere and our children's lungs because of accidental breakage and failure to use the detailed process of cleaning up the spill or failure to meet the standard for disposing of used bulbs?
So logical, this new enviroreligion.

BTW, when the global warming alarmists use such phrases "hottest decade on record," they are referring to the period of time during which temperatures have been measured with any accuracy—or since about 1880. One hundred and thirty years is not very long on a 6,000,000,000 year old planet.

RobertS| 5.23.10 @ 10:29PM

How's that "Drill Baby Drill" thingy workin' for ya conservatives?

Perhaps we could suck the oil out of the Louisiana marshes and have airplanes spray it on the Red State Nation's heads?

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