The American Spectator : Packing Heat

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Packing Heat

By Peter Ferrara on 9.7.11 @ 6:07AM

Long silenced by powerful special interests, a growing number of scientists are standing up to “global warming.” And they have evidence.

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The Evidence Shows

The theory of global warming holds that carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases produced by human civilization collect in the atmosphere. They let radiation from the sun in, but like a greenhouse they prevent the radiation from escaping back out, leading temperatures to increase, potentially to catastrophic levels. Humans cause CO2 emissions primarily by burning fossil fuels like oil, coal, natural gas, and wood, which was the foundation of the industrial revolution.

But the established temperature record from the official sources is not consistent with this theory. Throughout the 20^th century and into the 21st, CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions continually increased, yet temperatures did not steadily increase. Surface temperatures in the U.S. were warmer in the 1930s than they are today. From 1940 to the late 1970s, U.S. surface temperatures declined, despite all the increased burning of fossil fuels during that period, leaving no significant difference at that point from 1900. This decline actually prompted speculation at the time that a new ice age was coming. Surface temperatures then increased until the unrelated El Nino weather phenomenon in 1998, sponsoring the global warming hysteria. Since 1998, surface temperatures have actually declined again.

More reliable and relevant is the satellite data on global atmospheric temperatures, which is not distorted by the location, coverage, and surrounding activities of land based weather stations (highly unreliable outside the U.S. and Europe), and covers the whole planet. The satellite data starts in 1979, and shows no increase in global temperature trends until 1998, when El Nino caused a sharp temperature spike. Since then the satellite data again shows that global atmospheric temperatures have declined.

If supposed greenhouse gas emissions were causing global warming, then we should have seen a far more steady increase in temperatures. What the objective scientists are now saying is that this up and down pattern of temperature is far more consistent with natural causes. The temperature variation patterns follow variations in solar activity (like sunspots) and major ocean current temperature trends. For example, a major influence on global temperatures is what is known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), which turns from warm to cold and back every 20 to 30 years, as cold water from deep in the ocean cycles up and is warmed by the sun. This PDO variation seems to follow closely with the actual temperature variation trends.

Global temperatures were also warmer than today during the Medieval Warm Period, a period of several hundred years around 1000 A.D, when now icy Greenland was named and actually farmed by settlers (who long since fled as the cold and ice advanced). Even higher temperatures prevailed during a period known as the Holocene Climate Optimum, which ran roughly from 6000 B.C. to 3000 B.C. In fact, temperatures were higher than today during most of the period from 9000 B.C. to the birth of Christ. Yet, there was no significant human burning of fossil fuels during these periods.

CO2 is a naturally occurring substance in the Earth’s atmosphere essential to life. Plants need to take in CO2 to live, and emit oxygen, which is essential to animal life. Animals breathe in oxygen and emit CO2. Proxy records scientists use to reconstruct the past show that atmospheric concentrations of CO2 were much higher in the past than today. For hundreds of millions of years prior to 400 million years ago, atmospheric CO2 concentrations were well over 30 times greater than today. But CO2 concentrations have actually been in sharp decline since then. From roughly 50 million back to 350 million years ago, fluctuating CO2 concentrations were generally 3 to 15 times their current levels. Princeton’s Happer argues that we have been suffering a CO2 famine that has harmed plant life and agriculture.

CO2 concentrations have begun rising again, due primarily to the industrial revolution and increased burning of fossil fuels, up 44 percent from 150 years ago. And this is already causing more rapid growth of plant life. But CO2 still accounts for only 0.039 percent of all atmospheric molecules, less than 1 percent of the concentration in human breath.

Moreover, humans and their activities currently account for only 3 percent of CO2 emissions each year. And less than half of the CO2 emitted by fossil fuel burning remains in the atmosphere; the rest is absorbed by the ocean or incorporated by the terrestrial biosphere. This is why policies to reduce human CO2 emissions such as the Kyoto treaty, even if fully implemented, would have negligible effects on future temperatures, reducing the temperatures that would otherwise result by 0.02 degrees C by 2050 for Kyoto, as conceded by even global warming alarmists.

Marching Science Proves the Special Interests Wrong

Real science continues to march on, despite the politicians and media flacks. Right now, scientific proofs are developing and being published that disprove the global warming theory.

Published, peer reviewed papers by MIT’s Lindzen find that a doubling of (CO2) in the atmosphere would increase temperatures by 0.7 degrees, less than half the estimate of the theoretical climate models relied on by the UN’s IPCC. Another published paper by NASA’s Spencer shows, using atmospheric temperature data from NASA’s Terra satellite, that much more heat escapes back out to space than is assumed captured in the atmosphere by greenhouse effects under the UN’s theoretical climate models. This explains why the warming temperature changes predicted by the UN’s global warming models over the past 20 years have been so much greater than the actual measured temperature changes.

Last month came the results of another major experiment by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), involving 63 scientists from 17 European and U.S. institutes. The results show that the sun’s cosmic rays resulting from sunspots have a much greater effect on Earth’s temperatures through their effect on cloud cover than the UN’s IPCC has been assuming. More cosmic rays mean more cloud cover, which cools temperatures. Less cosmic rays mean less cloud cover, raising temperatures. This again shows what the NIPCC and Heartland have been saying, that natural causes have the dominant effect on Earth’s temperatures, not greenhouse gases.

Finally, the UN’s own climate models project that if man’s greenhouse gas emissions were causing global warming, there would be a particular pattern of temperature distribution in the atmosphere, which scientists call “the fingerprint.” Temperatures in the troposphere portion of the atmosphere above the tropics would increase with altitude producing a “hotspot” near the top of the troposphere, about six miles above the earth’s surface. Above that, in the stratosphere, there would be cooling. But higher quality temperature data from weather balloons and satellites now show just the opposite: no increasing warming with altitude in the tropical troposphere, but rather a slight cooling, with no hotspot and no fingerprint. QED.

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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 (110) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

Ken (Old Texican)| 9.7.11 @ 7:45AM

Thanks, Peter.

Pat Spooner| 9.7.11 @ 7:47AM

Excellent summary of what most reasonable people understand - global weather and temperature variation are most directly impacted by the Sun!
The model results so often cited by climate change supporters are at best highly suspect because a minor change in any of hundreds of variables can change the model results significantly.

CountryOverParty| 9.8.11 @ 1:23PM

I agree, climate science is extremely complex with a vast number of interdependent variables and no hope for absolute certainty. But as in any risk assessment (be it terrorism, credit collapse, or ecological collapse) we must make decisions with imperfect information. Of the people who study climate their whole professional lives (climatologists), 97% believe climate change is real and caused by human activity. Honestly, I hope this 97% is wrong and that all the extreme weather we are seeing is caused by other forces that will cycle away naturally, but it seems foolish (and not to the true spirit of this nation) to bank on this. Particularly as fossil fuels have many other problems: foreign dependence for our security, air pollution, peak oil risks, technology of the past not the future. Let's get ahead of this and push for marketplace solutions.

data source:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WO.....index.html

mememine69| 9.7.11 @ 7:47AM

We must trust the carbon trading markets and corporations and politicians to manage the temperature of the planet.
We must call it consensus even though all of the thousands of consensus scientists all have their own special, personal and unique views of CO2 climate crisis.
We must trust the good and trustworthy politicians who promise to lower the seas and make the weather colder by taxing the air.
We must continue to believe in climate change crisis despite Obama not even mentioning the crisis in his state of the union address.
We must believe in climate change even though the number of consensus scientists vastly outnumbers the marching climate change protesters.
We must believe in climate change h e l l and spread our love for the planet as we condemn billions to a CO2 death just to make sure the kids turn the lights out more often and vote progressive when they reach voting age.
We must believe even though the thousands of consensus scientists refuse to march in the streets themselves. Don't they have families to save too?

Patrick| 9.7.11 @ 11:33AM

Yes, but theirs are more important than yours. They are far too special to suffer even the slightest inconvenience, since they are the ones who care so much that they force you to sacrifice for their crackpot ideals.

Russell Seitz| 9.7.11 @ 7:52AM

Whilst Peter was lawyering the West Wing I counseled Presidential Science Advisors Keyworth and Graham on the evolution of the climate modeling controversies of the Reagan era, and as such t have a duty to report that I have examined both of the documents he cites .

The former is , minus Peter's gloss, a compendium of almost unmitigated drivel assembled by a Department of Transportation bureaucrat turned professional witness seconded by an agronomist.

Freeman Dyson didn't write a word of it.

The second volume is only half as bad, being 400 pages shorter.

If Peter finds my opinion distressing , what ever will he make of the Forbe's report on the most recent editorial blowback :

http://www.forbes.com/sites/pe.....pologizes/

Shill Watch| 9.7.11 @ 8:48AM

Go back to your Cambridge weather reports, government fund chaser. You guys are worse than ambulance chasing lawyers.

SC Mike| 9.7.11 @ 9:10AM

Barbra Streisand.

Professor Wolfgang Wagner’s resignation is peculiar. If he really believed the Spencer / Braswell (S/B) paper was flawed, why did he not do the right thing and retract the paper? That he did not makes it seem like the good man was put upon by the IPCC mafia for publishing a peer-reviewed paper that met all the criteria science demands, but ran counter to what the Climate-Change-Keepers allow to be published.

What’s curious is that yesterday saw the publication of Dressler’s latest peer-reviewed paper countering S/B, a mere seven weeks after S/B’s publication. At least one former editor of a research journal finds that amazing.

Of course the response to S/B has been amazing too with reasonable folks seeing the Climate mafia libeling the study’s authors.

Is all this merely an effort to prevent research critical of the climate-change consensus into AR5?

JEM| 9.7.11 @ 3:08PM

And also remember that one of the scientists who objected to the printing fo the story and to whom the more conspiracy types will say forced Wagner's agreement to resign, is also on record saying where is all the heat - I believe as early as 2005. Mr. Seitz I would ask you what I have asked many other believers on this topic. What part of warming science do you believe is the most compelling reason to believe in AGW? I will await your answer, which I assume as in most cases I ask this question, will remain unanswered. The reason being is because the reason is typically the IPCC modeling work. That's not evidence, as they know (because the models don't work!).

John Navratil| 9.7.11 @ 9:40AM

Russell Seitz,

I am not a climate scientist and must rely on credible sources for information. I am also sceptical of that which I read, particularly in the political arena. It doesn't help to remember the coming ice age which made the hysterical rounds in the 70's. However, I CAN be convinced.

Unfortunately, this topic has become so political that finding science requires one to wade through so much effluvium.

When the "warmists" can credibly explain the carbon cycle in sufficient detail to model it, when the models begin to show an ability to predict, when the scientists stop threatening non-cooperation with disagreeing peers, when datasets are publish for peer review and people such Stephen McIntyre don't have sue to get it, when original datasets aren't discarded (oops?), when governments stop buying the science they need, and when Al Gore shuts his mouth, I'll become less sceptical.

I find some irony in Wagner's comments accompanying his resignation that "the paper was reviewed by scientific experts that in hindsight had a predetermined bias in their views on climate"

What? Say it's not so? Scientific experts have a bias? Still, it beggars belief that this editor could find such scientists without purposefully seeking them out if there is such unanimity in the scientific community. It will be most interesting to see where Prof. Wagner lands.

Dan Hirsch| 9.7.11 @ 10:19AM

I find it interesting that Peter Gleick's Forbes includes this excerpt from the big letter from the US National Academy of Sciences:

"Scientific conclusions derive from an understanding of basic laws supported by laboratory experiments, observations of nature, and mathematical and computer modeling. Like all human beings, scientists make mistakes, but the scientific process is designed to find and correct them. This process is inherently adversarial — scientists build reputations and gain recognition not only for supporting conventional wisdom, but even more so for demonstrating that the scientific consensus is wrong and that there is a better explanation. That’s what Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, and Einstein did."

It continues:

"But when some conclusions have been thoroughly and deeply tested, questioned, and examined, they gain the status of “well-established theories” and are often spoken of as “facts.”"

Very nice. Peter, AGW proponents, remember a long time ago when everyone said the world was flat, the center of the universe, that there were only four elements? Well today those same people are telling us that we are warming the planet by our choice of energy sources.

It's not the variations in solar output, it's not the historic ice age cycles, it's not something that we don't even know about. We have a few hundred or maybe at best a thousand years' data on a system that is four billion years old. And the US NAS says:

For instance, there is compelling scientific evidence that our planet is about 4.5 billion years old (the theory of the origin of Earth), that our universe was born from a single event about 14 billion years ago (the Big Bang theory), and that today’s organisms evolved from ones living in the past (the theory of evolution). Even as these are overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, fame still awaits anyone who could show these theories to be wrong."

This is where they lie. You won't ber famous if you contradict them or their AGW theory, they will make sure that you, you "denier," will never get published, will never get funded, or will never get heard.

I believe that they are seeing their own comeuppance here. Someone will eventually expose the frauds for what they are, frauds.

Besides, aren't these the same people pushing Keynesian economic policies? We've known that they have NEVER been right, in practice!!!

The climate is changing, it always has and it always will. There is no such thing as a static climate. Could we please stop trying to change it? If, as unlikely as it seems, we did CHANGE it, wouldn't that be anthropogenic, too.

This whole thing just does not make one lick of sense, not one.

PS Note how Gleick in his article refers to four politicians and no scientists: some obscure Soviet nomenklatura guy, Nixon (overridden by 'brave Republicans') , Lincoln who founded the USNAS (Obviously, Abe would agree...) and that stalwart Republican John Huntsman, who also believes in the efficacy of Keynesian economic policies. No scientists, no physicists, just dead politicians. Boy, if that ain't proof, I don't know what is.

Sheesh - It's getting cold outside again, I'm going to idle my car for a couple of hours, that'll help! Morons.

DaveS| 9.7.11 @ 8:40PM

Evolution is false.

Stammon| 9.7.11 @ 10:30AM

After reading the Forbes report and it's letters column, I am absolutely sure that Peter Gleick is as full of beans as you are. To cite him as proof of the process ending in Prof. Wagner's resignation proves to me that you do not understand how science and peer reviewed journals historically work. You can't even see your own bias, can you?

skip| 9.7.11 @ 11:02AM

Ode to a AGW ho:

Microbubbles
For the clime
Fake and crappy
Take lotta dime

Microbubbles
Stop the warm all over
With an idea that is gonna
Serve to stall the end of time

So here's to bright undershine
And here's to reflective sea
And mostly let's not roast
Not you or me

So here's to the carbon end
I give the world today
This cannot miss
That we cannot delay

(apologies to the remembrance of Mr. Ho)

Dai Alanye | 9.7.11 @ 12:46PM

I've been waiting a long time to hear of the contributions to global warming caused by human generation of water vapor.

!. Water vapor is a stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. That is, it reflects more infrared back toward the earth's surface.
2. There is approximately ten times as much water vapor in the atmosphere as there is carbon dioxide.
3. Most organic substances we burn contain considerable hydrogen as well as carbon, thereby contributing to the generation of H2O as well as CO2. In general, the "lighter" the fuel the more hydrogen versus carbon in it. That is, bituminous coal contains a greater proportion of H to C than anthracite. Fuel oil > coal, ethyl alcohol > gasoline, natural gas > alcohol.
4. The oceans and other bodies of water continually contribute via evaporation to the supply of water vapor in the atmosphere.

In the light of these facts, why has Al Gore failed to call for a moratorium on the burning of hydrogen-containing substances? Even more to the point, why has he failed to propose covering the oceans with plastic film?

DaveD| 9.7.11 @ 6:00PM

Water vapor - that's easy. The atmosphere is self-regulating when it comes to water vapor, it can only hold so much, then it rains. Even the nutcase AGW crowd understands this much.

Thom| 9.7.11 @ 7:44PM

Dave, while true to a certain extent do you know what percent of the global atmosphere is composed of water vapor on average? Have you been in a tropical rain forest? The Arizona desert? The point I’m trying to make is that the content of the atmosphere with regard to H2O content is not self-regulating on a global scale, only locally. If the Sun’s output increases the percent of H2O content will rise and stay there, likewise it will fall if the Sun’s output decreases which is has over time. There is a lot of room for growth in the H2O content in our atmosphere and the primary driver of that is the Sun’s output. H2O is the primary greenhouse gas here and that is an inconvenient truth for the AGW folks since that one is beyond our control. Like CO2, its concentrations follow the “warming” not precede it hence the catalyst of all this is an inconvenient truth for the “warmers”.

DaveD| 9.7.11 @ 11:16PM

If water vapor is self-regulating in Detroit, self-regulating in Calcutta, self-regulating in Sydney Australia, self-regulating in Timbuctu, whys is it incorrect osay it is self-regulating globally since it is apprently self-regulating everywhere?

John Navratil| 9.7.11 @ 11:34PM

DaveD,

Because the total water vapour exposed to radiation may still vary over long periods of time. Droughts are a short-term example of the concept.

DaveD| 9.8.11 @ 9:44AM

I mis-replied the first time. Any given volume of atmosphere at a given pressure and temperature can only hold so much water vapor. That is true EVERYWHERE and EVERY TIME you check it out. Doesn't matter if you are sitting in the middle of the Sahara desert or in Greenland, the amount of water vapor a given volume of atmosphere can hold at moment is a finite quantity based largely on the temperature of the atmosphere.

If the temperature of the atmosphere rises, it can hold more water vapor, If the temperature of the atmosphere drops, it can't, and excess water vapor, if any, precipitates out as fog and/or dew. This is something every adult in the room has seen with his or her very own eyes. If humidity (the measure of the amo0unt of water vapor in the air) is high on a hot summer aftrtnoon and the temps go down overnight, you will see the results the following morning.

THE ATMOSPHERE IS SELF-REGULATING when it comes to water vapor - it can only hold so much. The fact that it is more humid in Miami than it iw in Pheonix does not change this simple fact.

John Navratil| 9.8.11 @ 6:55PM

DaveD,

I never said it did, but the RELATIVE humidity isn't 100% everywhere. The total amount of water vapor which the atmosphere CAN hold is not the amount it DOES hold. If it were, the entire planet would be covered in clouds. El Nino and La Nina events are but one example demonstrating large scale manipulation of the levels of saturation. Given that the saturation levels can an do change, the albedo of the planet can and does change. It is, central to the "cloud theory" being tested.

Nick| 9.8.11 @ 12:33AM

DaveD,

"The atmosphere is self-regulating when it comes to water vapor, it can only hold so much, then it rains."

BZZZZZZZZZZZ! WRONG!

How much water vapor a particular volume of air can hold is totally dependent on the pressure of the air and its temperature. Change either of these variables, and, you change how much H2O the volume of air can hold.

Water will boil at 72 degrees Fahrenheit, if you remove enough of the pressure. If you increase the air temperature, the amount of water vapor it can hold will also increase.

Since the barometric pressure varies around the globe, and absolute pressure (PSIA) varies at different altitudes, as does the temperature of the air; the amount of H2O the atmosphere can hold varies around the globe.

When it does rain, the water vapor gives up its heat, as it condenses. And, water vapor can hold huge amounts of heat. More than CO2 can reflect back to Earth.

DaveD| 9.8.11 @ 9:53AM

"... the amount of H2O the atmosphere can hold varies around the globe."

So bleeping what?

The atmosphere can hold is a fixed and finite amount of water vapor at any given pressure and temperature and you can't add more water vapor to the atmosphere once it is full up. Water doesn't stay there all that long as the conditions, pressure and heat, change overtime, sometimes quite rapidly.

There is no correlation between high humidity and high temperatures. I have seen, admittedly with my lying eyes, 100% humidity at 20 below zero and near zero percent humidity ad 100. IF there was a correlation, it ought to be bitter cold in the Sahara and warm as toast in Minnesota in late February - ain't so.

Nick| 9.8.11 @ 6:39PM

DaveD,

I'm sorry, I was not trying to degrade you.

And, I'm not sure what, exactly, is your argument with what I wrote. You seem to be repeating everything that I stated, in your responses from today.

"The atmosphere can hold is a fixed [sic] and finite amount of water vapor at any given pressure and temperature and you can't add more water vapor to the atmosphere once it is full up."

This is almost word for word what I wrote. Except, the atmosphere usually doesn't "fill up." And, it rains, all the time, when the relative humidity is well below 100%. Rain happens at higher altitudes, when water vapor begins to condense on dust particles in the atmosphere.

"There is no correlation between high humidity and high temperatures."

I never stated that there was. I wrote that as temperature rises, the amount of water vapor a given volume of air can hold increases. You have repeated the same truth.

"I have seen, admittedly with my lying eyes, 100% humidity at 20 below zero and near zero percent humidity ad 100."

Did it rain at 20 below zero? You can have 100% humidity without rain. I believe your original comment was not explanatory enough.

Again, I am confused with which part of what I wrote you disagree.

john dubose| 9.8.11 @ 8:38PM

The global warming guys think that CO2 in the atmosphere creates a POSITIVE feedback with moisture. That is extra CO2 >> extra water vapor >> more greenhouse effect. And it is at least plausible. The exciting new results of simulated cosmic rays forming clouds in air saturated with moisture is fairly new and would tend to balance that feedback. It is a big deal and may eventually make everyone understand that we humans can not significantly affect the overall temperature. Then there would be no point to a lot of the rules they want to set up.

Occam's Tool| 10.10.11 @ 1:38PM

I'm sorry, but what about the farting cows? Aren't they dangerous?

I always worried about this one---too much fulminating that the "science was settled" (bullshit, always bullshit---anyone who knows anything about scientific inquiry in any field knows that what is most important is what we don't know, and things ALWAYS come up to shatter theories on the cutting edge), followed by falsification of data, followed by e-mails worrying about falsification of data....

Please.

gearjammer| 9.7.11 @ 7:56AM

Gonna print copies of this and hand it out.

coal carrier| 9.7.11 @ 8:28AM

Mr. Ferrara, please don’t confuse Mr. Gore with the facts.

Mimi| 9.7.11 @ 9:21AM

We deniers, know that both arguments need definate PROOF. Recently a study was released that PROVED correctly that Global Warming caused by MAN is bunk! Not getting much publicity but coming at a good time as this is a factor in the coming 2012 election.
We need to get off foreign oil and kiss goodbye the Middle East, who we enrich to harm us in return. Dig it, drill for it, explore for it...MAKE those cars to run on natural gas....Supply our own needs of ENERGY!

Jeamar| 9.7.11 @ 2:23PM

Thanks Mimi. There also seems to me to be a moral issue in an energy policy that prohibits the US to explore & exploit its own energy resources to keep our environment "pure" while at the same time asking other countries to destroy (?) their environments so we can buy from them. Obama's encouragement of Brazil to explore for energy sources promising we will be their best customer almost made me crazy.
Ayan Rand, wrote a very insightful essay in 1962 called "How Does One Lead a Rational Life in an Irrational Society?" lt is becoming increasingly difficult to do this.
Many good posts on this topic so far.

Timothy L. Pennell| 9.7.11 @ 9:22AM

Here's the deal. Most of these clowns are LIBERALS, if not, all of them. Liberals, starts with the Letter "L". As in: LEMMINGS. They all stick together, NO MATTER WHAT. Name your poison. Health Care. Unions. Only Whites can be Racists. And, of course: America is the REASON for everything that's going WRONG, in the World.
They cannot be diswayed by FACTS. They will not be turned away by FIGURES.
Pop Quiz: Who destroys their LIFE'S WORK (50 Years of Data) rather than submit to a Freedom Of Information Request, ordered by a Court?
Give up?
Climate Scientists at East Anglia. And, these guys weren't just the run of the mill, great guys. They were right up there, just a hair below GOD, himself, in stature. That's right. They were second, only, to Al Gore.
Doesn't matter.
The fact that their EMAILS were hacked, ala Wiki Leaks, to reveal that they were having "Problems" with the FACTS not Corroborating their ASSUMPTIONS, doesn't faze them one bit.
"Irrelevant."
The Emails? You think that these Emails are irrelevant?
"No. The WAY they came to light, makes their very existence, suspect. For that reason, they will not even be LOOKED AT."
Remember?
Frankly, I don't know why these idiots were EVER taken seriously. I thought they told us that it was getting COLDER? Then, they told us it was getting WARMER. Now, it's just CHANGING, and they're still freaking out. I thought we wanted CHANGE? Right? Hope and Change?
They've even started to try and scare us with an impending ALIEN INVASION, if we don't send them more Grant Money.
And, while we're at it. What ever happened to that Population Bomb, that was gonna kill us all?
Please. Everyone. Fool me TWICE, shame on ME.
Remember that.

DaveS| 9.7.11 @ 8:47PM

They were caught falsifying the data. I guess Wikileaks is welcome only when applied to US secrets - but when a comparable sunlight is shone on the emails between the British and American warmists - how dare you!

I was a biology major in the early 1970s. The kumbaya and John Denver crowds dominated the department scene. I now have 30 years of nuclear power and technology experience under my belt; my classmates would probably be aghast. The environmental left is so transparent, so dishonest, so proud - and so wrong. Want green? Try U-235.

Stammon| 9.7.11 @ 10:02AM

I live in Indiana, and if I have to choose between a mile of ice on my farm or 100 degree summers I choose the latter. Historically, every time the weather turns cold Empires fall. Every time the weather turns warm man blooms.

Dan Mathewson| 9.7.11 @ 6:13PM

Kenneth Clark put it best here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY6LBGiPpJc

C Smith| 9.7.11 @ 10:03AM

The ultimate global warming spectacle that environmentalist don't want to think about:

For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts (Malachi 4:1-3).

Rmm| 9.7.11 @ 11:33AM

This story reminds me of the Spotted Owl hoax of the late 80's. Greenies perpetrated this sham to shut down logging on public land, which was accomplished, to the demise of much of the logging industry in the Northwest.

skip| 9.7.11 @ 5:21PM

As Paul Harvey is famous for saying, 'and now, the rest of the story'.

Turns out the Spotted Owl is endangered by the Barred Owl, an owl that is much better at surviving and multiplying than the Spotted Owl, and is moving in and forcing out the Spotted Owl.

Environmental liberals, fierce adherents of evolution theory, will of course practice what they preach, and let nature take its course. Survival of the fittest. Only the strong survive. Kill of be killed. Natural Selection. Evolution.

Nope. Of course not. They have hatched a plan to lure in Barred Owls with recorded Barred Owl mating calls, in order to shoot them dead, thereby ensuring the survival of a species that cannot survive on its own.

The Spotted Owl, it will be recalled, was a national story in the late '80s, when, in order to protect the species, western logging was banned. It has been awhile, but the numbers off the top of my head I recall are that as a result of the ban Oregon's lumber harvested fell from about 250 million board feet to less tahn 5 million board feet annually.

By coincidence, this lumber was almost exclusively softwoods. Industries requiring softwoods for their production materials had no choice but to use the softer species of hardwoods, which were more expensive. Al Gore pushed hard for, and led the fight for, the western ban for the Spotted Owl in the senate. Gore and his family owned millions of acres of Tennessee harwood forests.

It would be interesting to know if Gore has made more money from saving the Spotted Owl with the softwood lumber harvesting ban, or from saving the world from global warming with carbon offsets.

Or when, in the '90s, he tearfully told the nation his sister died from lung cancer, when he pushed hard for, and led the fight for, more and stricter regulations on the tobacco industry in the senate, that not only increased the costs of producing tobacco products, increased the price of tobacco grown and sold by tobacco farmers. Gore and his family owned millions of acres of North Carolina tobacco farms.

DaveS| 9.7.11 @ 8:58PM

Try the snail darter - precursor to the spotted owl hoax.

NYMPH| 9.7.11 @ 11:34AM

Wow! Finally I understand. I always wondered why I could go outside when the temperature was below freezing, even close to zero, stand out of the wind in direct SUNLIGHT and feel warmth. It's the SUN, stupid! Who would have thunk it?

Brian B| 9.7.11 @ 11:45AM

Russel Seitz considers the Forbes article by a left wing rhetorician with zero science in it some dispositive end to Spencer's paper or Kirkby's at CERN?
Dessler has made an attempt, so far a nearly meaningless one, to refute Spencer but otherwise his paper appears to be fairly robust.
The CERN paper on cosmic rays is essentially unrefuted although considerable arm waving has occurred.
As a small correction to the article the cosmic rays observed are largely interstellar, not from our sun, but the sun does effect how much of the interstellar cosmic rays reach earth through its emissions which stream past earth.

ncatty| 9.7.11 @ 3:19PM

I think CERN is the beginning of the end of AGW. What a relief. I feel cooler already.

John| 9.7.11 @ 12:24PM

Very well written, researched and documented. My own research indicates you are right on the money.

From what I can tell the supporters of the global warming theory are pseudo scientists. They seem to follow the mold that an old family friend who ran the World Wildlife Federation early in its history who said that many of the groups he met with really had political agendas to fundamentally change our country. As I recall (the statements were recounted to me by my father who passed away last year) the apparent objective of the people taking over the environmental movement were to basically take us back to an agrarian society with them in charge.

Paul from SA| 9.7.11 @ 12:33PM

This is an excellent summary -- another great article written by Mr. Peter Ferrara. Outstanding!

I have been studying this issue for more than 10 years now, and I have moved away from studying the science to studying the politics, as I have concluded this is a political issue. The science isn't there; the heat-trapping properties for CO2 are exaggerted. The AGW crowd doesn't seem to know about absorbtion sprectrum for CO2.

I'm still waiting for a national, public debate or discussion where we can ask them some questions, like what caused all the global cooling?

Why change it from global warming to climate change?

Why attack skeptics? Why not encourage it? Why not let people peer-review their work? Why all the secrecy?

Why conceal the data and methodology?

Why do all their solutions involve me giving them my money?

Why won't any global warming scientists answer some questions in public? Why so afraid?

LiveFreeOrDie| 9.7.11 @ 1:29PM

"The science isn't there; the heat-trapping properties for CO2 are exaggerted."

The absorption property is not exaggerated, it's completely made up. The absorption is ZERO. It's a simple experiment and it's been proven over and over. The "greenhouse" effect is non-existent with regards to CO2.

John Navratil| 9.7.11 @ 1:50PM

LiveFreeOrDie,

You may wish to revisit this. The physics about absorption and reradiation are pretty clear. I'd a good friend (now gone) who was in the business of knowing (he shot lasers at rockets, and analyzed returns through the atmosphere for signal). What he couldn't say was whether the greenhouse effect was linear with concentration; but that wasn't his job.

On the other hand, I'd like to see the experiment to which you refer.

JEM| 9.7.11 @ 3:14PM

I was under the impression that the failure of "CO2 science" was a misunderstanding on how CO2 is regulated by the oceans and that actually CO2 concentration levels trail heat increases as opposed to cause them.

LiveFreeOrDie| 9.7.11 @ 4:27PM

John,

A few minutes on google will satisfy your curiosity. There are many adaptations but the basic experiment involves constructing two "greenhouses," one modified with a carbon-based material used as a ceiling and one without. Neither greenhouse will have an increased temperature over the other. The original green house effect theory was started in 1909 and has since been debunked, several times over. The actual and negligible effect of a concentrated amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would be a very slight cooling effect.

LiveFreeOrDie| 9.7.11 @ 4:48PM

A good read:
http://climaterealists.com/ind.....position=4

Paul from SA| 9.7.11 @ 5:22PM

Very good read. Thanks. I grabbed this interesting statment:

"The warming effect is a single persistent phenomenon linked to the density of the atmosphere and not the composition."

chemman| 9.7.11 @ 6:56PM

That would be the Pressure-Temperature proportionality Gas-Law taught in most High School Chemistry classes. Which is also why Venus with a much, much denser atmosphere is much hotter than the earth.

Paul from SA| 9.7.11 @ 5:24PM

Also:

"7) When land receives radiant energy the surface layer of molecules becomes warm quickly but penetration is insignificant. The heat is quickly radiated back into the atmosphere and joins the rest of the radiant energy in the atmosphere in the process of release to space. Despite any atmospheric greenhouse effect land gets cold very quickly at night and in winter. This suggests that if the planet were entirely land then the speed of heat loss to space would soon make Earth more like Mars or the Moon than Venus. Without the humidity from the oceans there would never be enough density from all the other gases in the atmosphere to achieve a density that could save us from rapid freezing."

John Navratil| 9.7.11 @ 10:13PM

LiveFreeOfDie,

While I am not to be confused with a "warmist" - my earlier post should make that clear, I am completely unconvinced by this link.

In all cases, the discussion is about a blanket effect - molecules being warmed by solar radiation and then happily reradiating in the same frequencies. More atmosphere means a thicker blanket. There is no mention that C02 and water vapor are asymmetric molecules which absorbs in a broad band and reradiate in a smaller IR band. It is this mechanism which causes a net absorbtion of energy.

axbucxdu| 9.8.11 @ 8:55PM

It seems some German physicists are not amused:

"The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that many authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier (1824), Tyndall (1861), and Arrhenius (1896), and which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism"

Like the author says, this one is simple to understand:

"Venus: No Greenhouse Effect"

DaveD| 9.7.11 @ 6:12PM

Should be no surprise that CO2 is a lagging indicator. Warm water cannot contain as much CO2 as cold water can. You can verify this at home with a can of soda pop - just take it out of the fridge and wait a couple hours, see how fizzy it is when warmed up.

Dave Williams| 9.7.11 @ 12:33PM

A very solid article, but as the North Vietnamese general replied when pointed out that his troops had never defeated the US in open battle, "That is true but irrelevant." And Twain comes to mind as well: "You cannot reason a man out of something he was never reasoned into." The warmists believe what they believe because it's a religion to them, and no amount of facts will cause them to do otherwise. Kind of like arguing with fundies....

DaveS| 9.7.11 @ 9:00PM

Pride has its consequences. Well said, Dave.

LarryK| 9.7.11 @ 12:36PM

"It's getting hot in here,
Take off all my clothes,...

What, That was out loud.

Sorry

BCD| 9.7.11 @ 2:01PM

There are three camps on this, warmist, lukewarmist, and denier. This article presents the lukewarmist argument, that the effect exists but it it not big. This is a dangerous precedent to set.

The fact is that there simply is no such thing as a greenhouse gas effect. It was disproven experimentally over a century ago, and it is a clear violation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. The sun can raise the temperature of the cooler earth, the earth can raise the temperature of the still cooler air, but the cooler air cannot then raise the temperature of the warmer earth by the slightest amount. Low intensity light from the cool atmosphere cannot be converted to increased molecular motion (higher temperature) in a surface emitting higher intensity light due to already-intense molecular motion. That would be the tail wagging the dog.

Why is this important? We should not be letting 'our' scientists act like defense experts in court, saying whatever to win this one case, but never questioning the judge's authority to punish. By keeping the existence of the effect in tact, lukewarmists preserve the power of government, taken without constitutional consent of the governed, to regulate us as presumed environmental criminals. In this kangaroo court, the burden of proof is on the accused, and lukewarmists will get well paid as 'experts' on the next environmental scare.

DaveD| 9.7.11 @ 6:07PM

I personally dislike the word "denier" when applied to me. You see, you can "deny" that the Earth is round. On the other hand, you cannot "deny" that the Earth is flat because the Earth isn't flat to begin with. I prefer the word "skeptic."

BCD| 9.7.11 @ 9:59PM

I know that term has a bad connotation coming from warmists, and others prefer "realist" or "slayer." "Skeptic," however, is not definitive. I was once skeptical, then was forced to look into it due to new GHG regulations on my business, and am now fully convinced that the effect itself does not exist. I deny its existence.

Don't let the left redefine your own language.

CalMark| 9.7.11 @ 2:33PM

For a real, live scientific project, I happened to collect outside air temperatures at a location between Chicago and Milwaukee. Both are major cities that burn a LOT of fossil fuel for heating and transportation. To my surprise, I found a significant COOLING trend.

Did my leftie colleagues believe me? Nah. They just disregarded the data, babbling about misleading or downright false newspaper stories discussing glacier melt.

There are only three religions acceptable to the Left: Liberalism, Warmism, and Islam. Non-zealots need not apply.

P Walker| 9.7.11 @ 3:03PM

The Spencer and Braswell , Dressler dust up , as well as Wagner's resignation is covered extensively at http://wattsupwiththat.com/

NotPropagandized| 9.7.11 @ 3:16PM

The mainstream media, authoritarian political pundits and green-racketeers have successfully implanted the idea that human caused CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere lead to global warming and an inevitable environmental catastrophe. The degree of success of such propaganda means that we'll be spending a lot of conversation and worry about the matter and that we'll be all too careful not to offend our true believing friends and peers with the emerging truth. Further, much as this discussion has taken place not dissimilarly from the global cooling alarm in the 1970's, there will be more hue and cry for new causes in the future. Let's forgive each other and pay attention to real science and not faux-science-politics-racketeering.

Jack London| 9.7.11 @ 5:19PM

Fred Singer - once in the pay of the Moonies
Richard Lindzen- credibility comprehensively demolished
Roy Spencer - believes in intelligent design
William Happer - a deluded non-climate scientist
Syun-ichi Akasofu - woeful ignorance of climate modelling
Patrick Michaels - junk science and in the pocket of industry
David Douglass - limited science taken apart by real experts
Freeman Dyson - admits he knows little about it.

Most of these are washed up older folk. In most scientific revolutions, it takes the older set to die out and most of these idiots will be retired or gone soon.

Ken (Old Texican)| 9.7.11 @ 6:17PM

Jack London-- due for his annual release interview from the loony bin.

chemman| 9.7.11 @ 7:01PM

Jack London-woeful knowledge of argumentation and completely ignorant of science.

Paul from SA| 9.7.11 @ 7:56PM

Jack London - gullible and ignorant, will believe anything a liberal says; will recite what told to say, incapable of independent thought.

skip| 9.7.11 @ 8:04PM

Equus Asinus Enthalpy London 7.8.11 @ 4:05PM:

"Hmmm. Let's see. 98% of climate scientists think man-made global warming is real. 2% don't."

John Navratil| 9.8.11 @ 6:40PM

skip,

Nothing to see here.. Move on.. No need to look into cosmic rays? We've voted!

This would all be very interesting except for people making policy affecting everyone which CAN be seen based on evidence which only the faithful can see.

It's a damned good thing we didn't bankrupt the economy for fear of the coming ice age in 1970.

faxmatter| 9.13.11 @ 10:22PM

Hey Jack: do you ever concern yourself with facts or logic or science or do you strictly traffic in ad hominem attacks and slander? What part of warming science do you believe is the most compelling reason to believe in AGW?

Occam's Tool| 10.10.11 @ 1:41PM

Jack is most amusing on National Health Services, as well.

ABNCP| 9.7.11 @ 5:30PM

Great article Mr. Ferrara. What is most disturbing to my way of thinking is that that lunatic Gore received over half of the popular vote for President.
and that Naval fraud Kerry did almost as well. Does not speak well for the American voteing public. I can only hope that most of this country has, in the last two and a half years, woken up to the dangers the Democrat Party poses to this country.

Ken (Old Texican)| 9.7.11 @ 6:24PM

ABNCP,
Where do you live?
.22 shells are CHEAP.

Are there any lakes/rivers nearby? Get some worm on a hook type fishing tackle.

You sir are precisely correct. Somewhere around half of our (active) voters are stark raving crazy.

You won't exactly "enjoy" my new novel... but you will be glad you read it.
www.americaalonesasidno.com

Ken (Old Texican)| 9.7.11 @ 6:27PM

my finger broke, ABNCP
Try this link:
www.americaalonesaidno.com

Wayne | 9.7.11 @ 6:39PM

Many of the "soft" sciences have been corrupted before. We have seen Freud corrupt Psychology, Darwin corrupt Biology, and many people corrupt Sociology and Anthropology. Certainly Climatology is a soft science.
You recognize one when they use the word "believe". Belief has no place in science. A true scientist goes where the empirical evidence takes him. In fact belief just stands in the way. One exception to this is a belief in the scientific method. It requires repeatable experiments that support mathematical analysis, that can be reproduced by any scientist engaging in the method. Theories are just meant to guide research, not control debate.
When "soft scientist" use belief in computer models based on fudged data that can not be reproduced and statistical rather than empirical analysis they are closer to Jim Jones than Albert Einstein.

BackToBasics| 9.7.11 @ 10:52PM

In and of itself, meteorology is not a soft science. But socialist-minded professors and "scientists" cherry-picked the climate data and created the algorithms used in the climate models to artificially produce the outcomes either the ignorant government leaders or the socialist/Marxist-minded government leaders wanted. Of course many also did it just to get more funding but it still produced a pseudo-science industry.

But this "science" was originally driven by publically-run university scientists, e.g. Penn State, Colo Sate U at Boulder, East Anglia, England, not the private sector companies or private universities. Later on a few companies joined in the fray when they realized they could potentially make some money off it themselves. But in the beginning, it was government-sponsored labs that produced the Global Warming pseudo-science.

BackToBasics| 9.7.11 @ 10:58PM

More accurately I should say that neither meteorology nor climatology are soft sciences.

DaveD| 9.7.11 @ 11:35PM

"But socialist-minded professors and "scientists" cherry-picked the climate data and created the algorithms used in the climate models to artificially produce the outcomes ... government leaders wanted."

There really is no other way to create a computer model - that's why they shouldn't be trusted. They all begin with an assumption of what the outcome will (or should) be. Then the parameters are adjusted to derive the expected result.

The is especially true with complex and chaotic systems such as climate. There is simply no way we can understand all the dynamics in the system. As Donald Rumsfield said, " There are known unknowns and unknown unknowns."

Global climate is NOT a simple system, and we don't know everything about it and probably never will. With so much going on, the "unknown unknowns" overwhelm the "known unknowns."

In order to get anywhere in modelling we have to simplify the conditions, and it is incredibly dumb and stupid on our part to think we can simplify the conditions sufficiently to predict future behavior.

BackToBasics| 9.8.11 @ 12:52AM

I did not mean to imply that if they had only chosen the right data that the models would be perfect.

Yes, world climate is too dynamic and complex a system to make any reasonable predictions and even at that, not worldwide predictions, beyond the next short cycles such as that found in El Nino and La Nina which go on for a year or two.

But they are not really soft sciences in the way that sociology and anthropology are and in order to make false claims and predictions, as imperfect as the models are or ever could be, the "hard data" and the models themselves still had to be manipulated and they most definitely were. Also, to boot it was done in governemnt-sponsored universities in the beginning. Those were my points.

skip| 9.8.11 @ 12:35PM

'Meteorolgy is not a soft science'. It sure would be nice to be able to rely on the bastards whenever I go boating, golfing, or other enjoyable outdoor activities.

BackToBasics| 9.8.11 @ 6:31PM

I wish they'd get it right more often too. The forecasts are often more lousy than what they predict.

At least the weather forecasters don't try to pass legislation to be able levy carbon "dioxide" credit taxes on us the way many politicians would like to.

But it is a science that can be deduced by numbers and equations unlike sociology and anthropology and all sceinces rely on models to some extent, none of which are perfect. Taking the politics out of climate studies could produce a better science and better forecasts and long range predictive models. Much time and money have been wasted trying to prove that global warming is happening because of minor increases in CO2 levels by human industry and fuel usage. The sun is the major driving force of long-term climate change. we'd all be better off if the pseudo-scientists would just admit this.

skip| 9.9.11 @ 1:28AM

That massive nuclear fusion reactor at the center of the solar system comprising 99.9% of its mass?

I suppose you expect me to believe the solar system is named after it too.

Sheesh. Next you'll be telling me mankind has absolutely nothing to do with the recently discovered warming of Mars, Jupiter, Triton, and Pluto.

Why stop there. Might as well pretend the atmosphere is composed of 780,840 parts per million nitrogen, 209,460 parts per million oxygen, 9,340 parts per million argon, accounting for 999,640 parts per million.

And, for the kicker, carbon dioxide has to share with other known killers like methane, sulfer dioxide, among other gases for the whopping 360 parts per million left.

No wait, I got it, let's really go for broke, and state of all the naturally occurring carbon dioxide comprising this paltry amount entering the atmosphere, humans cause only 3% of it.

How gullible do you think I am anyway?

BackToBasics| 9.9.11 @ 5:28PM

I wish they'd get it right more often too. The forecasts are often more lousy than what they predict.At least the weather forecasters don't try to pass legislation to be able levy carbon "dioxide" credit taxes on us the way many politicians would like to.But it is a science that can be deduced by numbers and equations unlike sociology and anthropology and all sceinces rely on models to some extent, none of which are perfect. Taking the politics out of climate studies could produce a better science and better forecasts and long range predictive models. Much time and money have been wasted trying to prove that global warming is happening because of minor increases in CO2 levels by human industry and fuel usage. The sun is the major driving force of long-term climate change. we'd all be better off if the pseudo-scientists would just admit this.

skip| 9.10.11 @ 2:24PM

The above referenced scientific facts, including of mass, composition, and contributing factors, by skip, were brought to you by sarcasm. It's not just for breakfast anymore.

faxmatter| 9.13.11 @ 10:36PM

DaveD: I think you mean to say that there really is no other way to create a computer model of GLOBAL CLIMATE. Then I would agree with this point. As far as other much simpler chemical systems with completely understood processes, it is possible to make a good computer model using known reactions, reaction rates, equilibria, etc. We don't understand the climate well enough by a long shot to do accurate modeling. There are too many hundreds of processes involved, for most of which we don't know the relevant pathways or rate and/or equilibrium constants. It truly is an exercise in futility done, I guess, for the money.

Who Knows?| 9.7.11 @ 7:44PM

Isn't it scary that Gore almost became president?

It seems like only yesterday, for this 69 year old guy, that "science" was predicting global freezing---what, in the 70's?

Personally, I don't waste much time even following the details of the "global warming" brouhaha, and esentially take the whole debate to be a form of entertainment.

Just look at all the fools, who seriously believe such idiocy! It is especially galling, in my own bodily experience, during the COLD days of winter, to suffer the dip spits who worry about WARMING!

By the way, science may be wonderful, but it isn't the GOD that people like Christopher Hitchens and Rationalists take it to be.

Where does "science" come from?

HUMANS create it, using their bodily nervous system. What an expression it is, too.

The mostly unacknowledged truth about under-developed humans, these days, is pretty similar to what's gone on in the past, such as when it was believed the Earth was flat and the center of the Universe.

Religious Provincialism and Scientific Materialism are words coined by Adi Da Samraj, many years ago, to indicate this.

We don't have the luxury of being a Christian, Jew, Moslem, Buddhist, Hindu, etc, anymore! Such separative behavior as "believing" my religion is unique, and the one and only one, logically leads to all the self-inflicted suffering of humans on each other.

But, it's the scientific materialism that's really running amok.

It's all about STUFF! Material THINGS!

And, yet, even TRUE cutting edge science is aware of the NON-MATERIAL essence of all of it!

There is only light. Light is all there is.

Objective things and subjectivity are all just light.

Or, Radiant Transcendental Being, Consciousness and Bliss.

Yes---Sat-Chit-Ananda.

Enjoy it.

Russell Seitz| 9.7.11 @ 9:28PM

What joy it must give Peter Ferrarra to be so interestingly seconded.

To summarize, so Old Texican can return to his place by the fireside in a Mel Brooks Movie:

http://i52.tinypic.com/fuyws8.jpg

John Navratil| 9.7.11 @ 10:37PM

Russell Seitz,

Did you think you might wish to address the comments made to you directly, or was it sufficient to you to merely be patronizing of those who actually took the time to respond to you?

Would you like to address those issues I brought up to you? Can you defend the data manipulation? Where is the peer review for the temperature proxies when the dataset won't be provided? Can you explain how the "warmists" reject their own biases in light of the emails? Can you tell me how Prof. Wagner - an editor of a peer reviewed journal - stumbled upon scientists biased against the consensus when the consensus is, one is told, so solid? Did he have a bad day at his Rolodex? If all this is so solid, why have the models performed so poorly?

Explaining science isn't complicated. Explaining a fabrication is.

skip| 9.8.11 @ 4:12PM

Tiny crickets
Dead from clime
Handled badly
We're out of time

Tiny crickets...

John Navratil| 9.8.11 @ 6:32PM

Inch worms in a circle

POST American| 9.7.11 @ 10:29PM

-------------------BOTTOM LINE-----------------------

---AHHHH, the Club of Rome scam of all time!

In that this was not only clearly a fraud, but
being purposefully used to defraud the globe
of literally TRILLIONS and to subvert what
remnant of sovereignty that may remain
---ALLL involved should face LIFE IN PRISON
for TREASON against their respective nations,
and EUGENICS promoting HIGH CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.

heironamouse| 9.7.11 @ 11:53PM

Remember the great ozone hole scam?
Same technique, sentient scientists pronounce that we are all about to die from ultraviolet radiation unless we eradicate the use of flourocarbons. Billions of dollars later and the hole is still there. Latest rumor is that the real cause of the phenomenon is, you guessed it, rising Co2 levels.

Jesse| 9.8.11 @ 6:17AM

Go back to your Cambridge weather reports, government fund chaser. You guys are worse than ambulance chasing lawyers.
http://www.discountsunglassesforsale.com
http://www.wholesalehatsshop.com

Jesse| 9.8.11 @ 6:36AM

But, it's the scientific materialism that's really running amok.
http://www.wholesalesunglassesbrands.com
http://www.winter-brands.com

Peter| 9.8.11 @ 10:25AM

I am sure that at the end of the last Ice Age, as sea levels rose at an alarming rate, many sacrifices were made to appease the gods. Yet despite sacrificing virgins at an ever increasing rate, the seas continued to rise.
Were we not sacrificing enough virgins, or, was there something else at work here.
Obviously, we needed more virgins.

CountryOverParty| 9.8.11 @ 12:59PM

I'm pro-marketplace, pro-science, pro open minded discussion, but my review of the science differs a lot from this editorial. This article listed a few outlining scientists with some skepticism of climate change science, but no major scientific body in the world supports this view. Some opposing data:

97% of climatologists agree: 1) climate change is real 2) it's caused by us 3) it's serious
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WO.....index.html

The 10 warmest years on human record have occurred within the last 12 years
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

Glacier National Park is estimated to be completely free of glaciers by 2030. The park had 150 glaciers when founded and it is now down to 25 glaciers.

Let's face our problems with courage, open-mindedness, and placing country over party. We should be taxing carbon more and income less (an increase in one should be tied to a decrease in the other). This approach looks at the costs of carbon honestly and encourages marketplace solutions without government programs. But we must look at the costs of carbon honestly.

skip| 9.8.11 @ 4:51PM

petitionproject.com provides the petition signed by 31,487 scientists who provide their names, degrees, scientific specialties, the peer-reviewed research, and 132 references to the peer-reviewed research debunking manmade global warming.

Use all the courage, open-mindedness, and placing country over party you can muster to come up with and provide the 1,049,566 2/3 scientists, their names, their degrees, their scientific specialties, their peer-reviewed research, and their references to the peer-reviewed research who refute this and prove manmade global warming is real, provided the 31,487 scientists at petitionproject.com represent every single one of the 3%, who do not represent the 97% you claimed, which is a number only found in weblogs and not in any peer-reviewed research. An even million scientists will be enough to represent the 97%, don't worry about the other 49,566 and of course the 2/3 of a scientist.

The glaciers at Glacier National Park, as well as the glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro, among others around the globe including the glaciers in the Himalayas that provide fresh water runoff for about 2.5 billion people living in China and India alone, have been receding since the 1830s, when the earth wobbled on its axis due to precession.

Use all the courage, open-mindedness, and placing country over party you can muster to come up with the activities of mankind that caused this phenomenon and the optimal amount of taxation that is required to remedy this situation.

The deniers here will attempt to improve our pro-marketplace, pro-science, pro-openminded stances all we can muster while we wait for your response.

John Navratil| 9.8.11 @ 6:42PM

skip,

There is absolutely nothing pro-marketplace, pro-science, pro-openminded in your writings. You wish to impose a carbon tax. Your science is settled. and you open-mindedness consists of telling people who disagree that they are fools.

skip| 9.8.11 @ 8:16PM

John

I admire your postings. You are one of the heavyweights here without question.

Check out how Nick and I amused ourselves, and hopefully others, for days in the thread appended to Kaminsky's "Global Warming Tales and Tails" July 8, 2011 article, long after your excellent posts there among many many others, and long after you had left the conversation.

Reread my post you have responded to. I satirically noted more than a million scientists are required to validate the 97% statistic. I satirically noted the receding glaciers, and the very survival of a great many people because of it, are due to earth's precession. Note the last sentence of the post (pronoun usage?). Earlier in this thread I adapted Don Ho's famous song to satirize Seitz (microbubbles-'Tiny Bubbles'?). Then, after he ignored your typically excellent comment, further adapted the song to indicate his silence (crickets?). I provided a verbatim quote of Jack London citing the 98% statistic (who needs a mere 97%?). I made a satirical comment about how with all this 'settled' climate science I can't rely on an accurate prediction of weather for immediate planning purposes (levity?).

A more accurate accusation would be I wish to prohibit anyone who supports imposing a carbon tax from ever being allowed to vote. I disagree with liberals, who are fools, and maybe, need to hear that they are, and why. Am I missing something?

John Navratil| 9.8.11 @ 7:02PM

Skip,

I've reread you post and wonder if I've misunderstood your position. I'm confused by the poetry and what appears to be, one the one hand, an indication that the issue is settled for the "warmists" and this post which indicates otherwise.

skip| 9.8.11 @ 8:19PM

Saw this immediately after posting, which was long delayed by a phone call.

You are one of the best :)

An actual by jove emoticon (remember?).

Nick| 9.8.11 @ 6:46PM

CountryOverParty

"We should be taxing carbon more and income less (an increase in one should be tied to a decrease in the other)."

And, this helps me how? Don't you realize that all corporate taxes get passed on to the consumer?

By the way, AGW is a HOAX.

Gerald Smith| 9.8.11 @ 1:26PM

Great article. I am tempted to share it with a liberal co-worker but I know he would dismiss it on some irrational grounds just as he always does when presented with incontrovertible facts that threaten his world of make-believe.

dennis| 9.8.11 @ 11:48PM

One thing I find that is totally incongruous is that whilst we are pursuing the nightmare that is GM Crops in a vain hope to allegedly feed the world (or kill us) we are ignoring and actually trying to eliminate the one effect that God/Nature might have planned for to help eliminate starvation and the abuse of our planet by restoring our CO2 levels back to some semblance of what they were in years gone past. What appears more logical to me is that man possibly through some of his activities in the past may have helped reduced the CO2 to very dangerous levels that are actually causing famines and we are now attempting to keep it that way. Perhaps this might be what the so called elite might refer to as global population control. However one day they might be recognised as the perpetrators of what could be the greatest mass genocide ever to affect the human race.
As a final note how can we possible trade in undeveloped land based carbon credits when their are none that are not already being used already . Is there a secret stash of virgin land somewhere?

Craig Goodrich| 9.9.11 @ 7:40AM

Excellent summary. Two quibbles, however:

First, such distinguished scientists as Singer, Spencer, and Michaels have been speaking and writing against the global warming superstition since it began two decades ago. But only now are people becoming aware of their courage and persistence.

Second, "Temperatures in the troposphere portion of the atmosphere above the tropics would increase with altitude ..." is inaccurate; what would increase with altitude is the rate of warming. Temperature decreases with altitude in the troposphere, then increases with altitude in the stratosphere.

faxmatter| 9.13.11 @ 11:11PM

Likewise, fine article. I have a third quibble: you seem to make the assumption that the observed (and real) increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to man's burning of fossil fuels as you write "CO2 concentrations have begun rising again, due primarily to the industrial revolution and increased burning of fossil fuels, up 44 percent from 150 years ago." This is probably not the case, as the oceans would be expected to release enormous amounts of CO2 due to warming (reduced solubility in warmer water). Further, if humans are only responsible for 3% of CO2 emissions (as you write), it is doubtful that this is going to be that meaningful against the other larger amounts being released. Bear in mind, CO2 is quickly washed out of the air and incorporated into ocean water (and ocean life and into plant life). Atmospheric CO2 consumption reaction rates are going to increase just about as fast as the CO2 reactant does given the solubility in rain (water).

faxmatter| 9.13.11 @ 11:21PM

In other words, if only 3% of the CO2 flux into the atmosphere is the increase, it will not meaningfully shift the equilibrium (or perhaps more accurately, the steady state) concentration of atmospheric CO2, as this amount is negligible against the enormous land- and ocean-based reservoirs of CO2.

Russell Seitz| 9.10.11 @ 3:10AM

Though John Navratil may find my 2008 Reason essay on carbon prohibition more to his taste he alas exemplifies the problem discussed earlier in :

takimag.com/article/climate_of_here

perhaps better known as the Dunning Kruger or echo chamber effect.

Had the authors of the comments to which he refers ever read an elementary climate science textbook , they would never have made them.

axbucxdu| 9.10.11 @ 12:31PM

There is no greenhouse effect to the degree that changes to our economic system can arrest.

There is, however, a second metamorphosis of science occurring with which the so-called "modern scientist", such as above, must acquaint himself.

Now had the author of those comments above to which he refers ever read about these changes , he would never have made them.

Occam's Tool| 10.10.11 @ 1:42PM

You know, I've been feeling cooler since I stopped eating beans. Is there a connection?