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The Environmental Spectator
Warmists Think We’re Stupid
But they’re not so hot themselves, as a Reason Foundation study delicately points out.
One of the key attributes of the global warming movement, like any cult, is that it posits a doomsday scenario if we don’t follow their dangerous prescriptions. Whether it is cyanide-laced Kool Aid or the economic equivalent (were we to follow the cap-and-trade crowd), the “cure” is not only worse than the so-called problem but premised on the idea that people are stupid.
The warmists say that we’ll have more disease and death if the planet warms even though studies by actual scientists frequently conclude otherwise.
This week’s five-alarm fire (literally) comes from the NY Times which warns us that “Across millions of acres, the pines of the northern and central Rockies are dying, just one among many types of forests that are showing signs of distress these days.” The article, which implies that the earth will die if we don’t stop climate change from killing trees, is at least honest enough to use “if” six times, “might” three times, “may” seven times, and other qualifiers of their doomsday view such as “not sure,” “possible,” and “could.”
While this particular Times story concerns North America, an actual study of African rainfall, done by scientists from NOAA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder (both hotbeds of climate change alarmism), concludes that changes in rainfall levels in both northern and southern Africa are due to changes in sea surface temperatures, and that those temperature changes are not human-caused. Furthermore, when the UN’s IPCC tried to model the change in African rainfall based on human causes, they failed: “The ensemble of greenhouse-gas-forced experiments, conducted as part of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, fails to simulate the pattern or amplitude of the twentieth-century African drying, indicating that the drought conditions were likely of natural origin.”
But if you really want to scare people into wasting their lives on public transport or sleeping in uncomfortably cold houses during the winter or subsidizing Solyndra, you have to make them think that human life is directly at stake.
One such example regards malaria, long the bogeyman for those warmists who, in the interest of scaring us about what the evil rich are doing to the southern hemisphere’s poor, claimed for years that warming will cause a massive increase in the prevalence of and deaths from malaria.
However, a 2010 study led by scientists from the University of Florida concluded that “widespread claims that rising mean temperatures have already led to increases in worldwide malaria morbidity and mortality are largely at odds with observed decreasing global trends in both its endemicity and geographic extent.” Furthermore, they said that any increase in malaria cases from warming would likely be two orders of magnitude smaller than the reduction in cases due to “control measures” taken by humans, such as bed nets and anti-malarial drugs. (Two orders of magnitude means 100x, so 10 is two orders of magnitude smaller than 1000.)
It’s also worth noting that the lead scientist, whom I interviewed, was a full member of the cult of Algore. It was fascinating to hear him claim that when it comes to warming, people like me who think it’s somewhere between an exaggeration and a hoax (and closer to the latter) are “bucking a broad scientific consensus.” Yet when it came to his study’s different results from other people’s claims, he suggested that “Science is intrinsically adversarial, and we get at the truth through critical thought. That means scientists should question every single study they read.” You don’t say.
The key point is not that malaria cases won’t increase, but that they won’t increase because humans are smart and adaptable.
Malaria isn’t the only case of warmists trying to scare us with disease and death: Every few years, it seems someone claims that global warming “is to blame for cholera bacteria becoming more widespread.” (And here is another example from 2002.) But you know things aren’t going well for the cult when even that same “the forests are burning!” New York Times has to tell us, as they did just one month ago, that “Cholera outbreaks seem to be on the increase, but a new study has found they cannot be explained by global warming.” (Study link here.)
Perhaps you will not be surprised by a comparison between the two articles (at least their web versions): Last week’s article about supposedly dying forests contained over 4,100 words, while the August 29th article saying that cholera outbreaks are not increasing due to climate change was — wait for it — a grand total of 230 words. And if that’s not enough, the forests article was on the paper’s front page, whereas the cholera article was on page D6.
Humans live in deserts and in the Arctic. We live in places like Denver and Chicago, each of which will see temperatures over more than a 100-degree (F) range in the course of a year — and routinely a 30 or 40 degree range in a day (or 20 in an hour) in the mountains and deserts. And these aren’t even the records. Imagine being in Spearfish, South Dakota, in 1943 when the temperature reportedly rose 49 degrees in two minutes! Or Loma, Montana, which in 1972 reported a 103-degree temperature rise in 24 hours? We scuba dive and mountain climb. We invent air conditioning and efficient heating systems. We have nearly eliminated smallpox and polio, two of the greatest scourges of eras past. In other words, we adapt to our environment — in those cases when we can’t adapt our environment to us.
For that reason, it defies common sense to believe that man-made global warming, even if it were real, would have the devastating impact that its anti-capitalist, wealth-redistributionist proponents claim.
Now we have the results of a much broader study, commissioned by the Reason Foundation, which points in exactly this same direction of adaptability. The study, entitled “The Amazing Decline in Deaths from Extreme Weather in an Era of Global Warming, 1900-2010” is summarized thus:
Aggregate mortality attributed to all extreme weather events globally has declined by 98% since the 1920s, in spite of a four-fold rise in population and much more complete reporting of such events.
About the Author
Ross Kaminsky is a self-employed trader and investor and is a senior fellow of the Heartland Institute. He is the host of The Ross Kaminsky Show on Denver’s NewsRadio 850 KOA at 11 AM on most Sundays. You can reach Ross by e-mail at rossputin(at)rossputin(dot)com.
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Robbins Mitchell| 10.4.11 @ 6:14AM
I would submit that anAL GOREtentive and his myrmidons have gone past the point where they merely view AGW skeptics as stupid....given that real time temperature readings no longer support their alarmism,now the very survival of their paradigm requires that they paint us as 'evil' for daring to oppose their conclusions,but their remedies as well....thus are cults born and engendered
oldfart| 10.4.11 @ 7:11AM
This has all the earmarks of a cult - which may be true at the rank and file level. It is more of a very sophisticated con to milk millions from the mindless minions. Let's look at some of the players.
1. Dr. James E. Hanson of National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Institute of Space Studies. First, according to Dr. Hanson the planet was going to be an ice ball. Next it is going to be a fire ball with run away global warming all caused by human intervention. Really Dr.? The first con – freezing didn't work so you went to the other extreme. Which Dr. James E. Hanson are we to believe?
2. Then we have “Climate-gate” at the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in 2009. Leaked e-mails pointed to data manipulation of climate research to prove that human action was, and will be for sometime, the primary cause of runaway global warming. In spite proper peer review the American Association for the Advancement of Science, The American Meteorological Society and the Union of Concerned Scientist released statements the 'science is settled' – specifically humans are causing global warming to the extent that we will destroy ourselves. This soon developed into a global scandal involving not only Prof. Jones from East Anglia, but Parliament, the US Congress, the US Environmental Protection Agency as different parts of the scientific community took up opposing positions. Prof. Jones was relieved from his position but later re-instated in a different position. A lot of unprofessional personal attacks were made and the whole thing ended up being covered over like a smelly cesspool of feces. What is interesting is that the data set being used at East Anglia, to model the entire climate of the planet, is so small it will fit on one thumb drive!! And this model is called valid? Why do we hear nothing about the University of Cambridge efforts at climate modeling where massive data sets are used and months are spent running one model. Perhaps their results are not politically correct? Who knows?
3. And then we have the former Vice-President of the USA. A person that NEVER did anything significant that his daddy did not pave the way for him. The one thing that he has accomplished, other than being a philander, is to be the front-man – the carnival barker if you will – for a massive con-job to get the ordinary citizen to use less electricity while he enjoys life in a mansion fit for a King.
There are other examples that may be found with a casual search of the internet. Open access to information across the entire spectrum of opinions is vital to a free society.
Dan Hirsch| 10.4.11 @ 10:00AM
If the SEC could be trusted, they should be investigating all of those investment opportunities based on AGW. It's a fraud, they know it, and they don't stop. Where are the clowns doing perp walks? Madoff has got to be so peeved!
DTOM
Brian Mc| 10.4.11 @ 6:45AM
I would venture that a huge proportion of the bureaucracy clinging to the host, our "Government of the People", has the mindset referred to in your article, Ross. Could we venture further? Would you guess over 75%? Could you find data to confirm this or, worse yet, a higher percentage? After all, a huge number of voters are quite tired of being governed by whiners...Constitution be damned.
That would be a challenging article indeed, and one worth reading and passing along before the elections in order that sanity be allowed a vote.
Timothy L. Pennell| 10.4.11 @ 7:09AM
They think that we're stupid? Well................Aren't we?
Who's the President of the United States? Isn't it a guy who's life is a blank? The Son of an Atheist/Communist Mother, and a Muslim/Marxist Father? And, didn't he grow up in Indonesia, going to Muslim Schools and Muslim Mosques? Yet, so many BELIEVE HIM, when he says he's a Christian.
He's been surrounded by FAR LEFT RADICALS, his whole life. Yet, 60 Million Americans made him the President.
He used to be a COKE SNORTING, Street Hustler, teaching Marxist Theories, and Rules for Radicals, to Street SCUM, like ACORN. Yet, 60 Million Americans made him the President.
The only "Job" that he's ever had, was stapling RIOT NOTICES to telephone poles. Yet, 60 Million Americans made him President.
He has driven this county in to DEBT, that we will never climb out from. And, he has done it ON PURPOSE.
Yet, he LEADS in every Poll.
We have Record Unemployment, Foreclosures, Bankruptcies, Homelessness, Americans on Food Stamps, Americans living in Poverty, Children living in Poverty, and our Credit has been Downgraded, for the first time in our History. Every Economic Indicator is in the Toilet.
Yet he leads in every Poll.
Sounds pretty STUPID to me.
Ivan Ivanovich| 10.4.11 @ 9:04AM
Which brings up the question "What is Obama going to do to screw up this country after 2103?" Will he become another Jimma Carter or AlGore, or will it be something worse than that? I can see him as another Che, but then Che was a do-er.
Paul Kotik| 10.6.11 @ 6:15AM
Fortunately for US, we seem to have plenty of UPPER CASE LETTERS in inventory so we can provide the EMPHASIS we seem unable to express in our PROSE.
Rob Schapiro| 10.4.11 @ 7:30AM
Don't get caught up in the weeds trying to understand the warmists latest lies. Its all about power and money. They made a good living for a decade spreading alarmist junk science and will now do or say anything to protect their turf.
Pete| 10.4.11 @ 11:33AM
Great call. Their darkest fear is that the federal money tap gets shut off and they have to become productive members of society.
DaveD| 10.4.11 @ 7:58AM
We are stupid. We are about to lose incandescent light bulbs to be replaced by CFLs that:
* provide inferior light
* difficult to get rid of when broken or burned out
* must be left on for several minutes or they burn out quickly
* and best of all, are 7-10 times more expensive per bulb but only save 40% of energy making the total cost of having electric lights much higher than it is today because they do not last sufficiently longer to make up the difference in initial cost.
All this to "save the planet."
And you think we are not stupid?
Dave Williams| 10.4.11 @ 12:45PM
In the 3 months remaining before the ban goes into effect, I recommend buying a LIFETIME SUPPLY of good old incandescent bulbs. I've got my stock laid in already, and Big Mommy government with its ugly, inefficient mercury bulbs can just go piss up a rope.
henry| 10.5.11 @ 3:26AM
It goes further than that. These light bulbs are mercury based, and pose a huge environmental hazard. Meanwhile all the mercury based instruments in hospitals such as blood pressure monitors and thermometers have been replaced with electronic gadgets that have to be calibrated regularly. Whenever something makes no sense, follow Deep Throat’s advice: follow the money.
Pecos Pete| 10.4.11 @ 8:25AM
We can adapt to the current feral gubmint by NOT, as best we can, complying with their ridiculous regulations for one more year. Then we vote the money grabbers and Marxists out of office and start from scratch fixing the system.
hardcard| 10.4.11 @ 8:47AM
Moe, Larry, Cheese !!! Moe , Larry, Cheese !!!!!
Woop !!! Woop!!! Woop!!! Wake up you knuckle heads!!!!!!!
irish19| 10.4.11 @ 11:54AM
I thought that was Hanson on the left.
Fast Johnny| 10.4.11 @ 8:56AM
"Indeed, actually incinerating the money may have generated more energy for our nation than Solyndra and the like have,..."
And I am sure would've produced a smaller carbon footprint than the production of the materials for building as well as construction of the Solyndra plant produced.
Matt| 10.4.11 @ 9:09AM
Who writes your paycheck?! Oil companies, I suppose... Anyway, record high temperatures, record low levels of sea ice in the arctic, and a mass consensus among well reputed scientists isn't enough? True, man-kind will adapt, but adapting takes time, so initially the number of deaths will rise. Not to mention unforeseen problems that will arise, also. So, yes, global warming is very real. These ifs, maybes, and possiblies are only that way because every time someone tries to lay down a theory (or prediction, or maybe), it's slammed. Only time will tell, but not addressing the problem is an even bigger problem.
Ross Kaminsky | 10.4.11 @ 9:16AM
For the record, while AmSpec does pay me for my articles, it's a nominal sum and my other income comes from what I make from trading and investing. I am not now and never have been paid by any corporation. I have been effectively self-employed my entire adult life except for about 18 months when working for a small trading company in Europe in the '90s.
By the way, while there are record high temps in a few places, it is not true globally. Furthermore, your arctic sea ice statement is simply false.
Most importantly, I think you are exactly wrong to say that not addressing "the problem" is a bigger problem. The way the left wants to address "the problem" is a much bigger problem than climate change itself is. That's the whole point.
dw| 10.4.11 @ 10:46AM
You might as well reply to a zombie.
Tim the Enchanter| 10.6.11 @ 3:22PM
I think he just did.
USSAlabama| 10.4.11 @ 10:54AM
Yes! Follow the money trail, as usual.
What Matt hasn't heard or read is that the whole theory is soundly debunked by the study using the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite.
Matt are you aware that Greenland was once so warm that there was a popular riviera there? That there is fossil evidence that the earth was once tropical from pole to pole?
And that drivel aside, do you think the so-called solutions would actually have an effect besides making Al Gore richer?
Could every country on earth become Copenhagen? That's utopian thinking Matt - wake up -- they'll clean your pockets!
Occam's Tool| 10.5.11 @ 3:49PM
Ross, speaking of real science:
This year, in a GOOD year for the Nobels, Jews copped 4 out of the 7 Hard Science Nobels---2/3 of Medicine, Chemistry, 1/3 of Physics. Real science, real awards. It's 161 Hard Science (including economics) Nobels.
The other team in the Middle East has won 2 in the entire history of the Prizes. It's Harlem Globetrotters versus Washington Generals, baby!
Occam's Tool| 10.5.11 @ 4:38PM
I'm sorry---got that wrong. 2/3 of Medicine, 1/1 Chemistry, 2/3 Physics were Jewish. 5/7 Hard Science, and still waiting for Economics and Literature to come in.
Jack and Clint's Iranian/Other Islamic team: de nada. Nothin.'
Dan Hirsch| 10.4.11 @ 10:11AM
Matt;
If the ocean is really going to rise thirty feet, oops, Al Gore means three feet in the next hundred years oops, now its 89 years, shouldn't the oceans already be 4" higher since 2000? They are not. You are being duped.
And you are ignoring proven dangers that threaten us. Earthquakes and tsunamis. In the last eight years >250,000 human beings have died due to just two tsunamis. How many AGW deaths have you got in your little notebook there? Do they have names, do you have video?
Why don't you be quiet and stop parroting your teachers' lines about AGW. They made it up to counter the success that our free market capital system has had in raising the quality of life for all humanity.
Wise up, sonny!
DTOM
Jeff Perren | 10.4.11 @ 10:19AM
"True, man-kind will adapt, but adapting takes time, so initially the number of deaths will rise."
Non-sequitur. Adaptation takes time, but far less time than the very gradual changes in temperature, etc. Free individuals can generate beneficial technology far faster than the climate can require it.
John Navratil| 10.4.11 @ 11:19AM
Matt,
Who writes your paychecks? If that's all it takes to know why someone thinks the way they think then you MUST work for a "warmist" group? Is it true?
If not, you will have to explain yourself, yourself; and your first supposition would not indicate a great depth of analytical prowess. It appears you have bought into the "science as consensus" argument, as well as identifying broad changes in state from isolated data points.
This hysteria has just about run it's course. It's the second time in the last century.
Solo| 10.4.11 @ 1:13PM
Well, Matt...
Who writes the paychecks of these AGW alarmists and scoundrels? Why....that would be various governments in the form of grants. Governments which would be empowered considerably should the results of that "research" such as "...Mike's Nature trick to hide the decline" (er..that would be Michael Mann's "trick" used in his MBH98 paper submitted to Nature Magazine and subsequently used by the IPCC to justify increasing its own power).
The problems with the Anthropogenic Global Warming crusade are many. Not the least of which are that the computer models used to justify their hysterics won't match up to real world data.
The earth is actually getting cooler-not warmer.
While some glaciers are retreating--others are growing.
Sea levels are not rising but are steady.
Oh....and that pesky Medieval Warm Period (you know the one....where Greenland got its name) was warmer than it is now without the effects of "Industrialization".
Oh...and then, of course, there is the indisputable fact that the earth's system IS NOT A GREENHOUSE!
This entire warmist narrative has been a bald faced lie from the get-go. It's not science....it's politics disguised as science.
MM| 10.4.11 @ 2:35PM
Hear! Hear! Solo
Drunken Sailor| 10.4.11 @ 9:09AM
"One such example regards malaria"
Oh sure, now they worry about Malaria. Guess they should have thought of that before they totally banned DDT. Malaria increased after the ban and DDT was shown not to be as dangerous as once thought. Instead of changing how it was used or the amounts used they banned it and caused millions more deaths. Way to go Libs.
http://www.acsh.org/healthissu.....detail.asp
irish19| 10.4.11 @ 11:59AM
I was wondering who would be the first to point that out. IMO, the whole DDT thing could be used as a case study of unintended consequences as a result of the misuse of a product or technology. One could make the same point about Clinton's modification of the original CRA.
Al Adab| 10.4.11 @ 12:16PM
Not that it has anything to do with global warming or is it now climate change I can't keep up with the moving target, but the DDT case shows clearly the unintended consequences law in action. What we need to learn is that every attempt to write positive law results in the need to write additional law to cover the exceptions. As in many instances, less is more. One might even say that Liberty in Law is better than a society of Pharisaical demands.
Drunken Sailor| 10.4.11 @ 1:47PM
Irish and Al,
You both hit my oblique point. The banning of DDT is the same path the AGW fools are on. Another Environmental fallacy based on junk science. We know that milions of children in 3rd world countries died since the ban. But the liberals never let that stop them from their next great crusade. It's all about how they feel.
Liberals come to a conclusion and then base their science to support that conclusion. Rational people look at the science first and then come to a conclusion.
Hello!| 10.4.11 @ 5:37PM
"Liberals come to a conclusion and then base their science to support that conclusion. Rational people look at the science first and then come to a conclusion."
Excuse me Drunken?
Isn't that exactly what you just did? Made a conclusion about Liberals, not based on any scientific fact. Please show me the study where that proves how liberals come to conclusions.? Get your head out of your butt and stop repeating energy industry propaganda.
BTW.. I am not a liberal, but a libertarian. But I do happen to know many Liberals and Conservatives. They are not so different.
Marc Jeric| 10.6.11 @ 3:21PM
Libertarian? You must be joking. Liberals have a basic conclusion that stems from the marxist cry "Expropriate the expropriators!" In other words the fundamental conclusion of liberals, aka socialists, communists, fascists, and eco-nazis is that the rich are rich because they stole the money that the poor used to have. From that basic conclusion all their programs and "science" originate. As for our energy companies - they are the most efficient, productive, and society-useful organizations in the world history - and that's the main reason they are hated by our left.
Marc Jeric| 10.6.11 @ 3:10PM
40 years of research showed that DDT is completely biodegradable, that it never caused a single bird or fish to die; it also is the only effective means against malaria. Our eco-nazis have so far murdered about 550 million people, most of those victims being children, especially in Africa. This slaughter continues today.
PolishKnight| 10.4.11 @ 9:31AM
Let's address the richer nations and people sending money over to poorer nations and people model. It's likely to be the middle class from rich nations sending over money to the wealthy elites of poor nations. In other words, more (gasoline powered) limos and private jets for third world dictators promising to develop "green" Solyndra style industries.
In a third world country, the main "business" is cronyism. New taxes, programs, etc. exist solely for a payoff to some benefactor. Ironically, it's similar to the same thing environmentalists observe with Easter Island and the tragedy of the commons. Corrupt politicians milk the system until it dies and then they, along with the smarter refugees, move on to an unspoiled country (that's why they educate their elite in Europe, Canada, and the USA). They're parasites.
T| 10.4.11 @ 9:41AM
You have hit on one of the two constant absurdities of these cultish eco-claims. The first, as you point out is that the human ability to adapt and to devise increasingly better technology is never taken into account (remember that the credentialed class was certain that we would run out of oil by 2000).
The second flaw, is that they always point out that the earth will be destroyed. There is never any consideration for the earth as a dynamic and ever-changing environment; it is always seen as static, and a stasis that is as we NOW know it.. We must preserve the earth the way it is now (which is certainly not the way it was in the age of the dinosaurs, nor the way it was during the glacial ice age).
Anthony| 10.4.11 @ 9:51AM
One cannot reason with irrationality. The entire cult of AGW is made up of frauds, fools, and fanatics, each with an agenda that usually abides by the maxim "follow the money", except in the case of the fools, they're just dupes .
When scientists lie, fake data, hide data and file objections to FOI requests, ie Michael Mann of Penn State U., to keep information from being know by the public, you know science has been corrupted for an agenda.
Algore has made a fortune off of this fraud, yet will not debate, nor even allow reporters to attend his friendly forums with fellow fanatics.
So when that fat rodent, Puxatawney Algore sees his shadow and declares 10,000 more years of AGW, it's time to stick his fat ass back into his rodent den, along with his fellow frauds, like the highly paid Professor Mann.
Anthony| 10.4.11 @ 10:19AM
P.S. According to AT, so has James Hansen of NASA. Read the article, It'll make you sick. All these frauds have profited from this scam.
Then read the article on how Holder lied to Congress about Operation Fast & Furious.
We don't need an election, we need a revolution!!
oldfart| 10.4.11 @ 11:10AM
That was a brief article that Dr. Hanson was under investigation for a conflict of interest. As a Federal employee he is required to file certain documents related to his outside income. There appear to be some problems. The newsline was quickly swept under the rug and you hear nothing but crickets from the NASA IG on the matter.
Al Adab| 10.4.11 @ 12:19PM
We need to remember that the Norse were farming Greenland successfuly at about 1000AD and that the climate in England was warmer at the Magna Charta in 1215 than today. They grew wine grapes in England at that period. This is and long has been about centralizing control over economics and not about anything to do with Earths' (or is it Gaias') climatic conditions.
Anthony| 10.4.11 @ 4:41PM
It doesn't matter to these fanatics. You can cite this scientific data all day long and these people will not listen!!!
You are correct, this is about Marxism not climate. The left have corrupted science and academia, along with the D party and the MSM.
The Four Corners of Deceit.
JimH| 10.4.11 @ 10:21AM
It may be that malaria is increasing, though I think if it is, it has more to do with banning DDT than AGW.
Tom Corbin| 10.4.11 @ 10:24AM
by the way, pine trees in Colorado and Wyoming are dieing due to a pine beetle infestation that is completely seperate from climate. No known cure for the beetle, and so much of our "old growth" (young pines are not worth the beetles time) will be wiped out and probably burn. Which means we will see a resurgence of Aspens. All in a cycle, man has no impact, climate not relavent as we had the wettest and longest winter on record in the Northern Rockies last winter.
irish19| 10.4.11 @ 12:02PM
I understand they're predicting snow in the mountains in the next couple of days.
Skippy| 10.4.11 @ 8:06PM
Expecting 14 inches in the Sierra Nevadas tonight.
Squaw Valley had skiing last season till July.
Global BS!
USSAlabama| 10.4.11 @ 12:10PM
Some Colorado researchers advanced a paper theorizing that boreal forests prevent snow reflecting light back to space coupled with deforestation of equatorial forests could have some effect on temps.
They recommended harvesting boreal forests and stopping slash and burn in the tropics.
UTmtnhome| 10.4.11 @ 1:41PM
The environmentalists are to blame for the dead trees! They wouldn't allow trees to be harvested because they were worried the loggers would hurt the environment. So the pine beetles continued to spread to healthy trees too. Cutting or burning the sick/dead trees are the only way to keep forests healthy, so the new trees can grow. It is infuriating that environmentalists are trying to blame the effects of their own foolish policies on something as uncontrollable as the earth's natural cycles. Anything to give them power I guess.
John| 10.4.11 @ 10:44AM
At the risk of sounding like a simpleton, does anybody know the error of the estimate of the earth's temperature 100 years ago? I don't believe that I have ever heard it mentioned in all these discussions.
MM| 10.4.11 @ 12:15PM
Could be wrong about this, but seems like that was among the corrupted information where the original records were lost by 'scientists' at East Anglia.
JimH| 10.4.11 @ 2:19PM
John, some intelligent commentary on this subject and AGW in general I recommend Jerry Pournelle’s Chaos Manor.
http://jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/
VonMisesJr| 10.4.11 @ 11:16AM
With Europe in collapse, America's Constitution in exile and the Middle East in turmoil; it is clear even to most dimwits that the EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES.
Ross, Progressives that base their theories on Rousseau, Hegel and Marx stemming from the 18th century Industrial Revolution are generally not smart enough to make money investing. This is how I survived the last couple years after Obama killed the economy. Most so-called liberals don't understand their leaders are reactionaries yearning for a new serfdom.
Ross Kaminsky | 10.4.11 @ 11:22AM
Well spoken, sir.
George S| 10.4.11 @ 11:36AM
It's not only that, VMjr, but the genesis of Marxism was too provide the intellectual elite of that era with a way of accumulating wealth without having to work for it. Much easier to levy a carbon tax through a carbon exchange on those who produce rather than figuring out how to do something that other people will gladly pay you for to make you wealthy.
Wayne| 10.5.11 @ 6:33AM
This has been what I have been thinking also. Obama and his meanies, are in the wrong century. Their brains are in the 19th century, and they are stuck in the industrial revolution. Marxism, which is obviously the theory that Obama embraces, turns productive employers and thinkers into gulag denizens. Hard workers becomes the serfs and slaves, and the whip is given to the lazy parasites who keep demanding more and more. Government is only to happy to comply as it only has to grab power and authority, and escapes the demands of responsibility.
cowgirl| 10.4.11 @ 11:30AM
When the people (i.e. Al Gore) who believe in global warming start acting like they believe in global warming, then they just might get my attention. Until then, the only solution is to give them a pacifier. That is usually what calms down babies.
GW| 10.4.11 @ 11:44AM
Thanks, Ross.
Arguing the science of climatology, even if well-researched and understood, is a losing proposition to the cultists. Anytime someone refers to a "consensus" to defend his position in a hotly contested political debate, it is best to stop any rebuttal and focus on a new tactic.
That is why the paragraph about the adaptability of mankind is brilliant. I have argued myself that even if AGW is true, why should we sacrifice modernity when it has brought us the ability to adapt and counter the effects of nature's brutality? Furthermore, couldn't we help the poorer nations more effected by weather by helping them develop cheap and effective ways to produce energy? This is much cheaper than the foreign aid process we currently have, where governmental elites rent-seek while the citizenry remains in poverty.
T| 10.4.11 @ 11:52AM
GW,
And remember also that there was a time when "consensus" believed that the sun revolved around the earth. "Everybody believes it" is never insurance that it is scientifically correct. Those who would proceed on that assumption are frauds and fools.
PolishKnight| 10.4.11 @ 11:57AM
Part of the reason why gas prices are shooting up is because the third world is starting to buy cars rather than use bicycles and horse drawn wagons...
Sad to say, at this point in our civilization, we're dependent upon fossil fuels for energy to power, literally, our ability to adapt to environments. A/C's run off of coal or oil powered plants and if we go Nuke, then we'll have to deal with any fallout that may occur from breaches. Fukushima changed everything. We're not getting new nuke plants for a while.
In any case, energy costs are rising and are expected to rise for the foreseeable future and will accelerate as the third world comes on board.
We also need to consider the larger issues social management. The left has cleverly found a way to use immigration as a tool to buy votes and exploit the right's desire to provide cheap labor. This fuels overpopulation as third world nations, such as Mexico, don't solve their problems but simply export them to the USA where the USA is no longer solving these issues or using the excess labor productively. In 1900, the immigrants went to work in the factories, mines, and farms. Today, SOME go to the farms and do non-essential work such as restaurant, hotel, and gardening but otherwise but they're largely a drag on the economy.
The welfare states combined with immigrant essentially take any limitations away from families breeding out of control. In a two parent family with a provider, families engage in "planning" one way or the other to raise productive citizens. With a welfare state that encourages immigration and poverty births combined with no regulation on the number of children a family may have without providing support, western society is doomed.
nofreelunch| 10.4.11 @ 11:51AM
31,487 American scientists have signed this petition against AGW, including 9,029 with PhDs For information about this project, click on the appropriate box below.
www.petitionproject.org
Atom&Yves;| 10.4.11 @ 4:37PM
Many thanks!! I've been wanting that info for some time now.
no hussein 2012| 10.4.11 @ 12:12PM
Man made gorebull warming is a political power grab , nothing more.
Kingofthenet| 10.4.11 @ 12:22PM
Create Straw-men, than knock them down. There are several issues here, first off is Mankind responsible for global Warming and how much? That is a technical question and not a political one. Second what to do about it? Can it be slowed or reversed and how? Again Technical. If the heating mechanism is due to some gasses we are pumping into the atmosphere, will reducing those gases solve the problem? I have NO idea.
Now lets look at the strawmen,But if you really want to scare people into wasting their lives on public transport or sleeping in uncomfortably cold houses during the winter or subsidizing Solyndra, you have to make them think that human life is directly at stake.
IF your Public Transportation is BAD, maybe you should look into WHY? Many people I know in NJ commute everyday into NYC by train and consider it FANTASTIC, others take the Ferry and also LOVE it.Who is saying we should live in cold houses in the winter, you obviously don't get the idea of ENERGY EFFICIENCY, it works simply like this same thing, less power.Drafty house replace bad leaky windows with double or triple glazing, use efficient appliances and lighting, insulate your house and roof. After that you should have the SAME thing you had before while using less electric, gas, oil and water, and cheaper bills for all those things.Third so what some solar company didn't make it? Like No one ever lost money on gas or oil or gold exploration?
George S| 10.4.11 @ 12:51PM
Obviously, you don't get the idea of economics. If you need to spend 50 grand to insulate a house in order to save one delivery of fuel oil, it would take 55 years to pay back the cost of the renovation. You are looking at new windows and doors; ripping off the old siding and replacing with new, replacing the exterior insulation board, ripping out sheetrock and replacing the interior insulation and vapor barrier, installing new insulation under roof, installing air channels under the insulation, and the cost of the new boiler and appliances. 50 grand is very conservative, and a tank of fuel oil is $900.00.
Solyndra is not a dry well. It is an intentional theft of the taxpayers to reward a billionaire. That sits okay with you?
JayDick| 10.4.11 @ 12:53PM
First, many scientists have become so politically invested in the global warming stuff, they can't let go; their (easy) livlihoods depend on it (see money and power discussion, above). They can't be trusted. So, getting an objective answer to a technical question has become very difficult.
Second, energy efficiency is great, but if an appliance uses less energy but doesn't do the job nearly as well as previous models that used more energy, is that more efficient? I say no. And, that's what some of the energy-saving changes have resulted in.
Who remembers self-cleaning ovens of 1972? I do. They really worked, even if they did use lots of energy. The new ones sort of work, but not very well. Lots of manual cleanup is needed to finish the job.
MM| 10.4.11 @ 2:40PM
And this reminds me of the removal of phosphates from our soap goods. Specifically dishwasher soap.
I think this is a ploy so that people quit using dishwashers.
The dishes no longer get clean with the phosphate free stuff, so people end up washing by hand.
Al Adab| 10.4.11 @ 4:02PM
Remember Newton? "For every action (law) there is an equal and opposite reaction (unintended consequence). It's a law of nature.
Paul Kotik| 10.6.11 @ 8:35AM
You can buy several months' supply of trisodium phosphate (TSP) at Home Depot for a few bucks. A tablespoon added to your regular weak-ass dishwashing detergent gets your load clean and sparkly just like in the good old days.
They take the phosphates out of our soap? We just put 'em right back in.
axbucxdu| 10.4.11 @ 12:43PM
"...Drafty house replace bad leaky windows with double or triple glazing, use efficient appliances and lighting, insulate your house and roof. After that you should have the SAME thing you had before while using less electric, gas, oil and water, and cheaper bills for all those things."
If these suggestions are economic on their own, then they need no help from enviro-marxists like gore.
Curious that people who, to put it kindly, "distrust" the market are always available to help something they distrust.
Bernard Lindstrom| 10.4.11 @ 2:07PM
"Man, isn't it amazing that one political party is right about everything (including non-political, scientific questions) and the other one is wrong about everything?"
- every sucker who ever supported the Democrats or the Republicans
Ron| 10.4.11 @ 2:57PM
Obviously, this whole thing is a scam, but it always begs the question...When, exactly, did Algore earn a degree in any of the geological or physical sciences? I do not recall him being a biologist, surveyor, biochemical engineer, zoologist (unless he is a cryto-zoologist looking for magic unicorns, yeti and such) or any other type of scientist...So what in G-Ds name makes him qualified to be anything beyond maybe (and it is a big maybe) a crossing guard?
MOS was 71331| 10.5.11 @ 1:32PM
Gore went to a divinity school for a graduate degree -- and couldn't complete the program. He dropped out with failing grades. Check out:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/n.....es-harvard
William L. Gen sert| 10.4.11 @ 4:26PM
Every 45 seconds in Africa, a child dies from malaria, yet we continue to ban DDT, the single most effective weapon against the cause of the disease, because we worry about its affect on birds. You would think the needless death of 700,000 black children every year, because of rabid environmentalism, would make the papers, but it doesn’t.
Al Adab| 10.4.11 @ 5:39PM
Union of South Africa decided to ignore the ban a couple years back. Malaria rate has plummeted since they began using it. Bad South Africa, imagine saving all those lives.
henry| 10.5.11 @ 3:38AM
Actually, it’s the Republic of South Africa. And yes, with intelligent use of DDT the incidence of malaria has plummeted there, as opposed to neighboring Mozambique, where the ban is enforced
Occam's Tool| 10.5.11 @ 3:59PM
Apparently, DDT does NOT cause egg shell weakening.
mister Z| 10.4.11 @ 4:28PM
As further proof of that AGW is a scam: this, shamelessly plagiarized from the National Solar Observatory:
Scientists at the National Solar Observatory have published a series of articles, based upon their close observations of the sun, which suggest that the world is approaching a new "Maunder Minimum" in which sunspots may disappear entirely for a time beginning at about 2015. The last Maunder Minimum occurred from 1645-1700. It was the deepest point of the Little Ice Age. According to Geology professor Don J. Easterbrook, "Temperatures dropped ~4º C (~7 º F) in ~20 years in mid-to high latitudes. The colder climate that ensued for several centuries was devastating. The population of Europe had become dependent on cereal grains as their main food supply during the Medieval Warm Period and when the colder climate, early snows, violent storms, and recurrent flooding swept Europe, massive crop failures occurred. Winters in Europe were bitterly cold, and summers were rainy and too cool for growing cereal crops, resulting in widespread famine and disease. About a third of the population of Europe perished."
NoMoreGore| 10.4.11 @ 9:58PM
Ross, Indur Goklany has great studies on mortality vs temperature. Roughly, there are 15-20% more deaths in the coldest months compared to the warmest (in America)
Joel Greer| 10.4.11 @ 10:51PM
My opposition to the GW "believers" is based on mathematics only....it is based on Statistics only. There exists 100 years of possibly-correct meterological data from the entire world. MAYBE there's a correct 100 years.
Divide 4,500,000,000 years...the statistical field...by 100 years of possibly accurate data... the "sample"...
there is a 99.99999994% "probability that any conclusion..warming, cooling, or not changing...would be incorrect.
POST American| 10.4.11 @ 11:01PM
---------------------MEANWHILE-----------------------
The umentioned FUKISHIMA world nuclear
disaster is now quietly declared by far, the
'greatest world nuclear disaster in history'.
THANK YOU Bloomberg News!
Now, as you gaze up into those CHEM-trail
knitted skies, saturated with fallout,
as you munch those GMO sterilant corn chips
------enjoy your NFL TSA rectum gropes.
-------------------------AND KEEP A GOIN'
Dan Mathewson| 10.4.11 @ 11:27PM
I'm definitely going to enjoy this coming Monday Night Football. Da Bears will hand the Lions their first defeat of the season. Bear down BEARS!
irish19| 10.5.11 @ 12:20AM
I hope you're right, but the defense better get its $hit together. And Lovie really needs to keep Martz on the straight and narrow with his game plan.
Occam's Tool| 10.5.11 @ 3:53PM
Nope, I think this may be the Lions year. And I'm a Bears fan.
Kingofthenet| 10.5.11 @ 1:20AM
I wonder if this distrust of Science goes to ALL scientists or just one's who study issues you rather NOT think about(Your Slovenly ways)
Should I distrust Petro Chemical scientists on the safety of drilling?
Should I distrust Big Pharma Scientists?
Should I distrust Nuclear Scientists working for Power Companies?
Seems they ALL have a profit motive to lie to me, and keep their cushy jobs?
JayDick| 10.5.11 @ 6:16AM
Maybe, but mainly the ones who have proven themselves to be biased and not willing to openly defend their science with facts and logic against all questions.
DaveD| 10.5.11 @ 8:15AM
Or put another way, Jay, distrust those who react to disagreement personally. If their response to criticism is intellectual, then you can see science at work. For science is nothing but the exchange of ideas, pro and con, that ultimately reveals the truth. If the response is to shoot the messenger, then you must question the validity of the science in the first place.
AGW proponents tend to shoot the messenger.
Steve A| 10.5.11 @ 1:45PM
Hey Kingofthenuts, The difference is that the Petro, Pharma & Nuke Scientists actually provide an actual PRODUCT that has a BENEFIT to me. Your Enviro Tree Huggers manufacture a "supposed crisis" & the answer is to "raise taxes" (Cap & Trade). When the answer is "raise taxes, fees, costs etc. you can bet your bottom $$ the root is Liberalism. Thanks for playing.
Occam's Tool| 10.5.11 @ 3:58PM
King,
well, when they are discussing fraud in their e-mails, that's a good tip-off.
By the way, unlike Al Gore, who flunked out of Divinity School, I got my MD at age 25, graduated Magna Cum Laude in Biology at TCU, had a stunningly high 33 on my ACTs, and aced multiple College Boards, including a perfect 800 in American History, and a 790 on math. My reboard score for my American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology was 92%. That's not the percentile---that's the raw score.
I'm not impressed with the intellectual firepower of Al Gore and the Climatology midgets. If I practiced Medicine like his compatriots do science, I'd have my license stripped.
Paul Kotik| 10.6.11 @ 8:37AM
And yet you seem to have nothing better to do than plaster comments all over the American Spectator online?
Can't you go invent something, or something?
Wayne| 10.5.11 @ 6:26AM
The liberals are not concerned about "unintended consequences", unless maybe they are the ones who must suffer it. They are not concerned in the least that the banning of DDT in Africa has resulted in millions of malaria deaths. After all, they just need to use it to campaign for getting nets to ward off mosquitos (I guess people need to walk 24/7 with nets).
Cut off electricity to ward off global warming means more old people die from the cold or heat. The liberals see this as helping trim off the poor and aged who they consider a drag on the government.
To understand liberals, think this: Government is good, and it should be a global government. Individual, especially those who hinder the Government are bad and need to be killed.
VPK| 10.5.11 @ 6:51AM
No, blinded by self-interest greed and very crafty and shameless!
Jerry Cox| 10.5.11 @ 9:47AM
RE: pine trees dying in the Rockies . . .They are being killed by a massive bark beetle infestation, and that could easily be cured by a great big wildfire, as will probably happen once all the trees are dead and dry as tinder.
Russell | 10.5.11 @ 1:46PM
Ross, given your less than fiduciary attention to the facts, and conspicuous lack of due diligence in reading the scientific literature , I am disposed to sell you very short indeed.
It isn't the stupidity. It's the credulity displayed in mistaking PR for data.
Steve A| 10.5.11 @ 1:50PM
Jerry, Come on man, quit playing. You know that the real reason these trees are dying is because Republicans are driving SUV's. Sara Palin is probably also at fault. Everyone knows the last Ice Age ended when man discovered fire & sheep were domesticated causing extra methane. This is common knowledge proven by "scientists" so get with the program.
fsilber| 10.6.11 @ 2:48PM
If global warming is important enough to lower our standard of living, wouldn't global warming therefore also be an important enough reason to stop trying to save lives in countries with high population growth?
Marc Jeric| 10.6.11 @ 3:04PM
This global warming conspiracy needs to be put in perspective to be properly understood. This far-left attack by government-paid drones started in the 1970′s with the global cooling scam: we should disarm our nuclear bombers and fill them with soot to be spread over the poles and so prevent those new glaciers from descending south and crushing the New York skyscrapers to dust. When that did not work the same fakers invented the global warming hoax in the 1990′s; we should nationalize all industries and organize a UN-sponsored world socialist government based on “social justice” with the fakers in charge. What with 12 years of substantial cooling the fakers switched to the climate change flimflam in the 2000′s; so whatever happens we should…see above under the global warming hoax. And now we are faced with the cap & trade power grab – but the aim is the same as above. Our socialists, marxists, communists, Hollywood stars, university professors in social and political “sciences”, and environmentalists are all clamoring for action while spurring President Obama ("Tomorrow the oceans will stop rising and the planet will start healing") and his 35 czars/komissars to undertake immediate measures to save the planet – with the same aims as described above.
In the meantime our Mian Stream Media are unanimous in spreading this criminal propaganda daily; the ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, NPR, the NY Times, the Washington Post, etc. drive this drivel daily. What is totally ignored are the detailed descriptions of faked data, skewed computer programs, politically revised conclusions by the UN-sponsored far-left clique of biased scientists – all government-paid drones that no private enterprise would hire. Another thing ignored is the “Global Warming Petition” (see Internet) where 31,487 independent US scientists (including 9,029 of them with PhD degrees) dispute decisively the findings of the UN-sponsored panel; also ignored is the “Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change” (see also Internet) where a smaller number of competent world scientists, about 712, including 142 pure climatologists, state the same – i.e., that the man-caused catastrophic global warming is a farce. The books by Christopher Horner, Robert Carter, and AW Montford describing the lies, fakes, phony data, opposite conclusions, redacting by UN political hacks, reverse graphs, etc., have exposed this far-left propaganda in painful detail.
In the case of the above mentioned Petition, several "environmentalists" had submitted phony names with phony credentials in order to sabotage that effort. It took several years of painstaking and expensive effort (we contributed a lot of private money for that) to clean up the list from those saboteurs and verify all academic and professional data of the signatories.
To put this whole conspiracy in terms of numbers, let me say that the projected world-threatening increase of carbon dioxide of 100 ppm (parts per million) by the end of this century would increase the termal absorptivity of the atmosphere by one-eighth of one percent; that is the definition of something totally negligible. On the other hand the sun cycles of cooling and heating are thousands of times more powerful with regard to the carbon dioxide in the air; when the sun is cold the oceans absorb many millions of tons of it; and when the sun heats up the oceans release the carbon dioxide in quantities thousands of times bigger than anything the mankind could produce. To illustrate this point in more accessible terms to somebody who who is not a climatologist or a scientist or an engineer; the argument of catastrophic anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming issued by our panic driven socialist/marxist government-paid hacks is like saying that a burp of a lonely wolf in Alaska will transform Florida into a Sahara-like desert - immediately!
As for that bloviating gasbag Al Gore and for Dr. Mann who inverted cause and effect in his "studies" - they should be brought to the The International Court in The Hague on charges of crimes against humanity.
D Foster| 10.6.11 @ 4:30PM
Ross, Algore's meme, all-but Albert Schwitzerian 'reverence-for-life' absolutist ethic espousing Rachel Carson, did more to increase global malarial deaths in popularizing the anti-DDT movement via 'Silent Spring' than any specious anthropogenic warming. See, Gilbert Ross, “Risk and Benefits of DDT,” The Lancet 366 (November 19, 2005), 1771, who asserts that “no evidence that DDT, used as malaria preventive, causes actual harm to human beings” and that restrictions of the use of DDT based on questionable risk estimates are unconscionable when malaria kills 5000 people a day.
Wallace| 10.6.11 @ 8:47PM
ALL the scientists working on ALL the reports you cite absolutely agree with the complete consensus that: 1) human produced GHGs are drastically changing the planet's climate and 2) that this climate change includes exacerbation of many severe weather patterns and events such as droughts and hurricanes. Of course they challenge each other on the scientific aspects. Buffoons that write for the AS have no more understanding of these debates between chemists, physicists and mathemeticians than the monkey at the zoo. But that does not stop them from cherry picking irrelevant information to sell their brand of fear.
THOUSANDS of climate scientists say the science is unequivocal. It is absolute bullshit that there are more than a handful of CLIMATE scientists (e.g. Bruce Singer, who works for Exxon) who disagree with the thousands.
Recent survey studies have found that this latest version of flat earth/sun revolves around the earth stubborness relates to American white males paranoid feelings that somehow their current culture and personal finances will change because of climate change. Um, well, yeah. Scientific advancement kinda does that, like how world exploration and flight occured after the scientists like Galileo were burned at the stake.
Dale on the left coast| 10.7.11 @ 11:56AM
Wallace . . . you are very confused. All scientists agree . . . so silly. Human activity creating so-called GH gasses is absolute nonsense. Human contribution to CO2 in only 3% . . . nature contributes 96% . . . CO2 is a benign, invisible gas that enables plants to process sunlight. It is a heavier gas so concentrated close to the earths surface. It does not create storms, it cannot warm the planet. The sun warms the planet, and right now the planet is cooling because solar activity is in decline.
There is NO KLIMATE SCIENCE . . . there is absolutely ZERO evidence that CO2 does anything . . . if there was I am sure you would have posted it . . . LOL
Diana| 10.7.11 @ 1:22PM
Thanks for a very well written, informative and humorous article on this controversial and misunderstood subject. I learned alot and enjoyed it very much. I have discovered a brilliant new writer and look forward to reading more!!
Jonathan| 10.8.11 @ 12:27AM
Scientific studies are only useful and believable when they agree with our preconceived notions. At all other times they are worthless and should be ignored.
joeldm| 11.12.11 @ 12:33PM
What a goofy article, that because we can scuba dive and invented A/C that global warming doesn't exist or doesn't matter if it does?
This is typical of the Right's efforts in so many areas to cast doubt by chipping away with little tidbits of BS, casting their BS line into the waters and snagging fish after gullible fish.
More than 98% of scientists agree that global warming is real and will have devastating consequences. Ignoring it with stupid asides will not lessen its impact and the impact will be real regardless of party.