What is the underlying cause of global warming? click here.

[laughingwillow]

While CO2 emissions are commonly thought to be the cause of the current trend of global warming, not all are convinced by what is perceived as a lack of science behind the conclusions. Some noted scientists believe activity on the sun is THE major player in our current weather patterns, relegating CO2 output back to a nasty pollutant that still needs tighter controls and standards.

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/glo ... 020507.htm

Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide

Global Warming: The Cold, Hard Facts?

By Timothy Ball

Monday, February 5, 2007

Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn't exist. And I am not the only one trying to make people open up their eyes and see the truth. But few listen, despite the fact that I was the first Canadian Ph.D. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition.“Few listen, even though I have a Ph.D, (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and was a climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg.” . For some reason (actually for many), the World is not listening. Here is why.


What would happen if tomorrow we were told that, after all, the Earth is flat? It would probably be the most important piece of news in the media and would generate a lot of debate. So why is it that when scientists who have studied the Global Warming phenomenon for years say that humans are not the cause nobody listens? Why does no one acknowledge that the Emperor has no clothes on?

Believe it or not, Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification. For example, Environment Canada brags about spending $3.7 billion in the last five years dealing with climate change almost all on propaganda trying to defend an indefensible scientific position while at the same time closing weather stations and failing to meet legislated pollution targets.

No sensible person seeks conflict, especially with governments, but if we don't pursue the truth, we are lost as individuals and as a society. That is why I insist on saying that there is no evidence that we are, or could ever cause global climate change. And, recently, Yuri A. Izrael, Vice President of the United Nations sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed this statement. So how has the world come to believe that something is wrong?

Maybe for the same reason we believed, 30 years ago, that global cooling was the biggest threat: a matter of faith. "It is a cold fact: the Global Cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for ten thousand years. Your stake in the decisions we make concerning it is of ultimate importance; the survival of ourselves, our children, our species," wrote Lowell Ponte in 1976.

I was as opposed to the threats of impending doom global cooling engendered as I am to the threats made about Global Warming. Let me stress I am not denying the phenomenon has occurred. The world has warmed since 1680, the nadir of a cool period called the Little Ice Age (LIA) that has generally continued to the present. These climate changes are well within natural variability and explained quite easily by changes in the sun. But there is nothing unusual going on.

Since I obtained my doctorate in climatology from the University of London, Queen Mary College, England my career has spanned two climate cycles. Temperatures declined from 1940 to 1980 and in the early 1970's global cooling became the consensus. This proves that consensus is not a scientific fact. By the 1990's temperatures appeared to have reversed and Global Warming became the consensus. It appears I'll witness another cycle before retiring, as the major mechanisms and the global temperature trends now indicate a cooling.

No doubt passive acceptance yields less stress, fewer personal attacks and makes career progress easier. What I have experienced in my personal life during the last years makes me understand why most people choose not to speak out; job security and fear of reprisals. Even in University, where free speech and challenge to prevailing wisdoms are supposedly encouraged, academics remain silent.

I once received a three page letter that my lawyer defined as libellous, from an academic colleague, saying I had no right to say what I was saying, especially in public lectures. Sadly, my experience is that universities are the most dogmatic and oppressive places in our society. This becomes progressively worse as they receive more and more funding from governments that demand a particular viewpoint.

In another instance, I was accused by Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki of being paid by oil companies. That is a lie. Apparently he thinks if the fossil fuel companies pay you have an agenda. So if Greenpeace, Sierra Club or governments pay there is no agenda and only truth and enlightenment?

Personal attacks are difficult and shouldn't occur in a debate in a civilized society. I can only consider them from what they imply. They usually indicate a person or group is losing the debate. In this case, they also indicate how political the entire Global Warming debate has become. Both underline the lack of or even contradictory nature of the evidence.

I am not alone in this journey against the prevalent myth. Several well-known names have also raised their voices. Michael Crichton, the scientist, writer and filmmaker is one of them. In his latest book, "State of Fear" he takes time to explain, often in surprising detail, the flawed science behind Global Warming and other imagined environmental crises.

Another cry in the wildenerness is Richard Lindzen's. He is an atmospheric physicist and a professor of meteorology at MIT, renowned for his research in dynamic meteorology - especially atmospheric waves. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has held positions at the University of Chicago, Harvard University and MIT. Linzen frequently speaks out against the notion that significant Global Warming is caused by humans. Yet nobody seems to listen.

I think it may be because most people don't understand the scientific method which Thomas Kuhn so skilfully and briefly set out in his book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." A scientist makes certain assumptions and then produces a theory which is only as valid as the assumptions. The theory of Global Warming assumes that CO2 is an atmospheric greenhouse gas and as it increases temperatures rise. It was then theorized that since humans were producing more CO2 than before, the temperature would inevitably rise. The theory was accepted before testing had started, and effectively became a law.

As Lindzen said many years ago: "the consensus was reached before the research had even begun." Now, any scientist who dares to question the prevailing wisdom is marginalized and called a sceptic, when in fact they are simply being good scientists. This has reached frightening levels with these scientists now being called climate change denier with all the holocaust connotations of that word. The normal scientific method is effectively being thwarted.

Meanwhile, politicians are being listened to, even though most of them have no knowledge or understanding of science, especially the science of climate and climate change. Hence, they are in no position to question a policy on climate change when it threatens the entire planet. Moreover, using fear and creating hysteria makes it very difficult to make calm rational decisions about issues needing attention.

Until you have challenged the prevailing wisdom you have no idea how nasty people can be. Until you have re-examined any issue in an attempt to find out all the information, you cannot know how much misinformation exists in the supposed age of information.

I was greatly influenced several years ago by Aaron Wildavsky's book "Yes, but is it true?" The author taught political science at a New York University and realized how science was being influenced by and apparently misused by politics. He gave his graduate students an assignment to pursue the science behind a policy generated by a highly publicised environmental concern. To his and their surprise they found there was little scientific evidence, consensus and justification for the policy. You only realize the extent to which Wildavsky's findings occur when you ask the question he posed. Wildavsky's students did it in the safety of academia and with the excuse that it was an assignment. I have learned it is a difficult question to ask in the real world, however I firmly believe it is the most important question to ask if we are to advance in the right direction.

Dr. Tim Ball, Chairman of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (www.nrsp.com), is a Victoria-based environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. He can be reached at mailto:letters@canadafreepress.com">letters@canadafreepress.com

lw

[cenacle]

LW--

Did you know that Timothy Ball is on the payroll of Canadian oil companies? He says in the post above: "In another instance, I was accused by Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki of being paid by oil companies. That is a lie." But look here:

http://desmogblog.com/oil-companies-fun ... of-science

Something to consider in light of his claims running so counter to so many scientists around the world.

[laughingwillow]

It doesn't really matter to me who the guy works for, cen. I'm interested in learning more about the science behind the positions. According to the above article, the science behind the CO2 theory of global warming has been taken for granted rather than scientifically proven as fact.

I'm not doubting the reality of global warming, although I do have questions pertaining to the cause. And I still think CO2 emissions should be curtailed due to their noxious nature regardless.

lw

[cenacle]

I agree with you, in terms of the importance of the issue, and its reality, but I think it does matter who pays his check as that may have an influence on his findings. Also, that he denied that oil companies do finance his work, only to be proven a liar.

I think his oil ties put his findings under suspicion. It's like newspapers that won't run negative stories about the companies that advertise in their pages. Not biting the hand that feeds you, etc. It's a red flag, in my eyes. If you read that story I linked to, you'll see this guy is part of a group of suspicious characters.

Thing is, I'm convinced that humans are ruining the planet, in particular Americans. I'm convinced because we've had years and years of oil (yes there's that dirty word again) tycoons running the government. I don't trust them. I don't trust how they've influenced against funding for alternative energy sources, and the electric car. I tend to think the war in Iraq is an oil war more than anything else. I think they are protecting their interests, and the scientist above is being paid a lot of money to try and discredit what thousands of scientists agree on. His citing of Michael Crichton immediately made me suspicious. Crichton is another hack.

So my thinking tends to look at this oil-paid scientist and see a whore. I think it's great you brought this topic to the fore, but I believe, emotionally and intellectually both, someone like Al Gore, in "An Inconvenient Truth" where he warns in great detail about the frightening trends that can be shown by photograph, not just statistics.

I am not a scientist. In the end, I am a lay person subject to persuasion by people who can talk brainy about these matters. That said, I would rather err on the side of cleaning up this befouled planet than letting it go because there is a chance things are not quite as bad as they seem.

They are pretty bad, and I can't see anything but massive demand for change that will keep them from getting worse.

[laughingwillow]

but I believe, emotionally and intellectually both, someone like Al Gore, in "An Inconvenient Truth" where he warns in great detail about the frightening trends that can be shown by photograph, not just statistics.

First, Al Gore is a politician, not a scientist. His is an emotional sell, imo, having nothing to do with the science behind the alleged facts.

As far as seeing frightening trends by photograph, no one is doubting the trend, only the cause. While the photos are sure to stir emotions, they do nothing to further either side of this debate, imo.

lw

[cenacle]

Gore has not been in politics for six years, and he has been consulting with experts on environmental issues since the 1970s. His movie is full of facts about the whys and hows of global warming, and consults the views of a wide panoply of experts. I recommend people see it and decide for themselves. Kassi and I were extremely impressed and convinced, and for what it's worth on an individual scale, we've become more conscious than ever about how we interact with the environment around us.

We as a race can do many things to change our relationship with our world. We already have. We used to use leaded gasoline. There used to be no pollution standards at all. We can do better but we need to use the power of the ballot box, at least here in the US, to let our leaders know what we want. They will listen if we start looking for other leaders. We can have electric cars, we can develop alternative energies like wind and surf and solar power. We can recycle, and learn how to recycle even more.

Our planet is in trouble, and it's not the goats or the gorillas that are causing it. It's humans. But humans can do great things, too. We could be making the planet a magically good place for all life. We CAN do these things, and some of us are. But we need to do more. It's our home, but it does not belong to us, we belong to it, as Daniel Quinn wrote in Ishmael.

[fuzz]

best way to recycle is still: dont buy crap!!!

for recycling issues, if you havent seen it yet, you HAVE to take the time to watch it, and meditate on the information brought in:
//http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7734998370503499886&q=penn+and+teller

then for the "climate change" issues, watch this Penn and Teller! Bullshit on Environmental Hysteria:
//http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4480559399263937213&q=penn+and+teller
the show has an interesting interview with Bjorn Lomborg, the very controversial Dane, who calls the "environmentalists" facts a bunch of "ghosts facts", and who thinks that it is irresponsable for people such as Gore to preach such devestation. To ths day, Gore has refused any interviews with Bjorn.
of course, for those who still believe that we live in a peachy pink world, it might be about time to wake the fuck up. there is lots of work to do, but the emotional response of the hippies tying themselves up on a  tree is well...merely an over emotional response to a very real problem. its very cool art though, very cute.
//http://www.lomborg.com/

also, as part of the documentary, you can hear one of the founders of green peace and the not the kind words he has against the way greenpeace turned out, why he left the organization years ago, and about the "white upper middle class environmental kids".
Last but not least you will see a little test the Penn & Teller crew puts concerned hippies through, and the result aint pretty.
for you sensitive hippies out there, i dont recommend this show, as it might make you want to climb up a tree and make a nest in it, in which case we'd never get to smell that sweet patchouli stuff again!

[laughingwillow]

Earth has warming up and cooling down since the beginning of time. However, humans have been tracking weather patterns for only a microscopic portion of that time frame. This pattern of warming and cooling existed long before humans roamed the planet and will probably continue long after we are gone. This planet owns us. Its not the other way around, no matter how much one cares to buy into that illusion. I'm confident the entity we call home is fully capable of protecting his/herself from most any infection It might catch.

However, I believe its possible/probable that even after ending human caused CO2 emissions the earth could continue warming due to factors that we don't fully understand/appreciate at this point in time. CO2 is bad for the environment, no doubt. And the sky just might be falling as the water tables rise to heaven. But the sun still doesn't revolve around man and we might only be in the short-term plan; sort of like the dinosaurs.

May you live in interesting times... - Ancient Chinese blessing/curse

lw

[fuzz]

challenging article indeed laughing. i think its nescessary to open real dialogue, even if that means having to kill some old myths. i think we dont know, no one really knows about this issue, so its good to analize info from many sides, and see what we think and how it should affect our life choices. it has been a few years since a part of the scientifc community says that there is no such thing as the green house effect, but for some reason newspapers like to propagate the disaster scenario better. go wander why scandals sell better than more plain info??? bad news sell better than good news, as usual.
if tomorrow i get the proof for sure that recycling glass is a bad idea, i a m ready to think i've been wrong for the last 20 years or so.

one of the things that i find missing from the "global warming" stuff is the fact that we live on a little planet that turns on itself, as most planets do.
not taking this is account when it comes to weather pattern changes seems quite faulty, and a wrong way of feeling the planet we live on. it is creating a false and flat relationship with it.
remember when the desert of africa used to be a lush jungle, ice ages? planets have seasons too.

only blaming humans for the weather seems extremely egocentric. then again, man has always been a pretentious creature, and has a hard time accepting that it might have as much importance as a pile of dust under a bed.

but no worries, about the fate of humans, in about 4 to 5 billion years this planet will go like a pancake as the sun goes into supernova.
by then, the earth will have become unlivable for quite a while already.
only safe rule: dont forget the mapple syrup!!
the rest belongs to science fiction and your imagination:D  
but for now: stop buying crap, and SMILE!

//http://www.michielb.nl/sun/leven.htm

[TroutMask]

Earth has warming up and cooling down since the beginning of time. However, humans have been tracking weather patterns for only a microscopic portion of that time frame.

Humans have only been around a small part of that time, but we have little trouble telling what the temperature has been throughout time using a number of methods, from short-term methods like tree ring thicknesses, to long-term methods like comparative levels of various oxygen isotopes captured in foraminifera and other aquatic organisms.

This pattern of warming and cooling existed long before humans roamed the planet and will probably continue long after we are gone.

Sure, but in no time in observable earth history (read hundreds of millions of years) has the temperature swung so far so quickly. It is not a coincidence that in no observable earth history has the atmospheric carbon been so high. There is a direct and observable correlation between atmospheric carbon and temperature throughout time. If we accept this correlation and we know that both temperature and atmospheric carbon are rising faster than in any other period in earth's history, the only question is "where is the carbon coming from?" There is no argument that Man has become, by far, the greatest contributor to atmospheric carbon during our history, and that Man's increasing contribution to atmospheric carbon levels through time correlate closely with our current unprecedented warming trend.

This planet owns us. Its not the other way around, no matter how much one cares to buy into that illusion. I'm confident the entity we call home is fully capable of protecting his/herself from most any infection It might catch.

The earth doesn't care about how hot it is, nor how many species disappear, nor how much garbage is in the ocean, nor how much radiation fills the atmosphere. Man can and has changed those things and many others, but, yes, home still spins on.

-TM

[cenacle]

http://www.climatecrisis.net/thescience/

We *are* contributing to climate change, and this climate change is harming the prospects for many species, including our own, to survive in the long run. Additionally, ours is the only species that is not only affecting the planet, but can by its will make things worse or better. Both possibilites hang before us right now.

What I find worse is the widespread disinterest in this topic on the part of the American media and American businessess, not to mention much of the population. This disinterest is changing, but very slowly. I am hopeful things can improve but the first step in solving any crisis, personal or global, is to acknowledge its reality. Right now, I think we are leaving the denial stage but damned slowly.

[TroutMask]

Yep.

It took a while before you could say the sun is the center of the solar system without being crucified. Hopefully we're wiser now.

-TM

[laughingwillow]

There is no argument that Man has become, by far, the greatest contributor to atmospheric carbon during our history, and that Man's increasing contribution to atmospheric carbon levels through time correlate closely with our current unprecedented warming trend.

I'm afraid there has been too little debate on this issue and too much taken for granted.

I believe there have been periods in history when the world was warmer than now. And those periods occured without the assistance of man. I'm not even sure that we have enough current information on todays weather patterns to predict future trends with any certainty. There appear to be enough variables affecting weather patterns to make it difficult to consistently make accurate predictions.

Heck, we don't even know with certainty what killed off the dinosaurs, but they disappeared over a relatively short period of time.

Just because A comes before B doesn't necessarily mean A causes B...

lw

[laughingwillow]

No answers, just more questions.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15391426/site/newsweek/

Remember Global Cooling?
Why scientists find climate change so hard to predict.

By Jerry Adler
Updated: 4:41 p.m. CT Oct 23, 2006
Oct. 23, 2006 - In April, 1975, in an issue mostly taken up with stories about the collapse of the American-backed government of South Vietnam, NEWSWEEK published a small back-page article about a very different kind of disaster. Citing "ominous signs that the earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically," the magazine warned of an impending "drastic decline in food production." Political disruptions stemming from food shortages could affect "just about every nation on earth." Scientists urged governments to consider emergency action to head off the terrible threat of . . . well, if you had been following the climate-change debates at the time, you'd have known that the threat was: global cooling.

More than 30 years later, that little story is still being quoted regularlyâ€"as recently as last month on the floor of the Senate by Republican Sen. James Inhofe, chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee and the self-proclaimed scourge of climate alarmists. The article's appeal to Inhofe, of course, is not its prescience, but the fact that it was so spectacularly wrong about the near-term future. Even by the time it appeared, a decades-long trend toward slightly cooler temperatures in the Northern hemisphere had already begun to reverse itselfâ€"although that wouldn't be apparent in the data for a few years yetâ€"leading to today's widespread consensus among scientists that the real threat is actually human-caused global warming. In fact, as Inhofe pointed out, for more than 100 years journalists have quoted scientists predicting the destruction of civilization by, in alternation, either runaway heat or a new Ice Age. The implication he draws is that if you're not worried about being trampled by a stampede of woolly mammoths through downtown Chicago, you don't have to believe what the media is saying about global warming, either.

But is that the right lesson to draw?  How did NEWSWEEKâ€"or for that matter, Time magazine, which also ran a story on the subject in the mid-1970sâ€"get things so wrong? In fact, the story wasn't "wrong" in the journalistic sense of "inaccurate." Some scientists indeed thought the Earth might be cooling in the 1970s, and some laymenâ€"even one as sophisticated and well-educated as Isaac Asimovâ€"saw potentially dire implications for climate and food production. After all, Ice Ages were common in Earth's history; if anything, the warm "interglacial" period in which human civilization evolved, and still exists, is the exception. The cause of these periodic climatic shifts is still being studied and debated, but many scientists believe they are influenced by small changes in the Earth's orbit around the Sun (including its "eccentricity," or the extent to which it deviates from a perfect circle) and the tilt of its rotation. As calculated by the mathematician Milutin Milankovitch in the 1920s, these factors vary on interlocking cycles of around 20,000, 40,000 and 100,000 years, and if nothing else changed they would be certain to bring on a new Ice Age at some time. In the 1970s, there were scientists who thought this shift might be imminent; more recent data, according to William Connolley, a climate scientist at the British Antarctic Survey who has made a hobby of studying Ice Age predictions, suggest that it might be much farther off.

But in any case, climatologists now are mostly agreed that human impacts will swamp the effects of the Milankovitch cycles. The question has been, which specific impacts? In the mid-1970s, scientists were focusing on an increase of dust and "aerosols" (suspended droplets of liquid, mostly sulfuric acid) in the atmosphere. These, the result of increased agriculture and burning of coal in power plants, lower the Earth's temperature by reflecting sunlight back into space. Ironically, clean-air laws in North America and Europe had the effect of reducing aerosols (which cause acid rain), so the predominant influence on climate now is the buildup of carbon dioxideâ€"which traps the Earth's heat in the lower atmosphere and contributes to global warming.

As late as 1992, in a story that for some reason has gotten far less attention, NEWSWEEK revisited the Ice Age threat, this time posing it as a perverse consequence of the greenhouse effect. Citing the theories of an "amateur scientist and professional prophet of doom named John Hamaker," the article raised the specter that a small increase in air temperature could cause more snow to fall in places like northern Greenland, where the ground is often bare. (Extremely cold air doesn't hold enough moisture for a good snowfall.) Increased snow cover, by reflecting more sunlight back into space, could trigger a return of the glaciers to North America. Although the intricate web of positive and negative feedbacks that control climate are still not fully understood, that particular scenario hasn't gotten much attention in the last decade.

The point to remember, says Connolley, is that predictions of global cooling never approached the kind of widespread scientific consensus that supports the greenhouse effect today. And for good reason: the tools scientists have at their disposal nowâ€"vastly more data, incomparably faster computers and infinitely more sophisticated mathematical modelsâ€"render any forecasts from 1975 as inoperative as the predictions being made around the same time about the inevitable triumph of communism. Astronomers have been warning for decades that life on Earth could be wiped out by a collision with a giant meteorite; it hasn't happened yet, but that doesn't mean that journalists have been dupes or alarmists for reporting this news. Citizens can judge for themselves what constitutes a prudent response-which, indeed, is what occurred 30 years ago. All in all, it's probably just as well that society elected not to follow one of the possible solutions mentioned in the NEWSWEEK article: to pour soot over the Arctic ice cap, to help it melt.

[winder]

The funny thing to me is all the debate about the cause, yet little discussion about how to react.

All the discussion about how to react is based on whether we have much influence on the outcomes or not.

But what if we have very little influence possible on the outcome?
Then our reactions and efforts need to be focused on adaptation.
What cities will be lost?
Where will crops be lost?
Where will crops be gained?
Etc.