The Great Global Warming Swindle...

[laughingwillow]

A few weeks back a spf'er shared this link with me and said he was going to post it here as well. As I've yet to see it, I decided to do it myself. I buried it in the global warming thread yesterday, but decided the info is important enough to warrant its own thread.

This is a five part series that offers the facts, figures and science  of an alternative theory to the causes of the current global warming trend.    Gore's work in An Inconvenient Truth is also analyzed and refuted with facts, figures and science.

The bottom line, imo, is that CO2 is NOT a strong driver of our climate.  Never was, nor ever will be.  One point that sticks with me: According to the facts presented by Gore, the theory of CO2 driving warming means the excessive CO2 trapped in the atmosphere is causing global warming. But for that theory to be viable, the warming would necessarily begin in the atmosphere about five miles above the earth's surface, eventually  raising the surface temps as well. However, the surface of the earth is heating faster than the zone of the atmosphere suspected of driving the phenomena.

Check it out....

lw

http://www.livevideo.com/video/Conspira ... e-pt-.aspx

[Stonehenge]

On Feb. 2, 2007, the United Nations scientific panel studying climate change declared that the evidence of a warming trend is "unequivocal," and that human activity has "very likely" been the driving force in that change over the last 50 years. The last report by the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in 2001, had found that humanity had "likely" played a role.

The addition of that single word "very" did more than reflect mounting scientific evidence that the release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from smokestacks, tailpipes and burning forests has played a central role in raising the average surface temperature of the earth by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1900. It also added new momentum to a debate that now seems centered less over whether humans are warming the planet, but instead over what to do about it. In recent months, business groups have banded together to make unprecedented calls for federal regulation of greenhouse gases. The subject had a red-carpet moment when former Vice President Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," was awarded an Oscar; and the Supreme Court made its first global warming-related decision, ruling 5 to 4 that the Environmental Protection Agency had not justified its position that it was not authorized to regulate carbon dioxide.

The greenhouse effect has been part of the earth's workings since its earliest days. Gases like carbon dioxide and methane allow sunlight to reach the earth, but prevent some of the resulting heat from radiating back out into space. Without the greenhouse effect, the planet would never have warmed enough to allow life to form. But as ever larger amounts of carbon dioxide have been released along with the development of industrial economies, the atmosphere has grown warmer at an accelerating rate: Since 1970, temperatures have gone up at nearly three times the average for the 20th century.

The latest report from the climate panel predicted that the global climate is likely to rise between 3.5 and 8 degrees Fahrenheit if the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere reaches twice the level of 1750. By 2100, sea levels are likely to rise between 7 to 23 inches, it said, and the changes now underway will continue for centuries to come.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/scie ... classifier

[laughingwillow]

Stoney: Don't be so quick to jump on that 100% sure bandwagon. Study the science for yourself.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/stor ... 46d1fc&k=0

Warming is real - and has benefits
The Deniers -- Part II
Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post
Published: Friday, February 02, 2007
One month ago, the world heard that global warming could lead to a global catastrophe "on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century." This assessment, from Sir Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank, made banner headlines and led prominent leaders such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair to urge immediate action to stem global warming.

It also led some prominent environmentalists to denounce Sir Nicholas for what they deemed an outrageous study bereft of credibility. None of the environmentalists issued a stronger denunciation, or has better environmental credentials, than Richard S.J. Tol.

Tol is a Denier, to use the terminology of the "science-is-settled" camp in the increasingly polarized global warming debate. Like many other Deniers, Tol doesn't think the evidence is in on global warming and its effects, he doesn't think there's reason to rush to action, and he doesn't think that crash programs to curb global warming are called for.
Also like many other Deniers, he doesn't fit the stereotype that those who use the epithet imagine. Anything but.

Tol is no fringe outsider to the scientific debate. He is at the centre of the academic investigation of global warming, a central figure in the scientific establishment that has been developing the models and the knowledge to understand the global warming phenomenon. At the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, considered by most the authoritative body in the field, Tol is involved as an author in all three of its Working Groups. He is also an author and editor of the United Nations Handbook on Methods for Climate Change Impact Assessment and Adaptation Strategies. He is also a mover and shaker in the prestigious European Climate Forum. He takes global warming seriously and has dedicated his professional life to making a contribution for the better in climate policy and related fields.

Because of his immense reputation, the Stern report itself relied on Tol's work in coming to its conclusions. But Sir Nicholas twisted Tol's work out of shape to arrive at unsupportable conclusions.

As one example, Sir Nicholas plucked a figure ($29 per ton of carbon dioxide) from a range that Tol prepared describing the possible costs of CO2 emissions, without divulging that in the very same study Tol concluded that the actual costs "are likely to be substantially smaller" than $14 per ton of CO2. Likewise, in an assessment of the potential consequences of rising sea levels, Sir Nicholas quoted a study co-authored by Tol that referred to the "millions at risk," ignoring that the same study then suggested greatly reduced consequences for those millions due to the ability of humans to adapt to change.

Throughout his report, in fact, Sir Nicholas not only assumed worst possible cases, he also assumed that humans are passive creatures, devoid of ingenuity, who would be helpless victims to changes in the world around them. Such assumptions underpinned Sir Nicholas's claim that "the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever," and led Tol to view Sir Nicholas's conclusions as "preposterous." Tol's conclusion: "The Stern review can therefore be dismissed as alarmist and incompetent."

Tol and Sir Nicholas are worlds apart, and not just because of Sir Nicholas's recklessness with the facts. Where Sir Nicholas paints an altogether bleak picture, Tol's is far more nuanced: Global warming creates benefits as well as harms, he explains, and in the short term, the benefits are especially pronounced.

More important, Tol is a student of human innovation and adaptation. As a native of the Netherlands, he is intimately familiar with dikes and other low-cost adaptive technologies, and the ability of humans in meeting challenges in their environment. To assume that humans in the future would not use their ingenuity and resourcefulness in sensible ways defies the history of mankind and ultimately serves no one.

Yes, global warming is real, he believes, and yes, measures to mitigate it should be taken. But unlike the advocates who believe that the science is settled, and the global warning debate is over, Tol thinks that much research needs to be done before we know how best to respond.
"There is no risk of damage [from global warming] that would force us to act injudiciously," he explains. "We've got enough time to look for the economically most effective options, rather than dash into 'actionism,' which then becomes very expensive."

THE CV OF A DENIER: Richard Tol received his PhD in Economics from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. He is Michael Otto Professor of Sustainability and Global Change at Hamburg University, director of the Centre for Marine and Atmospheric Science, principal researcher at the Institute for Environmental Studies at Vrije Universiteit, and Adjunct Professor at the Center for Integrated Study of the Human Dimensions of Global Change, at Carnegie Mellon University. He is a board member of the Centre for Marine and Climate Research, the International Max Planck Research Schools of Earth Systems Modelling and Maritime Affairs, and the European Forum on Integrated Environmental Assessment. He is an editor of Energy Economics, an associate editor of Environmental and Resource Economics, and a member of the editorial board of Environmental Science and Policy and Integrated Assessment.

[laughingwillow]

Btw, there are links to stories/facts of about ten other prominent "deniers"  and their experiences with the architects of the current global warming  scare in my post directly above this one.

I found the hurricane expert's experience to be especially enlightening. (Anyone remember the dire warnings about last season's hurricane activity?)

lw

[Stonehenge]

Something like 98% of the worlds experts agree that CO2 emissions are a significant cause of global warming along with other man made effects. They know more than we do and they are nearly unanimous. If you wait until everyone agrees, it will never happen. Not everyone agrees the world is round, some say it's flat. Would you say the verdict is not in on the earth's shape? OK, slightly flattened sphere but not flat!

[laughingwillow]

Science has nothing to do with consensus. Data can be manipulated to reach any  desired conclusion, imo. In this case much was omitted. But don't take my word for it. Read the facts and the science behind it for yourself.

lw

[laughingwillow]

PS: You seem to forget  the numerous scientific errors like the flat earth consensus that existed a few hundred years back in the scientific community.

lw

[laughingwillow]

Hey, here's a global warming related question for you......

How did Greenland get its name?

The Scandinavians who discovered the island hundreds of years back found a lush, green paradise when they arrived. However, after a time, the climate began to change, eventually killing or forcing most to flee for WARMER environs.

Telling people the sky is falling usually gets much better ratings on the tube than when they check in and see its bidness as usual. Remember Y2K?

lw

[laughingwillow]

I've been posting in this thread since coming to the conclusion that CO2 is NOT driving the current  global warming phenomena. I've looked at the science from both sides of the isle. What  I've seen is a very loose correlation between CO2 levels and temps.

Interestingly, the scientist who has had the most success predicting our weather the past few years(with the awards to prove it)  is a person who uses observations of activity on the surface of the sun to predict weather here on earth. He claims  cosmic rays emitted from the sun  cause the formation of clouds in our atmosphere. More solar activity, more clouds and lower temps. Less activity, less clouds, higher temps on the surface of the planet.

As scientists have been observing and recording sun spot activity for a few hunderd years, it's possible to graph this activity and compare ot graphs of historic temps. There is an amazing corelation that is much more pronounced than the CO2/temps graph.

I have to laugh when I read quotes from world leaders concerning how much warming we can "allow" to occur . That implies we have some control over the weather...

lw

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,214 ... 39,00.html

[cenacle]

the "weather" is a series of changing conditions which affect one another locally, regionally, and also globally, and we certainly do play our part...when we pollute a river with industrial waste, when we turn unsettled (by humans anyway) land into landfills or nuclear dumps, when we drive cars that pour toxins into the air...we are in turn affected by the weather, such as tsunamis or hurricanes, but also when crops die due to lack or rain, or when floods kill everything in sight...

whether the earth was flat or round was not a crisis, and is little relevant to this discussion...Y2k was a technical situation, a human drama...global warming is a vast subject, as it addresses how humans and their world are going to continue to live together, or begin to oppose each other by human misuse of its native home...but truly Mother Nature is not our adversary or opponent...whether this world exists by some divine hand or by the good fortunes of evolution, it is one we live on and belong to...

and, simply put, we don't act like it...we act like the world is a soda can to be drunk of its contents and, at best, tossed in the recycle bin...we don't collectively think of our world as live, and vulnerable, and in need of care...the world is alive, and there is evidence it is suffering by our doing...lots of evidence...we could be doing more, but we are not...I don't believe it is good-hearted folks like LW and others here who are in the way...i believe it is iniquitous multinational petrochemical companies and similar organizations that want to maintain an "argument" in order that nothing gets done until there is a "consensus" which they are banking will never come...

it's pathetic, and in a way, our only recourse is to elect leaders who will deal with it on the national and global levels, by funding research, getting more answers ongoingly as this and that is tried, and sign treaties and agreements they stick to, and in our own communities work toward recycling and other conscientious efforts to make things better...

the sad thing is that the earth could be made uninhabitable for humans, and still go on...eventually...start with the roaches, go from there...we could be like the dinosaurs, eventually, only without the excuse that our brains are the size of peas...

[laughingwillow]

the sad thing is that the earth could be made uninhabitable for humans, and still go on...eventually...start with the roaches, go from there...we could be like the dinosaurs, eventually, only without the excuse that our brains are the size of peas...

I disagree, cen. Nothing sad about humans being unable to destroy the earth, imo. That's a good thing.

Also, please don't confuse my position above, nor the topic at hand.  I'm contending that CO2 is not the main driver of earth's weather and that  man is not able to manipulate or control our weather at will, as proposed by our most esteemed world leaders.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see humans curb man-made pollution and lessen our dependance on fossil fuels.  But connecting those problems with global warming is just bad science, imo.

lw

[Stonehenge]

How did Greenland get its name?

The Scandinavians who discovered the island hundreds of years back found a lush, green paradise when they arrived. However, after a time, the climate began to change, eventually killing or forcing most to flee for WARMER environs.

Sorry, lw, not true. Greenland was frosty when it was discovered. It was named that way as a marketing ploy. Too few people wanted to move to Iceland but Greenland sounded much better.

At the flat earth society they insist all this talk about the earth being round is a con job. They say the data is being faked too. Maybe they are right?

[laughingwillow]

Sorry, stoney...

Check your facts.

Here's what I found on more than one site.....

http://explorenorth.com/library/weekly/aa121799.htm

quote from below in case you don't want to read it all..     The next migration came from the east, following "Erik the Red" Thorwaldsson's exploration of the southern coast of Greenland between 982 and 985 AD. In 986, he led a group of Viking families from Iceland, and settled at Brattahlid, traditionally known as Qassiarsuk (route map). The climate at this time was very warm, much wamer than it is today, and crops were able to do well. It seems likely that the name "Greenland" was given to the country, not just as wishful thinkful, but because it was a climatic fact at that time.........     The mild climatic period was fairly short-lived in geologic terms - by about 1200 AD, the ever-increasing cold was making life extremely difficult, and some years no supply ships were able to reach Greenland through the ice-choked seas. During this period, Norway has assumed responsibility for supplying the Norse settlers in Greenland, but as the climate worsened it became a very difficult task.......



    The year 2000 is extremely important to the people of Greenland, as it marks the approximate 1,000th anniversary of the arrival of the first Inuit, and also of Leif Erikkson's journey from Greenland to Canada. Many special ceremonies and projects are underway or planned, and a greatly-increased awareness of the country's history is apparent.

    Greenland was first inhabited about 4,500 years ago. The earliest residents arrived from the west, but either left or died due to periods of exceptionally cold weather and/or poor hunting. Signs of their presence have been found near Maniitsoq. The region seems to have then been uninhabited for about 3,000 years.


    The next migration came from the east, following "Erik the Red" Thorwaldsson's exploration of the southern coast of Greenland between 982 and 985 AD. In 986, he led a group of Viking families from Iceland, and settled at Brattahlid, traditionally known as Qassiarsuk (route map). The climate at this time was very warm, much wamer than it is today, and crops were able to do well. It seems likely that the name "Greenland" was given to the country, not just as wishful thinkful, but because it was a climatic fact at that time.

    In 999 or 1000, Leif Eriksson, son of Erik the Red, brought the first Christian missionary to Greenland, from Norway. Shortly after, the first church, Thjódhildurs Church, was built at Brattahlid. It was built beside Erik the Red's farmhouse, at his wife's insistence, and was named after her. As part of the celebrations being held in 2000, the church and farmhouse have been rebuilt, and are being dedicated on July 16, 2000.

    In 1000, Leif Eriksson made his voyage to North America. That voyage is being recreated with a replica of his ship, the Islendingur. It will sail from Brattahlid (Qassiarsuk) on July 15, 2000, and a lengthy series of celebrations are planned upon her arrival in North America.

    The church became extremely powerful in Greenland; in about 1124 a bishop was appointed, and a residence was built at Gardar (Igaliko), near Brattahlid. By most reports, corruption within the church was rampant, and may have ultimately helped destroy the settlements the church was sent to minister to.


   At about the same time that the Norseman were settling the south of Greenland, the present Greenlanders, the Inuit, arrived and settled further to the north (some sources state that they arrived as late as 1200 AD).

 
    The mild climatic period was fairly short-lived in geologic terms - by about 1200 AD, the ever-increasing cold was making life extremely difficult, and some years no supply ships were able to reach Greenland through the ice-choked seas. During this period, Norway has assumed responsibility for supplying the Norse settlers in Greenland, but as the climate worsened it became a very difficult task.

    By about 1350, the settlements in southwestern Greenland had been abandoned. There is no evidence to prove where the people went to, but one persistent legend says that they went to North America, eventually settling in North Dakota. This legend claims that they were the original Mandan Indians.

    In 1408, a wedding was performed in the Hvalsey Church. This is not only the last known service at Hvalsey, but also the last written record of the Viking presence in the region. It is thought that some settlers remained for another 80-90 years, then were forced to leave by the deteriorating climate as well.

    Not until 1721 did Europeans return to Greenland, and in 1775, Denmark claimed the island as a closed colony. Although there were no European residents, the merging of Norway and Denmark in the Kalmar Union had resulted in control over Greenland being passed to Denmark.

    The people of Greenland did not fare well under Danish rule, and the standard of living was very low until the Second World War. At that time, the United States built a series of military bases, including Thule AFB.

    In 1953, a constitutional change made Greenland an integral part of Denmark rather than being a colony. Danish financial assistance increased substantially, and the country modernized quickly. Life expectancy rose, the population doubled due both immigration and an increased birthrate, and modern technology was introduced into most aspects of life, from medicine to transportation and comunications.

 
    In the 1970s, concerns began to be expressly that Greenland's culture was being lost, and pressure began to build for establishment of a Home Rule government. That was accomplished in 1979. The new legislature was given power over everything except foreign affairs, defense and the judiciary, which are still controlled from Copenhagen, although in practise Greenland's opinions are given a great deal of consideration when setting policy.

    In modern Greenland, culture and history are very visible parts of everyday life, from colourful clothing to sled dog races. For tourists, the range of historical and cultural attractions is enormous, ranging from accommodations such as the unique Hotel Arctic to natural history tours by dogteam.

    As well as the rebuilding of Thjódhildurs Church, many Inuit and Viking sites are being preserved or restored by the coordinated efforts of the National Museum of Greenland (Nunatta Katersugaasivia) and the local museums in Nanortalik, Narsaq and Qaqortoq. The National Museum of Denmark has submitted a proposal to UNESCO to have almost 3,000 square kilometers of Narsaq and Qaqortoq designated as a World Heritage Site. This area encompasses sites ranging from Inuit and Viking settlements to colonial buildings. Plans for establishing "ruin-parks" to both make access easier and protect the most important sites better, promise to provide ever-increasing possibilities to see Greenland's past.

[laughingwillow]

On the same subject...

http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/eismayewski.html

quote from the link above: Locked within two cores of ancient ice is evidence of unprecedented swings in Earth's climate throughout the ages. These icy archives tell us that large, rapid, global change is more the norm for the Earth's climate than is stasis.

lw

[laughingwillow]

I found this article most fascinating...

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2Sc ... 6/EDIT.jsp

Is the Recent Greenland Temperature Increase Evidence of Man-Induced Global Warming?
Volume 9, Number 26: 28 June 2006
Chylek et al. (2006) recently studied the characteristics of two century-long temperature records from southern coastal Greenland - Godthab Nuuk on the west and Ammassalik on the east, both close to 64°N latitude - concentrating on the period 1915-2005. What did they find?
As they describe it, "although the whole decade of 1995-2005 was relatively warm, the temperatures at Godthab Nuuk and Ammassalik were not exceptionally high," as "almost all decades between 1915 and 1965 were warmer than, or at least as warm as, the 1995 to 2005 decade, suggesting that the current warm Greenland climate is not unprecedented and that similar temperatures were [the] norm in the first half of the 20th century." They also note that "two periods of intense warming (1995-2005 and 1920-1930) are clearly visible in the Godthab Nuuk and Ammassalik temperature records," but that "the average rate of warming was considerably higher within the 1920-1930 decade than within the 1995-2005 decade." In fact, they report that the earlier warming rate was 50% greater than the most recent one.

In comparing the southern coastal Greenland temperature record with that of the entire globe for the same time interval, Chylek et al. note that "while all the decadal averages of the post-1955 global temperature are higher than the pre-1955 average, almost all post-1995 temperature averages at Greenland stations are lower than the pre-1955 temperature average," which observation causes us to wonder how that can be, if CO2-induced global warming is supposed to be earliest and most strongly expressed at high northern latitudes, as claimed by climate alarmists on the basis of a long history of climate modeling. This canary in the coal mine concept of theirs is seen to be even more perverse, when, as noted by the three researchers, "the summer temperature at the Summit of the Greenland ice sheet shows a decreasing tendency since the beginning of the measurements in 1986 (Chylek et al., 2004)."

In light of these several observations, Chylek et al. say: "An important question is to what extent can the current (1995-2005) temperature increase in Greenland coastal regions be interpreted as evidence of man-induced global warming?" In answering this question, they note that "the Greenland warming of 1920 to 1930 demonstrates that a high concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is not a necessary condition for [a] period of warming to arise," and that "the observed 1995-2005 temperature increase seems to be within [the] natural variability of Greenland climate." In addition, they say that "a general increase in solar activity (Scafetta and West, 2006) since [the] 1990s can be a contributing factor, as well as the sea surface temperature changes of [the] tropical ocean (Hoerling et al., 2001)."

With respect to an important implication of their findings, Chylek et al. say that "glacier acceleration observed during the 1996-2005 period (Rignot and Kanagaratnam, 2006) has probably occurred previously," and that "there should have been the same or more extensive acceleration during the 1920-1930 warming as well as during the Medieval Warm Period in Greenland (Dahl-Jensen et al., 1998; DeMenocal et al., 2000) when Greenland temperatures were generally higher than today."

To summarize, as Chylek et al. put it, "we find no direct evidence to support the claims that the Greenland ice sheet is melting due to increased temperature caused by increased atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide."

Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso