An Interesting Take On The Global Warming Scare

[Doble Troble]

It's kind-of arrogant to think that man can significantly alter the climate.

[roscoedoh]

It's kind-of arrogant to think that man can significantly alter the climate.

 

I've been saying this all along. Nobody listens.

 

Its even more arrogant, bordering on hubris, to think we Americans alone can fix climate change.

 

But hey, climate change is making Al Gore lots of money and going a long way in helping redistribute my wealth so who cares, right?

[littlecanoe]

Nice aritlce.

The 31000 scientists is an impressive number.

 

How can they all be wrong, eh?

 

Scientist Roy Spencer

Here is a link to a scientist that was on Rush a year or more ago. Very strong in his stand against the hoax.

His site is very tongue in cheek and quite enjoyable.

You can wikipedia him and find his credentials. He's no slouch.

[Jimro]

On youtube you used to be able to watch "The Great Global Warming Swindle". It might still be on there but a quick search shows that there are a lot of videos with similar names.

 

Only the little fact that about 90% of journalists are registered Democrats keeps Global Warming in the news.

 

Jimro

[flaco]

Sheesh-

 

You guys have been pissed at Gore ever since he invented the internet.

 

Out here in California we've seen the results of poisoning ourselves with car exhaust. It's not pretty. And it's hard to breathe.

 

That's why we insist on pollution control on cars.

 

Now... I guess it's common knowledge that I'm old enough that global warming won't be the kind of issue to me it will to younger folks.

 

Although I do find it interesting that there's now a Northwest Passage that a bunch of explorers died searching for.

 

Anyway, do what you will. I invite you to continue driving SUVs and pickups with gas guzzling V8s.

 

I'm only a little puzzled that Gentlemen who understand all too well the consequences of putting just a few too many grains of powder in a cartridge case insist on believing that human actions can't poison the climate.

 

flaco

 

 

[Sailormilan2]

30 years ago, it was all over the news...................we were on the verge of a new Ice Age. Funny thing, when I was in College my college Biology Professor told us that in order to have an Ice Age, there first must be Global Warming. Cold wind, blowing over a cold ocean(or body of water) will not pick up moisture for rain or snow. There must be warm water at least for that to happen.

Much as we are now seeing in the north east around the Great Lakes. The lake's temperature have risen, but that has caused increased rain and snows in the surrounding areas.

With 7 Billion people on the planet, each one putting out CO2, I really don't think cutting back on cars is going to help much.

 

 

[Horsefly]

I guess it was about 30 years ago,doesn't seem that long ago though,that the big concern was global cooling,like Sailormilan2 is talking about.Coming from kinda out in the sticks,I heard lots of farmers,my family included talking about how they couldn't make a living growing cabbage and potatoes,instead of corn,cotton,milo,or soy beans.It was as big a deal then as global warming is now.Jerry

[littlecanoe]

Flaco,

 

Nobody has a problem with making car exhausts cleaner. As the article states, CO2 was considered harmless and was encouraged until alarmist groups found that gullible people would believe that it would kill the earth.

 

As a conservative I have no problem with Conservation. I'd like to get more mileage from my SUV. I'd like to have more efficient home heating and cooling. Because the Sierra club and like sources start a scare about the evils of technology................Not conservation. A ploy to remain relevant and a means to get money from people who can't think their way through something.

 

BTW, in that last 30 years, we have cleaned up the environment in the US. Rivers that were almost dead are vital with marine life. Our cities are cleaner from decreased smog. If you wanna ride a bike, more power to ya. Keep your hands off my SUV and don't mention it. You don't have the right. Especially based on knee-jerk science.

 

Commission any custom rifles lately?

[plumbum]

man can easily alter the environment. we have already done so by deforesting so much of the amazon.

 

we could easily cool the planet by loading the stratosphere with aerosols. we could really cool it with a nucular winter.

 

it is a bit arrogant, but so is man, if you think about it.

 

I absolutely believe in global warming. the records don't lie, and if one refuses to believe in it, then they are a fool. it is not a question of whether the globe is warming or not. it is a question of whether man has caused it. that is open to reasonable, good-faith debate. too bad that we don't have more of that.

 

Sheesh-You guys have been pissed at Gore ever since he invented the internet.

Out here in California we've seen the results of poisoning ourselves with car exhaust. It's not pretty. And it's hard to breathe.

That's why we insist on pollution control on cars.

Now... I guess it's common knowledge that I'm old enough that global warming won't be the kind of issue to me it will to younger folks.

Although I do find it interesting that there's now a Northwest Passage that a bunch of explorers died searching for.

Anyway, do what you will. I invite you to continue driving SUVs and pickups with gas guzzling V8s.

I'm only a little puzzled that Gentlemen who understand all too well the consequences of putting just a few too many grains of powder in a cartridge case insist on believing that human actions can't poison the climate.

flaco

 

I grew up on the edge of the LA basin. in the summer, we would watch for the smog to accumulate and wait to see if it would reach us. often, it would. we would have third-stage smog alerts, schools would close, we would be told to stay indoors, I remember my eyes burning and my lungs hurting.

 

aggressive clean-air efforts, which began as long ago as the '40s, dramatically improved air quality, despite a tripling of population and cars. and despite jerking knees, including mine.

 

I used to be one of those who railed agains auto emission controls. that was because they sucked so badly, that I hated them, and did not care if they worked, or even care to know if they worked. I already had my opinion formed. but a funny thing happened (after some not-so-funny thingls like "lean Burn," "CCC," "TBI," and whatever ford called it's mechanical emission-control travesty); cars got very clean and very efficient and made more power on less gas. now everybody is happy with that, and it started with the horrible early ECM stuff.

 

I hope this global warming issue will proceed similarly. I hope we do get more efficient and less dependent on fossil fuels. my dream is to save oil for cars and plastics, to use clean coal and nucular and tidal power and wind power for large-scale electricity. we should also drill our own oil responsibly and open some refineries. I am not convinced that our GHG emissions have caused GW, but I will be glad to not have to be wrong on that, because we reduced GHG emissions in the name of energy independence and good environmental stewardship.

 

as noted we have cleaned up many rivers. "smoke on the water" is a song about a river actually catching on fire. that does not happen anymore. environmentalists were behind that clean up. environmentalists are not the devil, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

 

I guess what bothers me most about the whole GW thing is the way it has become the only accepted position, and opinions to the contrary are being drowned out, and all in the name of science. we are being drowned out by the kool-aid drinkers. that is perfectly contrary to science.

 

FWIW.

 

the author of this article has a degree with honors in environmental science from the university of california. not the tree-hugging kind, but the serious physics and calculus, working in a lab kind. while not a greenie, the author is concerned that the traditional, expoitation-based economy must be made much more efficient.

[littlecanoe]

plumbum,

 

From the sounds of what you wrote you and I aren't really far apart. Stewardship is a very nice word. I think that it better describes the process than conservation. Environmentalists would never have been successful unless "big bi'ness" hadn't kicked in also. I'll part from you in that I don't think that our impact can "load the atmosphere". It seems that the atmosphere has cleansing mechanisms built in to the system.

Also, from what I've read and heard quoted, the percentage that humankind contributes is very small when compared to the whole.

 

It also would seem that you don't swallow all of the hype that has surrounded the modern movement. I'll agree that we are going through a warming cycle. From other scientist/professor types, I have learned that it is a known and accepted fact that this is a normal process that the earth goes through. Last summer we noted an increase in melting of our polar ice. We also noted that the ice on mars was also melting. The correlative factor being a solar energy.

 

Based on your experience, reading, observations, will you comment on what we see happening in our physical world? Too many times, and here I'm thinking of a poster on another site, we see people referencing articles and other texts but not giving their real world experience.

[plumbum]

well, I am not a scientist now, I do something else, so I don't collect any data. what I have to offer is a good understanding of what science is supposed to be, and which arguments are sound, and which are not. there is global warming. but as you note, there may have been GW on Mars too, and we think we see it on Jupiter. I knew ethanol was BS 10 years ago. I know that plastic bags and diapers can be more environmentally friendly than paper bags and cloth diapers. I know that hydrogen cars almost always suck for a few reasons: it is difficult to store because it is hell to liquefy; firemen hate it because it burns with a colorless flame; and it takes electricity to produce, and electricity takes fuel to produce. they make sense only in areas with persistent inversion layers where organics are not the limiting factor. for instance, they would help reduce local smog in los angeles, but not atlanta. but greenies all think they are the answer because only water and nitrogen come out of the tailpipe, and they don't peek behind the curtain. My mission is to keep my friends informed of the unbiased scientific truth.

 

I can tell you much of what we see in our popular culture is BS, derived from but not based in science. but that's probably not anything new, the press has always segregated the facts were are presented.

[Jimro]

The sun is the driving factor in climate. As the sun raises and lowers solar output we get global warming and global cooling (which can be seen on the other planets as well).

 

Sunspot activity is the absolute best climate indicator.

 

Now as sunspot activity is high, that means solar output is high and the solar wind is high. A powerful solar wind works to shield the planets from "cosmic rays" which are instrumental in cloud formation. Clouds are the number one cause of global cooling. High solar output equals warming.

 

Periods of decreased solar output equal more clouds as cosmic rays interact with water vapor and cause more sunlight to be reflected back into space.

 

So far we've explained global warming and global cooling without ANY reference to Carbon Dioxide.

 

Simply put Carbon Dioxide is NOT a driving factor in climate, it is a reactive factor. Carbon Dioxide correlates to temperature, but it lags 800 years behind. Any first year chemistry student learns that cooler liquids can hold more gases in solution than hot liquids. This means as the oceans cool they absorb CO2, and as they warm they release CO2. This is why CO2 lags behind temperature instead of temperature lagging behind CO2.

 

Scientists at NASA and NOAA who have a satellite devoted to nothing but studying the correlation between CO2 and Temperature have found that all evidence they have gathered currently points to a NEGATIVE correlation, that CO2 causes cooling. This is because sunspot activity has been declining for the last ten years, consequently we've been on a cooling trend for the last ten years despite the fact that CO2 levels have been increasing mainly due to developing economies such as India and China.

 

Now, the argument for anthropogenic global warming is this, "Increased CO2 will cause the atmosphere to hold more solar energy". That is it. It is not an untrue statement, but what they don't tell you is that the amount of energy trapped will be completely insignificant compared to water vapor. In astrophysics a "black body" refers not to a black hole, but to an object that emits as much radiation as it absorbs.

 

CO2 is only active in one very small portion of the IR spectrum, and as such doubling or even tripling the amount of atmospheric CO2 will not cause climate catastrophe because of the indirect nature of how CO2 affects temperature at all. The same is not true for gases such as Methane, Ethane, Propane, Butane, Pentane, or Hexane. The hydrocarbons are much more active in the IR spectrum.

 

If you take nothing away from this post except for this, remember these three things.

 

1. The Sun drives climate.

2. Water vapor is the most significant greenhouse gas and works with the sun because the solar wind affects cloud formation.

3. CO2 only affects a very small portion of the IR spectrum and other gases such as Methane are far more effective "greenhouse gases".

 

So don't worry about CO2, it isn't a problem.

 

Jimro

[littlecanoe]

Based on what's being said here, what, other than smog, can be the problem with combustion engines? They are cleaner and cleaner burning. Coal burning energy plants burn cleanly now. Is there a scientific basis to do away with the internal combustion engine and fossil fuels? Seems to me that God put them here for a reason.

[plumbum]

well, if GW is not aggravated or caused by anthropogentic CO2 emissions, and if we have enough fuel, then smog and other pollution (e.g., CO hotspots, particulates, TACs) is the only problem with IC engines. and the newer models are so much cleaner that we can indeed live with them.

 

same for fossil fuel usage. we use it because it s energy dense, easy to use, and was plentiful and cheap. but that has changed. the easy-to-get oil is on its way out. clean coal can work, but it is less efficient that regular coal technology. fossil fuels appear to be fading into history, albeit very slowly.

 

 

 

Based on what's being said here, what, other than smog, can be the problem with combustion engines? They are cleaner and cleaner burning. Coal burning energy plants burn cleanly now. Is there a scientific basis to do away with the internal combustion engine and fossil fuels? Seems to me that God put them here for a reason.

 

[Horsefly]

Canada and the U.S.A. are the only 2 houses on the street mowing their grass.The rest of the world blames us for global warming,and not doing anything about it.I've been to Capetown,Durban,Johanessburg,Rio,Sao Paulo,and cities in Mexico,and I'm here to tell you,they have worse smog than LA,and aren't a 1/10th the size and without Pacific winds and mountains.They have huge smoke stacks putting out black soot,and most cars have unbelievable crap pouring out the tailpipe.We've come a long way and need to keep it up,but so does the rest of the world.I work in a building with 30 truck stalls,with most running all day,and there is no smoke in there unless one has a problem.Detroit engines claim to smoke 8 percent as much as they did 10 years ago,and I think it's less than that.The cars we drive now can have 200,000 miles on them without the muffler or tailpipe ever being changed.It wasn't long ago that you got a new muffler every 40,000 miles because of the crap coming out of them and into the air.I think we're at the edge of great things,but everyone needs to chip in and stop pointing fingers at just the United States.Jerry

[Sailormilan2]

The Deniers: Our spotless sun

Posted: May 31, 2008, 3:07 AM by NP Editor

Lawrence Solomon, The Deniers, Climate change, global warming, carbon dioxide, sunspots

With the debate focused on a warming Earth, the icy consequences of a cooler future have not been considered

By Lawrence Solomon

You probably haven’t heard much of Solar Cycle 24, the current cycle that our sun has entered, and I hope you don’t. If Solar Cycle 24 becomes a household term, your lifestyle could be taking a dramatic turn for the worse. That of your children and their children could fare worse still, say some scientists, because Solar Cycle 24 could mark a time of profound long-term change in the climate. As put by geophysicist Philip Chapman, a former NASA astronaut-scientist and former president of the National Space Society, “It is time to put aside the global warming dogma, at least to begin contingency planning about what to do if we are moving into another little ice age.”

The sun, of late, is remarkably free of eruptions: It has lost its spots. By this point in the solar cycle, sunspots would ordinarily have been present in goodly numbers. Today’s spotlessness — what alarms Dr. Chapman and others — may be an anomaly of some kind, and the sun may soon revert to form. But if it doesn’t – and with each passing day, the speculation in the scientific community grows that it will not – we could be entering a new epoch that few would welcome.

Sunspots have been well documented throughout human history, starting in the fourth century BC, with written descriptions by Gan De, a Chinese astronomer. In 1128, an English monk, John of Worcester, was the first person known to have drawn sunspots, and after the telescope’s arrival in the early 1600s, observations and drawings became commonplace, including by such luminaries as Galileo Galilei. Then, to the astonishment of astronomers, they saw the sunspots diminish and die out altogether.

This was the case during the Little Ice Age, a period starting in the 15th or 16th century and lasting centuries, says NASA’s Goddard Space Centre, which links the absence of sunspots to the cold that then descended on Earth. During the coldest part of the Little Ice Age, a time known as the Maunder Minimum (named after English astronomer Edward Maunder), astronomers saw only about 50 sunspots over a 30-year period, less than one half of 1% of the sunspots that would normally have been expected. Other Minimums — times of low sunspot activity — also corresponded to times of unusual cold.

The consequences of the Little Ice Age, because they occurred in relatively recent times, have come down to us through literature and the arts as well as from historians and scientists, government and business records. When Shakespeare wrote of “lawn as white as driven snow,” he had first-hand experience – Europe was bitterly cold in his day, a sharp contrast to the very warm weather that preceded his birth. During the Little Ice Age, the River Thames froze over, the Dutch developed the ice skate and the great artists of the day learned to love a new genre: the winter landscape.

In what had been a warm Europe , adaptations were not all happy: Growing seasons in England and Continental Europe generally became short and unreliable, which led to shortages and famine. These hardships were nothing compared to the more northerly countries: Glaciers advanced rapidly in Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia and North America, making vast tracts of land uninhabitable. The Arctic pack ice extended so far south that several reports describe Eskimos landing their kayaks in Scotland. Finland’s population fell by one-third, Iceland’s by half, the Viking colonies in Greenland were abandoned altogether, as were many Inuit communities. The cold in North America spread so far south that, in the winter of 1780, New York Harbor froze, enabling people to walk from Manhattan to Staten Island.

In the same way that the Earth shivered when sunspots disappeared, the Earth warmed when sunspot activity became pronounced. The warm period about 1000 years ago known as the Medieval Warm Period — a time of bounty in which grapes grew in England and Greenland was colonized — also was a time of high sunspot activity, called the Medieval Maximum. Since 1900, Earth has experienced what astronomers call “the Modern Maximum” — the 20th century has again been a time of high sunspot activity.

But the 1900s are gone, along with the high temperatures that accompanied them. The last 10 years have seen no increase in temperatures — they reached a plateau and then remained there — and the last year saw a precipitous decline. How much lower and for how long the temperatures will fall, if at all, no one yet knows — the science is far from settled on what drives climate.

But many are watching the sun for answers, and for good reason. Several renowned scientists have been predicting for some time that the world could enter a period of cooling right around now, with consequences that could be dire. “The next little ice age would be much worse than the previous one and much more harmful than anything warming may do,” believes Dr. Chapman. “There are many more people now and we have become dependent on a few temperate agricultural areas, especially in the U.S. and Canada. Global warming would increase agricultural output, but global cooling will decrease it.”

We are now at the beginning of Solar Cycle 24, so named because it is the 24th consecutive cycle that astronomers have listed, starting with the first cycle that began in March, 1755, and ended in June, 1766. Each cycle lasts an average of approximately 11 years; each is marked by sunspots that first erupt in the mid latitudes of the sun, and then, over the course of the 11 years, erupt progressively toward the sun’s equator; each is marked by a change in the polarity of the sun’s hemispheres; each changes the temperature on Earth in ways that humans don’t fully understand, but cannot in all honesty