Todd Stern, a former White House assistant who was the chief U.S. negotiator at the Kyoto Protocol, will head up the international negotiations to fend off global warming.

"American leadership is essential to meeting the challenges of the 21st century, and chief among those is the complex, urgent and global threat of climate change," she said at a State Department ceremony held shortly after President Barack Obama announced new policies to allow states greater latitude in limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/firs...names-envoy-handle-climate-change/


This one is really a waste of our tax dollars at at a time that we cannot afford to do so. The planet has been cooling for eight years and Arctic ice levels are back to 1979 levels. More and more scientists, climatologist and meteorologist come out every week and tell what a scam it is.

The Obama team will soon be trying to tax the gas going into and out of our cars creating a double sin tax. Carbon credit scams will not be far behind. Luckily most Americans have not fallen for this trap and will fight back on this attempt to destroy our industry as well as anything to do with oil. The latest pew poll showed the environment and global warming ranked last among things that our government and King Obama should be concerned about.

Quoting Windy95 (Thread starter): This one is really a waste of our tax dollars at at a time that we cannot afford to do so. The planet has been cooling for eight years and Arctic ice levels are back to 1979 levels. More and more scientists, climatologist and meteorologist come out every week and tell what a scam it is.

But, but, but Al Gore swears it's true...

Global Warming will go down as the biggest scam in history.

Quoting Windy95 (Thread starter): Clinton Names Envoy To Handle Climate Change

Sounds like your disappointed she didn't appoint an oil man to the position.

And the title of the thread suggests the thread is about her appointment. Yet on closer inspection, it's is just more whinobabble.

Quoting Windy95 (Thread starter): The planet has been cooling for eight years

Show everyone the data to support this: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html

Quoting Windy95 (Thread starter): Arctic ice levels are back to 1979 levels.

Provide your source.

Quoting Windy95 (Thread starter): More and more scientists, climatologist and meteorologist come out every week and tell what a scam it is

Like who?

Quoting Windy95 (Thread starter): King Obama

  

Quoting WellHung (Reply 2): Provide your source.

Forget it, these people always have sources. They'll link you to some dubious website and if all else fails, they'll give you "but it's really cold in Minnesota right now" as a credible source.

From how I see it, the time of debate is over. Not meaning to be rude, but there is enough evidence out there that something big is happening to our climate. This is a point at which to leave those who still don't want to accept the evidence behind, and to act without them.

Quoting Windy95 (Thread starter):

If it were an envoy to handle "pollutions" instead of "climate change", would you also oppose it?

I am all in favour of dropping the non-consensual climate change rhetoric if it helps appease the debate and focus on issues we can all agree on - pollution. Pollution of air, water and soils. Depletion of natural resources such as tropical forests, hydrocarbons, ecosystems or minerals.

If the IPCC is correct, climate change is a direct consequence of such pollutions. So wouldn't we kill two birds with one stone by focusing on pollution (which has been scientifically measured for decades) instead of politically sensitive "climate change"?

 

Quoting Windy95 (Thread starter): President Barack Obama announced new policies

Remember, he only has 4 years to save the planet, from man-made global warming, or is it global warming, or has it become climate change, or is it just plain old weather ? Whether he will save us from weather, that's another story.

Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 1): But, but, but Al Gore swears it's true... Global Warming will go down as the biggest scam in history.

  

False cult, false religion.

Maybe they should look at NOAA data again.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090108_decemberstats.html

"NOAA: 2008 Temperature for U.S. Near Average, was Coldest Since 1997; Below Average for December"

But that is a dubious website, according to some, because NOAA does get it wrong.

Quoting CALTECH (Reply 6): Maybe they should look at NOAA data again.

You're looking at the United States data, mate. It's called "global" warming, and the globe doesn't consist of the United States alone.

Since you consider NOAA reliable, help yourself to their global summary of 2008: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2008/ann/global.html.

Where you'll read that 2008 was the eighth-warmest year since the beginning of climate records, and that the earth is currently warming with a rate of approximately 0.16°C/decade.

Quoting Windy95 (Thread starter): This one is really a waste of our tax dollars at at a time that we cannot afford to do so. The planet has been cooling for eight years and Arctic ice levels are back to 1979 levels.

Source?

Quoting Windy95 (Thread starter): The latest pew poll showed the environment and global warming ranked last among things that our government and King Obama should be concerned about.

That's pretty funny considering the bulk of the US population is constituted on the Atlantic and Gulf Coast seaboards. Whether caused by man or not, indications are that sea levels are rising and at an accelerated rate. You're proposing we, what, wait until it's time to relocate our coastal cities before the next batch of tropical cyclones or nor'easters hit? That could be only decades away for all we know.

http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sealevel.html

I envy this guy….I would love to have a high-ranking government appointment that requires nothing but busy work and bullshit.

This is classic—what a lucky guy he is. Damn, I need a gig like this!!

Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 1): Global Warming will go down as the biggest scam in history.

Precisely. The rest of the world is finally waking up to this…thank God!

I don't think the debate should be stopped at all...

Interesting article on the subject from a Canadian website:

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Columnists/1101704.html

"CAN we all agree – yet – that the issue is settled?

Scientists DON’T all agree the planet is warming precipitously, or that humans are responsible for that supposed warming. In fact, more and more experts in a number of fields have been speaking up to challenge the supposed scientific "consensus" on climate change.

As the headlines scream out the latest sensational warning – a NASA scientist now predicts U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has just four years to save the planet – let’s not forget that last month, more than 650 international scientists went on record as dissenting from the man-made global warming findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)."


Who are these scientists?

The list, which grew by a substantial 250 new names from a similar statement in late 2007, includes prominent names in fields ranging from geology, atmospheric science and solar physics to meteorology, oceanography and paleoclimatology. According to the U.S. Senate’s environment and public works committee minority report, released Dec. 10, the skeptics also include many current and former IPCC scientists.

Quoting Slider (Reply 9): I envy this guy….I would love to have a high-ranking government appointment that requires nothing but busy work and bullshit.

The latest scam attempt: despite measurements showing an historic increase in Antarctic sea ice by the sophisticated instruments scientists assured us would prove the ice was melting, a new study comes out insisting that temperatures on the frozen continent are rising after all. But since there are not enough actual weather stations on the continent to provide the data necessary for a valid analysis, scientists conducting the study relied on another of those pesky computer models which thus far have been the only tool which continues to support the alarmist view that the earth is warming and it’s all man’s fault.

Despite the hot air, the Antarctic is not warming up
A deeply flawed new report will be cited ad nauseam by everyone from the BBC to Al Gore
By Christopher Booker
The Telegraph
25 Jan 2009

…One of the first to express astonishment was Dr Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist with the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and a convinced believer in global warming, who wryly observed “it is hard to make data where none exists”. A disbelieving Ross Hayes, an atmospheric scientist who has often visited the Antarctic for Nasa, sent Professor Steig a caustic email ending: “with statistics you can make numbers go to any conclusion you want. It saddens me to see members of the scientific community do this for media coverage.”

But it was also noticed that among the members of Steig’s team was Michael Mann, author of the “hockey stick”, the most celebrated of all attempts by the warmists to rewrite the scientific evidence to promote their cause. The greatest of all embarrassments for the believers in man-made global warming was the well-established fact that the world was significantly warmer in the Middle Ages than it is now. “We must get rid of the Mediaeval Warm Period,” as one contributor to the IPCC famously said in an unguarded moment. It was Dr Mann who duly obliged by getting his computer-model to produce a graph shaped like hockey stick, eliminating the mediaeval warming and showing recent temperatures curving up to an unprecedented high.

This instantly became the warmists’ chief icon, made the centrepiece of the IPCC’s 2001 report. But Mann’s selective use of data and the flaws in his computer model were then so devastatingly torn apart that it has become the most comprehensively discredited artefact in the history of science.

May I reiterate, then?

Should we not focus on pollution instead of "global warming", considering the former has been measured for decades, its adverse effects on health and the economy largely documented, and that it would take care of "global warming" if it existed?

Or is pollution considered a scam as well?

Quoting WunalaYann (Reply 12): Should we not focus on pollution instead of "global warming", considering the former has been measured for decades,

No problem with that. I am all for reducing pollution in every way possible, and am willing to pay a little bit more for things to accomplish that.

But don't feed me the horsesh&t about global warming. It's an insult.

Quoting WunalaYann (Reply 12): Should we not focus on pollution instead of "global warming", considering the former has been measured for decades, its adverse effects on health and the economy largely documented, and that it would take care of "global warming" if it existed?

That idea, while having some merit, would only be truly effective if we defined carbon dioxide as a pollutant, which the anti-anthropogenic climate change types would resist tooth and nail. You can put all the scrubbers you want on a smokestack at a coal plant, and it will still be putting out massive amounts of CO2.

Quoting Yellowstone (Reply 14):

Actually, I believe that pollutants include many more substances than just CO2. SO2, NO2, NOx, HC, CO, lead (just showing that I do not know my Mendeleev table by heart), etc. are all severe pollutants, and their effects on health and ecosystems can be much more detrimental than that of CO2.

That is why the term "carbon tax" irks me a bit. I believe that there should be "environmental pricing" that would encompass all pollutions and degradations of amenities, not just CO2 being "taxed".

As for your legitimate concern regarding acceptance of environmental concerns among certain sections of the electorate, try as I might, I cannot find any serious controversy or scientific dispute regarding the negative effects of pollution on health and the economy. And as some anti-global warming posters have indicated in this thread, they are not opposed to reducing pollution and preserving the environment.

Therefore I think that removing "global warming" from political stances and focusing on pollution could achieve everyone's goal much more easily, and in a much more appeased fashion.

 

Quoting Yellowstone (Reply 14): That idea, while having some merit, would only be truly effective if we defined carbon dioxide as a pollutant,

Now that's just stupid. Carbon Dioxide is as much a pollutant as Oxygen is. It is a by-product of animal life, just as Oxygen is a by-product of plant life. It's part of the natural cycle.

Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into an environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the physical systems or living organisms (Webster). As part of the natural cycle, Carbon Dioxide does not qualify. CFCs, plastic waste, etc. does.

Your idea of saying "OK, forget global warming, let's go for pollution, but let's classify CO2 as a pollutant" is just another scam.

Quoting WunalaYann (Reply 15): Therefore I think that removing "global warming" from political stances and focusing on pollution could achieve everyone's goal much more easily, and in a much more appeased fashion.

No offense, but WTF do you think the Westernized World has been doing for the past 30 years? Our industrial cities have never been cleaner since the Industrial Revolution, cars have never polluted as little, we have environmental controls, our smokestacks, energy production and use of alternate energy has increased, so it's a very vapid statement to say we haven't focused on 'pollution'....

Go kick India and China's asses if you want.

Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 16): Your idea of saying "OK, forget global warming, let's go for pollution, but let's classify CO2 as a pollutant" is just another scam.

Good point...especially since it's, oh yeah, ELEMENTAL!

Quoting Slider (Reply 17):

I fail to see where in my post I have said, or even implied that we have not done anything, or that the issue is limited to Western nations.

You raise valid points, but I just do not see how they contradict my own statements.

I still believe that the road towards a non-polluting, environmentally neutral society is long, regardless of how good work has already been tone. And I also think that we will eventually get there.

As for China and India, they have to deal with 21st century environmental concerns, and 20th century development needs. They will have to combine the two, but that does not relieve us of the burden of continuing to work, and work harder to make our economies cleaner.

Quoting WunalaYann (Reply 18): You raise valid points, but I just do not see how they contradict my own statements.

OK, good post. I can understand that. Perhaps I misunderstood that you were implying that by simply saying we should focus on pollution you were oversimplfying the issue.

We've made great strides in every facet and yet the hysteria is greater now than when we had disastrous environmental policies.

Quoting Slider (Reply 19):

No worries.  

Now let's zoom past the hysteria and get to work.

Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 16): Now that's just stupid. Carbon Dioxide is as much a pollutant as Oxygen is. It is a by-product of animal life, just as Oxygen is a by-product of plant life. It's part of the natural cycle.

But carbon dioxide in excess, just like anything else, poses a problem. Take oxygen, for example - we're quite used to it now, but 2.7 billion years ago it was responsible for killing off a good amount of life on earth, when bacteria first evolved the capacity for photosynthesis that produces oxygen. The excess oxygen in the atmosphere wreaked havoc on formerly anaerobic ecosystems, until new lifeforms evolved. I agree that calling carbon dioxide a pollutant is perhaps a bit exaggerated, but nevertheless it does have the ability to harm humanity if we go pumping massive amounts of it into the atmosphere.

Quoting WunalaYann (Reply 15): That is why the term "carbon tax" irks me a bit. I believe that there should be "environmental pricing" that would encompass all pollutions and degradations of amenities, not just CO2 being "taxed".

Agreed. Prices of goods should reflect their true cost of production, including externalities.

Quoting WunalaYann (Reply 15): Actually, I believe that pollutants include many more substances than just CO2. SO2, NO2, NOx, HC, CO, lead (just showing that I do not know my Mendeleev table by heart), etc. are all severe pollutants, and their effects on health and ecosystems can be much more detrimental than that of CO2.

Pound for pound, there are indeed many substances much worse than CO2; even if we restrict the discussion to global warming, CFC's are much more potent greenhouse gases. But we generate so much more CO2 than any of the other substances you list that it becomes a significant threat.

Quoting WunalaYann (Reply 15): And as some anti-global warming posters have indicated in this thread, they are not opposed to reducing pollution and preserving the environment.

I appreciate their environmental sympathies, but if they won't address the global warming question they are missing one of the most important environmental concerns. One key example of where this could be problematic is the "clean coal" debate. I agree that coal plants, if they must exist, should become cleaner and reduce particulate and SO2 emissions. However, even if you remove all of those pollutants, you haven't changed the fact that coal, atom for atom, produces more CO2 than any other fossil fuel, and that CO2 has to go somewhere.

Oh can we just keep calling it "GLOBAL WARMING" ... I don't like the "new" title ... "Climate Change ".

Quoting AGM100 (Reply 22): Oh can we just keep calling it "GLOBAL WARMING" ... I don't like the "new" title ... "Climate Change ".

We can go back to calling it global warming when the antis stop saying "it's ten degrees outside here today where's your global warming now hurr hurr hurr." The idea that an overall global increase in temperature could manifest itself in different ways in different places seems to go over the heads of some people.

Quoting WunalaYann (Reply 15): And as some anti-global warming posters have indicated in this thread, they are not opposed to reducing pollution and preserving the environment.

   There are indeed many legitimate environmental issues that threaten our standard of living in both developed and developing nations, yet ironically the pseudoscience global warming debate is what consumes the most attention and now resources.

Quoting Yellowstone (Reply 21): But carbon dioxide in excess, just like anything else, poses a problem. I agree that calling carbon dioxide a pollutant is perhaps a bit exaggerated, but nevertheless it does have the ability to harm humanity if we go pumping massive amounts of it into the atmosphere.

What's laughable is that manmadeglobalwarming proponents (followers?) actually think there is an "optimal" level of atmospheric CO2 and that civilization is throwing the planet out of "equilibrium," as if there has ever been such a thing.

Quoting Yellowstone (Reply 21): I appreciate their environmental sympathies, but if they won't address the global warming question they are missing one of the most important environmental concerns. One key example of where this could be problematic is the "clean coal" debate. I agree that coal plants, if they must exist, should become cleaner and reduce particulate and SO2 emissions. However, even if you remove all of those pollutants, you haven't changed the fact that coal, atom for atom, produces more CO2 than any other fossil fuel, and that CO2 has to go somewhere.

Oh please stop. The Earth warms and cools cyclically weather humans exist or not. It is a complete joke to say the Earth warming half a degree F in a century is one of the most important environmental concerns. A pressing environmental concern would be the fact 800 million people can't grow enough food to fully nourish themselves.

What ultimately matters is the standard of living of the 6.6+ billion humans that inhabit this environment and what it would mean if the global warming agenda gets its way and slams the brake on development. The point of civilization is to shape the world around us to suit our needs. The climate change caused by coal power is likely beyond our ability to quantify.

[Edited 2009-01-27 16:18:23]

Quoting DfwRevolution (Reply 24): The point of civilization is to shape the world around us to suit our needs.

You have an astoundingly different concept of civilization from a lot of other people, I suspect.

Quoting Aaron747 (Reply 25): You have an astoundingly different concept of civilization from a lot of other people, I suspect.

So what's your concept then? The breakthroughs in human civilization have occurred when the technology was developed to overcome a challenge in our environment. Fire, irrigation, metalworking, chemistry and physics, flight, etc. We have been changing our environment to better suit our needs even prior to the Mesopotamians.

Quoting Yellowstone (Reply 23): The idea that an overall global increase in temperature could manifest itself in different ways in different places seems to go over the heads of some people.

Its all a big mystery then ... but Gore knows the secret ?

Look I am all for cleaner energy , more efficient industry and modernization. We in the US have been doing that ... I just don't want government laying all kinds of new regulation on corporations and stifling world businesses. And I especially don't want new freaking taxes on industries, and that is what Mr. Gore wants . He is only trying to figure out how to take more money from producers and give it to government bureaucracies.

We all cant make a living being environmental activists .. right ? Someone has to build locomotives , ships , Jets , heavy equipment .....

Quoting DfwRevolution (Reply 24): What's laughable is that manmadeglobalwarming proponents (followers?) actually think there is an "optimal" level of atmospheric CO2 and that civilization is throwing the planet out of "equilibrium," as if there has ever been such a thing.

The amount that we have had for the past few hundred years has been working pretty well for us, so it seems reasonable to keep it around that point. On a planetary scale, you are right - life has gone on at levels of CO2 far removed from what we have now. However, that's not useful to us - the range of CO2 concentrations at which human civilization can thrive is much smaller, and so we should be careful about letting that value change too much. (I'd be recommending this course of action regardless of the source of the CO2 increase, manmade or natural.)

Quoting DfwRevolution (Reply 24): The Earth warms and cools cyclically weather humans exist or not.

Which does not prove that the current warming trend is natural, nor does it mean that we can't push the system outside of a desirable range.

Quoting DfwRevolution (Reply 24): What ultimately matters is the standard of living of the 6.6+ billion humans that inhabit this environment

Agreed, but climate plays a major role in determining that standard of living.

Quoting DfwRevolution (Reply 24): A pressing environmental concern would be the fact 800 million people can't grow enough food to fully nourish themselves.

Also agreed, but if global warming converts arable land into non-arable land, further technological advances won't help to solve the hunger problem. Besides, we're already at the point where the problem is not too little global food production (we grow enough calories to adequately feed 6.6 billion people), but poor distribution of that food.

Quoting Yellowstone (Reply 28): The amount that we have had for the past few hundred years has been working pretty well for us, so it seems reasonable to keep it around that point.

It's ultimately a matter completely out of our control. Geologic sources of CO2 exceed man-made output and they are beyond human means to control. We are flattering ourselves if we think we can actually do jack squat here.

Quoting Yellowstone (Reply 28): However, that's not useful to us - the range of CO2 concentrations at which human civilization can thrive is much smaller, and so we should be careful about letting that value change too much.

There is a known quantity of CO2 at which our civilization can thrive? No estimated quantity of CO2 will interfere with our respiration. Higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere increases agricultural production. That would serve to boost our ability to thrive.

Quoting Yellowstone (Reply 28): Which does not prove that the current warming trend is natural, nor does it mean that we can't push the system outside of a desirable range.

What past warming and cooling trends show is that CO2 concentrations lag behind global temperature variations. The fact that we are in a 30 year global cooling trend when CO2 concentrations have been increasing should blow this crap science out the window.

Quoting Yellowstone (Reply 28): Agreed, but climate plays a major role in determining that standard of living.

The manmadeglobalwarming farce predicts a single degree in average temperature increase in the next century. Remember that millions of people live in cities like Houston, Dubai, Moscow, etc. People adapt to climate. They have for thousands of years.

Quoting Yellowstone (Reply 28): Also agreed, but if global warming converts arable land into non-arable land, further technological advances won't help to solve the hunger problem. Besides, we're already at the point where the problem is not too little global food production (we grow enough calories to adequately feed 6.6 billion people), but poor distribution of that food.

The irony is a warmer global temperature and higher CO2 would increase agricultural production and growing seasons. Not that it matters, the Earth is cooling.

With the money those morons out in California will pay when automobile prices are jacked up by $5,000-10,000 and electric rates skyrocket you could actually do something to fix a real problem. No carbon offset is going to put food on the table.

Here are some poignant snippets for the road:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/4...e-Antarctic-is-not-warming-up.html

Quote: Despite the hot air, the Antarctic is not warming up But then a good many experts began to examine just what new evidence had been used to justify this dramatic finding. It turned out that it was produced by a computer model based on combining the satellite evidence since 1979 with temperature readings from surface weather stations. The problem with Antarctica, though, is that has so few weather stations. So what the computer had been programmed to do, by a formula not yet revealed, was to estimate the data those missing weather stations would have come up with if they had existed. In other words, while confirming that the satellite data have indeed shown the Antarctic as cooling since 1979, the study relied ultimately on pure guesswork, to show that in the past 50 years the continent has warmed – by just one degree Fahrenheit.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.c...947f5d-d84a-4a84-ad5d-6e2d71db52d9

Quote: “Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly....As a scientist I remain skeptical...The main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models. We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-surface system.” - Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology, and formerly of NASA, who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.”

Quote: Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history...When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” - UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.

Quote: “It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.” - U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.

Quote: “Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will.” – . Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, NZ.

Quote: “After reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri's asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it's hard to remain quiet.” - Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review.

Quote: “For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" - Geologist Dr. David Gee the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.

Quoting DfwRevolution (Reply 29): Higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere increases agricultural production

Quoting DfwRevolution (Reply 29): The irony is a warmer global temperature and higher CO2 would increase agricultural production and growing seasons.

A good web site that covers this CO2


http://www.co2science.org/

Quoting WunalaYann (Reply 15): And as some anti-global warming posters have indicated in this thread, they are not opposed to reducing pollution and preserving the environment

Correct. But do not put CO2 into the pollution category. Green is good and keeping the environment clean for the future is at the top of the list. But the whole global warming and CO2 being bad is what there is a big disagreemnet over. Carbon trading and taxes and getting control over big oil and industry is what that agenda is all about

Quoting Yellowstone (Reply 21): have the ability to harm humanity if we go pumping massive amounts of it into the atmosphere.

Based on what?

When one takes into consideration that the cooling from the Mt. Pinatubo eruption and the warming from the 1997-98 El Nino event were not part of any underlying long-term trend, we can imagine that globally-averaged temperatures were flat from 1990 until 2000, then there was a brief warming until about 2002, after which temperatures have once again remained flat. Note that the longer temperatures remain flat the greater the warming that will be required to put us back ‘on track’ to match the climate model projections used by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
UAH and RSS satellite temps are pretty close to the same. Even Hansen at NASA cannot fudge the numbers at GISS enough to keep the temps climbing

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/1...peratures-since-the-start-of-2003/

More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims

Scientists Continue to Debunk “Consensus” in 2008

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.c...74e64f-802a-23ad-490b-bd9faf4dcdb7

New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.c...e9e44a-802a-23ad-493a-b35d0842fed8

In August 2007, the UK Met Office was finally forced to concede the obvious: global warming has stopped. (LINK) The UK Met Office acknowledged the flat lining of global temperatures, but in an apparent attempt to keep stoking man-made climate alarm, the Met Office is now promoting more unproven dire computer model projections of the future. They now claim climate computer models predict “global warming will begin in earnest in 2009” because greenhouse emissions will then overtake natural climate variability.

writing in the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society, three top climate scientists say that ''our research demonstrates that the ongoing rise of atmospheric CO2 has only a minor influence on climate change. We must conclude, therefore, that attempts to control CO2 emissions are ineffective and pointless -- but very costly

http://nzclimatescience.net/index.ph...nt&task=blogsection&id=0&Itemid=38

As for the Ice caps

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

Quoting Windy95 (Reply 32): As for the Ice caps

As for the Arctic cap, the extent busted last winter's already low levels this week, and is actually decreasing right now.

Quoting AverageUser (Reply 33): Quoting Windy95 (Reply 32): As for the Ice caps As for the Arctic cap, the extent busted last winter's already low levels this week, and is actually decreasing right now.

The Artic Ice is decreasing? right now this week




The Antartic is running above normal

Quoting DfwRevolution (Reply 29): Geologic sources of CO2 exceed man-made output

They don't, actually. They may temporarily peak above anthropogenic emissions during massive eruptions, but on average they are far lower than our output.

Quoting DfwRevolution (Reply 29): Geologic sources of CO2 exceed man-made output and they are beyond human means to control. We are flattering ourselves if we think we can actually do jack squat here.

That’s precisely the thing that is at the heart of this argument…forget for a minute the overwhelming power of this planet that we don’t even comprehend (as evidenced by the temp changes that are natural yet induce panic and hysteria at every waking moment---we’re warming up, the world is ending, oooh, wrong, ice age coming…the world is ending), think of it in a larger, broader sense.

The global warming panic is being largely foisted on the world by liberals and leftists and envirocultists who claim some superior knowledge over people. They are not exclusively atheists, per se, but humanists. They typically believe in big government, all-intrusive government, the usurpation of individual freedom and liberty.

The thought that something is beyond their control terrifies them. It freaks them the hell out that this globe we all spin around on is so incredibly and profoundly potent in every regard that it wrecks their own sense of do-gooding purpose. Because if something is bigger than they, then the argument can be made that someone is also behind it. This isn’t to necessarily put a theological spin on it, but is part of it certainly. Either way, they aren’t in control and they are obsessed with control, to the point of shaking down nations, creating a mythology of doomsday scenarios at every turn, to ingratiate themselves, ensconce themselves further in power, and take control of MY resources, take my liberty away, my money, the sovereignty of my nation, and so forth.

We think we’re the center of the universe, we feeble humans. And the worst among us bang a drum and attack a windmill that is so far beyond their comprehension, it’s laughable. Take that thread on the Yellowstone supervolcano from a while ago—to even fathom the magnitude of that is, well, rather frightening. But it offers a HUGE sense of perspective that is part and parcel of this very argument as well.

I’ll offer my usual caveat as I do in these environmental threads: I’m a conservationist and believe in responsible behavior that protects our earth and helps our economy and mankind. They’re not mutually exclusive.

But this whole global warming hysteria is so transparent, so easy to divine that I can’t believe it’s taken so many so long to actually start pulling back the curtain and seeing the bigger picture and truths.

Quoting Slider (Reply 36): That’s precisely the thing that is at the heart of this argument…

Exactly: The attempt of the deniers to erect elaborate constructions on a foundation that's simply made up.

Quoting Klaus (Reply 37): Exactly: The attempt of the deniers to erect elaborate constructions on a foundation that's simply made up.

Klaus,
There is reason to DENY what cannot be factually proven. When are you going to face facts here buddy?

Quoting Slider (Reply 38): Klaus, There is reason to DENY what cannot be factually proven.

I don't know about your universe, but in mine we actually have a pretty good grasp on the larger situation; And as much as it may shock you, it is actually rather well documented that we humans are in fact overwhelming an increasing number of natural systems and mechanisms beyond their ability to compensate.

With one thing you're right: "Nature" as such will endure, even long after we have shot ourselves out of the race, dragging thousands of other species with us on the way down. We will leave a severe mark on the planet in the process, though; That much is already clearly obvious. The massive destruction of habitats and ecosystems all over the planet is already irreversible in many cases.

Some species will of course survive. I'd just hate to share this world mostly with rats and cockroaches at some point.

Quoting Windy95 (Reply 34): The Artic Ice is decreasing? right now this week

Yes sir, that's correct. From the National Snow & Ice Data Centre:


[Edited 2009-01-29 01:49:04]

Quoting AverageUser (Reply 33): Quoting Windy95 (Reply 32): As for the Ice caps As for the Arctic cap, the extent busted last winter's already low levels this week, and is actually decreasing right now.

I was wondering where you were. Well documented as usual.  

Quoting DfwRevolution (Reply 30): "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" - Geologist Dr. David Gee the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.

I kept from boiling at the various terminological inexactitudes but at random I picked on Dr Gee.

Assuming we are talking of the same Gee, Emeritus Prof from Uppsala:
Expertise:
Geologist specializing in Tectonics (structure, stratigraphy, etc.), mainly of Palaeozoic mountain belts
of Eurasia. Previous work with SGU on economic geology. Extensive collaboration with European
(including central and eastern, particularly, Russian) Earth Scientists. Integrated geology and
geophysics. 22+ field seasons in the high Arctic, leading expeditions to Svalbard, Novaya Zemlya,
Polar Urals, Taimyr and Severnaya Zemlya. Arctic main focus during last 20 years. Major expeditions
to Novaya Zemlya 2004 & 2005. Wide interest and concern for all aspects of Earth Science.

Aha, then a wide interest and concern, not actually professional experience.

This IGC committee? IGC 1980 Excursion leader (Caledonides)

That is a fold mountain belt running from Norway to Wales, youngest rocks in it arguably Silurian or at latest Devonian. He did his PhD at Cambridge on the tectonics of Svalbard. Nowhere does he quote experience in meteorology or in climate work. Most tectonics experts do not get much further than the mineralogy of the rocks, so probably not even expert on the Cambro-Silurian climates.

I imagine living in Uppsala, every now and again he got to experience cooling first hand.

http://www.geofys.uu.se/files/dgee/DGGee-CV.pdf

How about you check the actual expertise of your other experts. The internet is a real bugger is it not?

As the number of stations (often rural) has fallen the temperature has risen in an inverse relationship, suggesting the Urban Heat Island effect is the key component of any rise. As the cold war ended the number of station reporting in the Artic region's declined.


http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/nvst.html

Quoting Slider (Reply 36): The thought that something is beyond their control terrifies them. It freaks them the hell out that this globe we all spin around on is so incredibly and profoundly potent in every regard that it wrecks their own sense of do-gooding purpose.

While I refuse to get dragged into an argument over the existence of global warming (the scientific community has made that argument far better than I ever could), I will address this point of philosophy. I consider myself a humanist, as you opined that most environmentalists do. As such, I have a firm belief in the power of the human. It's not that I'm scared that global climate is out of our control; it's that I don't believe it is out of our control. Of course we won't have total control over the climate for centuries or millennia to come, but there are actions we can take now to manipulate global climate. Cutting back on CO2 emissions is the most obvious example. In the not-too-distant future, you can add to that list geoengineering projects, things like iron seeding of the oceans to promote algal blooms to sequester carbon, or launching into orbit a space sunshade to reflect solar radiation away from the planet. (I even read a science fiction book where they had solved global warming by freezing CO2 out of the atmosphere--out of reach of current technology, to be sure, but when we get nuclear fusion working, energy becomes so cheap that it might become practical.) Anyway, the point is that I think it's dishonest for humanity to say "Climate is out of our control, so we don't have to do anything." We can influence climate already, and we are developing more and more technologies to give us stronger control over the environment around us. I don't fear environmental change, I view it as a challenge to be overcome.

Quoting AverageUser (Reply 40): Quoting Windy95 (Reply 34): The Artic Ice is decreasing? right now this week Yes sir, that's correct. From the National Snow & Ice Data Centre:

Sea ice is a completely different thing from the land-based ice masses.

While the temperature of the circumantarctic ocean has indeed been slightly cooler in the last few years, the actual antarctic ice cap has been warming through the past decades, at a speed of about 0.12-0.17 degree Celsius per decade.

Which may not look like much at first glance, but the point is that we definitely do not want that ice cap to sprout legs and march to the ocean. If all of it melted down or just slid into the ocean, we'd see ocean levels rise by almost 60 meters, drowning almost every coastal population center on the planet.

The troubling thing is that ice shelves have been breaking off in record amounts from the Antarctic. And these ice shelves basically act as brakes for the inland glaciers which feed them. With the shelves diminishing, the glaciers will inevitably increase their velocity, even without the increased lubrication by melting surface ice penetrating the ice to the bottom.

This effect is already in full swing with the Greenland glaciers. The Greenland ice cap can only contribute a few meters of sea level increase, but even that would easily spell trouble for most coastal cities.

Sea ice is almost completely irrelevant for sea levels. It is primarily an indicator of current temperatures (and, of course, it forms an important ecosystem for various species). Inland glaciers moving towards the sea are an entirely different thing, however.

Quoting Klaus (Reply 44): Which may not look like much at first glance, but the point is that we definitely do not want that ice cap to sprout legs and march to the ocean. If all of it melted down or just slid into the ocean, we'd see ocean levels rise by almost 60 meters, drowning almost every coastal population center on the planet.

Elaborating on that mechanism:

http://www.aussurvivalist.com/downloads/sea_level_faq.txt

That West Antarctica can collapse much faster than Greenland relies on another oddity of the West Antarctic geometry. Most of the ice sheet base rests well below sea level (500 - 1000 meters below). The important oddity is that as you move further inward, the land is further below sea level. So, consider a point near the grounding line (the point on land where the ice shelf meets the ice sheet). Ice flows from the grounded part into the floating part. The rate of flow increases as the slope (elevation difference) between the two sections increases. Extra mass loss in the ice shelf means that the shelf becomes thinner (and lower) so more ice flows in from the ice sheet. This makes the ice sheet just a little thinner. _But_ at the grounding line, the ice sheet had just enough mass to displace sufficient water to reach the sea floor. Without that mass, what used to be ice sheet begins to float. Since the sea floor slopes down inland of the grounding line, the area of ice sheet that turns into ice shelf increases rapidly. More ice shelf means more chance for ice to be melted by the ocean.

The collapse mechanism has a mirror-image advance mechanism. Should there be net accumulation, the ice sheet/shelf can ground out to the continental shelf edge. Go back to near the grounding point. This time add some excess mass to the ice sheet/shelf. This thickens the system to ground ice shelf. The grounded ice shelf takes area away from the ocean ablation zone, which makes the mass balance even more in favor of accumulation. So the advance can also be a self- accelerating process.

Quoting Klaus (Reply 39): I don't know about your universe, but in mine we actually have a pretty good grasp on the larger situation; And as much as it may shock you, it is actually rather well documented that we humans are in fact overwhelming an increasing number of natural systems and mechanisms beyond their ability to compensate.

Document then, Klaus. Show it. For every source you spew, I can find another just as credible that will refute it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2009/01/28/AR2009012803318_pf.html

Just today in the article about Algore the Head Envirocultist preaching, er, testifying on the Hill, there was a great retort… a few snippets include:

Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is an unproven theory and if you examine the data points, you don’t necessarily support this radical doomsday scenario. Scientists are now predicting global cooling in fact.

http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/38574742.html


*Average annual temperatures have not surpassed 1998 (NOAA) (University of Alabama)
• Average annual temperatures are now trending downward since 1998 (NOAA) (University of Alabama)
• Ocean temperatures have not risen since 2000 when the 3000 Argo buoys were launched. The buoys even show a slight decrease in ocean temperatures
• The Arctic ice froze to February levels by December 07, there are 1mm more sq km than before (previous was 13mm sq km). That same arctic ice is 20 cm thicker than normal. Polar bear pods are stable or growing, not being eradicated as Algore just testified to recently. (NOAA/PBS)
• Mt Kilimanjaro’s melt is not because of global warming, rather "sublimation"
• Antarctic is not "melting", it is growing in most places, the sloughing off at the edges is normal as the ice mass grows and those temps are 8 deg below ‘normal’ (NOAA)
• The .7 degree rise in temperatures over the last 100 years has been wiped out with last years below "normal" temperatures (NOAA coolest winter since 2001)
• The UK deemed Algore’s film “propaganda" in a court of law. Also, some footage was CGI…this is FRAUD. Evidently, the ice shelf collapse was from the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” (ABC)
• One of the scientists, Dr David Evans, that originally thought that CO2 preceded the warming has now found with new data that the CO2 rise follows the warming. Doh.
• August 2008 was the first time since 1913 there were no sun spots—it is the solar cycle that has a huge impact on some of our temp swings but this has been summarily ignored by the envirocultists who wish to capitalize on the hysteria for their own agenda.
• The Medieval warming period was warmer than the 20th century—how can this be? We didn’t have industrialization, cars, etc? How is that explained, when China and India are pouring millions of tons of CO2 into the air daily? With their growth especially.
• 31,000 scientists have signed a petition or statement against the idea of AGW.

• Over the last ten years the world, along with China (1 new coal fired plant coming on line each week) and India spewing millions of additional tons of CO2 in to the atmosphere these results should be impossible.


Klaus, now perhaps you can talk turkey here and not histrionics. I know your long standing position on this issue and respectfully submit that you are off base completely.

Quoting Baroque (Reply 41): How about you check the actual expertise of your other experts. The internet is a real bugger is it not?

Actually a great many in the field of climate studies are geologist. Geologic records are often cited as means to look into Earth's climate history. 20+ years of arctic studies makes him more than qualified to comment on arctic conditions, in my humble opinion.  

Quoting Baroque (Reply 41): I kept from boiling at the various terminological inexactitudes but at random I picked on Dr Gee.

Then follow the link and read the specifics of the article. You should indeed be boiling; at the fact that you got conned like millions of other intelligent folks.

Quoting Dreadnought (Reply 13): But don't feed me the horsesh&t about global warming. It's an insult.

So is universal gravitation and evolution.

Quoting Baroque (Reply 45): That West Antarctica can collapse much faster than Greenland relies on another oddity of the West Antarctic geometry. Most of the ice sheet base rests well below sea level (500 - 1000 meters below). The important oddity is that as you move further inward, the land is further below sea level.

The reason for this is actually because rock is flexible and compressible. The ice cap at the pole can be a few kilometers thick. That's a lot of ice and a lot of weight. The weight of the ice cap literally pushes the rock down (or so said the geologist on our expedition when I went to Antarctica back in 1999). As the ice starts to thin, the continent will actually bounce back (this is a process that takes hundreds to thousands of years) and that will actually encourage the ice cap to literally slide off the continent.

Quoting Slider (Reply 46): Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is an unproven theory

OK, what would you accept as proof, then?

See, the problem, Slider, is that I suspect that no amount of evidence will ever convince you. You will be like the MMR-causes-autism folks. No matter what the evidence, because it cannot be proven with mathematical certainty, you will always raise doubts.

The only way I can see to conclusively prove this is to take 100 identical Earths set at 1700's technology and then allow 50% of them to develop fossil fuel technology and the other 50% to develop bioenergy or other forms of energy generation that does not produce suspected greenhouse gas. You then wait 500 years and measure the average global temperatures of all the planets and see which ones are warmer.

The problem with this approach is that it is quite costly (identical Earths are expensive to manufacture) and by the time we'd get the answer it would be a moot point.

Until then, simply consider this fact: we have taken a bunch of carbon that has not been in the biosphere for hundreds of millions of years and we have spewed it as CO2, a known greenhouse gas (that fact is not in dispute; we have a few planets like Mars and Venus from which to draw that conclusion), into the atmosphere. At the same time, we have reduced the available surface biomass on the planet by clear-cutting rainforests. We have been able to document a rise in CO2 levels from pockets of air trapped in glaciers hundreds and even thousands of years ago.

So given that CO2 levels have gone up, given that we're obviously responsible for it, and given that it's known from studies of other planets that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, I think this comes down to what I call "the marijuana/pregnancy argument:" No study has conclusively found that smoking marijuana during pregnancy harms the baby. But if it's YOUR baby in there, how would you feel about mom smoking a joint every day? I know it can't possibly help... The same applies to this. This is my planet and my species. I know that all this fossil fuel burning can't possibly help.

Quoting Slider (Reply 46): %u2022Mt Kilimanjaro%u2019s melt is not because of global warming, rather "sublimation"

Quoting DfwRevolution (Reply 47): Quoting Baroque (Reply 41): How about you check the actual expertise of your other experts. The internet is a real bugger is it not? Actually a great many in the field of climate studies are geologist. Geologic records are often cited as means to look into Earth's climate history. 20+ years of arctic studies makes him more than qualified to comment on arctic conditions, in my humble opinion.

Yes geological studies can be used to infer paleoclimate. That requires a specific suite of techniques. Gee in his field of expertise does not do work that can be so used. His expertise is in tectonics. This is the study of structures within (usually) intensely folded sequences.

To take your example in a positive way, Bob Carter also a geologist, is a Paleontologist also as it happens from Cambridge but he does specialise in stratigraphy and marine geology and climatic aspects of younger marine sediments. He is a global warming denier too.

But at least he has some expertise in paleo-climates. Gee has none.

Tectonics folk are often barely interested in the stratigraphy. It is a bit like asking an expert in the preparation of carbon fibres to design an aircraft wing. Totally irrelevant expertise.

Both Carter and Gee seem to share a penchant for self publicity.

By and large the deniers show more imbalance than the apostles. It is a complex subject. But it is just awful to read stuff about for example the Arctic ice that are simply untrue. Compare AverageUsers graphs with the incorrect statements being made.

And this thread has had more falsehoods about the Antarctic ice than you usually meet in many a long day.