Global Warming - Fact or Fiction?

[Leonie]

Well, he could just get on the fancy section of any average airliner.

And he could have a slightly more energy efficient house

As much as I disagree with the cause & consequence relationship Al Gore suggests, I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to live a more environmentally sustainable lifestyle.

The sad thing is, though, that while I'm rinsing out milk cartons to bring them to the environment parks scattered around town (separate bins for everything), Americans drive huge cars and Al Gore leaves the lights on while he's on his crusade. Makes my rinsing seem a bit pointless.

[Keira lover]

Originally Posted by Keira lover

i agree with you on the environmentally friendly lifestyle, but it just infuriates me that the hippocriotical former VP is the messia of the cause.

Originally Posted by Flightfreak

Ah yes private jets, do you really expect him to fly all around the world with this:


All Gore is not an average American with an average job in an average life.

A)

If he is not an avg. American, what is he? what, is it, "all hail the former VP, sore-looser in 2000, etc.."

B)

Private jet, not planes. That is a picture of a plane, not a jet. by jet i mean like a mine 747 for 1 person. Me, I want a private jet. The difference between me and Algore: I'm not the messiah of the gree movement

[Leonie]

I'm sure he works on eliminating his carbon foot print and all that, but that's not the way it should work.

It's not a game of "I can afford to compensate for my carbon foot print, so just let me be." That just turns it into "I am rich and you are not, so you better make sure you don't cause global warming. Hey, I'm buying trees."

If these are really his ideals, why does he not try his best to minimise his carbon footprint before planting trees comes in? It's not that hard to turn a light of or to share a jet in the fancy business class department.

[hasselbrad]

Originally Posted by Leonie

I'm sure he works on eliminating his carbon foot print and all that, but that's not the way it should work.

It's not a game of "I can afford to compensate for my carbon foot print, so just let me be." That just turns it into "I am rich and you are not, so you better make sure you don't cause global warming. Hey, I'm buying trees."

If these are really his ideals, why does he not try his best to minimise his carbon footprint before planting trees comes in? It's not that hard to turn a light of or to share a jet in the fancy business class department.

Eggggg-zactly.
I have all the respect in the world for Leonardo DiCaprio. He practices what he preaches.
He drives a hybrid all the time, not just when he wants to make a point.
He flies commercial.
He does as little damage as possible so that the measures he takes actually do some measure of good. Al Gore is simply a political being. He'll use anything to gain political leverage, and his lever of choice happens to be the environment.

[dave]

Originally Posted by http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,292810,00.html

The UK researchers (and most other climate alarmists) are even wrong on the matter of 1998 being the warmest year on record – at least for the U.S. According to a new analysis which discovered an error in a NASA dataset, 1934 is the new warmest year on record for the U.S. In fact, four of the warmest 10 years in the U.S. date from the 1930s while only three date from the last 10 years. This is an embarrassing setback for alarmists, especially since about 80 percent of manmade carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions occurred after 1940.

In the second Science study, Desert Research Institute scientists report that increased levels of industrial pollution (soot) in Arctic snow during the late-19th and early-20th centuries may have caused the warming occurring in that region at that time. The researchers say the soot reduced the reflectivity of snow and ice, allowing the surface to absorb more energy from the sun.

If true, that line of reasoning may be relevant to the ongoing Arctic warming trend.

Though alarmists attribute that warming trend to increased atmospheric CO2, this argument seems easily batted aside by the observation that there is little correlation between atmospheric CO2 and temperature in the Arctic region.

Could ongoing Arctic deposition of soot be a possibility? You might not think so because U.S., Canadian and Western European industries now operate under strict soot control regulations. But what about China? After all, it burns more coal than the U.S., EU and Japan combined – typically without the emissions controls of developed nations

A 2006 New York Times article, entitled “Pollution From Chinese Coal Casts a Global Shadow,” reported that soot emissions from the thousands of Chinese coal-burning factories and power plants waft across the Pacific Ocean and are easily detectable in the U.S. Northwest. The Desert Research Institute scientists note in their paper that, “Some models suggest that a large fraction of Arctic pollutants originate in south Asia.”

If you’re worried about polar bears floating on melting chunks of ice, clamping down on CO2 emissions from SUVs may do absolutely nothing to alleviate that concern.

Because of the many questions about the science used to inflate the climate-worry bubble – and as reported on the Fox News Channel show Special Report (Aug. 7) – my Web site JunkScience.com is offering quite a nice prize to the first person who can scientifically prove that humans are causing catastrophic global warming. But it’s going to take a lot more than ominous weather reports to win the “Ultimate Global Warming Challenge.”

Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and DemandDebate.com. He is a junk science expert, an advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

$100,000 Prize to the first person to be able to prove "Global Warming".

Put Up, or Shut Up...

http://www.junkscience.com/

[Ranman]

Its August here on Long Island New York, and its snowing. Not normal

[dave]

Originally Posted by Ranman

Its August here on Long Island New York, and its snowing. Not normal

I've been to Long Island, New York. There is Nothing Normal about Lonk Iland, not now, probably never will be... :icon_spam

Until now. I hadn't had sound on my computers (mostly) so I didn't usually watch movies. But I finally watched your BBC program. That program (like most non-scientific [peer reviewed] programs) uses some science to posit a position and then goes on to fantasize about what they "want" to happen to "prove their point" (i.e. Validate their fantasy.)

The biggest, and most glaring mistakes are so obvious that I am surprised that you took the time to point this out to me as I have come to believe that (while you are biased and often wrong ) you usually can think better than a "Science News Writer/Propagandist".

1) melting the Greenland ice cap will not raise the sea level. (We've had that discussion previously.)

2) If soot raises "Global Dimming", and burning the Rain Forests creates CO2 to increase Global Warming to increase the burning, Where does all the soot go from the fires? Darkens the Sun, eh?

3) bouncing Solar Radiation off a spherical shape will not send the energy "back into Space." He's a Climatologist, not a quantum Physicist. There is more explanation required as that one is obviously wrong.

Now, you do me a favor. Since the error in the conversion of all the temperature data has been factored into the calculations; and since we now know that the hottest year on record was 1934; how do you explain all the lies and pseudo-scientific balderdash that pseudo scientific "Climatologists" have been using to lie to the ignorant populace?

Have you noticed an increase in skepticism with respect to lies told by pseudo-Scientists? I have. Have you realized the depth of the damage that these lies have caused to the reputations of the Scientists who were lied to by their peers, AND, more importantly, their Professors?

[dave]

Originally Posted by Flightfreak

Greenland ice is land ice and will make sea levels certainly rise! In fact it’s been estimated that if all Greenland ice melts, sea level will rise about 21 feet or 6.5 meters.

This is a lie. The person that you are referring to when you say "it’s been estimated" is "blowing smoke" to obfuscate the issues and make people believe what he said. Tell the truth, don't just wave mirrors in the air and blow smoke.

Originally Posted by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland

1 As of 2000: 410,449 km² (158,433 sq. miles) ice-free; 1,755,637 km² (677,676 sq. miles) ice-covered.

Originally Posted by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean

An ocean (from Ωκεανός, Okeanos (Oceanus) in Greek) is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 70% of the Earth's surface (an area of some 361 million square kilometers) is covered by ocean,

Greenland Ice Covered Area = 1,755,637 km²
Ocean Area = 361,000,000 km²

Therefore (damn, I don't do km as well as I do inches.)

1,755,637 / 361,000,000 = how many meters the ocean will rise if 1 meter of ice melts ALL across Greenland.

That would be about == 0.0048632603878116343490304709141274

You tell us that if ALL the Greenland ice would melt that the oceans would rise 6.5 Meters. Lets see how thick the Greenland ice would have to be (above water, because we both know that melting the under water ice actually makes the oceans go down.)

6.5 meters / 0.0048632603878116343490304709141274 = Number of meters of ice (Everywhere there is ice) on Greenland. 1336.5519181926559989337203533882


So, Everywhere there is ice on greenland, it must be 1 and a third kilometers thick to do what you said. Everywhere. Tell whomever told you that, that they are wrong.

The second point I won't go into except to tell you to watch your movie again. The movie points out that pollution is causing the Global Dimming. There is no faster acting pollution than a Forest Fire. That pollution counteracts the threat you are worried about.

Lets see if I can explain the third point in twenty words or less.

Imagine that the sun is a huge Laser. Imagine that each drop of water in the clouds is one of those mirror balls that used to hang in Dance Clubs. Now, shoot the laser at the ball and count the photons that get reflected at the sun (i.e. reflect back into space.)

[the 48th Ronin]

Wait wait..

I read back a few pages, ( you guys simply need to get a life LOL)

Is the statement that the sun's energy is being reflected off into space? If so the light globe proves that light energy is reflected off a sphere..

Is the statement that the energy is reflected back into the sun... to silly to be even postulated by the sky is falling crowd..

I missed something while actually missing nothing if you get my drift.

Me and my friends who study communication think too many people on the internet suffer from rectal cranial inversion.....LOL :icon_spam


Thanks Dave for reminding me of this pseudo scientific drivel discussion, it is worth reading just for the comic releif!

[dave]

Originally Posted by the 48th Ronin

Is the statement that the sun's energy is being reflected off into space? If so the light globe proves that light energy is reflected off a sphere..

You are both missing the point I was trying to make. His movie stated (like it was a "Scientific Fact") that the sunlight was reflected back into space CAUSING "Global Dimming" a 25% reduction in the amount of sunlight that got through to the earth's surface. (Really! They measured a 25% decrease and they said that now that we are reducing the pollution in the air, "Global Warming" is going to skyrocket. That it is going to cause the Rain forests to catch on fire, etc...) What I was trying to point out is that those spherical raindrops merely scattered the sunlight, it only reflected a tiny amount. That sunlight is still captured by the atmosphere, probably doing more good by heating the other raindrops and making them smaller (and perhaps causing the droughts they are trying to diagnose.)

[Leonie]

Has anyone actually proven that the whole of Greenland's ice will actually melt, just like that?

Also, light bouncing off things is lovely and all, but we do have an atmosphere. It doesn't just sit there for shits and giggles.

[dave]

Originally Posted by Flightfreak

GreenLAND ice is above land! And for your information from 1km (0.63 miles) up to 3 km (1.87 miles) thick. Estimated: 2,85 million km³ (1.78 million miles³) ice covering 80% of LAND.

You're right. I was wrong. There is enough ice in Greenland to make the seas rise 6.5 meters. (assuming that the ice in Antarctica and in the Arctic area doesn't melt which would make the sea level fall.) I have a hard time visualizing an ice sheet that is 3 km thick. That's a little more than a third as high as Mt. Everest.

I find it interesting that there are only seven mountains in Greenland that are over 3km tall and more than twenty mountains listed as being worth climbing. That indicates to me that most of the ice depth that you are talking about is below sea level and when it melts will merely be a lake, and will not raise the sea level at all.

I got the impression that these mountains are out in the middle of the ice cap. But I could be wrong here also. I do have a problem with the image of all these famous mountain climbers scrambling down into thousand meter deep holes to get to the top of all these never before climbed mountains.

Have I ever told you about the problems that Physicists have with "reality" getting in the way of their numbers?

http://www.westcoastpeaks.com/Peaks/g4.html
May 17 Gunnbjørn Fjeld 3694m N655.170, W029:53.912 3694m Highest on Greenland

http://www.greatestplaces.org/notes/g_land.htm
In this frigid Arctic environment, approximately 85 percent of the island's surface is covered by a permanent ice cap. Averaging 5,000 feet in thickness, the ice cap in some places is as much as 14,000 feet thick and includes about 10 percent of all the ice in the world.

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/...leStJean.shtml
Lutgens, Frederick K., & Edward J. Tarbuck. The Atmosphere. 6th ed. 1995: 397. "Elsmitte, at the center of the Greenland ice cap is rests an elevation of almost 3,000 meters."

[dave]

Originally Posted by Flightfreak

Dave before you say anything more and make a bigger fool of your self take a look at a map and inform your self a bit better about Greenland.

Oh, I've never worried about "making a fool of myself". Some of the best times of my life were while I was being Foolish. Besides, I'm often at my best when engaged in Foolishness. All my brothers and sister and ex-wife and my four kids are all smarter than me.

Originally Posted by Flightfreak

Antarctica is a continent and not floating ice. So thus again its LAND ICE just like Greenland.
The Arctic is the only floating ice you're talking about and according too the NASA there is 20% less arctic ice compared to 30 years ago.

OK, So you have done a mental "reset" and now you are starting over with all the pseudo-"Science" which started all this "Global Warming" hype.

Unfortunately for you, and your side of the discussion, The Basis Numbers have been Corrected since the discussion began. "Real" Scientists have examined the numbers used to formulate your "Global Warming" theory and have found a Y2K error in the method used to translate the temperatures from the historical data to the present time.

http://www.bloggernews.net/19267

Peer-reviewed publications now tell us that the hottest year in recorded history was 1934. In fact, 5 out of 10 of the hottest years in recorded history were before World War II; well before the Industrial Revolution the Global Warming Advocates blame for Global Warming. Here is the link to NASA's corrected data, (not that it will do any of us "Fools" any good as we aren't "Climatologists" and they aren't talking about this yet. (To be fair, they only found the error a week [or so] ago.) http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt

So, if we must do a mental "reset" then it is obvious that the Industrial Revolution AND man made pollution have nothing to do with the "Global Warming" of the '30s; thus "Global Warming Theories" are false.

Originally Posted by dave

Now, you do me a favor. Since the error in the conversion of all the temperature data has been factored into the calculations; and since we now know that the hottest year on record was 1934; how do you explain all the lies and pseudo-scientific balderdash that pseudo scientific "Climatologists" have been using to lie to the ignorant populace?

Have you noticed an increase in skepticism with respect to lies told by pseudo-Scientists? I have. Have you realized the depth of the damage that these lies have caused to the reputations of the Scientists who were lied to by their peers, AND, more importantly, their Professors?

[Ranman]

Pete correct me if I'm wrong but it's around 99% of the worlds scientist believe global warming is happening? And they are considered the best in their feilds? That means its a minority of scientist who don't believe it.

Well I can think of other things that the minority believe
1. cigarettes are not adictive and not harmful to your lungs.
2. Asbestos is just fine to put into buildings
3. The earth is 6,000 years old.
This is just a few, And I'm sure they believe their is no global warming(unless Al Gore and Michael Moore got to them first and paid them more than coorporate America could afford)

[Leonie]

The atmosphere isn't supposed to stop all the light on its way out, that would be most annoying.

I didn't watch the documentary cause I'm pretty sure I've heard it all before in some capacity.

If 20% of the Arctic ice has melted in the past thirty years, how come my country still exists? As far as I know, we haven't done anything to make our dykes bigger and stronger. I think that proves that your theory of massive walls of water washing over the earth is slightly flawed.

I'm sure there are issues. But what really bothers me is that everyone feels the need to take a reasonable assumption and take it far too seriously, to an extreme, one where we'll all die next year if we don't do something yesterday. The atmosphere? Still there. Still doing what it has been since the beginning of time, which is reflecting some light, but thank Christ, not all.

By the way, I don't think it's right to say that 99% of all scientists believe in the theory of global warming, and that they are the best in their field. A LOT of people have jumped on the bandwagon. And a lot of proper scientists have had to back peddle a bit. Just because a majority believe something doesn't mean it's true. I mean, obviously, a majority of US citizens thought that Bush would make a good president...

Lastly, can we stop calling people names because we don't agree with them? It's called ad hominem arguing and it makes you look incapable of actually addressing the argument at hand.

[Digital_Ice]

Originally Posted by Leonie

Lastly, can we stop calling people names because we don't agree with them? It's called ad hominem arguing and it makes you look incapable of actually addressing the argument at hand.

you would say that, you're dutch.

(sorry, couldn't resist)

[dave]

Originally Posted by Ranman

Pete correct me if I'm wrong but it's around 99% of the worlds scientist believe global warming is happening? And they are considered the best in their feilds? That means its a minority of scientist who don't believe it.

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/pr...onsensus_.html

[Ranman]

Dave that proves nothing, I'm sure if I wasn't so lazy I could find websites with other points of veiw. The point I was trying to make is that there are opinions for sale out there. If Brazil can give the use of gas, why can't we? Why take the chance of a global disaster when we can prevent it now with some effort.

[dave]

Originally Posted by Ranman

Dave that proves nothing, I'm sure if I wasn't so lazy I could find websites with other points of view.

I'm sorry. You said to correct you if you were wrong. I gave you a link from three days ago to a paper by Lord Moncton which purportedly proves you wrong. If you didn't really want to be challenged, why did you ask?

Originally Posted by Ranman

The point I was trying to make is that there are opinions for sale out there. If Brazil can give the use of gas, why can't we?

I have no idea what you are trying to say with this sentence.

Originally Posted by Ranman

Why take the chance of a global disaster when we can prevent it now with some effort.

Originally Posted by http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/a_proper_focus_in_the_climate_change_debate.html

A Proper Focus in the Climate Change Debate

Serious participants should focus on the following central arguments –

The Debate Is Not Over. Early in 2007 there was a concerted, international effort among climate alarmists to suggest that the science was so certain that debate was no longer possible. That effort had no impact on the scientific community, which continues to debate climate change vigorously and sometimes even acrimoniously in the peer-reviewed, learned journals. The debate continues.

Climate change has always been real, but the fact of climatic variability tells us nothing of its cause. The more the climate is researched, the less likely it appears that humankind has had any significant climatic impact.

Climate change is not unprecedented. The medieval warm period was warmer than the present. Even now, melting glaciers in the Alps are revealing medieval trackways, silver-mines and even entire forests that have been buried under ice since the Middle Ages. Some of the Viking settlements in Greenland are still under permafrost to this day.

The chicken and the egg: The temperature changes that led to the ice ages and interglacial period preceded changes in CO2 concentration.

The central calculation: The UN says a doubling of CO2 concentration will push global temperatures up by 3C. Others say less than 1C.

Will warming be harmful? Almost certainly not. Warming is better than cooling. We now know that neither droughts nor floods nor storms have increased or are likely to increase as a result of anthropogenic warming; these events come and go in natural cycles which have scarcely altered over the past 100 years.

What is the cause of the present warming? Even if one assumes that the UN’s estimates of recent warming are not themselves an exaggeration, observations do not confirm the presence, in any climatically-significant degree, of the characteristic signature of anthropogenic warming – namely, a greater rate of increase in temperature at altitude, particularly at low latitudes, than at the surface. These results provide proof that much of the present warming is not anthropogenic but natural, caused partly by millennial alterations in patterns of ocean circulation and partly by the Sun, which has been more active, and for longer, in the past 70 years than at almost any time in at least the past 11,400 years (Solanki et al., 2005).

Will proposed mitigative measures cost more than they achieve? Now that the predictions of the extremists have been discredited even by the UN, it is near-certain that the cost of almost any measure to mitigate the volume of anthropogenic CO2 emissions will outweigh the effectiveness and economic benefit of that measure. Most proposed measures would not make any significant climatic difference even if implemented. The few measures that might have some impact would have only a small impact, but will prove impossible both politically and economically, and will not be achieved, though much money will be wasted in the attempt. It is the poorer nations who will suffer most grievously by the proposed restrictions on CO2 emissions.

Let us see if I can come up with a simple example. You know that you will die. How much term life insurance do you have? It is a certainty that you will die. Why are you not buying the maximum amount they will sell you now while you are young? In your head, you do a trivial cost/benefit analysis. So do the world leaders.

[the 48th Ronin]

Quoteave
Originally Posted by Ranman
The point I was trying to make is that there are opinions for sale out there. If Brazil can give the use of gas, why can't we?

I have no idea what you are trying to say with this sentence.

I think the word up was left out? If Brazil which has no oil and therefor uses ethanol instead can give UP gasoline....