Posted on 03/28/2006 7:31:35 PM PST by RightGeek
(found at the Global Warming News Site)
WASHINGTON, March 26, 2006 — - American attitudes about global warming are shifting, according to a new poll by ABC News, Time magazine and Stanford University -- but it has taken years for the public perception of the problem to catch up with the warnings.
That lack of concern may have been just what big oil wanted.
It's not as if the information hasn't been out there: A new ad by the Environmental Defense Fund warns time is running out to combat climate change, adding, "Our future is up to you."
But Virginia's top climatologist doesn't buy it.
"The American people have just been bludgeoned with climate disaster stories for God knows how long," said the climatologist, Pat Michaels, "and they're just, they've got disaster fatigue."
Michaels is one of a handful of skeptics still downplaying the danger. But they are a tiny minority.
The vast majority of scientists has determined global warming to be a real threat. So why has it taken so long to convince Americans?
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ross Gelbspan blames a 15-year misinformation campaign by the oil and coal industries.
"The point of this campaign was not necessarily to persuade the public that global warming isn't happening," Gelbspan said. "It was to persuade the public that there is this state of confusion."
A 1998 memo by the American Petroleum Institute said, "Victory will be achieved when … average citizens recognize uncertainties in climate science."
To redefine global warming as theory -- not fact -- the industry funded research by "friendly" scientists such as Michaels.
The industry's influence even extends into the White House -- where up until a few months ago a former oil industry lobbyist, Phil Cooney, chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, was one of the president's top environmental advisers, editing scientific reports to make global warming seem less threatening.
"From now on, we don't have scientists write reports and just take them," said Rick Piltz of the group Climate Science Watch. "We pass them through a White House filter before they're ever published. I mean, that's scandalous."
A few oil companies, led by BP, have changed their tune and are now aggressively addressing the problem. But some continue to promote the idea there are "uncertainties in the science."
ABC News' Geoff Morrell reported this story for "World News Tonight."
There is no proof, only a hypothesis, that anthropogenic increases in CO2 are driving global warming.
They don't mention that we're talking about an increase of 180 to 280 parts per million.
If I build a green house of 1 million square inches but only glass in an 18 inch sided square (about 300 inches), I ain't gonna see much of a greenhouse effect, am I?
Global warming is the con job, adopted by every socialist on the planet as the path to world communism.
Our local temps are up 10 deg F over yesterday. Projections are to add 10 more degrees tomorrow. What happens if this trend continues for even a couple of weeks?
All articles about global warming state things as fact now instead of theory.
If the government doesn't take drastic measures now, you will see a dramatic cooling trend within the next 8 - 9 months.
KYOTO, etc.
From: http://www.sepp.org/keyissue.html - “Controversies about environmental hazards and the management of natural resources have spilled over into attacks on scientists who do not subscribe to "politically correct" views. Scientific evidence based on observed facts is being subordinated to speculative theory and unverified computer models. Scientific debate is being replaced by pressure to conform to a new orthodoxy, reinforced by the control of research funds by governmental agencies. Particularly disturbing is the increasing evidence that this funding biases even scientific organizations and university science faculties. Yet the future of science depends on open and untrammeled debate. For related commentary, see Misuse of Science.”
From: http://www.sepp.org/statment.html - “As independent scientists, researching atmospheric and climate problems, we are concerned by the agenda for UNCED, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, being developed by environmental activist groups and certain political leaders.”
From: http://www.oism.org/pproject/ - “This treaty is, in our opinion, based upon flawed ideas. Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful.” - Frederick Seitz, Past President, National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A.
From: http://www.sitewave.net/news/s49p1523.htm - “Despite billions of dollars and millions of propaganda headlines, the global warming prophesied by the climate modeling industry is not scientifically real”
From: http://www.sitewave.net/news/s49p1521.htm - “I have been asked to talk about what I consider the most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda … As an example of this challenge, I want to talk today about environmentalism. – "Environmentalism as Religion" by Michael Crighton
From: http://www.friendsofscience.org/ - “Never in world history, outside the collective insanity marshaled behind Marxism through much of the last century, has a political movement required such an unrelenting flood of propaganda and media manipulation to stay afloat.”
From: http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?ide=4 - (COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING) “MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate … “
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http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/seasons_orbit.html: Milankovitch Cycles
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html: Astronomical Theory of Climate Change
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7y.html: Factors That Influence Earth's Climate
The "Little Ice Age" http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/little_ice_age.html (a very cold climate between 1560 and 1850 - we are still warming up from this)
http://www.grisda.org/origins/10051.htm Little Ice Age
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Earth's Climatic History: http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7x.html
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_Climatic_Optimum Climatic Optimum “From this data they have found that during most of the Earth's history global temperatures were probably 8 to 15° Celsius warmer than today.”
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http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/fall04/atmo336/lectures/sec5/holocene.html (be sure to check out the charts of Earth's rapid climate changes)
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Evidence mounts for Arctic Oscillation's impact on northern climate: http://www.washington.edu/newsroom/news/1999archive/12-99archive/k121699.html
North Atlantic Oscillation: http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/NAO/
The Pacific Decadal Oscillation: http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/
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Global Warming and the Greenland Ice Sheet: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/clim/2004/00000063/F0020001/05140445;jsessionid=1c5j0gvzund7i.henrietta “Since 1940, however, the Greenland coastal stations data have undergone predominantly a cooling trend. At the summit of the Greenland ice sheet the summer average temperature has decreased at the rate of 2.2 °C per decade since the beginning of the measurements in 1987.”
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http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020820southseaice.html “SATELLITES SHOW OVERALL INCREASES IN ANTARCTIC SEA ICE COVER” - Goddard Space Flight Center
Listed below are 19,200 of the initial signers During the past 2 years, more than 17,100 basic and applied American scientists, two-thirds with advanced degrees, have signed the Global Warming Petition.
Signers of this petition so far include 2,660 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental scientists (select this link for a listing of these individuals) who are especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide on the Earth's atmosphere and climate.
Signers of this petition also include 5,017 scientists whose fields of specialization in chemistry, biochemistry, biology, and other life sciences (select this link for a listing of these individuals) make them especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide upon the Earth's plant and animal life.
Completely trustworthy sources.
Convinced me.
Yep.
No doubt about it.
.........................barf..............
bttt
Exactly: like changes in solar output, or changes in the frequency of that output (more infrared, less visible).
But you see, global warming is real. Carbon dioxide really is a greenhouse gas. Parts per million do matter. It's easy to mock ppm but the atmosphere is big. You've got 15 pounds or about 7 kg of it sitting over each square inch of the earth, and 100 extra ppm of CO2 means 1/100th of 1 percent of that is CO2. That's nearly 1 gram of CO2 extra, sitting over every square inch of the earth. One gram of glass per square inch would for sure have a greenhouse effect. Why not one gram CO2? It doesn't have to heat the earth to a boil to be a problem.
It's a Newsitorial. That's all the rage in journalism school. /sarcasm
bookmark
The vast majority of scientists questioned have a vested interest in exaggerating a threat and further more the scientific community has a history or being nearly as wrong as the religious community in predicting the end of the world. This world has been through worse than anything humankind could produce with even its most devastating weapons. It is a game of pretend to say the world is threatened gravely because some expensive coastal property and a few islands may end up underwater. The world will survive climate change as has humanity. There is no danger of a run away greenhouse effect and the data we do have is insufficient to make any long term conclusions with any accuracy.
What we do know is the Earth has been in period of warming since the last Ice Age and when we acknowledge the fact that the rather cool version of the Earth that we have come to appreciate is not the Earth that has existed during the majority of time life has existed on this planet then we can better appreciate the possibility that the climate over the past few million years was really the anomaly not the rule. I believe a warmer earth will ultimately be a great thing for biodiversity, species will realign as they always have and some will disappear but in the end the net change will be a positive one. We may have to deal with a more tropical temperate world but there is not much we can do about it even if it would be desirable to stop the change. I think that if one accepts the many studies claiming "global climate change" it becomes clear from looking at the data that the Earth was warming even without our small help and pretending that we can spend billions of dollars to correct a climate system when we have no proof that is really broken is more a religious political consideration than a scientific one.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html
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