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Keeping a cool head amid warming hysteria
Sunday Telegraph (Australia) ^ | February 18, 2007 | CARDINAL GEORGE PELL

Posted on 02/19/2007 8:34:23 AM PST by Murtyo

Global-warming doomsayers were out and about in a big way recently, but the rain came in central Queensland, then here in Sydney.

January also was unusually cool.

We have been subjected to a lot of nonsense about climate disasters, as some zealots have been presenting extreme scenarios to frighten us.

They claim ocean levels are about to rise spectacularly, there could be the occasional tsunami as high as an eight-storey building, and the Amazon Basin could be destroyed as the ice cap in the Arctic and Greenland melts.

An overseas magazine called for Nuremberg-style trials for global-warming sceptics, and a US television correspondent compared sceptics to ''Holocaust deniers''.

A local newspaper editorial's complaint about the doomsayers' religious enthusiasm is unfair to mainstream Christianity.

Christians don't go against reason, although we sometimes go beyond it in faith to embrace the probabilities.

What we were seeing from the doomsayers was an induced dose of mild hysteria -- semi-religious if you like, but dangerously close to superstition.

I'm deeply sceptical about man-made catastrophic global warming, but still open to further evidence.

I would be surprised if industrial pollution and carbon emissions had no ill-effects at all.

But enough is enough.

A few fixed points may provide light on the subject.

We know that enormous climate changes have occurred in world history -- for example, the ice ages and Noah's flood, when human causation could only have been negligible.

Nor should it be too surprising to learn that during the past 100 years, the media has alternated between promoting fear of anew ice age and fear of global warming.

Terrible droughts are not infrequent in Australian history, sometimes lasting seven or eight years.

We all know that a cool January doesn't mean much in the long run.

But neither does evidence based on only a few years.

Scaremongers have used temperature fluctuations over limited periods and in a few places to misrepresent longer patterns.

Warming evidence is mixed and often exaggerated but can be reassuring.

Global warming has been increasing constantly since 1975 at the rate of less than one-fifth of a degree

Celsius per decade.

The concentration of carbon dioxide increased surface temperatures more in winter than in summer, especially in mid and high latitudes over land, while there was a global cooling of the stratosphere.

Britain's University of East Anglia climate research unit found global temperatures did not rise between 1998 and 2005, and a NASA satellite recently found the southern hemisphere had not warmed in the past 25 years.

Is mild global warming a northern phenomenon?

We may have been alarmed by the sighting of an iceberg as large as an aircraft carrier off Dunedin, but we should be consoled by the news that the Antarctic is getting colder and the ice is growing there.

The science is certainly more complicated than the propaganda.


TOPICS: Australia/New Zealand; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: climate; climatechange; georgepell; globalwarming
I Like this GEORGE PELL.
1 posted on 02/19/2007 8:34:25 AM PST by Murtyo
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To: Murtyo

bookmarked


2 posted on 02/19/2007 8:38:27 AM PST by chaosagent (Remember, no matter how you slice it, forbidden fruit still tastes the sweetest!)
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To: Murtyo
Global-warming doomsayers were out and about in a big way recently, but the rain came in central Queensland, then here in Sydney.
January also was unusually cool.

OK.
Global warming hysteria is the result of a scam; of stupidity; of ignorance; of politicical and social opportunism.

Having said that, creating any kind of argument against that mindless hysteria around the current cold weather is just as silly, stupid and ignorant.

Weather changes; Climate changes. The only planetary temperatures that remain constant, always, are the dead ones.

We can't come out with better arguments than "I was freezing yesterday"?

3 posted on 02/19/2007 8:54:25 AM PST by Publius6961 (MSM: Israelis are killed by rockets; Lebanese are killed by Israelis.)
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To: Murtyo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Pell

Pell aroused criticism from Greens' Senator Christine Milne with the following comment in his 2006 Legatus Summit speech:
Some of the hysteric and extreme claims about global warming are also a symptom of pagan emptiness, of Western fear when confronted by the immense and basically uncontrollable forces of nature. Belief in a benign God who is master of the universe has a steadying psychological effect, although it is no guarantee of Utopia, no guarantee that the continuing climate and geographic changes will be benign. In the past pagans sacrificed animals and even humans in vain attempts to placate capricious and cruel gods. Today they demand a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1787285/posts?page=9#9


4 posted on 02/19/2007 8:56:24 AM PST by Matchett-PI (To have no voice in the Party that always sides with America's enemies is a badge of honor.)
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To: Matchett-PI

Ptolemy believed the universe revolved around Earth. The GWs believe the climate revolves around man. Any connection there?


5 posted on 02/19/2007 9:12:15 AM PST by bicyclerepair (Living in Beautiful Ft. Lauderdale)
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To: Publius6961

It's a pretty good one, so why not use it ?

In the 20th century, despite all of the industrial pollution across the globe, the average recorded temperature only increased .7 deg C. If you listen to 2 different weather forecasts on any one day, their ability to forecast the correct temperature in any location can be, like today, 4 degrees F difference between the 2 weather forecasts.

Since the scaremongers are using computer models to predict dire consequences of global warming/climate change, I want them to explain why they can't correctly predict even 6 hours out. Then I want them to explain the probability that such errors create bigger forecasting problems the longer out you draw the time.


6 posted on 02/19/2007 9:23:13 AM PST by cinives (On some planets what I do is considered normal.)
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To: Murtyo

LOL
Noah's flood was a climate change?
It's God's fault!


7 posted on 02/19/2007 9:26:27 AM PST by gcruse (http://garycruse.blogspot.com/)
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To: Murtyo
Steve McIntyre has analysis on his Climate Audit blog suggesting that global ground temperature measurements have been "adjusted" to show the 1920s and 1930s were colder and the 1990s were hotter. The source and rationale for the adjustments to the data are apparently not clear and not documented.


Figure 2. [Temperature] Difference between 2000 and 2007 Versions [of data]

8 posted on 02/19/2007 9:42:44 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: Murtyo

Recent warming is almost entirely a northern hemisphere phenomenon and it seems to be about as much related to the exponential growth of remote, automated weather stations as it does to the increase in CO2.

Still, only about 10% of the surface has even one thermometer for every 100 square miles.

BTW, the automated stations have self-correction software and are rarely, if ever, calibrated by a certified technician with a thermometer known to be accurate.


9 posted on 02/19/2007 9:45:35 AM PST by Old Professer (The critic writes with rapier pen, dips it twice, and writes again.)
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To: Old Professer
Still, only about 10% of the surface has even one thermometer for every 100 square miles.

Yeah, but if an expert scientist can see a few tree rings he can give you the global tempreture within 0.001 degree.

10 posted on 02/19/2007 10:16:39 AM PST by Always Right
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To: Murtyo; Killing Time; Beowulf; Mr. Peabody; Mrs. Don-o; RW_Whacko; honolulugal; SideoutFred; ...

FReepmail me to get on or off
Click on graphic for full GW rundown




11 posted on 02/19/2007 12:09:49 PM PST by xcamel (Press to Test, Release to Detonate)
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To: Publius6961

Hopefully those poking fun at GW hysterics by referencing how cold it is today, are making a more subtle point: For all the precision of pronouncements on global warming the underlying error terms in these measures are seen to be so large for so many reasons that the whole enterprise appears to be basically stupid.

I just was prompted to look at the data associated with UHI (Urban Heat Island). The data is stunning in that it shows that for many locations in and around large cities in the United States the local temperature has been increasing while for remote rural locations the trend is either clearly flat or downwards. A dramatic example is West Point and New York City.

It is entirely unclear to me how these very pronounced effect are controlled for in the climate models.


12 posted on 02/19/2007 1:05:31 PM PST by bjc (Check the data!!)
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To: Publius6961

Sorry, here is the link:

http://www.john-daly.com/stations/WestPoint-NY.gif

Daly's entire site is worth scanning.


13 posted on 02/19/2007 1:11:48 PM PST by bjc (Check the data!!)
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