Posted on 07/02/2006 8:35:11 AM PDT by maine-iac7
Editor's note: Global warming is unlikely to be a dangerous future problem, with or without the implementation of such programs as the Kyoto Protocol, according to Dr. Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...alarmist media claims to the contrary are fueled more by politics than by science...
The global mean temperature is never constant, and it has no choice but to increase or decrease--both of which it does on all known time scales. That this quantity has increased about 0.6ºC (or about 1ºF) over the past century is likely. A relevant question is whether this is anything to be concerned about....
It doesn't even matter whether recent global mean temperatures are "record breakers" or even whether current temperatures are "unprecedented." All that matters is that the change over the past century has been small....
Kyoto, itself, will have no discernable impact on global warming regardless of what one believes about climate change...
The scientific community is committed to the maintenance of the notion that alarm may be warranted. Alarm is felt to be essential to the maintenance of funding. The argument is no longer over whether the models are correct (they are not), but rather whether their results are at all possible. One can rarely prove something to be impossible...
The main victims of any proactive policies are likely to be consumers, and they have little concentrated influence. As usual, they have long been co-opted by organizations like Consumers Union that now actively support Kyoto.
(Excerpt) Read more at heartland.org ...
I do have a problem with your response to the real climate article I posted. You just insist it's wrong, repeat the claims of MM. That doesn't cut it for me. The Real Climate guys says that MM are incompetent and dishonest. Since competence and honesty are all they have, they have nothing if Real climate is right.
I haven't looked at matrices and eigenvalues in 50 years. I'm not even going to try. Any first-rate statistician, mathematian, or mathematical physicist could read the papers and tell me in a few minutes who was right and who was wrong. I don't know such people. I did - one of my college classmates is at the top of statistical optics - but I haven't seen him in 40 years. So that's it for me. Dead end.
It's a problem anytime science of any kind directly impacts peoples' lives and fortunes. It's a problem anytime any sort of ideas do. Can't be helped. Human nature.
I say that the changes in atmospheric co2 levels are more likely to result in severe unpleasantness than the opposite. Common sense no?
I'm just saying that dumping huge amounts of garbage into our environment is more likely to result in a garbage dump than an earthly paradise.
Sounds to me you're "just saying" that dumping huge amounts of "garbage" co2 must be controlled, correct?
What's the difference between what you're 'saying', and what Gore is saying?
-- Aren't you both advocating global government controls because you have ~debatable~ belief that '-- atmospheric co2 levels are likely to result in severe unpleasantness --'?
Would it be fair to say that it's only on the second point - the effect of the recent build-up of co2 on temperature - that there's substantial disagreement among climatologists?
No, as there has been no accurate determination of all the factors contributing to change in global temperatures. CO2 is only one minor factor of many effecting global climate.
The point being that the focus on CO2 is totally out of line with reality.
I ask because I don't think any of them address my gut fear that the pollution is no good for reasons not yet addressed or barely mentioned.
Your "gut fear" of "that" pollution is irrelevant to the science.
CO2 is not a pollutant for one thing, it is critically necessary to life on this planet and predominately a by product of natural processes mankind contributing but a very small portion of the total and is scrubbed from the atmosphere at rates increasing with both temperature and absolute concentration in the atmosphere. It is a self limiting factor.
Second, CO2 is not a major contributor to global climate change to begin with. Water Vapor on the other had is. Do you also have that "gut fear" of water vapor for its 30 times greater contribution to globla climate change?
Is water vapor no good for your "reasons not yet addressed or barely mentioned" ? If not Why not?
That's been widely stated by the critics of the Hockey Stick, but where is there any actual evidence that the creators of the Hockey Stick (Mann et al., and you can include Briffa, Osborn, Bradley, etc.) began the process of creating the reconstruction with the thought "we're going to show that the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period didn't happen?"
If you look closely at what Mann has written, he said several times that there was a globally cool period between 1300-1700, locally strongest in Europe and North America. That's not exactly trying to say that the LIA didn't exist.
Stopped.
What's the difference between what you're 'saying', and what Gore is saying? -- Aren't you both advocating global government controls because you have ~debatable~ belief that '-- atmospheric co2 levels are likely to result in severe unpleasantness --'?
Nope.
I don't share Gore's belief in the effectiveness of government controls on this and related issues. Not at this stage...and perhaps not at any stage.
It seems that preserving the environment requires people to restrict their propensity to breed, their desire to get rich, and their dependence on the status quo to stay alive. No government has the power to impose those things. Not now. Things will have to get bad enough so that far more people see the need for collective action and, even then, war is far more likely than cooperation. Maybe some technological break-through will save us.
If you look at his data (the hockey stick) you won't find the little ice age there. Since scientists speak with their data you can effectively say that he obscured the LIA.
Before you guys get into this and make a lot of effort over ground that's been covered before, the recently-released NAS Panel report was all about this. There's been quite a bit written and blogged about the report in the past couple of weeks, and clearly the main players are at ClimateAudit and RealClimate. You may want to review the report and what's been written about it before exchanging 10 or 20 more posts.
Got a link?
Ok...with the caveat that saying "CO2 is only one minor factor" is self-serving. In fact, that's what's in dispute.
Your "gut fear" of "that" pollution is irrelevant to the science.
Good hunches are very relevant to understanding the world, which is what science is all about. Is mine good? We'll see.
CO2 is not a pollutant for one thing
It is in the current context and, in high concentrations, is a deadly poison.
It is a self limiting factor.
That's an assertion, not proven, in dispute.
Do you also have that "gut fear" of water vapor for its 30 times greater contribution to globla climate change?... Is water vapor no good for your "reasons not yet addressed or barely mentioned"?
Of course to both. I couldn't live on the coast in either Florida or Hawaii because of high humidity combined with high temperature. I can easily imagine a climate I would find completely unbearable.
Ok...with the caveat that saying "CO2 is only one minor factor" is self-serving. In fact, that's what's in dispute.
The fact that it is a minor factor is in no dispute as that factor is readily determined in relation to the heat capacity effects of other "greenhouse" gases.
The dispute lay in theinsistance of the focus on CO2 as if it were a major contributor to climate incomparison to water vapor, solar activity and astonomical factors the true principal determiners of the Earth's global climate.
Stopped.
What's the difference between what you're 'saying', and what Gore is saying?
Gore is also saying it must be "stopped". Amusing that you both insist that we must somehow 'stop' an overwhelmingly natural process.
-- Aren't you both advocating global government controls because you have ~debatable~ belief that '-- atmospheric co2 levels are likely to result in severe unpleasantness --'?
Nope. I don't share Gore's belief in the effectiveness of government controls on this and related issues.
Neat way of inferring that you don't share his ~debatable~ belief that '-- atmospheric co2 levels are likely to result in severe unpleasantness.
Not at this stage...and perhaps not at any stage.
You support his beliefs about stopping "garbage" co2, but not on controlling it. -- Sure..
It seems that preserving the environment requires people to restrict their propensity to breed, their desire to get rich, and their dependence on the status quo to stay alive. No government has the power to impose those things. Not now.
"Not now", but people's propensities must be stopped. Ominous.
Things will have to get bad enough so that far more people see the need for collective action
Ah yes, collective action..
and, even then, war is far more likely than cooperation. Maybe some technological break-through will save us.
Or maybe a 'collective' return to rational political discourse will save us from Gore-ism.
If Mann, et. al. agree that co2 is a minor factor then what are they arguing?
It's not. Even Lindzen agrees. Unless, of course, industrialization is considered to be a natural process.
Neat way of inferring that you don't share his ~debatable~ belief that '-- atmospheric co2 levels are likely to result in severe unpleasantness.
But I do. That's what I've been arguing from the beginning. Just as my first post (or maybe it was my first post on another similar thread) made clear that I don't believe government can stop it.
You support his beliefs about stopping "garbage" co2, but not on controlling it. -- Sure..
Sure.
Why is that so difficult to understand? I can agree with a doctor that my friend has cancer but disagree as to the efficacy of a proposed cure.
"Not now", but people's propensities must be stopped. Ominous.
Very.
Ah yes, collective action..
Yes, you know. It's what groups of people do when they share a common goal and think it's best to work together to achieve it.
Or maybe a 'collective' return to rational political discourse will save us from Gore-ism.
Ah yes, the fabled, ever-popular, return to Eden.
Good hunches are very relevant to understanding the world, which is what science is all about. Is mine good? We'll see.
Your "gut fear" however is more akin to my wifes "gut fear" of creepy crawly creatures, that are important to a good environment.
Sorry, bu "gut fears" are more readily addressed by a visit to your favorite shrink.
It is in the current context and, in high concentrations, is a deadly poison.
Actually it is no more of a deadly poison than Nitrogen which makes up 80% of the atmosphere. CO2 is an inert gas not a poisonous one.
It is a self limiting factor.
That's an assertion, not proven, in dispute.
Geological history disputes your contention. CO2 starting out at 7000 ppm declining to the current era being scrubbed from the atmosphere by geological and biological processes assure that CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is indeed self limiting.
Of course to both. I couldn't live on the coast in either Florida or Hawaii because of high humidity combined with high temperature.
That's called move to a dryer climate. I can't live in either in today's climate, that is why I live in an arid part of the U.S.
I can easily imagine a climate I would find completely unbearable.
LOL, in short we must all pay for your comfort zone. LOL. That is the epitomy of the socialist's viewpoint. Your screenname is well chosen.
In the development of mankind, it most certainly is.
I do. They're employed by the Marshall Institute (among other places) to write anti-global warming op-ed pieces. Baliuna is a solar astrophysicist, so it's no surprise that both her opinions and her scientific papers emphasize the potential role of solar variability as an influence on climate.
If Mann, et. al. agree that co2 is a minor factor then what are they arguing?
Political control over the global economy.
The 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) defined "climate change" as follows:
"Climate change" means a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.
( http://unfccc.int/index.html )
The underlying polictical drive has been clearly expressed by those behind the above political definintion of he term "Climate Change."
"What we've got to do in energy conservation is try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy."
-- Timothy Wirth, former U.S. Senator (D-Colorado)"No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits…. climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world."
-- Christine Stewart, Canadian Environment Minister, Calgary Herald, December 14, 1998"The answer to global warming is in the abolition of private property and production for human need. A socialist world would place an enormous priority an alternative energy sources. This is what ecologically-minded socialists have been exploring for quite some time now."
-- Louis Proyect, Columbia University" The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States: We can't let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the U.S. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are. And it is important to the rest of the world to make sure that they don't suffer economically by virtue of our stopping them." -- Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund
Lots of 'em. To what subject in particular do you want a link? If you want the NAS Panel Report:
Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years (Table of Contents)
But are they employed because the Institute shares their views and wishes to support them...or do they tailor their views to the wishes of their employers?
All the diffence in the world. Someone has to pay the bills.
Ok. Thank you very much. Good bye.
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