"Now wait just a darn minute--you said this was an all-you-can-eat buffet!"
Posted on 07/24/2006 3:11:23 PM PDT by PeaceBeWithYou
Let me begin by stating for the record that I am not a scientist. I have not spent my life researching Planetary Climatology, and I really don’t have any personal insight into the mysteries of earth’s climate cycles or even any personal opinion about the pseudoscientific claims in Al Gore’s Gospel of Doom based on his politically motivated global warming via capitalist-pig doctrine.Of course, this makes me just as qualified to speak on the subject as Al Gore, who also is not a scientist or one who is any more in touch with earth’s many mysteries than the rest of us. Those who still believe that Al invented the internet, still bow at his feet. But as a fellow Tennessean who lives only miles from his alleged Tennessee home, (where he never lives), I see him as most Tennesseans do. An idiot prepared to say anything to win political power. (Need I remind you that those of us who know him best, his neighbors, voted for Bush in 2000?)
I am however, fast becoming an expert student in the art of politically fashionable fear-mongering, a pseudoscience of sorts itself. Al Gore, the self-appointed Carl Sagan of modern pseudoscience, certainly the Dali-Lama of politically fashionable fear-mongering, is my professor extraordinaire... and he has a very loyal subject pool, all equally politically motivated of course.
His global warming gospel, “An Inconvenient Truth”, which seems to be an outright lie, is intended to drive uneducated federal dependents to the democratic side of the ballot at election time. Not because democrats have demonstrated any ability to guide America in a positive pro-American direction, but out of fear, a survival vote… so to speak. Like P-Diddy (another self-described political genius) recently put it, “vote for us or die!”
“He lied to us” - “He betrayed this country” - “He played on our fears” So said Al Gore of George W. Bush, who simply suggested that the Hussein regime in Iraq posed a “gathering threat” to national and international security, an undeniable fact and a bi-partisan opinion shared by most.
Of course, Al Gore also said “We know that he [Hussein] has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.” “If you get someone like Saddam Hussein to get nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, how many people is he going to kill with such weapons?”… Proving not only that a lie is in the eye of the beholder, but it also depends on who the political benefactor might be.
Now Al seeks to play on our fears with a brand new set of lies. Not according to me, according to real scientists…
Mr. Richard S. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT. According to Lindzen and many of his fellow scientists, “Don’t Believe the Hype”, “Al Gore is wrong. There is NO consensus on global warming!” Pretty straight forward statement I’d say, for a scientist.
Mr. Lindzen suggests in the linked article that, not only is there no consensus on the subject – there’s not even any coherent ongoing debate on the topic, among real scientists that is. That could be in part, because the global temperature change over the last 1000 years is only one degree, hardly a “cataclysmic event” demanding immediate attention. It could also be because for every scientist who believes we have a global warming crisis, there is another equally qualified scientist who believes we have a coming ice age crisis on the horizon.
In short, real scientists can not establish that, a) the earth is getting any warmer or colder to begin with, b) that any temporary shift in whether conditions or climate are anything other than natural event cycles, or c) that any human behaviors in any way affect atmospheric conditions in any way.
So, why all the vote for us or die fear-mongering based on Al’s global warming via capitalist pigs doctrine? Have you read the comments of Dali Lama Al’s anti-capitalism/pro-socialism disciples? There is a common message among global warming theorists… and it has nothing to do with science, other than social science that is…
The real message in Al’s Gospel of Doom is this… Capitalism is ruining the world! Our greed (economic liberty) and our love of freedom (personal choice including what to drive) is killing the earth and therefore, is akin to suicide. In other words, your SUV isn’t evil – but the fact that you desire nice things is evil…you selfish capitalist pig!
Of course if liberals hooked on Al’s kool-aid ever stop drinking long enough to research how many liberal politicians own SUV’s, ride in gas guzzling limousines, fly by themselves in private jets because they don’t dare ride coach class with their angry constituents, and generally burn fossil fuels at a rate that would make every PETA member feel like kicking their cat, they might begin to second guess ole professor Al.
On the other hand, if they were following Al for his brilliant scientific evaluations, they would already be following someone else. But because they agree with the fundamental foundation of Al’s agenda, socialism instead of capitalism for America, they (like Al), are happy to use any scientific hocus pocus available to promote their real agenda, socialism for the greater good.
As for the rest of us, we’ll leave science to real scientists and American politics to real Americans, yes capitalists…. After all, the record isn’t clear on global warming, but it sure is on capitalism versus socialism.
And liberals can’t figure out why Americans won’t vote for them.
JB Williams is a business man, a husband, a father, and a no nonsense commentator on American politics, American history, and American philosophy.
"Whatever happened to spring and fall anyway?"
We had a nice one on April 4, and on October 12, respectively.
"Now wait just a darn minute--you said this was an all-you-can-eat buffet!"
There. That's better.
I concur. *APPLAUSE*
review
It is insightful as to what al really means by 'consensus'.
Doom on you, Al.
You got any proof of that? (sarc.)
Having read Marcinko, I can appreciate the "doom on you" heading Algore's way.
And folks told me to dump my screename after he finally conceded in 2000. I laughed and said he would be back, and sure enough, Algore's gearing up for 2008. As awful as Ketchup Boy and the Wicked Witch of the West Wing are, the Tree is certifiably insane. But the debates between he and Her Heinousness should be hillarious.
ping
This is the standard claim of what exactly will happen asa result of climate change?
So in other words your normal human observations are telling you what the normal human observations will telling people in Alaska about 10 years ago - the climate is changing.
Actually only the major fringe claims the opposite. The only real argument is whether humans are part of the cause or not.
The article is really funny.
Glad to be of service...
Have you seen this report?
...............................................
"GLOBAL WARMING
The Press Gets It Wrong
Our report doesn't support the Kyoto treaty.
BY RICHARD S. LINDZEN
Monday, June 11, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT
Last week the National Academy of Sciences released a report on climate change, prepared in response to a request from the White House, that was depicted in the press as an implicit endorsement of the Kyoto Protocol. CNN's Michelle Mitchell was typical of the coverage when she declared that the report represented "a unanimous decision that global warming is real, is getting worse, and is due to man. There is no wiggle room."
As one of 11 scientists who prepared the report, I can state that this is simply untrue. For starters, the NAS never asks that all participants agree to all elements of a report, but rather that the report represent the span of views. This the full report did, making clear that there is no consensus, unanimous or otherwise, about long-term climate trends and what causes them.
As usual, far too much public attention was paid to the hastily prepared summary rather than to the body of the report. The summary began with a zinger--that greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise, etc., before following with the necessary qualifications. For example, the full text noted that 20 years was too short a period for estimating long-term trends, but the summary forgot to mention this.
Our primary conclusion was that despite some knowledge and agreement, the science is by no means settled. We are quite confident (1) that global mean temperature is about 0.5 degrees Celsius higher than it was a century ago; (2) that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have risen over the past two centuries; and (3) that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas whose increase is likely to warm the earth (one of many, the most important being water vapor and clouds).
But--and I cannot stress this enough--we are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to carbon dioxide or to forecast what the climate will be in the future. That is to say, contrary to media impressions, agreement with the three basic statements tells us almost nothing relevant to policy discussions.
One reason for this uncertainty is that, as the report states, the climate is always changing; change is the norm. Two centuries ago, much of the Northern Hemisphere was emerging from a little ice age. A millennium ago, during the Middle Ages, the same region was in a warm period. Thirty years ago, we were concerned with global cooling.
Distinguishing the small recent changes in global mean temperature from the natural variability, which is unknown, is not a trivial task. All attempts so far make the assumption that existing computer climate models simulate natural variability, but I doubt that anyone really believes this assumption.
We simply do not know what relation, if any, exists between global climate changes and water vapor, clouds, storms, hurricanes, and other factors, including regional climate changes, which are generally much larger than global changes and not correlated with them. Nor do we know how to predict changes in greenhouse gases. This is because we cannot forecast economic and technological change over the next century, and also because there are many man-made substances whose properties and levels are not well known, but which could be comparable in importance to carbon dioxide.
What we do is know that a doubling of carbon dioxide by itself would produce only a modest temperature increase of one degree Celsius. Larger projected increases depend on "amplification" of the carbon dioxide by more important, but poorly modeled, greenhouse gases, clouds and water vapor.
The press has frequently tied the existence of climate change to a need for Kyoto. The NAS panel did not address this question. My own view, consistent with the panel's work, is that the Kyoto Protocol would not result in a substantial reduction in global warming. Given the difficulties in significantly limiting levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, a more effective policy might well focus on other greenhouse substances whose potential for reducing global warming in a short time may be greater.
The panel was finally asked to evaluate the work of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, focusing on the Summary for Policymakers, the only part ever read or quoted. The Summary for Policymakers, which is seen as endorsing Kyoto, is commonly presented as the consensus of thousands of the world's foremost climate scientists. Within the confines of professional courtesy, the NAS panel essentially concluded that the IPCC's Summary for Policymakers does not provide suitable guidance for the U.S. government.
The full IPCC report is an admirable description of research activities in climate science, but it is not specifically directed at policy. The Summary for Policymakers is, but it is also a very different document. It represents a consensus of government representatives (many of whom are also their nations' Kyoto representatives), rather than of scientists. The resulting document has a strong tendency to disguise uncertainty, and conjures up some scary scenarios for which there is no evidence.
Science, in the public arena, is commonly used as a source of authority with which to bludgeon political opponents and propagandize uninformed citizens. This is what has been done with both the reports of the IPCC and the NAS. It is a reprehensible practice that corrodes our ability to make rational decisions. A fairer view of the science will show that there is still a vast amount of uncertainty--far more than advocates of Kyoto would like to acknowledge--and that the NAS report has hardly ended the debate. Nor was it meant to.
Mr. Lindzen, a professor of meteorology at MIT, was a member of the National Academy of Sciences panel on climate change. "
Anyone who thinks one ape has the power to change the weather on earth is simply delusional. Gore can be as carbon neutral as he wants to be and it wont mean a thing. This is a water planet. What happens on land is of minor import.
Here's another article for you, this one from Australia:
In fact I see no inconsistency at all, because I am familiar with the science and the projections.
For some reason only Americans are still calling "climate change" "global warming" - apparently because Americans think "change" is good - at least that is what I am told.
Climate change essentially will result in increasingly severe weather and greater deviations from the mean. Indeed, it means there is more energy in the atmosphere which in turn will raise the overall mean for the temperature of the planet. The local affects of that change can, perversely lead to very cold snaps.
Europe's mild climate, for instance, is a result of the warm water being transported up from the Gulf of Mexico. If that were to change as a result of cooling waters and reduced salinity (from the melting of the Greenland ice sheet caused by warminging in that part of the world) Europe could get much colder.
Your comments at the end of the story and those of the vast majority of those trying to debunk climate change (including Rush)is generally a result of a failure to recognize the incredibly complex system we are dealing with.
Doing nothing and just "seeing what happens" is a Pascal's wager that seems like a very bad choice.
You can choose to close your eyes and beleive that thousands of scientists are just under the sway of some vast left-wing conspiracy, or you can actually take a look at what legitimate apolitical scientists have been comiling, writing and saying - and not just the wacky fringe on both sides - and then make a choice.
Until then, you appear to me, by your comments from posting this, to be fairly uneducated in the developments that will result from climate change.
Nevertheless, I appreciate you making me aware of the article and thank you for being a thoughtful individual.
Although I am not as simple-minded and poorly educated as your comments might suggest, I thank you for your thoughtful reply.
If you don't mind, from time to time, I'd like to send you news articles and reports from well-recognized scientists that are inconsistent with mainstream views on "climate change" (formerly known as "global warming").
I try to heed the advice of three wise Americans:
Peter Drucker, who said, "There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."
Davy Crockett, who said: "Be sure you're right, then go ahead."
And Kermit, who said: "It's not easy being green."
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