Posted on 10/07/2007 8:09:23 AM PDT by Nomorjer Kinov
Even though public opinion is inexorably shifting toward concern about man-made climate change, we are still treated to the rants of warming skeptics who trot out the same old arguments.
The interesting thing is how these objections have changed over time, moving the goal posts if you will. It's late in the fourth quarter, though, and the deniers are backed up almost to their own end zone as the melting glaciers of evidence creep slowly forward.
Warming deniers have used two types of counter arguments: ones that attack the messenger or message, and others that try attacking the science.
The first group consist of five general categories: I don't like who's saying it (Al Gore, liberals, Democrats, environmentalists), so it must be wrong; They're too gloom and doom, they can't be right; There's nothing we can do about it anyway; Science is so complicated, who are we to judge?; It won't affect me, so who cares?
The science arguments are more interesting, and have also changed over time. The first line of denial was that CO2 levels are not rising. That became obviously wrong as data accumulated. Then it was that temperatures aren't rising. That also has almost completely bitten the dust. Now the arguments are either this warming is part of a natural cycle and isn't man made, or it's too complicated and big to really understand so we better not do anything until we know exactly why and how all the changes are occurring.
First the natural cycle argument. It can most accurately, if impolitely, be described as baloney. There is a graph readily available on the Internet that shows atmospheric CO2 levels compared to temperature over the last 620,000 years. The data were obtained from ice cores from glaciers in Antarctica, using measurements of chemicals that vary in concentration in ice depending on environmental temperature. CO2 was measured from trapped air bubbles, unchanged over the millennia.
These samples show CO2 and temperature varying in close approximation over thousands of years, going up and down together in a range that didn't change for the entire 620,000 years. Through all these warming and cooling cycles, the global CO2 levels never went below about 180 ppm, or above about 280 ppm. Yet today, atmospheric CO2 levels are over 380 ppm. That change has occurred almost entirely in the last 200 years, coinciding exactly with the development of industry and transportation powered by burning carbon fuels.
And now we're starting to see the temperature measurements start moving up along with CO2, toward some unknown endpoint a lot higher than temperatures in the recorded past.
The second science argument (too complex, wait and see) is either a product of cowardice or laziness. Since when do we wait until the house is on fire before acting?
As to difficulty and complexity, we've already successfully tackled a similar problem, the ozone layer. In less than 30 years scientists identified the problem and its cause, proposed a solution and through combined government efforts, fixed things. The same arguments against action were made, such as economic disruption and the supposed weakness of the science, yet the scientists turned out to be right and the world economy quickly adapted to the new regulations.
Although it may seem like a waste of time constantly rebutting every crank who denies global warming is due to human activity, it is important to keep the record straight. Any lie, if repeated loud and often enough, will eventually be accepted as truth.
Meanwhile, the problem gets worse every day. And every day we waste debating yet again the reality of climate change just creates more work down the road to fix the problem. The political, economic and scientific challenges created by global warming are real and complex. Given the magnitude of change that is occurring, our choices are going to be very difficult ones about how to allocate limited resources to address the effects of sudden climate change, like coastal flooding, droughts, and crop losses. That's when the bickering will really begin.
Robert Wack writes from Westminster, where he serves on the Common Council. E-mail him at rwack1@comcast.net.
Just what Wack is doing in his diatribe through the deniers moniker which he wields to marginalize the opposition.
As to difficulty and complexity, we've already successfully tackled a similar problem, the ozone layer. In less than 30 years scientists identified the problem and its cause, proposed a solution and through combined government efforts, fixed things.
Whoops! Too bad when the item you lob as proof of success is suddenly come under question.
It's too bad Mr. Wack jumped the warming shark so hard when "deniers" are becoming more normalized.
Factually incorrect all the way thru. In fact, the political movement is against the Church of Man Made Global Warming dogmas.
Deniers will be sent to re-education camps where they will stay ubntil they learn that the sun has nothing to do with climate.
Just a few days ago the editor of our local birdcage floor liner declared that the leaves weren’t changing on the trees as fast as they used to.
Guess nobody ever told her that the leaves change due to the shortening days and not because of warm or cool weather.
Warming believes are staggering.
A remarkably inappropriate argument.
Even Mr. Wack would presumably object to firefighters breaking down his door and flooding his house with water when it wasn't actually on fire, on the theory that "you can't wait till the house is on fire to act."
Good find...another Wacko!
“public opinion is inexorably shifting toward concern about...” Algore’s cult of Wacko scientists.
“public opinion is inexorably shifting toward concern about...” any attempt by any US administration toward any progress on Kyoto, a failed attempt to immasculate the West.
“public opinion is inexorably shifting toward concern about...” a whole laundry list of more important issues than the SUN’s current effects on the earth...since we all know we do a better job of taking care of things in our control than taking care of things out of our control!
“public opinion is inexorably shifting toward concern about...” Environmentalism replacing Communism as a political tool of the looney left!
LOL
Mars Emerging from Ice Age, Data Suggest
By SPACE.com
posted: 03:00 pm ET
08 December 2003
Scientists have suspected in recent years that Mars might be undergoing some sort of global warming. New data points to the possibility it is emerging from an ice age.
NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter has been surveying the planet for nearly a full Martian year now, and it has spotted seasonal changes like the advance and retreat of polar ice. It’s also gathering data of a possible longer trend.
There appears to be too much frozen water at low-latitude regions — away from the frigid poles — given the current climate of Mars. The situation is not in equilibrium, said William Feldman of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
“One explanation could be that Mars is just coming out of an ice age,” Feldman said. “In some low-latitude areas, the ice has already dissipated. In others, that process is slower and hasn’t reached an equilibrium yet. Those areas are like the patches of snow you sometimes see persisting in protected spots long after the last snowfall of the winter.”
Frozen water makes up as much as 10 percent of the top 3 feet (1 meter) of surface material in some regions close to the equator. Dust deposits may be covering and insulating the lingering ice, Feldman said.
Feldman is the lead scientist for an Odyssey instrument that assesses water content indirectly through measurements of neutron emissions. He and other Odyssey scientists described their recent findings today at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
“Odyssey is giving us indications of recent global climate change in Mars,” said Jeffrey Plaut, project scientist for the mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
High latitude regions of Mars have layers with differing ice content within the top 20 inches (half-meter) or so of the surface, researchers conclude from mapping of hydrogen abundance based on gamma-ray emissions.
“A model that fits the data has three layers near the surface,” said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, Tucson, team leader for the gamma-ray spectrometer instrument on Odyssey. “The very top layer would be dry, with no ice. The next layer would contain ice in the pore spaces between grains of soil. Beneath that would be a very ice-rich layer, 60 to nearly 100 percent water ice.”
Boynton interprets the iciest layer as a deposit of snow or frost, mixed with a little windblown dust, from an era when the climate was colder than nowadays. The middle layer could be the result of changes brought in a warmer era, when ice down to a certain depth dissipated into the atmosphere. The dust left behind collapsed into a soil layer with limited pore space for returning ice.
More study is needed to determine for sure what’s going on.
Other Odyssey instruments are providing other pieces of the puzzle. Images from the orbiter’s camera system have been combined into the highest resolution complete map ever made of Mars’ south polar region.
“We can now accurately count craters in the layered materials of the polar regions to get an idea how old they are,” said Phil Christensen of Arizona State University, Tempe, principal investigator for the camera system.
Temperature information from the camera system’s infrared imaging has produced a surprise about dark patches that dot bright expanses of seasonal carbon-dioxide ice.
“Those dark features look like places where the ice has gone away, but thermal infrared maps show that even the dark areas have temperatures so low they must be carbon-dioxide ice.” Christensen said. “One possibility is that the ice is clear in these areas and we’re seeing down through the ice to features underneath.”
Global warming is not due to humans, it is due to Solar changes.
What a turkey! After James Hansen of NASA was forced to change his incorrect temperature it now shows that 7 of the 11 hottest years in the USA all occurred before 1955. And Mt. Shasta in California is gaining in glaciers. And Antarctica is gaining is ice cover and temperatures are below the mean.
Let’s not forget that Pluto is also warming. Since it’s not a planet anymore I guess it doesn’t count.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/pluto_warming_021009.html
National Geographic: Melting Mars Means Man-Made Global Warming a Myth
By Noel Sheppard | March 1, 2007 - 10:07 ET
An absolutely startling report about climate change was published Wednesday in National Geographic which stated “the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun” and not by man.
Unfortunately, as this goes counter to the position of an alarmist media and their seeming field general, Dr. Global Warming aka Al Gore, it seems quite unlikely that these revelations will be covered in today’s papers or evening newscasts.
Regardless, the earth-shattering piece began (emphasis mine throughout):
Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet’s recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human-induced—cause, according to one scientist’s controversial theory.
The article marvelously continued:
AdvertisementEarth is currently experiencing rapid warming, which the vast majority of climate scientists says is due to humans pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. (Get an overview: “Global Warming Fast Facts”.)
Mars, too, appears to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures.
In 2005 data from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide “ice caps” near Mars’s south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row.
Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.
“The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars,” he said.
To be sure, Abdussamatov is not the first scientist to make this claim. However, for a publication like National Geographic to report it should stoke some interest in the press – but don’t hold your breath.
With that in mind, the article then elaborated by almost thoroughly refuting the hysterical claims being made by an alarmist media and their current leader, soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore:
Abdussamatov believes that changes in the sun’s heat output can account for almost all the climate changes we see on both planets.
Mars and Earth, for instance, have experienced periodic ice ages throughout their histories.
“Man-made greenhouse warming has made a small contribution to the warming seen on Earth in recent years, but it cannot compete with the increase in solar irradiance,” Abdussamatov said.
Yet, in an article about a somewhat contrary concept as far as the mainstream media are concerned, National Geographic expressed great skepticism. In a piece that debunked what the supposed consensus believes on this issue, the magazine spent almost the bulk of the space alloted citing scientists that don’t buy Abdussamatov’s conclusions starting with, “Abdussamatov’s work, however, has not been well received by other climate scientists.”
However, the idea that National Geographic would present such a contrary view just when so many are buying into the junk science might be an indication that the work of skeptics is finally beginning to pay off.
Well, by gollies that settles it for me. If it's "on the internet" it must be true.
Having just read the article you linked to, and it’s conclusion, I’m not sure the CFC cause has been disproven. Just some methodoly questions at this time.
“Nothing currently suggests that the role of CFCs must be called into question, Rex stresses. “Overwhelming evidence still suggests that anthropogenic emissions of CFCs and halons are the reason for the ozone loss. But we would be on much firmer ground if we could write down the correct chemical reactions.”
Lawrence Solomon's "The Deniers" (a series of articles on the view of scientists who have been labelled "Global Warming Deniers"):
Other References:
Antarctic Temperature Trend 1982-2004:
This map (left) shows key areas of Antarctica, including the vast East Antarctic ice sheet. The image on the right shows which areas of the continent's ice are thickening (coloured yellow and red) and thinning (coloured blue). © (Left)British Antarctic Survey, (Right)Science
debate is over.
use one square.
that is the newspeak behind the article.
But, don't forget, algore invented the internet.
So what's causing the increase in temperatures if not CO2?
We call it the SUN - solar cycles.
Funny how global warming scare mongers always want to avoid the elephant in the room -- THE SUN!!
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