Fermilab to host global warming presentation

Fermilab Today ^ | February 26, 2008 | Fermilab Today

[dr_lew]

David Carlson, professor of oceanography from Oregon State University, will speak from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Feb. 28 in Ramsey Auditorium. His free presentation, titled "Exploring the Polar Regions at a Critical Time," will offer the latest climate data from around the world. He will discuss tips on how to help slow warming. The presentation, partially sponsored by the Fermilab Friends for Science Education, is open to the public.

[dr_lew]

I attended this talk this evening, and I offer this impression:

It was well attended, including many area high school students, as the talk was a prelude to more activity tomorrow ( Friday, Feb 29 ) for area teachers.

He had a very slick Powerpoint style presentation which lead off with hexagonal graphic with the slogans, "global warming", "biodiversity", and "human well being" ( from memory ) along three sides. The graphic would spin to place one or the other at the top, signifying the interplay among the themes.

The content was an overview of the global warming doctrine, starting with a cursory description of the CO2 cycle and its role as a "greenhouse gas". He showed a graph of the increasing concentration of CO2 in recent years, and played with a fancy overlay of measurements at different locations that showed varying amplitudes of the annual signal - very large in Alaska, and small in Australia, e.g. This was something new to me.

Then he showed ice core results showing that CO2 minima corresponded to "ice ages" and that the current rise was shooting up above the maxima over the past half million years or so.

Then he moved into a section he called "surprises" featuring the collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf, and the sea ice minimum and permafrost melting of last summer, mentioning the potential "carbon" release of melting permafrost.

Then he talked about models and predictions, citing the Nobel prize winning IPCC. This served as a segue into his last interactive graphic displaying various proposed actions to reduce CO2 emissions. This graphic had a hexagon labeled ( IIRC ) "1 gigaton reduction" in one corner which was supposed to represent the equivalent results of a bunch of other hexagons labeled with actions such as "70X wind power" and "3X nuclear power" which would give this result. These were arranged as daisy petals around hexagons labelled according to categories which I forget ... "conservation" e.g.

He said it would take 8 of these actions to reduce a 5C 50 year warming to 3C, and selected 8 of them, these were supposed to keep CO2 emissions to the current 7 gigatons/year. Then he selected some more which were supposed to reduce the emissions, since a 3C warming was only marginally acceptable. Only a few were left, but these included "3X nuclear power", and I have to say, this was the one thing which upset me the most about the whole thing. If you go along with the whole doctrine, nuclear power is the one thing that is actually viable, IMHO.

He had stuff like "50% fewer driving miles" and "60 mpg cars" along with every kind of cockamamie "green power" scheme. "This is not a scientific problem but a political problem," he said, "All that is required is the political will." ( Again, as remembered. )

This incredible end-of-the-economic-world-as-we-know-it is what the announcement coyly labled "tips". He also, dropped the line that, "My carbon footprint is ten times that of someone living in China, and yours too ... we all have to do our part." Well, we know this drill.

It's interesting the way they are playing up to the kids on this, sitting there with the cell phones. Are they going to buy it? I'm thinking that the draconian nature of the proposed program will not sit well with them.

[endthematrix]

"This is not a scientific problem but a political problem," he said, "All that is required is the political will."

Any authoritarian can say that.

[endthematrix]

"Are they going to buy it?"

You bet. They're the vanguards of the new world order.

[vbmoneyspender]

How do they plan on getting the Sun to get with the program?

[Names Ash Housewares]

Any mention at all at the recent sudden, unexpected and very large cooling trend in the last year?

[verum ago]

"This is not a scientific problem but a political problem," he said, "All that is required is the political will."

creepy rhetoric.. it would take a Triumph of the Will to bring about Global Warming's Final Solution.

[steelyourfaith]

 

The Cato Institute is offering a Capitol Hill Briefing on February, 29, 2008, at the Rayburn House Office Building, Room B-338, on the topic "What to Do about Climate Change". Almost as distressing as the Fermilab presentation synopsis above is this snippet from Cato's description of their program, " Few topics arouse more passionate debate than climate change. There is broad agreement that humans are affecting the Earth’s temperature, but how can policymakers effectively address climate change while also advancing human well-being?"

 

Global Warming Scam News & Views

• Beam me to Planet Gore !
• WeatherQuestions.Com (Dr. Roy Spencer, Official Climatologist, EIB Network)
• Dr. Spencer's book, Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor due out March 27, 2008, can be pre-ordered from amazon.com.

[uptoolate]

Someone needs to have him respond to this:

~snip~

"Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming"

Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling

[dr_lew]

Any mention at all at the recent sudden, unexpected and very large cooling trend in the last year?

Absolutely not. I didn't expect that he would, and I had toyed with the idea of asking about it, but I left at the end of the talk along with half or more of the audience.

Waiting for the talk to begin, I heard a guy behind me talking very officiously about "our options". He dismissed nuclear power because the lead time to build a plant was ten years, and we only have seven years to act! "Lemme outta here," know what I mean?

[Names Ash Housewares]

7 years left to act before the scam is totally debunked is more like it.

More then likely he would have just said it is a minor aberration, an outlier. Nothing that could possibly mean anything.

[Names Ash Housewares]

Just for fun....

16 years ago, we only had as little as ten years left to act.......

November 18, 1992, the Union of Concerned Scientists,
..representing over 1,500 of the world’s leading scientists
..(including 99 Nobel laureates), issued an Urgent Warning to
..Humanity that implored all peoples of the world to halt the
..accelerating damage to Mother Earth’s life support systems. The
..scientists warned us that we may have as little as ten years to
..avert the environmental disasters that now confront us.*1
..
..”The human world is beyond its limits. The present way of doing
..things is unsustainable. The future, to be viable at all, must
..be one drawing back, easing down, healing.” If correction is not
..made, a collapse is certain “within the lifetimes of many who are
..alive today.”*2
..
..1 “World’s Scientists Issue Urgent Warning to Humanity” —
.. Union of Concerned Scientists (11/18/92).

[Blind Eye Jones]

And at the end of his presentation he was last seen getting into his car which was stuck in a gigantic snow bank that had recently formed from a huge snow fall and 40 degree below zero temperatures. Tomorrow, if he is still alive in his car, crews will be digging him out...

[dr_lew]

More then likely he would have just said it is a minor aberration, an outlier.

This is why I don't feel anxiety about pressing the issue. If this cooling trend lasts through the summer, it will have to emerge in the press, I feel. If everything just melts away, then it will have been meaningless. ( Although the Larsen A "fast ice" did not melt away this Antarctic summer season. )

I meant to add an impression from the talk. He liked to emphasize that he was giving "the latest results", and commented that the IPCC report had a 2005 cutoff. But by "latest", he meant the latest papers, and cited one on the role of ocean currents on the Larsen B collapse. I do really wonder whether he follows the daily MODIS images the way I do. Well, I'm sure he doesn't, but does he even care about them? That's the troubling question, as it always is in science. Is he connected to the phenomena? Supposedly these guys do field studies and so on, and it's interesting the way those "on the scene" portraits are used to authenticate them ... but I'm waxing pomo.

[kaehurowing]

NEWSFLASH: King Canute scheduled to give lecture on stopping rising ocean levels.

[LibertyRocks]

Unfortuntely most WILL buy this — lock, stock and barrel because unfortunately they seriously just don’t know any better... How sad for them, and for all of us. I wonder how many years it will take before they realize the unintended consequences of these draconian measures suggested thus far...

[dr_lew]

Mention was made in the introduction of the late and snowy winter we’re having. This was done with a wink and a nod indicating that all present were well aware that this meant nothing. ( It’s in the twenties with light snow tonight, with above freezing temperatures for tomorrow. )

[Enchante]

"This is not a scientific problem"

hmmmmmm..... he may have given away more than he meant to with that statement!!

[DB]

Garbage in, garbage out...

These people are going to have to go into hiding in a few years...

[onedoug]

Good report. Thanks.

How did "he" get there?

[Lancey Howard]

It was well attended, including many area high school students, as the talk was a prelude to more activity tomorrow ( Friday, Feb 29 ) for area teachers.

Fits the profile. Sick socialist scumbags like Carlson have a very long view and all the patience in the world. He certainly realizes he'll be long dead by the time these youngsters are old enough to exert the "political will" he wants them to exert, and some of them - - the more naive - - might just do what Carlson hopes.

On the other hand, those future grown-ups might just as well end up laughing as hard as we grown-ups of today laugh when we recall the "global cooling/coming ice age" hysteria of the '70s. In addition, despite the brainwashing attempts, many of these future grown-ups will research the subject on their own and learn that Carlson has lied to them. This could result in a backlash.