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Climate Change, Rush Limbaugh, Senator McCain and Why There Is a Problem
12 May 2008 | Vanity

Posted on 05/12/2008 1:37:03 PM PDT by shrinkermd

I did not listen to Rush’s entire show. The part I did here, was a “look-down-your-nose-sneer” at Senator McCain’s concern and proposals about climate change. I know this is problematical with those believing we are on the edge of a catastrophe and those who feel this is all hokum.

Seemingly, faith has replaced all reason in assessing the problem.

In actual fact the problem is really quite simple. What the European and other governments want to do is to hold the concentration of carbon dioxide to 450 parts per million. Presently, it is 380 ppm. At the beginning of the industrial age it was 280 ppm. As far as I can tell these are facts. My source is a recent article by Fred Pierce in the New Scientist. That link is: here.

The actual problem is not clearly a scientific problem and there are disputes as to the meaning of the rise of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere. A few excerpts from the above article include the following:

”…European governments are pressing for an agreement that would keep atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide below 450 parts per million. This compares with pre-industrial levels of 280 ppm and current levels of 380 ppm. This, they argue, will prevent warming by more than 2 °C, and so avoid "dangerous" climate change.

”Yet many climate scientists wince at this. First, because the European governments like to claim that the IPCC backs these targets, when in fact the IPCC goes out of its way to say that setting targets is a job for politicians. And second, because nobody knows either whether 450 ppm will hold warming below 2 °C, or whether this amount of warming will turn out to be safe. "It's horrifying when you see things boiled down to simple terms like a 2 °C warming. That will mean hugely different things for different places," Palmer says.

One reason the IPCC's official reports are slow to bridge this gap is the panel's policy of only considering published peer-reviewed research that is available when its review process gets under way. This means the current report, published last year, takes no account of research published after early 2005.

An increasingly scary debate about the state of the Greenland ice sheet is almost entirely absent in the 2007 report, for instance (see "What if the ice goes?"). Other recent research suggests that warming may be accelerating beyond IPCC predictions: first, because higher temperatures are releasing greenhouse gases from forests, soils and permafrost; and second, because the ocean's ability to absorb CO2 seems to have declined in the past decade.

"An increasingly scary debate about the state of the Greenland ice sheet hardly figures in the IPCC's 2007 report"

Equally worrying is the fact that climatologists are losing confidence in the ability of existing models to work out what global warming will do to atmospheric circulation - and hence to local weather patterns like rainfall. The most recent IPCC report made a number of regional predictions. It felt able to do so because it was generally assumed that if most models agreed on future climate in, say, the Amazon rainforest or western Europe, then they were probably right.

From my perspective Rush is more interested in pandering to his base with oversimplifications and relying on ridicule as argumentation.

I frankly, don’t know how serious this problem is, but there is a problem—within the lifetime of many reading this post atmospheric carbon dioxide will double. As cited in this article:

One of these unknowns was highlighted last month in the preprint of a paper James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies has submitted to the journal Science (www.arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126). Looking back 50 million years, to a time when falling CO2 levels in the atmosphere reached 425 ppm - a level we are likely to reach within two decades - he says that was the moment Antarctica got its ice cap. This suggests that the planet may have a tipping point at around that level, give or take 75 ppm, and that by going above it we could render Antarctica ice-free once again. That would raise sea levels by around 60 metres.

I think Senator McCain’s interest in this subject is based on factual considerations. What we don’t know, we don’t know but now is not the time to close off all reasonable consideration and debate.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Politics/Elections; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: 2008; change; climate; climatechange; greens; limbaugh; mccain; rush
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1 posted on 05/12/2008 1:37:04 PM PDT by shrinkermd
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To: shrinkermd; enough_idiocy; rdl6989; IrishCatholic; Normandy; Delacon; TenthAmendmentChampion; ...
 




Beam me to Planet Gore !

2 posted on 05/12/2008 1:42:11 PM PDT by steelyourfaith
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To: shrinkermd

Global Warming is quack science. The “changes” these yahoos want the US to make in industry will destroy our economy.


3 posted on 05/12/2008 1:42:20 PM PDT by theDentist (Qwerty ergo typo : I type, therefore I misspelll.)
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To: shrinkermd
There have been only other period in geological history with CO2 levels as low as today's, the Carboniferous.

The atmospheric CO2 level was twenty times today's level during the Cambrian period, with no catastrophic consequences.


4 posted on 05/12/2008 1:43:08 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Islam is a religion of peace, and Muslims reserve the right to kill anyone who says otherwise.)
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To: shrinkermd

If global warming scientists knew 1/100th of what they say they know, they would be dangerous.


5 posted on 05/12/2008 1:43:59 PM PDT by Always Right (Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?)
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To: shrinkermd

bttp


6 posted on 05/12/2008 1:44:02 PM PDT by ichabod1 (If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it, and if it stops moving, subsidize it.)
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To: shrinkermd
From my perspective Rush is more interested in pandering to his base with oversimplifications and relying on ridicule as argumentation.

With all due respect, do you work for McCain's campaign or the RNC? This is the second such post promoting him in the last hour.

Concerning your suggestion that "climate change" is a real issue, McCain is showing himself to be full of hot air.

The whole Global Warming fraud is based upon one, overarching goal---wealth redistribution within the U.S., and from the U.S. to the Third World.

If Mcacin actually supports this nonsense, then he is no better than Hillary or Obama.

7 posted on 05/12/2008 1:44:15 PM PDT by Virginia Ridgerunner ("We must not forget that there is a war on and our troops are in the thick of it!"--Duncan Hunter)
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To: shrinkermd

And so it goes. Don’t listen to the whole show but knows everything that was said.

Typical.

So how are crops growing on Greenland these days? I’m sure the Vikings are just waiting for it to warm up enough to move back.


8 posted on 05/12/2008 1:44:23 PM PDT by PeteB570 (NRA - Life member and Black Rifle owner)
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To: shrinkermd

The problem is that there is NO peer reviewed scientific evidence that holding the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to any particular level will have any discernible effect on atmospheric warming.

The only thing the proponents of these types of proposals have is flawed computer models with largely fudged numbers.

We don’t even know if holding the carbon dioxide levels to a low level will have an adverse effect on the atmosphere. Anybody who says they know one way or the other is telling a lie.

The only thing we do know is that these proposals will have an extreme negative effect on the world economy in general, and the U.S. economy in particular.


9 posted on 05/12/2008 1:44:28 PM PDT by wolfpat (If you don't like the Patriot Act, you're really gonna hate Sharia Law.)
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To: Virginia Ridgerunner
Breathe in moderation...Mother Gaia might depend on it.
10 posted on 05/12/2008 1:46:46 PM PDT by Sybeck1 (It's truly bad when your Savior in November is Judas Himself.)
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To: shrinkermd
McQueeg didn't give a flip abut the climate until he was running for Prez in 2000.

A young man in a penguin suit followed him from campaign stop to campaign stop, bugging him about the subject. Finally, McQueeg sat down and listened to what the *penguin* boy had to say.

He's been a *believer* ever since. (heard this on Laura Ingram)

11 posted on 05/12/2008 1:47:42 PM PDT by wolfcreek (I see miles and miles of Texas....let's keep it that way.)
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To: shrinkermd

Are you out of your mind? THE IPCC is nothing more than a front for the enviro/wackos who want to destroy capitalism. James Hansen is a shill for the Branch Algorians who is increasingly being exposed as a fraud. The arctic ice cap returned to last years levels over the winter. Greenland is NOT melting. Antarctica is COOLING, and sea ice in Antarctica reached RECORD levels last year.

I saw McCain say the typical liberal/enviro line of ‘even if global warming is not real, it can’t hurt to cut CO2 emissions. Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is we are strangling our energy generating capacity in the USA. No nukes, no new coal (if the SIERRA CLUB has their way), and worst of all , vast supplies of CLEAN natural gas off limits to exploration, along with oil. If the planet is COOLING, as increasing numbers of scientists believe, then our need for fossil fuels to keep us from freezing to death will increase exponentially. Without the capacity to provide more energy, war, famine, and death will foolow. Those could be the consequences if the Global warming Alarmists are wrong. Look at the situation with natural gas this year if you want proof of that. At the start of last winter, we had RECORD supplies of nat gas in storage. The winter was COLD and we drew down to below normal supplies. Our domestic production is DECREASING and LNG suppliers are selling to other countries at higher prices. Throw ina hurricane in the gulf of mexico this summer and a cold winter and the next President will be facing a freezing electorate and will have to ration nat gas. Get a clue!


12 posted on 05/12/2008 1:48:28 PM PDT by milwguy (........)
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To: shrinkermd

The probelm is that the global warming crowd has closed off debate.

McCains statement indicates the debate is over.


13 posted on 05/12/2008 1:49:02 PM PDT by stockpirate (30,000,000 reasons to NOT support McCain, immigration.)
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To: shrinkermd
I frankly, don’t know how serious this problem is, but there is a problem—within the lifetime of many reading this post atmospheric carbon dioxide will double.

No there isn't a problem. That's where you and Rush disagree. So why do you need to call it "pandering?" Can't people have an honest disagreement with liberal environmentalists and call it that, a disagreement? It's a common tactic among people on the left that you have chosen to side with - find all kinds of "motives" for idealogical disagreement.

14 posted on 05/12/2008 1:49:06 PM PDT by ElkGroveDan (The road to hell is paved with the stones of pragmatism.)
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To: shrinkermd

There’s a fair amount of evidence that warming causes the CO2 level to increase - not the other way around.

Odds are good mankind could quit using fossil fuels completely, and atmospheric CO2 would continue to rise.

Atmospheric CO2 levels have been rising for the last dozen years, and there’s been no concurrent rise in temperature.

McCain’s a charlatan.


15 posted on 05/12/2008 1:50:19 PM PDT by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: shrinkermd

Get back to me when scientists can correctly and consistently predict next week’s weather. Then I’ll be willing to consider their predictions for next month. Meanwhile, their predictions for next year, next decade or next century mean NOTHING.


16 posted on 05/12/2008 1:51:40 PM PDT by LikeLight (http://www.believersguidetolegalissues.com)
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To: Virginia Ridgerunner

“If Mcacin actually supports this nonsense, then he is no better than Hillary or Obama.”

He does, and he isn’t.

We sit here playing “What’s tomorrows weather?” while Iran is steadily enriching uranium.

Unbelievable.


17 posted on 05/12/2008 1:52:34 PM PDT by EEDUDE
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To: Virginia Ridgerunner

With all due respect, do you work for McCain’s campaign or the RNC? This is the second such post promoting him in the last hour.”
_____________________

Nice catch VR!


18 posted on 05/12/2008 1:54:04 PM PDT by cowdog77 (Circle the Wagons)
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To: shrinkermd

When Quack science can accurately predict weather tomorrow, I’ll be more inclined to believe their global warming spew.

If there is global warming (and there maybe, I don’t know). Man doesn’t have squat to do with it.


19 posted on 05/12/2008 1:54:22 PM PDT by tueffelhunden
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To: shrinkermd

It is a hoax.
I don’t believe any of it. By the way, spelling counts here at FR and knowing the difference between “here” and “hear” is important.


20 posted on 05/12/2008 1:55:14 PM PDT by GRRRRR (2008- A Year That Will Live in Infamy...)
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