Global Warming as Mass Neurosis

Wall Street Journal ^ | July 1, 2008 | BRET STEPHENS

[The Raven]

Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the mass hysteria phenomenon known as global warming. Much of the science has since been discredited. Now it's time for political scientists, theologians and psychiatrists to weigh in.

What, discredited? Thousands of scientists insist otherwise, none more noisily than NASA's Jim Hansen, who first banged the gong with his June 23, 1988, congressional testimony (delivered with all the modesty of "99% confidence").

AP The New True Believers But mother nature has opinions of her own. NASA now begrudgingly confirms that the hottest year on record in the continental 48 was not 1998, as previously believed, but 1934, and that six of the 10 hottest years since 1880 antedate 1954. Data from 3,000 scientific robots in the world's oceans show there has been slight cooling in the past five years, never mind that "80% to 90% of global warming involves heating up ocean waters," according to a report by NPR's Richard Harris.

The Arctic ice cap may be thinning, ....

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

Ah! The ability of statisticians to mislead with graphs. The arbitrary use of” parts per million” on the Y axis t makes a virtual flatline slope appear very steep.

What the chart tells me is that over the past 140 years Co2 has risen 80 parts per MILLION (a factor of 0.00008)or about, on average, one part per 1.75 MILLION each year( factor of 0.0000057)

I never could understand the hoopla over the minuscule CO2 increase. It's statistically insignificant. Or as we say in my field of 'worst case analysis'. Lost in the noise

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

There’s 30 times as many H2O molecules as CO2. Is the per molecule effect of H2O greater or less than CO2?

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

Peaked at 7000ppm.... That must be 7%. Hope I’m not wrong

Isn't that 0.7%?

[shrinkermd]

And surely it is in keeping with this essentially religious outlook that the "solutions" chiefly offered to global warming involve radical changes to personal behavior, all of them with an ascetic, virtue-centric bent: drive less, buy less, walk lightly upon the earth and so on. A light carbon footprint has become the 21st-century equivalent of sexual abstinence.

Environmentalism provides two of the essential elements of religion--purpose and meaning.

[The Raven]

Yes—7000 x 1 e-6 *100 = 0.7%

[mojito]

“...Socialism may have failed as an economic theory, but global warming alarmism, with its dire warnings about the consequences of industry and consumerism, is equally a rebuke to capitalism. Take just about any other discredited leftist nostrum of yore – population control, higher taxes, a vast new regulatory regime, global economic redistribution, an enhanced role for the United Nations – and global warming provides a justification.”

Touche.

[r-q-tek86]

ping

[ctdonath2]

Highly recommended: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.

[AFPhys]

Are you clear that 1% means one-hundredth? Many of your posts would be accurate if it were a thousandth, instead, but a percent is in fact a hundredth.

Thus:
7000/millionths = 7-thousandths = 0.7-hundredths = 0.7%

[dennisw]

I screwed up a lot of those numbers. Bottom line is CO2 is very minor atmospheric gas and all the increases the greenies howl about are infinitesimal when all atmosphere gasses are included.

[AFPhys]

Excellent article.

Appropriate for even liberals to read. Very good for ‘moderates’.

I can never decide whether Hansen or algore are prophets or apostles in this garbage.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 7/01/2008.