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Carbon Is Our Friend
Another heretic on CO2 emissions who needs to be burned at the stake.
UPDATE: Better make that microwaved, you know, to lower our carbon footprint.
UPDATE: Better make that microwaved, you know, to lower our carbon footprint.
posted by Spencerblog at
5:54 AM
41 Comments:
The guy is a geologist, not a climatologist or botanist or a physicist.
He is either misunderstanding the studies or looking a studies with flawed data/methodology that he doesn't know how to debunk.
When the majority of the climatologists change their opinion, let us know.
In the meantime, governments around the world, including their militaries worried about resources and population relocation, have determined the problem to be real.
Some might not want to spend the time/money to work on the problem or think they can ignore it or bargain or try to take advantage.
Ask the geologist Leighton Steward how many billions of year old the Earth is. Watch the religious conservative climate-change deniers forced to choose between supporting this guy and their silly idea that the Earth is 6000 years old.
Loveland ski resort opened yesterday, the earliest they've opened in forty years.
Arapahoe Basin ski resort is opening tomorrow, the earliest they've ever opened.
If all this global warming keeps up, I won't be able to afford my oil bill.
These climatologists sound like very important people. Are they as important as meteorologists? If so, I got dibs on Cecily Tynan. Anon-diano can have Hurricane Schwartz.
And how did religion get into this?
The climatologists are far more expert at this than local meteorologists. The first group looks at a bigger picture, long term history and long term trends. The latter group is mostly reporting on weather moving in our direction.
If the global warming keeps up, you won't have much of oil bill to heat your house, but you'll have a killer air conditioning bill in the summers.
I doubt that Cecily is excited that you have "dibs" on her.
As for Loveland, they are opening with man-made snow operations, not natural snowfall. Even with global warming, natural fluctuations and changes in weather patterns will create patches of colder areas as other areas get warmer.
NASA satellite data conclusively shows more warming overall, with smaller areas of relative cooling. The trend lines point in one direction: away from your ignorance.
Sea ice in Antarctica is up over 43% since 1980. Last year's ice melt, as reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, was the lowest ever recorded.
Amazing how this important fact in the global warming debate has yet to find its way into the mainstream media.
Yet Arctic ice is down less than 7% and Al Gore makes movie stars out of the stupid polar bears who aren't smart enough to swim to dry land. Kind of like the animal version of Paris Hilton.
Here is an easy solution:
Let's move the polar bears to Antarctica. They would then be illegal immigrants and thus would become eligible for Democrat health insurance.
There is an overall NET drop in polar ice. The Arctic ice is melting at record rates. The southern hemisphere has less land mass than the north. This causes changes in heat-transfer between the hemispheres, with the north getting the lion's share of the heat.
Looking at only one pole is is like the 3 blind men trying to figure out what an elephant is like.
All this conflicting information -- good thing the debate is over.
Since Anon-diano has educated the unwashed masses as to the overwhelming expertise of the climatologists, let's hear from one:
"Earth has cooled since 1998 in defiance of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN IPCC)...The global temperature for 2007 was the coldest of the millenium...which is why 'global warming' is now called 'climate change'.
Climatologist Dr. Richard Keen of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado.
IPCC stands for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It's been around for 20 years. It's always been called "climate change" by the real scientists.
Keen's been discredited for not only cherry picking historical data, and ignoring surrounding trends, but for blatantly misrepresenting cause and effect relationships.
For example, he tries to defend the Bush administration by saying that CO2 emissions grew, but by their lowest amount (0.2% per year), since 2000. He ignores the economic slow-down and stagnation.
For a thorough debunking, with graphs, check out: Climate Change and Picking Cherries with Richard Keen
http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2008/10/25/climate-change-and-picking-cherries-with-richard-keen/
This global warming appears to be quite finicky. Nothing in the Southern Hemisphere, nothing in an economic slowdown, and only Anon-diano approved climatologists can make it real.
But I'm glad you brought up charts and graphs. Chemist and Biochemist Dr. Michael F Farona, an emeritus professor at the University of Akron and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, addressed that very subject when he critiqued the news media for inadequate reporting about global warming and expressed climate skepticism.
"Data, numbers, graphs, trends, etc. are generally missing in supposedly scientific reports on global warming. These articles are usually long on opinion and short on hard data...There are more data in Michael Crichton's novel 'State of Fear' than in all the global warming articles combined that I have read."
Farona then went on to provide some very logical earth science background.
"There have been at least four interglacial periods, where the glaciers have advanced and retreated. The last Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago...The glaciers are still retreating, so there should not be any great surprise that the sea level is rising. The Industrial Revolution is about 150 years old, compared to about 10,000 years of warming. Can human activities have really made a significant contribution to rising temperatures in that amount of time?...Why now the draconian predictions of coastal flooding as if this has never happened before? What is the relationship between an increased level of carbon dioxide and temperature?...I have not seen any answers to the questions posed above, leading me to adopt a somewhat skeptical view of blaming global warming on human activities."
"There have been at least four interglacial periods, where the glaciers have advanced and retreated. The last Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago"
So, you're going with the Earth being over 6,000 years old and no mention of glaciers in the Bible? Interesting choice.
Q) What is the relationship between an increased level of carbon dioxide and temperature?
A) The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by 50% since industrial revolution, due to human activity. CO2 traps heat in our atmosphere.
The temperature changes over decades have show an increase in temperature correlated with CO2. The measurements match the predictions of the physics.
Q) Why now the draconian predictions of coastal flooding as if this has never happened before?
A) It has happened before. Most of United States was once underwater. Past occurrences of high carbon dioxide (from natural sources like volcanoes or release from the ocean) fueled the melt offs.
Q) Can human activities have really made a significant contribution to rising temperatures in that amount of time?
A) Yes. Once we change the CO2 content of the atmosphere, the heat rise occurs.
Again, Steward doesn't deny the existance of global warming. Just the cause. Oh! A few things Gils post neglected to mention about Steward. His job as a director at EOG Resources, formerly known as Enron Oil and Gas Company, where he earned $617,151 in 2008, according to Forbes.com. Steward also serves as an honorary director of the American Petroleum Institute. He also used to work for Burlington Resources, Inc., an oil and gas company; the U.S. Oil and Gas Association; and the Natural Gas Supply Association.
This morning I was listening to NPR's Living On Earth. They were interviewing a marine biologist who was talking about the effects of excessive CO2 on the oceans. It causes the waters to become acidic, and it depletes the shell fish population. That in turn has a negative effect on the food chain.
So it's not just global warming.
For guys like Steward and Jake who can't seem to get enough CO2, maybe we can bottle it so they can have their own private CO2 stash.
Jake - Two things I believe we can all agree on. One is that the cleaner our environment is, the better off we will all be. The other is that the less we rely on fossil fuel, and the more energy independant we become, the better of we will be. So regardless of where you stand on the global warming debate, shouldn't we all be on the same page when it comes to limiting the amount of CO2 that we pump into the atmosphere? Are we getting close Jake?
Bob-
They probably drink carbonated bottled water already
Why is Anon-diano always bringing up religion? Rather surprising for a godless heathen.You're welcome to come to church with me tomorrow and seek the comfort and meaning that appear to be missing in your life.
And Bob, thank you for vividly demonstrating the equivocation that promotes this global warming scam. Proponents would rather attack the scientists than defend the science.
While attempting to characterize Steward as a pawn of the oil companies, you neglect to mention that he's advised the EPA and Army Corp of Engineers on wetlands protection, he's written a book on nutrition and health that was #1 on the NY Times bestseller list for 16 weeks, he's received numerous environmental awards including an EPA Administrator's Award for environmental excellence, was Chairman of the National Wetlands Coalition, Chairman of the Audubon Nature Institute, Chairman of the Board of the Institute of the Study of Earth and Man at SMU, Board Member of the M D Anderson Cancer Center, the Southwest Research Center, and is an emeritus member of the Tulane University board.
This is exactly the kind of quality individual we all should want to hear in this debate. He has written a book 'Fire, Ice and Paradise' that attempts to educate non-scientists about the myths perpetrated in this global warming scam. It is a welcome contribution from a well-respected scientist.
Bob, half-truths and innuendo aren't particularly constructive, and are certainly inconsistent with all the self-righteous posturing you regularly espouse.
Jake - Have you ever traveled to a place like Mexico City or Lima Peru? There are cities in the US that have smog, but if you travel to a place where regulations are nonexistant, or not enforced, you'll get a good idea as to why we need enforced regulations.
Jake - Good point. How come the "Plants Need CO2" web site mentions all of the things that you mention, but skirts over the energy connection stuff? Why don't they show us both sides of Steward?
And that EPA Administrator's Award for environmental excellence. Was that awarded to Steward during the Bush years?
The Phillies sure could have used some global warming Saturday night. I can't remember the last time a game was postponed because of the freezing temperatures.
Anon-diano said it was only cold in the Northeast; that the rest of the country was a lot warmer.
I guess Colorado didn't get his message.
Jake-
I'll stick with my own church and avoid whatever cult informs your views. You seem to confuse me with several of the other anonymous people here, and lump together any of us that oppose your backward views.
Wetlands protection and writing a fad diet book are hardly qualifications for expertise on climate change.
Other than his obvious vested interest to shill for the oil companies, the core of the argument against him is NOT personal, but scientific. His ideas have been debunked and shown to contradict the actual science in this field.
Jake - I saw the Steward interview on Fox. Now come on Jake. Do you really agree with Steward? Do you really believe the world needs more carbon emissions? What is it Jake? Yes or No?
The global warming opportunists like Al Gore have bullied the mainstream media into ignoring the thousands of complex and interconnected elements that contribute to our planet's climate.
It's a far sexier story to peddle the oversimplification that man has created a "doomsday crisis".
Do you really believe Al Gore's ludicrous notion that the world is going to end in 6 years, 3 months, 16 days,and 5 hours unless we act?
Do you really believe the even more ludicrous notion that John Kerry and Barbara Boxer's cap-and-tax legislation would solve this global warming crisis, if it happened to exist?
How is it that every Democrat crisis calls for the solution of more government control over our lives and the economy?
If these many crises were actually real, don't you think the law of averages would come up with one solution to a crisis that required a smaller government, less regulation, and more personal freedom. Somehow that never happens, though.
Here's an idea -- let's promote an integrity crisis. With Geithner, Rangel, Jarrett, Dodds, Blagojevich, Rezko, Richardson, Browner, Holder, Reid, Pelosi, Schumer, etc., we have plenty to fix.
The latest Rassmussen poll says 83% of Americans believe government ethics and corruption is a key electoral issue, so it even has broader support than this global warming scam.
Bob-
The latest science:
Last Time Carbon Dioxide Levels Were This High: 15 Million Years Ago
These are people doing REAL scientific research, without agenda, to determine the conditions that have existed in past eras. These are people making measurements.
Jake - You brought up Steward. So answer the question. Do you agree with Steward that we need more CO2 and that more CO2 would be good for the planet? Your attempt at misdirecting isn't working Jake. Now keep your eye on the ball. Whats your answer?
Jake-
This is one of the funniest things you've written:
"The global warming opportunists like Al Gore have bullied the mainstream media into ignoring the thousands of complex and interconnected elements that contribute to our planet's climate."
1) The people that recognize global warming ARE the ones looking at the interconnections and making billions of measurements from around the globe: land, sea, air and from space.
2) YOU are the one that tries to select a single year, city or even a single day's weather as "proof" against global warming.
3) Gore has made no such time line. However, if conditions proceed unchecked, there will be a tipping point beyond which we won't be able to turn back before catastrophic coastal floods and mid-western droughts are unstoppable.
4) Cap and trade worked for reducing sulfur and acid rain, despite the same dire predictions by industry.
5) The "war on terror" was a Republican crisis that was handled by more government police-state powers and policies, as well as unfunded mandates on local communities.
6) For Katrina, we had "less government" and more needless death.
7) The economic crisis was the direct result of deregulation of the financial sector.
8) Polling data also shows that the Republicans are less trusted when it come to issues like corruption.
Anon-diano says:
"These are people doing REAL (his emphasis) scientific research, without agenda,".
This article was dated 10/09/09.
Why have Al Gore and all his sycophants tried to end the global warming debate for 2 or 3 years now if this decisive information just came out 2 days ago?
Interestingly, these people doing REAL scientific research (who decides which is which?) also had an article dated 7/15/09 titled 'Global Warming: Scientists' Best Predictions May Be Wrong'. It explains the difficulty in understanding the complex relationships between climate, temperature and carbon dioxide.
Sounds about right. Thank you Anon-diano for directing us to an article that reinforces what I have been saying all along.
There is not enough solid, peer-reviewed science to justify legislation that would essentially result in government takeover of a large portion of the nation's economy.
Bob,
Steward is a pretty accomplished guy. His extraordinary background suggests his ideas are worthy contributions to the global warming debate. Certainly his unprecedented thinking is a thousand times more credible than Al Gore's doomsday clock, which stands at 6 years, 3 months, 15 days, 19 hours.
Anon-diano wants to dismiss Steward's commitment to wetlands preservation. I always understood wetlands to be critical barometers of environmental sustainability.
It's surprising that Anon-diano, who affects such sophistication, has so little appreciation for a devoted scientist and genuine intellectual.
To answer you, Bob, my insistent friend, I don't think any of us are qualified to judge Steward's ideas. It's up to his scientific peers to review and test his ideas. I look forward to their efforts.
Jake - Thanks my friend. Your refusal to answer my question about Stewards claim that we need to pump more CO2 into the environment is very telling. You obviosly have doubts about Steward too.
Jake-
You ignored the fact that we've got 800,000 years of ice core samples that already have been used in the global warming debate, by Al Gore and others. The new data, peering back further, reinforces the existing arguments.
The real scientific debate has to do with details of how big and how soon the main warming will occur.
This week, scientists studying the nitrogen-cycle predict that lack of plant nutrients will make it harder for plants to keep up, and thus CO2 levels will be worse than previously expected.
Nitrogen Cycle: Key Ingredient In Climate Model Refines Global Predictions
I'm pretty sure that's not what I said, Bob. I trust our loyal readers will see through your partisan bluster.
Misrepresentation and misinformation are the left's tools to promote this global warming scam. Obviously, they want no debate on conclusions based upon political rather than scientific goals.
For instance, Bob calls carbon dioxide "smog". Up until this point, smog has always been identified as nitrous oxides, tropospheric ozone, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide.
With this global warming crisis, the political opportunists have seized upon the specious strategy of labeling carbon dioxide a pollutant, enabling the Democrats to posture as environmentalists while broadening their regulatory and economic influence.
Our dear friend, Bob, who by all accounts spews this carbon dioxide vigorously and without remorse, has been taken in by this global warming scam, without even stopping to think about its entirely absurd premise.
Here's the Fox interview.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czDVebSX73A
Steward says we need to pump more CO2 into the atmosphere. Don't take my word for it. See it for yourself! Hear it for yourself!
This is the guy that our miasma shrouded friend, Jake, cites as an example of a common sense environmentalist. This is nothing short of laughable! Answer the question Jake. Do you agree with your expert? Should we start pumping out even more CO2?
Definition of smog - smoke or other atmospheric pollutants combined with fog in an unhealthy or irritating mixture.
Jake,
You keep getting funnier and funnier.
"Misrepresentation and misinformation are the left's tools to promote this global warming scam. Obviously, they want no debate on conclusions based upon political rather than scientific goals."
With all the horse manure the Right is shoveling on this, you couldn't be more wrong. You also aren't making sense, as you just unintentionally complimented the Left.
You said the Left wants no debate on conclusions based upon political goals, rather preferring scientific goals in the debate. Thanks!!
Actually, the goal of science is to explore, understand and predict in the search for truth. There's no debate about the goals. Also, scientists are the one that determine the conclusions through and debate and experimentation.
The politicians on the Right need to start listening to the scientific consensus. They can start with the evolution and the age of the Earth. Then they can move up to climate change.
Anyway, thanks for the laugh.
Thank God the Phillies gave us a helluva lot better comeback than Anon-diano's semantic quibbles. And they even wear their names on the back of their shirts.
The integrity crisis is really heating up. Maybe that's what's fueling the alleged global warming:
The Boxer-Kerry cap-and-tax bill would prove to be a huge financial windfall for General Electric. Section 821(c) requires airlines and the military to purchase more costly "green" engines, coincidentally designed to GE's specifications. That's worth about $12 Billion in annual revenue.
The self proclaimed "most ethical and transparent Administration in history" apparently fails to see the conflict with $400 Million in lobbying dollars to Democrats and GE CEO Jeff Immelt serving as a member of Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Council.
This is not a figment of the Limbaugh/Beck entertainment media, as Bob will assuredly claim, but rather the position taken by GE's political action committee (GEPAC).
In an 8/19/09 fundraising letter to employees, GEPAC said, "the intersection between GE's interests and government action is clearer than ever...we must make sure that candidates who share GE's values and goals get elected to office...we were able to work closely with key authors of the climate and energy bill...If this bill is enacted into law it would benefit many GE businesses."
Whew! Talk about a smoking gun. If that information doesn't convince you that global warming is a scam, then perhaps the liberal agenda has compromised American ideals sufficient to allow this partisan legislative hijack to be accomplished.
I thought you conservatives were pro-business (except for American made cars).
What's good for GE (in this case) is also good for the country. Clean/green energy is the future. The question is: do we summon the future or try to delay it?
The party-of-NO is still trying to build a bridge to the 19th century.
We didn't see you crying when war was good for KBR/Halliburton, and bad for everyone else. GE also makes military satellites. Is it bad when the US wants more surveillance capability and GE writes a memo encouraging that?
Jake - Your hypocracy is showing.
This Sunday, October 18th, 2009 is the world premiere if the new documentary,"Not Evil Just Wrong". 3 years in the making with a budget of over $1 million, the filmmakers takes on "Al Gore's agenda of environmental extremism."
You can go to www.noteviljustwrong.com for the marketing information for this film. It's pretty strong stuff for an issue where the Democrats keep telling us the debate is over.
Interestingly, these are Irish filmmakers, so you can't even blame it on the crazy US guns and religion conservatives.
Their movie website states that over 31,000 scientists say Al Gore is wrong. With this global warming recount, it looks like he's about to lose another election.
Gil, I know it's probably too late for us to be a part of the world's largest simultaneous film premiere party in history this Sunday, but maybe we could schedule a showing at a watering hole with a big screen TV down the road.
Jake - And maybe you can take the Nutty Professor as your date.
Actually, Bob, I married the Professor's nutty daughter, but thanks for asking.
Great article sent to me with my daily Rasmussen Report, "What Happened to Global Warming?" by Debra J Saunders.
BBC Climate Correspondent, Paul Hudson, reported the warmest year recorded globally, "was not in 2007 or 2008, but 1998. For the last 11 years, we have not observed any increase in global temperatures."
Western Washington University geologist Donald J Easterbrook presented research that Pacific decadal oscillation (POD) caused warmer temperatures in the 1980's and 90's. With Pacific sea surface temperatures cooling, Easterbrook expects 30 years of global cooling.
EPA analyst Alan Carlin, an MIT-trained economist with a degree in physics, referred to "solar variability" and Easterbrook's work in warning that politics had prompted the EPA and other countries to pay "too little attention to the science of global warming." At first, EPA buried Carlin's paper, but then permitted him to post it on his personal website.
The article discusses other scientists speaking up, like solar scientist Piers Corbyn presenting evidence that solar charged particles have a big impact on global temperatures, and University of Alabama-Huntsville Earth System Science Center Director John Christy's testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee rejecting any disaster scenarios. "The real atmosphere has many ways to respond to the changes that the extra CO2 is forcing upon it."
Saunders hopes the days of stifling debate and bullying dissenters are finally over.
So do I.
Jake - I'm still not convinced. You've used Steward as an example of the direction that we should be moving in, and yet you avoid answering my question about Stewards claim that we need to pump more CO2 into the air. But before Gil sends "Carbon is out friend" into that great archive in the polluted sky, let me say this.
I hope I'm wrong, and I hope you're right.
Good close, Bob.
It's logical to assume that anyone who participates in these types of blog debates is opinionated and positively engaged in current events.
I'm confident that the extreme scenarios driving the global warming hysteria are not true. Extreme scenarios seldom are.
I resent being told that the debate is over, a consensus has been reached and anybody who disagrees is just ignorant.
Hopefully, the many thousands of qualified voices offering alternate views to these doomsday predictions will be heard and provide balance to the public discourse.
Manufactured crises to service a political agenda do not benefit the American people.
Jake - You said "Manufactured crises to service a political agenda do not benefit the American people." Good Point. Like the Iraqi mushroom cloud.
Bob,
We were talking about the global warming scam, though political agendas are certainly driving the Democrat health care legislation and their disingenuous pro-abortion and extension-of-coverage-to-immigrants plans.
I don't recall it was the hope of Obama supporters that he match President Bush tit for tat. The soaring rhetoric of this supposed transformational figure (creepy--like water into wine?) led 53% of the voters to believe he was going to govern with a higher purpose than mere partisanship.
Now, sadly, it's apparent he's just another glib politician who says one thing to get elected and then emulates his predecessor, albeit to his side of the aisle, once he gets in office.
You must be so disillusioned at this betrayal.
You have my deepest sympathies.
Jake - Not at all. I was just yanking your chain.
Bob,
I figured, but I wanted you to get the chance to hit the 40th comment.
Going up to Penn State this weekend. 3 inches of snow last night, a record for the earliest snowfall.
Sure hoping for some global warming by game time, so everybody keep breathing.
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