As the climate conference concludes in Copenhagen (picture above is from the last day of the conference), I have a number of questions.
Perhaps you have answers.
- Hasn’t the Earth always warmed and cooled in big cycles? Weren’t there glaciers in places where it is warm now? Wasn’t there an ice age (very) recently?
- Isn’t it therefore a little “above our pay grade” to think we can regulate the temperature like a thermostat and stop those cycles?
- I grew up in a town with terrible air pollution (Kellogg, Idaho). It had devastating affects on the plant and animal life nearby. Huge lung problems for a small town.
- Do you think it’s impossible that our emissions levels have affected the climate? Why?
- No matter how you answered #4, and given #1, is it truly reversible? Partially?
- If we really can “dial the climate back” what would be the economic cost (we’d have much less transportation freedom, etc.)?
- Perhaps there was a good reason that the ancients built their cities upstream from the beach (Rome, London, Paris). Perhaps we shouldn’t build cities there (New Orleans, etc.)?
- Have you noticed that pro-business conservatives and pro-environment liberals read the data differently? Agendas pre-determine what our conclusions are. The right “wing nuts” see a global conspiracy and the left wing chaos-crazy-protestors are being their usual “attractive” selves.
- Wouldn’t our quality of life go up if we spent less time in cars?
- Is it fair to withhold family cars from Indian and Chinese families? They want them and are beginning to be able to afford them. Combined, they have 10 times the population of the US. What will that do to global air quality?
- What are the costs, socially, when conservative Christians appear, as a group, to be against a clean environment?
- No matter what the data, wouldn’t it be a good idea to clean up the air and the water? Wouldn’t that be helpful for everyone?
- Is a cooperative, binding, global effort to do so necessarily anti-American or apocalyptic one-world-government stuff?
Let me just say I am dubious about the data on global warming. It is way too politicized to be objective. The big picture is very complex. Too many variables.
But cleaner air and water, long term, in a fair and shared effort that counts the cost, seems like a good thing to me.
Your thoughts?
+++++++++++
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December 16, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Mark Ahrens
(EDITOR-these are answers to the questions, in order)
Yes, the earth’s climate goes through cycles.
It’s not only above our “pay grade,” but I believe its quite arrogant to think we can control the climate.
I believe its possible. I’m not a scientist. I don’t trust politicians and their motives and the fact that there are many trustworthy scientists on both sides of the debate makes me think nothing has really been settled yet, despite Al Gore and Arnold (I won’t try spelling his last name)’s efforts to convince us otherwise.
The economic cost of the type of “solutions” I hear presented by the Democrats/Moderates in Congress would be DEVASTATING to businesses and people in general. The ‘carbon credits’ idea is a joke that doesn’t help the environment and only helps make money for the businesses regulating it (some that Al Gore has invested in). Also, energy costs will go up and that will be passed on to families who will pay more to heat their homes. Probably more taxes too to pay for these great government solutions.
Yes, people look at most data (and news events in general) through the lens/prism of their political persuasion. I have to watch myself all the time and consider whether I’m remaining objective on a subject. Because people look and listen only to data/news that agrees with them, our national dialogue is severely broken and almost gone.
I reject the idea that conservative Christians are against a clean environment. I pick trash up all the time. Try to carpool when possible (but that’s mostly to save $$$$ I’ll admit). Recycle. Conservative Christians want to work for a healthier, cleaner environment. We just don’t want sham programs (carbon credit) and higher taxes to do it. The government should create an economic incentive for businesses to manufacturer more energy efficient products rather than taxing and punishing them.
December 16, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Ron Hood
I may come back to this when I have more time, but I do know that Al Gore says the debate (which he has never done) is OVER concerning man’s contribution to global warming (which, by the way, the earth has been cooling since 1998). He won’t discuss the contribution that volcanoes have on green house gases, or the impact patterns of sun spots or lack of sun spots. His movie inconvenient truth is full of inaccuracies and photo-shopped images that he won’t answer to. Before we transfer billions from the American tax payers backs to other countries to combat a natural process that man has little or no impact on, let’s debate the truth and question data. Climategate may open the door to this, or maybe not. 2500 scientists have a consensus, not based on fact, but based on ‘lets agree so we can get our funding’. However there are over 30,000 scientists who dispute man made global warming. It’s worth getting to the truth!
December 16, 2009 at 5:12 pm
David Housholder
Good comments. The “debate is over” baloney is the same stuff I hear on evolution/creation. The louder it gets, the more desperate and needy it sounds.
I just want to know the truth, and don’t want to be responsible for holding a view that could do real damage.
December 16, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Tom H
It’s clear that the earth has been far warmer in the past than it is now. As the glaciers retreat, we are finding plant fossils that have been underneath hundreds of feet of ice for thousands of years. Obviously the warm temperatures that far in the past were not the result of human CO2 emissions. On the other hand, that does not prove that we have no effect on the climate today.
The main problem I have is that the folks who want the power to “fix” it, have never fixed anything. An interventionist-environmental ideology destroyed the wolf population of Yellowstone to save the Elk. The elk then destroyed the habitat of the beavers, which led vanishing fish, otters and eagles. It’s called *unintended consequences.*
You might think they learned their lesson. But fifty years later, the same folks almost destroyed the same area (Yellowstone) through a policy of putting out every forest fire that arose. The dead wood piled up, and when it finally broke loose it turned into an inferno. The summer of ’88 nearly burned up the park. I drove through the smoke that year, and caused twilight in the middle of the day, well into the middle of South Dakota. Unintended consequences.
The environmental-interventionists successfully cleaned up the air in the 60’s and 70’s, by passing the catalytic converter law — so that instead of Carbon Monoxide, all cars now produce — get ready — Carbon Dioxide (C02). That’s right. These are the folks who are RESPONSIBLE for the fact that our automobiles are pumping C02 into the atmosphere. I say it again, unintended consequences.
Even if their intentions are entirely pure, what reason do we have to trust these folks with a massive amount of money and power to fix things? The track record of this movement is almost unequivocally made up of failures.
I say “almost” because there are a few apparently pure successes, such as the restoration of Bald Eagle and wolf populations. However these took place with simple laws (“don’t kill these animals”) and a minimum of intervention.
December 16, 2009 at 5:44 pm
David Housholder
I don’t think we want to be totally cynical (although we ought to be skeptical) of government’s ability to fix or do things.
Socialized space travel put a man on the moon.
Socialized military kicked the pooey out of Hitler.
You wouldn’t want to try to get around London or New York without socialized subways.
This internet is the result of socialized defense spending in the 1980s-90s.
Most of us are glad to have a socialized fire department.
Socialized dams provide tons of clean energy.
You are going to drive somewhere on socialized roads today.
Humans are not totally incapable of collective group action.
But I agree with you in much of what you say and share some of your skepticism on these counts.
December 17, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Dennis
Defense is an excellent example of something the government must do. The founding fathers recognized this, & made defending America’s interests one of the few powers constitutionally mandated to the federal government.
The space program was a defense program, as was the origin of the internet which dates back to the late 1960s (back when Al Gore was a pot smoking hippie flunking out of college, FWIW). The original intent of the highway system was also a defense program.
There is a roll for public spending, even as outlined by the most free-market oriented classic liberal. The question is, where is the control? Constitutionally, the control over roads should belong to the states, & technically they do… But the feds collect taxes from the states & put it into a transportation fund, to be redistributed by Congress back to the states. Congress then withholds the funds if the states do not comply with their wishes. Which holds to the letter, but not the spirit, of the Constitution.
Schools, police departments, fire stations, etc, are best left to local control. However, more & more, federal government is encroaching on this American ideal of local citizen control, & pressing for a more leftist, powerful central control.
The current efforts as stated by the attendees in Copenhagen, is an international controlling agency. Everything you do, from what you eat, how many kids you have, to where you live & work, or what you do for a hobby, are all STATED targets for for these people. It’s not a conspiracy.
Everything they want to control can be connected to carbon output. With a propaganda effort to promote the moral equivalence of war to the environmental movement, people will be lulled into the non-sequitur of “yes I lost my freedom, but it’s for the greater good.” Yes, control over education is also a stated target for this would-be international governing agency. Who stated it? Al Gore.
December 16, 2009 at 6:01 pm
matt
Here’s my 2 main problems with the “Climate” of the Global Warming/Cooling debate:
1. Many progressives like Al Gore declare that all discussion is over on whether man is causing climate change, comparing it to the issue of the world being round and not flat. This smells fishy to me. Since when do scientists ignore the valid concerns of their peers (many prominant climatologists have questioned central aspects of the global warming movement) and dismissed the valid questions of laity to simply assert: The discussion is over. Science has rightly criticized the church for doing this over the centuries, but now seems to stubbornly hold to a theory while rejecting their prior committment to impartial analysis and the constant reevaluation of presuppositions in light of new data.
2. This is an industry. Many who call for large scale reforms (some of which I happen to favor) stand to profit immensely from those changes. This includes ‘green’ coorporations, activists, and scientists who seek millions and even billions of dollars in grants as long as they point towards an impending global catastrophy.
Because of the significant ramifications of our decisions in this area, I’m hoping to see good science win the day, free from the fetters of ideological distortion and from the supression of dissenting views.
December 16, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Craig Schinzer
An interesting thing that I noticed when I started looking at the data. Usually, at Pro warming sites, the data is overlayed, so you can’t really tell which happens first CO2 or temp increase. In addition, they usually plot it backwards, with “Today” on the left and 400,00 years ago to the right. Most of us read graphs left to right as old data to new.
See this: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_400k_yrs.html
Now, when I read that set of graphs, and compare time frames, I see that temp rose first followed by CO2 increase. And four times it happened. I know DuPont is an old company, but they didn’t cause this 400,000 years ago.
Another idea has been proposed that takes into account the “wooble” of the solar system in the arm of the Milky Way we rotate on. It has to do with the creation of clouds by cosmic particles. (Think of those cool little cloud chambers used by physicists to see nuclear particles.)
Another idea, (I’ll own it), as the earth warms, CO2 is released from water. Doubt that? Put a cold glass of soda (or pop to you from the other part of the country) out on the counter. Those bubbles? CO2 from the pop being released. Gases are less soluble in water as the temp rises.
So, is it man? Doubt we have been able to make that much CO2. Remember, when we are making CO2 from combustion, we remove O2 and make H2O. Where did that go?
December 17, 2009 at 6:31 am
David Housholder
There is no such thing as global warming–Chuck Norris got cold and turned the sun up. 🙂
December 16, 2009 at 8:57 pm
David
Quick correction on one point. You write:
“Perhaps there was a good reason that the ancients built their cities upstream from the beach (Rome, London, Paris). Perhaps we shouldn’t build cities there (New Orleans, etc.)?”
This is an incorrect reading on cities in general and New Orleans in particular. On the latter: the flooding of New Orleans post-Katrina was a man-made disaster, resulting from the failure of Federally built levees and floodwalls, not from the hurricane. This is an important difference because the majority of American people live in counties protected by levees (here is a nifty map: http://levees.org/2/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/USCountiesWithLeveesMainMap4_120309.jpg). We can build them to control for floods (as we have done on the Mississippi, which did not flood in Katrina) or we can choose not to. But that has nothing whatsoever to do with global warming.
On cities in general: Generally speaking, cities are built where they are convenient for commerce. Many such places are disaster prone. London and Paris, two of the cities you mention, happen to have suffered from flooding many times over the centuries, but are now protected by significant flood control systems. The Thames Barrier, designed to protect London from tidal flooding, is one of the largest such structures in the world (and it works). I believe the largest flood protection structure designed to protect a city is in Holland and protects Rotterdam. Other cities prone to disaster, including flood, but also fire, mudslide, earthquake, etc. include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Miami, New York, and Tokyo. From the standpoint of urban sustainability, cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas are slow disasters in the making.
None of this is related to global warming, although rising sea levels may threaten all of the coastal cities, including those, like New Orleans, that are not in fact directly on the coast.
December 16, 2009 at 11:48 pm
Mark Ventura
There is a latent inherent fallacy in most of these discussions that presumes human behavior is UNNATURAL and that our behavior is somehow wrong. Humans are a part in kind with the earth and our behavior on the earth is very much a part of the earth in it’s totality. It is not unnatural or out of balance for humans to burn things or pollute. Even when humans do do something that alters the earth, it is not necessarily good or bad. That being said, current energy sources very well may create conditions which prevent humans form being properous. That is the real concern.
For example burning coal produces much more than CO2. It also produces vast amounts of mercury which is infiltrating and accumulating in the thin film of the earth’s crust we call home. This is slowly building up and recycling into our food supply, and like the Romans, we may be slowly poisoning ourselves.
Our charter, our purpose is to live abundantly, multiple, and be properous. Behavior that prevents this is bad and contrary to the way it should, and I believe, will be. Consumption and use of energy is what we will continue to do at larger and larger rates because it is tied to the above abundance, population, and prosperity. Our real concern is how we increase our use of energy and not slow down the abundance, population, and prosperity. The answer to that is very complex and a moving target (as we increase in size and complexity, we will need and use every more energy), so the actual solution will be a work in progress for the rest of time.
No worries. We will figure it out. A more interesting question is how can we figure it out faster.
A rather unusual read on this topic is “The Bottomless Well”, which has some rather unothordox theories on how energy consumption will proceed into the future.
December 17, 2009 at 2:00 am
David Housholder
Tell us more about the Bottomless Well.
December 17, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Dennis
Yes, the post Katrina flooding occurred when the man-made levees broke. However, if the French had not build a city on sinking land next to the sea, those levees would not even be there, let alone fail.
The real problem isn’t the levees, the problem is that a major metropolitan area laying below sea level, next to the sea! & that land continues to sink.
December 17, 2009 at 9:38 pm
David
I love the way these comments tend to reflect deeply held beliefs, but very little actual information. As a senator recently noted, you are entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts.
1) Over half of New Orleans is at or above sea level, as a recent study demonstrated: http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-8/1177135924117150.xml&coll=1. The part the French built is entirely above sea level, did not flood in Katrina and provides one of the best locations for a major port near the Gulf of Mexico.
2) See my post above. How many U.S. cities are at or near sea level? See this list: http://egsc.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/booklets/elvadist/elvadist.html.
So what is your point anyhow? Got any other information free beliefs I can help you correct?
December 16, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Kristin
Interesting: Time headlines since 1895 talking about Global Warming and Ice Ages – alternating every couple years! I bet we’ll go back to “cooling” next. It’ll be trendy. And they already don’t say “global warming”, now it’s “climate change”. http://digs.by/10oE
December 17, 2009 at 1:17 am
Terry Paulson, PhD
Very insightful comments.
We are seeing politicians and anti-capitalists use science as a religion. To disagree is heresy and a stand against the environment. Science is never finished; it invites disagreement and testing of theories.
One can’t even check their “lost data” that feeds their statistical models. This is a sham. The impact of sun activity is far more likely to be the main contributor. How do they explain the increases in temperature on Mars and other planets. Man isn’t even there yet.
The incentives for scientists and Gore to keep global warming on the front burner are high–funding for jobs and research are at an all time high.
I put my trust in God and act responsibly. We have solar popwer and a hybrid while being as conservative as you can be.
The added cost to this hysteria is the loss of respect in science. They are a pawn rather than true science. They won’t reach agreement at the conference in Copenhagen, because developing countries view it as a blank check. The US will not pass Obama’s position. Americans do not believe that man is the primary cause.
This is a distraction to what Christians need to focus on–sharing the Gospel. I have a 12 days of Christmas ezine I send out every year. You may want to check it out. I try to keep people focused on the reason for the season. http://www.terrypaulson.com/christmas.shtml ENJOY!
December 17, 2009 at 3:14 am
Gracia Grindal
While I think the data is very dubious and unconvincing, the thing that interests me most about this is the religious fervor (albeit secular) of the global warmists. No evidence against it works–because this seems like a religion. It’s basis is a kind of apocalyptic panic (replete with images) about the ending. The Copenhagen video of little children asking us to “please stop global warming” was very much like the Day After panic in the early 1980s, and the one little daisy held up by the little girl in the ad against Goldwater in the Johnson/Goldwater election. There’s something imprinted in human beings that is attracted to/fearful of endings like this. It was there in all of these moments, but as a theologian I see a deep hunger for ultimate meaning here that only comes when people sense an ending is coming. Endings give meaning to life as they do to poems, movies, novels and symphonies. As a Christian, I think we could bring some wisdom to the conversation–especially the fear.
In Norway, I hear, there is, as there is here, a real panic about the 2012 movie. The government has set up an emergency line for children to call in and talk about it–they are told, I hear, that it won’t happen, which is not the right answer, but from a secular point of view, the only answer. One could ask how they know, but then….
I’m tempted to think of the statement that when people don’t believe anything, they believe everything. Wasn’t there also just a poll that said secularists believe in ghosts, they go to fortune tellers, check their astrological signs, etc.? It seems to me that this shows a deep, almost frantic, religious hunger out there. I wonder too if the excesses of the sexual revolution and the need to really transgress every boundary isn’t a deeply perverted search for liminal places? You see this when you go to art museums and look at some contemporary art. To me, at some of the most distressing exhibits, such as one at the Lousianna museum in Copenhagen, called “I hate you”, it seemed like when God dies, so do human beings. The ugliness of humanity seemed almost unbearable. Is it because there’s no end in sight, no meaning? Maybe saving the planet gives meaning over and against that terrible emptiness, even if our own endings will be more like Eliot’s whimper than the big bang. And for certain, before it.
December 17, 2009 at 6:30 am
David Housholder
Trying to fill the God-shaped hole.
-Bono
December 17, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Dana Hanson
An immediate disclaimer: I am primarily of Danish descent. My great-grandfather was a businessman in Racine, Wisconsin, which has the largest population of Danes in North America (back off, Solvang). Our family name was spelled in the Danish fashion, “Hansen.” My great-grandfather changed it to “Hanson” and used this as a business branding technique. “Hansen with an ‘O’.”
Interesting that his gravestone, which I have seen, reads, “Hansen.” He probably just didn’t want to continue in eternity misidentified.
Now let’s talk about Denmark. The UN Copenhagen Climate Change Conference is in session. Undoubtedly, you have already heard about these proceedings. What you may not know, however, is the strong presence in Denmark of scientists like influential physicist, Henrick Svensmark, (who actually just had a heart attack in a climate debate in Denmark this week!) and organizations, like the Danish Space Center.
These Danes are on the leading edge of those who are questioning some of the research and conclusions being drawn concerning “climate change.”* So, having the UN conference in Denmark is deliciously, quite “ironic.”
It’s not that Danish scientists are hard core climate change deniers, or, My Lord (more appropriately, “Not My Lord”), far right religious fanatics (Denmark has one of the highest percentages of self-professed atheists in the world and traditional religious practice there by the Danish population is virtually non-existent). No, they are not right wing nut jobs or religious zealots.
They are just Danes.
Stereotypically, Danes will not be browbeaten, guilt-ed, politically correctivized, or talk downed to. I guess Viking genetics is still alive and well. This “stubbornness” and “tenacity” can bring about blessing or curse.
Blessing, in noble causes, like the fact that every Jew living in Denmark during WW II was saved from the Nazi’s by the Danish resistance who orchestrated their escape (Unless the Jewish Danes refused the help and chose to remain in country. Some of them were murdered. As a result of their bravery and compassion (or stubbornness), still today, Danish people are called, “Righteous Ones” by many Jews and Jewish organizations).
Or, curse, as in the case of holding on to depraved values, no matter what anyone else thinks. Like the fact that bestiality is legal in Denmark and there are actually animal brothels!
Stereotypically, Danes follow the beat of their own drum. So, when you have a Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, don’t be surprised you also have an alternative conference sponsored by the Danish group, Climate Sense, with speakers from the Danish National Space Center, among other Danish science organizations.
Then there is also the small matter of Bjorn Lomborg, to contend with. This is the Bjorn Lomborg, the leading critic in the world today, of the methodologies being considered or chosen to address climate change.
And a Dane.
If Al Gore is the face of climate change, Lomborg is his doppelganger. Bjorn Lomborg is the best known, and most often quoted skeptic in the world- The world of proposals by scientists and governments, of human responses to combat the negative consequences of climate change .
Lomborg is the author of the famous (or infamous) books, “Skeptical Environmentalist” and “Cool It!.” Lomborg is hardly a climate change- denying fanatic. One Lomborg quote will suffice:
“Global warming is real, it is caused by man-made CO2 emissions, and we need to do something about it. But we don’t need action that makes us feel good. We need action that actually does good.”
No, not a fanatic, he just thinks this issue is so politicized that we are going down exactly the wrong path. Not a “flat earth,” anti-scientific fundamentalist-
– but he is a Dane.
My favorite Lomborg story happened in 2007, when Al Gore was riding the wave of “An Inconvenient Truth,” and traveling to promote the book and film. He agreed to an interview by Lomborg (who was guest reporter for the largest Danish newspaper, “Jyllands-Posten”), while he was touring. The interview was set up months prior, and then suddenly canceled the day before! It appears Al Gore and Gore’s agent didn’t know who Bjorn Lomborg was until the day before the interview!!
The world’s leading skeptic of some of the research and conclusions touted by Gore in “An Inconvenient Truth,” and Vice President Gore and his agent had never- heard- of- Bjorn Lomborg. It would be like the Red Sox not knowing Derek Jeter… Priceless!
No interviews and no general press conferences.
No one allowed to inconveniently ask questions about “An Inconvenient Truth.” This was the procedure adopted by the Gore tour. Except Mr. Gore forgot one thing.
Lomborg is a Dane.
Here is Bjorn Lomborg getting a chance to connect with Vice President Gore, after all. Two years later. A little defensive, perhaps??
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/03/05/a-heated-exchange-al-gore-confronts-his-critics/
Don’t take my word for it. Do your own research. Here is one of Lomborg’s websites. You decide how fanatical he is.
http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/CCC%20Home%20Page.aspx
What does this have to say about the global warming debate?
First, when someone like Al Gore, who I am sure considers himself well-meaning and a man of goodwill in all of this controversy (no sarcasm, I really am sure he is not trying to bring in some sinister conspiracy to rule the world, or something), says something like,
“It’s kind of silly to keep debating the science,”
then I know this topic is not going to go away anytime soon.
No honest scientist with integrity would ever make such a statement on an issue so complex, unless there is another agenda at work. That may be why Vice President Gore received a “Nobel Peace Prize” instead of, oh, say, a Nobel Prize in Physics…
Second, you couldn’t have absolutely picked a worse group of people to try to verbally manipulate, scientifically ostracize, politically strong-arm, or culturally ridicule.
I mean, has everybody forgotten this so quickly?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy
* “When did “global warming” become “climate change,” you ask. I’m happy to oblige.
The term, “global warming” is not currently in vogue and has been replaced by “climate change.” Probably due to the fact that global temperatures have been cooling recently. So, even though this is considered a temporary blip in the trend where temperatures are definitely getting warmer, “climate change” is a no-brainer because it covers all bets. Global temperatures increasing or decreasing and, voila, you still have “climate change.”
It’s kind of like betting on “black” and “red” at a roulette table. You win either way. Well, not really, you simply break even…but, wait a minute, you get free drinks while placing those bets and so you do win!
Except you forgot about STUPID “0” and “00” coming up and losing all your bets, anyway. But, you will go to the sport’s book and bet on horses and drink free anyway. Sure, just put 2 dollar show bets on carefully selected “Best Bet of the Day” favorites and drift away on a Vegas afternoon…Except, do you know how many times favorites don’t come in??**
** I have all of this on good authority from a friend of mine who had this experience, and though I don’t understand all of this gambling stuff, I believe him…
December 18, 2009 at 3:59 am
matt
I appreciate Gracia’s note about how Climate Change hysteria may serve to satisfy the innate human desire to understand or somehow work against the ‘end times.’
You could go another step with that, noting a crucial difference between this secular apocolypticism and that of believers. For Christians (or at least some Christians!), the fires of hell are reserved for those who reject your worldview and your God. On the other hand, for ‘Green extremists,’ those who reject your worldview actually threaten to thrust all of us into destruction as the primary cause of this damned reality. Thus, dissenting opinion and lifestyle must be crushed to protect one’s own salvation.
December 18, 2009 at 8:08 am
David Lund
Another instance of the war against the poor by the rich. Jesus had some stuff to stay about this.
If the proposed policies are enacted, Al Gore will become a billionaire through the companies that he owns that will benefit. Why people think he is a disinterested observer is beyond me. Why is his LearJet OK when the rest of us should walk everywhere?
The whole thing is an obsession for the affluent and the comfortable. GloWa policies would trample the poor to death in many places. They would increase starvation and hinder development. (BTW as some suggest, a warming global temp would help the poor in many ways). Just as the environmentalist obsession kills children every day through malaria because people cannot get DDT spray, since their betters (the superior race) are determined to keep it from them.
They know better. How do they know? Well, they are the rich. They always know better.
DJL
December 19, 2009 at 4:25 pm
David Housholder
Have a look at this simple graphic. Do you agree with it or do you find the data forced?
http://www.notbluenotred.com/
December 20, 2009 at 12:31 am
graceconspiracy
agree
December 20, 2009 at 3:32 am
David Lund
I don’t think the data is forced. I think that “data” that is used by GloWa promoters is not factual. The recent leaked e-mails from East Anglia illustrate how the raw data (from weather stations, etc) is cherry-picked, selectively applied, and deleted when inconvenient.
This is another case of where we believe what the media and “experts” tell us, even when it contradicts our own senses and observations. And where we forget that these people will make huge money if we believe what they say (sell magazines, get research grants, reap profits).
When GloWa hysteria began, I started tracking average temperature where we live. “But GloWa doesn’t mean it will be warmer everywhere!” they say. So my measurements could mean nothing (Although “global” to me means all over the globe). But so be it. So I turned to sea level. Liquids do seek equilibrium via gravity, so if the ice caps are melting, the oceans will rise everywhere. I don’t think the sea could rise in the Maldives and not in Puget Sound. Anyhow, for twenty years the level of the highest and lowest tides on our beach have not changed. I make marks. So I see myself that the ocean is not rising and it would take a large mountain of empirical evidence for me to believe otherwise, and mistrust my own clear gathered data.
Dear friends: Have you, yourself, based on your own observations or measurements, concluded that climate is changing? If not, why do you simply believe what the media and “experts” tell you?
Experts have said all kinds of things when it is in their financial and prestige interests to do so. The world is flat, slaves are incapable of freedom, non-Aryan crania are formed differently, a new ice age will soon be upon us. And always many people have believed these things they are told by their betters.
But we all have our brains, given by the Creator, and the ability to make our own observations and come to our own conclusions.
December 20, 2009 at 5:06 am
David Lund
P.S. go to http://www.argo.net and argo.ucsd.edu. There you can see the uncensored raw data yourself from the 3185 drifting buoy transmitters floating around the world on the currents reporting data on the water’s temperature and salinity. The Argo people have chosen to be transparent and, well, practice the scientific method. What a concept!
December 19, 2009 at 10:57 pm
graceconspiracy
Whatever we think about the science or the ideology of the global warming “debate,” I think there is something that we can agree on.
The fossil fuels powering our planet are a finite resource. Unfortunately, we are using these sources of energy as if they are unlimited. Therefore, we need to seek sustainable, renewable sources of energy sooner rather than later. And… we need to find a way to make sure our human population levels do need exceed the planet’s “carrying capacity,” the number of people that can be fed, clothed and housed according to these energy levels.
Currently, we are living the story of the Rich Fool in Luke 12, only this time it is not “just” a parable. Our time is just about up. Repent!
December 20, 2009 at 4:41 am
David Lund
Here is an area where basic economics will set us straight. There is surely a finite amount of fossil fuel on the earth in some absolute sense, but that is not relevant, since well over 90% of it is inaccessible to us and most likely always will be.
Between the 1970’s and 1990’s, the global oil reserve grew continually. (Maybe 10 fold? something like that). It did so again between 2003 and summer 2008. Even though worldwide consumption has increased. How?
I learned on the edge of the North Sea that some oil fields are more difficult to extract from than others. Some fields that are not feasible when oil sells for $70 a barrel become feasible and “come online” when the barrel sells for $100. The greater the revenue, the more can be spent on extraction and still net a profit. Hence the industry boom as the price approached $150 in July 2008 (and the spectacular fall to $35 by Thanksgiving). The global oil supply in any given year is entirely a function of the price of a barrel of oil. (I haven’t even mentioned the effect of the development of better extraction technologies). Oil can even be gotten out of shale rock if the price is $120 or more. There is more oil in Alberta than Saudi. But extracting it there is a Herculean effort compared to poking a hole in the ground in Arabia. Costs a ton.
Hence the cyclical nature of the price of oil. When price is low, more difficult production stops, inventories go down, and eventually the price rises again. When the price is high, new sources come online, soon there is a glut of production and nowhere to put it, and the price falls again.
This could go on for many centuries, and not make a dent in the potential oil reserve. The reserve is really limited only by the ability of the price to rise. I believe that the use of oil as our primary fuel will come to an end long before the supply is exhausted. Just like with wood and coal. Long before their reserves were exhausted, these fuels stopped being primary and were replaced in their turn.
France, of all countries, is showing the way. With hydro and nuclear, I believe they burn no fossil fuel to make electricity, as electric propulsion for cars now begins to become feasible. If only people would stop fretting about finite reserves and “peak oil” and focus on the coming transition to other primary fuels. Every switch in primary fuel has been hugely beneficial, and so will the next one be. I wonder how much is paid out in grants to propulsion and fuel researchers compared to the billions going to nagging CO2 Cassandras who seem to accept the centrality of oil as a fixed feature of the universe. (“Carbon credits” would only have value as long as oil is primary, and coal significant. So the currently proposed schemes would have the perverse incentive for government to perpetuate dependence on oil and oppose alternatives, lest its revenues fall.)
In America we’re burning coal for power like it’s the 19th century. Who’ll work to create a cheaper alternative we can switch to (since a consistently lower price is the tectonic force that causes every industrial sea change)? Oh no, not us!
December 20, 2009 at 4:53 am
David Lund
BTW, please connect these comments to my former ones. I believe that the average person, armed with the history and movement of the price of oil, and their own reason, can make sense of the situation pretty quickly. Again, it’s curious that we are so quick to believe what “experts” tell us– even when what they say is constantly changing– rather than trust our own intuition, observations, logic and common sense.
December 19, 2009 at 10:59 pm
graceconspiracy
See also “the story of stuff” on YouTube or the “stuff” website for a hard look at how we are treating our planet.
December 28, 2009 at 4:52 pm
David Housholder
Global disappointment over Copenhagen:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&ref=nf&gid=212448202491
December 31, 2009 at 6:53 pm
David Lund
Here’s another example of mistrusting people with eyes in favor of “scientists”:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126221385046310927.html
The Inuit Mr. Awa sees more polar bears everywhere he goes, with his own eyes. But a bunch of academics sitting at computers tell him he’s wrong. With their “models” they claim to know better than a person on the ground making his own observations with his own senses. Thankfully, I doubt Mr. Awa watches a lot of cable news, so he still trusts his own perceptions, and is willing to say out loud that the “scientists” are incorrect. He suspects, since he knows what they are saying is wrong, that there must be some other agenda at work.
December 31, 2009 at 7:56 pm
duhsciple
Within the same Wall Street article there is this:
“Not so fast, say many polar-bear researchers. Inuit might be seeing lots of bears now because melting ice is forcing them closer to places where people live. And there might be more bears now than 30 years ago because of limits on hunting, but several populations show signs of recent decline — particularly in the southern part of their range.
Climate warming is the main culprit, most scientists say. Polar bears live by fishing for seals atop ice that forms in the Arctic seas. When that ice melts in the summer, the bears move or come ashore and fast until ice forms again in the fall.”
The article does a good job looking at the different kinds of evidence and noting the debate over the meaning of this evidence. For example, Mr. Awa might be in an area where polar bears are seeking refuge. Of course, there might be other explanations. Science is a process of testing and re-testing evidence. I am concerned that the ideological lens in which we interpret and test evidence is becoming more and more dominant. Sigh
December 31, 2009 at 9:11 pm
David Lund
Touche.
You are exactly right about real scientific method. Testing, re-testing, challenging, skepticism, review. Exactly.
What I’m concerned about is the tendency on the part of powerful people to dismiss skepticism and other sources and modes of understanding data. My problem is with the attempt to dismiss people who aren’t as “credentialed” or who disagree with the conventional wisdom– because that attitude is, well, unscientific.
When you hear anyone say “the science is settled, the debate is over,” then you know you have an ideologue, not a scientific thinker. In the scientific method, there is no such thing as a debate that is over. If so, then Einstein never would have challenged Newtonian physics. New data, new voices, new methods, new tools, new conclusions.
What I and Mr. Aya don’t like is being dismissed as idiots as I make my marks on my bulkhead and he counts his bears.
At some point, every expert or specialist, whether in climate science or theology, must decide whether or not they trust the observations and common sense of normal people, as well as their specialized knowledge. Those who choose to do so are much wiser and better at what they do.
December 31, 2009 at 9:22 pm
David Lund
Having conceded your point, I will still ask you: Does it make any sense to you that the Inuit would see more bears if the ice were retreating? Human habitations are to the south of the ice, bears need the ice. Melting ice would seem to make them further from where people live.
“Polar bear researchers” who would contradict Mr. Aya earn their living how?
Finally: what if the bear population is increasing? What if there is climate change and it causes the polar bear to flourish? Nobody asks this.
Agronomists seem to be saying that a warmer climate would enhance food production and reduce starvation.
Who said the current climate is the optimal one?
January 24, 2010 at 4:48 am
David Housholder
UN admits Glacier Error:
http://tinyurl.com/yc2yb3w
June 25, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Shad your Web
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