Thursday, March 15, 2007

A Different Point Of View

I read this article in the Calgary Sun (gasp!) last night. So I thought I should post it just to give a different perspective on global warming. Enjoy.



Debunking global warming myths

By LICIA CORBELLA

The British documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle is, well ... great.
The program, which aired last Thursday in the U.K. to much buzz, has since been watched by hundreds of thousands of others around the world via the Internet. It exposes numerous lies and myths presented as fact by those who believe in the unproven hypothesis that human-created carbon dioxide (CO2) is the driver of the Earth's warming climate.
The same broadcaster -- Channel 4 in the U.K. -- that recently exposed the extremist ideology being preached in Britain's supposedly "moderate" mosques has now similarly helped to tear away the veil of lies and religious zeal surrounding the global warming industry.
The film features an impressive group of experts in the fields of climatology, oceanography, biogeography, meteorology, and paleoclimatology from reputable institutions such as NASA, MIT, The International Arctic Research Centre, the Pasteur Institut in Paris, the Danish National Space Center and the Universities of Winnipeg, Ottawa, London, Jerusalem, Alabama and Virginia.
That should help top the claims there is a consensus of scientists who believe in man-made global warming.
Expert after expert in this film blasts craters into the theory that CO2 -- which only makes up 0.054% of the earth's atmosphere -- has ever driven climate. Ice core records, in fact, prove the opposite, that CO2 lags warming by as much as 800 years.
The main cause of warming is, not surprisingly, the sun.
"The analogy I use," says Dr. Tim Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg, "is my car's not running very well, so I'm going to ignore the engine, which is the sun, and I'm going to ignore the transmission, which is the water vapour and I'm going to look at one nut on the right rear wheel which is the human produced CO2. The science is that bad."
The film starts off covering indisputable facts. There was a Medieval Warm Period that was warmer than today -- that led to incredible wealth in Europe when the bulk of the continent's great cathedrals were built and when Britain had thriving vineyards. Then came the Little Ice Age that started in the 17th century and was so cold London's Thames River would freeze so solidly festivals were held on it.
About 10,000 years ago, during a time known as the Holocene Maximum, it was much warmer even than the Medieval times.
Dr. Ian Clark, Prof. of Isotope Hydrogeology and Paleoclimatology at the U of Ottawa, notes polar bears (which have become the poster-animal of the global warming industry) survived that sustained warm cycle and that volcanoes produce more CO2 every year than all human activity.
What's more, prior to 1940 temperatures on Earth were rising long before industrialization took place.
Then, when carbon dioxide emissions rose markedly in the post-war economic boom period, temperatures fell for the next three decades, again, in direct contravention of the theory being espoused and believed by so many.
Ironically, in the 1970s, just as scientists started predicting another climate catastrophe -- an impending ice age -- the planet started warming again.
The documentary ends with a quote from Dr. Fred Singer of the U of Virginia.
"There will still be people who believe this is the end of the world, particularly when you have, for example, the chief scientist of the U.K. telling people that by the end of the century the only habitable place on the Earth with be the Antarctic and humanity may survive thanks to some breeding couples who move to the Antarctic. I mean, this is hilarious," he says with a chuckle.
"It would be hilarious, actually, if it weren't so sad."

See the film at:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog?entry=24760&only



The link hasn't worked for me. But if you email the columnist at the Calgary Sun. I'm sure she'll send you the full link.

6 comments:

schmunky said...

Gary, Gary, Gary.

What can I say. Seriously dude. If you want to spend time in the "denial" lounge with Charles Johnson Anne Coulter and Licia Corbella and the rest of the Exxon Funded Global Warming Denial Lobby, thats fine, you're a big boy.

However Myself, and every article on climate change published in peer-reviewed scientific journals over a 10-year period, and every reputable scientific organization on earth will be dining in reality tonight, and every night. You're welcome to join us at your convenience. Do try to make it before it's too late though, oh and please, if you can, bring your boy Harper with you. Thanks.

Dr.Clawmonkey said...

y'know the link for your global warming denial lobby. It's just like Corbella, only on the other side.
I particularly liked the last comment from the dude in Australia. A different point of view, from the outside.
Each side has their own group of experts/scientists. And each side takes a turn at attacking each others credibility. Who's right? Obviously you think your side is right. That's cool. I'm not sure who it is. Each side has their facts and figures. Also, each side has they're flaws.

I'm not denying we need to be more environmentally friendly. But I think we, as a society, have to get away from being dependent on fossil fuels. unfortunately I don't think that's going to happen in my lifetime.

And to quote my new australian friend---"There is a reverse Macarthyism happening in which anyone who questions the prevailing global warming orthodoxy is shouted down and called a lackey of the oil companies. The fact is that questioning scientific findings is a necessity. What's happened to science here?"

Also,---"The Kytoto Protocol is dead. The US will never sign it. China and India (over a throd of the world's population and advancing industrially at an incredible rate) are not part of it. What's the point? Best estimates are that if everyone signed Kyoto it would save us 0.05C in 50 years. Has the world gone crazy?"


But hey we got to fight the good fight. It's all about implementing Kyoto. Stay the course, a thousand points of light. Stay the course!

schmunky said...

No Gary, One side has scientists. The other side has 'experts'.
One side has scientific study, the other has Opinions.

Find one peer reviewed scientific study that supports the deniers claims...one.

That is the difference. It's not a question of McCarthism. It's a question of differentiating between Faith and Reason.If a Christian has faith in the bible, great, super, however when a Christian tries to make biblical laws part of my countries laws I got a problem. The problem is not that I hate Christians, it's that I don't want a Moral Opinion to trump reality. The global warming deniers are not backed up by facts. Anyone can say "the earth's warming is perfectly natural" but the fact of the matter is no scientific study is backing that claim. Whereas there are about 700 studies that refute it.

At this point I have to believe you are just being willfully obtuse. again here are the actual memos and directives from Exxon to finance the deniers.

again you say " Each side has their own group of experts/scientists. And each side takes a turn at attacking each others credibility. Who's right? Obviously you think your side is right. That's cool. I'm not sure who it is. Each side has their facts and figures. Also, each side has they're flaws." but that is simply not true. I geuss you missed this part of my linked article.

scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect. ... Many details about climate interactions are not well understood, and there are ample grounds for continued research to provide a better basis for understanding climate dynamics. The question of what to do about climate change is also still open. But there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen.

schmunky said...

I know I'm 2:1 on your posts but you struck a nerve, well played Monkey"

I missed your Australian Friends quote about..." Questioning Scientific study" being a necessity.

I think you guys need to realize what PEER REVIWED means.

There are over 900 peer reviewed papers that accept Global Warming and zero that dispute it. Deniers like the good Dr. Ian Clarke, do not publish any papers disputing it, for the simple reason that it would not hold up. Instead they go on "speaking tours" or Talking head shows (Dr. Clarke was recently on Mike Duffy's segment on CTV) where they know they will get no serious scrutiny. The Austrailian Guy is using pure projection, It is the deniers who do not publish, and instead use the scientific equivalant of heresay and slander to suggest that there is no concensus.

His point about grants? OK, the Suzuki Foundation works on Donations, I understand how people can be skeptical, I mean God Knows who could be paying the bills.

Take Dr. Clarke, he works for a group called NSRP so you know when one lears that his work is sponsored by a foundation financed by a Gas Lobby Firm then I think his impartiality should also be questioned.

So then, what are the nefarious aims of these groups?

* NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS)
* National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):
* Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC):
* National Academy of Sciences (NAS):
* State of the Canadian Cryosphere (SOCC)
* Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):
* The Royal Society of the UK (RS)
* American Geophysical Union (AGU):
* American Meteorological Society (AMS):
* American Institute of Physics (AIP):
* National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR):
* American Meteorological Society (AMS):
* Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS):

Particularly NASA and the EPA who's members are regularly persecuted or muzzledfor accepting the science of global warming since their boss, a Mr. G, Bush, is openly hostile to the concept?

Anyway as you can probably tell this stuff really gets my goat. KEEP IN MIND I WORK FOR A FUCKING OILFIELD COMPANY!!! they try to ram this crap down our throats all the time. I spoke up once and Asked a question about the Author of the report and *POOF* all the denial literature vanished...

Dr.Clawmonkey said...

totally dude.

Yes I'm being a little obtuse as I like a good debate. Also I like to get you going. But I wish the liberals had done this back in the 90's when they first started paying us lip service. Also, I got friends and family (like yourself) who work for the evil empire. And I don't want to see peoples livelihood wrecked. Not to mention the auto industry in Ontario. That's probably why the liberals kept paying us the lip servcie.

Will you agree the US, China and India will never sign Kyoto. They said on CBC newsworld. Even if Canada stopped everything today. absolute 0 emissions. the world wouldn't notice any change for 1000 years. As Canada only contributes 2% of the earth's greenhouse gas emissions.

It's difficult as we have to get society away from fossil fuels. But then we'll all freeze to death eventually. Well up in Canada anyway.

schmunky said...

You Know what?
If the Deniers basic Argument was what you just said, (i.e. political issues re. USA China, ((BTW if a democrat wins in 2008 look for a Kyoto type replacement to appear)), it wouldn't piss me off so much. But the EXCUSE that these deniers provide is what ENABLES the elites in countries like USA, China and India to throw up a smokescreen of ..."well there's a dispute over the science."

I'm sure the world would be in a better place if we could move on to dealing with the problems of implementation, be they political, economic etc. But as long as Exxon sponsored douchbags like Tim Ball and Friends of Science are given the media exposure that they are, by obvious partisan hacks like Licia Corbella, Fox News, and the National Post, we cannot move to the place where we deal with the problems that we speak of. If the entire world community is united in the FACT that the concensus on Global Warming is real, all it will take for the turning point is a democratic victory in the US in 2008, the rest of the world will come around(and China will come around, they cannt afford to lose another 20% of their average yearly rainfall.

No one is saying that it will be painless, and it will probably suck for a while. But the 500 foot tidal wave I spoke of before is the alternative. As some one who lives within 100 yards of the ocean, I am concerned that by the time the Conservative plan kicks in my child's inheritance will be underwater.