Senate Report: Gore Lies, Media Biased, Advocates Misrepresent

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Ramo


That was an argument for him being the dumbest person in the Senate.

I'm pretty sure Barbara Boxer has that title completely sown up.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Warming climate: very well understood, I think.

Correct withtin the last 150 years although very murky on any basis longer than that. And that primarily only for the northern hemisphere for this instrumentation period.
OUtside that realm temperature proxies are employed.

Interestingly ice core data had long established a mideval warming pattern. Only with more recent (and quite honestly more suspect from an integrity point of view IMO) was the MWP erased.

Man's involvement: much less understood, I think, still the best theory to date. (That we are primarily responsible)

Much debate stilllingers on this particular point.

That the climate is going to change to **** us all over: Pure speculation.

JM

Yep

[Ned]

Ogie, I don't have a chart, but even in the last 100 years, temps have risen, declined, risen and are now flat and have been for almost 10 years. The global cooling scare came after decades of falling temperatures.

What we have not seen is a consistent rise in temperatures that one would expect as CO2 rose. The correlation is not good.

[Arrian]

The way I see it, we're clearly introducing a lot of pollutants into the environment and we're not really sure what that's going to do (on a global scale - locally, the results are clear - BAD).

So, even if you're not sold on "global warming," why not be cautious? Why not try to reduce emissions of pollutants, within the bounds of reason? Even if the impact of industrial pollution is other than that which is theorized by global warming advocates, it strikes me as rather unlikely to be good for us.

-Arrian

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Ned
Ogie, I don't have a chart, but even in the last 100 years, temps have risen, declined, risen and are now flat and have been for almost 10 years. The global cooling scare came after decades of falling temperatures.

What we have not seen is a consistent rise in temperatures that one would expect as CO2 rose. The correlation is not good.

Of course there are short term variations and cycles. A 10 year rolling average is probably too short to base any information on as it doesn't even inlcude one solar cycle.

More to the point much of the CO2 forcing information is based upon either very dubious tree ring or other vegatative historical information or upon corals or ice core information. If one looks hard at that data one can see most of the time a CO2 lag vs. global temps. the few times CO2 concentrations preceeded global warmings (presumably due volcanic activity or the like)the planet the global temps did not responds as current models would suggest. Of course solar input and other factors not accounted for.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Arrian
The way I see it, we're clearly introducing a lot of pollutants into the environment and we're not really sure what that's going to do (on a global scale - locally, the results are clear - BAD).

So, even if you're not sold on "global warming," why not be cautious? Why not try to reduce emissions of pollutants, within the bounds of reason? Even if the impact of industrial pollution is other than that which is theorized by global warming advocates, it strikes me as rather unlikely to be good for us.

-Arrian

Because your point is also under debate. There is no consensus that warming the planet (if AGW is to be beleived as the primary mechanism for global warming) and the subsequent increase in precipitation would mean anything and might in fact actually be fortuitous.

As for your point regarding pollutants, by and large the air quality (at least in the US) is significantly cleaner with the exceptionof CO2 levels than in the previous 40 years.

[Arrian]

That presumes:

a) that "global warming" theory is correct (industrial pollution = warming, which in your scenario is good)

b) that warming is the only effect.

The truth is we really don't know the effects of what we're doing, on a global level. We *do* know what industrial pollution does on a smaller scale (soil/groundwater contamination, pollution of rivers/lakes, acid rain, etc) and it's sure as hell not good.

Given that, and given the uncertainty, it would seem prudent to err on the side of caution.

-Arrian

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Arrian
That presumes:

a) that "global warming" theory is correct (industrial pollution = warming, which in your scenario is good)

b) that warming is the only effect.

The truth is we really don't know the effects of what we're doing, on a global level. We *do* know what industrial pollution does on a smaller scale (soil/groundwater contamination, pollution of rivers/lakes, acid rain, etc) and it's sure as hell not good.

Given that, and given the uncertainty, it would seem prudent to err on the side of caution.

-Arrian

Actually we do know that global cooling is a far far worse fate for the earth than global warming. Cries that the earth has never experieced such warm conditions are patently false. I point to recently found fossil records in antartica of dinosaurs. I likewise point to pertirifed tree stunmps now being unveiled as finally the glaciers retreat. Tree stumps carbon dating at or about 1000 and 2000 years respectively.

No there is no real good solution for global cooling and the massive death tolls that ensue. Global warming while concerning is not nearly as catastrophic, so if we are going to err.......

[Ned]

Originally posted by Arrian
The way I see it, we're clearly introducing a lot of pollutants into the environment and we're not really sure what that's going to do (on a global scale - locally, the results are clear - BAD).

So, even if you're not sold on "global warming," why not be cautious? Why not try to reduce emissions of pollutants, within the bounds of reason? Even if the impact of industrial pollution is other than that which is theorized by global warming advocates, it strikes me as rather unlikely to be good for us.

-Arrian

There is a problem, Arrian. We don't understand why the world cools and warms and cools again. We have seen a remarkable drop in sunlight reaching the Earth in recent decades. We have seen a remarkable rise in aerosol production that cools the Earth. We are at the very end of an interglacial period that suggests we risk going into a deep ice age.

Caution suggests we understand fully what the situation is and what we should do before we do anything.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Kudos to Park Avenue for posting the Monckton respose to Al Gore.

Pwnage thy target is Gore.

[Drake Tungsten]

Why not try to reduce emissions of pollutants, within the bounds of reason?

What are "the bounds of reason"? I approve of reducing pollution, but not if its going to reduce economic growth, for example. And I don't think many other people would disagree with me on that. It seems to me that a lot of the backlash over global warming comes because people are arguing for solutions that aren't within "the bounds of reason" as many people see them...

[Impaler[WrG]]

Caution suggests we understand fully what the situation is and what we should do before we do anything.

Ned you do realize that ANYTHING is already being done and has been done from the start of the industrial revolution. Not doing anything would be to cease adding anything to the atmosphere. You are advocating that we keep doing whats being done aka the status-quo which is to exponential incresse the amount of CO2 being put into the atmosphere AS IF THAT WAS DOING NOTHING.

By your perverted logic in which nothing is something and something is nothing we would have to to firmly keep our foot on the gas pedal (to the floor mind you) UNTILL we can see some danger when darkness decends on us when driving. Because acording to your logic we shouldn't change from the current course of action untill we know exactly what the situation is.

I can grant you the infintesimal chance that causing massive global climate change MIGHT be good in some as of yet unkown way, in the same sense that suddenly chopping up your furniture and burning it in the fireplace without knowing what the weather forcast might be good because a blizzard might be comming. Its insane to argue that should be our course of action.

[Arrian]

Caution suggests we understand fully what the situation is and what we should do before we do anything.

To me "doing something" includes pumping out all the various emissions that we introduce into the environment. We've been doing something (more and more something) for hundreds of years now. Doing nothing would mean shutting everything down (obviously impossible).

Ogie,

I still don't think you understand what I'm saying. I'm saying that we simply do not know what impact we are having on the Earth - whether what we're doing is contributing to warming, cooling (short or long term - it's possible that short-term warming might induce long-term cooling) or "other." Given that, I'd rather err on the side of reducing our environmental footprint.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Why not try to reduce emissions of pollutants, within the bounds of reason?

What are "the bounds of reason"? I approve of reducing pollution, but not if its going to reduce economic growth, for example. And I don't think many other people would disagree with me on that. It seems to me that a lot of the backlash over global warming comes because people are arguing for solutions that aren't within "the bounds of reason" as many people see them...

The bounds of reason is obviously a nebulous thing.

I think we need to find a compromise between "do nothing, it'll hurt the economy!" and "OMG we need to all ride bikes!"

Crashing our economy is clearly not a good option. I do firmly believe, however, that we can do more than we're doing now without undue (there's another nebulous word) adverse economic impact.

-Arrian

[DinoDoc]

If you're not completely sold on Global Warming (I'm not), why not do something to lower our dependence on oil just for national security reasons? The reduced reason to give a crap about the ME alone would go along way to make the effort worthwhile IMO.