…,meant to bring attention to global warming was called off after one of the explorers got frostbite. The explorers, Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen, on Saturday called off what was intended to be a 530-mile trek across the Arctic Ocean after Arnesen suffered frostbite in three of her toes, and extreme cold temperatures drained the batteries in some of their electronic equipment.
“Ann said losing toes and going forward at all costs was never part of the journey,” said Ann Atwood, who helped organize the expedition.
[…]
The explorers had planned to call in regular updates to school groups by satellite phone, and had planned online posts with photographic evidence of global warming. In contrast to Bancroft’s 1986 trek across the Arctic with fellow Minnesota explorer Will Steger, this time she and Arnesen were prepared to don body suits and swim through areas where polar ice has melted.
Via Drudge, who has this teaser –
NY TIMES PLANS HIT ON GORE, NEWSROOM SOURCES TELL DRUDGE: ‘Scientists argue that Gore’s warnings are full of exaggerated claims and startling errors’… Reporter William Broad filing the story, ‘A CALL TO COOL THE HYPE’… Developing…
Update: Article is here.
Other critics have zeroed in on Mr. Gore’s claim that the energy industry ran a “disinformation campaign” that produced false discord on global warming. The truth, he said, was that virtually all unbiased scientists agreed that humans were the main culprits. But Benny J. Peiser, a social anthropologist in Britain who runs the Cambridge-Conference Network, or CCNet, an Internet newsletter on climate change and natural disasters, challenged the claim of scientific consensus with examples of pointed disagreement.
“Hardly a week goes by,” Dr. Peiser said, “without a new research paper that questions part or even some basics of climate change theory,” including some reports that offer alternatives to human activity for global warming.
Geologists have documented age upon age of climate swings, and some charge Mr. Gore with ignoring such rhythms.
“Nowhere does Mr. Gore tell his audience that all of the phenomena that he describes fall within the natural range of environmental change on our planet,” Robert M. Carter, a marine geologist at James Cook University in Australia, said in a September blog. “Nor does he present any evidence that climate during the 20th century departed discernibly from its historical pattern of constant change.”
In October, Dr. Easterbrook made similar points at the geological society meeting in Philadelphia. He hotly disputed Mr. Gore’s claim that “our civilization has never experienced any environmental shift remotely similar to this” threatened change.
Nonsense, Dr. Easterbrook told the crowded session. He flashed a slide that showed temperature trends for the past 15,000 years. It highlighted 10 large swings, including the medieval warm period. These shifts, he said, were up to “20 times greater than the warming in the past century.”
If you have the time, it’s also worth your while to check out Charles Adler’s show from today for one of the most intellectually vacant dismissals of global warming skepticism I’ve yet heard, from journalist Michael Harris. It’s deserving of transcription, if only to serve as a formal example of the art of cheap shot namecalling as rebuttal.
And for those of you who have left this link (see below) in nearly every comments thread over the past three days – The Great Global Warming Swindle.
Speaking of which: these Blog Policy notes
I don’t link or feature every item that rolls over the blogosphere just because it’s rolling over the blogosphere. Or heading up every newscast. Or the front page of the Globe. There are only so many hours in a day, and more importantly, there are only so many posts readers have time for. If you’ve seen something mentioned two or three times in the comments, and nothing on the main page from me about it – consider it a hint. I either don’t have the interest, I think it’s redundant (which the “Swindle” video is, considering the wealth of detailed posts archived here on that very topic) or its already been beaten to death and I have nothing more to add.
Now, as you were.
As Canada’s fave blog dominatrex , feel free to beat away .
I’m sorry to hear that woman lost three toes to frostbite. At least now she’ll have a smaller carbon footprint.
“…blog dominatrix”! LMAO! 🙂
…Dang! Was hoping Darwin’s law/awards would come into effect.
Harris has been thumping the Kyoto drum on his afternoon show on CFRA as well; that, coupled with his ever-present Bush Derangement Syndrome means that I listen to CDs in the afternoon.
On a serious note about that article, I was struck by the last paragraph of the AP article:
“Atwood [ed.-expedition organizer]said there was some irony that a trip to call attention to global warming was scuttled in part by extreme cold temperatures. “They were experiencing temperatures that weren’t expected with global warming,” Atwood said. “But one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability..”
So, temperatures hitting 100 bloody degrees below zero, not counting wind chill…and this woman STILL says this is evidence of GLOBAL WARMING!
Is this a manifestation of neurosis? An obsessive-compulsive thinking pattern completely at odds with reality?
I wouldn’t call the Great Global Warming Swindle redundant. Certainly the content of it is and has been around in various forms, but this documentary is the perfect foil for An Inconvenient Truth. I for one am making sure the granolaroids in my circle get to see it. Especially those who haven’t yet seen AIT(L). I believe in preventive intellectualism.
In all seriousness. Please try not to defer to ridicule or sarcasm
Kate or a Kate approved representative, I’m failing to see the correlation between the following issues.
Economic politics
Social politics
Environmental policy re: (greenhouse gasses, destruction of landscape and just plain littering separated)
Religion
Gun control (how big a gun would you like any ‘ol bloke to have)
Controlled substances (cigarettes vs alcohol vs pot vs herion, etc)
Foreign policy
I can’t quite sort out why people seem to all travel in a pack on these subjects.
Finally Kate, thank you. I am not normally so insistant but this is important.
Yes, Kate, I read your justification. But, given the importance of this 80 minute film, it should be pronounced from the hilltops. And your site is a hilltop to pronounce from 🙂
I have sent the link to every e-mail address I have – yeah, I suck, I know, but we are engaged in a propaganda war with the pseudo-eco leftists.
Why pseudo-eco? Becuase we all know, they and us, that they don’t give a tinkers d**n about the environment, we have seen the history; it is merely a hammer to bang the capitalists with.
I watched the Swindle – it was okay but didn’t really offer anything new to anyone reasonably informed on the topic. Some things were over-torqued, which I suppose is okay just to deliver shock value and get noticed, but mostly it was notable only for being broadcast at all.
“anyone reasonably informed on the topic”. So that’s about maybe 32 non-scientists. Swindle isn’t offering anything new – there isn’t anything new… that’s the whole point of it. What its offering is the nothing new, explained in coherent layman’s terms, from the people who actually know. Not that science is going to get in the way of a good market scheme.
Whether or not Kate promotes an issue from SDA’s comments to a main article is indeed entirely up to her, and it would do for folks to respect that. I have been sitting on my hands itching to post about Swindle here for four days now, yet I’ve said nothing before, because it’s solely up to Kate as to whether or not that is to be a topic here. And now it is (thanks, Kate).
As regulars know, I am by study, degree, and day-to-day work a scientist and an engineer, although to be clear, formally I am not an accredited professional engineer. I do work on computer models of the sort that are involved in climate modeling.
In my opinion the most important points raised by Swindle (with my apologies to other important points raised therein that I am not going to comment on now) are that the CO2 concentrations record temporally follows the temperature record, and that the Solar flux record temporally leads the temperature record, and that the Solar flux record is more highly correlated to the temperature record than the CO2 record is.
At this point, a reasonable man must conclude that Solar flux is the forcing function for temperature, and that temperature is the forcing function for moles per cubic meter of CO2 concentration, at least until a better model is found.
Logically, then, the biggest problem we have to deal with is how to adapt to the changes in Solar flux (whether or not we are about to enter another colder period due to predicted declines in Solar flux over the next few decades). It is not the case that our biggest problem is reducing our output of CO2, because the human output of CO2 is responsible for only some ten-millionths of the total green-house gas effect (to the degree that the green-house gas effect is relevant in the first place).
That Swindle has some limitations when considered by students of the issues, as Kevin mentions, is to be expected, as it is a production intended principally to be of interest to non-students of this matter. Pedagogical materials are like that. The key is, in my opinion, that it does a good job of highlighting what science does know, as opposed to what politics wants us to believe.
Lastly, it is not my intent to say that we should not be diligent on the matter of not soiling our nest. It is indeed unfortunate that the current public feeding frenzy on matters carbon dioxide is hampering our efforts to actually do a better job of all things human, net net.
With respect, I believe “Climate Swindle” deserves A LOT of exposure. The world is up against a huge, fanatical cult. And as we have seen in the past, cults are VERY dangerous.
In order to correct the imbalance of the past, Patrick Moore should recieve a DAY of media attention for every minute that Suzuki gets.
Kate invites the pack to gather and howl and complains when they bring home some smelly old meat to share?
She wolf!
😉
Kate,
as a long time reader I question
1) why you didn’t post The Great Global Warming Swindle earlier, and
2)faulting those from requesting you do.
It is your blog and of course you can do with it what you wish, but,
I just saw that video for the first time, through your link, and it was frankly stunning, in its detail, depth, references to some of the world’s top scientists in their respective feilds and the general production quality.
Note that I am a regular blogger. If I didn’t see it until now, I’m sure there are many, many others who haven’t. It was only through your posting that I was made aware of it (yes I saw it in passing elsewhere but with so many “you gotta see this! type of links its easy to miss – you on the other hand have a lot of credibility with Canadian internet users as evident from your sitemeter readings).
Folks who ask you to link it are merely expressing their frustration that something so powerful isn’t being played anywhere in the North American mainstream. If a site like SDA doesn’t play it, perhaps the cause is lost.
Yes other popular sites refer to it, but they still only represent a fraction of the public exposure.
If your faithful readers (OK Mazz2 doesn’t count..just kidding there mazarioni) tell you (implicitly or otherwise) that there’s a desire and or a need, chances are there’s a legitimate desire and or a need.
Cheers.
I think that Kevin’s note to the effect that Swindle was notable for being broadcast at all is important, in three senses. Firstly, credit to the individuals who were strong enough to swim against the tide and be involved in this production must be acknowledged. Secondly, credit is due to Channel 4 for broadcasting their argument as it deserves in our inquiry into the science of our planet’s behaviour and the behaviour of our political species thereto.
And, thirdly: what do you think the chances would be that the millions of people across the planet who have now seen the reletively obscure independent Channel 4’s production would have seen it without this network of networks we call the Internet, and, yea verily, Google Videos and YouTube. The big-money fear-mongers and largest organs of the traditional media are opposed to this sort of fraud-busting stuff because it marks on their supposed turf, and there were times in the past when they could have been quite successful at blocking it, yet we have now all seen it.
That’s the original definition of the Internet by Cerf and Kahn: a network of networks. They were speaking of a switching protocol, not a network that included print, radio, television, and commentary networks, yet the work done by them, their colleagues, and their predecessors and successors is the new platform we stand on here as we continue to slowly learn how to better cooperate to improve our situations, while still maintaining our individuality.
Welcome to the third millenium.
Kate, I have to agree with the above – and the ‘as you were’ dismissal is something right out of a Kinsella comment.
Warmer weather breaking records
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2007/01/03/mba-weather.html
Rainfall records smashed
http://www.itv.com/news/index_8335be16a310260d310d12be5fe5be11.html
hottest February for the past 100 years.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21301401-5005961,00.html
This winter in central Europe has been the WARMEST ON RECORD.
http://www.playfuls.com/news_005050_ROUNDUP_Winter_In_Central_Europe_Warmest_On_Record.html
This February was the HOTTEST IN 50 YEARS
http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php?num=01AGR280207
FIRST WINTER WITHOUT SNOW FOR 131 YEARS
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/asia-pacific/6407771.stm
BROKE ALL PREVIOUS RECORDS of rainfall
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=224851
current rain season the SECOND DRIEST ON RECORD.
http://www.nbc4.tv/news/11146145/detail.html
Canberra SET A RECORD FOR THE MOST THUNDERSTORMS IN A SINGLE MONTH
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyid=2007-02-28T085012Z_01_SYD143213_RTRIDST_0_OUKOE-UK-AUSTRALIA-WEATHER.XML&WTmodLoc=SciHealth-R6-MostRead-3
The STRONGEST MARCH SNOWSTORM IN 56 YEARS hit northeast China’s Liaoning province.
http://www.sabcnews.com/world/asia1pacific/0,2172,144802,00.html
FREAK SUPER STORM, ONE OF THE WORST IN THE ACT’S HISTORY
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=general&story_id=561581&category=General
Record breaking temperatures in Bulgaria
http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n105524
The MOST POWERFUL TORNADO TO HIT FLORIDA IN NEARLY A DECADE.
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/02/03/State/Supercells__tornadoes.shtml
Storm Death Toll Rises
http://www.kwtx.com/news/headlines/6444427.html
temperatures expected to approach the century mark
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=local&id=5113314
tornado ripped through an Alabama school building, and two dead when a hospital was hit in Georgia.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6409659.stm?lsf
Now wait just a minute. The topic here is the global warming swindle, scam, fraud, ponzi scheme, and protection racket. Why are some of you focusing on Kate’s preferences for her private property? She only mentioned it in passing. Perhaps she just wasn’t in the mood. It’s her blog, if you don’t like it, go start your own blog. Who do you think you are, exactly?
Thankyou Vitruvius.
I am not a public utility.
Skip and Kevin,
I don’t know about that “nothing new” stuff. The cosmic ray flux/cloud formation link is pretty new. Leaving that aside, wouldn’t you say that to the average MSM-watching citizen, the very notion that any reasonable people question anthropogenic global warming is new?
Vitruvius,
Furthermore, there’s some very new work that suggests where the varying solar flux is coming from:
“A theory is described based on resonant thermal diffusion waves in the sun that appears to explain many details of the paleotemperature record for the last 5.3 million years. These include the observed periodicities, the relative strengths of each observed cycle, and the sudden emergence in time for the 100 thousand year cycle.”
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0701117
ken,
Basically, socialists believe that man is basically good, that he can be perfected, that any evil in man comes about because of a bad social environment, and that inequalities can be eliminated by correcting society. Conservatives believe that evil is in man’s nature, that man’s nature cannot be changed, though his behaviour can be, given proper laws and controls. From this simple difference, all those issues you listed will produce two camps. One camp’s ideas have produced liberty and prosperity. The other’s has produced over 100 million corpses.
Kate as always, it’s your call, but my two cents is: we do need to ‘talk’ this up much more. Even though the skeptics are on it already, and they should also be heard. Shows a real need for information other than what has been offered from the ‘absolute (well almost) truth’s’ side.
Welcome to the third millenium.
Posted by: Vitruvius
I like that!
I found this an interesting read today.
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=551bfe58-882f-4889-ab76-5ce1e02dced7
Bright Sun, Warm Earth.
No kiddin?
Go figure.
Carl Wunsch, one of the scientists interviewed in the Swindle, is saying he was misrepresented.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled-carl-wunsch-responds/
There will be a debate sponsored by IQ2US on March 14th moderated by Briam Lehrer http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/Event.aspx?Event=12 on the motion “global warming is not a crisis”
For
Michael Crichton
Richard S. Lindzen
Philip Stott
Against
Brenda Ekwurzel
Gavin Schmidt
Richard C.J. Somerville
Prliminary positions are available at
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Blogs/
A little bit of criticism is a good thing I’d think. Keeps one on thier toes. No one wants an echo chamber.
Kate’s a big girl Vitrivirous, I’ve seen her do smackdowns that’d make my grandpappy proud. But good on ya for coming valiantly to her defense.
But back on topic,
Check out this amazing picture of a solar eclipse from thousands of K’s away from Earth (puts some bloody perspective into the power of the sun relative to the earth):
http://tinyurl.com/333jj9
Albatross, nobody is denying that warming is happening and that possibly leads to more weather events. However none of your links prove this is due to human CO2 emissions, which is the point of Swindle. I believe human CO2 is at most a small part of the cause, and that it’s not worth destroying our prosperity over.
THE LEFT is addicted to doom. The Crisis of Capitalism, ‘The Population Bomb’, ‘Silent Spring’, ‘The Limits to Growth’, the Return of the Ice Age, ‘The China Syndrome’, Nuclear Winter, Killer Bees, Acid Rain, Globalization, Frankenstein foods, The Ozone Hole, are all catastrophes that didn’t happen. Some were factually wrong and the rest never became a crisis. When a doomsday theory is disproved, poof!, the MSM drops the story. The left and the MSM run on Clear and Present Danger like a fuel, and doom theories garner massive attention, with accompanying sales of newspapers and airtime. Facts seem to have nothing to do with it. The ‘Limits to Growth’ (The Club of Rome, 1972) a hugely popular book in its time, predicted logarithmic growth in population and resource consumption, with arithmetic growth in supply. This would produce overpopulation, the exhaustion of energy and other resources, the impoverishment of billions, a collapse in the food supply, and mass starvation and death. Their computer models, supported by many eminent scientists, claimed the world would run out of oil by 1992, and all their other predictions also proved wrong. Nevertheless, lefties continue to fret about imminent resource exhaustion, while the MSM issues no corrections or mea culpa. These doom theories were presented in sequence, all were promoted by the left, pumped by the MSM, and used to mobilize millions worldwide. The common idea was and is, that doom could (can) only be averted with more state control and intervention, strict economic controls, suppression of capitalism, and wealth redistribution.
…you know what the big issue is…global pollution.
How come ‘no one’ is howling about this matter? I find this more dangerous to mankind than a few ice cubes melting.
If Al Gore and crew spent more time showing how industries kill landscape and people, then we’d have something to talk about.
I remember driving through Sudbury in the 70’s and that was one sad area, moreso NASA used it to practice moon walking and such.
I hear it is cleaned up quite a bit now.
Oh yeah remember the love canal? Or Chinese smog hitting BC?
Global Pollution is the big threat.
SATELLITES REVEAL A MYSTERY OF LARGE CHANGE IN EARTH’S GRAVITY FIELD
Satellite data since 1998 indicates the bulge in the Earth’s gravity field at the equator is growing, and scientists think that the ocean may hold the answer to the mystery of how the changes in the trend of Earth’s gravity are occurring.
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020801gravityfield.html
Lorraine,
If that equatorial gravity keeps increasing at the present rate, the entire Earth could collapse into a black hole by 2200. And don’t let any talk about the Chandrasekhar limit convince you otherwise!
Actually, Randall, the best available theory and evidential data to date suggest that if warming is happening, then there will be less major weather events. This matter is covered in Swindle, and it is a fairly basic, uncontended matter of planetary geo-climatology, except amongst those humans who are trying to deceive us in the name of illegitimate personal gain, or those who are suffering from simple honest but overwrought concern.
Albatross is, in my opion (and let’s face it, my comments are never more than my opinion), not worth the time it takes to interlocute with. He has his shorts in a knot, for whatever reason, and while that’s understandable per se, the history of his comments here to date indicate, at least to me, that he is not interested in pursuing this matter rationally.
Therefore, I find, it is better to allocate one’s resources to the majority in the middle of the electorate, than it is to waste them on the extremists. Whenever we are considering actual science, we would do well to remember the words of Valery:
“An attitude of permanent indignation signifies great mental poverty. Politics compels its votaries to take that line and you can see their minds growing more impoverished every day, from one burst of righteous indignation to the next.”
I just don’t know enough about climate change to form an opinion and I doubt in a years time I will have enough info that I trust to form an opinion. There is climate change, but what’s causing it and what we should do about it are still unknown. But it is a problem that deserves our focused attention and more investment in scientific enquiry.
The problem is that science has become political. Now we can’t trust science, nor the MSM , nor politicians , nor our democratic institutions and so on.
This goes back to the Pope’s speech last year about Faith and Reason. I’ve read that speech several times, I know it’s important but it is frankly a bit over my head. My goal is to understand it someday.
This big story about The Swindle isn’t about which side is right. We still don’t know. The big story that we are entering is what ever happened to the notion of just being able to say “I don’t know, but I’ll try to find out”.
Therefore what we are about to see unfold, hopefully, is a return to REASON not just FAITH by our learned people in science and our institutions. Moreover we need to be able to accept it when they tell us they don’t know. We aren’t children who expect their parents to know everything. The best conversations with maturing kids are about the things we don’t know. We’re still maturing on the subject of climate change.
I don’t completely agree, Nomdenet. I think that the science is quite clear that Solar flux is the forcing function for global temperature variations on our lovely plant Earth, and that CO2 concentration variations follow temperature variations; they do not lead it.
I agree that there are many things we do not know about how exactly to continue to make our lives better and fix the mistakes caused by the last time we tried to make our lives better, yet we must not throw away the things we do know with the bathwater. And one thing it appears to me that we now do know is that man-made CO2 is the least of our problems. The numbers just aren’t there.
To the degree that we remain oblivious to this evidentiary result, we are wasting our resources on a chimera just when they are most desperately needed for real problems.
Vitruvius,
That Valery Bertinelli was wise beyond her years. I detect Eddie Van Halen’s influence.
albaltros,
You must be a follower of the “Day After Tomorrow” school of global warming, when you count as proof of your theory both freakishly warm and freakishly cold weather.
Thanks for the link. Although the subject has been well worked over at SDA, it’s a very memorable presentation.
– Increases in CO2 follows temperature increases, not the other way around.
– Post war increases in human produced CO2 don’t correspond with post war temperature changes.
– Changes in solar activity correlate well with changes in temperatures.
– restricting development in the undeveloped world will condemn those living their.
We need bigger bumpers:
Hi, I’m David Suzuki. Would you like to learn more about culling people in Africa?
For more information contact Dr. Fruit Fly at davidsuzuki.org.
Very droll, Surly 😉 but for the record I was of course referring to Paul Valéry. If I may crib from Wikipedia:
“He gave the keynote address at the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the death of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. This was a fitting choice, as Valéry shared Goethe’s fascination with science (specifically biology and the theory of light). He never said or wrote anything giving aid or comfort to any form of totalitarianism popular (in certain quarters, at least) in his lifetime. Raymond Poincaré, Louis de Broglie, Andre Gide, Henri Bergson, and Albert Einstein all respected Valéry’s thinking and became friendly correspondents.”
So you can see, I hope, how my selection of Mr. Valéry’s quote was particularly relevant to the topic at hand.
Tim Ball, a Canadian climatologist, has recieved five(5) death threats for saying Kyoto and it’s carbon credit scheme is a Hoax.
Reported Yesterday in the UK media by the ‘Telegraph’.
//www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/11/ngreen211.xml
“.. Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, has received five deaths threats by email since raising concerns about the degree to which man was affecting climate change “.
More than a day later the major Canadian media have not reported it. Many, many sites, blogs and smaller media outlets (Western Standard) have carried it, but where is CBC, CTV, G&M, Star, Global, Sun, …
If this isn’t a suppression of news and outright bias, then what is.
V.,
Yeats said something similar:
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are filled with passionate intensity.”
I once despaired that the “recovered memory movement” would continue to ruin lives, those of both the “victims”, who had false memories of childhood sexual abuse implanted by sex-obsessed therapists, and of the accused — parents, friends, daycare workers who were being sent to prison on ridiculous charges. Yet skeptics arose, such as the indefatigable Elizabeth Loftus. Against feminist accusations of enabling child molestation, these skeptics produced study after study to show how easily false memories can be created.
So it will be with anthropogenic global warming. There must be some quotation by someone about the crazy fads and fallacies that sweep us along, time after time, but I don’t know what it might be.
Perhaps, if I may, one of these might be suitable, Surly:
Everything which was not permitted was forbidden. Whatever was permitted was mandatory. Citizens were shackled in their actions by the universal passion for banning things.
— Boris Yeltsin
Of all the human qualities, the one I admire the most is competence. A tailor who is really able to cut and fit a coat seems to me an admirable man, and by the same token a university professor who knows little or nothing of the thing he presumes to teach seems to me to be a fraud and a rascal.
— H. L. Mencken
The man who promises everything is sure to fulfil nothing, and everyone who promises too much is in danger of using evil means in order to carry out his promises, and is already on the road to perdition.
— Carl Jung
What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven.
— Friedrich Höderlin
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
— Bertrand Russell
It is the characteristic of the most stringent censorships that they give credibility to the opinions they attack.
— Voltaire
Canada Winter Games, Whitehorse, Yukon – temps hovered around -40 to -30 below for the duration. Everyday well BELOW the normal temps – they had to postpone several events because it was too cold to be outside. This was not broadcast over the airwaves with the hi-per ventilating one would expect from the ‘weather frightened’ msm people.
Things that make me go hummm…?
They had two big tents up to house events – I wonder how much carbon was emitted in the two weeks that they were heated? BIG foot print. Saszookey didn’t show – PMSH did !!
Who is Al Gore? I mean before he ran as runner up for the most powerfull man on the planet via VP of the USA?
Actor? Lawyer? Teacher? New money? Old money?
What exactly is his background?
Just curious…
Michel de Montaigne: Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.
Luther thought that he had the truth. So he wanted nothing to do with skepticism. … “What do I know?” Yet, Montaigne was a good Catholic. …-
Paradox?
Lorraine’s link to the old NASA article on local variations in the earth’s gravitational field (http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020801gravityfield.html) is a worthwhile read, both for the poor presentation of the issue and data, the woefully inadequate description of the preliminary analysis, and the neglect of any alternative explanation.
‘”The three areas that can trigger large changes in the Earth’s gravitational field are oceans, polar and glacial ice, and atmosphere,” Cox said.’
Idiot! No mention of the types of vibrational modes of a quasi-elastic sphere, no mention that our planet is like a weirdly boiled egg – solid yolk and runny white; no mention that it’s magnetic…no mention that the sun’s magnetic field is highly variable and reverses every 22 years. No, of course not – the dweeb looks at a surface area effect rather than a volume effect.
Aargh!
“I am not a public utility.”
Posted by: Kate at March 12, 2007 11:19 PM
If you were we would all be plugged into meters, and you would be very rich.
Just in case someone wants to read an intelligent case for AGW you can see it at realclimate dot org
Vitruvius, yes I now know that CO2 lags temperature change by 800 years. But there are many permutations and combinations to consider.
More importantly, I now know that in addition to the MSM and our universities not being on a quest for “the truth” , inconvenient or not; now I don’t trust the integrity of our scientists. Because they take too much on Faith, too many don’t use Reason.
Our institutions are failing us.. that’s the climate change that worries me the most.
However even the New York Times is today questioning Algore’s hype. So once again trial and error is kicking in and we have some hope we can dig our way out of this.
But in short, there needs to be a lot more healthy disagreement, like you and I are having right now, not only about climate change but a whole host of subjects. When disagreement and inequality are returned to their rightful place as being “normal” then we can start the process of rebuilding the institutions that have failed us. Then we take some reasonable, pragmatic action on events like climate change.
Sounds like the backlash to the politicized climate hysteria is now in full swing and coming from the scientific community in some attept to reclaim scientific legitimacy after pimping kyoto for the polis.
4.5 billion people at risk in the next 20 years and she cant give up 3 toes?
As gutless a statement as could be made.
I don’t completely agree, Nomdenet. I think that the science is quite clear that Solar flux is the forcing function for global temperature variations on our lovely plant Earth, and that CO2 concentration variations follow temperature variations; they do not lead it.
The best aspect of the documentary is that it gave appropriate time to scientists in other specialties like geology and astro-physics. Certainly seeing the role of the sun in climate change being treated seriously was long overdue.
On the other hand, I thought that part was also presented with more certainty than really exists. It’s still a very interesting hypothesis, but it doesn’t explain everything either and shouldn’t really be presented that way.