I didn't want or expect a straight answer but at least they could call the Nasa or National Geographic "oil company shills" like they do anyone else who bucks the politically approved theories on global warming causes...

As it is AL has seemed to shut them up so completely that you can hear tumble weeds bouncing through this thread.

Maby for the better....

Warming on Triton, or Pluto, or Jupiter doesnt affect the argument on Earth so much. I'm no astronomer, nor am I a climatologist, but we've only been observing Pluto for what equates to three months of it's annual weather cycle. Planets/asteroids/moons differ. Jupiter is a gas giant that sends out twice as much heat as it receives from the sun, Pluto's year lasts 248 Earth years.
There's a phrase that involves apples and oranges which I might use.

Maybe the post would be easier to "tackle" if it didnt read like a news aggregator. Seriously, it's not really a post when the poster doesn't get involved. Expecting an answer, nevermind a straight one, is a bit much to ask when presented with a collection of hyperlinks.
Nice display of "what she said + pithy insult" though, guys.

Nice Answer.

Y-e-h , r-i-g-h-t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

:roll:

Add Mars to that list as well as this 2003 study:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ut_030320.html

But hey, maybe all this has nothing to do with Earths global warming, it just seems to me that there is a pretty serious effort, mostly by non scientists, to attack the credibility of anyone who postulates that global warming might be caused by anything besides human activity and that smacks of politics with all the ulterior motives that it implies.

I'm old enough to remember a time when very similar people, again mostly non scientists, did the same things to those who believed we weren't headed into an ice age. Same tactics, same often unfounded accusations of payoffs and bias, same instant dismissal of opposing evidence. It's just way too familiar to me to take the current warming hysteria without a rather large grain of salt.

[quote]Nice display of "what she said + pithy insult" though, guys.[/quote

Thanks, I suppose, but what i said was not meant as an insult, but rather a challenge to those in this thread who have argued so forcefully for human activity as the cause of global warming. A challenge that, so far, no one has even attempted to meet and I think that silence means their arguments aren't as strong as they'd like us to believe.

This is a long read so I posted the top nine. A link to the entire paper is at the end.

Fact 1. Climate change is a constant. The Vostok Ice Cores show five brief interglacial periods from 415,000 years ago to the present. The Greenland Ice Cores reveal a Minoan Warm Period 1450-1300 BC, a Roman Warm Period 250-0 BC, the Mediaeval Warm Period 800-1100AD, the Little Ice Age and the late 20th Century Warm Period 1900-2010 AD.

Fact 2. Carbon dioxide is necessary for all life on earth and increasing atmospheric concentrations are beneficial to plant growth, particularly in arid conditions. Because the radiation properties of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are already saturated, increasing atmospheric concentrations beyond current levels will have no discernible effect on global temperatures.

Fact 3. The twentieth century was almost as warm as the centuries of the Mediaeval Warm Period, an era of great achievement in European civilisation. The recent warm period, 1976-2000, appears to have come to an end and astro-physicists who study sunspot behaviour predict that the next 25-50 years could be a cool period similar to the Dalton Minimum of the 1790s-1820s.

Fact 4. The evidence linking anthropogenic (man-made) carbon dioxide emissions and current warming is limited to a correlation which holds only for the period 1976 to 2000. Attempts to construct an holistic theory in which atmospheric carbon dioxide controls the radiation balance of the earth, and thus determines average global temperatures, have failed.

Fact 5. The anthropogenists claim that the overwhelming majority of scientists are agreed on the anthropogenic carbon dioxide theory of climate control; that the science is settled and the debate is over; and that scientific sceptics are in the pay of the fossil fuel industries and their arguments are thus fatally compromised. These claims are an expression of hope, not of reality.

Fact 6. Anthropogenists such as former US Vice President Al Gore blame anthropogenic emissions of CO2 for high temperatures, droughts, melting polar ice caps, rising sea levels and retreating glaciers, and a decline in the polar bear population. They also blame anthropogenic CO2 for blizzards, unseasonable snow, freezing weather generally and for hurricanes, cyclones and other extreme weather events. There is no evidence at all to justify these assertions.

Fact 7. Increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide will have negligible impact on the earth's radiation balance and will promote plant growth everywhere. There is no need to sequester CO2 in the ground or to subsidise nuclear or other non-carbon based methods of energy production.

Fact 8. 'Tropical' diseases such as malaria and dengue fever are not related to temperature but to poverty, lack of sanitation and the absence of mosquito control practices.

Fact 9. The decarbonisation of the world's economy would, if attempted, cause huge economic dislocation. Any democratic government which seriously sought to fulfil decarbonisation commitments would lose office. Shutting down coal-fired power stations and replacing them with renewable energy sources such as windmills or solar panels will cause unemployment and economic deprivation.

http://lavoisier.com.au/papers/artic...ninefacts.html

@ WG
On the author Ray Evans and the Lavoisier group:

All according links here:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ray_Evans

The hit on the list with those nine points has been this, it really sent me laughing for one or two minutes:
Fact 8. 'Tropical' diseases such as malaria and dengue fever are not related to temperature but to poverty, lack of sanitation and the absence of mosquito control practices.

Mission accomplished! Climate as a key variable successfully anulled! there is no climate crisis, only lacking control practices! The world is saved!

Biology lessons at school, age 13 or 14, I think: pathogen insects for example (Krankheitsübertragende Insekten) prefer certain climate types, and avoid others. They react to moisture levels, and temperature levels. Science knows such a functionality as "intermittend variables". This link is especially well-observed and -researched with Malaria and mosquitos. the whole "argument" is absurd.


The rest of the nine points, despite the clever formulation that makes it easy to miss that some aspects are ignored that nevertheless are important, left me not much more impressed. Dialectic and rethoric replaces solid argument here. Nothing new on this front. I repeatedly said now what I think of this kind of scriptures. In other words (as I also already have repeated several times): it is about raising doubt per se, no matter how solid or weak the argument is at closer look.


@ August,

maybe others just refuse to play by your personal rules? "A challenge that, so far, no one has even attempted to meet and I think that silence means their arguments aren't as strong as they'd like us to believe." Nice attempt. Try again. If I do not refer to AL's links (not yours! so stop taking the stand of defending them as if they are your argument), then this is that took the refernce to eugenics a bit queer, and the others links left me unimprerssed, and partially I see them as of the same ammount of trustworthiness or/and relevance like the petition joke she already referred to. 17000 signatures! How impressive! just learn about the thing itself, and you know what to think of it. :lol:

H, just realised that nobody here found it worth to be remarked how weak that petition was. Not in complicnace witzh your agends? "I think that silence means their arguments aren't as strong as they'd like us to believe."

But this is a democracy. Feel free to call that "avoiding the point", and feel free to assume that there is no counter argument available.

Obviously some of you expect me to type long essays of 20+ pages again. No chance, that time is over. ;)

Yeah Sky, I'm sure that dissenting opinions from NASA and those published by the National Geographic leave you unimpressed, which to me is another way of saying that you have no rebuttal because we all know you would be publishing one of those 30 pagers you're famous for if you could.

Doesn't really matter I guess, but next time you demand people take you seriously I'll be here to remind you of this.

Oh holy editor,
after having accepted and having let passed several extremely faulty "sources" and texts by others yourself in this thread (for they fit into your agenda), and ignored all criticism of these or their highly questionable origin (for this would not fit your agenda), after having accused me of doing like that (where in fact I have partly indepth, partly by a quick hint adressed these items), and after you have shown yourself being unable top come up with convincing references or arguments, while always, always expecting the other do dance to your "challenges", I see you in great need to better take care of your own stand first! ;)

BTW, great phrase, that "I am here waiting for you" thing - for a moment I was almost scared... But doesn't it become a bit repetitive over the years? I mean, it's not the first time you use a pharase like that. Reminds me of this:

http://www.conservativethinking.com/...a-memorial.jpg

Anyway, this thread is beyond it's natural age now.

Dammit. I again admitted defeat in argument by that comment... :rotfl:

Whatever.

Unless we're cutting it down for biodiesel (soy beans; Brazil) and corporate development (google "eminent domain")? Plus carbon dioxide saturation of the oceans leading to hypoxic zones.

Well, that's it, isn't it? The question is risk assessment. Will 50,000,000 Americans die because of civil strife in direct relation to a sudden gasoline/diesel disruption, or will it only be 10,000,000? 10,000?

We get most of our oil from Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela. However, we only have about 140 refineries in the entire United States. Over 100 of those have completely different production cycles and product. A refinery that is built for light-crude will choke (literally, from secondary reactions) with 6% sulfur blends. Almost all of the northern refineries take light-sweet because the -10C temps cause problems with carbon chains above 10 (decane). Same goes for California, but for an entirely different reason -- air quality control. A 3-week "tiger team" does not refit a refinery for multi-distillate; they have a tough enough time keeping our 30 year old refineries running. If a refinery experiences a disruption in its designed feed, it takes a major overhaul to put in scrubbers and control lines to the distillation columns.


I think it's going to get rough. Hurricane Katrina rough -- all over the country, although rural areas will fare better than urban.

That is certainly one point. If your worst case of 50,000,000 Americans die because of civil strife in direct relation to a sudden gasoline/diesel disruption thats in the nieghborhood of 16.67% of the current population. That is in the US only. If we extrapulate the 16.67% over the entire planet what would that number look like, 1,097,048,194. That first number is one billion.

<sarcasm>

More of those pesky bought-off-by-big-oil scientists spewing their nonsense again.

Let's shut 'em up, for earth's sake!

</sarcasm>

White House tries to censor and silence climate critics from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U..S. Geological Survey:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...040502150.html

NASA "dampening" it's expert personnels:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/25/national/25MOVI.html

Bush government uses chance of opportunity to go after Greenpeace:
http://www.greenpeace.org/internatio...ets-greenpeace

Fish and Wildlife Service regulations on a theme that is taboo:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/nation...0_bears09.html
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/e...ovalPerham.PDF

Scientists offered cash to challenge climate change:
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/cl...004397,00.html

And that is just a very minor portion of the related stories that were published during the last 3 years.

We could play this game for the rest of the week, my archive is full. But I fail to be attracted by this kind of playing.

I summarize from my memory: Bush has
- significantly softened up the Clean Air Act from 1970,
- lowered emission limits for older powerplants
- while endlessly delaying the second Clean Air Act that was meant to even tigthen the demands of the first. Scientists have repeatedly sued the WH for censoring or distorting vital parts of their related works, to make these works less objecting to the WH's policies
- Kyoto protocol has been decided against.
- At the same time decisions were made that are very pleasing for energy companies,
- reduced environmental protection,
- aimed at opening Alaska and the Arctic for industrial exploitation,
- launched the Clean Sky Initiative that is everything but that, that - if passed - helps to weaken and delay health protection of the oridnary public as is already required by American laws right now and allows mercury emissions to climb by three times, sulfur emissions by two times, and also a drastic climb in nitrogen oxygens compared to current levels, people will find it much more difficult to sue industries and energy companies for health probelsm they cause by their pollution,
- while at the same time it all does nothing to battle global warming;
- and last but not least a miscalculated war was launched to tighten control over the global oil flowing patterns.

Very big :hmm:

BTW, this refers to how the US military thinks about climate change.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/inter...153513,00.html
But that is coming from the same camp that helped Rumsfeld to transform the army the way he wanted, so maybe it is all wrong...