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rustyh
Joined: 17 Sep 2006
Posts: 383
Location: A Wonderful World
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 Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 2:40 am Post subject: |
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Found this from last years emails that i recieved.
Apologies if already been posted but thought this was relevant to this thread.
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Please Read “Form your own Conclusions"
I Have!!!
John Coleman's Comments Before the San Diego Chamber of Commerce
Global Warming and the Price of a Gallon of Gas
by John Coleman
You may want to give credit where credit is due to Al Gore and his global warming campaign the next time you fill your car with gasoline, because there is a direct connection between Global Warming and four dollar a gallon gas. It is shocking, but true, to learn that the entire Global Warming frenzy is based on the environmentalist’s attack on fossil fuels, particularly gasoline. All this big time science, international meetings, thick research papers, dire threats for the future; all of it, comes down to their claim that the carbon dioxide in the exhaust from your car and in the smoke stacks from our power plants is destroying the climate of planet Earth. What an amazing fraud; what a scam.
The future of our civilization lies in the balance.
That’s the battle cry of the High Priest of Global Warming Al Gore and his fellow, agenda driven disciples as they predict a calamitous outcome from anthropogenic global warming. According to Mr. Gore the polar ice caps will collapse and melt and sea levels will rise 20 feet inundating the coastal cities making 100 million of us refugees. Vice President Gore tells us numerous Pacific islands will be totally submerged and uninhabitable. He tells us global warming will disrupt the circulation of the ocean waters, dramatically changing climates, throwing the world food supply into chaos. He tells us global warming will turn hurricanes into super storms, produce droughts, wipe out the polar bears and result in bleaching of coral reefs. He tells us tropical diseases will spread to mid latitudes and heat waves will kill tens of thousands. He preaches to us that we must change our lives and eliminate fossil fuels or face the dire consequences. The future of our civilization is in the balance.
With a preacher’s zeal, Mr. Gore sets out to strike terror into us and our children and make us feel we are all complicit in the potential demise of the planet.
Here is my rebuttal.
There is no significant man made global warming. There has not been any in the past, there is none now and there is no reason to fear any in the future. The climate of Earth is changing. It has always changed. But mankind’s activities have not overwhelmed or significantly modified the natural forces.
Through all history, Earth has shifted between two basic climate regimes: ice ages and what paleoclimatologists call “Interglacial periods”. For the past 10 thousand years the Earth has been in an interglacial period. That might well be called nature’s global warming because what happens during an interglacial period is the Earth warms up, the glaciers melt and life flourishes. Clearly from our point of view, an interglacial period is greatly preferred to the deadly rigors of an ice age. Mr. Gore and his crowd would have us believe that the activities of man have overwhelmed nature during this interglacial period and are producing an unprecedented, out of control warming.
Well, it is simply not happening. Worldwide there was a significant natural warming trend in the 1980’s and 1990’s as a Solar cycle peaked with lots of sunspots and solar flares. That ended in 1998 and now the Sun has gone quiet with fewer and fewer Sun spots, and the global temperatures have gone into decline. Earth has cooled for almost ten straight years. So, I ask Al Gore, where’s the global warming?
The cooling trend is so strong that recently the head of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had to acknowledge it. He speculated that nature has temporarily overwhelmed mankind’s warming and it may be ten years or so before the warming returns. Oh, really. We are supposed to be in a panic about man-made global warming and the whole thing takes a ten year break because of the lack of Sun spots. If this weren’t so serious, it would be laughable.
Now allow me to talk a little about the science behind the global warming frenzy. I have dug through thousands of pages of research papers, including the voluminous documents published by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I have worked my way through complicated math and complex theories. Here’s the bottom line: the entire global warming scientific case is based on the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the use of fossil fuels. They don’t have any other issue. Carbon Dioxide, that’s it.
Hello Al Gore; Hello UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Your science is flawed; your hypothesis is wrong; your data is manipulated. And, may I add, your scare tactics are deplorable. The Earth does not have a fever. Carbon dioxide does not cause significant global warming.
The focus on atmospheric carbon dioxide grew out a study by Roger Revelle who was an esteemed scientist at the Scripps Oceanographic Institute. He took his research with him when he moved to Harvard and allowed his students to help him process the data for his paper. One of those students was Al Gore. That is where Gore got caught up in this global warming frenzy. Revelle’s paper linked the increases in carbon dioxide, CO2, in the atmosphere with warming. It labeled CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
Charles Keeling, another researcher at the Scripps Oceanographic Institute, set up a system to make continuous CO2 measurements. His graph of these increases has now become known as the Keeling Curve. When Charles Keeling died in 2005, his son David, also at Scripps, took over the measurements. Here is what the Keeling curve shows: an increase in CO2 from 315 parts per million in 1958 to 385 parts per million today, an increase of 70 parts per million or about 20 percent.
All the computer models, all of the other findings, all of the other angles of study, all come back to and are based on CO2 as a significant greenhouse gas. It is not.
Here is the deal about CO2, carbon dioxide. It is a natural component of our atmosphere. It has been there since time began. It is absorbed and emitted by the oceans. It is used by every living plant to trigger photosynthesis. Nothing would be green without it. And we humans; we create it. Every time we breathe out, we emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It is not a pollutant. It is not smog. It is a naturally occurring invisible gas.
Let me illustrate. I estimate that this square in front of my face contains 100,000 molecules of atmosphere. Of those 100,000 only 38 are CO2; 38 out of a hundred thousand. That makes it a trace component. Let me ask a key question: how can this tiny trace upset the entire balance of the climate of Earth? It can’t. That’s all there is to it; it can’t.
The UN IPCC has attracted billions of dollars for the research to try to make the case that CO2 is the culprit of run-away, man-made global warming. The scientists have come up with very complex creative theories and done elaborate calculations and run computer models they say prove those theories. They present us with a concept they call radiative forcing. The research organizations and scientists who are making a career out of this theory, keep cranking out the research papers. Then the IPCC puts on big conferences at exotic places, such as the recent conference in Bali. The scientists endorse each other’s papers, they are summarized and voted on, and viola, we are told global warming is going to kill us all unless we stop burning fossil fuels.
May I stop here for a few historical notes? First, the internal combustion engine and gasoline were awful polluters when they were first invented. And, both gasoline and automobile engines continued to leave a layer of smog behind right up through the 1960’s. Then science and engineering came to the environmental rescue. Better exhaust and ignition systems, catalytic converters, fuel injectors, better engineering throughout the engine and reformulated gasoline have all contributed to a huge reduction in the exhaust emissions from today’s cars. Their goal then was to only exhaust carbon dioxide and water vapor, two gases widely accepted as natural and totally harmless. Anyone old enough to remember the pall of smog that used to hang over all our cities knows how much improvement there has been. So the environmentalists, in their battle against fossil fuels and automobiles had a very good point forty years ago, but now they have to focus almost entirely on the once harmless carbon dioxide. And, that is the rub. Carbon dioxide is not an environmental problem; they just want you now to think it is.
Numerous independent research projects have been done about the greenhouse impact from increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. These studies have proven to my total satisfaction that CO2 is not creating a major greenhouse effect and is not causing an increase in temperatures. By the way, before his death, Roger Revelle coauthored a paper cautioning that CO2 and its greenhouse effect did not warrant extreme countermeasures.
So now it has come down to an intense campaign, orchestrated by environmentalists claiming that the burning of fossil fuels dooms the planet to run-away global warming. Ladies and Gentlemen, that is a myth.
So how has the entire global warming frenzy with all its predictions of dire consequences, become so widely believed, accepted and regarded as a real threat to planet Earth? That is the most amazing part of the story.
To start with global warming has the backing of the United Nations, a major world force. Second, it has the backing of a former Vice President and very popular political figure. Third it has the endorsement of Hollywood, and that’s enough for millions. And, fourth, the environmentalists love global warming. It is their tool to combat fossil fuels. So with the environmentalists, the UN, Gore and Hollywood touting Global Warming and predictions of doom and gloom, the media has scrambled with excitement to climb aboard. After all the media loves a crisis. From YK2 to killer bees the media just loves to tell us our lives are threatened. And the media is biased toward liberal, so it’s pre-programmed to support Al Gore and UN. CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The LA Times, The Washington Post, the Associated Press and here in San Diego The Union Tribune are all constantly promoting the global warming crisis.
So who is going to go against all of that power? Not the politicians. So now the President of the United States, just about every Governor, most Senators and most Congress people, both of the major current candidates for President, most other elected officials on all levels of government are all riding the Al Gore Global Warming express. That is one crowded bus.
I suspect you haven’t heard it because the mass media did not report it, but I am not alone on the no man-made warming side of this issue. On May 20th, a list of the names of over thirty-one thousand scientists who refute global warming was released. Thirty-one thousand of which 9,000 are Ph.ds. Think about that. Thirty-one thousand. That dwarfs the supposed 2,500 scientists on the UN panel. In the past year, five hundred of scientists have issued public statements challenging global warming. A few more join the chorus every week. There are about 100 defectors from the UN IPCC. There was an International Conference of Climate Change Skeptics in New York in March of this year. One hundred of us gave presentations. Attendance was limited to six hundred people. Every seat was taken. There are a half dozen excellent internet sites that debunk global warming. And, thank goodness for KUSI and Michael McKinnon, its owner. He allows me to post my comments on global warming on the website KUSI.com. Following the publicity of my position form Fox News, Glen Beck on CNN, Rush Limbaugh and a host of other interviews, thousands of people come to the website and read my comments. I get hundreds of supportive emails from them. No I am not alone and the debate is not over.
In my remarks in New York I speculated that perhaps we should sue Al Gore for fraud because of his carbon credits trading scheme. That remark has caused a stir in the fringe media and on the internet. The concept is that if the media won’t give us a hearing and the other side will not debate us, perhaps we could use a Court of law to present our papers and our research and if the Judge is unbiased and understands science, we win. The media couldn’t ignore that. That idea has become the basis for legal research by notable attorneys and discussion among global warming debunkers, but it’s a long way from the Court room.
I am very serious about this issue. I think stamping out the global warming scam is vital to saving our wonderful way of life.
The battle against fossil fuels has controlled policy in this country for decades. It was the environmentalist’s prime force in blocking any drilling for oil in this country and the blocking the building of any new refineries, as well. So now the shortage they created has sent gasoline prices soaring. And, it has lead to the folly of ethanol, which is also partly behind the fuel price increases; that and our restricted oil policy. The ethanol folly is also creating a food crisis throughput the world – it is behind the food price rises for all the grains, for cereals, bread, everything that relies on corn or soy or wheat, including animals that are fed corn, most processed foods that use corn oil or soybean oil or corn syrup. Food shortages or high costs have led to food riots in some third world countries and made the cost of eating out or at home budget busting for many.
So now the global warming myth actually has lead to the chaos we are now enduring with energy and food prices. We pay for it every time we fill our gas tanks. Not only is it running up gasoline prices, it has changed government policy impacting our taxes, our utility bills and the entire focus of government funding. And, now the Congress is considering a cap and trade carbon credits policy. We the citizens will pay for that, too. It all ends up in our taxes and the price of goods and services.
So the Global warming frenzy is, indeed, threatening our civilization. Not because global warming is real; it is not. But because of the all the horrible side effects of the global warming scam.
I love this civilization. I want to do my part to protect it.
If Al Gore and his global warming scare dictates the future policy of our governments, the current economic downturn could indeed become a recession, drift into a depression and our modern civilization could fall into an abyss. And it would largely be a direct result of the global warming frenzy.
My mission, in what is left of a long and exciting lifetime, is to stamp out this Global Warming silliness and let all of us get on with enjoying our lives and loving our planet, Earth. |
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Hocus Locus
Joined: 22 Sep 2006
Posts: 846
Location: Lost in anamnesis, cannot forget my way out
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| Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 6:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | With Al Due Respect, We're Doomed
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post: Thursday, January 29, 2009; A03
The lawmakers gazed in awe at the figure before them. The Goracle had seen the future, and he had come to tell them about it.
What the Goracle saw in the future was not good: temperature changes that "would bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fabric of life everywhere on the Earth -- and this is within this century, if we don't change."
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry (D-Mass.), appealed to hear more of the Goracle's premonitions. "Share with us, if you would, sort of the immediate vision that you see in this transformative process as we move to this new economy," he beseeched.
"Geothermal energy," the Goracle prophesied. "This has great potential; it is not very far off."
Another lawmaker asked about the future of nuclear power. "I have grown skeptical about the degree to which it will expand," the Goracle spoke.
A third asked the legislative future -- and here the Goracle spoke in riddle. "The road to Copenhagen has three steps to it," he said.
Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) begged the Goracle to look further into the future. "What does your modeling tell you about how long we're going to be around as a species?" he inquired.
The Goracle chuckled. "I don't claim the expertise to answer a question like that, Senator."
It was a jarring reminder that the Goracle is, indeed, mortal. Once Al Gore was a mere vice president, but now he is a Nobel laureate and climate-change prophet. He repeats phrases such as "unified national smart grid" the way he once did "no controlling legal authority" -- and the ridicule has been replaced by worship, even by his political foes.
"Tennessee," gushed Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican from Gore's home state, "has a legacy of having people here in the Senate and in public service that have been of major consequence and contributed in a major way to the public debate, and you no doubt have helped build that legacy." If that wasn't quite enough, Corker added: "Very much enjoyed your sense of humor, too."
Humor? From Al Gore? "I benefit from low expectations," he replied.
The Goracle's powers seem to come from his ability to scare the bejesus out of people. "We must face up to this urgent and unprecedented threat to the existence of our civilization," he said. And: "This is the most serious challenge the world has ever faced." And: It "could completely end human civilization, and it is rushing at us with such speed and force."
Though some lawmakers tangled with Gore on his last visit to Capitol Hill, none did on the Foreign Relations Committee yesterday. Dick Lugar (Ind.), the ranking Republican, agreed that there will be "an almost existential impact" from the climate changes Gore described.
As such, the Goracle, even when questioned, was shown great deference. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), challenging Gore over spent nuclear fuel, began by saying: "I stand to be corrected, and I defer to your position, you're probably right, and I'm probably wrong." He ended his question by saying: "I'm not questioning you; I'm questioning myself."
Others sought to buy the Goracle's favor by offering him gifts. "Thank you for your incredible leadership; you make this crystalline for those who don't either understand it or want to understand it," gushed Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who went on to ask: "Will you join me this summer at the Jersey Shore?"
The chairman worried that the Goracle may have been offended by "naysayers" who thought it funny that Gore's testimony before the committee came on a morning after a snow-and-ice storm in the capital. "The little snow in Washington does nothing to diminish the reality of the crisis," Kerry said at the start of the hearing.
The climate was well controlled inside the hearing room, although Gore, suffering from a case of personal climate change, perspired heavily during his testimony. The Goracle presented the latest version of his climate-change slide show to the senators: a globe with yellow and red blotches, a house falling into water, and ones with obscure titles such as "Warming Impacts Ugandan Coffee Growing Region." At one point he flashed a biblical passage on the screen, but he quickly removed it. "I'm not proselytizing," he explained. A graphic showing a disappearing rain forest was accompanied by construction noises.
The Goracle supplied abundant metaphors to accompany his visuals. Oil demand: "This roller coaster is headed for a crash, and we're in the front car." Polar ice: "Like a beating heart, and the permanent ice looks almost like blood spilling out of a body along the eastern coast of Greenland."
The lawmakers joined in. "There are a lot of ways to skin a cat," contributed Isakson, who is unlikely to get the Humane Society endorsement. "And if we have the dire circumstances we're facing, we need to find every way to skin every cat."
Mostly, however, the lawmakers took turns asking the Goracle for advice, as if playing with a Magic 8 Ball.
Lugar, a 32-year veteran of the Senate, asked Gore, as a "practical politician," how to get the votes for climate-change legislation. "I am a recovering politician. I'm on about Step 9," the Goracle replied, before providing his vision.
Prospects for regulating a future carbon emissions market? "There's a high degree of confidence." The future of automobiles in China and India? "I wouldn't give up on electric vehicles." The potential of solar power in those countries? "I have no question about it at all."
Of course not. He's the Goracle. |
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When a finger points to the moon, the imbecile looks at the finger.
~Chinese Proverb |
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krammer
Joined: 22 Jun 2006
Posts: 128
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| Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 9:22 am Post subject: |
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Even as the public becomes less and less convinced about man made climate change, the politicians are suddenly clamoring for action. What a world we live in. My kids get spoon fed the alarmist propaganda at school and even they have the critical thinking skills to reject most of it.
Sad state of affairs... |
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duane
Joined: 07 Mar 2007
Posts: 486
Location: western pennsylvania
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| Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 10:21 am Post subject: |
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even the animals aren't convinced about global warming
http://kdka.com/national/Punxsutawney.Phil.groundhog.2.924196.html
Punxsutawney Phil Sees Shadow, Winter To Continue
PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. (AP) ―
The world's most famous groundhog saw his shadow Monday morning, predicting that this already long winter will last for six more weeks.
Punxsutawney Phil emerged just after dawn in front of an estimated 13,000 witnesses, many dressed in black and gold to celebrate the Pittsburgh Steelers' Super Bowl victory the night before.
"There's significant buzz from the Steelers win and quite a few Terrible Towels floating from the crowd," said Mickey Rowley, deputy secretary for tourism in Pennsylvania.
The annual ritual takes place on Gobbler's Knob, a tiny hill in Punxsutawney, a borough of about 6,100 residents some 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club announced the forecast in a short proclamation, in which Phil acknowledged the Steelers' 27-23 win over the Arizona Cardinals.
According to German superstition, if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on Feb. 2 — the Christian holiday of Candlemas — winter will last another six weeks. If no shadow is seen, legend says, spring will come early.
Since 1887, Phil has seen his shadow 97 times, hasn't seen it 15 times, and there are no records for nine years, according to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club.
Rowley said the Groundhog Day festivities are Pennsylvania's largest tourist gathering in the winter. And if Phil's forecast proves correct, it should bring even more tourists to the state.
"It's six more weeks of skiing," Rowley said.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
_________________
Birth is the first example of " thinking outside the box" |
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Fintan
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Jan 2006
Posts: 3889
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| Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2009 10:43 am Post subject: |
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The Next Level Show - 20th February, 2009
LISTEN:
Broadband Mp3 Audio 
http://BreakForNews.com/audio/BeautifulTruth090221a.mp3
Click to Play or Right-Click to 'Save As' and Download.
Dialup Mp3 Audio
http://BreakForNews.com/audio/BeautifulTruth090221.mp3
Click to Play or Right-Click to 'Save As' and Download.
| Quote: | Nikolai Kondratiev
Nikolai Dmitriyevich Kondratiev (4 March 1892 - 17 September 1938)
was a Russian economist, who was a proponent of the New Economic
Policy (NEP) in the Soviet Union. He was executed at the height of
Stalin's Great Purge and "rehabilitated" fifty years later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Kondratieff
The Kondratieff Theory
To introduce the Kondratieff Theory, we must go back over seventy years
and examine a remarkable story in economic history, encompassed
within the life of one still little known man. I am certain that, in time,
Kondratieff will rank with the giants of discovery as Einstein and Newton.
Like these men, his insights have begun to alter radically and
permanently our perceptions of economic history.
The Kondratieff wave cycle goes through four distinct phases of beneficial
inflation (spring), stagflation (summer), beneficial deflation (autumn), and
deflation (winter). Since, the last Kontratyev cycle ended around 1949,
we have seen beneficial inflation 1949-1966, stagflation 1966-1982,
beneficial deflation 1982-2000 and according to Kondratieff, we are now
in the (winter) deflation cycle which should lead to depression.
http://www.kwaves.com/kond_overview.htm
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| Quote: | New Little Ice Age
Instead of Global Warming?
by Dr. Theodor Landscheidt �
Schroeter Institute for Research in Cycles of Solar Activity
Klammerfelsweg 5, 93449 Waldm�nchen, Germany
http://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/
Analysis of the sun's varying activity in the last two millennia indicates
that contrary to the IPCC's speculation about man-made global warming
as high as 5.8� C within the next hundred years, a long period of cool
climate with its coldest phase around 2030 is to be expected. It is shown
that minima in the 80 to 90-year Gleissberg cycle of solar activity,
coinciding with periods of cool climate on Earth, are consistently linked
to an 83-year cycle in the change of the rotary force driving the sun's
oscillatory motion about the centre of mass of the solar system. As the
future course of this cycle and its amplitudes can be computed, it can be
seen that the Gleissberg minimum around 2030 and another one around
2200 will be of the Maunder minimum type accompanied by severe
cooling on Earth. This forecast should prove skillful as other long-range
forecasts of climate phenomena, based on cycles in the sun's orbital
motion, have turned out correct as for instance the prediction of the last
three El Ni�os years before the respective event.
http://www.schulphysik.de/klima/landscheidt/iceage.htm
Solar Activity Controls El Niño and La Niña
http://www.schulphysik.de/klima/elnino/sun-enso.htm
The New "Little Ice Age"
http://www.itsonlysteam.com/articles/landscheidt_minimum_part2.html
A. L. Tchijevsky’s Theory of Sunspot Activity and Human Activity
http://www.carolmoore.net/articles/sunspot-cycle.html |
| Quote: | Global Warming as a Natural Response to Cloud Changes
Associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D.
October 20, 2008 (updated December 29, 2008)
A simple climate model forced by satellite-observed changes in the
Earth’s radiative budget associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is
shown to mimic the major features of global average temperature change
during the 20th Century - including three-quarters of the warming trend.
A mostly-natural source of global warming is also consistent with
mounting observational evidence that the climate system is much less
sensitive to carbon dioxide emissions than the IPCC’s climate models
simulate.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/research-articles/global-warming-as-a-natural-response/ |
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_________________
Minds are like parachutes.
They only function when open. |
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duane
Joined: 07 Mar 2007
Posts: 486
Location: western pennsylvania
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| Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 12:51 pm Post subject: |
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hi Fintan,
another great audio
a prudent government response to climate (warming, cooling, or staying the same) is to ensure the population and the environment are as healthy and adaptable as possible. degraded farmland that is just barely providing during current conditions have little chance if things go bad.
the problem with a lot of "anti-green" is its belief that everything would be alright without any interference from "anti-people greeniks". the anti-greens seem to believe that any short term human benefit always out ways long term environmental benefits. forgetting of course, that the environment is your momma.
the extreme "greens" as usual, are driven by emotion more than science, thanks a good deal by the "modelers" who just defeated the dragon of nin on the fifth level, or CO2 in the fifth decade of the century
Playstation 4, i luv that analogy
What does the economy and global warming have in common?
| Quote: | http://machinedesign.com/article/leland-teschlers-editorial-when-you-can-t-believe-the-model-0217
Leland Teschler's Editorial:
When You Can’t Believe the Model
February 17, 2009
Leland E. Teschler
Printer-friendly version
Amid all the hand-wringing about financial systems in meltdown mode, the subject of modeling hasn’t gotten a lot of notice. Banks and other financial institutions employed legions of Ph.D. mathematicians and statistics specialists to model the risks those firms were assuming under a variety of scenarios. The point was to avoid taking on obligations that could put the company under.
Judging by the calamity we are now living through, one would have to say those models failed miserably. They did so despite the best efforts of numerous professionals, all highly paid and with a lot of intellectual horsepower, employed specifically to head off such catastrophes.
What went wrong with the modeling? That’s a subject of keen interest to engineers who must model the behavior and risks of their own complicated systems. Insights about problems with the mathematics behind financial systems come from Huybert Groenendaal, whose Ph.D. is in modeling the spread of diseases. Groenendaal is a partner and senior risk analyst with Vose Consulting LLC in Boulder, a firm that works with a wide variety of banks and other companies trying to mitigate risks.
“In risk modeling, you use a lot of statistics because you want to learn from the past,” says Groenendaal. “That’s good if the past is like the future, but in that sense you could be getting a false sense of security.”
That sense of security plays directly into what happened with banks and financial instruments based on mortgages. “It gets back to the use of historical data,” says Groenendaal. “One critical assumption people had to make was that the past could predict the future. I believe in the case of mortgage products, there was too much faith in the idea that past trends would hold.”
Therein lies a lesson. “In our experience, people have excessive confidence in their historical data. That problem isn’t unique to the financial area,” says Groenendaal. “You must be cynical and open to the idea that this time, the world could change. When we work with people on models, we warn them that models are just tools. You have to think about the assumptions you make. Models can help you make better decisions, but you must remain skeptical.”
Did the quantitative analysts who came up with ineffective financial models lose their jobs in the aftermath? Groenendaal just laughs at this idea. “I have a feeling they will do fine. If you are a bank and you fire your whole risk-analysis department, I don’t think that would be viewed positively,” he says.
Interestingly enough, Groenendaal suggests skepticism is also in order for an equally controversial area of modeling: climate change.
“Climate change is similar to financial markets in that you can’t run experiments with it as you might when you are formulating theories in physics. That means your skepticism should go up,” he says.
We might add there is one other similarity he didn’t mention: It is doubtful anyone was ever fired for screwing up a climate model.
— Leland Teschler, Editor |
_________________
Birth is the first example of " thinking outside the box" |
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Fintan
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Jan 2006
Posts: 3889
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| Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 11:50 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | February 26th, 2009 10:23 PM Eastern
Obama’s Climate Rip-off
Maybe the economics of Obama’s cap-and-trade
rip-off don’t bother you, but the fact that the rip-off
will accomplish nothing should give you pause.
By Steven Milloy
Publisher, JunkScience.com/Co-Manager, Free Enterprise Action Fund
President Obama wants to pay you to support global warming regulation.
What he isn’t saying, however, is that his enticement won’t come close to
covering what the regulations will cost you.
In his 10-year budget released this week, the President proposed a so-
called cap-and-trade scheme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Under
the proposal, 100 percent of the permits to emit greenhouse gases would
be auctioned to coal and natural gas-burning electric utilities, industrial
plants and other emitters-to-be-designated. The proceeds from the
auctions would then distributed to individual Americans “to help the
transition to a clean energy economy,” according to his budget proposal.
But what does this proposal mean for the average person in terms of
actual dollars and cents?
It’s difficult to work out the precise financial impacts, but you can get an
idea by doing some back-of-the-envelop calculations with some of the
facts and figures that have recently been bandied about.
Based on past global warming legislation, like the Lieberman-Warner bill
that failed in the Senate last June, a cap-and-trade plan would probably
cover about 80 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions — about 5.8
billion tons based on a total of 7.3 billion tons emitted during 2007.
Assuming that permits are auctioned at a price of $12 per ton — a safety
valve price included in past climate bills — the Obama plan would raise
about $70 billion in its first year. Given that President Obama has
proposed to spend about $15 billion per year of the auction proceeds on
“clean energy” projects, about $55 billion would be leftover for
distribution to individuals– in other words, every American with a Social
Security number. Dividing the $55 billion among more than 300 million
Americans, then, works out to about $180 per person and $720 per family
of four per year.
It’s not like winning the lottery, but it’s better than nothing — or is it?
The liberal think tank Center on Budget Priorities and Policy estimated
this week that reducing greenhouse gas emissions would cost the poorest
families in America $750 per year as higher energy prices ripple through
the economy affecting all goods and services. So if the poorest families,
who use far less energy than the rest of America, are in a financial hole
under the president’s plan, one can easily imagine how the rest of us will
end up. Consider the potential consequences on just your electric bill.
The proposed Lieberman-Warner bill would have auctioned only 25
percent of the permits — not 100 percent as President Obama is
proposing. The remaining 75 percent of the credits would have been
distributed for free to electric utilities and other designated greenhouse
gas emitters. But even under that scheme, Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers
told The New York Times last summer that electricity rates would rise by
40 percent in the first year to cover his utility’s $2 billion outlay for
credits. So a 100 percent auction could increase electricity bills for Duke’s
4 million customers by 160 percent — meaning a $100 monthly electric
bill becomes, perhaps, a $260 monthly bill. Based on these calculations, a
family of four that pays more than $40 per month for electricity — that is,
every family — is a net loser under President Obama’s plan.
And those are the potential increases for just your electric bill. Not
included are other likely price hikes for goods and services — gasoline,
food, travel, etc. — that will necessarily be passed along to consumers.
As you can readily see, your share of President Obama’s auction
proceeds don’t come close to breaking even on greenhouse gas
regulation.
Maybe you’re thinking that these extra costs are worth it as they will be
dwarfed by the environmental benefits of tackling the much-dreaded
global warming.
Think again. There will be no detectable or tangible benefits from reduced
greenhouse gas emissions.
First, carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas targeted by regulation is
invisible, colorless and odorless. Since it exists in the atmosphere at
levels measured in the parts per million, unless you’re a plant that needs
CO2 to live, you’re not going to notice it.
Next, there is no evidence that human emissions of carbon dioxide are
causing detectable changes, much less any harm, to the climate.
This means, of course, that there is no evidence that reducing carbon
dioxide emissions will have any detectable changes on climate.
Even assuming for the sake of argument that man made carbon dioxide
emissions were changing climate, Obama’s cap-and-trade bill will still
have no detectable impact. First, EPA projects that a maximum clamp
down on future U.S. emissions would reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide
levels by about 5 percent or less — a trivial change no matter what you
believe about carbon dioxide. Moreover, China and India have vowed not
to harm their economies because of global warming — so their emissions
can be expected to soar as they develop and more than make-up for our
reductions.
Maybe the economics of Obama’s cap-and-trade rip-off don’t bother you,
but the fact that the rip-off will accomplish nothing should give you pause.
Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and co-manages the Free
Enterprise Action Fund and is the author of the forthcoming book from
Regnery Publishing, “Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to
Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them.”
Check out my YouTube video on this issue:
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duane
Joined: 07 Mar 2007
Posts: 486
Location: western pennsylvania
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 11:09 am Post subject: |
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Hi Fintan,
the article you posted
Obama’s Climate Rip-off
Maybe the economics of Obama’s cap-and-trade
rip-off don’t bother you, but the fact that the rip-off
will accomplish nothing should give you pause.
does describe the fallacies of global warming and "cap & trade" economics
But pointing out that someone else is incorrect doesn't make your position the correct one.
especially if junkscience.com views are based upon assumptions like these:
1. "free markets" no governmental regs needed
2. no problems with current system no regs needed
3. since there is no global warming there is no environmental degradation and no governmental regs needed
4. recycling, conservation, alternate energies are ploys of the "global warming crowd" and should be avoided
their website is "fair and balanced"
examples can be seen on their blog
http://www.junkscience.com/blog1/
Obama’s climate rip-off
February 27th, 2009
My column at FoxNews.com today…
Recycle urine?
February 27th, 2009
Deregulation or greens to blame for utility shut-offs?
Greens come after your Charmin
February 26th, 2009
Government commission urges taxing drivers by-the-mile
February 26th, 2009
BP CEO calls for more drilling
February 26th, 2009
Obama cancels Bush oil shale leases
February 26th, 2009
We need to decouple the " future global climate debate" from the "present environment disasters" caused by human activity.
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Fintan
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Jan 2006
Posts: 3889
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| Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2009 11:26 pm Post subject: |
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Well How'z about that!
Just a couple of weeks ago Prof. Bob carter was on the show and we
were discussing a likely imminent climb-down by Global Warming Inc.
--one forced on them by the current no-sunspot chilling effect on climate.
Well here it comes, via Discovery and on MSNBC, quoting a senior
official in NOAA who is confirming latest university research. Here comes
their new strategic fallback position (with sunspots unmentioned):
Global Warming May be On Ice 
| Quote: | 
Warming might be on hold, study finds
Authors sense hibernation, but warn of 'explosive' rise later
By Michael Reilly
March 2, 2009
For those who have endured this winter's frigid temperatures and
today's heavy snowstorm in the Northeast, the concept of global
warming may seem, well, almost wishful.
But climate is known to be variable — a cold winter, or a few strung
together doesn't mean the planet is cooling. Still, according to a new
study, global warming may have hit a speed bump and could go into
hiding for decades.
Earth's climate continues to confound scientists. Following a 30-year
trend of warming, global temperatures have flatlined since 2001 despite
rising greenhouse gas concentrations, and a heat surplus that
should have cranked up the planetary thermostat.
"This is nothing like anything we've seen since 1950," Kyle Swanson of
the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee said. "Cooling events since then
had firm causes, like eruptions or large-magnitude La Ninas. This current
cooling doesn't have one."
Instead, Swanson and colleague Anastasios Tsonis think a series of
climate processes have aligned, conspiring to chill the climate. In 1997
and 1998, the tropical Pacific Ocean warmed rapidly in what Swanson
called a "super El Nino event." It sent a shock wave through the oceans
and atmosphere, jarring their circulation patterns into unison.
How does this square with temperature records from 2005-2007, by some
measurements among the warmest years on record? When added up with
the other four years since 2001, Swanson said the overall trend is flat,
even though temperatures should have gone up by 0.2 degrees
Centigrade (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) during that time.
The discrepancy gets to the heart of one of the toughest
problems in climate science — identifying the difference
between natural variability (like the occasional March
snow storm) from human-induced change.
But just what's causing the cooling is a mystery. Sinking water currents
in the north Atlantic Ocean could be sucking heat down into the depths.
Or an overabundance of tropical clouds may be reflecting more of the
sun's energy than usual back out into space.
"It is possible that a fraction of the most recent rapid warming since the
1970's was due to a free variation in climate," Isaac Held of the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Princeton, New Jersey wrote in
an email to Discovery News. "Suggesting that the warming might
possibly slow down or even stagnate for a few years before rapid
warming commences again."
Swanson thinks the trend could continue for up to 30 years.
But he warned that it's just a hiccup, and that humans' penchant for
spewing greenhouse gases will certainly come back to haunt us.
"When the climate kicks back out of this state, we'll have explosive
warming," Swanson said. "Thirty years of greenhouse gas radiative
forcing will still be there and then bang, the warming will return and be
very aggressive."
© 2009 Discovery Channel
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29469287/
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/03/02/global-warming-pause.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29469287/wid/18298287/ |
Somebody should tell the
Global Warming activists.
As if to prove a point, the weather conspired
to dump a foot of snow on their D.C. protest:
| Quote: |  Out With A Shiver:
Global Warming Protest
Frozen Out by Massive Snowfall
It was snowing irony in Washington on Monday when global warming
activists descended on the District like a storm -- but got beaten to the
punch by a blast of wintry weather that incapacitated the city.
By Joseph Abrams - FOXNews.com
Monday, March 02, 2009
Global warming activists stormed Washington Monday for what was billed
as the nation's largest act of civil disobedience to fight climate change --
only to see the nation's capital virtually shut down by a major winter
storm.
Schools and businesses were shuttered, lawmakers cancelled numerous
appearances and the city came to a virtual standstill as Washington was
blasted with its heaviest snowfall of the winter.
It spelled about six inches of trouble for global warming activists who had
hoped to swarm the Capitol by the thousands in an effort to force the
government to close the Capitol Power Plant, which heats and cools a
number of government buildings, including the Supreme Court and the
Capitol.
The snowy scene, with temperatures in the mid-20s, was reminiscent
of a day in January 2004, when Al Gore made a major address on global
warming in New York -- on one of the coldest days in the city's history.
Protest organizers said about 2,500 people braved the blizzard to oppose
greenhouse gas emissions, but the shroud of snow wasn't the only wet
blanket in the nation's capital Monday.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who called on the architect of the Capitol to
stop burning coal at the power plant last week, cancelled her appearance
at the rally because her flight to Washington was cancelled.....
Some protesters couldn't make it as dozens of flights in the area were
delayed or called off, and some couldn't face the dangerous roads or
blustery weather, leaving hundreds safe, if sorry, back at home.
One protester named Kat had planned to get arrested and be bailed out
Monday but decided to stay put and donate her money to a good cause
instead.
"I don't want to travel in the snow today. However, I am donating my bail
money to fight mountaintop removal," she wrote to the Climate Action
Web site.
Even marchers in gloves and parkas were wringing their hands to stay
warm, and some protest leaders were having trouble providing updates
on blog sites like Twitter.
"I admit, it's hard to tweet with cold hands!" wrote the author of the
Capitol Climate Action Web site, who said the activists were "staying
warm with a chant: 'Clean coal is a dirty lie.'"
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/02/shiver-global-warming-protest-frozen-massive-snowfall/ |
As featured in this thread earlier..
These Guys Have Got It Right
(Except maybe: Evil and Wrong)
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Dvishnu
Joined: 09 May 2006
Posts: 86
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| Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 11:33 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Duane wrote But pointing out that someone else is incorrect doesn't make your position the correct one.
especially if junkscience.com views are based upon assumptions like these:
1. "free markets" no governmental regs needed
2. no problems with current system no regs needed
3. since there is no global warming there is no environmental degradation and no governmental regs needed
4. recycling, conservation, alternate energies are ploys of the "global warming crowd" and should be avoided
their website is "fair and balanced"
examples can be seen on their blog |
With all due respect Duane, which position are you talking about?...Based on what I've read and seen, the only conclusion derived here was that the assumption that carbon dioxide causes global warming is basically a fairy tale with no supporting evidence based on the actual facts...I don't know of anyone on this forum who has a petroleum or coal fetish...Surveying, producing, refining, distributing and burning these products tends to be both very expensive and inefficient for the customer who will ultimately pay all the costs, including a hefty government tribute at each phase of the business....AND aside from maybe a few dogs, I can't recall anyone telling me that they're terribly fond of breathing car exhaust.... 
The reason we still rely on so called fossil fuels is because gov't has a virtual monopoly over energy resources....According to the cumalative comprehensive annual financial reports from federal, state and municipal agencies...Government in general owns 75 percent of all domestic energy companies....That number might be a little low....These are the same people who make the rules and regs we have to adhere to....That's quite a conflict of interest.... 
Do you see where I'm going here? |
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duane
Joined: 07 Mar 2007
Posts: 486
Location: western pennsylvania
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| Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 1:58 pm Post subject: |
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Dvishnu said
"With all due respect Duane, which position are you talking about?...Based on what I've read and seen, the only conclusion derived here was that the assumption that carbon dioxide causes global warming is basically a fairy tale with no supporting evidence based on the actual facts...I don't know of anyone on this forum who has a petroleum or coal fetish."
I was referring to the Junkscience website.
and their blog, now found at
http://greenhellblog.wordpress.com/
the theme is there's no global warming, there are no problems, no need for government interference, business as usual.
I am not pro "global warming" nor "global cooling" as Fintan is leaning toward with his sunspot "model"
The argument about which is correct only promotes gridlock, which those in power encourage, since it distracts from the real problems.
we should focus on improving human living standards and restoring a healthy environment. this will allow both humans and the environment to better adapt to any climate changes, regardless of their cause.
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Alfresco
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Posts: 183
Location: England
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| Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 8:21 am Post subject: |
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| duane wrote: |
The argument about which is correct only promotes gridlock, which those in power encourage, since it distracts from the real problems.
we should focus on improving human living standards and restoring a healthy environment. this will allow both humans and the environment to better adapt to any climate changes, regardless of their cause. |
I agree. I think a good number of people are realising that man made global
warming is false science, but if we start going on about global cooling (like in
the past) we're just going round in circles.
Its all just time and money that could be used better.
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duane
Joined: 07 Mar 2007
Posts: 486
Location: western pennsylvania
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| Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 3:02 pm Post subject: |
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/09/climate-deniers-gather-in_n_172971.html
Climate Deniers Gather In Times Square
This week, more than 600 people have gathered in New York for the International Conference on Climate Change. But it may not be what you think -- it's a conference organized by the conservative Heartland Institute, which doesn't believe in climate change.
It comes on the heels of a gathering of some 12,000 young climate activists -- who favor action to stop climate change -- in Washington, DC.
This year's conference has its high points and its low points for organizers. Among the high points is one of its special guests -- the president of the Czech Republic.
Conference organisers were celebrating something of a coup in securing as a keynote speaker the Czech president, Václav Klaus, at a time when his country holds the rotating presidency of the EU. Klaus, a Eurosceptic, believes that efforts to protect the world from the impact of climate change are an assault on freedom.
In his remarks last night, Klaus accused European governments of being "alarmist" on the subject of climate change and in thrall to radical environmentalists.
"They probably do not want to reveal their true plans and ambitions to stop economic development and return mankind several centuries back," he said.
But Klaus and the others at the conference are being abandoned and questioned by others who only last year would have stood beside them. The New York Times' Andrew Revkin points out a wide variety of reasons that the conference is a bit weaker than usual, including the fact that not even Exxon wants to sponsor it now:
But two years after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded with near certainty that most of the recent warming was a result of human influences, global warming's skeptics are showing signs of internal rifts and weakening support.
The meeting participants hold a wide range of views of climate science. Some concede that humans probably contribute to global warming but they argue that the shift in temperatures poses no urgent risk. Others attribute the warming, along with cooler temperatures in recent years, to solar changes or ocean cycles.
But large corporations like Exxon Mobil, which in the past financed the Heartland Institute and other groups that challenged the climate consensus, have reduced support. Many such companies no longer dispute that the greenhouse gases produced by burning fossil fuels pose risks.
So the battle is over economic development and who gets to control it.
BUT, nowhere is there any mention of environmental destruction cause by "economic development" or the destruction caused from extraction of the "fossil fuels" from the ground, wastes generated during processing or left over after the burning. No global warming.. no worry
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Janama
Joined: 21 Jan 2006
Posts: 399
Location: Australia
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| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 5:55 pm Post subject: |
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Exxon didn't sponsor it because their policy changed in january last year when they decided not to sponsor anti GW research because to the flak they received from the greenies.
BTW Exxon controls all the gas so it's in it's interest to move from oil to gas. |
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Fintan
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Jan 2006
Posts: 3889
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| Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2009 8:42 pm Post subject: |
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You'd almost think that we've just won a
major victory against the CO2 lunacy.
And we have. For now.
Obama's job is to keep up the rhetoric on Global Warming,
while the Dems quietly back-burner and water-down the
proposed US Climate Change legislation.
As some votes in the last few days have demonstrated clearly:
| Quote: | Cap and Tax Collapse
Congress balks at one more bad Obama idea.
April 3, 2009
Please pass Al Gore a Valium -- and better make it a double -- because
his cap-and-trade dreams just took a dive in the U.S. Senate. In a vote
late Wednesday, no fewer than 26 Democrats joined all 41 Republicans to
insist that any new cap and tax on carbon energy would require at least
60 votes.
Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander called it "the biggest vote of
the year" so far, and he's right. This means Majority Leader Harry Reid
can't jam cap and tax through as part of this year's budget resolution with
a bare majority of 50 Senators. More broadly, it's a signal that California
and East Coast Democrats won't be able to sock it to coal and
manufacturing-heavy Midwestern states without a fight. Senators voting in
favor of the 60-vote rule included liberals from Wisconsin, Michigan and
West Virginia. Now look for Team Obama to attempt to impose cap and
tax the non-democratic way, via regulation that hits business and local
governments with such heavy costs that they beg Congress for a less-
harmful version......
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123872261427685233.html#mod=rss_opinion_main |
That vote means that some committee cannot ram
through the global warming tax without a proper vote.
And it get's worse for Gore and his crew:
| Quote: | The Thune Amendment
April 1st, 2009 Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
The ability of Congressional legislation on cap and trade to result
in actual emissions reductions was dealt a serious blow yesterday.
An Amendment was introduced by Senator John Thune (R-SD) on
the Budget Resolution and its text is as follows:
"To amend the deficit-neutral reserve fund for climate change
legislation to require that such legislation does not increase
electricity or gasoline prices."
What is this? Climate change legislation cannot increase electricity or
gasoline prices? The entire purpose of cap and trade is in fact to
increase the costs of carbon-emitting sources of energy, which dominate
US energy consumption. The Thune Amendment thus undercuts the entire
purpose of cap and trade.
What was the vote on the Thune Amendment? 89-8 in favor of the
Amendment, 48 Democrats and 41 Republicans. Only 8 members of the
Senate were willing to go on record saying that they support the purpose
of a cap and trade bill, to make carbon-emitting energy more expensive.
Barbara Boxer (D-CA) voted for the Thune Amendment had this to say:
"Any kind of cap-and-trade system that comes
forward will not raise energy and gas prices."
The Thune Amendment effectively kills cap and trade as a mechanism
for reducing emissions. I have little doubt that the legislation will go
forward, and it likely will pass in some form and do many things. Its
just that reducing emissions won’t be among them. Cap and trade is
dead, but the charade will go on.
For those who may be wondering, this post is not an April Fools Joke.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/the-thune-amendment-5096 |
We already know --as reported in this thread-- that Americans
rank global warming last out of 20 national priorities.
Imposing a biting tax on them would accentuate a worrying trend for
Global Warming cheerleaders. It would considerably increase the
hemorrhage of tacit public support for the whole scam.
That hemorrhage was already tilting the balance in our favor
--even before a tax which would likely enrage consumers:
| Quote: | 
Tipping Point In The Media
31 - 03 - 2009 Post by Steven Goddard
Over the last year or so I have been taking an informal survey of a key
news metric - Google news searches for the term “global warming.”
A year ago, the ratio of alarmist/skeptical articles was close to 100/1.
About six months ago, the ratio was 90/10, Two months ago it was 80/20,
and today it hit 50/50 for the first time - including the lead skeptical story
“A Cooling Trend Toward Global Warming“. One thing that has changed is
the rise of blogs written by informed citizens, complemented by the
demise of corporate newspapers which make money from keeping
people continually alarmed about one thing or another.
Congratulations to Anthony and all the readers for being a big part of this.
Democracy in it’s purest form - hope and change we can all believe in.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/31/tipping-point-in-the-media/ |
That's the power of the Internet at work. The thousands of bloggers
and the scores of top-notch skeptic websites have made their mark.
They made it impossible for the media to declare victory on the issue.
The cooling of the last year clinched it:
| Quote: | Public Opinion Is Shifting
According to a January Rasmussen poll, 44 percent of U.S. voters now
say "long-term planetary trends are the cause of global warming —
up from 35 percent two years ago, while only 41 percent blame it on
human activity, down from 47 percent. The remainder either attribute
global warming to some other reason or are unsure. This means that only
about 4 in 10 of the polled "expected voters" are still falling for the
"greatest scam."
More and more scientists are also publicly coming out against the
anthropogenic global-warming hypothesis. On March 21, 59 additional
scientists from NASA, the EPA, the Navy, the Air Force, the Defense and
Energy Departments, and major universities joined the previous 650 who
disagree with this hypothesis, according to Senator James Inhofe, ranking
Republican on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
A Cooling Trend Toward Global Warming
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/942 |
It's been threatening for a long time.
Now, skepticism is going mainstream:
| Quote: | Chill winds take heat off global warming
LA Notebook: Climate change scepticism is going mainstream
The Times - April 1, 2009 Chris Ayres
Well, that didn't take long, did it? After six months of economic hardship
and one unusually chilly winter, it seems that Americans are beginning to
conclude that perhaps global warming wasn't such a big deal after all.
Blowing $30,000 on a solar roof doesn't seem such a great move these
days. And for the price of a Toyota Prius you can now buy a three-
bedroomed house in Detroit with enough left for a pick-up truck (this
isn't a joke - the median house price in Motor City is $7,500).
The ranks of America's “climate sceptics” have been growing quietly for
some months now. And at the weekend a watershed was reached: the
usually left-wing New York Times put the British-born physicist Freeman
Dyson on the front of its Sunday magazine. The article inside revealed
that Professor Dyson - 85 years old and based in Princeton - not only
possesses one of the finest noodles on Planet Earth, but also happens to
think that most of what Al Gore and his band of Unmerry Men preach
amounts to little more than yuppie self-loathing.
“All the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated,” is how
Professor Dyson puts it. He adds that while it's true that human-caused
carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are rising, the Earth is still going
through a relatively cool period in its history, and that most of the
evolution of life took place in a warmer era. Professor Dyson is also fond
of pointing out that carbon dioxide helps plants to grow - so having too
much of the stuff hanging around might not be such a bad thing.
Out in the blogotwittersphere, the Greens can hardly believe that the
same media that once helped Mr Gore to win both an Oscar and a Nobel
prize are now promoting such heresy. To make matters more infuriating,
Professor Dyson isn't even a conservative: he's a left-wing, Obama-
voting, peace-marching, boho-academic genius who argues that coal-
produced electricity has liberated millions in China from poverty, and that
“greens are people who've never had to worry about grocery bills”.
I suspect that, as we all get used to our relative poverty over coming
months and as it becomes politically impossible for President Obama to
bankrupt power stations and impose carbon tariffs on imports, such
scepticism will become ever more mainstream. Only last week a
suggestion by California to outlaw black cars because they absorb too
much heat and therefore require too much air conditioning was met with
almost universal ridicule. All of which is both satisfying and unsettling -
satisfying to see debate triumph over heavy-handedness, but unsettling
because even if what Mr Gore was peddling was a lie, it was a convenient
one, in that it seemed to be finally weaning the US off Saudi oil.
Still, honesty is always the best way.
And in America at least, it's always so much more appealing when
delivered by an awkward Brit.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/chris_ayres/article6011157.ece |
Despite this victory, it ain't over.
The huge loot on offer sees to that.
But it's nice to win one, eh?
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