Here in the heart of wingerdom, I know far more people who think global warming is a myth than people who think it's a problem that needs addressing. And -- this is the real scary part -- the more passionate about the topic a person is, the more likely they are to be a skeptic. I will bet, for example, that 90% of the people who read Crichton's State Of Fear think they are informed about the topic, and those of us who are concerned about global warming are dupes of the liberal media. This sort of attitude results in entrenched positions people are invested in defending, especially when it ties into an existing ideological framework.

"Temperatures around the world are going up" is about the level of argument most people can come up with, while any skeptic has a series of talking points they recite on cue: "Temperatures on Mars are going up, too, and there are no people there." "Have you read Crichton's book?" "Global warming is good for crops, even if it's happening," and I could on and on. Countering these arguments takes science, reason, and above all time, and not everyone is equipped to do it. And of course, there are business interests here, as well.

The atmosphere (social and political if not terrestrial) is better now than it was a couple of years ago, when the media always
talked about global warming as if it was the subject of some raging scientific debate, and I think Gore is directly responsible for changing that atmosphere. Getting the media largely on board was a huge win, but they are hardly the most reliable of allies. It's about round 3 of a very long fight in my view.

In times of peace, the wise man prepares for war. -- Horace

The blade itself incites to violence. -- Homer

So let's do nothing about the problem until Al Gore builds the greenest house in history. This is a red herring.

"The U.S. backed out of Kyoto."

"Yes, but Al Gore had a big electric bill!"

Temperatures around the world are going up, and
so are CO2 emissions."

"Yes, but Al Gore had a big electric bill!"

And on and on and on. Al Gore has done and is doing more than his share to solve the problem; his electric bill has nothing to do with it except to the extent we allow it to change the subject.

In times of peace, the wise man prepares for war. -- Horace

The blade itself incites to violence. -- Homer

Not exactly a Zen master. Instead, it was Gandhi who said, "you must be the change you wish to see in the world." Al Gore is supporting political solutions to global warming. That is the change he wants to see: wide-spread vocal support for political solutions to the problem.

Amazing! impeachtoday should not only check his spelling of Al Gore's name, but also his facts about the electric bill.

Change does begin at home for Gore -- he pays a $425 premium (which helps account for the large electric bill) to use green energy. Also, he and Tipper work from their home, which helps cut down on their total carbon footprint further.

impeachtoday, if you're just trying get a dig in, then I'd suggest you go troll somewhere else. But if you genuinely believe the point you're making, then let me encourage you to overcome your laziness long enough to check your facts on this -- as usual, Snopes comes through:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/gorehome.asp

Here you'll find that it's true, the Gores have a large electric bill. But you'll also find out why. I'll go with what Snopes says any day over what the grapevine "sayeth."

Thanks Mr. Hundt,

I highly recommend everyone visit at least once www.realclimate.org -- which is run by actual climate scientists and is a combination serious scientific roundtable and the most effect global warming debunking site on the planet. These nice folks have heard every skeptic and denier argument and never stop pointing out their scientific flaws in clear language backed by peer-reviewed science.

I suspect the 80m level derives from a complete melting of Greenland and Antarctica, while current predictions call for not so much melting and a rise of perhaps 20m - I do suspect it will be greater. But that's just one of the effects that will impact life. High temperatures, reduced crop yields, global spread of disease, massive droughts, massive flooding, the death of herd animals, all will contribute.

As for the Right and their territory, as it were, I suspect a 20m rise might start to bring back the old Inland Sea that covered much of the Midwest way back when. I picture rats leaving a sinking ship and screaming for 'government' to do something. You know, the little tiny government that they want to drown in a bathtub...

"Giving credit to Gore may have some validity in terms of the US, but the rest of the world is leading the effort." True, but that overlooks the reputation he's earned in Europe. You probably saw the article the other day about Belgian politicians miffed to be left out of the photo op with him. Anyhow, at least he can read an electric bill.  Even if Bush could read, the GOP has servants for such things. 

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

On March 20, 2007 - 4:29am mcs said:

the problem is, it does! as I posted before, I read a critique of "inconvenient truth" and someone noted: "you wouldn't believe that Gore was vice president for 8 years..."

Did it say why;

"you wouldn't believe that Gore was vice president for 8 years..." ?

On March 20, 2007 - 12:12pm Unmitigated Audacity said:

Yes, there is evidence of global warming, but scientific evidence points precisely away from CO2 as the culprit and towards increased solar activity (solar flares/sun spots) and the interaction between solar activity and cosmic radiation.

So, since the day the first man found coal, maybe cro magnon, 40,000 years ago?, and started to use it (carbon), since that day, through the Industrial Revolution, all the coal/oil fired factories, automobiles, trains, homes, especially since the turn of the last century, spewing all that waste into the atmosphere has had no influence on global warming?

That we've had ice ages in the past, that we've had temperature swings in the past, does not preclude man's affect on global warming.

From the day he took office, Ronald Reagan refused to acknowledge that man- made pollutants cause acid rain. In 1980, he went so far as to say that acid rain was caused by trees.

In 1986 during his second Shamrock Meeting with Brian Mulroney
Reagan changed his tune. Acid rain, said he, "is a serious concern affecting both our countries."

So, where is this "scientific evidence" you refer to?

It probably would affect them in unpleasant ways as well-- but I doubt they've thought this through, because, well, I've never seen the right think anything all the way through when they can pretend that some sort of magical and ideologically correct transformation will occur before they have to face logical consequences. Then it wasn't their ideology that failed, but its imperfect practitioners... and so on, rinse and repeat. But it wouldn't surprise me in the least if a number of the freeper crowd didn't enjoy the images of NYC and other coastal areas disappearing, because that's where a lot of people they hate live, and as others have observed, what passes for conservatism these days is mostly a tribal loathing of anything liberal.

I don't usually get to discuss this issue with a climate change denier. So here's my question. Why do you need to take the position that you do?

Let's assume that the influence of mankind is only part of the problem. Wouldn't doing something about this still be a good idea? What happens if the skeptics are wrong and as a result of inaction things become much worse than they might have?

Here's a report today on rivers running dry. Part of this is due to bad management, but not all of it.

River Report

Certainly anyone who knows the western US knows that much of the problems with the Rio Grande and the Colorado are man made, so why should other effects be so hard to imagine.

There are shills that work for energy companies whose living depends upon promoting scientific confusion. Since you post under an alias we have know way of knowing whether you are one of these people yourself.

Just today an old story about an oil industry shill working in the White house to rewrite government environment reports resurfaced as part of the ongoing investigations. The thing is you can fool the people but you can't fool mother nature.

--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape

Not arguing that man's use of fossil fuels has not increased CO2 levels. It has. I am arguing that CO2 levels are not the cause of global warming. Did you watch the movie I linked to? Do you have an open enough mind to do that?

UA

Yes, I watched your movie, it pained me as I was waiting for something of substance instead of charges of flim flam. The movie left me to wonder who produced it and who paid to produce it. I suspected EXXON.

You and your movie argue CO2 is not the cause of global warming. I won't offer Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" movie, I'll offer just these 3.

thttp://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/environmental/200611CO2globalwarming.htmlhis:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/~tk/climate_dynamics/climate_impact_webpage.html~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/features/altscenario/

You're right that an FDR emphasis is appropriate. I also agree a return to better nuclear plants is now a reasonable position, if they are fast-neutron types. (Near-complete exhaustion of fuel, and deeply contained for radiation thus poor attack targets.)

The majority of climate scientists might be wrong but it's not a hoax, implying intentional fakery. It's not debatable we are warmer--the mutiple reports of increasing high-lattude range of plants and insects along with reduced ice cover should be enough to convince on that. I won't argue ice records with you, since neither of us has credibility as experts, but surely it's not debatable that CO2 is a greenhouse gas (physical principles) and that there is more of it now than in the recent past.

Quite simply it is asking for trouble to pump more of it into the air without regulation. While there are stronger greenhouse-effect gases, such as CFCs, that will help in being reduced, it's convenient that good economics argues we stop depending on fossil carbon and start emphasizing other sources of energy. Spending capital is only proper for investing, not operating expenses, which is the equivalent of burning coal to stay warm.

True green would be a self-contained wind/solar/storage unit that could serve a village, enabling water pumping, refrigeration, and communication. Spread those around the third world and it helps everyone.

Remember that bacteria already changed the climate, drastically, causing a catastrophe for non-oxygen-breathing life. We certainly can alter the climate with industrial and personal activity.

Here is a review article. It has 78 references and represents the current state of knowledge about solar variation and the Earth's climate. You don't have to agree -- they could be wrong, but I'd say it is a pretty good bet that the CO2 is the cause of the warming.

Review
Nature 443, 161-166 (14 September 2006)
Variations in solar luminosity and their effect on the Earth's climate
P. Foukal1, C. Fröhlich2, H. Spruit3 and T. M. L. Wigley4
Abstract: Variations in the Sun's total energy output (luminosity) are caused by changing dark (sunspot) and bright structures on the solar disk during the 11-year sunspot cycle. The variations measured from spacecraft since 1978 are too small to have contributed appreciably to accelerated global warming over the past 30 years. In this Review, we show that detailed analysis of these small output variations has greatly advanced our understanding of solar luminosity change, and this new understanding indicates that brightening of the Sun is unlikely to have had a significant influence on global warming since the seventeenth century. Additional climate forcing by changes in the Sun's output of ultraviolet light, and of magnetized plasmas, cannot be ruled out. The suggested mechanisms are, however, too complex to evaluate meaningfully at present.
1. Heliophysics, Inc., Nahant, Massachusetts 01908, USA
2. Physikalisch-Meteorologisches Observatorium Davos, World Radiation Center, CH-7260 Davos Dorf, Switzerland
3. Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, D-85741 Garching, Germany
4. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado 80307-3000, USA

"The green ideology is fundamentally anti-growth, anti-science and therefore anti-human." -- Mr. U.A.

Why do I feel I walked into a Ted Nugent press conference or an NRA editorial ???

Such comments just ooze uncontrolled, bar-stool stupidity with Apollo Moon Hoax overtones.

When I see a feeding frenzy like this as you guys beat up on Unmitigated audacity, I am more and more convinced that this is nothing more than an out of control religion.

Senator Markey called him a Prophet today.

Most of you don't even read what he says. Just because he doesn't drop to his knees and take the Sacrament with eyes closed from the Sainted Zen master Al Gore, U.A. is some kind of a nut, or a secret schill from secret society.

U.A. comes forward, explains his dislike for Bush, his progressive leaning politics, but he shares his doubts and skepticism about a topic that would require the most massive mobilization of capital and resources ever devised. All that the advocates say to the U.A.s of the world is shut up, the debate is over, give us the money, non-believer.

Those kinds of threats of intimidation might work in Europe, but in America you are spoiling for a fight, and you will get one. A reporter on 60 minutes recently compared GW skeptics to holocaust deniers. So, now if you ask Al Gore's Bishops, has the temperature risen .6 degrees Celsius or .7 degrees Celsius in the past 100 years, you are a Nazi? Are Nuremberg trials next?

Here are some good examples of how U.A.'s healthy and open minded inquisitiveness is welcomed here.

RDF says:

"...
I don't usually get to discuss this issue with a climate change denier. So here's my question. Why do you need to take the position that you do?..."

Astonishment that someone would actually study the numbers, why would you question this U.A.? Blasphemy.

More from RDF:

"...Let's assume that the influence of mankind is only part of the problem. Wouldn't doing something about this still be a good idea? ..."

UA is not arguing to do nothing, he has real solutions that are very specific. Gore's Church of perpetual prattling poppycock is usually heavy on eternal damnation and vague and inconsistent on solutions. UA is specific about the types of Nuclear power that would decrease carbon emissions among other things, but Tom is one of the only ones that engage him on this. RDF says doing "something" is a good idea. It sounds like he is saying we should do "anything". how many trillions of dollars of "anything" does Al Gore's church want from us.

"....What happens if the skeptics are wrong and as a result of inaction things become much worse than they might have?..."

What if the people that say Islamic radicals could obtain and detonate Nuclear bombs in Los Angeles, NYC and Washington all in one day were correct? Shoudln't we do something? Anything?

What if the Church of Gore is wrong? What if we blindly follow him and our economy and our freedom is destroyed and we are over run by other forces even more dangerous than Mother earth. If man is the most dangerous force, then why shouldn't we imagine that the human beings that would mean us harm are watching as we dismantle our arsenal by hobbling our country.

The skeptics which are portrayed here as heretics that not only want to do nothing, but they want to do more damage. The Earth Haters.

"...things become much worse than they might have?..."

Worse than what? People on this thread that are treated as believers are debating over whether Senator Inhofe will drown in 260 meters of rising sea water or 26 feet of rising sea water or some that claim it will be much more than 260 meters and then there are those that want us to believe it will all happen in an instant like the biblical deluge with Noah being the only smart one and the evil idol worshippers like Jan Lundberg and Michael Crichton will be floundering in a Tsunami like Flood.

Al Gore is in front of congress right now saying there is no debate, that all scientists agree with him, and he holds up the most recent UN report as proof of that. That report argues that over decades and decades the increase will be about 38 centimeters. Thats about up to Senator Inhoffe's shin.

Yet, Gore goes around showing his academy award winning Slide show claiming that Florida will be gone and Barbara Striesand's house in Malibu will be wiped out. He's lying. Dr. James Hansen at NASA who receives a fortune in endowments from people like Theresa Heinz, claims that Bush censors him, yet he goes around lecturing and acting as a consultant for Al Gore and even admits that some of his earlier claims were exaggerated to drive people to analyze the situation.

A statement like I just made, questioning Al Gore is usually greeted by the RDFs with, "Why are you doing this? Why would you doubt? Why would you question?

Because it is false! Because even their numbers don't agree with each other from day to day. And if we are going to refer to this as science it should be treated like science.

Its either science or its not. If it is science, be prepared to withstand scrutiny. If this was an cancer drug proposal from a pharmaceutical company, we would scrutinize it and its proponents with a fine tooth comb and if we found them exagerating or if they quoted different numbers on any given day or tried to intimidate their detractors with threats, they would be shutdown.

He then produces a river report and then extrapolates:

"...Certainly anyone who knows the western US knows that much of the problems with the Rio Grande and the Colorado are man made, so why should other effects be so hard to imagine..."

A. There have been cases of man made impact on the flora and fauna of this garden of eden we live in.

B. GW catastrophists claim the world is coming to an end based on man made effects.

C. Therefore, since A is true, B must be true. Lets repent and give Al Gore dictator powers over our lives to control our lives to the minutest detail, including how many times we can wipe and if eating beef is worth the amount of cow farts.

"...There are shills that work for energy companies whose living depends upon promoting scientific confusion. Since you post under an alias we have know way of knowing whether you are one of these people yourself...."

I love this one. RDF implies anyone that holds the view of UA, who remember is an avowed left leaning progressive, must have some sinister motive other than a quest for truth or an interest in "getting it right". UA must be a witch, controlled by Big oil. After all you are doing suspicious things like rabble rousing under an alias, unlike RDF. We all have aliases here!!!

And why would a shill for the oil company promote Nuclear power, the ultimate Kryptonite for the Petroleum industry.

"...Just today an old story about an oil industry shill working in the White house to rewrite government environment reports resurfaced as part of the ongoing investigations. The thing is you can fool the people but you can't fool mother nature...."

Here we go again, the conspiracy theory of the bat cave under the west wing where the petroleum pirates map out their strategy for world domination by controlling Karl Rove, who controls Cheney, who controls George Bush, who wants to kill everybody for fun and profit. Sheesh.

When Al Gore argues that we should mobilize our society to change in a few years what even his own experts agree is a decades long process (maybe centuries) and something that will cost hundreds of trillions of dollars and will destroy our economy in a time of global war and massive economic challenges from Asia based on science that is unproven, it is just immoral to threaten and intimidate people that don't want to join that church.

What I hear UA and even conservatives saying is we all want to move in that direction, we just don't agree on the speed and intensity. If thats not good enough for Al Gore, then let him go for broke. All or nothing.

Gore's true believers preach that ALL scientists agree with him. That's just not so. When polled on the human cause regarding GW, and scientists were asked if they were somewhat convinced, largely convinced, etc.

Only 9% were totally convinced. Does that sound like the debate is over? Does that sound like the time to ask questions is over?

Now we have a new movie coming out where the earth wakes up and takes revenge on capitalism. This is all a bunch of Gaia worship and religious intimidation that is as bad as the spanish inquisition.

Gore's entire argument is based on science by majority rules as opposed to science by the scientific method. A majority that doesn't exist and scientists who are bought or intimidated. If getting a consensus is so important, then where are the majority of Economists that would agree with the calculations that his plans would not affect the economy as he claims?

Part of science is being sceptical and focusing on discrepencies and inconsistencies. If that makes this kind of questioning Nazi like to his Gang, then he is dragging science back to the dark ages.

You people should reread UA's posts and realize, he is on your side. If Gore continues to try to intimidate, he will fool some and intimidate others, but there will be a back lash and then he will get nothing.

[typed on a carbon neutral computer - No carbon credits necessary]

On March 21, 2007 - 1:39pm TJKING said:

Al Gore is in front of congress right now saying there is no debate, that all scientists agree with him, and he holds up the most recent UN report as proof of that. That report argues that over decades and decades the increase will be about 38 centimeters. Thats about up to Senator Inhoffe's shin.

You're back again with more misrepresentations, more dissembling, more making charges up out of whole cloth, more exaggerations and more unadulterated BS. I won't address all of the mumbo jumbo in your post theres too much, I'll start with the above paragraph.

The first sentence is a lie. Gore NEVER uses the words "all scientists".

The UN report (IPCC) does say the sea level will rise only inches, it also says: "Of particular concern is the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. A sudden collapse would raise sea levels 16-20 feet but the IPCC considers the likelihood of such a collapse before the year 2100 low."

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/infodata/faq_cat-1.html#20

The report Gore uses that shows a rise in sea level of 20 feet IF THE POLAR ICE SHEET MELTS. Here's where the deviousness comes in, they compare apples and oranges by conflating two different reports

http://uanews.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/UANews.woa/3/wa/MainStoryDetails?ArticleID=6512&wosid=7fkdAzfLDoOiNvuYeeL5A0

http://www.ispe.arizona.edu/about/staff/peck.html

Jonathan Overpeck Director, ISPE PhD Professor of Geosciences

"The last time the Earth was warmer than today was the last interglacial period, 130,000 years ago,” Overpeck says. “We know at that time the Earth was only a fraction of a degree warmer than it is today, yet sea level was between 3 and 6 metehttp://www.ispe.arizona.edu/about/staff/peck.htmlrs higher (9.9 to 19.8 feet).'

“This is a perfect example of an abrupt change,” Ovepeck says. “No one thinks that the Greenland ice sheet can melt that fast, but the paleorecord shows pretty good evidence that it did in the past, and thus might in the future.”

TJKING says: " What if the Church of Gore is wrong?

Well, what if the Church of Gore is right?

I'll end with this utter fantasy TJ offers:

"What if we blindly follow him (Gore) and our economy and our freedom is destroyed and we are over run by other forces even more dangerous than Mother earth. If man is the most dangerous force, then why shouldn't we imagine that the human beings that would mean us harm are watching as we dismantle our arsenal by hobbling our country."

Mindless, sheer mindlessness.

TJKing:

Since you took the time to dissect my comment I feel it appropriate to reply.

1. I don't quote Gore to make my points. Gore is a politician and polemicist. He may exaggerate to make his point (notice I said may, not has). What he is trying to do is get people to understand that there is a serious problem and they should focus on it. If you want to bash Gore, go ahead but don't paint me with the same brush.

2. There have been dozens of scientific studies released in just the past year which detail what the concerns are. I won't bother citing them since climate change deniers ignore facts when they weaken their beliefs.

3. Leaders in Africa held a conference recently to address what steps they should take now to ameliorate the effects which have already started. The changes in climate are already having negative effects for them. These are places with limited resources, why do you think they are squandering them on unproven conspiracy theories? Perhaps you need to get out more. You dismiss the citations I give to actual studies, but offer no documentation in return.

4. One can be liberal in one's political outlook and still be a climate denier. I can show you plenty of "liberals" who believe in all sorts of mythology, from supernatural phenomena to economic dogma. What separates scientists from "true believers" is that the former provide evidence, and also state what they don't (yet) know. Believers just believe.

5. You didn't provide any arguments as to why taking a cautious approach isn't the wise course of action. What is the down side to becoming more efficient? Why would anyone want to fight this? Only those who have a financial stake in the status quo resist change. As I said I don't know who is a shill and who isn't, but given the amount of such activity it's a reasonable question. As an example I suggest you look at the activities of Philip Cooney as documented in congressional testimony of two days ago:

House Panel Investigates Bush's Climate Science Manipulations

As has now been amply documented the administration as well as paid shills at "think tanks" and energy firms like Exxon have been involved in a deliberate attempt to mislead about climate issues. You are either deluded or part of the effort.

--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape

It was done at the same time as Gore was preaching for us to go to Kyoto and sell our souls. Kyoto was the next year. So what? I gave you one of their polls from a few years ago and you questioned the integrity of Von Storch and I gave you another example and you question my motives. The point of my original post was you people will not face facts and when facts arise that you dont like, you find some reason to call in to question its reliablilty. Which leaves faith, like a religion. The 9% number I told earlier was reliable. The organization has made many reliable polls. Now that you have seen an example of their techniques, yet you continue to deny the facts, I don't know how many more I can supply before you will accept the fact that Gore's plea to stop questioning and that the "debate is over" is a call for a loyalty oath. You apparently have already taken this oath. I will not.