I’m a high school student from the Philippines and we just watched about a third of AIT (with plans to continue it on our next Social Studies class). Actually, I was just asking if I could present the comments mentioned above to my class because I don’t want to them to be fooled! Please tell me if you would allow it or not. Thanks!

Jessica
Manila, Philippines

REPLY: Absolutely, go for it.

Peace and Love,
allnaturalhealer

On his own little site, DyslexicWeed attempts to invoke Da Classics like Aristotle, and then botches a categorical syllogism. He alludes to Dan Quayle, and Edmund Burke (hah!) and then turns around and quotes that great savior Marx (and also overlooks any substantial Marxist concept (i.e error), whether class struggle or surplus labor theory). He praises Ron Paul, and then argues for an open border policies.

DyslexicWeed now has a blogger-pal, Max who also waffles with about every post. McMax, of New Worlds, praises Al Gore’s nobel, then a few days later Max takes a Lomborg like view, and says Gore might be mistaken, but should be praised nonetheless. Then Max shifts again, this time to right, and showers love on Robert Zubrin, NASA man and Mars advocate, who has more or less completely denounced Gore and AGW. So it goes at leftist schizophrenia.com.

Here’s a real issue (and no, dismissing it as “right-wing” does not an argument make):

Decide first if the data that the great modellers (like IPCC and realclimate) rely upon is even accurate: have you read Milloy’s account (on junkscience) of the temperature data? Do you know the standard GW temp. increases fall within error margin? (less than like 0.7 degree C). If corp-boy Milloy’s a bit too rough for you, try the Canadian physicist Dr. Rancourt: R. (he’s even PC, sort of) reaches nearly the same conclusions as Milloy (and Crichton, earlier): the temp. data itself has not been confirmed as reliable. Moreover, no lab studies confirm higher amounts of “forced” ‘C02 lead to significant temp. increases.

What’s more, some GW gurus (like Dr. Hansen) have made rather egregious errors with the temp. data: Hanson for instance was claiming the hottest years of 20th century were in 90s’ when in fact the data showed it was the 30s, and the Feds in fact made him correct his estimations. He’s even nuttier than the IPCC people (ocean rises 75 feet, next year! place yr bets). Hansen even has modified his earlier claims and now says man-made CO2 is not the chief culprit. He’s nearly as much a Quack as An Inconvenient Haw-vard Flunkie named Al Gore.

(Good work Herr Edelman. Contrarians of all political stripes should be working together to bring Big Al Jr., America’s official GW pseudo-scientist, to trial for intellectual fraud)

Seems a British judge is in your court.

http://tinyurl.com/26fwll

funny thing happens when facts are required.

your point of view is proven to be a joke.

http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/2008/oct/glaciers100807.html

Further parsing of the factoid details allows the real crimes of the film to slip by undocumented. By only debating the AIT’s accuracy bestows a kind of legitimacy to the film, as if its purpose was to promote a free and healthy debate. In fact, AIT is designed to shut down public debate and create an atmosphere in which skeptical dissent isn’t tolerated.

See Demonweed’s posts for a mild taste of how roughly rational skeptics are to be handled in an online discussion. Now imagine how one might fare on the floor of next year’s Democratic National Convention as an AGW skeptic.

Machiavellian politics, vengeance, mythology, intrigue, faith, mendacity, fear, violence–a whole range of human follies more commonly invoked in discussions about Shakespeare’s work are at the core of AIT, the science part of the film is in the genre. It emulates a documentary. Facts are to AIT what spice is to gruel.

Indeed, human passions and politics are what this discussion should be about, because that is what Gore’s film has brought to the table. While we’re at it, Hansen’s voluminous screeds and Mann’s remarkable hockey stick graph should be included in any discussion about the sociopolitical struggles of AGW science and myth.

Demonweed wants to keep the discussion at the tit for tat techno-slur level as a diversion from a deep analysis of Al Gore’s political motives, allies and techniques. He doesn’t want us to delve into the bigger picture of why a major American political actor made a strongly partisan film that takes ownership of the AGW moral high ground for one side of politics strategically against the other.

I’m from Australia. The message received here by the average AIT viewer was that big American corporations enabled by their party hacks in Washington are guilty of a future global holocaust. Imagine being accused of a mass murder that won’t come to pass until 50 years hence, rendering it impossible to clear one’s name. More like a Hollywood sci-fi plot than fair-game politics in a democracy. In fact, it’s both. The one thing it is not is science.

Hansen, Mann and Gore have all predicted a modern apocalypse even though the facts for such a precipitous prediction are in deep dispute. They make no effort to hide their partisan leanings, their prophecies of doom come appended with accusations and blame.

They should be exposed and held to account. And this is one of the few places on the planet to expose them. The document trail starts here. The accounting will come much later.

It’s a mistake to play Demonweed’s make-believe that we are in a scientific debate of the facts, sprinkled with a few slurs. This is blood and guts politics, folks.

I’ve already posted my analysis of what could happen politically across the Western democracies. I would only add that while one side of the political spectrum has found a compelling and holistic new mythology to unite and rejuvenate itself, the other side has simply no idea of the fall from grace that awaits them like a bridge out ahead.

Al is a latecomer to the AGW debate, but what a clever idea to politicize the weather! Al Gore discovered Love Canal and invented the Internet now he has appropriated the AGW apocalypse myth as his own. This time he seems to have gotten away with the theft. If every hail storm, every oil tanker beached by high seas, every collapsed bridge or tornado could be pinned to a political opponent…

Every storm, every drought, every cold or warm front is an opportunity to say the magic words on the evening news–climate change. Everyone talks about the weather and like pop music, everyone has expertise. Everyone thinks they know the weather trends in their area and to them that’s climate change. Now everyone has someone to blame the next time the SUV gets hail damage and it won’t be Mother Nature. Weather is local. So is politics.

Don’t like this year’s weather? Vote now to change the Earth’s climate. Legislation will be introduced to outlaw the rising waves of the oceans.

And the oceans will be calmed.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/03/worldwide-glacier-retreat/#more-129

It would appear that glacial retreat generally began about 1850, and so can hardly be attributed to AGW, as the effect does not usually precede the cause.

I, too, would like to thank you for your eloquent exposition of a process I dryly summarized. Your insight and wisdom is prized and I will be reflecting on your words more in the days ahead.

Shortly, after writing my comment that suggested the Internet would be a powerful tool in revealing the reality of climate change and the relatively minor impact humans are having, I stumbled upon an editorial written by Bjorn Lomborg in the Washington Post. Bjorn accepts the IPCC claims as true, but argues that carbon taxes and mitigation will not be the best way to handle the situation. While his suggestions are most logical and reasonable, the comments that followed can only be described as ignorant rants. Writers displayed an amazing ignorance about climate, geography and science in general, but had no qualms in proclaiming that Lomborg was a witch and should be burned at the stake. (slight exaggeration) They made Demonweed
look downright civil, knowledgeable and gentlemanly.

I may have to reconsider my optimism about human rationality.

Still, I do have hope that weakening solar cycles and a shift in the PDO will save the day. I just wonder if they will materialize in time.

Thus glaciers are more likely driven by weather patterns, both short and long term. As Jim Goodridge shows in the post http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2007/10/07/california-climate-pdo-lod-and-sunspot-departure/

Pacific Decadal Oscillation can be linked to rainfall patterns in California. Recently it was discovered that Mount Shasta’s glaciers in Northern California were on the advance. Given the graph of 107 year California rainfall trends:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/goodridge_fig3_107yrrainfall.png

Where is shows the current period has been growing in precip since about 1990, it is hardly surprising to learn that glaciers at Mt. Shasta are advancing.

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2007/09/05/mount-shastas-glaciers-not-heeding-climate-change/