From:Canada Free Press
By Dirck T. Hartmann Thursday, July 3, 2008
(Editor’s Note: To many in the know, Dirck T. Hartmann, who worked on the Apollo Space Program and many other significant NASA projects, was a fighter pilot in WWII, flying P38s. So when this gifted scientist/engineer/physicist and 87-year-old hero felt compelled to answer the questions of Man Made Global Warming, not only his son and grandchildren knew he had something to say with factual substance, truth and knowledge. What he has to say is clear and concise and should be read by everyone.)
What is your carbon footprint? That is the wrong question to ask. A more meaningful question is–How much carbon dioxide does it take to grow the wheat required to produce a loaf of bread? Or–How much carbon dioxide does it take to grow the corn for the chicken feed required to produce a dozen eggs?
Far from being a pollutant, man along with every animal on land, fish in the sea, and bird in the air is totally dependent on atmospheric carbon dioxide for his food supply.
Some politicians complain that the United States with only 3% of the world population uses 25% of the energy. But the clean carbon dioxide which we produce is increasing food production everywhere on earth. China, on the other hand, is building new power plants at a record rate using the abundant domestic supply of coal they have and has now passed the United States as the leading producer of carbon dioxide. Although their coal has a high sulfur content, they are building the new plants without any pollution controls. The sulfur dioxide which these power plants are releasing to the atmosphere, besides smelling like rotten eggs is, in sunlight, readily converted to sulfur trioxide, the highly solublegas responsible for most acid rain.
Photosynthesis is the process by which plants, using energy from sunlight, convert carbon dioxide and water into high energy fuels. It is responsible for all the fuel that feeds forest fires, and for the rapid grow-back of fuel after a fire. But even with the hundreds of millions of tons of coal and the billions of barrels of oil and gasoline that are burned annually, the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere remains about .04%.
It has been estimated that more than two hundred billion tons of atmospheric carbon are fixed yearly by photosynthesis, 10%to 20% by land plants, and the remaining 80%to 90% by plant plankton and algae in the ocean, which constantly resupply us with oxygen. Atmospheric carbon dioxide acts like a thermostat for plant growth, increases triggering vast blooms of ocean algae, and spurts in the rate of growth of land plants. As long as man burns coal and oil responsibly, that is with pollution controls that minimize the production of acid rain, the earth can never have too much carbon dioxide. The plants will not permit it.
Anyone who has lived in a desert area where the relative humidity is frequently below 5%, knows that dry air is a lousy green house gas. It can be 115 degrees F (46 degrees C) during the day yet cool off so rapidly that a sweater is needed two or three hours after sunset. Despite the heat sink of the ground with rocks hot enough to fry an egg, the heat is radiated rapidly away through the dry air to the clear night sky. Since dry desert air has about the same .04% concentration of carbon dioxide as air everywhere else, it is not credible to conclude that carbon dioxide is causing global warming
Water vapor is the most effective greenhouse gas by far With high humidity, even without cloud cover, the night air cools at a rate so slow as to be nearly imperceptible, particularly if you are trying to sleep without air conditioning.
High humidity is the reason nights are so balmy in the tropics. At 100 degrees F and 100% relative humidity, water vapor accounts for only 2% of the atmosphere. It has a greater effect than all other greenhouse gases combined but, since it cannot be regulated, is rarely mentioned as a greenhouse gas.
If human activity is not the cause, why are the ice sheets on the earth poles receding? They are melting for the same reason that the polar caps on Mars are melting. For the 200 years or so that a record of sun spot activity has been kept, it has been observed that global temperatures on earth correlate closely with sun spot activity,very low activity corresponding to a mini ice age, and high activity to global warming.
Every second the sun converts 564 million tons of hydrogen into 560 million tons of helium, consuming its mass at the rate of 4 million tons per second. It has been doing this for 4.5 billion years and has about 4.5 billion years to go before all its hydrogen is used up. At that time it will have consumed less than 1% of its mass. This enormous solar furnace is responsible for climate change as well as all weather on earth.
The U.S. has a domestic supply of coal that is alone sufficient to meet our present power needs and projections for growth for at least 1,000 years, even without building any new nuclear power plants. Burning the coal responsibly and releasing the carbon locked up in it as clean carbon dioxide will benefit crop yields all over the earth. The great atmospheric patterns of air movements ensure a steady supply of carbon dioxide for crop growth, and a steady supply of oxygen for animals and people. To increase the rate at which photosynthesis removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, a respected scientist proposed to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, seeding the ocean to trigger algae blooms. This practical, inexpensive, highly effective means for sequestering carbon dioxide would benefit the food chain in the oceans and increase fish populations. But because it did not impose hardships, require trading carbon credits, punish the U.S. or any other nation, or require increased governmental control, the IPCC rejected it. The IPCC uses the hoax of man made global warming to increase its power and that of a corrupt, anti-American United Nations that has proven itself impotent in combating world wide acts of terrorism, genocide in Sudan, the real threat of nuclear proliferation in the mid-east from Iran and Syria, or human rights violations in China and Africa.
Our mainstream media uses every opportunity to hype the hoax of man made global warming by repeated reporting of data and events that appear to support it, and ignoring those that contradict it. When the NFC championship game In 2007 between the Packers and the New York Giants was played at Green Bay in record low temperatures and blizzard conditions, there was no mention of global cooling; nor was there any in 2007 when below freezing temperatures threatened the vegetable crops in the south and the citrus crops in Florida. The drought in California is the result of colder than normal conditions in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, and the fact that ocean temperatures along the Pacific coast have been falling for the last three years is never mentioned. But after hurricane Katrina we were fed a host of dire predictions which warned of the increasing severity of storms, the melting of the polar ice caps, and the flooding of coastal areas from rising sea level, if we do not drastically reduce the release of greenhouse gasses to combat global warming. Which greenhouse gasses is not specified. We already have pollution controls in the smokestacks of most power plants, steel mills, and factories that minimize the release of sulfur dioxide.
The only completely uncontrolled exhaust gas is carbon dioxide, and photosynthesis automatically controls its atmospheric concentration for us.
Three billion years ago when the earth’s atmosphere was an unbreathable brew of noxious gases with almost no oxygen, a small green algae evolved in the ocean which, using the energy from sunlight over a few million years, completely altered the earth’s atmosphere. This oceanic green algae, the first plant to use photosynthesis to convert carbon dioxide and water into high energy fuel, was of course followed by the evolution of an almost limitless number and variety of carbon dioxide consuming plants.
Fortunately for mankind and all animals, fish,and birds, all of whom are totally dependent on plants, the oceanic green algae continues to perform its magic in the oceans of the earth today. Every three centuries all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and dissolved in the waters of the earth goes through the cycle photosynthesis, decay, photosynthesis, with the cycle constantly renewing the earth’s supply of oxygen.
People on the left claim global warming is real, a threat to the continued existence of mankind, and the debate as to its cause is over! Although none of this is true, it nevertheless is what four of my grandchildren were taught in high school. Most politicians on the left have little respect for truth and no regard for clarity, and apparently many high school teachers reflect their views. My oldest granddaughter just graduated from MITwhere she was spared the political rhetoric of the left on global warming. However Caltech’s Argyros Professor and professor of chemistry, in an article titled “Powering the Planet”states “The carbon dioxide we produce over the next 40 years, and its associated effects will last for a timescale comparable to modern human history. This is why, within the next 20 years we either solve this problem or the world will never be the same.” This is nonsense. It ignores the more than 200 billion tons of carbon that is sequestered yearly through photosynthesis from carbon dioxide In the atmosphere. Since this has been known for 40 years, I can only assume he is politically motivated to make such a statement. Hopefully man made global warming will come to be recognized for the hoax It truly is.
Dirck T.Hartmann is a retired Aerospace Engineer living in Huntington Beach, CA.
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Yes AGW is a political Hoax by leftists.
The good doctor, Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi, muzzled by Dr Hansen’s NASA, has now had his shocking revolutionary paper on atmospheric physics published in a obscure peer-reviewed journal, only to have it immediately become the most discussed paper in climatology and physics, in many years.
Even as he looks like, and speaks like Einstein, his paper is certainly as revolutionary in its way, as Relativity and E=mc**2.
Miskolczi is an experimental physicist, who has taken a lifetime as experimentalist, working with satellite data and balloon data, has revealed why the present theories are so inadequate.
Did you know that present models can’t compute the temperature of the Earth surface within 25 degrees Centigrade?!? Even as they argue about changes in hundredths of a single degree for global warming!
His new theoretical model actually presents a realistic model of a planetary atmosphere. His theory computes data that agrees with the measured Surface temperature; computes a realistic amount, compared to experimental measurements, of the radiation back to Space; the effect on intermediate altitudes; even resolving the puzzling fall in relative humidity at higher altitudes, contrary to present theory; and resolves why the predicted tropic warming atmosphere profile is not occurring. Miskolczi’s new model don’t predict that missing heat or atmospheric profile at all.
Most of all all by actually connecting the air to Earth’s land and the essentially infinite oceans, the atmosphere has as much GHGs (ie H20), as it would ever need. Yet is doesn’t take it up and runaway.
The old model assumed there was a layer of outer space vacuum between the surface and atmosphere…
What kind of lamebrain idiot thinks that the atmosphere doesn’t actually touch the Earth’s surface? Milne’s model was for a star, or glowing gas/plasma with no surface; yet somebody adopted it as an model for Earth, and they used it for 80 years !?!?! Milne was an astrophysicist and not a mathematician, He did not solve the differential equations correctly and nobody noticed for 80 years ?!
Miskolczi has demonstrated in his revolutionary theory, that is already Confirmed by experiment, that the atmosphere is ALREADY saturated with GHGs. It can’t take any more; and will simply drive some particular GHG out as more of another like CO2 is added. If CH4 falls as it is now doing, to maintain saturation, the atmosphere under conservation of energy laws, will take up some H2O to replace it.
Therefore runaway GHG based global warming is IMPOSSIBILE.
As for the Evidence of hoax, he shows that KT atmospheric radiation diagrams, so quoted in the AR4, are HOAXES. As bad as the hoaxes produced by Mann’s “hockey stick” in AR3. That “hockey stick” has now disappeared in to an IPCC official memory hole, as if it never existed. The likely destination for the KT diagrams.
The Earth has warmed, cooled, warmed, now is cooling. The only way it can, due to increased solar flux, vulcanism, or albedo, eg changes in land use, like agriculture or city’s albedo versus countryside.
In the red corner….
AGW proponents with loud voices, loads of media exposure and ZERO climate related qualifications.
James Hansen, B.A. Physics and Mathematics, M.S. Astronomy, Ph.D. Physics
Gavin Schmidt, Ph.D. Applied Mathematics
Michael Mann, Ph.D. Geology & Geophysics
Lonnie Thompson, Ph.D. Geological Sciences
Michael Oppenheimer, S.B. Chemistry, Ph.D. Chemical Physics
Steven Schneider, Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering and Plasma Physics
Alfred Gore D.uh.
Anyone from desmogblog – and probably tamino and rabett, but who knows?
In the blue corner…
John R. Christy Ph.D. Atmospheric Sciences, M.S., Atmospheric Sciences, B.A., Mathematics, Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. NASA’s Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, Contributor (1992, 1994 and 1996) and Lead Author (2001) for the U.N. reports by the IPCC.
science.nasa.gov/ssl/pad/sppb/NSSTC-CSPAR_Colloquia/FAL-01/christy_bio.html
Richard S Lindzen, Ph.D. Harvard trained atmospheric physicist and the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, published over 200 books and scientific papers, lead author of Chapter 7 of the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC.
www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen.htm
S. Fred Singer, B.E.E. Electrical Engineering, A.M. Ph.D. Physics; Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia.
http://www.sepp.org/about%20sepp/bios/singer/cvsfs.html
Roy Spencer, Ph.D. Meteorology, Principal research scientist for University of Alabama in Huntsville, American Meteorological Society’s Special Award, NASA’s Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement.
http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm#bio
and, of course, Reid Bryson (RIP) who was a climate scientist’s climate scientist. In 1948, he became the founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology, he once said “You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide” and he actually saved lives through his science. Now that this giant of the science of climatology has passed Hansen has got part of his twisted wish:
“Some of this noise won’t stop until some of these scientists are dead” …..???
and the world is a poorer place today.
Will higher CO2 concentrations cause crops to grow faster or will they cause the weeds to grow faster than the crops? In the latter case, higher CO2 concentrations would reduce agricultural yields. Then there are the undoubted dessicating effects of higher CO2 concentrations. If you make the atmosphere warmer, water evaporates from plants and the soil at a higher rate. This will decrease agricultural yields. There are many other factors at work here, some positive, some negative, and we have no idea what the overall balance will be. But this author blithely asserts that crop yields will increase. This demonstrates gross ignorance on his part.
Dude, the one demonstrating gross ignorance here is NOT the author of the article. Stick with something you know something about.
I’d like to address the common fallacy that scientists are willfully distorting the science of AGW. The promulgators of this ridiculous tale need to provide a motive to explain why a scientist would deliberately distort the science, so they invent the notion that scientists are motivated by money. There are two variations on this:
a. scientists distort the science so that they can become personally wealthy. They seldom provide any details; in the case of Mr. Hansen, they misleadingly cite the Heinz Prize and the legal support provided by Mr. Soros. Examination of this accusation, as I pointed out in an earlier message, demonstrates this claim to be false. And this is the ONLY claim of direct financial incentive I have seen. There are thousands of scientists out there working on climatology; are they ALL being paid off?
b. scientists distort the science so that they can obtain funding, and funding is politically controlled by a group of political zealots who will only fund research that supports their political views. This is absurd on two counts. First, it assumes, with no evidence whatsoever, that all the research funding is controlled by political zealots. The notion that research funding coming the US government would be politically biased in a leftward direction is preposterous. I remind you that the US government has been run for the last 7.5 years by a conservative President who has been very active in inserting conservative political operatives in all levels of government; to suggest that this Administration would somehow overlook such an important sector of government funding is nonsense.
But even if there was a cabal of sinistral scientists controlling the research budgets and who had somehow escaped the notice of the Bush Administration, there remains the problem of foreign research. Have the Russian research agencies similarly been infiltrated and taken over by the AGW Illuminati? The British, French, German, and Chinese research agencies? If you think so, perhaps you should be checking for commies under your bed. This is all so preposterous, and yet the self-declared skeptics on this blog seem to have never applied their skepticism to this line of thinking.
But it gets worse. Let’s suppose that all the research budgeting agencies in all the countries of the world have somehow been assimilated by the Borg-AGW conspiracy. Let’s assume that they are secretly manipulating the research grants to insure that only AGW-friendly research gets done. We now ask, how would scientists respond to that bias?
Sure, there are plenty of mediocre scientists who would yield to that kind of pressure and distort their research to accommodate the Secret Conspiracy of AGW Priests. However, there’s one other consideration: what about the really talented scientists? You think they couldn’t get funding from any number of industrial concerns that oppose the AGW hypothesis for legitimate reasons of profit? We know that a number of such companies are already funding a certain amount of anti-AGW activity. If there’s a scientist out there with a way to prove AGW wrong, they’ll have no problem getting funding from such sources.
But it gets even worse for the conspiracy theorists: all the incentives in science are aligned AGAINST conformity. Nobody ever got a science prize for merely confirming an already popular hypothesis. The prize always goes to the people who go against the mainstream and prove their point. Here’s an appropriate quote from Enrico Fermi: “There are two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you’ve made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you’ve made a discovery.”
Thus, the claim that scientists are in some way biased in favor of AGW and are distorting their research — that claim is based on utter ignorance of the way that science really works.
Lastly, I’d like to address the Michael Crichton quote offered by swampie. Mr. Crichton fails to understand the difference between scientific conclusions and the use of science in public policy determinations. Yes, in science we NEVER take anything for granted. The debate is NEVER over. With the right data, I’d be willing to toss the Copernican model of the solar system and accept that the sun circles the earth. But if you want to make a policy decision, then you can’t afford the luxury of this kind of skepticism. You have make a conscious decision to either do something or not do something. And that decision has be made on the basis of the best available evidence. I’m happy to agree that AGW is “just a theory, not a fact” — because there are no facts in science, just hypotheses and observations. But public policymaking cannot afford to wait for proven facts. We have no proof that Islamic terrorists are planning further attacks on the USA, but we are spending billions of dollars in the belief that they are. Our economic policies are not based on proof — they rely on the guesswork of economists. We have no proof whatever that Iran is working on nuclear weapons, but that doesn’t mean that we ignore the possibility. Yet Mr. Crichton would have us ignore the considered judgements of thousands of scientists because they haven’t produced proof — an impossible standard for science.
There have been more posts that require my attention. John Macdonald writes
Your first point is that “WE” don’t know what higher concentrations of CO2 will do to plants. Please don’t say “WE”, it is you who don’t know. There are many studies that have addressed this issue on a single site experimental level and globally as plant growht is being tracked (6%+ growth over the past 17 years). All these studies have been overwhelmingly positive to plant growth,
Mr. Macdonald is responding to a statement that I did not make. Here’s what I actually wrote:
It is true that SOME plants grow better in an atmosphere with higher CO2 concentrations. It not true that ALL plants grow better in such an environment. Right now, we don’t know a great deal about this issue.
Apparently I need to use something stronger than all caps to make my point clear to some people.
The studies that Mr. Macdonald cites could not possibly contradict my statement, because they could not possibly have measured all plants. Sunlight is essential to plants, but some plants do poorly in sunny environments. Water is essential to plants, but some plants do poorly in wet environments. CO2 is essential to plants, but that does not permit us to conclude that all plants will do better with more CO2.
Mr. Macdonald next asks if there isn’t a differential response to water vapor, sun energy output, local warming. Indeed there is. That’s why different crops are grown in different environments. But with CO2 increases, you don’t get to specialize by region: every farm in the world is affected by CO2 in the same way.
Next Mr. Macdonald challenges my claims regarding solar insolation with this comment:
The sun’s energy has been rising and will continue to rise until the oceans boil away in ~1 billion years. In fact, the sun’s energy is ~25% higher now than when green algea made it’s first entrance. I disagree with your statement.
Note that Mr. Macdonald is talking about changes on the time scale of billions of years. That time scale is not quite appropriate to our deliberations on AGW. We need to think about changes in solar output over a time scale of perhaps a hundred years. Mr. Macdonald’s comment does not apply to that time scale.
Next Mr. Macdonald cites photosynthetic activity as a negative feedback to CO2 increases. He’s absolutely right here. The question is, what is the magnitude of this effect? The simplest observation here is that CO2 concentrations have risen in the last 200 years from about 280 ppm to about 380 ppm. So while photosynthetic activity may provide a negative feedback, it is surely insufficient to counter past emissions of CO2 — much less future emissions.
Mr. Macdonald points out that AGW advocates also confuse climate with weather. I agree entirely. I therefore suggest that serious discussions of AGW should not include ANY confusion of climate with weather.
Unfortunately, so many scientists are terrified that if they present any paper that would be less than supportive of the crisis mongering global warming mob they will be banned, get fewer grants, and possibly loss their positions. Already, many skeptics have lost their jobs.
I believe this claim is poppycock and I challenge you to provide evidence to support it.
Mr. Macdonald concludes with this statement:
I believe that 99% of that is a GOOD thing for life, plants, etc. and that 99.9% of that had nothing to do with humans. I also believe another 1 to 4C won’t be that big of deal either and that C02 level are historically at their extreme low levels when averaged over millions of years. Humans are bringing balance back to the Earth.
Note the contradiction between the claim that humans are bringing balance back to the earth and the claim that 99.9% of the change had nothing to do with humans. More importantly, Mr. Mcdonald’s belief that a change in temperature of 1ºC to 4ºC won’t be that big of a deal. I suggest that Mr. Macdonald consult the NAS summary of climate change science at http://dels.nas.edu/basc/Climate-LOW.pdf Pages 14, 15, and 16 present the relevant considerations. While the language is guarded, the material in that brochure refutes the claim that this will be “no big deal”.
I shall mercifully pass over stas peterson’s post without comment.
Gravy Train Crash offers us a highly distorted list of selected scientists that is misleading in a number of ways. First, he is selective about what he presents: for the few scientists he doesn’t like, he lists only their degrees — not the chairs they occupy or the number of papers they have published or their awards, whereas he regales us with the full list of achievements of those he prefers. But the most important error in Gravy Train Crash’s post is that it is limited to a handful of scientists. In evaluating scientific issues, it’s completely useless to trust the judgement of any individual. Far better to place your faith in organizations of many scientists. The best of these, as I have mentioned elsewhere, is the NAS, and that organization has come down firmly on the pro-AGW side.
Ophiuchus gives six completely baseless opinions above, which were pulled out of somewhere — but certainly not out of his intellect. Without any citations whatever, he speculates that more CO2 may/will cause weeds to grow, but not crops, thereby causing reduced agricultural yields. But see here.
Ophiuchus concludes: “…this author blithely asserts that crop yields will increase. This demonstrates gross ignorance on his part.” Again, not a single citation on the part of Ophiuchus. Not one. So those reading the article and comments above can decide for themselves who is being “ignorant.”
Each of the other numbered points that Ophiuchus speculates on are equally wild guesses/unfounded opinions; he states that an increase in Solar radiation can not cause an increase in global temperature. He states that Solar forcing is “absurd.” [See here and here and here. And an overview here.]
Every other claim made by Ophiuchus is similarly misguided. It is probably a sad commentary on the current state of education that someone such as Ophiuchus is so lacking in critical thinking. Or, maybe he’s just another religious True Believer in the AGW disaster hypothesis, with his mind already made up and shut tight. In that case the links/citations provided are for more neutral readers interested in deciding the science of the effect of CO2, to their own satisfaction.
I’d like to also respond to Brendan H, who stated above:
“Hartmann is claiming that AGW theory is a leftist hoax, that the proponents of AGW are deliberating peddling a falsehood; in other words, that thousands of climate scientists around the world are cheating in order to produce a pre-determined outcome and then blatantly lying about what they’re doing.”
Apparently Brendan H is unaware of the 30,000+ independent American scientists who have co-signed the following statement:
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere or disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.
That is a very powerful statement. Furthermore, it was co-signed by an order of magnitude more physical scientists that those who are completely dependent upon the UN/IPCC for their continued employment.
Opi,
Your snobbery is showing. Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion. [snip]
CO2 is essential to plants, but that does not permit us to conclude that all plants will do better with more CO2.
You are seriously out of your depth. Show me one study, any study, that indicates any plant doing poorly at levels of CO2 of, say, 1000PPM due to excess CO2.
Ophie
“In evaluating scientific issues, it’s completely useless to trust the judgement of any individual.”
Why are so many AGWers trumpeting Hansen and his call for 350ppm then?
Hmm….well we won’t be able to keep adding CO2 for much longer…Not with Peak Oil here.
Wrong. (As usual. As always.)
Peak oil: Peek and ye shall find.
Soon the the ecnomies of the world will collapse.
Exceedingly unlikely. China and India simply “won’t”. (And two cheers for that!)
And we’ll experience another LIA.
Not unlikely. But do not forget that the worst phase LIA saw the rise of industrialization.
Billions will die.
We will all die.
But not for MUCH longer than the life insurance salesmen would have you believe.
Yes, there have already been casualties of recent misguided policies. (Biofuels spring to mind. But the casualties will be in the millions, not the billions.
For your statement to be true in the manner in which you intend, one would have to discount exploding technology and its accompanying adaptability. Don’t do that; it is a very common, very severe intellectual error.
Global Warming is not a hoax.
Individuals who believe in GW do so from the bottoms of their hearts.
I strongly agree. We forget or fail to recognize this at our considerable peril.
We need to win the dang argument, not set up pillories and pass around the rotten tomatoes and dead cats. The latter course is satisfying in a shallow sort of way, but it gets us nowhere.
Ophiuchus (11:38:52) :
Is it? It IS difficult o substantiate but hardly can be dismissed as “poppycock.” You are essentially asking for something that by nature would be difficult to obtain even if true.
Your position is similar to:
CLAIM: “The only persons reporting income from illegal drug labs are those who have already been convicted of running an illegal drug labs.” (In case you’re wondering, they do indeed file. Ask me about a tax court case in Pennsylvania about 10 years ago mentioned in the Washington Post.)
YOU: This is bull! Name a person running an illegal lab who is afraid to file.
You really don’t see the fallacy in that?
You come across as very bright, Ophie, but some of your responses indicate you lack common sense.
Note that the scientists who are most active anti-AGW scientists are those with established careers. What do you think the effect of Hansen’s “try them all for crimes against humanity” has on anyone under Hansen? Do you somehow believe they wouldn’t be putting their careers on the line? What do you think it has on those under the direction of others who agree with Hansen?
How many journals would even consider running an anti-AGW paper? How many would, even today, refuse to run the seminal M&M analysis of the Hockey Stick which, whether you like it or not, was blessed by an NAS panel? What affect do you think that has on up and coming climatologists particularly ones unfortunate enough to work under a member of the Hockey Team?
Show it to be the lie you think it is. If any of this is false, I challenge you to point to anti-AGW papers published by say the AAAS or NSF grants to AGW opponents. Is the “science settled” or is it “censored?”
Daniel Rothenberg,
Mr. Hartmann was making a very good point – CO2 is an aerial fertilizer that plants need to grow, and the higher the CO2 concentration, the better. A recent report said that world biomass grew 6% in 17 years. CO2 grew a comparable percentage in that time. In effect, we have a virtually cost-free carbon sequestration operation going full-tilt.
He mentioned the destructiveness of China’s use of coal electrical plants without pollution controls. That’s producing that “brown cloud” that Hansen said in 2003 or so that was 90% of the cause for Arctic warming. At the rate the Chinese are expanding their coal use, that brown cloud will double in the concentration and expanse of particulates and sulfuric pollutants in about 12 years. If Hansen is right, there goes the Arctic (and Chinese health), thanks to China, not the U.S.
Here’s a key to the skeptics’ criticism of AGW – your catastrophes aren’t showing up –
1. Catastrophic sea level rise from Greenland and Antarctica ice melt? NASA just reported that both combined are maybe contributing about 1 mm/year to seal level rise. At that rate, 4 inches rise by 2100.
2. Global warming? Temps have leveled off since 1998, which means current temps are lower than 1934. And reputable world scientists are saying warming is on hold for another decade.
3. Global warming to show up in the seas? Argus buoys say the ocean temps have leveled off, or are even out-right cooling.
These are just three of the AGW catastrophe-projection biggies, and they aren’t panning out too well.
But your entry: “Everybody would have been much better off if Stalin had just trust(ed) the scientists as a group to figure things out, and trusted their consensus.” is a joke. You really don’t understand Stalinism in particular, or leftism in general, do you? Whereas today’s scientists dread being cut off from PC funding (and their jobs) for questioning the AGW “consensus”, Stalin-era scientists dreaded being cut off from their heads for questioning Stalin’s imposed “consensus”.
Leftists don’t want consensus – they want control. Free market capitalism is abhorent to leftists because they think it reeks of self-interest, “greed” and indifference to all other societal elements, including the environment. So “someone” needs to control those rapacious influences (guess who they are thinking will need to step up to the plate on that one?)
But they ignore the fact that historically, after achieving a baseline level of economic development, Western people really do want the environment they are living in to have higher quality. And people have acted and will act spontaneously to achieve that improved environment. The U.S. is a prime example.
Be honest – of the people you know personally or who you support that subscribe to the AGW/catastrophe theory, what percentage are solid liberals? And any solid conservatives in that group? I doubt it. What Marxism was inable to control and dominate, environmentalism is striving to accomplish.
I had an uncle who was as right-wing as you can imagine who INSISTED that his vegetable garden be organic, that we limit our use of resources to preserve them for the future, and he lived his life accordingly. He wasn’t an environmentalist – he was a conservationist. I learned a lot from him – maybe in some small part that’s why I’m an environmental engineer.
fred: Irony noted.
I think it was Al Gore who said, words to the effect, “even if it’s not true, it should still be done for other reasons.”
Paul Ehrlich beat him to it with his false (and dastardly) appeal to Pascal in the Population Bomb ( 1968 ).
[…] Alleviate world hunger: produce more clean carbon dioxide […]
Smokey, in a comment dripping with invective, accuses me of peddling nonsense:
Without any citations whatever, he speculates that more CO2 may/will cause weeds to grow, but not crops, thereby causing reduced agricultural yields.
This is what I actually wrote:
Right now, we don’t know a great deal about this issue. Will higher CO2 concentrations cause crops to grow faster or will they cause the weeds to grow faster than the crops? In the latter case, higher CO2 concentrations would reduce agricultural yields.
Note that I most assuredly did NOT speculate that weeds would grow faster than crops. I raised the question and said that we do not know. I am not asserting that weeds will grow faster than crops, I am asserting that we do not know that increased CO2 values will have a beneficial effect on all crops.
Smokey offers documentation of his claim, and his documentation clearly shows that a handful of desirable crops do indeed grow better in higher concentrations of CO2. His documentation, however, does not address the question I raised, which concerns the differential growth rates of crops and weeds. Boasting about providing documentation doesn’t mean much when the documentation you provide doesn’t support your point.
Smokey continues his misplaced diatribe with further false statements:
he states that an increase in Solar radiation can not cause an increase in global temperature. He states that Solar forcing is “absurd.”
Here’s what I actually wrote:
He retails the false claim that earth’s temperature is rising because the solar output is rising. Any second-year physics student can show with a simple calculation how absurd his claim is. Indeed, that material is standard in physics courses taken by engineering students. This fellow appears to have forgotten what he learned in college.
I was attacking the notion that “earth’s temperature is rising because the solar output is rising”. I most definitely did NOT write that can not cause an increase in temperature. The difference is that I wrote that the current temperature increases are not attributable to increases in solar output, whereas he accuses me of claiming that increases in solar output could not yield temperature increases on earth.
I implore everybody: if you’re going to attack somebody’s claims, make sure that you read them carefully and respond to what was actually written, rather than what you imagine was written. We have already wasted too much time dealing with this problem, which could be prevented by a modicum of effort.
Lastly, Smokey retails the old “Oregon Petition” bunk. This was a petition set up about ten years ago by some, er, eccentric scientists in Oregon. Unfortunately, the petition was carried out in such a manner as to be utterly useless. You can find a piece that picks the petition apart right here:
http://www.desmogblog.com/infamous-oregon-global-warming-petition-alive-and-well
And you can find the petition itself here:
http://www.oism.org/pproject/
Now, here’s the fundamental flaw in the petition: it has absolutey no verification process. All you do is download their form, sign it, declare yourself a scientist, and mail it back. They don’t check up on you. Make a hundred copies, give each a different name and different scientific discipline, and there’ll be hundred more names on the list. This will put you in such good company as “Dr. Frank Burns”, “Dr. Pierce”, and “Dr. Honeycutt” (remember M.A.S.H.? You’ll also discover that the Spice Girl Geraldine Halliwell is a truly talented individual, being listed as “Dr. Geri Halliwell”. Under these circumstances, this petition has absolutely zero credibility. You wanna talk about hoaxes? Here’s a provable one.
What’s particularly funny is how gullible the “skeptic” movement is. If you Google the first ten words of the petition, you’ll get 11,000 hits, and if you skim through them, you’ll find that most are from sites that approvingly report on the petition. Think of it: thousands and thousands of AGW “skeptics” who pass along the story of a hoax that anybody could penetrate in less than one minute. These skeptics seem to be very selective in their skepticism.
Pofarmer offers a valid criticism:
You are seriously out of your depth. Show me one study, any study, that indicates any plant doing poorly at levels of CO2 of, say, 1000PPM due to excess CO2.
Well, that first statement isn’t criticism, it’s just childish mudslinging, but the second sentence has some substance. I am not aware of any studies on plants showing that they do poorly at higher levels of CO2. This statement will, I am sure, please you. However, hold a moment. Let’s submit this question to standard scientific method. We have two competing hypotheses:
Yours: “All plants grown better in atmospheres with enhanced CO2.”
Mine: “Some plants grow better in atmospheres with enhanced CO2.”
My hypothesis implies that some plants do not grow better in atmospheres with enhanced CO2.
Now, what do we have to do to resolve the competition? The standard approach is to ask, what observations would disprove one of the hypotheses?
To disprove my hypothesis, you would have to carry out experiments on a broad range of plants from a broad range of environments. Experiments of this range have not been carried out.
To disprove your hypothesis, I have to find just one experiment that shows that higher CO2 levels would retard plant growth. Lo and behold, I do have such a study:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/12/021206075233.htm
So, it appears that your hypothesis has been disproven and my hypothesis has been confirmed. What names do you want to call me now?
Here’s the difference between Gore and Hartmann, though: Gore’s arguments are supported my mainstream science.
No. Even the IPCC goes dead against the claims made by Gore. Gore is very, very far out of mainstream pro-AGW science.
They drew conclusions before it even got 10% of the network surveyed, then published those conclusions in the form of opinion, without even looking at the data.
They continue unabated, Rev.
I’d like to address the common fallacy that scientists are willfully distorting the science of AGW.
Scientists on BOTH sides of the debate are human beings. This is why we rely on Scientific Method and Independent [sic] Review. (Peer Review = Poor Review.)
If we were Arisians, we could do science by consensus. As we are mere humans, only completely open results and reproduction of results wvwn comes close.
Any agency that does not fall all over itself to provide full data and methods to those of opposing views (whose specific motive is to disprove) is practicing alchemy, not science: The results may even be correct, but they are, by definition, NOT science.
NASA, NOAA, IPCC, and HadCRUT practice alchemy.
UAH and RSS practice science.
Oops, I failed to respond to Dav’s post. I had challenged him to provide evidence to support his claim that “many scientists are terrified that if they present any paper that would be less than supportive of the crisis mongering …”
His response was to admit that he had no evidence, but he nevertheless sticks to his position. Since he can’t defend his position, he resorts a counterattack, issuing his own challenge:
I challenge you to point to anti-AGW papers published by say the AAAS or NSF grants to AGW opponents.
Well, I’m lazy, so I stopped after a whole two minutes of searching when I found this news item:
http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0808/full/climate.2008.67.html
about a Letter published in Nature whose purport is summarized as “Naturally occurring chemicals are destroying greenhouse gases in the lower atmosphere over the tropical Atlantic much faster than previously thought.”
Note that the letter was authored by 16 scientists from three countries representing six different scientific institutions. Golly gee, it took me all of two minutes to find 16 scientists who don’t seem to be terrorized by that Grand Commie-Marxist Leftist Conspiracy you’re so sure is lurking out there. It has taken you longer to defend yourself than it would have taken you to find out the truth.
Jerry Magnan criticises me for my comments about Stalinism and Lysenkoism. I don’t see any point in his comment other than an apparent resentment at me for not condemning Mr. Stalin with sufficient heat. Would you care to expand on the point?
Mr. Magnan makes a good point here:
Be honest – of the people you know personally or who you support that subscribe to the AGW/catastrophe theory, what percentage are solid liberals? And any solid conservatives in that group? I doubt it.
The point is so telling that it should be applied equally to both sides:
Be honest – of the people you know personally or who you support that reject the AGW/catastrophe theory, what percentage are solid conservatives? And any solid liberals in that group? I doubt it.
And then proceeds to demonstrate the applicability of his point by mixing anti-AGW comments with conservative comments.
I fear that, if Anthony banished all those in this discussion who are primarily motivated by political considerations, it would be pretty lonely around here. I’m sure I’d have at least a few people to talk to… I hope…
I live in Texas. I hope what you say is true. But, here housing and buildings are going up like crazy. However, no developers care about the trees. I’ve seen our area go from great air quality (10 years ago) to 2007 ozone warnings so bad that schools didn’t take children out to play. Keep in mind this has been in 10 years, tops. Without plants, global warming or not, we will all die. There is total disregard for replanting. Building homes and keeping some original trees is rarely even considered. The land is cleared of everything. This is worse when it comes to industrial plants or commercial buildings. Shopping centers and parking lots, take the place of what was once full of trees or at least grass. In some cases, they plant some bushes. But, with population increasing are the bushes enough. I think not.
There is a man known as the “Father of Climatology”, Reid Bryson.
try this site for his viewpoint on AGW and Al Gore’s silly movie,
http://www.wecnmagazine.com/2007issues/may/may07.html
The excellent CO2 site http://co2science.org/ is a great resource on all things CO2 related.
Politics should NEVER drive science! Without intellectual integrity, humankind is doomed. Precisely, Opie. And that is the crux of the problem with AGW – it is not science, but pseudoscience, propped up by politicians like Gore and pseudoscientists like Hansen, along with the MSM. If you think you have some proof of the AGW hypothesis (I doubt it), then by all means, present it. We’re all ears. Otherwise, you are just blowing smoke.
Ophiuchus (13:33:15) :
FYI: that was my very first (and only) post on this thread. Just exactly when did you challenge me? I submit you did nothing of the sort.
I know it’s daunting to slog through and answer a lot of posts but try to be a lot more careful. You’ve not only misattributed statements to me but (deliberately?) misquoted me as well in your paraphrasing. You also (deliberately?) missed my point.
That’s a troll’s trick. You don’t really want to go there.
Lazy indeed. Another bad show of reading skills. Maybe spending two more minutes for comprehension would have been in order? I would hardly call “not as much as we think” an anti-AGW statement. But then, in the AGW religion, that may be as heretical as one can get and still be published. NB: the GHG’s they are talking about being depleted are ozone and methane and nowhere is it stated these are anthropogenic. Weren’t fluorocarbons banned because of their role in depleting the ozone layer? Also, in the letter attached to the article:
is saying our models may need adjusting. Also hardly an anti-AGW statement but something those relying on model output may not want to hear.