Two comments:
1. You have to see this to understand some mind sets regarding “global warming”.
2. I didn’t know trains still ran on time at the end of the world.
(h/t to Paul Biggs of Celestial Junk)
Two comments:
1. You have to see this to understand some mind sets regarding “global warming”.
2. I didn’t know trains still ran on time at the end of the world.
(h/t to Paul Biggs of Celestial Junk)
Mary: Along with The Godwin’s Law “a good rule in most discussions is that the first person to call the other a Nazi automatically loses the argument.” there show be something along the lines of whoever invests priestlike qualities in Former Vice President Mr Al Gore in AGW discussions automatically looses the arguement. I think you would find it would work both ways.
The Gore Corollary perhaps.
Anthony – saw this and thought I’d forward it:
From The Washington Times on President-elect Obama’s choice for a science advisor.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/20/obama-names-climate-change-experts-posts/
President-elect Obama: “Promoting science isn’t just about providing resources — it’s about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology,” he said in his weekly radio address. “It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient — especially when it’s inconvenient.”
Facts or evidence are never twisted? Outstanding, but…
His science advisor? “John Holdren, a physicist from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.”
A physicist from a school of government? Well, OK…maybe…
…but Holdren’s views? “Mr. Holdren has called for boosted spending on science and for faster action to combat global warming.”
Quoth John Holdren, “We are not talking anymore about what climate models say might happen in the future,” he told the British Broadcasting Corp. in 2006, “We are experiencing dangerous human disruption of the global climate and we’re going to experience more.”
If this is dealing with free and open inquiry without influence of politics or ideology, we have some major problems ahead…
David Ball (20:20:48) :
If you are so incensed by the use of the term ‘denier’ (definition:-n.
One that denies: a denier of harsh realities.) then how can you not condemn the use of direct comparisons with the Nazi’s (Goebbels, Brown shirts etc.) You seem to have a major contradiction, much like the majority of posters who disagree with AGW but don’t know why, the correct, not ‘inferred’ use of the word ‘denier’.
There you go bringing a religious comparison! The scientific community do not call Gore a ‘priest’, nor any other religious title (see my points on this above). The only ones that do that are posters such as yourself. You have ‘ordained’ Gore as a priest so by your logic you have lost this argument by skilfully shooting yourself in the foot! Well done!
Mary, I have to agree with Robert in Calgary. You did not address either of my posts at all, and tried to redirect the discussion. I will let others make up their own minds as to your response to my post.
With respect to this video, which was made for a Portuguese environmental organization, Quercus, you can leave comments in http://www.quercustv.org/spip.php?article181#forum171, which is its official website.
I am Portuguese and was quite ashamed with it. I know people which are affiliated to that organization but that are know considering dropping off after I showed them the video. It’s just plain disgusting
Brendan H:
And you can prove that how? [Keep in mind that always-inaccurate computer models are not proof].
And this interesting link from Freezing Finn’s link above: click
Looks like some kind of religion to me. If those stones are located on town property, as stated in the Finn’s link, they need to come down, don’t they?
I hate explaining jokes.
But one word doesn’t, for instance, distinguish between “scheme” and “plot”.
By lumping two disparate groups together, it suggests that there is no plot. There is only separate agendas coming together over the same issue.
Now, if you are finished wandering around the intellectual landscape….
Brendan
“Scheme, plot. Can AGW sceptics tell the difference?”
Well I certainly can, and did !!
I’m also pretty certain that the guys on here who can spot the nuanced .1 degrees C here, and the .1 degrees C there can too.
Smokey: “And you can prove that how?”
The AGW claim is that the increase in greenhouse gases – mainly CO2 – due to human activity have raised the average temperature of the near-surface atmosphere and the oceans. The increase is especially evident in the second half of the 20th century.
Science doesn’t deal in proofs. However, AGW is regarded as the explanation that is best supported by the evidence.
Les: “By lumping two disparate groups together, it suggests that there is no plot.”
Some creative people can lump together two disparate groups and make five:
“If one understands that socialism is not a share-the-wealth program, but is in reality a method to consolidate and control the wealth, then the seeming paradox of super-rich men promoting socialism becomes no paradox at all.”
http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/ArticleDisplay.php?Article=NoneDare
Brendan H:
First, you dodge the question, then you make a demonstrably false assertion.
Science deals in proofs all the time, particularly in mathematics. But to be charitable, I’ll accept a Law. Or even an accepted Theory. That is the least we can ask, when the AGW salesmen are asking for literally $Trillions to fix a non-existent problem.
Disproving [falsifying] a hypothesis is central to the scientific method — something which seems to be deliberately ignored by those pushing the failed AGW climate catastrophe hypothesis.
I don’t blame anyone for dodging the question, when they’re on the wrong side of the argument. I understand that personal pride is involved, and the plain fact that Planet Earth itself is falsifying the failed conjectures of of the runaway global warming crowd negatively affects the reputations of those trying to scare the public with AGW. That must sting.
It is telling that the same crowd always avoids the central tenet of the scientific method: that those pushing a new hypothesis, such as AGW-runaway global warming-climate catastrophe [all are the exact same hypothesis] must prove their case. They consistently refuse to acknowledge/admit that the burden of proof falls on them to make their hypothesis sufficiently robust to withstand falsification, and to replace the currently and long accepted paradigm that the climate is well within its normal historical parameters, with their dubious and increasingly ridiculous planetary catastrophe scenario.
The reason is easy to see: AGW is not happening to any empirical, measurable degree. It appears only in GCMs, with which the real world disagrees. AGW proponents believe in their always-inaccurate computer models, while skeptics prefer to accept the real world, which increasingly rejects the AGW hypothesis.
The burden of proof is on the AGW contingent to show conclusively that the current climate is out of the bounds of its normal and routine fluctuations. That, of course, is demonstrably false. Thus, the AGW/climate catastrophe hypothesis fails.
Why should taxpayers spend one more dollar supporting that failed hypothesis, which drains funding from worthwhile science?
Aww, cute animals committing suicide. So… Millions of years of the survival instinct is given up, just like that.
Of course all those animals that haven’t given up on trying to survive would find lots of animal suicides to feed off. That should keep things going a bit longer.
I see another cutie animation coming up, with well-fed animals eagerly ripping open chimps-on-a-string…
Brendan: let me repeat myself. What does your meandering commentary have to do with me or my one word response to your question?
Are you suggesting I subscribe to that nonsense you posted a link to?
My compliments to Smokey for an excellent climate smackdown!
Paul Shanahan (08:00:24) :
nd sinks. As the BBC reports it, they [NASA] are quite open in admitting that they don’t know where 90% of manmade CO2 emissions come from.
Maybe it doesn’t belong to man…
Um this ought to be calculable from readily available numbers. We have public data for coal, oil, natural gas, et. al. production.
Trees, farms, cow farts, sewage output, paper in landfills, etc. are all from biological origin so can change where the carbon is in the biosphere / atmosphere, but not add to it (and IMHO ought to be ignored in any total Guilt Budget).
Has anyone done the sanity check of just taking global production of fossil fuels, assume it all gets burned to CO2, and compare the magnitude of the number to the NASA human CO2 ‘budget’? It ought to be close to the total of everything we could reasonably be “guilty” of adding to the system.
J. Peden (11:23:28) :
except for the relatively insignificant numbers of “scientists”, lobbyists, NGO’s, University Profs., Politicians, Green Businesses, Goracle-like Evangelicals, etc., who use AGW simply as an opportunistic and even blatantly parasitic way to make a living.
I think you left one off your list of beneficiaries. The Big Oil Companies.
There were against the AGW thesis until two things were made clear to them. 1) It would suppress coal, their competitor. 2) Mandatory CO2 sequestration at coal fired power plants would result in somebody else paying for the massive amount of liquid CO2 they needed for enhanced oil recovery from old oil fields. (It’s a better stripping liquid than steam in many cases…)
I find it funny when AGW folks toss rocks at the evil big oil as the funder of the anti-AGW side, since they apparently have not got the memo that big oil is licking it’s chops over the prospect of massive subsidies of their CO2 oil stripping operations…
http://www.tcares.com/exproj.htm has Exxon in the first entry…
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_28/b3942043_mz011.htm
About 125 miles away, in Shute Creek, Wyo., Exxon operates a natural gas processing plant that vents tons of CO2 annually. Some of it is now arriving at Salt Creek through a new $45 million pipeline. By 2008 all of Exxon’s CO2, and then some, will be pumped down into the earth, permanently disposing of 2 million tons a year of greenhouse gas while unlocking acres of black gold for Anadarko.
Similar schemes are already working in the Southwest. “We have 1,000 miles of CO2 pipeline feeding enhanced-recovery oil wells,” says David J. Borns, manager of geotechnology research at Sandia National Laboratories. Some 25 million tons a year of CO2 have helped boost the region’s oil production by about 500,000 barrels a day.
I generally try to live by the rule “Never attribute to Malice that which adequately explained by Stupidity”… but… For the AGW fanatics to still be lampooning Exxon when it’s so clearly on their side … 😉
Who was it said ‘Follow the money’…
Greg Johnson (12:31:40) :
Which leads me to this question:
Isn’t it better to be a skeptic than an omphaloskeptic?
There is insufficient data to answer this question. Is said navel an innie or an outie? 😉
Brendan H (13:45:45) :
So is AGW a get-rich capitalist scheme or a get-poor socialist scheme?
There is no difference. (Please grant a pardon from Godwin’s Law for some actual history…) The Nazi Party was the National State Socialist Party, yet it still had lots of capitalists in it. The notion that somehow socialism and capitalism are in conflict is simply wrong. Socialism just exploits capitalism in a different manner, with more governmental control.
Most of the world economies today would be most accurately described as Lang Type Socialism. Even the U.S. where we now own the major financial institutions and shortly the auto companies as a public enterprise…
The antithesis of capitalism is communism, not socialism. Socialism loves the ability of capitalist subsets to concentrate lots of money that can then be redirected. In the end, for all three economic systems, the power elite get richer (gain control) and the masses get poorer (have less control) so in all of the systems it is both a ‘get rich’ and a ‘get poor’ scheme.
Capitalism is just better at making the pie bigger faster, but poorer at distributing it as the entrenched portion of the power elite would like (i.e. more room for creative destruction).
Smokey: “And this interesting link from Freezing Finn’s link above: click
Looks like some kind of religion to me.”
That’s a rather tenuous connection to global warming, and generalisations from particular cases are not necessarily valid.
On a personal note, I do not believe that AGW is a religion. For example, my own attitude to Al-Gore (Blessed be His Holy Emissions) is essentially agnostic. My reverence for His Greatness in no way influences my response to His Message, and my rational faculties are always fully engaged (May His Enemies Suffer Eternal Torment).
I grant that some AGWers take a less than critical view of His Magnificence. In fact, some abase themselves in the most abject and servile manner. However, it must be emphasised that Al-Gore (O Mighty Eco-Warrior) has never demanded that level of obeisance from his congregation.
Les Johnson: “Are you suggesting I subscribe to that nonsense you posted a link to?”
No, but None Dare Call It Conspiracy is a classic of the genre and shows that fertile minds can accommodate a number of conflicting attitudes, which was my original point.
As a general comment, since this is the season of goodwill, I offer the thought that it’s a shame that the AGW debate often descends to incivility, on both sides.
With the example before us of Christmas 1914 on the Western Front, when the common soldiers on both sides laid down their arms to greet each other in no-man’s land, I urge all AGW participants to call a truce and embrace the enemy, if only for 24 hours.
So in that spirit: Happy Festivus!
Your whole argument is agnostic, used in the literal sense. Etymology: from Greek agnôstos -‘Without Knowledge’ .
How else could you dream so much garbage up.
Brendan H @22:21:22:
Appreciate your sense of humor. You may have a brighter future in comedy writing than in science. Merry Christmas!
There is a lot in that video that speaks volumes about the makers and the message. It is evident in the very human characteristics they give the animals. I won’t go into all of it, because I would be taking food off of their shrinks’ tables but quickly:
Animals have a very strong instinct to live. They would not give up and kill themselves just because they’re having trouble adapting to change. That is an act solely reserved for the over-indulged, socially inept, sons and daughters of hippie fruitcakes, that brought you this video.
Secondly, we are only given a passing glimpse of the reality these animals are facing. A quick flash of a small iceberg, dry tree limbs, and a dry desert plain, basically reinforcing the same simpleton imagery that is used to convey the doom and gloom message of global warming. We’re supposed to be conditioned to immediately associate these factually inaccurate outcomes of Global Warming and understand that we are seeing a world where man’s love of material things has literally scorched the earth. And apparently we are not expected to display and more intellect than the animals, and attempt to reason that any other scenario may have transpired. Just as we’re supposed to assume that animal instinct wouldn’t drive the animals to migrate and adapt. No no. We’re only supposed to assume that that happens when we’re discussing evolution vs. creation, apparently.
What’s hilarious is that the people behind such propaganda believe it will have some profound impact on people that will move them to do something about it. In reality, this is such an insult to people’s intelligence that I think it will drive people who were inclined to believe in MMGW to reconsider. Factual science after all needs no PR campaign. On the flip side, propaganda was a favorite tool of Hitler and Saddam Hussein. That and blackmail, spying and fleecing.
How long will it be before these videos start featuring guest appearances by Osama Bin Laden…?
Brendan,
Just wanted to let you know that
Science doesn’t deal in proofs. However, AGW is regarded as the explanation that is best supported by the evidence…
[snip] You jump from an unproven assumption (CO2 impacts global surface temps, no shred of CAUSAL evidence exists), to the poorly collected, statistically manipulated temperature records, which I assume are what you call “evidence”, and then tie it all together with the [snip] statement above.
Just wanted to point out that you are wrong on all counts, [snip].
And to the Global Warming alarmists, I say Mission Accomplished. This is your target audience, and you’ve convinced him [snip].
Touche…
Reply: Edited to remove harsh personal attack. It is quite possible to make one’s point without resorting to such tactics. I would remind ALL posters to remember this or posts will be deleted in their entirety. ~ charles the moderator
[snip]
Chuck.
[snip]
Reply: Attacking the moderator is not a productive use of either of our times.
In case you don’t realize it, moderation involves careful balancing of subjective decisions, some of which may disagree with, and you may even be correct at times. However, we do the best job we can ~ charles (chuck) the moderator.