I found this press release on the UC Davis website interesting, because it discusses something new to me, “winter chill”. I found it interesting. But immediately, I thought of this study on irrigation by Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama, Huntsville.
Irrigation most likely to blame for Central California warming
Given that the UC Davis researchers seem to have only looked at temperature records to establish trends, it looks like they may have missed a significant contributor to the trends – increased humidity due to irrigation. – Anthony
From UC Davis News: Warming Climate Threatens California Fruit and Nut Production
July 21, 2009
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Winter chill, a vital climatic trigger for many tree crops, is likely to decrease by more than 50 percent during this century as global climate warms, making California no longer suitable for growing many fruit and nut crops, according to a team of researchers from the University of California, Davis, and the University of Washington.
In some parts of California’s agriculturally rich Central Valley, winter chill has already declined by nearly 30 percent, the researchers found.
“Depending on the pace of winter chill decline, the consequences for California’s fruit and nut industries could be devastating,” said Minghua Zhang, a professor of environmental and resource science at UC Davis.
Also collaborating on the study were Eike Luedeling, a postdoctoral fellow in UC Davis’ Department of Plant Sciences and UC Davis graduate Evan H. Girvetz, who is now a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Washington, Seattle. Their study appears July 22 in the online journal PLoS ONE.
The study is the first to map winter chill projections for all of California, which is home to nearly 3 million acres of fruit and nut trees that require chilling. The combined production value of these crops was $7.8 billion in 2007, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
“Our findings suggest that California’s fruit and nut industry will need to develop new tree cultivars with reduced chilling requirements and new management strategies for breaking dormancy in years of insufficient winter chill,” Luedeling said.
About winter chill
Most fruit and nut trees from nontropical locations avoid cold injury in the winter by losing their leaves in the fall and entering a dormant state that lasts through late fall and winter.
In order to break dormancy and resume growth, the trees must receive a certain amount of winter chill, traditionally expressed as the number of winter chilling hours between 32 and 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Each species or cultivar is assumed to have a specific chilling requirement, which needs to be fulfilled every winter.
Insufficient winter chill plays havoc with flowering time, which is particularly critical for trees such as walnuts and pistachios that depend on male and female flowering occurring at the same time to ensure pollination and a normal yield.
Planning for a warmer future
Fruit and nut growers commonly use established mathematical models to select tree varieties whose winter chill requirements match conditions of their local area. However, those mathematical models were calibrated based on past temperature conditions, and establishing chilling requirements may not remain valid in the future, the researchers say. Growers will need to include likely future changes in winter chill in their management decisions.
“Since orchards often remain in production for decades, it is important that growers now consider whether there will be sufficient winter chill in the future to support the same tree varieties throughout their producing lifetime,” Zhang said.
To provide accurate projections of winter chill, the researchers used hourly and daily temperature records from 1950 and 2000, as well as 18 climate scenarios projected for later in the 21st century.
They introduced the concept of “safe winter chill,” the amount of chilling that can be safely expected in 90 percent of all years. They calculated the amount of safe winter chill for each scenario and also quantified the change in area of a safe winter chill for certain crop species.
New findings
The researchers found that in all projected scenarios, the winter chill in California declined substantially over time. Their analysis in the Central Valley, where most of the state’s fruit and nut production is located, found that between 1950 and 2000, winter chill had already declined by up to 30 percent in some regions.
Using data from climate models developed for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (2007), the researchers projected that winter chill will have declined from the 1950 baseline by as much as 60 percent by the middle of this century and by up to 80 percent by the end of the century.
Their findings indicate that by the year 2000, winter chill had already declined to the point that only 4 percent of the Central Valley was still suitable for growing apples, cherries and pears — all of which have high demand for winter chill.
The researchers project that by the end of the 21st century, the Central Valley might no longer be suitable for growing walnuts, pistachios, peaches, apricots, plums and cherries.
“The effects will be felt by growers of many crops, especially those who specialize in producing high-chill species and varieties,” Luedeling said. “We expect almost all tree crops to be affected by these changes, with almonds and pomegranates likely to be impacted the least because they have low winter chill requirements.”
Developing alternatives
The research team noted that growers may be able change some orchard management practices involving planting density, pruning and irrigation to alleviate the decline in winter chill. Another option would be transitioning to different tree species or varieties that do not demand as much winter chill.
There are also agricultural chemicals that can be used to partially make up for the lack of sufficient chilling in many crops, such as cherries. A better understanding of the physiological and genetic basis of plant dormancy, which is still relatively poorly understood, might point to additional strategies to manage tree dormancy, which will help growers cope with the agro-climatic challenges that lie ahead, the researchers suggested.
Funding for this study was provided by the California Department of Food and Agriculture and The Nature Conservancy.
About UC Davis
For 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has 31,000 students, an annual research budget that exceeds $500 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges — Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science — and advanced degrees from six professional schools — Education, Law, Management, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.
Media contact(s):
• Minghua Zhang, Land, Air and Water Resources, (530) 752-4953, mhzhang@ucdavis.edu
• Eike Luedeling, Plant Sciences, (530) 574-3794, eluedeling@ucdavis.edu
• Pat Bailey, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-9843, pjbailey@ucdavis.edu
Lol – I once dated a girl like “ThinkLife”. It was the most fascinating few weeks of my life. I mean, she despises racists, ALL OF WHOM ARE WHITE. I love observing contrary logic in someone who believes themselves “intelligent”.
Once the whole stupid scare has been called off, what will people like “ThinkLife” do? I’d bet real money they’ll claim that all along they knew it was just sexed up BS (Bad Science).
Other than failing to notice that RealClimate IS linked, prominently on each and every page of this site, what else struck me about “ThinkLife”‘s little missives up there? An apparent inability to recognize the fallacy of “appeal to authority”. Sorry, sunshine, but NOBODY is an authority in what is a brand new field of study.
Thinklife wrote:
“Why doesn’t this site publish or link to real scientist climate sites if you claim to be objective? Why not also link to the IPCC’s and Real Climate websites, two of the most authoritative sites?”
It does to the first (and a few others), under “Pro-AGW Views,” in the right-hand column. (Click page-down twice.)
Want a translation of this whole report? Look in the final paragraphs. Does it say, more research is needed and please send the money here?
If there is any area of agricultural production that has used genetics, hybridization, cloning and other manipulation techniques to widen or narrow the ecological requirements of its cultivars, its got to be commercial orchardists. I suspect that the entire range of temperature that a fruit such as peaches (all species) can be grown is wider than the variation in temperature observed in the central valley for the last 100 years. Same would go for almost every fruit and nut now grown in the CV. In addition, crop set, productivity and yield are not one-dimensional correlations (e.g. minimum average temperature) to a single environmental factor. Also basing predictions on IPCC data is compounding the weaknesses of their conclusions.
I am sure Anthony can correlate the 205 stations they used with the station survey data accumulated to date and we can see if they are mostly poor or good stations and if they exhibit UHI and other effects.
BTW, anyone want to do a reply article for the Journal they published in? Their are enough weaknesses in this research that one could draft up a pretty tight rebuttal based on facts and science.
One would California orchardists would worry more about the prospect of global cooling than global warming. Don’t their oranges (and sometimes even their trees) suffer heavy damage from too much “cooling”? So why don’t they favor more CO2 that would make their trees grow even better and maybe even produce more? Maybe the clue is in the title of this story about the “threat to California’s fruits and nuts.” Doesn’t California have a plethora or fruits and nuts, and aren’t a lot of them not necessarily restricted to the orchards?
ThinkLife (12:07:07)
I’m sure you care, but why are you so ready to line up?
Do you know the history of those who line up? There
are always alternatives, it’s not necessary to accept
draconian solutions when others will present. The
man with the eternal sandwich board “The world
will end tomorrow”, is not correct. Don’t follow him.
I live in the northern Sacramento Valley and had bumper crops in my home orchard, berries vines and grape vines this year as opposed to total failures of all in the previous year. Weather had nothing to do with it, however. It was the frequent application of a 12 gauge shotgun that provided immediate results.
Think life assumes just because you do not drink the AGW kool-aid you are:
A. racist white man (no I’m part “white’ but also native American and Barbadian
-“Banjan” to use the correct term) I don’t need a tanning bed, to put it bluntly.
B. A Rush Limbaugh listener, no, I can’t stand him.
C. No scientific background -Major: Biology-unused,but I’m more qualified than Algore
to comment on such matters.
D. Deny the obvious warming. Well every time it’s the least bit warm the warmists
scream SEE!LOOK!-yet when we convert food to fuel and have crop failures-Denial ain’t a river in Egypt…
Oh CodeTech (14:45:41) : I think I dated her Mother….
ThinkLife wrote in part:
“If capitalism had run rampant in the 1960s without protest and blowback from the ecology movement, much more of the world and the US would likely be as polluted as Love Canal, New Jersey–a dangerous toxic waste dump and reminder of the excesses of the typical corporate agenda: make money and grow, no matter what. Just look at the rampant pollution in China, a country with virtually no citizen voice in governmental affairs and industrial progress (or regression, as it is ecologically in many cases).”
C’mon now. Pick one. Is it capitalism or socialism that’s the bad guy? Or is it just everyone who’s not compassionate and intelligent?
Thanks for that post. I was beginning to miss the 60’s but now I remember why I don’t.
Thinklife: I read your screed and you’ve absorbed all the green IPCC propaganda masterfully. But you are not a scientist, I presume, so I will, rather than respond point by point, quote a review of Ian Plimer’s book Heaven and Earth, by one Roger McEvilly. Plimer is a scientist and a skeptic, who skillfully destroys nearly all the arguments of the AGW alarmists with wit and incisiveness. Evilly’s review, which is not entirely complimentary, can be found on Amazon, Here is part of the review by McEvilly, which offers up two sections of bullet points for you to ponder:
\\There are serious claims in this book; a general one being that data and debate about climate change is being suppressed by green ideology. Here are some assertions:
* There is no scientific consensus on the causes of recent (~last 150 years) global warming.
* Data and debate from solar physics, geological, archaeological, and historical circles is ignored in the media and within the political process.
* Gross, unscientific, major distortions of data and debate is occurring, largely due to ideological agendas, and parallels Soviet Union agricultural science and policies.
* Amongst other examples, scientific fraud has been committed with relation to the `hockeystick’ graph of Mann et al. regarding temperature in the last ~1000 years, which has been widely circulated (eg IPCC 2001), and which shows distorted temperature trends.
* The influence of changes particularly in the sun, and in cloudiness, cosmic rays and volcanoes on climate changes has been under-estimated.
* There is a correlation between solar activity and earth temperatures, including in the last 150 years of warming.
* Recent global warming since about 1850 is minor and largely not related to human activities, but part of a natural climatic variation since the Little Ice Age.
* There has been no global warming since 1998 (at May 2009), and analysis of solar activity suggests a natural cooling trend in coming decades, which has already begun.
* Influence of increase in C02 level on temperature in the atmosphere tapers off once a certain level is reached. (Rather than `runaway greenhouse’, we have ‘atmospheric buffer’)
* The `precautionary principle’ is not a scientific principle, it is a social and political one (I concur).
* There is no such thing as a `tipping point’ in science (I disagree-e.g. the term `catalyst’ comes to mind).
* IPCC climate models do not accurately model observed temperature trends since 1998, undermining their projected global warming models.
* Computer models used by the IPCC are `computer games’, as global climate trends are too big and complicated to meaningfully forecast.
* The global climate is too big for humans to have any meaningful effect.
The books strength is the variety of data, the weakness is the convoluted writing style. At worst, one might contend that Plimer is guilty of obfuscation, but at least there is a broad overview, including real gems you won’t hear from extreme greens:
* the very small size of the Amazon rainforest during the last ice age,
* Strong legal disclaimers about climate projections from the very same agencies that want to enforce major legal changes using such data,
* the strong correlation between sunspots and earth temperature
* solar activity has increased in the last ~few hundred years
* that warm periods in human history generally occur with human prosperity,
* Siberian Soviet-age historical temperatures were fudged below -15C because towns received a vodka levy when -15C was reached,
* Parts of Greenland have been cooling since the early 20th century,
* The US, France, Italy, and UK squabbled over ownership of a new volcano in the Mediterranean in the 1800s, which then promptly sank beneath the ocean (which Plimer hopes will happen to global warming advocates).
* Global temperatures have been warmer on several occasions in the last several thousand years, with no adverse effects, rather, they generally correspond to human prosperity.
* C02 has been much higher in longer geological history, with no adverse effects.
* The use of the `precautionary principle’ in banning DDT use resulted in an estimated 40 million deaths from malaria
* Ice is a rock
* Water vapour is the main greenhouse gas
* Many western cities have water shortages because new dams are not being built due to green politics,
* `Being creative and riding the waves of change is the only way we humans have survived’, `sustainable living’, on the contrary `is such that with the slightest change in weather, climate or politics, there is disease, mass famine, and death’.
Suffice to say in short review, there are some good examples of environmentally-driven distortion and cherry-picking of data, in the worst cases fraud (e.g. Mann’s hockeystick), but I suspect, there is also errors on his side.//
Thinklife – the Love Canal is in New York State, I think – not New Jersey.
Pamela Gray (06:42:06) :
They are warning us that California will produce fewer nuts????? And they think this is BAD????
Now THAT’S the quote of the week 😉
DaveE.
I get the jist of the article. I just don’t think any warming pattern has been established by a long shot. I’ve planted some fruit trees here in Southern California. I had two apple trees. A fuji and a gala. They have been in the ground for 3 years now. Planted from root stock. The first year they were too young to fruit. The next year we had several freezes that killed most of the citrus in this area, which is primarily an area devoted to citrus and avocado agriculture. A disaster for the big farmers. The apple trees loved the cold that year. I had too many apples that year, so many that the weight of them was breaking the branches. This year we had a relatively mild winter and a relatively cold spring, but the temperatures did not go below 40 degrees often enough for the apple trees to produce in abundance. So I’ve got a rather paltry crop.
On the other hand, my lemon and orange trees are doing fine. Some years are just like that. Some years are not.
“Researchers used hourly and daily temperature records from 1950 and 2000”
Why? Do they not have the data from 2000 to 2009? It’s computerized data, surely it can’t be too hard to get recent data that they have to use data that’s 10 years out of date!
After spending a considerable amount of money that could have been put to better use, it was demonstrated that the disease and illness rates of the people who lived in the Love Canal subdivision were no different than a well matched sample group who lived elsewhere. Find Aaron Wildavsky’s book: “But is it True?”for the demolition of all the green chemical scare stories.
Re California:
Says it all. Sorry 🙂
(Qualifier: YES, I know this is atypical… right?)
CodeTech,
Thank you for that. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.
Me too, if you were to substitute hours for weeks.
ThinkLife – Thank you for reminding me why I am a sceptic. In one long post you manage to go from consensus appeal through personal attacks and on to your vision of the bright new utopia that will follow our acceptance of the faith. Not bad going by any measure.
This wouldn’t be the same University of California that recommended the AXR1 rootstock to the exclusion of all others for wine grapes, would it? That worked out well.
to Smokey:
I don’t need to prove anthropogenic global warming. Real scientists do that. Their calculations are beyond me, but I can follow the basic arguments. When most scientists agree with articles published in peer-reviewed journals, that’s good enough for me.
I agree with skepticism–but do it with real science, not rehashed and debunked pseudo arguments that most real scientists already know don’t hold water. It’s the public that is still fooled, because disinformation and doubt is easier to spread than complicated equations.
Here, by the way, is an example response to your claim that “small fraction of a degree rise in temperature” poses no threat: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Is-the-climate-warming-or-cooling.html
“The most popular skeptic argument in recent times is that global warming has stopped and we’re now experiencing global cooling. For example, if we fit a linear trend line to global temperature from 1998 to 2008, we find no statistically significant trend. However, if we fit a trend line from 1999 to 2008, we do find a strong warming trend. It’s all too easy to cherry pick start and end dates to reinforce whatever point of view you wish to promote. But what is the most appropriate way to view temperature data?”
“So what’s the take home from this paper? Climate is variable. This is why climate by definition deals in trends greater than a decade. It is simply not appropriate nor particularly illuminating to draw definite conclusions on where climate is headed based on short term trends. When you read an article stating global warming has ended based on the last 10 years or less, treat the conclusion with much skepticism.”
And many have a vested interest in keeping the status quo because, as we all know, some changes are difficult. And people just like their lives EASY in fat, overfed America.
Like in “There Will Be Blood,” the film tale of Standard Oil’s ruthless, sociopath founder, the corporate motto is: “I drink your milkshake. I drink it up!”
Just eat McDonald’s every day! Why change to organic or whole grains or meatless? Hell, McDonald’s is just good-tasting food, right?! (Actually there are about 30-40 ingredients in these so-called “100% beef” burgers–most of which lay persons can’t pronounce and don’t know the effects of.)
Wrong! It is addictive bullcrap (full of salt, sugar, fat, coupled with delicious pictures to lull you into a salivating trance) fed to you by marketing scientists, food scientists, mega-millionaires and those who only care about money, not people and health. (America, with the “greatest” health care system that conservatives boast about, and its standard of living, is 50th in the world in longevity! That’s shocking! And it’s a huge indictment of capitalism, corporate privateering, pollution and the capitalizing of health care.)
What I criticize is people not doing enough research to investigate the science and follow the arguments. Then they decide what’s “true” based on lack of evidence and disinformation, coupled with blindness to their own biases and beliefs.
Finally, if there’s really *no problem* with the climate, global warming and pollution, why do so many credible scientists believe so, and why are so many with vested interests in highly polluting industries (oil and coal production, mainly) against it?
Very coincidental, to put it sarcastically. Of course it’s in one’s own interest to promote the business that pays you millions each year! But it’s anti-human to pollute while feeding yourself. (Look at vampire billionaire government/industry revolving door expert Dick Cheney–whose perhaps only good act was to accept his daughter’s gay orientation–and only because she’s his daughter? He probably would not have stepped up to that plate if she were not related.)
Now the crazies are up in arms against our Chocolate Jesus, the black President, Barack Obama–who happens to be more intelligent than most of them, and more successful–which makes them doubly crazy and angry. (Like Bill Maher says, conservatives opposing Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination are only against racism if it’s reverse racism–never mind the regular kind of racism they perpetrate on blacks, Hispanics and anyone else with different ideas or skin color. Back to the global warming “controversy.” Only controversial because of rampant ignorance, disinformation and misinformation!)
I’ve looked at contrarian arguments, and wondered if they were true. I started to doubt AGW, and did more research–but I’ve seen the contrarian arguments refuted point by point by scientists who just made more convincing and reasoned arguments, with data to support those.
Real Climate is probably the best single source for those refutations.
Another source: http://www.skepticalscience.com/
Climate Heretic:
I’m not a critic of skeptics, I’m a critic of stupidity, acting like a lemming and blind support of vested interests. Limbaugh, Exxon-Mobile, George Will, et al, are examples of all the above.
When will the facts stand up for themselves? What is the problem skeptics have understanding those facts or believing rigorous analyses of facts?
From what I can see, it’s mostly about being stuck in an ideology that refutes any new fact or information. And that attitude is anti-science, it’s anti-reason, and it leads to antihumanism and, down a long, admittedly slippery slope, to atrocities and even genocide. (This aside relates in terms of mindset: LIke Bill Maher says, “If you’re a racist these days, you’re probably a Republican.” Conservatives seem to be the ones refuting science and wanting to go back to the redneck, rebel-yell pre-Civil War society of powerful, rich, only-white males.)
Read the Real Climate rebuttals to climate change skeptics’ typical responses. (link already posted above) That just about covers it all.
Honestly, it’s just words and thoughts. It can’t hurt you! You have a right to distrust, fail to understand or otherwise disagree with it. But you can’t refute its intelligence and good sense.
I trust science over bloviation because I am intelligent. Others trust bloviation because they are not. Period. Gullible is another word to describe it. PT Barnum knew the audience well, as does Limbaugh, and Hannity; they make their millions off of fools and those who simply cannot use their heads. You can tell by the comments on those shows.
Here’s a good one: Limbaugh praised industry–yes, industry–last month for their own good sense in preventing pollution over the last 30 years. What? Whattttt????? He wants to rewrite history!
It was the good sense of people like Ralph Nader and environmentalists who pushed for the Clean Air and Water Act! What a liar Limbaugh is! Total bull!
We’ve seen how well industry polices itself. Union Carbide’s Bhopal, Exxon Mobile’s Valdez–they’re STILL fighting paying the health claims on that one!–and the aspartame scandal few know about, pushed through acceptance in a scam run by Don Rumsfeld, friend of Nixon and Bush I, who pushed through this health hazard even though 3 of 6 government FDA panelists said “No.” Then back into government (revolving, self-interested door–his reward??) to help Retard Bush II make a mockery of ecology enforcement, and destroy American respect for human lives at Abu Ghraib (en.wikipedia.org/…/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse) and Guantanamo–shredding our human rights reputation along the way.
Let’s please put truth before lies, sanity before tomfoolery, compassion before dangerous self-interest. How is it so many are so fooled? (Related: see this great movie, Idiocracy, to see the future of the dumbing of America that we’re seeing now. Made by Mike Judge, who created the brilliant Beavis and Butthead cartoon series.)
I hope those who believe that polluting the air, soil and water endlessly, and reproducing endlessly–over 6 billion now on Earth, which is INSANE–that doing so will result in some kind of common good–that they just wake up to their obvious blindness and insanity. WAKE UP! PLEASE!
As Carl Sagan used to say famously, and hopefully, about the Cold War, the nuclear threat, “When sanity breaks out…” there will be no nuclear threat.
The only creatures who sh*t where they drink and eat are fish and *some* humans. Not me, not environmentalists, not Al Gore, not real climate scientists. Not people who care for other people.
to The Duke:
I’m no scientists, but smart enough to parse out bullsh*t from intelligent inquiry and analysis. Who here has a strong enough “bullsh*t meter” to do the same?? And who is simply overestimating their own intellect? (Like Limbaugh, Hannity and Will, to name some of the famous-yet-ignorant.)
Simply look at the trail of money. That will tell you where the vested interests lie, and who they support, and why. Not current or recent money or smart green, sustainable investments–it makes sense to support a sensible industry with government funding. Look at the rancid, corrupt history. Oil money in wars. Government revolving doors with industry, especially the military-industrial complex–wolves guarding the henhouses. (Originally Eisenhower wrote “congressional-military-industrial” complex! How prescient! This from the International security consultant Susan Eisenhower, recently on Bill Maher’s Real Time. And by the way, why is it comedians have to tell us what’s wrong with America? You get more news, cogent analysis and truth on Maher’s show in a half hour than has been broadcast on Fox News in the last year!)
I’ve heard claims that environmentalists hope to make millions and that’s the impetus for supporting AGW.
There is no good reason for supporting AGW other than to support sustainability, to change to a green sustainable economy. It’s simply too difficult to start up businesses, develop new technologies and market them.
Far easier to dredge oil from the ground, or invest money into Exxon or BP stock. A few clicks on Ameritrade can do that. Anybody who is both smart and greedy is supporting big oil. Anyone smart, creative and compassionate is for green jobs and sustainability. But it’s no easy road, thank God (Chocolate Jesus?) that it’s getting easier.
It just makes sense. Use your senses, not your ideology, and observe.
Regarding Plim’s point, “* C02 has been much higher in longer geological history, with no adverse effects.”:
Who was around to measure or feel this lack of effects in “longer geological history?? Did we have billions of dollars of real estate to be destroyed on waterfronts? Is it possible to determine how many species destroyed, relocations of wildlife and people as likely will happen with rising oceans?
And as for “Parts of Greenland have been cooling since the early 20th century.”:
Hello! I already stated “all weather is local”–something any weather forecaster could tell you.
How often must it be repeated? I’m sure anyone can find parts of the world where temperatures have continually risen or fallen in recent times. It’s the overall temp, of course, that poses concern.
To 3×2, who wrote that I “manage to go from consensus appeal through personal attacks and on to your vision of the bright new utopia that will follow our acceptance of the faith.”:
I never pushed for faith or blind acceptance. Duh! It’s about science, and science embraces skepticism. Progress requires it. But please be smart about it! Most of the posts here are not.
It’s almost a Christmas song of posts here: “Six knees a-jerking, five golden rings!”
Personal attacks? I attack only lemmingism, stupidity, ignorance and lack of reason. These are actions–behavior, not personalities. I don’t criticize the people who suffer from those conditions.
Well, you’re right in some cases: But Bush is fair game, since he arrogantly failed to realize that he was too stupid to lead. So are Limbaugh and Hannity, who should know better, but choose not to spread truth, out of greed–the profit motive, as they would lose their audiences and look like laughingstocks if they did any real, unbiased research and actually learned!)
Those who suffer from it–I feel sorry for them (or you?). But the disinformation must still be dragged out and sat down in the sun to shrivel under the light of fact and truth and reasoned analyses.
to any and all:
People who doubt the good intentions of these AGW-supporting climate scientists and environmentalists–you just reveal your greedy, self-centered nature. You yourself cannot fathom altruism, caring about others as well as yourself–so you attribute their goals to some kind of greed or self-interested motive. The only motives you know. That makes sense, though it’s sad. Sad for those who want to save ourselves. Because we know that you CANNOT care–you may be too damaged to do it. (Like a PTSD sufferer who can’t help but yelp at a loud noise or stop himself from shouting when someone startles him or inadvertently aggravates him.)
It’s impossible for some conservatives to envision that some people just love truth and other people as much as you love your money and your Hummer and your Type II diabetes from eating as much beef as you can stuff into your faces, regardless of how many others are starving outside your own chemical-ridden backyard or polluted pond or coiffed-by-max-polluting-garden tractor-cut golf-course yard!
It’s blindness! It IS insanity. It’s greed, too, in some cases. It’s a condition, or a disease.
And you’re merely pissed off that we’ve caught you red-handed and are stopping you. Stopping the racism. Stopping the overpopulation. And stopping the pollution.
Of course, only those who feel offended must be the offenders. I’m only targeting the guilty. And so the guilty will take offense. Because I do hope to offend and out them.
(By the way…Did you know that the granddaughter of Eisenhower recently quit the Republican party out of disgust over its regressive policies, membership and ideologies? Is it any wonder the GOP hired Michael Steele to gloss over their racism problem–mistakenly thinking a conservative black loose cannon, who liberals laugh at, will fix their image? Lunacy! Self blindness turned into a real life joke–like most of Fox news!)
It just GALLS you, and you’re screaming with rage and embarrassment. Now we know why! You are OUTED. The Internet (which Gore humorously and ironically claimed on Letterman was his child–and which he could “take away”–stamps the damning scarlet letter on your foreheads.
So….suffer. Shout all you want. Scream. Post on blogs.
Call your retard Inhofe congressfool (who NEVER should have been let out of his pigfarm backyard to mislead in government, see http://www.counterpunch.org/jackson05122004.htmlhttp://www.counterpunch.org/jackson05122004.html), or his mentally defective replacement or clone.
It will get you absolutely nowhere.
The truth is choking you down your throat…and now, you can’t “drink anothers’ milkshake.”
Thinklife:
Must be difficult living in a world surrounded by us mere mortals.
“Author: ThinkLife
Comment:
to Smokey:
Problem for you ThinkLife is that not one single real scientist has done that, no matter what they published in peer-reviewed journals or not!
Problem is that the figures measured in regards of temperatures in the past, and sometimes even today, aren’t the figures used as facts in the so called ‘real scientists’ works! Never ever seen so much circleproofs and non-valid arguments used as if they were valed and solid fact instead of unproven assumptions/thesis/hypothesis.
An other big problem is that if you add together all the stations used and the area they can vouch for had their correct data been used, You will not have more than 2% of all land and sea area covered. Not to mention that the absense of analyse due to different biotops between areas haven’t been entered to satisfaction at all, mostly they aren’t even taken into consideration.
“obstruksion (09:36:44) :
This will be the first time in history with so many people complaining that their nuts aren’t cold enough.”
And that right there’s funny…I don’t care who you are.
Great way to start the day…thnks.
JimB
Okay. I am almost speechless. Almost.
“Thinklife:
It’s blindness! It IS insanity. It’s greed, too, in some cases. It’s a condition, or a disease.
And you’re merely pissed off that we’ve caught you red-handed and are stopping you. Stopping the racism. Stopping the overpopulation. And stopping the pollution.
Of course, only those who feel offended must be the offenders. I’m only targeting the guilty. And so the guilty will take offense. Because I do hope to offend and out them.”
Dude…you REALLY need to sit back, relax, breathe, and roll up a good d…..
Ah, forget it. Another mind lost.
JimB
Thinklife said
“What I criticize is people not doing enough research to investigate the science and follow the arguments. Then they decide what’s “true” based on lack of evidence and disinformation, coupled with blindness to their own biases and beliefs.”
I can only assume you came across this site and went in to print without reading the numerous articles that underpin it. You have preformed the opinon that anyone ‘sceptical’ is an ignorant right wing shill of big oil who has given the matter no thought whatsoever, and only you have the correct answers.
As for myself, I am a vegetarian who walks and cycles on most journeys, buys local food in season locally, ‘own’ some rain forest to prevent deforestation and is an enthusiast for wave/tidal power renewables. Our host drives an electric car and uses solar panels. How do we (and many other ‘liberals’ here) fit into your world view of sceptics? Yes, from my spelling of that word you can see I’m British.
A good percentage of the people blogging here would at one time have believed the AGW mantra until they started researching it-myself included. Being British I am in the fortunate position of being close to history. It is apparent that climatically we have passed this way many times before as real records from real people tell us this constantly. From Ancient Middle East and Bronze age civilisations , the Roman and Byzantine empire, The Venerable Bede, Vikings, Domesday book, Mayas, Aztecs, Pepys, Thomas Jefferson- they all tell us about frequently changing climate throughout the world.
Not twenty miles from my home is a bronze age settlement abandoned when the climate cooled, and a medieval settlement abandoned when the climate cooled (again) in the 14th century.
Despite what you believe therefore the current episide is neither unprecedented nor even unusual, and temperatures have been higher and lower in the past. Greenland is by no means an isolated ‘local’ effect, there have been numerous studies, cited here many times, demonstrating the worldwide warming and cooling through the millenia.
Sea levels in mans recorded history have been higher than today and are showing no abnormal rise.
It all comes down to the Hockey Stick, where Michael Mann sought to minimise the LIA and the MWP (he said the MWP is an outdated concept) Greatly fluctuating temperatures at pre industrial constant levels of co2 at 280ppm do not fit in with the concept of a fairly constant temperature which, according to him, went wild when man increased co2 levels to 380ppm.
Even those pre industrial levels are in doubt. Look (objectively) at Ernst Becks work-as I have done- and you may feel uncomforatble that the IPCC discounted 150,000 co2 reading in the period 1830 to 1957 (many compiled by Nobel winners) showing fluctuating co2 at around current levels, in order to get on board with Charles Keeling-someone who never in his life had taken co2 readings before.
As for Global temperatures, the concept of a single temperature is absurd especially when you learn how they are compiled. Its all based on Hansens (excellent) paper from the 1980’s which used data from a tiny number of stations from 1880-Hadley use 20 stations worldwide from 1850. Those stations have fluctuated in number and location ever since.
The science is riddled with inconsistencies and I directly refute your suggestion that people such as myself ‘do not do enough research’ in order to reach our own conclusions.
Please treat us with a little more respect and recognise that the arguments you put forward have been refuted numerous times here if you would care to search the archives.
You cite Greenpeace many times on your web site-I suggest you google Agenda 21 to see what one of the pillars of AGW is all about, you might then like to put it into a wider context by reading H.L.Mencken who wrote:
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
By the way I quoted Pepys earlier, who coincidentally wrote this in the year the Royal Society was created, demonstrating that nothing is unprecedented (yes I know its only ‘weather’)
” January 1660/61:
It is strange what weather we have had all this winter; no cold at all; but the ways are dusty, and the flyes fly up and down, and the rose-bushes are full of leaves, such a time of the year as was never known in this world before here.”
Hope you stick around but please don’t treat us all as right wing idiots intent on destroying the planet.
tonyb
I could do a point by point rebuttal, but I think you could do no better than to visit http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Curious.htm where Lucy Skywalker will take you on a reasoned journey from AGW belief to a still open minded but realist point of view. Dare you ?
Referring to Thinklife of course.