Readers may recall when I took OMSI to task for being debate deniers. That didn’t work out so well for OMSI what with the negative publicity and the packed room last night. Wish I could have been there. If anyone has this on video, please upload to YouTube and send a link – Anthony
Presentation by global warming skeptics draws big crowd in Portland
Written by Scott Learn, The Oregonian | January 26 2012
More than 400 people jammed into a Portland hotel ballroom Wednesday night to hear a panel of global warming skeptics assert that manmade increases in greenhouse gases are not driving climate change.
The event, hosted by the 150-member Oregon chapter of the American Meteorological Society, was open to the general public and drew an attentive and mostly sympathetic audience. Chapter President Steve Pierce asked for a show of hands beforehand, then estimated that 90 percent of the crowd favored the statement that human activities are not the main cause of global warming.
Three Oregon-based panelists — physicist Gordon Fulks, meteorologist Chuck Wiese and former Oregon state climatologist George Taylor — used long- and short-term temperature measurements and other data to bolster their case.
Skepticism about climate models was prominent, particularly given a general flattening of temperatures since 1998, a relatively warm El Nino year. Water vapor, sun cycles and natural weather patterns are more powerful in changing climate than increases in carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, the panelists said.
“The effects of future changes in CO2 are likely to be modest and manageable,” said Taylor, who added that Northwest records do not indicate that temperatures have risen or snowpack has fallen, subjects of substantial debate.
The Oregon AMS moved the presentation to the Portland Airport Shilo Inn after the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry canceled it in November for lack of balance, and the ensuing controversy likely boosted in interest in the event.
“Thank you OMSI,” Wiese said, surveying the crowd. “This turnout is absolutely fantastic.”
Full story at Oregon Live: Presentation by global warming skeptics draws big crowd in Portland
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[snip – off topic – stop thread bombing – Anthony]
I see that a climate scientist present – Andreas Schmittner, a researcher at Oregon State University – was described as ‘the lone dissenter’. It must be weird sensation for a climate scientist to be labelled thus!!!!
@ur momisugly George E. Smith
“Well Heisenberg explained to us nearly a hundred years ago that simply looking at the climate, will change it, and in ways that we can’t predict, and with our luck, they are most likely to be bad.”
Heisenberg did nothing of the sort. His uncertainty principle relates to events that happen on an atomic scale.
greenurbangirl
I would estimate 100 % of the scientists believe mankind affects climate.
I certainly do as do Lindzen and Choi etc.
I believe AGW is a fact but mild and beneficial so far. I do not believe CAGW exists or ever will exist.
The skeptics positions are constantly misrepresented.
We know there are serious issues with the science of the warmists, issues that climate realists spend a long time exposing and debating. But realists are getting drawn into a scientific discourse of nuance and minutiae that turns off the casual observer. It’s playing into the warmists’ hands.
For many people it is all too confusing and frankly they find the subject remote and boring. Isn’t it better to focus on what is directly relevant to them in order to get them on side?
It is the cost of climate change policies, carbon taxes and trading, things such as air passenger duty, and taxpayer funded subsidy for unreliable energy generation that drive up electricity bills that make people sit up, take notice and see the warmist agenda for what it really is – something that has nothing to do with science.
Oh great. One lame strawman comment from am obvious troll and 90-odd per cent of responses are pitched to her/him/it – when the troll will probably never return to this thread. Yawn.
Andreas Schmittner appears to be a bit of a lukewarmer according to this article.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2065954/Climate-change-fears-exaggerated-say-scientists-claim-apocalyptic-predictions-unlikely.html
We all hear what we want to hear. I hear a polite young lady who wants to make a difference and is willing to believe things she is told. She comes here and is welcomed, scolded, and put down all in the same thread. So I will add my comments, and hopefully in a nice way.
We all agree that humankind has an effect on the environment. I live in the suburbs of Phoenix AZ. I used to drive through pecan groves and cotton fields on the way to work. My house was 5-6C cooler than downtown. Now 20 years later everything is paved over with asphalt and concrete and houses are everywhere. The temperature at my house is the same as in downtown Phoenix. So yes, we humans have had an impact on the environment – especially at the local level.
What comes next are the questions: Is this bad? Is the current climate trend unprecedented in human history (think MWP and LIA)? Is manmade CO2 release going to cause catastrophic changes to the environment? Is is going to cause any change at all? Can we even know what this change is? Is this change worth decimating the world economy in an attempt to reverse? How about turning our rights and liberties over to government authorites so we can be saved (I’m from the Government and I’m here to help)? Do we have a bigger impact on our planet than the oceans? vocanoes? clouds? the jetstream? the sun?
We know that 13,000 years ago the earth began to warm and we came out of the last great ice age. Human caused or a natural variation in the earth’s climate? Is the warming of the last 30 years (if any) really a more unprecedented change than hundreds of miles of glacier recession?
We skeptics want answers to these questions. We question the motivation of those who disregard these questions, belittle those who ask them, try to destroy our reputations, and say that we can’t ask our questions because the “science is settled.” So by all means be green – but maybe be a bit skeptical when people claim to have all the answers and you should blindly follow them in order to “save the planet.” As the great philosopher George Carlin once said (I paraphrase) “The earth doesn’t need saving. It’ll be here a billion years from now when we’re long gone. It may be a burned up cinder but it will be here and we won’t.”
And why doesn’t that apply to the macro scale? Case in point is the question that stumped Einstein in his later years — If a tree falls in the forest and your wife is not there to blame you, is it still your fault?
Roy says:
January 26, 2012 at 2:06 pm
Some people need a sense of humour transplant!
DaveE.
Regarding greenurbangirl, CAGW activists have long tried to portray skeptics as paid shills for the fossil fuel industry. But this line of attack failed because it was easy enough to demonstrate that it was not true. So the new line of attack is to portray skeptics as suffers of a debilitating mental illness that make us intensely fearful of change and as such, incapable of accepting the CAGW hypothesis. Using this line of attack, the CAGW activist can appear more sympathetic (certainly more sympathetic than Michael Mann and his conspiracy theories) and can enlist others to help us poor suffers through the “difficult process of change”. Oh brother.
GreenUrbanGirl, is that green as in naive or green as in jealous?
It can’t be green as in plants because plants love CO2, like we love oxygen.
Greenurbangirl, think about this:
The Man-Made Global Warming scam becomes evident when one looks at the narrative that spews from the alarmists. Only evil and suffering can come from a warmer Earth.
Why can’t it be :
“Congratulations children, The Energy sources that fuel our economies and our prosperity, give us long life and comfort, these fossil fuels will also cause our planet to warm gently, about 4 degrees over the next century. What luck!
With the warmth and extra CO2 for plant life, millions of acres of tundra will become forests. Millions of acres of frozen steppe will become arable. Starvation will end. Prosperity will reach even the poorest people. We must keep searching for and burning oil and coal so we can improve our climate and prosper. Humanity will become wealthy. With this wealth we can preserve habitat for animals, protect the rain forest. We will clean the oceans and the land. Our future is bright. We are entering the age of abundance. “
If all the CO2 hype were true, This COULD be what the “experts” would say.
Ask yourself why this is NEVER what they say.
Greenurbangirl, welcome to the fray, from an aging science tech across the Pond. You’ve probably already noticed ( 😀 ) that any unwary mention of a percentage, or other claim, will get pounced on instantly with requests for a reference – a fact that stops about half my comments dead in their tracks, as the chaos inside my computer is almost as great as the chaos outside it. Keep off one or two banned topics like … Kem Trayls (ha haar, the mods will never spot that one!), and our genial host will remain genial as we squabble among ourselves over details, agreeing only that the science is anything but settled. Only obsessively non-climate posts and downright rudeness result in the Order of the Boot; mostly, we’re quite friendly, and even green, ourselves, it’s why most of us come here to learn. Enjoy.
@Roy – re “Heisenberg did nothing of the sort. His uncertainty principle relates to events that happen on an atomic scale.” – well technically I agree with you, of course, but there’s always that darned Butterfly Effect. Can we be sure it’s not “butterflies all the way down”? 😉
I think it may be many years before we see scepticism go mainstream. Trying to save the world is simply too morally unassailable to be inconvenienced with anything that resembles logic or reason. (SARCASM)
Sceptics are winning, but I doubt there will ever be a large, decisive victory for us to look forward to. This world simply doesn’t work that way. Look forward to that video though.
This is funny:
“Skepticism about climate models was prominent, particularly given a general flattening of temperatures since 1998, a relatively warm El Nino year.”
Did they happen to mention that 9 out of the 10 warmest years on instrument temperature record have occurred since that time? Probably not.
But this statement is even more hilarious:
“More than 400 people jammed into a Portland hotel ballroom Wednesday night to hear a panel of global warming skeptics assert that manmade increases in greenhouse gases are not driving climate change.”
Since when do so-called “skeptics” make such a definitive assertion? I thought they were supposed to be “skeptical” about the causes of climate change. Seems their neutrality would be called into question in this instance, such that they ought not call themselves skeptics as they seem to have the climate all figured out.
“”””” David A. Evans says:
January 26, 2012 at 2:53 pm
Roy says:
January 26, 2012 at 2:06 pm
@ur momisugly George E. Smith
“Well Heisenberg explained to us nearly a hundred years ago that simply looking at the climate, will change it, and in ways that we can’t predict, and with our luck, they are most likely to be bad.”
Heisenberg did nothing of the sort. His uncertainty principle relates to events that happen on an atomic scale.
Some people need a sense of humour transplant!
DaveE. “””””
Well Roy, that definitive statement could win you a Nobel prize in Physics.
Who would have guessed that delta x.delta p > h/2 pi does not apply to larger than atomic scale.
So tell us Roy, just what macroscale, as in larger than atomic scale system do YOU know of, wherein you can prove that delta x.delta p; or alternatively delta E.delta t can simultaneously be measured to less than h/2pi precision ?
Every Physicist I have ever asked about Heisenberg’s principle has insisted emphatically that there are no cases at any scale that violate its restriction.
So you may know of the first case that sends Heisenberg to the scrap heap of failed theories of Physics.
I’d be most happy to nominate YOU Roy for the Nobel Physics Prize, if you can describe a system that can be proven to violate Heisenberg’s Principle of Uncertainty. (well he said it in German;
“unbestimmtheit” or something close to that I think is how he put it.
Werner was nobody’s dummy, and frankly; I’ll take his word before yours. It applies from atomic to galactic cluster scale as far as I am concerned. I don’t joke about such fundamental things.
R. Gates says:
January 26, 2012 at 3:54 pm
What part of “flattening” do you not understand? Given things from Joe D’Aleo’s latest post here and the Chinese tree ring study, I’m happy to concede that “plateaued” would have been a better choice.
R. Gates says:
This is funny:
“Skepticism about climate models was prominent, particularly given a general flattening of temperatures since 1998, a relatively warm El Nino year.”
Did they happen to mention that 9 out of the 10 warmest years on instrument temperature record have occurred since that time? Probably not.
What is funny is that you dont mind feigning ignorance of the concept of “flattening” to make a nonsensical non sequitur.
R Gates, have you never looked at a graph? Apparently you have no concept of an ascent flattening – even when it supposed to be accelerating alarmingly.
Your second point slightly better connects with reality. GHG may be driving climate change but the debate is how significantly. However the quote from the presenters “The effects of future changes in CO2 are likely to be modest and manageable” expresses that moderately and well – and calls into question your own neutrality.
R. Gates said:
January 26, 2012 at 3:54 pm
…they ought not call themselves skeptics as they seem to have the climate all figured out.
——————————
Nah, just the climate fraudsters 😉
Ric Werme says:
January 26, 2012 at 4:07 pm
R. Gates says:
January 26, 2012 at 3:54 pm
This is funny:
“Skepticism about climate models was prominent, particularly given a general flattening of temperatures since 1998, a relatively warm El Nino year.”
Did they happen to mention that 9 out of the 10 warmest years on instrument temperature record have occurred since that time? Probably not.
What part of “flattening” do you not understand? Given things from Joe D’Aleo’s latest post here and the Chinese tree ring study, I’m happy to concede that “plateaued” would have been a better choice.
_______
Flattening is probably better. “Plateaued” implies that they’ll begin to go down over the long-term, as opposed to just not apparently going up so fast. If we set a new modern instrument record in the next few years, it will be obvious that we have higher “plateaus” ahead…and I suspect we will and we do…
Ric Werme says:
January 26, 2012 at 4:07 pm
I was going to use something along the lines of monitoring a 288VDC signal with multiple sine wave noise.
The base frequency being 25Hz and the time frame being 20ms.
9 of the last 10 100µs samples were the highest in the sample range, therefore, the voltage is going up!
DaveE.
“”””” David A. Evans says:
January 26, 2012 at 2:53 pm
Roy says:
January 26, 2012 at 2:06 pm
@ur momisugly George E. Smith “”””
Am I the only one Dave, or are you also amazed, about how many people are willing to go and jump off cliffs over something they know nothing about. And we see in just a few posts, that they can demonstrate they know nothing about it, in several different ways.
One of my all time favorite cartoons, depicts a couple of precave men standing at the top of a sheer precipice, about to perform a memorable experiment. Well it will be memorable for one of them.
Out away from the cliff edge soar a pair of Pterodactyls riding on a thermal.
The theoretical physicist one of these two government grant money spenders, has often admired the Pterodactyl with it’s great long tooth encrusted beak, and its equally long and pointy rearward brain cavity, so he has constructed from bark, and leaves, and no doubt dinosaur skins, a realistic likeness of the two streamlined appendages, and a harness for strapping them on to his head, so if he ducks down, he might just entice one of those soaring pre-birds to come and check him out; perhaps with matrimony in mind; but there he stands at the edge of the precipice, with arms stretched out in front of him, about to do a half gainer off the cliff.
His laboratory assistant, and witness to historical greatness; has one final query for the theoretician’s self experimental consideration:-
” Say Oog , are you sure that pointy nose and head is what makes them fly ? !!
I hate to even mention this; but the query, about flushing the toilet twice in San Franciso, messing up next week’s surfing contest in Hawaii; or the more common butterfly version, are related to CHAOS theory, and don’t have a thing to do with Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty.
George E. Smith; says:
January 26, 2012 at 4:31 pm
Sorry George but I’m not really up on Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty.
I can see how it applies for, say, observation of photons…
If you set up to observe a wave, a wave is what you see, if you set up to observe a particle, a particle is what you see.
At larger scales, I just don’t know.
DaveE.