Jump to content
[[Template core/front/custom/_customHeader is throwing an error. This theme may be out of date. Run the support tool in the AdminCP to restore the default theme.]]

the supreme court rules ...


zmanzzzz
 Share

Recommended Posts

This is the best part....

 

:D

Isn't Durkin also getting sued by one of the guys in his mockumentary?

 

 

the original and corrected versions of that graph. it shows the producers may have been a little sloppy putting together their on-screen visuals, but that's about it. yeah temperatures continued to go up from 88 to 04, and there are plenty of graphs readily available to demonstrate they could have used but didnt, and it's not hard to see why they chose the old graph they did. it's kind of underhanded and propagandistic on the part of the producers, but so is showing a hurricane coming out of a smokestack.

 

about the guy suing...

 

Carl Wunsch, one of the scientists featured in the programme, has said that he was "completely misrepresented" in the film and had been "totally misled" when he agreed to be interviewed.[15][4] He called the film "grossly distorted" and "as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War Two."[16] Wunsch was reported to have threatened legal action[16] and to have lodged a complaint with Ofcom, the UK broadcast regulator.[17] Filmmaker Durkin responded, "Carl Wunsch was most certainly not 'duped' into appearing in the film, as is perfectly clear from our correspondence with him. Nor are his comments taken out of context. His interview, as used in the programme, perfectly accurately represents what he said."[16]

 

Wunsch wrote in a letter dated March 15, 2007 that he believes climate change is "real, a major threat, and almost surely has a major human-induced component". He also says he had thought he was contributing to a programme which sought to counterbalance "over-dramatisation and unwarranted extrapolation of scientific facts". He raised objections as to how his interview material was used:

 

"In the part of The Great Climate Change Swindle where I am describing the fact that the ocean tends to expel carbon dioxide where it is warm, and to absorb it where it is cold, my intent was to explain that warming the ocean could be dangerous - because it is such a gigantic reservoir of carbon. By its placement in the film, it appears that I am saying that since carbon dioxide exists in the ocean in such large quantities, human influence must not be very important—diametrically opposite to the point I was making—which is that global warming is both real and threatening."[4]

 

On March 11, 2007, The Independent covered the Carl Wunch controversy, and asked Channel 4 to respond to what it described as "a serious challenge to its own credibility". A Channel 4 spokesman said:

 

"The film was a polemic that drew together the well-documented views of a number of respected scientists to reach the same conclusions. This is a controversial film but we feel that it is important that all sides of the debate are aired. If one of the contributors has concerns about his contribution we will look into that."

 

you know, i don't think that's "taking him out of context" at all. it's using his argument to bolster a larger point he may not agree with, but that happens all the time in documentaries and journalism. it also goes straight to that argument earlier in this thread about temperature leading CO2 levels (not vice versa), and the mechanisms by which that would take place...and whether wunch likes it or not, the fact that the planet (and more specifically, the oceans) releases far more CO2 when it's warmer DOES provide a strong alternative explanation to the historical temperature/CO2 correlation, and that DOES undercut the human greenhouse warming theory.

 

it's also worth noting that wunch is but one of about 20 scientists quoted on the program, and one of the least prominent. as far as i know, none of these fellows have taken issue with anything attributed to them or with the show as a whole:

Syun-Ichi Akasofu - Professor and Director, International Arctic Research Center

Tim Ball - Head of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project

Nigel Calder - Former Editor, New Scientist

John Christy - Professor, Department of Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama in Huntsville and Lead Author, IPCC

Ian Clark - Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa

Piers Corbyn - Weather Forecaster, Weather Action

Paul Driessen - Author: Green Power, Black Death

Eigil Friis-Christensen - Director, Danish National Space Center and Adjunct Professor, University of Copenhagen

Nigel Lawson - Former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer

Richard Lindzen - Professor, Department of Meteorology, M.I.T.

Patrick Michaels - Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia

Patrick Moore - Co-founder, Greenpeace

Tim Patterson - Professor, Carleton University

Paul Reiter - Professor, Department of Medical Entomology, Pasteur Institute, Paris

Nir Shaviv - Professor, Institute of Physics, University of Jerusalem

James Shikwati - Economist and author

Frederick Singer - Professor Emeritus, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Former Director of the National Weather Satellite Service.

Roy Spencer - Weather Satellite Team Leader, NASA

Philip Stott - Professor Emeritus, Department of Biogeography, University of London

Edward Wegman - Professor, George Mason University

 

here is a good summation of the points made in the show:

On contradictions in the theory of anthropogenic global warming

Records of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels since 1940 show a continuing increase, but during this period, global temperature decreased until 1975, and has increased since then.

Theories of carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas predict that the temperature in the troposphere should increase the fastest, but satellite and weather balloon data do not show this.

Water vapour makes up 95% of all greenhouse gases and is the component of the atmosphere that has the largest impact on the planet's temperature, through cloud formation and associated reflection of incoming solar heat. Scientists cannot accurately model the effects of clouds when attempting to simulate future weather patterns and their effects on global warming.

Carbon dioxide is only a very small percentage of the atmosphere (0.038%) and humans only contribute a small part of the total CO2 emissions in a year (less than 1%). Volcanos, on the other hand, produce more than all the cars and factories in the world. This means that human CO2 emissions cannot be the main cause of global warming.

Carbon dioxide levels increase or decrease due to temperatures increasing or decreasing rather than temperatures following carbon dioxide levels, because the Earth's oceans absorb carbon dioxide when they are cooler, and release it when they are warmer. Due to the large oceanic mass it takes a long time ("decades or centuries") for the reaction to temperature changes to occur, which is why analysis of the Vostok Station and other ice cores shows that changes in the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide follow changes in global temperature, with a lag of 800 years.

Solar activity is currently at a high level, and likely to be the cause of the current global warming. The mechanism involves cosmic rays aiding cloud formation, and the solar wind deflects cosmic rays away from Earth during periods of high solar activity. Solar activity levels are far more relevant than the small percentage of greenhouse gases being emitted by humans described in other theories.

According to the work of Eigil Friis-Christensen, changes in solar activity match changes in global temperatures much more accurately than do changes in CO2 levels.

The current warming is nothing unusual and was surpassed during the Medieval Warm Period. This was a time of great prosperity in Europe, highlighting the beneficial effects of increased temperatures.

 

On research findings driven by financial or ideological motives

The claim that sceptics are funded by the oil industry is false, and in any case the research funds provided by oil companies are dwarfed by those provided by governments to the alleged "global warming industry".

There has been a large increase in the research funds available for studies relating to global warming. Including a putative link to global warming effects makes it likelier that a research scientist will get a research grant. Furthermore, producing dramatic and pessimistic results has a positive impact on the standing of scientists.

It is more likely that vested interests occur among supporters of the theory of anthropogenic global warming, since many jobs in science, the media, and governmental administration have been created as a result of this theory.

Some supporters of the anthropogenic theory of global warming do so because it is in concordance with their ideological beliefs opposing capitalism, economic development, globalization, industrialisation, and the United States.

The theory was promoted by Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the interest of promoting nuclear power and reducing the power of the National Union of Mineworkers.

 

Disputing a scientific consensus supporting anthropogenic global warming

The "2,500 top scientists" mentioned in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report are not all scientists and do not all agree with the report.

The IPCC report misrepresented the views of some of the scientists who contributed to it. When Paul Reiter complained and requested that his name be removed, this request was refused until he threatened legal action.

The concept of anthropogenic global warming has developed into a modern religion, with sceptics treated as heretics and labelled as "global warming deniers", in order to equate genuine scientific scepticism with holocaust denial. Retired university professor Tim Ball says in the programme that he has received death threats because of the sceptical statements he has made about global warming.

 

Killing the African dream of development

Author and economist James Shikwati says in the programme that environmentalists campaign against Africa using its fossil fuels: "there's somebody keen to kill the African dream. And the African dream is to develop." He describes renewable power as "luxurious experimentation" that might work for rich countries but will never work for Africa: "I don't see how a solar panel is going to power a steel industry...We are being told, 'Don't touch your resources. Don't touch your Oil. Don't touch your Coal. That is suicide.'"

An example is given in the film of a Kenyan health clinic which is powered by solar panels which do not provide enough electricity for both the medical refrigerator and the lights at the same time. The programme describes the idea of restricting the world's poorest people to alternative energy sources as "the most morally repugnant aspect of the Global Warming campaign."

 

Miscellaneous

A similar scare emerged during the 1970s when scientists predicted global cooling and the imminent onset of a new ice age.

The negative effects of the precautionary principle, which has been used by supporters of the anthropogenic theory of global warming, are discussed. For example, the World Health Organization estimates that every year, four million children die globally from respiratory diseases related to inhaling smoke from cooking fires and the film implies these deaths would be avoided if the parents had access to electrical cooking devices.

Edited by Azazello1313
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 346
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

 

By Jeff Mason 2 hours, 4 minutes ago

 

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Scientists clashed with government officials at a U.N. panel on climate change on Friday over how strongly global warming is affecting plants and animals and the degree to which humans are causing temperatures to rise.

ADVERTISEMENT

 

More than 100 nations in the U.N. group agreed a final text after all-night talks that were punctuated by protests from researchers, who accused delegates of ignoring science and watering down a summary version of the report for policymakers.

 

Environmentalists say governments tried to weaken the report in order to avoid taking strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia were the main culprits at the meeting, delegates said.

 

"It looks like very blatant vested interests are trying to stop particular messages getting out," said Neil Adger from Britain's Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

 

"We give our best to provide the best scientific assessment, but when the wording of that is then changed ... we get very upset. It's three years' work."

 

He said delegates had also tried to weaken the link between greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans and the impacts of global warming worldwide.

 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) groups 2,500 scientists and is the top authority on climate change.

 

Cynthia Rosenzweig of the

NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies submitted a letter of protest to the IPCC chairman after Chinese delegates insisted on cutting a reference to 'very high confidence' that climate change was already affecting natural systems on all continents and in some oceans, she said.

 

"I did make a statement that the authors strongly felt that the 'very high confidence' level was right," she told reporters after the meeting. "I was protesting because I felt the science wasn't brought forward."

 

She left the meeting after the protest but said she needed a break and had not staged a walkout.

 

The delegates ended up taking out any reference to confidence and revised the text to say: "Observational evidence from all continents and most oceans shows that many natural systems are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases."

 

Martin Parry, co-chair of the group preparing the report, denied the document had been weakened as a whole.

 

"I don't think it would be a right story to say it was watered down. Certain messages were lost but I don't think in any respect the message was lost," he said. "When you have big meetings, there is a boiling down to common ground."

 

But although Rosenzweig said she was happy with the compromise, many scientists felt the summary was not as sound as the larger report that they are preparing.

 

"There is some residual frustration amongst the scientists. There's no question about that," said Kevin Hennessy, senior research scientist at the Climate Impact Group in Australia and another lead author. "But we're going to encourage people to drill down to the more detailed information in the technical summary and in the individual chapters."

(additional reporting by David Lawsky)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

the original and corrected versions of that graph. it shows the producers may have been a little sloppy putting together their on-screen visuals, but that's about it. yeah temperatures continued to go up from 88 to 04, and there are plenty of graphs readily available to demonstrate they could have used but didnt, and it's not hard to see why they chose the old graph they did. it's kind of underhanded and propagandistic on the part of the producers, but so is showing a hurricane coming out of a smokestack.

 

 

 

Irish Doggy eloquently hit upon the main point earlier but I must ask.....

 

Despite, or maybe beacuse of the overwhelming scientific view on global warming, us stinky dirty hippies in this thread never referenced Al Gore's movie to prove a point.. Why are you guys resorting to a Michael-Moore-like piece of propoganda to save face?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Irish Doggy eloquently hit upon the main point earlier but I must ask.....

 

Despite, or maybe beacuse of the overwhelming scientific view on global warming, us stinky dirty hippies in this thread never referenced Al Gore's movie to prove a point.. Why are you guys resorting to a Michael-Moore-like piece of propoganda to save face?

 

hey i showered last week.....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, I hate it when guys take their ball and go home. :D

 

McBoog is a special case. He shows up every month or so, engages in fierce but kookoo ideological battle, complains about the tone of the Tailgate and runs away for another month. It is a nice pattern.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

More pwnage=yuo...let me know when you enviros pack up yer crazy and take it somewhere else. Here's some pics this morning out mah window.

 

Global Warming - April 7, 2007 Virginny Evidence #1

 

Global Warming - April 7, 2007 Confederacy Evidence #2

 

You guys ever tire of the pwnage, ya'll holler.

 

TimC displays an inability to tell the difference between weather and climate, thus removing himself from serious participation in the discussion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

TimC displays an inability to tell the difference between weather and climate, thus removing himself from serious participation in the discussion.

 

 

Are you telling me to take my ball and go home because I pwnd you and your kind? :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are you telling me to take my ball and go home because I pwnd you and your kind? :D

 

You've pwned nothing. You've just said "It's cold this morning, ergo there is no truth in the rumor that 19 of the hottest years recorded have happened in the past 25 years".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A top hurricane forecaster called Al Gore "a gross alarmist" Friday for making an Oscar-winning documentary about global warming.

 

"He's one of these guys that preaches the end of the world type of things. I think he's doing a great disservice and he doesn't know what he's talking about," Dr. William Gray said in an interview with The Associated Press at the National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans, where he delivered the closing speech.

 

Gray, an emeritus professor at the atmospheric science department at Colorado State University, has long railed against the theory that heat-trapping gases generated by human activity are causing the world to warm.

 

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070407/D8OBK1DG0.html

 

i assume this is just another expert that has no idea what he is talking about......

Edited by dmarc117
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You've pwned nothing. You've just said "It's cold this morning, ergo there is no truth in the rumor that 19 of the hottest years recorded have happened in the past 25 years".

 

 

You must've missed (or ignored) the BBC link that refutes all yer evidence. Typical enviro. When confronted, you attempt to discredit the person instead of the evidence.

 

Again, I ask you....do you use electricity? Do you drive a combustible engine? Do you live in a cave? If not, don't bother with the discussion and start becoming part of the solution.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You must've missed (or ignored) the BBC link that refutes all yer evidence. Typical enviro. When confronted, you attempt to discredit the person instead of the evidence.

 

Again, I ask you....do you use electricity? Do you drive a combustible engine? Do you live in a cave? If not, don't bother with the discussion and start becoming part of the solution.

 

Yer "evidence" consists of one frosty morning. :D

 

Still, you guys are definitely winning the argument through your ability to wield a black marker pen.

 

A new global warming report issued Friday by the United Nations paints a near-apocalyptic vision of Earth's future: more than a billion people in need of water, extreme food shortages in Africa, a planetary landscape ravaged by floods and millions of species sentenced to extinction.

 

But despite the harshness of its vision, the report was quickly criticized by scientists who said its findings were watered down at the last minute by government bureaucrats seeking to deflect calls for action.

 

"The science got hijacked by the political bureaucrats at the late stage of the game," said John Walsh, a climate expert at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, who helped write a chapter on the polar regions.

 

Even in its softened form, the report outlined a range of devastating effects that will strike all regions of the world and all levels of society. Those without resources to adapt to the changes will suffer the greatest impact, according to the study from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

 

The report is the second issued this year by the United Nations, which marshaled more than 2,500 scientists to give their best predictions of the consequences of a few degrees increase in temperature.

 

The first report, released in February, characterized global warming as a runaway train that is irreversible, but that can be moderated by societal changes. That report said, with more than 90 percent confidence, that the warming is caused by humans, and its conclusions were widely accepted because of the years of accumulated scientific data supporting it.

 

In contrast, the second report was more controversial because it tackled the more uncertain issues of the precise effects of warming and the ability of humans to adapt to it.

 

The report, in a sense, is a more focused indictment of the world's biggest polluters - the industrialized nations - and a more specific identification of the victims.

 

The last-minute negotiations led to deleting timelines for future events and scaling back the degree of confidence in some projections. Both actions will ease the pressure on industrialized nations to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are gradually warming the planet.

 

Several scientists vowed afterward that they would never participate in the process again because of the political interference.

 

"Once is enough," said Walsh, who was not present during the negotiations in Brussels, but kept abreast of developments with e-mails from colleagues. "I was receiving hourly reports that grew increasingly frustrated."

 

The report paints a bleak picture of the future, noting that the early signs of warming already are here:

 

Spring is arriving earlier, with plants blooming weeks ahead of schedule.

 

In the mountains, the runoff begins earlier in the year, shrinking glaciers in the Alps, the Himalayas and the Andes.

 

Habitats for plants and animals, both on land and in the oceans, are shifting toward the poles.

 

Nineteen of the 20 hottest years on record have occurred since 1980, according to previous studies. The report said more frequent and more intense heat waves are "very likely" in the future.

 

In some places, warming might seem like a good thing, at first. For example, worldwide food production is expected to increase with the first few degrees of temperature rise. For a time, an expanded fertile zone in the higher latitudes could offset losses in the tropics. But at a certain point, as drought conditions spread, crops everywhere will suffer.

 

By mid-century, temperature rise and drying soil will replace tropical forests with savannas in Brazil's eastern Amazonia, the report predicts.

 

In North America, snowpack in the West will decline, causing more floods in the winter and reduced flows in the summer, increasing competition for water for agriculture and municipal use. California agriculture will be decimated by the loss of water for irrigation, experts have previously said. Water will come more often around the world in its least welcome forms: storms and floods.

 

Rising temperatures will reconfigure coastlines around the world, as the oceans rise and seawater surges over land. The tiny islands of the South Pacific and the Asian deltas will be overwhelmed by storm surges as sea levels rise.

 

In the Andes and the Himalayas, melting glaciers will unleash floods and rock avalanches. But within a few decades, as the glaciers and snowpack decline, streams will dwindle, cutting off the main water supply to more than one-sixth of the world's population.

 

Africa will suffer the most extreme effects, with a quarter of a billion people losing most of their water supplies, the report said. Food production will fall by half in many countries and governments will have to spend 10 percent of their budgets or more to adapt to climate changes, the report said.

 

At least 30 percent of the world's species will disappear if temperatures rise 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above the average levels of the 1980s and 1990s, the report said.

 

"Don't be poor in a hot country, don't live in hurricane alley, watch out about being on the coasts or in the Arctic, and it's a bad idea to be on a high mountain," said Stephen Schneider of Stanford University, one of the scientists who contributed to the report.

 

The Bush administration quickly made it clear that it would not be stampeded by the report into taking part in the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, which seeks to limit emissions of carbon dioxide. The U.S. withdrew from the protocol in 2001, saying it was too expensive and did not impose enough controls on developing nations.

 

"Each nation sort of defines their regulatory objectives in different ways to achieve the greenhouse reduction outcome that they seek," said Jim Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, during a teleconference Friday from Brussels.

 

Sharon Hays, associate director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, noted in the same teleconference that "not all projected impacts are negative." Initially, the warming will increase agricultural output in the mid-latitudes and in northern regions.

 

Other governments, such as China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, had already expressed their displeasure with parts of the report by demanding changes - some of them seemingly minor in the grand scheme of climate change.

 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a prepared statement that political agendas need to be left behind and quick action taken to cut emissions.

 

"Global warming is already under way, but it is not too late to slow it down and reduce its harmful effects," she said. "We must base our actions on the moral imperative and the scientific record, free of political interference."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It snowed in East Texas yesterday. I've talked to everyone I know, and none of them can remember it snowing this late in the year. But, some scientist says if I don't start driving a compact car instead of an SUV we are going to burn up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information