Don`t Buy the Hype(globalwarm.EPWsenate)

[White_Male_Canada]

The Weather Channel Mess

January 18, 2007 | James Spann | Op/Ed

Well, well. Some “climate expert” on “The Weather Channel” wants to take away AMS certification from those of us who believe the recent “global warming” is a natural process. So much for “tolerance”, huh?

I have been in operational meteorology since 1978, and I know dozens and dozens of broadcast meteorologists all over the country. Our big job: look at a large volume of raw data and come up with a public weather forecast for the next seven days. I do not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype. I know there must be a few out there, but I can’t find them. Here are the basic facts you need to know:

*Billions of dollars of grant money is flowing into the pockets of those on the man-made global warming bandwagon. No man-made global warming, the money dries up. This is big money, make no mistake about it. Always follow the money trail and it tells a story. Even the lady at “The Weather Channel” probably gets paid good money for a prime time show on climate change. No man-made global warming, no show, and no salary. Nothing wrong with making money at all, but when money becomes the motivation for a scientific conclusion, then we have a problem. For many, global warming is a big cash grab.

*The climate of this planet has been changing since God put the planet here. It will always change, and the warming in the last 10 years is not much difference than the warming we saw in the 1930s and other decades. And, lets not forget we are at the end of the ice age in which ice covered most of North America and Northern Europe.

If you don’t like to listen to me, find another meteorologist with no tie to grant money for research on the subject. I would not listen to anyone that is a politician, a journalist, or someone in science who is generating revenue from this issue.

In fact, I encourage you to listen to WeatherBrains episode number 12, featuring Alabama State Climatologist John Christy, and WeatherBrains episode number 17, featuring Dr. William Gray of Colorado State University, one of the most brilliant minds in our science.

WeatherBrains, by the way, is our weekly 30 minute netcast.

I have nothing against “The Weather Channel”, but they have crossed the line into a political and cultural region where I simply won’t go.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=3a9bc8a4-802a-23ad-4065-7dc37ec39adf

[LG]

Wrong again...

To dismiss the knowledgeable Dr Heidi Cullen as just "some 'climate expert'" is insulting and ignorant of the meteorologist that you quote (I think it was someone called James Spann).

Actually what Cullen wrote was:

In an interesting follow-up blog on the reason for this all too common global warming contrarianism within the broadcast meteorology community, journalist Andrew Freedman suggests local TV meteorologists may want to look to the American Meteorological Society for guidance. Freedman goes on to point out that the AMS has in fact, issued a statement on climate change that reads:

"There is convincing evidence that since the industrial revolution, human activities, resulting in increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and other trace constituents in the atmosphere, have become a major agent of climate change."

I'd like to take that suggestion a step further. If a meteorologist has an AMS Seal of Approval, which is used to confer legitimacy to TV meteorologists, then meteorologists have a responsibility to truly educate themselves on the science of global warming. (One good resource if you don't have a lot of time is the Pew Center's Climate Change 101.)

Meteorologists are among the few people trained in the sciences who are permitted regular access to our living rooms. And in that sense, they owe it to their audience to distinguish between solid, peer-reviewed science and junk political controversy. If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn't give them a Seal of Approval. Clearly, the AMS doesn't agree that global warming can be blamed on cyclical weather patterns. It's like allowing a meteorologist to go on-air and say that hurricanes rotate clockwise and tsunamis are caused by the weather. It's not a political statement...it's just an incorrect statement.

She has a valid point. There is a general consensus and a lot of proof that suggests that man-made global warming is very real. No one can say for sure if it is happening yet, but climatologists seem to agree that it will be happening and will have some very dire environmental impacts. The consensus is now seen as commonly accepted theory, just like there are so many other theories. To take her analogy further, you wouldn't want to have a pilot who believed that invisible fairies keep your plane up in the sky.

Of course you will dismiss this viewpoint WMC, even though I have studied the subject at university and have known a great many climatologists in the UK who subscribe to the consensus view, a view also shared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and also emphasised by research from all over the world.

All researchers receive funding and grants by the way- that is the only way they can continue their research (in the UK much of this comes from research organisations which are independent bodies supported by the government). Those who deny global warming or refuse to accept that human activity is to blame (like Dr Gray) also receive funding. Perhaps you should find out where they receive it from. A huge amount of research is paid for by companies like Shell and organisations representing such companies.

There's a whole bunch of articles (including articles criticising the now thankfully defunct Global Climate Coalition and it's petroleum-industry funded research) but I can't be bothered quoting them because you will dismiss them as "communist propaganda" or something like that in the same way you casually dismiss anything you disagree with. But the evidence is real and it is very convincing no matter what some lobby groups (many of whom are industry funded) will have you believe.

Recently, the UK's Royal Society told Exxon Mobil to stop funding researchers who undermine the consensus on climate change, by the way. It seemed that Exxon-funded research tended to always disagree with the common viewpoint. I don't think Exxon's motives were purely scientific.

Whether Dr Cullen's suggestion to take away AMS certification from meteorologists who speak out against the consensus is right or wrong is up for debate, I suppose (although she didn't actually focus on "recent climate change") but the issue of climate change is not worth debating anymore. The case is too strong to dismiss it, no matter how much you want to, or how you might think that it is an attempt to infringe on your God-given right to drive a gas guzzler, fly across the world and use up more electricity that a whole village in Asia.

Or do you also belong to the Flat Earth Society?

[White_Male_Canada]

She has a valid point. There is a general consensus ...

Science run as consensus. Hilarious


Of course you will dismiss this viewpoint WMC, even though I have studied the subject at university and have known a great many climatologists in the UK who subscribe to the consensus view, a view also shared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and also emphasised by research from all over the world.

There`s that word again, "consensus". Science never was and now is being run on a political consensus. So called man-made global warming is merely a trojan horse for the marxist left. Warming, through its primary antidote of withdrawing carbon from production and consumption, is capable of realizing the marxist utopian dream,through environmentalism, of an egalitarian society based on rejection of economic growth in favor of a smaller population's eating lower on the food chain, consuming a lot less, and sharing a much lower level of resources much more equally(aka, carbon trading).



Or do you also belong to the Flat Earth Society?

There are well over 17,000 scientists who have gone on record as saying as much. That science is not consensus and man-made warming has been derived from highly uncertain scientific theories.

For instance, Sweden's Royal Academy of Science named American scientist Wallace S. Broecker as the 2006 prizewinner in geosciences. Here is a quote from Dr. Broecker:

"My lifetime study of Earth's climate system has humbled me. I'm convinced that we have greatly underestimated the complexity of this system. The importance of obscure phenomena, ranging from those that control the size of raindrops to those that control the amount of water pouring into the deep sea from the shelves of the Antarctic continent, makes reliable modeling very difficult, if not impossible."
(11 of 13) [02/12/2003 10:05:30] Wallace S. Broecker, "Will Our Ride into the Greenhouse Future be a Smooth One?" GSA Today 5/97

Then there is Habibullo Abdusamatov, head of the space research laboratory at the St. Petersburg-based Pulkovo Observatory,who stated global warming stems from an increase in the sun's activity.

And of course if the earth is getting hotter someone better tell the ice:

Dr Ian Joughin, of the American space agency's (Nasa) Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Slawed Tulaczyk, of the University of California at Santa Cruz, have found "strong evidence" that the ice sheet in the Ross Sea area is growing, by 26.8 gigatons per year. And Greenland's icecap has thickened. Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center in Norway, reported in the journal Science.

Periodic warming/cooling of the atmosphere has been recorded and well documented has cycled for eons. It is the radical left who have hijacked science and are now on a crusade of ' Do as we say' command and control of literally every facet of every single person`s life.

[White_Male_Canada]

Whether Dr Cullen's suggestion to take away AMS certification from meteorologists who speak out against the consensus is right or wrong is up for debate, I suppose (although she didn't actually focus on "recent climate change") but the issue of climate change is not worth debating anymore.

Of course, to the gulags with all the intellectual kulaks !

NUREMBERG-STYLE TRIALS PROPOSED FOR GLOBAL WARMING SKEPTICS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2006
(Marc_Morano@epw.senate.gov ) EPW UPDATE: INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE FORCES GRIST MAGAZINE TO RETRACT STATEMENT CALLING FOR NUREMBERG-STYLE TRIALS FOR SKEPTICS
( http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/10/12/115734/52 )


NUREMBERG-STYLE TRIALS PROPOSED FOR GLOBAL WARMING SKEPTICS




A U.S. based environmental magazine that both former Vice President Al Gore (http://gristmill.grist.org/print/2006/9/19/11408/1106?show_comments=no ) and PBS newsman Bill Moyers, for his October 11th global warming edition of “Moyers on America” titled “Is God Green?”

(http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/05/09/roberts/index.html ) have deemed respectable enough to grant one-on-one interviews to promote their projects, is now advocating Nuremberg-style war crimes trials for skeptics of human caused catastrophic global warming.

Grist Magazine’s staff writer David Roberts called for the Nuremberg-style trials for the “bastards” who were members of what he termed the global warming “denial industry.”

Roberts wrote in the online publication on September 19, 2006, "When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards -- some sort of climate Nuremberg.” (http://gristmill.grist.org/print/2006/9/19/11408/1106?show_comments=no )

Gore and Moyers have not yet commented on Grist's advocacy of prosecuting skeptics of global warming with a Nuremberg-style war crimes trial. Gore has used the phrase "global warming deniers" to describe scientists and others who don't share his view of the Earth's climate. It remains to be seen what Gore and Moyers will have to say about proposals to make skepticism a crime comparable to Holocaust atrocities.

The use of Holocaust terminology has drawn the ire of Roger Pielke, Jr. of the University of Colorado's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research. “The phrase ‘climate change denier’ is meant to be evocative of the phrase ‘holocaust denier,’” Pielke, Jr. wrote on October 9, 2006 (http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/author_pielke_jr_r/index.html#000952).

“Let's be blunt. This allusion is an affront to those who suffered and died in the Holocaust. This allusion has no place in the discourse on climate change. I say this as someone fully convinced of a significant human role in the behavior of the climate system,” Pielke, Jr. explained.

The article Global Warming: The Chilling Effect On Free Speech (www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/1782/ )last week in Spiked Online addresses this new found penchant by environmentalists and some media members to charge skeptics of human caused catastrophic global warming with “crimes against humanity” and urge Nuremberg-style prosecution of them.

[LG]

I wouldn't think so highly of Spiked Online and its articles if I were you. Despite occasionally backing left-wing ideologies, Spiked and its sibling publications always take an anti-environmentalist stance, if only, it seems, to piss of environmental activists.

Spiked had also cooperated with the International Policy Network (IPN), a campaigning group funded almost exclusively for corporations. IPN, which has challenged the consensus on climate change, has been criticised by George Monbiot and others for accepting significant donations from Exxon Mobil and other companies. This has prompted Monbiot and other writers to ask where the money funding research which challenges the accepted theories is coming from.

I think talk of Nuremberg-style trials is a little silly at this point, but it is true that those who deny that climate change is real and dangerous could potentially cause a great deal of damage if they convince heads of state to avoid taking action.

Global warming is not an exact science, I'll agree. But it is stupid to deny what the vast majority of scientists seem to agree on, simply becuase a handful of corporate-funded researchers say it wrong. It is also stupid to think that the debate is part of a conspiracy against America- as some Republican pundits seem to think- since climate change will affect everyone and since nations like the Emirates are causing more damage through energy use.

Science as consensus is not hilarious, unless you have never heard of risk management. I can tell you are not a scientist.


So called man-made global warming is merely a trojan horse for the marxist left. Warming, through its primary antidote of withdrawing carbon from production and consumption, is capable of realizing the marxist utopian dream,through environmentalism, of an egalitarian society based on rejection of economic growth in favor of a smaller population's eating lower on the food chain, consuming a lot less, and sharing a much lower level of resources much more equally(aka, carbon trading).

There's that conspiracy talk again. Do you realize it makes you look stupid?

I do not want to live in huts or eat lower down the food chain. However as a responsible and concerned citizen and as a Science major who studied this at university, I am deeply concerned by the issue of climate change. I know there are uncertainties and that it is difficult to predict things with total accuracy, but I also understand the cause and effect relation of the enhanced greenhouse effect and am sensible enough to understand the risks and the impact of these risks. And that kind of scares me. If you knew a little more than what you hear on the radio and what you read on the biased websites you choose to pick material from, maybe it would scare you too.

Why don't you read up a little on the subject before spouting any old rubbish? Just because Rush Limbaugh says something doesn't mean it's right.

[guyone]

I don't know. Seem to be pretty cold lately...

[White_Male_Canada]

Spiked had also cooperated with the International Policy Network (IPN), a campaigning group funded almost exclusively for corporations. IPN, which has challenged the consensus on climate change, has been criticised by George Monbiot and others for accepting significant donations from Exxon Mobil and other companies. This has prompted Monbiot and other writers to ask where the money funding research which challenges the accepted theories is coming from.

And your qoutes are from left wing hacks. One prime example of mine is the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) who censure free market organizations for accepting donations from ExxonMobil. According to Greenwatch the UCS has a long financial association with elements that have a "partisan view of science."ActivistCash.com agrees,stating the UCS would be "more aptly named the Union of Pro-Regulation, Anti-Business Scientists."

University of Virginia environmental scientist Fred Singer stated that the union had "zero credibility as a scientific organization" and was more akin to "pressure groups like Greenpeace."



I think talk of Nuremberg-style trials is a little silly at this point, but it is true that those who deny that climate change is real and dangerous could potentially cause a great deal of damage if they convince heads of state to avoid taking action.

The CO2 and temperature charts have already spoken volumes and disproves of any "modeled" catastrophes.


Global warming is not an exact science, I'll agree. But it is stupid to deny what the vast majority of scientists seem to agree on, simply becuase a handful of corporate-funded researchers say it wrong. It is also stupid to think that the debate is part of a conspiracy against America- as some Republican pundits seem to think- since climate change will affect everyone and since nations like the Emirates are causing more damage through energy use.


Science as consensus is not hilarious, unless you have never heard of risk management. I can tell you are not a scientist.

That qoute of yours CONCLUSIVELY proves you are not one either. Science is NOT run on consensus,period,end of story.

So called man-made global warming is merely a trojan horse for the marxist left. Warming, through its primary antidote of withdrawing carbon from production and consumption, is capable of realizing the marxist utopian dream,through environmentalism, of an egalitarian society based on rejection of economic growth in favor of a smaller population's eating lower on the food chain, consuming a lot less, and sharing a much lower level of resources much more equally(aka, carbon trading).


There's that conspiracy talk again. Do you realize it makes you look stupid?

It`s not a conspiracy when left wing scientists openly declare their left wing views,accept funding from the government or left wing front groups and governments actually give billions to other governments in massive wealth redistribution otherwise labeled as "carbon trading" via kyoto.
Your casual retort of " pfft~ conspiracy talk" is merely a last ditch effort to avoid the evidence.

[LG]

Look mate, go an get yourself a Masters in Sciences like I have, and we'll talk again. I'm not going to talk about science with someone who has no idea what it is.

I subscribe to earth and atmospheric science periodicals and have spoken to some eminent scientists from the UK and US. I have also given talks on science issues. I know that 90% of independent scientists would say you're wrong and point to your utter lack of scientific evidence in the face of universally accepted theory.

I don't really want to discuss this matter any further with someone who doesn't know what he's talking about and has never made any effort to read up on the subject, either.

I don't want to seem like an intellectual snob and no doubt you'll tell me that I'm avoid the debate. But there is no point debating with someone like you who lacks a basic understanding of something but seems to think that he knows everything. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, WMC.

Case closed, thank you very much.

[White_Male_Canada]

Look mate, go an get yourself a Masters in Sciences like I have, and we'll talk again. I'm not going to talk about science with someone who has no idea what it is.

I subscribe to earth and atmospheric science periodicals and have spoken to some eminent scientists from the UK and US. I have also given talks on science issues. I know that 90% of independent scientists would say you're wrong and point to your utter lack of scientific evidence in the face of universally accepted theory.

I don't really want to discuss this matter any further with someone who doesn't know what he's talking about and has never made any effort to read up on the subject, either.

I don't want to seem like an intellectual snob and no doubt you'll tell me that I'm avoid the debate. But there is no point debating with someone like you who lacks a basic understanding of something but seems to think that he knows everything. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, WMC.

Case closed, thank you very much.

So being the erudite you would agree completely with the 2001 UN IPCC ?

Of course you demure,after all so would I if I spent tens of thousands of dollars merely to end up with a degree in GIGO. And please, it doesn`t take a degree in GIGO to read the IPCC report,comprehend and then fill in the blanks with clear evidence and data ignored or omitted for political convenience.

[LG]

So being the erudite you would agree completely with the 2001 UN IPCC ?

Of course you demure,after all so would I if I spent tens of thousands of dollars merely to end up with a degree in GIGO. And please, it doesn`t take a degree in GIGO to read the IPCC report,comprehend and then fill in the blanks with clear evidence and data ignored or omitted for political convenience.


Dear, dear WMC...what will we do with you?

I do not demur (please note the spelling; the form "demure" is not a verb but an adjective) but I am simply fed up.

If you want to prove that accepted theory is "junk science" then at least have a go at proving you case by debunking it properly. You have said nothing of substance but have simply dismissed the work of scientists far, far more knowledgeable than you.

I may not be an expert in the subject (I have no PhD after all, nor did my work focus on climatology but on other facets of earth sciences) but I am more knowledgeable than you and am offended by the way you dismiss my knowledge so casually. If I were to challenge you on a matter I knew nothing about, a matter that you had proven to be more educated in, I would at least have the balls to admit that maybe I could be wrong.

Could it be that you are simply wrong, WMC? Could it be that you have not actually mentioned any of the "evidence omitted" or the "data ignored"? Have you even read any of the reports or do you just listen to Rush Limbaugh and take his word as gospel?

There is nothing politically convenient about climate change. It would be more convenient to dismiss it blisfully and carry on with business as usual. Why should something as serious and potential catastrophic as climate change be politically convenient? If anything, every scientist (including me) is wishing you are right. But, we fear, you are not, and that is why we have to act.

So you understand what I mean by the above, I will remind you what Nobel laureate Sherwood Rowland said when he discovered that CFCs destroy the ozone later (or is that another liberal lie?). It is a true tale told often amongst scientists that, when asked how he felt when he made his monumental discovery, Sherry Rowland simply said: "There was no moment of "Eureka!" really. I just went home one night and told my wife: 'The work is going very well, but it looks like the end of the world.'" Like all true scientists, Rowland seeks to research and discover, but he took no joy from that particular discovery. To assume that a scientist wants a worse case scenario to come true just because he belives in it is beyond insulting.

As for me being completely satisfied with the 2001 IPCC report, I am not. I have read through most of the report as well as the summaries and find that there are many knowledge gaps and there is a lot of uncertainty. The estimates are still too vague which tempts environmental activists to take the worst case scenario but tempts policy makers to use the more conservative estimates. Our modelling of earth systems is not quite as good as we would like it to be. Some estimates may be more accurate in the upcoming report to be published soon.

That said, too many respected scientists have worked too hard for people like you to casually dismiss their work. Not everything is liberal propaganda, mate.

Feel free to comment on the above all you want, but, unless you come up with actual scientific evidence, this will be my last comment in this topic.

Have a nice day.

[White_Male_Canada]

Feel free to comment on the above all you want, but, unless you come up with actual scientific evidence, this will be my last comment in this topic.

Now you`re hemming ang hawwing knowing full well the fraud of the IPCC. The IPCC had known about the Medieval Warming period all along and yet published U. of V. student M.Mann`s "hockey chart" temperature graph regardless. The Vikings colonized Greenland in 982 A.D. and stayed until 1425 A.D., when the cold weather and permafrost drove them out. They called it Greenland for a reason.We all know the hockey chart has been debunked as junk-science long ago.

The earth warms and cools, that is beyond the control of man for a simple reason. It is water vapor that accounts for the majority of Earth's greenhouse effect. Human activity does not.

The fact that data is being produced omitting water vapor( http://cdiac.esd.html) as part of greenhouse gases attests to the Big Lie.

[LG]

From my post on a related topic in the General discussion:

WMC,

I tried to reply to a related post of yours in the politics discussion but my computer crashed and I then decided I couldn't be bothered because I had had enough of you.

Talking about water vapour the way you do, it just goes to show how a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. You have failed, it seems, to grasp the positive feedback mechanism. Water vapour may still be the most significant of the greenhouse gases, but CO2 and other gases can have a significant effect on temperatures and, by extension, on water vapour levels. Nobody knows to what extent this will happen but it is safe to assume that higher CO2 levels will lead to higher temperatures which will lead to an increase in water vapour concentrations (a basic concept) which will increase temperatures further. By adding more CO2 you excarbate the problem.

Thus, while we cannot directly control water vapour concentrations, we can limit its increase by limiting CO2 emissions.

It is not junk science, and more and more scientists are agreeing with the consensus each day. Yes, there are uncertainties, but there are also accepted theories. You have failed to debunk a single one of them. All you spout is rhetoric. Limbaugh-lite, you could call it.

Do you realise what the risks of doing nothing are. Maybe not for you and for your kids but for their kids and for the people who live in the world's less developed nations.

[White_Male_Canada]

From my post on a related topic in the General discussion:

WMC,

I tried to reply to a related post of yours in the politics discussion but my computer crashed and I then decided I couldn't be bothered because I had had enough of you.

Talking about water vapour the way you do, it just goes to show how a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. You have failed, it seems, to grasp the positive feedback mechanism. Water vapour may still be the most significant of the greenhouse gases, but CO2 and other gases can have a significant effect on temperatures and, by extension, on water vapour levels. Nobody knows to what extent this will happen but it is safe to assume that higher CO2 levels will lead to higher temperatures which will lead to an increase in water vapour concentrations (a basic concept) which will increase temperatures further. By adding more CO2 you excarbate the problem.

Thus, while we cannot directly control water vapour concentrations, we can limit its increase by limiting CO2 emissions.

It is not junk science, and more and more scientists are agreeing with the consensus each day. Yes, there are uncertainties, but there are also accepted theories. You have failed to debunk a single one of them. All you spout is rhetoric. Limbaugh-lite, you could call it.

Do you realise what the risks of doing nothing are. Maybe not for you and for your kids but for their kids and for the people who live in the world's less developed nations.

Fear-mongering.

Oh that nonsense. Lots of talk about + feedback to boost numbers but no talk of - feedback. The bottom line is that climate models are programmed to overstate potential warming response to enhanced greenhouse forcing by a huge margin. Let`s crank it up by a factor of 2.5 boys.

Take a crack at it :

3. What total percentage of greenhouse gases are man made?
More importantly,what percentage of CO2 is man-made?

4. If Kyoto were adhered to, what total reduction of temperature would result ?