What Global Warming?

[red states rule]

Global Warming Update: First Snow in Johannesburg and Pretoria Since 1981 and 1968
By Noel Sheppard | June 27, 2007 - 23:10 ET
As the worm has clearly turned on all this global warming hooey, it seems appropriate to begin recording COLD events across the planet not just to highlight the foolishness, but also to infuriate those still buying into the junk science.

With that in mind, it snowed in parts of South Africa Tuesday that haven’t seen the frosty white stuff in many decades.

Thanks, global warming!

As deliciously (and frigidly) reported by Bloomberg Wednesday (emphasis added to really irk the alarmists):

Johannesburg recorded its first confirmed snowfall for almost 26 years overnight as temperatures dropped below freezing in South Africa's largest city, grounding flights at its main airport...Snow last blanketed Johannesburg for a single day on Sept. 11, 1981.

[…]

Light snowfall was also recorded in Pretoria, the capital, which last had snow on June 11, 1968, the newswire said.


June 1968! Most of the hyperventilating hysterical probably weren't born yet!

So, do you figure that alarmists like soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore will admit they’re wrong when cities around the world start reporting record snows and lows on a regular basis as this new cooling trend -- which began in 1998, for those that might actually being interested in facts! -- continues?

Or, will they maintain that colder weather and rare snowfalls are all part of “climate change” which is tied directly to CO2 emissions?

Yes…that was rhetorical.

http://newsbusters.org/node/13787

[actsnoblemartin]

I think your analysis is briliant. And I really appreciate it.

I for one feel they (scientific community) have not spent nealy enough time on this topic to say deffinitely one way or another.

Is the climate going through changes?? Yes! Are we to blame?? Some!! Are we the sole problem?? NO!

Every day new research come to light that disproves this or proves that. There just is not enough unbiased information. If we want to get to the real issues politcs needs to be removed from the equation..

[Nukeman]

I think your analysis is briliant. And I really appreciate it.

Thanks I think if you poll most people you will find that a vast majority of them feel the same way.

I am not talking about the fanatics like Al Bore or his ilk or the complete other end of the spectrum that feel absolutely nothing is going on.

I think it is very unlikely that "we" have that big of an influence. I dont say we have none, but I think we need to do a whole lot more research unincumberd by politics to make "rational" and well thought out decissions...

[glockmail]

I for one feel they (scientific community) have not spent nealy enough time on this topic to say deffinitely one way or another.

Is the climate going through changes?? Yes! Are we to blame?? Some!! Are we the sole problem?? NO!

Every day new research come to light that disproves this or proves that. There just is not enough unbiased information. If we want to get to the real issues politcs needs to be removed from the equation..

I agree, and am willing to err on the side of caution while we wait for the facts to come to light. That is why I'm an ardent supporter of nuclear energy.

[red states rule]

I agree, and am willing to err on the side of caution while we wait for the facts to come to light. That is why I'm an ardent supporter of nuclear energy.

Every Earth Day I drive around all day with my muffler off

Does that count?

[red states rule]

Care to prove that?

Or is it just more republifascist conservatard shitspew?

Do Warming Advocates Care About Results?
By Debra Saunders

If you really believe that the planet is at the tipping point on global warming and the consequences will be fatal for people around the world, especially the poor, then all industrialized nations need to curb their greenhouse gas emissions. If the United States must sacrifice, so must China, which is fast emerging as the largest producer of industrial greenhouse gases on Earth.

Yet U.N. Secretary Ban ki-Moon, in a breakfast meeting with the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board Friday, suggested that industrialized nations -- read the United States -- have a "historical responsibility" to cut emissions, which are "almost to the saturation point," while China and India, two superpowers that were not bound to reduce emissions as part of the 1997 Kyoto global warming pact, "have their own positions."

As for the Democratic Congress, Ban said: "They have already begun moving. It's only the (Bush) administration" that has not. And, while he said he is not a scientist or economist: "The science is very clear. The economics is very clear."

I understand the social justice argument. America has produced more industrial greenhouse gases than any other nation, hence Americans should have to cut back more than other countries. But who knew in 1910 that global warming would be an issue?

"The few who did know about it thought it was a good thing," noted the Cato Institute's Pat Michaels. "And when global surface temperature declined from 1945 through the mid-1970s, the feeling was one of absolute alarm. The world was going to have a food crisis. The shipping lanes in the North Atlantic were cluttered with ice."

Remember global cooling? That's what the -- all bow -- scientists warned about 30 years ago. Now, bygone Americans are to blame for not foreseeing science's current end-of-the-world scenario, global warming.

Unlike Ban, I know many scientists who don't think the science is conclusive as to whether global warming is caused by man. But if the tipping point is near, you'd think Ban would talk as tough on China as he does with George W. Bush. According to the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, China's coal-fired plants are increasing their emissions annually by double the total emissions growth of all the world's industrialized economies combined. China's about to be Hertz, and Ban's focused on Avis.

"Given the emissions growth rate of China, if the United States drops its emissions 25 percent over the next 20 years, it simply won't be noticed," Cato's Michaels noted. "Everyone who's looked at this knows that." Everyone, perhaps except the U.N. secretary-general.

Greenhouse gases will have the same effect, whether they emanate from San Francisco or Shanghai. But politics, not science, keeps the focus on Bush, not Beijing.

You see, Bush had the audacity to refuse to support Kyoto. If he had been all lip service, like President Clinton -- if Bush had signed the treaty but not asked the Senate to ratify it, while U.S. greenhouse gas emissions rose to 14 percent higher than 1990 levels when he left office -- then the vaunted international community would approve.

Science is supposed to be about results, but global warming is about belief. President Clinton is good because he said he believed. If you say you believe, you don't have to deliver.

If global warming is facing the tipping point, then the United Nations should lean on China. Believers shouldn't put their politics -- United States a must, China a maybe -- before the planet.

If undeveloped countries will pay the biggest price for global warming, as Ban said, then that's more reason to make them curb their emissions -- not less.

If the economics are clear, as Ban said, he should not have to pressure countries and businesses, execs would be making the right changes without government pressure. And Ban would not have to ask the media for help, as he did Friday.

If results matter, Ban ought to be hectoring Democrats in Congress, who are about as likely as Bush to pass a carbon tax. But he's not.

And if results really were paramount, why aren't global warming advocates talking about the sacrifices necessary to meet their goal of 50 percent to 90 percent fewer emissions? Instead, they talk as if Americans can change their light bulbs, or drive a hybrid, not an SUV -- and that will do the trick.

It's as if they don't care about results, they only care if you believe.

dsaunders@sfchronicle.com
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...atters_to.html

[red states rule]

Media Misrepresent Senators’ Global Warming Trip to Greenland
By Noel Sheppard | July 31, 2007 - 18:19 ET

As NewsBusters reported Monday, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-California) was quoted in an Orange County Register article as saying about a recent trip by Senators to investigate Greenland's glaciers, "I think everyone who has seen this is changed."

On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported:

"There is absolutely no disagreement that the greenhouse gas emissions are adding to climate change and global warming," [Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Maryland)] said. "No one disagrees that it would be a healthy thing for our world to have less greenhouse gas."

Sadly, neither of these articles chose to get opinions from the two Republican senators on the trip. If they had, another picture might have been presented, as reported by the Associated Press Monday (emphasis added):

Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia traveled to Greenland over the weekend to get a firsthand glimpse at the effects of global warming.

The first-term Republican said the trip reinforced his belief that the United States should gradually move away from fossil fuels like oil and coal. But it didn't convince him that more urgent steps are needed.

Isakson said he remains unconvinced that the current warming is a departure from long-term natural cycles.

E&E News offered more of Isakson's views Monday (emphasis added, subscription required):

"Senator Isakson believes it's premature to start talking about any carbon cap proposal since we have not fully addressed the development of all renewable resources, especially nuclear and cellulose-based ethanol," Isakson spokeswoman Joan Kirchner said today. Isakson's office also released a statement that noted climate change "is natural and has occurred before."

Isakson added, "The question is: To what extent is carbon accelerating the changes? The answer to that question is: No one knows for sure."

Understand why the Post and the Register chose not to quote Isakson?

Not interviewing Bob Corker (R-Tennessee), the other Republican on the trip, was also a wise decision (also from E&E News):

"We're digging in to understand this issue in great detail so that we can play a meaningful role as it is debated," Corker said. "We don't want to react impulsively and enact something that we can't reverse in the future if there are unintended negative consequences or our understanding of this issue evolves."

The Shelbyville Times-Gazette published more of Corker's skeptical views Tuesday that the Post and the Register certainly wouldn't have been interested in (emphasis added):

Getting an energy policy in place "that is right" regardless of the impact climate change has is a goal that Sen. Bob Corker expressed upon returning from a trip to Greenland this past weekend.

But while they viewed glaciers and ice sheets that make up 10 percent of the world's fresh water, nothing he saw surprised him, saying instead it was the scientists that were the most informative.

"I am at the same place [opinion] when returning from the trip than I was going on the trip," Corker said.

That certainly wouldn't have supported Boxer's "I think everyone who has seen this is changed" claim highlighted by the Register, would it? Nor would the following:

"I don't think there's any question that our climate is changing, but that's been going on for thousands of years," Corker explained. He also reminded reporters that the country was first called Greenland by Viking explorers who farmed there.

Yes, the global warming alarmists all seem to conveniently forget that fact, don't they?

But, that's not the only thing ignored in this discussion, for in her press release concerning this trip, Boxer stated the following (emphasis added):

Here it is, straight from Arkalo Abelsen, the Greenlandic Minister of the Environment, who spoke to us on Saturday morning:

"Looking back at my own life, I can only confirm that the climate in Greenland today is very different from the time when I was a child. I was born and raised in the southern part of Disko Bay. The sea ice closed the bay... from December until the end of May. The hunters went on the sea ice with their dog teams to catch food. These days the sea ice is formed in March, and disappears just a few weeks later. Some years it is not possible to go by dog team on the ice at all."

"Until 15 years ago, the hunters in the Thule region could hunt walrus on the sea ice during a period of 6 months each year - today if they are lucky they can hunt on the sea ice for just 2 months. [W]e have had to give permission to kill polar bears, and polar bears with cubs, because they have wandered into towns and villages to seek food, because they cannot hunt on the sea ice."

Nothing like the views of locals that have been alive for about 60 years to impact a debate about centuries of climate data, wouldn't you agree? After all, according to the Greenland government's website, Abelsen was born in 1946.

Maybe Boxer would have gotten a better perspective of climate change in Greenland if she spoke to Abelsen's father and grandfather, assuming they're still alive.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sh...trip-greenland

[red states rule]

Global Warming is a scam to scare people into voting for Democrat's that can supposedly protect us.

It is also an attack on capitalism by the left

[red states rule]

USAToday Reports More Bluster on Hurricanes, Global Warming
By Ken Shepherd | July 30, 2007 - 02:00 ET
The 1800s wrought mass industrialization and technological marvels. Weather satellites, obviously, were not one of them.

But that point didn't bear repeating until deep in Dan Vergano's July 30 article, "Study links more hurricanes, climate change."

Reads the lede:

The number of hurricanes that strike each year has more than doubled over the past century, an increase tied to global warming, according to a study released Sunday.

It took to paragraph nine of the 13-paragraph story to bring around a dissenting opinion:

The new study drew criticism from experts who dispute the merits of combining data from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when hurricane-tracking satellites didn't exist, with statistics gleaned from more modern technology.

"Looking for trends in noisy count data is fraught with problems," says researcher James Elsner of Florida State University in Tallahassee. "I agree with the message, but cannot recommend the science."

Of course for the liberal media, the message is more important than the science. For example, the fact that at least one 2007 hurricane forecast has been downgraded went unmentioned by Vergano, while 2006's relative quiet was dismissed as one that would have been considered "stormy" in 1906.

While it was appropriate and commendable for Vergano to find critics of the new study, it would have served the reader better for him to note the controversy in the lede and then to alternate the following grafs between supporters and detractors of the study's conclusions.


http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-she...global-warming

[red states rule]

Global Warming is a scam to scare people into voting for Democrat's that can supposedly protect us.

Will libs blame Pres Bush for Mars suffering from global warming?

Who the hell sent the SUV's to Mars?

[KarlMarx]

Directions for use:
1. Hold object next to head
2. Turn switch to the "high" position
3. Listen to the latest message from Al Gore

[Psychoblues]

If you check your definition against reality you will discover that your dictionary is pretty well fucked up. Pretty aspirations but very well dispelled by the present dictator and his former congress who exemplified everything other than your stated aspirations.

[red states rule]

If you check your definition against reality you will discover that your dictionary is pretty well fucked up. Pretty aspirations but very well dispelled by the present dictator and his former congress who exemplified everything other than your stated aspirations.

In Two Segments, CBS's Harry Smith Raises Global Warming Alarm
By Justin McCarthy | August 7, 2007 - 15:00 ET
CBS’s Harry Smith led the charge against "global climate change," first with billionaire airline founder and activist Richard Branson and then in the health segment. On the August 7 edition of "The Early Show" at 7:49 AM, Harry Smith hosted the health segment on how to handle the heat with the current heat wave that is affecting much of the eastern half of the United States. With many Americans baking in the hot conditions, Smith appealed to their emotions with this editorial comment.

"Before we do anything else, there is in fact, global climate change. It really affects some climates much more than others, and it's really caused some real serious problems."


Resident physician Emily Senay affirmed Smith’s claim.

"It has, absolutely. And the last five to ten years we've seen serious illness and death, heat related. And, honestly, I mean, I think it's a sign of the times. We all need to get familiar with what happens during this, and do our best to prevent anything bad from happening to us."


Earlier in that half hour, at 7:31, Harry Smith spoke with Sir Richard Branson about his new Virgin America flight. Through the course of the interview, Smith hailed Branson’s attempts to fight global climate change. The relevant portion of the interview is below.

SMITH: It's interesting to me, because we've had occasion to talk several times over the last six months or so. Talk about global warming, of climate change, and everything else. Are you as passionate about business as you ever have been, or are these other issues more important to you now?


BRANSON: Well, some of the other issues are obviously more important. I mean, global warming is obviously incredibly important. But having said that, and if you can make -- you know, traveling for a whole nation a pleasant experience rather than a very unpleasant experience, you can make a big difference to people's lives. But, you know, as you said earlier, if we can make profits from Virgin America, the money is going to be invested into clean fuels.


SMITH: Right, because you've pledged all the profits from what you call your dirty businesses into finding alternative fuels.


BRANSON: Yeah, exactly. So, so what we're hoping is that we can have fuels that we can use on our planes and on trains and buses and cars. That we'll not damage the environment and that's where all our resources --


SMITH: In the end, not that you're completely altruistic, you're in the alternative fuel business too so --


BRANSON: And if we can come up with a fuel that replaces gasoline, than I'm sure we'll make a penny
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/justin-...-warming-alarm

[red states rule]

Directions for use:
1. Hold object next to head
2. Turn switch to the "high" position
3. Listen to the latest message from Al Gore

Make sure the energy being used is "green"

[red states rule]

Directions for use:
1. Hold object next to head
2. Turn switch to the "high" position
3. Listen to the latest message from Al Gore

Of course, if you dare to disagree with Al and the global warming nuts...........


Are Gore and Newsweek’s Climate Change ‘Deniers’ Accusations Coordinated?
By Noel Sheppard | August 8, 2007 - 11:11 ET

As NewsBusters reported Sunday, Newsweek's current issue featured a cover story blasting anthropogenic global warming skeptics as "deniers," and pointing fingers at companies like ExxonMobil as participating in a coordinated misinformation campaign akin to the tobacco industry misleading citizens about the dangers of cigarette smoking.

Shortly after this new issue hit the stands, Al Gore told a forum in Singapore, "the deniers offered a bounty of $10,000 for each article disputing the consensus that people could crank out and get published somewhere."

This raises an interesting question: Is this a coordinated attack designed to incite anger in citizens that polls show are not as upset about this issue as the left and their media minions?

As reported by the Associated Press Tuesday (emphasis added):

Research aimed at disputing the scientific consensus on global warming is part of a huge public misinformation campaign funded by some of the world's largest carbon polluters, former Vice President Al Gore said Tuesday.

"There has been an organized campaign, financed to the tune of about $10 million a year from some of the largest carbon polluters, to create the impression that there is disagreement in the scientific community," Gore said at a forum in Singapore. "In actuality, there is very little disagreement."

Gore likened the campaign to the millions of dollars spent by U.S. tobacco companies years ago on creating the appearance of scientific debate on smoking's harmful effects.

[...]

After the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made up of the world's top climate scientists, released a report in February that warned that the cause of global warming is "very likely" man-made, "the deniers offered a bounty of $10,000 for each article disputing the consensus that people could crank out and get published somewhere," Gore said.

"They're trying to manipulate opinion and they are taking us for fools," he said.

He said Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, is one of the major fuel companies involved in attempting to mislead the public about global warming.

Notice the word "deniers?" This is what Newsweek published days earlier (emphasis added):

As [Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-California)] left a meeting with the head of the international climate panel, however, a staffer had some news for her. A conservative think tank long funded by ExxonMobil, she told Boxer, had offered scientists $10,000 to write articles undercutting the new [IPCC] report and the computer-based climate models it is based on. "I realized," says Boxer, "there was a movement behind this that just wasn't giving up."

[...]

Since the late 1980s, this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change. Through advertisements, op-eds, lobbying and media attention, greenhouse doubters (they hate being called deniers) argued first that the world is not warming; measurements indicating otherwise are flawed, they said. Then they claimed that any warming is natural, not caused by human activities. Now they contend that the looming warming will be minuscule and harmless. "They patterned what they did after the tobacco industry," says former senator Tim Wirth, who spearheaded environmental issues as an under secretary of State in the Clinton administration. "Both figured, sow enough doubt, call the science uncertain and in dispute. That's had a huge impact on both the public and Congress."

Coincidence, or a coordinated campaign by the left to stifle the growing number of scientists around the world who are speaking out and writing articles refuting anthropogenic global warming theories whilst inciting the public's anger?

After all, neither Gore nor Newsweek chose to address the billions of dollars being spent by global warming alarmists to elicit international hysteria concerning this issue, and how such funds dwarf what is going to skeptical scientists and writers to add a modicum of balance to the discussion.

As Marc Morano, Communications Director for Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), pointed out in his rebuttal to Newsweek's disgraceful piece, "proponents of man-made global warming have been funded to the tune of $50 BILLION in the last decade or so, while skeptics have received a paltry $19 MILLION by comparison."

Gore talks about $10 million possibly coming from ExxonMobil, which the oil giant has denied as "completely false." However, why do both Gore and Newsweek refuse to share information about funding going to the alarmists?

As Morano carefully detailed:

"The [climate] alarmists also enjoy a huge financial advantage over the skeptics with numerous foundations funding climate research, University research money and the United Nations endless promotion of the cause. Just how much money do the climate alarmists have at their disposal? There was a $3 billion donation to the global warming cause from Virgin Air's Richard Branson alone. The well-heeled environmental lobbying groups have massive operating budgets compared to groups that express global warming skepticism. The Sierra Club Foundation 2004 budget was $91 million and the Natural Resources Defense Council had a $57 million budget for the same year. Compare that to the often media derided Competitive Enterprise Institute's small $3.6 million annual budget. In addition, if a climate skeptic receives any money from industry, the media immediately labels them and attempts to discredit their work. The same media completely ignore the money flow from the environmental lobby to climate alarmists like James Hansen and Michael Oppenheimer. (ie. Hansen received $250,000 from the Heinz Foundation and Oppenheimer is a paid partisan of Environmental Defense Fund) The alarmists have all of these advantages, yet they still feel the need to resort to desperation tactics to silence the skeptics. (LINK) Could it be that the alarmists realize that the American public is increasingly rejecting their proposition that the family SUV is destroying the earth and rejecting their shrill calls for "action" to combat their computer model predictions of a 'climate emergency?'"

Certainly, it seems quite suspicious that Gore and Newsweek ignored actual funding data going to both sides of this debate while employing very similar language just days apart to point fingers at "deniers," as well as using the tobacco industry analogy.

Has the June failure of the G-8 to impose CO2 emissions caps, and the July failure of Gore's Live Earth concerts, scared alarmists about the future of their cause? Have polls consistently showing that Americans aren't getting nearly as hysterical about this issue as Gore and his sycophants in the media want discouraged believers to the point that a new tactic is being tested?

With gas prices still hovering around the $3/gallon level, and oil company profits quite healthy, this looks like an easy target. As the weather really hasn't cooperated this year - especially tropical storms which, for the second year in a row, haven't materialized anywhere near the hysterical forecasts - maybe a new campaign is needed to stoke the public's anger.

Think about it: the public's real interest in this issue was largely precipitated by Hurricane Katrina followed quickly by the expedient release of Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." Gore continues to claim that we've got ten years to act before there'll be irreversible damage to the planet. Of course, he's been making this claim for years, but nobody cares about that.

The reality is that barring additional catastrophic climate events, the public's interest in spending their own money on this issue is going to thoroughly disappear. As the recent Newsweek article pointed out about its own polling data:

39 percent of those asked say there is "a lot of disagreement among climate scientists" on the basic question of whether the planet is warming; 42 percent say there is a lot of disagreement that human activities are a major cause of global warming. Only 46 percent say the greenhouse effect is being felt today."

[...]

[L]ess than half [are] in favor of requiring high-mileage cars or energy-efficient appliances and buildings.

As such, the public doesn't seem to be buying into the hysteria. And, if some major climate event doesn't happen soon, these public opinion numbers are going to make matters much worse for the alarmists.

As a result, maybe they feel they're running out of time, especially given the number of scientists who believe the current warming cycle peaked in 1998, and that we have begun a cooling trend. Might they be thinking a conspiracy similar to what tobacco companies did decades ago is just the tonic they need to rekindle the public's ire?

After all, Americans love a conspiracy theory, right? And, many hate the oil companies. So, maybe the new tactic being tried by the alarmists - since the current one clearly isn't working - is to create the appearance of a conspiracy concerning this issue all being funded by those nasty oil companies.

Now, to be sure, oil companies funding such activities is not a new concept. This industry is constantly in the crosshairs of environmental groups, and has been accused of funding anthropogenic global warming skeptics for years.

However, what seems new is the timing of this Newsweek piece coincident with Gore's statements in Singapore, along with skeptics now being referred to as deniers.

As such, this bears watching.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sh...ns-coordinated