Thursday, December 20, 2007

Now on Drudge...

U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007 - Senate Report Debunks "Consensus"
Report Released on December 20, 2007
From the Drudge Report
Link to the Senate Report:

There's alot to read here, and lots and lots of links...here's just a sampling: Background: Only 52 Scientists Participated in UN IPCC Summary ....The over 400 skeptical scientists featured in this new report outnumber by nearly eight times the number of scientists who participated in the 2007 UN IPCC Summary for Policymakers. The notion of “hundreds” or “thousands” of UN scientists agreeing to a scientific statement does not hold up to scrutiny. (See report debunking “consensus” LINK) Recent research by Australian climate data analyst Dr. John McLean revealed that the IPCC’s peer-review process for the Summary for Policymakers leaves much to be desired. (LINK) (I'll put in those links for ya in a bit)
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Highly recommended: Slip on over to ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ's Fighting In The Shade for Swedish Blogger Kurt Lundgren's post (translated)

19 comments:

  1. Rose, Rose, Rose,
    Please don't tell us you've become a dittohead and are jumping on the global warming debunking bandwagon. Just because Al Gore believes in it doesn't make it untrue. The fact that polluting industries can hire 400 "scientists" to sign some report means little to me. And to suggest that there's some sort of science democracy at work (400 votes vs. 52) is just silly. Let's be honest here: The only reason the Republican administration opposes things like emission standards and greenhouse gas regulations is because they're thinking it might be bad for business. Doesn't the bottom line for those 400 skeptics basically say spew at will?

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  2. Bob, you jump to so many stereotypical conclusions it is impossible to answer your question. For someone who sorta knows me to be so far off the mark really surprises me, and tells me you don't know a thing about me.

    My "position" on this has not varied in the slightest. And it has nothing whatsoever to do with Bush/Cheney/Congress/Barbara Boxer/Les Schwab/Brittney Spears/the man in the moon or any other such nonsense.

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  3. I take it you disagree with this statement - The distinguished scientists featured in this new report are experts in diverse fields, including: climatology; oceanography; geology; biology; glaciology; biogeography; meteorology; oceanography; economics; chemistry; mathematics; environmental sciences; engineering; physics and paleoclimatology. Some of those profiled have won Nobel Prizes for their outstanding contribution to their field of expertise and many shared a portion of the UN IPCC Nobel Peace Prize with Vice President Gore. - and believe that ALL scientists who express disagreement must be being paid by Exxon and are pawns in the vast right wing conspiracy to heat up the planet so they can sell more air conditioners or something.... Am I close?

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  4. These satinists who denounce the true earth religon must be done away with. Tie them to the stake and throw another faggot on the flames. Die! unbeliever Die! Just may happen.

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  5. Bob,as usual you libs are wrong,wrong,wrong. Nixon (remember)ESA. This week Bush new milage standards.

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  6. Now - better mileage standards, that's something we can all get behind. In fact we ought to dedicate ourselves to being oil free within 10 years instead of ranting about wars for oil, and using the global warming boogeyman to set up a whole new series of laws that will kill off our own people and businesses.

    Eliminating MTBE - should have happened immediately, no phased withdrawal like Davis put in - for God's sake it was an ADDITIVE, not something they had to figure out how to remove from the fuel.

    Taking steps to reduce waste, avoid polluting - that is something we were all behind, and can stay behind - we don't need this condemnatory BS that is the warmista religion.

    And carbon credits? Please! Letting businesses who are polluting go on polluting if they "buy" someone else who isn't - how in the world did this ever make it past the hysterical laughter stage?

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  7. "The FACT that polluting industries can hire 400 "scientists" to sign some report means little to me."
    We assume that bob has some evidence to support the existence of this "FACT". Otherwise we must assume it was one of the lessons he learned at warmista Sunday school. We shouldn't annoy him with evidence calling his dogmas into question.

    "Doesn't the bottom line for those 400 skeptics basically say spew at will?"

    In a word, NO. Bob needs to read the report then get back to us. The "band wagon, consensus" are warmista terms alledging that "the science is settled". The 400 scientists are only the ones with the guts to go public. Many more are silent for fear of political retribution and loss of government funding.

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  8. Yep - and that last point - the loss of government funding - is a biggie.

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  9. Don't be so quick to knock oil. WE need it. Just look at your computer for a start. Then go a ways back and ask the whales how they feel about what we burn in our lamps. But hey, lets don't pollute an enviros mind.

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  10. Nah, not knockin' oil. It's gotten us where we are today. But dependence on it makes our enemies rich. We'll never be 100% oil free, but we can stop using it to fuel our vehicles. In time.

    I don't knock plastic either, it has saved many lives.

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  11. Rose, My apologies if I jumped to false conclusions about you. I reacted to what I saw as a reactionary post based on, well I'm not sure what it's based on. I went to Drudge to find the post you refer to but if it's there I didn't see it. There is something about Brittney possibly being used in a Nickelodeon special on teen pregnancy however.

    I was trying to find this actual report you refer to on the web, but didn't until just now. (You never did put in the links.) I easily found repeated reports on the report and a lot of right wing bloggers crowing about how 400 scientists outweigh 52. OK, so once I read the actual letter (it wasn't really a report) I understand better the alternate theory put forward by what turns out to be 100 scientists, not 400. (The fact that this false number is repeated over and over to make a false point is telling.) Yes, I may have jumped to the conclusion that they are mere industry-hired "experts" - perhaps because that, and having foxes tend the hen house, have been pretty much standard practice since Bush seized power. It's also a well-established fact that the current administration tinkers with scientific reports (and intelligence reports) that don't suit its policies and political objectives.

    So, did any of you crying "warmista" actually read the counter-IPCC letter? (And do you really see climate change science as some sort of communist plot?) It says in part, "While we understand the evidence that has led them [the IPPC scientists] to view CO2 emissions as harmful, the IPCC's conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity... because attempts to cut emissions will slow development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it." As I said they're worried about "development," which is to say business interests. They'd also rather see the U.N. put its resources toward preparing for the inevitable instead of trying to reverse change. Maybe that is a good idea, but I still don't think the U.S. torpedoing international efforts towards things like fuel standards is to be applauded.

    To those of you patting Bush on the back for the weak emission standards he's signing, can you explain why his guys at the EPA refused to sign off on the standards supported by a majority in California and signed by our Republican governor. Do you suppose it has something to do with keeping his backers in the auto industry happy? God forbid we should "diminish future prosperity" by reducing smog.

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  12. Bob you sound much less of a numb nuts than before. However you jump back to shaky ground. Do you realize that we signed Keyoto(spell check) and that Bush has not altered that. It is congress who has balked and democratic congress most of all. They all talk out of both sides of their mouths. Then along comes Bob slip'n and a slid'n in their warm global line of shit. Wise up.

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  13. Ohhh, Bob. Not everything is about Bush. It really isn't.

    I can consider the possibility that enacting nationwide legislation might mean compromise, between CA strict and other states looser standards.

    I recommend watching the Doomsday Called Off series, linked to here.

    We'll have to get you The Great Global Warming Swindle DVD for Christmas. :)

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  14. Bob, I added the link to the report, and have posted the Drudge "story" here. Really Drudge's link went to the Senate report It is full of links, which I'll try to get added over the next week...

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  15. Rose, I'll give you points for getting me interested in an interesting little bit of business. As I said in my last comment, I was not sure what your Drudge-based post was based on. A bit of research shows that you are right about one thing: This claim of a growing wave of skeptic scientists (blown out of proportion like the old telephone game) did not come from the Bush administration at all. The original story seems to be something published Friday, December 14, 2007 in the Canadian Free Press titled "The UN Climate Change Numbers Hoax" -- written by Tom Harris and John McLean:

    "It’s an assertion repeated by politicians and climate campaigners the world over – ‘2,500 scientists of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agree that humans are causing a climate crisis’.
    But it’s not true. And, for the first time ever, the public can now see the extent to which they have been misled."

    Harris and McLean go on to point to comments attached to the IPPC's Working Group I report and throw out a bunch of confusing numbers about how many scientists contributed to this and that. Of course something like the international group assembled for the IPPC does not agree on everything. And no, 1,000s of scientists do not participate directly in the final draft of the report.
    Here's the question that occurred to me: Who are these guys Tom Harris and John McLean, the skeptics who got this particular bit of blog bait rolling? The CFP story (http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/968)
    has a link to a bio of Tom Harris describing him as "an Ottawa-based mechanical engineer and Executive Director of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (http://www.nrsp.com)."

    Wikipedia offers this:

    "Tom Harris (lobbyist)Redirected from Tom Harris (PR director)

    Tom Harris is executive director of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project and a global warming skeptic. Until September 2006, he was Ottawa operations director of the High Park Group, a public relations and lobbying firm active in the debate over global warming, whose clients include the Canadian Electricity Association and the Canadian Gas Association.[1] . The Natural Resources Stewardship Project has been accused of being an astroturfing organization set up by High Park Group to promote the interests of its clients.

    Harris has written numerous opinion pieces critical of the scientific opinion on climate change in the National Post [2], but nothing in a peer reviewed scientific journal relating to climate change. Harris has bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering, but nothing relating directly to climate science."

    Now I have to admit, I was unfamiliar with the term "astroturfing," fortunately, Wikipedia offered a link to this definition:

    "Astroturfing is a neologism for formal public relations campaigns in politics and advertising that seek to create the impression of being spontaneous, grassroots behavior. Hence the reference to the artificial grass AstroTurf.

    The goal of such a campaign is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event. Astroturfers attempt to orchestrate the actions of apparently diverse and geographically distributed individuals, by both overt ("outreach," "awareness," etc.) and covert (disinformation) means. Astroturfing may be undertaken by anything from an individual pushing their own personal agenda through to highly organized professional groups with financial backing from large corporations, non-profits, or activist organizations."

    I readily admit to being wrong about the source of this bit of disinformation - it was a Canadian oil lobbyist who perpetrated it, not a Bushy. I know you won't cop to being taken in by an astroturf campaign, but that seems to be what happened here.

    But wait, what about John McLean, described as a "climate data analyst based in Melbourne, Australia." Well it turns out he's actually a "computer consultant and occasional travel photographer." You can follow his rabid exchange with a blog commenter here:
    (http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002627.html)
    At some point he starts to sound a bit like our old friends Nick or Charles...

    As far as my Santa list for DVDs goes, I'd rather get a copy of Who Killed the Electric Car? I've heard it's good. Have you seen it?

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  16. Rabid exchange? Didn't seem that way to me. Interesting discussion, interesting points raised on all sides. including this one...

    If you'd like, you may want to add this one to your collection:

    ScienceDaily (2007-12-12) -- Scientists have discovered what they think may be another reason why Greenland's ice is melting: a thin spot in Earth's crust is enabling underground magma to heat the ice. They have found at least one "hotspot" in the northeast corner of Greenland -- just below a site where an ice stream was recently discovered.

    http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/hotgreen.htm

    The story is (expectedly) a bit more complex than what appears on the surface :)

    cheers


    Even if they were working for Greenpeace, they'd get slammed for their dissenting opinion, Bob. Even if they were a co-founder... Look, let's agree, all the dissenters work for Exxon, he works for a secret think tank, he's a stooge, he's this, he's that - no matter which side you are pointing to - the fundamental point remains, not all scientists AGREE on the Global Warming religion. The Debate is not over.

    We'll get to discuss this more after the holidays, and well into the next year I am sure. Good contribution to the discussion, Bob. Have a Merry Christmas. I gotta finish shopping. Christmas is 3 days away. Agghhh!

    And - Who Killed the Electric Car? is great.

    Cheers.

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  17. The new mileage standards that Bush will sign into law won't go into effect until 2020. The argument that we need oil and coal is real. Fossil fuels are the source of fossilized solar energy stored in hydrocarbon molecules. The release of that energy splits the hydrocarbon molecule and bonds each carbon atom with two heavier oxygen atoms. So a gallon of gasoline creates around 25 lbs of co2. Mix co2 with water and it acidifies. Coral reefs are dead or dying. Nitrogen made from natural gas is applied to Midwestern corn fields in such quantities as to create blue baby days in cities that draw drinking water from rivers contaminated by run off. Agricultural chemicals have created a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico the size of Maryland. Iowa farmers are locked into the industrial military complex that has driven Mexican farmers into poverty and off their family farms. Many risk their lives to come here to survive by laboring in the fields of American farms.

    Petrochemicals contaminate ground and surface water. Contaminated surface water evaporates, then comes down as precipitation thousands of miles away.

    Tied to the rising rate of co2 in the atmosphere is the rising average temperature of low level atmosphere and surface temperature. Proportional to rising temperatures is the conversion of hydrocarbon. The naturally balanced carbon cycle has been broken.

    To me the argument, natural cyclic global climate disaster versus man made global climate change, is not as important as how we prepare for the disaster to come. And I question whether the government that taxes our labor cares enough about us to be a government for the people and make preparations for the good of all of us. Long term planning has succumbed to denial.

    As our natural world is overwhelmed by a human population that has grown from 2.5 billion to nearly 7 billion in my life time, natural systems are entering a state of collapse. Even those of us that see it coming may not survive.

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  18. 7:26 PM: "Coral reefs are dead or dying."
    And others are alive and growing with new ones being formed continually and there are hundreds of reasons for it. By what method is the net loss of the worlds coral reefs measured?

    "Nitrogen made from natural gas is applied to Midwestern corn fields in such quantities as to create blue baby days in cities that draw drinking water from rivers contaminated by run off."
    I'm not quite clear regarding "blue baby days". What is the source for your assertion that ag runoff is resulting in unsafe water and in which cities? What is the source for the "dead zone" and its cause in the Gulf of Mexico you refer to?

    I believe you are right about US agriculture being over dependent on the Federal subsidies that dictate which crops are to be grown but that has little to do with the impoverishment of Mexican farmers. Having lived in Mexico for several years I can tell you that the economic problems there are the result of an extremely corrupt governing elite with political power wielded by a small, closed oligarchy. One cannot start any business enterprise there without greasing the palms of multi layers of bureaucracy. It's called "mordida". A similar situation is emerging in the US with the NIMBY and BANANA attitudes of the enviro nazis.

    "Tied to the rising rate of co2 in the atmosphere is the rising average temperature of low level atmosphere and surface temperature."
    An examination of the CO2 temp graph reveals that the increased CO2 levels FOLLOW the climate temp increases by as much as 800 years. Measurements taken during the last few decades reveal that temp increases in the middle atmosphere do not coincide with surface temps.

    "...natural systems are entering a state of collapse."
    Which natural systems are collapsing? When allowing for currency inflation, the prices of all commodities and resources that have not been artificially (politically) restricted have fallen over the last century. The wonder is that Paul Ehrlich and co. have any credence as a result of losing the wager with Julian Simon and by all measurable criteria the level of pollution in the developed world has declined substantially during the last 80 years.

    Finally, as you seem to be a reasonable person, why not drop the anonymous mask so you will not be confused with some of the cretins who flame here?

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