Timothy Birdnow

Once again, I have to argue with an idiot, this time over global warming.

Kevin stated:

Putting up the signs in the first place was probably driven more by politics than science, and likewise calling global warming a hoax is politically rather than scientifically based.

Glacier National Park is named primarily for all of the glacial landforms carved by glaciers rather than by the glaciers themselves. The glaciers that do exist are tiny, hiding in steep, high-altitude, shaded bowls; and are not even truly remnants of the last glaciation of the Pleistocene ice ages. The massive glaciers that carved the GNP landscape completely melted at the end of the last glaciation, and these small glaciers formed several thousand years ago as climate naturally cooled a bit. The existing glaciers have expanded and contracted since then, but have never grown large. It was probably scientifically questionable to say that these small, fragile glaciers would disappear by 2020, but it would not take much to make them completely melt.

Given that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, it is reasonable to conclude that pumping copious amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere will cause the atmosphere to warm. There are many complicating factors, but this is what has been understood for over 100 years, and it is what I was taught as a meteorology undergraduate student in 1980, before climate studies became politicized by both sides. It is one thing to dissent from the majority scientific position, but to call this near consensus a hoax is quite simply indefensible, as a hoax implies a deliberate deception. The evidence for human-caused global warming is strong, and is accepted by many Christian scientists. You may think these scientists are wrong, but being wrong is not the same as perpetrating a hoax.

I replied:

Carbon dioxide is a trace gas, with just about four molecules per every ten thousand molecules of air, and we've put less than one of those molecules there. The notion that this is going to cause any great warming is dubious, and even Roger Revelle didn't think it would - at least until it became politicized. HE thought it would drive no more than two degrees C of warming, making it something of a novelty, but little else.

I would point out that the modern incarnation of catastrophic global warming theory was brainstormed at the Endangered Atmospheres Conference. They realized the atmosphere was the one thing everyone shared, and so it could be used to promote world government and socialism, and they decided to back Global Cooling first, but the cooling trend ended before they could really get that going so the same people immediately shifted to Global Warming, knowing there was likely a forty year trend to ride. It was a lie, a farce, and I suspect they knew it. But they also knew that, with the government taking over most science funding in 1979 they could steer "science" to promote this. And that is what has happened.

Funding does not go to someone who says "well, yes it has warmed but that is likely natural variability" but instead to people claiming doomsday. Why? They can impose regulations and new taxes, the bread and butter of government.

 Meanwhile government scientists here and in Europe have been systematically politicizing peer review - read the Climategate e-mails. Ask Joanna Simpson of NASA. Ask Roy Spencer, whose article was rejected after one of the publishers was bullied by climate alarmists. Yes, this largely IS a hoax.

 There has been some planetary warming,, and it is undoubtedly caused in part by human activity (Roger Pielke Sr. thinks it is primarily land-use changes, like blacktops where there used to be forests) and carbon dioxide may play a small part in it, but it is an issue primarily to promote the destruction of capitalism, as Christina Figueres of the U.N. Framework Convention plainly stated.

As to your "concensus" based on What? Naomi Oreskes? John Cook? Cook had less than 1100 papers he reviewed. Funny; the Oregon Petition has over 30,000 signers. Ever if you subtract all but ten percent of the signiatures you still have almost ten times as many scientists who disagree than those cited by Cook. The concensus was always one of the lies of this hoax. In fact, the claim is so preposterous it pretty well PROVES climate change is a hoax.

Oh, and Kevin what exactly has been understood for a hundred years? Arrhenius' work was based on carbon dioxide in an enclosure. HE never said atmospheric carbon dioxide would drive planetary warming. That is primarily a concept from the mid twentieth century. I've been hearing you alarmists make this claim more and more of late. You need to prove the claim or stop using it.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:38 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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