Global Warming Is Irreversible, Study Says
by Alpaca 67 Replies latest social current
-
-
Alpaca
Actually, the caption should read: "Bush says 'You're hired.'"
-
besty
BurnTheShips: - do you find it interesting that when people make the "global warming/cooling is all a scam" argument, they always refer to media coverage of this supposed phenomenon?
They don't point out the scientific papers that are alledged to support this view. Surely better to quote source material than read it through the media filter?
-
hemp lover
To go with the cartoon above: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902
Excerpted from an oral history of the Bush years consisting entirely of conversations with the people who were there:
February 14, 2002 The Bush administration proposes a Clear Skies Initiative, which relaxes air-quality and emissions standards. This is followed by a Healthy Forests Initiative, which opens up national forests to increased logging. Climate change becomes a forbidden subject.
Rick Piltz, senior associate, U.S. Climate Change Science Program: At the beginning of the Bush administration, Ari Patrinos, a very senior science official who had run the Department of Energy’s climate-change research program for many years, and a half-dozen high-ranking federal science officials were brought together and told to explain the science and help develop policy options for a proactive climate-change policy for the administration. They moved into an office downtown, and they worked very hard and were briefing at the Cabinet level, in the White House. Cheney was there, Colin Powell was there, Commerce Secretary [Don] Evans was there. They were making the case on climate change.
And one day they were told: Take it down, pack it up, go back to your offices—we don’t need you anymore.
June 7, 2005 Documents emerge indicating that the decision to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, in 2001, was influenced by the Global Climate Coalition, an industry group with ties to Exxon. One State Department letter to the coalition states: “Potus [president of the United States] rejected Kyoto in part based on input from you.” Several days later, Philip Cooney, a former American Petroleum Institute lobbyist and the chief of staff of the president’s Council on Environmental Quality, resigns after it is revealed that he had edited government reports to downplay the threat of climate change. Cooney takes a job at Exxon.
Rick Piltz, senior associate, U.S. Climate Change Science Program: In the fall of 2002, I was doing something I’d been doing for years, which was developing and editing the [Climate Change Science Program’s] annual report to Congress. And it had been drafted with input from dozens of federal scientists and reviewed and vetted and revised and vetted some more.
And then it had to go for a White House clearance. It came back to us over the fax machine with Phil Cooney’s hand markup on it. I flipped through it and saw right away what he was doing. You don’t need to do a huge amount of re-writing to make something say something different; you just need to change a word, change a phrase, cross out a sentence, add some adjectives. And what he was doing was, he was passing a screen over the report to introduce uncertainty language into statements about global warming. The political motivation of it was obvious.
December 6, 2005 nasa scientist James Hansen gives a lecture on climate change at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union, in San Francisco. nasa reacts by ordering his future public statements to be vetted in advance. Earlier in the year Rick Piltz had resigned from the Climate Change Science Program over other instances of political interference.
Rick Piltz, senior associate, U.S. Climate Change Science Program: To me, the central climate-science scandal of the Bush administration was the suppression of the National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts report. In the 1997–2000 time frame, the White House had directed the Global Change Research Program to develop a scientifically based assessment of the implications of climate change for the United States. It was a vulnerability assessment: If these projected warming models are correct, what’s going to happen? And over a period of several years a team made up of eminent scientists and other experts produced a major report. To this day, it remains the most comprehensive effort to understand the implications of global warming for the United States.
And the administration killed that study. They directed federal agencies not to make any reference to the existence of it in any further reports. Through a series of deletions it was completely excised from all program reports from 2002 onward. It was left up on a Web site. There was a lawsuit filed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which is an ExxonMobil-funded “denialist” group, demanding that the report be deleted from the Web. Myron Ebell of the institute said, Our goal is to make that report vanish.
-
hemp lover
How do you hyperlink?
-
coffee_black
Now…see, there you go sixy making assumptions. I’m not one to formulate opinions based on feelings. You don’t know me. As a member of USGBC (United States Green Building Council) I actually teach seminars to Architects about LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) (and other architectural topics). I’m scheduled to teach a class of Architectural students this year at Harvard on LEED. I respect science, but I also know that not all scientists agree. I know a fair number of them.
There is a big difference between “global warming and climate change…it’s their “new light” on the subject. The term “climate change” enables advocates of global warming to now have it both ways… if it warms up…see we were right! If it gets colder….see we were right! The temperature of the earth has been changing since the beginning…long before humans inhabited it. The earth has seen several ice ages as well as warming periods that are caused by forces far more powerful that cows farting and car emissions. I may not be an expert on the subject, but I have common sense…and independent thinking. Having been in a cult once in my life, I recognize the signs…and I see them clearly here. Not falling for another apoocalyptical mindset....ever.
Not all scientists agree with the global warming/climate change movement. A little over a year ago I had a brief email exchange with Richard Lindzen, who is a professor at MIT on the subject. I posted it on the forum on another thread on this subject back then. I have omitted his email address as well as my own for privacy, but feel free to google him.
From:
Richard S. Lindzen)
Sent:
Fri 12/28/07 4:32 PM
To:
debbie shard ()
Dear Debbie,
As you say, one can usually spot a cult when you see it.
However, pinning things down more concretely is a bit more difficult. Personally, I suspect that the distinction between a cult and a religion is intrinsically fuzzy, and, as a more or less religious individual, I don't think that religion per se is bad.
For example, the founding fathers of the US were commonly deists. They strongly believed (consistent with the Pentateuch) that an infinitely superior G-d who was unknowable by man was an important defense against the claims of human tyrannies. I share this view.
That said, religion is generally characterized by beliefs that are not subject to empirical or logical proof; ie, it is a matter of faith. As a rule, these beliefs serve a variety of purposes. Thus, for many, their religious beliefs constitute an heritage held in common with ancestors and community. If these beliefs encourage generosity and compassion for others, then they are a force for good. I suspect that religion turns into cult when the purposes become very specific and exclusionary. Thus a religion that promises wealth to the believer, and pain and suffering to the non-believer is heading in the direction of cult.
With respect to environmental issues in general and global warming in particular, the transition to religion takes place when a person who is ignorant of the actual science not only believes alarming claims that he or she does not understand, but when that individual wants to believe these claims. The question then arises as to why someone would want to believe such claims. For some, it would appear that the answer is that they have been assured that all scientists agree with such claims. The very thought that all scientists in an immature science like climate all agree on anything (much less with all the numerous unrelated claims) is beyond belief. Nevertheless, for individuals who feel at sea when confronting science that they don't understand at all, it must be reassuring to think that by consenting to the line on global warming, they are safe because all scientists agree. Indeed, they immediately feel intellectually superior to all those who question the claims of global warming. In addition, people are told (quite falsely) that simple gestures like switching to fluorescent bulbs are tantamount to saving the earth. This brings god-like significance to otherwise ordinary lives. The combination of god-like significance attaching to trivial gestures and the feeling of superiority to others is quite a powerful combination. It further offers the opportunity and pleasure of condemning others, and forcing them to change their ways. By this time, one is well on one's way to a cult. For Hollywood types, moreover, belief in global warming offers redemption for dissolute and extravagant life styles.As with all cults, global warming hysteria, is also subject to cynical exploitation. Hedge funds stand ready to make billions out of trading carbon credits. Snake oil salesmen can know offer carbon offsets to the unwary. Etc. Etc. My hope is that the global warming hysteria comes to an end before too much pain, suffering, and conflict occurs.
Best wishes for 2008,
Dick***
Now if the global warming craze hadn't been losing credibility, then why do you think they changed the name?
Coffee
-
coffee_black
Oh for goodness sake... I posted that to the wrong thread!
Coffee
-
oompa
I am still amazed that this Headline and Subject Line (Title) contain such a profound comment....that it is "Irreversible".....that would mean that it will continue until the earth would NEVER get cooler......the temperature would be in the millions someday?....cause it cant be reversed?
now it used to be if you lost your finger, hand, arm, or even penis....it was irreversible.....but no more.....right now if you lose your head....that is irreversible, yet people even freeze their heads cause someday it will be reversable?........i just hate outrageous and totally unprovable claims......i still HATE all forms of pollution.....but really........oompa