Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[Mikemcc]

The only rocking this new tranche of e-mail excerpts are doing is 'off to sleep'.

 

[JudeBrando]

What about the ice ages? Was there Summer in those periods?

It was there, just colder.

Sorry, Jude. You have given us information from a highly biased source with no interest in an honest discussion. I think the psychological term is "projection"...

What source do you now dismiss out of hand? James Taylor?:

"I am senior fellow for environment policy at the Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News. I write about energy and environment issues, frequently focusing on global warming. I have presented environmental analysis on CNN, CNN Headline News, CBS Evening News, MSNBC, Fox News Channel, and several national radio programs. My environmental analysis has been published in virtually every major newspaper in the United States. I studied atmospheric science and majored in government at Dartmouth College. I obtained my Juris Doctorate from Syracuse University."

 

[JudeBrando]

Reality is that cases of lung cancer have always happened and will always happen, so my smoking can't possibly be the cause of mine.

Reality is that forest fires have always happened and will always happen, so those kids who were playing with matches in the exact place that one started at the exact time it started can't possibly have caused it.

Of all the arguments used by AGW deniers, the "it can happen naturally therefore it can't also be caused by us" must surely be the most idiotic.

Would anyone deny such obvious cause and effects?

 

[geni]

"I am senior fellow for environment policy at the Heartland Institute

A thinktank aka a lobying group. With a political agender that makes accepting global warming difficult to put it mildly.

 

[Travis]

Would anyone deny such obvious cause and effects?

You're the one refusing to acknowledge that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas.

 

[geni]

When did climate not change?

Change has been fairly limited for most of the history of civilisation.

When did average temperature not vary? What is the correct temperature?

From the point of view of human beings one which allows at least a close analogue of our civilisation to continue to exist.

 

[JudeBrando]

Change has been fairly limited for most of the history of civilisation.

Oh really? So you would say it's more dramatic now than tropical vegetation under the ice near the poles?

 

[geni]

Oh really? So you would say it's more dramatic now than tropical vegetation under the ice near the poles?

That didn't happen during the time period covered by human civilisation.

 

[BenBurch]

Don't you mean a world of coal Ben?

Green energy is going bankrupt.

Not so much. Actually, it's doing better at this stage, given the tiny investment to date, than we had any right to expect.

 

[Mikemcc]

Oh really? So you would say it's more dramatic now than tropical vegetation under the ice near the poles?

That has more to do with continental drift, than with climate change.

The effects that you are failing to argue against is AGW, how much of the present warming is due to the actions of mankind. The facts as they stand are:

1. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, it's simple to demonstrate and the mechanism is well understood.

2. The amount of emitted greenhouses gases is relatively easy to determine, there are fairly detailed records. Approximately 57% of the emitted gases are absorbed by the various sinks. The calculations show that effectively ALL of the additional CO2 (compared to pre-industrial levels) are due to mankinds emissions.

3. The globe is warming (as recently confirmed by the BEST project). Satellites are also able to determine the incident radiation and the re-radiated emissions from the earth. Spectral analysis of those measurements confirm AGW.

There are a host of other supporting studies that provide evidence that supports AGW (cooling stratosphere / warming troposphere, for instance).

As Senator Moynihan said - Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

 

[Pixel42]

Would anyone deny such obvious cause and effects?

The tobacco industry denied the link between smoking and lung cancer for decades. They even payed people to wilfully obfuscate and misrepresent the overwhelming scientific evidence for that link, and plenty of smokers who really wanted it not to be true were only too happy to believe them.

Sound familiar?

 

[BenBurch]

...

As Senator Moynihan said - Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

The deniers deny both clauses here. They don't think we have a right to our opinion, and they believe that they have the right to establish the facts we are to believe in.

 

[AlBell]

Ask yourself who benefits in the exquisite timing of the leaking and selective quoting of the e-mails.

Ask yourself why the *entire* contents and trail of e-mails is not quoted

Now consider why somebody would want the status quo maintained.

What do you suggest is exquisite timing? For who?

Cherry picking; i.e. politics.

I give up: who? Exxon-Mobil and Big Coal maybe?

 

[Mikemcc]

Don't you mean a world of coal Ben?

Green energy is going bankrupt.

Apparently not, last year investment in renewable energy exceeded investment in fossil fuel energy...

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/...wable-power-tops-fossil-fuels-for-first-time/

 

[CapelDodger]

Do you have any links to any specific Mitt Romney statements concerning climate change that you find to be accurately reflective of the mainstream scientific understanding? All I can find are out-of-context snippets that kinda sound like they are getting the general gist of the issue,...until you listen to them in context.

He has behaved rationally in the past, and it seems fairly obvious that he's got into climate woo just to get the GOP nomination (and, perhaps, reclaim the party). In his character, he appears to be a manager and climate will be throwing up more things which need managing in the next few years. This is no lazy, proudly-ignorant frat-boy like Bush.

So Mitt Romney might not be so bad. (Sure, he'd be called a Socialist Anti-Christ on health and climate, but it'll be hard to make that stick.) At the very least it's not certain that he would be awful, anyway .

 

[Mikemcc]

The deniers deny both clauses here. They don't think we have a right to our opinion, and they believe that they have the right to establish the facts we are to believe in.

The perfect description of a demogogue!

 

[bit_pattern]

Reality is that global warming and global cooling has always happened and will always happen just like summer and winter has always happened and will always happen.

It just happens by magic! No explanation needed! But, no, climate changes in response to something, something has to change for the climate to change and when Co2 levels change then the climate responds.

Ask yourself why the *entire* contents and trail of e-mails is not quoted

Because out of 220,000+ emails, they've already released everything that could possibly be taken out of context to look damning and there is nothing even remotely titillation left to release.

 

[Robrob]

?!

Why would any of you want to overlook and excuse this?

Nearly a quarter of a million emails and the best they can come up with are a dozen incomplete and out of context quotes? Not one of which is all that controversial or evidence of conspiracy?

 

[BenBurch]

Nearly a quarter of a million emails and the best they can come up with are a dozen incomplete and out of context quotes? Not one of which is all that controversial or evidence of conspiracy?

Conspiracy theorists focus on anomalies. Fact is that if you look at enough email from anybody you can find something they said that you can present out of context and use for a CT. It is a hallmark of people of low intelligence that they cannot tolerate incomplete knowledge, and they confabulate to finish painting the picture.

 

[CapelDodger]

Nearly a quarter of a million emails and the best they can come up with are a dozen incomplete and out of context quotes? Not one of which is all that controversial or evidence of conspiracy?

It does kill the whole conspiracy theory stone dead, doesn't it? Or would if conspiracy theories ever did die. There are probably still some people banging-on about the Popish Plot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popish_Plot.

Here we have (apparently) dozens of the major inside-players in completely unguarded moments, and it takes desperate squeezing and editing to derive the slightest implication from any of their conversation. Epic Fail.

Of course, we should remember that the conspiracy theory well predates the stolen emails, and in fact any evidence except the "fact" that it must be so. Even before the FoI ploy requests for data were couched in the terms "Dear Lying Liar, We know you're a lying liar so give us your data so we can prove you're a lying liar, you lying liar. Respectfully Yours, A Looney, c/o Heritage Foundation, postbox 0800 KOCH."

Edited by LashL: 

Moderated thread.

If this latest release was intended to influence Durban (as it surely was) it just shows how overblown the deniers' image of themselves is. Outside the Murdoch press it's passed without trace. The conference itself won't fare much better.