[luke warm]

i apologize for any confusion, and what i say concerns only co2 (since that seems to be the basis for everyone's acceptance of a proposed carbon tax)... i'm simply saying that the % of co2 in the atmosphere, attributed to man, is far less than has been reported, because most computations i've seen leave off water vapor... that means, to my way of thinking, that the amount of co2 humans add to the atmosphere has no effect on whatever atmospheric warming has occurred...

check the computations using and not using water vapor

[hrothgar]

luke warm, on Nov 24 2008, 07:12 PM, said:

i apologize for any confusion, and what i say concerns only co2 (since that seems to be the basis for everyone's acceptance of a proposed carbon tax)... i'm simply saying that the % of co2 in the atmosphere, attributed to man, is far less than has been reported, because most computations i've seen leave off water vapor... that means, to my way of thinking, that the amount of co2 humans add to the atmosphere has no effect on whatever atmospheric warming has occurred...

check the computations using and not using water vapor

I am trying SO hard to hold my tongue right now...

In any case, can you point us at any of these "computations" of which you speak?

[awm]

We have a situation where the overwhelming majority of accredited experts in an area agree that there is a pressing crisis that needs to be addressed. When such a situation occurs, there are several ways to react:

(1) Point out that there are cases where, in the past, some accredited experts in this area have been wrong. Use this as justification to ignore the situation.

(2) Point out that people often have their own agenda, and then invent some sort of conspiracy which would explain why virtually all the accredited experts might have the same agenda. Use this as justification to ignore the situation.

(3) Deride the qualifications of the accredited experts. Find some other source (typically not a highly qualified source, you can even be the source yourself if necessary) and quote an explanation from that source which indicates that there is not in fact a pressing crisis. Then ignore the situation.

(4) Ask a bunch of random ordinary people whether they have seen evidence of this pressing crisis in their everyday lives. When they have not, deride the accredited experts as "ivory tower elitists" and "out of touch with the common man." Ignore their advice.

(5) Insist that while the crisis situation may exist and would be unfortunate, it would simply take too much time and money to deal with it. Remind everyone that "we have managed in difficult times in the past." Find an economic or accounting expert (preferably one who is wholly ignorant of the crisis situation mentioned) to support your analysis that dealing with it is too expensive. Do nothing to address the crisis.

(6) Listen to the warning from the experts in the area. Accept that people who have spent their entire career studying a phenomenon probably know what they are talking about when they discuss a possible crisis in their area of expertise, especially when they are in almost unanimous agreement. Follow their advice and do everything possible to deal with or prevent the crisis situation.

I think we've seen all of these approaches from our government, and we have also seen most of them suggested in this forum. Only one of them really qualifies as a logical, pro-science position to me (guess which). The others strike me as attempts to ignore reality and replace it with some belief system about how things ought to be.

[han]

I think you are really overdoing the boldfaces Adam. Too bad because for the rest you wrote a really nice post imo.

[luke warm]

hrothgar, on Nov 24 2008, 11:39 AM, said:

luke warm, on Nov 24 2008, 07:12 PM, said:

i apologize for any confusion, and what i say concerns only co2 (since that seems to be the basis for everyone's acceptance of a proposed carbon tax)... i'm simply saying that the % of co2 in the atmosphere, attributed to man, is far less than has been reported, because most computations i've seen leave off water vapor... that means, to my way of thinking, that the amount of co2 humans add to the atmosphere has no effect on whatever atmospheric warming has occurred...

check the computations using and not using water vapor

I am trying SO hard to hold my tongue right now...

In any case, can you point us at any of these "computations" of which you speak?

look at the pie chart here ... water vapor is a greenhouse gas but to arrive at the 76% figure for co2, it is ignored completely... the same happens when man's portion of co2 is computed

awm, on Nov 24 2008, 12:08 PM, said:

We have a situation where the overwhelming majority of accredited experts in an area agree that there is a pressing crisis that needs to be addressed. When such a situation occurs, there are several ways to react:~~

which ones have you seen me do, adam?

[PassedOut]

luke warm, on Nov 24 2008, 04:01 PM, said:

look at the pie chart here ... water vapor is a greenhouse gas but to arrive at the 76% figure for co2, it is ignored completely... the same happens when man's portion of co2 is computed

Do you have references to computations and charts that you consider accurate?

[awm]

Luke Warm said:

which ones have you seen me do adam?

Okay, here we go... no boldface, just to make Han happy.

1. Point out that there are cases where, in the past, some accredited experts in this area have been wrong.

This applies to all the discussion of "global cooling" from the 70s. I didn't find any Luke Warm posts in the current thread about this, but it has certainly been discussed.

2. Point out that people often have their own agenda, and then invent some sort of conspiracy which would explain why virtually all the accredited experts might have the same agenda.

Luke Warm said:

as an aside, about a year and a half ago we had this thread on the issue and i showed where it is only proponents of manmade GW who admit to lying, and admit they *should* lie about the issue... why do you think that is?

Luke Warm said:

what simplistic talking points did you observe? was it that one side sees nothing wrong with lying if it furthers its agenda?

3. Find some other source (typically not a highly qualified source, you can be the source yourself if necessary) and quote an explanation from that source which indicates that there is not in fact a pressing crisis.

Luke Warm said:

no, it's my point that we don't affect the process

Luke Warm said:

the figure i see most is that water vapor comprises 95% of the greenhouse gases... in any case, when the concentrations are computed, water vapor is often left out - in this way co2 and others have artificially high concentrations

4. Ask a bunch of ordinary people whether they have seen any evidence of this pressing crisis in their everyday lives. When they have not.... conclude that there is no crisis.

Luke Warm said:

assume for a moment that we do absolutely nothing.. what grave situation do you foresee?

Luke Warm said:

do you think that during this long drop there were periods of drought, killer hurricanes, etc? i'm just asking

5. Insist that while the crisis situation may exist, it would simply take too much time and money to deal with it.

Luke Warm said:

do those of you who support raising taxes (or implementing new taxes) think it would be even slightly idiotic right now?

As far as I know, no one on this forum is really qualified in this area. Do we have any climate scientists in the house? In such a scientific matter (do human actions contribute to global warming) most of us are not really qualified to comment. The question is whether we believe the opinions of those who are qualified.

[hrothgar]

luke warm, on Nov 25 2008, 12:01 AM, said:

hrothgar, on Nov 24 2008, 11:39 AM, said:

luke warm, on Nov 24 2008, 07:12 PM, said:

i apologize for any confusion, and what i say concerns only co2 (since that seems to be the basis for everyone's acceptance of a proposed carbon tax)... i'm simply saying that the % of co2 in the atmosphere, attributed to man, is far less than has been reported, because most computations i've seen leave off water vapor... that means, to my way of thinking, that the amount of co2 humans add to the atmosphere has no effect on whatever atmospheric warming has occurred...

check the computations using and not using water vapor

I am trying SO hard to hold my tongue right now...

In any case, can you point us at any of these "computations" of which you speak?

look at the pie chart here ... water vapor is a greenhouse gas but to arrive at the 76% figure for co2, it is ignored completely... the same happens when man's portion of co2 is computed

It took me all of one minute worth of Google searching to determine that you are quoting a report produced by a couple sophmores from the University of Michigan...

Don't get me wrong: Michigan's a damn fine school.
But you're sourcing a sophmore class project

[jdonn]

hrothgar, on Nov 24 2008, 04:36 PM, said:

It took me all of one minute worth of Google searching to determine that you are quoting a report produced by a couple sophmores from the University of Michigan...

Don't get me wrong: Michigan's a damn fine school.
But you're sourcing a sophmore class project

Aw come on. It starts off with a really neat drawing of the sun beaming its solar radiation onto earth, after that I was sold!

[kenberg]

Just to return for a moment to part of my original motivation for posting: I heard today on NPR that prices at the pump are at a five year low. Perhaps more importantly, oil price per barrel is down to around $50 or less from a high of maybe $130 plus. I am not so sure of all the causes, but I assume most would agree that it would be very good for the country if we didn't send monstrous amounts of cash out of the country to feed our addiction.

If we assume that the high cost at the pump was at least a contributing factor to the drop in usage and the drop in prices, is it not in our self interest to in some manner keep the pump price up? If we do nothing, the consumption will again rise and the price will again rise, and the beneficiaries will not be us.

One of my gripes against John Kerry in 2004 is that when he was accused of supporting a gas tax he dodged around with a "what, who, me?" approach. Seems to me the idea had merit. I realize there are problems, there always are, but it is done in many (most?) other countries, is it not?

Many conservation ideas suffer because they appear to require an ability to think a generation or two ahead. This oil problem seems more like an eating disorder to me. The effects of not dealing with it will arrive sooner rather than later.

[Gerben42]

People will only limit their energy use when it gets more expensive. One person may have a conscience and think about the environment. The herd doesn't. The voters are not interesting in a gas tax, since it affects them and why should it be them rather than the evil (fill in some group they think should save first). And what the voter doesn't want, the politician dares not propose.

In a way, this is sound thinking. Let's say we do everything to save oil. Then the countries that don't will use up the oil and all that we have done is to make them richer at the point where there is no more oil rather than us. Saving the environment is a noble cause, but if you do so while others don't, you're hurting yourself compared to them.

It's only now that people start discovering that sometimes saving energy is actually also cheaper. But this requires investments (for example by changing all your lightbulbs, buying a new more energy-efficient car, renovating your home) and most prefer to live on the way they did.

This will continue until the incentive is larger: High energy prices make people more willing to make these investments, and to put their airconditioning / heating on low power and rather adapt the way they dress to the actual conditions.

[helene_t]

awm, on Nov 24 2008, 10:24 PM, said:

As far as I know, no one on this forum is really qualified in this area. Do we have any climate scientists in the house?

No but we have a few who have qualifications in related fields (physics, astronomy, chemistry) as well as fields related to other aspects of this thread (economics), and they sometimes help by explaining some elementary misconceptions that come up in this forum and in the popular press. This can be interesting. What is not interesting (IMHO) is non-specialists (or even non-scientists) dismissing the scientific consensus based on his/her own attempts to practice arm-chair philosophy.

(Btw, I wonder how the climate can be as stable as it is if this water vapor thing really is a positive feedback loop. What I say isn't an argument for or against anything, I just mention it to show why I don't bother to participate in climate change discussions here or elsewhere: I have zip understanding of the issue myself but it seems that some of the most vocal participants have even less understanding).

Of course we are all (since we live in democracies) qualified to participate in political discussions, such as what should be done assuming that scientific consensus can basically be trusted.

[hrothgar]

awm, on Nov 25 2008, 12:24 AM, said:

As far as I know, no one on this forum is really qualified in this area. Do we have any climate scientists in the house? In such a scientific matter (do human actions contribute to global warming) most of us are not really qualified to comment. The question is whether we believe the opinions of those who are qualified.

You're right, but only in part...

We don't have any climate scientists who frequent the forums. (If we do, they certainly keep their mouth's shut) So what?

Do you really believe that we should (or would) take the word of a single, isolated subject matter expert as gospel truth? Look at the bridge section of the forums. That's an area where we do have world class individuals participating in discussions. I think that their opinions get given more weight. However, I don't think anyone takes the Fred's, Ulfs, Justin's, Frances, Roland's (yada, yada, yada) pronouncements as revealed truth.

The skill set that actually matters is the ability to read and synthesize information.

I suspect that most anyone on these forums who has the time and inclination should be able to figure out what's what...

[kenberg]

Gerben42, on Nov 25 2008, 04:54 AM, said:

People will only limit their energy use when it gets more expensive. One person may have a conscience and think about the environment. The herd doesn't. The voters are not interesting in a gas tax, since it affects them and why should it be them rather than the evil (fill in some group they think should save first). And what the voter doesn't want, the politician dares not propose.

In a way, this is sound thinking. Let's say we do everything to save oil. Then the countries that don't will use up the oil and all that we have done is to make them richer at the point where there is no more oil rather than us. Saving the environment is a noble cause, but if you do so while others don't, you're hurting yourself compared to them.

It's only now that people start discovering that sometimes saving energy is actually also cheaper. But this requires investments (for example by changing all your lightbulbs, buying a new more energy-efficient car, renovating your home) and most prefer to live on the way they did.

This will continue until the incentive is larger: High energy prices make people more willing to make these investments, and to put their airconditioning / heating on low power and rather adapt the way they dress to the actual conditions.

Generally I agree, but perhaps this is a time when there is some suitable incentive, at least for a large enough part of the population to get something done. Consider:

A. Rising demand causes sharp increases in price. Proof: We have just seen it.

B. We cannot keep sending more money out of the country than we take into the country forever. Proof: This gets perhaps trickier, but there must be at least some people who can see the point of this. People tend to think in analogies, and at least some people still understand that they cannot forever spend more money than they make.

C. Conclusion: We have to draw down on the use of energy in general and oil in particular.


People at large have noticed that things are a bit fucked up, to use a technical economic phrase. They may be ready for some sensible suggestions.

You are in a better position than I to say how Europeans have come to accept significant taxes on oil usage. Much more so than here, they have done so, am I right?

Helping the environment is always a hard sell, but if used as a supplemental argument to a primarily economic one, it should play a positive supporting role.

[helene_t]

kenberg, on Nov 25 2008, 02:25 PM, said:

You are in a better position than I to say how Europeans have come to accept significant taxes on oil usage. Much more so than here, they have done so, am I right?

Why Europeans accept higher taxes in general than do Americans:
- Europeans generally demand more government services than do Americans.

Why Europeans accept higher gasoline taxes in particular than do Americans:

- We don't have an oil lobby here (well some countries have north sea oil but the heavy taxes predate that).

- Cars are less of an icon of our culture than it is in the US.

But even here, gasoline taxes are probably too low, even without considering the CO2 issue. I see no reason to let the taxes be lower than the sum of externalities related to car usage. Then again, public transport (including airlines) are subsidized, too, and bicycle users don't pay for their toll on emergency rooms.

Looks like governments everywhere just don't want people to walk. Or to move closer to their work.

[Gerben42]

Quote

Looks like governments everywhere just don't want people to walk. Or to move closer to their work.

Now there's a point. The first thing that's discussed here in the framework of tax breaks is a reinstatement of a subsidy for those who live far from their work. I don't understand why the Green party (who should be in charge of this subject if they take the name Green seriously) point out that it would be much better for the environment to subsidize those who pay more rent because they live close to their work.

This is a problem in many cities, that in every town that is connected to the city-rail, the rent goes up. So people move away, and then a new rural villageis invaded by people working in the city. Then of course, someone gets the idea to connect it to the city-rail again, and the rents go up. Etc.

[luke warm]

[quote name='helene_t' date='Nov 25 2008, 05:24 AM'][quote name='awm' date='Nov 24 2008, 10:24 PM'] As far as I know, no one on this forum is really qualified in this area. Do we have any climate scientists in the house? [/quote]
No but we have a few who have qualifications in related fields (physics, astronomy, chemistry) as well as fields related to other aspects of this thread (economics), and they sometimes help by explaining some elementary misconceptions that come up in this forum and in the popular press. This can be interesting. What is not interesting (IMHO) is non-specialists (or even non-scientists) dismissing the scientific consensus based on his/her own attempts to practice arm-chair philosophy.[/quote]
that's true, helene, there are people posting who have scientific backgrounds... and as adam said in an earlier post (i think it was him), we all tend to quote authorities who mirror our own presuppositions, or who we find more convincing... here are a few quotes from those i choose to believe, others may quote their own authorities
[quote]New peer-reviewed study (“Heat Capacity, Time Constant, and Sensitivity of Earth’s Climate System,” authored by Brookhaven National Lab scientist Stephen Schwartz and which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research) finds global warming over last century linked to natural causes: Published in Geophysical Research Letters: Excerpt: “Tsonis et al. investigate the collective behavior of known climate cycles such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation, the El Nino/Southern Oscillation, and the North Pacific Oscillation. By studying the last 100 years of these cycles' patterns, they find that the systems synchronized several times. Further, in cases where the synchronous state was followed by an increase in the coupling strength among the cycles, the synchronous state was destroyed. Then a new climate state emerged, associated with global temperature changes and El Nino/Southern Oscillation variability. The authors show that this mechanism explains all global temperature tendency changes and El Nino variability in the 20th century. Authors: Anastasios A. Tsonis, Kyle Swanson, and Sergey Kravtsov: Atmospheric Sciences Group, Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.A. See August 2, 2007 Science Daily – “Synchronized Chaos: Mechanisms For Major Climate Shifts” [/quote]
[quote]Belgian weather institute’s (RMI) August 2007 study dismisses decisive role of CO2 in warming: Excerpt: "Brussels: CO2 is not the big bogeyman of climate change and global warming. This is the conclusion of a comprehensive scientific study done by the Royal Meteorological Institute, which will be published this summer. The study does not state that CO2 plays no role in warming the earth. "But it can never play the decisive role that is currently attributed to it", climate scientist Luc Debontridder said. "Not CO2, but water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. It is responsible for at least 75 % of the greenhouse effect. This is a simple scientific fact, but Al Gore's movie has hyped CO2 so much that nobody seems to take note of it." said Debontridder. "Every change in weather conditions is blamed on CO2. But the warm winters of the last few years (in Belgium) are simply due to the 'North-Atlantic Oscillation'. And this has absolutely nothing to do with CO2," he added.[/quote]
[quote]New peer-reviewed study on Surface Warming and the Solar Cycle: Excerpt: The study found that times of high solar activity are on average 0.2 degrees C warmer than times of low solar activity, and that there is a polar amplification of the warming. This result is the first to document a statistically significant globally coherent temperature response to the solar cycle, the authors note. Authors: Charles D. Camp and Ka Kit Tung: Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. Source: Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) paper 10.1029/2007GL030207, 2007[/quote]
[quote]New peer-reviewed study finds clouds may greatly reduce global warming: Excerpt: This study published on August 9, 2007 in the Geophysical Research Letters finds that climate models fail test against real clouds. "To give an idea of how strong this enhanced cooling mechanism is, if it was operating on global warming, it would reduce estimates of future warming by over 75 percent," Dr. Roy Spencer said. "At least 80 percent of the Earth's natural greenhouse effect is due to water vapor and clouds, and those are largely under the control of precipitation systems. Until we understand how precipitation systems change with warming, I don't believe we can know how much of our current warming is manmade. Without that knowledge, we can't predict future climate change with any degree of certainty," Spencer added.  The paper was co-authored by University of Alabama Huntsville's Dr. John R. Christy and Dr. W. Danny Braswell, and Dr. Justin Hnilo of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA.[/quote]
and there may or may not be the consensus we all believe there is
[quote]A July 2007 review of 539 abstracts in peer-reviewed scientific journals from 2004 through 2007 found that climate science continues to shift toward the views of global warming skeptics. Excerpt: “There appears to be little evidence in the learned journals to justify the climate-change alarm.” Update - August 29, 2007: SURVEY: LESS THAN HALF OF ALL PUBLISHED SCIENTISTS ENDORSE GLOBAL WARMING THEORY - Excerpt: "Of 539 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers 'implicit' endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category  (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis.  This is no 'consensus.'"[/quote]
[quote]Chinese scientists Lin Zhen-Shan, and Sun Xian’s 2007 study, published in the peer-reviewed Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics, noted that CO2’s impact on warming may be “excessively exaggerated.” Excerpt: “The global climate warming is not solely affected by the CO2 greenhouse effect. The best example is temperature obviously cooling however atmospheric CO2 concentration is ascending from 1940s to 1970s. Although the CO2 greenhouse effect on global climate change is unsuspicious, it could have been excessively exaggerated.  It is high time to reconsider the trend of global climate change,” the two scientists concluded.[/quote]
and does more co2 = a corresponding temperature rise? i personally don't know and i doubt if anyone posting does, but some say
[quote]Climatologist Dr. Timothy Ball recently explained that one of the reasons climate models are failing is because they overestimate the warming effect of CO2 in the atmosphere. Ball described how CO2’s warming impact diminishes. “Even if CO2 concentration doubles or triples, the effect on temperature would be minimal. The relationship between temperature and CO2 is like painting a window black to block sunlight. The first coat blocks most of the light. Second and third coats reduce very little more. Current CO2 levels are like the first coat of black paint,” Ball explained in a June 6, 2007 article in Canada Free Press.[/quote]
[quote]Boston College paleoclimatologist Dr. Amy Frappier recently explained how carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can cease to have a warming impact. Frappier noted in a February 1, 2007 article in Boston College’s newspaper The Heights, that greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere do not consistently continue to have a warming effect on Earth, but the impact of the gases instead stabilize and cease having a warming effect.

"At some point the heat-trapping capacity of [CO2] and its effect gets saturated," said Frappier, "and you don't have increased heating. The geologic record shows that many millions of years ago, CO2 levels were indeed higher - in some cases many times higher - than today," Frappier, who believes mankind is having an impact on the climate, explained. According the article, Frappier criticizes Gore because “the movie (An Inconvenient Truth) fails to mention any ancient incongruity between carbon dioxide and temperature.”[/quote]
[quote]In May 2007, the “father of meteorology” Dr. Reid Bryson, the founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at University of Wisconsin, dismissed fears of increased man-made CO2 in the atmosphere.

“You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide,” Bryson, who has been identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world, said. All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd. Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air,” Bryson added.  [/quote]
[quote]Environmental economist Dennis Avery, co-author with climate scientist Dr. Fred Singer of the new book "Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years," explained the impact man-made CO2 has had on global temperatures. "The earth has warmed only a net 0.2 degrees C of net warming since 1940. Human-emitted CO2 gets the blame for only half of that—or 0.1 degree C of warming over 65 years! We've had no warming at all since 1998. Remember, too, that each added unit of CO2 has less impact on the climate. The first 40 parts per million of human-emitted CO2 added to the atmosphere in the 1940s had as much climate impact as the next 360 ppm," Avery wrote in August 2007. The book, "Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years," details more than 100 scientific studies with more than 300 co-authors revealing how solar activity is linked to the Earth's natural temperature cycles.

"How do the Greens project a mind-numbing surge of global warming from this New Math on Global Warming?" Avery asked, calling the new scientific research debunking climate fears a "real crisis" for Gore and the proponents of man-made catastrophic global warming. [/quote]
i can post much more from many more experts and those "... who have qualifications in related fields (physics, astronomy, chemistry)..." but others can post *their* authorities just as easily... we are on the verge of forcing the spending of trillions of dollars, and for no (imo) good reason

[hrothgar]

[quote name='luke warm' date='Nov 26 2008, 02:53 AM'] [quote name='helene_t' date='Nov 25 2008, 05:24 AM'][quote name='awm' date='Nov 24 2008, 10:24 PM'] As far as I know, no one on this forum is really qualified in this area. Do we have any climate scientists in the house? [/quote]
No but we have a few who have qualifications in related fields (physics, astronomy, chemistry) as well as fields related to other aspects of this thread (economics), and they sometimes help by explaining some elementary misconceptions that come up in this forum and in the popular press. This can be interesting. What is not interesting (IMHO) is non-specialists (or even non-scientists) dismissing the scientific consensus based on his/her own attempts to practice arm-chair philosophy.[/quote]
that's true, helene, there are people posting who have scientific backgrounds... and as adam said in an earlier post (i think it was him), we all tend to quote authorities who mirror our own presuppositions, or who we find more convincing... here are a few quotes from those i choose to believe, others may quote their own authorities
[quote]New peer-reviewed study (“Heat Capacity, Time Constant, and Sensitivity of Earth’s Climate System,” authored by Brookhaven National Lab scientist Stephen Schwartz and which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research) finds global warming over last century linked to natural causes: Published in Geophysical Research Letters: Excerpt: “Tsonis et al. investigate the collective behavior of known climate cycles such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation, the El Nino/Southern Oscillation, and the North Pacific Oscillation. By studying the last 100 years of these cycles' patterns, they find that the systems synchronized several times. Further, in cases where the synchronous state was followed by an increase in the coupling strength among the cycles, the synchronous state was destroyed. Then a new climate state emerged, associated with global temperature changes and El Nino/Southern Oscillation variability. The authors show that this mechanism explains all global temperature tendency changes and El Nino variability in the 20th century. Authors: Anastasios A. Tsonis, Kyle Swanson, and Sergey Kravtsov: Atmospheric Sciences Group, Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.A. See August 2, 2007 Science Daily – “Synchronized Chaos: Mechanisms For Major Climate Shifts” [/quote]
[quote]Belgian weather institute’s (RMI) August 2007 study dismisses decisive role of CO2 in warming: Excerpt: "Brussels: CO2 is not the big bogeyman of climate change and global warming. This is the conclusion of a comprehensive scientific study done by the Royal Meteorological Institute, which will be published this summer. The study does not state that CO2 plays no role in warming the earth. "But it can never play the decisive role that is currently attributed to it", climate scientist Luc Debontridder said. "Not CO2, but water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. It is responsible for at least 75 % of the greenhouse effect. This is a simple scientific fact, but Al Gore's movie has hyped CO2 so much that nobody seems to take note of it." said Debontridder. "Every change in weather conditions is blamed on CO2. But the warm winters of the last few years (in Belgium) are simply due to the 'North-Atlantic Oscillation'. And this has absolutely nothing to do with CO2," he added.[/quote]
[quote]New peer-reviewed study on Surface Warming and the Solar Cycle: Excerpt: The study found that times of high solar activity are on average 0.2 degrees C warmer than times of low solar activity, and that there is a polar amplification of the warming. This result is the first to document a statistically significant globally coherent temperature response to the solar cycle, the authors note. Authors: Charles D. Camp and Ka Kit Tung: Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. Source: Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) paper 10.1029/2007GL030207, 2007[/quote]
[quote]New peer-reviewed study finds clouds may greatly reduce global warming: Excerpt: This study published on August 9, 2007 in the Geophysical Research Letters finds that climate models fail test against real clouds. "To give an idea of how strong this enhanced cooling mechanism is, if it was operating on global warming, it would reduce estimates of future warming by over 75 percent," Dr. Roy Spencer said. "At least 80 percent of the Earth's natural greenhouse effect is due to water vapor and clouds, and those are largely under the control of precipitation systems. Until we understand how precipitation systems change with warming, I don't believe we can know how much of our current warming is manmade. Without that knowledge, we can't predict future climate change with any degree of certainty," Spencer added.  The paper was co-authored by University of Alabama Huntsville's Dr. John R. Christy and Dr. W. Danny Braswell, and Dr. Justin Hnilo of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA.[/quote]
and there may or may not be the consensus we all believe there is
[quote]A July 2007 review of 539 abstracts in peer-reviewed scientific journals from 2004 through 2007 found that climate science continues to shift toward the views of global warming skeptics. Excerpt: “There appears to be little evidence in the learned journals to justify the climate-change alarm.” Update - August 29, 2007: SURVEY: LESS THAN HALF OF ALL PUBLISHED SCIENTISTS ENDORSE GLOBAL WARMING THEORY - Excerpt: "Of 539 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers 'implicit' endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category  (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis.  This is no 'consensus.'"[/quote]
[quote]Chinese scientists Lin Zhen-Shan, and Sun Xian’s 2007 study, published in the peer-reviewed Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics, noted that CO2’s impact on warming may be “excessively exaggerated.” Excerpt: “The global climate warming is not solely affected by the CO2 greenhouse effect. The best example is temperature obviously cooling however atmospheric CO2 concentration is ascending from 1940s to 1970s. Although the CO2 greenhouse effect on global climate change is unsuspicious, it could have been excessively exaggerated.  It is high time to reconsider the trend of global climate change,” the two scientists concluded.[/quote]
and does more co2 = a corresponding temperature rise? i personally don't know and i doubt if anyone posting does, but some say
[quote]Climatologist Dr. Timothy Ball recently explained that one of the reasons climate models are failing is because they overestimate the warming effect of CO2 in the atmosphere. Ball described how CO2’s warming impact diminishes. “Even if CO2 concentration doubles or triples, the effect on temperature would be minimal. The relationship between temperature and CO2 is like painting a window black to block sunlight. The first coat blocks most of the light. Second and third coats reduce very little more. Current CO2 levels are like the first coat of black paint,” Ball explained in a June 6, 2007 article in Canada Free Press.[/quote]
[quote]Boston College paleoclimatologist Dr. Amy Frappier recently explained how carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can cease to have a warming impact. Frappier noted in a February 1, 2007 article in Boston College’s newspaper The Heights, that greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere do not consistently continue to have a warming effect on Earth, but the impact of the gases instead stabilize and cease having a warming effect.

"At some point the heat-trapping capacity of [CO2] and its effect gets saturated," said Frappier, "and you don't have increased heating. The geologic record shows that many millions of years ago, CO2 levels were indeed higher - in some cases many times higher - than today," Frappier, who believes mankind is having an impact on the climate, explained. According the article, Frappier criticizes Gore because “the movie (An Inconvenient Truth) fails to mention any ancient incongruity between carbon dioxide and temperature.”[/quote]
[quote]In May 2007, the “father of meteorology” Dr. Reid Bryson, the founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at University of Wisconsin, dismissed fears of increased man-made CO2 in the atmosphere.

“You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide,” Bryson, who has been identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world, said. All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd. Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air,” Bryson added.  [/quote]
[quote]Environmental economist Dennis Avery, co-author with climate scientist Dr. Fred Singer of the new book "Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years," explained the impact man-made CO2 has had on global temperatures. "The earth has warmed only a net 0.2 degrees C of net warming since 1940. Human-emitted CO2 gets the blame for only half of that—or 0.1 degree C of warming over 65 years! We've had no warming at all since 1998. Remember, too, that each added unit of CO2 has less impact on the climate. The first 40 parts per million of human-emitted CO2 added to the atmosphere in the 1940s had as much climate impact as the next 360 ppm," Avery wrote in August 2007. The book, "Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years," details more than 100 scientific studies with more than 300 co-authors revealing how solar activity is linked to the Earth's natural temperature cycles.

"How do the Greens project a mind-numbing surge of global warming from this New Math on Global Warming?" Avery asked, calling the new scientific research debunking climate fears a "real crisis" for Gore and the proponents of man-made catastrophic global warming. [/quote]
i can post much more from many more experts and those "... who have qualifications in related fields (physics, astronomy, chemistry)..." but others can post *their* authorities just as easily... we are on the verge of forcing the spending of trillions of dollars, and for no (imo) good reason [/quote]
Before anyone gets too excited about all the different sources that Jimmy is citing:

All he's doing is extracting a series of quotes from the Inhofe EPW Press Blog...

Most of these quotes can be found on a single web page

[url="http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=84E9E44A-802A-23AD-493A-B35D0842FED8"]http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fus...3A-B35D0842FED8[/url]

Jimmy's research methodolgy amounts to nothing more than parroting the views of extreme skeptics.

[Lobowolf]

Just for future reference, what's the technical difference between "citing" and "parroting"? I'll be very sad if this thread dries up while we wait for BBFers to conduct and publish their own firsthand research.

I can see undercutting the quotations by noting that they're a relatively small number, but does the fact that they've previously been compiled and put on the same webpage really make them any more or less credible?

[cherdano]

Lobowolf, on Nov 25 2008, 07:39 PM, said:

Just for future reference, what's the technical difference between "citing" and "parroting"?  I'll be very sad if this thread dries up while we wait for BBFers to conduct and publish their own firsthand research.

It would have been "citing" if Jimmy had given a link to the post by Marc Morano (on the senate webpages under control of Senator Inhofe) from which he was copy-and-pasting several paragraphs. Not giving that source was disingenuous by Jimmy.

Quote

I can see undercutting the quotations by noting that they're a relatively small number, but does the fact that they've previously been compiled and put on the same webpage really make them any more or less credible?

Yes, they make them less credible.

If you want to present a biased view of the scientific consensus, then you will always find a couple of quotes that give a wrong impression. So when we see a list of quotes by scientists, we have to rely on whoever compiled that list that they have given us a representable selection of quotes.

If Jimmy had stumbled on these quotes on several different sources, then there is a better chance of them being representative. Instead, most of them are directly from the compilation of an Inhofe staffer and former swiftboater, which means they

The quotes are also not credible by themselves. Trying to make a political point out of the fact that 48% of the surveyed papers do neither endorse nor reject the theory of human contributions to global warming shows a basic lack of understanding of science. If that hypothesis is neither tested nor relevant to the paper, the authors have no reason to mention it.
The quote also fails to mention that the author of the study was not an expert and hasn't been able to publish the study in a well-respected peer-reviewed scientific journal.

Congressional Republicans are making fools of themselves by trying to push their view of the scientific consensus, instead of trying to get informed without bias.