Global warming. oops I mean cooling. Um, I mean...

[Darren Dirt]

I just sent this in an email to my 11 year old son who is being brainwashed by world-government-promoting fearmongering.

subj: Global Warming -- is it true?

Hey buddy, just thought I would pass this along as it explains very well what I stumbled in trying to explain to you last week.


- - -

Journalists have warned of climate change for 100 years, but can?t decide weather we face an ice age or warming

It was five years before the turn of the century and major media were warning of disastrous climate change. Page six of The New York Times was headlined with the serious concerns of ?geologists.? Only the president at the time wasn?t Bill Clinton; it was Grover Cleveland. And the Times wasn?t warning about global warming ? it was telling readers the looming dangers of a new ice age.   
 
The year was 1895, and it was just one of four different time periods in the last 100 years when major print media predicted an impending climate crisis. Each prediction carried its own elements of doom, saying Canada could be ?wiped out? or lower crop yields would mean ?billions will die.?

Just as the weather has changed over time, so has the reporting ? blowing hot or cold with short-term changes in temperature.


- - -

The rest of the article is here:
http://www.businessandmedia.org/specialreports/2006/fireandice/fireandice.asp



IN OTHER WORDS, relax, don't have any "The Day After Tomorrow" nightmares unless and until the actual *facts* justify it. ^_^

Three of the guidelines from the Society of Professional Journalists are especially appropriate:

- "Support the open exchange of views, even views they find repugnant."

- "Give voice to the voiceless; official and unofficial sources of information can be equally valid."

- "Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context."
     That last bullet point could apply to almost any major news outlet in the United States. They could all learn something and take into account the historical context of media coverage of climate change.

     Some other important points include:

- Don't Stifle Debate: Most scientists do agree that the earth has warmed a little more than a degree in the last 100 years. That doesn't mean that scientists concur mankind is to blame. Even if that were the case, the impact of warming is unclear.
     People in northern climes might enjoy improved weather and longer growing seasons.

- Don't Ignore the Cost: Global warming solutions pushed by environmental groups are notoriously expensive. Just signing on to the Kyoto treaty would have cost the United States several hundred billion dollars each year, according to estimates from the U.S. government generated during President Bill Clinton's term.
     Every story that talks about new regulations or forced cutbacks on emissions should discuss the cost of those proposals.

- Report Accurately on Statistics: Accurate temperature records have been kept only since the end of the 19th Century, shortly after the world left the Little Ice Age. So while recorded temperatures are increasing, they are not the warmest ever. A 2003 study by Harvard and the Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, "20th Century Climate Not So Hot," "determined that the 20th century is neither the warmest century nor the century with the most extreme weather of the past 1,000 years.

[Mr. Analog]

What? Nothing about Global Dimming?

[Darren Dirt]

^ Forget industrial pollution, you can blame *that* on mental pollution (e.g. American Idol, Fear Factor, Faux News...)

Seriously though, wow a pretty hefty Wiki on the subject...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming

[Thorin]

Good for you for ensuring your child is skeptical of the things told to him.  Remember, though, that if he still believes global warming is a real problem after reading the article you sent him you don't get to force him to accept your opinion; otherwise, you're just brainwashing him.  Cuz, you know, the debate about global warming is still underway and to understand the nuances of the data takes a lot more scientific knowledge than you and I probably possess - just because you think it's not occurring doesn't automatically make it so.

As an aside, "brainwashing" really isn't the right term in this discussion.  I doubt that the people who tell your child about global warming are confining him to small cells, punishing him when he responds wrong, or depriving him of sleep until he agrees that global warming exists.  I don't even think we could use the term "thought reform".  At best, we should be using the term "social influence".  As in, "my 11 year old son [...] is being socially influenced by [...] fearmongering".

[Darren Dirt]

Yes, Thorin, I am really just striving to encourage "rational skepticism", i.e. not trusting the messenger (even if it's NewsAnchor/Teacher/Daddy) but instead using critical thinking and objective analysis to verify the message.


Also, for you and everyone else: Not sure if you actually got a chance to read through the linked article (it is extremely lengthy ) but even a quick skim demonstrates that even the "experts" have continued to oscillate in the tune that they sing (i.e. "we're all gonna freeze, we're all gonna fry, ...") but at least the "news" industry has been consistent (i.e. "whatever the experts say now is the only p.o.v. that is sane, anyone who questions it is denying common sense reality...")


Hmm... If neither extreme is true, then maybe we should all just (Sha-la-la-la-la-la...)


- - -

PS: I just found this politically incorrect book on the subject: Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years by Dennis T. Avery and S. Fred Singer

Book Description: "Singer and Avery present in popular language supported by in-depth scientific evidence the compelling concept that global temperatures have been rising mostly or entirely because of a natural cycle. Unstoppable Global Warming explains why we're warming, why it's not very dangerous, and why we can't stop it anyway."


Check out this thought-provoking summary by a reviewer from Germany...
"Not for Wussies", March 10, 2007 Reviewer: R. Hammond "Pepsionice" (Mehlingen, Germany)
There are two things...which they layout very well and Global Warmers can't stand. First...history repeats itself. In this case...we absolutely find evidence of climate change over and over...every 1500 years...and there are Global Warmers who now must concede that climate change does occur (although the C02 issue still remains...even the writer agrees on that). But the writers lay out the sad part about this episode...in that global cooling will occur and those living in former glacier areas of North America...probably have property that is worthless if you look ahead 1000 years. The second thing which laid out well...is that all the chatter to counter carbon usage and get cutbacks by people...rely upon wind and solar energy becoming a dependable source of power. This is simply not going to occur. And as much as the global warmers hate the topic of nuclear power...it will be around for a long-time. I do agree...this whole thing has become a religious experience...not a science.

:-\

[Thorin]

Yes, Thorin, I am really just striving to encourage "rational skepticism", i.e. not trusting the messenger (even if it's NewsAnchor/Teacher/Daddy) but instead using critical thinking and objective analysis to verify the message.

I guess after reading your original post what stuck in my craw were the words "brainwashed" and "world-government-promoting fearmongering".  These are strong words, flashpoint words.  These words invoke images of people tied to chairs with water slowly dripping on their foreheads and corporations allowed to do whatever they want for the sake of monetary gain.  I mean, is a teacher or a news anchor immediately a world-government-promoting fearmongerer because they talk about global warming?  Isn't it better that they discuss it at length with the audience to allow us to digest it and hopefully research it and form an opinion?  For that matter, why is world-government promotion attached to fearmongering?  Is world government really that horrible of a concept?  Perhaps all our lives would be improved if we didn't have to endure the vicissitudes of multiple governing agencies on this world.

Because of your choice of words, your message (to me) attains a certain bent - instead of a post stating that you're trying to help your child become a rational skeptic, the post (to me) appears to have an underlying political angle.  Unfortunately (for me) this completely detracted from the point the rest of the post appeared to make, which is that the news media in general is a bunch of bandwagon jumpers and is not reliable for accurate scientific news.

And yeah, I read the linked article before I responded.  The more important point I found in the whole article is that environmental lobbyists have finally managed to convince governments to pass extremely expensive laws that may not actually help.

[Darren Dirt]

http://snipurl.com/climatemyth
^ Watch until about the 22minute mark (from 18m32s -- about 3 minutes of content).

Then discuss.


( see also http://www.grassrootinstitute.org/GrassrootPerspective/HockeyStickScandal.shtml , http://www.climatechangeissues.com/files/PDF/conf05mckitrick.pdf )

[Thorin]

McKitrick's paper is compelling in that he discusses at length the data and how he comes to a different conclusion and the flaws he found in Mann's technical analysis (that caused the famous hockeystick graph that Al Gore uses a scissor-lift to emphasize in his movie) and how if those flaws are removed the hockeystick graph actually looks more like a ringettestick graph.

McKitrick's paper is even more compelling in that he discusses how groupthink appears to have taken over the IPCC and how it is driving climatologists to agree without reviewing the data themselves.  I don't think that I'm a conspiracy theorist, but I find the lack of dissention with the theory of global warming disturbing mostly because frequently when scientists monolithically agree on a topic there's something nefarious going on.

[Thorin]

Thanks for those links, Darren.

[Darren Dirt]

Here's something interesting (and quick! only 5 minutes!)

a short video combining applicable footage from a few "climate change" documentaries, to respond to the primary claims of Al Gore (et al) re. "Human-Caused Climate Change":

http://www.globalwarmingheartland.org/assets/multimedia/snowjob-final.wmv

[Tom]

Interesting. Didn't even know that water vapour was a green house gas, let alone the most important one

Though I think it would have been good if they left out any footage from CNN. 

[Thorin]

Oh, so you haven't read enough on the subject yet to learn that the radiated heat is absorbed by both CO2 and water vapour, although part of the spectrum is absorbed by one and part by the other and part by both...  The idea there being that even if all the CO2 was removed from the air, most of the radiated heat would instead be absorbed by water vapour.

To me the most telling thing is that the more the scientists study it, the more data they collect and update their computer simulations with, the less climate change is shown in the simulations.  Now, I am not dismissing the idea out-of-hand, I simply think that there needs to be more discussion and less politicking.

[Tom]

Quite.

Now, if I had thought about the subject more I probably could have come to the conclusion that the water vapour would soak up a ton of heat as well. Not to mention I probably heard it on Discovery at some point, but I have a rather selective memory

But yeah, personally, I'm sorta split into two theories,
1. theres a normal cycle to weather patterns determined by the sun and possibly by regular "currents" or whatever in the earths core. (notice how the changes are happening while theres major solar activity brewing? Coincidence?)
2. While there is a regular pattern, the earth's balance is rather delicate, pushing a degree or two over some threshhold could tip the balance and bring on changes prematurely.

[Mr. Analog]

"The Daily Tech science blog reports on a recent correction made by NASA to it's global climate data. Apparently the algorithm NASA was using the crunch raw climate data suffered from a Y2K bug that skewed the numbers. The operators of climateaudit.org were forced to reverse engineer the algorithm after NASA's James Hansen (best known for his claims of White House censorship) refused to share it. NASA has since admitted to the error and republished the numbers. The changes result in a 1-2% downward correction in overall warming trends. 1934 also surpasses 1998 as the warmest year on record and 5 of the top 10 warmest years in the 20th century occur before WWII."

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=8383

DAMN YOU Y2K!

[Darren Dirt]

happily, quite a few articulate, well-reasoned comments to the DT article.

Especially this one:

By masher2  (blog) on 8/10/2007 12:11:12 PM

> "If the world spent $1 trillion to clean up our air, our water, our land, and protect the world for the future, would that be so bad even if global warming was discovered to be false?"

This is, unfortunately, the basic philosphy behind many global warming supporters. As famed enviromentalist Steven Schneider said:
quote:
We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have? Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.
Regardless, there are hundreds of scientists who have never received a grant from Exxon or anyone else who disbelieve in anthropogenic global warming-- and have the research to back it up. My past stories have detailed just a few of them.

The amount of funding for scientists who *do* believe in global warming far outweighs the tiny amount given to skeptics-- by some $50B dollars, in fact, according to statistics from the Senate EPW. And even those scientists who most ardently believe-- the chair heads who crafted the UN IPCC report-- admit to a 10% uncertainty than man is not influencing climate temperatures at all (look up the definition of the "very likely" term used in the IPCC's Fourth Report).