Matt Drudge broached the subject of global warming and a couple of morons called and made the stupid and ignorant claim that there either was no global warming and one took the fatalistic view that nothing could be done.
One of the callers mentioned Michael Crichton's 2004 novel, State of Fear. I've heard callers to other wingnut shows refer to this book as a good source for those wishing to debunk global warming but I haven't read it and I don't recall any of the specifics that the callers may have mentioned.
Fortunately, the Environmental Defense Fund took the time to examine the claims made in the novel and provides us with several rebuttals. Here's one example:
State of Fear: If carbon dioxide (CO2) is supposed to be causing a global warming, why was there a global cooling between 1940 and 1970 when CO2 concentrations were increasing?
The facts: It is true that temperatures have not strictly followed the trend in atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs). Over the past century, temperatures first rose, then fell slightly, then rose again, while GHGs rose steadily the entire time. But there's a simple explanation: there are many factors in addition to GHGs that affect climate. These include natural forces, such as changes in sunlight intensity and volcanic eruptions, and other human-produced effects such as those caused by sulfate aerosols from sulfur oxide emissions. Sunlight variations can either warm or cool the planet depending upon the direction of the change. Volcanic eruptions and sulfate aerosols, on the other hand, have a cooling effect. The actual variation in temperature reflects the net effect of all of these influences.
Since the non-GHG effects change over time, the pattern of observed temperature changes should not be expected to directly follow the trend in GHGs. The slight global cooling from the 1940s to the 1970s appears to be the result of a decrease in solar intensity and a rapid rise in global sulfur oxide emissions. (During this period, both the United States and Europe relied heavily on coal with little or no controls on pollutant emissions, and as a result, global sulfur oxide emissions are estimated to have increased by a factor of about three.) Together, these effects acted to offset the warming effect of increasing GHGs.
By contrast, over the past 25 years, direct satellite measurements of solar intensity exhibit little or no trend and global sulfur oxide emission increases have been modest, while CO2 and other GHG concentrations have continued to increase. The result has been the rapid rise in global average temperatures experienced in recent decades. It is not possible to explain this rapid warming without invoking a dominant role for human-produced CO2 and other GHGs.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
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3 comments:
The lying whores are the socialist wingnuts who are either paid by the people who hope to profit by a panicked stampede to eliminate the hypothetical crisis or reap the political benefits from the self-promotion of the patronage seekers. (See "A Convenient Untruth".
Both the pseudo scientists who justify new grant applications and the aspirants for election or re-election all suck at the same tit of public moneys, yet they decry the motives of those who disagree when their own are so suspect.
It appears ludicrous to think that we can interpret the climatological variances of a planet with millions of years of such variance and preduct the future with such a paucity of data.
Howard Roark,
Have you read any of the science?
Have you read the judgement regarding Al Gore's movie?
Clearly the answer is no!
A point-by point critique of the judgement can be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/39xjrn
Another here:
http://tinyurl.com/ywmd94
Instead your education and intellect would seem limited to fossil-fuel industry funded disinformation!
Your intellect would seem to reflect that of George Bush!
Since you are extremely stupid, you should restrict expressing your opinions to very simple subjects like telling the time!
...cut the BS "Anonymous". Howard is absolutely correct in his assessment and your links are old "grant oriented" scientist/ marketing arguments.
If you don't have enough of a "real world" Physics education, (meaning not government funded college indoctrination) and choose to buy into fear marketing, fine... but don't pump it up anyone else’s backside because they don't view those scientists as saviors.
Simply because someone disagrees, doesn't mean they're funded by the "fossil fuel" industry... nice try using that false logic argument. My 9-year-old niece uses that when arguing over chocolate chip cookies!
Besides, with the massive icecap melting already occurring, we should already have seen a several foot rise in global ocean levels.
Seems the construction engineers of the massive island communities in Dubai don't buy into it either.
Whom do you want to believe?
M.Davis
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