I was pretty sure the Seattle Times editorial board was so ashamed over its 1988 editorial vilifying then councilman Ron Sims for proposing to create a science office dedicated to preparing for and mitigating global warming, that they were probably waiting until the big Sunday paper to issue their apology.
Hmm. Guess not.
At the time Sims was quoted as saying “I don’t think anyone disputes the reality of the greenhouse effect,” but of course the Times totally bought into the corporate propagandists who did. And they didn’t just spit back the energy industry PR verbatim, they went out of their way to ridicule Sims for daring to show a little vision and leadership:
IF THE “greenhouse effect” is exacerbated by political hot air, the world is in real trouble.
The hyperbolic clouds of rhetorical gas belched out on this issue in recent weeks could easily choke someone – or at least cloud the vision of otherwise rational people.
[…]
The point is that the sky-is-falling, icecaps-are-melting, oceans-are-rising rhetoric must be tempered by common sense.
If Sims and Laing want to study the greenhouse effect, they should buy themselves some tomato plants and a bag of steer manure – which shouldn’t be at all hard for such experienced politicians to find.
Of course, what Sims and Laing were proposing some 18 years ago was common sense: a mere $100,000 a year to study the impact of an impending climate crisis that could completely reshape both our economy and our geography. A region that was built on abundant water, and the cheap electricity and irrigation it brings, could soon face the disappearance of our crucial snow pack. In less than a century the salmon, long a symbol of our region, could become little more than that.
Here as elsewhere, rising sea levels may reshape our coastlines, submerging much of Seattle’s waterfront, Pioneer Square, the SODO neighborhood, and our entire working harbor, a lynchpin of our state economy. The aerial photo above, prepared by King County, shows the projected impact of rising levels. (View the whole image here.) The red lines mark a 10 foot rise; in the 20-foot rise that would come if only half our land-based polar ice were to melt, everything behind the blue lines would be under water.
That’s right, we just spent a billion plus dollars building two stadiums smack dab in the middle of Elliot Bay.
And of course it’s not just Seattle whose maps are redrawn. According to county projections a 20-foot rise in sea levels would flood the Duwamish all the way to Southcenter.
Meanwhile state, city and county governments continue to plan for the future the way they have since the Times slapped Sims around 18 years ago: completely oblivious to the overwhelming scientific consensus that says global warming is real, the impact will be devastating, and that it is caused by our carbon emissions. We are sticking our heads in the sand… sand that may soon be under 20-feet of water.
Of course I don’t really expect the Times to apologize to Sims for its cynical, mean-spirited, head-up-its-ass editorial — everybody gets stuff wrong once in a while… though rarely in such a totally embarrassing manner. But what I had hoped for was a public endorsement of Sims’ current proposal for an Office of Global Warming, and an acknowledgment of Sims’ decades-long vision on this issue.
Perhaps next Sunday.
Excellent post, Goldy. Don’t let the winger noise machine stop you. Global warming could have significant impacts on the regional economy, and the MSM are (embarrassingly) asleep at the wheel.
Man caused global warming is the religion of moonbats. Just blind faith belief in something that doesn’t exist.
So I challenge you moonbats to show proof that global warming exists and is caused by human activity.
Show me scientific data that shows current temperatures are provably beyond historic normal variation.
Show me scientific data that proves a cause and effect relationship between human activity and global warming. I don’t want to see correlation, I want to see causation.
Also, don’t tell me about argumentum ad populum. That’s not science.
Redneck W. (welsher) Bush:
realclimate.org
MTR says a lot of stupid things, but here he takes the cake. He doesn’t really want to see any evidence, because his worldview simply won’t allow for it. Psychologists have a term for that: cognitive dissonance.
It would be one thing if MTR would acknowledge his own limitations, but instead he tries to sound like a know it all . . . and bullies people around if they dare disagree.
Yup, redneck all right.
Foolish Goldy.
Engineering has a simple answer to the problem of rising Science levels.
LEVEES!!!!!
Yeah, look how well levees worked for New Orleans.
mark the welsher has never left our states borders! He is scared shitless that he will fall off this pancake we call earth.
MTR exhibits the depths of dishonesty and mendacity corporate funded opposition propaganda employs.
During the decades long tobacco wars, this scientific proof canard actually went to the level of propoing double-blind studies. Think of it, setting up control groups of 18-year-olds and studying them for twenty years to reveal the relative disease rates of the groups.
If scientific consesus isn’t good enough, go talk to your Flat Earth Society chapter.
Actually I think global warming is a good thing. Eventually it will wipe out the human race and we can start over. Hopefully, all the inbreeding that caused the republican winger gene can be eliminated by the ELE and the remaining life forms will be able to think for themselves without resorting to getting their truth from the 2525 version of a drug addict chickenhawk talk show host like Lush Flimbaugh.
I personally liked the petroleum institute’s commercials going after Gore’s movie in which they swiped a study that supported global warming and hypocritically reversed its meaning.
The research showed that the predicted larger snowfalls in the interior of Greenland under global warming scenarions were in fact occuring along side the rapid loss of costal glaciers. The researcher’s conclusions were that this was just one more piece of evidence about the reality of global warming while the anti-fact rightwing just can’t deal with it.
We need grown-ups back in office at the national level who actually deal with reality instead of digging their heads in the sand and running up massive credit to the Chinese.
If you haven’t read Earth Abides, it might put a damper on you expectation of a better world after a clean sweep.
I have a gift idea for Gore, Sims, Nickles and Goldy.
http://zapatopi.net/afdb/
GIMMEE A BREAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sims was born in Spokane, Washington. He graduated from Lewis and Clark High School and attended Central Washington University in Ellensburg, where he earned a B.A. in “psychology”.
SIMS has an undergraduate degree from CENTRAL WASHINGTON IN friggin’ PSYCHOLOGY!!!!!!!!
Show me where in his vast resume, Sims has become an expert in GLOBAL WARMING???
How much HARD SCIENCE did Ron take to get his CWU PSYCHOLOGY degree??!!!
You KLOWNS remind me of what Andy Griffith used to say to Barney Fife………”you beat everything, you know that!!”
If Jesus had wanted us to know about Global Warming, he would have told Pat Robertson.
Did you see where Pat still insists he can leg press 2,000 lbs?
Goldy—
Thanks for the aerial map. It will serve those in charge of Global Warming with some clear targets!
The GOOD NEWS is that the Cascadian Fault Line will likely cut loose with a 9.0 Earthquake and Tsunami and kill all of you before Global Warming does!
The last Cascadian Fault Line major Earthquake was January 26, 1700. The resulting Tsunami is clearly documented in Japanese and Native American History and has been absolutely confirmed with carbon dating. Carbon dating near the Hoh River has also confirmed the Cascadian Fault Line cuts loose every 300-500 years…..most closer to 300 than 500 years! The record goes back many Millenium. We are now at 306 years.
I think you KLOWNS are worrying about the wrong disaster but if it keeps you busy & happy, I guess that’s ok.
13.
Hmmmm.
Even if any of you told me that you were climatologists (or alleged any other special knowledge,) I wouldn’t believe you, so what is the relevance of Ron Sims’ college degree in the discussion here?
In fact, there a so many whores with degrees giving “expert” testimony is all phases of societal interaction that advanced degrees are almost useless in considering an individual. Particularly since they are given by such august institutions as Liberty U, and Pat Robertson’s and Jerry Falwell’s diploma mills, as well as those of other charlatans. Even when considering a lawyer or doctor, the opinion of clients, patients and other doctors are more compelling to me than the degree.
In the case of Sims, he should be praised because he was right, just as Al Gore should.
But, one does have to possess the ability to see past one’s partisan myopia.
Global warming is a really bad reality — no doubt about it — but I think it’s important avoid exaggeration. From today’s Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....01305.html
“the scientific consensus (IPCC, 2001) is that by 2100 sea level will have risen somewhere between three and 34 inches from its 1990 level.”
That’s the most probable guess from fairly modern climate models. So, by the time the stadiums could conceivably be underwater, we will have long ago torn them down. I’m not trying to be a smarty-pants. I just want to avoid errors that, when exposed, give ammunition to those who have their heads in the sand on climate.
I also don’t think a toned down argument is significantly less persuasive; the most probable reality is already bad enough. For example, losing half of our snowpack is a near and present danger (more than 40% loss by the 2050’s):
“The West’s Snow Resources in a Changing Climate” Testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, May 6, 2004. Philip W. Mote, PhD, University of Washington. http://www.cses.washington.edu.....050604.pdf
and there’s plenty more where that came from.
Anyway, I’m loving Goldy’s latest campaign to annoy the Seattle Times editorial board. Sims was remarkably prescient, and the Times board was remarkably stupid.
HARRY!!!
Funny Stuff!!!
You KLOWNS are always challenging credentials. Evergreen College…aka THE KLOWN FACTORY gives out Ecology Degrees with NO HARD SCIENCE so I guess I’m not surprised that a KLOWN like you would believe with blind faith the great Scientists Albert Einstein Gore and Ron “Central Washington Psychology Degree” Sims!!! Having a couple of LENIN’S USEFUL IDIOT’S lookin’ out for you has got to make you sleep like a baby at night!!
The GOOD NEWS is that the Cascadian Fault Line will likely cut loose with a 9.0 Earthquake and Tsunami and kill all of you KLOWNS before Global Warming does!
The last Cascadian Fault Line major Earthquake was January 26, 1700. The resulting Tsunami is clearly documented in Japanese and Native American History and has been absolutely confirmed with carbon dating. Carbon dating near the Hoh River has also confirmed the Cascadian Fault Line cuts loose every 300-500 years…..most closer to 300 than 500 years! The record goes back many Millenium. We are now at 306 years.
I think you are focusing on the wrong imminent threat. But if it keeps y’all busy & happy, I’m all for it!!!
Good thing you have the great Scientists Albert Einstein Gore and Ron “Central Washington Psychology Degree” Sims lookin’ out for you!!
In the case of Sims, he should be praised because he was right, just as Al Gore should. -Commentby Harry Tuttle aka Voter Advocate— 5/28/06@ 1:45 pm
The fact is little turtle, is that you, Sims, theBore and the rest of us will be long dead IF they are ever proven right/when they are proven wrong.
Nice try.
January 2004: God makes an ASS of Al Gore who tries to convince anyone of global warming ON THE COLDEST DAY ON RECORD IN MANHATTEN… inconveniently followed by…
01/20/2004
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The United States east of the Rocky Mountains will see extreme cold in the next two to three weeks with at least one forecaster calling it the coldest in 25 years, meteorologists said on Tuesday.
“In the next six to 10 days, it will be colder than normal north of a line from Washington, D.C. to Denver,” said Joe Bastardi of AccuWeather. “In the next 15 to 20 days, everybody is extremely cold including freezes into Florida and Texas.
“In the worst-case scenario, in much of the energy consuming areas of the country, from the Rockies to New England, can look at the coldest 10- to 20-day periods since the winters of 1977 and 1978,” Bastardi said.
God DOES have a sense of humor… and Gore is His jester.
OOPS… He laughed again…
Written By: Steven Milloy
Published In: Environment News
Publication Date: November 1, 2004
It’s been a disappointing summer for global warming alarmists.
Hollywood, Mother Nature, and the media just haven’t cooperated. Even with the unusual situation of four successive hurricanes pounding Florida, global warming hysteria seems to be on ice for now.
Unusually Cool Summer
Across the United States, temperatures this summer were cooler than normal. Aberdeen, South Dakota, for example, experienced its coolest August in 115 years, with an average temperature seven degrees below normal (63.4º vs. 70.5º F).
Michigan officials attribute a dip in visits to state parks and other outdoor attractions to cooler weather.
“The water temperature along the [Lake Michigan] beach usually is in the 60s from Memorial Day to Labor Day, reaching the low 70s during the hottest days of July and August. Except for a few days in early July and again in mid-August, the water temperature never reached 70 this year,” a Michigan official told the Associated Press.
During the month of July, Portland, Maine never topped 82 degrees, the coldest high temperature ever recorded for the month. The average daily high was four degrees below normal, at 74.6º F.
An apparent heat wave in Monterey, California, which garnered significant attention during early September, was “actually fairly typical, it just seems to stand out because we’ve had a particularly cool summer so far,” a National Weather Service spokesperson told the Monterey County Herald.
It’s difficult to get people worked up about “global warming” when it’s too cool to get in the pool.
How Can–
This is yet another MONEY and POWER grab by these silly bastards.
I think it is very important that those of us who are always RIGHT have burglar alarms in our homes.
The reason is, I believe these LEFTIST PINHEADS may resort to stealing our organs while we sleep and selling them to pay for all the goofy shit they dream up.
Dangerous Warming Unlikely, MIT Climatologist Says
Global warming debate is more politics than science, according to climate expert
Written By: Dr. Richard Lindzen
Published In: Environment News
Publication Date: November 1, 2004
Editor’s note: Global warming is unlikely to be a dangerous future problem, with or without the implementation of such programs as the Kyoto Protocol, according to Dr. Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lindzen, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and one of the world’s leading climatologists, told a September 9 audience at the Houston Forum that alarmist media claims to the contrary are fueled more by politics than by science.
The following excerpts from his presentation are presented with Dr. Lindzen’s permission.
Recent Temp Changes Small
The global mean temperature is never constant, and it has no choice but to increase or decrease–both of which it does on all known time scales. That this quantity has increased about 0.6ºC (or about 1ºF) over the past century is likely. A relevant question is whether this is anything to be concerned about.
It doesn’t even matter whether recent global mean temperatures are “record breakers” or even whether current temperatures are “unprecedented.” All that matters is that the change over the past century has been small.
The fact that such claims are misleading or even false simply provides a temptation to discuss them and implicitly to attach importance to them. Remember, we are talking about tenths of a degree, and all of you know intuitively that that isn’t very much.
Doubling of CO2 Little Cause for Concern
Let us begin by considering the fundamental question of whether the observed increases in CO2 are likely to be a source of alarm. We will see how the matter of consensus has been employed to mislead and misinform the public. It matters little that the claimed consensus is not based on any known polling of scientists.
Our concerns over global warming are based on models rather than data, and if these models are correct, then man has accounted for over 4 times the observed warming over the past century (even allowing for ocean delay) with some unknown process or processes having cancelled the difference. We assume, moreover, that these unknown processes will cease, in making predictions about future warming.
This statement illustrates that the observations do not support the likelihood of dangerous warming, but our ignorance may be sufficient to allow the possibility. In point of fact, our ignorance is probably not that great.
Computer Models Altered
How do we reconcile this with the claim that present models do a good job of simulating the past century? It’s simple: The “accurate” model reconstructions require “forcings” of data and speculative guesses about such factors as the influence of anthropogenic aerosol emissions. In an inverse manner, trial-and-error assumptions and data are forced into the computer until the inaccurate model projections are reconciled with the observed climate. However, such inverse forcings are highly unscientific and unlikely to reach similar results regarding anything other than the particular range of data and temperature history the computer is attempting to reconstruct.
This would have been an embarrassment even to the Ptolemaic epicyclists, yet an almost identical analysis has just been presented to our government through such unscientific reconstructionist model forcings.
So, where does all this leave us?
(1) The data currently represented as “consensus,” even if correct, do not imply alarm. However, where the consensus view is too benign, the opposite of the real consensus is claimed to be the consensus. In much current research, “alarm” is the aim rather than the result.
(2) The scientific community is committed to the maintenance of the notion that alarm may be warranted. Alarm is felt to be essential to the maintenance of funding. The argument is no longer over whether the models are correct (they are not), but rather whether their results are at all possible. One can rarely prove something to be impossible.
(3) No regulatory solution to the “problem” of preventing increases in CO2 is available, but the ubiquity of CO2 emissions–which are associated with industry and life itself–remains a tempting target for those with a regulatory instinct who have always been attracted to the energy sector.
(4) Resistance to such temptations will require more courage and understanding than are currently found in major industrial or governmental players who largely accept what is presented as the consensus view. The main victims of any proactive policies are likely to be consumers, and they have little concentrated influence. As usual, they have long been co-opted by organizations like Consumers Union that now actively support Kyoto.
Arrgh. More garbage from someone who doesn’t understand basic math. Take a temporal and spatial average in 2004 was a very hot year — the 4th hottest since the late 1800’s. See:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.g.....g_id=16815
What warms the earth
Disclaimer: they didn’t include ‘hot air’ from bloviaters like Bore and greenie
Global warming does have some upsides. Looks like the maritime operations of the Port of Seattle will be completely flooded out. That will save King County taxpayers some $62.7 million per year in property taxes.
The Mariners and Seahawks stadiums also get flooded. With any sense of divine justice, it will happen while the Mariners and Seahawks are still around. We have already lost the billion dollars it took to build the two stadiums, and the annual rent is basically nothing.
Unfortunately, I don’t think we will see the extra 20 feet of water in my lifetime.
Climate change sceptics bet $10,000 on cooler world
New Science Quiets the Alarm Over Global Warming
Recent climatological studies have undermined the claims of those who believe that the human use of fossil fuels is causing an unnatural and dramatic rise in Earth’s temperatures. In light of this new science, we need to review the basic assumptions that have driven our climate-change policy over the last five to 10 years.
http://www.cse.org/images/cse/473_1.gif
Advocates of global warming often refer to temperature readings from Earth’s surface. According to these measurements, temperatures have risen about 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit over the last century. But relatively accurate temperature records only go back about 100 years. In order to see long-term temperature changes, we must rely on other sources.
A group of scientists led by Dr. Henry N. Pollock from the University of Michigan, looked at data from 616 holes bored into the surface of the Earth on six continents. Because heat travels very slowly through the ground, they were able to use these bore holes to measure Earth’s temperature from centuries ago. What they found was that temperatures have been rising since the 1500s — long before humans began using fossil fuels in the form of fuel and energy. The scientists’ concluded that the Earth may simply be recovering from an earlier period of cooler temperatures.
http://www.cse.org/images/cse/473_3.gif
However, surface temperature measurements have shown a more rapid increase in temperatures over the last 20 years, and computer models predict even more dramatic warming in the future. Is this cause for concern? Science has provided an answer to this question as well.
While surface measurements provide important data, they do not measure temperatures from all across the globe. In addition, these measurements are not all taken in the same way, meaning that it is difficult to compare data taken from one location with data taken from another. Far more accurate temperatures have been taken by satellites. These measurements, which are confirmed by weather balloons, have shown no net warming in Earth’s lower atmosphere.
Not only does this raise questions about just how much warming is really happening, it also shows that the computer models used to estimate future warming are unreliable. These models predict that as surface temperatures rise, there should be an equal increase in lower-atmospheric temperatures. As Dr. James Hansen of NASA indicated in 1998, computer models cannot simulate our complex climate because we still do not know enough about how it works.
Scientists Say Antarctica Is Cooling, Not Warming
Daily Policy Digest
Environmental Issues / Global Warming
Monday, January 14, 2002
Parts of Antarctica have cooled sharply in recent years, according to a study published online by Nature, a British weekly science journal. The research was led by Peter Doran of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
The finding punches holes in the doomsday prediction that the frozen continent faces imminent meltdown from global warming. It also counters fears that a breakup of the continent’s ice cap will result in sea levels rising dramatically around the globe.
Measurements taken by weather stations in the McMurdo Dry Valleys — the largest ice-free area in Antarctica — show that on average this region cooled by 0.125 Fahrenheit a year between 1986 and 2000.
Scientists found the cooling was especially strong during the autumn and summer seasons, and they theorize it is due to a complex interplay between ocean currents.
The distorted view that the continent is warming might be traced to the fact that most weather monitoring stations are based in the Antarctic Peninsula — the tongue of land projecting northward from the continent toward South America — an area which is, indeed, warming dramatically, Doran says.
He says that the Antarctic findings don’t conflict with other theories of global warming, since he believes the other continents are warming.
Source: Agence France-Presse, “Cooler Antarctica Foils Meltdown Forecasts,” Washington Times, January 14, 2002.
Patrick J. Michaels — a climatologist, professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, says: “No one in Washington gets large grants by saying something isn’t a problem. Meanwhile, the $10 billion thrown at climate modeling research in the last 15 years was wasted.”
When Is Global Warming Really a Cooling?
THE BEST DATA SHOW NO RECENT RISE AT ALL IN GLOBAL TEMPERATURE
And even crooked science cannot make it
Those awkward satellites: “A study of global temperature data in the May 5 issue of Nature claims to solve a discrepancy between surface-station temperature readings and global temperature readings taken from orbital satellites. Experts reviewing the Nature study, however, say it fails to impugn the satellite readings. Ever since the first temperature-reading satellite was launched in 1979, scientists have tried to explain the discrepancy between satellite and ground-based readings of global temperatures.” Satellite readings have shown virtually no warming trend since 1979, while ground-based readings have registered significant warming.
According to scientific studies, the discrepancy results from an urban heat island effect. Concrete, factories, office buildings, and automobiles produce heat in and around cities, causing temperatures to be somewhat warmer than the surrounding region. Moderate warming trends at land-based weather stations, typically located at airports in and around growing cities, merely reflect the growing population of the nearby city, studies show.
The recent Nature study attempts to contest the urban heat island evidence and cast doubt on the satellite readings. To support their theory, the study’s authors introduced a “fudge factor” that attempts to explain and dismiss a significant amount of documented atmospheric cooling. The fudge factor, say experts, is where the Nature authors go wrong.
“You can’t subtract more signal than is there, but that’s what they’ve done,” said Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist in the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). The problem, said Spencer, is that the study’s fudge factor removes more stratospheric cooling than actually appears in the data, thus creating a spurious warming signal.
“Simply put, this method overcorrects for stratospheric cooling,” said Dr. John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science at UAH and director of the ESSC. “We tried this same technique in the early 1990s but it didn’t work. “This kind of mistake would not get published with adequate peer review of manuscripts submitted for publication,” observed Spencer.
Eight Reasons Why ‘Global Warming’ Is a Scam
Written By: Joseph L. Bast
February 1, 2003
Eight Reasons to End the Scam
Concern over “global warming” is overblown and misdirected. What follows are eight reasons why we should pull the plug on this scam before it destroys billions of dollars of wealth and millions of jobs.
1. Most scientists do not believe human activities threaten to disrupt the Earth’s climate. More than 17,000 scientists have signed a petition circulated by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine saying, in part, “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” (Go to http://www.oism.org for the complete petition and names of signers.) Surveys of climatologists show similar skepticism.
2. Our most reliable sources of temperature data show no global warming trend. Satellite readings of temperatures in the lower troposphere (an area scientists predict would immediately reflect any global warming) show no warming since readings began 23 years ago. These readings are accurate to within 0.01ºC, and are consistent with data from weather balloons. Only land-based temperature stations show a warming trend, and these stations do not cover the entire globe, are often contaminated by heat generated by nearby urban development, and are subject to human error.
3. Global climate computer models are too crude to predict future climate changes. All predictions of global warming are based on computer models, not historical data. In order to get their models to produce predictions that are close to their designers’ expectations, modelers resort to “flux adjustments” that can be 25 times larger than the effect of doubling carbon dioxide concentrations, the supposed trigger for global warming. Richard A. Kerr, a writer for Science, says “climate modelers have been ‘cheating’ for so long it’s almost become respectable.”
4. The IPCC did not prove that human activities are causing global warming. Alarmists frequently quote the executive summaries of reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations organization, to support their predictions. But here is what the IPCC’s latest report, Climate Change 2001, actually says about predicting the future climate: “The Earth’s atmosphere-ocean dynamics is chaotic: its evolution is sensitive to small perturbations in initial conditions. This sensitivity limits our ability to predict the detailed evolution of weather; inevitable errors and uncertainties in the starting conditions of a weather forecast amplify through the forecast. As well as uncertainty in initial conditions, such predictions are also degraded by errors and uncertainties in our ability to represent accurately the significant climate processes.”
5. A modest amount of global warming, should it occur, would be beneficial to the natural world and to human civilization. Temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period (roughly 800 to 1200 AD), which allowed the Vikings to settle presently inhospitable Greenland, were higher than even the worst-case scenario reported by the IPCC. The period from about 5000-3000 BC, known as the “climatic optimum,” was even warmer and marked “a time when mankind began to build its first civilizations,” observe James Plummer and Frances B. Smith in a study for Consumer Alert. “There is good reason to believe that a warmer climate would have a similar effect on the health and welfare of our own far more advanced and adaptable civilization today.”
6. Efforts to quickly reduce human greenhouse gas emissions would be costly and would not stop Earth’s climate from changing. Reducing U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to 7 percent below 1990’s levels by the year 2012–the target set by the Kyoto Protocol–would require higher energy taxes and regulations causing the nation to lose 2.4 million jobs and $300 billion in annual economic output. Average household income nationwide would fall by $2,700, and state tax revenues would decline by $93.1 billion due to less taxable earned income and sales, and lower property values. Full implementation of the Kyoto Protocol by all participating nations would reduce global temperature in the year 2100 by a mere 0.14 degrees Celsius.
7. Efforts by state governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are even more expensive and threaten to bust state budgets. After raising their spending with reckless abandon during the 1990s, states now face a cumulative projected deficit of more than $90 billion. Incredibly, most states nevertheless persist in backing unnecessary and expensive greenhouse gas reduction programs. New Jersey, for example, collects $358 million a year in utility taxes to fund greenhouse gas reduction programs. Such programs will have no impact on global greenhouse gas emissions. All they do is destroy jobs and waste money.
8. The best strategy to pursue is “no regrets.” The alternative to demands for immediate action to “stop global warming” is not to do nothing. The best strategy is to invest in atmospheric research now and in reducing emissions sometime in the future if the science becomes more compelling. In the meantime, investments should be made to reduce emissions only when such investments make economic sense in their own right.
This strategy is called “no regrets,” and it is roughly what the Bush administration has been doing. The U.S. spends more on global warming research each year than the entire rest of the world combined, and American businesses are leading the way in demonstrating new technologies for reducing and sequestering greenhouse gas emissions.
Time for Common Sense
The global warming scare has enabled environmental advocacy groups to raise billions of dollars in contributions and government grants. It has given politicians (from Al Gore down) opportunities to pose as prophets of doom and slayers of evil corporations. And it has given bureaucrats at all levels of government, from the United Nations to city councils, powers that threaten our jobs and individual liberty.
It is time for common sense to return to the debate over protecting the environment. An excellent first step would be to end the “global warming” scam.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” – H. L. Mencken
“The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants.” – Albert Camus
Clueless, Thumb and Harry all responded predictably. Lots of name calling, but no science and no facts. I dared to challenge their religion and they sure don’t like that.
Lots of posts here with solid refutations. You moonbats should put down the kool aid and try to think clearly.
howcan @ 36
nice quotes!
you really nailed your “chimp & chief” with those.
HEY GOLDY!!!
Did this KLOWN help Global Warming???
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Judge pays off debt for cutting park trees
Money funds full-time gardener, native plantings
By JENNIFER LANGSTON
P-I REPORTER
Nearly four years after more than 120 cherry and maple trees were cut down in Colman Park to create a better lake view, a federal judge has fully paid off his debt to the city.
Senior Judge Jerome Farris of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has paid a total of $618,000, city officials said Friday.
It’s the result of a settlement reached in 2003, in which the judge agreed to pay $500,000 plus 12 percent interest.
Here is his BIOGRAPHY:
Farris, Joseph Jerome
Born 1930 in Birmingham, AL
Federal Judicial Service:
U. S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Nominated by Jimmy Carter on July 12, 1979, to a new seat created by 92 Stat. 1629; Confirmed by the Senate on September 26, 1979, and received commission on September 27, 1979. Assumed senior status on March 4, 1995.
Education:
Morehouse College, B.S., 1951
Atlanta University, M.S.W., 1955
University of Washington, J.D., 1958
Professional Career:
U.S. Army Signal Corps, 1952-1953
Private practice, Seattle, Washington, 1958-1969
Judge, Court of Appeals, State of Washington, 1969-1979
Race or Ethnicity: African American
Gender: Male
The big difference between George Washington and Jerome Farris is that Farris LIED about cutting down the cherry tree!!!
And Farris was pursued and punished by the justice system. Is there any point in your rant or are you just continuing your quest to drive away reasoned discussion with your idiocy?
K–
The fact is no criminal charges were filed for a JUDGE cutting down a small forest in the middle of Seattle……
whereas others have been punished severely for lesser actions.
Shouldn’t Judges be held to a higher standard than the average ignorant schmuck????
Especially holier than Thou 9th Circuit Judges????
No CRIMINAL charges were filed K.
Is it any coincidence that you call yourself K-LOWN!??
Why is it that you wingnut don’t understand the concept of peer review? A PhD can say is dick is 3 feet long, but he’s got to prove it.
Seattle-Times Wednesday, October 12, 2005 –
Q&A: Global warming — a world of evidence
As one study after another has pointed to carbon dioxide and other man-made emissions as the most plausible explanation, the cautious community of science has embraced an idea initially dismissed as far-fetched.
The result is a convergence of opinion rarely seen in a profession where attacking each other’s work is part of the process.
jor scientific body to examine the evidence has come to the same conclusion: The planet is getting hotter; man is to blame; and it’s going to get worse.
Climate researcher John M. Wallace of the University of Washington, UW research scientist Dr. Amy Snover and Ph.D. candidate in atmospheric sciences Justin Wettstein fielded your questions about global warming in a live Q&A session Tuesday. Thanks to everyone who participated.
You righties can keep posting the individual screeds of bought-and-paid-for science dilettantes, but the concensus of scientists don’t agree with them.
That’s why this is an inconvenient truth.
Harry – Look up the phrase “argumentum ad populum”.
Myth vs. Fact Regarding the “Hockey Stick”
Filed under:
* Paleoclimate
— mike @ 5:15 pm
Numerous myths regarding the so-called “hockey stick” reconstruction of past temperatures, can be found on various non-peer reviewed websites, internet newsgroups and other non-scientific venues. The most widespread of these myths are debunked below:
MYTH #0: Evidence for modern human influence on climate rests entirely upon the “Hockey Stick” Reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere mean temperatures indicating anomalous late 20th century warmth.
This peculiar suggestion is sometimes found in op-ed pieces and other dubious propaganda, despite its transparant absurdity. Paleoclimate evidence is simply one in a number of independent lines of evidence indicating the strong likelihood that human influences on climate play a dominant role in the observed 20th century warming of the earth’s surface. Perhaps the strongest piece of evidence in support of this conclusion is the evidence from so-called “Detection and Attribution Studies”. Such studies demonstrate that the pattern of 20th century climate change closely matches that predicted by state-of-the-art models of the climate system in response to 20th century anthropogenic forcing (due to the combined influence of anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations and industrial aerosol increases).
MYTH #1: The “Hockey Stick” Reconstruction is based solely on two publications by climate scientist Michael Mann and colleagues (Mann et al, 1998;1999).
This is patently false. Nearly a dozen model-based and proxy-based reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere mean temperature by different groups all suggest that late 20th century warmth is anomalous in a long-term (multi-century to millennial) context (see Figures 1 and 2 in “Temperature Variations in Past Centuries and The So-Called ‘Hockey Stick'”).
Some proxy-based reconstructions suggest greater variability than others. This greater variability may be attributable to different emphases in seasonal and spatial emphasis (see Jones and Mann, 2004; Rutherford et al, 2004; Cook et al, 2004). However, even for those reconstructions which suggest a colder “Little Ice Age” and greater variability in general in past centuries, such as that of Esper et al (2002), late 20th century hemispheric warmth is still found to be anomalous in the context of the reconstruction (see Cook et al, 2004).
MYTH #2: Regional proxy evidence of warm or anomalous (wet or dry) conditions in past centuries contradicts the conclusion that late 20th century hemispheric mean warmth is anomalous in a long-term (multi-century to millennial) context.
Such claims reflect a lack of awareness of the distinction between regional and large-scale climate change. Similar such claims were recently made in two articles by astronomer Willie Soon and co-authors (Soon and Baliunas, 2003; Soon et al, 2003). These claims were subsequently rebutted by a group of more than a dozen leading climate scientists in an article in the journal “Eos” of the American Geophysical Union (Mann et al, ‘Eos‘, 2003). The rebuttal raised, among other points, the following two key points:
(1) In drawing conclusions regarding past regional temperature changes from proxy records, it is essential to assess proxy data for actual sensitivity to past temperature variability. In some cases (Soon and Baliunas, 2003, Soon et al, 2003) a global ‘warm anomaly’ has been defined for any period during which various regions appear to indicate climate anomalies that can be classified as being either ‘warm’, ‘wet’, or ‘dry’ relative to ’20th century’ conditions. Such a criterion could be used to define any period of climate as ‘warm’ or ‘cold’, and thus cannot meaningfully characterize past large-scale surface temperature changes.
(2) It is essential to distinguish (e.g. by compositing or otherwise assimilating different proxy information in a consistent manner—e.g., Jones et al., 1998; Mann et al., 1998, 1999; Briffa et al., 2001) between regional temperature changes and changes in global or hemispheric mean temperature. Specific periods of cold and warmth differ from region to region over the globe (see Jones and Mann, 2004), as changes in atmospheric circulation over time exhibit a wave-like character, ensuring that certain regions tend to warm (due, for example, to a southerly flow in the Northern Hemisphere winter mid-latitudes) when other regions cool (due to the corresponding northerly flow that must occur elsewhere). Truly representative estimates of global or hemispheric average temperature must therefore average temperature changes over a sufficiently large number of distinct regions to average out such offsetting regional changes. The specification of a warm period, therefore requires that warm anomalies in different regions should be truly synchronous and not merely required to occur within a very broad interval in time, such as AD 800-1300 (as in Soon et al, 2003; Soon and Baliunas, 2003).
MYTH #3: The “Hockey Stick” studies claim that the 20th century on the whole is the warmest period of the past 1000 years.
This is a mis-characterization of the actual scientific conclusions. Numerous studies suggest that hemispheric mean warmth for the late 20th century (that is, the past few decades) appears to exceed the warmth of any comparable length period over the past thousand years or longer, taking into account the uncertainties in the estimates (see Figure 1 in “Temperature Variations in Past Centuries and The So-Called ‘Hockey Stick'”). On the other hand, in the context of the long-term reconstructions, the early 20th century appears to have been a relatively cold period while the mid 20th century was comparable in warmth, by most estimates, to peak Medieval warmth (i.e., the so-called “Medieval Warm Period”). It is not the average 20th century warmth, but the magnitude of warming during the 20th century, and the level of warmth observed during the past few decades, which appear to be anomalous in a long-term context. Studies such as those of Soon and associates (Soon and Baliunas, 2003; Soon et al, 2003) that consider only ‘20th century’ conditions, or interpret past temperature changes using evidence incapable of resolving trends in recent decades , cannot meaningfully address the question of whether late 20th century warmth is anomalous in a long-term and large-scale context.
MYTH #4: Errors in the “Hockey Stick” undermine the conclusion that late 20th century hemispheric warmth is anomalous.
This statement embraces at least two distinct falsehoods. The first falsehood holds that the “Hockey Stick” is the result of one analysis or the analysis of one group of researchers (i.e., that of Mann et al, 1998 and Mann et al, 1999). However, as discussed in the response to Myth #1 above, the basic conclusions of Mann et al (1998,1999) are affirmed in multiple independent studies. Thus, even if there were errors in the Mann et al (1998) reconstruction, numerous other studies independently support the conclusion of anomalous late 20th century hemispheric-scale warmth.
The second falsehood holds that there are errors in the Mann et al (1998, 1999) analyses, and that these putative errors compromise the “hockey stick” shape of hemispheric surface temperature reconstructions. Such claims seem to be based in part on the misunderstanding or misrepresentation by some individuals of a corrigendum that was published by Mann and colleagues in Nature. This corrigendum simply corrected the descriptions of supplementary information that accompanied the Mann et al article detailing precisely what data were used. As clearly stated in the corrigendum, these corrections have no influence at all on the actual analysis or any of the results shown in Mann et al (1998). Claims that the corrigendum reflects any errors at all in the Mann et al (1998) reconstruction are entirely false.
False claims of the existence of errors in the Mann et al (1998) reconstruction can also be traced to spurious allegations made by two individuals, McIntyre and McKitrick (McIntyre works in the mining industry, while McKitrick is an economist). The false claims were first made in an article (McIntyre and McKitrick, 2003) published in a non-scientific (social science) journal “Energy and Environment” and later, in a separate “Communications Arising” comment that was rejected by Nature based on negative appraisals by reviewers and editor [as a side note, we find it peculiar that the authors have argued elsewhere that their submission was rejected due to ‘lack of space’. Nature makes their policy on such submissions quite clear: “The Brief Communications editor will decide how to proceed on the basis of whether the central conclusion of the earlier paper is brought into question; of the length of time since the original publication; and of whether a comment or exchange of views is likely to seem of interest to nonspecialist readers. Because Nature receives so many comments, those that do not meet these criteria are referred to the specialist literature.” Since Nature chose to send the comment out for review in the first place, the “time since the original publication” was clearly not deemed a problematic factor. One is logically left to conclude that the grounds for rejection were the deficiencies in the authors’ arguments explicitly noted by the reviewers]. The rejected criticism has nonetheless been posted on the internet by the authors, and promoted in certain other non-peer-reviewed venues (see this nice discussion by science journalist David Appell of a scurrilous parroting of their claims by Richard Muller in an on-line opinion piece).
The claims of McIntyre and McKitrick, which hold that the “Hockey-Stick” shape of the MBH98 reconstruction is an artifact of the use of series with infilled data and the convention by which certain networks of proxy data were represented in a Principal Components Analysis (“PCA”), are readily seen to be false , as detailed in a response by Mann and colleagues to their rejected Nature criticism demonstrating that (1) the Mann et al (1998) reconstruction is robust with respect to the elimination of any data that were infilled in the original analysis, (2) the main features of the Mann et al (1998) reconstruction are entirely insensitive to whether or not proxy data networks are represented by PCA, (3) the putative ‘correction’ by McIntyre and McKitrick, which argues for anomalous 15th century warmth (in contradiction to all other known reconstructions), is an artifact of the censoring by the authors of key proxy data in the original Mann et al (1998) dataset, and finally, (4) Unlike the original Mann et al (1998) reconstruction, the so-called ‘correction’ by McIntyre and McKitrick fails statistical verification exercises, rendering it statistically meaningless and unworthy of discussion in the legitimate scientific literature.
The claims of McIntyre and McKitrick have now been further discredited in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, in a paper to appear in the American Meteorological Society journal, “Journal of Climate” by Rutherford and colleagues (2004) [and by yet another paper by an independent set of authors that is currently “under review” and thus cannot yet be cited–more on this soon!]. Rutherford et al (2004) demonstrate nearly identical results to those of MBH98, using the same proxy dataset as Mann et al (1998) but addressing the issues of infilled/missing data raised by Mcintyre and McKitrick, and using an alternative climate field reconstruction (CFR) methodology that does not represent any proxy data networks by PCA at all.
References:
Cook, E.R., J. Esper, and R.D. D’Arrigo, Extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere land temperature variability over the past 1000 years, Quat. Sci. Rev., 23, 2063-2074, 2004.
Crowley, T.J., and T. Lowery, How Warm Was the Medieval Warm Period?, Ambio, 29, 51-54, 2000.
Esper, J., E.R. Cook and F.H. Schweingruber, Low-frequency signals in long tree-line chronologies for reconstructing past temperature variability, Science, 295, 2250-2253, 2002.
Jones, P.D., K.R. Briffa, T.P. Barnett and S.F.B. Tett, High-resolution palaeoclimatic records for the last millennium: Integration, interpretation and comparison with General Circulation Model control run temperatures, Holocene, 8, 455-471, 1998.
Jones, P.D., Mann, M.E., Climate Over Past Millennia, Reviews of Geophysics, 42, RG2002, doi: 10.1029/2003RG000143, 2004.
Mann, M.E., R.S. Bradley, and M.K. Hughes, Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries, Nature, 392, 779-787, 1998.
Mann, M.E., R.S. Bradley, and M.K. Hughes, Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations, Geophysical Research Letters, 26, 759-762,
1999.
Mann, M.E., Ammann, C.M., Bradley, R.S., Briffa, K.R., Crowley, T.J., Hughes, M.K., Jones, P.D., Oppenheimer, M., Osborn, T.J., Overpeck, J.T., Rutherford, S., Trenberth, K.E., Wigley, T.M.L., On Past Temperatures and Anomalous Late 20th Century Warmth, Eos, 84, 256-258, 2003.
Rutherford, S., Mann, M.E., Osborn, T.J., Bradley, R.S., Briffa, K.R., Hughes, M.K., Jones, P.D., Proxy-based Northern Hemisphere Surface Temperature Reconstructions: Sensitivity to Methodology, Predictor Network, Target Season and Target Domain, Journal of Climate, in press, 2004.
Soon, W., and S. Baliunas, Proxy climatic and environmental changes over the past 1000 years, Climate Research, 23, 89-110, 2003.
Soon, W., S. Baliunas, C, Idso, S. Idso and D.R. Legates, Reconstructing climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000 years, Energy and Environment, 14, 233-296, 2003.
I’m still waiting for scientific data. The link above had links to Algore’s movie and a doonesbury cartoon. Sorry, that’s not science.
And I’m not going to dig through a bunch of crap. Show me where a causal relationship has been established between human activity and global warming.
Hint: There is none…
Right-wing crapola being spread here:
Global Warming is just a hoax perpetrated by environmental extremists and liberals who want an excuse for more big government.
This is a very common line and is usually couched in more colorful language (enviro-Nazis, liberal wack jobs, that kind of thing). While appeals to authority are not always the most convincing of scientific arguments, this non-scientific attack is best answered with just that, to wit:
Answer:
Here is a list of “enviro-Nazis” and “left-wing loonies” who believe that Anthropogenic Global Warming is real and well supported by sound science:
NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS)
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/edu/gwdebate/
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/cl.....rming.html
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm
National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
http://books.nap.edu/collectio.....index.html
State of the Canadian Cryosphere (SOCC)
http://www.socc.ca/permafrost/.....ture_e.cfm
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
http://yosemite.epa.gov/OAR/gl.....index.html
The Royal Society of the UK (RS)
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=3135
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/....._2003.html
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
http://eo.ucar.edu/basics/cc_1.html
American Meteorological Society (AMS)
http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/jointacademies.html
Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS)
http://www.cmos.ca/climatechangepole.html
Every major scientific institute dealing with climate, ocean, and/or atmosphere agrees that the climate is warming rapidly and the primary cause is human CO2 emissions.
On top of that list, see also this joint statement that specifically and unequivocally endorses the work and conclusions of the IPCC Third Assessment report, issued by
РAcademia Brasiliera de Ci̻ncias (Bazil)
– Royal Society of Canada
– Chinese Academy of Sciences
РAcademi̩ des Sciences (France)
– Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (Germany)
– Indian National Science Academy
– Accademia dei Lincei (Italy)
– Science Council of Japan
– Russian Academy of Sciences
– Royal Society (United Kingdom)
– National Academy of Sciences (United States of America)
http://nationalacademies.org/onpi/06072005.pdf
and this one that includes the above signers plus:
– Australian Academy of Sciences
– Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts
– Caribbean Academy of Sciences
– Indonesian Academy of Sciences
– Royal Irish Academy
– Academy of Sciences Malaysia
– Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand
– Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
http://www.royalsociety.org/di.....p?id=13619
But perhaps you would find the opinion of some of the bastions of industry more convincing than those of the pointy-headed intellectuals? BP, the largest oil company in the UK and one of the largest in the world has this opinion:
One of the great challenges facing mankind is the increasing temperature of the planet. This increase is believed to be associated with the production and consumption of carbon based fuels – coal, oil and gas – which all increase levels of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere
(The above comes from here)
Shell Oil (yes, oil the fossil fuel) says:
Shell shares the widespread concern that the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities is leading to changes in the global climate.
(Read that here)
Here is what 18 CEO’s of Canada’s largest corporations had to say in an open letter to the Prime Minister of Canada:
Our organizations accept that a strong response is required to the strengthening evidence in the scientific assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We accept the IPCC consensus that climate change raises the risk of severe consequences for human health and security and the environment. We note that Canada is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
That can be read here.
Have the EnviroNazis finally seized the industrial reigns of power? Somehow, I doubt it.
Mr. C- do you know for a fact that the tree cutting is a criminal offence? I am not familiar with Seattle Municiple Code. Can you give me the citation of which criminal section he violated. Seems to me $600K+ is a bit more than a wrist slap. Yes he was wrong. He was punished.
You sir are pointless.
Right wing crapola being spread here:
Despite what the computer models tell us, there is actually no evidence of global warming.
Seems like we need this one answered just as a one stop shop for all the various lines of evidence.
Global Warming is not an output of computer models, it is an observation. The following diverse and numerous empirical observations lead us to the unequivocal conclusion that the earth is warming:
CRU temperature trend:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/
NASA GISS temperature trend:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
Satellite readings:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.....asurements
Radiosondes:
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/tren.....ngell.html
Borehole analysis:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo.....llack.html
Glacial melt observations:
http://nsidc.org/sotc/glacier_balance.html
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=129
Sea ice melt:
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20.....tinue.html
Sea level rise:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
Proxy Reconstructions:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo.....olast.html
Permafrost is thawing:
http://www.newscientist.com/ch.....725124.500
All of these completely independent analyses of widely varied aspects of the climate system lead to the same conclusion: the Earth is undergoing a rapid and large warming trend.
Right-wing crapola being spread here:
So 2005 was a record year, one really warm year or two is not global warming.
This kind of objection only indicates an unfamiliarity with the actual long term temperature record and is just asking for a few good temperature facts, so let ’em have it!
Answer:
2005 breaking the record is not convincing? Let’s see then, how about:
* every year since 1992 has been warmer than 1992
* the ten hottest years on record occured in the last 15
* every year since 1976 has been warmer than 1976
* the 20 hottest years on record occured in the last 25
* every year since 1956 has been warmer than 1956
* every year since 1917 has been warmer than 1917
The five year mean global temperature in 1910 was .8oC lower than the five year mean in 2002. This and all the above come from the analysis by NASA GISS here:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/
There is an interesting quote from that page:
Record warmth in 2005 is notable, because global temperature has not received any boost from a tropical El Niño this year. The prior record year, 1998, on the contrary, was lifted 0.2°C above the trend line by the strongest El Niño of the past century.
So, yes it is true that one record year does not make a long term trend, but that is clearly not the whole story.
The surface temperature record is so full of assumptions and corrections that it only says what the scientists want.
Answer:
If you truly have a problem with the surface temperature record, there are many other completely independent lines of evidence that tell us the earth is indeed warming. And all of these various indicators unanimously agree. Putting aside the direct surface temperature measurements, Global Warming is also indicated by:
Satellite and Radiosondes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.....asurements http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=170
Borehole analysis:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo.....llack.html
Glacial melt observations:
http://nsidc.org/sotc/glacier_balance.html
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=129
Sea ice melt:
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20.....tinue.html
Sea level rise:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
Proxy Reconstructions:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo.....olast.html
All of these completely independent analyses of widely varied aspects of the climate system lead to the same conclusion: the Earth is undergoing a rapid and large warming trend.
Right-wing crapola spread:
Global surface temperatures recorded over just one hundred and some years is not long enough to draw any conclusions or worry about anyway.
Answer:
The reliable instrumental record only goes back 145 years. This is a simple fact that we are stuck with. 2005 was the warmest year recorded in that time, so the correct characterization is to say 2005 was likely the warmest year in *at least* 145 years.
http://www.grida.no/climate/ip.....fig2-1.htm (this graph stops at 2001).
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/
But there is another direct measurement record that can tell us things about temperature over the last 500 years, and that is borehole measurements. Basically, this involves drilling a deep hole and measuring the temperature at various depths. This gives us information about century scale temperature trends as warmer or cooler pulses from surface changes propogate down through the earth’s crust. This way of inferring surface temperatures smooths out short term or yearly flucuations so we can not know anything about individual years.
Read about it here:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/borehole/index.html
See the temperature trend here:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo.....llack.html
Thus, using this record we can extend our timeframe and reasonably conclude that it is warmer now than any time in the last 500 years.
It is possible to make reconstructions of temperature much further back, using what are called proxy data. These include things like tree rings, ocean sediment, coral growth, layers in stalagmites and others. The reconstructions available are all slightly different and provide sometimes more and sometimes less global versus regional coverage over the last one or two thousand years but:
“they all show some similar patterns of temperature change over the last several centuries. Most striking is the fact that each record reveals that the 20th century is the warmest of the entire record, and that warming was most dramatic after 1920”
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo.....olast.html
Thus we can reasonably say it is warmer now than any other time in the last one thousand years.
The only other candidate for a higher temperature period going back through the entire Holocene (~12000bp to now) is called the Holocene Climatic Optimum some 6000 years ago. It is not known exactly what the temperatures were then but they have long been thought to be almost as warm as now. I think that conclusion is starting to look less likely as it has been determined that the anamolous warmth of that time was actually only in the northern hemisphere and only in the winter months.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo.....ocene.html
Wikipedia has a nice graph of many reconstructions of Holocene temperature all super-imposed with an average of all of them combined to boot:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I.....ations.png
Thus one can reasonably believe that it is warmer now than at any other time in the last 12,000 years.
Before the current interglacial the planet was in the grip of a much cooler glacial period with ice sheets well down into the continental US that only just ended ~10,000 years ago. This 450Kyr record can be read in antarctic ice core analyses and shows cycles of glacial-interglacial transitions over 100Kyr periods.
http://www.grida.no/climate/ip.....ig2-22.htm
Thus we can say that if our reading of the Holocene is correct, it is warmer now than at any other time in over the last 100,000 years.
That is a bit more than 100 years, it is the entire history of our species.
I’ve always thought the prudent aproach to global warming would be to weigh risk and reward. We live in a world where we often must make decisions with some uncertainty. THere are four potential outcomes:
1. There is global warming and we do nothing about it
2. THere is global warming and we attempt to mitigate it
3. There is no global warming and we do nothing
4. There is no global warming and we needlessly attempted to mitigate it.
THen look at risks and rewards. Attempting to mitigate global warming involves reducing emissions ( a general air benefit) and moving toward alternate energy sources. What’s so bad in either case with reducing our dependance on foreign oil?
And the most ridiculous of all, spread by the usual suspects here on this very thread.
The current warming is just a natural cycle.
Answer:
While it is undoubtably true that there are some cycles and natural variations in global climate, anyone who wishes to insist that the current warming is purely or even just mostly natural has two challenges. Firstly, they need to identify just what this alledged natural mechanism is because absent a forcing of some sort, there will be no change in global energy balance. So natural or otherwise we should be able to find this mysterious cause. Secondly, a “natural cause” proponent needs to come up with some explanation for how a 30% increase in the second most important Greenhouse Gas does not itself affect the global temperature.
In other words, there is a well developed, internally consistent theory that predicts the effects we are observing, so where is the sceptic model, or theory whereby CO2 does not affect the temperature and where is the evidence of some other natural forcing?
There is a fine historical example of a very dramatic and very regular climate cycle that can be read in the ice core records taken both in Greenland and in the Antarctic. A naive reading of this cycle indicates we should be experiencing a cooling trend now, and indeed we were very gradually cooling over the length of the preindustrial Holocene, something around .5C averaged over 8000 years. It is informative to compare those fluctuations to today’s changes. Leaving aside the descents into glaciation, which were much more gradual, the very sudden (geologically speaking) jumps up in temperature every ~100Kyrs actually represent a rate of change roughly ten times slower than the rate we are currently witnessing.
So could the current change be natural? Well, there is no identified natural cause (and they have been looked for), there is no theory of climate where CO2 does not drive the temperature and the natural cycle precedents do not show the same extreme reaction we are now witnessing.
(That would be a “No”)
“CSE was founded in 1984 by David Koch who, along with his brother Charles, owns virtually all of Koch Industries, a wealthy privately-held company headquartered in Wichita, Kansas that controls a diverse group of oil, natural gas, ranching, securities, and finance firms. The brothers have long had a strong interest in libertarian theory, and the foundations operated by the Koch family have created, or funded, the likes of the Cato Institute, the Institute for Justice, the Federalist Society, and the Heritage Foundation.”
“Other CSE funders (not included in above funding total) have included:
* Archer Daniels Midland
* DaimlerChrysler
* Enron
* General Electric
* Koch Industries
* F.M. Kirby Foundation
* Philip Morris
* U.S. West”
Man.
The Konservative Klown Krew is workin’ OVERTIME on this Global warming stuff.
DAYAM…they musta got the marching orders from Rove through Tebelius.
Obviously they’re scared shitless of Gore and his movie.
Howcwnyoubeproudtobeanevilfuckingchristianistbitch; Mr. Cyniclown, BIAW’s Dick’ Mark the Lyingfraudwelsher…I can soooo just see the smoke comin’ out their ears. Ooooooweeeeeee!
Keep hammerin’ guys they’re startin’ to CRACK!!!!!
Harry @ 56 – Grownups use a statistical analysis method known as “Chi squared” analysis to determine “statistical significance”. (Look up both of these or go get some “fancy book larnin'” at a university)
Statistics is the art of separating “signal” from “noise”. Chi squared is a method of doing exactly that. So don’t post anecdotal meaningless crap like you did above. Instead, show me a rigourous chi squared analysis that shows that the current temps are beyond normal variation. And no, Doonsebury cartoons don’t count…
Dumass…
Rujax – Feel free to jump into my challenges at 2 and 59.
You can’t can you.
Dumass…
Does anybody know where Roger Rabbit has been lately? I need a punching bag.
Who wants to volunteer?
This thread offers a good overview of the disinformation campaign instigated by the fossil fuel industry. Do not for a second think that this is just a bunch of isolated kooks – the basic memes are all straight out of an industry playbook that has been in use for more than a decade.
My favorite meme was pitched with typical arrogance by MTR.
“Clueless, Thumb and Harry all responded predictably. Lots of name calling, but no science and no facts. I dared to challenge their religion and they sure don’t like that.”
Commentby Mark The Redneck Kennedy— 5/28/06@ 2:59 pm
Notice that MTR’s response is not grounded in any science. Why? Because if he offered any citations he would open himself to the charge that his sources were industry hacks.
What MTR will never admit is that the IPCC’s findings on global warming represent the largest scientific undertaking in human history. Hundreds of scientists from all over the world came to a consensus on global warming’s very real dangers. For MTR to brush this off as “religion” represents a truly Big Lie.
Meanwhile, you’ll never see MTR and his winger colleagues criticize the White House for its equally unprecedented war on science. On numerous issues — including global warming — Bush has stacked scientific committees with partisans who undermine the scientific method whenever it goes against their policy agenda.
It is easy to get bogged down in the specifics of global warming, but the most important lesson is how the right uses double-speak. Wingers criticize the “left” for using religion to trump science when 1) the charge is baseless, and 2) that’s exactly what the right is doing in spades.
Perhaps most importantly, a number of wingers attempt to blur together the scientific community with the “left,” as if the IPCC were a wholly owned subsidiary of the Sierra Club. The sheer mendacity of these memes is breathtaking.
Thumb – Cut the bullshit. Show me the chi squared analysis or STFU.
2005 breaking the record is not convincing? Let’s see then, how about:
* every year since 1956 has been warmer than 1956
The five year mean global temperature in 1910 was .8oC lower than the five year mean in 2002.
Commentby Harry Tuttle aka Voter Advocate— 5/28/06@ 4:18 pm
No wonder I have been using more ice cubes in my drinks. Thanks Harry.
C’mon Thumb… show me the data. Show me the analysis. Show me the hard science.
Or is global warming the moonbat relgion….?
C’mon, show us all how fucking smart you are…
You can’t can you?
Either show me the data or admit you just accept it based on blind faith.
Admit it’s a moonbat religion.
One of the other…
C’mon… time to make a decision….
Cuzin Rufus: Yeah, I noticed my refrigerator working a little harder making enuf ice for my drinks too. We Kennedys’ love a good SCREWdriver, vodka tonic, martini, and a zombie for those late night driving into street barrier moments! I am sooooo glad these lefties are telling me why I need more cubes!
“Noah?”
“Yes, Lord?”
“How well can you tread water?”
I question the usefulness of directly responding to winger challenges of global warming science. For one thing, within the mainstream scientific community these debates have long since been settled. The dirty little secret of MTR’s bravado is that a credible scientist would rip his arguments to shreds in minutes.
While that would be amusing to watch, I think it also plays into the hands of the fossil fuel industry. Their basic strategy has long been to “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact,” in the words of a strategy paper developed by a coal industry association (Ross Gelbspan, 2004, pg. 51).
This is a delaying tactic. As long as we continue to argue about the science, then it will distract us from discussing what to actually do about global warming.
Notice how the wingers have us right where they want us on this thread – arguing over issues that were long settled in pretty much every other industrialized nation in the world. It is only in the U.S. where the fossil fuel industry has managed to successful dumb down the dialogue. The results?
“Britain has agreed to cut carbon emissions by 60 percent over fifty years, Holland by 80 percent over forty years, and Germany by 50 percent over fifty years. Russia has ratified the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, and even China — which is viewed fearfully for the amount of dirty coal it intends to burn — recently established fuel-economy standards for its cars and trucks that are much tougher than those in the U.S.” (Shellenberger and Nordhaus 2005, 12)
Uh huh… so no science from greenthumbfuckingdumass.
I thought so…
And body else dare to take on MTR?
Also, just because someone famous says something, that doesn’t make it true.
So just because the “creator” of the internet (I stand corrected; he was the “creator” not the “inventor”) says that global warming is man made, that… ummm… doesn’t make it true… it just makes him another gullible fucking idiot…
And I’m sure you pseudo-sophisticates in Seattle prolly didtn notice this… Enumclaw’s Kasey Kahne won the Coke Six Hunnerd today in NASCAR racing…
Local boy does good…
You guys have done a great job identifying the coldest years. Point me to some real science, PLEASE.
Geez, everytime I challenge greenthumbfuckingdumass on a technical issue… for some reason, he never takes me on.
Hmmm… I wonder why…
States pioneer climate action
In the face of federal inaction on climate change, both houses of the Vermont Legislature have passed a bill that will reduce the state’s carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent by 2020.
Led by New York Governor George E. Pataki, seven states – Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont – signed an agreement in 2003 to create a Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).
Vermont’s new law would make it the first to implement the plan and the first U.S. state to create a mandatory carbon emissions trading market.
The plan caps total emissions and makes power plants purchase allowances that give them the right to emit carbon. Revenue from the sale of allowances, expected to be $3-$5 million, will be used to support energy efficiency measures, renewable energy, new energy technologies, and, potentially, consumer rebates. . . .
California may enact a . . . greenhouse gas emissions cap if it adopts the Global Warming Solutions Act currently being considered by the state Assembly. The bill requires companies to track and report all greenhouse gas emissions.
California is the 12th largest emitter of global warming pollution in the world. The legislation would reduce greenhouse gases in the state by 25 percent.
— By Daina Saib, Yes magazine, summer 2006
http://www.yesmagazine.org/
This is a good little magazine published in western Washington. If you need a renewed sense of hope, I’d recommend checking out this publication.
Mark the Thieving Redneck
“Geez, everytime I challenge greenthumbfuckingdumass on a technical issue… for some reason, he never takes me on.”
Why would ANYONE “take you on: on any “technical” issue? You are a fucking low-life scumbag thief. Until you make good on your bet with Goldy, nobody will ever take you seriously around here.
I recently attended a conference sponsored by the Urban Lands Institute ( http://www.uli.org/ ). One of the presentations was by Timothy Beatley, a professor at the University of Virginia who spent a year studying innovative, climate-friendly planning approaches in Europe and Australia.
His slide show drew me to go back and read his book, “Green Urbanism: Learning from European Cities.” This is a great place to find specific ideas for reforming transportation systems, building design, neighborhoods, energy production and much more.
This book is both inspiring and embarrassing; inspiring because there IS much that can be done at the local level even with Bush in office. At the same time, it is also clear that U.S. cities are YEARS behind their European counterparts in responding to the challenge of global warming. Nichols and Sims are barely scratching the surface of what needs to be done in the greater-Seattle area.
Beatley richly deserves to be considered one of the U.S.’s most innovative urban planning scholars.
http://www.arch.virginia.edu/f.....hyBeatley/
Dj, yeah, especially when you know I’ll kick your ass in an intellectual argument.
So where’s your chi^2 data? I’m waiting….
Thumb – There is nothing that we need to “learn” from Europe.
When Ron Sims starts riding the bus or riding his bike to work and gives up his car and driver, I’ll believe he really thinks that global warming is an issue. Otherwise he just joins the rest of the left that fly in private jets all over the world to talk about the waste of fossil fuels.
Al gore is a walking advertisement for hypocri$y. Sims is a devoted fan.
Of course you’d say that, Janet. It’s a distraction from the real issues. That’s why your buddy Karl Roves is so fond of character assassination as standard electoral strategy.
I assume we’ll be hearing lots more from you about Gore’s hypocrisies as 2008 approaches. I also assume that you’ll be virtually mum about any hypocrisies of your Republican pals.
Yup, you Republicans have a real lock on the whole integrity thing.
Wow Janet S thinks Sims should give up his car to prove he’s worried about the environment. By that standard Janet, we should be hearing about your kids going to Iraq and your willingness to let us drill for oil in your backyard. Yah right. Fucking hypocrite bitch.
And by the way, where’s my fucking private jet? I’m as left as they come and I don’t have no stinking fucking private jet.
Mr. C- do you know for a fact that the tree cutting is a criminal offence? I am not familiar with Seattle Municiple Code. Can you give me the citation of which criminal section he violated. Seems to me $600K+ is a bit more than a wrist slap. Yes he was wrong. He was punished.
You sir are pointless.
Commentby K— 5/28/06@ 4:15 pm
Title 12A – CRIMINAL CODE
Subtitle I Criminal Code
Chapter 12A.08 – Offenses Against Property
SMC 12A.08.020 Property destruction.
A. A person is guilty of property destruction if he or she:
1. Intentionally damages the property of another;
MTR
Sorry, I am not qualified to delve into such matters, however if you go over to http://realclimate.org/ I’ll be glad to follow and we can all see how folks who are qualified respond to you.
These righties are so dumb they think I can’t do a search on google and find out what the latests pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo out of India is.
“Sorry, I am not qualified to delve into such matters, however if you go over to http://realclimate.org/ I’ll be glad to follow and we can all see how folks who are qualified respond to you.
Commentby Harry Tuttle aka Voter Advocate— 5/28/06@ 9:41 pm”
But Ron Sims with a degree in PSYCHOLOGY from Central Washington University IS qualified to be an expert on Global Warming????
leftturn – obviously you are a failure of the left, since you don’t have a private jet like gore. So when gore and sims use lots of fossil fuel, doesn’t it contribute to global warming? If they really cared, wouldn’t they change themselves before they ask the rest of us to destroy the local and national economies on solutions that won’t work?
Like I said before, if there was oil in my backyard, I’d be the first one out there drilling for it. Can’t figure out why you can’t read.
The writer is an associate professor of history and director of the Program in Science Studies at the University of California. -Commentby Green Thumb— 5/27/06@ 11:57 pm
Right.
History… even associate professor is pretty self explainatory… even for someone like rugat.
But let’s explore “Program of Science Studies”, shall we…. “AN INTERDISCIPLINARY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HISTORY. PHILOSOPHY, SOCIOLOGY AND COMMUNICATION OF SCIENCE“… so basically, they are experts about the FIELD of science, NOT SCIENTIFIC EXPERTS.
And that sterling resume qualifies him/her/it to pontificate on supposed global warming… how exactly?
Give me a damned break and try again, greeenie
Mr. C What is the penalty for the voilstion? More than $500K plus interest?
He was wrong, he was pursued, he penalized.
Questions?
All you GW questioners, answer me @ 55. We must make decisions based questionable data. Where do you place the risk? On the data or on the outcome?
@ 89 no questions on spelling.
Clueless, Thumb and Harry all responded predictably. Lots of name calling
Guffaw!!!
So I challenge you moonbats
Hypocrite…
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
Help, save us Citizen Gore!
Has anyone seen the excellent WaterWorld documentary movie, starring Kevin Costner? If the polar ice caps melt, there will be a nearly 29,000 foot increase in sea level. Mount Everest will be the only DryLand. Better stop global warming!
HAHAHAHAHAHA
MTR went out and looked up the only paper that has been published this year that questions the temperature data on global warming and to the words chi square analysis out of it to change the subject from what was posed in #55 to his latest straw man.
Do you guys try to pull shit like that in person? I don’t think so. Your broken fingers couldn’t press the keys if you did.
took the words.
You guys are such liars, but Jon Lovitz already pulled that joke.
Yeah, chi square analysis, that’s it. That’s what I’m lookin’ for.
94
The fact that the polar ice cap is melting is irrelevant, right RP?
Yeah, right.
Next time you have a water leak, don’t get it fixed. Do a chi square analysis first to make sure it isn’t an anomaly in the data. Maybe it’s meaningless that water is leaking. In geological time, it probably is.
It’s the same thing as extending Social Security actuarial data out to infinity. Another rightie canard.
All the rightie regime has is canards. But once November comes around they can use the canards to explain why their asses are out of office.
Um, how, exactly, can you do anything effectively on global warming at a local level? Throwing local money at it, and having photo ops to express your local position on the Kyoto Treaty seems to me to be little more than pandering to the Left. But that would be par for the course for Sims and most of his initiatives.
Right now I’m in the middle of a fight against an unbelievably poorly planned housing development which, astoundingly, is able to move forward under County policy because when Sims looks at urban planning, all he can come up with is “uh, some liberal somewhere said density is good.” Well, we learned 100 years ago that when you focus only on density, you wind up with slums. But still, Sims pushes for increasing density without requiring the mitigation you need to ensure that you don’t fuck up well-functioning neighborhoods by cramming a bunch of poorly designed and poorly laid-out new houses into them. Wanker. His successor (who can’t come along soon enough for me) will have to throw yet more government money to repair the damaged neighborhoods that have suffered under Ron “to Hell with the real-world outcomes of my pandering to the latest liberal fad” Sims.
Notice that Janet S @ 87 still hasn’t acknowledged the ridiculousness of her character assassination against Gore and Sims.
Whether an individual politician rides a bike instead of taking a jet or car is completely immaterial to the global warming debate. Janet is smart enough to KNOW that.
The real issue is policy. The U.S. has done virtually knowing (except dismantle Clinton’s fledgling policy steps) while every other industrial nation has taken important strides against global warming. Even China has imposed much more aggressive pollution measures on automobiles. That’s right, enviro-disaster China!
Janet S is avoiding the policy debate because she KNOWS that the Bush administration is a wholly owned subsidiary of the fossil fuel industry. She KNOWS that the Bush strategy, which was developed by a veritable gang of industry insiders, is to avoid taking any meaningful action for as long as possible.
Janet KNOWS that the Bush administration’s global warming policies are an international embarrassment. So she changes the subject by demanding that Sims ride a bike.
Nice smear, Janet. Did it lead to a round of hi-fives in the office?
MTR at 2:
Just blind faith belief in something that doesn’t exist.
Your talking about religion, right? I challenge you to prove the existence of God. Show me scientific data that shows proof of the Almighty.
I want to see causation too. Show me proof that God actually did something.
Don’t talk about faith, because that’s just mass delusion.
I just finished reading “State of Fear” by Michael Crichton. While a work of fiction on this very topic, it is heavily footnoted with authentic studies. At the very least it is food for thought and my thought is that I’m not convinced that what we’re seeing and hearing about is anything by hype, fueled by some real lunatics…
As Green Thumb has already stated, the debate about global warming, or global climate change, and the human cause of it is over. When over 75% of scientists and all of the recognized organizations in the scientific community acknowledge our plight, trading barbs with naysayers has no benefit.
We are fortunate to be one of the first cities to get An Inconvenient Truth on the day of general release:
WA Seattle 2-Jun Guild
WA Seattle 2-Jun Pacific Place
I’ll be going to do my part in assuring that this film has “legs”. Do the same to blot out the noise of the oil industry whores.
No science here…. just moonbat religion.
Still waiting for chi^2 that shows that current temps are statistically significant.
Doesn’t exist does it…
Well, know apparently the LEFTIST PINHEADED KLOWNS are trying to recruit Space Aliens in their efforts to use Global Warming fear-mongering to grab political power.
Word has it that now the Martians are concerned they might get splash when the polar ice caps melt!
Here is the latest member of the LENIN’S USEFUL IDIOT Brigade–
http://www2.cs.uwindsor.ca/60-.....tians.html
As the Pretender And Thief pays homage at the Tomb of the Unknowns today, I wonder, is he thinking…
“Wow, good thing my daddy got me into the National Guard during Nam so this doesn’t have to be me. And Hell, if he hadn’t been a Congressman, I might not have been able to jump ahead of 130,000 other guys who weren’t so lucky. And if my daddy hadn’t been a Congressman, I couldn’t have gotten away with being a drunk all the time and going AWOL. And if I weren’t a rich white guy, my two poor girls might have to go fight in this Iraq war. Good thing my “support” of the troops doesn’t actually mean sending my own family to do my dirty work. I’ll rely on poor Latino, Black and southern rednecks to do the fighting for me. And wow, if people only knew what a hypocrite I am for starting one of the biggest military campaigns in US history, even though I won’t fight, my family won’t fight, my friends won’t fight and I was an AWOL drunk chickenhawk in college!”
SLIGHT CLARIFICATION: A number of our contributors to this blog have argued that the George W. Bush Administration believes what’s good for the oil industry is always good for America.
We would like to clarify that position. The George W. Bush Administration believes that what’s good for the oil industry is good for America 98.562 percent of the time.
For example, the George W. Bush Administration recently introduced windfall profits tax legislation. If approved, this tax would require every oil company to contribute .00000000000045 percent of their pretax profits to a “Poppies for Jesus” fund. This fund could be utilized by schools all over the nation to organize “Poppies for Jesus” planting parties in their communities.
If the Democrats stop obstructing this important piece of legislation, within the next year you will see multitudes of young, nubile virgins with entirely too short skirts planting poppies by a freeway off-ramp near you.
Call your Democratic Senator or Representative today and demand to know why he or she doesn’t support a windfall profits tax against Big Oil that also strikes an important blow against global warming.
Memorial Day is not the proper venue to air your political rants, it is a time to remember and commemorate those fallen heroes of our country that made the supreme sacrifice.
Please respect the family members and parents of those that have seen loved ones die.
“Over the past generation, regulated industries have succeeded in inventing and popularizing a new, revisionist language about regulation. This language is ostensibly about improving the quality of regulatory decisionmaking. In truth, its chief goal is to discredit and stymie federal regulation while defending the economic interests and power of corporate investors and management. The language deliberately shifts the political terms of debate away from the morally charged terrain of human tragedy and corporate blame, substituting in its stead an impersonal, “objective” lexicon of economic and statistical analysis.”
Sophisticated Sabotage
Memorial Day is not the proper time to express any political views that deviate from those of the George W. Bush Administration.
Today is an annual opportunity for George W. Bush to display his stature as Commander-in-Chief. Any criticisms of administration propaganda will be punished harshly.
The First Amendment has hereby been revoked until 12 am, Tuesday, May 30. Please contact your local law enforcement official for further information.
What about the environmental problems that will be created by the Brightwater sewage treatment plant?
http://www.nwnews.com/editions.....orial4.htm
LeftTurd—
I never got sucked in to blaming Clinton.
I am a Conservative. Clinton did some conservative things…especially in the area of government spending.
However Clinton was asleep while Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations grew in strength. I blame him for that….as well as NAFTA, GATT and China. Clinton road the Dot.Com false economy bubble…just like Bush is riding the Real Estate Bubble.
Bush is NOT a Conservative. I am not a fan of his for many reasons and I have never, ever said I am.
However, you FRINGE LUNATIC LEFTIST PINHEADED KLOWNS are also not the answer. You play on emotion, fear and junk science. You are “trendy” with the ignorant Hollywood types jumping on every half-baked cause imaginable. You KLOWNS show it repeatedly….right here @ good old HA.org!!!
I enjoy making fun of you KLOWNS because you are oh so serious and oh so self-righteous. Some of you actually have some good ideas and I have no reason to believe that many of you are hard-working, decent people.
However LeftTurd, YOU are obviously not one of them. Your HATE has choked your ability to see thru the smoke-and-mirrors of your fellow KLOWNS. And I find you IGNORANT as well. But I don’t hate you.
A sense of humor is something either you have….or you don’t. Roger Rabbit, dj & Goldy do have a sense of humor….they enjoy the give & take…..and could easily sit with folks that disagree with them, have a beer and talk about stuff other than politics.
Most of the rest of the KLOWNS are serious DumbAsses…like you!
Have a great Memorial Day!
truth held hostage por, 6,900
TRUTH HELD HOSTAGE POR 6900 DIAS!!!!!!!!!!!
CUANDO ES LA PORTENCIA DE LA CALIENTE OXYGENO???
DIOS EN LA AVIARES
TODO EL MUNDO ES CORRECTO!
Alexander Pope
I feel better now! Senor Cynicola dice EL PAYASOS!!!!!!!!!
Dearest one, could you please take the keyboard apart and clean it again? Some of the letters are sticking — particularly the capital K. Have you been catting around that Horse’s Ass again?
Dice Si to Global Warming!!! Es bueno por los scientificos de fakos de los Exxon / Mobil!!!!!!!!!!$$$$$$$$$ Mi tengo un Masters Degree y will write anything you wish por los dinero!!!!!!!!!!!
Cigarettos do not harm the health!!! Now pay me!!!!!!!! Liggett Meyers!!!!!!!!
The air es OK!!!!!!!!!! Burn dogshit for all I care !!!!!!! Jus’ geeeev me the money!!!!!
“Burning dogshit and other carbon heavy substances is actually beneficial to the environment according to Global Warming experts Pescaderia de Stefan and Dr. Gorditos de los Alberto.”
Tony Snow ( I always tell the truth — to the best of my knowledge — which ain’t much… ).
re 114: …and now that Bush has finally come out of the closet with SOME reasonable immigration policies, the x-treme-right wacko perversos that inhabit the Republican Party Shit all over him!!!!!! You guys just suck nails and razor blades!!!!!
Senator Maria “DotCom Windfall Bubble” Cantwell—
Chew on this one–
The Senator From Windfall
By James K. Glassman Published 12/05/2005
Of all the politicians complaining about the profits and practices of America’s wicked oil companies, few can top Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).
Among her latest ventures is a demand that the oil company executives who testified Nov. 9 be brought back to the Senate, this time under oath. In a letter to the chairmen of the two committees that held the hearings, she claimed that the CEOs “failed to answer the simple questions asked of them. This is unacceptable. If we’re going to get to the bottom of high gas prices, we need complete answers that Americans can trust.”
Of course, “getting to the bottom” of price rises isn’t difficult. Energy exists in a global commodity market. Demand is rising from China and India, as economic growth brings a better life to more than two billion people, and supply has been constrained by OPEC, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and absurd policies that restrict domestic drilling and the construction and expansion of pipelines and other energy infrastructure.
Cantwell has opposed such supply-boosting policies in the United States, lately blocking measures that would have benefited her own state while increasing tanker traffic in Puget Sound.
Another sure way to reduce supply is to pass laws to stop “price-gouging” in fuel costs — legislation such as Cantwell herself has introduced — or to exact special “windfall” taxes on a few large energy companies. Windfall taxes have been tried before, in the early 1980s, and, according to a Congressional Research Service study, they had a predictable effect. The taxes cut production by U.S. energy companies and increased our reliance on foreign oil. So much for “Energy Independence 2020,” the Democrats’ organization that Cantwell chairs.
Cantwell voted “yes” on Nov. 17 to an amendment (No. 2626) that would have imposed “a temporary windfall profits tax on crude oil.” The amendment failed, but the irony lingers because, as it turns out, Maria Cantwell’s life story has revolved around her own windfall profits.
Back in 1992, when I was editor of the congressional newspaper Roll Call, a young woman from Indianapolis named Maria Cantwell, who had spent her life working on campaigns (at age 24 she was out helping Jerry Springer run for governor of Ohio) and serving in government, won a U.S. House seat from a Seattle district.
At the time, according to the Associated Press, Cantwell earned $33,789 in the year before she came to Congress, and she had a net worth under $15,000.
The House provided her with a $10,000 raise, but, alas, she was washed away in the Republican tsunami of 1994. She emerged from Congress practically broke, but, luckily, with some nice friends. One of them, Rob Glaser, a former Microsoft employee, “recruited the out-of-work politician for his new company, Real Networks,” according to The Industry Standard.
These were the lovely days when many high-tech firms were handing out stock options like crazy, and Glaser showered them on Maria Cantwell. A few years later, her Real Networks shares were worth, according to a definitive 2001 article in the Seattle Weekly, “roughly $80 million.”
She was rich — so rich that she could run for Senate, in a great Democratic tradition followed that same year by Sens. Mark Dayton (D-Minn.), the department store heir, and Jon Corzine (D-N.J.), former CEO of Goldman Sachs.
She used $9.2 million of her own money in the campaign, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. About $6 million came from stock sales and the rest from loans using her stock as collateral.
Cantwell’s Senate seat itself is a windfall profit. Without the lucky timing of her plunge into Real Networks, it’s unlikely she would be a member of the world’s most exclusive club today.
As fortune would have it, just as Cantwell started her Senate campaign, Real Networks was hitting a new high ($93 a share, adjusted for splits). By February 2001, after she was safely sworn in, the stock had fallen to $8, in which neighborhood it’s pretty much been ever since (Friday’s close was $8.89).
So, if Cantwell had run first in 2002 instead of 2000, she couldn’t have mustered $9 million from her Real Networks stock to put into the campaign.
Maria Cantwell is truly the Senator From Windfall, but I wouldn’t want to slap some kind of special tax on her just because she got a bit lucky — like her colleague, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), another backer of windfall profits, who won $853,000 in the Powerball lottery in October.
But let’s contrast the windfalls of Cantwell and Gregg with the increased earnings of integrated oil and gas companies in the third quarter of 2005. Those firms use a big chunk of their profits each year to make huge long-term capital investments in the risky business of exploring for energy and producing it. (ExxonMobil’s capital expenditures over the past 10 years have roughly equaled its reported earnings.) The price of oil, like that of any other commodity, bounces around, so some months oil companies make more from their upstream operations than others.
DISCLAIMER: Mr. Cynical receives his talking points from the fossil fuel lobby. He is attacking Senator Cantwell because of her consistently strong opposition to the oil industry’s successful efforts to dictate federal energy policy.
I’m don’t doubt the reality of global warming, but I’ve never seen any projections of a 20 foot sea-level rise, or even a 10 foot sea-level rise. Most projections I’ve seen suggest somewhere between 1 and 4 feet of extra water. (That is not to say that we should not be alarmed by the threat of 4 feet of water creeping up our city’s base.)
Guess I struck a nerve in Ms. Cynical – forced her to defend herself. HE HE!
(Grammar are good.)
But, Senor Cynicola, she is our self-funded Democrat Senator from WA and will respond to at least some of our concerns. Senor Mike ( the heavily insured FISHSTICK )McGavick will only be responsive to corporate interests.
Dios Mio, Senor Cynicola, I am more interested in myself and my family than General Electric. I understand that tax cuts are good for this quarter, but I am thinking several generations in the future.
You, it seems , are not. Ronald Reagan once said : “Once you have seen one tree, you have seen them all!” All well and good , Senor Cynicola, but Ronald Reagan es muerto and can not see even a single tree. So!!!! I do not care of his Philosophy, as the living Dios ( Jesus ) has said: ” I am the God of the living. Not of the dead!”
So, fornicato en Ronald Reagan!!!!!!!!!!! I am alive and he is not!! I can speak for the living and he cannot.
Don’t take my dad too seriously. He’s so conservative that when he opens his mouth at Republican precinct caucuses folks tend to roll their eyes. At one meeting a little old lady asked him point blank whether he was an oil company executive. When he said no everyone laughed.
Dad, mom’s right: The letter KKK is once again sticking. What’s with that?
KKK stands for Cock sucking Conservative Dumb Bastard???????? My English is not so good. Am I at least a little correcto???
Ahhhhh, my little pointy headed lemmings once again show an inate ability to avoid the issue of hipocrasy. Maria RECEIVED a windfall that helped her become a Senator. Now SHE is alarmed about windfalls???? My oh My!!!
Jey! Jey! Jey! I am Gorditos de los Alberto!!!!!!!!!! And I am ALIVE and Ronald Reagan is DEAD — and can not speak!!!!!!!! But I can !!!!!!!!!! So, fornicato on you , Senor Cynicola!!!!!!!!
Dad, I just found your ‘hidden” stash of downloaded pictures. I must say that I’m utterly shocked: Full-color pictures of gushing oil wells.
Now it all makes sense. When I was growing up you’d always include in one of our vacations a trip to an oil drilling rig. You’d get really cranky if we ran out of film before getting there.
Were you cranky because you were suffering from blue balls, dad?
re 132: Big Fucking Deal Asshole!!! We won and you did not!!! That is the lesson we learned from you! Would you care to learn more!!!!!!!!!!!?????????!!!
At this moment in time it is Senator Cantwell, not Senator Fishstick!!!!!!!!!
…….the God of the living , Senor!!!! Can you not read the writing on the wall?????????!!!!!!
Dad, remember the Christmas you gave me a little toy oil rig? You know, the one that was anatomically correct. You’d sit there for hours and press the button that made the thing squirt that fake oil. And when we ran out of it you were quite eager to order some more.
We had to mail order the fake oil, so it took a few weeks. Every day when you came home the first question out of your mouth was, “Did we get it yet?” You’d try and hide your disappointment, but I could tell.
I wasn’t home the afternoon when the box finally arrived, but I can only imagine the joy it brought you.
It is Governor Gregoire, not Gov. What’s his Face… Comprende!!!!?????
No one is dying to vote for what’s his face!!!!!!!!
72 – u use some perty big words for a redneck. and dont pick on the rich sunsabitches in seattel, theres plenty of us reguler types who dont give a rats ass about rich sunsabitiches makin lots 0f left turns at NASCAR!!!!
re 139: ,,yeah…. in Marysville!!!!!!!!!! Who gives a poop ’bout them homeownwers!!!!!!!!
@132: Windfall? You dare speak of windfalls and support a spoiled child president who was raised on wealth, pouts like a baby, and made a significant amount of money selling his Harken Energy stock just before it went bankrupt?
For a hypocrite, you sure throw that word around a lot.
Idiot.
drivebycommenter @ 101
“Um, how, exactly, can you do anything effectively on global warming at a local level? Throwing local money at it, and having photo ops to express your local position on the Kyoto Treaty seems to me to be little more than pandering to the Left.”
It sure must be easy to rail against something without actually, you know, knowing anything about it.
http://www.metrokc.gov/exec/ne.....rming.aspx
The four Executive Orders commit the county to:
– Ensure that at least 50 percent of King County’s total energy use comes from renewable energy sources by the year 2012 for non-transit uses and 2020 for transit.
– Increase the amount of biodiesel mix used in the county’s vehicles from the current five percent mix to a 20 percent mix, a switch that will result in the use of 2.5 million gallons of biofuels annually, thus making King County the state’s largest purchaser of the environmentally friendly fuel.
– Commit the county to maximize the reclamation of water produced at its sewage treatment plants. By using reclaimed water for irrigation and industry, this plan leaves tens of millions of gallons of drinking water for other uses. A $26 million investment will build the main reclaimed water distribution pipe. Brightwater will be ready to deliver 21 million gallons per day of reclaimed water when the plant is online in 2010.
– Use all waste gases produced at treatment plants and the Cedar Hills Landfill for climate-friendly energy purposes and will begin sequestering 100 percent of possible greenhouse gas emissions in its landfills.
– Conserve an additional 100,000 acres of green space in King County by 2010, on top of the more than 130,000 acres already conserved, while also coordinating land use and transit policies to promote a sharp increase in public transit use.”
We should have been doing all this already.
Daddy Love–
The 5th Executive Order should be for the Hypocrite Sims to sell his Limo and take a bus!!
That would mean some actual personal sacrifice on his part however. Wouldn’t want to inconvenience Ron in pursuing his dream of being Mother Earth’s best homeboy!!
SIMS and GORE……..
The greatest Black & White Comedy Duo since Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder.
I can just picture these 2 KLOWNS dressed up like a couple stupid Woodpeckers in a 2006 Environmental Remake of the Komedy Klassic “STIR CRAZY”!!!!!!!!!!!
“WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!”WE BAD!!
They will probably end up in jail too…just like Pryor and Wilder.
Read this KLOWNS–
Meteorologist: Put Global Warming in Context
By Joe Bastardi
June 30, 2005
Our knowledge of the past should serve as a foundation for actions in the present. While not dismissing those who are concerned about global warming, I am disturbed that they often base their conclusions on data that, in the context of time, are only a grain of sand on the beach. They cite temperature changes from the last 10, 50, or 100 years, ignoring the fact that climate history and cycles didn’t start 10 years or even 10 centuries ago.
Nothing that is happening today is new or different. I have yet to have a global warming “true believer” tell me why over the past hundreds and thousands of years, before any significant or even detectable human influence, there were periods where carbon dioxide and temperature levels were well above those of recent experience. There are also places in our northern plains that have been covered with glaciers at one time and tropical rain forest at others, all without man’s influence. There is no reason to think that this can’t happen again no matter what we do. Anyone with a true understanding of climate history knows that the relatively small changes experienced over the last 100 years could easily be “natural.”
After ignoring the past, some analysts then use computer projections to predict temperatures for the next 100 years or more. It is astounding to see people put so much faith in these man-made computer models, yet ignore the actual facts of the past. As someone who has made a living at pointing out the folly of worshipping the false idol of atmospheric models, I find these projections to be a classic case of being blinded by the lure of the latest technological fad. Perhaps this is the most telling difference between those who are accepting of the “global warming hypothesis” and those of us who are skeptical. The former tend to base their conclusions on the guesses of computer models. We skeptics focus on actual climate history and conclude that nothing out of the ordinary is occurring.
I consider myself an environmentalist. Steps should be taken to make sure we use God’s blessings with a sound sense of stewardship. This is the role of science, to provide us with the information necessary to make intelligent decisions. The advancement of science in all areas necessitates open dialogue.
Unfortunately, I fear that the policies being promoted in the name of global warming are not being driven by a search for scientific truth, but by a political agenda. Many great scientists, more gifted than I, have had their voices muffled when they dissent from what might be considered the “politically correct” version of the global warming story. For example, there are many climate scientists whose work uses actual climate data from satellite and weather balloons and shows little to no warming. Global-warming alarmists and most of the media, despite the fact that these are the most reliable data sets available, routinely ignore their work. This is just one of many examples that could be cited. As a scientist, I find it discomforting to see people trying to shut down debate on this matter by ignoring research that doesn’t fit preconceived conclusions.
Your quoting a “meteorologist” named BASTARDI and calling us KLOWNS!!!???!! You’re the CLOWN — and I mean that in a good way…
Daddy love-
You seem to have little capacity to differentiate between skeptical questioning (“how can….?…seems to me..”) and ignorant ranting (they could…if they really wanted to…)
Oh, and btw, I read your response, and while I’m all for government acting in a more environmentally responsible way, the initiatives you listed do as much to address global warming as my adding $5 to my tax return addresses the national debt. My problem is how Sims frames what he’s doing. It still seems a little pretentious to have a local pol instituting an office of “global” anything.
Now, if you have any statistics that indicate that what Sims is pushing is going to have a global effect (other than a butterfly flapping its wings kind of thing), I’m seriously up for hearing that. Otherwise, it still feels like pandering.
Oh, and my comments about his dumbass approach to urban planning stand. I know about the GMA, and I know about the mandate to handle increased density; he’s still going about it in a foolish manner that has a very real potential to do more harm than good.
Driveby
Sure, pal.
“”Throwing local money at it, and having photo ops to express your local position on the Kyoto Treaty SEEMS TO ME to be little more than pandering to the Left.”
Yeah, that “seems to me” makes ALL the difference. You weren’t ACTUALLY saying that
– he’s “throwing money” at a problem (not pejorative in the least)
– he’s having “photo ops” to express his position (as opposed to, say, issuing four separate executive orders and lobbyng the Council)
– He’s “pandering” to “the Left.” (by which I assume you mean his constituents—horrors!)
No, because it only “seems” to you these things, you certainly could not be accused of “railing.” Gee, I must have been mistaken.
driveby
But what do I know? I “have little capacity to differentiate,” after all. Oh, wait, I only “seem” like that to you, so I guess you don’t really think so.
But did anyone ask NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), National Academy of Sciences (NAS), State of the Canadian Cryosphere (SOCC), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), The Royal Society of the UK (RS), American Geophysical Union (AGU), National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), American Meteorological Society (AMS), or the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS) if the did a CHI-SQUARE ANALYSIS? If they had, surely they would respond to MTR. But they didn’t. I bet they don’t even know how. This PROVES that
(a) They’re all pussies
(b) No anthropogenetic global climate change exists
(c) MTR rules all
driveby
“the initiatives you listed do as much to address global warming as my adding $5 to my tax return addresses the national debt. ”
So because one cannot move the world, one shoud do nothing? It “seems to me” as if you are conceding that the steps he has taken will reduce emissions and reduce CO2 accumulations, though only slightly. So King County tkaes the lead on this issue and joins a myriad other localities in a “bottom up” movement to change global policies. Tell, me, driveby, how DOES change occur?
Your quoting a “meteorologist” named BASTARDI and calling us KLOWNS!!!???!! You’re the CLOWN – and I mean that in a good way…
Commentby GORDITOS DE LOS ALBERTO— 5/29/06@ 10:29 pm
Mi amigo pendejo, Joe Bastardi IS a well known meteorologist who works for the National Weather Service, who gives weather forecasts on national TV to major TV stations. You know mi amigo pendejo, the left leaning ones. I am sure Dan Rather knew Joe Bastardi.
Valor, mi amigo pendejo, valor!