Billionaires fund attacks on climate science

[RichardW]

It's about time that people are countering the highly exagerated claims made by the greenies. So, it's OK for only one side to get billions in funding to propagate their myths.

Can you be specific? What claims and how do you know they are highly exaggerated?

[Glacier]

Can you be specific? What claims and how do you know they are highly exaggerated?

Here a few to get you started...

Exaggerated claim #1: The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.

Exaggerated claim #2: Global warming is causing or will cause more storms, drought, and other weather extremes.

Exaggerated claim #3: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.

Exaggerated claim #4: Warming is bad for the planet.

[RichardW]

But the important part of the question is how do you know they are exaggerated?

[Glacier]

Because the empirical evidence shows otherwise. "They" claim that drought (for example) is worse with a warmer world, but the science shows otherwise. "They" claim that there are more weather extremes of all kinds today, but in reality there are not.

[logicalview]

But the important part of the question is how do you know they are exaggerated?

All you have to do is read some of the rantings of Dr. James Hansen, head of the multi-billion dollar Goddard Institute (GISS). The man has made hysterically exaggerated lunatic predictions since the 1980's and not one of his predictions has come true. He should have long ago been discredited and disgraced, but instead his agency continues to receive mega billions in government funding. Why is this loon still around? Because global warming isn't about science. It isn't about saving the planet. Its about money, billions of dollars in fact, being funnelled into greedy pockets, and its about power. So Hansen continues to make false predictions, the UN continues to follow suit and make exagerrated claims, and no one is ever held accountable. Its one giant corrupt mess.

[Sneaksuit]

The science I follow is based on verifiable and reproducible facts AND common sense. Something the green side is seriously lacking.

Strange notion. It's not the "green side" it is the "science side". Scientists are at a near consensus that anthropogenic global warming is real. You are saying that scientists are not doing science.

[WhenWhatWho]

Here a few to get you started...

Exaggerated claim #1: The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.

Exaggerated claim #2: Global warming is causing or will cause more storms, drought, and other weather extremes.

Exaggerated claim #3: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.

Exaggerated claim #4: Warming is bad for the planet.

MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.

FACT: Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades have not shown any significant change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures. Average ground station readings do show a mild warming of 0.6 to 0.8Cover the last 100 years, which is well within the natural variations recorded in the last millennium. The ground station network suffers from an uneven distribution across the globe; the stations are preferentially located in growing urban and industrial areas ("heat islands"), which show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural areas ("land use effects").

There has been no catastrophic warming recorded.


MYTH 2: The "hockey stick" graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature increase for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.

FACT: Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the "average global temperature" has been rising at the low steady rate mentioned above; although from 1940 – 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare.

The "hockey stick", a poster boy of both the UN's IPCC and Canada's Environment Department, ignores historical recorded climatic swings, and has now also been proven to be flawed and statistically unreliable as well. It is a computer construct and a faulty one at that.



MYTH 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.

FACT: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased. The RATE of growth during this period has also increased from about 0.2% per year to the present rate of about 0.4% per year,which growth rate has now been constant for the past 25 years. However, there is no proof that CO2 is the main driver of global warming. As measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the RESULT OF, NOT THE CAUSE of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this causal relationship. There is solid evidence that, as temperatures move up and down naturally and cyclically through solar radiation, orbital and galactic influences, the warming surface layers of the earth's oceans expel more CO2 as a result.



MYTH 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.
FACT: Greenhouse gases form about 3 % of the atmosphere by volume. They consist of varying amounts, (about 97%) of water vapour and clouds, with the remainder being gases like CO2, CH4, Ozone and N2O, of which carbon dioxide is the largest amount. Hence, CO2 constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere. While the minor gases are more effective as "greenhouse agents" than water vapour and clouds, the latter are overwhelming the effect by their sheer volume and – in the end – are thought to be responsible for 60% of the "Greenhouse effect".

Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention this important fact.


MYTH 5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming.

FACT: Computer models can be made to "verify" anything by changing some of the 5 million input parameters or any of a multitude of negative and positive feedbacks in the program used.. They do not "prove" anything. Also, computer models predicting global warming are incapable of properly including the effects of the sun, cosmic rays and the clouds. The sun is a major cause of temperature variation on the earth surface as its received radiation changes all the time, This happens largely in cyclical fashion. The number and the lengths in time of sunspots can be correlated very closely with average temperatures on earth, e.g. the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Varying intensity of solar heat radiation affects the surface temperature of the oceans and the currents. Warmer ocean water expels gases, some of which are CO2. Solar radiation interferes with the cosmic ray flux, thus influencing the amount ionized nuclei which control cloud cover.

MYTH 6: The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.

FACT: In a 1996 report by the UN on global warming, two statements were deleted from the final draft. Here they are:
1) “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases.”
2) “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to man–made causes”

To the present day there is still no scientific proof that man-made CO2 causes significant global warming.


MYTH 7: CO2 is a pollutant.
FACT: This is absolutely not true. Nitrogen forms 80% of our atmosphere. We could not live in 100% nitrogen either. Carbon dioxide is no more a pollutant than nitrogen is. CO2 is essential to life on earth. It is necessary for plant growth since increased CO2 intake as a result of increased atmospheric concentration causes many trees and other plants to grow more vigorously. Unfortunately, the Canadian Government has included CO2 with a number of truly toxic and noxious substances listed by the Environmental Protection Act, only as their means to politically control it.


MYTH 8: Global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes.

FACT: There is no scientific or statistical evidence whatsoever that supports such claims on a global scale. Regional variations may occur. Growing insurance and infrastructure repair costs, particularly in coastal areas, are sometimes claimed to be the result of increasing frequency and severity of storms, whereas in reality they are a function of increasing population density, escalating development value, and ever more media reporting.


MYTH 9: Receding glaciers and the calving of ice shelves are proof of global warming.

FACT: Glaciers have been receding and growing cyclically for hundreds of years. Recent glacier melting is a consequence of coming out of the very cool period of the Little Ice Age. Ice shelves have been breaking off for centuries. Scientists know of at least 33 periods of glaciers growing and then retreating. It’s normal. Besides, glacier's health is dependent as much on precipitation as on temperature.


MYTH 10: The earth’s poles are warming; polar ice caps are breaking up and melting and the sea level rising.

FACT: The earth is variable. The western Arctic may be getting somewhat warmer, due to unrelated cyclic events in the Pacific Ocean, but the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder. The small Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica is getting warmer, while the main Antarctic continent is actually cooling. Ice thicknesses are increasing both on Greenland and in Antarctica.

Sea level monitoring in the Pacific (Tuvalu) and Indian Oceans (Maldives) has shown no sign of any sea level rise.

http://www.globalwarminghysteria.com/te ... l-warming/

[WhenWhatWho]

Strange notion. It's not the "green side" it is the "science side". Scientists are at a near consensus that anthropogenic global warming is real. You are saying that scientists are not doing science.

Nobody is denying that the Climate is changing (just like it always has for the last what say 3 billion years). There is a lot more powerful forces at play than just the human component. Solar cycles and flares, varying magnetic fields, natural off gassing from the earth and oceans, volcanoes, forest fires, etc, and let's not forget about all the hot air being expelled from the greenies.

What I don't understand is the notion that the earth is a fragile marble...it has recovered from every natural disaster ever thrown at it (including huge meteors). It will recover from anything else thrown at it also. Or do you think the climate will always stay exactly like it is today without the human atmospheric contributions?

The earth and the life on it is very robust and will keep on flourishing regardless of the make up of the atmosphere. You guys just want it to stay the same for our self serving human purposes.

[underscore]

WhenWhatWho, Underscore and Static...
Just wondering how old you are ? Also wondering if you ever go outside ?
One only has to compare the 4 seasons of 50 years ago to the 4 seasons of the present to know something is going on.
Bird migration patterns are also changing.
I think the biggest question is, what is the cause ?

If you think you can measure something that can take thousands of years to fully occur based on what you've experienced over the last 50 years, you're way off. It's like when the greenies freak out because some place is the hottest it's been since 1947 or something and clearly that's an indication of global warming. But if we're hitting the same temps that we hit say 70 years ago, then that means everything we've done in the last 70 years has had zero effect.

[Sneaksuit]

What I don't understand is the notion that the earth is a fragile marble...it has recovered from every natural disaster ever thrown at it (including huge meteors). It will recover from anything else thrown at it also. Or do you think the climate will always stay exactly like it is today without the human atmospheric contributions?

The earth and the life on it is very robust and will keep on flourishing regardless of the make up of the atmosphere. You guys just want it to stay the same for our self serving human purposes.

The Earth is not a fragile marble, but it can wipe out life in the blink of an eye according to the fossil record. The argument is whether humans now impact the Earth's environment beyond its regular cycles. Science doubtlessly believes so.

[WhenWhatWho]

The Earth is not a fragile marble, but it can wipe out life in the blink of an eye according to the fossil record. The argument is whether humans now impact the Earth's environment beyond its regular cycles. Science doubtlessly believes so.

And yet life flourishes in ever imaginable place in the world to this day. Whether it be the freezing antarctic or the depths of the ocean beside boiling hot thermal vents. It has bounced back from a lot more than we could ever hope to throw at it, including a nuclear holocaust. May take a few hundred years but that's just a blink......

If it wasn't for those natural mass extinctions, I doubt humans would even be here right now. Who knows, maybe a another mass extinction may produce a far superior being. You do believe in evolution, right? Life evolves to meet new environmental challenges everyday.

[SurplusElect]

And yet life flourishes in ever imaginable place in the world to this day.

In tailing ponds?

[SurplusElect]

It has bounced back from a lot more than we could ever hope to throw at it, including a nuclear holocaust.

FYI : Mad Max Beyond The ThunderDome was not based on true events.

[SurplusElect]

Life evolves to meet new environmental challenges everyday.

Humans evolve too.

Once, we went to the bathroom in our backyards. That only worked for so long.

Once, we cut down whole forests just to burn minerals out of ore. That only worked for so long.

Once, we threw garbage out car windows. That only worked for so long.

Once, we spewed toxic poisons into our drinking water for temporary profit. That only worked so long.

Evolve or die.

[WhenWhatWho]

Humans evolve too.

Once, we went to the bathroom in our backyards. That only worked for so long.

Once, we cut down whole forests just to burn minerals out of ore. That only worked for so long.

Once, we threw garbage out car windows. That only worked for so long.

Once, we spewed toxic poisons into our drinking water for temporary profit. That only worked so long.

Evolve or die.

Evolution is the change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organization, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.[1]

Life on Earth originated and then evolved from a universal common ancestor approximately 3.8 billion years ago. Repeated speciation and the divergence of life can be inferred from shared sets of biochemical and morphological traits, or by shared DNA sequences.[2] These homologous traits and sequences are more similar among species that share a more recent common ancestor, and can be used to reconstruct evolutionary histories, using both existing species and the fossil record. Existing patterns of biodiversity have been shaped both by speciation and by extinction.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution