Is global warming a myth?

99.5% of scientists are in consensus on this one. The media has done a disservice on this issue by framing it as though it is still being debated by scientists, as though half of scientist believe it is a real phenomenon and the other half believe otherwise. This question is not being debated in the scientific community at this point; the real debate is the extent and speed of the warming (and other accompanying climactic changes such as harsher hurricanes), and how to respond.

What is the source of your 99.5% claim. In fact, I seem to hear much in the liberal media, e.g. CNN (Planet in Peril) program that suggests an alarmist point of view and to think Al Gore actually received an award for this rubbish. Of course, he also invented the internet though so he is now inventing an incorrect global warming scare. Click on and read the articles above that accompany this topic, e.g. “Top 10 World causes”, “Global Warming Debate”, etc.
For example:
“Everything you’ve ever been told about Global Warming is probably untrue. From Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth to news reports from the popular media outlets and even public classrooms which, in chicken little fashion, are screaming – the sky is falling. But is it really?

This documentary, which contraditcs these claims and has been described by some as the most explosive film of the year and the definitive answer to Al Gore features interviews from some of the Worlds leading scientists, climatologists and former environmentalist like:

Dr. John Christy, Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama
Dr. Philip Stott, Emeritus Professor of Biogeography, University of London
Dr. Paul Reiter, IPCC & Pasteur Instititue, Paris
Dr. Roy Spencer, Principle Research Scientist University of Alabama
Dr. Patrick Michaels, Department of Environmental Science, University of Virginia
Dr. Syun-lchi Akasofu, Director, International Arctic Research Center
Dr. Fredrick Singer, First Director, U.S. National Weather Satellite Service
Dr. Richard Lindzen, IPCC & Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.)
Dr. Tim Ball, Former Professor of Climatology, University of Winnepeg
Dr. Niz Shaviv, Professor of Physics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Dr. Ian Clark, Professor Department of Earth Sciences, Univertisy of Ottawa
Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder of Green Peace
Dr. Paul Driessen, author of Eco-Imperalism: Green Power Black Death

The Great Global Warming Swindle blows the whistle on what may be the biggest swindle in modern history. Proponets of man made global warming warn that climate change is the greatest threat ever to mankind, and, if we do not change our ways and reduce CO2 emissions – polar ice caps will melt, coastal areas will flood and hurricane like Katrina will become common.

With nearly Gestapo like tactics we are commanded not to question the edicts of the ICCP (oops, sorry, the IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). There is absolutely no room for doubt because there is a “scientific consensus.” Anyone who questions the data or conclusion is an enemy of the state and humanity.

Well, this is exactly what this well documented film does! Our challenge – watch this film and make up your own mind.

“The Great Global Warming Swindle should be seen by everyone interested in the global enviroment, especially those who have seen the Al Gore movie.” Professor William M. Gray, meterologist

desberg,
How does the “swindle” film explain the enormous leap in CO2 emissions in the last few decades? Have you personally viewed the film, “An Inconvenient Truth”?

I guess you’ll have to watch the “swindle” film. Have you seen it?.

Sorry. That last message of mine was not very professional.
Since I am not an “expert” in this field of “global Warming” I have to rely on the research of others much more knowledgable about the subject. Accordingly, here is another commentary from someone who sounds scientific (maybe he is one of the 0.5% group) that speaks a bit about the CO2 stuff.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Ours is a truly strange global warming crisis. The warming has been only about 0.7 degrees C, spread over 150 years. Our ancestors lived through much more dramatic climate changes.

Just ten thousand years ago, insect fossils tell us air temperatures dropped as much as 20 degrees C over a few centuries. Then temperatures zoomed back up to warmer-than-today levels in perhaps fifty years, according to Dr. Dorothy Peteet of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York.

That period, at the end of the last major Ice Age, was also when humans killed off the last of the cave bears—because we wanted their caves. The caves were the best-insulated places for humans to live, so hunters risked their lives to attack the groups of massive bears with nothing more than stone-tipped spears.

We’re told that the mild crisis of the Modern Warming is due to human-emitted CO2. However, about 70 percent of this warming occurred before 1940, before big industries and auto sales. That pre-1940 warming was almost certainly due to the natural, moderate solar-linked 1,500-year cycle researchers have found recently in ice cores, seabed sediments, and fossil pollen.

After 1940, global temperatures dropped for 35 years before resuming an upward trend from 1976–1998. The net warming since 1940 is a tiny 0.2 degrees C. We can blame humans for half of that—remember, the 1,500-year cycle is still affecting the picture. But that makes Al Gore’s inconvenient truth a human-driven warming of 0.1 degree C over 65 years. That’s less than 2/1000th of a degree per year.

Meanwhile, the climate-forcing impact of atmospheric CO2 has been declining rapidly. The laws of physics tell us that the first 40 parts per million of human-added CO2, back in the 1940s, had more climate-forcing power than the next 360 ppm. How can today’s radically weakened CO2 drive Al Gore’s 20-foot sea-level rise, and parboil the planet with auto exhaust?

None of the CO2 has been as potent as the greenhouse computer models claimed it would be. Climate modeler James Hansen of NASA told Congress in 1988 that by the year 2000 the Earth would have warmed another 0.3 degrees C and sea levels would have risen several feet. Reality has been much more moderate. The temperatures in 2000 were only 0.1 degree warmer, and the sea levels had risen just one inch!

We’ve had no global warming at all over the past eight years, so the near-zero correlation between the Earth’s temperatures and CO2 levels has been getting even weaker. The CO2 levels have continued to rise in linear fashion, but temperatures have remained stable. The strong correlation between our temperatures and sunspots, meanwhile, continues to get stronger. That points to the sun as the big driving force in our climate change.

Why do we believe the computerized climate models, which have already demonstrated their capacity to be radically wrong? When will we begin to believe the physical and historical evidence of a moderate, natural 1,500-year climate cycle linked to the sun?

The cycle tells us we’ll continue to get a slow, sunny, erratic warming through the next few centuries—which is far better than the alternative of another harsh, cloudy, unstable Little Ice Age. George Washington and his veterans, who suffered through that icy age at Valley Forge, would have cast their votes for warming.

Dennis Avery ( cgfi@hughes.net) is a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute.

desberg, I have never hear of it until today, but I promise you I will see the film. Please answer my question:have you viewed “an inconvenient truth” ?

No I haven’t seen the entire film but have seen enough excerpts to investigate and read other more expert opinions than his which I have already shown in this topic-and I believe there are plenty more where those came from (and who declared Gore an expert in this area-himself?) arrive at the opinion that Al Gore’s idea of global warming is flawed.

I was curious – I saw the Gore film. I am still curious – I will watch the “swindle” film.

It was clear to me that Gore was not claiming to be an expert, nor a scientist, but he was claiming to have done enough research to speak intelligently about what some scientists are saying. REAL scientists, too. People make presentations every day all around the world without having personally done the investigative research themselves. That is not intellectually dishonest. He presented a cogent argument. He has a right to his opinion.

Don’t be afraid, desberg, watch the film….it won’t corrupt your mind! ;-)

Besides, it is a little disingenuous to speak so boldly about a topic you know less about than the man (Gore) you are attacking. Or am I wrong…do you know more about this topic than Al Gore?

He might be right, he might be wrong, but it isn’t going to hurt you to watch the film, is it? It’ll give you some perspective, not poison. You can retain your own opinion after you watch it, but you will definitely gain some credibility in a forum like this if you are willing to REALLY listen to the other side. Intelligent people deserve to be listened to, even when we disagree.

What should we do, desberg, count up the number of scientists on either side of the fray, and handicap the tally according to their credentials, like a game of golf?

As I mentioned before but probably not well enough is that I did see several documentaries, that covered a huge majority of the content of this film. Enough for me to form an opinion without having to sit through the entire thing. Unfortunately, or fortunately, whichever, this has become now more of a political issue than scientific and I’ll admit it may have for me to an extent. Wouldn’t you say that the great majority of Democrats support the notion of global warming and the great majority of Republicans do not support this notion? It sure seems so to me.

No, desberg, I don’t think this is necessarily a partisan issue. In the Sept. 21 2007 issue of Science, I recently read the following:

“Currently, 26 major companies have joined environmental groups in the U.S. Climate Action Partnership to lobby for an airtight cap on greenhouse gas emissions. House committee chairman John Dingell (D-MI), previously a skeptic, has promised an effective bill. In the Senate, the leader of the relevant committee is currently the author of one of the most aggressive bills to solve the problem. In the past month, the need for action was endorsed by the Business Roundtable, representing 150 companies, including Exxon Mobil. Four previously skeptical moderate and conservative senators—Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), and John Warner (R-VA)—came together to announce a new recommendation for reducing the cost of a cap on emissions without sacrificing the environmental goals. And 44 House Republicans broke ranks to support a resolution calling for serious, mandatory action to cut emissions.”
pp 1864 “Climate Change: Don’t Forfeit the Game”

The question is no longer IF climate change is happening, but what we need to do about it. You can always find “respected scientists” who disagree with well-established scientific theories – the president of South Africa made AIDS policy for a long time based on the work of scientists who insisted there was no evidence that HIV caused AIDS – much to the detriment of health policy and the citizens of that country.

I don’t like the term “global warming” because although the average temperature of the world is increasing, some areas may actually get colder. “Climate change” is more accurate.

One more thing: although there have been times in the past with dramatic natural (not man-made) climate change, mostly you’ll find those times were associated with mass extinctions and that was in a world that was not as dissected as ours is (where human development now provides barriers to animals and plants moving north or south with changing climate). Also, that was in a time where most of the human population was not living in coastal areas that will be directly affected by rising sea levels!

I go back to my earlier statement. The majority of Democrats seem to be great believers in global warming and the majority of Republicans seem not to be such. I was struck by an article although written last March it seemed to me to cover most all aspects of this debate. I know it’s rather lengthy but well worth the reading if you all are keeping an open mind about this issue as was mentioned to me in an earlier comment.
Here it is.

The Politics of Global Warming
By Mark Jenkins Friday, March 16, 2007

The search for the truth leaves some scientists in the cold.

Please fill in the blanks: “It is a ____ fact: The Global _______
presents humankind with the most important social, political, and
adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for ten thousand years.”

The correct words are “cold” and “Cooling.” Author Lowell Ponte went
on to warn that our decisions regarding the trend of global cooling
were of “ultimate importance” and would determine “the survival of
ourselves, our children, our species.” The year was 1976. Newsweek had
published similar dire predictions in April of 1975, warning that the
global cool down would cause a drastic decline in food production. One
solution: Pour soot over the Arctic ice cap.

Today, of course, politicians and the media have declared the debate
over. Global warming is now the threat to Planet Earth-and it is dire
indeed.

Ellen Goodman wrote in the Boston Globe that “global warming deniers
are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past
and the other denies the present and future.”

While there are certain scientific realities connected to the global
climate change scare, the search for truth is political at best and
deceptive at worse. Despite many media claims that scientists have
reached consensus on the reality of global warming and its causes and
effects, the reality is that scientists are as divided on climate
change as ever.

The Report Cometh

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (ipcc)
started the latest round of media frenzy by announcing that man’s
responsibility for global warming is no longer in question, sparking
such headlines as “Scientists Call Global Warming ‘Unequivocal.’”

The announcement itself was bold: “February 2 will be remembered as
the date when uncertainty was removed as to whether humans had
anything to do with climate change on this planet. ... The evidence is
on the table,” the executive director of the United Nations
Environment Program said.

However, that evidence has not yet been made public; the UN did not
release a report, only a summary; the report itself will be held until
May. The ipcc writes: “Changes (other than grammatical or minor
editorial changes) made after acceptance by the Working Group or the
Panel shall be those necessary to ensure consistency with the Summary
for Policymakers or the Overview Chapter.” In other words, write the
conclusions in the summary, then fix the data to match.
Politicians and press took the summary at face value, with no
meaningful evidence to back it up, as though it were fact. Others,
however, who have actually examined the ipcc report-including
respected scientist and one-time adviser to Margaret Thatcher, Lord
Christopher Monckton-provide evidence that should give us pause about
accepting the summary without question.

Comparing the current report’s findings to those of the UN’s last
report in 2001, Monckton found that the new data overturned several
previous conclusions. The 2001 report “overestimated the human
influence on the climate since the Industrial Revolution by at least
one third” and overshot its predictions on rising sea levels by more
than double (Monckton, “ipcc Fourth Assessment Report,” February
2007). Monckton also reported that the rise in temperature between
2001 and 2006 was about 3/100ths of a degree-small enough to be
“within the range of measurement error” and therefore not
“statistically significant” (ibid.).

Why the wrong conclusions in the 2001 report? Monckton showed how it
“undervalued the sun’s effects on historical and contemporary climate,
slashed the natural greenhouse effect, overstated the past century’s
temperature increase, repealed a fundamental law of physics and
tripled the man-made greenhouse effect” (Sunday Telegraph, Nov. 5,
2006).

The UN is obviously not keen to publicize such faulty assumptions, and
it can count on the media to glaze over the facts to headline alarmist
pronouncements.

Perhaps most condemning, however, is the fact that scientists who are
skeptical of global warming are, as the Wall Street Journal reveals,
“routinely vetoed from contributing” to the debate (February 5). The
much-publicized item from the summary that it is “very
likely” (greater than 90 percent) that man is responsible for global
warming may be directly related to that censorship. Vancouver Sun
reporter Peter McKnight points to an ipcc document saying these
likelihoods “may be based on quantitative analysis or an elicitation
of expert views.” The trouble is, only those experts who already
support the idea of global warming were polled, an omission that
McKnight rightly calls a “political rather than scientific act.”

Consensus

The suggestion that scientists have reached a consensus on global
warming is absurd, although it has been repeated often. There is a
consensus that Earth’s overall temperature rose seven tenths of one
degree during the 20th century. It is also true that co2 levels rose
about 30 percent over this period. Everything else is contested.

For example, more than 60 leading climatologists sent an open letter
on April 6, 2006, to Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, warning,
”‘Climate change is real’ is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by
activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming
and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. ...
Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the
human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural
‘noise.’”

Monckton asserted, ”[U]sing reasonable data and assumptions, a simple
global model shows that temperature will rise by just 0.1 to 1.4
degrees Celsius in the coming century, with a best estimate of 0.6
degrees Celsius, well within the medieval temperature range and only a
fifth of the UN’s new, central projection” (Sunday Telegraph, op.
cit.).

New Scientist magazine reported in January 2002 that the West
Antarctic Ice Sheet, contrary to expectations, is actually growing
thicker. As it simply put it, “despite decades of research, Antarctic
climate patterns remain poorly understood.” Researchers at the
University of Illinois found that Antarctic temperatures have actually
been getting cooler for the last 30 years using the novel approach of
taking temperature readings rather than using computer models.

Even the idea that co2 is responsible for global warming has dubious
origins. Canadian climatologist Timothy Ball explained: “The theory of
global warming assumes that co2 is an atmospheric greenhouse gas and
as it increases temperatures rise. It was then theorized that since
humans were producing more co2 than before, the temperature would
inevitably rise. The theory was accepted before testing had started,
and effectively became a law. As [Richard] Lindzen [a professor of
atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology] said
many years ago: ‘the consensus was reached before the research had
even begun.’ Now, any scientist who dares to question the prevailing
wisdom is marginalized and called a skeptic, when in fact they are
simply being good scientists” (Canada Free Press, February 5).

Many scientists have pointed to solar activity, rather than human
activity, as the cause for global warming. Sami Solanki, a solar
physicist, claims the sun has been hotter, for longer, in the last 50
years than at any time in the past 11,400 years. Using his
calculations, the sun could account for just about all of the Earth’s
warming during the past century.

Lord Monckton has produced a wealth of data and numerous articles for
the Telegraph providing what the wsj calls a “voice of sanity.” There
is a concerted effort underway, however, to silence such voices.
Lindzen reports that “Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have
seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves
libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently,
lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face
of the science that supposedly is their basis” (Wall Street Journal,
April 12, 2006).

In 1995, Dr. David Deming, assistant professor at the University of
Oklahoma College of Geosciences, published in Science a review of data
showing a one-degree temperature increase in North America. The
article, he later wrote, gave him “significant credibility in the
community of scientists working on climate change. ... So one of them
let his guard down. A major person working in the area of climate
change and global warming sent me an astonishing e-mail that said, ‘We
have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period’ [a well-documented,
widely recognized period during the Middle Ages warmer than any period
in the 20th century]” (Tom Bethell, The Politically Incorrect Guide to
Science). The Medieval Warm Period subsequently disappeared from the
UN’s 2001 report.

Deming also encountered one example of the media hiding the facts.
When he was asked by a National Public Radio reporter if he intended
his article to imply that the North American warming trend was due to
natural causes (a point he assumed was uncontroversial), Deming said
yes. The reporter replied, “Well, then, I guess we have no story. ...
People are only interested if the warming is due to human activities.
Goodbye” (ibid.).

The trend continues today. Last November, Britain’s Labor foreign
secretary, Margaret Beckett, “compared climate skeptics to advocates
of Islamic terror. Neither, she said, should have access to the
media” (Telegraph, Nov. 12, 2006).

Solutions-But for What?

Adding to the dubiousness of the debate, numerous analysts have
pointed out how pointless the reductions in greenhouse gasses demanded
by the Kyoto protocol are-unless the goal is to devastate the U.S.
economy. This is why the Senate voiced its disapproval of the protocol
with a vote of 95–0 even with the Clinton/Gore administration pushing
for it.

Canada’s environment minister has warned that his country’s economy
would collapse if it worked harder to meet its Kyoto obligations;
currently it is 30 percent over par. Russia initially refused to sign
Kyoto on economic grounds, but finally acquiesced in 2004 with the
promise to reduce its emissions by 0 percent.

Now, the UN has upped the ante. The current draft of the report
recommends that 5 percent of gross domestic product worldwide be
allocated to protect the climate-a $2.5 trillion investment. How
effectively would this investment combat climate change? According to
Monckton, if everyone complied with the Kyoto protocol, in one
century, the global temperature would drop 1/25 of one degree. He also
noted that if Britain “stopped using energy altogether, global
temperature by 2035 would be six-thousandths of a degree Centigrade
less than if we carried on as usual” (ibid.).

The Truth

“No matter if the science is all phony,” Canada’s Minister of the
Environment Christine Stewart told reporters in 1998. “There are
collateral environmental benefits. ... Climate change [provides] the
greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the
world” (emphasis mine).

Read that again. Such faulty thinking infects much of the debate on
global warming-ideology is more important than truth, and politics
takes precedence over science. Considering how consistently the UN
serves as a sounding board for open hatred of all things Western,
capitalist and American, is it so outlandish to ask whether such bias
taints the objectivity of the global warming report and affects how it
is being used-especially considering how much its prescriptions would
damage the U.S. economy?

But there is another level of this debate being overlooked by both
sides.

The most important truth of the matter is this: Though humans may be
able to effect a miniscule change in the climate, we don’t control the
weather and we never have. Almighty God does. The Bible prophesies of
weather disasters in the end time, not because of greenhouse gas
emissions but because God uses catastrophe to punish for sin (e.g.
Revelation 6:5–8; 8:4–12). In that sense, man is responsible for
catastrophic weather (e.g. 2 Chronicles 6:26). That is the cause of
our weather crisis-and repentance for those sins is the cure.

God doesn’t promise rain in due season and bountiful land yields for
dumping soot on the Arctic ice cap or cutting co2 emissions. He does
promise those things if we obey His commandments (Leviticus 26:3–4).
We must not allow the highly politicized debate on this issue to
obscure that critical truth.

wait did you really just say at the end that the world’s climate is caused by our sins in the eyes of the Christian god?

NO! I didn’t say or imply that. As I mentioned in the earlier commentary that information was from an article entitled “The Politics of Global Warming”
By Mark Jenkins Friday, March 16, 2007, a Senior fellow from the Heartland Institute. I was merely showing articles that seem to address many sides of this debate including the Scriptural reference you questioned.

Coincidentally I yesterday read an article on the “swindle” film, and it’s really a load of nonsense. Graphs have been manipulated, remarks pulled out of context, that is states plain untruths and was generally very unscientific. See this page (looked up afterwards, features some of the same data as in the article I read yesterday).

Anyway, there is no doubt that the earth is warming up. The discussion is more about whether it is caused by humans and how it will evolve in the future.

Excuse me. I’m not happy with the original question. Clearly desberg had a long, long, long answer and couldn’t wait to post it. This wasn’t a question. It was a ploy to make a political statement. We’ve seen this before (“Have you heard of Ron Paul”). Not nice.

You’re excused!
It still a free country as far as I know and I have just as much of a right to ask such a question in any manner I want as long as I abide by the groundrules laid out by this web site, just as you have every right to express your thoughts. So, accordingly I can ask away but you are free to not read it or respond.
You should at least admit this is a very current topic, and while you may not think so, I do respect and like to see the opinions of others on this complex subject.
And, NO! I didn’t try to use this as a ploy to post the so-called long article when I first posted the question. It is a legitimate and current question. So, don’t try to put words in my mouth, I don’t accept it.

Calm down, desberg. I have been gently corrected by the management of this site that although they are not seeking to censor anyone’s opinions (or I may have been banned long ago) it is simply poor form and etiquette to ask a question and immediately respond with a very long refutation of the first response to your question. Also, that it is poor etiquette to paste in lengthy excerpts, but rather you should either link or only paste in concise and relevant quotes. This is all new to me, but I majored in computer engineering briefly back when the Commodore and Atari were the hot machines (I remember the birth of the Internet as well, although I don’t recall Mr. Gore being around). One of my professors told me no program would ever require more code than could be stored on a cassette tape drive. Ah, change.

I agree with desberg that the science is nowhere near 99.5% in favor of this mythical “consensus” on global warming, although the media and politicians frequently portray it thus. I actually have been hoping someone would post this question, as I have drafted my own line of thought, which I believe to be somewhat different than most on any side in this debate, and IMHO relatively logical and neutral. Unfortunately, I don’t have time today to post it, but will sometime this weekend. Sorry about the tease.

Lay off Al Gore already, you guys! If you want to talk about misquoting and taking things out of context, the Al Gore “invented the Internet” flap is a primo example of that.

Gore told Wolf Blitzer in a March 1999 interview on CNN’s Late Edition, “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.”

To quote Al Franken:
“What do you suppose he meant? That, late at night in his office in the Russell Building, after the other senators had gone home, he had written the PASCAL code that allowed packet switching? Probably not. No. What he seemed to be doing is what members of Congress do: He was taking credit for a program he championed and funded. In this case one that revolutionized the information infrastructure of the entire world.
What an asshole.
The phrase “invented the Internet” first appeared in a Republican party press release and would be repeated by the “liberal” press thousands of times during the campaign. What should have been an enormous credit to the man’s vision became a symbol of his insidious, compulsive dishonesty.”

Here’s another site on the Al Gore “urban legend”:
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

And seriously, just because at one point some people thought the world was cooling doesn’t mean “global warming is a myth.” I mean, at one point, scientists thought the sun revolved around the earth and that people got sick because their humors were out of balance. Does that mean that astronomy and the Germ Theory of Disease are a myth? Uh, no.

desberg- you have twice mentioned this “article” by Mark Jenkins. In what reputable periodical does this “article” appear?

Ok, so I looked it up and this “Heartland Institute” seems to be a Chicago think tank dedicated to the idea that all problems can be solved in a free market economy (i.e. big business supporters). I think I’d take their opinions with a grain of salt. Forget whether or not CO2 emissions cause climate change. We know auto emissions are poisonous. People kill them selves that way. Why not sell the idea of us weening off of gasoline as pumping less poison into the air.

“It still a free country as far as I know and I have just as much of a right to ask such a question in any manner I want as long as I abide by the groundrules laid out by this web site, just as you have every right to express your thoughts.”

desberg, the internet is international.

So, if I understand your implication, my/our rights change because the internet is international? As far as I know, my rights are not bound by that fact.

No, but it made it sound like you think all people on the internet are American (or whatever country you live in, but it mostly seem to be Americans who think that). For all you know, someone here might live in Iran and not have as much freedom.

So, I guess what you may be saying is that in a country like Iran where the government dictates what can be said and what cannot be said; that if an Iranian felt his governments view of something like global warming, if they really believe that themselves, is not his/her view they couldn’t express it freely; they would have to either mouth the governments view or be punished somehow if they mouthed an opposing view. Glad I live in America where I can express a dissenting view without penalty except, in this case not disagreement with our government but with Gore’s absurd and distorted view of “global warming”.

Yes, and that the internet is not America, a view that I sometimes think a lot of Americans have and that I am a little disturbed by. But let’s stop getting off-topic ;-)

I read somewhere how “global warming” gave out a positive idea of what is happening to the planet. Both “global” and “warming” are very positive words. The whole idea started changing with Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”. He may or he may be not 100% right. If you search long enough you’ll see that opinions differ. But they only differ on the point of who/what is causing this alteration. It seem obvious that the weather is changing. I don’t think anyone can really refute that. As an example, we’ve been having abnormal high temperatures here in Portugal. Autumn is only starting now and it’s coming in heavy doses, instead of the smooth transition we were accustomed to.
What some scientists have also been saying is that the earth poles are shifting, creating changes in the electro-magnetic field. Such a change will force the planet to respond, to try and maintain balance, by trying to relieve itself from excessive energy, in the form of storms, earthquakes, tornados, etc. Also, solar explosions have been more frequent. All this surge of cosmic energy is changing the planet. The real problem with human caused pollution is that it makes it harder for the planet to regain balance. And that should be our main concern. The UN have already said that we’re in for mass extinction…

@christybird: I find it curious you are so defensive about Mr. Gore you rush to defend him from a nonexistent attack. I merely observed Mr. Gore was NOT around for “the birth of the internet.” At no point did I assert Mr. Gore claimed to have “invented the Internet.” I am well aware of what Mr. Gore has said on this topic, I am also well aware of the expletives uttered by many of the people who WERE responsible for creating the Internet when they heard Mr. Gore’s statement.

Your own snopes article does a pretty good job of pointing out Mr. Gore overstated his involvement. His statement is akin to Procter and Gamble’s advertising people saying they took the initiative in creating soap. Simply, Mr. Gore made it sound like the Internet wouldn’t have been around without him. Not uncommon hyperbole for a politician. In truth, the Internet predated his involvement, if he hadn’t sponsored those bills someone else would have. He did play a role in popularizing the Internet, but a much smaller role than he made it sound.

I’m not sure whether the “what an a(&(&e” comment is yours, or Mr. Franken’s, or to whom it refers. If it refers to Mr. Franken, I would agree. If it refers to Mr. Gore, I don’t think he deserves it on this issue, although if I have to see his smarmy, smug smile again as he accepts another award for his, in essence, Power Point presentation of other people’s research (filled with errors, to boot), I’d say he deserves it on that issue. If it refers to me, I don’t think I earned it in THAT post.

I find it amusing that the Chicken Littles running around screaming “the sky is warming, the sky is warming” and arrogantly or condescendingly making statements like “the science is clear,” “there is no question,” and “the experts are in consensus” are the very same people that were screaming “hate crime” and “homophobe” at those of us who questioned the validity of the claims made that AIDS was a worldwide disaster and crisis, unavoidable without spending billions right now. As I and others have repeatedly pointed out, AIDS, though not to be taken lightly, is largely a sexually transmitted disease. STDs are diseases so difficult to get, intimate contact is required. AIDS prevention could, in many cases, be as simple as behavior modification, unlike other serious diseases like malaria and cancer. Why did we spend more on AIDS than on Alzheimer’s? Because we made a SOCIAL decision that it was more important for us that we engage in sexual activity than for the elderly to delay senility. After all, old people are just going to get senile anyway, aren’t they? Isn’t it more important for me to be able to enjoy unprotected sex?

And these same people are pointing at the same “experts” like Al Gore and the U.N. Why on earth would you believe the U.N. about global warming when they are finally admitting they exaggerated the “AIDS crisis?” See:
http://stores.lulu.com/ebodwell

By overestimating, in some cases, by over 100%? And they’ve known they were exaggerating for over a decade? While they accepted, AND SPENT, millions of dollars received based on their fake “scientific facts?” Go ahead, believe the U.N. and the scientific consensus. I hope fluther is still around in 20 years when they admit they might have “overestimated” global warming a tad.

@hossman – the quotes around the passage with the expletive in it should have tipped you off that it is, in fact, a quote. It refers to Gore. And Franken doesn’t think Al Gore deserves it either – he’s using sarcasm.

Who are these people running around screamng things at you? They sound irritating. I don’t know about them, but I personally am concerned about global warming and AIDS and all kinds of other things that affect me and you and the world we both share, and I wonder how you can learn about these things other than trying to ask rigorous scientific questions. It’s hard to predict exactly how things are going to happen, and even the best models can be wrong – the world is a complicated place. I don’t think that means we should give up trying to understand things like AIDS and global warming, and how they will affect us, and how we can stop them from making our lives crappy. So yes, I am concerned, and I mostly respect science (which at least has a quantitative method and tries to be objective, unlike random speculation). That doesn’t make me hysterical.

I didn’t say you were hysterical, christybird. Your post (or at least what I see) is missing quote marks, so it was unclear when your quote of Mr. Franken ended. I will say Mr. Gore, for his own reasons, is trying to promote hysteria. While I certainly agree pollution is not a good thing, the denial there is any valid scientific question about global warming is harmful, as it prevents and discourages research that might lead to a better understanding of the science, just as the exaggeration of the AIDS rates handicapped valid scientific research. Your own position above is much more reasonable and moderate than what the media, led by Mr. Gore, is giving us, where even the most tentative approach at asking real questions or verifying statements is attacked with condescension and arrogance. Yes, these people, the Al Gores and Michael Moores, are very irritating, especially when they repeatedly refuse to subject themselves to the same scrutiny they give others. Especially when they fudge the facts. Especially when they clothe themselves in the mantle of self-righteousness. They refuse to admit their conclusions are wholly predicated upon assumptions and models.

I think we actually are in agreement here. It is this hysteria, this insistence that the currently fashionable viewpoint is right and all others wrong, with such religious fervor and bigotry, impede real scientific inquiry. I pity the research scientist that would try to get a study funded today to critically and honestly analyze global warming, or who came to a contrary conclusion and tried to have it publicized. In fact, there are scientists who have come to different conclusions who are already stating they cannot get their studies accepted in science journals because of the content of their conclusion, rather than the rigor of the research. If true, that is censorship. I always find it amazing that so many in science and academia fail to recognize they, not “fundamentalists” or “conservatives” or the “Christian right,” are the Inquisition of today.

I have just read a report saying the major instruments used to calibrate the information used by the “Global Warming” advocates has been found to be faulty. This could have led to the entire Global Warming fallacy.