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leftismkiller

"Too small to be a concern doesn't even qualify as "moderate" warming. If anything it would be "insignifncant" warming. So Brockerman's statement isn't necessarily wrong."

Modest, leftismkiller, not moderate. Go reread my post. But let's not argue semantics. And yes, Brockerman IS necessarily wrong. Saying something is cooling when it is actually warming, two mutually exclusive terms, is very clearly incorrect. The only question is how much is Brockerman wrong by? You seemed to have misunderstood my point back when you called Dr. Christy my god. I don't particularly trust Christy since he's already made at least one important analysis error. I would tend to trust the authors of the several other satellite studies who all found tropospheric warming trends that are of significance (because they agree with surface records). Christy, after having a dialogue with some of these people (and AFTER the 2005 article quote you've posted three times now) even authored a report with them which states that Christy's early study was wrong to a significant degree (no pun intended).

"And Richard Linzen, Professor of Atmospheric Sceince at MIT (a man who is not a conservative by any means) stated that global mean temperatures have increased on the order of one degree Fahrenheit over the past century. Technically one degree warmer constitutes "warming". But to say "Hah, see the planet is getting warmer!" based on this is deceptive at best."

One degree of warming may not sound like so much but even small changes can have a big impact on the finely balanced global climate and ecosystems. Just look at recent arctic sea ice melting trends which have been primarily attributed to global warming.

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/seaice_meltdown.html

This one degree rise is also beginning to have a documented effect on the ranges of certain insects and other creatures. At any rate, the chief concern is not what has happened already but what will happen if this global warming trend continues or accelerates. Speaking of which, Dr. Linzen's description of this warming trend actually seems somewhat misleading. Here's what you posted from him earlier:

"Most of the climate community has agreed since 1988 that global mean temperatures have increased on the order of one degree Fahrenheit over the past century, having risen significantly from about 1919 to 1940, decreased between 1940 and the early '70s, increased again until the '90s, and remaining essentially flat since 1998."

Now compare that to this previously cited chart from junkscience:

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/GHCN-ERSST.gif

What Linzen fails to mention is that the rise from the years around 1970 to the years around 2000 is steeper than any other 30 year period over the century; about half a degree C. What is really suspicious, however, is that he picks 1998, of all years, as his base for measuring net temperature change to the present. Being an atmospheric scientist, Linzen should be well aware that 97-98 was the period of an unusually strong el nino which had the effect of temporarily causing a spike in global temperatures. If you use 1999 as your base year, instead, than the net warming between then and 2005 was not flat but about 2/10 of a degree C. If you use 1996, it was more than 3/10. Now who is being deceptive?

"Nope. You see, the goal of the leftists at places like The Sierra Club is to spread disinformation and propagate the theory of global warming (I'll explain why below). The goal of people like Brorkerman and Milloy is to expose these sham artists for the liars that they are and to let people know that Global Warming is a myth put forth by leftists in order to enact their anti capitalist agenda."

Oh, how noble of them. I'm sure that Brockerman's desire to discredit global warming has nothing to do with the fact that government mandated carbon caps would fly in the face of his free market sensibilities. Give me a break. He's not even a scientist, he's a journalist for Capitalism Magazine. He's got more of a clear-cut motive to spin the facts than almost anyone.

"You're right. You were too lazy to even cherry pick. You just came to the first stat you saw and tried to pick it apart. You're correct. To call you a cherry picker would insult the work ethic of actual cherry pickers."

I thought you might say that. Truth is, as much as I enjoy this, I do actually have some other things that I must divide my time between. Perhaps if I hadn't needed to spend the last few days debating the definition of 'warming' with you, I might have had more time to look through the rest of your links.

"I'm going to explain this as simply as I can. They are anti-capitalist. I call them watermelon people (green on the outside, red on the inside). Here, I'll let Ann say it for me. 'They want us to starve the productive sector of fossil fuel and allow the world's factories to grind to a halt. This means an end to material growth and a cataclysmic reduction in wealth.' These people are disguising their socialist desires in environmentalists clothing....I don't know why the environazi's do this crap and to be honest, I don't want to understand what makes them tick. I only seek to help expose them for the scam artists they are."

Ok, this is pretty much the stupidest thing I've ever read. It's got so many holes in it I don't even know where to begin.

Let's see, first off, the probability that the tens of thousands of climate scientist world wide who believe in global warming could all harbor the same ultra-extremist agenda, let alone keep it a secret is quite low.

Second, why would anyone (with the possible exception of Ted Kaczynski) want to shut down global industry and infrastructure? The climate scientists and so called leftists would suffer severely from this along with everyone else. Even socialist and communist governments who favor some form of wealth redistribution do not want a "cataclysmic reducition of wealth," as Coulter so dubiously claims. Just look at western Europe and China. They are all in favor of economic growth. This is simply not a convincing motive.

Third, assuming just for a minute that this really is the motive of the scientists and leftists - to shut down industry and infrastructure - then why do they all advocate the development of green technology and renewable energy? Supplementing coal with wind or wave power or convincing people to trade in their trucks for a a Prius, as you say, will not cripple industry. It will merely begin a transition away from dependence on fossil fuels.

Fourth, again assuming that this is their scheme, it's a pretty dumb one. I don't see how any government, even a liberal one, could be convinced to shut off fossil fuel use cold turkey. It would be suicidal. And anyhow, no one is advocating this. All that the environmentalists and governments are talking about is setting long term goals for gradual emissions reduction through greater efficiency and green technology.

You're right, you don't understand why the environmentalists do this because your theory doesn't make one bit of sense. It's simply a convenient way for you not to have to wonder if maybe these are generally good people who do sincerely want to protect humanity and the world we live in, even if you do take issue with their science or their policy proposals.