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Thursday, March 15, 2007
Thomas Sowell :: Townhall.com Columnist
Global Warming Swindle
by Thomas Sowell
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Britain's Channel 4 has produced a devastating documentary titled "The Great Global Warming Swindle." It has apparently not been broadcast by any of the networks in the United States. But, fortunately, it is available on the Internet.

Distinguished scientists specializing in climate and climate-related fields talk in plain English and present readily understood graphs showing what a crock the current global warming hysteria is.

These include scientists from MIT and top-tier universities in a number of countries. Some of these are scientists whose names were paraded on some of the global warming publications that are being promoted in the media -- but who state plainly that they neither wrote those publications nor approved them.

One scientist threatened to sue unless his name was removed.

While the public has been led to believe that "all" the leading scientists buy the global warming hysteria and the political agenda that goes with it, in fact the official reports from the United Nations or the National Academy of Sciences are written by bureaucrats -- and then garnished with the names of leading scientists who were "consulted," but whose contrary conclusions have been ignored.

There is no question that the globe is warming but it has warmed and cooled before, and is not as warm today as it was some centuries ago, before there were any automobiles and before there was as much burning of fossil fuels as today.

None of the dire things predicted today happened then.

The British documentary goes into some of the many factors that have caused the earth to warm and cool for centuries, including changes in activities on the sun, 93 million miles away and wholly beyond the jurisdiction of the Kyoto treaty.

According to these climate scientists, human activities have very little effect on the climate, compared to many other factors, from volcanoes to clouds.

These climate scientists likewise debunk the mathematical models that have been used to hype global warming hysteria, even though hard evidence stretching back over centuries contradicts these models.

What is even scarier than seeing how easily the public, the media, and the politicians have been manipulated and stampeded, is discovering how much effort has been put into silencing scientists who dare to say that the emperor has no clothes.

Academics who jump on the global warming bandwagon are far more likely to get big research grants than those who express doubts -- and research is the lifeblood of an academic career at leading universities.

Environmental movements around the world are committed to global warming hysteria and nowhere more so than on college and university campuses, where they can harass those who say otherwise. One of the scientists interviewed on the British documentary reported getting death threats.

In politics, even conservative Republicans seem to have taken the view that, if you can't lick 'em, join 'em. So have big corporations, which have joined the stampede.

This only enables the green crusaders to declare at every opportunity that "everybody" believes the global warming scenario, except for a scattered few "deniers" who are likened to Holocaust deniers.

The difference is that we have the hardest and most painful evidence that there was a Holocaust. But, for the global warming scenario that is causing such hysteria, we have only a movie made by a politician and mathematical models whose results change drastically when you change a few of the arbitrarily selected variables.

No one denies that temperatures are about a degree warmer than they were a century ago.

What the climate scientists in the British documentary deny is that you can mindlessly extrapolate that, or that we are headed for a climate catastrophe if we don't take drastic steps that could cause an economic catastrophe.

"Global warming" is just the latest in a long line of hysterical crusades to which we seem to be increasingly susceptible.

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About The Author
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of The Housing Boom and Bust.
 
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News Articles On This Topic
 

Americans are odd.
Why do Americans frame global warming as a left-right thing? For what its worth, The Great Global Warming Swindle IS a leftist argument. In fact, a Communist argument. Durkin and his colleagues in the Revolutionary Communist Party have been making the same arguments for decades, published in Durkin's documentaries and in the pages of their (now defunct)magazine, Living Marxism. In Durkin's previous doc, Against Nature, his assistant was Eve Kaye a key figure in the RCP (and married to an author of its manifesto). “Independent Experts” on the documentary included Frank Furedi (Frank Richards) and John Gillott, both Living Marxism writers. The Revolutionary Communist Party has also launched a series of front organisations against environmentalism including The Science Media Centre, the Institute of Ideas, Spiked Online, and Sense About Science.

Please stop this silliness.

Thomas Sowell is an Exxon funded Stooge
The Hoover Institute is Exxon-Mobil funded and Exxon have been running a covert disinformation program for many years to undermine the science of global warming, the IPCC and Kyoto.
Thomas Sowell is part of this scientific fraud & deception.

Opinions based Upon Ignorance
It's a great shame that the overwhelming number of strong opinions expressed here are based not upon knowledge of climate change, but entirely upon immense ignorance of the science.

"Balance as bias: global warming and the US prestige press" Boykoff and Boykoff
http://www.envsci.nau.edu/sisk/courses/env555/Readings/BoykoffBias.pdf

To those who believe that climate change or man-made global warming is a myth or some kind of conspiracy, do yourselves [and the rest of us] a favour and read some science rather than watching the 'Great Global Warming Swindle'.

A good basic start would be
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled-carl-wunsch-responds/

Try en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Global_Warming_Swindle, where one can find details of the lies, distortions and manipulation of the facts. There are links to see scientific dissections of the film and demonstrating that the truth is not quite as depicted by the film. From there one can learn about the people involved and if one wants to delve deeper, the science beneath the claims. Almost needless to say, the science is not as claimed in TGGWS, the solar hypothesis is far from proven and solar output has been decreasing slightly for around twenty years. However the increases in atmospheric CO2 explain the increasing temperatures and the isotopic fingerprint demonstrate that the increasing CO2 is man-made.

Stable isotope ratio mass spectrometry in global climate change research - Prosenjit Ghosh, Willi A. Brand
http://www.bgc.mpg.de/service/iso_gas_lab/publications/PG_WB_IJMS.pdf

Most of the scientists featured in the film have been or are in the pay of ExxonMobil, or IREA or some other fossil-fuel industry.

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf
http://www.realclimate.org/irea_letterJul06.pdf

A number of them are not even climatologists, None of them are taken seriously.

Taxpayer-funded stations skew debate
See also "The ‘Great Global Warming Swindle’ debate" http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/5256/

AG
I just spent some time last with a friend that I consider one of the smartest guys I know and he has bought onto this politically motivated scare tactic. Has the liberal mantra always been some version of "the sky is falling?" Anyway, my friend is still very smart but I don't consider his knowledge well-rounded any longer. I didn't consider him one that would ever eat the hook, line and sinker, but that is what he did. It is maddening to see the tight connection between stupidity, media, and the unsuspecting public that think if it is printed, it must be true.

Anyway, Thomas Sowell is great. I have referenced his work in different common sense articles on http://www.considercommonsense.com. Why is it people stopped using their common sense? It is time for the public to start using this again, and I think it is happening.

Swindled and defeated
As with most issues, crises, or events, the really interesting aspect, in my opinion, is how others react. Not the nuts and bolts of the issue itself, but how and why people react as they do.

To get to the heart of the issue at hand, wouldn't it seem logical that the man-made global warming crowd might see some of the pretty strong evidence contrary to the generally accepted view that "man is primarily responsible for the warming of the Earth." Having seen this evidence, I should imagine one would wipe his brow and let out a sigh of relief. You would think that he would be relieved and encouraged in knowing that perhaps the actions of man are not pushing us all down some inevitable path of destruction. I think Dr. Sowell and others have given a good if not exhaustive explanation for the professional crowd's reactions. Money.

But, why do media types and so many others seem to embrace so dearly this phony "crisis" and force feed it to the masses. Why do the masses gulp it up without relent?

We must face facts and concede that the game is up. The "man-made global warming crowd" has won. For now, it's just a matter of degree. Are draconian measures in our future? Will our standard of living be a trade-off for some blind adherence to an eco-friendly agenda? Very likely.

The people have reacted and, in the end, that's the really important thing...

Fish out of water
I'm no scientist, don't even play one on TV, so my opinion doesn't matter much. Even if I was, unless I specialized in climatology my opinion wouldn't hold much weight either. Most if not all of us commenting here would fall into the same boat. And no, taking science in 11th grade doesn't have any gravitas. When you have so many specialists, and I'm not referring to AL, that do believe something is wrong, we'd probably be wise to listen. I'm not suggesting take what they say as gospel but at least keep an open mind.
I have to wonder about the motives of whoever labeled this isssue a "liberal conspiracy". Immediately it put the Ditto Heads on attack and made civil discourse on the subject difficult. Divide and conquer, who's benefiting from our stalemate? My knee-jerk suspicion is the people that would benifit the most, the EXXON/MOBIL types are profiting wildly will we point fingers at each other.

CH. 4 documentary is the real swindle
In a recent article entitled Global Warming Swindle, Thomas Sowell declares that “‘Global warming’ is just the latest in a long line of hysterical crusades to which we seem to be increasingly susceptible.” As evidence for this, he cites a recent documentary by Britain’s Channel 4 news in which a small group of scientists present alternative views arguing that global warming is not being driven by human activities. Sowell angrily notes that this documentary has not been aired on US television, and suggests that “the public, the media, and the politicians have been manipulated and stampeded” into believing that global warming is being caused by humans. What Sowell does not explain is that the conclusions backed in Channel 4’s The Great Global Warming Swindle represent the views of an exceedingly small minority of scientists.
Rather than question why these scientists represent such a small minority, Sowell instead proceeds to blindly accept the conclusions of the documentary and suggests that human caused global warming is a sham. Had Sowell instead further investigated the science behind the documentary, he would have found that the program was filled with false claims and fantastical hypotheses that have been debunked years ago. In just one blatant example, the program states that volcanic emissions of CO2 far exceed those of human activity. In truth, modern estimates indicate that human emissions of CO2 are 100 times greater than those of volcanic emissions (Morner and Etiope 2002).
Though Sowell criticizes the public for accepting commonly held opinions on global warming so quickly, he commits the same error himself through his willingness to believe that humans are not responsible for global warming. There is only one difference: the view he chooses to accept is held only by a few fringe scientists, while the mainstream opinion that humans are likely responsible for global warming is backed by the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, as well as the American Association for the Advancement of Science. A recent study surveying 928 articles in scientific journals about climate change found that 75% of the articles reflected the consensus opinion, 25% took no position on anthropogenic climate change, and none represented the view that humans are not responsible for climate change (Oreskes 2004).
Perhaps what The Great Global Warming Swindle shows most clearly is that the news media should rely on general scientific opinion rather than the ideas of a fringe minority. This is because the conclusions presented by each side are ultimately poorly judged by the layperson. For example, The Great Global Warming Swindle argues that because CO2 changes lag temperature changes by about 800 years, then CO2 levels cannot possibly be responsible for global warming. Though this may seem logical to a member of the general public, in truth it was shown years ago that CO2 levels could be responsible for temperature changes despite this lag (Severinghaus 2004).
Because the general public does not have the necessary background to comprehensively evaluate the claims of competing sources, it is ultimately irresponsible and misleading to present the opinions of a fringe minority as though they commanded equal sway and legitimacy as those of the scientific consensus. This is what the producers of The Great Global Warming Swindle have done, and it is why they are the true swindlers. While it is true that the news media should mention both sides of any debate, the media should also accurately portray the extent to which each side of the debate holds credence among experts. This is precisely what Thomas Sowell fails to do in Global Warming Swindle.

Opportunism
Once again the "Conservative" movement seeks to impeed the march of Capitalism.
In most languages "Conservative" implys, well, Conserving. Social "Conservatives" like to conserve traditional values. We respect your beliefs and all of it's junk science, it's America, you're free to believe that we landed on the moon. Mr. Gore, despite the personal energy expenditure, is promoting economic Conservative values. The Goracle himself, like Mr. Cheney and Haliburton, is heavily invested in his armada of companies that he uses his political sway to promote.
So now, thanks to The Albinator, when money is made, it will still be made in the USA.
Hey is Arnold a Republican?

Flashback to 1995
Mr Sowell wrote:

"Despite the great variety of issues in a series of crusading movements among the intelligentsia during the twentieth century, several key elements have been common to most of them:

1. Assertions of a great danger to the whole society, a danger to which masses of people are oblivious.
2. An urgent need for action to avert impending catastrophe.
3. A need for government to drastically curtail the dangerous behavior of many, in response to the prescient conclusions of the few.
4. A disdainful dismissal of arguments to the contrary as either uninformed, irresponsible, or motivated by unworthy purposes."

-- The Vision of the Annointed, 1995

Direct hits! Al Gore & the global warming movement...1, 2, 3, and 4.

Thomas Sowell is a Great Man.


The offense has started
Clearly if one side has a political agenda so too then does the other side. The “AB” (as he is being called) DVD AIT is perceived as a Democratic Rally and now The Great Global Warming Swindle is no doubt the Republican Offensive, “Quick do Something or else I may not be able to make and sell my SUVs! (As the Big 3 car makers go under glug.. glug…glug…).

Guns Oils Tobacco and now defend away your children environment too, nice job guys.

BTW: An early Easter egg hunt was held on the Whitehouse lawn; no eggs were found but a spokesmen for the Whitehouse insists they are there

IMPOSSIBLE!!! PROOF:
Discussions on global warming often refer to 'global temperature.' Yet the concept is thermodynamically as well as mathematically an impossibility, says Bjarne Andresen, a professor at The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen.

Average in your home is plus minus 5 or ten degrees!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mongo...typical misunderstanding
"surely we can all agree that the massive quantities of pollutants and wastes that we are releasing into our atmosphere are not beneficial or even non-harmful to the environment"

C02 is NOT a pollutant! It is a CRITICAL trace gas in the atmosphere. Plants need it, so do we. The more C02, the stronger the growth of plants around the world.

Look at the air quality around any major city in the western world, and you will find a massive improvement in air quality over the last 30 years...thanks to technological advancements.

Problems
Perhaps the science behind the theory of global warming is still unsubstantiated, but surely we can all agree that the massive quantities of pollutants and wastes that we are releasing into our atmosphere are not beneficial or even non-harmful to the environment, and they certainly are not doing anything to help if global warming indeed is true. As we have technologies to allow us to continue our way of life as we know it while being more environmentally conscious, what then is the objection? Not only will we be advancing technology but we can help out with the environment at the same time. We can't drive around internal combustion engines forever, perhaps emissions reform or the "hysteria" caused by global warming can provide the catalyst to boost our scientific research and bring us to the next big breakthrough that betters our quality of life while because of increased efficiency and lower pollution levels.

Liberal nonsense
As usual liberals get it wrong. Wow, what a news flash. They haven't been right on any major issue in the last 50 years. You would think that with this record of futility they would learn to keep their mouths shut. I guess not. Nothing surpasses a liberal's stupidity or arrogance.

Watch the Flintstones
Didn't you see Fred running around in that prehistoric SUV? That's what ended the last Ice Age! ;)

Another funny thing about the infamous "Hockey Stick Analysis" is that it requires that the Medeival Warming Period never happened. The MWP is the reason Greenland was named that instead of "Whiteland;" there was vegetation around the shore. It's why there were vinyards in Britain. The MWP was well established as historical & scientific fact. Nobody ever bothered to question it until the "hockey stick" people & AlGore contradicted it. It has to be minimized now so that it won't inconvenience "An Inconvenient Truth."

AlGore lying hypocite
While he's not living in his 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville that requires many times the cost to heat than the average Nashville home. Or his 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) he's jet-setting all over the globe spewing MANY tons more "green-house gases" into the atmosphere than my SUV ever will.

For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself.

Oh, but his is a noble cause and is clearly justified if his lofty goal of UN socialism and elimination of private enterprise is acheived.

Simple questions for all the GW doom and gloomers.
Wasn't the earth covered by ice, not all that long ago? How in the heck did all that ice melt, if not for the earth warming up somehow?

And how did all the ice form in the first place?

I don't recall from my grade school history lessons of man having a significant impact on the environment then.

The AGWT Dogma & its Purpose
Here's the real bottom line: there is a huge leftist agenda that has hopped on board the AGWT & intend to ride it all the way to complete control of our lives. Regardless of the actual science, it has to be accepted as dogma, & urgently implemented. For nearly 20 years we've been hearing that we "must do something, right now, on the chance it MIGHT be true, because it'll be too late by the time we know."

Statements like that help reveal what is really going on. It's not about stopping anthrogenic global warming, true, false, or exaggerated, but about enacting the restrictions and controls and centralized totalitarian government that the response always seems to call for. Out of all the possible ways to define, massage, analyze, and interpret the data we have, isn't it strange that by a process that always seems to have an element of arbitrary selectivity the elitists keep screaming that this one conclusion out of the many that are possible (and quite a few more probable) is the one we must adopt as dogma and arrange our lives and standards of living around.

The IPCC keeps claiming to be the final arbiter. "All" the most qualified climate scientists are on it, & most of them are convinced CO2-AGWT is an urgent threat justifying drastic restrictions on our energy use. The IPCC is a creature of the UN, run by UN bureaucrats, & therefore seeks the UN's goals. The UN actually represents the biggest self-interest of all in this issue: it aspires to become the actual totalitarian government of the world, & AGWT is almost perfectly suited for it.

Twice already before this latest "report," two previous greatly ballyhooed IPCC "studies" were released in the last 12 years. Both times, scientists who were on the IPCC ratted them out; the reports had been doctored by UN bureaucrats after the actual scientists finished with them & went home. This time, the actual full report hasn't been released yet, just the "summary for policymakers," urging all this drastic action. This time there is reason to suspect the IPCC has been systematically pushing out dissenters before it came to its 'consensus.'

Both a Kyoto style emissions-limiting treaty, and a "carbon credits" market, would entail creating some kind of world government to set standards and settle disputes. "Carbon credits" in particular are just one step away from the power to enforceably tax its members that the UN craves, the key to government status.

Remember the "spotted owl" controversy, in which it turned out the effort to "protect" the "endangered" spotted owl was actually a campaign to shut down logging in the Pacific Northwest? I fully believe that the AGWT dogma is being pushed deliberately in order to create a rationalization for subjecting us to the restrictions and costs the elite left has always wanted since long before Dr. Jensen ever announced his bright idea. A lot of these proposals, such as restricting automobiles and rationing energy, were floating around during the "energy crisis" of the 1970's a decade before Jensen announced "Global Warming" as the new bogeyman.

The AGWT is all about rationing and micromanagement and the triumph of the elite aristocracy over individual freedom and rights. There's darn little to support the notion it's about preventing a scientifically demonstrated climatic phenomenon.

By their fruits shall you know them. By the proposed responses to AGWT shall you know what the real motivations of the elitists shoving us toward AGWT dogma are. If AGWT were actually real, & they really believed it, I would expect from them:

1. The full-bore development of non-CO2 emitting large-scale energy sources that are already available, such as nuclear fission and fast breeder reactors. France does it, why can't we? Also, the brakes would be applied to this new fad of tearing down hydroelectric projects.

2. Severe economic sanctions would be applied to Communist China for disregarding (as they are) the new dogma and building hundreds of new coal and gas fired electric plants. If China is a "developing nation," why is it not all the more being motivated to develop henceforth in a "sustainable" fashion instead of in the same manner the lefties deplore in the US? Why isn't Communism called upon to for once show it is actually good for something, instead of just getting a pass?

3. Lose this ethanol fetish. It makes less than no sense. Just drop it. It results in more CO2 production, not less, for the same usable energy. The ethanol fad is political pandering to a special constituency & will do absolutely nothing for AGWT. Its proponents should be ashamed.

4. Reconsider the hydrogen fetish, too. Hydrogen is a very treacherous, dangerous substance, and will be difficult to use in vehicles without sacrificing safety and range. Furthermore, it does no "good" for CO2 reduction unless we start splitting it from water, using electricity derived from non-CO2 sources, rather than natural gas.

5. Get to work on seriously extracting useable, concentrated energy from the Sun, e.g. by satellite farms that capture sunlight otherwise lost to space.

Liberals should SUE the SUN!
The SUN is the main cause of Global Warming.
The Liberals should SUE it for Damages!

2ndreconmarine
Fine , but has cloud cover been decreasing? We've been observing the Earth for several decades, we ought to know the answer. If world-wide cloud cover has been stable or increasing, your explanation falls flat.

The correlation is stronger for solar
The Great Global Warming Swindle makes many excellent scientific points. However, one is actually somewhat understated. The effect of the cloud cover on global temperature is much stronger than for CO2. The reason is that the clouds are white, and reflect the solar flux broadly across the Planck black-body spectrum of the sun. A little change in cloud cover strongly affects the incipient solar radiation. However, the CO2 absorption is only in the narrow bands of the infra-red corresponding to the vibrational states of the CO2 molecule. It is a narrow portion of the emitted Planck spectrum, therefore, it has a smaller effect.

AGW Alarmists TRAPPED in irrationality
It’s simple really; pick your camp AGW alarmists:

Proposition A: They are all political, therefore ‘facts’ are meaningless:

1. It’s clear that the IPCC’s existence depends on there being AGW. Therefore they are not going to conclude there is not a problem. Realclimate is a left-wing funded site that constantly engages in misinformation and half-truths. The environmental movement has put significant pressure on governments, Universities and other research bodies to also toe the line on AGW. Therefore, we cannot place any credence on views supporting of the hypothesis of AGW.

2. AGW Alarmists will claim ALL views, evidence opposing the existence of AGW are paid off by big oil/coal. Therefore, we cannot place any credence on views skeptical of the hypothesis of AGW.


3. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is that ALL information is corrupted. THEREFORE, there is NO EVIDENCE for or against AGW. THEREFORE we have NO problem of AGW.

Proposition B: We disregard the provider of the evidence/information, and asses its validity independent of preconceptions.

1.A rigorous assessment of all the underlying information shows that there is NO Compelling evidence that the NATURAL climate cycles have been broken by human produced C02, such that the climate will behave as the climate models (and IPCC) is predicting. It is CLEAR from the evidence that there are many SIGNIFICNAT unknowns about the climate system. We cannot make any compelling conclusions about how the climate will behave 50 or 100 years hence.

2. THEREFORE, because there is no compelling evidence for AGW, we have nothing to worry about for spend trillions on.

....Unless you AGW alarmists can come up with compelling, direct evidence that the relatively small amount of C02 we are adding to the atmosphere will cause the globe to heat as claimed…

Let me be clear…that’s COMPELLING evidence, not flaky computer models, but direct evidence that magically explains the significant unknowns, across several billion years of climate change…

Not obfuscation, half-truths, skewed graphs…got it?

P.S. If you find it, & once you have collected your Nobel prize for major advancements in climate science, please pass it on to the IPCC…because they are really struggling without it.

Ozone
was that ozone layer thing a swindle too?

Global Warming Brigade
Wait until the Marxists dip into their pockets to pay for "faux-science" programs, while their leaders fly about locking down productivity...

I should think that the slightest glimpse of reducing the life expectancy of third-world countries, while limiting humanitarian efforts, should tip the 'non-skeptic' right over the edge... (An experience to rival any of what a ‘natural course in evolution’ would have in store.)


In case anyone's interested
Realclimate.org has a response to the video.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled

That particular page doesn't address everything in the video, but if you look through the site, they have scientific counter-arguments (with references) to everything the video claims. See also illconsidered.blogspost.com (click on How to talk to a Skeptic).

I have to admit I was disappointed by the video. It's just a rehash of the same arguments we've seen on the blogs for years. The only people it's going to convince are people who already believe what it says.

Global warming swindle
Al Gore is like nothing so much as a modern-day King Canute, pointlessly trying to command forces he little understands and which are infinitely more powerful than all human action combined.

So many people have problems accepting that a mere random sunspot eruption could undo in minutes the work of a device such as the Kyoto Accord, even if it worked perfectly as conceived.

I wonder where we got the notion that we can achieve some kind of environmental stasis. This has never existed, with or without human beings.
The enviromental faddists seem to believe we can.

warmest global winter on record

Global Insanity
I don't understand how it is that anyone is still buying this Global Warming dribble.

The eco-moonbats and their guru Al(the looser) Gore are only trying to tax the air that we breathe. They got away with making us pay for water, now they want to make us pay for the air that we breathe.

It's a pretty clever concept.

Oh, by the way, please send some Global Warming my way. It's the middle of March and ice is falling on my windows.

Great column Dr. Sowell. As per usual, you're right on.

Head, Here's Insurance 101:
Insurance is, more or less, a betting game set by actuaries who are very good at numbers: They're betting that global warming isn't a problem, and they're willing to take money from any Tom, Dick or Harry who believes global warming his well-being is endangered because of it.

Apparently, members of the insurance industry believe there's a killing to be made, or they wouldn't be offering policies.

End of story.

Corportism, Fascism and Taxes run amok
Time to put Al Gore and his machinations to bed.

Funny how the left is quick to accuse corporations and governments of greed and corruption except when global warming's the topic: Now RINOs and other so-called liberals are looking away while the consumer gets raped by the United Nations, the World Bank, the Pew Foundation, and politicians who believe we must do something about our modern-day Tower of Babble, GW.

By now, only the ignorant, naive and foolish can support the idea that combatting global warming through taxes and carbon offsets are the right things to do: the results will be nothing but trouble and more government for our children and our industry.

Insurance industry already has spoken
Dr. Sowell and forum participants: The insurance industry has already decided that GW is a risk and requires major economic commitment.

Do a google search and you will find appropriate insurance industry materials on GW. Some of the materials are very well composed indeed. (Not surprising, since the insurance industry has a huge economic stake in GW).

Anyone who is going to write about GW needs to take into account what the insurance industry is saying and *doing*. (Yes the industry is carefully taking into account contrarian scientific views on GW). Why hasn't Sowell done his homework and talked with insurance industry experts? Sowell is an *economist* , he should understand the deep significance of insurance industry re GW. Duhhhhhhhhhhhh .... Lazy, lazy, lazy.

Sowell's writings and much of the stuff on this thread is simply ignorance and childishness.



Frost
As we say in programming, Garbage in, Garbage out.

One final note about "proof" - -
Those computer models that predict all kinds of bad stuff?

They will say whatever the programmer has programed them to say.......

Damn.....

Scribe
"So why would you believe and defend a documentary from a non-scientist who has a documented history of playing fast and loose with the truth?"

I've been wondering the same thing. Why does anyone believe and defend Al Boretross?

HarvestMoon
Cheer up. You're assuming that those guys actually graduated from college. It's doubtful that they've graduated from grade school.

I do believe that
some posters (who might have anger issues) proves the Peter Principle.

I am depressed
If a scientific consensus is considered scientific fact, then no wonder Bill Gates wants to increase the H1-b’s. Our colleges are graduating dummies.

In science, you have assumptions, theories and principles or laws. The term “scientific facts” are only used by people who major in Liberal Arts.


drivebyposting is wrong
Thomas Sowell is not an entertainer. His books are as well researched as anything out there. And they are not entertaining. However, they are definitely readable. As an economist, he examines and correctly reveals incentives and is able to predict results. His research is superb. His most important work has been in the area of economics and race relations. Because of this work, he has become skilled at spotting hucksterism, not just in economic areas, but in many areas of public life because of the similarity of methods. GW is yet another setting where hucksters, whether appearing as scientists, or as oil companies reps, or US senators, abound. How many times do we as a country have to endure the rise and fall of fashionable but incoherent political notions like GW? Too many people never stop to think things through (e.g. taking a loan is better than purchasing a house outright because you can get a tax deduction on the interest paid, and other "canards" (your word) ) and thus pay the price for our stupidity. For example, no one questions the "Head Start" program. Why not? Because you would appear unfeeling? But what are the real results of that program? No one questions evolution, but a close study of the operation of DNA, transfer RNA, and organelles and such should cast doubt on any notion that this could have come about basically by accident; but who wants to look like a bible-thumping troglodyte? Mr. drivebyposting, you're just going to have to stop the name calling, do some reading and research, and get serious about what's plausible and what's not, based on what you really know, and not based on what people who have unbelievably twisted motivations are saying. And you might end up disagreeing with Mr. Sowell on issues, but at least you'll know why and where.

inkling_revival
It's not defamtion if it's the truth. Durkin has a history of playing fast and loose with facts. This is undeniable.

I've read half a dozen different articles by half a dozen different people about this documentary, and this guy. They all agree: he relies on outdated science, and his conclusions are wrong.

It is both telling and ironic that you chose not to attack what I said, but the fact that I was saying it.

But don't take my word for it. How about your government, in the form of the EPA:

"If greenhouse gases continue to increase, climate models predict that the average temperature at the Earth's surface could increase from 2.5 to 10.4ºF above 1990 levels by the end of this century. Scientists are certain that human activities are changing the composition of the atmosphere, and that increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases will change the planet's climate. But they are not sure by how much it will change, at what rate it will change, or what the exact effects will be. See the Science and Health and Environmental Effects sections of this site for more detail."

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/basicinfo.html

So, the vast majority of scientists agree that human activity is changing the climate of the planet. The EPA agrees.

So why would you believe and defend a documentary from a non-scientist who has a documented history of playing fast and loose with the truth? Especially in the context of a column that has twice now misrepresented the origin of the documentary?

Again: it isn't defamation if it's true.

Bobzmcishl
I am not a neocon. I am actually a real conservative, so yes, I need facts. I do not doubt that global warming exists. What I have not seen is proof of man's cause of it. There appears to be a big disagreement from scientists on this issue.

Neocons need facts - stop the presses!
When was the last time the neocons used facts to back up anything. Their leader "W" famously proclaims he doesn't read books and relies on gut instinct. I only hope you neocons have good explanations for your children how you stood by and did nothing about global warming in order to protect your profits.

Bobzmcishl
THIS "neocon" is "in denial" about HUMAN-CAUSED climate change because

1) Whenever any movement makes a falacious claim like "all scientists agree" in a clear attempt to stifle debate, and follow that up with enforcers that threaten the livelihoods of those who dare to disagree, you can bet your last dollar safely that there's a political and economic motive behind them;

2) The goals of activism driven by claims of human-caused global warming are remarkably similar to the goals of world Marxism;

3) The science behind the movement is not only not widely accepted, but is being enforced with increasingly dishonest means.

This all spells "political movement" to those of us who care about facts.

Any other questions?

Global Warming - Neocon Denial
Why are the neocons in such denial about global warming. I can only conclude they are agraid it will cut into their benefactors corporate clients. Or is ti because they live in the middle of the country and don't give a sh-t about those of us on either coast. Or is it both. The sooner we can get these clowns out of office the better.

Pappy Michael
I have several articles going back a few weeks on GW and the absolute BS that it is.

But as P.T. Barnum so aptly noted, "There is a sucker born every minute." Today, they follow Global Warming led by the Pied Piper of Tennessee, Al Boredom.

rush2b1st
You said, "In science as I said the best theory of the majority in the field is considered a "fact."

Bull. Theories remain theories unless they are backed with scientific proof.

GW
I watched the British video.

Anyone who can watch that video and still think mankind is causing any kind of global climate change should pull their head out and take a breath of air not generated by the decomposition of carbon based material.

Global Warming - A large pile of dinosaur poo.

Does it really surprise anyone...
...that the Left has people out actively defaming the director of "The Great Global Warming Swindle?"

What does it tell you about a movement, that it employs PR tacticians to defame anybody who dares raise a voice in opposition to their favored position?

Does truth really need that sort of storm-trooper mentality behind it? Hasn't the scientific method succeeded so far in ferreting out truth without hiring a Goon Squad to ensure the right results?

If you ever needed evidence of what the Accelerated Global Warming movement really is, just read the character assassination by youmakeme, rush2, and Scribe57 on this page. It's not science; it's orchestrated mass movement, akin to Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch. It's thought control. It's Big Brother.

you make me scream...
Nice of you to post a conclusionary summary of the AGW position. Do you really expect anybody to take a simple paragraph like that as a definitive answer to a complex question? do YOU take it as such?

Methinks you need some corrective surgery on your information assesser.

As you may know, one of the requirements for research to be accepted is that it be reproducible. As such, one of Science Magazine's usual board of reviewers attempted to reproduce Dr. Naomi Oreskes' results claiming that a survey of all scientific papers on climate change in the past decade show 75% to 90% agreement with the AGW position. Here's an excerpt from what he found:

"According to Oreskes, 75% of the 928 abstracts she analysed (i.e. 695) fell into these first three categories, "either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view". This claim is incorrect on two counts: My analysis shows that only 424 abstracts (or less than a third of the full data set) fall into these three categories.

"It also shows that many abstracts on "evaluation of impact" and "mitigation" do not discuss which drivers are key to global climate change, instead often focusing exclusively on the possible effects of elevated CO2 levels on plant growth and vegetation. Many do not include any implicit endorsement of the 'consensus view' but simply use certain assumptions as a basis for often hypothetical impact assessments or mitigation strategies.

"Quite a number of papers emphasise that natural factors play a major if not the key role in recent climate change (4). My analysis also shows that there are almost three times as many abstracts that are sceptical of the notion of anthropogenic climate change than those that explicitly endorse it (5, 6, 7).

"In fact, the explicit and implicit rejection of the 'consensus view' is not restricted to individual scientists. It also includes distinguished scientific organisations such as the American Association of Petroleum Geologists:

"The earth's climate is constantly changing owing to natural variability in earth processes. Natural climate variability over recent geological time is greater than reasonable estimates of potential human-induced greenhouse gas changes. Because no tool is available to test the supposition of human-induced climate change and the range of natural variability is so great, there is no discernible human influence on global climate at this time." (8)

"This is not to deny that there is a majority of publications that, although they do not empirically test or confirm the view of anthropogenic climate change, go along with it by applying models based on its basic assumptions. Yet, it is beyond doubt that a sound and unbiased analysis of the full ISI databank will find hundreds of papers (many of which written by the world's leading experts in the field) that have raised serious reservations and outright rejection of the concept of a "scientific consensus on climate change". The truth is, that there is no such thing!"

4) C. M. Ammann et al., for instance, claim to have detected evidence for "close ties between solar variations and surface climate", Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 65:2 (2003): 191-201. While G.C. Reid stresses: "The importance of solar variability as a factor in climate change over the last few decades may have been underestimated in recent studies." Solar forcing of global climate change since the mid-17th century. Climate Change. 37 (2): 391-405

5) H.R. Linden (1996) The evolution of an energy contrarian. Annual Review of Energy and the Environment, 21:31-67.

6) Russian scientists K. Kondratyev and C Varotsos criticise "the undoubtfully overemphasised contribution of the greenhouse effect to the global climate change". K. Kondratyev and C Varotsos (1996). Annual Review of Energy and the Environment. 21: 31-67

7) M.E. Fernau, W.J. Makofske, D.W. South (1993) Review and Impacts of climate change uncertainties. Futures 25 (8): 850-863.

8) L.C. Gerhard and B.M. Hanson (2000) AAPG Bulletin 84 (4): 466-471

http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/05/oreskes-study-errata.html

youmakme...
Thanks for the honor...

What I see is broadcast and no receive.

Nothing posted by a repub can be a fact in your eyes.

Thanks for the wonderful reference to NASA studies which indicate much of the greenhouse effect is due to the aerosol properties of smoke due to forest fires and to volcanic eruptions. The argument is not over whether or not some global change is occurring, but how much control do we have. During the first Gulf War Saddam messed up the climate with all the oil wells he set on fire in Kuwait, but that is hardly day to day normal operations. Much of the disagreement is about how much blame can be placed on the US, or Europe while ignoring India, China, parts of South America.


you make me laugh also
Its so simple a caveman can do it.



rush2b1st,
I've seen several people now state that the complaints about Mann's "hockey stick" have been rebutted, and that several studies have reproduced Mann's results through other means. The only reference to these, though, was in your earlier post, stating that these could be found in the notes at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=7.

So, I went and read the article at that link. Know what it says?

It says that Mann's results are nicely matched by CLIMATE MODEL SIMULATIONS. These are, no doubt, the same climate models that have repeatedly been shown to produce results no more accurate than a random number generator -- a commonly accepted test to determine whether a model has any predictive validity.

In other words: Mann's hockey stick graph has been supported by models that are less accurate than a blindfolded monkey hurling darts at a dart board.

I am just SO COMPLETELY IMPRESSED with the "science" represented by the Left.

You guys are just thugs masquerading as scientists.

youmakemelaugh2
Whoa little dogie!

I know your hat's on too tight.

Perhaps, instead of gumming up the airwaves with your musings, you should start a blog somewhere. I can suggest a few grammar school drivel sites if you like.

Based on your comments and activities, you don't belong in the same class as adults. Go back to your homework.

I hate it when I am late
MugMug and Tywog cross ice bridge to make fortune in Indiana,,now it going to get cold again.

Medicine man say Brits full of miracle dust.

Sun god say they full of dinosaur droppings.

Me not know what to think since Moon god say carbon credit business might go bust.

Must go now,little Tywog need help filling used oil cans for carbon exchange.


To whom it may concern
Town Hall is continuing to have difficulties with their web site. I understand it is so popular that they are receiving exponentially greater numbers of hits than planned and they are working feverishly to rectify the problem. The question was asked of me by someone whose header I cannot see how I got my margins so wide. They are no wider appearing on my screen than any of the others and I have to believe the reason the questioner sees them as wider is the same reason I can't see his header. TH is still experiencing problems.

GunnyG
Yeah, these people all have to crawl back into their cells at a certain time of night. Lockup time for them. Out comes the Thorazine. Nurse Betty beats them back with her electric shock baton.

BrianR
I left you a msg on my blog about eating gamy meat.

BrianR/Peppermint
You ever notice how weenies like Tehran Kim, rush, LGM, etc, all post ridiculous and asinine posts and then have to leave?

Like BHL's stupid post on G.W. and us on the right ignoring it. Even their guru Al Bore is copping to GW scumbaggery but WE'RE the dolts! haha.

Global warming censorship from Seattle -
The number is eye-popping, and it was repeated so often it became gospel.
The snowpack in the Cascades, it was said, shrank by 50 percent in the last half-century. It's been presented as glaring evidence of the cost exacted by global warming — the drying up of a vital water source.
That statistic has been repeated in a government report, on environmental-advocacy Web sites and in media coverage. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels recently mentioned it in a guest column in The Seattle Times.
Here's the problem: The number is dead wrong.

The debunking of this statistic, and the question of just how much the state's snowpack shrank, is stirring up a heated debate among the region's climate scientists.
On Monday, it escalated further when University of Washington researcher and State Climatologist Philip Mote stripped a colleague of his title as associate state climatologist, triggering concerns that scientific dissent is being quashed. Losing the title doesn't affect the man's employment at the UW.
The affair might be dismissed as a tempest in an ivory-tower teapot. But it comes at a time when the science of climate change is getting more attention from policy-makers and the public.

And it reflects the pressures and scrutiny surrounding politicians' use of science as global warming gains more attention. Recently, some scientists have been criticizing claims in the Oscar-winning climate-change documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," which stars Al Gore.
The debate in Seattle started with Mark Albright, a part-time UW meteorologist and, until this week, the associate state climatologist. Albright sent an e-mail to colleagues saying he didn't see evidence that snowpack was steadily shrinking, much less by 50 percent.
A back-and-forth ensued, involving Albright, co-worker and meteorologist Cliff Mass, and several scientists with the UW's Climate Impacts Group, a federally funded team of researchers. All quickly agreed that the 50 percent number was wrong. It may have originally come from an editing error in a 2004 report issued by an Oregon panel of scientists. "No one believes in this 50 percent number anymore," Mass said, but it underscores the uncertainty around predicting what will happen. "To allow him [Seattle’s Mayor Greg Nickels] to be out there with numbers that are unsupportable, it's setting him up to walk the plank," said Mass, who also said they see only a small downward trend in Cascade Mountain snowpacks, perhaps 10 to 15 percent since the 1940s; snowfall has increased again in recent years, and there is little overall change in snowpack in the past 30 years, Mass said.

One other, Philip Mote (mentioned earlier), a member of the Climate Impacts Group who rose to prominence partly due to his work supposedly “documenting” shrinking snowpack around the West, said the decline is more like 35 percent. Another associate, Dennis Hartman, said 30%.

Since then, the debate has gotten more heated: Mote, upset that Albright was broadly distributing e-mails about the issue, last week told Albright that he would have to let Mote preview any e-mails before sending them out – that equates to censorship. When Albright refused Mote's ultimatum, Mote barred him from associating himself with the state climatologist's office. Still, Mote claimed: "I'm not trying to squelch debate by any means."
But Meteorologist Cliff Mass said Albright was doing nothing wrong — simply airing his analysis and seeking feedback as he researched further. "In all my years of doing science, I've never seen this sort of gag-order approach to doing science," he said. "If you have people who are campaigners in one direction or the other, you're going to get data out there that's used incorrectly."
(3/15/007 - from Seattle Times’ Warren Cornwall – edited slightly for clarity)


Apop
LOL

Apparently the guy wasn't at the bus stop when it got there.

Pepp, Apop
Yeah, Pepp, you may be right. A few posts that clearly and graphically point out what a lamebrain he is, and how ludicrous his position is, and without even TRYING to acknowledge or refute (though that would have been pretty hard to do), just like any typical lib (you know, "don't confuse me with the facts").....

"Oops, gotta go! See ya!"

Man, ya just gotta laugh at these buffoons.

Brian
Can you believe these guys? They go on and on about facts and they don't even know what a fact is.... What happened to "Leave no child behind"?

Thanks, Pepp
I just tried to go on your blog, but it wouldn't open.

I'll try again!

BrianR
See rush used the word "spew". It's the same character. Pathetic.

rush
I'd suggest you have some fish for supper. I hear it increases brain power.


You need it, bud.

BrianR
There's not much doubt in my mind that rush and ymml2 are the same person.

To all: Go to BrianR's blog and read a beautiful essay. Something to make you think of more important things in life than swindles like GW.

A quick thought before I go.....
apoplectic,
Something else to consider....
In science as I said the best theory of the majority in the field is considered a "fact."

The field of economics has a lower standard than science, so your Free-market theory, now that would meet your definition as SPEW! There are many "theories" of economics.

Now I really must go to supper.

Apoplectic
Hey, how about Einstein's Fact of Relativity? Has that hit the charts yet?

Good grief,
I hope arlying, gotcha again and ymml are gone. I notice that the rush character is also bowing out so ymml and rush must be one and the same.

Here's a fact. In the middle ages there was a great warming period, warm enough to grow grapes in England. During the middle ages there were no SUVs or AlBore pouring out hot air, so there you go, unexplained situation of warming, then it cooled, then it warmed, ad nauseum.

Come to my blog and find out who is really responsible for the earth.
http://www.peppermintsplace.townhall.com

Please ymml, not you, don't come.

rush
Also, if you happened to look, I posted several facts before your stupid buddy left. He could not answer a simple question and ran away. I hardly expect you to stick to the facts though.

rush2bewhatever
Wow, are yoyu ever out in left field.

A FACT is what a majority of scientists say it is? Are you kidding me? Now we're going to have elections on what's fact and what isn't? Does that mean that when the majority of scientists thought the sun revolved around the Earth it really did, until the majority changed their minds, and then the Earth started revolving around the Subn?

Do you have any idea how stupid you sound?

You are describing a popular THEORY.

A Apoplectic rightly held, a fact is something that is proven.

rush
Where did you get that definition from? Wikipedia? You are describing scientific theory which is in fact, not a fact (hence the word theory). In science you have Laws, Theories, and hypothesis. Where did you attend school?

apoplectic,
Plus, isn't it funny you wait until he leaves to post what YOU think a fact is?
But, you still haven't posted any facts.

(just wanted to add that before I also leave. It was only worth reading when YMML2 was here. Tell your "aliases guy" YMML2 is his best creation.)

apoplectic - Wrong again bucky
Where did you attend school?

"A FACT is something that is proven, you are spewing out an opinion."

WRONG, in science, which is what WE was talking about, a FACT is...
The best of collected knowledge that the majority of experts believe to be true .Since the majority of climatologist believe it as true, UNTIL dis-proven it is a FACT.

SO, YMML2 IS RIGHT, and you, apoplectic, are wrong.

laugh
A majority of climatologist concluded that we were heading for an ice age in the 1970's. A majority of scientists thought Pluto was a planet until recently. A majority of scientists thought the atom was the smallest particle at one time. A majority does not make a fact. You love to spew about fact and then through out opinions. The fact is, scientists still do not understand the climate. A FACT is something that is proven, you are spewing out an opinion.

I always love it
when people, such as drivebywhatever earlier, use the phrase "Ugly American" as a perjorative.

Anyone who has actually read the book knows that the "Ugly American" of the title is actually the most sympathetic character in the novel, a man who dies as a victim of terrorists while working with the natives on improving their infrastructure in the jungles of a fictional country based on Vietnam.

I'll be happy to be the "Ugly American" any day of the week.

There's value in being literate.

Incorrect Correction
Nice try, Mr. Sowell, but Channel 4 did not "produce" the documentary. They simply broadcasted it.

Why are you trying so hard to avoid mentioning Martin Durkin's name? Could this, a ruling from Britain's Independent Television Commission on an earlier Durkin work, have anything to do with your continued attempts to misrepresent who created the program?

"Assessment

Comparison of the unedited and edited interview transcripts confirmed that the editing of the interviews with these four contributors had indeed distorted or misrepresented their known views. It was also found that the production company had misled them, when it originally sought their involvement, as to the format, subject matter and purpose of the programmes. No mention had been made of the critical position the programmes intended to adopt, for example in correspondence."

You make me...1 & 2
If you surfed something besides this site for aggravation and dailykos/huffington for your facts or even a google, you might see an opposing view,

Otherwise I will steal a good line I read today, it is easy to come to a result when you start with your assumptions and a hammer.

Come on laugher
I gave you facts, answer the question. You know it all. Answer the question.

PS to TH
In scrolling back up to reach the header, I notice that it is now cutting off the posts about halfway to Dr. Sowell's column at the top.

Just thought you'd like to know.

cheers

eon

Peppermint
Thanks for blowing arlying alias YMML2's cover. Now I understand why he seems infatuated with the word "spew".

Not to mention why he's basically incoherent.

I wonder what Rush2B1st's excuse is?

Of course since YMML2 reposted one of R2B1's cut-and-pastes verbatim, he might be both of them. In which case his congratulating R2B1 for his "shoot-down" of everyone else reflects both a schizoid personality disorder and extreme narcissism.

In other words, a typical "progressive".

Countdown to YMML2's return volley.

5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

0..........


cheers

eon

Okay Laugher
I'll amuse you. I have not seen the film so cannot comment on it.

1. The argument about paid scientist is just plain stupid. All scientists are paid by somebody. The enormous grants that are paid with our tax dollars to try and prove the link between global warming and man made carbon emissions dwarf the research dollars of the Oil companies. Do you think these scientist will report that there is no link thereby cutting off their own funding?

2. Scientists cannot explain the underlying cause of previous periods of warming and cooling. There are some theories but non yet proven.

3. Ice caps are melting on mars. That's a fact which suggests another cause of Solar System warming, not just here on Earth.

4. Climate models are far from perfect. They used them to predict the number of hurricanes last year that would hit the U.S. Oops.


There's some facts for you. Now answer the question.

It speaks a lot..
..of the validity of an arguement when you observe the way people present their case.

Generally when most of his points are insults, accusations and demeaning terms you can bet that he is not completely secure in his own position.

As to presenting "facts", in the internet world of today I would be very disappointed if a person could not dredge up any number of sources to back any side of his opinion on anything.

If you are incapable of listening to sources on both sdes of an issue and reaching your own conclusion by adressing them with common sense then no amount of "facts" will change your opinion on anything.

Solar warming
Out of all these comments, my fave was the guy with all the links to the articles about warming around the solar system.

I posted the links on my forum, and man, the looneytunes just absolutely went ape-s__t.

:)


youmakemesick2
You had better go back to your anchorite and start over.

arlying, gotcha again and
laughmesick or whatever you call yourself. Here's a
BIG FACT for you, the "spew". You are a moron and you keep calling me peppernut giving yourself away. If you need to come back here on TH after being thrown off umpteen times, at least have the intelligence to try to disguise yourself better. You are so dumb you give yourself away by saying the same things over and over that you did when you were arlying and gotch again.

You must have your rollicking comments pasted in a Word document and just drop them in here every time you come. Never anything new, just the same old tripe.

Won't be long, you'll be gone.

Of course the globe is warming
What was it 10-15 thousand years ago glaciers covered much of Canada and the northern US and now they're gone. Science says this is a cyclical occurance, so in order for an ice cube that wide and a mile thick to melt I guess the weather would need to warm up some. The global climate is not static, never has been and you can move every human being to the moon and it still won't be static.

The Al Gore types want you to believe that it is changing like a run away freight train and it is all the fault of people. Specifically American people. That is the problem, neither of these is true.

If you were the only person living on the planet and lit only one small camp fire a night you would be contributing to levels of CO2 above those naturally occuring, so there is no way to say man has no impact. The idea the human race contributes to this is not being debated, it is how much of this change can and should be laid at our feet.


laugher
okay, YOU'RE an IDIOT. there's A fact FOR you. APPARENTLY capitalizing EVERY other WORD makes IT more DRAMATIC as WELL.


P.S. Answer the question....

Laugher
Who was responsible for global warming during previous periods when the Earth heated up? Try not to paste the History of the World parts I, II, and III. FYI, I'm also not buying "Global Warming, so easy a cave man can do it"

Dude
At least your dog only produces gas out of one end.

arlying
is just like laughing gas. He would constantly cut and paste dung, call Repubs stupid, accuse repubs of never having any FACTS. Yes, that's who you are.
Your little game is almost up.

youmakemelaugh2
Hugging a tree didn't help. Guess you will have to get Comfortably Numb to reduce your anger issues.

laughing
All of this laughing and spewing has made my stomach upset. I'm going to go make some more money, er, fertilizer.

Sorry, laughingstock, your "facts" do nothing to counter the article in question. Now stay out of my carbon credit field!


youmakemelaugh
I know who you are now. You are the former "arlying" whose been thrown off this site numerous times.

After you got kicked off being arlying, you called yourself "gotcha again" and you got caught again. How appropriate!

I recognized you because of your continuous use of the word "spew" and you called me "peppernut", arlying's favorite word for me.

So arlying aka youmakemelaugh aka gotcha again, better watch out the TH police will be after you again! It won't be long and they will find you and kick your "spewing" butt off of here.

Laugher
Well what do you know, looks like I can invent a fact......

This just in
Researchers in Disneyland discovered a small ape-like neanderthal running around the park scaring little children with stories of "Big Oil". They've yet to determine where he came from but he answers to "Laugher".


on a positive note

hate to paste, I'll keep it short.
* Researchers in Spain have discovered a strong relationship between the atmosphere and ocean microorganisms that also provides additional evidence supporting RTB’s creation model. Recent research demonstrates that sunlight on the oceans stimulates growth of ocean organisms that produce a compound called dimethylsulfide (DMS). When DMS is transported to the atmosphere as an aerosol, it enhances cloud formation. Interestingly, where sunlight increases Earth’s surface temperature, cloud formation reflects sunlight to outer space, thereby cooling Earth’s surface. The recently discovered link between sunlight and cloud formation appears to provide a feedback mechanism that maintains a stable surface temperature over the oceans.

Dude
Yeah, I'll bet your dog can at least do a trick or two..

Hey laugher, if your reading this go fetch an encyclopedia and help your buddy rush complete his response.

The bright side of laugher
The bright side is, with laugher here enlightening all of us with his astounding wit and wisdom, at least he's not out rolling around in your carbon credits.

Hey youmakemesick
Your caps lock is on. Just thought you'd like to fix that. You probably haven't noticed.

Dude
I think youmakemesick thinks he's talking to Muqtada al Sadr since he called us MOOKs. Never heard the phrase before.

youmakemelaugh2
Boy do you have anger issues, maybe you should go hug a tree.

Hurry everyone
youmakemesick is dying of his own gasses. Someone call 911 and get a dim out to his house to measure the tax on that gas before he meets the grim reaper.

AreD
Rush is going through the Encyclopedia Britannica preparing a response for you.

apo
Yeah, there should be a rule against cutting and pasting a comment larger than the original column, not to mention splattering dung all over the place.

Difference between denier and skeptic
Closed minded people will use the words Global Warming Denier when describing a Global Warming Skeptic.

Speaking of flatulence
I wish someone would walk by and dust that lib that cuts and pastes a novel into each posting!!!!!

Dude
Yeah, but Blewinsky likes to swallow.

HEY Rush
You up for the cushion sucking job?

Gee
Otex ear drops help pay for that show. I'm so shocked since ear drops must cause a lot of damage to the environment.
Moonbats are flying, people are dying. More sh*t dropped into the atmosphere.

Hey Vic
In regard to my comment on dims shoving things up our butts, don't you walk around bent over a lot. I know I do. I would hate to see that happen to my dog. At least he should be spared.

Already DEBUNKED....
Funny I give sources to the reaction to your Exxon-Mobil joke, what do you offer?

http://www.tearfund.org/Campaigning/Climate+change+and+disasters/Great+Global+Warming+Swindle.htm
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/03/364722.html

Channel 4 WAS FORCED TO ISSUE a HUMILIATING APOLOGY. But it seems to have forgiven Mr Durkin and sees no need to make special checks on the accuracy of the programme. For his part, the film-maker accepts the charge of misleading contributors, but describes the verdict of distortion as "complete tosh."

More on Durkin:
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2007/3/6/8814/25388
Poor Channel 4 already looked foolish AGAIN.



Even though this has ALREADY BEEN DE-BUNKED.

Just WHO paid to put this Fantasy on Channel4?

Volkswagon, Hastings & Direct, Bradford & Bingley, Visa, Yakurt, Orange, Audi, Virgin Media, Mitchelin, Zurich finance, Wrigley (orbit gum), Ing Direct (finance), Magners Cider, confused.com (insurance), Christian Dior (J'adore), Kraft foods (Toblerone, Cote d'or), Nat West, Love Films, Citreon, Nissan, Expedia, Microsoft, Ibuleve, Otex ear drops.

NOTICE how many CAR and FINANCE companies there were?



Who appeared on show....................

Fred Singer. Despite the caption on the programme, Singer has retired from the University of Virginia and has not had a single article accepted for any peer-reviewed scientific journal for 20 years. His main work has been as a hired gun for business interests to undermine scientific research on environmental and health matters. Before turning to climate change denial he has argued that CFCs do not cause ozone depletion and second hand smoke does not cause cancer (more… ). In 1990 he founded “The Science and Environment Policy Project”, which aggressively contradicts climate science and has received direct funding from Exxon, Shell, Unocal and ARCO. Exxon is also among the funders ($20,000 in 1998 and 2000)

Patrick Michaels is the most prominent US climate change denier. In the programme he claimed “I’ve never been paid a nickel by the old and gas companies” which is a curious claim. According to the US journalist Ross Gebspan Michaels has received direct funding from, among others German Coal Mining Association ($49,000), Edison Electric Institute ($15,000), and the Western Fuels Association ($63,000) an association of US coal producing interests (more…). The WFA is one of the most powerful forces in the US actively denying the basic science of climate change, funding, amongs other things, the Greening Earth Society which is directed by Patrick Michaels. Tom Wigley, one of the leading IPCC scientists, describes Michaels work as “a catalog of misrepresentation and misinterpretation”. (More on Michaels…)

Philip Stott was captioned as a Professor at the University of London although he is retired and is therefore free of any academic accountability. Stott is a geographer by training and has no qualifications in climate science. Since retiring Stott has aimed to become Britain’s leading anti-green pundit dedicating himself to wittily criticizing rainforest campaigns (with Patrick Moore), advocating genetic engineering and claiming that “global warming is the new fundamentalist religion.”

Patrick Moore is Stott’s Canadian equivalent. Since a very personal and painful falling out with Greenpeace in 1986 Moore has put his considerable campaigning energies into undermining environmentalists, especially his former friends and colleagues. Typical of his rhetoric was his claim in the programme that environmentalists were “anti-human” and “treat humans as scum”. Throughout the 1990s Moore worked as lead consultant for the British Columbian Timber Products Association undermining Greenpeace’s international campaign to protect old growth forest there. Whenever he has the chance he also makes strong public statements in favour of genetic engineering, nuclear power, logging the Amazon, and industrial fishing- all, strangely, lead campaigns for Greenpeace (more on Moore..)

Piers Corbyn has no academic status and his role in such programmes is to promote his own weather prediction business. He has steadfastly refused to ever subject his climatological theories to any form of external review or scrutiny.

Richard Lindzen. As a Professor of Meteorology at the credible Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lindzen is by far the most reputable academic among the US climate deniers and, for this reason, he is heavily cited by sympathetic journalists such as Melanie Phillips and Michael Crichton. His arguments though are identical to the other deniers – for example an article in the Wall Street Journal (June 11 2001) he claims that “there is no consensus, unanimous or otherwise, about long-term climate trends or what causes them”.
He is strongly associated with the other people on the programme though co-authored reports, articles, conference appearances and co-signed statements.

Tim Ball was captioned as the University of Winnipeg. In fact he left in 1996 since when he has run political campaigns through two organisations he helped found: the Natural Resources Stewardship Project and the Friends of Science which, according to their websites aim to run “a proactive grassroots campaign to counter the Kyoto Protocol”; and “encourage and assist the Canadian Federal Government to re-evaluate the Kyoto Protocol”. Ian Clark is also on the NRSP board.

_______________________________________________
Poll taken at channel4 site of "The Great Global Warming Swindle" after viewing.

1)Is global warming caused by human carbon emissions?
Majority YES! (%85+)

2) Should we use the precautionary principle until we know for certain whether carbon dioxide causes global warming? This means we must cut our carbon emissions for the moment.
Malority YES! (%65+)

You FOOLED NO ONE Exxon/Mobil!

To all
I would like to stay and keep up this smelly thread but I have to go and take care of some stuff before going to a birthday party. Ya'll keep it up and maybe I can rejoin later tonight.

Oops
suck that is..

Vic
I imagine the unions will make sure the price for cushion sniffing will remain high and good working conditions for all. Perhaps, beds to lie on while cushion sniffing. That would be nice and 10 minute breaks every hour considering the hazardous waste issue.

Vic
Hire Lewinsky, I hear she can such just about anything...

Tnmccoy,
Sorry I didn't make the cut in you 3:21 post.

I thought you understood that 'Stoopid' is a common expletive that libs use to patronize us neandrethal conservatives. I think it represents their estimation of our IQ.


Vic
I thought last week I'd get the letter for rehab because I used the word faggot and someone wondered how I got away with it. I used to use the word faggots ll the time referring to cigarettes. I never knew for a long time that it referred to something else, other than wusses and cigs.

If them stinking
illegals take my cushion job I'll be really put out with them. I mean, everyone has always wanted a cushiony job and the unions practiced feather bedding to get it.

I just don't know if we can enhale the methane out of a feather bed.

jcthomas
Sure got that one right. I've never seen so much sh*t than what I see out of the flyby libs that come onto this site. They should have to pay to come here with all their gaseous comments.

To Peppermint
Peppermint said: Putting something up our butts wouldn't be something new for the dims to do.

I LMAO! My wife is sitting nest to me thinking I've gone crazy. Hey, that last comment is close to a Coulter Crack. Thy're gonna put you in rehab.

Vic
I don't know. I'm laughing so hard I'm surprised I can even type.

I wonder how many
more illegals will get with this cushion sucking business about to boom. I know big business will want them for the job, since it's no job an American will do. Of course, some of us will have to in order to pay our new carbon taxes off.

To Peppermint
Did you mean Dude for that last one?


peppermint
>This thread has become
a gas! I mean a huge laughter center. I'm LMAO at you guys with the gas and yard deposits.

A fart tax would be unfairly burdensome on the liberal segment of the population, as they are more disproportionately full of sh*t compared to everyone else.

Dude
lawsuits...Yeah!!! Everything gives me gas... I'm gonna be so rich!!! I wonder if Edwards will represent me?

Dude and all
Putting something up our butts wouldn't be something new for the dims to do.

My dog will have nothing to do with these meters. He'll kill the first person who touches his butt.
I know how he is about this.

To Dude3344
Only if you have one of those libtard insurance policies and then only in DC with the same jury that Libby got.

Vic
Just send him a bill for the extra gas he causes you. I don't see how he could refuse to pay if he means what he says.

What Peta wants
...is to get rid of all pets by stopping all breeding of dogs and cats, so once your pet dies, it cannot be replaced, because all purebred dogs and cats will be extinct.

All this talk about Peta is making me hungry for fried chicken.

Hate to disappoint
But that cushion sucking business will only last until the quota of meter readers is filled. Then the illegals will take over and your looking at 12 cents a cushion tops.


As to the Albore installation... not it.

To apoplectic
That last post was supposed to be to you but when I hit the tab it went to ALL.

To ALL
Hey now, I thought I had that job sewed up at 35 cents/cushion. (In case I had to go back to work after the new Democrap taxes go into effect).

I just don't do Albore cushions.

apoplectic
So you think PETA would think it is fine for people to be forced to walk bow-legged but not rover or daisy the cow.

We'll cut them in on cut of the cushion sucking business.

To apoplectic
Isn't inhumane the definition of anything you do with a dog?

I guess it would be incaninmane to use the fart-o-meter on the dog, but ok to use it on Albore.

The problem will be who is brave enough to install the meter on Albore. Not I said the little red hen!

Dude3344
Good question about your dog. Lucky for you PETA will almost certainly intervene and declare the Fart-o-meter1000 cruel and inhumane for an animal so you will not held accountable.

Dude
Gee, I've got a dog too. I imagine we'd all be charged extra taxes for our dogs. Makes sense right?
My dog doesn't fart too much, so my tax would be low. Now, my cat did fart a lot but she died so I won't have to pay for that one.

I asked my friend the other day who owns a dairy farm what they will do when the cow fart tax starts.
They've got several hundred cows and they all fart up a storm. They are going to be paying through the nose in many ways.

Her hubby is going to put hoses up their butts and direct the gas for home heating. But, I imagine there would be a tax for that too.

Dude3344
I think the flatulence meter can work on all animals, so you can be taxed on the total flatulence produced by you AND all your critters.

Might need to run the meter by PETA though for approval.

To tnmccoy
re DST comment:

Does that meqan if we send the rocketship to the sun at night it will overheat?

Seriously, I thought the original comment was sarcasm.

re BBC
For those of you claiming that Channel 4 and not the BBC were responsible for the anti-GW program, please re-read Dr Sowell's column. His first sentence states that fact.

Wall Street Loves Global Warming
They visualize a future where huge profits will be made trading and speculating in Carbon Credits. That is why they are all gaga about it. Not because they think the world is in any danger.

Too Much to Simplify a Topic
Dr Sowell does a great job with his article. I've been a fan of his for years, and he never disappoints me.

Some other observations:

BrianR,frost, rich, and Roman---kudos on your early efforts in this forum.

I was going to include acceptreality in this group until the later posting. Your stooping to inanity erased all your earlier comments. And most people spell the word stupid.

JFP: liberals are great at purposeful misinterpretation and misinformation to promote their "ideas."

And liberals still don't understand Ann Coulter. Time Magazine, for example, still claims that Ann called John Edwards a faggot. Apparently simple humor and understanding of humor is below their collective mentalities.

SteveO: a funny and well presented comment. I like your choices.

drivebyposting: to quote Clifford Simak, "A man is born and he has a body and a mind that have many functions, some of them complex, and it takes him years to learn those functions, more years to master them. Months before one takes a toddling step, months more before one shapes a word, years before thought and logic become polished tools, and sometimes...sometimes they never do."

Those final words proclaim the problem with liberals. They have never learned or mastered thought and logic. drivebyposting is no exception. Please return to grammar school and hone your inborn intelligence until you can speak so people will take your thoughts seriously.

Magnificus: perhap