Which part do you disagree with? If the world (or any other object, no matter how massive) was getting progressively hotter, would there be summers or seasons where the average temp around the world was lower? The answer is no -- it would have to keep progressing to higher and higher temperatures to support the theory. I don't believe you are justified in putting somebody down because they don't blindly accept your unproven belief.

Now that I can agree with.

but tilling wasn't the sole cause. drought caused the seeds not to sprout, which meant no growth to hold the soil, which caused it to blow away. there was no reason, after years of farming that region, to think farming there was a bad thing. it certainly wasn't the farmers fault that the jet stream shifted, taking the rain with it.

Yes they are, and they will have to continue in a major way as they become a larger economy.
You dont think we should watch closely?

Stunningly shortsighted again.

Basic research into storing electrical energy is in its infancy.
In our country, basic research is guided by the government and
the public sector watches and siezes upon finds that can make
money. Do you not get this? How do you think the majority of
the drugs that are on the market got started? You think some
company just picks up a basic fact out of the air
and starts from scratch without BASIC RESEARCH?
And the idea that storing electrical energy efficiently can only
be applied to cars (or this is what you attribute my thoughts to)
is again terribly simplistic or disingenous.

You basically have no idea how the free market plays a major
role in innovation. How mistakes in basic research and in R and D
within companies leads to innovation.

Does Conservative automatically disqualify one from believing in
innovation since that would not be a conservative endeavour?

Further.
Have you ever read a SCIENCE article that attempts to point out
its own shortfalls? THis is what SCIENCE does. 'Here is what we think
we know, and here is why we are skeptical about our own conclusions.'

Post #18.

The answer is yes.
And if it did not happen we would expect someone
is faking data or that we really dont know what the
crud is going on.

Sorry I was/am being overbearing.

There are posters on the board that never ever question
why they believe a certain way and why they are inclined
to knee jerk in a very predictable way on any issue.
I do not believe I am one of those posters. Others
may disagree. Some people actually have a desire
to know the truth, not what they want the truth to be.

If you have any articles from one of the many climate/meterology
journals that use forms that contain abstracts, please post as we
could all then read the findings and find out about the people who
actually care about being accurate.

1.Yes it is according to you. You do not believe we are in a warming period.

2.You read nothing I wrote before.
Sorry about all the other stuff before this.

Lastly.
A problem with basic research illustrated today.
This would be in the category of storage of electrical energy.
Except this is about grants possibly wasted on Cancer research.

Many other grants involve biological research unlikely to break new ground. For example, one project asks whether a laboratory discovery involving colon cancer also applies to breast cancer. But even if it does apply, there is no treatment yet that exploits it.
The cancer institute has spent $105 billion since President Richard M. Nixon declared war on the disease in 1971. The American Cancer Society, the largest private financer of cancer research, has spent about $3.4 billion on research grants since 1946.
Yet the fight against cancer is going slower than most had hoped, with only small changes in the death rate in the almost 40 years since it began.
One major impediment, scientists agree, is the grant system itself. It has become a sort of jobs program, a way to keep research laboratories going year after year with the understanding that the focus will be on small projects unlikely to take significant steps toward curing cancer.
“These grants are not silly, but they are only likely to produce incremental progress,” said Dr. Robert C. Young, chancellor at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia and chairman of the Board of Scientific Advisors, an independent group that makes recommendations to the cancer institute.
The institute’s reviewers choose such projects because, with too little money to finance most proposals, they are timid about taking chances on ones that might not succeed. The problem, Dr. Young and others say, is that projects that could make a major difference in cancer prevention and treatment are all too often crowded out because they are too uncertain.

I can see how if consevative means what I think it does,
it may not be compatable with significant new findings in
Science. I would hope this is not the case.

http://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/article/1078



some excerpts:


This is not to say that we don't face a serious problem. But the problem is political. Because of the mistaken idea that governments can and must do something about climate, pressures are building that have the potential of distorting energy policies in a way that will severely damage national economies, decrease standards of living, and increase poverty. This misdirection of resources will adversely affect human health and welfare in industrialized nations, and even more in developing nations. Thus it could well lead to increased social tensions within nations and conflict between them.

'... one might consider the present concern about climate change nothing more than just another environmentalist fad, like the Alar apple scare or the global cooling fears of the 1970s'


the geological record shows a persistent 1,500-year cycle of warming and cooling extending back at least one million years

For example, the widely touted "consensus" of 2,500 scientists on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an illusion: Most of the panelists have no scientific qualifications, and many of the others object to some part of the IPCC's report. The Associated Press reported recently that only 52 climate scientists contributed to the report's "Summary for Policymakers."



What about the fact that carbon dioxide levels are increasing at the same time temperatures are rising? That's an interesting correlation; but as every scientist knows, correlation is not causation. During much of the last century the climate was cooling while CO2 levels were rising. And we should note that the climate has not warmed in the past eight years, even though greenhouse gas levels have increased rapidly



http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/j...25/185606.html


Japanese scientists have made a dramatic break with the United Nations’ view on man-made global warming with a report asserting that “this hypothesis has been substituted for truth.”


CO2 emissions began to increase significantly after 1946 and are still rising. Therefore, according to the IPCC, global atmospheric temperatures should continue to increase. However, temperatures stopped increasing in 2001.


The global temperature increase up to today is primarily a recovery from the “Little Ice Age” that earth experienced from 1400 to 1800. This rise peaked in 2000.


Global warming and the “halting of the temperature rise are related to solar activity

An analysis by the Center for Public Integrity found that more than 770 companies and interest groups hired an estimated 2,340 lobbyists in the past year to influence federal policy.

Politico.com notes that since 2003, the number of global warming lobbyists has risen by more than 300 percent, and “Washington can now boast more than four climate lobbyists for every member of Congress.”

First ref.

Fredrick Singer.

Well known scientist because of the books he has written on the great global warming swindle. A conservative favorite. A scientist that gets into policy. Just like the other side where some of these guys discredit themselves by writing these books forecasting New York going under water in 50 years when this part of the science/policy is not their speciality.

Second ref.

Look at the adds.

I have personally been through so many of these its quite sad.
People trying to make money off of our personal politics.
IN the name of science. Both groups.

My initial claim is still sound from the overall sources without political
bents that I went through about 6 months ago: The earth is
in a warming period. It is not clear what is causing it... then
conjecture from humans to the sun cycles and on and on.

The paragraph directly above has not changed.
Any other articles would be appreciated though.
I have seen a bunch of them.

For innovation to actually occur the scientific breakthroughs must be real, not hypothetical. So what if these battery storage breakthroughs never come? Then what? It has nothing to do with being shortsighted. Everybody wants a better way. But some of us can wait till it is actually possible.

You know what I love? When you begin to argue with yourself. Then try to equate being Conservative with cancer research.

give up.

you're fighting a brain that evolved to be cognizant of immediate threats. saber toothed tiger's leaping from underbrush. not things that take decades or centuries.

i'm impressed that denial is now a minority position. i think it says a lot about our social evolution.

but you'll never convince everyone. one 70 degree day in august is all the proof needed you're wrong.

Here is what this thread tells us.
1. There is a lot of conflicting data on climate change
2. The Pro global warming crowd is absolutely right and any questions raised against their closely held but seemingly diminished theory is obviously either wrong, politically motivated or grandstanding scientists.
3. The anti global warming side isn't allowed to voice skepticism without being dismissed as ignorant, religious radicals
4. Farmers should have forseen a drought coming in order to prevent the dust bowl from coming.
5. China is suddenly on the cutting edge of pollution technology

Anything i missed?

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.o...Community.aspx

this is bad.

the delusion of climate change even invaded the bush era defense department.

Again totally disingenious.
The point of the article basic research funds
are not going into projects that will yield signficant results.
I then quipped that the way this funding works might
be a conservative way of thinking.


And of course I argue with myself all the time.
Because I hope to look at everything in order
to find 'the truth'. This is a difficult subject area,
but not as much if you limit your questions. I purposely
look (as odd as it may seem to you) for sources that
go against my initial reactions to events and such.

And I fail to see how I argued with myself in the post,
but I definitely argue and question my own leanings.
I happen to think its healthy to be honest in trying
to find out how things work.

But if you prefer not to take any self examination of
your views that is your choice. Dont be dissappointed
when the world does not work like you want it to.

This is really a basic philisophical difference between
people. Some people question, others seek comfortable
views and seek affirmation of those views. Cover
those eyes.

I am not and never have been an environmental freak.
I do like a good kayak trip in quiet water. I am a water
hugger.

Guilty.

1. Yes there is. But the majority points to the warming of the
Earth for at least the last 50 years.

2. Yes it always comes down to politics.

3. PLEASE send me the info. I have found some good stuff
for your argument (the Earth is not in a warming period).
But the majority is clearly the OTHER side.

4. pass

5. They are in Coal plants that give off less CO2. They are experimental
and expensive. The point was that they are going to be in a lot
of trouble with their air and water. ANd will have to do something innovative.
But to hell with that. We dont need to see how any other country
handles a problem and try to learn from it.

Its easy and comfortable.

Perhaps you are right.
By the retorts that have been distorted
I am wasting my time.

I will again invoke Jonathan Swift:
Do not try to reason a man out of something he did not reason himself into.

As I stated in another post, it may just be
basic philisophical differences of trying to
figure out how the world works and our place
in it.

"In 1857, a bill was brought forth to the Ohio State Legislature seeking protection for the passenger pigeon."

"A Select Committee of the Senate filed a report stating, 'The passenger pigeon needs no protection. Wonderfully prolific, having the vast forests of the North as its breeding grounds, traveling hundreds of miles in search of food, it is here today and elsewhere tomorrow, and no ordinary destruction can lessen them, or be missed from the myriads that are yearly produced.' "

"Fifty-seven years later, on September 1, 1914, Martha, the last known passenger pigeon, died in the Cincinnati Zoo, Cincinnati, Ohio."

If I believed that man was a victim in the dust bowl, rather than the main contributory cause, then I would also have to blame the Colorado River no longer reaching the sea on, not because of man in the US literally sucking it dry and empty, but on weather (rain and snow melt) not providing man enough water to ensure our excessive drain and abuse could not suck it dry.

I don't believe that :(

I can't help but think of CannonShell as an ignorant, religious radical.:D

Cool.
I read this one.
Well sort of as it is long but I got the basics.

1. This little unfinished report relies basically on two tools to measure global temperature changes. Upper surface ocean water in the 1)Atlantic and 2)Pacific. Nothing about atmospheric temp. changes other than water vapor may not have been accounted for in temp readings that do use atmospheric temp to try and determine if the earth is warming and which actually show the earth has been in a warming trend.

2. There are solar scientist that are highly skeptical of this report as they do not think the solar cycles play near as an important role as the atmospheric absorbing and releasing heat energy. This goes directly against this report.

But that was interesting nonetheless as it tells me more about how people are struggling to make comprehensive measurements of the average temp. of the earth.

3. They also noted that some computer models were way off in their ability to accurately assess the temp. of the ocean's at the surface and the rises predicted did not occur.

4. No mention of the Arctic Ocean melting which is in so many of 'the other sides' web pages and documents. I have seen the Greenland thing before.
No mention of Antarctica, some of which has been used to say the Earth is not warming. It was not present from what I read.

It is a fairly narrow assessment but I personally learned some more stuff.
Thanks Z.

hallelujah

Or victims. Can't forget to play the victim card.

If the "anti-" global warming side wants to voice skepticism, the way to do so is to show the overwhelmingly fatal flaws in the reams of science that's already been done, and how the conclusions made cannot possibly be validated or logically derived from that accumulated information.

Politics doesn't enter into that conversation. It's completely extraneous.

Now, that wealth of information has already stood up to years (a couple decades) of peer review, and is being further validated on an ongoing basis by new information, how predictions are indeed working out, so much so that the vast majority of scientific disciplines fully support it.

It is rare, a small minority, that voice skepticism of the reality of global warming. Sort of like the Flat Earth Society members, and those that think the moon walk occured in Arizona.

See, the thing about science is that one doesn't form an opinion, then try to find stuff to justify it. Rather, one goes in with no opinion, and the reality and facts steer you to logical conclusions.

not according to time magazine at least in the mid 70's or are these the Flat Earth society members?

Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.

Telltale signs are everywhere —from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest.Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F. Although that figure is at best an estimate, it is supported by other convincing data. When Climatologist George J. Kukla of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory and his wife Helena analyzed satellite weather data for the Northern Hemisphere, they found that the area of the ice and snow cover had suddenly increased by 12% in 1971 and the increase has persisted ever since. Areas of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, for example, were once totally free of any snow in summer; now they are covered year round.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...944914,00.html

??? Do you have a point? :D If so, what is it?

A few decades ago scientits were fearing an ice age?

A few more decades ago malaria was thought to be caused by "bad air".

There are many more older studies also showing this and the opposite.
But as of right now, the general consensus is that the earth is
in a warming period.

I think this is the problem: There will be individual studies or reviews of studies that will indicate the earth is cooling, the earth is warming, we cannot tell, the earth's temp. has generally stayed steady having up and down cycles.

But the general consensus is that the Earth is in a warming trend. This might change, as Science this big, is very complex, takes a lot of time, and can be interpreted in many ways depending on what one wants to looks at as significant. And of course political leanings.

And yes the press will take many findings or studies and blow them way out of proportion as to make for excitement... happens all the time in studies concerning certain food, drugs, epidemics...
'Eat raw pine needles, dont eat raw pine needles...'

So for our health nuts the following appear to be true as of now:

1. Smoking is linked to cancer, heart disease, and a few other things in most people.
2. Certain types of fats (saturated variety) increase the risk of heart and circulatory problems, strokes in most people.
3. High Fiber in the diet appears to lower the risk of colon cancer in most people.

We could go on.

ANd of course that person that smokes, eats only butter avoiding fiber at all costs will live to 100 getting killed in a car accident. Some will then conclude this is evidence that the 3 findings written above are wrong.

A top Republican senator has ordered an investigation into the Environmental Protection Agency's alleged suppression of a report that questioned the science behind global warming

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009...change-report/

www.badscience.net

"Next week the World Conference of Science Journalists will be coming to London. A few of us felt they were might not adequately address some of the key problems in their profession, which has deteriorated to the point where they present a serious danger to public health, fail to keep geeks well nourished, and actively undermine the publics’ understanding of what it means for there to be evidence for a claim."

I don't put all the blame on the media, I think some of it lays within some school systems: not teaching critical reasoning or thinking skills, calling "intelligent design" a "science", etc. type of thing.

How about we agree to keep the discussion of global climate change in the scientific realm, where it belongs, rather than stepping off into the sideshow of the political circus?

when EPA reports are suppressed because of political motives we have a problem.

The guy who wrote the report is an economist.

I am glad he is questioning the science but its
really hard to refute unless he gives out the papers
that he read or some compilation like Danzig gave out
so the data that someone has gathered can be looked at
as selective, wideranging and important... we just dont
know. He may have used part of the report Danzig gave.
It sort of sounds the same. And in that case I can see how
he was told to move on or find something more comprehensive.

I agree that the report has to be looked at but instead of dismissing it simply because the guy is a economist makes no sense. Otherwise Al Gore should be suppressed do to him being a politician and a very bad one might I add.

okay. how's this?

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...bkes/#more-691

this is just one more small battle in the right's long term war on science.

Of course it makes sense to weigh the evaluation of a report in one field, in light of the evaluator not being competent within the field of study! Would you pay attention to the report by an OB-GYN evaluating the efficacy of doing cardiac ultrasounds to screen for occult cardiomyopathy in older men? Wouldn't that type of report have more weight coming from a cardiologist?

?? Al Gore is a politician who talked about an issue he put front and center in his campaign. He's not a scientist. Climate change, and the scientific discussion and investigation of it, went on no matter what Al Gore did or didn't do.

i don't think we need to spend all that much time bothering with the pitcher's qualifications when what's been thrown is a slow curve over the fat part of the plate.

this is an un-peer reviewed article that cites as one source a blog.

apparently, if someone at nasa writes that the earth is flat, that needs to be included in any discussion of orbital mechanics.

Somehow I have the feeling if Science indicated that
the Earth is warming and it ended right there everyone
would feel a lot better.

As sort of a parallel:

Charles Darwin wrote an incredible study in which he presented
a mechanism for evolution. He did not invent the idea of evolution.
He gave so many observations to back up his idea (natural selection)
and was so forthright about what he did and did not understand it
set a standard for science books for public consumption.

Sadly this standard has been lost. The self critical nature of science does not
reveal itself well enough imo. Darwin also did not consider himself
a good debater so he left it up to others who understood the
implications of his work (Huxley) and realized how important it was.
Sometimes the people that speak out the most may not be
the experts. Some very good science people are fairly timid
people.

What bothers me about the anti-global warming science stuff
is a lack of self criticism. I did notice this was quite prevalent.
ANd I may be wrongly concluding the lack of self criticism is
occuring because of the politcal nature of this group. The
group of climate scientists that are a part of the warming trend
types are very careful to point out the immense nature of the study
and what data they would dearly love to have so that their studies
would be more complete.
However, there is again a group that are not climate people that
have seen massive changes in their field of study (the guys studying
Arctic wildlife especially) and they are clearly sounding loud warnings
based on their field and not the climate/temp of the Earth as a whole.

So for me it is understandable that a region that has been near and
dear to a group of people that adore its beauty would be quite upset
and look for a culprit too quickly. It has happened before. And in the
same light, people that have an economic interest in seeing global
warming go away dont want to see their way of making a living
hindered for what they perceive as fantasy made up soley
to scare people. Another 'the World is ending in 2012'. Or is it
2050?

I hope I live long enough to see how it all turns out.

Here's the deal. Can we afford this crap and trade program? Obama says "it will cost the average American the cost of a postage stamp per day". Postage stamps are 44 cents. There are 365 days in the year. That equals $160 per year per individual. so if you have a family of four its $640 per year. The republicans say it will cost the average family $3100 per year. My electric company said it will cost me at LEAST $50 per month.. which is at $600 per year... and I'm just one person so thats more than $160.

I dont believe anyone... i really dont believe the White house's numbers, because everytime they say something it going to cost x amount.. it ends up costing y amount (like the health insurance plan). I dont believe the Republicans either because I have no reason to believe them. So I'm going to assume that $600 is the least its going to cost me and maybe $1500 is the most its going to cost me. I DONT HAVE THAT EXTRA MONEY FOR SOMETHING THAT WE ARENT PREPARED AS A COUNTRY TO CHANGE.

Thats what it boils down to with me. I dont think I'm the only one in this boat. Can our country afford this right now? I say no.

As I stated in an earlier post, I think this adminstration is ready to move the country to alternative energy sources now. It will cost. But in the long run this administration thinks it is the forward looking way to go.

I dont think it is just about CO2 emissions. I personally think it is part of a larger effort to get us away importing oil, polluting with Coal burning. Part of the interim solution imo has to be nuclear power. I dont know how the plans for that are going.

I have no opinion on the timing. I just dont know enough.