Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

parados wrote:

okie wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

Okay folks, which do you prefer? Cooking? Or Freezing? Looks like it could go either way:

If it begins to go colder, count on it Foxfyre, the chorus of impending doom will be just as loud, if not louder. The U.N. scientists will have discovered by then a fatal flaw in their models that will explain all of it, and instead of man causing warming, it will be man causing cooling, and the sky will fall if the United States Nations and the United States in particular does not act quickly. It is all so predictable.

really okie? Do you know what the Maunder Minimum is?

No, professor, I wouldn't have a clue, and I am absolutely sure it would have nothing to do with earth's climate. The climate of the earth is entirely due to CO2 emissions from the machines and industrial facilities built by mankind.

okie wrote:

parados wrote:

okie wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

Okay folks, which do you prefer? Cooking? Or Freezing? Looks like it could go either way:

If it begins to go colder, count on it Foxfyre, the chorus of impending doom will be just as loud, if not louder. The U.N. scientists will have discovered by then a fatal flaw in their models that will explain all of it, and instead of man causing warming, it will be man causing cooling, and the sky will fall if the United States Nations and the United States in particular does not act quickly. It is all so predictable.

really okie? Do you know what the Maunder Minimum is?

No, professor, I wouldn't have a clue, and I am absolutely sure it would have nothing to do with earth's climate. The climate of the earth is entirely due to CO2 emissions from the machines and industrial facilities built by mankind.

Your strawman okie.. No one has ever claimed that.

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/about/position/globalwarming.jsp
Carbon Dioxide and Global Warming
Where We Stand on the Issue


C. D. Idso and K. E. Idso
Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is little doubt the air's CO2 concentration has risen significantly since the inception of the Industrial Revolution; and there are few who do not attribute the CO2 increase to the increase in humanity's use of fossil fuels. There is also little doubt the earth has warmed slightly over the same period; but there is no compelling reason to believe that the rise in temperature was caused by the rise in CO2. Furthermore, it is highly unlikely that future increases in the air's CO2 content will produce any global warming; for there are numerous problems with the popular hypothesis that links the two phenomena.

A weak short-term correlation between CO2 and temperature proves nothing about causation. Proponents of the notion that increases in the air's CO2 content lead to global warming point to the past century's weak correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentration and global air temperature as proof of their contention. However, they typically gloss over the fact that correlation does not imply causation, and that a hundred years is not enough time to establish the validity of such a relationship when it comes to earth's temperature history.

The observation that two things have risen together for a period of time says nothing about one trend being the cause of the other. To establish a causal relationship it must be demonstrated that the presumed cause precedes the presumed effect. Furthermore, this relationship should be demonstrable over several cycles of increases and decreases in both parameters. And even when these criteria are met, as in the case of solar/climate relationships, many people are unwilling to acknowledge that variations in the presumed cause truly produced the observed analogous variations in the presumed effect.

In thus considering the seven greatest temperature transitions of the past half-million years - three glacial terminations and four glacial inceptions - we note that increases and decreases in atmospheric CO2 concentration not only did not precede the changes in air temperature, they followed them, and by hundreds to thousands of years! There were also long periods of time when atmospheric CO2 remained unchanged, while air temperature dropped, as well as times when the air's CO2 content dropped, while air temperature remained unchanged or actually rose. Hence, the climate history of the past half-million years provides absolutely no evidence to suggest that the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 concentration will lead to significant global warming.

Strong negative climatic feedbacks prohibit catastrophic warming. Strong negative feedbacks play major roles in earth's climate system. If they did not, no life would exist on the planet, for some perturbation would long ago have sent the world careening into a state of cosmic cold or horrendous heat; and we know from the fossil record that neither of these extremes has ever occurred, even over billions of years, and in spite of a large increase in the luminosity of the sun throughout geologic time.

Consider, in this regard, the water vapor that would be added to the atmosphere by enhanced evaporation in a warmer world. The extra moisture would likely lead to the production of more and higher-water-content clouds, both of which consequences would tend to cool the planet by reflecting more solar radiation back to space.

A warmer world would also mean a warmer ocean, which would likely lead to an increase in the productivity of marine algae or phytoplankton. This phenomenon, in turn, would enhance the biotic production of certain sulfur-based substances that diffuse into the air, where they are oxidized and converted into particles that function as cloud condensation nuclei. The resulting increase in the number of cloud-forming particles would thus produce more and smaller cloud droplets, which are more reflective of incoming solar radiation; and this phenomenon would also tend to cool the planet.

All of these warming-induced cloud-related cooling effects are very powerful. It has been shown, for example, that the warming predicted to result from a doubling of the air's CO2 content may be totally countered by: (1) a mere 1% increase in the reflectivity of the planet, or (2) a 10% increase in the amount of the world's low-level clouds, or (3) a 15 to 20% reduction in the mean droplet radius of earth's boundary-layer clouds, or (4) a 20 to 25% increase in cloud liquid water content. In addition, it has been demonstrated that the warming-induced production of high-level clouds over the equatorial oceans almost totally nullifies that region's powerful water vapor greenhouse effect, which supplies much of the temperature increase in the CO2-induced global warming scenario.

Most of these important negative feedbacks are not adequately represented in state-of-the-art climate models. What is more, many related (and totally ignored!) phenomena are set in motion when the land surfaces of the globe warm. In response to the increase in temperature between 25°N latitude and the equator, for example, the soil-to-air flux of various sulfur gases rises by a factor of 25, as a consequence of warmth-induced increases in soil microbial activity; and this phenomenon can lead to the production of more cloud condensation nuclei just as biological processes over the sea do. Clearly, therefore, any number of combinations of these several negative feedbacks could easily thwart the impetus for warming provided by future increases in the air's CO2 content.

Growth-enhancing effects of CO2 create an impetus for cooling. Carbon dioxide is a powerful aerial fertilizer, directly enhancing the growth of almost all terrestrial plants and many aquatic plants as its atmospheric concentration rises. And just as increased algal productivity at sea increases the emission of sulfur gases to the atmosphere, ultimately leading to more and brighter clouds over the world's oceans, so too do CO2-induced increases in terrestrial plant productivity lead to enhanced emissions of various sulfur gases over land, where they likewise ultimately cool the planet. In addition, many non-sulfur-based biogenic materials of the terrestrial environment play major roles as water- and ice-nucleating aerosols; and the airborne presence of these materials should also be enhanced by rising levels of atmospheric CO2. Hence, it is possible that incorporation of this multifaceted CO2-induced cooling effect into the suite of equations that comprise the current generation of global climate models might actually tip the climatic scales in favor of global cooling in the face of continued growth of anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

There is no evidence for warming-induced increases in extreme weather. Proponents of the CO2-induced global warming hypothesis often predict that extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, and hurricanes will become more numerous and/or extreme in a warmer world; however, there is no evidence to support this claim. In fact, many studies have revealed that the numbers and intensities of extreme weather events have remained relatively constant over the last century of modest global warming or have actually declined. Costs of damages from these phenomena, however, have risen dramatically; but this phenomenon has been demonstrated to be the result of evolving societal, demographic and economic factors.

Elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 are a boon to the biosphere. In lieu of global warming, a little of which would in all probability be good for the planet, where do the above considerations leave us? Simply with the biospheric benefits that come from the aerial fertilization effect of atmospheric CO2 enrichment: enhanced plant growth, increased plant water use efficiency, greater food production for both people and animals, plus a host of other biological benefits too numerous to describe in this short statement.

And these benefits are not mere predictions. They are real. Already, in fact, they are evident in long-term tree-ring records, which reveal a history of increasing forest growth rates that have closely paralleled the progression of the Industrial Revolution. They can also be seen in the slow but inexorable spreading of woody plants into areas where only grasses grew before. In fact, the atmosphere itself bears witness to the increasing prowess of the entire biosphere in the yearly expanding amplitude of the its seasonal CO2 cycle. This oscillatory "breath of the biosphere" - its inhalation of CO2, produced by spring and summer terrestrial plant growth, and its exhalation of CO2, produced by fall and winter biomass decomposition - has been documented to be growing greater and greater each year in response to the ever-increasing growth stimulation provided by the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content.

Atmospheric CO2 enrichment brings growth and prosperity to man and nature alike. This, then, is what we truly believe will be the result of the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content: a reinvigorated biosphere characteristic of those prior periods of earth's history when the air's CO2 concentration was much higher than it is today, coupled with a climate not much different from that of the present. Are we right? Only time will tell. But one thing is certain now: there is much more real-world evidence for the encouraging scenario we paint here than for the doom-and-gloom predictions of apocalypse that are preached by those who blindly follow the manifestly less-than-adequate prognostications of imperfect climate models.

Our policy prescription relative to anthropogenic CO2 emissions is thus to leave well enough alone and let nature and humanity take their inextricably intertwined course. All indications are that both will be well served by the ongoing rise in atmospheric CO2.

Supporting references. This brief was written in 1998. References to the voluminous scientific literature that supports the many factual statements of this position paper may be found on our website - www.co2science.org - which we update weekly.

parados wrote:

okie wrote:

parados wrote:

okie wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

Okay folks, which do you prefer? Cooking? Or Freezing? Looks like it could go either way:

If it begins to go colder, count on it Foxfyre, the chorus of impending doom will be just as loud, if not louder. The U.N. scientists will have discovered by then a fatal flaw in their models that will explain all of it, and instead of man causing warming, it will be man causing cooling, and the sky will fall if the United States Nations and the United States in particular does not act quickly. It is all so predictable.

really okie? Do you know what the Maunder Minimum is?

No, professor, I wouldn't have a clue, and I am absolutely sure it would have nothing to do with earth's climate. The climate of the earth is entirely due to CO2 emissions from the machines and industrial facilities built by mankind.

Your strawman okie.. No one has ever claimed that.

You and I both know that is the impression left us by the media for the last few years. So called scientists may not say that in the fine print, but that is the impression left to the public, and you know it. We have been blitzed by Al Gore, his inconvenient truth, and images of weather extremes in the press every day, all implying it is man caused global warming. I am not so dumb as to agree with your assertion that nobody has ever claimed it to be "entirely" the cause. If the earth does cool in the future, look for more excuses and claims of no responsibility, as the argument shifts. This is typical of pundits and politicians.

ican, there is a known, proven connection between increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and increasing temperature. That's basic physics. It's been known for over a century. To pretend they're two unrelated variables that someone has just randomly connected, as you seem to maintain, to the extent that anything you do makes any sense at all, is just stupid. To say that comparing greenhouse gases and temperature is similar to comparing temperature and life expectancy, which are pretty much independent variables, is also dumb. You do know the difference between dependent variables and independent variables, don't you? You do know about laws of physics, don't you? Just show a little sense for once.

okie wrote:

You and I both know that is the impression left us by the media for the last few years. So called scientists may not say that in the fine print, but that is the impression left to the public, and you know it. We have been blitzed by Al Gore, his inconvenient truth, and images of weather extremes in the press every day, all implying it is man caused global warming. I am not so dumb as to agree with your assertion that nobody has ever claimed it to be "entirely" the cause. If the earth does cool in the future, look for more excuses and claims of no responsibility, as the argument shifts. This is typical of pundits and politicians.

So what you are saying is that you can't provide a quote.

T
K
O

If you think it's so obvious, you should have no trouble coming up with a whole string of quotes okie, which I notice you haven't done. When challenged about your whole "back to the caves", Luddite version of what those who recognize the problem supposedly say, you couldn't cite anything. Largely because that's some right-wing fantasy, Rush Limbaugh projection. I've seen Al Gore. He doesn't say that. Not even remotely. Have you? Your rhetoric really is absurd.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=f80a6386-802a-23ad-40c8-3c63dc2d02cb
...
U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007

Senate Report Debunks "Consensus"
...
INTRODUCTION:

Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called "consensus" on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.
...
The distinguished scientists featured in this new report are experts in diverse fields, including: climatology; geology; biology; glaciology; biogeography; meteorology; oceanography; economics; chemistry; mathematics; environmental sciences; engineering; physics and paleoclimatology. Some of those profiled have won Nobel Prizes for their outstanding contribution to their field of expertise and many shared a portion of the UN IPCC Nobel Peace Prize with Vice President Gore.

Additionally, these scientists hail from prestigious institutions worldwide, including: Harvard University; NASA; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR); Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the UN IPCC; the Danish National Space Center; U.S. Department of Energy; Princeton University; the Environmental Protection Agency; University of Pennsylvania; Hebrew University of Jerusalem; the International Arctic Research Centre; the Pasteur Institute in Paris; the Belgian Weather Institute; Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute; the University of Helsinki; the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S., France, and Russia; the University of Pretoria; University of Notre Dame; Stockholm University; University of Melbourne; Columbia University; the World Federation of Scientists; and the University of London.

The voices of many of these hundreds of scientists serve as a direct challenge to the often media-hyped "consensus" that the debate is "settled."

A May 2007 Senate report detailed scientists who had recently converted from believers in man-made global warming to skepticism. [See May 15, 2007 report: Climate Momentum Shifting: Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics: Growing Number of Scientists Convert to Skeptics After Reviewing New Research - (LINK) - In addition, an August 2007 report detailed how proponents of man-made global warming fears enjoy a monumental funding advantage over skeptical scientists. (LINK) ]
...

Brief highlights of the report featuring over 400 international scientists:


Israel: Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has authored almost 70 peer-reviewed studies and won several awards. "First, temperature changes, as well as rates of temperature changes (both increase and decrease) of magnitudes similar to that reported by IPCC to have occurred since the Industrial revolution (about 0.8C in 150 years or even 0.4C in the last 35 years) have occurred in Earth's climatic history. There's nothing special about the recent rise!"

Russia: Russian scientist Dr. Oleg Sorochtin of the Institute of Oceanology at the Russian Academy of Sciences has authored more than 300 studies, nine books, and a 2006 paper titled "The Evolution and the Prediction of Global Climate Changes on Earth." "Even if the concentration of ?'greenhouse gases' double man would not perceive the temperature impact," Sorochtin wrote. (Note: Name also sometimes translated to spell Sorokhtin)

Spain: Anton Uriarte, a professor of Physical Geography at the University of the Basque Country in Spain and author of a book on the paleoclimate, rejected man-made climate fears in 2007. "There's no need to be worried. It's very interesting to study [climate change], but there's no need to be worried," Uriate wrote.

Netherlands: Atmospheric scientist Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, a scientific pioneer in the development of numerical weather prediction and former director of research at The Netherlands' Royal National Meteorological Institute, and an internationally recognized expert in atmospheric boundary layer processes, "I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting - a six-meter sea level rise, fifteen times the IPCC number - entirely without merit," Tennekes wrote. "I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached."

Brazil: Chief Meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart of the MetSul Meteorologia Weather Center in Sao Leopoldo - Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil declared himself a skeptic. "The media is promoting an unprecedented hyping related to global warming. The media and many scientists are ignoring very important facts that point to a natural variation in the climate system as the cause of the recent global warming," Hackbart wrote on May 30, 2007.

France: Climatologist Dr. Marcel Leroux, former professor at Université Jean Moulin and director of the Laboratory of Climatology, Risks, and Environment in Lyon, is a climate skeptic. Leroux wrote a 2005 book titled Global Warming - Myth or Reality? - The Erring Ways of Climatology. "Day after day, the same mantra - that ?'the Earth is warming up' - is churned out in all its forms. As ?'the ice melts' and ?'sea level rises,' the Apocalypse looms ever nearer! Without realizing it, or perhaps without wishing to, the average citizen in bamboozled, lobotomized, lulled into mindless ac­ceptance. ... Non-believers in the greenhouse scenario are in the position of those long ago who doubted the existence of God ... fortunately for them, the Inquisition is no longer with us!"

Norway: Geologist/Geochemist Dr. Tom V. Segalstad, a professor and head of the Geological Museum at the University of Oslo and formerly an expert reviewer with the UN IPCC: "It is a search for a mythical CO2 sink to explain an immeasurable CO2 lifetime to fit a hypothetical CO2 computer model that purports to show that an impossible amount of fossil fuel burning is heating the atmosphere. It is all a fiction."

Finland: Dr. Boris Winterhalter, retired Senior Marine Researcher of the Geological Survey of Finland and former professor of marine geology at University of Helsinki, criticized the media for what he considered its alarming climate coverage. "The effect of solar winds on cosmic radiation has just recently been established and, furthermore, there seems to be a good correlation between cloudiness and variations in the intensity of cosmic radiation. Here we have a mechanism which is a far better explanation to variations in global climate than the attempts by IPCC to blame it all on anthropogenic input of greenhouse gases."

Germany: Paleoclimate expert Augusto Mangini of the University of Heidelberg in Germany, criticized the UN IPCC summary. "I consider the part of the IPCC report, which I can really judge as an expert, i.e. the reconstruction of the paleoclimate, wrong," Mangini noted in an April 5, 2007 article. He added: "The earth will not die."

Canada: IPCC 2007 Expert Reviewer Madhav Khandekar, a Ph.D meteorologist, a scientist with the Natural Resources Stewardship Project who has over 45 years experience in climatology, meteorology and oceanography, and who has published nearly 100 papers, reports, book reviews and a book on Ocean Wave Analysis and Modeling: "To my dismay, IPCC authors ignored all my comments and suggestions for major changes in the FOD (First Order Draft) and sent me the SOD (Second Order Draft) with essentially the same text as the FOD. None of the authors of the chapter bothered to directly communicate with me (or with other expert reviewers with whom I communicate on a regular basis) on many issues that were raised in my review. This is not an acceptable scientific review process."

Czech Republic: Czech-born U.S. climatologist Dr. George Kukla, a research scientist with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, expressed climate skepticism in 2007. "The only thing to worry about is the damage that can be done by worrying. Why are some scientists worried? Perhaps because they feel that to stop worrying may mean to stop being paid," Kukla told Gelf Magazine on April 24, 2007.

India: One of India's leading geologists, B.P. Radhakrishna, President of the Geological Society of India, expressed climate skepticism in 2007. "We appear to be overplaying this global warming issue as global warming is nothing new. It has happened in the past, not once but several times, giving rise to glacial-interglacial cycles."

USA: Climatologist Robert Durrenberger, past president of the American Association of State Climatologists, and one of the climatologists who gathered at Woods Hole to review the National Climate Program Plan in July, 1979: "Al Gore brought me back to the battle and prompted me to do renewed research in the field of climatology. And because of all the misinformation that Gore and his army have been spreading about climate change I have decided that ?'real' climatologists should try to help the public understand the nature of the problem."

Italy: Internationally renowned scientist Dr. Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists and a retired Professor of Advanced Physics at the University of Bologna in Italy, who has published over 800 scientific papers: "Significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming."

New Zealand: IPCC reviewer and climate researcher and scientist Dr. Vincent Gray, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports going back to 1990 and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of "Climate Change 2001: "The [IPCC] ?'Summary for Policymakers' might get a few readers, but the main purpose of the report is to provide a spurious scientific backup for the absurd claims of the worldwide environmentalist lobby that it has been established scientifically that increases in carbon dioxide are harmful to the climate. It just does not matter that this ain't so."

South Africa: Dr. Kelvin Kemm, formerly a scientist at South Africa's Atomic Energy Corporation who holds degrees in nuclear physics and mathematics: "The global-warming mania continues with more and more hype and less and less thinking. With religious zeal, people look for issues or events to blame on global warming."

Poland: Physicist Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, Chairman of the Central Laboratory for the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Radiological Protection in Warsaw: "We thus find ourselves in the situation that the entire theory of man-made global warming?-with its repercussions in science, and its important consequences for politics and the global economy?-is based on ice core studies that provided a false picture of the atmospheric CO2 levels."

Australia: Prize-wining Geologist Dr. Ian Plimer, a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide in Australia: "There is new work emerging even in the last few weeks that shows we can have a very close correlation between the temperatures of the Earth and supernova and solar radiation."

Britain: Dr. Richard Courtney, a UN IPCC expert reviewer and a UK-based climate and atmospheric science consultant: "To date, no convincing evidence for AGW (anthropogenic global warming) has been discovered. And recent global climate behavior is not consistent with AGW model predictions."

China: Chinese Scientists Say C02 Impact on Warming May Be ?'Excessively Exaggerated' - Scientists Lin Zhen-Shan's and Sun Xian's 2007 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics: "Although the CO2 greenhouse effect on global climate change is unsuspicious, it could have been excessively exaggerated." Their study asserted that "it is high time to reconsider the trend of global climate change."

Denmark: Space physicist Dr. Eigil Friis-Christensen is the director of the Danish National Space Centre, a member of the space research advisory committee of the Swedish National Space Board, a member of a NASA working group, and a member of the European Space Agency who has authored or co-authored around 100 peer-reviewed papers and chairs the Institute of Space Physics: "The sun is the source of the energy that causes the motion of the atmosphere and thereby controls weather and climate. Any change in the energy from the sun received at the Earth's surface will therefore affect climate."

Belgium: Climate scientist Luc Debontridder of the Belgium Weather Institute's Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) co-authored a study in August 2007 which dismissed a decisive role of CO2 in global warming: "CO2 is not the big bogeyman of climate change and global warming. "Not CO2, but water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. It is responsible for at least 75 % of the greenhouse effect. This is a simple scientific fact, but Al Gore's movie has hyped CO2 so much that nobody seems to take note of it."

Sweden: Geologist Dr. Wibjorn Karlen, professor emeritus of the Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology at Stockholm University, critiqued the Associated Press for hyping promoting climate fears in 2007. "Another of these hysterical views of our climate. Newspapers should think about the damage they are doing to many persons, particularly young kids, by spreading the exaggerated views of a human impact on climate."

USA: Dr. David Wojick is a UN IPCC expert reviewer, who earned his PhD in Philosophy of Science and co-founded the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie-Mellon University: "In point of fact, the hypothesis that solar variability and not human activity is warming the oceans goes a long way to explain the puzzling idea that the Earth's surface may be warming while the atmosphere is not. The GHG (greenhouse gas) hypothesis does not do this." Wojick added: "The public is not well served by this constant drumbeat of false alarms fed by computer models manipulated by advocates."
...
Background: Only 52 Scientists Participated in UN IPCC Summary

The over 400 skeptical scientists featured in this new report outnumber by nearly eight times the number of scientists who participated in the 2007 UN IPCC Summary for Policymakers. The notion of "hundreds" or "thousands" of UN scientists agreeing to a scientific statement does not hold up to scrutiny. (See report debunking "consensus" LINK) Recent research by Australian climate data analyst John McLean revealed that the IPCC's peer-review process for the Summary for Policymakers leaves much to be desired. (LINK) & (LINK) (Note: The 52 scientists who participated in the 2007 IPCC Summary for Policymakers had to adhere to the wishes of the UN political leaders and delegates in a process described as more closely resembling a political party's convention platform battle, not a scientific process - LINK)

Proponents of man-made global warming like to note how the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the American Meteorological Society (AMS) have issued statements endorsing the so-called "consensus" view that man is driving global warming. But both the NAS and AMS never allowed member scientists to directly vote on these climate statements. Essentially, only two dozen or so members on the governing boards of these institutions produced the "consensus" statements. This report gives a voice to the rank-and-file scientists who were shut out of the process. (LINK)

The most recent attempt to imply there was an overwhelming scientific "consensus" in favor of man-made global warming fears came in December 2007 during the UN climate conference in Bali. A letter signed by only 215 scientists urged the UN to mandate deep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. But absent from the letter were the signatures of these alleged "thousands" of scientists. (See AP article: - LINK )

UN IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri urged the world at the December 2007 UN climate conference in Bali, Indonesia to "Please listen to the voice of science."

The science has continued to grow loud and clear in 2007. In addition to the growing number of scientists expressing skepticism, an abundance of recent peer-reviewed studies have cast considerable doubt about man-made global warming fears. A November 3, 2007 peer-reviewed study found that "solar changes significantly alter climate." (LINK) A December 2007 peer-reviewed study recalculated and halved the global average surface temperature trend between 1980 - 2002. (LINK) Another new study found the Medieval Warm Period "0.3C warmer than 20th century" (LINK)

A peer-reviewed study by a team of scientists found that "warming is naturally caused and shows no human influence." (LINK) - Another November 2007 peer-reviewed study in the journal Physical Geography found "Long-term climate change is driven by solar insolation changes." (LINK ) These recent studies were in addition to the abundance of peer-reviewed studies earlier in 2007. - See "New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears" (LINK )

With this new report of profiling 400 skeptical scientists, the world can finally hear the voices of the "silent majority" of scientists.
...

Fox, That whole "it would virtually bust us back to a nonindustrialized"(and then I'm not sure what else you said because my screen isn't scrolling right) is really another right wing fantasy, and a W. Bush fantasy (the two do tend to be synonymous). The IPCC provided a graphic example with their most recent assessment report, which was:

If the world does none of the mitigation the IPCC recommends, it wil reach a certain point of development in March, 2050. If it instead does everything the IPCC recommends to mitigate the effects of the inevitable warming, reaching that same stage of development will be delayed all the way until August, 2050. Hardly destroying industrial civilization.

I take very lightly the whines of big business it will be destroyed. I remember the American auto industry whining pollution controls, safety regulations and CAFE standards would bankrupt them. They kept building SUVs. The Japanese automakers looked at what the world was going to be like. They knew oil prices would skyrocket (tho no one thought it was going to be bcause George Bush's wars upset any sense of confidence in the market). They didn't bitch and whine. They did the research. They built better cars, safer cars, more reliable cars, for less money. Now a lot of their cars actually already meet CAFE standards not going into effect until 2020. The people who adapt survive and prosper. However they may not be American, if Americans keep their heads in the sand. If GM had had any sense, they'd be getting the coin today, not Toyota. Pollution controls and mileage standards didn't bankrupt the industry as a whole, and our cars today are light years better because of them.

Those who predict economic disaster if we work to counteract global warming are similarly misinformed Cassandras.

And I might add the IPCC's figures are just mitigation versus non-mitigation. They don't contain the high costs to the world economy if we do nothing. The US uses something on the order of twice as much energy per dollar of GNP as the rest of the industrialized world. We use about twice as much energy per capita as the rest of the industrialized world. Addressing that disparity, i.e. conservation, would save us huge amounts of money, avoid the necessity for a whole lot of new power plants, cut down our carbon footprint, and cost less, all at the same time. Half the world's population lives within fifty miles of the coastline. At least half the world's infrastructure is also within fifty miles of the coastline. Fifty years from now a lot of that could be underwater, when the Arctic, Antarctic, and Greenland's ice all melt. That will be enormously costly to rebuild and relocate. The list goes on. Somehow George Bush didn't enter those costs in his calculations. That's just a couple of examples. It's not even a scratch in the surface of what we can do to lessen the effects that will benefit us in the near and far term, nor does it even scratch the surface of the huge amounts it'll cost us if we do nothing

When I see the AGW scientists, Al Gore, IPPC leaders, etc. downsizing their houses and cars, giving up their private jets, and foregoing their limousines in favor of trains or busses, I might think they are genuinely concerned about climate change.

Foxfyre wrote:

When I see the AGW scientists, Al Gore, IPPC leaders, etc. downsizing their houses and cars, giving up their private jets, and foregoing their limousines in favor of trains or busses, I might think they are genuinely concerned about climate change.

How many did you see already, Foxfyre? I'd thaught, some are wonderful examples for 'ecologic architecture', at least, if I believe the architectural litterature and magazines and what I noticed as an ecologic layman.

Oh, IPPC: who would you consider to be the leaders there?