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Post by W.O.M.I on May 6, 2007 21:50:19 GMT -5
kevin-
Nice link!
I've got to think that the blog's author is among the LIEberal's "Top Ten Most Wanted List", as it would appear that he's a black Conservative.
You know how LIEberals get when minorities "go off the plantation".
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lawman
Apprentice Cog
Posts: 237
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Post by lawman on May 6, 2007 21:53:56 GMT -5
kevin- Nice link! I've got to think that the blog's author is among the LIEberal's "Top Ten Most Wanted List", as it would appear that he's a black Conservative. You know how LIEberals get when minorities "go off the plantation". Yeah, Reaganite, they're just like CONservatives!
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Post by W.O.M.I on May 6, 2007 22:08:34 GMT -5
Nah....we Conservatives love it when people achieve through their own hard work and skill rather than by government-sponsored preferences. We'd encourage far more minorities to leave the LIEberal plantation.
It's only LIEberals who don't think blacks can succeed without their help.
You know....if I were black, I'd be offended at that condescension.
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Post by W.O.M.I on May 6, 2007 22:41:00 GMT -5
And back to the topic at hand: www.moonbattery.com/Yet Another Scientist Laughs Off Global WarmingWhile Sheryl Crow denounces the arrogance of those who won't drink the climate change Kool-Aid, prominent meteorologist Reid Bryson observes that climate change is totally natural and has nothing to do with SUVs or incandescent light bulbs:Climate's always been changing and it's been changing rapidly at various times, and so something was making it change in the past. Before there were enough people to make any difference at all, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing, okay? All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it's absurd. Of course it's going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we're coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we're putting more carbon dioxide into the air. Bryson notes that Vikings farmed on currently ice-choked Greenland for longer than America has existed, and that retreating glaciers in the Alps have revealed mature forest, agricultural water-management structures, and even a silver mine:A silver mine! The guys had stacked up their tools because they were going to be back the next spring to mine more silver, only the snow never went. There used to be less ice than now. It's just getting back to normal. As for the bogus notion that CO2 causes global warming:In the first 30 feet of the atmosphere, on the average, outward radiation from the Earth, which is what CO2 is supposed to affect, how much [of the reflected energy] is absorbed by water vapor? In the first 30 feet, 80 percent, okay? And how much is absorbed by carbon dioxide? Eight hundredths of one percent. One one-thousandth as important as water vapor. You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide. A few of Bryson's qualifications:Reid A. Bryson holds the 30th PhD in Meteorology granted in the history of American education. Emeritus Professor and founding chairman of the University of Wisconsin Department of Meteorology — now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences — in the 1970s he became the first director of what's now the UW's Gaylord Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies. He's a member of the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor — created, the U.N. says, to recognize "outstanding achievements in the protection and improvement of the environment." He has authored five books and more than 230 other publications and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world. Hmm, nothing there about being a pop star. Let's not be arrogant by listening to Professor Bryson instead of Cheryl Crow.Let's take special note of his qualifications again: He's a member of the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor — created, the U.N. says, to recognize "outstanding achievements in the protection and improvement of the environment."So do our resident eco-chondriacs accept UN-approved scientists- that is, scientists the UN has deemed credible as a matter of course or only when they happen to agree with your conclusions? I can't wait to see the (il)logical contortions our ec-chondriacs are going to have to go through to impugn this guy.....
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Post by bamagatr on May 8, 2007 9:02:55 GMT -5
From Reuters re: Lloyd's of London:
"These things are fact, not hypothesis," said Wendy Baker, the president of Lloyd's America in an interview on Monday. "You don't have to be a believer in global warming to recognize the climate is changing. The industry has to get ready for the changes that are coming."
Ah, yes...the industry has to get ready...starting with increased insurance premiums, Wendy?
"Follow the money" never fails.....
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Post by W.O.M.I on May 8, 2007 15:51:18 GMT -5
From the German newspaper Der Spiegel: Is the IPCC Doing Harm to Science?No United Nations organization currently dominates the headlines as much -- or is as controversial -- as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Critics call the panel politically one-sided and its reports alarmist. Its defenders say the opposite is true. The IPCC will publish its third report on Friday. [...]
There is hardly a newspaper article and hardly a TV or radio program that doesn't conjure up images of "climate catastrophe," prophesy floods of gigantic proportions, droughts and hunger. Indeed, the media have developed something akin to a complete apocalyptic program.
It's the fault of the media, of course, but not exclusively. It's also the fault of a new hero, an environmental activist who likes to introduce himself by saying: "Hello, I was once the next President of the United States of America."
Al Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth," is a PowerPoint presentation, a modern-day slide show about the causes and consequences of climate change. It also paints apocalyptic scenarios, and its dramatic climax shows large parts of Florida, as well as San Francisco, Beijing, Shanghai, the Netherlands, Bangladesh and New York, complete with the World Trade Center memorial, being swallowed by the sea. Gore spends a great deal of time on this sequence, in which each region appears on the screen and the regions ultimately disappear, one after another, into the dark sea.
The world climate report assumes that sea levels will rise by about 38.5 centimeters (15 inches). This is the mean of all scenarios, which predict increases of between 18 and 59 centimeters (7 and 23 inches). The report also states that sea levels could even rise by several meters if Greenland and western Antarctica were to become ice-free. According to the IPCC's estimates, this process, if it happens, would take several centuries, perhaps even millennia. Gore neglects to mention this time frame.
This doesn't mean that Gore should necessarily be taken to task for his statements. He is a politician. But it is odd to hear IPCC Chairman Pachauri, when asked what he thinks about Gore's film, responding: "I liked it. It does emotionalize the debate, but it seems that it has to do that." And when Pachauri comments on the publication of the first SPM by saying, "I hope that this will shock the governments so much that they take action," this doesn't exactly allay doubts as to his objectivity. When Renate Christ, the secretary of the IPCC, is asked about her opinion of reporting on climate change, she refers to articles that mention "climate catastrophe" and calls them "rather refreshing."
Stefan Rahmstorf, a professor of the physics of oceans at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, one of the world's bona fide experts on the subject and the lead author of the current report, praised Gore's film unconditionally, even for its inclusion of the sequence depicting New York sinking into the ocean. And Rahmstorf's boss, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, who serves as the institute's director and as an advisor to the German government, sounded a lot like Al Gore recently when he said in an interview: "We could see a one-meter rise in sea levels by 2100. The expected, climate-related shift in the ocean current could cause the water to rise by an additional meter in the Helgoland Bight." It sounds as if it could happen tomorrow. But it can't, and Schnellnhuber's colleague Rahmstorf, who has an inclination toward extreme scenarios, estimates that there is only a 10-percent probability that it will even happen at all.[/blockquote]
OK...so let me see if I've got this straight...
It's perfectly OK for the Left and the eco-chondriacs to cherrypick data and exaggerate threats in order to make a point because they believe the ultimate goal is a worthy one.
Pardon me....but aren't Leftists the world over outraged that George W. Bush (allegedly) cherrypicked data and exaggerated the threat in order to make a point because he believed his goal was a worthy one?
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Post by W.O.M.I on May 9, 2007 19:56:10 GMT -5
From Der Spiegel again, with a very, VERY interesting take this time: www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,481684,00.html Not the End of the World as We Know ItSvante Arrhenius, the father of the greenhouse effect, would be called a heretic today. Far from issuing the sort of dire predictions about climate change which are common nowadays, the Swedish physicist dared to predict a paradise on earth for humans when he announced, in April 1896, that temperatures were rising -- and that it would be a blessing for all.
Arrhenius, who later won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, calculated that the release of carbon dioxide -- or carbonic acid as it was then known -- through burning coal, oil and natural gas would lead to a significant rise in temperatures worldwide. But, he argued, "by the influence of the increasing percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, we may hope to enjoy ages with more equable and better climates," potentially making poor harvests and famine a thing of the past. But what does this guy know? I mean he is just the guy that first recognized the effect that is (supposedly) going to destroy the world. Oh...and he won a Nobel Prize too. And he lived over 100 years ago, so I don't think the long tnedrils of the evil Bushies could reach him and brainwash him. You're really gonna have to work to prove this guy not credible. But please...read on: Keeping a cool head is a good idea because, for one thing, we can no longer completely prevent climate change. No matter how much governments try to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, it will only be possible to limit the rise in global temperatures to about 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century. But even this moderate warming would likely have far fewer apocalyptic consequences than many a prophet of doom would have us believe.
For one thing, the more paleontologists and geologists study the history of the earth's climate, the more clearly do they recognize just how much temperatures have fluctuated in both directions in the past. Even major fluctuations appear to be completely natural phenomena.
Additionally, some environmentalists doubt that the large-scale extinction of animals and plants some have predicted will in fact come about. "A warmer climate helps promote species diversity," says Munich zoologist Josef Reichholf. A warmer planet might be good for biodiversity? Heresy! Dr. Reichholf goes on to say: It's nothing but fear-mongering, for which there is no concrete evidence. On the contrary, there is much to be said for the argument that warming temperatures promote biodiversity. There is a clear relationship between biodiversity and temperature. The number of species increases exponentially from the regions near the poles across the moderate latitudes and to the equator. To put it succinctly, the warmer a region is, the more diverse are its species.
[…]
And this can also be clearly inferred from the insights of evolutionary biology. Biodiversity reached its peak at the end of the tertiary age, a few million years ago, when it was much warmer than it is today. The development went in a completely different direction when the ice ages came and temperatures dropped, causing a massive extinction of species, especially in the north. This also explains why Europe has such a high capacity to absorb species from warmer regions. It just so happens that we have many unoccupied ecological niches in our less biodiverse part of the world. But...but...but..."Pope Algore I' says we're all gonna DIE! Remind me again why Gore has any credibility remaining? The debate- and yes, there >IS< a debate- rages on....
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Post by W.O.M.I on May 9, 2007 20:02:12 GMT -5
And this from Yahoo: news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070505/sc_livescience/climatechangenothumanstrouncedneanderthalsClimate Change, Not Humans, Trounced Neanderthals Neanderthals disappeared from Earth more than 20,000 years ago, but figuring out why continues to challenge anthropologists. One team of scientists, however, now says they have evidence to back climate change as the main culprit.
The Iberian Peninsula, better known as present-day Spain and Portugal, was one of the last Neanderthal refuges. Many scientists have thought that out-hunting by Homo sapiens and interbreeding with them brought Neanderthals to their demise, but climate change has also been proposed.
Francisco Jiménez-Espejo, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Granada in Spain, says a lack of evidence has left climate change weakly supported—until now. “We put data behind the theory,” he said, filling in a large gap in European climate records when Neanderthals faded out of existence.
The scientists’ study is detailed in a recent issue of Quaternary Science Reviews.
Cold spell
To figure out the temperature, water supply, and windiness of Iberia from 20,000 to 40,000 years ago, the scientists looked at sediments on the ocean floor off Spain and Portugal. Because wind or water erode rocky minerals differently, the pebbles and fragments wash into the sea in different ratios, creating a steady track record of land conditions at the bottom of the ocean.
The scientists also focused on barite, a compound gathered by marine animals. The more barite in sediment, the more lively the oceans were at the time. “When we found big drops in marine productivity, we knew there were big changes in climatic condition in Iberia,” Jiménez-Espejo says.
The study reveals three rough climatic periods for Neanderthals, with the last and harshest period starting about 26,000 years ago. “The last event was very, very cold and dry,” Jiménez-Espejo says, “and other than 250,000 years ago, such a harsh climate was never reached before.”
Other reasons
But is climate change the only reason Neanderthals died out?
“We’re not saying that,” Jiménez-Espejo said. “What we are saying: Neanderthals struggled with climate change more than modern humans, and during the period of their extinction, very unfavorable climatic conditions were present.”
To reach North America, humans eventually migrated across Siberia and learned to survive in the icy regions.
But “Neanderthals couldn’t make the trip,” Jiménez-Espejo said. This fact, the team believes, highlights the weakness of Neanderthals to cold, open environments—as Iberia would have been at the time of their extinction.
Other scientists think less game for Neanderthals to hunt—and not having modern humans’ skills to hunt them—probably sealed our humanoid cousin’s demise. Yet others believe Neanderthals never went extinct and instead interbred their genes into our own, as recent skeletal evidence might suggest. Where were the SUVs 20,000 years ago? Where were the incandescent light bulbs 20,000 years ago? Where were the coal-fired plants 20,000 years ago? Where were oil wells and refineries 20,000 years ago? We're waiting for your spin on this one, 'Pope Algore I'.....
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Post by espy on May 9, 2007 20:42:43 GMT -5
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Post by kevin on May 9, 2007 21:14:07 GMT -5
If there is one component of "global warming" that I can agree with, its depletion of forestry. After all, green plants -- particularly trees -- are necessary for the conversion of CO2 to O2. The video is very plausible. But note that they don't talk about the CO2 - O2 thing in the video, but the role of the forest in moisture and rainfall. So the statement above the video "The Amazon river dried up last summer due to global climate changes that the world is experiencing now." is false! The video only speaks about the depletion of the rainforest which is local to the Amazon NOT global change. Sheesh, econuts always try to twist things.
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Post by W.O.M.I on May 10, 2007 16:54:11 GMT -5
kevin-
There are more trees on earth now than at any time in recorded history (and possibly even ever, some fossil records suggest).
Of course, when you point that fact out to the eco-chondraics, they 'move the goalpost' by saying that it's only certain types of trees planted in certain lattitudes that actually help mitigate global warming.
I posted a link to a story that covers that nonsensical viewpoint earlier on in this thread somewhere.
It's not enough, they say, that North America is reforesting itself at a rate unprecedented. In fact, they say reforestation in northern latitudes actually INCREASES global warming because the trees are less reflective of heat than the snow that covers the ground and thus traps more heat.
>HUH?<
So they now claim that trees should be planted only in certain areas and not others? Doesn't a tree planted in Nova Scotia and a tree planted in Colombia both absorb CO2?
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Post by W.O.M.I on May 13, 2007 20:23:43 GMT -5
Heresy from a very unexpected source indeed: www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05122007.htmlHot Air, Cold Cash Who are the Merchants of Fear?by Alexander Cockburn (more on him in a bit) No response is more predictable than the reflexive squawk of the Greenhouse fearmongers that anyone questioning their claims is in the pay of the energy companies. A second, equally predictable retort contrasts the ever-diminishing number of agnostics to the growing legions of scientists now born again to the "truth" that anthropogenic CO2 is responsible for the earth's warming trend, the melting of the icecaps, the rising of the seas, the increase in hurricanes, the decline in penguin fertility and other horrors too numerous for individual citation. The world's best known hysteric and self promoter on the topic of man's physical and moral responsibility for global warming is Al Gore, a shill for the nuclear industry and the coal barons from the first day he stepped into Congress entrusted with the sacred duty to protect the budgetary and regulatory interests of the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Oakridge National Lab. White House "task forces" on climate change in the Clinton-Gore years were always well freighted by Gore and his adviser John Holdren with nukers like John Papay of Bechtel. To identify either the government-funded climate modelers or their political shock troops, the IPCC's panelists, with scientific rigor and objectivity is as unrealistic as detecting the same attributes in a craniologist financed by Lombroso studying a murderer's head in a nineteenth-century prison for the criminally insane. At least Lombroso and his retinue measured heads. All Al Gore has ever needed is a hot day or some heavy rain as opportunity to promote the unassailable theory of man-made global warming. Come a rainy summer ('95), a perfectly routine El Nino ('97) or forest fire in Florida ('98) and Gore was there for the photo op, the uplifted finger warning of worse warming to come. '97 also found Gore in Glacier National Park, pointing at Grinnell glacier and telling the press gravely that it was melting, which indeed it has been since the end of the Little Ice Age,1450 to 1800. Mid-latitude glaciers expanded then, just as they contracted in the Medieval Warming Period, hotter than today and thus so vexing to climate alarmists like Michael Mann (now a reigning weather bureaucrat at the IPCC) that they had wiped it off their historical temperature graphs, just like an editor in Stalin's time cropping a team photo of early Bolsheviks to get rid of recently anathematized undesirables. When measured reality doesn't cooperate with the lurid model predictions, new compensating "factors" are concocted, such as the briefly popular sulfate aerosols of the 1990os, recruited to cool off the obviously excessive heat predicted by the models. Or the existing, inconvenient data are water-Xboarded into submission as happened with the ice-core samples that fail to confirm the modellers' need for record temperatures today as opposed to half a million years ago. As Richard Kerr, Science magazine's man on global warming remarked, "Climate modelers have been 'cheating' for so long it's become almost respectable." Now, before the inevitible charges are levied that Mr. Cockburn is either in the employ of the energy companies or a shill for the Bush Administration, here's what Wikipedia has to say about him: After moving to the United States, Cockburn wrote extensively for numerous publications, including The New York Review of Books, Esquire, and Harper's. Until 1983 he was a writer with The Village Voice, originating its longstanding "Press Clips" column, but he was suspended, the Voice said, "for accepting a $10,000 grant from an Arab studies organization in 1982."[1][2] He left the publication upon being offered a regular column in The Nation, called "Beat the Devil" (after the title of a novel by his father). Since leaving the Voice he has also written columns for the Wall Street Journal, New York Press and the New Statesman.
Over the years, Cockburn's writings have consistently displayed certain themes, including:
Outspoken criticism of US foreign policy, from its policies in Central America in the 1980s, including the Iran-contra scandal, to the First Gulf War in 1991, the Kosovo War in 1999, and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and 2003 invasion of Iraq. Criticism of the government of Israel based on its treatment of the Palestinians. Calls for political reform in the United States, mostly focused on criticising the Democratic Party for failing to provide a progressive alternative to the Republican Party, as well as strong support for Ralph Nader's presidential candidacies in the 2000 and 2004 elections. Contempt for the mainstream establishment, in particular for public figures who, in his view, garner mainstream respectability by criticising those to their left; targets have included the New York Times, Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the late academic Irving Howe and some of his The Nation colleagues, including Marc Cooper, David Corn[3] and Eric Alterman. Cockburn has also been highly critical (see below) of his former friend and colleague, Christopher Hitchens.[4] Criticism of 9/11 conspiracy theories[5][6] No card-carrying Republican, he. When someone who is as ideologically predisposed to agree with Gore as Mr. Cockburn is takes him to great task rather than pats him on the back, one can only conclude that Gore has gone of the deep, deep, DEEP end. Again.
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Post by W.O.M.I on May 19, 2007 15:21:58 GMT -5
More from the global warming 'agnostics'? Don't they know that Oscars aren't presented to just anybody... (or maybe they are!)? www.stuff.co.nz/timaruherald/4064691a6571.htmlGlobal warming debunked Climate change will be considered a joke in five years time, meteorologist Augie Auer told the annual meeting of Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers in Ashburton this week.
Man's contribution to the greenhouse gases was so small we couldn't change the climate if we tried, he maintained.
"We're all going to survive this. It's all going to be a joke in five years," he said.
A combination of misinterpreted and misguided science, media hype, and political spin had created the current hysteria and it was time to put a stop to it.
"It is time to attack the myth of global warming," he said.
Water vapour was responsible for 95 per cent of the greenhouse effect, an effect which was vital to keep the world warm, he explained.
"If we didn't have the greenhouse effect the planet would be at minus 18 deg C but because we do have the greenhouse effect it is plus 15 deg C, all the time."
The other greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen dioxide, and various others including CFCs, contributed only five per cent of the effect, carbon dioxide being by far the greatest contributor at 3.6 per cent.
However, carbon dioxide as a result of man's activities was only 3.2 per cent of that, hence only 0.12 per cent of the greenhouse gases in total. Human-related methane, nitrogen dioxide and CFCs etc made similarly minuscule contributions to the effect: 0.066, 0.047 and 0.046 per cent respectively.
"That ought to be the end of the argument, there and then," he said.
"We couldn't do it (change the climate) even if we wanted to because water vapour dominates."
Yet the Greens continued to use phrases such as "The planet is groaning under the weight of CO2" and Government policies were about to hit industries such as farming, he warned.
"The Greens are really going to go after you because you put out 49 per cent of the countries emissions. Does anybody ask 49 per cent of what? Does anybody know how small that number is?
"It's become a witch-hunt; a Salem witch-hunt," he said. But don't let science- REAL science as opposed to "scientific consensus" nonesense- get in the way of scaring the ignorant masses. Dammit! We have to expand socialism!
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Post by W.O.M.I on May 19, 2007 15:28:01 GMT -5
Also worth a read: home.earthlink.net/~ponderthemaunder/index.htmlPonder the MaunderWelcome to Ponder the Maunder, an extra credit assignment for Honors Earth Science, Portland High School, by Kristen Byrnes of Portland Maine.
This report is a comprehensive look at the global warming issue without financial or political bias. It uses the most updated information provided by scientists and researchers and interjects common sense, an important component missing from the global warming debate. That's right folks! A >HIGH SCHOOL< student absolutely destroys Al Gore's schlockumentary and, what's even better, USES HIS OWN WORDS TO DO SO! An example: Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth does indeed have some correct facts, but as he even says himself, sometimes you have to over-exaggerate to send the message to people:
Q. There's a lot of debate right now over the best way to communicate about global warming and get people motivated. Do you scare people or give them hope? What's the right mix?
A. I think the answer to that depends on where your audience's head is. In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.
www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/05/09/roberts/ (Interview with Grist Magazine’s David Roberts and Al Gore about An Inconvenient Truth)
Al Gore said this, so how are we supposed to know fact from fiction in the global warming debate? Kristen's absolutely spot on conclusion: It’s easy to see why Al gore’s [sic] movie should not be shown in schools. An Inconvenient Truth is a political commercial that misrepresents a whole area of science. He admittedly uses scare tactics to get people to listen then shows them a professional slide show that blames every thing bad on so called man made global warming.
Al did not make and publicize this movie because he cares; something obvious when you consider his own lifestyle. He did not make this movie to run for president. This movie has grossed over 60 million dollars to date and it hasn’t even made it to cable. Al charges over $100,000 per slide show. But the real money that Al will make is through his new company, Generation Investment Management, a company that seeks to establish the rules and licensing for the new carbon-trading scheme. We have all heard of politicians who lie for money and power; it looks as if Al did not retire after all. Bravo Kristen! High School students: doing the job the MSM just won't do.
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Post by W.O.M.I on May 20, 2007 15:31:06 GMT -5
Now YOU know and I know that the debate is over.... Maybe someone should tell these folks: thumbnails1.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/docserver/getimage.aspx?file=10062007051900000000001001&page=1&scale=34www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=27a24986-008e-4a55-a18c-fb3fb7acf0e9&k=0First it was his world history class. Then he saw it in his economics class. And his world issues class. And his environment class. In total, 18-year-old McKenzie, a Northern Ontario high schooler, says he has had the film An Inconvenient Truth shown to him by four different teachers this year.
"I really don't understand why they keep showing it," says McKenzie (his parents asked that his last name not be used). "I've spoken to the principal about it, and he said that teachers are instructed to present it as a debate. But every time we've seen it, well, one teacher said this is basically a two-sided debate, but this movie really gives you the best idea of what's going on." Even scientists who back Mr. Gore's message admit they're uncomfortable with liberties the politician takes with "science" in the film. But, McKenzie says most of his classmates are credulous.
His teachers are not much more discerning. "They don't know there's another side to the argument," he says. McKenzie's mother was outraged to find out that Mr. Gore's film was being presented as fact in her son's classroom. "This is just being poured into kids' brains instead of letting them know there's a debate going on," she says. "An educational system falls down when they start taking one side."
But Mr. Gore's filmed climate-change lecture is showing up in classrooms across Canada, frequently unaccompanied by critical analysis or a discussion of competing theories. "One of the teachers at my kid's school showed it and he even said ahead of time, 'There is some propaganda in this,' " says Tim Patterson, a Carleton University earth sciences professor. "I said to him, 'You even knew this was a propaganda film, and you still showed it in your classroom?' " The weirdest part: It was the gym teacher.
If you have children in junior or high school, there is a good chance they have been shown An Inconvenient Truth in school - or they will be soon. So a film that admittedly contans propaganda is OK to use as a teaching aid so long as you agree with the politics- and I say politics because there's far more of that in Gore's schlockumentary than there is science? Never mind the Jihadists. The real threat to our future are bad teachers.
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Post by blondie on May 21, 2007 16:27:14 GMT -5
Now YOU know and I know that the debate is over.... Maybe someone should tell these folks: thumbnails1.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/docserver/getimage.aspx?file=10062007051900000000001001&page=1&scale=34www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=27a24986-008e-4a55-a18c-fb3fb7acf0e9&k=0First it was his world history class. Then he saw it in his economics class. And his world issues class. And his environment class. In total, 18-year-old McKenzie, a Northern Ontario high schooler, says he has had the film An Inconvenient Truth shown to him by four different teachers this year.
"I really don't understand why they keep showing it," says McKenzie (his parents asked that his last name not be used). "I've spoken to the principal about it, and he said that teachers are instructed to present it as a debate. But every time we've seen it, well, one teacher said this is basically a two-sided debate, but this movie really gives you the best idea of what's going on." Even scientists who back Mr. Gore's message admit they're uncomfortable with liberties the politician takes with "science" in the film. But, McKenzie says most of his classmates are credulous.
His teachers are not much more discerning. "They don't know there's another side to the argument," he says. McKenzie's mother was outraged to find out that Mr. Gore's film was being presented as fact in her son's classroom. "This is just being poured into kids' brains instead of letting them know there's a debate going on," she says. "An educational system falls down when they start taking one side."
But Mr. Gore's filmed climate-change lecture is showing up in classrooms across Canada, frequently unaccompanied by critical analysis or a discussion of competing theories. "One of the teachers at my kid's school showed it and he even said ahead of time, 'There is some propaganda in this,' " says Tim Patterson, a Carleton University earth sciences professor. "I said to him, 'You even knew this was a propaganda film, and you still showed it in your classroom?' " The weirdest part: It was the gym teacher.
If you have children in junior or high school, there is a good chance they have been shown An Inconvenient Truth in school - or they will be soon. So a film that admittedly contans propaganda is OK to use as a teaching aid so long as you agree with the politics- and I say politics because there's far more of that in Gore's schlockumentary than there is science? Never mind the Jihadists. The real threat to our future are bad teachers. I think it's safe to say Canada.com runs a lot of anti-global warming stories. That's not very telling. The fact that their expert witness seems to be an 18-year old student is. Still waiting for an objective science organization.
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Post by W.O.M.I on May 21, 2007 18:43:42 GMT -5
I think the fact that an eighteen year old seems to have a much greater grasp of climate physics than the ex VP of the US should be even more telling.
If those who do not believe in anthropogenic global warming have arguments that are so easily overcome and debunked, why are the ecochondriacs not out there overcoming them and debunking them rather than trying to tell us the debate- and yes, there >IS< a debate is over?
England acknowledges that there is another side to the debate. Canada does as well. So does Australia.
Only in the United States do the enviornMENTALists want to choke off debate. Now why do you suppose that is.....
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Post by W.O.M.I on May 22, 2007 13:31:37 GMT -5
The counter-revoloution is growing: www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,23663,21779177-10388,00.html ABC buys gobal warming docoA CONTROVERSIAL British documentary which claims global warming is a lie will be shown by the ABC.
The Great Global Warming Swindle, to be aired by the national broadcaster in July, is the ideological opposite to Al Gore's acclaimed movie An Inconvenient Truth.
The documentary rebuts mounting scientific evidence that global warming is caused predominantly by human activity, and says it's the result of changes in radiation from the sun.
The film's credibility, some of its contributors and its maker, Martin Durkin, came under heavy questioning by scientists and the media after it aired on Britain's Channel 4 in March.
Channel 4 defended the film, as has ABC director of television Kim Dalton, on the basis that all sides of the hotly contested global warming debate deserved to be represented.
“Currently the issue of global warming is being debated around the world,” Mr Dalton said.
“This documentary presents a controversial side to that debate.” First the British had the courage to show the film. Then the Swedes. Now the Australians. When are Americans going to be allowed to see the film? What are the enviroMENTALists afraid of?
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Post by bamagatr on May 26, 2007 5:37:18 GMT -5
What are the enviroMENTALists afraid of? Losing grant money...
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Post by richbrout on May 26, 2007 13:31:31 GMT -5
Why would anyone be against energy efficiency, energy independence, recycling, conservation, cleaner air and water?
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Post by richbrout on May 26, 2007 13:45:01 GMT -5
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Post by billt on May 26, 2007 15:23:41 GMT -5
rich, please name ONE person here that is against those things?
NOPBODY has advocated waste except YOUR side...the waste i refer to is efforts to reduce co2 in the atmosphere, many trillions spent to accomplish NOTHING!
rich when you must FALSELY charactize the opposiution you are showing your side isnt even taking part in discussion, simply throwing up strawman BS!
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Post by richbrout on May 26, 2007 17:34:26 GMT -5
there is no mischaracterization-
Why argue over the motivation, when we agree on what needs to be done? Its not trillions spent but saved. Energy effeciency saves money.
I don't care if people do it to say "screw you" to the middle east or if they think they are saving the planet. Just do it!
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Post by richbrout on May 26, 2007 18:58:32 GMT -5
or maybe we can google, cut and paste for another 14 pages "debunking" each others' positions
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Post by W.O.M.I on May 28, 2007 18:46:33 GMT -5
rich-
This thread was begun by our resident EnviorNAZI long, long ago to try to 'prove' that there was no debate- that anthropogenic global warming was a fact and that the United States specifically was the cause of it.
Both have been proven demonstrably false- there IS a debate (in fact, everywhere but the US, a rather healthy one) and the US isn't even mostly responsible for the effects of climate change, whatever they prove to be (or, more likely, do NOT prove to be).
If Gore were to come out and say to American, 'Hey....I've got a way that you can save the world AND save money!' rather than his standard spiel of "We're ALL GONNA DIE (and your SuV is why!)!", perhaps some common ground might be found.
But 'Pope Algore I' isn't willing to put the good of the world above his own desire to be treated as some sort of 'ecoMessiah". He opens himself up to lampooning, makes himself an absurdly easy target- admitting that, so long as the ends is justified, lying or exaggerating the threat of global warming is not only permissible but mandatory doesn't help his cause- thus it is almost impossible for him to be taken seriously by anyone wiht more than three functioning brain cells.
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Post by W.O.M.I on May 30, 2007 16:15:08 GMT -5
Has Mother Nature joined the 'deniers'? www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=458562&in_page_id=1811If you thought our weekend was bad look at the weather across the water...Freak snow, freezing temperatures and tropical storms across Europe are making the Bank Holiday washout here look almost pleasant.
In Spitzing in Germany, locals have been forced to wrap up after ten centimetres of snow brought out the snowploughs for the first time this year.
Dutch tourist Antoinette Vegchel wipes away snow on her car in Germany's Black Forest region
It was the same story in towns close to the Alps in Austria, Switzerland and even northern Italy where temperatures in May routinely climb into the 80s.
In one Swiss valley, 3,000 were trapped in hotels and guest houses because trains could not reach them in the snow.
Ironically, the weather follows one of the worst winters ever for snow at Alpine ski resorts.
On the Mediterranean island of Corsica, two hikers died in freezing fog and on its beaches a 19-year-old man was killed by a wave.
A cable car moves back from Nebelhorn mountain in southern Germany after 25 cm of snow fell overnight
Further north in cities like Berlin, tropical storms have brought four days of chaos, dumping hailstones as big as golf balls, uprooting trees and causing widespread flooding.
There have been many fatalities across Germany from the weather, the most poignant being three workmen who sheltered beneath their bulldozer during a rainstorm only to die altogether from a single lightning strike.
Britain was drenched over the weekend in some of the worst rain of the year.
The AA said thousands had to cut their long weekends short, to battle appalling conditions on motorways.
Arctic winds hit the country on Monday at speeds of up to 50mph in what was described as one of the coldest Whitsun Bank Holidays.
However, the outlook for the rest of the week is better with temperatures rising again and rain in some areas. A footnote: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Moonbat- California) is spending part of her Memorial Day recess in Germany.... ....attending a conference on global warming.
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Post by kevin on May 30, 2007 19:17:10 GMT -5
I thought that somewhere along the line they changed it from "global warming" to "climate change". What happened to that? Not dramatic sounding enough?
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Post by W.O.M.I on May 30, 2007 20:07:43 GMT -5
Frank Luntz, who is a Republican pollster, wrote a book that explains how various advocacy groups tailor their message by using specific words so as to either best convey- or best camoflage- their actual message.
Both parties often use surveys or take polls from the public asking for their reaction to a series of phrases that may well mean the same thing.
One of those focus groups told Democrats that "Climate change" had more of an impact, in terms of compelling the hearer to recognize the threat it presents and to want to do somehing about it, than "global warming", hence Democrats "moved the golaposts" and began to refer to the variance of weather as "Climate change".
To put it into context using my previous post, it's pretty easy to use the information in it to make a case AGAINST "global warming"- it's snowing in late May isn't exactly the sort of evidence one would use to prove it's getting hotter outside.
Ahhh...but substitute "climate change" for "global warming" and the case is much murkier. If it's snowing in late May and it doesn't usually snow in late may- CLIMATE CHANGE!
It also makes formulating a convincing argument against the phenomenon much more difficult because, if you really think about it, doesn't >EVERYTHING< 'prove' that our climate is changing, one way or another? Why? Because it is a meaningless term because iot totally lacks contextual specificity. Snow in may is the result of 'climate change'. Wildfires in April are the result of 'climate change'. More hurricanes? Climate change! Less hurricanes? Climate change! And so on.
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Post by Twista on May 31, 2007 1:01:05 GMT -5
re: Womi... (concerning Frank Luntz) "One of those focus groups told Democrats that "Climate change" had more of an impact, in terms of compelling the hearer to recognize the threat it presents and to want to do somehing about it, than "global warming", hence Democrats "moved the golaposts" and began to refer to the variance of weather as "Climate change". Really? (From en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change)"Political advisor Frank Luntz recommended the Bush Administration adopt the term "Climate Change" in preference to global warming, while it worked to discredit the idea of global warming science." Which might be the reason the Bush Administration had the EPA change their Global Warming site to a Climate Change site? (from the press release on the EPA site) " To provide the public with the most up-to-date information on climate change, EPA is updating its climate change Web site. The site provides the latest scientific information and highlights a wide range of U.S. government programs that are actively addressing climate change at the local, state, national and international levels. The updated Web site still contains all information that was on EPA's global warming Web site but organizes it for easier access and adds new information. "The Bush Administration is meeting unparalleled financial, international and domestic commitments to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions," said EPA Deputy Administrator Marcus Peacock. "EPA's updated climate change Web site outlines the agency's important role in implementing President Bush's aggressive yet practical strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while growing the American economy." BTW- The EPA site says they changed the name because the National Academy of Science says that Climate change is growing in preference to Global warming because there are other changes in addition to rising temperatures...
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Post by richbrout on May 31, 2007 7:07:49 GMT -5
remember rain?
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