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How Silly is Climate Change Denial?

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Asked and answered — again and again and again. Can you just open up your mind and read the many responses to your complaints? You show no evidence of having done so, because you just repeat the same mantra.
 
Asked and answered — again and again and again. Can you just open up your mind and read the many responses to your complaints? You show no evidence of having done so, because you just repeat the same mantra.

No Gene. Just like I won't accept that the sky is green. I won't accept that fire is cold. I won't accept that the sun revolves around the earth.

The entire AGW theory, a.k.a. "cult" is 100% based on the belief that CO2 causes global warming. The theory goes that as CO2 levels increase, the planet warms up. The problem is that the opposite is true. The data suggests just the opposite, that temperature goes up and then CO2 levels increase. So AGW fails from the very beginning. There's no getting past that.

And Gene, I learned that back in 2009 after I watched Al Gore's documentary. I believed him at first but after learning this fact is when I realized it was a hoax.
 
I'm not making it personal at all, Gene. I'm nobody. The only thing I got working for me is critical thinking. I know that if AGW is real that CO2 levels have to rise first. The entire theory depends on it. Yet that's not what happens. Temperature rises first and then CO2 levels increase. This means that whatever is causing warming is not CO2.
Well, here we have one example of the limitations of Critical Thinking. :confused: One needs a far more enhanced abstract thinking ability to wrap one's mind around scientific theories, like Einstein's theories, and complex gestalts like earth systems. I am one who definitely sees the earth as a living gestalt - and that you will not find in the science facts, or assumptions, or in the abstract I've quoted - but to ignore the facts supplied by scientific rigor is foolishness.
The entire AGW theory, a.k.a. "cult" is 100% based on the belief that CO2 causes global warming
It's a bit more complicated than that. Your statement of 100% needs some support - can you supply the evidence where this is stated? There is the no small matter of the methane gasses getting released - always warned about.

It will help if you started to look a bit at the inflexibility of your ideas - because you have a very rigid view of what AGW theory is. You are not - as it happens - debating ideas - but your own rigid view. Unfortunately, it is faulty.

The theory goes that as CO2 levels increase, the planet warms up. The problem is that the opposite is true. The data suggests just the opposite, that temperature goes up and then CO2 levels increase. So AGW fails from the very beginning. There's no getting past that.

Could you supply some links to this data?

There is a misunderstanding - or a willful distortion - of the facts. You will never be able to 'get past' anything until you are able to get past your own misinformed assumptions.
 
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Because I don't have to. The entire AGW rests on that CO2 levels must rise first and then followed by temperature.

Thing is: where are you getting this? From what scientific study? Can you quote the abstract?

I don't have to touch this game of "bombardment" with all these articles and quotes when the entire theory rests on that premise and it's false.

Well, yes you do - if you want to be taken seriously and not as simply a a poster engaged in troll-like behavior.

It's a house of cards and it fell over a long time ago but believers refuse to reject it.

Far from a house-of-cards - we are buckling our seat belts for a bumpy ride.
 
Re: $$$$ and Global Warming Spending

Now you could read Forbes magazine and hear how dastardly that Obama fellow is (or is it O'Bama, as he's also part Irish) and how he's spending billions on global warming. I suppose some think he's just shelling it out to all his buddies who are making their lawns greener, but that's not reality. The funding that goes into global warming is mostly investment on finding fuels of the future that will keep our ship afloat. While i could not find a country by country comparison, England and Australia are reducing their spending. But this article from the EU is pretty informative and reminds us that the subsidies for renewable energies are overshadowed by subsidies to the oil and nuclear sectors. So really, that whole myth of how many billions are being wasted, really is the voice of Forbes who doesn't talk about how many billions are being given over to polluting industries. It's just the voice of greed talking - they want in on that supposed "great climate change pyramid scheme" as their's is starting to bottom out.

Global climate investment flatlines | EurActiv

if anyone (mike?) can find a country by country comparison and what the funds actually go to when it comes to global warming i would be interested to see the reality of it all. i would suspect that it could indicate that renewable energies are threatening the oil sector and that's a good thing. the more regulation placed on oil and polluting systems the better, as cleaner energy is what we need to sustain this whole thing. it was also refreshing to read that a good chunk of billions goes into supporting the construction of cleaner energy production in developing nations. that's exactly what should be taking place to demonstrate that we've learned just a wee bit from the past.

If anyone wants to really understand the impact of polluting and vile technology i suggest you want Lynch's The Elephant Man as it clearly demonstrates how industrialization was best emblematized as a threshing machine chewing up bodies by accident. In our own era of industrial-toxification, where we die by disease instead, we are still caught in the nightmare transition of technology from over a hundred years ago, like an elephant trampling a woman to produce a mangled new human creation. Have pity on this poor scratcher of the earth who burns coal and poisons his children.


Some interesting ideas - and prototypes - floating around out there - like solar roadways -




Here is the inventor - Scott Brusaw - You might want to watch this first -


 
A news release and an example of how the general will is being subverted by powerful self-interest lobbies: "California is a model for the country in adopting local, clean energy. Sonoma and Marin counties have both made a public investment in clean energy, offering greener, cheaper power to businesses and households, and more counties are interested in following suit. This is the kind of innovation that we need.

"It's due to a policy called community choice, which allows local governments the opportunity to bundle together electric accounts for local businesses and homes, providing a path forward for cheaper - and cleaner - power. However, community choice is under attack right now.

"Special interests in California are pushing a bill that would make it more difficult for communities across the state to switch to clean energy - and it's already passed out of one state assembly committee - a big step in the wrong direction.

"There's no reason to debate the facts anymore - climate change is a reality that we're dealing with right now in California. Community choice is a great way to keep taking on that challenge. Californians have the right to choose clean energy for their communities. But state lawmakers are being urged by vested-interests to take that away."

This is one of the clearest examples of how the who that is operating has a vested interest in keeping the status-quo regardless of the will of the majority of the people. Local control is being strong-armed so that certain interests don't have their bottom lines impacted. It's as simple as that.
 
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The site, overpopulation is a myth, has a video that I posted here that stated that the worlds's population of human beings could fit within a land mass the size of Texas, with every family having their own home. I think the problem is that people don't understand how big the earth is.

This really is silly

Yes its true, you could fit 6 billion people in texas

Could Texas provide the food , water and resources for 6 billion ?
Hell no, china who has a population/landmass density less that our crowded texas scenario, has to import food and resources to feed it population.

The equation remains the same no matter where we put everyone.
Its not about space for these people its about resources for them, you are still trying to insist overpopulation is about the number of people or the space they would take up.

Its not, its about the resources they consume.

So even if we put everyone in texas, and use the whole rest of the planet as a resource area....... it still wouldnt be enough

No one lives in the oceans........ no space issues there

and yet

The journal Science published a four-year study in November 2006, which predicted that, at prevailing trends, the world would run out of wild-caught seafood in 2048. The scientists stated that the decline was a result of overfishing, pollution and other environmental factors that were reducing the population of fisheries at the same time as their ecosystems were being annihilated

Overfishing has also been widely reported due to increases in the volume of fishing hauls to feed a quickly growing number of consumers. This has led to the breakdown of some sea ecosystems and several fishing industries whose catch has been greatly diminished.[4][5] The extinction of many species has also been reported.[6] According to a Food and Agriculture Organization estimate, over 70% of the world’s fish species are either fully exploited or depleted.[7] According to the Secretary General of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, "Overfishing cannot continue, the depletion of fisheries poses a major threat to the food supply of millions of people."[8]
The cover story of the May 15, 2003 issue of the science journal Nature – with Dr. Ransom A. Myers, an internationally prominent fisheries biologist (Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada) as the lead author – was devoted to a summary of the scientific information. The story asserted that, as compared with 1950 levels, only a remnant (in some instances, as little as 10%) of all large ocean-fish stocks are left in the seas. These large ocean fish are the species at the top of the food chains (e.g., tuna, cod, among others).

Below are a few definitions in use by organisations and governments. 1
The practice of commercial and non-commercial fishing which depletes a fishery by catching so many adult fish that not enough remain to breed and replenish the population. Overfishing exceeds the carrying capacity of a fishery. 2
Catching too many fish; fishing so much that the fish cannot sustain their population. The fish get fewer and fewer, until finally there are none to catch. 3
Fishing with a sufficiently high intensity to reduce the breeding stock levels to such an extent that they will no longer suppport a sufficient quantity of fish for sport or commercial harvest. 4
What is causing overfishing
Worldwide, fishing fleets are two to three times as large as needed to take present day catches of fish and other marine species and as what our oceans can sustainably support. On a global scale we have enough fishing capacity 5 to cover at least four Earth like planets.

Overfishing - A global environmental problem, threat to our oceans and disaster.

Over fishing a Global disaster, and thats just fishing..... we also over use many other resources

Even if we put everyone in texas, the rest of the planet still wouldnt be enough to sustain that population.

Its not just about a home and some place to park the car, every human uses about 4 acres of farmland to grow the food they use.

That same equation that says everyone could fit in texas, doesnt include this fact in the equation, factor in the farmland needed to feed those people and texas is no where near large enough to "sustain" that many people. To provide the resources those people need, texas isnt big enough, Earth isnt big enough........

Thats the reality you dont seem to grasp

Its not about the headcount, its not about living space, its about resource use

When you do the math on this basis

Planet earth is overpopulated
 
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Since BoyInTheMachine has not been willing to name his sources (there is something unusual about his repetitions of the same phrases that have all the earmarks of something very familiar) I have done some investigating. (I realize that this is an extremely long post but the reality of what I have found is chilling imo - and worth a bit of the prolix.)

This is far from my area of awareness - the Climate Deniers - but I did come across this book from 2012 by Senator James Inhofe - who, by the way, will be the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee if the Republicans gain control of the Senate in this November's elections :mad: - scary isn't the half of it. The book is called: The Hoax: How The Global warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future.

I am going to copy-and-paste two Amazon reviews that puts in context what we are hearing from BoyInTheMachine. I very much want to quote the review by Charles Hirshberg - but it's pretty dramatically spoken - I leave you to discover it in this link: Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future - but please note his final few sentences: "...what it comes down to is, there are actually just two basic flaws in Inhofe's world view: First, he is so convinced that he is brilliant, that he has actually trained his brain to give no quarter to the mountains of evidence proving that he is, in fact, a nimrod; and second, as he makes clear in this book, he believes (seriously, now -- I mean it, this is 100% serious!) that no right-thinking Christian could believe in global warming because the bible makes clear that God would never let such a thing happen! And it's actually this second flaw that accounts for all the rest of his lunacy on this particular subject. Because until the morning that Jesus Christ jumps-up out of James Inhofe's bowl of oatmeal and TELLS him that global warming is real, the distinguished Senator from the great state of Oklahoma will not listen to reason."

I am noticing in BoyInTheMachine's posts phrases that appear repeatedly - catch phrases - especially the appeal to a religious kind of polarization. They come from somewhere. I haven't read this book but the Amazon reviews are devastating and a window into the problem.

A political, NOT scientific, work (Top-Rated One Star Amazon Review): The book gets off to rather an unfortunate start on the cover with the absurd contention that thousands of scientists working independently over decades, publishing countless papers in peer reviewed journals, have somehow managed to coordinate, or at least are complicit in constructing and perpetuating a "hoax". The enormity of that accusation is staggering in its implications and the lack of understanding of science and the scientific process and more importantly perhaps, the scientific community. However, one can reasonably assume that it is intentional and is basically intended to misinform. mislead, and support a political agenda rather than contribute to the global warming discussion.

The problem I see with this type of book--and the potential harm it does--is that many readers don't have the background and/or have not done enough reading to really understand the science being discussed and, therefore, cannot assess its validity. Much of what the author says about climate science is simply incorrect and easily verified as such.

Probably the reason that this book has such a pronounced bimodal distribution of reviews (i.e. either 1 star or 5 stars) is that readers are equally divided among those with and without some science education.

The author's discussion of regulation and government policy is where his real expertise lies and worthy of reading & considering. That really is a key point about global climate change--what steps should, or should not be taken by governments. Even in this discussion, there are several (better) books available that provide some objective analysis of costs and efficacy of various proposals, rather than political campaigning for a particular agenda.

I did not purchase the book, I read it at the bookstore as I cannot support funding this type of book which I see as impediment, rather than a help to the lay persons understanding of climate science and global warming. To me, one of the interesting things about this and other similar books is that the basic concept of global warming/climate change is easy for anyone to understand, whereas the underlying science is much more complex. Therefore, authors such as Inhofe can easily mislead readers who have only the most rudimentary understanding of the science, or the basic idea, without having to really defend his science points in rigorous way.


This next review gives enough details to give context to where BoyInTheMachine is (or appears to be) coming from. What has happened - as best as I can make out - is the monied oil and fossil fuel powers-that-be have successfully co-opted the religious right yet again to work on its behalf.

In what Senator Inhofe is quoted as saying we can hear BoyInTheMachine - so I think I have my answer as to where BoyInTheMachine was fed his views. Or he was fed his views by someone who had read Inhofe's book.

Please Note: This reviewer is using a great deal of irony - as when he mentions Gore (by his own admission in the comments section).

Red Scare Meets Green Scare (Third Highest Rated Negative Amazon Review): The allegations Senator James Inhofe makes in The Greatest Hoax are unlike any since Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed to have documented evidence that Communist agents were overrunning our government. This time, liberals at the UN are corrupting science to scare us into accepting global governance, huge tax increases, and severe limits on our way of life.

When a U.S. Senator makes such an extraordinary claim, history teaches us to check the evidence. Inhofe's Green Scare could be as fake as McCarthy's Red Scare. If Inhofe is a second McCarthy, we will catch him fabricating evidence, manipulating data, and twisting truth.

We can verify Inhofe's truthfulness using Al Gore's marvelous invention, the Internet. Take, for example, Inhofe's argument that global warming is inconsistent with the "widespread global cooling scare" in the 1970's. He quotes the National Science Board as saying in 1972 that "judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end...leading into the next glacial age." Not quite. Going to the source we find what they wrote was, "leading into the next glacial age some 20,000 years from now." We find talk of the cooling effects of air pollution and the warming effects of carbon dioxide, but no imminent ice age.

Inhofe's assertion that the "hockey stick" temperature reconstruction was rebuked in a journal holds up no better. He writes: "Three geophysicists from the University of Utah, in the April 7, 2004, edition of Geophysical Research Letters, concluded that Mann's methods used to create his temperature reconstruction were deeply flawed. ... As they wrote, Mann's results are ... 'just bad science.'"

We learn different with help from Google. The commentary where Inhofe gets this quote explicitly refers to an article titled "Ground vs. surface air temperature trends: Implications for borehole surface temperature reconstructions." What the geophysicists criticize is a narrow issue in a study about the relationship between air and ground temperature. Saying their criticism applied to the hockey stick is a lie, a flat lie.


Inhofe's most serious allegation is that for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), "science was secondary, even non-essential, to the ultimate goal of confirming catastrophic global warming and achieving global governance." Under "Flawed IPCC Assessment Reports," Inhofe channels McCarthy, charging "systematic and documented abuse of the scientific process."

No evidence of corruption in the 1990 IPCC First Assessment Report is needed though as the flaws were "glaringly apparent." The IPCC had found temperatures over the last hundred years were "broadly consistent" with models that took greenhouse gases into account. That "appeared suspect," Inhofe says, because "the climate cooled between 1940 and 1975.... How does one reconcile this cooling with the observed increase in greenhouse gases?"


This simple question reveals how little Inhofe knows about climate. He would know if he had he done his homework on the Environment and Public Works Committee. Still, it's a fair question, how could temperatures have fallen while greenhouse gasses were increasing?

It's simple really. How can deficits go down when spending goes up? If spending is more than offset by revenue. How can your weight go down when you eat more? If the extra calories are more than offset by exercise. Temperatures could have fallen while greenhouse gases were increasing if their warming effect was more than offset by cooling.


Inhofe knows about global cooling. He cites, for example, a 1974 report to show that temperatures had fallen in the previous 20 to 30 years. Checking, we learn that burning fossil fuels was believed to cause warming, while dust from industry and agriculture reduced sunshine reaching the earth, causing cooling. "By the middle of this century," the National Science Board wrote, "the cooling effect of the dust particles more than compensated for the warming effect of the carbon dioxide, and world temperature began to fall." His Newsweek story on cooling confirms this, reporting that "the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3 percent between 1964 and 1972." Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, a 2001 report by the National Research Council, echoed the 1974 report, finding that "it seems likely that aerosols ... have caused a negative climate forcing (cooling) that has tended to offset much of the positive forcing by greenhouse gases."

To sum it up, U.S. science in 1974 was consistent with the IPCC's assessment in 1990, which was consistent with U.S. science in 2001, which U.S. Senator Inhofe found "suspect" but couldn't say exactly why, other than it must be a conspiracy.

When he comes to the IPCC's Second Assessment Report, released in June, 1996, Inhofe's first allegation involves "altering of the document." His evidence is a Wall Street Journal op-ed describing the differences between the published version of a chapter dealing with the human causes of global warming and an approved draft. Alleging corruption, the author characterizes the edits as not trivial, not in keeping with IPCC rules, and all increasing certainty that global warming is man-made.

Inhofe doesn't submit the incriminating draft chapter into evidence. We don't need it though, because when describing the report's second problem--that it was "replete with caveats and qualifications, providing little evidence to support anthropogenic theories of global warming"--Inhofe unwittingly undermines his first charge. First he says, "Nearly all the changes removed hints of scientific doubts regarding the claim that human activities are having a major impact on global warming." Then he says, "...the IPCC report...is actually quite explicit about the uncertainties surrounding a link between human actions and global warming." Is it your contention, Senator, that the IPCC removed the doubts but left the uncertainties?

Inhofe further alleges that the IPCC inserted a key finding in the report's Summary for Policymakers behind the backs of reviewers. It reads: "The balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate." But thanks to Google, we can find a firsthand account describing how the finding was debated for more than an hour and was the consensus of delegates from 96 countries. (Nature, 9 October 2008)

The Greatest Hoax is a poorly edited anthology of unsubstantiated blog posts folded into a political memoir and wrapped in a grandiose, attention-seeking accusation. Claim after claim, Senator Inhofe manipulates the science to allege the science was manipulated. The evidence is worse than thin, it's phony. On the charge of promoting a false conspiracy with intent to deceive the American people, Senator Inhofe provides plenty of solid evidence.
 
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This really is silly

Yes its true, you could fit 6 billion people in texas

Could Texas provide the food , water and resources for 6 billion ?
Hell no, china who has a population/landmass density less that our crowded texas scenario, has to import food and resources to feed it population.

The equation remains the same no matter where we put everyone.
Its not about space for these people its about resources for them, you are still trying to insist overpopulation is about the number of people or the space they would take up.

Its not, its about the resources they consume.

So even if we put everyone in texas, and use the whole rest of the planet as a resource area....... it still wouldnt be enough

No one lives in the oceans........ no space issues there

and yet





Overfishing - A global environmental problem, threat to our oceans and disaster.

Over fishing a Global disaster, and thats just fishing..... we also over use many other resources

Even if we put everyone in texas, the rest of the planet still wouldnt be enough to sustain that population.

Its not just about a home and some place to park the car, every human uses about 4 acres of farmland to grow the food they use.

That same equation that says everyone could fit in texas, doesnt include this fact in the equation, factor in the farmland needed to feed those people and texas is no where near large enough to "sustain" that many people. To provide the resources those people need, texas isnt big enough, Earth isnt big enough........

Thats the reality you dont seem to grasp

Its not about the headcount, its not about living space, its about resource use

When you do the math on this basis

Planet earth is overpopulated


Texas itself isn't self-sufficient. The whole point of this is to show people that most people have a faulty perception of the earth as being smaller than it actually is at the same time believing that like 7 billion are living on such small planet.

What bothers me greatly here is this repeated nonsense that overpopulation has nothing to do with the number of people on the planet and that's just not true. Overpopulation is a function of the number of people and available resources. You can't claim that the number of people is not important when it is a crucial aspect. Thus, you and anyone suggesting that overpopulation is real should be able to come up with a magic figure that represents "too many people", a figure that once crossed we are doomed. Otherwise, what you are arguing for is your alleged right to simply proclaim something as fact. Because the truth is that once you give us a figure it allows the potential debunking of that figure or the proving of that figure. Currently your argument is unfalsifiable and in science we are supposed outright reject anything that is unfalsifiable.
 
Texas itself isn't self-sufficient. The whole point of this is to show people that most people have a faulty perception of the earth as being smaller than it actually is at the same time believing that like 7 billion are living on such small planet.

It's a small planet for the number of people we have currently living on it with the resource demands of our civilization as it exists.

What bothers me greatly here is this repeated nonsense that overpopulation has nothing to do with the number of people on the planet and that's just not true.

You need to go back and read again. I have not read anything of the kind being stated on this thread. Could you supply the post# where such is stated - or quote the text where such is claimed?

Overpopulation is a function of the number of people and available resources.

Exactly. This is what Mike has been saying very explicitly.

You can't claim that the number of people is not important when it is a crucial aspect.

Correct. Exactly what Mike is saying. However, you will never have an exact number because an exact number at this magnitude would be a nonsense number. Even the given number for the earth's population is not an exact number down to the tens column. It can't be.

Thus, you and anyone suggesting that overpopulation is real should be able to come up with a magic figure that represents "too many people", a figure that once crossed we are doomed.

Mike has gone to great lengths to explain what 'too many people' is. It's clear you have been unable to absorb the content of his text - or else you would be countering with a legitimate argument rather than a simple reiteration and insistence of your view.

Otherwise, what you are arguing for is your alleged right to simply proclaim something as fact.

Ironically, it is you who is doing this - not Mike. He has laid out very meticulously his argument with considerable back-up given. What you have been doing is 'proclaiming something as fact' - with no back-up, no links to supporting data.

Because the truth is that once you give us a figure it allows the potential debunking of that figure or the proving of that figure.

I suspect what is happening is your inability to understand the science. Mike has given a figure - you don't understand how the science works. If you did, you could easily argue Mike's figure. You could try to debunk it. But you don't understand what you're reading.

Currently your argument is unfalsifiable and in science we are supposed outright reject anything that is unfalsifiable.

Here is where you are wrong. Mike's figures could be argued - I could argue his figures - and not just in a lawyerly fashion - but honestly. I might do that just to show you how a scientific debate/conversation proceeds: it's a give-and-take, in which all involved are really listening to each other's rationales and attempting to get a fuller picture of the situation. This you are not doing.
 
Since BoyInTheMachine has not been willing to name his sources (there is something unusual about his repetitions of the same phrases that have all the earmarks of something very familiar) I have done some investigating. (I realize that this is an extremely long post but the reality of what I have found is chilling imo - and worth a bit of the prolix.)

This is far from my area of awareness - the Climate Deniers - but I did come across this book from 2012 by Senator James Inhofe - who, by the way, will be the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee if the Republicans gain control of the Senate in this November's elections :mad: - scary isn't the half of it. The book is called: The Hoax: How The Global warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future.

I am going to copy-and-paste two Amazon reviews that puts in context what we are hearing from BoyInTheMachine. I very much want to quote the review by Charles Hirshberg - but it's pretty dramatically spoken - I leave you to discover it in this link: Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future - but please note his final few sentences: "...what it comes down to is, there are actually just two basic flaws in Inhofe's world view: First, he is so convinced that he is brilliant, that he has actually trained his brain to give no quarter to the mountains of evidence proving that he is, in fact, a nimrod; and second, as he makes clear in this book, he believes (seriously, now -- I mean it, this is 100% serious!) that no right-thinking Christian could believe in global warming because the bible makes clear that God would never let such a thing happen! And it's actually this second flaw that accounts for all the rest of his lunacy on this particular subject. Because until the morning that Jesus Christ jumps-up out of James Inhofe's bowl of oatmeal and TELLS him that global warming is real, the distinguished Senator from the great state of Oklahoma will not listen to reason."

I am noticing in BoyInTheMachine's posts phrases that appear repeatedly - catch phrases - especially the appeal to a religious kind of polarization. They come from somewhere. I haven't read this book but the Amazon reviews are devastating and a window into the problem.

A political, NOT scientific, work (Top-Rated One Star Amazon Review): The book gets off to rather an unfortunate start on the cover with the absurd contention that thousands of scientists working independently over decades, publishing countless papers in peer reviewed journals, have somehow managed to coordinate, or at least are complicit in constructing and perpetuating a "hoax". The enormity of that accusation is staggering in its implications and the lack of understanding of science and the scientific process and more importantly perhaps, the scientific community. However, one can reasonably assume that it is intentional and is basically intended to misinform. mislead, and support a political agenda rather than contribute to the global warming discussion.

The problem I see with this type of book--and the potential harm it does--is that many readers don't have the background and/or have not done enough reading to really understand the science being discussed and, therefore, cannot assess its validity. Much of what the author says about climate science is simply incorrect and easily verified as such.

Probably the reason that this book has such a pronounced bimodal distribution of reviews (i.e. either 1 star or 5 stars) is that readers are equally divided among those with and without some science education.

The author's discussion of regulation and government policy is where his real expertise lies and worthy of reading & considering. That really is a key point about global climate change--what steps should, or should not be taken by governments. Even in this discussion, there are several (better) books available that provide some objective analysis of costs and efficacy of various proposals, rather than political campaigning for a particular agenda.

I did not purchase the book, I read it at the bookstore as I cannot support funding this type of book which I see as impediment, rather than a help to the lay persons understanding of climate science and global warming. To me, one of the interesting things about this and other similar books is that the basic concept of global warming/climate change is easy for anyone to understand, whereas the underlying science is much more complex. Therefore, authors such as Inhofe can easily mislead readers who have only the most rudimentary understanding of the science, or the basic idea, without having to really defend his science points in rigorous way.


This next review gives enough details to give context to where BoyInTheMachine is (or appears to be) coming from. What has happened - as best as I can make out - is the monied oil and fossil fuel powers-that-be have successfully co-opted the religious right yet again to work on its behalf.

In what Senator Inhofe is quoted as saying we can hear BoyInTheMachine - so I think I have my answer as to where BoyInTheMachine was fed his views. Or he was fed his views by someone who had read Inhofe's book.

Please Note: This reviewer is using a great deal of irony - as when he mentions Gore (by his own admission in the comments section).

Red Scare Meets Green Scare (Third Highest Rated Negative Amazon Review): The allegations Senator James Inhofe makes in The Greatest Hoax are unlike any since Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed to have documented evidence that Communist agents were overrunning our government. This time, liberals at the UN are corrupting science to scare us into accepting global governance, huge tax increases, and severe limits on our way of life.

When a U.S. Senator makes such an extraordinary claim, history teaches us to check the evidence. Inhofe's Green Scare could be as fake as McCarthy's Red Scare. If Inhofe is a second McCarthy, we will catch him fabricating evidence, manipulating data, and twisting truth.

We can verify Inhofe's truthfulness using Al Gore's marvelous invention, the Internet. Take, for example, Inhofe's argument that global warming is inconsistent with the "widespread global cooling scare" in the 1970's. He quotes the National Science Board as saying in 1972 that "judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end...leading into the next glacial age." Not quite. Going to the source we find what they wrote was, "leading into the next glacial age some 20,000 years from now." We find talk of the cooling effects of air pollution and the warming effects of carbon dioxide, but no imminent ice age.

Inhofe's assertion that the "hockey stick" temperature reconstruction was rebuked in a journal holds up no better. He writes: "Three geophysicists from the University of Utah, in the April 7, 2004, edition of Geophysical Research Letters, concluded that Mann's methods used to create his temperature reconstruction were deeply flawed. ... As they wrote, Mann's results are ... 'just bad science.'"

We learn different with help from Google. The commentary where Inhofe gets this quote explicitly refers to an article titled "Ground vs. surface air temperature trends: Implications for borehole surface temperature reconstructions." What the geophysicists criticize is a narrow issue in a study about the relationship between air and ground temperature. Saying their criticism applied to the hockey stick is a lie, a flat lie.


Inhofe's most serious allegation is that for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), "science was secondary, even non-essential, to the ultimate goal of confirming catastrophic global warming and achieving global governance." Under "Flawed IPCC Assessment Reports," Inhofe channels McCarthy, charging "systematic and documented abuse of the scientific process."

No evidence of corruption in the 1990 IPCC First Assessment Report is needed though as the flaws were "glaringly apparent." The IPCC had found temperatures over the last hundred years were "broadly consistent" with models that took greenhouse gases into account. That "appeared suspect," Inhofe says, because "the climate cooled between 1940 and 1975.... How does one reconcile this cooling with the observed increase in greenhouse gases?"


This simple question reveals how little Inhofe knows about climate. He would know if he had he done his homework on the Environment and Public Works Committee. Still, it's a fair question, how could temperatures have fallen while greenhouse gasses were increasing?

It's simple really. How can deficits go down when spending goes up? If spending is more than offset by revenue. How can your weight go down when you eat more? If the extra calories are more than offset by exercise. Temperatures could have fallen while greenhouse gases were increasing if their warming effect was more than offset by cooling.


Inhofe knows about global cooling. He cites, for example, a 1974 report to show that temperatures had fallen in the previous 20 to 30 years. Checking, we learn that burning fossil fuels was believed to cause warming, while dust from industry and agriculture reduced sunshine reaching the earth, causing cooling. "By the middle of this century," the National Science Board wrote, "the cooling effect of the dust particles more than compensated for the warming effect of the carbon dioxide, and world temperature began to fall." His Newsweek story on cooling confirms this, reporting that "the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3 percent between 1964 and 1972." Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, a 2001 report by the National Research Council, echoed the 1974 report, finding that "it seems likely that aerosols ... have caused a negative climate forcing (cooling) that has tended to offset much of the positive forcing by greenhouse gases."

To sum it up, U.S. science in 1974 was consistent with the IPCC's assessment in 1990, which was consistent with U.S. science in 2001, which U.S. Senator Inhofe found "suspect" but couldn't say exactly why, other than it must be a conspiracy.

When he comes to the IPCC's Second Assessment Report, released in June, 1996, Inhofe's first allegation involves "altering of the document." His evidence is a Wall Street Journal op-ed describing the differences between the published version of a chapter dealing with the human causes of global warming and an approved draft. Alleging corruption, the author characterizes the edits as not trivial, not in keeping with IPCC rules, and all increasing certainty that global warming is man-made.

Inhofe doesn't submit the incriminating draft chapter into evidence. We don't need it though, because when describing the report's second problem--that it was "replete with caveats and qualifications, providing little evidence to support anthropogenic theories of global warming"--Inhofe unwittingly undermines his first charge. First he says, "Nearly all the changes removed hints of scientific doubts regarding the claim that human activities are having a major impact on global warming." Then he says, "...the IPCC report...is actually quite explicit about the uncertainties surrounding a link between human actions and global warming." Is it your contention, Senator, that the IPCC removed the doubts but left the uncertainties?

Inhofe further alleges that the IPCC inserted a key finding in the report's Summary for Policymakers behind the backs of reviewers. It reads: "The balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate." But thanks to Google, we can find a firsthand account describing how the finding was debated for more than an hour and was the consensus of delegates from 96 countries. (Nature, 9 October 2008)

The Greatest Hoax is a poorly edited anthology of unsubstantiated blog posts folded into a political memoir and wrapped in a grandiose, attention-seeking accusation. Claim after claim, Senator Inhofe manipulates the science to allege the science was manipulated. The evidence is worse than thin, it's phony. On the charge of promoting a false conspiracy with intent to deceive the American people, Senator Inhofe provides plenty of solid evidence.


Yes, Amazon reviews! Amazon reviews are the answer to everything!

FYI: I didn't even know Inhofe had a book, much lest read it. Instead, my skepticism of AGW arose because of the debunking of and exposing of Al Gore. I was a believer in AGW and I watched Gore's documentary and was really impressed. Then in 2009 I just happened to watch a documentary debunking Al Gore and exposing lies and outright frauds he used to scare the world. This was when his famous "Hockey Graph" was exposed as being false and in a way in which the scientist who created had to deliberately set out to deceive people and not just made a simple mistake. The graph was specifically designed so that no matter what values you entered you always got the same result. However, the kicker for me was the knowledge that Al Gore was deliberately lying in yet another graph, where he showed that global temperatures rose after CO2 levels peak. When I first saw that graph I thought it was obvious, global warming was real and man was to blame. However, Gore lied. In actuality, the global temperature rises first and only then does CO2 levels peak. This is due to the phenomenon of outgassing.

New research in Antarctica shows CO2 follows temperature “by a few hundred years at most” | Watts Up With That?

Outgassing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Basically, what outgassing means, in this situation, is that as temperatures rise CO2 that is in the soil and dissolved in the ocean is released.

Right now pro-AGW scientists are working their butts off trying to dismiss this information and trying to form some excuse for them to cling on to their cultic faith. Right now they are trying to claim that bubbles trapped in ice are fooling scientists and that man released CO2 first, which caused temperatures to rise then created outgassing, but this simply doesn't hold up because if this were true then there would still be a peak of CO2, a spike of CO2, before temperatures rose and it's simply not there. This is why I wrote that AGW completely falls apart because it's most basic premise, it's foundation, is wrong.
 
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It's a small planet for the number of people we have currently living on it with the resource demands of our civilization as it exists.



You need to go back and read again. I have not read anything of the kind being stated on this thread. Could you supply the post# where such is stated - or quote the text where such is claimed?



Exactly. This is what Mike has been saying very explicitly.



Correct. Exactly what Mike is saying. However, you will never have an exact number because an exact number at this magnitude would be a nonsense number. Even the given number for the earth's population is not an exact number down to the tens column. It can't be.



Mike has gone to great lengths to explain what 'too many people' is. It's clear you have been unable to absorb the content of his text - or else you would be countering with a legitimate argument rather than a simple reiteration and insistence of your view.



Ironically, it is you who is doing this - not Mike. He has laid out very meticulously his argument with considerable back-up given. What you have been doing is 'proclaiming something as fact' - with no back-up, no links to supporting data.



I suspect what is happening is your inability to understand the science. Mike has given a figure - you don't understand how the science works. If you did, you could easily argue Mike's figure. You could try to debunk it. But you don't understand what you're reading.



Here is where you are wrong. Mike's figures could be argued - I could argue his figures - and not just in a lawyerly fashion - but honestly. I might do that just to show you how a scientific debate/conversation proceeds: it's a give-and-take, in which all involved are really listening to each other's rationales and attempting to get a fuller picture of the situation. This you are not doing.


I'm still waiting on that magic figure, and no, Mike did not give me a figure. Until you provide one your claims are unfalsifiable and must be rejected.
 
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True face of climate's hockey stick graph revealed
LINK: True face of climate's hockey stick graph revealed - 13 March 2013 - New Scientist

TEXT: IT'S all about speed – and quicker isn't better. One of the most extensive analyses yet of past temperatures shows that the world is warming faster than at any time in the last 11,300 years.

The study has produced the first detailed extension of the famous – and sometimes contentious – "hockey stick" temperature graph right back to the end of the last ice age. It suggests that Earth is not quite out of its natural range of temperature variation yet, but will be by the end of the century.

The finding comes as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels made their second-biggest leap on record. Monitoring stations in Hawaii recorded them rising by 2.67 parts per million between January and December 2012. The biggest jump was in 1998, when they rose by 2.93 ppm. Last year they averaged393.81 ppm, up from 315.97 ppm in 1959 when records began. Climatologists estimate that CO2 needs to plateau at 450 ppm for a 50 per cent chance of avoiding dangerous warming of 2 °C or more.

Building a high-resolution picture of how temperatures have changed is no mean feat. Thermometre readings only go back to around 1860, so we have to use proxies to delve further back. Tree rings, for instance, are thicker during warm years when trees can grow faster.

Shaun Marcott of Oregon State University in Corvallis and colleagues used 73 proxies to reconstruct temperatures throughout the Holocene – the epoch that began 11,300 years ago, after the last ice age. Their analysis shows that over thousands of years, temperatures rose and fell by less than 1 °C. "It took 8000 years to go from warm to cold," says Marcott. Agriculture, communal life and societies with various forms of government all arose during this relatively stable period. Then in the late 19th century, temperatures shot up, driven by humanity's greenhouse gas emissions (Science, doi.org/krq).

The rate of recent warming is unlike anything that happened in at least 11,000 years, says Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, who created the original hockey stick graph (see "inset"). Rapid change is the real issue of warming, says Mann, because it challenges our ability to adapt in time.

The gradual drift before the 19th century was driven by changes in Earth's axis of rotation, says Marcott: the planet's tilt increased early in the Holocene before decreasing again. "It sort of wobbles," Marcott says. A greater tilt leads to more sunlight at the poles in summer, and this keeps the planet warmer.

If humans had not begun warming the planet by releasing greenhouse gases, Earth would eventually return to an ice age. "If we were following the orbital trend we'd still be cooling," Marcott says.

Marcott's figures suggest that the planet is now nearly as warm as at its warmest point in the last 11,000 years. Some climatologists have claimed that it is already even hotter, but for now, uncertainties in the data make it difficult to say for sure.
 
Honestly, your mind is snapped shut. Like a clam's. There appears to be no reaching you.

Because all you are doing is making a claim. If you can't provide a figure then there's no way to either prove it or debunk it. Until you provide a figure then your claim is unfalsifiable. As I stated before, in science if a claim is unfalsifiable it's to be outright rejected.

If overpopulation is correct, then you should be able to come up with a figure of the number of people the planet can safely support. This would also imply that to go over that figure would mean the world is overpopulated.
 
Not that this link will be read - or it's content understood - by BoyInTheMachine - but for those interested. Most important about what the New Scientist does - and is amply demonstrated in it's updates - is how science moves, shifts, amends, alters - it's theories with new evidence. Also, how science acknowledges conflicting evidence, or evidence that looks dicey, or re-states the theory with the advent of a new formulation of the situation. Science is dynamic - not dogmatic.

Climate myths: The 'hockey stick' graph has been proven wrong
LINK: Climate myths: The 'hockey stick' graph has been proven wrong - environment - 16 May 2007 - New Scientist

TEXT: In fact, later studies support the key conclusion: the world is warmer now than it has been for at least 1000 years

The "hockey stick" graph was the result of the first comprehensive attempt to reconstruct the average northern hemisphere temperature over the past 1000 years, based on numerous indicators of past temperatures, such as tree rings. It shows temperatures holding fairly steady until the last part of the 20thcentury and then suddenly shooting up (see graphic, right).

It provided yet more evidence that the rise in greenhouse gases due human activity is causing warming, although the case for this was already very strong. The conclusion that we are making the world warmer certainly does not depend on reconstructions of temperature prior to direct records.

The hockey graph was first published in a 1999 paper (pdf) by Michael Mann and colleagues, which was an extension of a 1998 study in Nature. The graph was highlighted in the 2001 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Since 2001, there have been repeated claims that the reconstruction is at best seriously flawed and at worst a fraud, no more than an artefact of the statistical methods used to create it (see The great hockey stick debate).

Details of the claims and counterclaims involve lengthy and arcane statistical arguments, so let's skip straight to the 2006 report of the US National Academy of Science (pdf). The academy was asked by Congress to assess the validity of temperature reconstructions, including the hockey stick.

"Array of evidence"
The report states: "The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on ice caps and the retreat of glaciers around the world".

Most researchers would agree that while the original hockey stick can - and has - been improved in a number of ways, it was not far off the mark. Most later temperature reconstructions fall within the error bars of the original hockey stick. Some show far more variability leading up to the 20th century than the hockey stick, but none suggest that it has been warmer at any time in the past 1000 years than in the last part of the 20th century.

It is true that there are big uncertainties about the accuracy of all past temperature reconstructions, and that these uncertainties have sometimes been ignored or glossed over by those who have presented the hockey stick as evidence for global warming.

The problems
Climate scientists, however, are only too aware of the problems (see Climate myths: It was warmer during the Medieval period), and the uncertainties were both highlighted by Mann's original paper and by others at the time it was published.

Update: as suggested by the academy in its 2006 report, Michael Mann and his colleagues have reconstructed northern hemisphere temperatures for the past 2000 years using a broader set of proxies than was available for the original study and updated measurements from the recent past.

The new reconstruction has been generated using two statistical methods, both different to that used in the original study. Like other temperature reconstructions done since 2001 (see graph), it shows greater variability than the original hockey stick. Yet again, though, the key conclusion is the same: it's hotter now than it has been for at least 1000 years.

In fact, independent evidence, from ice cores and sea sediments for instance, suggest the last time the planet approached this degree of warmth was during the interglacial period preceding the last ice age over 100,000 years ago. It might even be hotter now than it has been for at least a million years.

Further back in the past, though, it certainly has been hotter - and the world has been a very different place. The crucial point is that our modern civilisation has been built on the basis of the prevailing climate and sea levels. As these change, it will cause major problems.
 
Please, pay attention. You've been shown chapter and verse the answer to all your questions. All you do is close your ears, say, "la, la la I don't hear anything" and repeat your mantra.

It's time you step up and read and respond to what's been posted, or I'll remove you from this thread. Make a decision!
 
True face of climate's hockey stick graph revealed
LINK: True face of climate's hockey stick graph revealed - 13 March 2013 - New Scientist

TEXT: IT'S all about speed – and quicker isn't better. One of the most extensive analyses yet of past temperatures shows that the world is warming faster than at any time in the last 11,300 years.

The study has produced the first detailed extension of the famous – and sometimes contentious – "hockey stick" temperature graph right back to the end of the last ice age. It suggests that Earth is not quite out of its natural range of temperature variation yet, but will be by the end of the century.

The finding comes as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels made their second-biggest leap on record. Monitoring stations in Hawaii recorded them rising by 2.67 parts per million between January and December 2012. The biggest jump was in 1998, when they rose by 2.93 ppm. Last year they averaged393.81 ppm, up from 315.97 ppm in 1959 when records began. Climatologists estimate that CO2 needs to plateau at 450 ppm for a 50 per cent chance of avoiding dangerous warming of 2 °C or more.

Building a high-resolution picture of how temperatures have changed is no mean feat. Thermometre readings only go back to around 1860, so we have to use proxies to delve further back. Tree rings, for instance, are thicker during warm years when trees can grow faster.

Shaun Marcott of Oregon State University in Corvallis and colleagues used 73 proxies to reconstruct temperatures throughout the Holocene – the epoch that began 11,300 years ago, after the last ice age. Their analysis shows that over thousands of years, temperatures rose and fell by less than 1 °C. "It took 8000 years to go from warm to cold," says Marcott. Agriculture, communal life and societies with various forms of government all arose during this relatively stable period. Then in the late 19th century, temperatures shot up, driven by humanity's greenhouse gas emissions (Science, doi.org/krq).

The rate of recent warming is unlike anything that happened in at least 11,000 years, says Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, who created the original hockey stick graph (see "inset"). Rapid change is the real issue of warming, says Mann, because it challenges our ability to adapt in time.

The gradual drift before the 19th century was driven by changes in Earth's axis of rotation, says Marcott: the planet's tilt increased early in the Holocene before decreasing again. "It sort of wobbles," Marcott says. A greater tilt leads to more sunlight at the poles in summer, and this keeps the planet warmer.

If humans had not begun warming the planet by releasing greenhouse gases, Earth would eventually return to an ice age. "If we were following the orbital trend we'd still be cooling," Marcott says.

Marcott's figures suggest that the planet is now nearly as warm as at its warmest point in the last 11,000 years. Some climatologists have claimed that it is already even hotter, but for now, uncertainties in the data make it difficult to say for sure.


Global Warming Bombshell | MIT Technology Review
 
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