Al Gore Wins Nobel Peace Prize For Global Warming Nonsense

Quote from hapaboy:

LOL. If it weren't for me and a few others here, Ac, you'd be left to fend for yourself amidst all the moonbats (from places much less friendly than Hawaii, I might add), and, well, I don't think you could handle that. You display some of their symptoms too often all ready....

Cheers! :)
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What the-your not suggesting, free thinking, humanitarianist idealism, is somehow beholden to a handfull of right wing radicals and propagandists, for its very existence?
Holy crap, well i had no idea, though it makes a lot of sense now you point it out:D
Jeepers, places less freindly than hawaii....good lord, you dont mean.........Canada???
Well that would never do. I do love maple syrup though-and ice hockey.
Maybe they know whats happening to the polar bears?:D
 
Global Warming Delusions
By DANIEL B. BOTKIN
October 17, 2007; Page A19

Global warming doesn't matter except to the extent that it will affect life -- ours and that of all living things on Earth. And contrary to the latest news, the evidence that global warming will have serious effects on life is thin. Most evidence suggests the contrary.


Kilimanjaro's shrinking ice cap is not directly related to global warming.
Case in point: This year's United Nations report on climate change and other documents say that 20%-30% of plant and animal species will be threatened with extinction in this century due to global warming -- a truly terrifying thought. Yet, during the past 2.5 million years, a period that scientists now know experienced climatic changes as rapid and as warm as modern climatological models suggest will happen to us, almost none of the millions of species on Earth went extinct. The exceptions were about 20 species of large mammals (the famous megafauna of the last ice age -- saber-tooth tigers, hairy mammoths and the like), which went extinct about 10,000 to 5,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age, and many dominant trees and shrubs of northwestern Europe. But elsewhere, including North America, few plant species went extinct, and few mammals.

We're also warned that tropical diseases are going to spread, and that we can expect malaria and encephalitis epidemics. But scientific papers by Prof. Sarah Randolph of Oxford University show that temperature changes do not correlate well with changes in the distribution or frequency of these diseases; warming has not broadened their distribution and is highly unlikely to do so in the future, global warming or not.

The key point here is that living things respond to many factors in addition to temperature and rainfall. In most cases, however, climate-modeling-based forecasts look primarily at temperature alone, or temperature and precipitation only. You might ask, "Isn't this enough to forecast changes in the distribution of species?" Ask a mockingbird. The New York Times recently published an answer to a query about why mockingbirds were becoming common in Manhattan. The expert answer was: food -- an exotic plant species that mockingbirds like to eat had spread to New York City. It was this, not temperature or rainfall, the expert said, that caused the change in mockingbird geography.

You might think I must be one of those know-nothing naysayers who believes global warming is a liberal plot. On the contrary, I am a biologist and ecologist who has worked on global warming, and been concerned about its effects, since 1968. I've developed the computer model of forest growth that has been used widely to forecast possible effects of global warming on life -- I've used the model for that purpose myself, and to forecast likely effects on specific endangered species.

I'm not a naysayer. I'm a scientist who believes in the scientific method and in what facts tell us. I have worked for 40 years to try to improve our environment and improve human life as well. I believe we can do this only from a basis in reality, and that is not what I see happening now. Instead, like fashions that took hold in the past and are eloquently analyzed in the classic 19th century book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds," the popular imagination today appears to have been captured by beliefs that have little scientific basis.

Some colleagues who share some of my doubts argue that the only way to get our society to change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe, and that therefore it is all right and even necessary for scientists to exaggerate. They tell me that my belief in open and honest assessment is naïve. "Wolves deceive their prey, don't they?" one said to me recently. Therefore, biologically, he said, we are justified in exaggerating to get society to change.

The climate modelers who developed the computer programs that are being used to forecast climate change used to readily admit that the models were crude and not very realistic, but were the best that could be done with available computers and programming methods. They said our options were to either believe those crude models or believe the opinions of experienced, data-focused scientists. Having done a great deal of computer modeling myself, I appreciated their acknowledgment of the limits of their methods. But I hear no such statements today. Oddly, the forecasts of computer models have become our new reality, while facts such as the few extinctions of the past 2.5 million years are pushed aside, as if they were not our reality.

A recent article in the well-respected journal American Scientist explained why the glacier on Mt. Kilimanjaro could not be melting from global warming. Simply from an intellectual point of view it was fascinating -- especially the author's Sherlock Holmes approach to figuring out what was causing the glacier to melt. That it couldn't be global warming directly (i.e., the result of air around the glacier warming) was made clear by the fact that the air temperature at the altitude of the glacier is below freezing. This means that only direct radiant heat from sunlight could be warming and melting the glacier. The author also studied the shape of the glacier and deduced that its melting pattern was consistent with radiant heat but not air temperature. Although acknowledged by many scientists, the paper is scorned by the true believers in global warming.

We are told that the melting of the arctic ice will be a disaster. But during the famous medieval warming period -- A.D. 750 to 1230 or so -- the Vikings found the warmer northern climate to their advantage. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie addressed this in his book "Times of Feast, Times of Famine: A History of Climate Since the Year 1000," perhaps the greatest book about climate change before the onset of modern concerns with global warming. He wrote that Erik the Red "took advantage of a sea relatively free of ice to sail due west from Iceland to reach Greenland. . . . Two and a half centuries later, at the height of the climatic and demographic fortunes of the northern settlers, a bishopric of Greenland was founded at Gardar in 1126."

Ladurie pointed out that "it is reasonable to think of the Vikings as unconsciously taking advantage of this [referring to the warming of the Middle Ages] to colonize the most northern and inclement of their conquests, Iceland and Greenland." Good thing that Erik the Red didn't have Al Gore or his climatologists as his advisers.

Should we therefore dismiss global warming? Of course not. But we should make a realistic assessment, as rationally as possible, about its cultural, economic and environmental effects. As Erik the Red might have told you, not everything due to a climatic warming is bad, nor is everything that is bad due to a climatic warming.

We should approach the problem the way we decide whether to buy insurance and take precautions against other catastrophes -- wildfires, hurricanes, earthquakes. And as I have written elsewhere, many of the actions we would take to reduce greenhouse-gas production and mitigate global-warming effects are beneficial anyway, most particularly a movement away from fossil fuels to alternative solar and wind energy.

My concern is that we may be moving away from an irrational lack of concern about climate change to an equally irrational panic about it.

Many of my colleagues ask, "What's the problem? Hasn't it been a good thing to raise public concern?" The problem is that in this panic we are going to spend our money unwisely, we will take actions that are counterproductive, and we will fail to do many of those things that will benefit the environment and ourselves.

For example, right now the clearest threat to many species is habitat destruction. Take the orangutans, for instance, one of those charismatic species that people are often fascinated by and concerned about. They are endangered because of deforestation. In our fear of global warming, it would be sad if we fail to find funds to purchase those forests before they are destroyed, and thus let this species go extinct.

At the heart of the matter is how much faith we decide to put in science -- even how much faith scientists put in science. Our times have benefited from clear-thinking, science-based rationality. I hope this prevails as we try to deal with our changing climate.

Mr. Botkin, president of the Center for the Study of the Environment and professor emeritus in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the author of "Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty-First Century" (Replica Books, 2001).
 
Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

The Nobel Peace Prize has become something of a bad joke in the last decade or so. It is awarded by Norwegian socialists to someone they admire, pretty mcuh without regard to what the winner has actually done. The list of recent winners reads like a collection of losers, terrorists ,misfits and incompetent pols. This award to Gore however means that no one will ever take it seriously again. It wil be like the Pulitzer Prizeand other various journalism prizes in this country. Something of no value reserved for PC liberals.

One basic question. If his global warming crisis-mongering is so important, why didn't he win in a scientific category? The answer is obvious. Those disciplines still value the Nobel Prize and will not let it be tarnished by cheap political stunts.

The possible good news is that the pressure for him to get into the presidential race may now be nearly irresistible. He hates Hillary and would like nothing better than to spoil her coronation. Unlike Hillary, who is a determined professional politician, Gore is such an obvious opportunistic weasel that he will stand little chance in the general election. I can still recall the collective sighs of relief after 9/11 that he was not president.
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Piss and vinegar, plain and simple. Once you go into the business of labelling, then thinking goes on autopilot. Enjoy the cruise.

Global warming nonsense?" Indeed. Let's side with the lobbies for the oil companies, whose job it is to obfuscate and obscure the facts just enough to maintain the status quo. In many instances, the very same lobbyists (and their harem of "scientists") who did a similar number on the health hazard "nonsense" of smoking on behalf of the tobacco interests. Don't these dots just beg to be connected?!

For some people, it seems that the sky actually has to fall on their head and make a noise for them to acknowledge that it may indeed be descending upon them.
 
Quote from acronym:

What the-your not suggesting, free thinking, humanitarianist idealism, is somehow beholden to a handfull of right wing radicals and propagandists, for its very existence?
Holy crap, well i had no idea, though it makes a lot of sense now you point it out:D
Jeepers, places less freindly than hawaii....good lord, you dont mean.........Canada???
Well that would never do. I do love maple syrup though-and ice hockey.
Maybe they know whats happening to the polar bears?:D
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Ahhh, someday you'll come to your senses! And wow, am I a right-wing radical and propagandist just because I don't subscribe to Gore's hysteria?

As for Canadians, you'd think they'd know a lot about polar bears, I suppose. Much more than us backward natives living in grass shacks with no contact to the outside world and all...:D
 
What Bill O’Reilly Told Jay Leno

By Amy Ridenour
Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Bill O’Reilly went on Jay Leno’s show Friday night and confessed to being extremely confused. About global warming.

O’Reilly knows what he’s talking about. He is very confused.

O’Reilly believes global temperatures can be predicted by the number of days hockey can be played outdoors on Long Island. The global warming theory is proved by polar bears floating down the Mississippi. Global warming is caused by human-created smog, yet O’Reilly doesn’t know if people cause global warming or if “the Deity is mad at us.”

O’Reilly supports Al Gore’s global warming work (“Right on, Al Gore!”) and is enthusiastic about the use of private airplanes (“the only way to go”).

It’s enough to make you wonder if a bottle-blonde airhead has taken over O’Reilly’s body.

Take his exchange with Leno:

O’Reilly: Al Gore’s running around the world in a private jet… but that’s all right…

Leno: …but that’s…

O’Reilly: …that’s all right, that’s the only way to go… you been in an airport lately?

Leno: What would the critics say? Take a sailboat?

O’Reilly: Yeah, you got to get there. I think Al Gore is doing a good thing. The planet is dirty. Let’s clean it up. I don’t know how this got to be a partisan issue. Who doesn’t want a cleaner planet?

Leno: Sometimes I’ll listen to the different radio shows, and I’ll hear a lot of the conservative guys vehemently against global warming. I mean, to me, let’s say you’re against global warming… why not be self-sufficient so you can screw the electric company…?

O’Reilly: Yeah, or the gas and oil companies… I think the anger against Al Gore is that he blames America for a lot of it when China and India are the real big coming polluters. Doesn’t mention that… The right says oh, no, there isn’t global warming, and meanwhile there’s a polar bear floating down the Mississippi River. C’mon. I used to play ice hockey for two years in Long Island where I grew up, sorry, two months during the winter. You are lucky if you get two days now. You’re lucky if you get two days! So there is global warming. The temperature says it. Though whether it is man-made or the Deity, we don’t know. So let’s get a cleaner planet. Let’s all get together and clean it up. C’mon! So right on Al Gore!

O’Reilly doesn’t quite catch the nuances of the global warming debate.

Counting the number of days Long Island ponds freeze won’t reveal global temperature trends. If O’Reilly’s right and there were more frozen-pond days in Long Island in 1966 than in 2006, it doesn’t prove the global warming theory any more than New York’s largest-ever snowfall occurring in 2006 proves global cooling.

Three words: natural temperature variation.

By the way, Long Island’s average temperature remains just 28.6 degrees for January and 29.8 for February, so O’Reilly can continue his ice hockey dreams.

Not so much his bear fantasies. Polar bears have not been floating down the Mississippi. Furthermore, should the Mississippi River develop arctic temperatures, the culprit probably wouldn’t be global warming.

And Al Gore’s focus isn’t smog. It’s carbon dioxide. Reducing carbon dioxide emissions by governmental edict won’t make the planet “cleaner,” as O’Reilly apparently believes, but it would make daily living more expensive -- disproportionately so for lower income people. That would be the folks who don’t ride with Bill on private planes.

O’Reilly’s wrong, moreover, that climate optimists (what some call “skeptics”) are primarily upset at Gore for largely giving China a pass as the world’s largest carbon dioxide producer. Gore critics have a much bigger beef: They believe Gore’s restrictions on the economy in the name of the environment -- Gorenomics -- would noticably hurt, and for scant reason. If every nation ratified the Kyoto Treaty and broke precedent by fulfilling treaty obligations, the impact on climate would be negligible. Even Kyoto supporters acknowledge this.

Those who see in Gorenomics a world of pain for energy-starved underdeveloped countries and the poor and middle class everywhere have legitimate concerns -- concerns that don’t go away just because Al Gore wins awards. What Al Gore and his supporters want to do to our economy is a very big deal indeed.

Energy, after all, is one of the means of production, and Al Gore wants the government to control it. (Does this remind anyone of anything?)

Climate optimists don’t oppose voluntary conservation, turning off light bulbs or riding bicycles. What we do oppose is spending hundreds of billions, even trillions, for a prescription that won’t work to fix a problem that may not exist.

Private planes may be “the only way to go” for O’Reilly, Leno and Gore. But millions of other Americans can’t be sanguine about the price increases and job losses that Gorenomics would cause. Kyoto-like policies that, the Clinton-Gore Administration itself estimated in 1998, would raise electricity bills 86%, the price of heating oil by 76%, and gasoline prices by 66 cents a gallon, while reducing our economic growth rate by 1.2% and putting about a million people out of work.

So when Al Gore’s critics don’t rush to embrace his prescriptions, Bill, it’s not because we have anything against a clean planet.

We’re just looking out for the folks.

--------------------------------------------

Note: Bolded sentence for the benefit of acronym and his deep concern for the plight of the polar bears. See, Ac, even a moonbat-proclaimed rightwing nut like O'Reilly agrees with you about dem bears! :)
 
I was just wondering, about the bears.
O'reailly should, and will burn in hell.

Because you see, polar bears, kill and eat seals; as any good republican/christian fundamentalist knows,
seals are not just a leading cause of deforestation, proven by the fact no trees grow anywhere they live,
but they are the saviour of the energy crisis-
man was granted dominion over all beasts, and seals and whales contain VAST amount of BTU's, that blubber kept entire generations in light, and cooking and heating energy, thank the lord.

And these f*n polar bears, are eatin the damn things-just cant be allowed to go on, praise the lord , hallelujah.

Let these evil bears float down the mississip, if the catfish dont get'em first, im sure theres a cajun recipe for'em, or the good lord will provide one.

May they burn in hell, these- these challenges to christian righteousness.









O'reilly can get f*cked, btw.
 
Quote from hapaboy:


Three words: natural temperature variation.

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The climate is already displaying symptoms of the effects of warmer ocean waters.

Every time the water warms by a tenth of a degree, you have more storms, and they're also more powerful on average. Last year, there was a record 27 named tropical storms in the Atlantic.


That trend will continue, and the US will finally get the message.... after a change of leadership. The world will start to see more cooperation from the United States in trying to end global warming.

Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

If his global warming crisis-mongering is so important, why didn't he win in a scientific category?
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When you have such a high concentration of opinion among scientists that heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels is leading to rising temperatures, even the government has to listen eventually.

Al Gore does deserve his peace prize.

Melting ice caps can raise sea levels...can swamp coastal communities...and can bring more floods, droughts, and storms.

None of this has to do with God. It has everything to do with what the world is for in it's inception.

Keep in mind that it will take time to turn this around, and people will still be frightened by the extremes in weather conditions, both hot and cold. Global warming leads to extreme weather in different forms.

Still, it will be turned around eventually, and the global cooperation will make people more optimistic about the future. Instead of selling out the future of the children, it will actually become fashionable at the level of government to hand over a decent planet to the children.

The transition to hydrogen fuel cell, led by Europe, over the next three decades will help.

Jesus
 
Quote from I am...:

The climate is already displaying symptoms of the effects of warmer ocean waters.

Every time the water warms by a tenth of a degree, you have more storms, and they're also more powerful on average. Last year, there was a record 27 named tropical storms in the Atlantic.
Jesus
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By Dab Elliott in Denver

April 30, 2007 01:00am

United States' leading hurricane forecaster says global ocean currents, not human-produced carbon dioxide, are responsible for global warming.

William Gray, a Colorado State University researcher, also said the Earth may begin to cool on its own in five to 10 years.

Speaking to a group of Republican MPs, Dr Gray had harsh words for researchers and politicians who said man-made greenhouse gases were responsible for global warming.

"They are blaming it all on humans, which is crazy," he said.

"We're not the cause of it."

Dr Gray said in the past 40 years the number of serious hurricanes making landfall on the US Atlantic coast had declined even though carbon dioxide levels had risen.

He said increasing levels of carbon dioxide would not produce more, or stronger, hurricanes.

Dr Gray, 77, has long criticised the theory that heat-trapping gases generated by human activity are causing the world to warm.

Earlier this month, he dubbed former US vice-president and 2000 Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore "a gross alarmist" for making the Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, which helped focus media attention on global warming.

Yesterday, Dr Gray said that politics and research into global warming had created "almost an industry" that had frightened the public and overwhelmed dissenting voices.

He said research arguing that humans were causing global warming was "mush" based on unreliable computer models that could not possibly take into account the hundreds of factors that influenced the weather.

He said little-understood ocean currents were behind a decades-long warming cycle, and disputed assertions that greenhouse gases could raise global temperatures as much as some scientists predicted.

"There's no way that doubling CO2 is going to cause that amount of warming," he said.

Dr Gray also said warming and cooling trends could not go on indefinitely and believed temperatures were beginning to level out after a very warm year in 1998.
 
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