# For the global warming skeptics...Michael Chrichton's State of Fear



## Patrick Skelton (Jan 7, 2011)

For the global warming skeptics, a must read is Michael Chrichton's State of Fear.  Loved it!


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## Pushka (Oct 30, 2009)

yup, I read it just when the global warming, now called Climate Change, debate started up.  My thoughts are that there is certainly climate change, but that has been occurring for millions of years.  Which is why the earth could sustain the dinosaurs, which were wiped out, then followed up thousands of years later, eventually, by us humans.

I believe we should adapt to climate change and focus on the adaptation, rather than try stopping climate change.  We can't. Never could.  We are pretty arrogant to think we can compete with mother nature.


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## Nada y Nadie (Dec 19, 2010)

Here's a perspective on climate change different from the usual "I believe in it" vs. "I don't believe in it" debate:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474979064024


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## Patrick Skelton (Jan 7, 2011)

Good thoughts.  I personally believe that climate change is occuring, as there is evidence.  I just doubt that it's manmade.  Or that we should be creating massive policy changes and taxpayer burden to enforce clean energy and such.


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## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

As a scientist I find this "debate" funny. The only debate that is occurring is within the media and politicians.

Climate change is a cycle, yes. But we have fundamentally altered that cycle with our impacts upon the globe. It is strange to think that we can terraform the entire planet without any impacts upon it. I agree that life on the planet will go on without humans if needs be, but do we really want to destroy 'our' planet so that something else can replace us. I know I'd like to be a fossil that another race digs up to ponder where we went to. We and the things that sustain us live in a pretty cozy climate zone, change that and we can't survive, simple as that.

I'm actually preparing a talk for work right now on climate change for some sceptics. My main messages are that Climate is really really really complicated; both sides of the 'argument' are guilty of falsehoods and flat out lies; climate is changing and it is mostly our fault (yes there is some natural variability in there too, not every event is climate change); does it really hurt us to get more efficient at doing things? I hate the way this entire topic has been turned into a political minefield.

Also Crichton's book was full of poor research. One of the key texts he used was full of spurious conclusions or false attributions of fact.


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

I snagged _Day After Tomorrow_ as a book recently, I watch it every couple of months.... no.. i haven't read it yet.. sigh.


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## Pushka (Oct 30, 2009)

tim290280 said:


> Also Crichton's book was full of poor research. One of the key texts he used was full of spurious conclusions or false attributions of fact.


And I think the same is now being said of the original research that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize; spurious claims and falsehoods.


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## MosesSiregarIII (Jul 15, 2010)

tim290280 said:


> As a scientist I find this "debate" funny. The only debate that is occurring is within the media and politicians.
> 
> Climate change is a cycle, yes. But we have fundamentally altered that cycle with our impacts upon the globe. It is strange to think that we can terraform the entire planet without any impacts upon it. I agree that life on the planet will go on without humans if needs be, but do we really want to destroy 'our' planet so that something else can replace us. I know I'd like to be a fossil that another race digs up to ponder where we went to. We and the things that sustain us live in a pretty cozy climate zone, change that and we can't survive, simple as that.
> 
> ...


Thank you.


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## r0b0d0c (Feb 16, 2009)

Patrick Skelton said:


> Good thoughts. I personally believe that climate change is occuring, as there is evidence. I just doubt that it's manmade. Or that we should be creating massive policy changes and taxpayer burden to enforce clean energy and such.


Well said. And as with MANY areas of science, there are countless unknowns and assumptions, and anyone who says "the debate is over" hasn't discovered their limits in knowledge.

BTW, I was intrigued by your book "The Device," so I bought it! Hope to get to it soon!


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## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

Pushka said:


> And I think the same is now being said of the original research that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize; spurious claims and falsehoods.


??

The original research was performed in the 1800s and is solid. I don't know what you are referring to.



Patrick Skelton said:


> Well said. And as with MANY areas of science, there are countless unknowns and assumptions, and anyone who says "the debate is over" hasn't discovered their limits in knowledge.


I'm not sure that you understand what is happening in this particular field. The public debate was what I was referring to, the actual science is far from done, but the basis is solid. I could point out that gravity is still not fully understood, but the basis is solid and we accept that as fact.


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## Chris Northern (Jan 20, 2011)

I so don't want to get into this subject. But. I just can't help myself. So. My ten cents worth.

Piers Corbyn is not a very impressive speaker, but he has been accurately predicting the weather for some time; science that makes accurate predictions clearly has some value. I would recommend anyone interested in the subject flick thought a few of his yt pieces and check his site.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O76G2LtlU&NR=1

There is also a bunch of stuff here worth looking at imho.

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/global.html

But I will not be airing my view here.


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## NapCat (retired) (Jan 17, 2011)

tim290280 said:


> I hate the way this entire topic has been turned into a political minefield.


Agreed !!

As a Meteorologist/Hydro-geologist I have entirely too many opinions on this topic and will spare all you kind folks...
Although I am not a big Michael Creighton fan, I will read the book (probably with bias...)


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## R. Doug (Aug 14, 2010)

tim290280 said:


> As a scientist I find this "debate" funny. The only debate that is occurring is within the media and politicians.


There are a LOT of solar astronomers who would take issue with that statement. They've been pointing to solar maximums that have been off the charts the last several cycles (the current Modern Maximum), as well as historical precedents such as the Maunder Minimum, the Dalton Minimum, and the Spörer Minimum, all of which directly correlated to ice age events. But as these observations aren't fitting into the current orthodoxy, they are pretty much being ignored or pooh-poohed by other scientific disciplines.

Meanwhile, how many times has Dr. James Hansen been caught fudging or outright falsifying his data now? I've kind of lost count. And without Dr. Hansen, there isn't a whole lot of evidence out there pointing to anthropological causes for global warming. Certainly not nearly as much as there is pointing to solar cycles being the primary culprit.


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## SpecOps (Feb 20, 2011)

It amazes me when idiots point to all the blizzards to try to say global warming isn't true.  Frankly, the term was twisted from Climate Change to GLobal Warming for just that reason.  People need to wake up.


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## Bob Mayer (Feb 20, 2011)

It's reality yet people like to ignore reality.


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## Pushka (Oct 30, 2009)

The reality is that there is climate change.  That used to be called global warming until things started getting colder not warmer.

The falsehood is that man is the primary cause of climate change.  If the existence of the earth was a clock, then the time that man has been on it is no more than a couple of minutes.  Yet in all the rest of the 12 hour cycle left, the climate of the earth constantly changed.  

us humans like to think we are in control.  In good ways, and bad ways.  The simple truth is that man is not in control.  We tinker around the edges.  Them wham, mother nature blows us a hurricane, volcano, flood or earthquake and as we humans wallow in the mess left behind, mother nature laughs at us.  We are not in control and the sooner we realize that and adapt to it, including climate change, instead of trying to stop it, then maybe we might survive.  But if all we are doing is trying to stop climate change then we are doomed.  That is the only inconvenient truth.


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## MosesSiregarIII (Jul 15, 2010)

Pushka said:


> The reality is that there is climate change. That used to be called global warming until things started getting colder not warmer.


"According to NOAA scientists, 2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest year of the global surface temperature record, beginning in 1880. This was the 34th consecutive year with global temperatures above the 20th century average."

Link

"... each decade since the 1980s has been progressively warmer than the last."

Link


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## Patrick Skelton (Jan 7, 2011)

R0b,

Thanks for the purchase!  Looks like I've created a real ruckus here! Love it!

Patrick


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## Pushka (Oct 30, 2009)

MosesSiregarIII said:


> "According to NOAA scientists, 2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest year of the global surface temperature record, beginning in 1880. This was the 34th consecutive year with global temperatures above the 20th century average."
> 
> Link
> "... each decade since the 1980s has been progressively warmer than the last."
> ...


And man has been measuring temperatures of the earth for how long, maybe less than 100 years with any accuracy, yet we have the arrogance to say that these are the hottest decades ever in the millions of years of the history of the earth. Maybe the dinosaurs wore sweaters then.


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## R. Doug (Aug 14, 2010)

The Little Ice Age during the Maunder Minimum.


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## Chris Northern (Jan 20, 2011)

MosesSiregarIII said:


> "According to NOAA scientists, 2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest year of the global surface temperature record, beginning in 1880. This was the 34th consecutive year with global temperatures above the 20th century average."
> 
> Link
> 
> ...


Ehem, there are issues with that.

The Watts Up With That blog hosts this piece on metrology -- the science of measurement -- as applied to temperature measurements. <http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/22/the-metrology-of-thermometers/>

(quote)

Since we had this recent paper from Pat Frank that deals with the inherent uncertainty of temperature measurement <http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/20/
surface-temperature-uncertainty-quantified/> , establishing a new minimum uncertainty value of ±0.46 C for the instrumental surface temperature record, I thought it valuable to review the uncertainty associated with the act of temperature measurement itself.

(end quote)

The guest post by Mark of Mark's View looks at concerns that:

1. Human Errors in accuracy and resolution of historical data are ignored
2. Mechanical thermometer resolution is ignored
3. Electronic gauge calibration is ignored
4. Mechanical and Electronic temperature gauge accuracy is ignored
5. Hysteresis in modern data acquisition is ignored
6. Conversion from Degrees F to Degrees C introduces false resolution into data.

Willis Eschenbach adds some observations about bias and error in measurements:

(quote)

Fourth, if the errors are not random normal, your assumption that everything averages out may (I emphasize may) be in trouble. And unfortunately, in the real world, things are rarely that nice. If you send 50 guys out to do a job, there will be errors. But these errors will NOT tend to cluster around zero. They will tend to cluster around the easiest or most probable mistakes, and thus the errors will not be symmetrical.

Fifth, the law of large numbers (as I understand it) refers to either a large number of measurements made of an unchanging variable (say hair width or the throw of dice) at any time, or it refers to a large number of measurements of a changing variable (say vehicle speed) at the same time. However, when you start applying it to a large number of measurements of different variables (local temperatures), at different times, at different locations, you are stretching the limits &#8230;

....

Seventh, there are hidden biases. I have read (but haven't been able to verify) that under Soviet rule, cities in Siberia received government funds and fuel based on how cold it was. Makes sense, when it's cold you have to heat more, takes money and fuel. But of course, everyone knew that, so subtracting a few degrees from the winter temperatures became standard practice &#8230;

(This me again: this piece is taken from here - http://www.jerrypournelle.com/mail/2011/Q1/mail659.html#metrology - I recommend anyone interested in the subject flick back through the weeks of Jerry Pournelle's Chaos Manor and read the relevent material - there are quite large amounts but even a casual glance will repay your time).


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## Guest (Feb 22, 2011)

How will this impact the sharks?


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## Emma Midnight (Feb 19, 2011)

What's sad is that opposition to the idea of global warming was never based on science. It was opposition to the idea of legislation to reduce carbon footprints, gas emissions, etc., that would have an impact on business. 

My feeling is to err on the side of caution. Global warming, if true, could be catastrophic. If we can slow it by stifling emissions et al, why not try? Because it cuts into profits?


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## r0b0d0c (Feb 16, 2009)

Emma Midnight said:


> What's sad is that opposition to the idea of global warming was never based on science...


Not true.

MANY scientists have disagreed, and leading/vocal scientists' methods have been questionable, and, at times, fabricated, in support of "global warming."


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

R. Doug said:


> There are a LOT of solar astronomers who would take issue with that statement. They've been pointing to solar maximums that have been off the charts the last several cycles (the current Modern Maximum), as well as historical precedents such as the Maunder Minimum, the Dalton Minimum, and the Spörer Minimum, all of which directly correlated to ice age events. But as these observations aren't fitting into the current orthodoxy, they are pretty much being ignored or pooh-poohed by other scientific disciplines.
> 
> Meanwhile, how many times has Dr. James Hansen been caught fudging or outright falsifying his data now? I've kind of lost count. And without Dr. Hansen, there isn't a whole lot of evidence out there pointing to anthropological causes for global warming. Certainly not nearly as much as there is pointing to solar cycles being the primary culprit.


Well, if you're willing to _accept a __very, very, very low standard of "evidence",_ there are the ClimateGate liars, like Michael Mann, who fudged a couple of unsuitable trees up into a scare that cost trillions until exposed by McIntyre & McKitrick's sterling statistical work, by the Wegman Committee, by the North Panel of the NAS (regardless of what you -- I don't mean you, R Doug, I mean the global warmies -- read in the media, North and every single one of his panelists agreed under oath before Congress with every single one of the Wegman condemnations of Mann). The same ClimateGate liars in the British arm until only a couple of years ago were predicting the end of the world on the basis of a solitary tree somewhere in Siberia that Keith Briffa found that could be fudged to obviate the Medieval Warm Period and the following Little Ice Age (both of which *undeniable* historical events make claims of global warming ludicrous). But mainly all this massive waste of money and attention stems, as you so rightly say, from James Hansen in 1988 turning off the aircon in the Senate hearing room in which the decision was taken to support the formation of the IPCC specifically to find scientific proof of global warming. If you set up a trough for politically correct snouts, why the surprise when they perpetuate it by finding what you set them up to find, regardless of whether it actually exists? I pointed out the fundamental dishonesty underlying global warming at the time (starting with Hansen turning off the senators' aircon), and have been abused for it ever since.

It is absolutely amazing to find writers, who at least theoretically know how to conduct research, believing in this nonsense.

There is more science in Scientology that in Global Warming.

The money spent on the idiocy of global warming could by now have eradicated hunger in the Third World, and much disease besides.

***
Super list of references in Crichton's book State of Fear for those who want to inform themselves rather than emote.

For those who prefer comics, get the Al Gore video An Inconvenient Truth and ask yourself why the huge graph in front of which Fat Al ponces around shows exactly the opposite of what he says it shows. Then ask yourself why no one in the audience asks him why Fat Al lies. Surely they can't all be stupid. The answer is: because Global Warming has become received "truth", in short a religious faith, nothing to do with science. Then check out the British High Court ruling which listed the errors in Fat Al's video and labeled them lies told for political reasons, and forbade British schoolchildren being shown the video unless it was explained to them that it was merely entertainment, not science. Real eye-openers, these. Fat Al has made himself a billionaire on the back of the gullible but well-meaning faithful. Fat Al is the biggest (pun intended) snake oil salesman who ever lived.


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## Pushka (Oct 30, 2009)

Emma Midnight said:


> What's sad is that opposition to the idea of global warming was never based on science. It was opposition to the idea of legislation to reduce carbon footprints, gas emissions, etc., that would have an impact on business.
> 
> My feeling is to err on the side of caution. Global warming, if true, could be catastrophic. If we can slow it by stifling emissions et al, why not try? Because it cuts into profits?


Global warming, or rather, climate change as it is now referred to, does exist. Climate change has always existed. And man cannot stop it. We have to learn to adapt to it. But no, we are stupid and arrogant enough to think that we can stop it so all the money is directed at stopping it instead of adapting to it. Look at New Zealand today. Nothing that humans can do can equate to that, yet it happened in 8 seconds flat. One day we will realize that nature has it over us humans.


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## R. Doug (Aug 14, 2010)

Emma Midnight said:


> What's sad is that opposition to the idea of global warming was never based on science. It was opposition to the idea of legislation to reduce carbon footprints, gas emissions, etc., that would have an impact on business.
> 
> My feeling is to err on the side of caution. Global warming, if true, could be catastrophic. If we can slow it by stifling emissions et al, why not try? Because it cuts into profits?


Well, that's a bit harsh. It may not be much about corporate profits at all, although there's no denying that plays a part. First of all there has for the past thirty years or so been an overall warming trend, but the science behind that trend is what is being disputed. Solar astronomers, sunspot observations going back hundreds of years, and corresponding historical climate data all seem to point very directly at solar cycles being the main culprit for the current trend.

Meanwhile, those supporting an anthropological cause for the recent warming trend do not have a lot of data supporting that conclusion. Even their own CO2 data cannot show the amount coming from melting ice and deep oceanic emissions, which would also be released by warming trends. That means that past increases were related to affect rather than cause (the opposite of what they claim). Additionally, their own data appear to show that past sudden increases in CO2 have actually preceded a sudden cooling trend, thereby marking the end of the warming cycle rather than actually being the cause. That is why many scientists now believe that we're at the apex of warming and about to see a reversal in trends

As for,


> "If we can slow it by stifling emissions et al, why not try? Because it cuts into profits?


, what if there really is no anthropological cause to the effect? Now you have governments world-wide diverting trillions of dollars into programs that have zero value and no overall effect on the "problem." Meanwhile, that's money diverted away from social safety nets, job growth, addressing world hunger and medical deficiencies in third-world nations, education, and a whole slew of other programs much more beneficial to mankind. And those are resources that cannot be diverted back later. Once spent they are gone for good.

Now, having said all that, it may surprise you to know that I'm all for spending large sums of money at finding cheap, alternative fuels. And if they don't pollute, all the better. But my feelings on that are not based upon an unproven anthropological cause for climate change of which I'm highly skeptical. Rather, I consider it a national security issue because, personally, I'm getting tired of seeing trillion-dollar wars paid with from borrowed money in order to secure cheap oil in an unstable region. _THAT_ is the reason we should be diverting funds for finding alternatives, and studying ways to pollute less as a byproduct is great.

That's my final 2¢ on the subject because this is already getting heated and this is where the conversation usually starts degenerating.


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

Is this actually about the book, or about axe-grinding?


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## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

I am only going to make one post on this, because from previous experience it's not worth arguing with people on the internet about. And I'm not a scientist. However, I think I am right in saying that these three facts are largely all accepted by scientists:

1. Global average temperatures are getting warmer
2. That if temperatures keep rising at this rate bad things in terms of drought, extinctions etc. are likely to occur.
3. The amount of unabsorbed Co2 in the atmosphere has increased
4. That rising Co2 levels _could_ at a certain level, and all else being equal, increase average global temperatures (see the plant Venus etc.). Notice I say _could_ here and not _are_

Now, other reasons for global warming have been proposed - people have listed them above. But certainly no reputable scientist disputes Co2 _could_ cause the warming... and many state it _is_.

Simplistically, we have two choices available - do something about Co2 emissions, or don't. This then gives four outcomes:

1a. We reduce Co2 emissions and global warming is man-made. Outcome - big costs, but huge issue averted, plus minor benefits that reducing dependency on foreign oil, delaying peak oil etc.
1b. We reduce Co2 emission and global warming isn't man-made. Outcome - big costs, but with some benefits (as above)
2a. We don't reduce Co2 emissions and global warming is man-made. Outcome - huge costs, some irreversible (desertification, extinction etc.)
2b. We don't reduce Co2 emissions and global warming isn't man-made. Outcome - costs saved, but minor issues (peak oil at some point, foreign wars etc.)

Common sense says to me we pick 1. even if the science isn't 100% settled. If this gets talked about for much longer, we pick 2. by default.

If anyone has any comments, my reposts are likely the same as those in this link. http://www.grist.org/article/series/skeptics/

As I said, I'm not going to get dragged into any mud slinging with people I otherwise respect on this.

James


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## Emma Midnight (Feb 19, 2011)

r0b0d0c said:


> Not true.
> 
> MANY scientists have disagreed, and leading/vocal scientists' methods have been questionable, and, at times, fabricated, in support of "global warming."


I should have clarified. I meant the initial opposition from the non-science world. There was an immediate knee-jerk reaction to discount the theories from people who were not scientists.

I realize that there has been some shaky research in support of global warming, but there's also some real evidence that points to it. Again, better safe than sorry I think. Why not work harder to reduce emissions? What is the harm in making the air cleaner? The only harm is it costs money, which cuts into profits, which is what is at the core of the opposition to the politicized idea of global warming.


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## JimC1946 (Aug 6, 2009)

Pushka said:


> I believe we should adapt to climate change and focus on the adaptation, rather than try stopping climate change. We can't. Never could. We are pretty arrogant to think we can compete with mother nature.


I agree.


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## MosesSiregarIII (Jul 15, 2010)

Pushka said:


> One day we will realize that nature has it over us humans.


Are humans capable of creating a hole in the ozone layer larger than the north american continent?

Are humans capable of causing species extinction at a rate of 100 to 1,000 times normal rates?

The argument that we aren't _capable_ of upsetting the balance of nature is not a good one IMO.


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## Pushka (Oct 30, 2009)

MosesSiregarIII said:


> Are humans capable of creating a hole in the ozone layer larger than the north american continent?
> 
> Are humans capable of causing species extinction at a rate of 100 to 1,000 times normal rates?
> 
> The argument that we aren't _capable_ of upsetting the balance of nature is not a good one IMO.


Um, the ozone hole has been shrinking since 2007; but wait, some scientists are now saying that the shrinking ozone layer may be contributing to climate change. Sheesh.

Just by our existence, we change the balance of nature. But one thing about nature, she is way more adaptive than we humans are. Cows actually do more damage than humans, and the argument seems to be shifting away from carbon now, to methane, which is what cows produce en masse. So should we kill off all the cows now?


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## easyreader (Feb 20, 2011)

It's getting warmer?  Joking.  There's no doubt we've changed climate.  Someone told me simply painting rooftops white would help a lot.  Makes sense-- reflecting the sunlight back into the air instead of absorbing it.  Maybe paint roads white too?  That would be weird.


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## Chris Northern (Jan 20, 2011)

MosesSiregarIII said:


> Are humans capable of creating a hole in the ozone layer larger than the north american continent?
> 
> Are humans capable of causing species extinction at a rate of 100 to 1,000 times normal rates?
> 
> The argument that we aren't _capable_ of upsetting the balance of nature is not a good one IMO.


The cause of the ozone layer hole 'issue' is also in doubt http://www.theozonehole.com/cosmicray.htm

I've made no particular study of extinctions, so no comment.

As part of a system we are clearly having an effect on that system. Personally I find the distinction between the 'natural' balance and humanity, my species, a disturbing one. But I do think it would be wise of us to minimize our impact on our environment where we can and where it will not damage our own interests; ie survival of our species and civilization, which is now effectively the same thing. We are too many to live without it.

My real issue is with the lack of distinction between good and bad scientific practice. One is supposed to break a theory, not support it. Consensus is not science. Politicization of science will not yield reliable results.

It's a big subject. I think we, as a species, would have been wiser to have this debate before we started spending a trillion dollers a year (in America alone) applying a very dubious solution to a problem that may not exist, or be solvable if it does. There are effects to spending that money, most of which are detrimental to those who generate that money. It will not be repaid.


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## Pushka (Oct 30, 2009)

Chris Northern said:


> It's a big subject. I think we, as a species, would have been wiser to have this debate before we started spending a trillion dollers a year (in America alone) applying a very dubious solution to a problem that may not exist, or be solvable if it does. There are effects to spending that money, most of which are detrimental to those who generate that money. It will not be repaid.


That is my concern also. And now there are too many snouts in the trough for people to step back and critically review what has happened. I cannot imagine just how many Companies, University Departments, Government Departments, Consultants etc who only exist because of "Global Warming" and they will not give up their kudos and Dollars easily.

And you see, just by posting about the "Ozone layer" is an example of how everything has all been put into the wash and a so-called "solution" found.


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## ajhunter (Aug 23, 2010)

Awesome book!  Crichton is one of my favorites and State of Fear is definitely top 3 for me.


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## Annalinde Matichei (Jan 23, 2011)

In the 1970s, the scare was the coming New Ice Age.

All other arguments aside, I simply do not believe that human science is that much nearer to omniscience now than it was then.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Annalinde Matichei said:


> In the 1970s, the scare was the coming New Ice Age.
> 
> All other arguments aside, I simply do not believe that human science is that much nearer to omniscience now than it was then.


I've been making fun of this Chicken Little tendency to screech that the sky as falling since I was a precocious teenager with a column in the _Sunday Times__,_ asking once a month please, please could someone show me the hole in the ozone layer. They never found it.

Then, as you say, in the 1970s the biggest selling "scientific" book was about warming up the oceans to combat the coming New Ice Age. Now wouldn't that just have been hunky dory the next time the sunspots cycled (on average every 11 years) and it got hotter, and all that heat we spent trillions storing in the oceans was unstoppably given off to aggravate matters?

Next the same clowns gave us Global Warming, which they claim is real and is caused by manmade CO2. Of course, it isn't real. We're in a recovery mode after the Little Ice Age of Elizabethan times and through the Industrial Revolution, and only after several centuries at the same temperature as the Medieval Warm Period. when grapes were grown in Scotland, will there be any need to worry.

But, worst of all, CO2 is plant food. These Global Warmies want to starve the forests for their political correctness.

Quite incidentally, I show in the book bottom left, IDITAROD, a novel, how conservationist with vastly greater knowledge than the global warmies, vastly more honest, and with real goodwill, nearly ruined the ecology of Alaska by interfering in natural processes. (It's a true story that I've introduced for realism.)

When the Law of Unintended Effect catches up on the global warmies, the rest of us will pay the bill for their heedless passion for pseudo-science. And the forests will have died of hunger.


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

I would have expected that this topic might have involved some discussion of the actual book.


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## R. Doug (Aug 14, 2010)

QuantumIguana said:


> I would have expected that this topic might have involved some discussion of the actual book.


Now that is something I'll accommodate. I found the storyline to be really hokey and many of the plot devices were downright silly. The characters were cardboard cutouts with no real development whatsoever. All in all, _State of Fear_ was certainly not one of Michael Crichton's best works, perhaps not even one of his better mediocre ones, and I'm a huge fan of his. I did enjoy the factual material presented, and the use of endnotes in a fictional work was a rather inventive if somewhat distracting touch. I kept finding myself leaving the story to check out the referenced endnotes. As a novelist, I believe asking the reader to disengage from the story to read other material elsewhere in the book is a surefire way to sidetrack the whole reading experience and really disrupt the overall flow of the story. That type of structure should be confined to researched nonfiction works in which the reader would expect this to occur and is prepared for it.

To paraphrase a comment I once heard someone make about _The DaVinci Code_, I found _State of Fear_ to be a first-rate skeptic's treatise and rebuttal on Global Warming deeply buried inside a third-rate work of fiction. Personally, I think Mr. Crichton would have been much better off writing the book as a nonfiction piece rather than trying to pawn it off as a novel, but my guess is that he was probably trying to boost his potential audience to help publicize his views. In the end, I think he did both himself and his readers a huge disservice by going the route he chose because, at least with me, it kind of tarnished his reputation as a great storyteller.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy the book for the research and the factual material presented therein. Viewed in that light I think it's a worthwhile read. Just don't go into it thinking you're going to be wowed by some great piece of storytelling or a superlative work of literature.


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## splashes99 (Aug 11, 2010)

I liked this book, and in fact, I just finished reading it!  I liked the story but some of it didn't completely tie together for me.  Like the whole octopus paralysis thing...why the octopus?

I also appreciate all the research Crichton did, but at times it totally bogged down the story.  I also had a hard time putting some of the discussions in the book into context.  It seemed like characters on one side of the argument were contradicting themselves at times which threw me off.

But, overall, I liked it.

On the debate, I'm not sure where I stand.  I guess it's safe to say that I think that climate change occurs naturally in cycles.  However, I also think it is silly to think that with all the stuff we pump into the water, air, ground, that it has no effect on anything.  So, to summarize, I think that completely stopping climate change may be futile, but we aren't making anything better with all of our pollution.


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## Pushka (Oct 30, 2009)

QuantumIguana said:


> I would have expected that this topic might have involved some discussion of the actual book.


I will accomodate you too. I really enjoyed the concept that Politicians will do anything in order to avoid scrutiny on their Governmental Policies and decision making. While this book talked about the global warming issue, other tactics, like creating fear of " invasions from foreigners"have been used for likewise similar purposes.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

QuantumIguana said:


> I would have expected that this topic might have involved some discussion of the actual book.


It's not Crichton's best. It's discursive, the action is loose, and some of the characters commit bizarrely unmotivated actions. For instance, the book really turn on the financial support a self-made billionaire gives to global warming support while alive, and on his estate when presumed dead. The global warming scientist lie to his face, repeatedly. Yet he keeps supporting them. i just don't see a guy like that being patient with such behaviour beyond three seconds, never mind months.

There are also parts of the story that read like Robert Ludlum, with the billionaire faking his own death, and large digressions included for didactic purposes, nothing to do with the needs of the story as literature.

Not Crichton's best novel. I think the poster who said that, if he had stuck to non-fiction, it could have been a great book, has it right. It is none the less an important book, probably the one for which posterity will regard Crichton as an important and influential writer, for introducting the actual evidence against the religious faith of Global Warming to so many; one presumes that is why Crichton chose the novel format rather than non-fiction.

R Doug has said everything else about State of Fear that needs saying, except this: despite its failings, it is one of those novels that you must read to complete your education.


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## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

I have been away at a conference and presenting on climate change so it is interesting to see where the debate has gone. Could I suggest that all of us readers here have a look at the journals rather than opinion pieces. I find that both sides of this "debate" produce some absolutely absurd statements unfounded in facts. Yet when you look at the actual scientific papers you get to understand what is actually going on. The gap between science and media is huge on this topic. 


Andre Jute said:


> But, worst of all, CO2 is plant food. These Global Warmies want to starve the forests for their political correctness.


Not quite. CO2 is used by plants to create sugars, yes, but if you have it in too high a concentration in the atmosphere then you actually start to cause problems for the plants. For a period in the future we should see crop growth rate increases, improved water use efficiency and a higher tolerance to pollutants (they have already documented this in parts of Europe), so it won't be all bad.

One thing I find interesting is the discussion of CO2. It is one of many green house gases (60 odd are listed in the IPCC report, there are something like 110, 3 major ones) and I've just been reading a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper that has analyzed climate changes we have seen thus far (including contributions from sun spots, our orbit around the sun and various other climate forcings often not discussed) and has concluded that CO2 has been having less effect than the other "minor" gases due to offsets from natural events. Basically all the other green house gases are thus far doing the warming, CO2 is being offset by things like volcanoes and the like.

This is a really complicated thing to get your head around, especially with the muddy waters created by the misinformation in the media. Climate change is real and we are making a difference, so I'd encourage everyone to read the journal papers being published.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

tim290280 said:


> CO2 is used by plants to create sugars, yes, but if you have it in too high a concentration in the atmosphere then you actually start to cause problems for the plants.


You don't know what "too high a concentration" is, you're committing the hubris of assuming that anything that is different from our own period is "unnatural". CO2 concentrations historically have been much, much higher than even the highest number in the global warmies' least reliable estimate. Deny it if you can.

Furthermore, global temperature rise has never followed CO2 increases. Instead, temperature rose first and CO2 followed. If the "scientists" you ask us to bet trillions on have such a poor grasp of cause and effect, why shouldn't we instead have their employment on taxpayers' funds investigated?

Oh, and publish a name, tim290280. There's very little credibility in these statements you throw about from some anonymous prophet of doom in the burning bush.



tim290280 said:


> For a period in the future we should see crop growth rate increases, improved water use efficiency and a higher tolerance to pollutants (they have already documented this in parts of Europe), so it won't be all bad.


I love the way you dismiss our ability to feed the starving as "won't be all bad." In fact, what the scientists, except for the self-styled "climate scientists", have said all along is that foreseeable global warming will be a good thing for agriculture. You should read your own Bible. It's in two IPCC reports in the small print, though of course, in the usual perverse and dishonest manner of the IPCC, the Summary for Policy Makers says exactly the opposite.



tim290280 said:


> One thing I find interesting is the discussion of CO2. It is one of many green house gases (60 odd are listed in the IPCC report, there are something like 110, 3 major ones) and I've just been reading a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper that has analyzed climate changes we have seen thus far (including contributions from sun spots, our orbit around the sun and various other climate forcings often not discussed) and has concluded that CO2 has been having less effect than the other "minor" gases due to offsets from natural events. Basically all the other green house gases are thus far doing the warming, CO2 is being offset by things like volcanoes and the like.


This is the Marxist weaseling of liars who've been caught out. And it is too little, too late. The NAS has been exposed again and again for lying on global warming. North swore on oath before Congress that he and his Panel (each of whom also swore on oath) agreed with every one of the charges of incompetence and dishonesty made by Wegman against Mann and his coterie, then came out and lied to journalists that he said the opposite. Without Mann's "hockey stick" lies, and the similar lies told by Briffa, there is no Global Warming, period. So now the liars want to weasel away from CO2 to methane or something else, and from Global Warming to Sudden Climate Change. What next? Are you guys first going to give back the trillions of our money you wasted on CO2 and global warming, restore all the careers you ruined in your persecutions of the skeptics?

In any event, the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, historically proven events, make global warming by any other gas as ludicrous as by CO2. They always have and they always will, weasel as the global warmies will.

I'll be happy to publish what Wegman and North, under oath, actually told Congress, word for word, if you attempt to deny it.

Global Warming isn't science, it is faith. There is more science in Scientology than in Global Warming. At least Ron Hubbard provided entertainment as well.


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## geoffthomas (Feb 27, 2009)

I believe that the point of the book was:
Don't accept the statement "everybody knows....."
and
Don't accept an argument because you saw it on tv or read it in the newspaper -check the authorities cited.
and
be careful of the proofs provided by quoting "Doctor" Smith of XYZ university.  This person may have a liberal arts degree and XYZ may be an accounting school.  Make sure the authority actually knows what they are talking about.  Most talking heads are more than willing to expound on "any" subject.

I believe these are the points of the book.

Global warming and the greenhouse effect gave the author a terrific subject to use as a backdrop for his wonderful story.  And he even made his point stronger by providing a looonnnngggg list of citations for both sides of the argument.  Not sure how many of them were bogus and how many were valid - the point I think is that you can find someone who has written a scholarly paper to prove any view you wish to take. So make sure that if you want to make your own decision (and I think the author wants you to do so) then investigate the "authorities" whose opinions and research is available.

Just sayin......


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## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

Andre Jute said:


> You don't know what "too high a concentration" is, you're committing the hubris of assuming that anything that is different from our own period is "unnatural". CO2 concentrations historically have been much, much higher than even the highest number in the global warmies' least reliable estimate. Deny it if you can.


Hubris? Hardly. If you want a list of concentrations for each variety of each species of each plant they can be found. Suffice to say I'd be most concerned about our most exposed plants which also happen to be our staple cereals (wheat, etc). Plant response to any of the nutrients required follows a growth and decay curve. So by definition there is a saturation point; I'll talk about wheat. From our current literature CO2 levels are ~380ppb and are likely to reach 550ppb by 2050, wheat can tolerate this sort of change as long as it has enough other nutrients available (like N, P, K and of course water). The biggest concern here is the cost of fertilisers and the availability of water, especially in rain-fed cropping systems, which has already changed markedly. However, whilst water use efficiency does increase with higher CO2, so does respiration where a lot of the photosynthesis assimilates are collected, thus the plant can become stressed at key times (anthesis) if anything is limiting, especially water. In Australia this will be of a large concern, from what I understand it is less of an issue for US and Canada, but very important for Europe and China.



> Furthermore, global temperature rise has never followed CO2 increases. Instead, temperature rose first and CO2 followed. If the "scientists" you ask us to bet trillions on have such a poor grasp of cause and effect, why shouldn't we instead have their employment on taxpayers' funds investigated?


I did just point out that CO2 is one of many gases responsible. You have to look at all green house gas forcings, which also includes positives that lower temperatures (volcanoes being the most notable). When you look at green house gas forcings as a whole the temperature changes are very clear. Oh and this research is centuries old and would be thus termed a sunk cost. You can't give back an investment, it'd be like getting a licked lollipop as a present.



> Oh, and publish a name, tim290280. There's very little credibility in these statements you throw about from some anonymous prophet of doom in the burning bush.


  Including my name in the user handle isn't obvious enough?
If you want to know my qualifications - I currently work in Australian Agriculture research and extension. I hold a BSc and MSc, have mainly studied plant nutrition, but am somewhat of a polymath in agriculture, and I've been involved with our organisation's climate group (who don't get funding to study climate change) for 3 years and have done some retrospective climate analysis. Suffice to say I work with some very smart people who have no vested interest in climate change. So what science degrees do you hold?



> I love the way you dismiss our ability to feed the starving as "won't be all bad." In fact, what the scientists, except for the self-styled "climate scientists", have said all along is that foreseeable global warming will be a good thing for agriculture. You should read your own Bible. It's in two IPCC reports in the small print, though of course, in the usual perverse and dishonest manner of the IPCC, the Summary for Policy Makers says exactly the opposite.


Please read my statement again. I was referring to the growth ability of crops. I also like your dismissive statement. As someone who lives and works in agriculture I can assure you that there is nothing good about what is happening at the moment.



> This is the Marxist weaseling of liars who've been caught out. And it is too little, too late. The NAS has been exposed again and again for lying on global warming. North swore on oath before Congress that he and his Panel (each of whom also swore on oath) agreed with every one of the charges of incompetence and dishonesty made by Wegman against Mann and his coterie, then came out and lied to journalists that he said the opposite. Without Mann's "hockey stick" lies, and the similar lies told by Briffa, there is no Global Warming, period. So now the liars want to weasel away from CO2 to methane or something else, and from Global Warming to Sudden Climate Change. What next? Are you guys first going to give back the trillions of our money you wasted on CO2 and global warming, restore all the careers you ruined in your persecutions of the skeptics?


Once again you are confusing CO2 for green house gases. Please refer to my points above.



> In any event, the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, historically proven events, make global warming by any other gas as ludicrous as by CO2. They always have and they always will, weasel as the global warmies will.


I made a point earlier in this thread that we still have natural variability and a global cycle. Please stop trying to throw the baby out with the bathwater.



> I'll be happy to publish what Wegman and North, under oath, actually told Congress, word for word, if you attempt to deny it.


  What has this got to do with anything?



> Global Warming isn't science, it is faith. There is more science in Scientology than in Global Warming. At least Ron Hubbard provided entertainment as well.


So you're telling me that the last 15 years I've spent training and practicing as a scientist is just mere faith in Xenu?


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## Will Write for Gruel (Oct 16, 2010)

Thanks for all that, Tim. It's interesting to get the perspective of someone actually involved in some of the science behind all this.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

tim290280 said:


> So you're telling me that the last 15 years I've spent training and practicing as a scientist is just mere faith in Xenu?


If you say so. I wouldn't presume to comment.

I'm off cycling in the lanes of West Cork, on the green and beloved island. Good luck & ciao.


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## Sunset (Nov 10, 2010)

Andre Jute has done an excellent job proving beyond a reasonable doubt that I don't ever need to buy his books.


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## r0b0d0c (Feb 16, 2009)

Sunset said:


> Andre Jute has done an excellent job proving beyond a reasonable doubt that I don't ever need to buy his books.


LOL - to each his/her own!

Impressed by his points, I downloaded a sample of "Iditarod," and will start reading it today!


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## Chris Northern (Jan 20, 2011)

Tim, really, many gases? This is the age of information technology. The information is available.

Water vapor is responsible for about 95% of the Earth's greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide is less than 2% of the total effect, with methane taking up most of the balance, and other gasses responsible for the remainder.

So, what we need here is a really big syphon.


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

Pushka said:


> And man has been measuring temperatures of the earth for how long, maybe less than 100 years with any accuracy, yet we have the arrogance to say that these are the hottest decades ever in the millions of years of the history of the earth. Maybe the dinosaurs wore sweaters then.


Not only that but it is incredibly hard to account for local environment change around the collection points. 100 years ago they but a box in the middle of a field....now its in a Wal Mart parking lot "Garbage In...Garbage Out"

As a scientist myself...I think the "debate is over" scientists are scary. I agree that climate changes, I don't think they have come anywhere close to proving Man is having a significant impact. Data that may be valid over a short period of time does not prove that Man is the cause, and they seem to discard other options without valid reason (prove its not normal climate change, prove its not primarily solar cycle related....etc.)


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

r0b0d0c said:


> LOL - to each his/her own!
> 
> Impressed by his points, I downloaded a sample of "Iditarod," and will start reading it today!


I laughed when I read your post, r0b0d0c, from pure pleasure. I like people who buy my books for rational reasons. I don't actually care whether they agree with me, merely that they be rational and open enough to listen to what I have to say. I hope you enjoy Iditarod.


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## Patrick Skelton (Jan 7, 2011)

Chris,

Your data is dead on about gas percentages in the atmosphere. Most of it isn't even C02. Anyone interested in a great book about climate change should check out a book called Climate Confusion by Roy Spencer. He was a meteorologist for NASA.


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

Patrick Skelton said:


> Chris,
> 
> Your data is dead on about gas percentages in the atmosphere. Most of it isn't even C02. Anyone interested in a great book about climate change should check out a book called Climate Confusion by Roy Spencer. He was a meteorologist for NASA.


http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Confusion-Pandering-Politicians-ebook/dp/B001RNOH6C/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2


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## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

Patrick Skelton said:


> Chris,
> 
> Your data is dead on about gas percentages in the atmosphere. Most of it isn't even C02. Anyone interested in a great book about climate change should check out a book called Climate Confusion by Roy Spencer. He was a meteorologist for NASA.


Not really. It isn't 90%, more like 36-72% is water vapour. Yes it has a large effect on global temperature, but you have to take into account that water cycles through the atmosphere back into the ocean very quickly (within a week). Thus it is not having a changing impact on the atmosphere as it isn't changing, just following its normal cycle. The concern with other greenhouse gases, like CO2 and methane, is that they have a longer time in the atmosphere and have been released without any means of being returned to a stored state. Thus they are "stuck" in the atmosphere and impacting upon the natural cycle. But with increased greenhouse gases we get what is termed positive feedback, which means more water vapour is evaporated and the higher temperatures allow more vapour to be supported, thus changing the water cycle.

More info here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas.htm


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

Ok here is part of the argument I'm missing, maybe someone can help. Let's grant for the sake of argument that the climate is changing outside of its normal range because of man's influence. Therefore it is warming at a higher rate than it would and may end up a few degrees hotter than it should. This will cause extreme weather, incredible destruction of the biosphere and the planet may self0combust into a tiny star (hyperbole, sorry). 

I'm going off vague memory and not hard research here, but isn't it true that millions of years ago the world was quite a bit hotter than it was now? When the biome was so full, that ironically the fossil fuels we use now were deposited.

It might not be comfortable for us, but the apocalypse "we'll turn into Venus" description seems far-fetched.

Maybe that's what Patrick meant about Roy Spencer's book....I may have to read that


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## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

Chad Winters (#102) said:


> Ok here is part of the argument I'm missing, maybe someone can help. Let's grant for the sake of argument that the climate is changing outside of its normal range because of man's influence. Therefore it is warming at a higher rate than it would and may end up a few degrees hotter than it should. This will cause extreme weather, incredible destruction of the biosphere and the planet may self0combust into a tiny star (hyperbole, sorry).
> 
> I'm going off vague memory and not hard research here, but isn't it true that millions of years ago the world was quite a bit hotter than it was now? When the biome was so full, that ironically the fossil fuels we use now were deposited.
> 
> ...


So you want to fade quietly into the night? Kinda self defeatist isn't it? If we do allow climate to change then we don't exist, not a scenario I'm comfortable with, especially since we can do something about it! If your refer to the link in my post above it provides a lot of details in a few formats (basic, intermediate and advanced).

Anyway the "recent" history of a few million years has not been as warm as now. We do have natural cycles but we have changed them. Now as to the billions of years ago when the Earth was a different beast you have to remember that all conditions were different and life didn't exist as we know it. Since that life was wiped out we have been able to exist due to a new stasis being formed. So the cycles that we, and our ancestors, have been living within are the "new" stasis cycle of atmosphere, etc, something that has allowed us to exist and needs to continue for our future existence.


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## Chris Northern (Jan 20, 2011)

Regards water as the major 'greenhouse gas.' Wiki is not exactly a reliable source of information. As with a great many things related to the subject, it depends on who you ask. Most of us have to ask someone. Should that be the case, I might suggest asking several someones; though that might not actually clarify much. In this case because it is a complex and not well understood subject. But...

The following from here http://www.jerrypournelle.com/global.html#climate

I'm a design engineer with 20+ years of experience in various engineering fields, primarily having to do with heat transfer and thermodynamics. My first professional employment was with a company designing and manufacturing air conditioners and heat exchangers for cooling electronics enclosures, which often used active refrigeration systems. Back then, the most common refrigerants were R-12 and R-22. These are now know as the infamous "CFC's", which were banned by the Montreal protocols.

That was my first introduction into the world of politics radically affecting engineering decisions...and with no rational basis. The "ozone hole" nonsense, at least as it pertained to human influence, was never more than a baseless conjecture. When a single volcanic eruption can inject more chlorine compounds directly into the upper stratosphere than human-kind has ever released, the banning of the only safe and effective refrigerants know is rather moot.

The following from here http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=84462e2d-6bff-4983-a574-31f5ae8e8a42

Many of us are aware that we are living in an ice age, where we have hundred-thousand-year intervals of big continental glaciers that cover much of the land area of the northern hemisphere, interspersed with relative short interglacial intervals like the one we are living in now. By looking at ice cores from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, one can estimate past temperatures and atmospheric concentrations of CO2. Al Gore likes to display graphs of temperature and CO2 concentrations over the past million years or so, showing that when CO2 rises, the temperature also rises. Doesn't
William Happer Testimony to Senate Energy Committee Page 6
July 10, 2002
this prove that the temperature is driven by CO2? Absolutely not! If you look carefully at these records, you find that first the temperature goes up, and then the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere goes up. There is a delay between a temperature increase and a CO2 increase of about 800 years. This casts serious doubt on CO2 as a climate driver because of the fundamental concept of causality. A cause must precede its effect. For example, I hear my furnace go on in the morning about six o'clock, and by about 7 o'clock, I notice that my house is now so warm that I have too many covers on my bed. It is time to get up. It would never occur to me to assume that the furnace started burning gas at 6 o'clock because the house got warm at 7 o'clock. Sure, temperature and gas burning are correlated, just like temperature and atmospheric levels of CO2. But the thing that changes first is the cause. In the case of the ice cores, the cause of increased CO2 is almost certainly the warming of the oceans. The oceans release dissolved CO2 when they warm up, just like a glass of beer rapidly goes flat in a warm room. If not CO2, then what really causes the warming at the end of the cold periods of ice ages? A great question and one of the reasons I strongly support research in climate.
I keep hearing about the "pollutant CO2," or about "poisoning the atmosphere" with CO2, or about minimizing our "carbon footprint." This brings to mind another Orwellian pronouncement that is worth pondering: "But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." CO2 is not a pollutant and it is not a poison and we should not corrupt the English language by depriving "pollutant" and "poison" of their original meaning. Our exhaled breath contains about 4% CO2. That is 40,000 parts per million, or about 100 times the current atmospheric concentration. CO2 is absolutely essential for life on earth. Commercial greenhouse operators often use CO2 as a fertilizer to improve the health and growth rate of their plants. Plants, and our own primate ancestors evolved when the levels of atmospheric CO2 were about 1000 ppm, a level that we will probably not reach by burning fossil fuels, and far above our current level of about 380 ppm. We try to keep CO2 levels in our US Navy submarines no higher than 8,000 parts per million, about 20 time current atmospheric levels. Few adverse effects are observed at even higher levels.

etc etc etc

The fact is that climate is a big ugly complex can-of-worms. We don't understand it well. No one understands it well. It complicated. We only started looking at it recently with any instrumentation of significant accuracy to get any meaningful results. Making a wild guess and pouring trillions into what might actually be a negative effect on a system does not seem wise.

Unless you are making money out of it or achieving some other desired objective.


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

well said...your arguments of course would be summarily dismissed by climate scientists. 

I agree its currently a confused mess, which is why making it a set in stone fact with all other theories dismissed out of hand really bothers me. There is way too much making the data fit the model going on.


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## R. Doug (Aug 14, 2010)

And, of course, there's also basic chemistry and molecular weights. No one has yet been able to explain how a gas (CO2) that is heavier than both O2 and N2 (the primary constituents of "air") is getting high enough up into the atmosphere to even cause a greenhouse effect. Ground level CO2, where these measurements are being made, isn't high enough to do _anything_.

Meanwhile, as previously mentioned, the last three solar maximums have been off the charts, and Mars is heating up at the same rate is Earth as a direct consequence. Diverting resources to spend trillions in an effort to stem a well-documented, cyclic climatological condition over which we have no control certainly isn't helping the human condition any.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

tim290280 said:


> So you want to fade quietly into the night? Kinda self defeatist isn't it?


We're not fading into the night, we're rampaging, leaving hairy footprints, making our world better and better, year by year. That can easily be demonstrated, and has been demonstrated by Julian Simon, by Bjorn Lomborg, by me, by anyone with the sligtest grasp of statistics. This isn't 1950, only two generations ago, when you couldn't see ten feet in London smog, and children died of respiratory diseases in sight of some of the great hospitals of the world. Even with population growth, half a billion people fewer now go to bed hungry of an evening than in 1945.

And what have the whining Jeremiahs of global warming got to put against that? Some models, based on exposed lies, and a mechanism that perversely works in reverse, effect first, cause later. Why should we believe people who can't even get cause and effect straight, who call themselves "scientists" despite their inability to grasp that time's winged arrow flies only one way?



tim290280 said:


> If we do allow climate to change then we don't exist, not a scenario I'm comfortable with, especially since we can do something about it!


You can't do anything to stop climate change. Pretending you can is hubris. Kyoto cost trillions and actually made things worse, by licensing the Chinese and other developing nations to produce more unclean energy. What's more, the supporters of the global warmies are violently against the only solution to so-called "pollution", which is clean nuclear energy. You guys are floundering on a loser.



tim290280 said:


> If your refer to the link in my post above it provides a lot of details in a few formats (basic, intermediate and advanced).


Global warmies are the only scientists anywhere in the world who try to pretend their unproven guestimates -- I won't even dignify such stupidity as "hypotheses" -- are future facts. What you guys have aren't even a broken algorithm, what you have are some guesses based on exposed lies, fatally undermined by facts -- facts, mind you -- of history called the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age.

It is because these historical facts so fatally undermine global warmie guestimating and fearmongering that so much energy and spite was spent by the Climategate clowns (Mann, Jones, Briffa et al) and the whole IPCC to lie the MWP and LIA out of existence. With the MWP and LIA restored to their full glory on the exposure of these liars, the entire basis of global warming alarmism falls away.

I notice that I and others have repeatedly made these points, and you have repeatedly ignored them, feller. Why don't you address the points rather than throw out more and more unverifiable and irrelevant fluff that you apparently expect us to believe on your authority alone?

It's no good quoting mantras about your three models, trying to force us to discuss only what you want to discuss. We have eyes, and brains, and are pretty smart ourselves. Those models were broke from the beginning, grossly unscientific, fraudulent even. I said so when they were first made, and I've been proved right; now everyone except the faithful communicants of the Church of Global Warming knows it.



tim290280 said:


> We do have natural cycles but we have changed them.


Prove it without referring to the lies told by the ClimateGate clowns and without using handpicked data from urban heat islands. We don't know any such thing, and you can't prove it either.

Look, you guys have been caught out lying so often, and abusing those who pointed out your lies, and demanding faith entirely against scientific tenets, that you have forsworn our trust. We know you can't prove these things. We have no reason to believe your bare statements. Why should we? That's not how science works! In fact, the first sign of a crooked scientist is hypotheses designed without any means of proving them false -- checked against that simple, universally comprehensible standard, global warming isn't a science, it is a church.



tim290280 said:


> Now as to the billions of years ago when the Earth was a different beast you have to remember that all conditions were different and life didn't exist as we know it. Since that life was wiped out we have been able to exist due to a new stasis being formed. So the cycles that we, and our ancestors, have been living within are the "new" stasis cycle of atmosphere, etc, something that has allowed us to exist and needs to continue for our future existence.


Rubbish. Man is the most adaptable animal who ever lived. There is absolutely no reason to believe patent stupidities like "and needs to continue for our future existence". That's just scare tactics. No one is even talking about radical change. Even your worst-case guesstimate forecasts a world which supports more people in greater comfort. Again, I say to you, read the reports by the scientists, not the scare stories these reports have been perverted into by the bureaucrats protecting their trough, or newspaper horror stories from a few renegade "scientists" lying for their egos and grants.

We also note that all your supposed remedies, even if they work, which they won't, will be swamped in the first week of a new sunspot cycle. What are going to do with the sun? Nuke it? I have news for you, pal. The Sun is already a great big nuclear explosion. You don't have a bigger bomb; nobody has.

The subtext here is alarmism, that we will die if we don't do as you say. Who set you up as god? It's once more the question of unbelievable hubris.

Finally, the precautionary principle is stupid only one way, the activist way, the global warmie way. The other, cautious way, it is brilliant, and has allowed mankind to survive since the first time he first sowed seed.

So, before I leave this thread to you, because you are clearly beyond reason and my side has already won the argument, I have one further question for you. If, on the advice of the New Ice Age Alarmists of the 1970s, we had spent trillions warming up the oceans, what effect on CO2 and "consequent" (in your view -- I'm just being sarcastic, not agreeing with you) global warming would there have been? Pray calculate that for us, tim290280. If you dare. See, everyone older than thirty has seen half a dozen major climate scare theories come and then-- go... They all get discredited in the end. Global warming is just in the process of-- going...

Ever hear of the Law of Unintended Effect? Global warming is such poor science, it is a walking, talking, viciously backbiting Law of Unintended Effect.

Time to give it away, tim290280.


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## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

I know I said I'd only post once here, but _really_.

I'm not going to quote anyone directly, but I'd like to respond to some of the comments that have appeared more than once above. It would be nice if any responses weren't just repetitions of the same claims (with added insults) but actual replies that add something extra.

_"In the 70s everyone was predicting a new Ice Age; that didn't happen so why should we believe man-made global warming theories?"
_
Nope. In the 70s one (one) slightly hysterical book got to the best-seller list based on this premise; a few articles were written which were refuted quite quickly, and that was that. Regardless of what you think of global warming this ice-age argument is wrong - regardless of the rights & wrongs, there's no comparison between those predictions and current global warming predictions.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/
http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/

This argument against global warming is provably, verifiably wrong (you know, all those things you want global warming theories to be).

_"We can't trust unproven computer models"_

No. But we can prove or disprove them. This page shows the 1990 computer model predictions compared to real results. Guess what? The models were broadly on trend. Hurrah - so they're not unproven and certainly not untestable. http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/figspm-4.htm

In addition to surface temperature, these and other models make predictions on water temperature, energy imbalance between incoming sunlight and outgoing infrared radiation, which have been found to be happening. The models also predict that temperature rises will be different at the poles to elsewhere, again now confirmed by observation.

_"The Medieval warming period! They could grow grapes in England!_"
I love the fact that people telling us to doubt all current evidence until it can be proven 100% are apparently happy to make a huge sweeping statement about the overall average surface temperature hundreds of years ago, based on some anecdotal evidence in old pre-scientific age documents. There some evidence that certain parts of the world (mainly Europe) were hotter then, but absolutely no evidence that a) it was as hot then as the kind of temperatures we face if global warming is true, or b) that the change increased anywhere near as fast, or c) that it happened globally - http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/medieval.html

And as for _grapes_... well, they grow here now and have done for years, so that says nothing about it being 'hot' in the UK back then. And regardless, grape growth isn't an accurate proxy for temperature anyway: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/07/medieval-warmth-and-english-wine/

_"It's all just a natural cycle. Mankind can't alter nature..."_
All evidence we have of any natural cycle indicates we should be in a cooling period right now, and that this cooling cycle did exist and lasted from the Holocene all the way through to the industrial age (that's the speed the _natural_ cycle works at, thousands and thousands of years).

So a) what we're seeing now goes _against_ the natural cycle; b) is happening at a scale 10 times quicker than anything that has happened naturally before. Shouldn't science try and figure out why? Well, we know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas (I mean this in the neutral, scientific sense - CO2 allows heat in but doesn't let as much out). And we know CO2 in the atmosphere has increased since the industrial age.

No other explanation for this out of cycle temperature change, at an unpredcidented speed, has ever been even _proposed_ let alone subject to the level of analysis that CO2 has (I'm using Co2 as a short hand for all greenhouses gases here). http://www.grist.org/article/current-global-warming-is-just-part-of-a-natural-cycle/

I know someone will say - the sun and H2O here, so...

_"It's the sun"_
Well, the sun is (obviously!) a major factor in earth temperature. There are manor ways of measuring solar radiation; the most accurate are from space to filter out the effects of clouds, smog etc. that affect readings from the surface. According to the best satelite data, there's been no increase in solar radiation from the 70s to now (when the quick temperature increase is occuring) http://www.pmodwrc.ch/pmod.php?topic=tsi/composite/SolarConstant

Moreover, changes in the solar radiation levels can be modelled and used to predict temperature increase; they've been used to explain the minor warming 1900-1940. They don;t successfully account for current warming. http://www.mps.mpg.de/en/projekte/sun-climate/

_It's Water Vapor; H20 accounts for X% of the Greenhouse Effect_
Two things:

a) water vapor is a factor in the natural greenhouse effect (which stops our atmosphere being an average of -18c all the time) and it accounts for between 10% and 30% of the this depending on who you read... H2O's affect doesn't in a stable system doesn't vary much because, simply, if the amount of water in the atmosphere increases it is rained back down again very quickly. Again, H2O is not an explanation for the out of cycle, incredibly rapid warming we are experiencing.

b) if temperatures start rising, then the amount of H2O in the atmosphere can increase - i.e. if temperature is artificially increased by another means such as higher CO2, then H20's greenhouse effect also increases! This doesn't disprove CO2's role, it makes it even more critical. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/01/calculating-the-greenhouse-effect/

_Kyoto Didn't Achieve Anything_
Agreed. Let's try harder.

_Combating climate change will cost too much_
Firstly, this is no argument that it isn't happening. Second, if you quote Lombard at me, then I counter that any economist who attaches monetary value to human life , and then _discounts future people dying in the same way as economics does for other monetary values_ is no basis on which to base our moral discussion.

Thirdly - we're going to have to make some of these changes _anyway_, even if man-made global warming is all huey. Within the next 50-100 years we'll have to move to a largely non fossil fuel world. (The issue _isn't_ when stocks run out, it's when global output declines.) There's ample evidence that the best (i.e. least costly) way to do this is an ordered, mannerly transition to nuclear and renewable fuels starting now. If global warming isn't true we still should do most of it (and for the record not everyone who believe in global warming is anti-nuclear: George Monbiot Heat)

Apologies for any typos, can't reread all that.

Oh, and if anyone is still reading - buy my book. It's paperless so good for the environment!

James


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## Pushka (Oct 30, 2009)

Chad Winters (#102) said:


> Ok here is part of the argument I'm missing, maybe someone can help. Let's grant for the sake of argument that the climate is changing outside of its normal range because of man's influence. Therefore it is warming at a higher rate than it would and may end up a few degrees hotter.


And therein lies the weakness of the theory of mans influence on climate change. We do not know what is outside the normal range. Normal for the earth may be a million year cycle. The earth has always warmed and cooled in cycles. And then you go on to extrapolate that warming will result in other things like more significant weather events. Correlation does not equal causation.

Man has to learn to adapt to climate change. Or we will perish like the dinosaurs and become the next layer of carbon deposit. We cannot stop climate change, we can reduce any impact we may have on it, but even if man never existed, the climate of the earth would still change. We just wouldn't be around to blame ourselves for it and pay taxes to try to stop it.


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## geoffthomas (Feb 27, 2009)

See here is where I invoke the Michael Chrichton advise: Know your source.
So I will pick on James (the most recent "knowledgeable" poster).
In the 70s one (one) slightly hysterical book got to the best-seller list based on this premise 
so what book, written by whom - the original poster may have a different one and that could change everything.
a few articles were written which were refuted quite quickly
How many are a few and in what pubs and written by whom and who was it that refuted them and what was quickly?
there's no comparison between those predictions and current global warming predictions.
Now really - this is clearly just your opinion. Others might share it but an opinion should be stated as such.

I won't go on.
My point is not to belittle anyone (I hope you do not feel that I am doing that).
My point is if we are having a scientific talk about a scientific subject then where is the science?
No one has provided citations and statements that can be verified.
That is not scientific.
And I believe that Chrichton was more concerned about this than about global warming itself - that is why he provided that incredible bibliography. Go read it all and make your own decision. 
I believe that we are in far more danger of a sunspot wiping out our atmosphere than that we will affect global warming sigificantly. However, I might add that I believe that we should do all we can to leave this planet better than we found it. I grew up in Cleveland Ohio. The Cuyahoga river was the dirtiest body of water on the planet. It would spontaneously combust (I have watched this). But it has been cleaned up - you can drink it today and eat fish caught in it. So we can stop being fools.

But let us lay out the proofs, please.

Just sayin.......


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## Pushka (Oct 30, 2009)

I wonder how people will think about Al Gore in the 2020's too.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Pushka said:


> I wonder how people will think about Al Gore in the 2020's too.


You know, Pushka, it's an unfair debating tactic to convulse your opponents with laughter.

I can just see the new thumbreader biography of Al Gore in 2028: FAT AL, OR, THE MAN WHO GOT IT BACKWARDS


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

geoffthomas said:


> But let us lay out the proofs, please.


Good idea! Here's a basic information pack in referenced FAQ form:

A FEW INNOCENT QUESTIONS ABOUT
GLOBAL WARMING
FROM THE COMMON MAN

Q: Is there global warming?
A: No. The earth is cooler now than at any time since the middle ages. Here are the official figures from the US NCDC drawn into a graph from 1880.
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/NCDCabs1880.html
We're still recovering from the Little Ice Age, which will be shown lower down.

Q: But climate scientists claim that there was no medieval warm period outside Europe.
A: They lie. Here is the evidence from other sciences that both the medieval warm period and the little ice age were worldwide.
http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.htm
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/02/11/a-2000-year-global-temperature-record/

Q: But then they say that it is sudden warming that is dangerous.
A: They saw a short term increase of temperature in the 1990s and panicked. Temperature has settled down again.
http://www.factsandarts.com/articles/no-significant-global-warming-since-1995/

Q: Is CO2 responsible for global warming?
A: Anyone who says that is speculating against the evidence. CO2 is a beneficial gas; the earth depends on it. It is true that CO2 is increasing but, as the graph shows, there is no link between increase in CO2 and temperature. 
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/NCDCabs1880.html
It isn't even certain that CO2 increases come before temperature increases!

Q: So when will it be time to worry?
A: When the earth again reaches the temperatures, much higher than today, which were common in the Middle Ages, agriculture will become much easier. When we have fed all the earth's hungry, there may be a population explosion as death rates fall. That will be a worry. But that is generations away and may never happen, among other reasons because the recent beneficial rate of increase in temperature has proven to be a shortterm phenomenon, and the rate of increase has already levelled off.

Q: Then why are the global warning wolf-criers still going on about it?
A: Climate scientists, bureaucrats and politicians have gambled their careers on "global warming"; it is their livelihood going down the tubes with the downturn in global temperature rates. They're fighting to keep their little corner in wolf-crying, claiming that Global Warming is Dead, Long Live Sudden Climate Change (Up or Down).

Q: Will they be able to forecast hurricanes like Katrina?
A: You're joking, aren't you? Those clowns can't forecast the local weather today week, never mind global weather a century ahead, or even next year's hurricanes.

Q: So what good are "climate scientists"?
A: That's what everyone wants to know.

Andre Jute
Definitely not a "climate scientist"

Copyright 2009 Andre Jute


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## Chris Northern (Jan 20, 2011)

geoffthomas said:


> See here is where I invoke the Michael Chrichton advise: Know your source.
> So I will pick on James (the most recent "knowledgeable" poster).
> 
> Just sayin.......


Chrichton makes a good point. And so do you. I would also be interested to see James site sources for his assertions. I was quite young in the '70's and so did not trust my memory. I went and checked. It took a while. I don't have time to check everything. In some areas there is a limit to the value of checking; at some point I will hit an ignorance wall where I have a choice - take someones word for it or go acquire competence in that field. It's a problem we all face. Knowledge is power; ignorance is also power, just in someone elses hands.

On this particular subject I know enough to know that any bold and absolute statement is dubious. Where it is confidently stated that CO2 is "stuck" in the atmosphere I know that CO2 sequestering is a variable. Big planet, big variable. A complex subject on its own. The bold statement does not convince me.

When I know that no one can tell me the temperature of the planet with any degree of certainty - not enough data points, thermometer inaccuracy, improper application of statistics, etc etc. - I know that anyone who tries to assert the temperature of the planet to three or more decimal places is presenting a dubious conclusion (at the least). Any other statements from that source are then also suspect.

And again I've wasted hours thinking about this and related subjects. Well, the related subject thinking isn't wasted, actually, but that's another story. Ultimately the whole subject comes down to this - who do we let make decisions for us and act in our name with our money and how do we monitor them to stop them from doing things that are against our own interests? The answers to that two part question at the moment appear to be a) anyone we like the look of and who sounds plausable and b) we don't. I would tend to the point of view that those two answers are no longer appropriate to the situation. A trillion dollers are year is being spent to attempt to regulate a system we do not well understand, to change the temperture of the globe when we have no clear idea what the 'correct' temperature is and only a vague idea what the current temperature is. The costs of industry are increased without adding value, forcing some industries to relocate and reducing revenue as a result (not to mention lost incomes to individuals etc.). Dubious power generation subsidised with tax payers dollers is being forced into service and failing (see Texas recently if you care to look). Fertilisers, from oil, are being used to grow crops that are then burned to provide power; there are far reaching consequences to that. And on and on. All things that add to costs without adding value. All things that have real and immediate consequences to everyone involved. These real consequences of these real actions we are really taking are the real danger we face. The means do not justfy the ends because the means are things that happen and have consequences now.

And half an hour later I'm still sitting here looking at the screen and not doing the work I intened to do today. If I tried to site sources for all that I think on this and related subjects it would fill a book, and it's not the book I'm writing.

I'm going to leave off this subject with one last thought.

A meme can be a very dangerous thing. I am wary of the meme where I encounter one.


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## R. Doug (Aug 14, 2010)

> In the 70s one (one) slightly hysterical book got to the best-seller list based on this premise; a few articles were written which were refuted quite quickly, and that was that.


It wasn't one book. It wasn't one author. It wasn't discredited until temperatures started rising a few years later.

It was, in fact, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Center for Climate and Environmental Assessment, Columbia University, the University of Wisconsin, a solid and highly vocal group of influential climatologists worldwide, a large number of meteorologists, etc., etc., etc. Indeed, it was many of the same organizations and people involved in today's latest climate change scare.

Read the following article from 1975 and mentally exchange "warming" for "cooling" to see how these scare are just as cyclic as global temperatures: Newsweek, April 28, 1975

Sorry for allowing myself to get dragged back into this. This really is my last post on the subject, as the OP was intending a discussion on _State of Fear_ and not on global warming. Hopefully, this thread will now get back on topic.


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## AnelaBelladonna (Apr 8, 2009)

I was taught in school that we were heading into a new ice age and now they teach global warming in schools.  It seems like every generation has their Chicken Little ideas that are concocted to scare the masses into making certain people very rich.


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## geoffthomas (Feb 27, 2009)

Well I think that if you re-read Chrichton's book, you may come to believe that he is saying just that.
After reading Airframe (and Jurrasic Park after all) one might decide that he believes that business interests influence what news the media presents and how they present it.  After all the media does choose what talking heads represent the different views being presented.  Once recently I had to wonder what had inspired the selection of the "authority" because this personage did not seem to have any interest in the position that he was supposed to be supporting.

Just sayin.....


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

James Everington said:


> _"In the 70s everyone was predicting a new Ice Age; that didn't happen so why should we believe man-made global warming theories?"
> _
> Nope. In the 70s one (one) slightly hysterical book got to the best-seller list based on this premise; a few articles were written which were refuted quite quickly, and that was that. Regardless of what you think of global warming this ice-age argument is wrong - regardless of the rights & wrongs, there's no comparison between those predictions and current global warming predictions.


Really? Actually, it was the official scientific *consensus* of the time, all the same high-sounding "scientific" bodies as are now the sponsors of the Global Warming Faith <tm> sponsoring the New Ice Age. RDoug has already given you their names and a Newsweek reference also naming them. Or try "Another Ice Age?" in TIME, June 24, 1974.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html
On April 8, 1977, TIME was still reporting scientists at reputable universities telling people "How to survive the Coming Ice Age: 51 things you can do to make a difference". I used to have that one on my darts board, until all the darts people at my parties threw at it disintegrated the magazine.

I especially enjoyed this induced guilt trip, now familiar from the Global Warmies, being given its first tentative outing by the Global Iceballs in 1977: "Man, too, may be somewhat responsible for the cooling trend. The University of Wisconsin's Reid A. Bryson and other climatologists suggest that dust and other particles released into the atmosphere as a result of farming and fuel burning may be blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the surface of the earth."

"And other climatologists", eh? I wonder how many of those Global Iceballs next stuck their snouts in the Global Warming trough.

And why does this prediction sound familiar? "Whatever the cause of the cooling trend, its effects could be extremely serious, if not catastrophic. Scientists figure that only a 1% decrease in the amount of sunlight hitting the earth's surface could tip the climatic balance, and cool the planet enough to send it sliding down the road to another ice age within only a few hundred years."



James Everington said:


> http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/
> http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/


Real Climate is the netsite of the exposed ClimateGate liars who are trying to protect the trough of taxpayers' money they have their snouts in.

William Connolley is their attack dog, banned even by the appallingly inaccurate Wikipedia for lying on their pages too often about global warming. Furthermore, the link to Connolley that James took from the Real Climate site doesn't work.



James Everington said:


> This argument against global warming is provably, verifiably wrong (you know, all those things you want global warming theories to be).


[/quote]

Nope, we don't have to prove anything at all. See, dear James, the way science works is the common sense holds until *scientists* prove different. The global warmies who call themselves "scientists" haven't proved anything except that they are grossly untrustworthy and greedy control freaks. So we are fully entitled to sit here, laugh at their antics, do the odd little bit of statistical analysis to expose their lies, and marvel at the gullibility of the impressionable trendies who've turned Global Warming into a religion far exceeding the viciousness of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and other clowns who know better than we do what is good for us.

We're still waiting for the global warmies to prove anything except that they are ridiculous. The tickets to this wretchedly unfunny comedy have been very expensive.

I can continue to laugh your other points out of court, but why bother? Global warming as a scare story to put money in the pockets of "scientists" is a dead and decomposing duck; it is a waste of my time putting down the stragglers of a routed lie. "Sudden Climate Change, Up or Down", already being given its first trial runs, will fare no better.

Have the last word, feller. Make it amusing and someone may believe you. Try this: "The Apocalypse is turning the corner at Main Street. Must be Halloween!"

Ciao.


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## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

Andre - I've no wish to get into any personal argument with you (or anyone) on this. You are obviously better at personal insults than me, so what would be the point. I've enjoyed many of your other sarcastic asides at others so I won't have the the bad faith to complain when you do it to me. It's obvious neither of us is going to change each other minds by providing broken links to other websites (yes, one of yours is broken too...!)

And as someone else said above, this thread has been hijacked away from books somewhat, which I apologise for my part in. 

I won't post again, as I've not read any Crichton since Jurassic Park.

James


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

James Everington said:


> Andre - I've no wish to get into any personal argument with you (or anyone) on this. You are obviously better at personal insults than me, so what would be the point. I've enjoyed many of your other sarcastic asides at others so I won't have the the bad faith to complain when you do it to me. It's obvious neither of us is going to change each other minds by providing broken links to other websites (yes, one of yours is broken too...!)
> 
> And as someone else said above, this thread has been hijacked away from books somewhat, which I apologise for my part in.
> 
> ...


Most gracious of you, James, and as usual, you're right, this is best left alone as off-topic. I'm taking it off my notification list. -- André


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

aww man.... I found it stimulating until it got all ad-hominem


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## realthog (Mar 1, 2011)

R. Doug said:


> Meanwhile, how many times has Dr. James Hansen been caught fudging or outright falsifying his data now? I've kind of lost count.


That's because the total is exactly zero, as you would know if you got your information from anywhere else but fossil-fuel-industry-funded denialist sources.



R. Doug said:


> And without Dr. Hansen, there isn't a whole lot of evidence out there pointing to anthropological causes for global warming. Certainly not nearly as much as there is pointing to solar cycles being the primary culprit.


What complete nonsense. There's evidence from a huge diversity of sources and disciplines. Hansen is just one among many thousands of scientists whose researches have led them to the conclusion that anthropogenic global warming is a reality, and is likely to be catastrophic sooner rather than later.

Why not go read a decent (i.e., non-denialist) book on the subject before you pontificate in public again?


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

realthog said:


> That's because the total is exactly zero, as you would know if you got your information from anywhere else but fossil-fuel-industry-funded denialist sources.
> 
> What complete nonsense. There's evidence from a huge diversity of sources and disciplines. Hansen is just one among many thousands of scientists whose researches have led them to the conclusion that anthropogenic global warming is a reality, and is likely to be catastrophic sooner rather than later.
> 
> Why not go read a decent (i.e., non-denialist) book on the subject before you pontificate in public again?


again....you and most on the global warming side automatically exclude any evidence on the other side (any non-denialist book is not decent and does not count. Only peer-reviewed article in global warming journals that would never publish evidence on the other side no matter how accurate it is because it automatically is wrong if doesn't agree with global warming.

This is the genetic fallacy in argumentation. The data is either right or wrong on its own. Its not automatically wrong because it came from the other side


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## Pushka (Oct 30, 2009)

Once the theory of global warming was opened up, anyone who even remotely challenged it was professionally pummeled.  That alone sparks warning bells.


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## Patrick Skelton (Jan 7, 2011)

Did anyone here bring up the Cap and Trade issue?  Where corporations have to pay tax on Co2?  Sounds pretty shady to me.


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## Tara Maya (Nov 4, 2010)

What I find interesting is that it seems unlikely Hollywood will make a movie of State of Fear, whereas if it had been pro-global warming, they probably would have. It seems unconvincing that bad science is the reason for this, given that Hollywood has happily given us such scientific wonders as The Day After Tomorrow, The Core, Volcano, 2012, etc.


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

Epic levels of persecution complex going on here. And yet this thread still doesn't seem to actually be about the book.


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## geoffthomas (Feb 27, 2009)

I think Chrichton had the same problem with his book Airframe.
Terrific book, well-written, well-researched, fast-moving, lots of action.
But it was probably not well received politically.
And I think many people are confused over State of Fear.
I (as I have already stated) do not feel that Chrichton was trying to espose either pro global warming or anti global warming.  After all the ice caps are melting.  And we are in an Ice Age. I think he wrote a terrific thriller that had a message: Don't just believe something because "everybody knows it"!

Just sayin.....


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

Tara Maya said:


> What I find interesting is that it seems unlikely Hollywood will make a movie of State of Fear, whereas if it had been pro-global warming, they probably would have. It seems unconvincing that bad science is the reason for this, given that Hollywood has happily given us such scientific wonders as The Day After Tomorrow, The Core, Volcano, 2012, etc.


OMG Supernova!! If a star very close to us goes nova we're screwed. If its hundreds of light years away its a nice lightshow. Nothing we do is going to change either outcome!!


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## ajhunter (Aug 23, 2010)

geoffthomas said:


> I think Chrichton had the same problem with his book Airframe.
> Terrific book, well-written, well-researched, fast-moving, lots of action.
> But it was probably not well received politically.
> And I think many people are confused over State of Fear.
> ...


Interestingly enough, those are my two favorite MC books...


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## Patrick Skelton (Jan 7, 2011)

OMG....The Day After Tomorrow was horrendous!

People actually believe the garbage presented in movies like that. It's sad that mainstream America gets their facts from Hollywood, network news and politicians.


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## Tara Maya (Nov 4, 2010)

The irony is that The Day After Tomorrow did more to make me a climate skeptic than State of Fear.


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## r0b0d0c (Feb 16, 2009)

geoffthomas said:


> I think Chrichton had the same problem with his book Airframe.
> Terrific book, well-written, well-researched, fast-moving, lots of action.
> But it was probably not well received politically.
> And I think many people are confused over State of Fear.
> ...


LOL - if you think that the "global warmies" get excited when questions are asked, you should have seen the Northwest Airlines flight attendants when they saw me reading "Airframe" on a cross country flight when that book came out! I thought they were going to "introduce" me to the air marshall on board!


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## geoffthomas (Feb 27, 2009)

I am very afraid because the public seems to believe celebrities - anything they say.
That makes it great when someone like Bono takes up a cause.
But it is horrendous to think that the public will follow the pied piper off the edge of the cliff.

Just sayin.....


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## Patrick Skelton (Jan 7, 2011)

Tara,

Agree. The Day After Tomorrow was so over-the-top ridiculous I thought I was watching a satire.


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