🚀 go-pugleaf

AJFeeney48@yahoo.com (JohnAndrew) wrote in message news:<2fcaf67c.0410050852.3eafc1b0@posting.google.com>...
> Wm James <wrjames.remove@spamreaper.com> wrote in message news:<hns3m05jt0cvolbi17s3nvlsmt8jnqasgp@4ax.com>...
> > On 2 Oct 2004 08:58:17 -0700, AJFeeney48@yahoo.com (JohnAndrew) wrote:
> > 
> > >William James, no offense, but your reasoning
> > >below fails to pass the "laugh test."  
> > >
> > >A couple of reasons, at least:  (1) You and other greenhouse denialists
> > >keep insisting that the scientists and/or public policy people who
> > >are pointing to global climate change have some vested financial
> > >interest in doing so -- they're doing it to justify more research
> > >money for themselves, etc.
> > >
> > >Well, maybe so; we're all human and we're all self-interested in
> > >the end.  But you fail to mention the "elephant in the room," the
> > >obvious, which is that the global oil industry, the global coal
> > >and natural gas industries, and the global auto industry all have
> > >an enormous self-interest in denying that global climate change
> > >is occurring because they want to sell more fossil fuels.  
> > 
> > They also live on this planet, they also have families, and none want
> > to live where the temperature doesn't support their ability to live.
> > To even suggest that large numbers of people would conspire to destroy
> > the planet because they expect to make a quick buck, is a bit silly,
> > don't you think?  
> 
> It might be silly to think they would "conspire" to destroy the planet
> for a quick buck.  To think that they would blind themselves to the
> risks of global suicide because they have billions of dollars at stake
> is not silly.  It's what psychologists call the "principle of
> cognitive
> dissonance" at work.  
> 
> Most of us don't like to believe several contradictory
> things at once when we notice the contradictions, and when we care
> about
> both sides of the paradox involved.  We don't like to think that "our
> country"
> can do wrong in war -- so mostly, we don't.  We don't like to think
> that our religion, whatever it is, can be just as nasty in practice as
> the next guy's religion - so mostly, we don't.  We don't like to
> believe
> that the main way we have of paying our bills is bad for the world -
> and
> so mostly, we don't.  
> 
> If we're Communists, and I used to know some Communists,
> we believe that the "real" Soviet Union never would have suppressed
> freedom in Eastern Europe.  If we're die-hard capitalists, we mostly
> avoid
> recognizing that pure capitalism can do terrible things to labor and
> the
> environment.  And so on, and on.  People make excuses for their jobs,
> their institutions, their lives -- and fossil fuel investors are no
> different from anyone else.
> 
> But even that's irrelevent. Those industries aren't
> > even involved for the most part.  They aren't stupid, they know every
> > time they make any claims, the silly ranting starts and unlike those
> > groups feeding off tax dollars, the corporations have to keepthe
> > consumers happy.
> 
> This is not true of all corporations.  Depends on how monopolized
> their
> markets are and how much current demand there is for their products. 
> 
> In a world where the past 200 years of industrial development have
> made most
> people on earth dependent on fossil fuels, and where a handful of huge
> companies
> control most of the global oil business, corporations like Exxon/Mobil
> and
> Conoco may NOT "have to keep the consumers happy."  Most people may
> hate
> Exxon/Mobil, but if most people have SUVs, we're going to buy their
> product
> anyway.
> 
> Of course, Exxon/Mobil and other companies do spend millions of
> dollars on
> advertising, and on sponsoring "Masterpiece Theater" on the public
> broadcasting
> networks, in order to win favor with the public.  And they pay for
> public
> relations flacks to deny that problems such as global climate change
> actually exist -- as you're denying it now.
>  
> > >Entire governments - Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, etc. - have the same
> > >self-interested reasons for denying the threat of climate change,
> > >and some of the leading greenhouse skeptics - not all, but some --
> > >are funded by these fossil fuel interests.  So if self-interest
> > >is biasing the science in this controversy, why isn't it biasing
> > >it on both sides?  
> > 
> > It's not an argument between equals any more than a scientific
> > argument between evolution and creationism.  One side is practicing
> > actual science, and the other is making an extraordinary claim without
> > ANY evidence, much less the required extraordinary evidence.  Unless
> > and until there is supporting evidence for global warming, it's no
> > different from any other wild unsupported claim.
> 
> I'm not a professional scientist, but the professional scientists that
> I've interviewed on this issue in my checkered life as a reporter tell
> me that you're wrong here.  My professors at the School of Natural
> Resources
> at the University of Michigan in 1970 said the same thing - that in
> fact,
> there's a LOT of scientific evidence for "greenhouse" warming.
> 
> Wm James, you've got your mind made up on this, and there's no
> changing it,
> apparently.  But anyone else reading this post, who's curious about
> the issues,
> should look at US National Academy of Sciences reports on global
> climate
> dating from the 1980s.
> 
> There are some apparent anomalies in the scientific record,
> admittedly.
> During the mid-1900s there was a global cooling trend even as global
> CO2
> levels were rising, and at one time climate researchers thought this
> was
> pointing away from the "greenhouse" hypothesis.  
> 
> Now many or most climate
> researchers believe that several big volcanic eruptions, by putting
> countless
> fine particles in the upper atmosphere that blocked incoming solar
> energy
> or reflected it back into space, temporarily masked the bigger process
> of
> CO2-induced warming that was underway.
> 
> There's also been a fair amount of debate, led by Richard Lindzen of
> MIT, about the likely impacts of water vapor and cloud formation on
> global climate.  Lindzen was arguing at one point that the added cloud
> formation likely to result from greenhouse warming would be a negative
> feedback mechanism that would cause a cooling effect, effectively
> keeping
> the global average temperature stabilized, or close to it.
> 
> But global climate change is no longer a "wild hypothesis," as you
> claim.  You're either willfully ignorant here, or -- uh -
> "disengenous."
> 
> > >And why aren't the hundreds of billions of dollars
> > >that governments and corporations have invested in fossil fuels
> > >an even greater incentive for bias than the hundreds of thousands
> > >of dollars that the global warming believers are getting for their
> > >computer models?
> > 
> > Even if you assume someone would be biased toward suicide, what if
> > they were?  Who cares?  Who's even talking to them about it or
> > listening to them? I keep hearing about these "big corporate
> > scientists" disputing the global warming scam, but where are they?
> > Seems to me the big corporations don't want to get involved because
> > it's a hot potato.
> 
> Wrong.
> 
> Until recently, anyway, a number of the biggest corporate interests
> in the fossil fuel industry and the auto industry were supporting
> something
> called the "Global Climate Coalition," which was dedicated to refuting
> the global climate change hypothesis.  Several of these giant
> corporations
> have now left the Global Climate Coalition as the evidence for climate
> change keeps getting better and better. 
> 
> Why would big corporations NOT want to get involved "because it's a
> hot
> potato,"  William J? 
> 
> It's THEIR hot potato, isn't it?  
> 
> It's an issue that could cost them
> enormous amounts of money if the US government decides to begin
> regulating
> sources of CO2-induced cliamte change - SUVs, coal-burning electric
> utilities, West Virginia and Wyoming coal mines, Texas and Oklahoma
> oil companies. 
> 
> The issue of global climate change also could cost many of these
> giant corporations consumers, and markets -- markets for coal, oil,
> coal-fired electricity, and gas-guzzling automobiles -- over the long
> term, if the public gets sufficiently concerned.
> 
> So why would sensible, sane, profit-oriented corporate CEOs avoid
> this particular "hot potato," William?  You're not making any sense.
> 
> > >(2) You also write that the secret agenda of the Kyoto Treaty backers
> > >is to weaken the West and help Third World dictatorships.  
> > 
> > Well...it's hardly a secret. 
> 
> Bullcrap, William James.
> 
> The people who framed the Kyoto Treaty made big concessions to China
> because they didn't want the Chinese govt to kill the deal.  
> 
> Without special concessions for the Third World, the Third World 
> governments -- backed, in all likelihood, by many Western energy
> and auto companies -- would moan and cry about how any effort to
> control fossil fuel use would only keep the poor of the world in
> poverty, while rich Europeans and Americans benefited.
> 
> So the treaty backers put in a provision to say, hey, we're not trying
> to bankrupt the Third World; we'll let you keep growing while the
> West makes the biggest changes first, because the West has
> historically
> created most of the CO2 problem.  
> 
> Now that the provision is in there,
> of course, "greenhouse denialists" like you are claiming it's this
> huge anti-Western plot ... The point being that environmentalists
> hoping to head off global climate disaster are damned politically
> if they go one way, and damned politically if they go another.
> 
> 
> > >Why?  What on earth would be the motivation for western
> > >(and especially US) environmental lobbyists and writers to try to 
> > >do this?
> > 
> > Politics.  If a democrat were president Kyoto wouldn't be an issue to
> > any but the most extreme suckers in the global warming scam.
> 
> I agree that electing a Democrat won't end US resistance to Kyoto. 
> Regardless
> of what Kerry feels about the issue, there are lots of coal-state and
> oil-state Democrats in the Senate, and they're not going to be
> enthusiastic
> about a treaty that hurts their corporate backers.
> 
> But the environmental lobbyists who have to work the halls of the
> Republican-dominated Congress, and who have to deal with the coal and
> oil
> state Democrats when the Dems control Congress, have no motive at all
> for handling this particular hot potato.  Except, that is, the
> continued health of the planet.
> 
> Almost any environmental issue you want to name, except maybe
> population
> growth, would be easier for the US environmental lobby to handle than
> this one.  This doesn't PROVE that the Green lobbyists are sincere
> and well-informed, of course.  But it does indicate that unless they
> have some kind of death wish, they're doing this out of conviction,
> because they're sure that it has to be done.
> 
> 
> > 
> > >"We're pushing this political
> > >issue -- which we know will be unpopular in the US Congress and
> > >among all of the oil states in the South, not to mention unpopular
> > >with the Saudis, Iranians, Iraqis, Venezuelans, Nigerians, Indonesians,
> > >Alaskans, and everyone else involved in oil production -- because we 
> > >want to help the Chinese, whom we don't know."  
> > >
> > >This is stupid politics, isn't it?  I mean, it's the
> > >politics that the Kyoto treaty believers are in a sense forced to
> > >embrace, because they don't have a lot of alternatives, but it's
> > >a very hard sell in Washington DC, which is where the Kyoto Treaty
> > >backers have to prevail.  And why would sensible lobbyists, scientists
> > >etc. deliberately choose to do something that's as difficult as
> > >possible - unless they feel they have to, for scientific and policy
> > >reasons?
> > 
> > Money, politics, and ignorance. It's different from different people
> > involved.  There are some peddling it with scientific credentials.
> > They obviously know it's not science, therefore they are frauds, not
> > scientists, but they live on tax handouts and that's their scam.
> 
> Hmm.  Unlike the scientists who are skeptical about global cliamte
> change,
> and who are living on corporate handouts.  It's only the scientists
> who are hired by the government who can be biased, apparently ...
> do you really believe this, William?
> 
> > Others may or may not know the scam is bogus but it's convenient
> > political fodder when they want to run around ranting that Bush wants
> > to destroy the planet because he wont support whatever BS they are
> > ranting about. Many don't know, are too ignorant of the scientific
> > method, and or disinterested or unable to read and fall sucker for the
> > scam. They are easy pawns for the pseudoscience scammers and the
> > leftist kooks.
> 
> You're using a lot of rhetoric here, aren't you, WJ?  
> 
> "Unable to read" -- well,
> there's a voluminous literature on global climate change by now, and
> most
> of it supports the idea that the climate is shifting and CO2 is part
> to blame
> and that something needs to be done.
> 
> "Easy suckers" and "pseudoscience scammers."  Again, the people whose
> conclusions you don't like are "pawns" and "suckers" or "scammers,"
> whereas
> the people whose conclusions you like are OK.
> 
> "Leftist kooks" - hmmm.  Like the business-backed Conference Board,
> which
> recently issued a report saying that global climate change is an
> urgent
> issue?  Like BUSINESS WEEK, which ran a cover story on greenhouse
> warming
> this past August?  The new CEO of British Petroleum, one of the
> world's largest
> oil companies, who now says that CO2-induced climate change is a grave
> threat to the world?
> 
> This is just using insults to discount the testimony of people that
> you don't want to hear, WJ.  Of course, there's no reason to expect
> that
> everyone who believes in global climate change is a saint or a genius.
> Like any group of people, they probably include some kooks.  But
> you're
> just in denial here: "scams" and "pawns" and "suckers" and "kooks" are
> the defensive words of a person in denial.
> > 
> > >(3) I'm a green extremist, but I've worked somewhat briefly
> > >with moderate environmental lobbyists - people who want to
> > >get environmental bills through Congress with as little trouble as
> > >possible, and who'd like their organizations to be able to claim credit
> > >for victories afterwards, so as to attract dues-paying members.  
> > >
> > >The lobbyists I know personally basically hate the global climate
> > >issue, or at least they used to, because they know it's so damned
> > >hard to push in Congress successfully.  
> > >
> > >They'd much rather win limited victories to protect
> > >wolves or grizzly bears or other big furry, cuddly animals that
> > >sentimental Americans care about.  They love to save pieces of park land
> > >that both conservatives and liberals cherish: it's good for
> > >the environmental lobbying bizness.  The more "lefty" of them
> > >want to protect workers on the job from toxic chemicals - hey, it
> > >helps win support from what remains of the labor movement.
> > 
> > There are many absolutely legitimate environmental issues. There are
> > alsoa lot of totally bogus ones.  Reasonal measures to protect
> > endangered species is legitimate. Protecting a few miles of barren
> > arctic ice from a few oil wells is silly BS.  Smog in some areas is
> > certianly a legimite issue.  Global warming is not.
> 
> WHY NOT?  
> 
> I submit that you don't mind "legitimate" efforts to protect
> endangered
> species because you, or the conservatives you're reading, don't
> believe
> that this is any kind of economic threat.
> 
> I submit that you do think that efforts to address global warming are
> are potential threat to economic interests you care about.  Therefore
> the one green issue is "legitimate," the other isn't.  Your logic
> here is economic, I suspect - not scientific.
> > 
> > >But do they have any interest in undermining the US economy for
> > >the benefit of the Third World?  No, No, No.  Why should they?
> > >Because ideology aside, this isn't popular with Congress, or with
> > >dues-paying members of the big conservation groups - many of whom are Republicans.
> > >
> > >When you write that the secret agenda of the conservation lobby
> > >is to weaken the US for the benefit of the Third World, then,
> > >I have to think that you're deluded, William J.  Or you're deliberately
> > >promoting outrageous falsehoods, because you care about blocking
> > >the Kyoto treaty much more than you care about the truth.  Or maybe
> > >you simply have no idea of how the environmental movement works -
> > >but in any case, you're wrong.
> > 
> > No, I unserstand it well.  There are a lot of fanatic kooks who's
> > noise drowns out the signals of legitimate honest environmentalist.
> > The press doesn't pay attention to someone managing aforrest area,
> > it's boring from a news prospective.  But let some kook stand under a
> > falling tree in a logging operation and it makes the headlines. 
> 
> You're totally changing the subject here, aren't you?
> I'm talking about meteorologists and other climate researchers who
> are saying we need to reduce CO2 emissions on a global scale - and
> suddenly, you're talking about animal rights activists raiding
> mink farms, or wilderness advocates doing nonviolent civil
> disobedience
> by sitting in trees to stop clear-cutting.
> 
> You've totally walked away from the climate issue to focus on the
> tactics of the most radical people involved in completely different
> environmental controversies, WJ.  How come?
> 
> Let a
> > little group of criminal tresspassing fruitcakes build treehouses in
> > timber and they get regular coverage on Art Bell.  A couple of
> > juvinile delenquents can vandalize a mink farm and the kooks
> > (including the AR fanatics) all applaud.  Never mind the fact that
> > they released the animals in areas they can't live.  They oppose
> > hunting, but they wouldn't let their kids play outside in the company
> > of wolf packs, so the animals they pretend to love not only damage
> > farms, yards, and cars, they also starve.  But a starving deer doesn't
> > make the news.  If you really want the "greens" to be taken seriously,
> > why aren't you kicking out the kooks and demanding the scientific
> > method be respected and applied to all issues?
> 
> I have some agreement with you on demanding that the scientific
> method be applied to all issues.  I sympathize some with the animal
> rights activists, but I'm a Green because my dad was a duck hunter
> and cared about protecting habitat.  I like the idea of wolves
> surviving in the wild -- where the laws of nature guarantee that
> some of them WILL starve; that's how nature works.  But I sure don't
> want
> wolves in my backyard.
> 
> But again - you're shifting the issue away from global climate change
> and CO2.  Regardless of how you feel about hunting and wolves and
> animal testing in laboratories - CO2 emissions are a problem.  Even
> BUSINESS WEEK and the Conference Board are admitting it.
> 
> > 
> > >(4) You claim that the global warming believers are focusing almost
> > >exclusively on CO-2 and ignoring the greenhouse warming effects of
> > >water vapor and other greenhouse gases.  This isn't true of any
> > >of the global warming analysts that I've read.  Reports by the
> > >US National Academy of Sciences in the 1980s, reports by the
> > >Worldwatch Institute in its "State of the World" books, and
> > >greenhouse analysts like Dr. Stephen Schneider ("Laboratory 
> > >Earth," etc.) all have mentioned water vapor, methane, CFCs
> > >and other greenhouse gases (including nitrous oxide, if I remember
> > >right) along with CO-2.  
> > 
> > Oh, the scientific literature mentions it, sure.  But you virtually
> > NEVER even see water even mentioned in the mainstream publications or
> > websites peddling the global warming scam. The vast majority of the
> > articals and pages pedling it never even mention water vapor and
> > blatently lie about it, caling CO2 the major greenhouse gas. 
> 
> I don't know about "virtually never," and I don't visit all the
> web sites.  I've been reading the Worldwatch Institute's literature
> for some years, though, and a lot of the Worldwatch Institute articles
> on global climate change do mention water vapor.  
> 
> Also methane - a much
> more potent greenhouse gas on a per-weight basis than CO2.  And a
> really worrisome Greenhouse gas, because if a warming climate causes
> the Arctic "permafrost" in Alaska and northern Canada to thaw out, 
> and decomposition processes get going there, the result could be a big
> slug of extra methane rising into the atmosphere - radically
> accelerating
> the climate change that's already underway. 
> 
> > >Admittedly the policy focus of the environmental groups tends to
> > >be on controlling CO-2 emissions rather than, say, attempting to
> > >control the evaporation of water around the world - but come to
> > >think of it, how would you control the evaporation of water around
> > >the world, anyway?  
> > 
> > You can't and that's the point.  If hey were honest, they wouldn't
> > have an issue.
> 
> But WJ, the human species CAN affect global CO2 emissions, because
> it's
> human use of fossil fuels over the past 200-300 years that's caused so
> much extra carbon dioxide to get released into the atmosphere. Also
> human destruction of forests around the world.
> 
> So why is it wrong to tackle the aspects of the global climate threat
> that we're able to influence?
> > 
> > >So William, I don't think you have much credibility here.  Clearly,
> > >scientific truth is a matter for experiment and observation to
> > >establish; it can't always be deduced from first principles, and
> > >your side may eventually turn out to be correct.  But your arguments
> > >below don't seem worthy of much notice.
> > 
> > Intersting that you denounce my credibility but admit that scientific
> > truth is a matter for experiment and observation to establish, which
> > is exactly what I have been talking about.  The global warming scam
> > depends on two things to make it other than any other absurd
> > unsupported claim:
> > 1) Evidence that the earth is warming
> > 2) Evidence that humans have anything to do with it.
> 
> There's a LOT of evidence that the earth is warming, and that
> humans do have something to do with it.  It's posted on Internet
> web sites all the time, including some web sites managed by the 
> US government.  It's included in the IPCC reports.
> 
> Some of the evidence isn't as conclusive and as thoroughly pinned
> down as the scientists would like.  But it's simply not honest
> to claim that global climate research is on the same level
> as believe in creationism and little green men from space.
> 
> You're either BS-ing madly, or you've fooled yourself on the science.
> I wonder which it is.
> 
> SNIP SNIP
> > 
> > I should note that I am not saying global warming is impossible.  The
> > earth has gone through warming and cooling quite a few times in the
> > last 4+ billion years and will undoubtably do so again.  The last few
> > years has seen an unusually high solar output, which isn't caused by
> > evil US corporations trying to destroy the world for a dollar either.
> > So such fluctuations occur and are well within earth's normal
> > temperatures.
> 
> On the natural cycles of global warming and cooling, you're
> basically right.  The fact that there are natural cycles at work
> doesn't mean that human-induced CO2 rise and associated global climate
> change are unimportant, though.  Readers should look at Stephen
> Schneider's "Laboratory Earth" for a good discussion of this.
> 
> 
> > William R. James

 There is a very interesting program through distributed computing at
ClimatePredition.net which lets you download a free App that sits on
your desktop as a screensaver and crunches numbers trying to help
predict future climate changes... Works Like Seti very much.. but
instead of looking for Signals from outer space it tries to figure out
future Climate from past Weather .