🚀 go-pugleaf

We seem to be occupying parallel and mutually contradictory
universes, William J.  

Or at least one of us is in deep denial,
and I don't think it's me.  I'm tempted to be angry at you,
because you seem to me to be doing the equivalent of saying
the earth is flat, and that the sun revolves around it,
and refusing to look through Galileo's telescope to see
evidence to the contrary.

I'm also tempted to pity you, because you must have large
amounts of money, job security or intellectual ego invested
in the perpetuation of the fossil fuel business to keep
refusing to consider the evidence in this way.  

But anger and pity aside, I'm getting tired of arguing with
a brick wall.  The brick doesn't seem to listen much. However,
there are brief replies to some of your main points below:
**********

Wm James <wrjames.remove@spamreaper.com> wrote in message news:<efr6m0pheff5t9ub9kjuahfbemjb16u603@4ax.com>...
> On 5 Oct 2004 09:52:23 -0700, AJFeeney48@yahoo.com (JohnAndrew) wrote:
> 
> >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.  
> 
> OK, so apply the same logic to those who are paid tax dollars to fond
> bad news without any evidence.

You're the one who raised the question of people getting tax dollars
to find bad news, I believe.  And my reply was that you're ignoring
the
elephant in the room if you ignore the likelihood that many greenhouse
denialists are getting paid money by the fossil fuel and/or auto
and/or
electric utility industry to deny the reality of climate change when 
it exists.

I guess I'm satisfied here if you're willing to admit that all humans
have a certain tendency to let their economic interests shape their
ideas, and if you're also willing  to face the fact that will billions
if not trillions of dollars invested in fossil fuel consumption as it
now exists, many big corporations have an ENORMOUS potential bias -
much larger than the bias of the
government scientists.

So yeah, we're all potentially biased.  But I think the economic and
political biases that lead people to deny the reality of climate
change
are much larger than whatever biases there may be for
government-funded
scientists to say climate change is a problem.  

Maybe the biases that come from intellectual pride and vanity on both
sides are equal.  I'll grant you that.



> >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.  
> 
SNIP SNIP

 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.
> 
> There'sa difference. Those peddling the global warming scam have no
> evidence to support it, and those who scoff at the BS have no evidence
> either.

I'm sorry, but I think you're dead wrong here.  I'm not a scientist,
but
I have read up on the scientific research on this over the past 3
decades,
and there IS some evidence for global warming and global climate
change.

Whether it's totally definitive is another matter -- I believe most
scientists are now concluding that it is, after some skepticism about
this.

Evidence includes data on rising average CO2 levels, which have been
tracked since the 1959 International Geophysical Year.  Also data on
rising average global temperatures, as tracked by the US Commerce
Dept.
and other meteorological organizations.  Also data on melting glaciers
around the world, data on the breakup of part of the Antarctic ice
sheet, data on rising average sea levels around the world (some of
this
is tricky to interpret, though, since some "apparent" sea level rise
can be caused by the sinking of continents, or can be masked by the
rise
of continents - I did an article on this some years ago).  

Also data on habitats of birds and insects gradually moving north in
some parts of the world.  Data on "spring" coming earlier to England,
as
reflected by the behavior of British birds.

All this is EVIDENCE for global warming - or rather, data that are
consistent
with the hypothesis that the world is warming up and the climate is
shifting.
How conclusive the evidence is, whether all other hypotheses can be
ruled
out, is another question, and one that some reputable scientists spent
part of the 1990s arguing about, I believe.  

The difference is that someone claiming something as radical
> as global warming have an obligation to demonstrate it, not merely
> claim it and demand faith like a faith healer.  Until they do, it's
> not worthy of consideration.

When I first started covering global climate more or less seriously as
a journalist, in the 1980s, the environmental lobbyists I talked to
said that in fact, there wasn't absolute proof at the time of the
global warming/
global climate change hypothesis.  However, there was strong evidence
pointing
in that direction.  And the problem was, the computer models indicated
that by the time the climate "signal" became absolutely unmistakable,
the projected
climate change by that point would already have become so large as to 
mean that the Earth was facing climate-related disasters.

So in the mid to late 1980s, I got the impression that some scientists
were
saying that humanity was going to have to go somewhat on faith - to
gamble
on addressing the problem before the proof for the problem was 100%
available, since it was urgent to start working on the problem before
it
was too late.

My sense is that since the 1980s, a lot of prominent scientists have
come
to the conclusion that now, we have enough evidence to say global
climate
change from CO2 emissions is happening.  
> 
> >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.


You write: "The silly ranting starts ... and the corporations have to
keep the
consumers happy."

Is this what's happened with the global tobacco industry over the past
50 years, William J?  Is this actually what's happened with Microsoft?

The "silly ranting" started - and so Microsoft decided to stop
bundling its
own browsers, etc. in with its operating systems, so as to stifle
criticism
that it was engaged in monopolistic practices?  

No.  The tobacco companies, according to internal documents that have
been
uncovered in lawsuits, made a deliberate effort to deny any linkages
between
tobacco smoking and cancer.  They also found new ways to market
tobacco to
kids, when it looked as if their future was in danger.  Some of the
tobacco
companies funded "consumer" and "public health" groups dedicated to
publicizing the risks of indoor air pollution ... so as to draw
attention
away from cigarette smoke.

The industry saw anti-smoking agitation as a threat to its very
existence,
in short, and so it fought against negative scientific evidence for as
long as it could.  Just as Microsoft, as much as possible, has
generally
refused to give up sales and engineering practices that many of its
critics called monopolistic ... because too much was at stake just to
give in.

It's the same with most of the big oil, coal, electric utility and
auto
companies, isn't it?  If the public decides either because of "junk
science"
or good science that CO-2 induced global climate change is a threat,
and
if it further decides that the burning of oil and coal is the source
of
CO2 emissions that's easiest to fix - the fossil fuel companies are in
trouble.

So why wouldn't they fight against the scientific consensus, if it
means their future profitability - and potentially, their very
survival?

Why don't oil and coal companies have exactly the same reasons to
deny any link between global climate and CO2 emissions that the
cigarette
companies had to deny any link between tobacco smoke and cancer?

> >This is not true of all corporations.  Depends on how monopolized
> >their
> >markets are and how much current demand there is for their products. 
> 
> It's ALWAYS true. Even Microsoft is worried about Linux.  Not because
> Linux has a big marketing plan, but because oin some issues it has
> proven better.  Linux doesn;t have to be a threat of taking over as
> the major OS to be that kind of threat.  If only 5% of the users
> switch to Linux, that costs Microsoft billions of dollars.

William James


> >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.
> 
> Actually, the fossil fuels have only been relevant for less than 100
> years. Even the first cars were designed for alcohol. 

Don't know about the first cars; you may be right here. But the fossil
fuel
age began with coal burning, not with petroleum, and was underway 
long before 100 years ago.

The petroleum age
dates from Edwin Drake's first successful oil well at Titusville,
Pennsylvania
in 1859 -- about 150 years ago, not 100 years.  Although at first,
petroleum
was used mostly to replace whale oil in oil lamps, not as a
transportation fuel.

Significant coal-burning, however, dates back nearly 300 years, to the
British iron-smelting industry's shift from charcoal to coke (made
from coal) in
its blast furnaces in about 1710.  But even before that, some burning
of "sea coal" for residential heating, for brick-making, for brewing,
and I believe for some other industrial uses in England dates back to
the 1100s or 1200s.

  But at any
> time, anyone comming up with a better fuel could have taken a big
> chunk of the market overnight.  And ANY fuel other than nuclear emits
> CO2.

All CO2 is not necessarily equal, though, for the purposes of global
climate.  Life on earth participates in a regular carbon cycle, with
the
photosynthetic cells in plants taking in CO2 from the air, mixing it
with water, and producing sugars in the presence of solar energy.  As
a waste product, the photosynthetic process gives off oxgyen, which
goes back into the
atmosphere.

The sugars produced by photosynthesis, and the different carbohydrates
(starch, cellulose, etc.) derived from them, provide plants and
animals with food.  In metabolizing this food, most living things
things breathe in oxygen and combine it with various kinds of organic
carbon to get energy.  As a waste product,
CO2 is given off - and goes back into the atmosphere.  Where, of
course, it's
then available for plants to use in the process of photosynthesis, to
produce
more sugars -- more food, more energy for life.

If you burn a tree, or burn up alcohol made from sugar cane or
whatever, all
you're doing is releasing carbon from one phase of the cycle and
making it
available to another phase.

When you extract coal, oil or natural gas from underground, though,
you're
basically digging up fossilized carbon that dates from the age of the
dinosaurs or before.  You're taking carbon that was stored up as the
result of
photosynthesis millions of years ago, when the world was much hotter
and
the atmosphere was much richer in carbon than it is today, and you're
letting it out of storage and putting it back into circulation.

It's mostly this buried carbon, this fossilized carbon from millions
of years
in the past that's believed to be producing the global climate change
today.  And it won't mean the end of all life on earth - but it might
mean
the climate moving back in the direction of what it was T. Rex and
the stegosauruses, etc. were roaming the earth.  A change that won't
necessarily be very friendly to human civilization as it now exists.  
> 
> >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.
> 
> Oh, be serious!  First of all, the number of people who watch PBS is
> meaningless. And I happen to be one of them.  Secondly, there are no
> ads promoting science over the global warming scam during, before, or
> after "Masterpiece Theater".

Hmm.  I used to see Mobil oil ads debunking environmental thinking
quite
regularly when I followed the Wall Street Journal every day.

The point of both the WSJ ads and the Mobil Masterpiece Theater on
PBS,
I think, is to influence elite opinion - to get people with wealth,
education
and professional credentials to think kindly about the oil industry,
and
about Exxon/Mobil in particular.  If you want to influence non-elite
opinion, of course, you probably spend your ad dollars on Rush
Limbaugh
or someone like him.  I imagine they do that, too, although I haven't
researched it.

> 
> >> >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.

You're not writing the truth here. Well, okay, it's a judgment call,
maybe,
as to what is the "required extraordinary science."  But it's simply
not true
to say that the global climate change researchers are making claims
"without ANY evidence."  

As I noted before, they do have a lot of evidence
that supports their hypothesis, whether or not it totally nails it
down.
Evidence about average CO2 concentrations, evidence about rising
average
sea levels, evidence about Antarctic ice sheet breakups, evidence
about glaciers retreating around the world, evidence about birds and
insects
celebrating "spring" earlier, evidence about sharply rising
temperatures
in the Arctic and in part of the Antarctic ...

  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.
> 
> Do you take the same position regarding the tobacco companies'
> "scientists" claims regarding tobacco?  If not, why not? 

As I indicated before, it seems to me that the greenhouse denialists
are a lot like the tobacco industry's scientists who kept denying
evidence
for a connection between tobacco smoking and cancer.  I think your
side
resembles the tobacco company scientists, William J.  I think my side
is trying to get at the truth.
 
> So far, NO ONE has managed to produce a single piece of evidence to
> support the global warming scam. Feel free to post it if you have
> some.
> 
> >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.




> Follow the money.  Post the data if you have it because they wont!

I don't have the energy right now to chase down the links I need,
and besides Roger Coppock and David Ball do better at explaining the
science than I do.

As for what you write about the satellite data below, I think you're
wrong, but I know this was an issue up until recently.  I don't
believe
it is anymore.  But I'm not an expert on satellite monitoring, so
I admit I'm taking some of the current explanation for the satellite
data on faith.

Judging from the harsh rhetoric you use below, though, I wouldn't
take anything you said on faith.  Except directions to the nearest
Exxon/Mobil station or SUV showroom, maybe.  The case
for global climate change is one which scientists working firmly
within
the western tradition have been piecing together since Nobel prize
winner Svante Arrehnius first hypothesize the "greenhouse" effect more
tha
100 years ago.  

There have been some respectable, honest, professionally
qualified researchers - Richard Lindzen from MIT being the most
prominent,
probably - who have questioned the case over the past century.  But to
compare the case for global climate change to the case for psychic
readings
and creationism, as you do, is to engage in intellectual gutter talk.
It's
to demonstrate that your mind is completely closed, or that you have a
vested
interest in skewing the debate over the issue.

I think you're like the Church-affiliated scholars of Galileo's time
who "knew" that the earth simply couldn't revolve around the sun,
William J.  But obviously nothing I write here will convince you.
Let's see what the climatological evidence shows about this evidence
over the next decade.


> But you are right that my mind is made up.  I respect the scientific
> method. I have my mind made up to ignore testimonials and other
> non-evidence.  I make the same offer to all scam peddlers, whether
> they are selling global warming, creationism, physhic readings,
> scientology, faith healing, holistic medicine, etc.... Show your
> evidence and I'll take it seriously. Until then, not a chance. 
> 
> >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.  
> 
> There has been another coling shown by the data in the last 30 years.
> Not significant, but the satellite data shows a slight cooling, NOT
> warming.  When I first heard their attempts to explain it away with
> "orbital degradation", I laughed because the usual degradation of
> satellites is caused by atmospheric drag, and lower elevations would
> increase the readings, not drcrease them. Then I read their full
> explanations and really got a chuckle!  The satellites are in polar
> orbit, and theu claim is that the satellites drifted in longitude.
> That means either:
> A) They are too incompetent to have compensated for that extremely
> obvious factor affecting EVERY polar orbit.
> B) They are too incompetent to check their own measurements to see
> where and what they are measuring.
> 
> Either way they are either claiming they are too incompetent to make
> ANY scientific claims, or that they are frauds.  In neither case are
> then worthy of serious attention.
> 
> >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.
> 
> They can't seem to recognize the difference between volcanic events
> and clouds. Any idiot with a shred of credentians should knw the vast
> difference between the effects of black and white clouds, and between
> particulates and water condensation.
> 
> >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.
> 
> He was right.  But that point has been totally ignored because there's
> no money or politcal fodder in it.
> 
> >But global climate change is no longer a "wild hypothesis," as you
> >claim.  You're either willfully ignorant here, or -- uh -
> >"disengenous."
> 
> So show some evidence!  Either ther is evidence or it's a wild and
> goofy BS hypothesis, and belongs in the same catagory with faith
> healing.

Thoreau wrote somewhere in Walden:  "Sometimes circumstantial evidence
can be overwhelming, as when you find a trout in the milk."

I think most scientists, when pressed, would say that it's "only" 
circumstantial evidence that the hottest years of the past 120 years
of climate measurement have mostly occurred within the past 15 years.

And that it's "only" circumstantial evidence that the Antarctic ice
sheet is starting to break up, just as the greenhouse warming
hypothesis
says it will.  And that glaciers around the world are melting and
retreating.
And that spring seems to be coming significantly earlier in England
now,
and that "anomalous" weather events may be on the increase, from
Florida
to Japan, from Australia to Western Europe, from South Africa to
Alaska.

It's only circumstantial evidence, I think.  But increasingly, it's
looking
like the trout in the milk.  
> 
> >> >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.
> 
> No, right!
> 
> >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. 
> 
> No, as the BS get's thicker and deeper.

The biggest and most powerful corporations in the world are afraid
of "BS," so afraid of it that they're abandoning a corporate
information/disinformation campaign - whatever you want to call it --
that's
protecting investments worth hundreds of billions of dollars to them?

I don't think so, WJ.

Then there's corporate support for rightwing think tanks in the US,
think tanks like the Cato Institute (libertarian, anti-regulatory),
the American Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation. 
Environmental
journalists are beginning to uncover ties between these
greenhouse-denying
groups and a particular American energy company called Koch
Industries,
among other energy companies.  I don't have the details on Koch; other
people in this talk group would be only too eager to give you details,
I'm sure.  

But in any case, there continues to be quite a lot of corporate
involvement in the global climate/greenhouse effect debate. 
> 
> >Why would big corporations NOT want to get involved "because it's a
> >hot
> >potato,"  William J? 
> 
> Because it's bad for business to give those campaigning against you
> any press.  If Exxon started runing commercials today stating the
> facts the kooks would be organized and picketing tomorrow. The last
> thing they want is negite attention, even when they are right.  And
> what would they gain?  It's not like the kooks are going to get people
> to buy those mythological water powered cars.

Define "kooks."  Isn't a "kook" simply someone whose ideas you
dislike, and who you don't want to have any credibility?  So you call
me a "kook," and I call you a "kook."  And nothing is proven either
way.
> 
> >It's THEIR hot potato, isn't it?  
> 
> No, it's not.
> 
> >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 US govbernment isn't likely to start regulating based on the BS.
> The polititians like;ly will continue pandering to the kooks, but only
> because of the votes and lobbiest cash involved. 

The lobbyist cash?  

I can't imagine that if you combined all of the American environmental
groups together, they've have a tenth as much lobbyist cash
as the combined forces of the coal industry, the auto industry, the
governments of Indonesia, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, the Emirate of
Kuwait, the coal-fired electric utility industry, and the big Detroit
automakers who manufacture SUVs.

Admittedly, all of the environmental "kooks" together might have
more political credibility, and maybe even more grass-roots support,
than the lobbyists for the coal, oil, auto and utility industries. 
But more
lobbying cash, more potential for campaign contributions?  No.
> 
> >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.
> 
> In case you didn't notice, neither Ford, GM, or AM is in the oil
> business. If they could build a car that ran on sewage, they would do
> it. 

They do have billions of dollars invested in machine tools, production
lines and advertising campaigns that are oriented towards production
and
sales of big gas-guzzling cars like SUVS.  Their engineers and
designers
have a lot of professional experience invested in the internal
combustion
engine, too.

But they are, reluctantly, beginning to edge towards the production
of electric hybrid vehicles.
> 
> >So why would sensible, sane, profit-oriented corporate CEOs avoid
> >this particular "hot potato," William?  You're not making any sense.
> 
> See above. It's bad business.

It isn't bad business so long as there are enough people like you
around,
William, to deny that global climate change is a problem and that, if
it
is, CO2 emissions by American industry have anything to do with it.

If the fossil fuel industry can keep most of the public and the
politicians
from questioning fossil fuels and the machines that depend on them,
then
there isn't any problem - not for their profits and their employees
and their stockholders. Global climate change may end up drowning half
of Bangladesh
or destroying the economic viability of Florida .. but if you can
convince
50% or 70% of the American public that there's no problem, then it
ISN'T
"bad business."
> 
> >> >(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.  
> 
> Like I said...  It's hardly a secret.
> 
> >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.
> 
> No, the third world dictators want US tax dollars. 
> 
> >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.
> 
> The treaty would do squat to reduce CO2 emmissions. It would make US
> power cmpanies pay the tird world dictators for the "right" to burn
> fuel.  The dictators aren't emmitting CO2, they don't care if their
> slaves have power. So they would sell their "credits" to american
> power companies so they could supply power to US consumers. 

This is a really simplistic picture of what's going on in places
like China, but it's late and I'm too tired to comment on it right
now.

However, you're kind of talking in cartoons here.  If you were an evil
Third World dictator, wouldn't you want your "slaves" to have power,
so that they could compete in industrial production with the West?
So that you, the dictator, could keep a grip on potential political
opponents and get big bucks from taxing your own industry?




> >> >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.
> 
> Barely relevant if at all.
> 
> >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.
> 
> The health of the planet has NOTHING to do with it. It's a scam.

You say it's a scam, William.  Again and again.  And more and
more, people even in the middle of the spectrum disagree.  

BUSINESS
WEEK is now talking as if global climate change isn't a scam. Ditto
the new CEO of British Petroleum.  Ditto many of the large insurance
companies.  Ditto John McCain.  Ditto the business-backed Conference
Board.  Ditto top scientists working at laboratories run by the
US Commerce Department, which is hardly a bastion of "green" and
kooky environmental thinking.
> 
> >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.
> 
> They are "sure" of a lot of BS which don't match reality.
> 
> >> >"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?
> 
> I haven't even mentioned the tiny insignificant few corporate paid
> scientists other than to point out the fact they they aren't even
> relevant.  My point is that the handfull of scam peddlers pushing the
> global warming scam are far from anything remotely resenbling the
> scientific community and are virtualy universally paid with tax
> dollars to peddle the scam.

A final question from you, WJ, and then I really do need to go get
some sleep.  IF you're right about the scientists who believe in
global climate change practicing a "scam," and IF you're right about
their doing this on "dollars" -- well, why are various governments
providing them with those tax dollars?

The British government, for example.  They have access to North Sea
oil.  Oil has been a big money-earner for the British economy, and
before
that Britain essentially created the Industrial Revolution on the
basis of widespread coal production and coal consumption.

The British government ought to have an interest in using tax dollars
to deny the reality of global climate change, shouldn't it?  Unless
the
threat is real, and Tony Blair and Co. are worried about rising sea
levels wiping out parts of London?

The United States government. Most of the world's largest oil
companies
are US owned; the US with 4% of the world's population is now
consuming
24% of the petroleum produced each year.  

The current White House
has strong ties to the oil industry; when the Democrats still
controlled
the Senate, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee was Sen.
Robert Byrd of West Virginia - a big coal state.  The chairman of the
House Committee on Energy and Commerce was Democratic congressman
John Dingell of Michigan - a man whose wife used to be a lobbyist for
General Motors. 

The US government, in short, tends to be strongly influenced by the
energy industries, under both Republican and Democratic leadership.
And we're not even talking about President Lyndon Johnson and the oil
state ties he brought to the White House in the 1960s ...

So what interest does the US government have in financing scientists
who are spreading doubt about fossil fuels - unless what the
scientists
are claiming is plausible?

You write about "tax supported scientists" and "tax dollars" as if
this were some kind of explanation of anti-oil and anti-coal bias,
WJ.  But it's not.

What sense to make of your argument, then?  Well, aren't you really
assuming that if these wicked scientific scam artists, these "bad"
green alarmists, were working for private industry in this country, 
private industry would cut their funding off unless they came up with
pro-oil, pro-coal, and pro-utility conclusions?

And that you despise scientists who receive "tax dollars," mostly
because these tax dollars give the scientists the intellectual
freedom to speak the truth?
 
> >> 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?  
> 
> No, none at all.
> 
> >"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.
> 
> There is ZERO SCIENTIFIC literature peddling the antiscientific scam,
> by definition.
> 
> >"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.
> 
> Not even close. Thise precticing the scientific method are scientists.
> Those peddling pseudoscience are not.
> 
> >"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?
> 
> You rely on Business Week for science?
> 
> >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.
> 
> Either it meets the standards of the scientific method or it doesn't.
> It's that simple. 
>  
> >> >(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?  
> 
> Because it's not science unless and until there is some evidence.
> 
> >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.
> 
> Economics is irrelevant.
> 
> >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.
> 
> Efforts to address that for which there is no evidence is a threat to
> science.  You can suspect anything you want, but I'm interested in the
> science.
>  
> >> >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.
> 
> What's the difference?  Neither are relevant to science. Both are
> peddled by kooks claiming scientic principles. 
> 
> >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?
> 
> Read what I wrote.  YOU brought up environmentalism. I'm simply
> refering to the scampedlers and nutcases operating under that
> umbrella, including the global warming hoaxters. 
> 
> >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.
> 
> That's the problem.  Wolves once were the major check on the deer
> population. WE elminated the wolves, and we replaced them. A true
> "green" who wants to restore the statem, would want to restore the
> wolves. But them a true "green" would also regognize that humans are
> predators too. 
> 
> >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.
> 
> Unless and until you show some evidence of climate change, climate
> change is a non issue. CO2 may or may not be a problem.  Yes, there is
> more CO2 than 100 years ago, and yes, there's no serious doubt that at
> least a significant part of the increase is human induced, but there's
> ZERO evidence that it's causing any problems or will cause any.
> Certianly, there's not a shread of evidence that it has had or will
> EVER have any effect on the climate. 
> 
> >> >(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.  
> 
> Do a simple gogle search on "Global Warming".  See if you can find any
> references to water vapor as the major greenhouse gas.  There are a
> few,but they are quite rare, and almost none which do who support the
> global warming scam.
> 
> >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. 
> 
> Methane is even less significant than CO2. Absolutely irrelevant.  The
> manmade methane is only .066% of the greenhouse gasses and has ZERO
> control over temperature, just like the CO2.
> 
> >> >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.
> 
> Timber used for lumber isn't releasing CO2.  Nor is much of the paper.
> 
> >So why is it wrong to tackle the aspects of the global climate threat
> >that we're able to influence?
> 
> It wouldn't be. But it is wrong to tackle things which are not aspects
> of the global climate as if they were. 
> 
> >> >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.
> 
> ROTFLMAO!  Even the IPCC's own data shows no warming! They concluded
> that it was happening anyway, but they needed better instruments to
> find it.  That translates to more US tax dollars, of course. 
> 
> >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.
> 
> It's absolutely honest to put them all in the same catagory.  Unless
> and until they come up with some evidence, they are the same thing. 
> 
> >You're either BS-ing madly, or you've fooled yourself on the science.
> >I wonder which it is.
> 
> Learn and practice a little science. 
> 
> >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.
> 
> We have obviously affected the CO2 level in the last century. However
> it's still well within the earth's natural CO2 range, and there is so
> far NO EVIDENCE of any warming, and any such evidence would be more
> than a little extraordinary given the effect of water vapor.
> 
> William R. James