🚀 go-pugleaf

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.

>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.  

OK, see above.  AllI demand is that those taking tax dollars to do
science actually practice the scientific method. 

>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.

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. 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.

>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. 

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.

>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.   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. 

>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".

>> >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.

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

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!

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.

>> >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.

>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.

>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 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. 

>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.

>> >(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. 

>> >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.

>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.

>> 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