🚀 go-pugleaf

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