The Weather Channel Mess

[Marnie]

It is equally frustrating to me when people try to counter science with editorials. I get on here, and post science and data from peer reviewed sources. Then I get countered with editorials that in this case are accompanied by a couple of pod-casts.

If you want to really debate the issue on a scientific level, go dig some articles out of journals like the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature, of the journal Science. Then you can get to the science without ideological opinions, propaganda, misinformation, or politics. www.realclimate.org is a great resource for this issue. It is a site ran by climatologists who distill the science on this issue removing the radical hype on one side, and the propaganda and misinformation on the other.

No, I doubt that it is equally as frustrating, Forrest. Global warming is NOT settled science by a long shot. Any source I put up, if it disagrees with your source, you automatically slam. I post op/eds because most of us are not scientists, and most of us have lives and can't be surfing the net all day long for articles on the "scientific level." The articles I post reference credible material in them, which is why I wonder if you read them and click on their links, or merely dismiss them out of hand because they don't rise to your level.

Either way, I love you in the Lord, Forrest, you know that, but you are just plain bad for my blood pressure.

[nebula]

Marnie - the links aren't working for some reason.

You are quoting an OP/Ed.

Sorry, I'm not familiar with what that is - or if I do I'm not recognizing it. What is an OP/Ed?

The guy who wrote it, like so many others who write OP/Eds does not even have his facts right about the people he is quoting.

"It is scientifically inconceivable that after changing forests into cities, turning millions of acres into farmland, putting massive quantities of soot and dust into the atmosphere and sending quantities of greenhouse gases into the air, that the natural course of climate change hasn't been increased in the past century."

-John Christy

John Christy was also a co-author of the AMS statement on Global Warming. He is hardly a dissenter.

I read a report showing that John Christy wasn't exactly a Anthropologic Global Warming advocate.

***

Forrest -

The point made in Marnie's post, though, has a lot more validity than you realize. A lot more science is driven by why the money is going than than who will pay for what advocacy than we'd like to think it does.

Likewise, the point about other countries is valid. Do you have any idea just how bad the pollution in China is?

[forrestkc]

Marnie - the links aren't working for some reason.

You are quoting an OP/Ed.

Sorry, I'm not familiar with what that is - or if I do I'm not recognizing it. What is an OP/Ed?

The guy who wrote it, like so many others who write OP/Eds does not even have his facts right about the people he is quoting.

"It is scientifically inconceivable that after changing forests into cities, turning millions of acres into farmland, putting massive quantities of soot and dust into the atmosphere and sending quantities of greenhouse gases into the air, that the natural course of climate change hasn't been increased in the past century."

-John Christy

John Christy was also a co-author of the AMS statement on Global Warming. He is hardly a dissenter.

I read a report showing that John Christy wasn't exactly a Anthropologic Global Warming advocate.

***

Forrest -

The point made in Marnie's post, though, has a lot more validity than you realize. A lot more science is driven by why the money is going than than who will pay for what advocacy than we'd like to think it does.

Likewise, the point about other countries is valid. Do you have any idea just how bad the pollution in China is?

An Op Ed is an open editorial.

I do realize there is money funding Climate Research. There is money funding all kinds of research. We publicly fund research to prevent bias and conflicts of interest not created it. Essentially, when the weatherman from Alabama wrote: "If you don

[forrestkc]

It is equally frustrating to me when people try to counter science with editorials. I get on here, and post science and data from peer reviewed sources. Then I get countered with editorials that in this case are accompanied by a couple of pod-casts.

If you want to really debate the issue on a scientific level, go dig some articles out of journals like the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature, of the journal Science. Then you can get to the science without ideological opinions, propaganda, misinformation, or politics. www.realclimate.org is a great resource for this issue. It is a site ran by climatologists who distill the science on this issue removing the radical hype on one side, and the propaganda and misinformation on the other.

No, I doubt that it is equally as frustrating, Forrest. Global warming is NOT settled science by a long shot. Any source I put up, if it disagrees with your source, you automatically slam. I post op/eds because most of us are not scientists, and most of us have lives and can't be surfing the net all day long for articles on the "scientific level." The articles I post reference credible material in them, which is why I wonder if you read them and click on their links, or merely dismiss them out of hand because they don't rise to your level.

Either way, I love you in the Lord, Forrest, you know that, but you are just plain bad for my blood pressure.

I read the links but it is always the same old tired claims that have since been addressed in science. The handful of dissenters out there claim that it could be just "Solar Forcing". The National Climate Science Project released a peer reviewed study last May that showed that the Stratosphere is cooling, the Troposphere is warming, and the surface is warming. It is a physical impossibility to have a cooling Stratosphere yet have warming due to solar forcing.

This is why the debate should be just kept to the science behind the issue. There is a reason why the vast, vast, vast majority of scientists back Anthropogenic Global Warming, and that the consensus is growing. It is because the science is simply getting to be irrefutable. The day that the dissenters provide some research that shows how solar forcing can be the primary agent behind the current warming and that research accounts for the observed cooling stratosphere, is the day I will start giving credence to their claims again.

[nebula]

Forrest -

For the record, I am not making claims against Global Warming. Having taken meteorology, I understand how complicated the weather is. I've seen the charts showing the "average" temps fluctuating up and down every year, but this flux graph is showing an gradual average rise (our low fluxes are higher than than the high fluxes a century ago).

The problem is I am trying to think critically on this, rather than joining the global warming bandwagon. I have questions I need answered, yet I don't have a week or more it would take to perhaps find some research paper somewhere that actually addressed those. I have tried addressing some, but those questions seemed to me to have been glossed over or given the same pat answer I heard before.

It would take more time than I have at the moment to address those.

But what does irk me the most with global warming is, as was addressed above, how the inconsistencies. People who cry global warming driving SUV in the city is a classic example. I do not hear global warming advocates pointing fingers at China, where the pollution is so bad there is a constant smog. And what about the wood being burned for fuel in 'developing' countries?

We can argue about global warming until our faces our blue, but what does this change?

As was mentioned, what are you doing to combat global warming? Driving less?

Or do we only put pressure on the big businesses to change?

So you see what I'm getting at here?

[forrestkc]

Forrest -

For the record, I am not making claims against Global Warming. Having taken meteorology, I understand how complicated the weather is. I've seen the charts showing the "average" temps fluctuating up and down every year, but this flux graph is showing an gradual average rise (our low fluxes are higher than than the high fluxes a century ago).

The problem is I am trying to think critically on this, rather than joining the global warming bandwagon. I have questions I need answered, yet I don't have a week or more it would take to perhaps find some research paper somewhere that actually addressed those. I have tried addressing some, but those questions seemed to me to have been glossed over or given the same pat answer I heard before.

It would take more time than I have at the moment to address those.

But what does irk me the most with global warming is, as was addressed above, how the inconsistencies. People who cry global warming driving SUV in the city is a classic example. I do not hear global warming advocates pointing fingers at China, where the pollution is so bad there is a constant smog. And what about the wood being burned for fuel in 'developing' countries?

Environmentalists around the world are extremely critical of China's lack of pollution controls. That said, we are the largest Greenhouse Gas emitter on earth. How can we expect China and the developing world to curb their CO2 emissions, if we don't? Per capita, our CO2 emissions are 5 to 10 times that of the developing world. We have about 5% of the world's population, yet we produce about 35% of the world's Greenhouse Emissions. We have to lead on this issue. Do you not agree with that?

We can argue about global warming until our faces our blue, but what does this change?

As was mentioned, what are you doing to combat global warming? Driving less?

Or do we only put pressure on the big businesses to change?

So you see what I'm getting at here?

What I am I doing?

For starters, my wife and I live less than 4 miles from where we work. We both drive fuel-efficient vehicles. I use a programmable thermostat. We compost. We recycle. We garden as organically as possible. We use water saving showerheads. We make sure we purchase energy efficient appliances. We live in an older home, but we have taken steps to weatherproof it as much as possible. My lawn is planted with the most drought and heat tolerant grasses that our suitable for our climate. We use those spiral florescent bulbs around the house everywhere possible. We try to purchase organic foods and our food from the KC Farmers Market when possible (and in terms of organic when we can afford it). We try to be reasonably responsible consumers by trying to purchase items that were made with decent labor and environmental standards when possible. I mulch as much as possible around our landscape to conserve water, and this spring we are putting in some rain barrels. Among other things.

To combat climate change and other environmental issues we face today, we are all going to have to make some changes. That goes for individuals and big business. However, we have to admit there is a problem before we can make those changes.

[MeCajunboy]

ABC Weatherblog

Well, well. Some

[hmh]

Global warming has become nothing more than a part of the political machine that drives money. Blaming the Republicans for this or the Democrats for that is nothing more than political bias. We have in the US taken some serious steps since the 70's to curb pollution, but yet it's not enough for everyone else. Suggest using nuclear power instead of fossil fuels for power production and you get groups opposed because nuke power is dangerous and hard to dispose the waste. Suggest coal and you get groups that complain of the emmissions and the destruction of the land. Suggest natural gas and you get groups opposed to drilling. No matter what we do we are always caught in between a rock and a hard place. As far as the weatherman in Alabama that is suggested doesn't know what he is talking about or posting web sites that support human's involvement in the warming cycle, look closer to the geological history of this planet when God did not put us here yet. If anything, we should be cooling down, as was the case in the 1800's when a volcanic eruption in the Pacific caused the year without summer. I will continue to have a hard time buying into the global warming issue as long as it is a tool being used in the political money making dogatic machine.

[Pizzaguy]

Well, more of the same. Back in school, in the 70's, I was taught that we were polluting the air and "Shading" us from the sun. This was causing "dimming" that was leading us into an ice age. (There was, in fact, a statistical cooling from about 1940 to 1970 - and this led to hysteria about "the coming ice age".)

But now, the same yo-yos are telling us that the pollution is actually TRAPPING heat in and causing us to warm up!

We'v gone from "The Coming Ice Age" to "Global Warming" in under 30 years. And it gets 'better', since the evidence for warming is too weak, (and people like myself have been pointing this out) they now speak of "Climate Change".

Why the change of terms in such a short period of time? Again, it's because THERE IS NO CRISIS - there is only hysteria. Some of the hysteria is caused by well-intentioned people who are honestly fearful of "climate change". But most is caused by the pursuit of research dollars and funding.

Remember, NASA was formed to explore space - but the public has little concern for that topic - so, now, we have shuttle missions that concentrate (at least partially) on "Climate Studies". WHY? Because NASA needs money - everyone needs money. With the hysteria about the climate - public statements about "Climate research experiments and missions" mean secure dollars for NASA. So, always: follow the money.

----

If all that doesn't do it for you, consider the shrinkage in the polar ice caps on Mars in the past two decades. The fact is, the Sun's output is NOT constant, not at all. But you will NEVER hear ANY "Klimate Krazy" speak about the increased solar output in recent decades NOR will you see them make ANY public statements about the KNOWN variations in solar output. No, they will only keep beating the drum about how your car, lawn mower and home furnace are destroying the planet. And look, they do NOT ask you to stop using such equipment - no, they just tell you to fund their research and programs!

Believe whatever you want to - but I am 46, and I have heard NOTHING but warnings of "The Coming Ice Age", "Global Warming" and "Climate Change" in the past 30 years. If they can change their forecasts so quickly - and if warnings of an Ice Age could be THAT wrong THAT quickly - then excuse me if I put NO stock in what they are saying today.

It's just another 'crisis', ignore it and they'll come up with something else to tax you for later....

Edited January 19, 2007 by Pizzaguy

[nebula]

What I am I doing?

For starters, my wife and I live less than 4 miles from where we work.

Glad you can do that.

We both drive fuel-efficient vehicles. I use a programmable thermostat. We compost. We recycle. We garden as organically as possible. We use water saving showerheads. We make sure we purchase energy efficient appliances. We live in an older home, but we have taken steps to weatherproof it as much as possible. My lawn is planted with the most drought and heat tolerant grasses that our suitable for our climate. We use those spiral florescent bulbs around the house everywhere possible. We try to purchase organic foods and our food from the KC Farmers Market when possible (and in terms of organic when we can afford it). We try to be reasonably responsible consumers by trying to purchase items that were made with decent labor and environmental standards when possible. I mulch as much as possible around our landscape to conserve water, and this spring we are putting in some rain barrels. Among other things.

That's awesome!