Climate Change is Being Swift-Boated

[Kernos]

From the Drudge Retort

Swift-boated: "To be unfairly and inaccurately attacked relentlessly in the media"

Walter Mead: The movement to stop climate change is being swift-boated right before our eyes. And just as Senator Kerry and the journalistic establishment failed to see the importance of the swift boat attacks and develop a counter strategy early, so the [New York] Times along with the climate change establishment is, yet again, missing the boat on a major piece of news.

Read Mead's full article: http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/ ... ork-times/

[oaklight]

I don't need anyone else to tell me that "climate change/global warming" theory has utterly failed to predict actual events or trends; their predictions have failed to materialize. What is done instead is: an event is observed, and then attributed to the theory; it's like watching the news and then making prophecy for yesterday. Since the ability to make accurate predictions is an indispensible function of any theory; then logic dictates that the theory is wrong. Adherence to it has taken on a cult-like frenzy; belief in it must be absolute, or the "Grand High Inquisitors" will label one a "Global Warming Deny-er" as though to put them in the same category as a Holocaust Deny-er. If the theory were true, it would be plainly obvious, and therefore in need of no defense; but since there is so much money and power to be had in it, those who stand to gain from it will hold on for dear life and embrace any lie or slander to keep it alive like some Frankenstein monster on which their lives' carreers depend.

[Kernos]

Please oaklight, no

[oaklight]

Please oaklight, no

You're free to believe this in this fantasy if you wish, but I haven't seen or heard a single thing to make me believe it is anything other than a very lucrative hoax. Even Quantum Mechanics, which Einstein loathed for its inability to make specific predictions, claiming that "God doesn't play dice", can make more accurate predictions within the parameters of the "Copenhagen Agreement" than "Climate Change" can within any parameters. It's hard not to notice that instead of a refutation of my statement in your own words, you resorted to childish and insulting emoticons, as if to prove my point. Please don't try to suggest that a blog that isn't even subject to editorial review, substitutes for hard science; a theory that cannot make accurate predictions of future events or trends is false, and cannot be otherwise.

[Kernos]

Please don't try to suggest that a blog that isn't even subject to editorial review, substitutes for hard science; a theory that cannot make accurate predictions of future events or trends is false, and cannot be otherwise.

You seem to have missed the entire point of the article: The journalists, corporate types and the politicians with their heads in the sand have no concept of science or the scientific method. They do not know how to evaluate science, so fall back on what they do know: controversy in the case of the journalists and politics in the case of those in power. Scientifically, there is no question that human caused global warming (and weirding) is occurring. No question!. The preponderance of scientific evidence supports this unequivocally.

This situation is perhaps the 1st time in modern history that something globally deadly is occurring and worsening which politicians are completely unable to deal with.

My prior comment was all yours deserved.

[oaklight]

Please don't try to suggest that a blog that isn't even subject to editorial review, substitutes for hard science; a theory that cannot make accurate predictions of future events or trends is false, and cannot be otherwise.

Scientifically, there is no question that human caused global warming (and weirding) is occurring. No question!. The preponderance of scientific evidence supports this unequivocally.

My prior comment was all yours deserved.

It would seem that you are a true believer. Your above statement has a decided evangelical, and not scientific, ring to it, but I stand by my assertion: with no accurate predictions, the theory doesn't hold water. It doesn't matter how many "T" shirts, bumper stickers or pretentious little pieces of clip art you parade out, unsubstantiated claims of a scientific absolute defy logic and reason; you can only prove a negative unequivocally, your statement to the contrary notwithstanding. BTW, why is it called a "Climate Change Movement"?

[katie bridgewater]

Wow Oaklight! I so admire your intelligent and careful choice to not to follow 25 years of unreliable peer reviewed scientific research and go with the opinions of corporate funded reactionary pressure groups. I feel ever so foolish for believing carefully conducted independent, peer-reviewed science as presented by unreliable publications like New Scientist, Science and Nature for the last 25 years.

Calling intelligent, well informed, mature people fantasists and likening their actions to those of a cult will surely convince many to come to their senses and join you in a wonderful world where we can do anything because hey, Mother Nature will be just fine...How could I have thought I was actually part of Mother Nature with any responsibility for looking after myself as part of a whole organism...

Care for a health giving cigarette anyone? Apparently they're perfectly safe (Mr P Morris told me) and the medical research is all cooked up by those damned liberal health-facists.

[Hennie]

C'mon Katie, you know that the science that these sissies produce in their leftist magazines isn't for real; they often deny creation and we non-scientists can't even give our views on their "findings"; time some colonel told them to listen to reason!

[Corwen]

time some colonel told them to listen to reason!

Don't you mean Kernel?

kernel (nut).jpeg

(2.38 KiB) Downloaded 557 times

[Kernos]

It would seem that you are a true believer. Your above statement has a decided evangelical, and not scientific...

No Oaklight, I am a scientist and have had a special interest in environmental sciences since the early '60s when I heard a named lecture by Barry Commoner at Washington University in St. Louis. I know how to and have critically read the primary sources and continue to keep up with the literature. I know how to evaluate raw data and have done. I can say with some authority, that the preponderance of evidence strongly an unequivocally supports human caused elevations in CO2 which have resulted in global warming.

I do not argue with people who dont have a clue about what science is all about, nor do I have time to teach you or others how things work. Nor do I have time for the boring oneupmanship game. You certainly have a way with words. It is unfortunate you use then to obfuscate reality, for obvious political reasons.

Read the primary or even the secondary scientific sources.

[oaklight]

Wow Oaklight! I so admire your intelligent and careful choice to not to follow 25 years of unreliable peer reviewed scientific research and go with the opinions of corporate funded reactionary pressure groups. I feel ever so foolish for believing carefully conducted independent, peer-reviewed science as presented by unreliable publications like New Scientist, Science and Nature for the last 25 years.

Calling intelligent, well informed, mature people fantasists and likening their actions to those of a cult will surely convince many to come to their senses and join you in a wonderful world where we can do anything because hey, Mother Nature will be just fine...How could I have thought I was actually part of Mother Nature with any responsibility for looking after myself as part of a whole organism...

Care for a health giving cigarette anyone? Apparently they're perfectly safe (Mr P Morris told me) and the medical research is all cooked up by those damned liberal health-facists.

I'm glad that you brought up the concept of "peer reviewed scientific journals". You've made the understandable mistake that most laymen make. All the peer review process means, is that the paper was forwarded to another researcher in the same field to ensure that the data submitted with the paper, and the experimental protocols, were consistent with each other and the conclusions made; it's not like getting graded by "teacher" where truth or fact is proclaimed. One of the issues that science struggles with is how to design an experiment that is absolutely objective. The problem is: experiments are designed with a certain expected outcome in mind, that will (hopefully) support the hypothesis, and all data that does not support it, is tossed as un-publishable. This conundrum is best illustrated by the "Clovis First" hypothesis, first published (I believe) in the 1930's. This stated that man didn't reach the "New World" until about 13,000 years ago. This was taken as scientific fact, published in countless peer reviewed journals, until 2002, when University of Oregon archaeologist Dennis Jenkins discovered preserved human dung in a pre-Clovis site, that was later carbon dated to 14,500 years ago; with that, "Clovis First" was dead, in spite of 70 years of peer reviewed science. I used to believe in "Global Warming" until I saw that the predictions made by it weren't happening. Increasingly, every time those dire predictions failed to materialize, a new study claimed that the new observations were indeed predicted as long as the data was re-interpreted in a different way; the whole thing started to smell funny. Then, while watching a documentary on the subject, it was stated that the original global temperature readings that the theory was based upon were made with satellite sensing equipment that had not been calibrated and that when the readings were made again with the freshly calibrated equipment, the temperature readings were found to be normal. By that time, many papers were already published based on the faulty data and many careers were already dependant upon it; the theory had started to reek of self interest. Because government, like any organic system, seeks to grow and multiply and would exploit this for ever more control that can never be reversed, I think that we must proceed very carefully. Study is never over, debate is never done. This is not to say that we shouldn't explore new energy technologies, or other conservation techniques; just don't try to sell me on a scientific absolute.


http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/coprolites/

http://www.ele.net/art_folsom/preclvis.htm

[Merlyn]

Hummmm.....
First point Kernos made is the most important.. Politicians screwed everything up, but more importantly the media has it's little fingers in it and makes mush out of the issues.
Neither know jack about it, truthfully.
Secondly, to the first, the agenda underlying the motivation for political assertion is the reason for the failure. If this was a genuine effort, we never would have gotten to this point. I will again mention I spent 15 years in study of climate change, emission control and as an emission compliance officer employed by the government, so please understand my insight IS first hand.

To Kernos' second point, YES the climate is TOTALLY screwed up by emissions.
The fault lies in failed agenda driven "science" trying to prove something motive driven. Do you all remember when freon was made the villain? And we went to a different gas in all of our automobiles for air conditioning? Do you remember the Ozone hole theory?

The trouble has been, in the most recent effort, to revive the cap and trade idea as if it was a new invention.
It is not, it fails and it fails us all directly. It has failed us for over 20 years, and will continue to do so. It is a pork barrel, deal.
Yes, global warming is a real threat, not a false one, BUT! It is not going to be predictable. It is not going to cause what the politicians seem to think.
Instead it is causing the unthinkable, that our governments have and desire to continue to allow the worst pollution and the most devastating affects to go totally unchecked while we pay more and more into a failed system of government scamming with just about NO result in stopping the problem.

So, why swift boat the climate change?

If Congress tries to go forward with cap-and-trade, a volcano of public resistance and Tea Party rebellion will erupt now, and in the current political climate, the environmental side will not be able to prevail.

First, yes IT IS ABOUT CAP AND TRADE, but this time, ON A GLOBAL SCALE!
It failed our country, now it is poised to fail the entire world.

But I link to these press reports as evidence of what happens when science meets journalism — especially when the scientists are clueless about the nature of the game being played.

And they have every right to be ANGRY AS HELL!

Why?
http://nextbigfuture.com/2006/10/coal-c ... oal-9.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHdRJqi_ ... re=related
Watch this to the end, it is an important piece of this whole issue.
In essence, the truth about the solution to global weirding is not a profit for the rich in-control-tax-the-poor criminals who run this media mess.
And those scientists which are being ripped on by the media were directed to prove a point which has failed to collect MONEY from you and me.

Sad eh?

What we really need is the investment toward solutions to greenhouse gas emissions, the trouble is that is frees us from the energy mongers, and in fact plugs into the sun, earth and very simply made methods which would steer all that money away from the current governments and coming financial base of the world government yet to come.
http://views.washingtonpost.com/climate ... lem_1.html

Truth is, we are not going to see the world burn up, but rather go into a cycle which will more likely "clean" itself, and it will clean itself of us..
All of this science is OLD, been around for decades. Think about it... Why do you think it has not been put into use after decades of $$$ taken by the American government in fuel tax, emission tax, and all other measures, yet big industry has been allowed to continue polluting with NO emission control, yet YOUR car has a complete emission control system?
YOU must pay more for your car to afford the complex emission system...

Why not everything else?

When you do figure it out, the reasons for ignoring climate change become very obvious, and that "global warming" is the brainchild of politicians.
Re-direct the science, make it a reason to enact a global authority! But do not actually use known science to stop the problem...

Here is a truth, greenhouse gas can cause MANY problems, and warming is only one of them.
Why make this one problem into an issue? and ignore the rest?

You may not believe me yet, but you will...
The truth of all of this is unavoidable.
"revenue stream $$$$" is this answer.
The solutions are very simple.

We already have enough nuclear fuel to run on for 100 years! We DO NOT NEED TO REAP ANY MORE!



Merlyn /|\

[Kernos]

I'm glad that you brought up the concept of "peer reviewed scientific journals". You've made the understandable mistake that most laymen make. All the peer review process means, is that the paper was forwarded to another researcher in the same field to ensure that the data submitted with the paper, and the experimental protocols, were consistent with each other and the conclusions made; it's not like getting graded by "teacher" where truth or fact is proclaimed.

Your layman status is showing, oaklight. Peer-review is a lot more than what you say, as anyone who have tried to get published in a prestigious journal will understand. A reasonable decription of the process is here.

One of the issues that science struggles with is how to design an experiment that is absolutely objective. The problem is: experiments are designed with a certain expected outcome in mind, that will (hopefully) support the hypothesis, and all data that does not support it, is tossed as un-publishable.

Now your ignorance is really showing. One who actually reads scientific journals will find as much negative results as positive. This is especially true for another essential piece of the scientific method: reproducibility. And, negative results coming from another similar experiment will be emphasized.

This conundrum is best illustrated by the "Clovis First" hypothesis, first published (I believe) in the 1930's. This stated that man didn't reach the "New World" until about 13,000 years ago. This was taken as scientific fact, published in countless peer reviewed journals, until 2002, when University of Oregon archaeologist Dennis Jenkins discovered preserved human dung in a pre-Clovis site, that was later carbon dated to 14,500 years ago; with that, "Clovis First" was dead, in spite of 70 years of peer reviewed science.

This underscores the the process of self-correction of the scientific method and that it worked in this case.

I used to believe in "Global Warming" until I saw that the predictions made by it weren't happening. Increasingly, every time those dire predictions failed to materialize, a new study claimed that the new observations were indeed predicted as long as the data was re-interpreted in a different way; the whole thing started to smell funny. Then, while watching a documentary on the subject, it was stated that the original global temperature readings that the theory was based upon were made with satellite sensing equipment that had not been calibrated and that when the readings were made again with the freshly calibrated equipment, the temperature readings were found to be normal. By that time, many papers were already published based on the faulty data and many careers were already dependant upon it; the theory had started to reek of self interest. Because government, like any organic system, seeks to grow and multiply and would exploit this for ever more control that can never be reversed, I think that we must proceed very carefully. Study is never over, debate is never done. This is not to say that we shouldn't explore new energy technologies, or other conservation techniques; just don't try to sell me on a scientific absolute.

So you get your data from documentaries. Wow, that is certainly a reliable source of information to base your opinions upon. And even if true, it is only one source of data from a multitude. Again, the preponderance of evidence supports human-caused global warming. Any evidence against this theory much be as preponderant to be considered as alternative evidence. Global warming is not a matter of belief, but of doing the work and critically reading the primary evidence.

I agree there are few if any scientific absolutes. There are theories, hypotheses etc. Well there are scientific absolutes or facts, like it is beta cells in islets of Langerhans in humans that normally produce insulin. Although that is a fact, it is a lot more complicated than that simple fact.

[Merlyn]

It would do us all well to spend our time attacking the real problems, not each other.
Please understand we all have been and continue to be deliberately disinformed to this end.

[Merlyn]

Hi oaklight,
The global warming predictions failed because they failed to incorporate natural forces and the 20 and 30 year cycles.
The result is already here. However, the results are relative, not the apocalyptic fear mongering that might have been thought. (thankfully)

Think of it more like a repeating but overlapping set of cycles and interwoven systems. Then we can see the real results.
Will CO2 cause the planet to warm? NO. What it will do is cause the cycles to exaggerate. They will do this naturally, but forced by added extreme thermal warming.
So.. the predictions fail. They fail because the data was "near sighted".

What can be the results?
Depending on what cycles act, any number of things can be the result. (global weirding)
Trouble is we do not have enough data. The tree rings idea was an attempt to gain needed data, however, CO2 results in faster vegetative growth.
This skews tree ring data, and does not absolutely mean what it might have been thought to. True, the assumptions made were wrong on several fronts.
The assumption of one set of scientists clash with another. Best example; glaciers.

I know emissions. I know how and why burning what fuel causes what molecular changes, at what temperatures, with what fuel used and how these interact with the environment, and what the long and short term affects of primary and secondary pollution are on each tropic level of our food chain, earth and life. I was taught all of this to be an emissions compliance officer of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

And I can tell you that;
Global warming as we have seen it paraded in the media, by the politicians and more is manipulated fear mongering.
Thermal atmospheric warming by greenhouse gas emissions, triggers climate cycles to shift, extend, and even switch direction, however...
so do the cycles themselves. The earth itself has not changed in temperature one bit more than it normally would.

The interaction of human emissions of CO2 and the other parts of the atmosphere, is very small compared to what naturally happens.
But it can be measured. This has been used as a way to ignore the real hazards.

.7 of one degree over 100 years is not the issue. Agreed it has been made into an issue. Thermal atmospheric warming can be as much as 20 or more degrees in any one cycle. This was the result seen in the 1980's
This is the important issue. Thermal atmospheric warming.
carbon dioxide is produced both naturally and by humans. About 97 percent of atmospheric carbon dioxide is natural, in fact. Only about 3 percent is from human activity.
That means that only about 0.11 percent of the greenhouse effect (that is, 3 percent of 3.6 percent) is due to human releases of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Put another way, about 99.89 percent of the greenhouse effect has nothing to do with carbon-dioxide emissions from human activity.
What we seem to not address is that the ocean is in fact a living tropic level of our earth.
The thermal affect of warming the ocean is much more than the atmosphere.

We as people need to study much more, understand a lot more and prepare for the natural and exaggerated climate changes we are facing and will face, and stop the disinformation about all of it.

Thermal warming of the earth means global warming, but the term has been misunderstood. It has been misused, and it is in this misused way, false. It is however real in what we face, and correcting it does not mean we will not face climate change. What is important in climate change is being ignored and has been for far too long. True catalysts that do cause climate change are being ignored, allowed totally unchecked. That is a problem.
Radioactive particle emissions of coal are a more direct "secondary" threat than CO2.
Hydrocarbons kill the living tropic level of the ocean itself.
None of these real threats are being stopped by the powerful who fuel the global takeover by a virtual currency called the Euro.
This because it (nuclear fuel and oil) is the base for their currency!
They want to replace oil with uranium. This because they know they are running out of oil.

If we cannot see what is really happening.
We perhaps are just not looking.
Q&A;
Do we need to stop emissions... yes!
Do they cause climate change, yes, but not in the way they expected or explained by Al Gore or the media.
Is CO2 a threat, not really, CO2 is natural. The resulting lack of O2 by burning and deforestation is however a direct threat.
So what really causes global, thermal warming?
Catalyst emissions of NO2 and Hydrocarbons. How?
They change the Ozone layer, kill off the living ocean and life giving fresh water lakes, glaciers and trees.
How do we stop the real greenhouse gas emissions?
Proper burn rate and burn temperature, to stop NO2 emissions. This means emission control on coal and aircraft. It means high efficiency engines, fuel and methods.
How do we stop Hydrocarbon emissions? By complete burn systems or after burn catalysts, and soot collection.
Is this expensive? Only in the transition period. After all, you have already done it, by using automotive emission systems which do this.


Merlyn /|\

[oaklight]

Excellent! We now have a dialogue, instead of a monologue. Thank you Merlyn, for your first-hand insight, that was, by far, more informative than what normally passes for information. Kernos, thank you for responding with more than a hyper-link and clip art. My point vis. Clovis was intended to point out the need for continuing study and that even the most dearly held theories are not absolute. While I am in fact, a layman, I am not unfamiliar with the nuts and bolts of research administration, as I have been Community Relations Officer at a Harvard Medical School research facility since 1995 and at Mass. College of Pharmacy (nice Beta cell reference, BTW) for some years before then, and have, for all those years, been schooled by my researcher friends on what they go through in the grant writing and publishing processes. I agree with Merlyn, pretty much, wholesale as to the political ramifications of "Cap and Trade" and I'm grateful to him for his eloquent synopsis. While it is true that I do get some information from documentaries, I have the immense luxury of having at my disposal numerous Harvard researchers and professors willing to explain anything which my curiosity desires. And Kernos, if you have access to current primary data, don't hold out on us. Now that we have a dialogue, I hope that we all can come away with something that we can use. And finally: my apologies if I came off as such a pr!ck; I am, sadly, not immune to the vice of anger.

[Merlyn]

So... why swift boat the original crew?
Easy, they were told to produce what the politicians wanted, and the politicians now tell the media to swift boat them...
Now ask yourself why?

Sucks to be the fall guy..

Merlyn

[Corwen]

I've lived on the road for nearly 20 years, with a lot more time spent observing nature, finding wood, carrying water from outside taps (a good way to see how many frost days there are) etc than most people in Britain at least. Sitting here under the same tree I've lived under for ten years, walking in the same fields, seeing the house martins come every spring and the crane flies each autumn, I can assure you Oaklight that the spring now comes at least two full weeks sooner to this part of Dorset than it did even 10 years ago, perhaps 3 weeks earlier than it did when I was a child. Even with this years cold winter, I doubt the bluebells will be in bloom on my birthday as they were when I was a child, they'll be a couple of weeks over. Should I for some reason doubt 99% of the worlds scientific community, I would still have the evidence of my own eyes.

[Merlyn]

I have lived here in the same place too since 1969.
And the Summers did get radically warm by the late 1980's
Since then, they have gradually cooled off, and now the return of snow has come just like in 1969.

A full cycle, and a few interweaving cycles, like the winter in 1999.
The trees knew, and as I saw for the first time last fall, (since the 1960's) the pines dropped thousands of pine-cones, (open ones), not closed like during the warming period, I knew the worst winter was to come, and it did.

So the cycles are complex, different for different geography.
They are more consistent here now, as the temperatures slowly went down as they did before, keeping a deep freeze for weeks at a time. No "Indian summer" like we often have, and have had during cycles before and will again.
It wasn't just North America who found this winter cold, many other countries did also, but their precipitation rates were changed. Precipitation amounts here have been normal. Temperatures have been normal. We have not however had the bi-weekly change in temperature that ranges 30 degrees or so.
We no longer have the draught of the 90's caused by a different cycle, not from the jet stream, instead it is from the ocean currents which have more to do with precipitation then the shifts in air currents here on the east cost, but when both coincide, (jet stream low and Ocean currents going north) we have this kind of snowy winter "weather".

But that has nothing to do with swift-boating the climate change organizations involved in the global warming alarm, who will now be blamed for false reporting so the politicians can stand and call foul. In the meantime the atmospheric greenhouse gasses will be business as usual, just as they have been for the last few decades. Except that a new push for uranium in Africa will be high on the agenda, to fuel old outdated nuclear plants. And a nifty new tax for carbon based fuels will somehow be diverted to uranium mining...
And Africa will become the new Iran-Iraq war..

That is what I fear most from this.
Call me a skeptic,
Merlyn

[oaklight]

I've lived on the road for nearly 20 years, with a lot more time spent observing nature, finding wood, carrying water from outside taps (a good way to see how many frost days there are) etc than most people in Britain at least. Sitting here under the same tree I've lived under for ten years, walking in the same fields, seeing the house martins come every spring and the crane flies each autumn, I can assure you Oaklight that the spring now comes at least two full weeks sooner to this part of Dorset than it did even 10 years ago, perhaps 3 weeks earlier than it did when I was a child. Even with this years cold winter, I doubt the bluebells will be in bloom on my birthday as they were when I was a child, they'll be a couple of weeks over. Should I for some reason doubt 99% of the worlds scientific community, I would still have the evidence of my own eyes.

It sounds like a lovely place! Here in Eastern Massachusetts, I see pretty much the same weather as when I was a kid, with the expected variation, year to year, but that's normal too. I have noticed that the wildlife density has increased since I was a kid; we have a coyote problem, as well as deer and moose eating people’s shrubbery. Large raptors, such as bald eagles and red tailed hawks, have also returned. It's been said that they're moving into suburban areas as their regular habitats are developed. That being said, Massachusetts in 1900 had only 18% of its total acreage forested, while now it's over 65%, so, I wonder if our conservation methods, enacted with the creation of the EPA in the 70's, had anything to do with it.