Interesting Take on Global Warming

[Jay Miller]

Here is a link to a very interesting video on Global Warming. This is an opposing view to Al Gore and his buddies.

http://www.ernharth.com/2007/04/27/an-inconvenient-truth-is-fiction/

I am not endorsing either view I just think it is always good to hear both sides.

[Joe Blake]

Oh, dear.

Sorry to be a little "blinkered" on the matter, but I got as far as people being "whacked on the head by a 2 by 4" and that was enough. If I had time and no life, I'd transcribe this rather "interesting" little diatribe and dissect it point by point, but I have better things to do, like trying to reduce my carbon footprint while saving money and keeping the economy booming, and trying to keep politics out of democracy (or is it democracy out of politics?).

Joe

[Joe Blake]

I would wonder about the "unbiased" nature of the Ernhart website.

The very first words in the body of the front page:


This site is run by a several financial services veterans who have been questioning the conventional wisdom on many related issues that invariably affect all citizen’s financial well-being.

Are these people who could be seen as being impartially concerned about the environment of the planet?

Hmmm.

Joe

[Mark Parsons]

I don't believe anyone publishing a viewpoint is impartial.

Everyone selling a service / product is pushing a viewpoint for their benefit. Fact of life. To believe in altruism in business is gullibility, at best.

The key point made by this presentation in my mind, is that global warming is not denied, in fact it is acknowledged, just the extent is questioned.

State of the art meteorology can't forecast next week's weather let alone determine the next century's, so they make a valid point.

Contrarianism always provides a good reality check, however, I don't think I would let this group invest much of my money.

Mark

[Frank Flynn]

I hope he's right and all these predictions of Global Warming are overblown. He criticizes Al Gore for looking at the situation and being alarmist, pointing the worst possible outcome.

While he looks at the situation, and he agrees right up front that the global temperature is rising and human activity is contributing to that, but he rejects any projection that isn't positively confirmed by the data as agreed by everyone.

The implication of his presentation seems to be that we don't need to worry because Global Warming might not be as bad as projected; indeed maybe it won't, I hope it isn't but ignoring it is certainly not the answer.

As an example; at the very end of the first part he has a projection that the global temperature will rise in the next century between 1.4 and 5 degrees.
Then he continues that this will be revised to between 1.4 and 4.5 degrees and he offers anecdotal evidence that China has less energy efficient factories and could use significantly less energy than projected - so maybe we'll only have a 1.4 degree rise. Sure maybe they will - they probably will but that doesn't mean we should think everything is OK.

[Rob Beckers]

Didn't catch his name, but the presenter in that video basically does the exact same thing he accuses Gore of: While Gore may be exaggerating the severity of climate change, the presenter takes every opportunity to trivialize it.

I suspect that, as is often the case, the truth is somewhere in between...

-Rob-

P.S. I do agree with the presenter that the media are really milking the 'climate change' subject for all it's worth. While I think exposure is a good thing, this may in the long run not help, when the dire scenarios don't happen quite as painted by the media, causing people to get back to business-as-usual.

[Joe Blake]

State of the art meteorology can't forecast next week's weather let alone determine the next century's, so they make a valid point.

Mark

That perhaps may have been the case, but I have to say that the forecasting IS becoming increasingly (possibly even alarmingly) more accurate.

However, a couple of points which I think mitigate the thrust of the argument. Firstly, climate prediction is not the same as weather prediction. Weather is a much more local phenomenon, subject to "smaller" variables.

Secondly, my interest in climate change was inspired by an article written (or at least published in a book) in 1962, and that article was based on data from the 50's if I recall. (I still have a reprinted copy of the book and I'll see if I can find it). The predictions contained in the article were pretty well spot on and for my money, prediction is the key note of scientific method.

Thirdly, I have grave doubts about the "economic" argument, which seems to run along the lines of we have a choice between addressing climate change versus maintaining our booming economy, and therefore trying to change our way of living is not acceptable, because of possible economic damage. (Our Prime Monster has done nothing but trumpet that mantra ad nauseam since he was finally hit over the head hard enough to grudgingly admit that climate change DOES exist.)

However, it would seem that climate prediction is much more accurate than predicting social and economic trends. I bought my first computer in 1979, and people asked me why are you wasting your money on that box of bits? And quite frankly, I couldn't come up with an answer that satisfied them. I KNEW it was the way of the future, but I couldn't give any concrete examples.

Further, if such a thing were possible, if I (in 2007) was able to jump into a time machine and go back to 1979, and address myself of that time and say well in the 21st Century, the computer is going to be totally ubiquitous, using it you can have discussions with people around the world (even those who don't speak your language) on almost any imaginable topic, have instant, free access to satellite photography of almost any portion of the surface of the globe, I would scarcely be able to believe myself. Even sitting here in the 21st Century, surrounded by the very technology that earlier generations scoffed at, I find it hard to get my head around occasionally. However, one thing I would find extremely hard to believe would be the amount of employment that the computer generated. The amount of economic power delivered.

So in comparing the accuracy of 1950's climatic predictions against the societal and economic predictions of the 1970's, climate wins hands down.

My final point is that given the rapid rate of change today (and I mean TODAY) to say that saying a possible economic downturn is a valid reason to not tackle climate change is, if nothing else, admitting to a failure of vision for the future.

I think in 5 years time, there will be such unpredicted radical changes in society that the "economic" argument will become pretty irrelevant. (Well, if truth be known it's an irrelevant argument now.) (One only has to look for example at the phenomenon of "virtual societies". Second Life et al.

http://secondlife.com/

What changes will this wreak on society? I shudder to think, but the options are numerous, but WILL predict that in 5 years, we'll be saying "Wow, I didn't see THAT coming".)

I have to say that I'm actually a lot more pessimistic than many people, and I think Al Gore's view is far closer to reality than further from it.

Joe

[Rob Beckers]

For those interested where all those (recent) news and documentary reports come from, with their numbers and probabilities, you can read them straight from the horse's mouth in the latest IPCC report (http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html).

-Rob-

[Jay Miller]

Another article of interest:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaruherald/4064691a6571.html

Comments?

[Joe Blake]

Andrew, I find that rather hard to swallow.

Provided we're all still here (ie on this board) maybe we'll come back in 5 years and see what your views are.

Be nice if it were true.

A bit more about Augie Auer

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/04/30/1626112.htm

And just to be even-handed a rebuttal

http://www.te-software.co.nz/blog/augie_auer.htm

Joe

[Jay Miller]

And the debate continues:

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=c47c1209-233b-412c-b6d1-5c755457a8af&p=2

Comments?

[Mark Parsons]

Greetings Jay,

There is a lot of material in the National Post's Deniers Series of articles. The common theme is that each of the scientists interviewed don't deny climate change, just some of the sources and extents. Some may also argue the extent of anthropogenic (man made) influences.

The scientific community is very much a democracy. Any data open for interpretation will create differing opinions. Politics also plays a very large part in the scientific community. Folks that stray too far from the opinion norms can lose their careers. So some dissention can be suppressed in this manner. This also explains some of the retractions and apologies printed by the author of this series.

Irregardless. Even IF the anthropogenic influence of burning fossil carbon was not altering our climate detrimentally, we are burning a LIMITED resource. If we are to keep this planet habitable for our children and our children's children, concentrating on clean sustainable behaviors and practices is a must. Denying this sustainability need is jeopardizing our descendants lives.

My little rant for the day. ;)

Regards,
Mark

[Rob Beckers]

Well put Mark!
I was contemplating how to reply, but you took the words right out of my mouth, and more eloquent than I would have...

-Rob-

[Joe Blake]

Our "leaders" seem to be seeing two problems (greenhouse effect and consumption of limited resources) but they are really intertwined (or two horns on the same devil), and would dearly love us (the gullible prats who vote for them) to see that they are working to fix one without bothering too much about the other.

Fat chance.

Anyway with an election coming up in Australia this year, it's getting VERY interesting. I haven't seen so many backflips and changes of direction since "Cinderella on Ice".

Joe

[Stellar Gellar]

i wonder what's obama going to do now about the green issu.:wondering: