In October, the Washington Post Staff Writer Juliet Eilperin conceded the obvious, writing that climate skeptics "appear to be expanding rather than shrinking." Many scientists from around the world have dubbed 2007 as the year man-made global warming fears “bites the dust.”
quote:
Paleoclimatologist Dr. Tim Patterson, professor in the department of Earth Sciences at Carleton University in Ottawa, recently converted from a believer in man-made climate change to a skeptic. Patterson noted that the notion of a “consensus” of scientists aligned with the UN IPCC or former Vice President Al Gore is false. “I was at the Geological Society of America meeting in Philadelphia in the fall and I would say that people with my opinion were probably in the majority.”
**** Disclaimer: The information in this weblog is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. This weblog does not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my owner. It is solely my own personal opinion. Inappropriate comments will be deleted at the authors discretion.***
"I stand or fall on my own words."
Posts: 7253 | Location: PORTLAND | Registered: 07 November 2005
This new committee report, a first of its kind, comes after the UN IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri implied that there were only “about half a dozen” skeptical scientists left in the world. (LINK) Former Vice President Gore has claimed that scientists skeptical of climate change are akin to “flat Earth society members” and similar in number to those who “believe the moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona.” (LINK)
**** Disclaimer: The information in this weblog is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. This weblog does not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my owner. It is solely my own personal opinion. Inappropriate comments will be deleted at the authors discretion.***
"I stand or fall on my own words."
Posts: 7253 | Location: PORTLAND | Registered: 07 November 2005
It trains people to think lifestyle choices (in relation to CO2 emission) rather than to think activism in the sense of exerting an influence to change societal structures," Rancourt wrote in a February 27, 2007 blog post. Rancourt believes that global warming "will not become humankind's greatest threat until the sun has its next hiccup in a billion years or more (in the very unlikely scenario that we are still around,)" and noted that even if C02 emissions were a grave threat, "government action and political will cannot measurably or significantly ameliorate global climate in the present world." Rancourt believes environmentalists have been duped into promoting global warming as a crisis. "I argue that by far the most destructive force on the planet is power-driven financiers and profit-driven corporations and their cartels backed by military might; and that the global warming myth is a red herring that contributes to hiding this truth. In my opinion, activists who, using any justification, feed the global warming myth have effectively been co-opted, or at best neutralized,"
This speaks to why I tend to downplay the global warming focus. And it points to some of the more important and larger issues in the overall destruction of life supporting ecological systems that really are more likely to be putting our biosphere we depend on for all life on this planet at risk.
The real dangers of long term potential biospheric degradation as a result of human activity are much more complex, and much, much more difficult to encapsulate in a sound bite that can martial political will. For those dangers to be more generally understood, so that they can be reasonably discussed in a public forum -- of which no such forum really exists in any practical form at this time -- a concerted effort at education is needed, and there are many forces at work to undermine educational efforts that are already in play.
I am still alone in my advocating of a United Nations invasion of Brazil, subjugating the people into a nation of landscapers to repair the damage they have done.
**** Disclaimer: The information in this weblog is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. This weblog does not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my owner. It is solely my own personal opinion. Inappropriate comments will be deleted at the authors discretion.***
"I stand or fall on my own words."
Posts: 7253 | Location: PORTLAND | Registered: 07 November 2005
Rancourt said: ""I argue that by far the most destructive force on the planet is power-driven financiers and profit-driven corporations and their cartels backed by military might; and that the global warming myth is a red herring that contributes to hiding this truth."
Weird thing to say in that the anti-global climate change movement seeks to rein in the activities of financiers, corporations and the military might that protects them.
This dude Rancourt is illogical in that he says the movement is hiding these facts when, in fact, the movement is opposing them.
The anti- CO-2 movement is not hiding the facts of corporate control, rather it is doing its best to call attention to them!
You raise an interesting point, Brent, and without knowing more about his whole philosophy about environmentalism, and just reading the blurb in the report, here's how I interpret what Rancourt is saying, and why I felt it worth quoting:
The real issues about why the environment is going to pieces on the planet are due to a large, global movement that involves those corporate forces and the struggles between nation states for the "resources" of the planet. Focusing on global warming has been like a shell game to overlook the powerful international agreements that make all those forces possible, agreements like NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO. What's built into those agreements undercuts the autonomy of individual states to control their own ecologogical destiny if they want to participate in the global marketplace. Those agreements have built into them anti regulation policies whenever those regulations come up against and can be shown to interfere with economic competition. If the global atmospheric agreements don't address those structural issues, how will they be dealt with? Especially if the Kyoto agreements about getting agreements on setting regulations among states? And then along come the economic forces with their agreements and they throw out their trump cards. Without a closer look, that's what struck me in what Rancourt is saying.
What I see these meetings, like the recent one that just took place, being about, is some sort of way of getting states to agree on how to set their regulations on emissions and other atmospheric impacts. Meanwhile, something like a shell game, the whole international trade agreement structure that sees the planet as a giant resource to be plundered for the benefit of human beings, with little or no attention to the ecological destruction taking place daily, goes on.
Other views in the report echo other aspects of my concern about this. here's Marine Biologist Daniel Botkin, President of the Center for the Study of the Environment and Professor Emeritus in the department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at the University of California, authored the book Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty-First Century .
quote:
"I'm not a naysayer. I'm a scientist who believes in the scientific method and in what facts tell us. I have worked for 40 years to try to improve our environment and improve human life as well. I believe we can do this only from a basis in reality, and that is not what I see happening now. Instead, like fashions that took hold in the past and are eloquently analyzed in the classic 19th century book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, the popular imagination today appears to have been captured by beliefs that have little scientific basis," he added.
------>
We should approach the problem the way we decide whether to buy insurance and take precautions against other catastrophes -- wildfires, hurricanes, earthquakes. And as I have written elsewhere, many of the actions we would take to reduce greenhouse-gas production and mitigate global-warming effects are beneficial anyway, most particularly a movement away from fossil fuels to alternative solar and wind energy.
My concern is that we may be moving away from an irrational lack of concern about climate change to an equally irrational panic about it.
Many of my colleagues ask, "What's the problem? Hasn't it been a good thing to raise public concern?" The problem is that in this panic we are going to spend our money unwisely, we will take actions that are counterproductive, and we will fail to do many of those things that will benefit the environment and ourselves.
For example, right now the clearest threat to many species is habitat destruction. Take the orangutans, for instance, one of those charismatic species that people are often fascinated by and concerned about. They are endangered because of deforestation. In our fear of global warming, it would be sad if we fail to find funds to purchase those forests before they are destroyed, and thus let this species go extinct. (LINK)
I believe our sciences show us much more clearly that we are destroying many eco systems in a rapid order now -- now that we have some 6.6 billion humans hanging around, and an orgy of resource extraction based primarily on unsustainable practices at many levels. Global warming is a hot button hysteria issue that seems to once again take advantage of the ability to move people en masse for a singular cause. The environment and its eco systems are far to complex to ignore, but also far to complex for people to take the trouble to understand in their busy daily efforts to pay their bills.
I just did a search and here are a couple more articles by Rancourt to fill out his perspective a bit more:
Recent essays by leftists Alexander Cockburn, Denis Rancourt, and David Noble, in contrast, take the first position. They are reacting to a recent change in elite strategy on the problem of global warming. The initial elite strategy was that of complete denial, and it was successful in delaying any action on climate change for crucial years. The recent change of strategy by part of the elite (prompted perhaps by increasing evidence in every field that global warming is happening) seems to be to try to co-opt and control the discussion, if not of the problem itself, then of the possible solutions for it. These three activists (Cockburn, Rancourt, & Noble, or CRN) have reasonable suspicions of this rapid change of elite strategy and its expression in media hype about climate change. Their reactions, however, are in error. If their views are adopted by many leftists, elites will be able to claim that leftists are anti-science and anti-green, when what people most need are sensible green proposals that are also in accord with values of justice, equality, and solidarity.
Paleoclimatologist Dr. Tim Patterson, professor in the department of Earth Sciences at Carleton University in Ottawa, recently converted from a believer in man-made climate change to a skeptic.
Well then you can already know that whatever that article says is going to be bullshit.
Background: Only 52 Scientists Participated in UN IPCC Summary
The over 400 skeptical scientists featured in this new report outnumber by nearly eight times the number of scientists who participated in the 2007 UN IPCC Summary for Policymakers. The notion of “hundreds” or “thousands” of UN scientists agreeing to a scientific statement does not hold up to scrutiny.
ren posted: "...agreements like NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO. What's built into those agreements undercuts the autonomy of individual states to control their own ecologogical destiny if they want to participate in the global marketplace. Those agreements have built into them anti regulation policies whenever those regulations come up against and can be shown to interfere with economic competition. If the global atmospheric agreements don't address those structural issues, how will they be dealt with? Especially if the Kyoto agreements about getting agreements on setting regulations among states? And then along come the economic forces with their agreements and they throw out their trump cards. Without a closer look, that's what struck me in what Rancourt is saying.
What I see these meetings, like the recent one that just took place, being about, is some sort of way of getting states to agree on how to set their regulations on emissions and other atmospheric impacts. Meanwhile, something like a shell game, the whole international trade agreement structure that sees the planet as a giant resource to be plundered for the benefit of human beings, with little or no attention to the ecological destruction taking place daily, goes on."
I agree that the problem can't really be tackled under a structure thnat is based on continual exploitation of resources with environmental regulation as an afterthought.
I think Al Gore himself falls prey to avoiding this type of critique.
Would say that the scientist seems to imply some type of intent to cover up the fundamental questions, with environmentalists in league. And maybe some are. Or maybe some think the problem really can be tackled under the current structure.
Can think of many environmentalists who do make the critique, though.
I actually heard Tom say on his show today that CO2 creates the greenhouse effect and global warming. Actually all science has proved that warming causes higher CO2 levels - not the opposite.
Its this type of Flat Earth science that has gone unchallenged by the dominant left wing media. Wonder why? Oh yea, General Electric has a vested interest in promoting this global warming farce; since it is trying to corner the market on nonsense energy projects like wind farms.
Posts: 27 | Location: USofA | Registered: 24 October 2007
Originally posted by DisplayName: Actually all science has proved that warming causes higher CO2 levels - not the opposite.
Actually if you're interested.
Changes in solar intensity has been the major cause of glaciation cycles. However not really due to the sun changing, but due to earth's orbit changing. (This process takes tens of thousands of years) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
The sun Can change it's output slightly over a shorter period of time, however solar intensity cannot explain the majoriety of the warming we've been seeing in the past few decades.
Whats unnatural is the level of carbon we've been experiencing in the atmosphere. Previous the past 200 years, it's not been higher than 281 ppm in 800,000 years. And we're now at 385ppm.
Whats unnatural is the level of carbon we've been experiencing in the atmosphere. Previous the past 200 years, it's not been higher than 281 ppm in 800,000 years. And we're now at 385ppm.
And yet the average temperature has only increased .6 degrees over the past 100 years. I would say that CO2 is a non-issue.
Posts: 27 | Location: USofA | Registered: 24 October 2007
Whats unnatural is the level of carbon we've been experiencing in the atmosphere. Previous the past 200 years, it's not been higher than 281 ppm in 800,000 years. And we're now at 385ppm.
And yet the average temperature has only increased .6 degrees over the past 100 years. I would say that CO2 is a non-issue.
I have been having trouble explaining,even to my own satifaction, that the possiblity remains that the elevated CO2 reading are due partially to Direct atmopheric readings versus Ice Core readings. I for the life of me can not reconcile the two measurements but I am nearly convinced they can not be equivalent. Yet can not find any mention of this anywhere.
**** Disclaimer: The information in this weblog is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. This weblog does not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my owner. It is solely my own personal opinion. Inappropriate comments will be deleted at the authors discretion.***
"I stand or fall on my own words."
Posts: 7253 | Location: PORTLAND | Registered: 07 November 2005
Individuals are legally responsible for their views. Messages or parts of messages may be quoted or read on the radio, or reprinted in Thom's books and other materials.
Discussion Community 
