Global Warming To Be Put On Trial? 1100
Mr_Blank writes to mention that the United States' largest business lobby is pushing for a public trial to examine the evidence of global warming and have a judge make a ruling on whether human beings are warming the planet to dangerous effect. "The goal of the chamber, which represents 3 million large and small businesses, is to fend off potential emissions regulations by undercutting the scientific consensus over climate change. If the EPA denies the request, as expected, the chamber plans to take the fight to federal court. The EPA is having none of it, calling a hearing a 'waste of time' and saying that a threatened lawsuit by the chamber would be 'frivolous.' [...] Environmentalists say the chamber's strategy is an attempt to sow political discord by challenging settled science — and note that in the famed 1925 Scopes trial, which pitted lawyers Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan in a courtroom battle over a Tennessee science teacher accused of teaching evolution illegally, the scientists won in the end."
Re:The goal of the chamber (Score:5, Informative)
and it is now a conclusive scientific consensus that it is happening and that human action is contributing to it
Even the Bush administration admitted these things before they left the building. The idea of suing for scientific consensus is about the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard... no, wait, being forced to give creationism equal time in class is a more ludicrous idea. But this is close...
Re:Absurd (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Absurd - oh really? (Score:1, Informative)
Yes, me too: sick of people who won't listen to science, and instead listen to the media and the so-called scientists who support the consensus so that they can get their grant money.
For an overview of the overwhelming evidence against the so-called consensus, see this presentation [rps3.com] by Burt Rutan. Pay particular attention to the part where he talks about the deliberate falsification of data by the "scientists" who support the global warming consensus.
Of course, a trial only makes sense if the objectivity of the judge could somehow be assured.
This is not a troll. If you haven't even looked into the science, or even read that presentation, then maybe you should...
Re:Just what we need (Score:4, Informative)
I'd suggest reading a bit of:
Kicking the Sacred Cow
by James P Hogan.
You would be rather surprised and intrigued by what you'll read.
In a nut shell, the evidence via ice core samples, tree growth rings, etc do show a correlation between increased global temperatures and carbon dioxide levels.
However, it seems that the carbon dioxide levels increase about 40 to 50 years *after* the temperature increase.
Additionally, the archeological evidence coming to light now isn't that the naming of of Greenland by the vikings wasn't a propaganda triumph, but instead a quite literal statement. Interestingly enough, *farms* are being discovered under the glaciers.
Re:They are NOT Denying Global Warming (Score:4, Informative)
True. I think that's something that's hugely overlooked---energy is becoming not only a hammer for the big corps to put the hurt smaller businesses, but the regulations are also suited that way such that only large corps are either getting paid or will meet or be excluded from the energy regs.
Also from the article summary:
"and note that in the famed 1925 Scopes trial, which pitted lawyers Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan in a courtroom battle over a Tennessee science teacher accused of teaching evolution illegally, the scientists won in the end."
Umm, no. Scopes lost in the trial. That said, the public perception of the trial was that the claims made against Scopes were ridiculous. But saying scientists won is wrong from a historical perspective, the judicial decision standpoint, and even the current, modern day standpoint where (the extent of) evolution is still debated today.
The sad truth... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The goal of the chamber (Score:4, Informative)
Creationism is so far from a philosophy...
Re:They are NOT Denying Global Warming (Score:5, Informative)
This is completely and utterly false. In other words, it isn't true. Case in point: Germany, like many other EU states has implemented a carbon tax [wikipedia.org] to limit CO2 emissions. It's working in that Germany's emissions are now below the Kyoto accord requirements [dw-world.de]. All this, yet Germany's economy is recovering from their recession [euobserver.com], and the recovery is faster than the U.S. recovery is. Lastly, the carbon taxes have all been projected to increase the number of jobs [feasta.org], not "hamstring" businesses like you say:
So when you look at the actual evidence, carbon taxes do pretty much precisely exactly the opposite of what you said. Do yourself a favor and stop reading talking points written by Exxon.
Re:"Scientific Consensus Over Climate Change" ? (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly. There is still very little _EVIDENCE_ of mankind-created global warming.
I don't think you understand the scientific method. Global warming with manmade causes as a major factor, is the most supported scientific theory by a large margin. As far as actual scientific theories go, it has been supported by more evidence and testing than any other theory and that is reflected in peer reviewed scientific journals.
If you're truly looking at this scientifically you need to do more than attack the methodology of one or two studies or a meta study. That's already been done as part of the peer review process. You actually have to present an alternative theory and perform experiments and gather data in a falsifiable way showing that your theory has more predictive ability to better match data you haven't yet seen. I haven't seen any other theory with anything close to the support for global warming influenced by man and, in fact, all the leading theories seem to be variations on that model.
You make a slew of unsupported assertions and inherent statements in the rest of your post, but I won't go through and address them individually. People seem to be approaching global warming with the same mindset as creationism. If we can just attack the prevailing theory, we can assume whatever other thing we want is true. That's not science, but I suppose it is understandable because both topics are the result of marketing reaching the public directly, and we all know marketing has nothing to do with rational decision making.
Re:"Scientific Consensus Over Climate Change" ? (Score:3, Informative)
Someone linked this [wikipedia.org] on /. a while back, and I thought I'd link it again.
"It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes."
You are intentionally misleading (or very stupid) (Score:3, Informative)
For example, right now (since 2000) we have global cooling (around 0.5 degrees).
That is extremely misleading. If you take the look at the chart [wikimedia.org] of local temperature average and then tell me "The temperature is decreasing, actually"... Technically you aren't actually lying but either you are very close to that or very stupid.
We are also heading towards a small ice age, our eliptical orbiting around the sun is about to change as it does "frequently" leading to us being further away from the sun in the coming millennias.
Yes, in 10 000 years from now, here is supposed to be 100 meters thick ice. But when it comes to climate change, we care about what happens a century or two from now.
The IPCC still refuses to provide either the data from which they created their apocalyptic graphs from, or the models they used to do the predictions. This goes massively against the scientific standpoint of providing an open view into research to allow valid verification or falsification.
At this point it is difficult to take anything you say very seriously. However, scientists all around the world are getting to the same conclusions. With IPCC data or not. So that kind of destroys the point.
And what most people are forgetting: There is a climate change going on, it has always been going on and it will always do so. The question is how we are to adopt to it, not if we are disillusioned enough to think we can stop the planets natural processes and freeze it in something that we right now think is a global optima.
We disturb the climate a lot with pollution. We want to take an action to fix that. And you argue against that action with the "We shouldn't disturb the nature!" argument?
This is why the majority of people thinks that these "climate sceptics" are idiots. Hell, there might be someone intelligent among them, someone with good, scientific arguments that aren't intentionally misleading. I just haven't seen any so far.
CO2 increase lags temprature increase... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:They are NOT Denying Global Warming (Score:4, Informative)
It's worse.
It would classify CO2 under the same classification as Asbestos, Chloroform, and other dangerous toxic chemicals, attempting to effectively limit emissions by orders of magnitude. That's not cutting it in half, or even a third. It's cutting it down by a factor of TEN.
It's stupid and impossible.
Re:Just what we need (Score:1, Informative)
I'd suggest reading a bit of:
Kicking the Sacred Cow
by James P Hogan.
Ah yes... a holocaust denier. How very informative. I also here he's a 9/11 truther.
Re:They are NOT Denying Global Warming (Score:3, Informative)
And I would like to point out that it is not yet a consensus among scientists that global warming is not part of a natural cycle, or that humans are causing it. According to the survey cited in this article:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/01/19/eco.globalwarmingsurvey/index.html [cnn.com]
Climatologists are 97% agreed that humans are causing it, Petroleum geologists are at 47% and meteorologists are at 64%. I think engineers would be even more skeptical though one might argue that they don't have the expertise. And consensus alone doesn't mean anything. When one is among a group of people wearing rose-coloured lenses, one tends to view everything through rose-coloured lenses. Everything then begins to look like human-caused global warming.
Regardless of whether it is true or not, the way that most countries are going about it is almost laughable. At least they are trying to do something but no one talks about whether it is most the most cost-effective method. For example, spending millions to cut down on emissions from vehicles in the UK. It's admirable, but how much does it all help? Will it prevent global warming by even one hundredth of one degree C during the next ten years? Highly unlikely. Yet if they were to paint the streets white to reflect sunlight, that could potentially help a lot more and be significantly cheaper.
Here is a highly recommended video on alternative solutions:
http://reason.tv/video/show/621.html [reason.tv]
Re:des (Score:5, Informative)
Having read some of the posts in this discussion, I'm starting to think chaos theory should be taught in high schools, although I'd have thought that the typical Slashdot reader would have at least a basic grounding in the subject.
Re:"Scientific Consensus Over Climate Change" ? (Score:2, Informative)
So even if we all agree on a small amount of global warming over the last 300 years, no one can say what it means, or what things will be like in 20, 100, 500 years. The problem is that people keep trying to say these things to scare you into supporting some foundation or new law.
So yes, the "GW is crap" people have something to gain by having you ignore them, but the "GW will kill you TOMORROW" people also have something to gain and are equally bat-shit crazy.
Re:Absurd (Score:3, Informative)
I will admit that the debate has been tainted, but the science has not been lost. It's all there in black and white for those that are willing to look for it and asses it honestly. There are still a lot of those people, even in the climate change debate.
Re:They are NOT Denying Global Warming (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Absurd (Score:2, Informative)
I think this document refers to that petition:
http://www.aps.org/about/pressreleases/climatechange08.cfm [aps.org]
The GP should know better than thinking a petition is the same as an official position or consensus...
You couldn't import wine cheaply in 300AD (Score:1, Informative)
So you HAD to make wine.
Christianity required wine for the communion.
So how nice it tasted had NOTHING to do with it.
They are making wine NOW in the scottish borders that IS good enough to compete with French wines. In 300AD there was demand but no competition. No wine was NOT an option.
And it is warmer now than it was in the peak of the middle ages warming period.
Re:The goal of the chamber (Score:3, Informative)
philosophy (f-ls-f)
n. pl. phi-los-o-phies
A system of values by which one lives.
Re:No... (Score:1, Informative)
VERDICT IN THE CASE OF ALBERT ARNOLD GORE Jr. vs JUDGE MICHAEL BURTON
"Legal decision permitting the Gore movie ***to be shown in British schools*** , together with teacher guidance pointing out alleged "errors." October 10, 2007."
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2007/10/pinocchio_time_for_al_gore_1.html
I suggest you are a filthy scumsucking liar (Score:3, Informative)
I don't suggest this. I'm not expressing an opinion about the content and support of that petition; I'm stating a fact: you lied by presenting the opposite of what the APS supports as if it was the APS.
Re:Just what we need (Score:5, Informative)
Have you checked whether the Romans actually grew grapes in England, or are you just repeating stuff you read on the internet? I ask since you say it's impossible today. Which it isn't [allotment.org.uk]. Southern England has a proper wine industry [english-wine.com]. Today, it's even possible to grow grapes some places in Norway [online.no].
I know re-posting bullshit you've seen at +5, insightful before can be tempting, but half of your "empirical" evidence is plain wrong, and I haven't found sources for the other part (not that there's much point to it).
Re:No... (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/arcticice_decline.html
Re:C02 is not a pollutant (Score:3, Informative)
The rest is a cost benefit analysis. If we act, and this theory is wrong, we get cleaner air and waste billions of dollars. If we don't act, and this theory is right, millions of people could die. If you want to take risks, go for it. The rest of us are going to play it safe. Fortunately for us, there are more of us than there are of you.
Re:Anyone read the HR2454 Bill? (Score:1, Informative)
"Temperatures have been cooling since 1998/99"
That's a blatant lie.
in the last 143 years
10 hottest years are since 1990
4 hottest years: 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003
Reaping the whirlwind
Extreme weather prompts unprecedented global warming alert
The Independent, july 3 2003
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=421166
Very warm 2008 makes this the hottest decade in recorded history by far
http://climateprogress.org/2008/12/07/very-warm-2008-makes-this-hottest-decade-in-recorded-history-by-far
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A.lrg.gif
"Never mind the fact that The Inconvenient Truth is actually refuted by thousands of scientists throughout the world."
Most of whom are not climate scientists or are not scientists at all and/or are funded by the oil industry.
Exxon Mobil Cultivates Global Warming Doubt
Reuters
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010407M.shtml
Re:"Scientific Consensus Over Climate Change" ? (Score:3, Informative)
The IPCC "does science" by performing the most tedious and thankless part of the scientific method - "peer rieview". It's a serious contender for the largest, most thourough peer-review execises ever undertaken by mankind.
The contents of it's reports read like the soylent green oceanic survey, observations show it's two decades of forecast have proven to be on the conservative side, insurance companies have been including thier forecast risks into your bill for the last decade.
Every single one of it's 2500 UNPAID authours are scientists in a related discipline and the 2500 scientists that wrote the last report will be different from the next 2500. Most of the scientists are senior scientists representing, (rather than simply working at), a scientific intituition such as NAS, NASA, MET, WMO,CSIRO,etc,etc.
It's aim is to provide poltitians with the science for their (one would hope) science-based policy decisions. It publishes it's detailed financial reports on the web and is funded to the princely sum of $5-6 million a year by ~300 individual nations representing every colour of the political rainbow.
Besides, the greenhouse effect is basic science. On Venus you can plug in the numbers and come up with a tempratue, problem is the Earth's biosphere screws with the equations by throwing in all sorts of subtle feedbacks (most of them bad). This is known as climate's sensitivity. Unfortunately the geological record and the disappearance of the Artic ice indicates the climate is highly sensitive to CO2 and an increase of 2degC above current temps is very likely to be an ApocalypticSenario(TM).
Could they be wrong? - Of course they could, they're scientists!!
Are the consensus skeptics offering better science? - not that I have seen, most don't even bother to publish other than via their own websites/pop-science books. Theier arguments are rarely any more convincing than creationists, it's sort of poetic that their sponsors are calling for a monkey trial,
Re:No... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No... (Score:3, Informative)
For a serious discussion about "An Inconvenient Truth" and judges ruling see this article [realclimate.org] att realclimate.org. Here is an excerpt from the article by Gavin Schmidt and Michael Mann
:
There are a number of points to be brought out here. First of all, "An Inconvenient Truth" was a movie and people expecting the same depth from a movie as from a scientific paper are setting an impossible standard. Secondly, the judge's characterisation of the 9 points is substantially flawed. He appears to have put words in Gore's mouth that would indeed have been wrong had they been said (but they weren't).
Overall, our verdict is that the 9 points are not âoeerrorsâ at all (with possibly one unwise choice of tense on the island evacuation point).
Re:No... (Score:3, Informative)
Mr Justice Burton [i.e., the judge who made the ruling in question] said he had no complaint about Gore's central thesis that climate change was happening and was being driven by emissions from humans. However, the judge said nine statements in the film were not supported by mainstream scientific consensus.
Re:Just what we need (Score:2, Informative)
Just because the climate has natural cycles, doesn't mean that human being can't interfere. And the *evidence* is that we have.
We also know in the UK the romans (circa 100BC) grew grapes almost up to the scottish borders, something not possible today because it's too cold.
Note that you can grow grapes in Norway today, however, it's not commercially viable since you may loose your crop, and it's so easy to transport wine from the South.
[from Gavin at realclimate.org] Deducing temperature from commercial vineyards is fraught with problems. Transporting wine large distances is now very easy; during the MWP/LIA/past is was hard. So the incentive to grow grapes locally was much much stronger.
So, the climate has always been changing, and while it's almost certain that humans have made an impact on the environment, I find it very hard to believe that the results will be catastrophic.
Sticks head in sand.
Take the long view. We're going to run out of fossil fuels - burn up all our resources. Even if global warming doesn't cause catastrophic problems (like displacing all the people in Bangladesh, for one example), it is nonetheless *prudent* to at least stretch out our natural resources.
This ultra-right-wing perspective that the economy can do without natural resources is patently false.
In our profligate use of resources we are the generations who won the lottery but squandered it all in an a moment of time. -- Lee Coates
Re:No... (Score:1, Informative)
In several minutes of searching, I am able to find no credible, objective evidence of this (no, Fox News is not credible or objective).
Would believe James Hansen [naturalscience.com]?
Emphasis on extreme scenarios may have been appropriate at one time, when the public and decision-makers were relatively unaware of the global warming issue, and energy sources such as "synfuels," shale oil and tar sands were receiving strong consideration.
Above, James Hansen admits that he used the "extreme scenarios" and under emphasized the more moderate ones.
...
The IPCC, however, does not specify the likelihood of the scenarios or examine the direction of current real-world growth rates.
Here, Hansen admits that they rely exclusively on their models, which use many "unknown" variables that require a best guess, and ignore what's really happening outside in the real world.
Re:Just what we need (Score:3, Informative)
I'd suggest reading a bit of:
Kicking the Sacred Cow by James P Hogan.
You would be rather surprised and intrigued by what you'll read.
In a nut shell, the evidence via ice core samples, tree growth rings, etc do show a correlation between increased global temperatures and carbon dioxide levels. However, it seems that the carbon dioxide levels increase about 40 to 50 years *after* the temperature increase.
Additionally, the archeological evidence coming to light now isn't that the naming of of Greenland by the vikings wasn't a propaganda triumph, but instead a quite literal statement. Interestingly enough, *farms* are being discovered under the glaciers.
Add to that the medieval grape and wine industry on the coastland of Greenland. Vineyards. Doing something like that would be absolutely impossible given the current climate.
Sorry, vineyards in Greenland never happened. Even at the height of the Medieval Warm Period (the existence of which is not controversial and in no way undercuts current climate research) the Vikings were challenged to grown enough *hay* much less something so exotic and non-essential. A detailed discussion of the Greenland Viking's agricultural economy is given in Jared Diamond's book "Collapse".
You are probably confusing Vinland (Canda and New England) which the Vikings visited periodically and found native wild grapes with the notion that the Vikings grew grapes
Hogan? Really? A supporter of Intelligent Design, Velikovsky catastrophe cosmology, and an AIDS denier? Certainly if you want cherry-picked evidence that's where you should go. He seems to have made it his third career.
Re:C02 is not a pollutant (Score:3, Informative)
Well, because science has established a very strong relationship between the rise in CO2 levels (and methane, and a variety of other 'greenhouse gasses), and a rise in the general temperature of the planet. This is happening at a very accelerated rate, compared to swings that have happened before in ice records and various other sources that show a swing in temperature.
The knock on effect of this warming is that Australia is facing the worst droughts in its history, coral reefs are dying (as they can only survive in a narrow temperature band), and a host of other untowards effects are happening.
Now, we have a couple of choices really. When this is flagged up (even with a proviso "we can't 100% prove this, but we've got a strong correlation, which may not be causation, but it's a good candidate") we can either:
1) Say "You can't prove it 100%. This is therefore bunk, and I'm not doing it.". If you guess right, you save a lot of money, and the world carries on as normal. If you guess wrong, the global ecosystem will be screwed up, affecting the food chain and who knows what else. Rainfall patterns will change (some places becoming swamps, others becoming deserts). Sea levels will rise (putting some coastal cities and towns underwater).
OR
2) You can say "Sounds bad. Lets take reasonable action and put some money into making sure we're not screwing around with this unnecessarily. Like lead piping, what we don't know CAN harm us. Lets shell out what we can to circumvent as much of the problem as possible, without going completely insanely over the top".
If you guess right, you spend a lot of money (though create quite a few jobs in the process), the world carries on pretty well avoiding as much of the problems as possible with our technology, while creating quite a few new technologies along the way. If you guess wrong, well, you've just wasted money (though understand a lot more about the ecological systems of the world, which is a scientific boon).
Which, to you, is the sane bet to take?
Re:You find it hard to believe? (Score:3, Informative)
I find human causation of global warming to be unproven.
The problem is with people who think it's been proven, or can be proven, that humans cause specific changes to the climate. Mathematicians deal in proofs; scientists don't. Human-caused climate change is a perfectly valid hypothesis, there's plenty of evidence to support it, and it may very well be true. My annoyance is with people who treat it as some unquestionable fact that is more fundamental than gravity or conservation of energy.
Re:Just what we need (Score:3, Informative)
However, it seems that the carbon dioxide levels increase about 40 to 50 years *after* the temperature increase.
you've bought into a classic denier talking point.
just because during the natural ice age cycle CO2 lags temperature does not mean that CO2 doesn't cause warming. it's just that in the natural cycle CO2 doesn't just magically appear en masse, its released by an increase in temperature brought about by other changes.
during natural warming, increases in solar insolation due to changes in the earth's axis/obliquity/etc causes melting of ice which adds CO2 to the atmosphere. this causes warming which creates a positive loop that leads to a warm interglacial period.
on the other side of the cycle, changes in the other direction with regard to solar insolation cause ice to form, locking up CO2, which lowers the warming effect creating another loop. the CO2 level again lags temperature.
right now we're screwing that up by pumping sh1t tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. that is not a natural phenomenon, its measurably anthropogenic. and its causing warming by the same basic mechanism that occurs during the natural cycle.
we're supposed to be past the peak of the current interglacial. CO2 levels should, under the natural cycle of things, be going down. instead they're skyrocketing because we've spent the last coupla thousand years cutting down forests, destroying grasslands and burning carbon.
Re:No... (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah and you can just ignore the FACT that the North Atlantic is melting because it is some NASA plot!
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/arcticice_decline.html [nasa.gov]
And you ignore the fact that the ice is at a greater level today than it was a year ago.
From August 1 to 17, Arctic sea ice extent declined at an average rate of 54,000 square kilometers (21,000 square miles) per day. This decline was slower than the same period in 2008, when it was 91,000 square kilometers (35,000 square miles) per day, and for the same period in 2007, when ice extent declined at a rate of 84,000 square kilometers (32,000 square miles) per day. The recent rate of ice loss has slowed considerably compared to most of July. Arctic sea ice extent is now greater than the same day in 2008.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ [nsidc.org]
Re:They are NOT Denying Global Warming (Score:3, Informative)
People whine about Obama spending a trillion dollars to bail out the American economy, when we've spent three times that much bailing out Iraq socially, and it hasn't worked; it just makes no sense to me.
BZZZZT! Wrong!
From HERE [nationalpriorities.org]:
To date, $915.1 billion dollars have been allocated to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And from HERE [nationalreview.com]:
The White House raised the 2009 budget deficit projection to a staggering $1.8 trillion today. For context, it took President Bush more than seven years to accumulate $1.8 trillion in debt.
So, let's see. $915 billion (Iraq war) is less than $1.8 trillion (Obama deficit). So you were off by 6X.
How can we take you seriously when you can't get your facts straight. Hell, you weren't even close.
Re:No... (Score:2, Informative)
No, the WSJ is pretty much Fox with more decorum. The Economist is more balanced, as is the FT.
Re:They are NOT Denying Global Warming (Score:5, Informative)
For the first time in 6 years the Iraq war is INCLUDED in the budget. Part of that 1.8 trillion dollars is the war that George Bush kept off the books the whole time he was in office.
TRY AGAIN
Do you have a citation? I do [nationalpriorities.org]. It's the same site listed above, which is an anti-war site, btw.
To date, $915.1 billion dollars have been allocated to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The national, state, and local numbers we provide are based on the total approved amounts through the end of Fiscal Year 2009.
In addition to this approved amount, the FY2010 budget shows a $130 billion request for more war spending. This would bring total war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan to more than $1 trillion. When all FY2010 war-related amounts are approved, we will adjust the counter so that it reaches the new total at the end of FY2010.
If you should compare the amount displayed on the numbers in our information sheets with the Cost of War counter, please note that the information sheets include all war spending approved to date, the same number that the counter will reach at the end of the 2009 fiscal year.
Looks like they are including what was in the budget.
Here's another one from the LA Times [latimes.com]:
If Congress approves a request for another $87 billion, the Iraq war will have cost about $694 billion.
Here is a quote from another anti-war site [wordpress.com]. The title is Iraq War: The Cost of Bush Lies and His Influence of Not Being Accountable :
$800 billion through mid-2009 in U.S. taxpayer money
Sorry. Either you're wrong or everyone else is.
Re:They are NOT Denying Global Warming (Score:3, Informative)
You are blaming a new president and an administration who have been in power for LESS THAN A YEAR for the current state of the budget, while ignoring the past 8 years of what happened?
Yes I am. Because it's Obama's budget. Actually, Congress controls the purse strings, so it's really Congress's fault. They just give Obama everything he asks for and he signs it.
The simplest explanation I can provide to someone like you is that something mysterious and strange happens when you start spending more than ever before and yet decide to lower taxes across the board at the same time. Guess what happens when you do that?
That's right, you run DEFICITS.
You're half right. While I agree that government spending is out of control, and this is not an Obama thing, Bush was just as guilty, cutting taxes actually increased revenue [taxpolicycenter.org]. Look up the Laffer Curve for an explanation.
See, in 2000, under President Clinton, Federal Tax receipts were $2025.5 billion or 20% of the GDP. In 2008, under President Bush, they were $2524.3 billion, but only 17.7% of the GDP. See, when you cut taxes, the GDP (economy) grows, meaning you are taking a smaller percentage of a larger pie, meaning more $$$ for the government.
But again, I agree about the drunken sailor spending. Bush spent WAY too much money. Obama is spending much much more money. So if you are upset about Bush's spending, you should be really pissed about Obama's. If not, you are blinded by your own partisanship.
Re:"Scientific Consensus Over Climate Change" ? (Score:2, Informative)
NewsBusters (a fox news favourite [newshounds.us]) is owned by Media Research Centre [sourcewatch.org], a far-right group whose president Brent Bozell [sourcewatch.org] who, among other things, in 2004 accused John Kerry of lying [pittsburghlive.com] in his testimony to the US Senate foreign relations committee in 1971 because he had depicted US soldiers in a bad light.
Media Research Centre has several far-right financial supporters, among them:
The Scaife Foundations [sourcewatch.org] - Director Richard Mellon Scaife whose fortune was built on the family's ownership of Gulf Oil Corp., Alcoa and Alcan.
John M. Olin Foundation [sourcewatch.org] - also funds Brookings, Project for the New American Century etc.
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation [sourcewatch.org] - another far right group which gives away about $30 million a year to neocon organisations.
PS. And there is a consensus. Here's yet another survey [uic.edu]. Is 96.2% of climate science specialists good enough for you?
Re:No... (Score:4, Informative)
NO, Fox news actually sued for the right to NOT be credible.
http://ceasespin.org/ceasespin_blog/ceasespin_blogger_files/fox_news_gets_okay_to_misinform_public.html [ceasespin.org]
they are the leaders of shitbag journalism.
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)
Re:But according to... (Score:3, Informative)
Oh how little do you know. If you would have read the verse and applied literal physics to the situation you would understand that the wall comprising of rim to rim cannot be paper thin. In fact, when you add the thickness of the rim into the equation, Pi comes out to an except-able number. [purplemath.com]
Re:No... (Score:2, Informative)
I think the problem is that Real Climate is just as invested in global warming as Al Gore it. I'm not sure you would find an accurate standard of truth there any more then you would anywhere else and most likely a less of a standard.
I gave up on Real Climate when they were citing information that was claimed to be inaccurate in order to attempt to invalidate the person claiming it was inaccurate. I seemed that there was no other information availible at the time and they thought it was perfectly fine to use information claimed to be inaccurate to invalidate a claim against it's accuracy. That's when I realized they were nothing more then lunatics pushing a point of view.
Re:They are NOT Denying Global Warming (Score:3, Informative)
Umm, no. Scopes lost in the trial. That said, the public perception of the trial was that the claims made against Scopes were ridiculous. But saying scientists won is wrong from a historical perspective, the judicial decision standpoint, and even the current, modern day standpoint where (the extent of) evolution is still debated today.
The initial trail was lost and Scopes was ordered to pay a $100 fine. But it was thrown out by Appeals Court (on a technicality regarding the fine's amount), so ultimately Scopes did win his case. His conviction was set aside, so he was found innocent. The Butler act was also later repealled, so you definetly could say that science won in the end.
The problem is that it took 40 years for the Butler Act to be repealed. So it goes to show that it often takes a very long time for science to win over idiocy.
Re:No... (Score:3, Informative)
Try again.
Al Gore's "inconvenient truth" (really Big Fat Lie, which makes him Big Fat Liar) not only was less scientifically accurate than the sci-fi movie "The Day After Tomorrow", but is actually banned from being shown to schoolkids in Britain because it is so inaccurate.
Wrong. [wikipedia.org]"The court ruled that the film was substantially founded upon scientific research and fact and could continue to be shown, but it had a degree of political bias such that teachers would be required to explain the context via guidance notes issued to schools along with the film."
The movie has generally received good marks for accuracy from scientists. It's not perfect, of course (and I found it boring), but what do you expect if you put decades of research into 90 minutes? It gets the core points right.
Re:They are NOT Denying Global Warming (Score:3, Informative)
Climatologists are 97% agreed that humans are causing it, Petroleum geologists are at 47%
Doctors are 97% agreed that cigarettes cause cancer, Tobacco agriculturists are at 47%.
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Re:"Scientific Consensus Over Climate Change" ? (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.heartland.org/publications/NIPCC%20report/PDFs/Chapter%201.1.pdf [heartland.org] [heartland.org]
Basically, they're a bunch of scientists and non-scientists that have policy objectives. Here's the kicker though:
* Even though they use complex computer models, their models do not follow standard guidelines for scientific forecasts. When audited, their little IPCC homework assignments fail miserably - in this case Working Group I violated 72 of 140 scientific procedures, some very critical violations by themselves.
And I'll leave you with one of the contributing authors replies to the scathing criticisms on their shabby methodologies - sorry to all you IPCC lovers out:
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Kevin Trenberth, a lead author along with Philip D. Jones of chapter 3 of the Working Group I contribution to the IPCCs Fourth Assessment Report, replied to some of these scathing criticisms on the blog of the science journal Nature. He argued that "the IPCC does not make forecasts" but "instead proffers 'what if' projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios," and then hopes these "projections" will "guide policy and decision makers" (Trenberth, 2007). He says "there are no such predictions [in the IPCC reports] although the projections given by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are often treated as such. The distinction is important."