It profiles Penn professor of environmental Science Bob Giegengack, a geologist who's been studying the topic of climate change for some 50 years.
He has described Al Gore’s documentary as "a political statement timed to present him as a presidential candidate in 2008," telling his students, "Every single one of you knows more about this than Al Gore."
Gore supporter Giegengack says of Gore's film, "The glossy production is replete with inaccuracies and misrepresentations, and appeals to public fear as shamelessly as any other political statement that hopes to unite the public behind a particular ideology."
Etc. Go read it all--it's good.
Then go read this post.
Both links are provided by ShopFloor.org (see blogroll at left).
Update: I've heard it said that even if global warming is just a natural phenomenon, we shouldn't pollute so much. That's a sentiment I can agree with. I've said many times that there's no good reason why, here in the Central Valley of California, we don't have more electrical power generated by the sun. Nuclear energy is another safe, clean alternative (hey, if it's good enough for France, it's good enough for you lefties). Until battery technology improves enough to make electric cars practical, hybrid technology needs to advance and conventional engines need to be improved so that vehicle mileage improves. Here's a small but simple improvement.
(Reuters) - Modern cars can reduce fuel consumption by more than 2.5 percent just by adding a piece of software to the engine computer, a Dutch scientist found in a university research project together with Ford...
Kessels's software dynamically switches the dynamo, which charges the car battery, on and off.
"Just by adding a piece of software and a simple cable, cars can save 2.6 percent of fuel consumption," he told Reuters.
The software is not proprietary to Ford and can be used in any car with an engine computer, he said. In general this applies to most modern cars.
Update #2, 2/9/07: Did the American Enterprise Institute really pay scientists to dispute global warming? Apparently not. Think the Senators who have accused them of doing so will apologize? Probably not.
Update #3, 2/9/07: Some of Greenland's glaciers aren't declining as previously thought. What does this mean? I'm not sure anyone knows for sure--which is part of the reason I'm skeptical about all this.
Update #4, 2/10/07: It's the Chicken Little nature of the global warming zealots that makes it hard to take their claims seriously. Well, that, and the fact that they have to keep downgrading their most dire predictions.
Update #5, 2/11/07: Carbon offsets? More like buying indulgences from the Church.
Update #6, 2/11/07: Mark Steyn gives us a little science, some flip-flopping headlines from the New York Times, and a lot of common sense.
Update #7, 2/11/07: Oregon's climatologist believes "Most of the climate changes we have seen up until now have been a result of natural variations", and the governor isn't pleased.
Update #8, 2/11/07: Every time someone else with a credential says something against the global warming dogma, the zealots will squeal how we should believe "everyone" else, how this one person or factoid is irrelevant or is outweighed by "all the other evidence", etc. In my global warming posts I've linked to or mentioned dozens of people, all of whom have better credentials on the subject than does Al Gore; at what point does the evidence against man-caused global warming become more than individual, unrelated questions? Several more such unexplained-by-global-warming-zealots facts are mentioned in this piece, by the former editor of New Scientist.
Update #9, 2/16/07: Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, is someone I've mentioned before. Here's a Wall Street Journal article on his support for nuclear power.
Update #10, 2/18/07: This January was the warmest January ever? Really?
8 comments:
"He notes that even the most optimistic assessments based on the adoption of the most aggressive measures will not eliminate but only shrink the growth of CO2 emissions."
Oh, so since we can't eliminate them (something that's very impossible to do and not what anyone has been trying to say), we should just let everyone keep emitting it at the same rate as usual?
A lot of the facts stated in your articles help to show that we definitely should curb our emissions! Especially this one:
"The core samples from the polar ice and ocean floor help show that the Earth’s temperature and the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have been in lockstep for tens of thousands of years. Of course, that was long before anybody was burning fossil fuels."
Now that we are burning fossil fuels, carbon levels are higher than they have ever been! That means that the temperature will, in fact, rise, according to the previous point. The articles I gave you in class show that measured carbon levels are higher than they've been in the past half million years, according to ice core data. We HAVE changed our planet for the worse We have the choice to slow the rate of our damage, and we choose not to because people don't want to face the facts, and instead choose to follow their old ways because it's what they've been doing.
I'm sure you saw the article in the Bee stating that over 90% of scientists now believe that we have done damage to our planet that will result in climate change. I guess they could all be wrong, though! Just like all the Bible-thumping idiots (who unanimously reside on the right, might I add) refuse to believe in evolution, because a two thousand year old book of mythology told them not to. I see a lot of similarities between the two. There is a great deal of evidence for evolution and global warming, but for some odd reason, conservatives will not look at the facts, and instead make their own weak arguments so that they don't have to see their world change. They are living in the past. They need to look ahead.
Cameron, there are plenty of good reasons why we should reduce pollution. Concerns about global warming are not included in the *good* reasons. They're included in the "let's scare people into doing what we want them to do" reasons.
Yes, global warming is scary. Does that mean we should ignore it? Of course not.
My information on global warming is from scientific journals, not amateur political blogs. I don't care if someone has an opinion on the subject if they don't know what the hell they're talking about and aren't a scientist. Any idiot can speak their mind on what they believe is right, but they don't have the same qualifications as a scientist. Of course, you've quoted those who don't agree with the current consensus, but there are always a few people who disagree. Currently, all of the evidence I've read about global warming has no hard data to back it up; it's just people saying "Well, it's not as bad as they say. At least, that's what I think." Everyone can offer up alternate theories, but the current one, the one that we are affecting our environment, is supported by a huge body of research and hard data, and backed by the vast, vast majority of international scientific committees. Name one accredited non-partisan scientific committee that believes that we pose no threat to our own planet, and I'll look into it.
It doesn't help that the Bush administration has been suppressing information on global warming from scientists for years:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,72672-0.html?tw=wn_index_1
Just what we need - politicians interfering with science! They're obviously more qualified. The right's done it before, with intelligent design idiocy, and it looks like they're continuing as usual.
If only the President *were* suppressing this information. Then we wouldn't have to worry about the fanaticism of the global warming adherents.
He obviously isn't doing such a good job of suppressing it, since so many of you hear and believe the sky is falling. *sigh*
As for who's not drinking the Kool-Aid, I've given you several examples in the last two posts, including their credentials.
Cammeron,
You should have continued your reading for just two more sentences:
"That’s the crux of his argument with Gore’s view of global warming — he says carbon dioxide doesn’t control global temperature, and certainly not in a direct, linear way."
Jetgirl, he can make all the statements he wants, but I'd like to see how he proves his statements. I can see how carbon dioxide levels are directly related to temperature, as they have been for all of the data that has been collected, by looking straight at the data. They are very obviously linked. Any scientist can say that they're unrelated, but I don't see how, unless they give evidence. It would be nice if he had done that, but he hasn't. For example, Liberty University contains several dinosaur fossils, dated back a few thousand years. That's a statement that they've made, but they don't have a whole lot of evidence to back up their claims.
I will believe a claim if it has some real research and evidence behind it. I'm sure that Giegengack has done research that "proves" his statements, but I've never read anything refuting global warming in a scientific journal before, so it would be nice to read.
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