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"it doesn't qualify as a strawman, but a pre-emptive answer to an anticipated objection...[snip]...It might also be more accurately labelled science ignorant rather than anti-science"

Pre-emptive yes, ignorant maybe, but it's still a strawman. A quick look at some definitions reveals...
"A discussion technique used to refute an opposing view by misrepresenting it."
"A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position."

By accusing climate scientists of pre-determining their results he IS misrepresenting them, he then expands on that misrepresentation as if it were a fact. His slur on the integrity of a large and diverse population of scientists completely ignores both the data and the method, it is therfore anti-science in my view.

"Can anyone clarify to me the conspiracy theory the OP is propagating in that post?"

I completely agree with your point, he doesn't actually spell out a conspiracy but I think you are missing the bigger picture and that is why I replied to your post. I believe the conspiracy theory that he is blowing the dog whistle for is the one where the UN supposedly set up the IPCC to push a political agenda, often refered to as "socialist world domination" (random example: here). I can't tell from the post if he is doing it deliberately or from ignorance, either way the post is an excellent example of pursuasive propoganda and very well written.

Having just recently been the victim of an attempted bashing (still got bruises), I can understand how events like that put you on edge. Mine was pretty random - I was walking through a park, heard "fucking faggot!" yelled behind me, and turned around just in time to cop a fist to the face. It was mildly ironic, since I was walking with a young lady I'd picked up that night, who yelled and screamed until he went away while I was figuring out how to stand up again, but he obviously knew how to throw a punch, which I sure as hell don't, he didn't care that I was a complete stranger, and I shudder to think how I would have ended up if I'd been on my own.

I'm curious, if sounding intelligent doesn't get you out of one of these situations, what other options do you have at your disposal? Do you or would you consider carrying a firearm? Have you done any martial arts or self-defence training?

A counterpoint to your question, though: The first site I could find that didn't look like a hatespeech outlet still suggests that black-on-white gang violence, US-wide, is approximately 8 times more prevalent than white-on black, in a country with 6 times as many whites as blacks. If you have any other numbers I'd like to see them.

I'm not excusing anyone's behaviour here, and I admire your restraint in dealing with the fuckwits you've encountered thus far. There are obviously heavy social, cultural, historic, economic and legal factors in the equation, and the above is just one type of crime out of many. I assume there are also rampant reporting discrepancies - yelling "nigger" at someone is a crime pretty much anywhere with hatespeech laws, but I doubt it gets reported or enforced frequently, if ever.

Your thoughts?

Regarding your link: the story has been taken off the source page, at Canada Free Press, casting doubt upon its authenticity. And this is saying something, considering CFP is known as not a very credible source in the first place. It also had an article claiming that the Amero was a plot for the United States to repudiate its debts. But this article also claimed that the Euro came about because the Vatican minted a coin with the Pope facing the wrong way: http://canadafreepress.com/2006/cover121406.htm
Apparently, because the coin was the size of a Euro coin, it was a signal from the Illuminati or people like that through the Pope. For the GCHQ to reveal details of intercepted communications is unlikely except in extreme situations. For the PLA to pretend to beat soldiers dressed as monks, when it has plenty of real monks peacefully protesting that it can run over with a tank - which is what I remember reading in the mainstream media as triggering the violence - also seems odd. Looks like you're the one that has hit an unreliable source, and I request that moderators to decrease the score of your post for posting an obviously unreliable reference.

If you jettison anyone fighting for your side (i.e. science) as soon as they are attacked, you will very soon run out of smart people like Gore and Dawkins.

Escuse me? Isn't the core of this conversation about how politics + science = bad times for science? The problem with "global warming" is that Gore, a politician, is speaking a story that climatologists, meteorologists, scientists are denying is occurring. I'm more concerned that he is profiting from involvement in venture capitalists tied to "green" alternatives, while driving the national conversation to enable "carbon credits" managed by his firms.

This guy's not a "smart person", he's an "opportunist"... I'd even go as far as a textbook "special interest", which is doing nothing but driving a weakly supported climatology theory into our nation's science classrooms, and through his political history drives it into our nightly news. Newsflash: The Polar Bear population is not decreasing, and the earth is not getting warmer over the last decade despite predictions, and there's good evidence that the rush to follow the Kyoto treaty is now damaging the ozone layer again. I'd prefer to stick to the measured facts instead of politically jumping the gun just because it's a good "story".

-- Scott

that's a good start, however for some time now I've been thinking that the government should be publishing real time expenses online through an easy to use interface. I live in Toronto, Ontario and our city has been suffering on the verge of bankruptcy even though the budget from the taxes is over 7.5 billion CAD/year. About 60% of the money goes to the unionized city workers, which is a shame, there is no competition for the city contracts really, it's all government based mafia. This is not a surprise given that the city is governed by an NDP idiot-troll and the province is yet again in the hands of a liberal pathological lier.

I would like to see the government's bank statements on line. If the city gets the 7.5 billion CAD a year from the taxes, I would like to see the current balance, look at all expenses in detail. If a million is given away here, another million there, I would like to see the details of every transaction.

If the city mayor suffers a defeat on his crazy tax proposals (something he concocted instead of looking at balancing the budget the correct way, without immediately imposing new taxes the NDP way,) then the mayor wants to punish the city with meaningless reduction in working hours of community centers and libraries, I want to see the savings in the budget. Of-course the truth is that there was no savings, since the union city workers are still sitting in those centers and libraries because the union will not allow the city not to pay these people and the only sufferers are the citizens who cannot use these public resources.

The government does not want the citizens to be able to see detail of every dollar that is spent, because if we did see these details, we would revolt.

The e-mail excerpts are below:

Ron Paul isn't hijacking the party because he is closer to the 1996 Republican Party platform (and previous years) than any other Republican candidate. It was Bush and friends who hijacked the Republican Party in 2000. Here are some excerpts from the 1996 platform that are either missing in the 2000 platform, watered down, contradicted by other portions of the platform, or just ignored by Bush and ultimately removed in the 2004 platform:

We are the party of small, responsible and efficient government, joining our neighbors in cities and counties, rather than distant bureaucrats, to build a just society and caring communities. We therefore assert the power of the American people over government, rather than the other way around. Our agenda for change, profound and permanent change in the way government behaves, is based on the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

[...]

As a first step in reforming government, we support elimination of the Departments of Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, Education, and Energy, and the elimination, defunding or privatization of agencies which are obsolete, redundant, of limited value, or too regional in focus. Examples of agencies we seek to defund or to privatize are the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Legal Services Corporation.

In addition, we support Republican-sponsored legislation that would require the original sponsor of proposed federal legislation to cite specific constitutional authority for the measure.

[...]

The unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children.

This is the Republican Party that I grew up with and knew and loved. I stopped calling myself a Republican in 1999 because, among other reasons, Bush refused to commit to a litmus test for Supreme Court nominees.

Ron Paul worked to nominate Reagan over Ford in 1976. Ron Paul is the torchbearer of what Reagan stood for (although Reagan did not live up to his words).

After the Democratic Party became the Communist Party at the turn of the century and went on to dominate the first half of the century, the Republican Party responded by becoming the anti-Federalist Party after WWII. Ron Paul is trying to steer the Republican Party back toward those days of 1952-1996. That's getting back on track, not hijacking.

The main difference between Ron Paul and Reagan is foreign policy -- the Reagan Administration, in its fight against communism, armed the most radical elements of Afghanistan and created the Taliban, which of course ended up harboring Osama bin Laden. Ron Paul wishes for the U.S. to not repeat that mistake.

Ron Paul is the

San Francisco Supervisor who voted to preserve Michael Savage's Right to Free Speech continues to be harassed

Yes. This is censorship from the Government. It's subtle, but real and dangerous. I support free speech, in all flavors.

We are going to experience cycles of warming and cooling, especially as water vapor (the most important greenhouse gas) and CO2 fluctuate. CO2 levels are actually very low now compared with normal planetary activity.

While I am concerned about the future of our planet and our species' place upon it, I am growing increasingly sceptical of the wild claims surrounding a looming global warming catastrophe. When a scientist such as Stephen Hawking warns "I am afraid the atmosphere might get hotter and hotter until it will be like Venus with boiling sulfuric acid," any reasonable person begins to fear for the future.

My surprise and shock was learning that past concentrations of carbon dioxide were much higher than they are today (indeed, limits so high as to be unreachable, assuming that we have hit peak oil), as revealed in the interview below:

We are talking about carbon dioxide levels 6 to 10 times the present carbon dioxide level. When you have high amounts of carbon dioxide in an atmosphere up to a certain limit, which is considerably higher than it is now, the result is green plants grow very much better... And it is precisely at this time that the recovery from the first dinosaur extinction takes place. When the super plumes come and carbon dioxide increases, and the oxygen correspondingly increases as a result of photosynthesis... And yet the super plumes did not last forever and they started to die at the end of Cretaceous.... In any event, large dinosaurs really required to be living in an oxygen tent. An atmosphere in the neighborhood of 35 percent oxygen would be considerably more compatible with large dinosaurs than one in the neighborhood of 28. And so this suggested to me that this was perhaps a significant reason for the first dinosaur extinction, and probably one of the major factors in the second, the terminal dinosaur extinction, other than the birds. It also neatly tied together all of the really bizarre features about the Cretaceous... The Cretaceous is clearly a green house period as opposed to the present ice house that we have... Well, the rich carbon dioxide of course provides for a much greater biogenic diversity.

I have learned that these past CO2 concentrations have been documented in peer-reviewed research journals:

We find that CO2 emissions resulting from super-plume tectonics could have produced atmospheric CO2 levels from 3.7 to 14.7 times the modern pre-industrial value of 285 ppm.

My interest in past CO2 concentrations began by reading a (somewhat) more partisan summary of this information:

When dinosaurs walked the earth (about 70 to 130 million years ago), there was from five to ten times more CO2 in the atmosphere than today. The resulting abundant plant life allowed the huge creatures to thrive. . . . Based on nearly 800 scientific observations around the world, a doubling of CO2 from present levels would improve plant productivity on average by 32 percent across species.

An even more thorough refutation, specifically of An Inconvenient Truth, can be found here.

Excellent article about this very issue

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming 020507.htm

• The Real 'Inconvenient Truth'
• Climate Momentum Shifting: Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics
• The Deniers
• New findings indicate today's greenhouse gas levels not unusual
• Global Warming as a Religion
• I Was On the Global Warming Gravy Train (By David Evans)
• GREENIE WATCH
• (Streaming video) The Great Global Warming Swindle - Documentary Film
• 'The global-warmers were bound to attack, but why are they so feeble?'

What about Al Gore talking about the impending danger of global warming, while he has a vested interest in everyone investing in 'carbon credits'?

You can read about it here.

Would that qualify as a "Massively Obvious Conflicts of Interest that flew right over your head"?

Except I didn't say that. These people are shills. They aren't "working in the oil industry" - they are mercenaries who are willing to publish self-serving bullshit about climate change for political reasons, not scientific ones.

You didn't? I'm confused here because you specificly said f by "respected scientist" you mean oil industry or Republican party shill. Interestingly, You not saying all scientist working for the oil industry are shills. It just seems the ones who don't agree with the global warming as it is being present are. Name a few of thesde mercenaries and point to who is doing the work. Otherwise shut up about the inuendos that you cannot prove.

And the "respectable scientists" in this field are working in the field of climatology - they aren't working "against the oil industry." Notice how most of the shills who post climate change denial articles and books aren't actually climatologists.

lol..Latly, every "climatologist" who disagrees with the global warming crowd seems to be labeled as shills. And yes, getting paid by the oil industry to state a claim is working for the oil indistry. This is everything you were implying. And It is ironic that no one ever refutes the claim outside they are paid shills for one group or another. Is there something that valuable in their information that needs to be hiden?

And the problems with the science have been pointed out constantly, by real climatologists. But it doesn't "speak for itself" because the media distorts these things, and doesn't look at the science, and instead treats it like a Fox News controversy.

I can help but laugh. You bring up fox news like it is a bad thing. But I bet you are suffering from the very same problem. So please tell me what this fascination is with fox news. I bet you will be surprised. And another thing, You put too much weight into the word climatologist. But if a climatoligist is the only thing that matters to you, Here is one account From a real climatoligist that says exactly what I said and more.

What the fuck are you talking about?

You know exactly what I'm talking about. The scientist in canada who admited he recieves serveral death threats because of speaking his oposition to the way global warming is being presented. Ands yes, He too is a real life climatoligist!

I thought you said that a person's affiliation should not affect the scientific truth. Now you are saying that the science doesn't matter, but threats on someone's life does.

When they are being threatend with death iof they don't shut up instead of someone refuting thier science? Come on. It would be different if someone is willing to discredit him. Instead they threaten his life for speaking what his teachings and observations have told him. You have three positions here. First there is the global warming is a problem caused by humans. Then you have a position that say no it isn't and here is why. Now you have a position that says shut the hell up or we will kill you. Why is the responce to his claims shut up or die? Why isn't it, "well you did this wrong or this number doesn't belong here"? Instead it is belive as we do, shut up or die. Real scientific here.

Also, you're "repeating what they are told" rubrick is more characteristic of the global warming deniers, who say what their corporate sponors want them to, rather than the real climatologists who report their scientific findings.

Who cares if they have corperate sponsors. Is there something wrong with their science other then it disagreeing with the "good book". Does being a non beliver automaticly make what you say worthless? Make you deserve losing your job or getting death thr

If he's trying to clear his name, he's doing a bad job of it.

I found an article by him in which I hoped to hear his logic and reasoning against global warming.

He claims it is just a natural cycle. That he's seen two of these in his career and he'll see one more before he dies. If his "death threat" was someone saying that he won't see temperature returning to normal before he dies, I don't think it was a death threat.

I can't find a formal report of his research but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. If this is his argument, he leaves out a lot of things that need to be explained to me before I let it go. Like, why are polar bears suddenly on the endangered species list? What's happening to all the snow on the tops of mountains? Where are the ice glaciers (with ice that has been around for thousands if not millions of years) going? What is his retort to the CO2 levels being their highest ever--even after looking at ice core samples?

His article only mentions a professor from MIT but not what his criticisms are.

If their work is being derided, I want to know what their work is. I'm a skeptic also, if these people are being published in newspapers, you would think that they wouldn't waste their time on death threats and counter-counter-criticisms but would instead try to get the truths they have been finding in their research out to the public. If you're conducting good science that, in and of itself, will clear your name in the end.

The more I search for information on Timothy Ball, the more he seems like he's playing just as dirty as the people he's fighting. Check out his lawsuit for a journal publishing a letter. I feel we're not hearing the full story here.

When I'm at work and I enter situations in which someone is decrying someone else and vice versa, I just present everyone with facts. If I had done research and I received death threats, I would submit to major newspapers two things: my research published with permission to reprint it & the death threats in their original form. Nothing could boost my efforts to get the truth out there more. The fact that I see a PhD and scientist spending more time saying his life is in danger than presenting me with his findings tells me a lot about what his motives are.

He was published, I guess in Ecological Complexity which I do not have access to. If anyone has papers from his work, I would love to see it--otherwise I'm going to tune this soap opera out as emotional noise in what should be a stoic process.

Question everything. Question both sides. And if you have something that is true, present it. I'm not calling him a liar, I just can't call him anything right now because all I can find are stories about who called who what.

After doing a little light reading inspired by your .sig, I'm just going to smile passively, politley agree to everything you say, and back slowly away.

Slowly, slowly away...

But seriously:

Ah, yes. Rules of engagement. Wikipedia is not an authoritative source, unless it is. I was insulating against the "Hurk, there's nevar bin inny such thing!!1!" reponses. Wikipedia is a convenient reference for such puposes. To be fair, I don't recall hearing the phrase "global cooling" until after the advent of "global warming". I believe it was actually reported at the time as "Are We Entering a New Ice Age?"

I am not an authority on the climate. Most of my exposure is from popular media. I read articles, papers, op/ed pieces, so on and so forth. The energy crisis, global cooling, commie reds and nuclear winter, global warming, terrorism - whatever the topic of the day is that is going to end us all generates the same hysterics. Yet, we still have gas, I have never been run over by a glacier, I have never been recruited by the communist party, I have never been nuked, I have never been baked out of my habitat, I have never been car-bombed. Yes, I recognize that all of these things are real to a greater or lesser extent, and that people have been affected by them to a greater or lesser extent, some quite catestrophically. I feel for those people, at least inasmuch as I wish no ill upon anybody, but my personal exposure has always been at the receiving end of a televised talking head.

So please forgive me if I don't have the will to dance about the current superstitious campfire. Forgive me if I seem a bit cynical about "consensus" - I am. Forgive me if my recollection seems tainted by popular media - it is.

But here's the thing: in spite of the wikipedians saying that there was never a consensus, there were expert talking heads saying we were entering an ice age, just as there are expert talking heads now. I didn't believe them, either, I bring them up only as a counterpoint.

The fact is, there still isn't consensus. I am not alone questioning the impact of humans. People far smarter than I, who are experts, ask the same questions. See what Dr. Tim Ball has to say. Or Professor C.R. de Freitas (apologies, PDF... but very informative and with sources listed. A very brief unsourced summary is here). Wikipedia (dare I?) has a list of scientists that doubt one aspect or another of the "global warming consensus". I'll even acknowledge that the first line says "A small minority of scientists", but that does not change the fact that some of their concerns with the current fervor sound very reasonable to me.

OTOH, people far smarter than I, who are also experts, say we are the cause. The experts do not agree. I choose to side with the skeptics. And that, basically, is all I have to say.

Really? Who has gotten legal threats to "stop teaching heresy"?

Apparently, this guy:

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming 020507.htm


... what?? Have you missed the, um, thousands of papers published about global warming over the next century? You could start by reading the climate study (IPPC AR4) which this Slashdot story is about.

IPPC has had to change it's predictions since the last "study." This new summary does not have predictions. They are going to wait until policy is in place and everyone buys into their hype, then they will release the predictions that won't come true. Very convenient. Name the papers that had predictions that were made 10 years ago that have come true? What were the predictions for today?

Expecting the US to do its fair share in reducing emissions, given its contribution to them, is neither socialism nor a guilt trip.

I am not against a market approach for dealing with all major emissions (even if they aren't considered pollution). This is common sense. What I am against is a larger government, more taxes, a negative effect on our great Capitalistic economy, etc. I am definitely against the socialist and dictator jokers at the UN deciding these things. In fact, we should show that it is possible and pain free first, then help other countries do it by using our example rather than some treaty. At the rate China is moving, I would be more worried about China right now.

Too bad that loans are forbidden in Islam ... so 1/5th of the world's population cannot do this.

PC police would call what you are saying a "racist comment". Like distributing pork soup to the homeless :

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/brussels010407 .htm

FYI:

• link
• link
• link

...there's plenty more out there, if you simply have the will to look. Quality varies, just as it does on the "pro" side. However, clearly, the "consensus" that warming is "happening as a consequence of CO2" is purest propaganda and hyperbole. There is no such thing, except among the shrill and the uninformed. If in fact warming were happening exactly as advertised, we don't have the data to show it or explain it as yet.

My position is simple common sense: Study everything. Don't make new pollution. Reduce what pollution we're creating now. Cleaner is better on every level, so pursue that.

In the meantime... when we have climate models that work (we don't), maybe even when we have weather models that work for more than 48 hours or so, then perhaps it is time for us to revisit the idea of climate change with an eye towards affecting it directly. In the meantime, CO2 as a past indicator rose after warming periods, on other words, not as a precursor, but as a post-event consequence. Using present Co2 levels and assigning them the role of precursor and then pointing at the past records is disingenuous at best and outright deceptive at worst. Subsequently getting fired up about our "causing" major climate change in the short term, much less with relatively precise predictions about sea level rise, is not so much junk science as it is bunk science. If the models are right, it's a complete and utter accident — not a consequence of modeling using past data, because there is no comparable event in the geological record.

Putting up shades we can't take down is about as stupid an idea as I've heard in a while. And I run into a lot of stupid ideas. I hang out here, after all. :)

Well, making an egg timer is not much harder than wiring up a 555 and 4017 decade counter... EE 101 stuff, really. So if there is a will, there will be a way.

The good news is that a bomb on the inside on a Muslim (swallowed or rectally inserted) is unlikely to do much damage to those on the outside: the fast-flying metal/glass fragments is what kills, not the shockwave per se.

The bad news is that something IS going on at the moment, with a whole bunch of Mulsims buying up cell phones by the 1000's:

http://www.wnem.com/Global/story.asp?S=5269589

And a whole bunch of them coming into the country and hiding:

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/hagmann081006. htm

Just in time for Iran's UN deadline (August 22) or our Midterm election?

The Continental Congress regularly received quantities of intercepted British and Tory mail. On November 20, 1775, it received some intercepted letters from Cork, Ireland, and appointed a committee made up of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Johnson, Robert Livingston, Edward Rutledge, James Wilson and George Wythe "to select such parts of them as may be proper to publish." The Congress later ordered a thousand copies of the portions selected by the Committee to be printed and distributed. A month later, when another batch of intercepted mail was received, a second committee was appointed to examine it. Based on its report, the Congress resolved that "the contents of the intercepted letters this day read, and the steps which Congress may take in consequence of said intelligence thereby given, be kept secret until further orders."

Separating out the impact of human activity from natural climate variation is extremely difficult. Nonetheless, the IPCC concluded there is a "discernible human influence" on climate. This means the observed global warming is unlikely to be the result of natural variability alone and that human activities are at least partially responsible.

So, they say it's hard to tell if there's a lot of influence. It then cites the IPCC study --- which happens to be the same group of people as run RealClimte, and whose work is criticized in the NAS report.

Because human emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases continue to climb, and because they remain in the atmosphere for decades to centuries (depending on which gas), we're committing ourselves to a warmer climate in the future. The IPCC projects an average global temperature increase of 1-4.5F (0.6-2.5C) in the next fifty years, and 2.5-10.4F (1.4-5.8C) in the next century. Temperatures in some parts of the globe (e.g., the polar regions) are expected to rise even faster. Even the low end of the IPCC's projected range represents a rate of climate change unprecedented in the past 10,000 years.[Emphasis mine.]

Look, it's really worth reading around a bit in the literature, and not just on RealClimate. For example, read Pielke's site --- he's respectable, he's not associated with either end of the spectrum (more or less represented by Al Gore and Real Climate on one end, and Climate Audit on the other.)

Read about the anomalies in the behavior of the proxies in the 20th century --- tree rings don't seem to show the same reaction to temperature in warm periods like the last 100 years, versus cold periods like 1500-1600. Some of these studies suggest that the proxy data used by IPCC and MBH may have a systematic error of about -1 degree in warmer periods --- which, if true, would completely eliminate the "unusual warming" signal in itself, and turn "global warming" into normally cyclic climate changes.

Or have a look at Dave Stockwells work (eg here and here) which shows pretty clearly that the same statistical process used by the MGH and IPCC methods, applied to random "pink noise" --- random data in which small variations are more probable than large variations --- will show a dramatic "hockey stick".

Check out some of the (not very widely publicized) dissenters like hits:

Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."

Or this:

While the gods must consider An Inconvenient Truth the ultimate comedy, real climate scientists are crying over Al Gore's new film. This is not just because the ex-vice-president commits numerous basic science mistakes. They are also concerned that many in the media and public will fail to realize that this film amounts to little more than science fiction. .... In fact, the correlation between CO2 and temperature that Gore speaks about so confidently is simply non-existent over all meaningful time scales. U of O climate researcher Professor Jan Veizer demonstrated that, over geologic time, the two are not linked at all. Over the intermediate time scales Gore focuses on, the ice cores show that CO2 increases don't precede, and therefore don't cause, warming. Rather, they follow temperature rise -- by as much as 800 years. Even in the past century, the co

Go see "An Inconvenient Truth" while you're at it.

For balance you might want to check out the books "Kicking the Sacred Cow" by James P Hogan and "State of Fear" by Michael Crichton. Better yet, go read some of their reference material as both have nice bibliographies, too. There was also an interesting piece about the movie you mention linked on /. recently, you might want to start there for a different perspective on the topic (it is short and to the point) at http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.h tm

For my part, I believe that the global warming we hear about constantly is a tool being used by the powers that be (pretty much like "State of Fear" explains). However, that doesn't preclude the possibility that there is some actual warming going on, too. And that warming definitely has a cause. And we may or may not be contributing to it, but I'm not arrogant enough to assume that humanity yet has the power (or sense?) to truly affect global change.

Remember, we don't want to overreact like people did 400-500 years ago and cause another little ice age, do we? (For those who haven't though it out, I believe that was caused by the sudden increase in the number of ships sailing westward to the New World at that time. All those hulls affected the warm ocean currents that once heated Europe and also their sails altered some of the wind patterns driving those currents. It only ended when non-wind powered vessels became the norm. [smile]

......Interesting how the huge spike in the temperature of the earth.....

How huge is the "spike" of the average temperature of the WHOLE earth, since we are talking about GLOBAL warming. There may be localities where the temperature has risen more, but then there are other places where it has dropped. For the planet as a whole it has been remarkably constant, within about a degree C. over the time span we have actual MEASUREMENTS.

Here is an excerpt from an article:
Dr. Dick Morgan, former advisor to the World Meteorological Organization and climatology researcher at University of Exeter, U.K. gives the details, "There has been some decrease in ice thickness in the Canadian Arctic over the past 30 years but no melt down. The Canadian Ice Service records show that from 1971-1981 there was average, to above average, ice thickness. From 1981-1982 there was a sharp decrease of 15% but there was a quick recovery to average, to slightly above average, values from 1983-1995. A sharp drop of 30% occurred again 1996-1998 and since then there has been a steady increase to reach near normal conditions since 2001."

The whole article may be found here:
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.h tm

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.h tm

.....Do you want to continue to assassinate the character of the scientists who are trying to do something about it? Or do you just want to sit in your air conditioned H2 and hope you don't run out of gas?.....

How about facing the facts or REAL science? Scientists do not all agree on the existence of global warming, let alone its cause and even less that humans have anything to do with it. Look at the following article for one:

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.h tm

Here is a short excerpt paragraph:

Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years." Patterson asked the committee, "On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"

Global warming means just that, GLOBAL, not in a few select regions of the arctic zones. If the truly AVERAGE temperature of the WHOLE planet is taken in consideration, nobody has measured any change within the accuracy limits we are able to determine this overall WORLDWIDE trend. A melting glacier here or there does NOT make for GLOBAL warming. It is junk science to the highest degree to take measurements of a given area and then apply that to the whole earth.

...that most of the global warming crap is just that, crap. Junk science. Once they, anti-capitalist, couldn't sell the global cooling idea in the early 70's (most of you probably don't remember that), they switched to global warming. The idea is to impact the American, or capitalist way of life. WATERMELON is apropo

The Canada Free Press just ran a very interesting article refuting the junk science prefered by the likes of Al Gore.

Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years." Patterson asked the committee, "On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"

Why wasn't that mentioned in the article summary?

Why wasn't that mentioned in the article summary?

"It is time we removed the phony and inaccurate label of 'science' from evolution and see it for what it really is - a religion, based on faith and a system of belief"

Take a look through the other religion and science articles from this "news source" and you'll get a pretty good idea where they are coming from!

The fundamentalist Christian right.

Mr. Egan is president of the High Park Group, a public policy consulting firm that focuses largely on energy issues out of its offices in Toronto and Ottawa. He is retained by the Canadian Electricity Association on a range of issues, including U.S. advocacy (monitoring the U.S. Congress and Administration on issues of interest to the Canadian electricity industry).

Rachel Marsden is one of the columnists featured on this site. Click the link to learn more about her unusual past. I've been checking it out, off and on for a couple of years, and simply can't take Canada Free Press seriously for numerous reasons. The global warming debate is just that, as many other posters have noted. Shouldn't the "debate" be over scientific issues and not ideological talking points?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews /TPStory/LAC/20051012/WIRETAP12/TPNational/Canada

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/wajsman101805. htm

The new wiretap law seems to be a step in the wrong direction up here.

Canada is very lucky to have Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party. I was reading an interview with him the other day and he was asked about the music industry's reaction to unauthorized copying. He talked about his experience teaching at university, and how the textbook publishers were predicting their own doom at the hands of widespread photocopier usage. The current textboox photocopying policy? A student may make a copy of up to 10% or one chapter of their text, whichever is shorter. The result? Students get to copy what they need and the textbook publishers are more profitable than ever (and continue to get away with RIAA-esque price gouging).
He reasoned that the music sharing situation would be similar and he still opposes the anti-consumer solutions being supported by the Liberals and Conservatives (such as this DMCA workalike currently being forced through).

The problem? Most of Canada's new sources lean far to the right. The Toronto Star is one of the few papers in the country that will even attempt to give the NDP a fair shot. The Sun (widely read) frequently prints stories from the Canada Free Press, a self-labelled "conservative alternative." The result is that the public almost never hears about things like this DMCA bill, and when the spotlight is on people like Jack Layton, the stories (like his amazing efforts to get wind generators built) are extremely jaded (Canada Free Press describes him as a bird-murdering maniac).

The last mainstream article I read regarding music sharing was in The Sun. It described Kazaa as an "illegal service." I wrote to the editor and explained that a) Kazaa itself is not illegal in Canada and b) downloading music from P2P networks is not illegal in Canada. I received a curt letter stating that perhaps I would probably prefer to share my opinion in their moderated forums. I replied with information backing up these facts but nothing ever came back (and there was certainly no retraction).

The novel references the same bogus computer models that are cited by global-warming proponents such as Carl Pope of the Sierra Club, Kevin Knobloch of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and John Passacantando of Greenpeace, USA. They predict melting glaciers, rising sea levels, and other catastrophes. They are as reliable as a deck of Tarot cards. Here again, scientific data amply demonstrates that, though the temperatures in Greenland and Iceland have been falling at 2.2 degrees Celsius since 1987, there has been no affect on the ice in those nations that has actually been accumulating, not melting. The same is happening in Antarctica.

"...global warming is a hoax... specifically designed to harm the lives and the economy of people living in industrialized nations..."

Were you one of those anarchists up in Seattle a couple of years ago?

I can't answer your trite question, but will point out the irony that your post is by far the most judgemental attached to this story.

Perhaps the inverse is actually true. That other peoples have been judging Americans (As a whole no less! If we were all of one race this would amount to racism!) for so long that some of you have started to believe the hype. And from your AC follow up it appears you also think your position is beyond reproach. Irony, thy name is NeedleSurder, and thats why I love you. Is there somewhere we could meet to hug?