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The Global Warming Heretic
theodp writes "In The Civil Heretic, the NYT Magazine takes a look at how world-renowned scientist Freeman Dyson wound up opposing those who care most about global warming. Since coming out of the closet on global warming, Dyson has found himself described as 'a pompous twit,' 'a blowhard,' and 'a mad scientist.' He argues that climate change has become an obsession for 'a worldwide secular religion' known as environmentalism. Dyson has been particularly dismissive of Al Gore, calling him climate change's chief propagandist and accusing him of relying too heavily on computer-generated climate models and promoting 'lousy science' that's distracting attention from more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet."
Dyson himself wrote about the need for heretics in science not long ago.
He's not a climatologist. He has never done research on global warming. He has absolutely no data of his own. He is not an expert in this field. There is no reason, whatsoever, to listen to his opinions.
You might as well have your car mechanic perform surgery on you. After all, he's a professional, right? Therefore he must be qualified!
There's big money, very big money and huge astroturfing campaigns in denying global warming too.
There's no such thing like global warming! This is just bullshit for people by politics to make money. Periods of warming and cooling are periodical. In Poland in XIV-th century grapes were grown... And in XVI centruty Baltic sea was frozen all the year - so you can walk from Gdansk to Oslo on your feet. Most serious scientists say that warming depends on sun activity. No people activity. Human produces only 1% of CO2 comparing to CO2 that nature produces.
American and EU bullshit for fooling people...
Waddya mean, Offtopic?? Your damn memory that bad? Or is your sense of humor completely shot? Or you just hate me. *sniff*
What?
The modern therometer was invented 1724 by Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit. According to Noaa, the highest ever recorded temperature on Earth was 136 degrees on 13 of Sept 1922. There has never been a hotter day on planet earth sense. Predict/compute/average/seasonally-adjust/argue all you want, but the facts say that it was warmer 87 years ago than it is today.
Don't try to make sense, DrMorbius. The comments here demonstrate that the energy industry has gotten full value for the money they have spent on pro-fossil fuel propaganda.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Anybody interested in the Anthropogenic Global Warming debate should watch The Great Global Warming Swindle for a polemic viewpoint.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
If you cut 10 people's carbon footprint by 30% over 20 years and during that 20 years, 3 more people are added to the group, their 70% contribution negates all savings from the 30%reduction.
I guess you were to busy driving your gas guzzling SUV, getting 2 miles per gallon, while eating big greasy cheeseburgers in those old-fashioned styrofoam containers and chucking those containers through the window of your car - to actually do some number crunching there.
30% out of 10 is 3 - yes... BUT...
Those 3 people are also gonna have their carbon emissions scaled down - so take 30% off of them too. That would be 0.9 - almost an entire person.
So, starting with 10, you end up with 13 people - who are creating as much of CO2 as 9 people did before. More people, less pollution.
Or don't have those 3 new ones cut their emissions. You still get 13 people tomorrow producing as much as 10 do today.
So, with those 10 reducing their emissions by 30%, and those extra 3 not reducing at all - you get a 7.7% reduction per capita.
Again - more people, less pollution.
Or let me illustrate it like this.
The ship is sinking in the middle of the ocean and there are not enough lifeboats.
Help is on the way, but it won't get there before crew and passengers get a chance to see just how good swimmers they are.
Each lifeboat seats 10 "regular" humans - weighing about 80 kg.
As a bunch of fat bastards from first class show up on the deck, captain decides to put a temporary moratorium on the people's rights and the democracy - takes out a gun and proclaims himself the sole authority on the seating arrangements in the life boats.
So, he has someone bring a scale to the deck and starts weighing passengers.
If you are 30% lighter than the "regular" 80-kilo human - you get an instant ticket on the life boat.
So, he fills the boat with 10 people weighing 56 kilos or less (80 kg - 30%) - and he still has weight capacity left for 4 more skinny people.
Someone will have to sit in someone else's lap - but hey... They only weigh about 56 kilos or less.
Plus... they have about 16 kilos left - captain adds 4 more babies to the people in the life boat and sends them on their way.
So... While he could have let 5 rich fat fucks take the boat, or have 10 average (spending) people rowing off to safety - with a little creative rationing the brave but politically incorrect captain got 14 people and 4 babies in that same boat.
He could have also said "Fuck the babies" and loaded the boat with 10 "light" and 3 regular people.
But saving babies from drowning illustrates the point kinda better.
you can see that it would be almost impossible to go back 10 years in carbon production while the needs of the people are constantly increasing.
You can see that it WOULD NOT be impossible.
Plus - needs of the people are not increasing EQUALLY.
A village somewhere in Africa that needs a wind or solar powered water pump DOES NOT equal one lard-ass in the developed world who spends dozen such pumps on lattes each year.
By cutting down on your own emissions and implementing clean energy sources on the large scale - YOU get to keep nearly all of your current comforts, plus you let some developing countries reach a higher level of civilization in the process.
And not only do you get to live a cleaner and healthier life with less chance for getting cancer and with a "better" body due to actually walking a bit here and there - by raising standards of those poor people in the "Third World" you reduce the chances that in the future they will feel the urge to chuck a plane or two into some buildings near your home.
Or a carcass crawling with Ebola into your local water supply.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
....There's no question that Hubble has advanced the science of astronomy greatly....
There is no question that the data coming back from Hubble and other space probes as well as newer Earth-based telescopes, is causing mainstream majority astrophysicists to scratch their collective heads more and more, trying to figure out how to fit the new data into their present theories. They have to invent fictitious constructs such as dark matter and energy, black holes and neutron stars, all of which are supposed to exist but have never actually been found. Almost every article reporting the new data have words like "surprising", "unexpected", "unusual" or other puzzling connotations.
Somewhere along the line, the key actor in the cosmic drama has been thrown out of the play. Because of this it is difficult to discern any kind of a plot to figure out what really is going on. That key player of course is electricity and its experimentally well-established laws, as written down over a century ago by Maxwell, Lorenz and other pioneers in the science of electricity and magnetism. If those electrical laws and principles are applied to the data coming back from Hubble and other instruments, good explanations can be put forth without resorting to fictitious constructs, as mentioned above.
All theory is gray
....Why not announce it at the Academy of Very Very Important Climate Scientists?....
Because they already know the truth of this, but desperately do not want it to be true because they have or are paid by others with a political agenda.
All theory is gray
You're living in a special world ...