People of all religions are often asked to accept some plainly contradictory things. For those unwilling to reconcile the irreconcilable there has always been the “spiritual but not religious” path, which for many – but by no means all – offers at least a kind of feel-good metaphysical gravitas without all of that hierarchy, organization and obligation.
For those unwilling to go even so far as that, there has at least been Global Warming, which offers them not just the chance to feel righteous about themselves, but also – and this is crucial for your true zealot – to feel superior to someone else. And that’s before the right-thinking set gets all weak in the knees at the notion of first world to third world transfer payments.
Sort of like purchasing an indulgence.
Now? Maybe, according to the London Telegraph, not so much:
One of the greatest problems Gore and his allies faced at this time (1997) was the mass of evidence showing that in the past, global temperatures had been higher than in the late 20th century. In 1998 came the answer they were looking for: a new temperature chart, devised by a young American physicist, Michael Mann. This became known as the “hockey stick” because it showed historic temperatures running in an almost flat line over the past 1,000 years, then suddenly flicking up at the end to record levels.
Mann’s hockey stick was just what the (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) wanted. When its 2001 report came out it was given pride of place at the top of page 1. The Mediaeval Warming, the Little Ice Age, the 20th century Little Cooling, when CO2 had already been rising, all had been wiped away.
But then a growing number of academics began to raise doubts about Mann and his graph. This culminated in 2003 with a devastating study by two Canadians showing how Mann had not only ignored most of the evidence before him but had used an algorithm that would produce a hockey stick graph whatever evidence was fed into the computer. When this was removed, the graph re-emerged just as it had looked before, showing the Middle Ages as hotter than today…
More serious, however, has been all the evidence accumulating to show that, despite the continuing rise in CO2 levels, global temperatures in the years since 1998 have no longer been rising and may soon even be falling.
It was a telling moment when, in August, Gore’s closest scientific ally, James Hansen of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, was forced to revise his influential record of US surface temperatures showing that the past decade has seen the hottest years on record. His graph now concedes that the hottest year of the 20th century was not 1998 but 1934, and that four of the 10 warmest years in the past 100 were in the 1930s.
Furthermore, scientists and academics have recently been queuing up to point out that fluctuations in global temperatures correlate more consistently with patterns of radiation from the sun than with any rise in CO2 levels, and that after a century of high solar activity, the sun’s effect is now weakening, presaging a likely drop in temperatures.
That may or may not happen. Mr. Gore’s “larger truth” beyond his proven obfuscations may or may not in fact be accurate. Maybe it’s worth clamping the brakes on the worlds’ largest economies, the driving engines behind an international growth phenomenon which has in the last century raised unprecedented hundreds of millions of people out of existential poverty in favor of a transnational wealth redistribution scheme. Although that, gentle reader, is a damned hard sell, politically speaking.
You might even have to call it something else.
Especially considering that whatever good might come from such an effort would be rapidly rendered moot by the industrial exhalations of massively more populated developing countries such as China and India, who, faced with social pressures of their own, decline to stop their ascent from poverty on some intermediate floor, thanks for asking.
There are many things that might be true that, at the end of the day, are simply unverifiable. And therefore unfalsifiable. Which combination takes them out of the realm of science, and into the realm of faith.
Which, we are often reminded, is a poor place from whence to legislate public policy.
Newest Medal of Honor Recipients
Everyone knows at least one Veteran, but not everyone knows his story. When my Grandfather was alive his stories of fighting and pain frightened me. But looking back I’m glad I got to hear the struggles he dealt with, especially in today’s world when we’re at war yet so far from the danger. On the week of November 5th NBC Nightly News is airing a series profiling recipients of the Medal of Honor and it’s something I wish my Poppy could be a part of.
Nightly is outlining their stories by collecting interviews with them, their families, and comrades. Their stories will also be complimented by the interviews with personal photographs, newsreel and archival footage and stills. If there’s a special Veteran in your life who can’t talk to anymore, definitely check this out @: http://www.methodshop.com/index.shtml
[...] Others: Neptunus Lex: "There are many things that might be true that, at the end of the day, are simply [...]
I notice in Europe where the American main stream media doesn’t rule the roost, have taken Algore’s hypothesis apart with facts not emotion.That the earth is warming is seen in some scientific circles as a good thing.In a conversation with a geologist working on the north slope a few weeks ago, he said the earth is indeed warming…in the 7th decimal place.
Who am I to argue with a Nobel Peace Prize winner, but, we’ve had a few days of frost in the mornings lately…I guess global warming hasn’t hit Seattle yet.
I read recently that CO2 levels lag warming. So, the entire premise that CO2 levels CAUSE warming is invalid.
In any event, the fact that the western world, and China and India, are hooked on fossil fuels is not a good thing. It has caused huge discord world wide and, the fact that Teddy et al don’t want a wind farm where they sail their boats is a disgrace.
I think I have also said before on this site that China and Cuba are in the process of drilling for oil 50 miles off our coast while our congress refuses to allow further offshore drilling.
Don’t even get me started on refinery capacity…
Where I live ANY energy production, other than renewable energy whoich come at a huge cost over current market, is something to abhore and fight against tooth and nail. It seems that those on that side of the energy debate wish to be solely the consumeers while someone else is the producer…
Kinda like buying chicken fillets at the grocery rather than growing the chicken and chopping the head off yourself so you have something to eat. Too messy…
I have been continually amazed at how, during the various stories and debates and documentaries regarding the global warming crisis, nobody seems to mention we happen to orbit around a large, variable *star*. You know, we’re catching less than 1/10th of 1 percent of its total heat output, so maybe if it put off a little more we might notice us catching a little more too?
Nah, too simple. Gotta be the SUV.
Kind of like my “carbon footprint.” So what? Modern agriculture has turned the plains into a vast sea of corn, soybeans, wheat, sunflowers, flax, rapeseed, you name it and they all produce more oxygen per acre than prairie grass did, not to mention getting rid of millions of buffalo that used to belch and fart tons of methane per day. But do we get a credit for that, or even a thank you? Trust me, I’ve asked, and we don’t.
– Max
WRONG. Everybody is WRONG! Global warming is directly linked to steam locomotives. Can anyone deny that global temperatures have risen at the same time that there have been fewer and fewer steam locomotives in use? It’s either steam locomotives or pirates… one or t’other.
And from down under comes this slamdunk….
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/11/04/global-warming-tutorial-media-should-be-required-watch
A four-part YouTube thats about 37 minutes, but well worth the time spent watching…
Ladies & Gentlemen;
Get on your “way-back machines” to when we were all little kids in the 2nd and 3rd grades, – Remember Chicken Little? (“The sky is falling. The sky is falling”. Remember now?) The thing we should be discussing is, “Where are the foxs?” And, “To what end the false alarm”.
Hummmm, just wondering: I’m old and crotchety, (3 score and 10), and haven’t been paying all that close attention, but do they still teach such stuff in schools?
Global cooling is coming if one looks at the cycles. That will be funny for the agenda science pukes. Of course in the drive by media, they get an automatic free pass no matter what.
“Which combination takes them out of the realm of science, and into the realm of faith.”
I’d replace “faith” with “fanaticism”; faith properly rests on reason and leaps from reason’s foundation (not away from it). Gore et al are guilty of simple fanaticism and poor attention to the scientific method.
The WSJ article “My Nobel Moment” by John Christy (one of the IPCC Nobel Peace recipients) states it about as well as has been stated to date.
ORC, definately the pirates.
The real threat in a world of cyclical climate change is clearly the cold side of the cycle. You think the Europeans have problems now – wait until glaciation approaches and they will be cranking up the coal emissions!
If we have indeed discovered a way to warm the globe, it would be good to keep this in mind, as it is likely to come in extremely useful prior to the coming of the next ice age. On the other hand, the evidence seems rather thin that we actually have a handle on it.
Great book on the subject.
http://www.amazon.com/Unstoppable-Global-Warming-Every-Years/dp/0742551172/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/105-4254752-5873242?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194292773&sr=8-2
Slanted entirely away from the Nobel crowd, but well worth the read. Pretty much debunks each and every “human caused” argument step by step.
Son, who is a freshman in High School, is in an Earth Science class. Teacher started discussing “Human caused Global Warming.” Son raises hand and says, “But isn’t it true that there is a known cycle of warming and cooling that occurs every 1500 years?” Teacher says, “Well, you can make the facts say pretty much anything you want.”
Son decided to beat a hasty retreat, since the grade is important.
Yikes!
“You can make the facts (?) say anything you want.”
So much for the scientific method if this is how our teachers behave and think.
I still like the NASA scientist who asked who decided that this is the most perfect climate we’ve ever had and that it should be kept this way. Of course, he was forced to recant or be re-educated.
But I appreciate that thought more and more. Algore thinks he’s deity-like in declaiming the dire warnings of climate warming. I still remember the 1970s and the claims of global cooling. That all went away never to be heard of again.
Maybe that’ Algore’s plan — since he’s not running for President, he’s running for God?
Double Yikes!
Makes me think of how close the bullet came that we dodged in 2000.
Triple Yikes!
I just want to know – is a Nobel “Peace” Prize revocable?
Well, Le Duc Tho (1972 winner with Kissinger) never had to give it back, did he? Maybe he had his fingers crossed.
Update on Le Duc Tho. I forgot he never accepted the award. I guess he knew something the Nobel committee didn’t.
Lex and friends …
Darn it, I hate to come late to this party, but my computer was ‘hors de combat’ this weekend, and the Internet was denied me. However, I’ve got a few thoughts on the Global Warming Hysteria that you might be interested in. My husband and I have been watching, fascinated, as the hysteria has grown, aided and abetted by Mr. Gore, who hopes to coast to the presidency on the rising tide of misinformation.
In fact, my husband is a nature writer and photographer, and one of the founders of Polar Bears International, which takes a close and continuing interest in the welfare of the world’s polar bears. They’re doing just fine, thank you, in spite of what Big Al thinks. They have been around as a species for about 200,000 years, through warm years and those not so warm. Kind of hard to take a census on them, because they are solitary wanderers of the circumpolar regions which don’t really have set boundaries, but the polar bear biologists keep track [kind of] of about 20 populations, of which maybe two groups have fewer members than the last ‘census,’ and 18 have added members.
The squawking about polar bears drowning is silly stuff. Polar bears are designated taxonomically as ‘ursus maritimus, the largest land-based marine mammal.’ Like seals and walruses, they can swim hugely long distances if they are healthy and not injured. Polar bear biologists have tracked a banded mother bear and her cubs as swimming more than five hundred miles without hauling up for a snooze and an off-road snack.
Walruses and seals haul up out of the water to have their babies. But polar bears are fascinating in their mating and birthing habits. I swear the females are feminists. After a successful [and noisy] mating, the female tucks away her fertilized ovum in cold storage, so to speak, and ambles off to build up her strength with lots of seals and other nummies. Only when she is satisfied that she is sufficiently fat and healthy enough to endure a long fasting period, does she go off to dig her birthing lair in chilly snowbanks in places like Wrangel Island in the Russian arctic. Then, when everything is ready, she tells her body to implant the fertilized ovum in her womb, and her pregnancy begins. During the process of gestation, she does not leave the den or feed herself. Even when the cubs are born, she waits and continues to nurse them until they are strong enough to survive in the frigid arctic environment. By the time they emerge from the den, they can stagger along at her heels on their own. By that time, she is pretty much staggering herself; she’s much much thinner and must catch and eat enough prey to restore her energy and feed her babies.
But just imagine this. Mother bear can decide when she will be pregnant. That’s why I think she must be a feminist at heart.
Anyway, we’ve been paying close attention to this growing climate frenzy for around fifteen years now. You’re right about the adherents turning it into a cult, and like all cults it has a religious intensity about it. S. Fred Singer, the climatologist who wrote Unstoppable Global Warming – Every Fifteen Hundred Years, said in a recent interview, that even the IPCC states that human-caused global warming would amount to somewhat less than 10% of total global warming. Is changing that figure worth beggaring the American economy to achieve?
Marianne Matthews