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Great post and link, Mike.

Anxiously awaiting Larry to come here and provide all the evidence to say this is all bunk and Global Warming and CO2 *is* a huge crisis…

This is another example of the echo chamber minister preaching to the echo chamber choir and the latter singing Hallelujah.

There isn’t any science in that article. The reason why the vast majority of the scientific community is concerned about climate change is on the basis of all the evidence which is available today, not on the opinions of long-dead scientists or Al Gore slide shows.

Go to

Frontpage

Read open and rigorous and vigorous discussion and debate by the real climate scientists.

Get out of the echo chamber. Explore the world of real science.

The facts are that the world (which now includes the USA and China) is on a track to reduce carbon emissions. Why is that? Because of Al Gore? All Gore did was to get the people in charge to look at the science and to make it possible for more science to be done to answer questions like why does Antarctica seem to be cooling while the rest of the world is warming? (Answer: it’s not cooling).

And to repeat one thing: my own personal interest in this has absolutely nothing to do with climate change. It is because CO2 levels are now higher than they’ve been during any time during the existence of homo sapiens. Our body maintains its pH at a very tight 7.4 with a buffer system based on carbon dioxide. Putting more CO2 into the system constitutes a respiratory and bioenergetic stress, and the effect of this is completely unknown, on a human population basis. What is going on right now is the greatest human guinea pig experiment in history, and I don’t think it’s conservative to allow this experiment to continue.

It’s interesting that all of the scientists criticizing climate change theory in Mike’s GW scam video are old guys. Remember climate scientists who were wrongly predicting an ice age in the early 1970s? Yeah, those old guys.

Frontpage

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

Larry W: This is another example of the echo chamber minister preaching to the echo chamber choir and the latter singing Hallelujah.

~~~

Get out of the echo chamber. Explore the world of real science.

Why is it when the opinon is against yours, it’s an “echo chamber”, Larry? Is not your opinion and talking points nothing but an “echo chamber” on the other side of an issue?

I’m the antithesis of the echo chamber. Were I in the echo chamber, I’d be writing this on The Daily Kos!

– Larry

Actually, Larry… it isn’t you who is the antithesis. It is FA that is the antithesis of the echo chamber since you are welcome to post your dissenting opinions here. Your opinions are an “echo chamber” of the Daily KOs points.

@openid.aol.com/runnswim: This isn’t an article about the science, it’s about the politics of the science.

I witnessed that first hand while at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

You trying to deny that the global warming emergency advocated by Al Gore and company isn’t a political movement?

I need a good laugh so I look forward to your denial of that.

And as for the science, there is no science which supports the idea that CO2 released by man into the environment has any effect at all on climate.

All you have to support your phony claim are some discredited computer models that have built in biases to produce the result warmers want. The same models which failed to predict the latest cooling….

We’ve already presented numerous examples of how the data underlying the warmer’s alarmism has been distorted or outright faked.

And yet all you do Larry is come back and parrot more of the same phony talking points.

And if your half baked theory about CO2’s influence on man’s physiology was correct we’d have already seen the health hazards revealed in people who live in urban centers and near volcanoes.

You need some new material.

Yeah, I stopped listening to the people complaining about CO2 emissions when they disregarded things like volcano eruptions which emit more CO2 into the atmosphere at one time than entire countries do over years at a time and then started talking about the biggest emitters of CO2 were from cow farts.

Sorry, if that is “science”, I’ll stay in my “echo chamber”, thank you.

And what was that about the USA cutting down on CO2 emissions? Yeah, what was that 500 private jets flying to D.C. for some event last week? And our President jacking up the heat in the White House to accommodate his thin skin? And Al Gore having a CO2 emitting house and house boat and all the celebrities having private jets and multiple CO2 emitting huge mansions and multiple CO2 emitting gas guzzlers. Yet all those people called President Bush a killer of the earth, even though his house is eco-friendly.

Yeah, not buying the hypocrisy. When the people spouting this BS take their own BS seriously, maybe I will start paying attention. Until then, I see it as it is: a move by the elites in the world to take all our money and get rich themselves and enslave us to one-world government.

@MataHarley: Good one!

Time to beam Larry up?

Photobucket

Larry displays classic projection with his posts. He spews the
climate alarmists talking points verbatim, then accuses those he
disagrees with of being the parrots.
You see, if larry accepted that he is not the free thinker he thinks he is, it would hurt his self esteem and image of himself as special.

This is partly why the Koslims refer to themselves as a reality
based community…and believe it to be true.

Volcanoes have had no important impact on CO2 content in the atmosphere. CO2 has been going inexorably upward and major volcanic eruptions have had no measurable impact on the slope of this increase. If you want to try and deny the CO2 increase or to try and blame it on volcanoes, you are going nowhere. This is one aspect of climate science which is beyond controversy. Not even Mike’s video challenged this.

Notice how Mike tries to obscure the science by preferring to dwell on all of the political overlay?

And as for the science, there is no science which supports the idea that CO2 released by man into the environment has any effect at all on climate.

All you have to support your phony claim are some discredited computer models that have built in biases to produce the result warmers want. The same models which failed to predict the latest cooling….

The only way to “prove” that rising CO2 will affect climate is to wait another one thousand years and see where we are. There is a reason why there is no direct evidence that rising CO2 will change climate. This is because what is happening now is completely unprecedented in the history of the world — or at least the history that we can document. What is happening now is a massive increase in CO2, at an unprecedented rate. More than a one third increase in 150 years, with most of that since WWII and continuing upward on the same steep trajectory. This has never happened before. What has driven climate before are all those things that the right wing echo chamber likes to talk about. Sunspots. Methane. Water vapor. In the past, those things initiated warming, warming released more CO2 from the ocean. The data a perfectly consistent with this increased CO2 being a positive feedback loop, which accentuated and perpetuated this warming.

But, as noted, what’s happening now is unprecedented. Massive release of carbon, long sequestered, for hundreds of millions of years. Now all being burned up and released in the (geologic) blink of an eye. For the first time in history, the carbon dioxide spike is leading the temperature spike.

Global cooling? 2008 was the 8th warmest year on record. The top 10 are since 1997. Of course there will be fluctuations. CO2 is not the only thing which influences climate and it is not the most important. But everything else is in an equilibrium (in real time, not geologic time). There are sunspot flares and periods of quiescence. And the earth’s orbit changes, and this has effects. And so on. But injected in all of this is something brand new and unprecedented. The CO2 burst. Without controversy (without serious controversy) the result of human activity.

Frontpage

Real climate discussion and debate. By real scientists. Go there and learn.

Or stay in the echo chamber and express your outrage to like thinking people who are comfortable ventilating among their own kind.

Mike, why don’t you spend a month on the Daily Kos fighting the good fight? Be certain to use the same language and “tone” that you use here, among the safety of friends. I promise to follow your adventures with great interest.

Regarding the point of view that if CO2 were so bad for our health, we’d know it by now: actually not. There is a minuscule amount of study on this, but what study does exist shows cancer promoting effects in animals by increasing ambient CO2. People that live in or near cities do have health problems associated with urban living. The role of CO2, per se, is unclear. People who live and work in poorly ventilated buildings, where CO2 is increased, do have short term problems, although these haven’t been well studied, either. What we don’t know is how living in chronic exposure to levels of CO2 in which we did not evolve to handle will affect our health. We do know that there are unexplained increases in cancers like non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and multiple myeloma. It will take decades of research to sort things out.

Living nearby volcanoes isn’t a valid model of anything, except for the probability of dying in an eruption.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

Firstly, I just wrote out a detailed (second) reply to Mike’s earlier post. It got caught in spam. Can you fix, Mata?

Second, you misunderstand the echo chamber principle. The echo chamber is when you only talk to people you agree with you. Look at the flow of this simple, short thread. Who’s points of view are being echoed and who’s are being blown back?

I have exposed my points of view to challenge. Mike puts up his points of view, secure in the knowledge that he will have a warm reception among friends.

I can’t debate whether or not FA is “better” or “worse” than the Daily Kos. I’ve never spent any time at all on the latter. I stay here because I do like to expand my horizons and have my points of view challenged. You and Curt have treated me with courtesy and respect.

I do find it very dreary and unrewarding to have blow back which just says things like “you are just repeating DNC talking points” (no, actually, I’m not; not even close, and, anyway, even if I were, it would be vastly more productive to actually debate those points, as opposed to simply insulting me for being a simpleton or whatever and basically saying “I won’t dignify those comments with a response.”).

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach (have to WORK now; by for now).

“You and Curt have treated me with courtesy and respect.”

I agree. But we should give Wordsmith his due, too.

@openid.aol.com/runnswim:

Larry,

I dug you out of the SPAM filter.

I typed out a response to you yesterday regarding this issue.

Perhaps if you sign in instead of using the openid.aol technique you will have better luck.

I know for sure that when I am not signed in, any response I create with a link will end up in the filter.

Just an FYI.

To Aye:
You are such a gentleman, and I mean that sincerely. It’s nice to see that even though you 100% disagree with Larry, you helped him anyway.

Nice

Ron

@openid.aol.com/runnswim: You’re starting to flail Larry!

Responding to Larry’s multiple, almost defensively reactive comments: “Notice how Mike tries to obscure the science by preferring to dwell on all of the political overlay?”

You complained that the post lacked reams of scientific information. When I pointed out to you that this isn’t a post about the science, rather the politicization of the science, you accuse me of “dwelling” on that?

Geesh!

and as for “I can’t debate whether or not FA is “better” or “worse” than the Daily Kos.”

You have to be kidding right?

Have any of the contributors or even the commenters at F.A. ever wished for the death of Obama, Biden or his staff as the Kommies at Kos did regarding Cheney and Tony Snow?

But at least you admitted that “The role of CO2, per se, is unclear ” in human health.

What a shame you can’t understand that the role of CO2 is also “unclear” to say the least in climate change.

Now, back to the science that you say is so lacking…. There has not been one study which demonstrates that the teensie weensie increase in CO2 has had any “greenhouse effect” in the atmosphere. All the scaremongering predictions about warming in the upper atmosphere have been proven to be false by the advanced instruments and measurements the warmermongerers insisted would show the opposite.

There is no green house effect due to CO2 increases. NONE!

Ocean and surface measurements have also not shown an increase, but a decrease in some cases. And while our ability to monitor surface and ocean temperatures have increased dramatically, the warmermongerers are insisting we must rely instead on data sets which they have fixed to the advantage of their alarmist arguments.

Sorry Larry, but you’re losing the science here. And people all over the world are slowly waking up to the fact that CO2 is not a problem and carbon taxes are a scam that wouldn’t solve the problem even if it was real.

No wonder you folks still insist this is an urgent crisis that must be dealt with now (same thing your side said 20 years ago predicting we’d all be dead by now).

Have any of the contributors or even the commenters at F.A. ever wished for the death of Obama, Biden or his staff as the Kommies at Kos did regarding Cheney and Tony Snow?

Sure they have. I even remember a post where someone pondered abortions for Sasha and Malia.

“Sure they have.” says Fit confidently. uh… like where? Or are we supposed to believe you? And does Obama know you are the new chosen one? LOL

There may have been such a comment… not by any of the authors, mind you. But I don’t remember it. So put up, or STFU… hearsay for such a personally damning comment doesn’t fly without some back up proof. Do your homework.

A little angry today Mata? No, not from authurs but from comments. I’m confident because I know what I saw. It will take some time to go back through months of posts but they are there, or at least were. I’ll get back to you.

Angry? Nope. But I’m not letting you condemn some phantom commenter/author. Over the top in BS. I repeat, do your homework. Either prove that happened, or STFU.

@Fit fit:

Yeah. Sure.

I’m gonna call you out on this one Fit.

Sorry, but you just pegged the BS meter.

Larry:

If they haven’t beamed you up yet.

As one who comments regularly on Accuweather Global Warming blog, I can tell you that realclimate.org, is nothing but a Hysteric site where its every note is to uphold the Hysteric AGW profile. There are Skeptics and there are Hysterics, but all those on realclimate are Hysterics. It’s a joke on Accuweather.

You get your ‘news’ off one biased site, just like ABC news, MSNBC, etc etc…

You ain’t go no credibility.

Mike:
How did you do that? I’m still waiting to see old Larry beamed up!

Hmmm… no sign of Nit Wit and the phantom comment. Why am I not surprised? I’d think he would have found a link to said comment before making such an inflammatory statement but then that’s what I would do. Guess I can’t expect nit to have the same standard for intellectual integrity.

@Steve Rowland: Larry is bordering on AGW hysteria. There is NOTHING anyone can say to him that will make a dent in his religious adherence to the big lie.

I wonder if I change my name to “True America” Larry will believe every word I say?

I said it would take some time, probably days. I know what I saw. If I come up short I’ll let you know and apologize. BTW, you didn’t provide any Kos links to back up your statement big guy.

Why no post on Steele?

@Fit fit:

Links on Cheney and Tony Snow (both at Huffpo):

http://mikesamerica.blogspot.com/2007/02/hate-filled-left-wishes-for.html

http://mikesamerica.blogspot.com/2007/03/tony-snow-to-undergo-new-surgery.html

Took me all of two minutes to find them.

If you want me to spend another two minutes and get the same at Kos, I’ll do so after you provide the link to your comment above.

If you cannot provide a link to the comment you reference above within 12 hours (noon EST Saturday) we will be forced to expose your vicious calumny.

Sorry Mike, I got shit to do. Won’t be searching til Monday.

Yeah, I thought so.

Then issue a full retraction of your comment above along with an apology to all Flopping Aces readers that you have maligned or expect to be dogged every time you comment.

The choice is yours.

I have no tolerance for that kind of sleazy dishonest smear.

I said apologies would be given, if I decide I come up short. The comments were made months ago. I commented on one of them and only a few people backed me up on calling it out. The search feature here sucks so I’ll have to check them one month at a time…

I’m sorry but that’s not good enough. You can’t make incendiary statements like that and just say I’ll prove it later… Not good enough by any measure.

I’m able to navigate the search function here just fine.

Either you retract your remark and apologize or an apology will be made for you and repeated after every comment you make in future.

There is just no place here for that kind of smear against the readers.

@Larry

Linking to a site like realclimate.org over and over neither makes what you say factual or what they say factual.

I remember reading an interview in Discover magazine several years ago with the mathematician/statistician who the U.N. first assigned the task of accumulating and deciphering the data available in order to begin and bolster their global warming agenda. When he finally reported his findings, they fired him, because he basically reported that there was no such thing as global warming. They then hired a new person to analyze the same data and low and behold, the same data said something completely different.

That was the first great lie of the global warming movement, and they have been coming one after the other ever since, ie:

– the manipulation of data to create the much referred to “hockey stick” graph that shows an alarming, but misrepresented, warming trend over the last century.

– graphs that show CO2 levels leading to warming, when the real graphs show CO2 levels FOLLOWING temperature changes.

-Al Gore’s movie changing water level data to show increases in feet in the event of polar melting, instead of inches in order to show a more dramatic flooding effect.

– the selective use of temperature data that ignores the fact that most of the readings are made near heavily populated areas, skewing the results to show a global warming trend. (The heat island effect)

– The claims that polar bears are facing extinction because of global warming when their observed populations are at the highest numbers in recorded history.

– the fabricated temperature data for Antarctica that have been exposed to be projections based on those failed global warming models rather than from actual, local temperature readings.

I remember being told by a teacher in the late seventies that we were on the brink of an ice age. Now we are on the brink of a what, hot age? Those who wish to foster fear in, and eventually exert control over, others will always be able to manipulate, and even falsify, statistics in order to incite that fear. This new “green” vision of the world has nothing to do with protecting the world from us, it has everything to do with promoting a socialist system under the control of the far left forces in world politics and the United Nations. Do you really think the likes of George Soros really wants any of us to be his equal?

It is socio(environmenta)lism, and the Larry’s of the world have fallen for it hook line and sinker.

@Fit fit:

Tick tock.

Tick tock.

Several things.

First, Mike, I wasn’t responding to your original post, but to “Michael in MI” (comment number 1). Mike asked me a specific question (read comment number 1 to see what question he was asking me). I responded. This is in answer to your first criticism in comment # 15, above, first three paragraphs.

You go on to say:

But at least you admitted that “The role of CO2, per se, is unclear ” in human health.

What a shame you can’t understand that the role of CO2 is also “unclear” to say the least in climate change.

Now, back to the science that you say is so lacking…. There has not been one study which demonstrates that the teensie weensie increase in CO2 has had any “greenhouse effect” in the atmosphere. All the scaremongering predictions about warming in the upper atmosphere have been proven to be false by the advanced instruments and measurements the warmermongerers insisted would show the opposite.

There is no green house effect due to CO2 increases. NONE!

Ocean and surface measurements have also not shown an increase, but a decrease in some cases. And while our ability to monitor surface and ocean temperatures have increased dramatically, the warmermongerers are insisting we must rely instead on data sets which they have fixed to the advantage of their alarmist arguments.

Sorry Larry, but you’re losing the science here. And people all over the world are slowly waking up to the fact that CO2 is not a problem and carbon taxes are a scam that wouldn’t solve the problem even if it was real.

No wonder you folks still insist this is an urgent crisis that must be dealt with now (same thing your side said 20 years ago predicting we’d all be dead by now).

Now, the last time we argued this, you denied that there was any increase in atmospheric CO2, referring me to your “global warming scam” video, which said absolutely nothing to dispute my statement that CO2 has increased. You now admit that there has been a “teensie weensie” increase. I’ll take this as a gracious admission that you were incorrect before. Because people like you and me write an awful lot, it is inevitable that each of us will make some mistakes.

“Teensie weensie?” Umm, no. Actually CO2 levels have increased by 40% since the industrial revolution, with more than half of this increase occurring in the past 50 years. Homo sapiens has never lived with the CO2 levels with which we now have to deal.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/13/carbonemissions.climatechange

As I have stated, several times, I am vastly more concerned about the effect of such a large increase in ambient CO2 on human health than I am concerned about climate change. I have explained the reasons for this. No, of course, nothing definitive has been proven. What it will take to prove an untoward effect, if any, is to see an unexplained increase in the incidence of some pathologic condition(s) — e.g increases in certain types of cancers, neurological diseases, whatever, and then to spend literally decades trying to understand what is going on and to link it to changes in our C02/bicarbonate bioenergetics. That’s why I called this the greatest human guinea pig experiment in history. I continue to call it such.

With specific regard to climate change, beware of people who make declarative statements such as this:

There is no green house effect due to CO2 increases. NONE!

A cursory Google search should convince anyone that such a statement is untenable. Even among climate change skeptics, I can’t find convincing support for such a statement.

With regard to Steve Rowland’s comment about realclimate.org being a “hysteric” site — I’d like to ask the definition of “hysteric.” Is a hysteric someone who accepts that the preponderance of data points to the possibility of ongoing, human-caused, CO2-driven climate change and raises justifiable concerns, based on his or her understanding of these data? I’ve reviewed the realclimate.org site and I’ve now reviewed the Accuweather.com site. I find them both credible sources of information. Most issues of importance are discussed on each site. It would be useful, Steve, for you to find an example of where the preponderance of opinion relating to a given issue on each site disagreed, and explain how the realclimate.org site’s consensus was taking a “hysteric” position.

With regard to “Wisdom’s” comment.

I addressed the issue of the relationship between global temperature increase and atmospheric CO2 increase within the past two days on another thread.

The “hockey stick” appears, in fact, to be completely real:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/09/02/0805721105.abstract

For instance, skeptics often cite the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warming Period as pieces of evidence not reflected in the hockey stick, yet these extremes are examples of regional, not global, phenomena.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=behind-the-hockey-stick

The comments about Gore, heat island, and polar bears are not central to climate change theory.

I discussed the so-called Antarctic “fabrication” on another recent thread. I think that a fair person would grant the authors of this so-called “fabrication” the opportunity to respond. They do so, quite persuasively, in my opinion.

State of Antarctica: red or blue?

By the way, here’s a superb recent debate on climate change theory, appearing on the Huffington Post. Before you object, note that the original blogpost was a strongly ANTI-global warming piece. You guys dismiss the HuffPo, but I can’t imagine Flopping Aces accepting for publication a pro-global warming blogpost, and the quality of the follow up comments (which are fact based, and devoid of ad hominem attacks) are a model for the type of reasoned debate to which this blog should aspire, in my most humble opinion.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harold-ambler/mr-gore-apology-accepted_b_154982.html?page=3

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach

Oh Larry you are good for a laugh.

Where to begin? There’s just so much material there I’d hate to leave anything out but in the interest of not boring every one of our readers I’ll tackle just a few points:

You’re right in that CO2 has been rising… However it remains a trace gas in very small amounts.

But if the warmermongers were correct in stating that CO2 caused warming then why are we seeing the opposite?

http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/UAHMSUglobe.html

Latest Global Temps

It’s because CO2 does not cause warming and is not contributing to any honestly measureable increase in a greenhouse effect.

Perhaps you are unaware of NASA’s Aqua satellite which was launched in 2002? It was supposed to find the proof once and for all that global warming was real. It didn’t.

Data shows no predicted “hot spot” in the tropics so now the warmermongerers have gone back to their blackboards and tried to rationalize that fact in the same way you are ignoring the Medieval warm period (which nearly every honest scientist admits you cannot do).

David Evans, who was the scientiest who monitored Australia’s Kyoto compliance had this to say:

The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.

If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again.

since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

And another NASA Scientist, Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman to receive a PhD in meteorology recently retired and was free finally to say this:

However, the main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models. We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-surface system. We only need to watch the weather forecasts.

The models which predict disaster fail to take into account all the factors that would prevent disaster. Doesn’t that strike you as odd to say the least?

Roy Spencer, another in a long line of former NASA scientists with direct responsibilities for global warming research is also an excellent resource on this subject.

Satellite and Climate Model Evidence Against Substantial Manmade Climate Change

ABSTRACT
Three IPCC climate models, recent NASA Aqua satellite data, and a simple 3-layer climate model are used together to demonstrate that the IPCC climate models are far too sensitive, resulting in their prediction of too much global warming in response to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The models’ high sensitivity is probably the result of a confusion between forcing and feedback (cause and effect) when researchers have interpreted cloud and temperature variations in the real climate system. (What follows is a brief summary of research we will be submitting to Journal of Climate in January 2009 for publication. I challenge any climate researcher to come up with an alternative explanation for the evidence presented below…I would love to hear it…my e-mail address is at the bottom of the page.)

…It is well known that most of that warming is NOT due to the direct warming effect of the CO2 by itself, which is relatively weak. It is instead due to indirect effects (positive feedbacks) that amplify the small amount of direct warming from the CO2. The most important warmth-amplifying feedbacks in climate models are clouds and water vapor.

Full article here.

I could keep going on this for hours but I know Larry’s pattern of hit and run, so perhaps I’ll just save it all for another post that will reach the entire FA family of readers and not simply attempt to educate just one stubborn Al Gore acolyte.

Mike, it is completely unfair to accuse me of “hitting and running.” I only have so much time in my life to devote to internet discussion. Last night, I was up between 3 AM and 5:30 composing my last post on this thread.

Certainly you must know that I could match you, quote for quote and citation for citation, if I had either the time or inclination. There are rejoinders for each and every one of the your citations, as, again, I’m sure that you know.

You are the number one contributor to this blog. It is obviously a mission for you. I can’t possibly match you, post for post.

As for CO2 being a trace gas and me being an Al Gore acolyte, number one, you don’t understand physiology and the importance of CO2 in regulating pH and you can’t possibly trivialize a 40% increase in CO2 over the past 150 years, with more than half of that being in the past 50 years, and with the rate of increase still going upward without end. This is unprecedented in recorded history and it is 100% obvious that this is human-induced. Humans did not evolve to live with CO2 at these levels. And Al Gore has never once said a single word about the potential negative effects of CO2 on human health, which remains my number one concern. So much for me being a Gore acolyte.

I note that you are demanding that “Fit” provide an apology for an apparently erroneous statement he made. In an earlier post, you were scathingly critical of me for maintaining that there had been an increase in atmospheric CO2. You were entirely wrong on this issue, and it would be very gracious of you to acknowledge this.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

@openid.aol.com/runnswim: “Last night, I was up between 3 AM and 5:30 composing my last post on this thread.”

That might explain why your arguments are so flawed. Get some rest and you may think more clearly.

As for You are the number one contributor to this blog. It is obviously a mission for you. I can’t possibly match you, post for post.

And yet a word count of your responses on this thread total 2488 words which is much more than the total word count of 1858 for my post and all of my comments, a chunk of which are devoted to admonishing Nit Wit.
You’re asking me to acknowledge a minor difference in CO2 but you are simply incapable of acknowledging that there is no sound data from a source who isn’t pushing an agenda to prove the basic tenets of global warming theory.

I’m sure you could keep pouring on the volume of citations all day long if you wished but once they are picked apart you are still left with no explanation as to why CO2 increased and the temperature dropped.

The answer is that there is another mechanism besides CO2 which is clearly predominant and no amount of minor tinkering with the CO2 level by any program proposed by even the most radical warmermonger would have the slightest effect on the world’s temperature or climate change.

Thus, we are left with where we started: the effort by the warmermongerers isn’t to save the planet but to enslave the planet to their one world/socialist ideology and use fear to force compliance with the theft of $trillions of taxpayer dollars that might better be spent even on the next bailout boondoggle than this nonsense.

Face it Larry… despite your excessive volume of words you cannot dispute the fact that manmade global warming is a total lie.

P.S. I prepared a wordle analysis of your 2488 words here:

null

You’re asking me to acknowledge a minor difference in CO2 but you are simply incapable of acknowledging that there is no sound data from a source who isn’t pushing an agenda to prove the basic tenets of global warming theory.

What is the biggest thing in my “word cloud” above? CO2.

CO2 has gone up 40% since the industrial revolution, with more than half of this increase occurring since WWII. Humans have never lived with atmospheric CO2 as high as it is today. You castigated me for stating these facts, claiming they were untrue. There has been no increase in CO2, you stated. You demand an apology from “Fit,” yet you throw up smoke screens to obfuscate your gross error in understanding the most basic data which is the foundation for the entire climate change theory. You make absurd claims, such as “CO2 is not a greenhouse gas.” You attempt to impress us with your credentials of having “worked at the EPA.”

You ask for “sound data from a source who isn’t pushing an agenda to prove the basic tenets of the global warming theory.” Very well, let’s go back to your old agency, the EPA, who posted the following on their website during the Bush administration:

Temperature changes in general:

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/recenttc.html
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/recenttc_triad.html

(nb: quality controlled to remove effects of urbanization)

Temp changes 1880-2006

Tropospheric Temperature Change

Measurements of the Earth’s temperature taken by weather balloons (also known as radiosondes) and satellites from the surface to 5-8 miles into the atmosphere – the layer called the troposphere – also reveal warming trends. According to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center:

* For the period 1958-2006, temperatures measured by weather balloons warmed at a rate of 0.22°F per decade near the surface and 0.27°F per decade in the mid-troposphere. The 2006 global mid-troposphere temperatures were 1.01°F above the 1971-2000 average, the third warmest on record.
* For the period beginning in 1979, when satellite measurements of troposphere temperatures began, various satellite data sets for the mid-troposphere showed similar rates of warming — ranging from 0.09°F per decade to 0.34°F per decade, depending on the method of analysis.

Stratospheric Temperature Change

Weather balloons and satellites have also taken temperature readings in the stratosphere – the layer 9-14 miles above the Earth’s surface. This level of the atmosphere has cooled. The cooling is consistent with observed stratospheric ozone depletion since ozone is a greenhouse gas and has a warming effect when present. It’s also likely that increased greenhouse gas concentrations in the troposphere are contributing to cooling in the stratosphere as predicted by radiative theory (Karl et al., 2006).

Recent Scientific Developments

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) recently published the report “Product 1.1 Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences,” which addresses some of the long-standing difficulties in understanding changes in atmospheric temperatures and the basic causes of these changes. According to the report:

* There is no discrepancy in the rate of global average temperature increase for the surface compared with higher levels in the atmosphere. This discrepancy had previously been used to challenge the validity of climate models used to detect and attribute the causes of observed climate change.
* Errors identified in the satellite data and other temperature observations have been corrected. These and other analyses have increased confidence in the understanding of observed climate changes and their causes.
* Research to detect climate change and attribute its causes using patterns of observed temperature change shows clear evidence of human influences on the climate system due to changes in greenhouse gases, aerosols and stratospheric ozone.
* An unresolved issue is related to the rates of warming in the tropics. Here, models and theory predict greater warming higher in the atmosphere than at the surface. However, greater warming higher in the atmosphere is not evident in three of the five observational data sets used in the report. Whether this is a result of uncertainties in the observed data, flaws in climate models, or a combination of these is not yet known.

Carbon Dioxide

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/recentac.html

Carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere increased from approximately 280 parts per million (ppm) in pre-industrial times to 382 ppm in 2006 according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Earth Systems Research Laboratory, a 36 percent increase. Almost all of the increase is due to human activities (IPCC, 2007). The current rate of increase in CO2 concentrations is about 1.9 ppmv/year. Present CO2 concentrations are higher than any time in at least the last 650,000 years (IPCC, 2007).

Sea level

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/recentslc.html

Figure 1: U.S. Sea Level Trends
Source: Monthly and Annual Mean Sea Level Station Files from the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) at the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory

Sea levels are rising worldwide and along much of the U.S. coast. (IPCC, 2007) Tide gauge measurements and satellite altimetry suggest that sea level has risen worldwide approximately 4.8-8.8 inches (12-22 cm) during the last century (IPCC, 2007). A significant amount of sea level rise has likely resulted from the observed warming of the atmosphere and the oceans.

You go on to state:

you are still left with no explanation as to why CO2 increased and the temperature dropped.

2008 was the 8th warmest year on record. The top 10 have all occurred since 1997. CO2 isn’t the only thing affecting global climate. It isn’t even the most important thing. Just considering greenhouse gases, water vapor contributes 49% of the effect and CO2 22%.

http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/spring04/atmo451b/pdf/RadiationBudget.pdf

Changes in cloud cover, which are a function of local (e.g. El Nino) as well as global phenomena cause short term changes. Sunspots cause short term change. Slight wobble in earth orbit cause changes. Changes in ozone cause changes. Whatever. So you have lots of background phenomena going on, more or less in an equilibrium. But, superimposed on that, you have a relentless accumulation of human-caused CO2 in the atmosphere. From year to year, and even from decade to decade, there will be swings in temperature, which are attributable to all these factors. CO2 alone doesn’t drive climate. But, if everything else is in equilibrium, and CO2 is increasing, then the net effect will be warming. So what is important is not year to year change in temperature, but, rather long term trend lines. The notorious “hockey stick,” which you would claim represents “faked data,” based on faulty analyses, but which the preponderance of data (including recent data cited by me earlier) has now supported and confirmed.

I want to go back to discussing http://realclimate.org, as compared with the accuweather climate blog.

Compare and contrast the realclimate editors:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?cat=10

With the accuweather editor:

http://www.accuweather.com/news-bio.asp?partner=accuweather&traveler=0&blog=anderson

The contributors to realclimate are true atmospheric scientists, who have between them hundreds of peer-review publications in the most prestigious scientific journals in the world. The accuweather editor and staff are traditional “weather men,” who specialize in making short term (as in days to weeks to months) weather forecasts, as opposed to being scientists specializing in researching the earth’s atmosphere. Reading through the blog posts and commentary on realclimate versus accuweather is night and day, with respect to scientific sophistication and rigor. Accuweather appears to be more of a playground for laypersons, most of whom seem to have anti-climate change points of view.

That may be why Technorati has consistently ranked realclimate.org as the number one climate change blog “by a landslide” http://climateprogress.org/2007/08/28/top-ten-climate-change-blogs/
, while the accuweather climate blog was a distant 10th: http://global-warming.accuweather.com/

I think that the current state of affairs was well summarized in a recent Detroit Free Press (hometown newspaper; I used to be a Free Press home delivery “paper boy”) blog:

Skeptics converge on global warming data like ants at a picnic, but their reasoning often skips from one random sound bite to the next in their attempt to discount the experts. Meanwhile, serious studies point increasingly to human-caused warming, more potential damage, and faster change — at a pace that plants and animals, if not all people, will have trouble adapting to.

http://www.freep.com/article/20090201/OPINION01/902010360/1069/OPINION/Now+s+the+time+to+speak+up+on+global+warming

Having said all of the above, let me repeat, yet again, that my own personal concern is not so much about climate, but about the unknown, but worrisome, potential effects of the relentlessly increasing atmospheric CO2 levels on human health.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

Mike, I replied to your #34 above at 5 AM on Feb 2, but it got caught in spam.

– Larry

addendum: ooops, my bad. it just showed up.

The SPAM filter likes you Larry.

I don’t know why.

I presume you dug me out, Aye. thanks.

going back to bed. 5:21 AM here on the Left coast.

…and the list goes on such as making abortion
permanent. which leads me to ask the Obamas as to why they didn’t abort their daughters.

Here you go Mike. You know, you don’t have to be such a butthead all the time. I told you I would respond on Monday.

Now I will say that, generally, FA’s astute moderators do an excellent job of letting things get rough but not out of hand (I still feel they pull the trigger way too easliy when it comes to my posts). Comments like the one above are much rarer than here than at other sites (though FA only has a small fraction of their traffic). The point you were making was valid. If you had said “rarely” instead of “never”, I would not have felt the need to call you out.

@Fit fit:

Have any of the contributors or even the commenters at F.A. ever wished for the death of Obama, Biden or his staff as the Kommies at Kos did regarding Cheney and Tony Snow?

Sure they have. I even remember a post where someone pondered abortions for Sasha and Malia.

“…and the list goes on such as making abortion permanent. which leads me to ask the Obamas as to why they didn’t abort their daughters.”

How are these statements equivalent? Jim did not wish for the deaths of the daughters, he mentioned it in context of those who promote abortion and asked why those who promote abortion don’t have them themselves. Kinda like the whole chickenhawk argument. (“If you support the war, why don’t you enlist”). I didn’t read that statement as a statement of malice, wishing for the daughters to be dead.

Now, had someone said something like “the Obama daughters are going to be bad for society and we would all be better off had they been aborted”, *that’s* going over the line, in the same context as the Leftie sites wishing for the deaths of right-of-center pundits, politicians and celebrities.

@openid.aol.com/runnswim:

I think that the current state of affairs was well summarized in a recent Detroit Free Press (hometown newspaper; I used to be a Free Press home delivery “paper boy”) blog:

The Detroit Free Press is a rabidly Left-leaning rag. I see them as equivalent to MSNBC in their BDS, Obama worship and support of every left-wing ideology. So I wouldn’t use them as a source to backup anything.

Michael,

Is this more like what you see on the “Leftie sites”? As I said, it’s rare, but it does happen.

@Fit fit:

Yep, that comment was crossing the line.

I think the main problem people have with the comparison of Flopping Aces to places like Kos and Huffington Post and Andrew Sullivan and the Washington Post comments sections is that, well, there’s no comparison. Here, those comments are the exception and admonished. At the Lefty sites, those comments are the rule and praised/encouraged.

Maybe a better statement by Mike’s America would have been that ‘you will never see a comment like that here at Flopping Aces which was praised and encouraged as they are at Lefty sites’, instead of ‘you will never see a comment like that here’.

It’s what the Left does to Little Green Footballs all the time. They take one or two comments out of hundreds of thousands and smear the whole site as a hate site. Even when the comments are not praised or encouraged and are usually deleted or there are unanimous calls for “cleanup on comment #X”. On the Lefty sites, this is SOP to call for the deaths and bad things to happen to their political enemies, and encourage and praise this behavior, and yet they are seen as “moderate” and not called out on it at all, except by right-of-center sites.

The double-standard and moral equivalence gets a little tiresome, to say the least.

@Fit fit: The example Nit Wit cites is not in any comparable to the intensity of hate at Koss or Huffpo, examples of which I cited above. Nit Wit’s effort is just another attempt to enable the haters on the left by saying that “everybody does it.” How many times have we heard that used to excuse the inexcusable from the left?

@openid.aol.com/runnswim: And as for Larry, he’s picked enough cherries this time to bake TWO PIES!

Another 1376 words bringing his total on this thread well over 4,000.

And all of it a very clever rehash of propaganda and politicized science.

Having worked at EPA for a number of years I know very well how the science in the environmental field has become corrupted by politics and money. It’s a mega-billion dollar industry now and the warmermongerers who scream “the sky is falling” the loudest get the lion’s share of the goodies.

Since it appears that Larry has ignored the links above in which I directly answered his false claim that CO2 was driving temperature, I’ll just give drop the graphics in here:

Showing CO2 levels continuing to rise but temperature flucating up and down and currently trending down even as CO2 increases.

Going further back in time we see from ice core samples going back 400,000 years that both CO2 and temperature go up and down. If you superimpose the two graphs you will notice that CO2 increase follows temperature increase and not the other way around.

Going even further back we see that CO2 and temperature show less correlation.

Now, I suggested to Larry that he view the film, the Great Global Warming Swindle, with it’s all star scientific lineup. But Larry may prefer a less glitzy presenation so here is a lecture by Prof. Bob Carter, Australias climate scientist extraordinare and the man responsible for implementing the Kyoto protocol on climate change:

Parts II, III and IV

The Cliff Notes version is this short 1minute 50 second cliff with the major graphs:

Larry can propagandize all he wants but it’s clear from opinion polls taken from all over the world that the “sky is falling” message is getting a bit flat after 20 years of declaring we are on the verge of catasprophe.

With all the corrupted science and politics intruding into this mess there is no way the world should jump off the cliff and hand over total control of our economy, energy sectors and the way we live to a bunch of one worlder/socialist scaremongers.

It won’t be long now before the great scam of manmade climate change is exposed for the lie it is. Ironically, the lie will be exposed by the next generation of satellite and ocean monitoring devices that that scaremongers insisted would prove their claim.

Mike,

So now quoting verbatim from the Bush Environmental Protection Agency is “propaganda,” as is quoting from studies in the most prestigious peer-reviewed science publications, such as “Nature” and “Science.”

We are going around and around. First you ask me for data from sites which don’t have a pro-global warming “agenda.” I go to the EPA site and put up material on every aspect of the global warming debate, from surface temperatures, to temperatures of every layer of the atmosphere, to CO2 emissions, to ocean surface levels. This material was put up during the time when the Bush administration was running the EPA. It is not cherry picked. It is simply the summary statements of the EPA on each of the above issues relating to global warming theory. It is consistent with all the data which is discussed, in great detail, on what is acknowledged to be, by far, the world’s premier climate change blog. It is the reason why John McCain endorsed the global warming theory and why the Bush administration’s official position was that human-caused global warming was a real phenomenon.

We are getting to the point of just going around and around on this. I addressed your points regarding the lag of global CO2 behind global temperatures in a previous post. It’s a total red herring, as it’s utterly unrelated to what is occurring today. I addressed the non-linearity of CO2 and temperature relationship in previous posts.

I don’t have a problem in the world with Mike having honest differences of opinion with me. What I object to is the personally vituperative and dismissive tone of his posts, as if I am some sort of a kook, who wears tinfoil to protect himself from space aliens. Or a “Gore acolyte,” as if the only people who accept global warming theory are Gore worshipers. It is obvious that my views are consistent with those of John McCain and George W Bush. All of us may be misguided and all of us may be wrong, but our viewpoints are not “propaganda.”

Mike castigated me for stating that atmospheric CO2 has gone up. He claimed that it had not gone up.

Then Mike stated, flat out, that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. He is dead wrong on this issue also.

The above are facts, which anyone can confirm with 10 minutes of Internet research.

Mike was dead wrong on the two most important issues in the entire global warming debate.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

Larry: Unlike the 411 addtional words you have added to your already roughly 4,100 I try to keep my answers short and to the point.

I had hoped it would make them easier for you to digest. Apparently not.

You said: “So now quoting verbatim from the Bush Environmental Protection Agency is “propaganda.” “

Now, take a moment and reread this sentence from my reply above:

“all of it a very clever rehash of propaganda and politicized science.”

Emphasis added.

I went on to add “Having worked at EPA for a number of years I know very well how the science in the environmental field has become corrupted by politics and money.”

You have combined BOTH propaganda and politicized science.

If you don’t think that the products at EPA have a political component then you are hopeless. Global warming scaremongering has been one of the EPA’s best tools for budget increases since toxic waste dumps were discovered.

You have obviously not bothered to look at any of the material from qualified and credible sources I have offered here only a “I’m right, you’re wrong” sort of back and forth.

That’s hardly a productive use of our other reader’s time.

Since you are so adamant in pointing out my weak points perhaps you wouldn’t mind answering a few questions:

1. Do you really think that the Kyoto Protocol or the variant now under development would decrease CO2 levels at all?

2. Do you think that restructuring the entire Western economic/energy systems at the cost of mega trillions of dollars is the best use for our limited resources?

3. Are you not at all concerned about diverting those massive resources and attention from immediate human needs like poverty, disease, literacy, hunger and 3rd world sustainable development?

and lastly but most of all:

4. Do you really think that the scientist pushing the view of manmade global warming have a sufficient understanding of the complexities of climate and any possible role man has in influencing it?

Try and stay focused Larry and avoid the sniping and vituperation which is so commonplace in your answers above.

@Fit fit: The example Nit Wit cites is not in any comparable to the intensity of hate at Koss or Huffpo, examples of which I cited above. Nit Wit’s effort is just another attempt to enable the haters on the left by saying that “everybody does it.” How many times have we heard that used to excuse the inexcusable from the left?

You crack me up. Are you even a real person or a Colbertesque parody of an angry conservative blogger?

Comments like the one above are much rarer than here than at other sites (though FA only has a small fraction of their traffic). The point you were making was valid.

As I said, you don’t have to be a butthead all the time. Do you?

@Fit fit: “you don’t have to be a butthead all the time. Do you?”

As long as you are going to be an asshole, the answer to your question is yes.

You’ve admitted your role here is to cause trouble, not contribute to the discussion.

Apology accepted.

@Fit fit: None was offered.