The names and occupations of the people described in this post are fictitious, but the character traits described herein are those of real people in the real world based on my own knowledge and experience.
Weasel S. A. (Wease) Weasel Jr. is doing pretty well for himself. He’s making a killing as an oil futures trader on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). His father, Weasel S. A. (Pop) Weasel Sr. got Weasel Jr. his job after he finally graduated from Yale with an MBA. The elder Weasel once traded oil futures back in the 1980s on that very same floor. So Wease Weasel is following right in his father’s footsteps. These days Pop Weasel is an executive vice president at Goldigger-Sack, one of Wall Street’s largest investment houses. Wease has a very bright future ahead of him so long as he hangs on tight to his father’s coat-tails.
It’s a family affair. Uncle Scam U. Weasel III manages one of Wall Street’s largest hedge funds, Fyck Investments, LP., which his grandfather, Scam U. Weasel I, started in 1952. His father was Scam U. Weasel II, who built the fund into one of Wall Street’s most lucrative investment instruments. Tragically, Scam III inherited the fund when his (and Pop Weasel’s) father drowned after falling off the family’s 123 foot yacht in 2000 because he was falling-down drunk. Pop Weasel moonlights as Scam Weasel’s junior partner in the fund, where Pop takes advantage of his position at Goldigger-Sack to orchestrate lucrative insider trading scenarios with impunity. As a multi billionaire, Scam can afford to pay off agents of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to the tune of millions to look the other way. It’s quite a racket they have there.
The Weasel brothers have adjacent mansions in Connecticut on the Sound, and adjacent summer homes in the Hamptons, from where they frequently venture out into the Atlantic for afternoon forays on their 123 foot yacht, or to Martha’s Vineyard or Cape Cod to hang out at the upscale marinas and dance the night away with their wives or mistresses (or occasionally with strangers if one or the other happens to “get lucky”). This lifestyle is especially appealing to Wease Weasel, who fancies himself as a playboy of sorts. He likes to squire trophy blondes about town – he has a stable of about twenty or thirty women he can choose from. Although he's too dense to realize it, the women only like him for his money.
One of Wease’s favorite forms of entertainment is spending hours on Internet forums taunting the many people complaining about oil speculators (like him) on Wall Street running up the price of oil. These forums light right up each time there’s another spike in oil prices, and Wease is right there to rub it in. He likes to tell others posting comments on various threads that if they were successful like him, it wouldn’t matter what oil, or food, or hammers, or anything else costs – they would simply pay whatever it cost to fill their SUVs, or Jaguars, or Mercedes, or for that matter, their yachts. Money’s no object.
Wease Weasel has a penchant for boasting of his wealth on forums that typically follow articles on the widening income gap or the skyrocketing price of oil. They shouldn’t complain, he likes to write, they should work at getting rich like him. Wease Weasel is a classic class warfare specialist. He relishes in taunting the less fortunate – those who have to decide on whether to have a necessary operation or lose their house to the bank in foreclosure proceedings, or those who lost their jobs because they were outsourced to another country and are now losing their homes on which they’ve been paying for over twenty years. He especially relishes getting on forums associated with articles on the extension of Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. He loves to chortle at those who complain about the tax cuts President Obama was forced into granting by a cabal of rogue Republicans in the Senate. Collectively, the Weasels stand to save over $3 billion in tax monies they now won’t have to pay because the Republicans on Capitol Hill had their backs.
So there you have it - the saga of the Weasel family. An American success story. Each of them has all the money they’ll ever need, and then some. They invest hundreds of millions of dollars a year in Scam’s hedge fund, Fyck Investments LP, and in other stocks and bonds, and watch their money grow and accumulate.
As for Wease Weasel, he has decided to not follow his father up the high finance ladder. That’s too much like work. He's planning to retire before he reaches the ripe old age of thirty. He hasn’t told his father yet - hopefully, he might get drunk like his great uncle and fall off the yacht, or drop dead of a heart attack, or get cancer or something – save him the trouble. Then he'd get his father's $400 million. What would really be the cat's ass is if his uncle Scam met an unfortunate demise, then he'd stand to inherit billions. If or when any of that comes down Wease can lay back and while the days away and enjoy the lifestyle of the idle rich. After all, he deserves it, doesn’t he?
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
MISERY IN THE USA
On December 4th I posted a piece on how the United States has devolved into a 3rd World country. I talked about how the least of us are neglected while the rich are coddled. Our government is running up huge deficits and overall debt, and that's OK, as long as the rich get even more tax cuts. It's generally understood that the money the rich save will not be re-invested in job-producing activities, it will get invested in money-making investments that will allow their wealth accumulation to accelerate. Since there are so few jobs, and even fewer jobs that pay well enough to provide a decent standard of living, there will not be sufficient demand to justify hiring new workers. So, why would rich people who own businesses hire new workers when they can't sell enough of what they make anyway? They won't! They will simply invest in the stock market, which, by the way, fattens the bottom lines of companies that farm their work out to foreign countries.
There are two scenarios pertaining to the redistribution of wealth here in the U.S. One is the stealing of the middle class's wealth by the rich, leaving many destitute, and the other is the redistribution of that middle class wealth from the U.S. to the so-called "emerging economies". The big corporations and the billionaire tycoons, based here in the U.S., will run the factories over in China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, and other countries and collect immense profits because of the cheap labor in those countries. I personally believe that this shouldn't be a zero sum game, but that's exactly what the current policies are dictating that it is - a zero sum game. Rather than everyone in the global economy doing well, America is being forced to relinquish wealth to other countries and force many of it's own citizens into poverty and hardship.
The Republicans, and a few Democrats, are driving this policy of excusing the rich from paying their fair share of taxes under the guise of putting more people to work. Trickle-down doesn't work. Period. They know damn well it hasn’t worked in the past and isn’t going to work now, but they’re relying on the demonstrated ignorance of the American people to vindicate them. They know exactly what they’re doing – they know - they KNOW – that the American people will blame President Obama for the continuing hardship and vote him out of office in two years. The only hope for Obama is that the Republicans currently are fielding the weakest batch of potential presidential candidates in memory, and hopefully the voters will come to understand that elusive fact.
An article appeared today on MSNBC's web page written by JoNell Aleccia asserting that the life expectancy in the US is regressing. The U.S. is 38th or 39th in the world in life-expectancy. People aren't living as long because of lack of health care, low pay or other financial hardship. Many retirees - people who worked hard all their lives and paid into the Social Security Trust Fund, paid their taxes, and led productive lives - are hurting badly. Many simply can't afford to live. And there's talk by conservative politicians of slashing their retirement income even more, of making draconian cuts to their income and to Medicare - all to give the rich even more money. In my view, it's blood money. More money being taken from those less fortunate and handed over to the rich is exactly what it looks like. It's reverse Robin Hoodism - rob the poor and give to the rich. This is more than just my opinion based on what I see in my immediate surroundings. It's in the news and on the cable TV networks, and even congressmen and women are announcing this problem on the air. Other conservative congressmen and women and senators are trying to tell us that by giving the rich more money they'll make jobs and hire more people. As I've already stated, that's not what happens. George W. Bush tried it ten years ago and the trickle-down theory has been proven to not work. Period.
To their credit, many of the mega-rich are in favor of paying more taxes - they consider it their patriotic duty. Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and many other lesser known billionaires are trying to tell the politicians that they want to pay their fair share. But the Republicans in the Senate don't want to hear it. Perhaps they want the tax cuts for themselves.
There were some eloquent comments to the Aleccia piece by other affected people from around the country, and I'm going to paste some testimonials by these people who are suffering great hardship as a result of these terrible, odious tax policies.
Marlen101917 -
The only way to improve the health of ALL Americans is to take the profit out of health care and go to a single payer system like all other industrialized counties have done. A sick population not only kills our citizens, it kills our economic competitiveness as well.
Abby1588585 says this -
With the recession people cannot afford the same quality and quantity of healthy food. I spoke with a woman in the store the other day who was stocking up on cheap food to feed her family of four. She was just trying to make her food dollars stretch so she was buying the cheapest hot dogs to provide protein, the cheapest brand of macaroni and cheese to fill them up. She said that she couldn't afford fresh fruit and vegetables. She sounded so depressed but grateful her husband and her were both working although she said they were each working two part-time jobs. They have gone through their savings. While we spoke I was reminded of how hard it is so for seniors because we didn't get a cost of living increase last year and won't get one this year. I know seniors who are cutting back on food to save money. Sad, considering how fragile older folks can be.
Wal-Mart has their giving trees up and numerous tags (more than I remember in the past) are still up. People just don't have the money to spare. This is the first year we can't afford to help either. No Christmas gifts for our grandchildren. No money for gifts at all. We told our children we just don't have it to spare.
People are foregoing medical care because they cannot afford co-pays (if they have insurance).
People work longer hours in hopes of retaining their jobs (if they are lucky enough to have one) or are pounding the pavement praying for a job.
The stress alone is detrimental to one's health.
And while all of this is happening the GOP is worried about tax breaks for the rich and refused the $250 for seniors. Thanks for nothing.
ModerationInAllThings says this -
Without a doubt it's true; physiological well being can't be maintained and psychological well being is factored in.... giving up, no hope or limited hope.
The old saying of 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' still holds, but people aren't getting jobs w/ bennies (benefits), they're underemployed, unemployed, and are sacrificing medical needs in lieu of more pressing needs.
Try to blame Dems or Repubs; truth is, NONE have legislated towards American Businesses remaining in America, hiring Americans for American wages, so that Americans can have American benefits and pay what American business(that are now mostly overseas) charge.
American business has become Corporo-government entities that will profit from 3rd world wages, the lowest bidder, and know that eventually the stack of cards will fall, and Our standard of living is going down, down, down......ALL in the name of the farce that is known as 'the global economy'.
It has nothing to do with healthcare, healthscare, insurance co's., etc.... . It has everything to do with people calling afore mentioned American legislation directed towards Americans being labeled as 'protectionisitic'.
Guess I'm a protectionist.....no, actually, I AM a protectionist, and would challenge any to try and defend current economic policies, those for the past 3 decades, and blame any one party for where we're at. Million dollar babies, our supposed Representatives.
Depression, lack of income, basic needs not being met, ..... what was expected?
Here's CJ-747786's view -
Another reason to thank the Bush folks for bringing us crushing financial difficulties in years past, the medical establishment has run rampant. When seniors have to decide between spending their money on medicine or food we are asking for trouble.
So let's applaud the millionaires in Congress, who get free health care thanks to the taxpayers, and who really don't give a damn how many seniors die. If they are too sick to go out and vote then they don't pose a threat. What a great country we live in...this is insane!
These people are representative of hundreds of responders to the article who tell their stories, or describe their situations, or situations people they know are faced with. I don't necessarily agree with every word, but then my view might not be wholly accepted by these commentators either.
I don't see any end in sight. Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but then, maybe not. I see it around me. I really hate to come out in the blogosphere with jeremiads all the time, but when I see so much hardship around me, and concurrently I see on the news that it's not just in my immediate neighborhood but this state of affairs is rampant across the country as well. Jeremiads are justified and even called for when the America I used to know has now become a fiefdom for billionaires and multinational corporations. It's what I see and what I will write about from time to time. Actually, I’ll write about it frequently.
Someone on TV recently made the claim that America's poor are better off than the poor in poor nations, but a study (I can't cite the study - I ran across it a couple of weeks ago and didn't notate it) showed that America's poor are much worse off than the poor in other so-called advanced countries and significantly worse off than poor in poor countries because the cost of living here is far higher. Moreover, the safety net here is limited and flimsy, and has lots of holes people fall through. Competent healthcare is unavailable to them. It's even worse for those within coughing distance of the poverty line - but not below it - because they have no medical care available to them at all. These are usually the working poor, and they're the ones who suffer the most hardship of any of us. They, unfortunately, are a rapidly growing demographic, and will further the increasing mortality rate in this country.
This is what the legislators are, and have been, advancing as their policy directives for thirty odd years. It's destroying America from within.
Seeing all this, and seeing all the many injustices exacted upon the least of us is what renders me a cynical cynic. I truly wish it weren't this way, but it is. It is what it is. Period! End of Story!
There are two scenarios pertaining to the redistribution of wealth here in the U.S. One is the stealing of the middle class's wealth by the rich, leaving many destitute, and the other is the redistribution of that middle class wealth from the U.S. to the so-called "emerging economies". The big corporations and the billionaire tycoons, based here in the U.S., will run the factories over in China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, and other countries and collect immense profits because of the cheap labor in those countries. I personally believe that this shouldn't be a zero sum game, but that's exactly what the current policies are dictating that it is - a zero sum game. Rather than everyone in the global economy doing well, America is being forced to relinquish wealth to other countries and force many of it's own citizens into poverty and hardship.
The Republicans, and a few Democrats, are driving this policy of excusing the rich from paying their fair share of taxes under the guise of putting more people to work. Trickle-down doesn't work. Period. They know damn well it hasn’t worked in the past and isn’t going to work now, but they’re relying on the demonstrated ignorance of the American people to vindicate them. They know exactly what they’re doing – they know - they KNOW – that the American people will blame President Obama for the continuing hardship and vote him out of office in two years. The only hope for Obama is that the Republicans currently are fielding the weakest batch of potential presidential candidates in memory, and hopefully the voters will come to understand that elusive fact.
An article appeared today on MSNBC's web page written by JoNell Aleccia asserting that the life expectancy in the US is regressing. The U.S. is 38th or 39th in the world in life-expectancy. People aren't living as long because of lack of health care, low pay or other financial hardship. Many retirees - people who worked hard all their lives and paid into the Social Security Trust Fund, paid their taxes, and led productive lives - are hurting badly. Many simply can't afford to live. And there's talk by conservative politicians of slashing their retirement income even more, of making draconian cuts to their income and to Medicare - all to give the rich even more money. In my view, it's blood money. More money being taken from those less fortunate and handed over to the rich is exactly what it looks like. It's reverse Robin Hoodism - rob the poor and give to the rich. This is more than just my opinion based on what I see in my immediate surroundings. It's in the news and on the cable TV networks, and even congressmen and women are announcing this problem on the air. Other conservative congressmen and women and senators are trying to tell us that by giving the rich more money they'll make jobs and hire more people. As I've already stated, that's not what happens. George W. Bush tried it ten years ago and the trickle-down theory has been proven to not work. Period.
To their credit, many of the mega-rich are in favor of paying more taxes - they consider it their patriotic duty. Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and many other lesser known billionaires are trying to tell the politicians that they want to pay their fair share. But the Republicans in the Senate don't want to hear it. Perhaps they want the tax cuts for themselves.
There were some eloquent comments to the Aleccia piece by other affected people from around the country, and I'm going to paste some testimonials by these people who are suffering great hardship as a result of these terrible, odious tax policies.
Marlen101917 -
The only way to improve the health of ALL Americans is to take the profit out of health care and go to a single payer system like all other industrialized counties have done. A sick population not only kills our citizens, it kills our economic competitiveness as well.
Abby1588585 says this -
With the recession people cannot afford the same quality and quantity of healthy food. I spoke with a woman in the store the other day who was stocking up on cheap food to feed her family of four. She was just trying to make her food dollars stretch so she was buying the cheapest hot dogs to provide protein, the cheapest brand of macaroni and cheese to fill them up. She said that she couldn't afford fresh fruit and vegetables. She sounded so depressed but grateful her husband and her were both working although she said they were each working two part-time jobs. They have gone through their savings. While we spoke I was reminded of how hard it is so for seniors because we didn't get a cost of living increase last year and won't get one this year. I know seniors who are cutting back on food to save money. Sad, considering how fragile older folks can be.
Wal-Mart has their giving trees up and numerous tags (more than I remember in the past) are still up. People just don't have the money to spare. This is the first year we can't afford to help either. No Christmas gifts for our grandchildren. No money for gifts at all. We told our children we just don't have it to spare.
People are foregoing medical care because they cannot afford co-pays (if they have insurance).
People work longer hours in hopes of retaining their jobs (if they are lucky enough to have one) or are pounding the pavement praying for a job.
The stress alone is detrimental to one's health.
And while all of this is happening the GOP is worried about tax breaks for the rich and refused the $250 for seniors. Thanks for nothing.
ModerationInAllThings says this -
Without a doubt it's true; physiological well being can't be maintained and psychological well being is factored in.... giving up, no hope or limited hope.
The old saying of 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' still holds, but people aren't getting jobs w/ bennies (benefits), they're underemployed, unemployed, and are sacrificing medical needs in lieu of more pressing needs.
Try to blame Dems or Repubs; truth is, NONE have legislated towards American Businesses remaining in America, hiring Americans for American wages, so that Americans can have American benefits and pay what American business(that are now mostly overseas) charge.
American business has become Corporo-government entities that will profit from 3rd world wages, the lowest bidder, and know that eventually the stack of cards will fall, and Our standard of living is going down, down, down......ALL in the name of the farce that is known as 'the global economy'.
It has nothing to do with healthcare, healthscare, insurance co's., etc.... . It has everything to do with people calling afore mentioned American legislation directed towards Americans being labeled as 'protectionisitic'.
Guess I'm a protectionist.....no, actually, I AM a protectionist, and would challenge any to try and defend current economic policies, those for the past 3 decades, and blame any one party for where we're at. Million dollar babies, our supposed Representatives.
Depression, lack of income, basic needs not being met, ..... what was expected?
Here's CJ-747786's view -
Another reason to thank the Bush folks for bringing us crushing financial difficulties in years past, the medical establishment has run rampant. When seniors have to decide between spending their money on medicine or food we are asking for trouble.
So let's applaud the millionaires in Congress, who get free health care thanks to the taxpayers, and who really don't give a damn how many seniors die. If they are too sick to go out and vote then they don't pose a threat. What a great country we live in...this is insane!
These people are representative of hundreds of responders to the article who tell their stories, or describe their situations, or situations people they know are faced with. I don't necessarily agree with every word, but then my view might not be wholly accepted by these commentators either.
I don't see any end in sight. Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but then, maybe not. I see it around me. I really hate to come out in the blogosphere with jeremiads all the time, but when I see so much hardship around me, and concurrently I see on the news that it's not just in my immediate neighborhood but this state of affairs is rampant across the country as well. Jeremiads are justified and even called for when the America I used to know has now become a fiefdom for billionaires and multinational corporations. It's what I see and what I will write about from time to time. Actually, I’ll write about it frequently.
Someone on TV recently made the claim that America's poor are better off than the poor in poor nations, but a study (I can't cite the study - I ran across it a couple of weeks ago and didn't notate it) showed that America's poor are much worse off than the poor in other so-called advanced countries and significantly worse off than poor in poor countries because the cost of living here is far higher. Moreover, the safety net here is limited and flimsy, and has lots of holes people fall through. Competent healthcare is unavailable to them. It's even worse for those within coughing distance of the poverty line - but not below it - because they have no medical care available to them at all. These are usually the working poor, and they're the ones who suffer the most hardship of any of us. They, unfortunately, are a rapidly growing demographic, and will further the increasing mortality rate in this country.
This is what the legislators are, and have been, advancing as their policy directives for thirty odd years. It's destroying America from within.
Seeing all this, and seeing all the many injustices exacted upon the least of us is what renders me a cynical cynic. I truly wish it weren't this way, but it is. It is what it is. Period! End of Story!
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
THE STUPID AMERICAN VOTER - REDUX
12/7/2010 - President Obama has just been backed into a corner on the issue of tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires by a united, monolithic Republican Senate minority led by Sen. Mitch McConnell. The Republican argument revolves around the fallacious notion that "Raising taxes on job creators will hurt the economy". The flip side of that coin is: What will this policy of slashing incoming revenue going to do to the soaring national debt?
During the run-up to the November Midterm elections we heard the Tea Party types lament the skyrocketing deficit, over and over and over again. The Republicans are counting on the people to lay the blame squarely on the shoulders of Obama. And they probably will.
Obama's capitulation to Senate Republicans, while odious, should be viewed in the context of the past election, when people with fully functioning mouse brains in their heads voted overwhelmingly for right-wing candidates who promised tax cuts for the rich and slashing entitlement spending, and who were against Obama's "socialist" agenda (They thought they were "taking America back" from the socialists, when what they were really doing was giving it away to billionaires and corporate oligarchs). So Obama's reasoning was that "the People" had spoken loud and clear" (to quote McConnell and Boehner), and they wanted the rich to keep getting the tax breaks they had been getting for the past ten years. The voters, after all, tuned out the fact that corporate and foriegn money paid for all the attack ads during the campaign. So why would they start believing the truth now? Had the electorate showed a modicum of intellegence, Obama might have stood his ground and allowed taxes for the rich to revert back to pre-Bush levels (when, by the way, the economy was much stronger than it ever was under Bush).
Moreover, it was obvious that the Republicans were perfectly willing to allow unemployment insurance for the long-term unemployed lapse, to let the Start Treaty with Russia to remain in limbo, and, worst of all, taxes for even the poor to revert back to pre-Bush levels, which would have been devastating to the economy. The Republicans, specifically McConnell, knew the aggregate American electorate to be utterly stupid, and would blame Obama for their tax cuts and unemployment insurance expiring. They knew this was a fight they couldn't lose, and that if Obama would have held out he would have gotten the blame.
There is now internecine warfare between Obama and his own party. Democrats are livid. They, and the majority of Americans, according o polls, favored letting the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire. One can look at this as a shrewd move by the Republicans, but then if the American people were to ever wise up (fat chance), they (the Republicans) would be utterly repudiated for years to come. Running up the national debt so rich people can get even richer faster than ever is suicicidal for our country. This stokes the fires of class warfare - fires that promise to burn ever hotter as long as things keep going the way they're going.
What the Republicans have done is virtually insure Obama's almost certain defeat in 2012 because the national debt will have increased even more, and unemployment will still be in the stratosphere. The Republicans know this. They know that the supply-side trickle-down economics has been proven to not work. And they know voters will still believe it will work. They know how stupid the voters are. They know voters are unaware that for ten years lower tax rates have not stimulated the economy, and they know the voters will confuse a policy of letting taxes revert back to what they were, as being a tax hike, not the expiration of a temporary tax cut. The voters know that because that's what the Republicans are telling them. They wouldn't lie, would they?
Here's an illustration of some voters courtesy of Cenk Uygur's TV show The Young Turks.
A reporter tries to interview people lined up at a mall in Columbus Ohio to have Sarah Palin sign copies of her book Going Rogue. I have seen this kind of idiocy first hand. Early in the interview the reporter gets this response from a big, oafish, dull-witted guy: "She's the epitomy of conservative-ness. And I'm tellin' ya, if the Republican Party doesn't back her - it doesn't matter, 'cause she's gonna get the presidency". The interview closes out with the same oaf who says - "The state that she did govern was right across the street from Russia". Sandwiched in between is an astonishing array of ignorance and simpleton commentary from Palin's fans, including one woman who thinks having czars in this country is unAmerican. Czars in America! She thinks we have the same kind of czars as Russia used to have! !!!! Makes me want to beat my head against a wall.
Rather than showing a transcript of the interviews, I think it would be instructive for you to see for yourself. Here's a link...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27QTX46XNLM&feature=related
Yes, the American voter is stupid and dangerous. And those who have given up and wish to stay home when the next election cycle rolls around - well, these are the people who are voting in your place. These are the people who think giving more money to rich people will cause them to make jobs for the unemployed. With this, I rest my case.
During the run-up to the November Midterm elections we heard the Tea Party types lament the skyrocketing deficit, over and over and over again. The Republicans are counting on the people to lay the blame squarely on the shoulders of Obama. And they probably will.
Obama's capitulation to Senate Republicans, while odious, should be viewed in the context of the past election, when people with fully functioning mouse brains in their heads voted overwhelmingly for right-wing candidates who promised tax cuts for the rich and slashing entitlement spending, and who were against Obama's "socialist" agenda (They thought they were "taking America back" from the socialists, when what they were really doing was giving it away to billionaires and corporate oligarchs). So Obama's reasoning was that "the People" had spoken loud and clear" (to quote McConnell and Boehner), and they wanted the rich to keep getting the tax breaks they had been getting for the past ten years. The voters, after all, tuned out the fact that corporate and foriegn money paid for all the attack ads during the campaign. So why would they start believing the truth now? Had the electorate showed a modicum of intellegence, Obama might have stood his ground and allowed taxes for the rich to revert back to pre-Bush levels (when, by the way, the economy was much stronger than it ever was under Bush).
Moreover, it was obvious that the Republicans were perfectly willing to allow unemployment insurance for the long-term unemployed lapse, to let the Start Treaty with Russia to remain in limbo, and, worst of all, taxes for even the poor to revert back to pre-Bush levels, which would have been devastating to the economy. The Republicans, specifically McConnell, knew the aggregate American electorate to be utterly stupid, and would blame Obama for their tax cuts and unemployment insurance expiring. They knew this was a fight they couldn't lose, and that if Obama would have held out he would have gotten the blame.
There is now internecine warfare between Obama and his own party. Democrats are livid. They, and the majority of Americans, according o polls, favored letting the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire. One can look at this as a shrewd move by the Republicans, but then if the American people were to ever wise up (fat chance), they (the Republicans) would be utterly repudiated for years to come. Running up the national debt so rich people can get even richer faster than ever is suicicidal for our country. This stokes the fires of class warfare - fires that promise to burn ever hotter as long as things keep going the way they're going.
What the Republicans have done is virtually insure Obama's almost certain defeat in 2012 because the national debt will have increased even more, and unemployment will still be in the stratosphere. The Republicans know this. They know that the supply-side trickle-down economics has been proven to not work. And they know voters will still believe it will work. They know how stupid the voters are. They know voters are unaware that for ten years lower tax rates have not stimulated the economy, and they know the voters will confuse a policy of letting taxes revert back to what they were, as being a tax hike, not the expiration of a temporary tax cut. The voters know that because that's what the Republicans are telling them. They wouldn't lie, would they?
Here's an illustration of some voters courtesy of Cenk Uygur's TV show The Young Turks.
A reporter tries to interview people lined up at a mall in Columbus Ohio to have Sarah Palin sign copies of her book Going Rogue. I have seen this kind of idiocy first hand. Early in the interview the reporter gets this response from a big, oafish, dull-witted guy: "She's the epitomy of conservative-ness. And I'm tellin' ya, if the Republican Party doesn't back her - it doesn't matter, 'cause she's gonna get the presidency". The interview closes out with the same oaf who says - "The state that she did govern was right across the street from Russia". Sandwiched in between is an astonishing array of ignorance and simpleton commentary from Palin's fans, including one woman who thinks having czars in this country is unAmerican. Czars in America! She thinks we have the same kind of czars as Russia used to have! !!!! Makes me want to beat my head against a wall.
Rather than showing a transcript of the interviews, I think it would be instructive for you to see for yourself. Here's a link...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27QTX46XNLM&feature=related
Yes, the American voter is stupid and dangerous. And those who have given up and wish to stay home when the next election cycle rolls around - well, these are the people who are voting in your place. These are the people who think giving more money to rich people will cause them to make jobs for the unemployed. With this, I rest my case.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
AMERICA, WELCOME TO THE THIRD WORLD
Imagine, for a moment, that you're sitting around a table with nine other people. In the middle of the table is a large pizza that's sliced into ten pieces - enough for each person at the table to have one piece. Ten people, ten slices of pizza - seems simple enough.
But then, the biggest, baddest person at the table takes five pieces for himself. He takes half the pizza for himself, while the other nine people have to share the remaining five pieces. Now, the second biggest and baddest person at the table grabs two pieces for himself, leaving three pieces for the other eight. The third biggest, baddest person grabs one piece for himself, leaving just two pieces for the remaining seven. And so it goes, until the tenth person, the smallest and weakest of them all, gets a few crumbs - perhaps a bit of a mushroom or a thin slice of pepperoni, at the very most. Just think of how you would feel if you were that tenth person, or even the fifth person down the line, when you get maybe a third of a piece.
Here's the analogy. The pizza represents the total wealth of all Americans, and the individual people at the table represent those occupying each of the ten deciles of the American population controlling all the wealth. This is the America that we have today. The top 1% richest people in the country control a quarter of all the wealth. The next nine percentiles control the next 25%, which leaves the other ninety percent of Americans trying to share the remaining half of the wealth. The farther down the line you go, the less there is to share. Let me say this again:
1% of Americans own 24% of all the private assets.
10% of Americans own about 50% of all private assets.
That's right. Half of the total assets in the United States of America are controlled by ten percent of the people.
This is banana republic stuff. Such plutocracies as Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Guyana have less of an asset disparity than the US. In each of these countries the top 1% owns a paltry 20% of the assets in their respective countries. So we've got those countries and their plutocrats beat by a long shot.
This accumulation of wealth by the super rich has been going on for decades - three decades to be exact. There are over 400 billionaires in the US alone, according to the Forbes 400 list. There were none in 1980. So how did we get from then to now? Massive tax breaks for the rich, wide open loopholes exploited by armies of well-paid accountants on behalf of the plutocrats - that's how we got into this mess. Republican-sponsored legislation has rewarded businesses for outsourcing jobs to low-wage countries by means of gaping tax loopholes. Such policies have fattened their bottom lines and enriched their shareholders, and has been very beneficial to the cigar-and-wine-bar business. Meanwhile, many of these companies have slashed the wages of those workers here in the U.S. they haven't yet fired, thus putting them under financial duress.
And these plutocrats want more! The elected politicians in the House of Representatives and the Senate are literally owned by these people. It's no secret. Everyone knows it - everyone who is paying any attention to the situation, that is. This is pure, unadulterated, shameless greed.
Currently the US Senate is debating giving more tax breaks for the rich, which will add hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt, which is already out of control. Republicans in the Senate are holding unemployment insurance for the jobless hostage - they're saying "give us the tax breaks for the rich or we'll block unemployment insurance to the people who are struggling to survive". It's part of a strategy for defeating President Obama in 2012 and sweeping in large majorities into both houses of Congress. Giving further tax cuts to the rich is guaranteed to further balloon the deficit while doing nothing to address the chronic job shortages in this country. It will certainly result in the acceleration of the income disparity President Reagan started in 1981 with the first round of tax-cutting for the rich. So when 2012 rolls around the Republicans will say "See, nothing has improved, and it's all Obama's fault". And the rather dim bulbs who make up the voting public will fall for this vomitus in 2012 just as they did this past November. And once the Republicans get full power they'll see to it that the wealth disparity accelerates. They'll decimate Social Security and limit or eliminate unemployment insurance under the false pretext that these are "welfare" programs benefiting deadbeats and slackers. And get this - the Social Security Trust Fund, which is supposed to be adequately funded for the next thirty years, has been drained by the re-direction of revenue into the pockets of the upper crust by way of massive tax cuts. These are the people who have far more than they'll ever need, and now they're dictating to their stooges in Congress to give them even more, and screw the middle class and the poor. It's a sorry state of affairs. It should be obvious to most people who are paying attention, but unfortunately, not that many people are paying attention, or else they've been brainwashed by the political boilerplate being dumped on them by Republicans and their Tea Party minions.
So, as our infrastructure crumbles all around us, and as more and more jobs get farmed out to other countries, and as people who worked all their lives and paid taxes into the Social Security Trust Fund see their benefits slashed or eliminated, and as more and more people are forced into poverty, the rich and super rich will live even larger than they do now. It's disgusting.
America is not a rich country. It is a country with a few very rich people living in it, and that's pretty much what the outside world sees. What the outside world doesn't see are the legions of poor and homeless. They don't see the millions of people who are struggling to survive. They don't see the millions of people losing their homes to foreclosure because their jobs have been outsourced to other countries, and they can't find another job because there aren't any. They don't see thousands of crumbling bridges that are in dire danger of collapsing, or roads pitted with potholes so large that cars are totaled when they hit them. Meanwhile, programs to help the poor and jobless are being cut to the bone because the funding isn't there. All that money that would ordinarily go towards infrastructure and help for the jobless, invalids, and poor, is instead lining the pockets of the rich.
America is a country in decline. Quality of life is way down. We're far down, almost to the bottom, on a list of civilized countries - largely because proper healthcare is out of reach for a large portion of the population. This decline started in the mid to late 1990s and has been gaining steam ever since. Opportunities for getting ahead are getting increasingly scarce. It's not a pretty picture.
Within a few years the biggest, baddest guy at the table will grab all the pieces of the pizza for himself while leaving, at most, a few crumbs for the other nine. This is an ongoing theft of the aggregate wealth from the many to a concentrated few privileged and politically connected plutocrats. These people litteraly own the machinery of government. They control the senators and representatives much as a puppeteer controls his puppets. They finance the politicians' campaigns with the expectation that if they are elected they will do their (the plutocrats) bidding. The plutocrats are the ruling class. They rule this country through their stooges in Congress. It's your classic quid pro quo setup. And the way it looks, it's not going to get any better. It's only going to get worse.
But then, the biggest, baddest person at the table takes five pieces for himself. He takes half the pizza for himself, while the other nine people have to share the remaining five pieces. Now, the second biggest and baddest person at the table grabs two pieces for himself, leaving three pieces for the other eight. The third biggest, baddest person grabs one piece for himself, leaving just two pieces for the remaining seven. And so it goes, until the tenth person, the smallest and weakest of them all, gets a few crumbs - perhaps a bit of a mushroom or a thin slice of pepperoni, at the very most. Just think of how you would feel if you were that tenth person, or even the fifth person down the line, when you get maybe a third of a piece.
Here's the analogy. The pizza represents the total wealth of all Americans, and the individual people at the table represent those occupying each of the ten deciles of the American population controlling all the wealth. This is the America that we have today. The top 1% richest people in the country control a quarter of all the wealth. The next nine percentiles control the next 25%, which leaves the other ninety percent of Americans trying to share the remaining half of the wealth. The farther down the line you go, the less there is to share. Let me say this again:
1% of Americans own 24% of all the private assets.
10% of Americans own about 50% of all private assets.
That's right. Half of the total assets in the United States of America are controlled by ten percent of the people.
This is banana republic stuff. Such plutocracies as Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Guyana have less of an asset disparity than the US. In each of these countries the top 1% owns a paltry 20% of the assets in their respective countries. So we've got those countries and their plutocrats beat by a long shot.
This accumulation of wealth by the super rich has been going on for decades - three decades to be exact. There are over 400 billionaires in the US alone, according to the Forbes 400 list. There were none in 1980. So how did we get from then to now? Massive tax breaks for the rich, wide open loopholes exploited by armies of well-paid accountants on behalf of the plutocrats - that's how we got into this mess. Republican-sponsored legislation has rewarded businesses for outsourcing jobs to low-wage countries by means of gaping tax loopholes. Such policies have fattened their bottom lines and enriched their shareholders, and has been very beneficial to the cigar-and-wine-bar business. Meanwhile, many of these companies have slashed the wages of those workers here in the U.S. they haven't yet fired, thus putting them under financial duress.
And these plutocrats want more! The elected politicians in the House of Representatives and the Senate are literally owned by these people. It's no secret. Everyone knows it - everyone who is paying any attention to the situation, that is. This is pure, unadulterated, shameless greed.
Currently the US Senate is debating giving more tax breaks for the rich, which will add hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt, which is already out of control. Republicans in the Senate are holding unemployment insurance for the jobless hostage - they're saying "give us the tax breaks for the rich or we'll block unemployment insurance to the people who are struggling to survive". It's part of a strategy for defeating President Obama in 2012 and sweeping in large majorities into both houses of Congress. Giving further tax cuts to the rich is guaranteed to further balloon the deficit while doing nothing to address the chronic job shortages in this country. It will certainly result in the acceleration of the income disparity President Reagan started in 1981 with the first round of tax-cutting for the rich. So when 2012 rolls around the Republicans will say "See, nothing has improved, and it's all Obama's fault". And the rather dim bulbs who make up the voting public will fall for this vomitus in 2012 just as they did this past November. And once the Republicans get full power they'll see to it that the wealth disparity accelerates. They'll decimate Social Security and limit or eliminate unemployment insurance under the false pretext that these are "welfare" programs benefiting deadbeats and slackers. And get this - the Social Security Trust Fund, which is supposed to be adequately funded for the next thirty years, has been drained by the re-direction of revenue into the pockets of the upper crust by way of massive tax cuts. These are the people who have far more than they'll ever need, and now they're dictating to their stooges in Congress to give them even more, and screw the middle class and the poor. It's a sorry state of affairs. It should be obvious to most people who are paying attention, but unfortunately, not that many people are paying attention, or else they've been brainwashed by the political boilerplate being dumped on them by Republicans and their Tea Party minions.
So, as our infrastructure crumbles all around us, and as more and more jobs get farmed out to other countries, and as people who worked all their lives and paid taxes into the Social Security Trust Fund see their benefits slashed or eliminated, and as more and more people are forced into poverty, the rich and super rich will live even larger than they do now. It's disgusting.
America is not a rich country. It is a country with a few very rich people living in it, and that's pretty much what the outside world sees. What the outside world doesn't see are the legions of poor and homeless. They don't see the millions of people who are struggling to survive. They don't see the millions of people losing their homes to foreclosure because their jobs have been outsourced to other countries, and they can't find another job because there aren't any. They don't see thousands of crumbling bridges that are in dire danger of collapsing, or roads pitted with potholes so large that cars are totaled when they hit them. Meanwhile, programs to help the poor and jobless are being cut to the bone because the funding isn't there. All that money that would ordinarily go towards infrastructure and help for the jobless, invalids, and poor, is instead lining the pockets of the rich.
America is a country in decline. Quality of life is way down. We're far down, almost to the bottom, on a list of civilized countries - largely because proper healthcare is out of reach for a large portion of the population. This decline started in the mid to late 1990s and has been gaining steam ever since. Opportunities for getting ahead are getting increasingly scarce. It's not a pretty picture.
Within a few years the biggest, baddest guy at the table will grab all the pieces of the pizza for himself while leaving, at most, a few crumbs for the other nine. This is an ongoing theft of the aggregate wealth from the many to a concentrated few privileged and politically connected plutocrats. These people litteraly own the machinery of government. They control the senators and representatives much as a puppeteer controls his puppets. They finance the politicians' campaigns with the expectation that if they are elected they will do their (the plutocrats) bidding. The plutocrats are the ruling class. They rule this country through their stooges in Congress. It's your classic quid pro quo setup. And the way it looks, it's not going to get any better. It's only going to get worse.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
A CLOSER LOOK AT CLIMATE CHANGE (PART 13)
The issue of human-induced climate change is a contentious one.
There are a lot of reasonable scientists and informed lay people who cannot completely rule the human factor out. But neither can they rule it in. Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is an hypothesis. Period. It is not a proven fact, nor, in the true sense of the word, is it even a theory. It is an hypothesis that is currently being tested by thousands of scientists of different stripes throughout the world - from the South Pole to the North Pole, on the seven continents and the seven seas. The results gleaned from the testing of the AGW hypothesis are all over the map. Models disagree with one another - eminent scientists disagree with one another. The biggest problem pertaining to the credibility of the AGW proponents is that they are trying to prove their hypothesis rather than objectively testing it. That's bad science. There is a lot of cherry-picking of data by many scientists who are desperately trying to prove that AGW is a reality. Their reputations as scientists are on the line, so it's a reasonable assumption that there will never be even a wisp of an acknowledgement by AGW proponents that maybe humans aren't entirely to blame after all.
This also holds true for the other side. AGW "deniers" have been accused of cherry-picking data as well. There is a spectrum of thought ranging from the overzealous true believers of the James E. Hansen mold to the far right-wing deniers and global-warming-is-a-hoax crowd. That AGW is a hoax is just as unproven as those who argue the AGW science is settled. The fact of the matter is that we just don't know yet. You see, the climate is a chaotic system, or series of systems, and even supercomputers have trouble with computing chaotic systems. Then, when one considers the quality of the code being used for predictive models, and the point of view of the programmers, further complications are introduced.
Then there are the cyclic systems in the world's oceans - the PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation) and the AMDO (Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation). And the El Niño and La Niña phenomena, which are not necessarily cyclic. The extreme drought conditions in the US Southwestern states, the extreme heat over much of North America, and the unusually severe tornadic out brakes earlier this year are attributable to an unusually strong La Niña, one of the two or three strongest La Niñas in the last 100 years. One can argue that climate change is the cause of the current extreme La Niña, and unless somebody proves this not to be true, it deserves consideration.
I am a skeptic. I was formerly agnostic on the issue, but after reading various articles and blogs, and seeing interviews with scientists on both sides, I am convinced that the so-called skeptic camp is standing on firmer ground. Another thing that influenced my thinking was the childish way some of the AGW researchers behaved. There was a lot of naked vitriol directed at climatologists who questioned the veracity of the AGW research as it was being conducted, who didn't necessarily agree with their conclusions, and who didn't sign on to their political agenda. I am very, very suspicious when I see that kind of hysteria being displayed. It tells me their position might not be credible, that they're trying to run cover for a flimsy case. That is my opinion, anyway, for whatever it's worth.
One thing that really sticks in my mind is the statements by Professor David Deming concerning Dr. Jonathan Overpeck's appeal to re-write historical climate records to "get rid of the Medieval Warm Period". Moreover, Dr. Deming cited an article in Discover Magazine in 1989 where a prominent climate researcher discusses the need to amplify the evidence for and ignore the evidence against AGW. (CLCC 5 - Quack Science). While I believe Dr. Deming's categorizing AGW as a "hoax" is too strong (we don't know yet that it is a hoax) his revelations do raise legitimate questions.
We hear from the mass media, over and over, that human-caused climate change is already settled. We hear there is "overwhelming scientific evidence", there is overwhelming scientific consensus among geoscientists of every stripe. Actually, there are roughly 2500 scientists who hold that humans are at least partly responsible for climate change, and a significant sub-group of scientists who hold that humans are entirely responsible for the warming climate. Conversely, there are roughly 900 scientists who signed a petition disputing the role of humans in the changing climate. Again, there is a distribution curve, with some opinions being that humans may play a minor role, while others hold that none of the climate change is due to humans.
Most of the clamor by geoscientists of the climate change phenomenon focuses on carbon emissions without regard to the destruction of carbon sinks such as tropical rainforests.
One of the foundations of scientific research is to probe and poke around in someone else's previously accepted theory, to seek out and find areas of weakness, and either disprove the theory or improve on it. People like Galileo Galilei, Nicholas Copernicus, and Albert Einstein fought the conventional dogma of their respective times and prevailed.
Today's conventional wisdom, as it's being communicated to us by an eager media, is this: The earth is getting warmer because of human activity, and that's THAT! It's settled. End of story.
I believe that the story is still unfolding. Only time will tell - probably a lot of time.
Following is a list of links to the articles, videos, web pages and other reference material which I've availed myself to while writing these blog articles over the past 17 days or so. If you wish to dig deeper into the AGW question, these references would be helpful and informative. I would encourage you to do so. And you can be assured - these references barely scratch the surface of the AGW debate.
CHARTS
Charts of logarithmic CO2 effect
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/08/the-logarithmic-effect-of-carbon-dioxide/
Charts I wanted to upload upload for CLCC - 8 but was blocked from doing so
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/heating_effect_vs_measured_co2.png
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/natural-vs-agw_warming.png
More very illuminative charts
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/co2_modtrans_img2.png
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/co2_modtrans_img1.png
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/heating_effect_of_co2.png
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/perth_temp_annual.png
Side by side comparison of the 1990 IPCC First Assessment millennial temperature record and the 2001 IPCC Third Assessment featuring the hockey stick graph
Note that these radically different charts ostensibly describing the exact same thing were published by the same organization just eleven years apart
http://a-sceptical-mind.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Comparison-charts.jpg
James E. Hansen's data
GISS temperature charts
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A.lrg.gif
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A3.lrg.gif
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.B.lrg.gif
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.C.lrg.gif
Global greenhouse gas pie charts
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/globalghg.html
Link to sunspot charts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_Activity_Proxies.png
Excel charts of CO2 emissions 1980 - 2006 - Itemized
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/carbondioxide.html
YouTube video of interviews with climate experts
Interview with Lord Monckton of the UK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKrw6ih8Gto&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Alex Jones discusses Climategate - a must-see video
(Jones is a little over the top but he does make a few good points)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2153PnMzSw&NR=1
Dr. Tim Ball on Climategate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydo2Mwnwpac
Pro-AGW journalists confront a non-AGW journalist & shut off his microphone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbj78civS-4&NR=1
A reporter confronted by armed guards after asking a UN scientist about Climategate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUtzMBfDrpI&feature=related
Tim Ball Interview W/ Red Ice. Parts 1 through 7 of 7 part series. Just click on the top line and it will take you into YouTube from where you can simply navigate to each successive part within the YouTube site.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qj5jf_7eMM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUxShcstKrY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3LqJnomvls&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6Tl3gLRbWQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcuBKe5DFjA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXehhlyNUes&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKD1ZniB5Dc&feature=related
John Coleman interview with Glenn Beck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft8LfE7AI2w&feature=related
IPCC 's Jonathan Overpeck giving us his pro-AGW viewpoint
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCVfQ-_MQXc
Jonathan Overpeck video
http://www.geo.arizona.edu/dgesl/
ARTICLES AND REPORTS
Article explaining how the quantum mechanical structure of
CO2 yields a saturation effect - also explained by Lindzen & Choi
in their paper LC2009
http://brneurosci.org/co2.html
Discussion of how degrees of freedom for the vibration of linear molecules such as CO2 are calculated
http://www.analyticalspectroscopy.net/ap3-4.htm
This page demonstrates the three ways an excited CO2 can
vibrate. These three modes happen when CO2 absorbs longwave radiation
http://science.widener.edu/svb/ftir/ir_co2.html
Article by David Deming - the climatologist who received the
email from Jonathan Overpeck proposing the necessity of
getting rid of the Mediaval Warm Period
http://lewrockwell.com/orig9/deming3.html
Ineractive exercise where the three absorption bands of CO2
reach a saturation point at around 804 ppmv and reach a point of
inconsequencial effect under 100 ppmv
http://chemlinks.beloit.edu/warming/pdf/IRConc.pdf
Science & Public Policy –
Very Good Expose
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/markey_barton_letter.html
Theory that Tunguska Event contributed to a layer of
microscopic dust particles that contribute to surface warming
http://www.physorg.com/news11710.html
35 inconvenient truths – debunks Al Gore's movie
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html
Letter about Al Gore
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/markey_barton_letter.html
IPCC Summary for Policy Makers
http://www.gcrio.org/OnLnDoc/pdf/wg1spm.pdf
IPCC - A library of assessment reports and other material
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.htm#1
IPCC First assessment http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/IPCC_1990_and_1992_Assessments/English/ipcc-90-92-assessments-overview.pdf
IPCC – Third assessment
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/221.htm
UNFCCC
http://unfccc.int/methods_and_science/other_methodological_issues/items/1077.php
UNFCCC – UN plan to finance climate change policy
http://unfccc.int/files/press/backgrounders/application/pdf/fact_sheet_financing_climate_change.pdf
1934 hottest year on record
http://www.skepticalscience.com/1934-hottest-year-on-record.htm
Dr. Robert Balling article in GCMPOI
http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/170.pdf
Pittsburgh Times-Review article on Dr. Tim Ball
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/mostread/s_492572.html
Article on funding for research of climate change
http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=289
Funding of AGW reseaerch
http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/289.pdf
Note that anti-AGW funding comes from special interests as well, such as petroleum and coal lobbies
Article about the discredited hockey stick graph
http://a-sceptical-mind.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-hockey-stick
Hockey Stick article
http://www.global-warming-and-the-climate.com/mann's-hockey-stick-climate-graph.htm
About hockey stick graph being debunked
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/13830/
About Wegman’s investigation of hockey stick chart
http://www.desmogblog.com/wegmans-report-highly-politicized-and-fatally-flawed
Critical of exoneration of Mann
http://greenhellblog.com/2010/07/14/penn-states-integrity-crisis/
The Civil Heretic - Article in NYT Magazine with Freeman Dyson
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html
Transcript of Bob Garfield interview with Joe Romm
and Romm's acerbic response to the Dyson piece
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/04/10/03
An MIT article about lambda, the climate sensitivity factor
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/explained-climate-sensitivity.html
Article on climate sensitivity
http://www.sciencebits.com/OnClimateSensitivity
Satellite re: climate science climate sensitivity from space
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Lindzen-Choi-2009-low-climate-sensitivity.htm
Satellite re: climate science climate sensitivity from space
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Lindzen-Choi-2009-low-climate-sensitivity.htm
Web site re: solar involvement in global warming
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm
Radiative forcing
http://www.springerlink.com/content/np556415834h8862
Vertical eddies
http://www.springerlink.com/content/h4440726140826j5
Heliogenic climate change
http://www.heliogenic.net/2010/05/03/lindzen-and-chois-new-paper-out-confirms-negative-feedback-unlike-agw-climate-models/
Solar dynamo – sunspot activity
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/360/1801/2741.full.pdf
Sunspots and climate change
http://www.suite101.com/content/sunspots-and-climate-change-a133866
Greenhouse warming reduced
http://www.john-daly.com/bull-121.htm
Temperature records provide clue why Americans are skeptical (Page 1)http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2691449/temperature_records_provide_clue_why.html?cat=37
Page 2
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2691449/temperature_records_provide_clue_why_pg2.html?cat=37
Dire global warming messages backfire
http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/News-dire-global-warming-messages-backfire-112210.aspx?xmlmenuid=51 01
Scripps Institute of Oceanography - http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/graphics_gallery/mauna_loa_record/mauna_loa_record.html
Climate Audit – Steve McIntyre
http://climateaudit.org/2010/01/18/curry-reviews-lindzen-and-choi/
Dr. Roy Spencer
http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-background-articles
Anthony Watts PhD
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
Article describing CO2 levels following temperature changes
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/CO2-temperatures-and-ice-ages/
Reasoned critique of Lindzen and Choi paper by Dr. Roy Spencer
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/03/spencer-on-lindzen-and-choi-climate-feedback-paper/
Article offering a rebuttal of the claim that temperature
changes predate CO2 changes - discussion both pro and con
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature.htm
Examples of pro-AGW people railing against skeptics
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climategate-hide-the-decline.html
Reasoned pro AGW
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/contributors/
Lindzen & Choi; A rebuttal article
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/01/lindzen-and-choi-unraveled/
Joe Romm's pro-AGW blog
http://climateprogress.org/
Skeptic article
http://greenhouse.geologist-1011.net/
Skeptic article
http://fgservices1947.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/co2-is-a-greenhouse-gas-%e2%80%93-note-from-norm-kalmanovitch-via-ccnet/
Technical Info site
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=172161
Earth blackbody
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~soper/Earth/earthtemp.html
Spörer paper
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1895ApJ.....2..239V
Excel chart misrepresents CO2 – temp relationship
http://chartsgraphs.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/excel-chart-misrepresents-co2-temperature-relationship/
AGW critical of Lindzen - Choi
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2009/08/quick-comment-on-lindzen-and-choi.html
Joe Romm expressing himself on his blog http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2009/04/joseph-romm-on-nicholas-dawidoff.html
Subj. Lindzen - Choi
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/01/ipcc-types-read-lindzen-choi-2009.html
Paleoclimate http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/kling/climate_models/index.html
Paleoclimate of recent past
http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/pages/paleoclimate.html
Paleoclimate article http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/climatechange/visualizations/paleoclimate.html
Paleoclimate
http://www.news9.com/global/story.asp?s=11333682
Paleotemperature
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/8615/allpaleotemp.png
Paleo CO2
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/755/paleoco2all.png3
Bio of Heidi Cullen
http://www.zimbio.com/Heidi+Cullen
About Heidi Cullen and her view that skeptics should be decertified
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming011807.htm
Greenhouse gas
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.html
Article on CO2
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Carbon_dioxide
Rebuttal to idea that human greenhouse gas is miniscule
http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm
How much is anthropogenic
http://www.strom.clemson.edu/becker/prtm320/commons/carbon3.html
Note from Craig James re: Hansen, RealClimate,
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/politica-lclimate/hansens_ideology_makes_him_no_longer_qualified_to_be_the_keeper_of_the_glob/
Capital Climate: Interesting tidbit about Hansen’s award by AMS from contrarian perspective
http://capitalclimate.blogspot.com/2009_01_25_archive.html
Rebuttal to Craig James speech on climate skepticism – Ed Cutlip
http://www.mediamouse.org/news/2008/04/craig-james-lec.php
Critical assessment of Bill Steffen by Ed Cutlip
http://www.mediamouse.org/news/2009/04/bill-steffen-global-warming-wood-tv-8.php
Litany of skeptical commentary by credentialed scientists
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=672bfd77-802a-23ad-4264-12316616363c
Pravda article skeptical of CC Gregory F. Fegel
http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/11-01-2009/106922-earth_ice_age-1/
Pravda article skeptical about AGW – Gregory F. Fegel
http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/11-01-2009/106922-earth_ice_age-2/
Article about coming ice age - Pravda
http://www.iceagenow.com/Pravda-Earth_on_the_Brink_of_an_Ice_Age.htm
Article about Pravda article
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/01/12/pravda-the-coming-ice-age/
Article about Pravda article
http://scaredmonkeys.com/2009/01/12/hey-al-gore-what-about-global-warming-pravda-says-earth-on-the-brink-of-an-ice-age/
Excellent article re: Pravda article
http://www.fcpp.org/publication.php/2578
Articles on Venus - Universe Today
http://www.universetoday.com/14140/history-of-planet-venus/
http://www.universetoday.com/23651/venus-possibly-had-continents-oceans/
Venus info
http://www.solstation.com/stars/venus.htm
How Venus lost its oceans
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/venus_oceans_020516.html
About rain forests
http://www.hipark.austinisd.org/projects/fourth/rainforests/environment.html
About Indonesia rain forest destruction
http://www.indonesiamatters.com/1252/rainforest-deforestation/
Rain forest destruction
http://library.thinkquest.org/26026/Environmental_Problems/rain_forest_destruction.htmlhttp://library.thinkquest.org/26026/Environmental_Problems/rain_forest_destruction.html
Goodbye to West Africa’s rain forests
http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0122-forests.html
Christian Science Monitor article about how recession caused emissions to decline
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2010/1122/Global-warming-carbon-dioxide-emissions-worldwide-fell-in-2009
HARD COVER REFERENCES
Black Holes & Time Warps
Kip S. Thorne
1994
ISBN: 0-393-31276-3
The Whole Shebang
Timothy Ferris
1998
ISBN: 0-684-81020-4TF
Physical Chemistry - A Molecular Approach
Donald A. McQuarrie & John D. Simon
1997
ISBN: 0-9357032-99-7
ERRATA:
1. In CLCC-10
I cited the figure $70 billion the U.S. government had awarded pro AGW scientists in grant money. I've been unable to verify that figure. I've replaced that figure with $3 billion which is verifiable.
2. In CLCC - 5
I identified Dr. Phil Jones as being a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Dr. Jones is the Director of Research at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, UK. I cannot verify he actually sits on the panel. Dr. Jones, however, has been and continues to be closely associated with that body.
3. In CLCC - 9 I referenced China's population as outnumbering that of the U.S. by 10 to 1. With a population of 1.3 billion (not 3 billion), China's population exceeds that of the U.S. by 4.33 to 1.
There are a lot of reasonable scientists and informed lay people who cannot completely rule the human factor out. But neither can they rule it in. Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is an hypothesis. Period. It is not a proven fact, nor, in the true sense of the word, is it even a theory. It is an hypothesis that is currently being tested by thousands of scientists of different stripes throughout the world - from the South Pole to the North Pole, on the seven continents and the seven seas. The results gleaned from the testing of the AGW hypothesis are all over the map. Models disagree with one another - eminent scientists disagree with one another. The biggest problem pertaining to the credibility of the AGW proponents is that they are trying to prove their hypothesis rather than objectively testing it. That's bad science. There is a lot of cherry-picking of data by many scientists who are desperately trying to prove that AGW is a reality. Their reputations as scientists are on the line, so it's a reasonable assumption that there will never be even a wisp of an acknowledgement by AGW proponents that maybe humans aren't entirely to blame after all.
This also holds true for the other side. AGW "deniers" have been accused of cherry-picking data as well. There is a spectrum of thought ranging from the overzealous true believers of the James E. Hansen mold to the far right-wing deniers and global-warming-is-a-hoax crowd. That AGW is a hoax is just as unproven as those who argue the AGW science is settled. The fact of the matter is that we just don't know yet. You see, the climate is a chaotic system, or series of systems, and even supercomputers have trouble with computing chaotic systems. Then, when one considers the quality of the code being used for predictive models, and the point of view of the programmers, further complications are introduced.
Then there are the cyclic systems in the world's oceans - the PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation) and the AMDO (Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation). And the El Niño and La Niña phenomena, which are not necessarily cyclic. The extreme drought conditions in the US Southwestern states, the extreme heat over much of North America, and the unusually severe tornadic out brakes earlier this year are attributable to an unusually strong La Niña, one of the two or three strongest La Niñas in the last 100 years. One can argue that climate change is the cause of the current extreme La Niña, and unless somebody proves this not to be true, it deserves consideration.
I am a skeptic. I was formerly agnostic on the issue, but after reading various articles and blogs, and seeing interviews with scientists on both sides, I am convinced that the so-called skeptic camp is standing on firmer ground. Another thing that influenced my thinking was the childish way some of the AGW researchers behaved. There was a lot of naked vitriol directed at climatologists who questioned the veracity of the AGW research as it was being conducted, who didn't necessarily agree with their conclusions, and who didn't sign on to their political agenda. I am very, very suspicious when I see that kind of hysteria being displayed. It tells me their position might not be credible, that they're trying to run cover for a flimsy case. That is my opinion, anyway, for whatever it's worth.
One thing that really sticks in my mind is the statements by Professor David Deming concerning Dr. Jonathan Overpeck's appeal to re-write historical climate records to "get rid of the Medieval Warm Period". Moreover, Dr. Deming cited an article in Discover Magazine in 1989 where a prominent climate researcher discusses the need to amplify the evidence for and ignore the evidence against AGW. (CLCC 5 - Quack Science). While I believe Dr. Deming's categorizing AGW as a "hoax" is too strong (we don't know yet that it is a hoax) his revelations do raise legitimate questions.
We hear from the mass media, over and over, that human-caused climate change is already settled. We hear there is "overwhelming scientific evidence", there is overwhelming scientific consensus among geoscientists of every stripe. Actually, there are roughly 2500 scientists who hold that humans are at least partly responsible for climate change, and a significant sub-group of scientists who hold that humans are entirely responsible for the warming climate. Conversely, there are roughly 900 scientists who signed a petition disputing the role of humans in the changing climate. Again, there is a distribution curve, with some opinions being that humans may play a minor role, while others hold that none of the climate change is due to humans.
Most of the clamor by geoscientists of the climate change phenomenon focuses on carbon emissions without regard to the destruction of carbon sinks such as tropical rainforests.
One of the foundations of scientific research is to probe and poke around in someone else's previously accepted theory, to seek out and find areas of weakness, and either disprove the theory or improve on it. People like Galileo Galilei, Nicholas Copernicus, and Albert Einstein fought the conventional dogma of their respective times and prevailed.
Today's conventional wisdom, as it's being communicated to us by an eager media, is this: The earth is getting warmer because of human activity, and that's THAT! It's settled. End of story.
I believe that the story is still unfolding. Only time will tell - probably a lot of time.
Following is a list of links to the articles, videos, web pages and other reference material which I've availed myself to while writing these blog articles over the past 17 days or so. If you wish to dig deeper into the AGW question, these references would be helpful and informative. I would encourage you to do so. And you can be assured - these references barely scratch the surface of the AGW debate.
CHARTS
Charts of logarithmic CO2 effect
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/08/the-logarithmic-effect-of-carbon-dioxide/
Charts I wanted to upload upload for CLCC - 8 but was blocked from doing so
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/heating_effect_vs_measured_co2.png
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/natural-vs-agw_warming.png
More very illuminative charts
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/co2_modtrans_img2.png
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/co2_modtrans_img1.png
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/heating_effect_of_co2.png
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/perth_temp_annual.png
Side by side comparison of the 1990 IPCC First Assessment millennial temperature record and the 2001 IPCC Third Assessment featuring the hockey stick graph
Note that these radically different charts ostensibly describing the exact same thing were published by the same organization just eleven years apart
http://a-sceptical-mind.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Comparison-charts.jpg
James E. Hansen's data
GISS temperature charts
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A.lrg.gif
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A3.lrg.gif
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.B.lrg.gif
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.C.lrg.gif
Global greenhouse gas pie charts
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/globalghg.html
Link to sunspot charts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_Activity_Proxies.png
Excel charts of CO2 emissions 1980 - 2006 - Itemized
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/carbondioxide.html
YouTube video of interviews with climate experts
Interview with Lord Monckton of the UK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKrw6ih8Gto&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Alex Jones discusses Climategate - a must-see video
(Jones is a little over the top but he does make a few good points)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2153PnMzSw&NR=1
Dr. Tim Ball on Climategate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydo2Mwnwpac
Pro-AGW journalists confront a non-AGW journalist & shut off his microphone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbj78civS-4&NR=1
A reporter confronted by armed guards after asking a UN scientist about Climategate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUtzMBfDrpI&feature=related
Tim Ball Interview W/ Red Ice. Parts 1 through 7 of 7 part series. Just click on the top line and it will take you into YouTube from where you can simply navigate to each successive part within the YouTube site.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qj5jf_7eMM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUxShcstKrY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3LqJnomvls&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6Tl3gLRbWQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcuBKe5DFjA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXehhlyNUes&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKD1ZniB5Dc&feature=related
John Coleman interview with Glenn Beck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft8LfE7AI2w&feature=related
IPCC 's Jonathan Overpeck giving us his pro-AGW viewpoint
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCVfQ-_MQXc
Jonathan Overpeck video
http://www.geo.arizona.edu/dgesl/
ARTICLES AND REPORTS
Article explaining how the quantum mechanical structure of
CO2 yields a saturation effect - also explained by Lindzen & Choi
in their paper LC2009
http://brneurosci.org/co2.html
Discussion of how degrees of freedom for the vibration of linear molecules such as CO2 are calculated
http://www.analyticalspectroscopy.net/ap3-4.htm
This page demonstrates the three ways an excited CO2 can
vibrate. These three modes happen when CO2 absorbs longwave radiation
http://science.widener.edu/svb/ftir/ir_co2.html
Article by David Deming - the climatologist who received the
email from Jonathan Overpeck proposing the necessity of
getting rid of the Mediaval Warm Period
http://lewrockwell.com/orig9/deming3.html
Ineractive exercise where the three absorption bands of CO2
reach a saturation point at around 804 ppmv and reach a point of
inconsequencial effect under 100 ppmv
http://chemlinks.beloit.edu/warming/pdf/IRConc.pdf
Science & Public Policy –
Very Good Expose
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/markey_barton_letter.html
Theory that Tunguska Event contributed to a layer of
microscopic dust particles that contribute to surface warming
http://www.physorg.com/news11710.html
35 inconvenient truths – debunks Al Gore's movie
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html
Letter about Al Gore
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/markey_barton_letter.html
IPCC Summary for Policy Makers
http://www.gcrio.org/OnLnDoc/pdf/wg1spm.pdf
IPCC - A library of assessment reports and other material
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.htm#1
IPCC First assessment http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/IPCC_1990_and_1992_Assessments/English/ipcc-90-92-assessments-overview.pdf
IPCC – Third assessment
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/221.htm
UNFCCC
http://unfccc.int/methods_and_science/other_methodological_issues/items/1077.php
UNFCCC – UN plan to finance climate change policy
http://unfccc.int/files/press/backgrounders/application/pdf/fact_sheet_financing_climate_change.pdf
1934 hottest year on record
http://www.skepticalscience.com/1934-hottest-year-on-record.htm
Dr. Robert Balling article in GCMPOI
http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/170.pdf
Pittsburgh Times-Review article on Dr. Tim Ball
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/mostread/s_492572.html
Article on funding for research of climate change
http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=289
Funding of AGW reseaerch
http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/289.pdf
Note that anti-AGW funding comes from special interests as well, such as petroleum and coal lobbies
Article about the discredited hockey stick graph
http://a-sceptical-mind.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-hockey-stick
Hockey Stick article
http://www.global-warming-and-the-climate.com/mann's-hockey-stick-climate-graph.htm
About hockey stick graph being debunked
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/13830/
About Wegman’s investigation of hockey stick chart
http://www.desmogblog.com/wegmans-report-highly-politicized-and-fatally-flawed
Critical of exoneration of Mann
http://greenhellblog.com/2010/07/14/penn-states-integrity-crisis/
The Civil Heretic - Article in NYT Magazine with Freeman Dyson
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html
Transcript of Bob Garfield interview with Joe Romm
and Romm's acerbic response to the Dyson piece
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/04/10/03
An MIT article about lambda, the climate sensitivity factor
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/explained-climate-sensitivity.html
Article on climate sensitivity
http://www.sciencebits.com/OnClimateSensitivity
Satellite re: climate science climate sensitivity from space
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Lindzen-Choi-2009-low-climate-sensitivity.htm
Satellite re: climate science climate sensitivity from space
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Lindzen-Choi-2009-low-climate-sensitivity.htm
Web site re: solar involvement in global warming
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm
Radiative forcing
http://www.springerlink.com/content/np556415834h8862
Vertical eddies
http://www.springerlink.com/content/h4440726140826j5
Heliogenic climate change
http://www.heliogenic.net/2010/05/03/lindzen-and-chois-new-paper-out-confirms-negative-feedback-unlike-agw-climate-models/
Solar dynamo – sunspot activity
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/360/1801/2741.full.pdf
Sunspots and climate change
http://www.suite101.com/content/sunspots-and-climate-change-a133866
Greenhouse warming reduced
http://www.john-daly.com/bull-121.htm
Temperature records provide clue why Americans are skeptical (Page 1)http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2691449/temperature_records_provide_clue_why.html?cat=37
Page 2
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2691449/temperature_records_provide_clue_why_pg2.html?cat=37
Dire global warming messages backfire
http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/News-dire-global-warming-messages-backfire-112210.aspx?xmlmenuid=51 01
Scripps Institute of Oceanography - http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/graphics_gallery/mauna_loa_record/mauna_loa_record.html
Climate Audit – Steve McIntyre
http://climateaudit.org/2010/01/18/curry-reviews-lindzen-and-choi/
Dr. Roy Spencer
http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-background-articles
Anthony Watts PhD
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
Article describing CO2 levels following temperature changes
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/CO2-temperatures-and-ice-ages/
Reasoned critique of Lindzen and Choi paper by Dr. Roy Spencer
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/03/spencer-on-lindzen-and-choi-climate-feedback-paper/
Article offering a rebuttal of the claim that temperature
changes predate CO2 changes - discussion both pro and con
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature.htm
Examples of pro-AGW people railing against skeptics
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climategate-hide-the-decline.html
Reasoned pro AGW
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/contributors/
Lindzen & Choi; A rebuttal article
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/01/lindzen-and-choi-unraveled/
Joe Romm's pro-AGW blog
http://climateprogress.org/
Skeptic article
http://greenhouse.geologist-1011.net/
Skeptic article
http://fgservices1947.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/co2-is-a-greenhouse-gas-%e2%80%93-note-from-norm-kalmanovitch-via-ccnet/
Technical Info site
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=172161
Earth blackbody
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~soper/Earth/earthtemp.html
Spörer paper
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1895ApJ.....2..239V
Excel chart misrepresents CO2 – temp relationship
http://chartsgraphs.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/excel-chart-misrepresents-co2-temperature-relationship/
AGW critical of Lindzen - Choi
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2009/08/quick-comment-on-lindzen-and-choi.html
Joe Romm expressing himself on his blog http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2009/04/joseph-romm-on-nicholas-dawidoff.html
Subj. Lindzen - Choi
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/01/ipcc-types-read-lindzen-choi-2009.html
Paleoclimate http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/kling/climate_models/index.html
Paleoclimate of recent past
http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/pages/paleoclimate.html
Paleoclimate article http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/climatechange/visualizations/paleoclimate.html
Paleoclimate
http://www.news9.com/global/story.asp?s=11333682
Paleotemperature
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/8615/allpaleotemp.png
Paleo CO2
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/755/paleoco2all.png3
Bio of Heidi Cullen
http://www.zimbio.com/Heidi+Cullen
About Heidi Cullen and her view that skeptics should be decertified
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming011807.htm
Greenhouse gas
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.html
Article on CO2
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Carbon_dioxide
Rebuttal to idea that human greenhouse gas is miniscule
http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm
How much is anthropogenic
http://www.strom.clemson.edu/becker/prtm320/commons/carbon3.html
Note from Craig James re: Hansen, RealClimate,
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/politica-lclimate/hansens_ideology_makes_him_no_longer_qualified_to_be_the_keeper_of_the_glob/
Capital Climate: Interesting tidbit about Hansen’s award by AMS from contrarian perspective
http://capitalclimate.blogspot.com/2009_01_25_archive.html
Rebuttal to Craig James speech on climate skepticism – Ed Cutlip
http://www.mediamouse.org/news/2008/04/craig-james-lec.php
Critical assessment of Bill Steffen by Ed Cutlip
http://www.mediamouse.org/news/2009/04/bill-steffen-global-warming-wood-tv-8.php
Litany of skeptical commentary by credentialed scientists
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=672bfd77-802a-23ad-4264-12316616363c
Pravda article skeptical of CC Gregory F. Fegel
http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/11-01-2009/106922-earth_ice_age-1/
Pravda article skeptical about AGW – Gregory F. Fegel
http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/11-01-2009/106922-earth_ice_age-2/
Article about coming ice age - Pravda
http://www.iceagenow.com/Pravda-Earth_on_the_Brink_of_an_Ice_Age.htm
Article about Pravda article
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/01/12/pravda-the-coming-ice-age/
Article about Pravda article
http://scaredmonkeys.com/2009/01/12/hey-al-gore-what-about-global-warming-pravda-says-earth-on-the-brink-of-an-ice-age/
Excellent article re: Pravda article
http://www.fcpp.org/publication.php/2578
Articles on Venus - Universe Today
http://www.universetoday.com/14140/history-of-planet-venus/
http://www.universetoday.com/23651/venus-possibly-had-continents-oceans/
Venus info
http://www.solstation.com/stars/venus.htm
How Venus lost its oceans
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/venus_oceans_020516.html
About rain forests
http://www.hipark.austinisd.org/projects/fourth/rainforests/environment.html
About Indonesia rain forest destruction
http://www.indonesiamatters.com/1252/rainforest-deforestation/
Rain forest destruction
http://library.thinkquest.org/26026/Environmental_Problems/rain_forest_destruction.htmlhttp://library.thinkquest.org/26026/Environmental_Problems/rain_forest_destruction.html
Goodbye to West Africa’s rain forests
http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0122-forests.html
Christian Science Monitor article about how recession caused emissions to decline
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2010/1122/Global-warming-carbon-dioxide-emissions-worldwide-fell-in-2009
HARD COVER REFERENCES
Black Holes & Time Warps
Kip S. Thorne
1994
ISBN: 0-393-31276-3
The Whole Shebang
Timothy Ferris
1998
ISBN: 0-684-81020-4TF
Physical Chemistry - A Molecular Approach
Donald A. McQuarrie & John D. Simon
1997
ISBN: 0-9357032-99-7
ERRATA:
1. In CLCC-10
I cited the figure $70 billion the U.S. government had awarded pro AGW scientists in grant money. I've been unable to verify that figure. I've replaced that figure with $3 billion which is verifiable.
2. In CLCC - 5
I identified Dr. Phil Jones as being a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Dr. Jones is the Director of Research at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, UK. I cannot verify he actually sits on the panel. Dr. Jones, however, has been and continues to be closely associated with that body.
3. In CLCC - 9 I referenced China's population as outnumbering that of the U.S. by 10 to 1. With a population of 1.3 billion (not 3 billion), China's population exceeds that of the U.S. by 4.33 to 1.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
A CLOSER LOOK AT CLIMATE CHANGE (PART 12)
COAL - THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS
There are two types of fossil fuels in use today that sustain societies the world over: petroleum and coal. At the present time these sources of energy are indispensable - without them societies around the world would collapse. We would find ourselves back in the 17th century. It would not be fun, yet there are those who are proposing exactly that. They want to phase out fossil fuels and replace our energy needs with so-called green energy.
To do so is a noble goal - for three reasons. 1.) to slow the accumulation of anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, 2.) to gain independence from fossil fuels before we run out of them, and 3.) to get our energy needs out of the grips of the commodity traders who are in a position to manipulate the prices of these commodities for their own financial gain and at everyone else's expense. These commodity traders have a sordid history of market speculation leading to the creation of bubbles. This problem is especially true regarding petroleum, as we saw in the great oil price run-up of 2008 which was a factor in the economic crash of 2008 - 2009. For that reason alone coal-generated energy is far more preferable than petroleum. There's enough coal to last over a hundred years just in North America, whereas nobody knows exactly how much oil is still in the ground.
From a purely environmental standpoint, coal produces slightly more CO2 than petroleum derivitives used for transportation - an estimated 15 billion metric tons a year and 12 billion metric tons respectively. Natural gas (methane) used for heating and electricity generation adds another 6 billion metric tons per annum, while natural gas burned off at wellheads and refineries contributes another 6 billion metric tons of CO2. The flaring of natural gas is necessary because it's more than 20 times as powerful a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. Thus, burning off natural gas represents the lesser of two evils.
Curiously, the people squawking about man-made global warming seem to have a singular focus on coal as being the Great Evil. For reasons that escape me, these people don't seem as concerned about the fact that two thirds of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions world-wide come from the petroleum side of the ledger. Maybe coal is the most convenient target. There are huge political and business interests that would like to see coal-generated electricity become prohibitively expensive so that people would be forced to buy their energy-efficient products and/or alternative energy technology such as wind turbines and solar panels and parabolic collectors.
The phasing out of coal-sourced energy and replacing it with renewable energy is a wonderful idea, but it promises to be impractical in many areas. Solar, geothermal, and hydroelectric are available only where there is ample sunshine, hot spots (such as Iceland and the Yellowstone region), and rivers (in canyons) that can be dammed, respectively. The wind blows just about everywhere, but nobody wants a forest of wind turbines in their back yard making loud wooshing noises, so the available real estate for wind-sourced energy is limited. All in all, renewable energy will not make much of a dent in global energy requirements. That leaves coal as the predominant source of electricity world wide.
There is currently a movement to build more nuclear power- generation facilities, but any such facilities will take ten years to build. Then there's the resistance of environmentalists who like to point towards Chernobyl and Three Mile Island as good reasons not to build any more.
There has been talk about generating electricity with natural gas, but there is a risk of supply and demand principles driving up the price of natural gas that is otherwise used in heating homes. Moreover, natural gas is still a fossil fuel, and as a petroleum byproduct it is subject to speculative bubbles. The upshot is, coal is the most reliable and cheapest energy source for generating electricity. That's just the way it is.
Where, then, does petroleum factor into fossil fuel equation?
Petroleum is by far the most common source of energy used for transportation. Gasoline powers our automobiles, while diesel fuel powers many cars, most trucks, construction equipment, locomotives, and ships. Kerosene powers commercial aircraft, while propane and fuel oil are used to heat homes. Is there a practical alternative to replacing these fuels with an alternative or renewable source of energy? Well, not really. At least, not in the short run. The development of fully electric vehicles and hybrids does offer a viable alternative to gasoline powered vehicles, but there are some issues with these kinds of vehicles, for example, they have a far higher purchase price than traditional vehicles, and are therefore available to a limited demographic. Another, larger issue is that these vehicles will increase demand for electricity from off the grid. And that electricity will largely come from burning coal.
Given a choice between energy dependence on oil from overseas or secure coal from right here at home, it's a no-brainer. It's both a national security issue and an economic issue. No one country will be able to bring this country to its knees by turning off the oil spigot. Moreover, the cost of coal isn't as easily manipulated as petroleum on the open market, so the risk of speculative bubbles is much lower. In a nutshell, more coal and less petroleum is the better option.
But there will be vehement disagreement with the coal-is-a-better-option stance by the global warming fanatics, and probably by some not-so-fanatical types as well. Most everyone agrees that fossil fuels, whether it's coal or petroleum, need to be phased out. The question is this: How can this be done without policy mandates that promise to create a lot of hardship. Well, there are ways. There is industry-financed research and development directed at fuel efficiency for cars and trucks, and green products for the home and business. Private entities such as foundations and trust funds have been and will continue to be funding research, and of course there is ongoing green energy research financed by governments around the world. An example of industrial commitment is the lithium-ion battery being developed in-house by Ford Motor Co. Ford will recoup their development expenses from their customers when they sell cars. Ongoing research at universities will eventually lead to newer technologies. This is all well and good. Unfortunately, scientists practicing quackery on their own behalf and on behalf of their allies in the policy arena wish to finance their research, not privately, but with punitive fees on coal-burning power generating facilities and steep taxes on consumers. Their approach is to exact many pounds of flesh from ordinary citizens so they can line their own pockets and grease the wheels of their cronies in the business world who stand to make enormous profits.
We are told that we must make "sacrifices" to save the planet, which is fine, except that these "sacrifices" will almost certainly be disproportionately borne by those in the lower half of the income spectrum. And that is where we should draw the line. In-house industrial research on energy-efficient products is fine. Research at academic institutions funded by government grants is fine, too, as long as it's legitimate research. What is not fine is when scientists apply their research to proving their hypotheses about climate change rather than testing it with objective scientific experimentation. I don't want to pay for some politically motivated scientists to use quackery and trumped up data so they can collaborate with the policy makers so they, in turn, can engineer policies that will drain money out of the pockets of the people going forward. I don't want to see these people getting rich at my expense. I, personally, want their hands out of my pockets!
I am well aware that my stance on coal's preference to petroleum and petroleum derivatives constitutes utter heresy in the minds of a majority of people worldwide, and that's OK. I think it's important to realize that anthropogenic global warming is not a settled matter, although we are being told by many scientists that it is definitely a settled matter. This much we know.
We know the earth has been getting warmer over the course of the last hundred years or so, at least at the surface.
We know that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and that there is more of it than there used to be. The hypothesis, which is in the form of a question, is this: Is there a cause and effect relationship between higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and a concurrent warming of Planet Earth? The answer to that question is not available at this time. It will take another decade or two, or three, before we can even begin to get a handle on what is causing the warming. The answers will come trickling in over time. There are remaining questions about the plethora of models that are giving dire predictions for the future of the planet. For instance, climate modeling allegedly doesn't encompass variables such as El Niños and La Niñas, which come and go on their own schedule. Further, climate models allegedly don't factor in such factors as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO). Some scientists believe that most climate models are predicated upon surface temperatures on land and in the surface layers of the earth's oceans, and that PDOs and AMOs and similar oscillations cause the models to give spurious scenarios. In the final analysis, anthropogenic global warming is not an established truth at this time, regardless of what the so-called "leading scientists" and "climate experts" and their media shills say. There are hundreds of climatologists around the world who are trying to say - at their own peril - Wait a minute! Not so fast! So, until more is known, the best course to follow, in my view, is to conserve as much as possible without undue hardship, that is, to not be wasteful, to be good stewards of the environment, to conduct objective research with an eye towards finding a better way to sustain our respective societies, but to do so without political entities imposing drastic or punitive measures against anyone - any private person, any business, or any country, or any society or culture.
This concludes my series on climate change. My final post, which will be coming in the next couple of days, will more or less be a bibliography of source material I've consulted for this in-depth look at this controversial topic. Feel free to follow links to web pages of scientists, climatologists, meteorologists, and others on both sides of the issue. I'm sure it will be informative but probably won't change any minds.
There are two types of fossil fuels in use today that sustain societies the world over: petroleum and coal. At the present time these sources of energy are indispensable - without them societies around the world would collapse. We would find ourselves back in the 17th century. It would not be fun, yet there are those who are proposing exactly that. They want to phase out fossil fuels and replace our energy needs with so-called green energy.
To do so is a noble goal - for three reasons. 1.) to slow the accumulation of anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, 2.) to gain independence from fossil fuels before we run out of them, and 3.) to get our energy needs out of the grips of the commodity traders who are in a position to manipulate the prices of these commodities for their own financial gain and at everyone else's expense. These commodity traders have a sordid history of market speculation leading to the creation of bubbles. This problem is especially true regarding petroleum, as we saw in the great oil price run-up of 2008 which was a factor in the economic crash of 2008 - 2009. For that reason alone coal-generated energy is far more preferable than petroleum. There's enough coal to last over a hundred years just in North America, whereas nobody knows exactly how much oil is still in the ground.
From a purely environmental standpoint, coal produces slightly more CO2 than petroleum derivitives used for transportation - an estimated 15 billion metric tons a year and 12 billion metric tons respectively. Natural gas (methane) used for heating and electricity generation adds another 6 billion metric tons per annum, while natural gas burned off at wellheads and refineries contributes another 6 billion metric tons of CO2. The flaring of natural gas is necessary because it's more than 20 times as powerful a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. Thus, burning off natural gas represents the lesser of two evils.
Curiously, the people squawking about man-made global warming seem to have a singular focus on coal as being the Great Evil. For reasons that escape me, these people don't seem as concerned about the fact that two thirds of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions world-wide come from the petroleum side of the ledger. Maybe coal is the most convenient target. There are huge political and business interests that would like to see coal-generated electricity become prohibitively expensive so that people would be forced to buy their energy-efficient products and/or alternative energy technology such as wind turbines and solar panels and parabolic collectors.
The phasing out of coal-sourced energy and replacing it with renewable energy is a wonderful idea, but it promises to be impractical in many areas. Solar, geothermal, and hydroelectric are available only where there is ample sunshine, hot spots (such as Iceland and the Yellowstone region), and rivers (in canyons) that can be dammed, respectively. The wind blows just about everywhere, but nobody wants a forest of wind turbines in their back yard making loud wooshing noises, so the available real estate for wind-sourced energy is limited. All in all, renewable energy will not make much of a dent in global energy requirements. That leaves coal as the predominant source of electricity world wide.
There is currently a movement to build more nuclear power- generation facilities, but any such facilities will take ten years to build. Then there's the resistance of environmentalists who like to point towards Chernobyl and Three Mile Island as good reasons not to build any more.
There has been talk about generating electricity with natural gas, but there is a risk of supply and demand principles driving up the price of natural gas that is otherwise used in heating homes. Moreover, natural gas is still a fossil fuel, and as a petroleum byproduct it is subject to speculative bubbles. The upshot is, coal is the most reliable and cheapest energy source for generating electricity. That's just the way it is.
Where, then, does petroleum factor into fossil fuel equation?
Petroleum is by far the most common source of energy used for transportation. Gasoline powers our automobiles, while diesel fuel powers many cars, most trucks, construction equipment, locomotives, and ships. Kerosene powers commercial aircraft, while propane and fuel oil are used to heat homes. Is there a practical alternative to replacing these fuels with an alternative or renewable source of energy? Well, not really. At least, not in the short run. The development of fully electric vehicles and hybrids does offer a viable alternative to gasoline powered vehicles, but there are some issues with these kinds of vehicles, for example, they have a far higher purchase price than traditional vehicles, and are therefore available to a limited demographic. Another, larger issue is that these vehicles will increase demand for electricity from off the grid. And that electricity will largely come from burning coal.
Given a choice between energy dependence on oil from overseas or secure coal from right here at home, it's a no-brainer. It's both a national security issue and an economic issue. No one country will be able to bring this country to its knees by turning off the oil spigot. Moreover, the cost of coal isn't as easily manipulated as petroleum on the open market, so the risk of speculative bubbles is much lower. In a nutshell, more coal and less petroleum is the better option.
But there will be vehement disagreement with the coal-is-a-better-option stance by the global warming fanatics, and probably by some not-so-fanatical types as well. Most everyone agrees that fossil fuels, whether it's coal or petroleum, need to be phased out. The question is this: How can this be done without policy mandates that promise to create a lot of hardship. Well, there are ways. There is industry-financed research and development directed at fuel efficiency for cars and trucks, and green products for the home and business. Private entities such as foundations and trust funds have been and will continue to be funding research, and of course there is ongoing green energy research financed by governments around the world. An example of industrial commitment is the lithium-ion battery being developed in-house by Ford Motor Co. Ford will recoup their development expenses from their customers when they sell cars. Ongoing research at universities will eventually lead to newer technologies. This is all well and good. Unfortunately, scientists practicing quackery on their own behalf and on behalf of their allies in the policy arena wish to finance their research, not privately, but with punitive fees on coal-burning power generating facilities and steep taxes on consumers. Their approach is to exact many pounds of flesh from ordinary citizens so they can line their own pockets and grease the wheels of their cronies in the business world who stand to make enormous profits.
We are told that we must make "sacrifices" to save the planet, which is fine, except that these "sacrifices" will almost certainly be disproportionately borne by those in the lower half of the income spectrum. And that is where we should draw the line. In-house industrial research on energy-efficient products is fine. Research at academic institutions funded by government grants is fine, too, as long as it's legitimate research. What is not fine is when scientists apply their research to proving their hypotheses about climate change rather than testing it with objective scientific experimentation. I don't want to pay for some politically motivated scientists to use quackery and trumped up data so they can collaborate with the policy makers so they, in turn, can engineer policies that will drain money out of the pockets of the people going forward. I don't want to see these people getting rich at my expense. I, personally, want their hands out of my pockets!
I am well aware that my stance on coal's preference to petroleum and petroleum derivatives constitutes utter heresy in the minds of a majority of people worldwide, and that's OK. I think it's important to realize that anthropogenic global warming is not a settled matter, although we are being told by many scientists that it is definitely a settled matter. This much we know.
We know the earth has been getting warmer over the course of the last hundred years or so, at least at the surface.
We know that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and that there is more of it than there used to be. The hypothesis, which is in the form of a question, is this: Is there a cause and effect relationship between higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and a concurrent warming of Planet Earth? The answer to that question is not available at this time. It will take another decade or two, or three, before we can even begin to get a handle on what is causing the warming. The answers will come trickling in over time. There are remaining questions about the plethora of models that are giving dire predictions for the future of the planet. For instance, climate modeling allegedly doesn't encompass variables such as El Niños and La Niñas, which come and go on their own schedule. Further, climate models allegedly don't factor in such factors as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO). Some scientists believe that most climate models are predicated upon surface temperatures on land and in the surface layers of the earth's oceans, and that PDOs and AMOs and similar oscillations cause the models to give spurious scenarios. In the final analysis, anthropogenic global warming is not an established truth at this time, regardless of what the so-called "leading scientists" and "climate experts" and their media shills say. There are hundreds of climatologists around the world who are trying to say - at their own peril - Wait a minute! Not so fast! So, until more is known, the best course to follow, in my view, is to conserve as much as possible without undue hardship, that is, to not be wasteful, to be good stewards of the environment, to conduct objective research with an eye towards finding a better way to sustain our respective societies, but to do so without political entities imposing drastic or punitive measures against anyone - any private person, any business, or any country, or any society or culture.
This concludes my series on climate change. My final post, which will be coming in the next couple of days, will more or less be a bibliography of source material I've consulted for this in-depth look at this controversial topic. Feel free to follow links to web pages of scientists, climatologists, meteorologists, and others on both sides of the issue. I'm sure it will be informative but probably won't change any minds.
Monday, November 22, 2010
A CLOSER LOOK AT CLIMATE CHANGE (PART 11)
MORE QUESTIONS
Revised 8/6/2011
According to Dr. Robert Balling, Director of the Office of Climatology at Arizona State University, there is a confounding mishmash of data being used by climate scientists across the spectrum to argue for or against the following:
1. How much has the earth really warmed since the end of The Little Ice Age?
2. How reliable are the temperatures in the historical record going back into the 19th Century?
3. Does the placement of thermistors since the 1970s play a role in the temperature record as compared to the temperature records obtained from earlier in the 20th Century?
4. How does the surface temperature readings jive with the atmospheric temperature soundings taken by satellites?
Dr. Balling delved into these questions and more in an article appearing in the September 2003 issue of the George C. Marshall Policy Outlook Institute (GCMPOI) where he appears to take a reasoned approach to the issue. This article is a rather refreshing departure from the often acrimonious debate between the so-called climate apocalyptics and climate skeptics.
Using temperature data compiled by Dr. Phil Jones of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, UK, Dr. Balling constructed a chart that shows two warming spurts - one from the mid 1910s to about 1945, and another one from about 1970 to 2000. Between 1945 and 1970 there was a level stretch where temperatures didn't appear to increase at all, and since 2000 the global temperatures seem to have stabilized as well. Revision: the 2000-2010 decade has turned out to be above average.
The rate of temperature rise between 1915 and 1945 worked out to 0.16° C per decade, for a total temperature increase of about 0.48° C . The rate of increase from 1980 to 2010 was about 0.17° C per decade, for a total of 0.51° C. In other words, the rate of temperature increase in the first half of the 20th Century was essentially the same as the rate of temperature increase since 1980, but the global temperature spurt during the first half of the 20th Century cannot be blamed on greenhouse forcing due to human activities.
According to the data compiled by Jones, the global temperature has increased by about 1° C since 1900.
But, according to Dr. Balling, climate change is not a settled science by any means. Balling surmises that the temperature record is incomplete since only about 30% of the earth's surface was monitored at various times throughout the latter part of the 19th Century and first half of the 20th. It's only been since about 1970 that the current coverage of about 80% has been established.
However, there are built-in biases to the modern day temperature record that need to be taken into consideration. For example, traditional mercury-in-glass thermometers have been largely replaced by electronic thermistors that record continuously and accurately. These instruments detect and record heat-carrying eddies that traditional thermometers fail to register. When recorded temperatures made by these instruments are compared to traditional temperature readings done by mercury thermometers, a bias toward warmer temperatures is introduced. Further biases are introduced by the nature of the shelters housing these instruments, which can trap heat, whereas mercury thermometers could tolerate being more in the open. Cooling biases in the temperature record are removed by the continuous recording of temperature by thermistors because thermometer readings were formerly taken at discreet times in the early morning, analogous to a snapshot (as opposed to a motion picture provided by a thermistor). Nowadays, these formerly discreet temperature readings are swallowed up in the continuous record. All taken together, these factors may lead to a warming bias of at least 0.05° C.
A very strong bias can be introduced by the "urban heat island effect", where solar heat is retained by asphalt and concrete along with anthropogenic heat generated by heated buildings. Further localized urban heating can sometimes be attributed to higher CO2 levels in the air because of the breathing of a million people (more or less) coupled with the general absence or scarcity of trees that take up CO2. This isn't usually a factor with adequate mixing, but during temperature inversions a virtual lid is placed over a city for days, trapping CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) to produce a measurable anomaly.
These factors taken together can introduce a warming bias of an additional 0.1 - 0.15° C. And finally, during the last few decades many weather stations have been moved from cooler river valleys to airports usually located at higher (and thus warmer) elevations. All these biases taken together can add as much as 0.2 - 0.3° C to the observed temperature record covering the last several decades.
To be sure, many (though certainly not all) climate models contain algorithms that are designed to normalize out these biases. Those that take these biases into account tend to be more conservative.
Overall, Dr. Balling concedes that there has been an undeniable increase in global surface temperatures since about 1970 that cannot be wholly explained by increased solar activity or a temperature rebound from the Little Ice Age, which was probably a factor in the heating spurt prior to 1945. Many models appear to jive with the observed data when surface temperatures are plugged into them. But temperatures aloft should also be increasing, according to most climate models. They're not. Many models predict even more warming in the lower troposphere than at the surface, but that is not the case. And that's problematic. The National Research Council’s 2000 report acknowledged that “if global warming is caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it should be evident not only at the earth’s surface, but also in the lower to mid-troposphere.” Writes Dr. Balling: "Warming near the surface with little to no warming in the lower to mid-troposphere is not a clear greenhouse signal!"
These observations of the surface and tropospheric discrepancies begs the question of whether the climate models are engineered to function solely on surface temperatures and giving mid and lower troposphere thermodynamics a lesser weighting per the models' algorithms.
Additional factors may be involved in the observed heating of the planet. Rain forest destruction in Brazil, rapid growth of population centers in India and China - it's a lot more complicated than just burning coal (and petroleum products) and noting the increase in greenhouse emisions. In Brazil, deforestation has depleted the original Amazon rain forest by nearly 18% - by nearly three quarters of a million square kilometers. This has not just removed a substantial carbon dioxide sink. The enormous amounts of carbon dioxide discharged into the atmosphere from the burning of the clear-cut forestation has added to the CO2 being emitted by industrial and power-generating facilities by as much as 25%. The elimination of a carbon sink coupled with the hyperproduction of carbon from burning the killed vegetation presents a huge double whammy!
Brazil has slowed down its removal of rain forest in recent years, and has now been surpassed by Indonesia as the world's number one destroyer of rain forest canopy percentage wise, but remains the world's number one deforestation culprit overall in terms of land area cleared.
In West Africa, the rain forest is now over 90% gone, which further endangers, and may eventually drive to extinction the mountain gorillas that once thrived there. Likewise, thousands of species are disappearing every year because of the problem. Deforestation programs (tree pogroms?) are occurring in other parts of the tropical and subtropical regions of the world with ongoing decimation of biodiversity. Thousands of species a year - gone forever!
To be sure, the depletion of carbon sinks by deforestation and subsequent burning of the killed vegetation has to fit in with the anthropogenic contribution of the greenhouse gas component of the atmosphere, one would think. But we don't hear as much about that as we hear about COAL, and COAL - generated electrical power. People like James E. Hansen, Joe Romm, and other like-minded apocalyptics are pretty quiet on the deforestation issue. They don't even say much about the greenhouse emissions from the burning of petroleum products for transportation purposes. To them, COAL is the greatest enemy mankind has ever faced in the history of mankind.
I just don't get it.
There are other factors involved in the anthropogenic contribution as well. Examples:
The rapid growth of urban centers in China over the last few decades has not only encroached on forestation and green areas, but is contributing a substantial heat island effect. At last count China has 44 cities with populations of over one million - many of them resembling Manhattan in skyline grandeur (at last count, as of August 2011 the count of 1,000,000 plus cities is more than 100.). Some 43% of Chinese live in an urban environment. Worldwide, nearly 50% of the world's 6.7 billion people live in an urban environment. And as is well known, urban landscapes act as heat traps.
The human population explosion has more than doubled the world's population over the past 50 years, from 3.1 billion to 6.7 billion. There are 1.4 to 1.6 billion metric tonnes of CO2 emitted by exhaling humans alone, but that amount is dwarfed by the 207 billion metric tonnes emitted by the earth's biomass every year. The anthropogenic contribution to the annual CO2 discharge into the atmosphere? 29.2 billion metric tonnes, or about 14.1%.
To be sure, autotrophs take a lot of that back up when they perform photosynthesis, so if we can neglect the autotrophs and consider just the heterotrophs (organisms that eat other organisms), well, they still contribute 89 billion metric tonnes - three times as much as is produced by human activity alone.
How all this stuff balances out is still often not factored into the BIG PICTURE. Some serious climate researchers most likely do have all of these non-anthropogenic sources of CO2 factored into their models, but many don't. There are a vast plethora of climate models written by programmers who have varying degrees of motivation to get the models to say what they want them to say. Unfortunately, it's usually the models that predict global mayhem that get the press coverage - after all, those are the predictions that make the best copy and get the most attention. The mass media is instrumental in pushing apocalyptic scenarios - a case in point is the 2004 movie Day After Tomorrow, a feature length film that depicts an instantaneous ice age caused by man-made global warming. Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth is another example of environmentalist overkill that tends to defeat its intended purpose by being too far-fetched. The decidedly non-scientific Hollywood culture is overly prone to participate in the climate hysteria - it's good for the box office.
There have been some studies, in fact, that seem to suggest that the more drastic the drumbeat of climatic upheaval, the more people tune the whole thing out.
All in all, climate is a fascinating and complex dynamic system that is confounding to even the best climate scientists. There are so many variables and feedbacks, both positive and negative, to consider when contemplating ramifications of our contemporary culture's effect, whether small or large, on the immense and complicated machine that is Mother Earth.
Revised 8/6/2011
According to Dr. Robert Balling, Director of the Office of Climatology at Arizona State University, there is a confounding mishmash of data being used by climate scientists across the spectrum to argue for or against the following:
1. How much has the earth really warmed since the end of The Little Ice Age?
2. How reliable are the temperatures in the historical record going back into the 19th Century?
3. Does the placement of thermistors since the 1970s play a role in the temperature record as compared to the temperature records obtained from earlier in the 20th Century?
4. How does the surface temperature readings jive with the atmospheric temperature soundings taken by satellites?
Dr. Balling delved into these questions and more in an article appearing in the September 2003 issue of the George C. Marshall Policy Outlook Institute (GCMPOI) where he appears to take a reasoned approach to the issue. This article is a rather refreshing departure from the often acrimonious debate between the so-called climate apocalyptics and climate skeptics.
Using temperature data compiled by Dr. Phil Jones of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, UK, Dr. Balling constructed a chart that shows two warming spurts - one from the mid 1910s to about 1945, and another one from about 1970 to 2000. Between 1945 and 1970 there was a level stretch where temperatures didn't appear to increase at all, and since 2000 the global temperatures seem to have stabilized as well. Revision: the 2000-2010 decade has turned out to be above average.
The rate of temperature rise between 1915 and 1945 worked out to 0.16° C per decade, for a total temperature increase of about 0.48° C . The rate of increase from 1980 to 2010 was about 0.17° C per decade, for a total of 0.51° C. In other words, the rate of temperature increase in the first half of the 20th Century was essentially the same as the rate of temperature increase since 1980, but the global temperature spurt during the first half of the 20th Century cannot be blamed on greenhouse forcing due to human activities.
According to the data compiled by Jones, the global temperature has increased by about 1° C since 1900.
But, according to Dr. Balling, climate change is not a settled science by any means. Balling surmises that the temperature record is incomplete since only about 30% of the earth's surface was monitored at various times throughout the latter part of the 19th Century and first half of the 20th. It's only been since about 1970 that the current coverage of about 80% has been established.
However, there are built-in biases to the modern day temperature record that need to be taken into consideration. For example, traditional mercury-in-glass thermometers have been largely replaced by electronic thermistors that record continuously and accurately. These instruments detect and record heat-carrying eddies that traditional thermometers fail to register. When recorded temperatures made by these instruments are compared to traditional temperature readings done by mercury thermometers, a bias toward warmer temperatures is introduced. Further biases are introduced by the nature of the shelters housing these instruments, which can trap heat, whereas mercury thermometers could tolerate being more in the open. Cooling biases in the temperature record are removed by the continuous recording of temperature by thermistors because thermometer readings were formerly taken at discreet times in the early morning, analogous to a snapshot (as opposed to a motion picture provided by a thermistor). Nowadays, these formerly discreet temperature readings are swallowed up in the continuous record. All taken together, these factors may lead to a warming bias of at least 0.05° C.
A very strong bias can be introduced by the "urban heat island effect", where solar heat is retained by asphalt and concrete along with anthropogenic heat generated by heated buildings. Further localized urban heating can sometimes be attributed to higher CO2 levels in the air because of the breathing of a million people (more or less) coupled with the general absence or scarcity of trees that take up CO2. This isn't usually a factor with adequate mixing, but during temperature inversions a virtual lid is placed over a city for days, trapping CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) to produce a measurable anomaly.
These factors taken together can introduce a warming bias of an additional 0.1 - 0.15° C. And finally, during the last few decades many weather stations have been moved from cooler river valleys to airports usually located at higher (and thus warmer) elevations. All these biases taken together can add as much as 0.2 - 0.3° C to the observed temperature record covering the last several decades.
To be sure, many (though certainly not all) climate models contain algorithms that are designed to normalize out these biases. Those that take these biases into account tend to be more conservative.
Overall, Dr. Balling concedes that there has been an undeniable increase in global surface temperatures since about 1970 that cannot be wholly explained by increased solar activity or a temperature rebound from the Little Ice Age, which was probably a factor in the heating spurt prior to 1945. Many models appear to jive with the observed data when surface temperatures are plugged into them. But temperatures aloft should also be increasing, according to most climate models. They're not. Many models predict even more warming in the lower troposphere than at the surface, but that is not the case. And that's problematic. The National Research Council’s 2000 report acknowledged that “if global warming is caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it should be evident not only at the earth’s surface, but also in the lower to mid-troposphere.” Writes Dr. Balling: "Warming near the surface with little to no warming in the lower to mid-troposphere is not a clear greenhouse signal!"
These observations of the surface and tropospheric discrepancies begs the question of whether the climate models are engineered to function solely on surface temperatures and giving mid and lower troposphere thermodynamics a lesser weighting per the models' algorithms.
Additional factors may be involved in the observed heating of the planet. Rain forest destruction in Brazil, rapid growth of population centers in India and China - it's a lot more complicated than just burning coal (and petroleum products) and noting the increase in greenhouse emisions. In Brazil, deforestation has depleted the original Amazon rain forest by nearly 18% - by nearly three quarters of a million square kilometers. This has not just removed a substantial carbon dioxide sink. The enormous amounts of carbon dioxide discharged into the atmosphere from the burning of the clear-cut forestation has added to the CO2 being emitted by industrial and power-generating facilities by as much as 25%. The elimination of a carbon sink coupled with the hyperproduction of carbon from burning the killed vegetation presents a huge double whammy!
Brazil has slowed down its removal of rain forest in recent years, and has now been surpassed by Indonesia as the world's number one destroyer of rain forest canopy percentage wise, but remains the world's number one deforestation culprit overall in terms of land area cleared.
In West Africa, the rain forest is now over 90% gone, which further endangers, and may eventually drive to extinction the mountain gorillas that once thrived there. Likewise, thousands of species are disappearing every year because of the problem. Deforestation programs (tree pogroms?) are occurring in other parts of the tropical and subtropical regions of the world with ongoing decimation of biodiversity. Thousands of species a year - gone forever!
To be sure, the depletion of carbon sinks by deforestation and subsequent burning of the killed vegetation has to fit in with the anthropogenic contribution of the greenhouse gas component of the atmosphere, one would think. But we don't hear as much about that as we hear about COAL, and COAL - generated electrical power. People like James E. Hansen, Joe Romm, and other like-minded apocalyptics are pretty quiet on the deforestation issue. They don't even say much about the greenhouse emissions from the burning of petroleum products for transportation purposes. To them, COAL is the greatest enemy mankind has ever faced in the history of mankind.
I just don't get it.
There are other factors involved in the anthropogenic contribution as well. Examples:
The rapid growth of urban centers in China over the last few decades has not only encroached on forestation and green areas, but is contributing a substantial heat island effect. At last count China has 44 cities with populations of over one million - many of them resembling Manhattan in skyline grandeur (at last count, as of August 2011 the count of 1,000,000 plus cities is more than 100.). Some 43% of Chinese live in an urban environment. Worldwide, nearly 50% of the world's 6.7 billion people live in an urban environment. And as is well known, urban landscapes act as heat traps.
The human population explosion has more than doubled the world's population over the past 50 years, from 3.1 billion to 6.7 billion. There are 1.4 to 1.6 billion metric tonnes of CO2 emitted by exhaling humans alone, but that amount is dwarfed by the 207 billion metric tonnes emitted by the earth's biomass every year. The anthropogenic contribution to the annual CO2 discharge into the atmosphere? 29.2 billion metric tonnes, or about 14.1%.
To be sure, autotrophs take a lot of that back up when they perform photosynthesis, so if we can neglect the autotrophs and consider just the heterotrophs (organisms that eat other organisms), well, they still contribute 89 billion metric tonnes - three times as much as is produced by human activity alone.
How all this stuff balances out is still often not factored into the BIG PICTURE. Some serious climate researchers most likely do have all of these non-anthropogenic sources of CO2 factored into their models, but many don't. There are a vast plethora of climate models written by programmers who have varying degrees of motivation to get the models to say what they want them to say. Unfortunately, it's usually the models that predict global mayhem that get the press coverage - after all, those are the predictions that make the best copy and get the most attention. The mass media is instrumental in pushing apocalyptic scenarios - a case in point is the 2004 movie Day After Tomorrow, a feature length film that depicts an instantaneous ice age caused by man-made global warming. Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth is another example of environmentalist overkill that tends to defeat its intended purpose by being too far-fetched. The decidedly non-scientific Hollywood culture is overly prone to participate in the climate hysteria - it's good for the box office.
There have been some studies, in fact, that seem to suggest that the more drastic the drumbeat of climatic upheaval, the more people tune the whole thing out.
All in all, climate is a fascinating and complex dynamic system that is confounding to even the best climate scientists. There are so many variables and feedbacks, both positive and negative, to consider when contemplating ramifications of our contemporary culture's effect, whether small or large, on the immense and complicated machine that is Mother Earth.
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