Global Warming

[aristotlejones]

They believe that the purpose of government is to promote the general welfare.

When the actual purpose of government is to promote "government" welfare...

I'd like to bring your attention to the following article by science and fiction writer James P. Hogan titled "The Warmer, the Merrier" that concludes with the following:

"Instead of manically and pointlessly seeking to decrease emissions at staggering cost in an attempt to implement an unworkable solution to a nonexistent problem, we could be turning the byproducts of human industrial and agricultural enterprise into living things and abundant food. This really is wonderful news for those who believe that human creativity and cooperation offer the possibility of building better tomorrows for the entire race, and that the choice is ours to make.

It takes real talent in doom-mongering and wilful blindness to turn such promise and potential into a disaster scenario. The Western world has surely never been run by such a pack of fools as those inflicted on it at the present time."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/hogan2.html

Stay Focused,

<*>aj

[Craig24]

Greetings

It is being reported that 650 scientists are challenging a report by the UN that claims global warming is man made.

http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?3...f5-eb517991319f

Over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe challenged man-made global warming claims made by the United Nations Intergovernemntal Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Vice President Al Gore.

This new 231-page U.S. Senate Minority Report report -- updated from 2007’s groundbreaking report of over 400 scientists who voiced skepticism about the so-called global warming “consensus” -- features the skeptical voices of over 650 prominent international scientists, including many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN IPCC.

[Jake_Ellison]

That's just my two cents on the issue. Most people here don't believe global warming exists. My stance on it is that it does exist... but who cares?

Well, it all depends on what that hypothetical global warming would mean (caused by volcanic eruptions, comets etc.). There are all sort of end of the world scenarios that would make it moral to do whatever it takes to avert them.

The principal value is one's life. If everyone's survival would depend on some global project, then it would be in everyone's self interest to support a global government effort to create that project. And yes, a large global project would require government: if it were big enough, and the time to make it possible short enough, that would require (and automatically justify) the use of force (taxes, regulations) by government.

I however consider it an impossibility for any change in weather (due to CO2 and methane emissions) to pose a severe enough threat to humanity that it would justify what I described. Even if everything described in Gore's movie was real, the only moral course of action would still be to allow the free market to come up with solutions.

So to answer your question directly: even in the case of severe GW caused by CO2, government regulation to reduce those emissions would not be justified. There is a point at which it would become justified, but that scenario is not even just unlikely. It's outside the realm of possibility.

However, as I said, there could be events that would justify such action by government, just not along the lines of the events GW theorists are describing: they would have to be far more global and far more severe.

[softwareNerd]

If anyone has seen Al Gore's global warming presentation, he shows a graph that goes so high that he has to stand on a lift and be elevated in order to make his point in a physical way that he hopes will make the issue more real to his audience.

Instead of taking the mid-range of scare-forecasts, or showing the range of forecasts, Gore used the most alarming ones. Folks like the people at ClimateAudit, have been bashing away at those worst-case forecasts, revealing many problems with the research.

The pressure of appearing dishonest must have got to Gore, because the NYTimes blog reports that he is pulling that slide.

Congrats to Steve McIntyre at ClimateAudit. Without his raising Cain it is unlikely that this much would have been conceded. I just made another donation there, to replenish all the Exxon millions he gets !

[brian0918]

sNerd: they are talking about a different slide from the one that we're all familiar with. That slide is new as of last year, and represents the number of disasters. It has nothing to do with forecasts.

[softwareNerd]

sNerd: they are talking about a different slide from the one that we're all familiar with. That slide is new as of last year, and represents the number of disasters. It has nothing to do with forecasts.

My mistake! Thanks for correcting me. When I read the slide described as "ceiling-high", I didn't think that he had other ceiling-high slides in his presentation.

Oh well, ClimateAudit deserves the donation anyway.

[brian0918]

My mistake! Thanks for correcting me. When I read the slide described as "ceiling-high", I didn't think that he had other ceiling-high slides in his presentation.

His contract with the pneumatic lift manufacturer requires that he use it at least once per lecture. You wouldn't ask a man to break a contract, would you?

[gags]

Just think what that pneumatic lift does for Mr. Gore's carbon footprint. Oh the horror!

[Space Patroller]

The basic metaphysical principle of Objectivism is that the world exists apart from and prior to, or data, information, knowledge, thoughts, wishes or feelings. As such, philosophy does not tell you about "the world" but how to find out.

Now, finding out means doing one of two things. Look at all the material yourself, which nobaldy could do in all matters, or, use a division of labor and consult those whose job it is to gather and analyze the data and draw conslusions: That is those in the specia science that this question pertains to.

Qua Objectivists we do not have a position on Global Warming, Evolution or UFO's. These are "special topics", not philosophical issues.

What we do take sides on is the rationality or lack thereof demonstrated by the advocates of positions. This means what they advocate that is a matter of philsophy. Do the data they put forth have a reasonable match with legitimate sources or the majority of independent sources. Do their analyses make sense (There's about 6 inches of Global Warming outside my door waiting to be shovelled away, which puts the fall to well abouve average and the temperature was way lower than average in January. None of this argues well for supposed 30 years of warming)?

The track record of the Environmentalists has been abysmal on their pet issues. Acid Rain appears to have been associatted with vulcanism; also on acid rain, from SCIENCE DIGEST in 1981, it was found in non-industrialized upper South America near a heavily forested area. "Botonists have known about this for a long time". The dreaded "hole in the ozone layer" has been going on foreever because it is the result of natural processes, nuclear power, the danger of high-tension lines was a joke and a fraud. Contrary to their claims, the "lungs of the world" are not the jungles, but oceanic phytoplankton and pond scum. Why should this be any different having gone on for 20 years and still with no conclusive proof

But then look at the Greens. According to the History Channel. This was founded by the hippies in '71. I personally trace it back to the tail end of '68. It was then I noticed them taking a very anti-technological turn.

The Eco-maniacs' solution is always big government. Well, you've got a fascist politics founded on a philosophy based on weed and wicca. Hardly e recommendation. In their formation the eco-nuts were part of the New Left. Meet the New left; same as teh OLd Left with a strong case of BO. of which Rand said "[there's something wrong with]...being lectured on cleanliness by perosns who would pollute a river by simply stepping into it"

http://cockpit.spacepatrol.us/gw.html

Barenaked Ladies had it right "it's all been done before".

I don't see how there can be an Objectivist position on any specific topic except as relates to the methodology of proof of the claim. Now if they haven't locked it down in 20 years, a full generation, they ain't ever gonna. Please notice too, they trotted this out some 4 years after there was a repoet of a 400+ year sunspot cycle (in addition to the 11-year one) that predicted that we were in a warming phase now. and we've observed other times of warming and cooling: The latter may have been responsible for the Viking Age, driving people out of the cold North, 795-1066 just before the medieval warm spell that ended in the late 1300 with the "mini-ice age"

[Space Patroller]

Ayn Rand said that the issue of global warming is NOT a political issue. I agree with her.

Ayn Rand never said word one about "global warming" so agreeing with her or disagreeing with her on that matter would involve a masterstroke of re-animation. She was long gone by then. This issue did not surface until the post 1986 timeframe and she died in early '82.

Unless you're referring to her generalized comments in THE NEW LEFT; THE ANTI-INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION in shich she did say that if an objectively provable threat to health is proved to be a man-made thing then the government, using the laws protecting private propery does have cuase for action only against the specific individuals posing that threat. But she stressed three things objective existence of a threat to health, proof of cause and property rights

This was a small caveat in the context of codemnation of the "ecology" movement of the 1970's and she did not elaborate. Nor could she, the whole thing has never passed scientific muster, not then and not now. The eco's have spent two generations attacking or, at best, ignoring science and stressing a need for action before the situation gets untenable "We can't wait for the science to catch up [with what, I can't begin to know: Ouija boards? Spirit Guides? Reincarnated Babylonian princesses with Martian amcestry?]". has been the mantra for 40 years.

[Thales]

Ayn Rand never said word one about "global warming" so agreeing with her or disagreeing with her on that matter would involve a masterstroke of re-animation. She was long gone by then. This issue did not surface until the post 1986 timeframe and she died in early '82.

Actually, she did in a 1970s interview with Edwin Newman. She called it the "hot house effect" and pointed out how environmentalists use the prestige of science to scare people. She, as usually, nailed it long before anyone realized the degree of evil of the movement.

[K-Mac]

Just saw this quote on the home page and thought of this topic...

City smog and filthy rivers are not good for men (though they are not the kind of danger that the ecological panic-mongers proclaim them to be). This is a scientific, technological problem-not a political one-and it can be solved only by technology. Even if smog were a risk to human life, we must remember that life in nature, without technology, is whole-sale death.

--Ayn Rand

[Q.E.D.]

It really seems to me that in the global warming debate people just cite whatever group of bad scientists they need to back up their political beliefs. I can accept that global warming is not necessarily a political issue. However, I'm going to have to continue looking into the situation before I can draw my own conclusion. It does seem that a very large number of scientists that I hold in high regard claim that global warming is man made.

I think its important to separate the philosophy from the scientific conclusion, whether or not global warming exists. Nature isn't guaranteed to produce perfect conditions for human living, and that means that objective ideas may not necessarily receive optimal conditions in nature. We must get past this.

[Thales]

It really seems to me that in the global warming debate people just cite whatever group of bad scientists they need to back up their political beliefs. I can accept that global warming is not necessarily a political issue. However, I'm going to have to continue looking into the situation before I can draw my own conclusion. It does seem that a very large number of scientists that I hold in high regard claim that global warming is man made.

I think its important to separate the philosophy from the scientific conclusion, whether or not global warming exists. Nature isn't guaranteed to produce perfect conditions for human living, and that means that objective ideas may not necessarily receive optimal conditions in nature. We must get past this.

A crucial point, don't conflate global warming with catastrophic global warming. The idea of man caused catastrophic global warming is not science, it's a complete fiction. Most atmospheric scientists would say that there is probably some warming due to man (although it's in the noise, i.e. the signal can not be found), but no serious scientist, doing real science, can contend that we are headed for apocalyptic events. There is no evidence of that.

[gags]

Last winter we experienced colder weather than usual. I made this joke at the office "If I'd known this Global Warming would get so cold, I'd have taken it more seriously." One of my coworkers said "You should. The warming will get us much colder winters and cruder storm yet." He was entirely serious and earnest about it (he bought Gore's DVD and ahs seen it a number of times).

The dire predictions of increasingly higher temperatures haven't come true, which is why the enviro wack-jobs now talk about "Climate Change". I guess we're supposed to accept the idea that the climate never changed before industrialization.

[John McVey]

The idea of CO2 leading to a Greenhouse Effect is over a century old. Scientists have known about it since before Miss Rand was even born. However, for most of its life it was dismissed by most scientists - until Margaret Thatcher (who was a scientist before she was a politician) raised it to public respectability. She did that as a means to promoting nuclear power (also thereby to smash the coal-mining and power-station unions who had caused such destruction in the UK of the 70's, plus open up facilities to make the cores of Polaris nuclear-tipped missiles) and as means to getting credibility and an aura of leadership over her comparatively uneducated EU peers.

When she presented the idea to the EU the politicians there quickly realised it would be a potent weapon in a trade war against the US because it would hurt the US to implement it far more than it would the EU. Europe has a higher population density and hence a lower proportional dependence on oil for transport, plus a higher proportion of electricity generated by nuclear power (especially in France) rather than coal or oil. On top of that, the Germans could get to claim credits for "reduction" by way of replacing the inefficient plants of the recently-reunited former East Germany, so the Germans would barely feel a thing.

It got legs from there, taken up by the ecologists who could not now be dismissed by the politicians who had just enabled them. Without pragmatist politics on the backdrop of statist, nationalist and anti-industrial sentiments, GHE would have remained a fringe theory.

JJM

[Space Patroller]

Actually, she did in a 1970s interview with Edwin Newman. She called it the "hot house effect" and pointed out how environmentalists use the prestige of science to scare people. She, as usually, nailed it long before anyone realized the degree of evil of the movement.

Thanks for the memory jog.

Interesting. It had to be very obscure since it either got by me, didn't register fully or I forgot it. But now that you mention it. I vaguely remember being amused at that term since I knew it as "the greenhouse effect".I was also suprised that her depth of scientific ideas was that detailed becuase prior to that, I'd only heard of it once which meant that since I was a space and science hound, it was pretty obscure. And you wonder why I think Rand's work and philosphy is a natural for "space cadets [in the 50's meaning of the word]".

The big climate bugaboo of the eco's during the 70's and early '80's was freezing and a new ice age.

I've known about the "greenhouse effect" since 1960 as a freshment in high school. It was used to explain the high temperatures on Venus, belived to have a very high carbon dioxide content, but it was only considered an unproved theory.

As far as "having it nailed before anyone else". I wondered why it took her so long. Being a musician of the psychedelic rock genre, I was aware of the hippies' anit-science and nature-worship as early as the third quarter of '68 when it started and environmentalism sparng from the hippies. I watched it happen. Nobody believed me when I said that if not dealt with on the cultural level this posed a threat. The love affair between the media and the hippies gave them a platform to spread this evil.

The real evil is the self-contradiction of the early eco's. As Rand said, they used the prestiege of science, but they were openly virulently anti-science and still are.

[Space Patroller]

Thanks for the memory jog.

Interesting. It had to be very obscure since it either got by me, didn't register fully or I forgot it. But now that you mention it. I vaguely remember being amused at that term since I knew it as "the greenhouse effect".I was also suprised that her depth of scientific ideas was that detailed becuase prior to that, I'd only heard of it once which meant that since I was a space and science hound, it was pretty obscure. And you wonder why I think Rand's work and philosphy is a natural for "space cadets [in the 50's meaning of the word]".

The big climate bugaboo of the eco's during the 70's and early '80's was freezing and a new ice age.

I've known about the "greenhouse effect" since 1960 as a freshment in high school. It was used to explain the high temperatures on Venus, belived to have a very high carbon dioxide content, but it was only considered an unproved theory.

As far as "having it nailed before anyone else". I wondered why it took her so long. Being a musician of the psychedelic rock genre, I was aware of the hippies' anit-science and nature-worship as early as the third quarter of '68 when it started and environmentalism sparng from the hippies. I watched it happen. Nobody believed me when I said that if not dealt with on the cultural level this posed a threat. The love affair between the media and the hippies gave them a platform to spread this evil.

The real evil is the self-contradiction of the early eco's. As Rand said, they used the prestiege of science, but they were openly virulently anti-science and still are.

Actually, Rand unearthe the principle that ought have been excercized in the middle '60's with "Doh't let yourself be fooled into thinking 'Aw, they don't really mean it'". The hippoes had zeo credibility, but the larger movement of which they were the teenyboppers; the New Left, hatched in 1967 and coming to maturity in '68 on college campi, did mean it.

[Space Patroller]

Actually, Rand unearthe the principle that ought have been excercized in the middle '60's with "Doh't let yourself be fooled into thinking 'Aw, they don't really mean it'". The hippoes had zeo credibility, but the larger movement of which they were the teenyboppers; the New Left, hatched in 1967 and coming to maturity in '68 on college campi, did mean it.

I just had a horrble thought. Now that that quote has been unearthed, might not some eco's watching this board decide to claim Rand as one of their own: A visionary who foresaw the threat of global warming?

[John McVey]

Found it - the source of the history I mentioned.

JJM

[Thales]

*** Mod's note:  Merged from a different thread - sN ***

 

This is what I'd call a definitive analysis of global warming, from perhaps the foremost expert in the field, or at least one of them.

The point he makes is that the climate models all show global warming, and agree with each other, but the real world data disagrees with all of the models, thus rendering them useless. The real world data shows that there is nothing really going on. He says, basically, if this were all science driven, the matter would have been cleared up and that would be that, but clearly science is not driving the issue.

This is at the very end of the paper:

However, for the low sensitivity obtained from the actual climate system, we see that sensitivity
is narrowly constrained to about 0.5C, and strongly implies that there is little to be concerned
about.

In a normal field, these results would pretty much wrap things up, but global warming/climate
change has developed so much momentum that it has a life of its own – quite removed from
science.

The paper is of relatively low technical difficulty to read as these things go and it is short, so it's well worth the effort to read it, even if you don't grasp all of it.


You can find the pdf (or power point) linked on this page. It's the Richard Lindzen talk.

"Global Warming - Sensibilities and Science"
Richard S. Lindzen
Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
http://www.heartland.org/events/Washington...roceedings.html

Or, here is a direct link to the pdf:
http://www.heartland.org/events/Washington...dFs/Lindzen.pdf Edited November 22, 2014 by softwareNerd
Merged

[gags]

I've been looking through the New York Times and don't see any mention of this. I'm stunned.

[Space Patroller]

I've been looking through the New York Times and don't see any mention of this. I'm stunned.

Hey gags. Isn't that sorta like looking to ATLAS SHRUGGED for a good word about Christianity and Socialism? The two dfferences is that AS is admittedly fiction and it is closer to fact than the NY Times (All the News that Fits: We Print).

Oh yes, there's a third difference. ATLAS SHRUBBED is still a money maker.

Lintzen told an interesting tale on Howie Carr's show last week that the majority of atmospheric scientists, based on the data , reject The Religion in their own specialties (of which there are many) but seem to go along with it in areas of atmospherics that are not their specialties. You'd think that if they got together to compare notes across specialties, a light would go on.

Edited July 7, 2009 by Space Patroller

[Pinnacle]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/08/18...ming/index.html

Bold assertions made under the mask of uncertainty--to avoid having to be responsible, I'm sure. It reminds me of the State Science Institute's letter concerning Rearden Metal.

However, I'm shocked that the man-haters should be so explicit as to say that even "ancient man," their allegedly ideal representatives of tribalism and oneness with nature, didn't live up to their expectations. Ruddiman's study (at least as this article represents it) implies that, as all should know by now, the environmentalists do not want man and nature to live in harmony--they want nature unmolested, and man at her mercy (if man absolutely must stick around, that is).

Thoughts?

[TheEgoist]

I'm sure we also destroyed Mars and Venus, who we know used to have vastly different climates.