Anyone still believe in global warming?, page 3

I posted this in another thread. I thought it was rather amusing because I was essentially arguing for a carbon tax, although nobody seemed to pick up on it.
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Coal has disastrous effects on the health of the public, the health of the miners, the environment, and to our property. The problem is significantly worse in developing nations such as China, but practically everywhere in the world has been affected by coal in some way or another. According to According to "Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use" by the National Research Council, in the United States, coal has hidden costs of 3.2 cents per kilowatt hour in air pollution damages alone, effectively meaning that we are subsidizing the true cost of coal by 50% with the environment, our health, and other property damages. i.e. When someone gets a respiratory illness from coal particulate matter, you don't pay for it when you buy coal electricity. When we add these damages onto the cost of coal generation, we effectively double the cost of coal, making it simply uncompetitive to other sources such as nuclear and wind. A different study by the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) was responsible for the revised ExternE-Pol study. They found this:



Another study started with the same ExternE-Pol studies, then expressed the health/environmental effects in the readily-understood metric of “deaths per TWh (terrawatt-hour)” of electrical generation. Results:



Another study with data provided by PSI:


source.
(this doesn't even count air pollution either, which makes up 90% of the damages)

In conclusion:

• Coal is significantly more dangerous than most other energy sources.
  
• Coal is killing people by air pollution and mining disasters.
  
• Fossil fuels and in particular coal is destroying the environment.
  
• Coal is hundreds if not thousands of times more dangerous than alternatives like Nuclear and Wind.
  
• External costs of Coal (like property damage, air pollution deaths, healthcare costs) are around 3 cents per kilowatt hour.
  
• External cost of coal is significantly higher than alternatives.
  
• Coal mines collapse and explode, and always will collapse and explode.
  

(None of that even touches global warming)

Recommendation:

• Internalize the cost of all energy sources by removing all effective subsidies by forcing them to pay for the damage that they create.
  
• This involves slapping a 3 cent per kilowatt hour tax on coal to make it pay for the damage it causes, which will also force it to become cleaner. This simply means we're paying for the damage it creates when we purchase electricity, rather than in our healthcare bill. Overall cost stays the same to the public, but it makes coal uneconomic.
  
• Encourage safer energy sources such as nuclear and wind in order to save lives, and protect the environment.

We can be thankful China is now starts construction on 9 new nuclear reactors per year, with a goal of 80 nuclear reactors by 2020, 200 by 2030, and 400 by 2050. A significant scale-up of wind power is occurring also.

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Also, remember that "32,000 scientists petition"? Well, here's the man who created it:
Astounding Interview with Nutjob – Art Robinson

reply to post by C0bzz

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Great info there CObzz

The funny thing too that so many of the deniers don't even realize - every time they come on the internet and start spewing the same old cliches about "global warming is nothing but a tax scam wakka wakka" they themselves are arguing for a carbon tax.

Because instead of calling it a carbon tax - it should be called what it really is: an apathy tax.

Anyone with half a brain should realize there are a million and a half reasons why we ought to be phasing out things like coal and oil - global warming or not. But to make that happen, people need to realize their power as consumers and that they, not TPTB, are the force that drives the market and the world on these things.

But nooooo - they just want the laziest, cheapest way out possible. So of course TPTB are more than willing to offer that to them, and thoroughly exploit them throughout the entire process.

But now we have an urgent issue like global warming that is demanding these changes take place. And even though we have the power to make this happen ourselves, what does everyone do instead - they go on the internet and whine and complain about it and encourage everyone else to just do the same. And then they think adding some disclaimer at the end of all their calls for worldwide apathy about how they're really "against pollution" is good enough to feel like they're doing their part.

So the governments completely realize the only way to get all the self-involved drones to actually do anything is to tax them.

That's why it's so ironic to see all the comments about "follow the money".

Yes - that's exactly the point you lazy sheep.

Originally posted by wutone

Originally posted by lordtyp0
reply to post by dementedtheclown

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Anyone with even the slightest understanding of science "believes" global warming is real.

Anyone with even the slightest understanding of science FUNDING "believes" global warming is real.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here, but if you're implying that research grants somehow present a conflict of interest that corrupts the study of Climatology then you're TERRIBLY MISTAKEN.

Such notions are myths and propaganda to try and paint scientists as corrupt/greedy... which is one of the most insane, evil, and dead wrong campaigns ever launched. Scientists are NOT one body, however they are INHERENTLY curious and seek the utmost truth. They are ALWAYS testing each other, questioning reality and looking for better answers. THEY are the ones who, instead of idly speculating on our universe, actually go out and STUDY IT day after day. They are the ones digging in the dirt for the rest of us and they do a DAMN good job of it, so please quit the propaganda.

Regardless though, the amount of money involved in scientific research IS NOWHERE EVEN REMOTELY APPROACHING the amount of money involved in petroleum. The fossil fuel industry is the RICHEST INDUSTRY EVER TO EXIST ON PLANET EARTH. They are corrupt in every single sense of the word and they've committed just about every evil imaginable (and more). And on top of that, they're trying to falsely appeal to peoples' mistrust of TPTB by fomenting disinformation that global warming is somehow a hoax. The real hoax is DENYING global warming. All the money and denial propaganda leads RIGHT BACK to industry and their right-wing think-tanks. It's as dirty as can be and REAL scientists are pulling their hair out over it.

Global warming has been turned into a false political debate by TPTB, namely industry and establishment conservatives. The SCIENTIFIC debate ended decades ago (and it did rage). The scientific community accepts global warming and the greenhouse effect as much as it accepts the theories of evolution, gravity, and thermodynamics.

reply to post by NoHierarchy

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The fossil fuel industry is the RICHEST INDUSTRY EVER TO EXIST ON PLANET EARTH. They are corrupt in every single sense of the word and they've committed just about every evil imaginable (and more).

Currently, Big Oil, and just about every other fossil fuel dependant industry, has thrown their hats in with the AGCC community. Even Exxon Mobil chief executive Rex Tillerson openly said that he wholeheartedly supports a CO2 tax. Yes, he supports it. Do you not therefore find it just a little ironic, this continued claim of a "Big Oil" conspiracy? In light of your rather spurious intimations of the past, juxtaposed with today's "Big Oil" alliances, I'd say, the real shill for "Big Oil" now appears to be none other than yourself. Albeit unwittingly.

The scientific community accepts global warming and the greenhouse effect as much as it accepts the theories of evolution, gravity, and thermodynamics.

You're putting AGW on an equal footing scientifically with the theory of gravity? Nuts.

Scientists are NOT one body, however they are INHERENTLY curious and seek the utmost truth.

Science comes down to the work of individuals, all of whom are prone to profit motives, corruption and tunnel-vision, just like the rest of us. What's interesting though and something you appear to have overlooked is that there are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, including IPCC authors, atmospheric physicists, climate scientists, inter alia, all of whom vehemently oppose the idea that man is heavily influencing the temperature of the planet. Are we to ignore all of them and presume they are all in cahoots with Big Oil? Also, if the scientists on the AGW side *only* care about the truth, why do they feel the need to say things like "if we want a good environmental policy in the future we'll have to have a disaster", which is what John Houghton said, editor of first three IPCC reports. If they *only* care about the truth, would they create computer models instead of presenting strong empirical evidence? Would they haphazardly throw out 30 years of radiosonde measurements and start measuring the temperature with the unconventional method of wind-data?

I've often pointed out that there is an inherent conflict of interest in the IPCC's mission. The IPCC are a political body (hence the word "intergovernmental") and they were set-up, specifically, to find the effects of human-induced climate change. I will quote a paragraph from the IPCC's web-site on why there were set-up and why they exist: "United Nations Environment Programme to assess the scientific, technical and socioeconomic information relevant for the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change" (link: www.ipccfacts.org/history.html). In other words, the founders started with the notion that 'human-induced' climate change was a threat. Kind of like 'extraterrestrials from outer space are real'. The IPCC's funding shouldn't be dependent on finding a particular result, but it is, and therein lays the problem, within their mandate. Science doesn't work through predetermination. Imagine if the IPCC were to come out tomorrow and say that CO2 is nothing to worry about? The IPCC would be shut down and they would all be looking for new jobs.

THEY are the ones who, instead of idly speculating on our universe, actually go out and STUDY IT day after day

Do you honestly think the scientists who oppose AGW haven't studied the subject?

reply to post by cushycrux

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Humans don't produce that much CH4 and CH4 is only a bit-contributor to the greenhouse effect because it's absorption band is far from peak surface. As for the graph showing CO2 rising exponentially since 1960, it hasn't, the IPCC rely on ice core paleo-reconstructions to give them an insight as to how CO2 levels were during that time and ice core proxies are notoriously unreliable because they come from highly compressed layers, especially as they get older, and given CO2 is a soluble gas, it will inevitably leach out, albeit gradually - thus underestimating real CO2 concentrations. It's made worse by smoothing the information out. CO2 was actually higher in 1940. Over 90,000 measurements were made between 1800-1960, the average comes to just over 330ppm, well above the supposed 270ppm which is based on hand-picked selected points which were then back dated to fit 270ppm model. This was then sold as alarmist propaganda.

Also, see how stomata proxies compare with glaciological measurements, which the IPCC ignore probably because they show much higher CO2 levels in the past and there's a lot more variability and they correspond nicely with flask measurements and other paleo-reconstructions of the temperature too. As for global temperatures - they have not increased significantly since 1995 (according to Phil Jones), thereby demonstrating a divergence between human CO2-output and temperatures. Why did the temperature increase at exactly the same rates between 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998? As admitted by Phil Jones. Shouldn't the rate of global warming have increased as we produced more CO2, instead of all increasing at the same rates? Here are the temperature data-sets over the last one-hundred years, here, here. Here are the links to the graphs: here, and here.

I don't beleive in Global Warming scam, but do believe there is a reason why maybe there is an increase in CO2.

The Amazon!

Deforestation has always occurred here but on international par up until the 1980's then industrialisation of Brazil takes over

Below is a graph of deforestation of the amazon from 1980 > 2009

Deforestation Figures for Brazil


Year [sq mi] [sq km] Change[%]
1988 8,127 21,050
1989 6,861 17,770 -16%
1990 5,301 13,730 -23%
1991 4,259 11,030 -20%
1992 5,323 13,786 25%
1993 5,751 14,896 8%
1994 5,751 14,896 0%
1995 11,220 29,059 95%
1996 7,012 18,161 -38%
1997 5,107 13,227 -27%
1998 6,712 17,383 31%
1999 6,664 17,259 -1%
2000 7,037 18,226 6%
2001 7,014 18,165 0%
2002 8,260 21,651 17%
2003 9,805 25,396 19%
2004 10,722 27,772 9%
2005 7,341 19,014 -31%
2006 5,515 14,285 -49%
2007 4,498 11,651 -18%
2008 4,984 12,911 11%
2009 2,889 7,484

Quoted site

Now if the total area of the Amazon in 1988 was 3,723,520km2 and 389,832km2 has been cleared thats 10.5% of total gone ! The Amazon did produce 20% of the worlds oxygen levels....

60-70 % of that clearing has made way to cattle ranches and we all know they produce Co2

So with increase in head of cattle and deforestation of the Amazon that is how these people are getting their figures ! The easiest way is make for every 1 tree removed, plant 2 until levels are stabilised if not better.

Im not a tree hugger nor swallow the tripe that govts produce, i like searching my own theories that an educated person can ascertain. I was told about the production of O2 levels when i was a kid in primary school 20+ yyrs ago

Originally posted by Nathan-D
reply to post by cushycrux

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Humans don't produce that much CH4 and CH4.

Meat Production?
2nd line

Originally posted by Nathan-D
Currently, Big Oil, and just about every other fossil fuel dependant industry, has thrown their hats in with the AGCC community. Even Exxon Mobil chief executive Rex Tillerson openly said that he wholeheartedly supports a CO2 tax. Yes, he supports it. Do you not therefore find it just a little ironic, this continued claim of a "Big Oil" conspiracy? In light of your rather spurious intimations of the past, juxtaposed with today's "Big Oil" alliances, I'd say, the real shill for "Big Oil" now appears to be none other than yourself. Albeit unwittingly.

*sigh* I really wish you could grasp the utter unwitting irony of this statement... But I've tried - in fact I've put extra effort in my personal responses to your posts - to show you this. Because for the most part you seem like a reasonably intelligent person. But every time you've been presented with tangible proof of these claims - you just turtle up and ignore it and pretend it's not there (and then you get annoyed when people label you a denier). And then you come back and make such naive statements like the one above.

Do you think just because Rex Tillerson says he supports a carbon tax, that means global warming can't be real, and that Exxon can't somehow be secretively trying to deny it on the side? Think that's so preposterous? It has been absolutely PROVEN that companies like Exxon and Koch Industries are quietly funding climate denial propaganda.

But they are not idiots ok? They simply know that most people ARE. So they cover their tracks by setting up middlemen - i.e. "libertarian" lobbyists, right wing "think tanks", fake science organizations, that do all of their campaigning instead. And then they use people just like YOU to spread their disinformation for them, you know - "albeit unwittingly". This process is called astroturfing, it is a well known political ruse, and how many times have I now shown you direct evidence of this exact thing happening in the climate debate, especially in your climate debates - let's see:

Joanne Nova is a fraud
Steven Milloy is a fraud
Anthony Watts is a fraud
Pat Michaels is a fraud
The Wegman report is a fraud
Willie Soon is a fraud
Basically the entire Global Warming denial movement is a fraud

But funnily enough you never hear these things reported on in the (supposedly liberal-biased) mainstream media, do you?

So if Rex Tillerson wants to keep a low profile on all his dirty connections to these people, what do you expect him to do - come out and repeat their same mantras verbatim in public?? Of course not.

Meanwhile the fact that he supports a carbon tax is simply more proof that global warming is indeed real. You know why? Because the guy is hedging his bets. He already knows the sketchy science his company funds can't hold a candle to the real thing, so ultimately he needs to be prepared for the legislation that's coming down the pipe one way or another. But that doesn't stop him from doing everything he can behind the scenes to try and prolong that day for as long as possible.

And this is precisely why there is no debate left in the scientific community - because the science has indeed been settled, and the only skeptics left are all speaking on behalf of Exxon. The only place where their crooked shrieks carry any weight anymore is right here - on internet message boards and in the public forum where people simply don't know any better. And this is where the debate matters to them anyway because this is where the money is: us.


You see - if you guys were legitimate conspiracy theorists, with a little more critical thinking and a lot less of this tinfoil crap, you would understand that taking our money has nothing to do with taxes. The elites learned a long time ago that's a piss-poor way to try and exploit the masses.

People like King George III lost an entire nation over it, while Marie Antoinette lost her head. But the ones who still had heads used them, and learned from their mistakes. They spent the next 200 years building up a system not only driven by greed, but literally fueled on it as well. Exploitation of resources, consumption, labour - all designed to help the rich get richer - while leaving the rest of us just enough table scraps to pretend that we're "free" so we work harder. This is the REAL SCAM understand?

So now ask yourself - WHERE is global warming supposed to fit into that? Is it going to speed it up, or slow it all down?

I already pointed out on the last page how much you guys constantly overlook the true story behind global warming - i.e. sustainability and resource management and most of all social awareness towards these things. Old school conspiracy theorists used to call this sort of thing "waking up" - i.e. waking up and realizing how much our ENTIRE frickin' economy is already a complete sham. And instead of wasting away on paranoid delusions about some pointless new world order - waking up and recognizing what we need to do collectively as a planet to fix the mess we're already in because of the old world order.

Yet why is it none of you "skeptics" ever seem to acknowledge this part of the global warming "agenda"?

It's because you have all become sooooo blinded and sooooo brainwashed by all the astroturf political propaganda out there that you can't even see the forest for the trees anymore. All you guys ever do is focus on the damn taxes so much that you forget to put the horse before the cart and don't even understand what's being taxed. This is why you go ahead and make absurd statements like "global warming has nothing to do with pollution" and never even think twice about it.

And this exactly what people like Rex Tillerson want you to do. This is why they go out and talk openly about carbon taxes. Because they know the more YOU focus on taxes the less you focus on anything else. Meanwhile they realize you're still much more likely to come buy their gas if there's merely a tax on it than you would be if you really truly cared about where that money was going. And then on the other side of the ledger they are simultaneously funding a campaign designed to obfuscate the science and confuse you that much more, so you end up thinking about the underlying roots even less.

So if you want to really talk about the irony of all this - then stop mindlessly repeating all the brainwashed talking points these people are feeding into your head that make you come out looking like a total utter hypocrite..."albeit unwittingly".

reply to post by mc_squared

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The amount of money Exxon supposedly gave to skeptics pales by comparison to the money that promoters of a climate meltdown have received. According to the U.S. Senate Committee Environment, during the past 10 years exponents of AGW have reviewed $50 billion in the US alone. So Exxon's $23 million is peanuts and doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things.

What's funny, is that the $23 million from Exxon is enough to make headlines, but the $50 billion barely gets a mention. In fact I discovered it quite serendipitously. At the end of the day, the government funds, thus controls essentially 100% of all scientific research, that's why most of the people denouncing AGW are unpaid bloggers, like Joanne Nova, whose website is so cheap it's littered with bugs (hardly the work of an oil company) and Roy Spencer, who was forced to retire from NASA because he couldn't question AGW.

If you can't see that AGW is nothing more than a scam to extract money from people's innate decency there's really nothing more to say. The 800-lag is sufficient by itself to refute the entire AGW-ideology, because it violates the most fundamental scientific principle, "cause and effect", but because you're a True Believer, I doubt anything, aside from a full-blown ice age, will convince you the theory has failed to meet the criteria of scientific proof.

But of course, we've been over this ad nauseam, haven't we? And I don't have the time or truthfully the inclination to tread back on old ground.

reply to post by Nathan-D

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Yup...this is the typical sort of goofy logic response I expected from you.

So let me get this straight - anthropogenic global warming must be a scam because governments and educational institutions invested $50 billion in research confirming it, but Exxon spent "only" $23 million to deny it...?

So I guess by your reasoning - Lung Cancer is also a scam.

Because its "proponents" spend hundreds of millions a year researching it, while the Tobacco industry only gives a few million or so to their fake scientists to deny it. Hey, everybody loves the little guy!



And the best part is you're using Marc Morano as your source on this!??

Marc Morano - the guy who used to be known as Rush Limbaugh's "Man in Washington"?

Marc Morano - the guy who was the Director of Communications for notorious Republican Big Oil shill James Inhofe??
Sen. Inhofe to Congress: Oil and Gas Don't Pollute (VIDEO)

And best of all:

Marc Morano - the guy who's website climatedepot.com is funded by Oil Billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife???

excuse me for a second...



This has just gone way, waaay past the point of absurd! I am pointing out how much you have been unwittingly brainwashed by Big Oil astroturf propaganda and what do you do to show me how wrong I am? You run straight back to them to pull out some completely useless logical fallacies on the subject!

You know if the proponents spent $50 billion on RESEARCH confirming AGW that only helps to solidify just how well established and conclusive the science actually is, right? Once again - there is a clear cut consensus. The facts speak for themselves, while it is only the propaganda that tries to spin a different story. Here is yet another report showing that 97% of the world's leading climatologists agree with the official stance:
Scientific expertise lacking among 'doubters' of climate change, according to analysis by Stanford researchers

That headline pretty much says it all. You try to act like there's so much unaccounted professional doubt out there, but there isn't AT ALL. It's only a handful of armchair experts and well-known skeptic sheisters who have a laundry list of famous lies, errors and documented connections to big money agendas on their resumes.

So what you are merely trying to imply is that it's easier to believe that thousands upon thousands of the world's top scientists have all been paid off and are keeping quiet about it, in the most massive international plot ever concocted - not to mention the planet herself, and that political bastard nature are also in cahoots - than it is to believe that a handful of morally corrupt hacks have sacrificed their scientific integrity for "only" 23 million dollars.

If you seriously believe this nonsense then obviously you have rightfully earned the term "denier", no matter how unfair Marc Morano tells you it is on his blog.

In the meantime those numbers actually go a long way to showing just how gullible "skeptics" like you are. It took $50 BILLION of research to convince the scientists they were absolutely right about this. Meanwhile it took Exxon only $23 MILLION of propaganda to convince people like you that they're not.

reply to post by lavenlaar

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Star for you !

The Earths rainforest's do not only take away huge amounts of Co2 by breathing it.
They are at the same time stocking it within plants and trees as part of a recycling venture.

When you cut down a tree it will no longer take C02, you will disperse co2 back in the atmosphere without putting back a new tree to take it back in again.

So that's 3 times as much damage then what a lot think it is.

reply to post by mc_squared

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So let me get this straight - anthropogenic global warming must be a scam because governments and educational institutions invested $50 billion in research confirming it, but Exxon spent "only" $23 million to deny it...?

No, CAGW is a scam because it is pseudoscience. Climate scientists are reliant on government research grants for their living, which makes it even more surprising that so many are speaking out against CAGW. If they do, there's a chance they could have their funding slashed. It's essentially monopolistic funding. John Fulton succinctly sums it up by saying "many scientist's assert that government grant money is given preferentially to advocates of man-made global warming" and Joanne Nova elaborates further on that statement here. Government-funded institutions like the IPCC, NOAA, CCSP, and NASA receive more money for research and paraphernalia if they espouse CAGW. Thus the debunking is ultimately left up to unpaid bloggers and retired scientists that don't have to toe the government's line in order to keep receiving funding. As mentioned, Roy Spencer was forced to retire from NASA before he could question the CAGW orthodoxy. He speaks about it here.

Here is yet another report showing that 97% of the world's leading climatologists agree with the official stance.

97% of the world's leading climatologists? Oh, really? Can you name 20 of these climatologists? But even if your statement is generally true, mc_squared, I think it proves only that the CAGW belief-system is institutional, not that it is necessarily true or that the 'science' claimed to support it is sound and realistic. All I hear from CAGW zealots is this digressive preoccupation with "consensus" (and besides, the consensus in other countries like Russia and China is entirely different to the West). Dr Richard Courtney gave us a fantastic report ('Global Warming: How it all began') of his analysis of the way in which the CAGW belief-system attained its institutional stature in society, i.e. by undergoing massive amplification through positive feedbacks inherent in the political system but with no corrective negative feedbacks being present at all to check its rise to power. Hence the CAGW belief-system was elevated into a global cult purportedly supported by real science.

It's only a handful of armchair experts and well-known skeptic sheisters who have a laundry list of famous lies, errors and documented connections to big money agendas on their resumes.

*Sigh*

Originally posted by Muckster
reply to post by dementedtheclown

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Last winter was pretty cold if you ask me

Are you being for real?? Is this the best peace of scientific evidence, you could muster, to warrant starting a thread on such an important topic... "Last winter was pretty cold if you ask me"

WOW... just WOW

Cut him some slack and try to understand his question before spouting off. He asked if anyone still believes in global warming. Nowhere did he state that he had proof of anything.

I don’t believe in global warming at all. I do believe we go through cycles though. I also believe man can do very little to affect those cycles. Do I have proof? No its just what I like to believe. I have not seen enough real proof to believe otherwise.

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