they didn't do such thing, because they care about animals.

Nicely done. Although i agree with you on the fact that Clooney may be a member of an al Qaeda sleeper cell in Hollywood, which isn't all that uncommon, i think that the people who go see it more than once are even worse because clooneys just tryin to make money.

I wouldn't put too much stock in this letter. These 'scientists' are affiliated with a group called Friends of Science. At least one of their advisors has accepted money from oil companies, and they also seem to be friendly with the Fraser Institute (a Canadian right-wing think tank).

So if these guys told you 2+2 = 4, you wouldn't believe them because their arithmetic is funded by Big Warming?

I'm astounded at what passes for serious criticism from the global warming zealots. When skeptical scientists question the methodology behind the climate change hysteria, their motives are impugned because of who is funding their work.

The numbers hold up or they don't! Just because you don't like someone doesn't suddenly mean that 2+2 = 5.

I've yet to see Mann, Bradley and Hughes (creators of the "hockey stick") make public the sources of their funding! Maybe they're getting money from environmentalist organizations. Using your logic, that would be a conflict of interest, wouldn't you say?

Climate change has become so politicized that nobody's clean. Just today MSNBC published this nonsensical headline: "Quarter of species gone by 2050, study predicts." I'll bet anything that that study was paid for by somebody with an axe to grind, but it's the ludicrous use of statistics that causes me to reject the study, not the sources of funding.

So let's not worry about who's funding both sides of the AGW debate, instead let's see where the science takes us, OK?

I wouldn't put too much stock in this letter. These 'scientists' are affiliated with a group called Friends of Science. At least one of their advisors has accepted money from oil companies, and they also seem to be friendly with the Fraser Institute (a Canadian right-wing think tank).

For more information on this group, see http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Friends_of_Science

As the article pointed out, the GOP definitely has a greater ability to motivate turn out by its base; I suspect that we'll be hearing a lot more about the horror of gay couples adopting in November than the booming economy.

The Dubai deal was fairly harmless, but the reaction should not have surprised a party who has spent the last four years telling America that we need to elect them to protect us from evil Middle easterners. I think the extent to which both parties are falling all over themselves to appeal to Hispanic voters is nothing more than an indication that the party strategists have noticed trends in demographic data.

Hi Chris,

Sorry 'bout the anchor tag prob, it's a bug in my B2E software. I've fixed the link in your post.

Thanks for the link to the Reason article, it was a good read. I don't think I've read Rauch before, but I got the impression that he's a Republican. Did you notice this line:

Finally, look at true independents. Since 1984, they have moved toward the Democratic column by a whopping 30 points, with an especially large lurch toward Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in 2004.

Coincidence. Sure. Too funny.

I disagree with you about factors being inverted this time around. I could be wrong, but the winner in November will hinge on the Party whose base is the most motivated to vote and the state of the economy. As I mentioned in the blog, I see both as strengths for Republicans.

I think you're right about the gerrymandering. But if they are so secure in their seats, why are Congresscritters so craven? First Dems and Repubs fell over themselves to keep Dubai from owning a couple of port terminals (a completely harmless transaction) and now the Republicans act like they terrified that by showing illegal immigrants to the door, they'll offend Hispanic voters.

Brighter Sun
This blogger writes that rising Sun temps may be the cause of global warming, but ignoring greenhouse gas levels simply defies the laws of physics....

My attempt to use an anchor tag failed. The link I mentioned:

www.reason.com/rauch/022106.shtml

I think it's fair to say, other Chris, that there were factors in play in 2004 which have inverted, politically, for the Republican party since that time. I don't know that the GOP will be able to campaign as convincingly on the homeland security issue this time around. In any event, decades of gerrymandering by both parties have made most Congressional elections fairly irrelevant.

With regard to independents, a thought-provoking discussion of their role in contemporary American politics is here. (If you get past the reference to Berkeley in the first paragraph, I think you'll find that it's a good read nevertheless).

It's good to check in and see that you continue to maintain your cred as one of the most partisan entries in my blogroll. ;)

I think that you being a detective you're stepping outta your boundaries posting this lil commment. Sure that was stupid but maybe you should watch what you post. LOL! like it's a joke.

Hi Wadard,

It's Global Warming Madness this week as Time magazine's cover story is Global Warming -- Be Worried, Be Very Worried and the editorial board of the Austin American-Statesman writes:

So it is up to us. Up to us to acknowledge that the problem is real, to recognize its potential for devastating the Earth and to understand that it might be irreversible if we don't act quickly.

Global warming can seem an impossible conundrum to face. But we ought to address that part of the equation we do control: gaseous emissions. New studies are forcing us to face the reality of a warming planet. And public service announcements by the Ad Council are making the point that how we live makes a difference.

We should pay attention. Tomorrow may be too late.

The very same week we find out that the Sun is getting brighter, which by itself can cause climate change! That, along with news two months ago that plants account for much more methane in the atmosphere than scientists had predicted, indicates that us skeptics were correct to question how much impact humans have on global warming.

[PAUSING TO PLAY SMUG TRIUMPHAL MUSIC ON MY HARMONICA]

You can argue all you want that we're responsible for GW, but:

• Now that the bogus "hockey stick" has been replaced by more accurate renderings that include the medieval warm period and little ice age, the latest climate reconstructions show wide swings in temperature over the last 1,000 years

• Plants are pumping far more methane into the air than was expected

• The Sun's brightness is changing much more quickly than anyone expected

The evidence against AGW is mounting. Again, I agree there's no question that we're increasing CO2 levels, but the amounts are too small to matter compared to what Nature creates and the impacts of forcing agents like the Sun.

In other words, we could return to an agrarian economy tomorrow and there'd still be Cat 4 and 5 hurricanes, and melting ice caps.

Actually if you were intelligent

Ohhhh, that's harsh, Wadard. The more so since you're such an enthusiastic proponent for AGW that I value your opinion of my intelligence very highly.

[PAUSING AGAIN FOR SMUG TRIUMPHAL MUSIC]

Ah, now I feel much better.

It's the Sun we're talking about! An 11,000°F thermonuclear gasbag hanging 93 million miles away from Earth, that now appears to have a "climate" of its own, consisting of hot and cool spells, and bright and dim patches -- one that's every bit as varied as the Earth's.

Except in this case when the Sun sneezes, it's the Earth that gets a fever.

"So if we’d signed onto the Kyoto Protocol and had started messing with our economies to reduce CO2 emissions, how stupid would we feel about now as we learn that the Sun is probably to blame for rising temperatures? Pretty darn stupid – and about $500 billion poorer. Thank you, President Bush for bucking the 'consensus.'"

Actually if you were intelligent you would probably be feeling pretty smart and smug because you would be in a much better situation to take on the force multiplier effect of global brightening. Your smug truimphalism does not take into account that global brightening theory does not rule out global warming theory; anthropomorphic injected atmospheric carbon dioxide is still in the dock. Global brightening will only aggravate the effects of greenhouse warming, much like hotter ocean temperatures fuel cat 4 and 5 hurricanes more often. Global brightening is all the more reason why we need our polar ice caps intact.

One could interpret this bogus Bezerkley study in the following two ways:

1) Conservatives get their whininess out of the way when they are young, liberals wait until they grow up to be continually whiny about everything...

2) When liberals complain and protest about everything and blame it all on conservatives, that's not whininess that's "speaking truth to power".

See, it all depends on how one defines "whininess".

Hi James,

The thing is that there are indicators that are worrying. The first grass in Antartica for several hundred years, the Greenland ice sheet shedding ice at an extreme rate and accelerating, and the tropical storms systems appear to be showing higher energy patterns than they have before.

If there is a 'tip over' then it _could_ be catastrophic. Certainly I've seen changes happening over the past couple of decades, and normally we think of the planet as having a period of change that takes lifetimes.

What do you mean by "catastrophic?"

What's the worst that could happen? We warm things up so much that the seas become flooded with fresh water, thereby disrupting the great ocean conveyor belt. Result: we get an ice age, an occurrence that's been overdue anyway. So we hurry along an ice age that 's going to happen anyway. How is that "catastrophic?"

Or do you think we'll heat up beyond the 10 degree range that's been this planet's comfort zone for the last 600 mill. years?

"Yet when looked at over a very long period of time (600 million years) it's clear that CO2 has had very little effect on average global temperatures."

By that token I can prove that there's no life in the universe, but I'd be plagarising Douglas Adams. When you average anything over a long enough period, your mean means nothing. Likewise averaging the population of the world over 600 million years would tend to suggest that I should have more backyard space than I do.

Ah, Douglas Adams! No debate on science is complete without at least one quote from him or Robert Heinlein. But Adams was deriving the average population of the Universe by dividing by infinity. 600 million years hardly qualifies as "infinity" so I don't think your point is valid. But since you don't like using averages, I take it then you also disapprove of the "hockey stick" which was derived by using weighted averages?

But whether or not you approve of using averaged data, 600 million years ago the CO2 levels were 7000 ppm, now they're about 350, that's a hugely significant downward slope. Meanwhile, over that same period of time temperatures have remained within a 10 degree range. If CO2 had the impact AGW proponents say it should have, for millions of years, temperatures should have been about 19 times higher than today as they tracked with the CO2 levels.

The thing is that there are indicators that are worrying. The first grass in Antartica for several hundred years, the Greenland ice sheet shedding ice at an extreme rate and accelerating, and the tropical storms systems appear to be showing higher energy patterns than they have before.

So over hundreds of years (barely an eyeblink in terms of climate trends) we've seen that grass grows in Antarctica, is frozen out, and is growing again thanks to the current warming cycle. Since we didn't warm up Antarctica the last time grass was growing there, why believe we're responsible this time around?

I'm curious as to the motive that you place behind what you consider a 'panic' over nothing. I know the media and politicians tend to thrive on debate, but this is a scientific issue that requires the application of the scientific method rather than assigning human frailties to everyone that comes up with an opposition viewpoint. I'd also not take scientific advice from anyone considered a 'journalist'...it would be like showing the milkman that dodgy melanoma on the back of my knee.

It's some scientists, politicians, and media people that I don't trust. Thirty years ago, they were telling us pollution was causing a global ice age, now it's global warming.

"... An increase by a factor of 8 in the amount of CO2 (which is highly unlikely in the next several thousand years), will produce an increase in the surface temperature of less than 2 deg. K. However, the effect on surface temperature of an increase in the aerosol content of the atmosphere is found to be quite significant. An increase by a factor of 4 in the equilibrium dust concentration in the global atmosphere, which cannot be ruled out as a possibility within the next century, could decrease the mean surface temperature by as much as 3.5 deg. K. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease could be sufficient to trigger an ice age. "

Dr. Stephen Schneider, (from a 1971 paper in Science on the effect of atmospheric aerosols)

Yes he changed his mind when he had more data, but it took five years. We're still collecting data and I don't think we've been doing it long enough to rely on it for managing our economy.

As for my motives in distrusting those who spread fear about AGW, too many AGW proponents have budgets that are improved by climate alarmism, others seem to have some basic anti-capitalist axe to grind, and some just flat-out think humanity is an unNatural cancer on Gaia:

• "We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."
  
  Dr. Stephen Schneider (now he's a leading advocate of the global warming theory not global cooling)
  (in interview for Discover magazine, Oct 1989)

• [Prince Charles] quoted John Coomber, a director of an organization that assesses risk who called global warming 'the number one risk in the world, ahead of terrorism and demographic change.'
  
  'I think he has got a point,' Prince Charles said.

• "Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing -- in terms of economic policy and environmental policy."
  
  Tim Wirth, U.S. Senator, Colorado.

• “After 40 years of living with the concept of Gaia I thought I knew her, but I realize now that I underestimated the severity of her discipline. I knew that our self-regulating Earth had evolved from those species that left a better environment for their progeny and by the elimination of those who fouled their habitat, but I never realised how destructive we were, or that we had so grievously damaged the Earth that Gaia now threatens us with the ultimate punishment of extinction.”
  
  James Lovelock , 85, is an academic who has taught Chemistry at Harvard , Yale and Oxford. He has published a book this year called the “Revenge of Gaia”

• "No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits.... Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world."
  
  Christine Stewart, Minister of the Environment of Canada
  recent quote from the Calgary Herald

They want us to change our economies, but if it turns out they're wrong (as in "Did we say ice age? We meant global warming!....No! Ice age!") we'll have wasted hundreds of billions to no effect. Waiting a hundred years or so to be certain as to what's going on would be prudent. Besides by that time, we'll finally have hydrogen fuel cells, zero emissions coal power plants, fusion power, etc. The problem of AGW, assuming it turns out to be a problem, will solve itself if we give ourselves time to come up with the technology.

One more thing, James. I am not a scientist, so my comments are based on what I read about GW online (Real Climate, Climate Audit, etc.). But from some hints in your comments, I take it that you are a scientist, is that correct? If so, what's your field of research?

Chris,

Water vapour isn't a gas, and remains pretty much constant depending on the relative surface temperature of the area under solar input. The boiling off of water molecules into the air is something that happens, and while it's contributory, you can't really make the point that it's impossible to see the deciduous trees for the forest.

"The entire argument on sudden climate change hinges on the impact of rising CO2 levels."

Not by any stretch of the imagination. Suddenly changing CO2 levels are a cause for concern, as are any changes in the balance of gasses in the atmosphere; a sudden rise in oxygen would be hugely dangerous even though people tend to consider oxygen useful. It's less about the amounts involved (which is where some of the horsetrading comes in when you start mucking about with amounts in the PPM), but the effect that those amounts have on a system that is essentially the biggest CFD system we've ever had to deal with. Twice once you start factoring in all the water.

With any experiment you have to create a set of parameters that allow you to measure what you're looking for and try to isolate all factors that can have an effect; this is impossible with the climate, so the data we're getting, and the stuff I've been looking at for the last ten years is pretty much the same as viewing the cistine chapel through a keyhole.

The thing is that there are indicators that are worrying. The first grass in Antartica for several hundred years, the Greenland ice sheet shedding ice at an extreme rate and accelerating, and the tropical storms systems appear to be showing higher energy patterns than they have before.

If there is a 'tip over' then it _could_ be catastrophic. Certainly I've seen changes happening over the past couple of decades, and normally we think of the planet as having a period of change that takes lifetimes.

"Yet when looked at over a very long period of time (600 million years) it's clear that CO2 has had very little effect on average global temperatures."

By that token I can prove that there's no life in the universe, but I'd be plagarising Douglas Adams. When you average anything over a long enough period, your mean means nothing. Likewise averaging the population of the world over 600 million years would tend to suggest that I should have more backyard space than I do.

Have you tried using fifteen or twenty year windows and applied a travelling average? Bear in mind that industrialisation has only really happened over the past three hundred years, and you don't want to be accidentally factoring in things like the KT boundary event which would give you a bit of a spike.

I'm curious as to the motive that you place behind what you consider a 'panic' over nothing. I know the media and politicians tend to thrive on debate, but this is a scientific issue that requires the application of the scientific method rather than assigning human frailties to everyone that comes up with an opposition viewpoint. I'd also not take scientific advice from anyone considered a 'journalist'...it would be like showing the milkman that dodgy melanoma on the back of my knee.

James

"Electric reactive armor should be more effective than explosive reactive armor because it can provide protection even if struck repeatedly in the same location."

There's the capacitence problem to overcome in terms that the initial electric charge will be exhausted the first time it's used, necessitating recharging. It's unlikely that the charge is maintained by the battery simply because of the huge 'bounce' that a discharge would create.

The current best defence against RPGs is the one used to great effect...grills and chains applied approximately 12 inches from the actual armour that cause the SEFOP plume to coat the exterior armour. Ugly, but it works.

The cute thing is that the MoD's research branch used to be DERA, which was later spun off as Qinetiq, the sale to private individuals being facilitated by the Carlyle group. I wonder who's actually doing this research, and whether they've heard the motto of the British Army.

James

Hi James,

I question the validity of climate change results when the leading scientists in the field choose to ignore the major component of greenhouse gases: water vapor. The entire argument on sudden climate change hinges on the impact of rising CO2 levels. Yet when looked at over a very long period of time (600 million years) it's clear that CO2 has had very little effect on average global temperatures.

Your comment is timely, I just posted an entry on the subject here.

"Draw your own conclusions, but if global warming is truly occurring, I’ve yet to see any evidence that mankind is responsible for it."

This statement begs two questions.
One) Are you looking for it?
Two) Are you _actually_ looking for it?

There is a USGS report produced by the administration that produced this conclusion, so you'll either have to conclude that the Bush administration was mistaken (Heaven forfend), or engaging in one of those junk science experiments that the more dullwitted climate commentator tends to handwave towards. I trust that you'll read the report and start to undertake the shouting from "the highest web server!". You should start by reading 'Science' or the 'New Scientist' to find out how coherent the whole field is compared with the 'MSM' as you term it. The media has a merely passing acquaintance with science and relies on human attributes to sell it's advertising space.

As a side note to Larry, humanity has a fairly narrow range of temperatures that it can survive between that start with water being in it's liquid phase, becoming narrowed by the growth of food crops and necessary farming to keep humanity alive. Warming or cooling over a continental range can change prevailing climate to the extent where crops for a year can become unviable. This has happened, as you point out, many times in the past, but there is the slight problem that the vast majority of food is transported across national boundaries and that nations are interdependant.

There's absolutely no doubt that the planet will survive climate change, the real point is whether humanity can mitigate the transition from today's world to tomorrow's world without wholesale dieback. Call it 'chicken little' arguments but even measuring the heat output of the human race as a whole and comparing it to a scenario where that heat output does not exist should avail you of a hint.

The most important aspect is that this whole field is non-political, and the consistent way in which people try to make it partisan, yourself included, tends to miss the whole point of the question. The problem remains whoever sits in the big chair.

James

Hi Jaxebad,

You haven't demonstrated anything about the voting patterns of the working class

I didn't think it was neccessary to spell it out beyond showing what nonsense it is calling Republicans the "Party of Billionaires." The fact that the presidency, congress, etc. (see this post) are in the hands of Republicans, clearly demonstrates how the working class votes. By the way, just who is "the working class?" In this era when it seems everyone is in some type of service-related job, what qualifies as working class?

Even regarding political donations, the article you cited omitted the donations from those who donated less than $200 per person. This type of donation would be more in line with what the "working man" who made political donations would make.

I omitted the less-than $200 amounts because there aren't any statistics available. The law only forces parties to divulge info on donations of $200 and above. Still, it's my guess that Republicans must be getting the lion's share. Think about it, it takes a lot of small donations to compensate for what the Dems get from billionaires, the wealthy in general, and unions, and yet the GOP tends to have more money in the bank than the Dems. It must be coming from small donations.

I'm still very skeptical.

All you are demonstrating is that the wealthiest of the wealthy (using a very small sample size) are Democrats. You haven't demonstrated anything about the voting patterns of the working class.

Even regarding political donations, the article you cited omitted the donations from those who donated less than $200 per person. This type of donation would be more in line with what the "working man" who made political donations would make.

Jaxebadt