Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Weather Channel Founder Wants Al Gore Sued

Apparently the founder of the Weather Channel, John Coleman, a disbeliever in global warming, feels that his own Weather Channel has lost its way in advocating global warming as a reality. He wants to sue Al Gore and anyone selling warming credits to expose the "fraud" of global warming since the press won't give anyone of the opposing viewpoint the time of day.

I say, good for him. Interesting that I can't find this story anywhere on the New York Times or CNN.

Sue Al Gore for Fraud

Weather Channel Founder: Sue Al Gore for Fraud

That's an interesting idea, sueing al and taking all his money. Might take him down a peg or two? I doubt it though, Al's part of that elitest mindset that thinks everyone ELSE should do their part while he continues to live ostentaniously. I'd think it would be hilarious justice for HIS wealth to get spread around a little more evenly. The sad fact is that it would mostly be the lawyers who get the money, and I disrespect lawyers about as much as I disrespect hypocrite limosine liberals.

Seriously, why doesn't he go around buying "enviro-friendly" vehicles for us "small folk" with his vast wealth? Why doesn't he sell that huge energy consuming mansion of his (with the mercury laden "enviro-friendly" light bulbs) and use that money to purchase biodegradable toilet paper for everyone...that'll fix the planet.


TEEEEEEJ

Al Gore has gone off the deep end -- or I'd believe that if he wasn't making so much money at this. He's even selling "carbon credits" to himself from one of his own companies to "compensate" for the huge carbon footprint of his house. Nice racket, if you can get away with it. Unfortunately, the little people like us don't have the resources or the chutzpah of Enviro-man.

My problem with climate change is that the climate is always changing. I have a great deal of skepticism about humanity having much to do with it -- and I definitely don't think we should enact radical changes in the way we live that can damage the economies of whole nations without being a little more sure of our facts. Remember, those who shout the loudest about their concern for others frequently have motives that won't stand up to the light of day.

Nan

DH and his step dad always joke about the carbon credits or whatever. Talked about printing some up and selling them on Ebay . I'll have to forward these articles on to his step dad - he'll get a kick out of them.

That said... the movie Gore did - I forget the name of it and the exact facts but a judge in Great Britain somewhere said that the vast majority of the science was faulty or misleading etc., and the articles I read said like 3/4 of the rest of it was things like the 2000 election and nice scenery and waxing poetically. I haven't seen it and probably won't, but I found that interesting.

Not that I remember... but in the 70s, wasn't another ice age coming? I think, like Nan, that the climate is always changing and, while we probably shouldn't go out of our way to make a bigger carbon footprint, going out of our way the other way isn't necessarily necessary either. For instance... we're probably getting a big SUV in the next couple of years - we already have 4 kids and no room for friends etc so that's the next stop. Am I opposed to a hybrid? Not if I can find one in my price range that does what I need it to, etc. Am I going to go spend an extra 8G or whatever it is JUST so I can have a hybrid? No.

I'm with you on those light bulbs TEEEJ. They look funny, apparently they can cause health problems if broken etc., and soon that's all they're going to make :p .

Carol

Yeah, that light bulb fiasco really ticks me off. All in the name of some weird environmental science where saving a couple of pennies per bulb in energy costs is worth the extra cost to the environment of all that mercury we get to expose our kids to. And we have to pay more for these polluting fluorescents, too.

That said, I get headaches when around fluorescent bulbs too much and have my office lights on as dim as I can get them. Without having incandescent light bulbs to use to get rid of those headaches, do these people think we should all start reverting back to pre-Edison days and start using candles again? Doesn't all that smoke and wax pose health hazards too?

I tried replacing the canned lights in my den once about four years ago with some of these fluorescents just to see if i could put up with them. What surprise I had when I flicked the light switch on and it stayed dark. Huh? It took about five to ten seconds before they got even a little bit bright and a full minute before these bulbs warmed up and actually got to their full brightness. That ended the experiment immediately. What good are light bulbs that don't get fully bright immediately? I'm sure they've improved since my ill-fated experiment and probably get brighter a bit faster but still, they don't hold a candle <g> to incandescent.

Oh Carol, that movie you're thinking of is "An Inconvenient Truth." I wouldn't waste your time on it. The "science" on that is so bogus it might as well have been made by Michael Moore.

Too bad I couldn't find the original article but here's a story referring to Newsweek Magazine's 1975 article about the terror of the upcoming Ice Age and the threat of global cooling where scientists were also "unanimous" about all the scientific data.


Hot Tempers on Global Warming

I have no clue about Al Gore - haven't been paying attention - but, personally, I am sick and tired of rich and famous people lecturing the rest of us on how we can save the planet by not keeping our TVs on standby. :rolleyes: I reckon I've have to keep it on standby for several millennia before I match the waste their excesses cause.

I'm more than willing to do my bit for the environment, but I am finding that the environmental lobby is becoming increasingly hysterical and illogical at times. It seems as though something becomes a cause, the media gets all hysterical too, governments jump on the bandwagon - and no one is actually asking if it's really helping.

Case in point: plastic carrier bags from supermarkets. Cause of huge uproar in the UK right now. The government even threatened in this week's budget to impose a ban on the things. Yet we are told that the paper bags they want to replace them cause 6 times the carbon emissions to produce and transport.

Most plastic bags are degradable these days (they claim it takes a thousand years to do it, but I'm not sure I believe them). I - and many other people - after bringing them home from the supermarket use them as rubbish bags, which I then put in my wheelie bin. Surely much better than the black heavy plastic binbags we used before? Which can't be as easily degraded, AFAIK. And - following the advice to dog owners from our council - I use them to pick up after Homer when he's out in the woods and then dispose of them in the dog waste bins dotted around the area.

Seems to me, they're an environmentally useful item which are less damaging than the alternatives. But all that seems to have been lost in the rush to ban them in a hysterical atmosphere.

I have to confess here that I'm certainly not in tune with most of the opinions here on global warming as an issue per se. But I do think solutions need to be thought through and targeted. And, too often, at the moment, it seems, the government thinks any solution means a new or increased tax (tax seems to be the only way they can see to fix things :rolleyes: )and some environmentalists are leaping into the fray before engaging their brains.

LabRat

Yeah, I'm all for protecting and taking care of God's Green Earth but I do think the libs sometime go overboard with this whole global warming thing. I'm no expert but I do remember learning in school that the climate goes in cycles so what's the big deal? I know our ozone layer is depleting but the climate still has it's cycles regardless. (someone correct me if I'm way off).

As for Al Gore, I can't believe he won the Nobel Peace Prize for that movie/study/whatever. I never saw it, don't want to see it. I think the title was fitting though because apparently the truth is way too inconvenient for him. I got this in an email and checked it out on snopes.com. It's true. Not sure how this will post cause I just copied it from my email...



A Tale of Two Houses


House #1 A 20 room mansion ( not including 8 bathrooms ) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool ( and a pool house) and a separate guest house, all heated by gas. In one month this residence consumes more energy than the average American household does in a year. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2400 per month. In natural gas alone, this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not situated in a Northern or Midwestern "snow belt" area. It's in the South.

House #2
Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university. This house incorporates every "green" feature current home construction can provide. The house is 4,000 square feet ( 4 bedrooms ) and is nestled on a high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat-pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground.

The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas and it consumes one-quarter electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the surrounding rural landscape.

~~~~~
HOUSE #1 is outside of Nashville, Tennessee; it is the abode of the "environmentalist " Al Gore.

HOUSE #2 is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas; it is the residence the of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.

An "inconvenient truth."

You can verify it at:
Snopes Bush vs. Gore House

So neither one of those prominent politicians practices what he preaches? What a shock.

Paul

(Who is not going to rehash global climate change yet again)

P.S. Stephnachia, would you mind removing some of those dashes in that long line there? It's kind of messing with the formatting of the page.

Done!

Steph, I've also heard that Gore doesn't practice what he preaches to others. I have to disapprove of him for that. But for all of that, he might still be right about global warming.

I know that you've had an ice cold, snowbound winter in the United States and Canada, and it has been freezing in China, too. But in Sweden we have had the warmest winter on record, and the media have shown us pictures of glaciers which used to be big and impressive, but which have melted to almost nothing now. You have to admit that a pair of pictures like these ones give you pause:



Ann

Much better. Thanks, Stephnachia.

And I guess I'll say it one more time...

Either you agree that we need to clean up our air (which, BTW, we want to do for other reasons... ) and possibly we save the world in the process or you gamble that a significant number of prominent trained experienced professional scientists are wrong and you live with dirty air and risk global catastrophe. It kind of seems like a no-brainer to me.

And the simple fact that WE can do nothing to save, enhance or destroy the world is a pretty simple no-brainer to me. WE have no control over climate, or volcanos, or asteroids, or anything else the universe is going to throw at us, there is NOTHING we can do. If I'm cleaning up my own back yard, it's because I want my back yard to look nice.

You want to see some REAL truth about this environmental crap, some no bias no BS coverage? I recommend Penn & Tellers BullS*** You'll find out everything you EVER wanted to know about what a waste of time and money recycling is.

TEEEEEEJ

I clean up my own messes and do my best not to dump junk all over the planet -- but it infuriates me when a bunch of scientifically know-nothing politicians start making laws to correct a problem which isn't yet firmly established as a problem and about which they are completely ignorant. Especially when those laws are going to affect my life, my finances and my family's standard of living.

I see an awful lot of political opportunism in the "climate change" debate. Leave it to politicians to grab onto something of this sort to help enrich themselves and increase their power. Heaven forbid that they should listen to any side of the debate that won't help them with the above objectives.

Here is a link to an article written by the President of the Czech Republic on the politics of climate change.

http://heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=22902

And here's an article I found a while ago in Newsmax which at least presents a counter argument to the shrinking glaciers.

http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/global_warming_or_cooling/2008/02/19/73798.html


Nan

If you want to check up on glaciers and their size changes, you might want to check here, too:

http://www.iceagenow.com/List_of_Expanding_Glaciers.htm

http://www.iceagenow.com/Growing_Glaciers.htm

Yes, some glaciers have shrunk. Many more have grown.

There are a lot of links on that second page. You might want to check them out.

Tara

Hmmm... so many different views as far as global warming goes. Honestly, global warming has never really been a big issue with me. I say, maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

I am totally for cleaning up the environment, though. I do know there is a lot more litter everywhere and I'm no big fan of smog or chemicals in my drinking water. Although I'm not out there picketing or hugging trees, I do love this Earth and hate to see it trashed. I live near New Braunfels, TX where there is(was) a beautiful clean river (Guadalupe). Sadly, it is getting trashier and trashier every year because of drunk teenagers and careless people who throw their empty beer bottles & used condoms all over the place. Same thing is happening with the Frio River, another beautiful river that seems to be going downhill.

And who doesn't want their car to produce less smog? I mean, I for one don't like walking on the sidewalk only to choke every time someone drives by. It really does come down to politics though. The technology is out there and yet they make it so unavailable. I'd like to buy a Hybrid car but why do they have to cost an arm and a leg?! Daryl Hannah, who is a major environmentalist, has a car that runs on left over grease from fast food restaurants. She said her exhaust smells like donuts. Now that's something I wouldn't mind smelling while I'm taking a walk. So like I said, if the technology is there, why isn't it being utilized properly. I mean, hell, there's plenty of fast food grease to go around!!

So, I guess I'm not so annoyed with people who are so lovingly referred to as 'tree huggers', but more so with the politicians who promote it so much and yet do nothing to make changes. I am a firm believer in practicing what you preach so when I read about stuff like Al Gore's friggin monthly electricity bill, while he's out there shaking his finger at America, I just wish I could give him and every other stupid liberal politician a swift kick in the ***.

But just to be equal, Republican politicians sometimes bother me too because they act like they don't care at all about the environment. They're not out there tisking America, they're completely ignoring the issues. Which I do think taking care of our environment is an issue, not so much global warming.

This pretty much sums it up for me. I don't care what the cause of recent changes is, but I don't see that the best response is to sit back and do nothing, either way. It seems much more logical to me to do all you can to reduce the effects just because it's doing something.

No matter what you do or how little, it seems to me doing something is always better than nothing. If we adopted an 'we can't do anything so let's do nothing' attitude elsewhere in life, think of the trouble we'd be in and the problems we'd still have that were never fixed by those who decided, "I might not solve the problem, but by god I'll lessen it!".

BTW, talking about depleting the ozone layer - I love the story of poor Thomas Midgley Jnr. Who solved the problem in the 1920's of car engines knocking by introducing lead into petrol.

Several years later, he was devastated to realise he'd been responsible for polluting half the planet as a result.

Determined to make up for it, he turned his attention to fridges, which at that point used a highly dangerous chemical in the refrigeration process...and invented CFCs to solve that little issue.

Thankfully for Midgley, he probably never knew that he was responsible for depleting the ozone layer as a result and went to his grave never knowing he had earned the title of 'Most Destructive Single Person on the Planet".

Poor Midgley. Talk about your good intentions paving the way to hell.

LabRat

I don't think anyone is against keeping the planet clean. What I *am* against is people jumping the gun, passing laws that will increase taxes and decrease freedom before we know if there is a real problem that should be addressed and if so what the right way to address it is. And I am very much against holier-than-thou celebrities, political figures and self-appointed gurus shaking their fingers at the rest of us while they single-handedly cause more pollution and waste of energy than any fifty ordinary citizens combined.

Nan

You ever hear of the ozone hole? Big gap in nature's protection against some of the more harmful rays of the sun. Started out over the south pole and grew to encompass a fair chunk of the southern hemisphere. Skin cancer rates in Australia have skyrocketed. UV and other radiation levels are demonstrably higher.

We made that. In a frighteningly short time. If we hadn't wised up and adopted more responsible policies, it'd be over our heads by now.

Then there's the Dust Bowl. Cloud of dust that literally blackened the sky over vast portions of the country back in the 1930s or so. We made that, too. If we hadn't wised up and adopted more responsible policies, the plants in our farmland would have died off from lack of sunlight, among other major consequences.

We've also driven more than a few species into extinction by hunting them faster than they could reproduce and by poisoning them with chemicals such as DDT. We'd have killed off a lot more if we hadn't wised up and adopted more responsible policies.

And we're destroying the forests (particularly rainforests) much faster than they can regrow. Which is a problem because, among other things, plants are what clean up and recycle the air for us - producing oxygen and reducing pollutants. To feed our hunger for beef, the forests of South America are being slashed down, burned up, and then replaced with pasture land for cows. So we're destroying the plants that could clean up the mess, creating clouds of smoke, and then putting methane-producing cows in place to eat up what's left. And destroying countless species of plants and animals in the process.

Yes, human beings can affect their environment. One or two of us? Maybe not. Billions of us? You bet.

Don't believe me? Go take a swim in the bay of any major city. And then think about how many major cities there are.

Whether you believe in climate change or not, this is a pretty far reaching statement. Are you saying that polluting the air or the water - which humans have unquestionably done - isn't destroying the earth? For example: God gave us water to drink. Due to our actions, a great deal of it is now unsafe to drink. We destroyed it. If we corrected the problem, we'd be saving it. To me, that's the simple no-brainer.

Lisa, who will at least agree that the world can't be enhanced - it was perfect when God gave it to us.

Yes, we can affect our environment, but I doubt it is to the degree that is being claimed. Unless you also believe that we can cause other planets in our solar system to warm up, as well. We must have magic powers! We warmed up Mars! Yay!

Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says

Global Warming on Pluto Puzzles Scientists


Mars and Pluto Climates Warming, Al Gore Scours for Extraterrestrial SUVs

Global Warming on Mars, Pluto, Triton and Jupiter

It's a cycle. Give it a little time and it'll most definitely swing the other way. Just as an example, have you noticed how many places are getting record rain and snowfall this winter? Have you read how many people have died from the unusually low temperatures? We even got snow here, in Ramona, trust me, snow here is weird!


Tara

It's interesting to read the differing views in this thread.

It's such a complex topic, so it's important to filter carefully all the information bombarding us. There's a lot of extremism on both sides. And each side has its hyocrites and its con-men. (don't be buying carbon credit certificates from Russians )

We can't control sunspot activity and other factors which have changed our climate since .... whenever. Records indicate that early Medieval England was warm enough to have a good wine industry. The mini-ice age (a hyperbolic term ) saw the canals of Holland freeze over quite regularly in the 17 the century. (look at all those wonderful paintings by Avercamp of people skating on the canals.)

Here in Canada our environmental agency (I've forgotten the proper title of the gov't dept!) has found that the polar ice cap has increased this winter and is now at 1996 levels.

But, no doubt that we humans can do a whole lot more to improve environmental conditions. (short of committing suicide in order to reduce our life-span carbon footprint )

Just look at how the quality of water in the Thames River has been improved from what it was decades ago. The air quality in London is better too (although it's still not a place a person with serious asthma wants to spend a summer) since the turn of the twentieth century.

So do what we can , both as individuals and communities, reject false and sensationalist science and the pompous gurus who sell that stuff, and nail those politicians on both sides of the debate whose solutions are self-serving and hypocritical.

Climate and environmental change have been a part of Earth's history. (just ask the dinosaurs ) But that doesn't give us an escape clause for not trying to be better conservators and for finding more carbon efficient ways of meeting our needs.

As the Ancient Greeks said: moderation in all things

(except for sex with the man you love. Although.... that might contribute to global warming - all that steam - so maybe cut that back to soulful glances)

anyway, my rambling thoughts

c.

Yes, some degree of climate change is natural. We're not the only influence. But we are a significant one. And we need to be aware of the effects our choices have on our planet. The consequences of those choices are going to come back to us in the end.

And yes, politicians make laws that restrict the way you do things. Did you know they also made theft and murder illegal? They've politicized the issues! And made it so much more inconvenient to deal with problems like poor neighbors and cash flow. Those darned politicians! What right do they have to impinge upon our freedom and way of life like that?

People, as individuals, in the absence of guidance/authority, tend to be selfish and irresponsible. I like to have faith in humanity as a whole, but sometimes people need rules. To make sure that we don't hurt each other (and ourselves), that we share in the work/responsibility, etc.

If you constantly choose expediency over foresight, it'll catch up with you.

As far as proof goes... How do we prove things scientifically? Through experimentation. You try something, and then you monitor the consequences/results. And then you repeat it to make sure your results are consistent.

Well... we can't do that this time. We're talking about catastrophic global climate change. We've only got one planet, and we live here. By the time you prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we're on a course to ruining the entire planet, it's too late.

We came a lot closer than I'd like to think with the ozone hole. Fortunately, we caught that one in time, slowed its progress, and have even slowly started to reverse our catastrophic mistake.

Now, a very significant number of people who are in position to make some pretty good educated guesses are telling us that we're on a path to an even bigger mistake, and that we're approaching the point of irreversability.

I'll say it yet again. We've got two options.

1. Believe the mob of professionals telling us that we need to clean up our act. We'd have fewer toxins to breathe, fewer long-term problems, and, quite possibly, we'd save ourselves from ruining the entire planet.

2. We ignore them because they can't prove it with 100% certainty. We continue to poison ourselves and make ourselves sick. And we play Russian Roulette with the entire world.

Even if there's a 50/50 chance that they're right... why take the risk when we know pretty much for sure that we'd be better off cleaning things up anyway?

Or, I guess, there is one more choice:

3. We ignore the scientists telling us that the world is going to be destroyed because we'd rather not hear it, continue scientific research into other fields, and then, just as the planet becomes uninhabitable to our species, launch our last baby into space and hope he finds a nice couple of aliens to raise him in an environment where he can develop super powers. Hey, it worked on that TV show we all know and love, right?

Paul, I didn't get the impression that most posters in this thread were denying the seriousness of the environmental issue or that the work of scientists in the relevant fields should be ignored or that politicians always make bad or immoral laws.

The impression I do have from these posts is that there is some disagreement over how to interpret the "science" (and even how data should be used to analyze and describe the situation) as well as the nature of the political choices that must now be made.

c.

My impression was that there was talk of doubting human impact on the environment and global climate change, and whether we needed to do anything about it. The thread started out with a post in favor (as far as I can tell) of a "disbeliever in global warming."

Back to an earlier post...

You know the problem with the "Venus is like that, too" argument? Venus is uninhabitable (by humans). Earth used to be like that, back before billions of single-celled organisms, each making an infinitesimal difference, changed the climate of the entire planet.

Venus has too many greenhouse gasses. Venus is too hot to support human life. We're producing greenhouse gasses, making the planet more like Venus. Now, maybe that'd happen by itself, maybe not. But helping to tip the balance, helping to hasten the process of making this planet uninhabitable by our species... not the smartest move ever, you know? And if we need regulation to make sure that people don't do that, well, it seems like a good idea to me.

Venus is also too close to the sun. Earth, on the other hand, has been placed in exactly the right position to support life(I wonder how a coincidence like that happened )

I just can't see how if the Earth has been around as long as "science" says it has, how a mere 150 years of industrial revolution is supposed to "play russian roulette" with the planet??? That's just a ridiculously extreme remark to make. Also, if the Earth were to be destroyed, then I guess that'll end war, death, famine, and hate, won't it? Isn't that what everybody wants?


TEEEEEEJ

Venus is too hot for its position relative to the Sun. Venus is actually slightly hotter than Mercury, even though Mercury is closer to the Sun than Venus. The reason for Venus's scorching temperatures is its thick atmosphere, full of greenhouse gases. The question is where Venus got all those greenhouse gases from. It could be that Venus had a lot of extremely violent volcanic eruptions which released huge amounts of noxious gases into the atmosphere.

Ann

Paul, you've made some very good points. And I think everyone on this thread would agree that a clean environment is much better than a poisoned one. There's the goal. The differences, I think, are in terms of strategy -- what can be done, what should be done. One extreme says, let's stop using fossil fuels, die by the millions and go back to living in caves. The other extreme says we can't do a darn thing about it so why kill ourselves trying? (this train of thought also says, we'll believe it's a crisis when global warmenists start *acting* like it's a crisis & give up their own consumption, which is where mockery of Al Gore's house, etc, comes in.) Most of us are somewhere in between.

So then the question is, what's the best, most efficient thing to do? Where do we get the most bang for our buck? Are solar cells going to produce enough clean power to make up for all the toxic chemical waste produced in building them? Would it be cheaper to retro-fit new pollution filters to old cars, or for the gov't to replace, free of charge, any car built before, say 1980? Do air-quality laws improve things globably, or do they push companies to other countries, where the standards are a lot lower, thereby increasing global emissions? Or, like LabRat said, does banning plastic bags make things better, or worse?

There are a lot of factors to consider.

And then there's the question of, do we pass punitive laws to try to force people to use longer-lasting yet more hazardous light bulbs, or do we try to figure out incentives for people and industries to make their own choices?

There's way too much emotion (not to say, hysteria) over the whole issue for much of a rational discussion over what incremental measures can be taken, and that's a shame.

Btw, anyone here ever read Fallen Angels? It's a book by Niven & Pournelle and some other guy whose name I don't remember, which came out in 1991. It's a near-future sci-fi adventure where sci-fi fans are the heroes (lots of fan in-jokes). The background to the story is a world where world goverments, convinced that global warming was imminent, took drastic steps to reduce emissions... which then triggered an ice age. Lots of interesting discussions in that book, and it's a fun read.

PJ

You know, Paul, I get the impression that you somehow believe that *any* action is better than none, but that if someone disagrees with you that we are apparently in favor of destroying the planet, and that simply isn't true. No one wants to ruin the planet, and none of us are evil simply because we don't happen to believe all the hysterical claims of the global warming adherents.

No, I don't believe all their wild claims. Over the 60 years of my life, I have seen far too many hysterical assertions in favor of (or against) various causes, all claiming that the cause, or the failure to support same cause, will result in the end of civilization as we know it. So far the world and our civilization are still ticking along.

You are a former MIT student and that, to me, means you are pretty bright. But the rest of us aren't stupid. I won't go into which claims I think are silly and which ones I think may have some merit, but the point is that just because I maintain a level of skepticism about much of what I am hearing doesn't make me evil. It means I am a thinking human being who takes time to evaluate the information I see and come to a reasoned conclusion. I would appreciate it if you would credit me with the ability to think, and stop implying that I am somehow against a clean planet just because I don't want to jump in without checking the water level, to use an L and C analogy.

The point of all this is that I truly think that there is a political agenda behind a great deal of the climate change claims and I think charging in too quickly with legislation to "fix" the problem may do more harm than good. If we are going to do something, we need to study climate change from all angles and include all the relevant information that we can gather before we start passing all kinds of ill-considered legislation to deal with it. As an example, I think the light bulb legislation is very bad. The new bulbs approved by our wise legislators have high contents of mercury that can cause serious brain damage and developmental problems, and possibly immune system problems, too, for children who happen to be exposed to it, and it isn't very good for adults either. What good is it to save the planet from global warming if we poison it in the process?

And the fact is that we *don't* have all the information we need to make wise decisions yet. Leaving out information in the computer models like the known warming and cooling cycles, the level of solar activity and things like the effects of clouds, simply because we don't know exactly how they work, skews those same computer models and gives us false results. When the computer models can't even predict *past* weather accurately, then I think it's safe to assume that their ability to predict future weather is somewhat in doubt. Just throwing anything and everything at a problem isn't the solution. We need to have some level of knowledge before we attack it, or we may wind up like the guy who put lead in gas to stop the knocking. Remember the law of unintended consequences. What looks good now may have the next generation swearing at us and calling us idiots.

What I am trying to say in my own bumbling way is that no, I don't advocate dirtying the planet indiscriminately. Yes, I do think we should be careful with what we do. And that doesn't mean I'm evil, selfish or indifferent. It just means that I try to make rational choices instead of jumping to conclusions with too little information. And that is exactly what I think a lot of the climate change hysteria is intended to make us do.

So please, try to avoid inferring that I and those who don't quite go along with you are bad people. We aren't, and I rather resent the implication that we are. When people bring personalities into a debate like this, that's when the shouting starts, and at that point any chance of having a civilized discussion is lost.

Nan

I'm not trying to imply that you're evil or bad or whatever. I do run into some trouble because I'm arguing on multiple fronts, with different people taking different stances.

When you and others tell me that you don't believe the science and you don't think we should be making policy about it, that sounds to me like you want to sit back and do nothing and argue about who's right...

And, frankly, I'm sick of what should be a simple scientific issue being turned into a political one. That "leftists" and "environmentalists" are horning in on people's lives and forcing them to make changes and are being evil and oppressive. And the sort of knee-jerk reaction I see (not necessarily in this thread) of "oh, it's a liberal idea, therefore it must be wrong."

Sorry if I offended you, misinterpreted you, or implied that you had an "evil" position on the issue.

Yes, the finer details of policy need to be worked out, in sensible ways that actually have a positive effect. But first we need to agree that we actually do need a policy and regulation and that what we do can affect the global environment and so on. Instead, we get complaints and feet dragging on the first step and now lawsuits... and little advancement on actually taking care of what should be perfectly obvious problems that need to be addressed (and the sooner the better for all of us).

The term "simple scientific issue" is an interesting one. Maybe it *should* be a simple scientific issue, but science is never simple, and climate science has millions of variables that we don't understand yet. Because of that, I'm not sure that there is a global warming problem, or if there is, how much. The Earth, as has been pointed out before, goes through warming and cooling cycles quite regularly. There was a time, about 1100 AD when the climate was considerably warmer than it is now, and I don't think anyone can seriously imply that that particular phase of global warming had anything to do with carbon emissions. There was a cooling trend that started in about 1350, it warmed briefly and dropped again around 1640 into the Maunder Minimum. Around 1715 it warmed again briefly and then we went into the Dalton Minimum which lasted from around 1740 to 1820. It's been warming since then but there have been dips in the curve even in recent times, and the current rise seems to have leveled off around 2001. This last winter for us has been one of the coldest in recent times, which interestingly coincides with a period of solar inactivity lasting since 2005 and still going. (Check out spaceweather.com to get a look at the current sun.) Just as a point of interest, since the beginning of the year there have been about four or five very tiny sunspots that vanished very quickly. One barely made it to the point where it could be called a sunspot and wasn't even assigned a number because it went away so fast.

The point of all this is that *we don't know enough*. Some scientists think we're in the middle of man made global warming caused by our carbon emissions but the fact is that the rise in CO2 *followed* the warming curve; it doesn't precede it. Other very well-respected scientists think that the current warming trend is part of a natural climactic cycle and that we may be near the end of it, which means we might soon be in the middle of 50 to 100 years of global cooling -- and this is as good a theory as the other one. It doesn't get as much play because the mainstream media have jumped on the global warming bandwagon. In the last year, more and more scientists have started to cast doubt on the global warming theories. They simply don't get the publicity the others get because it isn't nearly as exciting and doesn't fit the political template. With so much uncertainty going on, I think it's much too early to start doing drastic things, when we aren't sure there's even a real problem.

Does this make me a denier? Maybe. But sticking labels on people who advocate a more cautious approach to something this important doesn't necessarily invalidate our opinions, although that is the practical effect. I am one of the first to say that *we simply don't know*. We need to study the problem a bit more thoroughly, without hysterical (and often very silly) scientifically unvalidated claims being thrown around before we start doing things that can easily cause a lot more harm than good.

Nan

I don't even know what this means. I say that because chances are that even if the problem is studied more "thoroughly" (with respect to what, I wonder) there will ALWAYS be skeptics or charlatans crying out that there's something wrong or that the data is insufficient. An 100% consensus will NEVER be reached. It never is with things like this. The idea that there's some incontrovertible fact in the horizon that will put EVERYONE in the same page with something as complicated and agenda-laden as global warming is unrealistic.

You (general "you") can chose to disbelieve that the mass majority of scientists that believe that global warming is going on are led by political agendas that the media has spawned. That's certainly your prerogative. But personally, I think it's a bit unrealistic to say that the huge numbers on one side are due to corruption. That's when conspiracy theories go a bit too far I think.

Also, it's not like the other side is excempt from agendas either.

I'm not a scientist. I'm on the opposite side of campus actually, which means that by training I look critically past the glorification of "facts." I know science is just a constructed discourse as any other discipline and this is especially evident as the objects of study becomes more complex. That, however, doesn't mean that I dismiss the work of scientists, especially a large number of them. It's not responsible for me to do that--I don't know a thing about climate change and I wouldn't even begin to know how to interpret the data. I am very aware that I need someone else to mediate for me. So when I see that "an overwhelming majority" of scientists have agreed with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that really does sound like the people that I'd want to rely on for information. I really do disagree with the disrespect with which years of scientific training are dismissed by lay people who don't know a thing of the objects of study in question.

Is the IPCC perfect (because I already see some of you with "objective" links out to "educate" me)? NO--nothing is perfect. I know the criticisms, but until the other side can get a larger number of consensus, I'm afraid that's where I'm comfortable. True it's not a rock solid position, but I'm not sure if rigid, unchanging stances are always the best thing.

I find it interesting to look at the links people put up to back their claims. A lot of the time those links carry the same biases that the posters have, so I'm not sure how helpful they are in propping up a particular position as "correct."

alcyone

http://www.spaceweather.com/

This link has no agenda of any kind. It is simply a website that shows us what is going on in our solar system.

And as I said, I am not at this point saying that there isn't any global warming. I am simply advocating caution until we know a little bit more. Some of the solutions being touted can cause a great deal of harm and I don't want to see that harm done unless there is a real reason for it.

And since when am I promoting an agenda to say that we need to be a little careful? I look both ways before I cross the street, too. That doesn't mean I have an agenda. I just want to avoid an accident.

Nan

But that's exactly my point. At what point will we "know a little bit more"? And "know a little bit more" according to what? When will we all agree that we know enough to act or not to act?

I'm sorry, as I see it, it's just not going to happen. It's an unrealistic thing to hope for because someone will always disagree.

So in a sense, it is a lot like standing back and doing nothing. And there are implicit agendas that this position justifies (note I am speaking about a position not making a personal accusation or getting into a personality thing), as far as priorities go.

alcyone

Not at all. There was a time when people believed a lot of different things about the cause of disease that modern medical science disagrees with today. Those ideas haven't gone away (as an RN, I've run into quite a few people who still believe that diseases are an imbalance in the body's functions and that those imbalances allow germs to invade and multiply out of control, not the other way around) but the majority of evidence is on the side of the "germ theory" and that is what we operate on.

When science can show me a preponderance of evidence that the Earth's warming is due to man made causes, I'll go along with it. But first they're going to have to eliminate several other equally probable factors as the cause -- and so far they haven't. The IPCC "scientists" aren't all scientists by a long way, and quite a few of them have since come out and disavowed the report, saying that it is scientifically inaccurate and politically driven. Not having been there, I can't say whether it is or not. But I can say that enough well-respected scientists have cast doubt on the man-made global warming theory that I think it warrants some further study before we take it at face value. That is not doing nothing, and I don't think double checking our research is an unreasonable measure at all.

Nan

I've said what I have to say (I'm pretty sure). Obviously, you disagree. I understand that.

But...

Please stop putting words in my mouth. Not once have I said I thought you were "evil" or a "bad person." Not once have I tried to stick a label on you. I've argued generally, because there is a larger debate, both in this thread and beyond (you're not the only one speaking up for the doubter's side). But that is entirely different than throwing labels around or stamping them on you.

I've tried to represent my POV simply and clearly. And you're telling me that I'm quashing the discussion and making it personal?

And, yes, I think we need action. Not any action. But effective and sensible action to lower our emissions. It'll help for a whole host of reasons. Any action we take to slow global warming is going to have other positive effects. (I'd personally be in favor of it for those effects first and global warming as a happy side effect.) Making the changes will cost money now, but will ultimately be of benefit. The details will be hard to work out, yes, but the general idea seems very clear-cut.

And I'm getting a very mixed message from you on that. You don't want to act now because the science still isn't in. (That's something I've been hearing for at least 20 years. More than enough time to double- and triple-check the numbers and conclusions.) You don't want the government imposing regulations that could cost you money. But you're not against measures that would reduce emissions?

Now you're putting words in my mouth and taking me out of context. There is nothing that says we can't try to be good stewards of the planet. Keeping emissions low is a good idea. But I don't think that we should start legislating horrendous restrictions on our national economy until we at least have a good reason to think it will do some good.

Did you read *any* of the information I wrote about above? What I have tried to advocate is being careful and not jumping to a lot of conclusions not supported by the facts. The IPCC report is rife with errors and questionable data. I want to see that research double-checked by an organization less politically motivated than the UN -- one less interested in getting its hands into the pockets of US taxpayers.

For your information, Paul, I was recycling before you were born. Up until recently I've driven a compact or subcompact car. I do have an SUV now, for other, more overriding reasons, but even then I bought one of the smaller models that gets pretty good gas mileage. I try very hard not to pollute and to be a responsible citizen. I believe that taking care of the planet is a must.

*But* the science *isn't* in. There is a lot of evidence that the climate may be driven by solar activity. During those climactic minimums of which I spoke earlier the number of sunspots could be counted on the fingers of both hands. There are historical records, if you want to go to the trouble of looking them up. During the 1990s solar activity was way up, and the planet's temperature rose. But around 2001 it leveled off -- look it up. The records are there. The previous, older reports were based on flawed data that was later corrected by NASA. And then, around 2005 the next solar cycle was supposed to start and it didn't.

Forecasts for the new solar cycle were revised to start in 2006. Only it didn't. The winter that year was darned cold. Here in California we had several deep freezes that killed citrus crops all over the state. So again they revised the start date for 2007. And it didn't start. The summer in the southern hemisphere last year was so cold it's been referred to as the year without a summer. And this last winter the Earth's temperature averaged out as the coldest winter in several years. Snow packs covered huge amounts of the country, Britain froze, and in Southern China they got a cold wave that overwhelmed their emergency services -- especially since they don't *get* snow there. Or didn't. The new sunspot cycle was now predicted to start this year. So far they're still not sure it has.

Now I'm not saying that there is no other explanation for global warming and cooling than a solar one -- but it's at least one other viable theory that needs to be proven or disproven before we accept the man made cause unreservedly.

And one other thing that I respectfully take issue with you on. In the past, global warming has never hurt anyone. When the temperatures around the world rose, civilizations flourished. But when worldwide temperatures dropped, mankind was plagued with wars, starvation and disease. In this last century, the worldwide average temperature rose less than a full degree centigrade -- a rise that was virtually wiped out in this last year. The polar ice packs are growing again. I know, I know, the Antarctic peninsular ice is melting but that is believed to be due to shifts in ocean currents. The rest of the Antarctic ice pack is getting thicker. And, believe me, Antarctica is a very big place.

Now this could all be a temporary phenomenon. Maybe it is. But in my mind it is enough to raise some doubts. I didn't say I can't be convinced -- but I need something besides Al Gore's movie and the UN to convince me, because, as far as I'm concerned, their credibility is compromised by corruption and self-interest.

My position is perfectly consistent. I advocate caution and, as I said, caution is a pretty good way to go.

Nan

Clearly, we are not understanding each other's words and intentions. I respectfully withdraw from the discussion.

I've enjoyed our discussion, Paul, and I agree that now is a good time to stop.

Nan

I haven't had the time to jump in on this one, but I will honor both Paul's and Nan's request to stop. I'd just like to say this has been a great discussion.

Thanks to all who participated.

Awesome posts, Nan!