Academia, Environment, International, Politics

Hard-Right Science: Tea Party Leader Explains the Basic of Global Warming

This is almost hypnotic. One of the leaders at a Tea Party event with the Citizens of Liberty holds forth on the science of global warming. [Note: there will be no academic credit awarded for this Internet learning exercise].

The site for this organization makes clear that this is about a world socialist agenda:

No, nothing will ever be enough for these extremists. Because it really isn’t about saving the planet in the first place. It’s about pushing a socialist agenda to cripple the capitalist nations of the west. It’s about wealth redistribution and socialist schemes under the guise of environmentalism.

While nothing will ever be enough to straighten out the socialists and other Koolaid drinkers, we have more than enough for the American people to force our government to stop treating us worse than foreign dictators and stop this cap and trade global warming tax nonsense in the Senate.

I had to add this to our library of hard-right science, here.

206 thoughts on “Hard-Right Science: Tea Party Leader Explains the Basic of Global Warming”

  1. Everyone,

    This is a pretty lengthy post, and most of you have read something like this before, so I’d advise skipping it.

    IS,

    Didn’t see your post about trees when I was writing that. I found it interesting as well.

    I never claim to win arguments here. I probably could be considered the losing side of many, because I walk away from debates fairly frequently. I would be pretty surprised if anyone here considered me one of the great minds that frequent this web-site.
    The thing is that since I know I’m in the presence of better minds, and am generally not all that interesting, I have a set of rules that I try to abide by:
    I don’t start a conversation unless I think I have something interesting and unique to say.
    I always honestly consider what the other people involved are saying.
    I try to only engage people that I think will honestly consider what I’m saying.
    If I see a flaw in an argument I will generally point it out (It just so happens that straw men are one of the more common things that pop up. The other common one is lumping someone in with a group just because they share a single similar viewpoint. You’ll notice I’ve on several occasions defended people I disagree with from being called trolls, or lumped in with extremist groups. Since we’re not face to face it’s easy to make someone into a representation of the “other side” regardless of what they’re actually saying and both of those are two indicators of someone slipping into that mode of thinking). I would hope people would do the same for me. I assume that everyone that comes here comes here to learn and to help eliminate their mental blind spots. When it comes to scientific arguments I’m more aware of the possible blind spots than most, because I had to work my way out of my Young Earth Creationist indoctrination. Believe me if there’s a pseudo-scientific view, I probably held it.
    If find out that I’m wrong or could be wrong, I admit it. Same goes for if I don’t know\can’t find the answer. I freely admitted to not knowing the answer to your questions.
    The most important rule is that if I feel like the conversation is going to just degrade into an argument, (which is something I usually have no interest in engaging in) then I stop my end of it. I don’t claim victory, I just explain why I’m leaving and stop posting.
    There’s a few other guidelines I attempt to follow, but they’re stylistic and brevity things (and since I have already broken most of them with this rambling treatise, I’ll leave them out).
    I’m not as consistent in following my rules as I’d like to be, and am a little quick on the draw when it comes to pointing out logical fallacies. I apologize if that offends you, my intent is honest discussion, not antagonizing those who disagree with me.

  3. Fish have lost half their average body mass and smaller species are making up a larger proportion of European fish stocks as a result of global warming, a study published Monday has found.

    http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.d672f9d7f0f64fefdf0b21e696b41e21.7a1&show_article=1

    Has nothing to do with all the people who just want to catch big fish. It’s the co2. Has nothing to do with the long liners raping the sea, it’s global warming. Has nothing to do with the big fish natural selection to eat little fish. It’s the glaciers are melting because of high levels of co2.

  5. Gary T I like how co2 is the main culprit of every excuse there is why something is either dying, facing extinction, drying up, making places flood, Creating major hurricanes, changing the evolution process and yes like your list it keeps going and going until co2 is completly gone.

  6. Global warming has become so fevered, that it has taken on the passions and logic of religion.

    In any case, pillory me as you may like, I do not believe in anthropic global warming theory.
    The amount of greenhouse gases produced by mankind pales in comparison to the quantity created by other natural processes, volcanoes, farting cattle, termite digestion, trees f’cryssake give off methane, water vapor from evaporating ocean, the list goes on forever.

    Al Gore’s movie revolved around ice core samples correlating to CO2 levels in the atmosphere – but it has been shown that his cause (CO2) and effect (temperature) are reversed, the temperature level precede CO2 levels.

    Finally there is scientific analysis available that suggest the very premise of the greenhouse effect may not even be viable as a real thermodynamic/StefanBoltzmann steadystate phenomenon.
    The models in place suggest that for the greenhouse theory to work, the Earth must act as a greybody absorber of electromagnetic radiation, at the same time acting as a blackbody emitter of electromagnetic radiation. A physical impossibility on the order of perpetual motion.

  7. I have this strange, inexplicable urge to rake leaves, toss a football, order a Halloween costume (even scarier than my usual outfit). Better yet let me hit SNOOZE on my alarm clock, curl up into the fetal position and dream of warm, sultry, steamy weather – July the way it’s SUPPOSED to be. This is a cruel joke.

    MORE RECORD COLD HIGH TEMPERATURES ARE POSSIBLE ACROSS THE REGION ON FRIDAY. HERE ARE THE COLDEST HIGH TEMPERATURES RECORDED AT ST CLOUD…THE TWIN CITIES…AND EAU CLAIRE

    ST CLOUD 66 DEGREES IN 1927

    TWIN CITIES 66 DEGREES IN 1939

    EAU CLAIRE 68 DEGREES IN 1939

  10. Wonder how much this contributes to Co2 in the atmosphere.This place in Uzbekistan is called by locals “The Door to Hell”. It is situated near the small town of Darvaz. The story of this place lasts already for 35 years. Once the geologists were drilling for gas.. Then suddenly during the drilling they have found an underground cavern, it was so big that all the drilling site with all the equipment and camps got deep deep under the ground. None dared to go down there because the cavern was filled with gas. So they ignited it so that no poisonous gas could come out of the hole, and since then, it’s burning, already for 35 years without any pause. Nobody knows how many tons of excellent gas has been burned for all those years but it just seems to be infinite there.

  12. gYGES:

    “JAQing (Just asking questions) off.”

    I ask 2 questions and you accuse me of this?
    That is pretty far fetched.

    And as far as climate change goes your side doesn’t have much “evidence” either. I am merely positing my opinion you can take it our not take it. Anyway I have posted facts in the past and you all don’t believe them either if it doesn’t fit with your world view.
    Which is pretty much the way people are bent in general.

    Climate change caused by human activity probably amounts to a very small percentage but not large enough to take action.

    Just because 100,000 people says it is true doesn’t mean it is. For Christ sake most of the leading scientists of the 19th century thought Darwin was a dumb-ass. The whole history of scientific discovery is corrupted by one source or another. The 19th century scientists were corrupted by religious beliefs and I tend to think the global warming crowd is corrupted by a veneration and belief in Mother Earth.

    If Lovelocks Gaia Hypothesis is correct then the earth should be able to self regulate, as it would not know where additional CO2 was coming from and global warming is a moot point. I think you were touching on that in a post above about algae.

    You do this straw man, JAQing off thing a good deal. I am beginning to think it is your way of dismissing a differing points of view with little or no thought/effort on your part. Then everyone says “good show Gyges you obliterated his argument”, even though you have done nothing of the kind.

    I posted the information on trees because bdaman brought that up and I thought it was interesting as I did not know trees did all of what they do. It was a partially tangential posting.

    This is not a settled question, nor is national health care or taxes or regulations on industry or any of a host of issues that progressives think they have the “high” ground on.

  13. Gyges,

    “JAQing off twice, my proof-reading skills are lacking today.”

    No wonder; I heard it could lead to blindness.

  15. Ooops,

    Sorry about including that passage about JAQing off twice, my proof-reading skills are lacking today.

  16. IS,

    We don’t know that. However, you have zero evidence to support your theory. There’s an interesting term I’ve heard: JAQing (Just asking questions) off. It’s a debate technique where you ask a lot of questions and never explicitly make a claim. The beauty is that since you never make a statement you can’t be wrong, and there’s sure to be some questions that the person you’re debating with can’t answer, it appears that you “Win.”

    Let’s look at this discussion. You and Bdaman have presented as evidence that climate change isn’t man made: Saying that you don’t think it’s man made, posing A LOT of hypothetical “how do we know” type questions (There’s an interesting term I’ve heard: JAQing {Just asking questions} off. It’s a debate technique where you ask a lot of questions and never explicitly make a claim. The beauty is that since you never make a statement you can’t be wrong, and there’s sure to be some questions that the person you’re debating with can’t answer); and a list of factiods (considering how much data is involved that many outliers is hardly surprising, and another dishonest debating technique. Since time and effort is limited, nobody is going to answer every single point that Bdaman has put forth, so it appears that there is nothing available to refute him). I’m leaving out that weird crony rant, because I’d like to believe it was satire.

    Well call me a skeptic, but I have yet to see anything that has the weight of a single one of the organizations I’ve mentioned endorsing the theory that climate change is man made, let alone all of them reaching the same conclusion (although the National Academies does use weaker language).

    Since I don’t think I’m going to convince either of you, and my time is limited, I’m done.

  17. here are some interesting facts:

    Carbon Sequestration:

    Heat from Earth is trapped in the atmosphere due to high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other heat-trapping gases that prohibit it from releasing heat into space — creating a phenomenon known as the “greenhouse effect.” Trees remove (sequester) CO2 from the atmosphere during photosynthesis to form carbohydrates that are used in plant structure/function and return oxygen back to the atmosphere as a byproduct. About half of the greenhouse effect is caused by CO2. Trees therefore act as a carbon sink by removing the carbon and storing it as cellulose in their trunk, branches, leaves and roots while releasing oxygen back into the air.
    Trees also reduce the greenhouse effect by shading our homes and office buildings. This reduces air conditioning needs up to 30%, thereby reducing the amount of fossil fuels burned to produce electricity. This combination of CO2 removal from the atmosphere, carbon storage in wood, and the cooling effect makes trees a very efficient tool in fighting the greenhouse effect. (11)

    One tree that shades your home in the city will also save fossil fuel, cutting CO2 buildup as much as 15 forest trees. (16)

    Approximately 800 million tons of carbon are stored in U.S. urban forests with a $22 billion equivalent in control costs. (1)
    Planting trees remains one of the cheapest, most effective means of drawing excess CO2 from the atmosphere. (15)

    A single mature tree can absorb carbon dioxide at a rate of 48 lbs./year and release enough oxygen back into the atmosphere to support 2 human beings. (10)

    Each person in the U.S. generates approximately 2.3 tons of CO2 each year. A healthy tree stores about 13 pounds of carbon annually — or 2.6 tons per acre each year. An acre of trees absorbs enough CO2 over one year to equal the amount produced by driving a car 26,000 miles. An estimate of carbon emitted per vehicle mile is between 0.88 lb. CO2/mi. – 1.06 lb. CO2/mi. (Nowak, 1993). Thus, a car driven 26,000 miles will emit between 22,880 lbs CO2 and 27,647 lbs. CO2. Thus, one acre of tree cover in Brooklyn can compensate for automobile fuel use equivalent to driving a car between 7,200 and 8,700 miles. (8)

    If every American family planted just one tree, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would be reduced by one billion lbs annually. This is almost 5% of the amount that human activity pumps into the atmosphere each year. (17)

    The U.S. Forest Service estimates that all the forests in the United States combined sequestered a net of approximately 309 million tons of carbon per year from 1952 to 1992, offsetting approximately 25% of U.S. human-caused emissions of carbon during that period.
    Over a 50-year lifetime, a tree generates $31,250 worth of oxygen, provides $62,000 worth of air pollution control, recycles $37,500 worth of water, and controls $31,250 worth of soil erosion. (2)

    Reduction of Other Air Pollutants:

    Trees also remove other gaseous pollutants by absorbing them with normal air components through the stomates in the leaf surface. (3)

    Some of the other major air pollutants and their primary sources are:
    Sulfur Dioxide (SO2)- Coal burning for electricity/home heating is responsible for about 60 percent of the sulfur dioxide in the air. Refining and combustion of petroleum products produce 21% of the SO2.
    Ozone (O3) – is a naturally occurring oxidant, existing in the upper atmosphere. O3 may be brought to earth by turbulence during severe storms, and small amounts are formed by lighting. Most O3 – and another oxidant, peroxyacetylnitrate (PAN) – come from the emissions of automobiles and industries, which mix in the air and undergo photochemical reactions in sunlight. High concentrations of O3 and PAN often build up where there are many automobiles.
    Nitrogen oxides – Automotive exhaust is probably the largest producer of NOx. Oxides of nitrogen are also formed by combustion at high temperatures in the presence of two natural components of the air; nitrogen and oxygen.
    Particulates are small (<10 microns) particles emitted in smoke from burning fuel, particular diesel, that enters our lungs and cause respiratory problems. (10)

    There is up to a 60% reduction in street level particulates with trees. (1)

    In one urban park (212 ha.) tree cover was found to remove daily 48lbs. particulates, 9 lbs nitrogen dioxide, 6 lbs sulfur dioxide, and 2 lb carbon monoxide ($136/day value based upon pollution control technology) and 100 lbs of carbon. (1)
    One sugar maple (12" DBH) along a roadway removes in one growing season 60mg cadmium, 140 mg chromium, 820 mg nickel, and 5200 mg lead from the environment. (1)

    Planting trees and expanding parklands improves the air quality of Los Angeles county. A total of 300 trees can counter balance the amount of pollution one person produces in a lifetime. (10)

    Want to really do something about global warming plant some trees, I did and do every chance I get.

  18. bdaman:

    buy land with timber on it, you can use the trees for carbon offsets and sell the credits. Why do you think the Sierra Club is buying all that land? They stand to make billions when cap and trade is passed. This global warming stuff is BS intended to put money in the pockets of Al Gore and his friends. He is going to be the Carbon King and so king of the world. And all these people crying global warming are nothing but his tools.

  19. Check out the PDF on who visited the WH from the energy sector. Here’s a clip and a link: P.S. Don’t forget the many fine companies descending on Congress to help write the energy bill! That’s why I say as long as these “fellers” are contributing to our President and Congress and lobbying them up, why not give them the money they’d normally take for non-renewable projects and ask them to do renewable ones instead? Same money, better outcome.

    “Is the White House taking a page from Dick Cheney’s playbook by refusing to disclose who’s visiting the West Wing to lobby on energy and climate issues?

    Much like the preceding administration, Team Obama is fighting to keep White House visitor logs secret. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a nonpartisan watchdog group, recently requested that the Secret Service make the White House logs public, asking specifically for access to records of visits by coal company executives. The request was denied, and the group is now filing suit.

    CREW filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request [PDF] to the Secret Service on May 15, requesting “all records relating to any visit” made to the White House by the CEOs of 16 major coal companies and lobby groups.

    In their response to the request [PDF], the Secret Service claimed that the logs qualify as presidential and vice-presidential records and thus aren’t covered by FOIA—and could also be protected under “presidential communications privilege.”

    http://www.grist.org/article/2009-06-22-obama-white-house-coal-energy/

  20. Gyges:

    how do you know the statistical outliers are not a predictor of a future trend? Especially in a natural system like weather?

    I would tend to agree with you if you stretched a hundred pieces of steel and some failed at 58 ksi and four or five failed at 60 or 62 ksi. You could say they were the statistical outliers and that 58 ksi was the strength. But weather is unpredictable and so are other natural systems. These statistical outliers may be an indication of a coming trend or not.

    Aren’t there too many variables to really plot a predictive equation from gathered data?

    So bdamans post could be a statistical outlier or it could be the beginning of a new trend. I don’t want to spend trillions of dollars and then find out we were actually going into another ice-age and could have prevented it by staying our current level of greenhouse gas output.

    So do you pull the trigger? Global warming or new ice-age that could have been prevented by leaving current greenhouse gas emissions unchanged. If you screw that decision up there are going to be some very angry people.

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