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.
Thanks, Buddah. I think I did understand the part about cow farts.
Here is a short list of major weather and news events of the last couple of years. Google anyone of these to read the story.
Brrrr… Antarctica Records Record High Ice Cap Growth
Brrrr… South America Has Coldest Winter in a 90 Years
Brrrr… Iraqis See First Snow in 100 Years As Sign of Peace
Brrrr… Worst Snowstorms in a Decade in China Cause Rioting
Brrrr… Jerusalem Grinds to a Halt As Rare Snowstorm Blasts City
Brrrr… Worst Snowstorms in 50 Years Continue to Cripple China
Brrrr… China Suffers Coldest Winter in 100 Years
Brrrr… Pakistan Suffers Lowest Temps in 70 Years– 260 Dead
Brrrr… Record Cold Hits Central Asia– 654 Dead in Afghanistan
Brrrr… Severe Weather Kills Dozens in Kashmir
Brrrr… Tajikistan Crisis!! Coldest Winter in 25 Years!
Brrrr… Record Cold Wave Blasts Mumbai, India
Brrrr… Snow and Ice in San Diego?
Brrrr… Wisconsin Snowfall Record Shattered
Brrrr… The Disappearing Arctic Ice Is Back And It’s Thick
Brrrr… Turkey’s snowiest winter continues.
Brrrr… Record Cold & Snow Blankets Acropolis in Greece
Brrrr… Longest Ever Cold Spell Kills Cattle & Rice in Vietnam
Brrrr… Most Snow Cover Over North America Since 1966
Brrrr… Australia Suffers Through Coldest Summer in 50 Years
Brrrr… Record Snowfall Slams Ohio River Valley
Brrrr… New Data Gives Global Warming the Cold Shoulder
Brrrr… Global Cooling Causes Armed Clashes in Canada
Brrrr… Snake Oil Salesman Admits to Ca$hing In on Global Warming Hysteria
Brrrr… New Research Claims Earth Sliding Into an Ice Age
Brrrr… Blizzard Blasts South Dakota– 4 Feet of Snow Reported
Brrrr… An Inconvenient Debate- Czech Pres. Challenges Gore
Brrrr… Record Snow Blankets Spokane, Washington In June!
Brrrr… Peru Declares Emergency– Cold Kills 61 Children & 5,000 Alpacas
Brrrr… Arctic Sea Ice Levels Are Up By 1,000,000 Square Kilometers
Brrrr… Denver Breaks 118 Year-Old Cold Record– Arctic Ice Refuses to Melt
Brrrr… NASA Reports Bogus Global Warming Numbers- Again
Brrrr… Goracle: Mayan Civilization Collapsed Because of Climate Change, Too
Brrrr… Global Warming Predictions Overestimated– Its a Hoax
Brrrr… It’s Snowing in the Desert But Gore Warns the North Pole Is Melting
Brrrr… CNN Meteorologist Says GW Theory ‘Arrogant’
Brrrr… Ice Comes Early to Lake Superior For First Time in 17 Years
Brrrr… Sea Ice Ends Year At Same Level As 1979
Brrrr… Goofy Hillary Says “Global Warming May Incite New Wars”
Brrrr… “Shivering” Al Gore Gets Put on Ice
Brrrr… Snow Falls in UAE For 2nd Time In Recorded History
Brrrr… Al Gore Braves Snow & Ice to Testify to Congress on Global Warming
Brrrr… Record Storm Dumps Foot of Snow on DC Global Warming Protesters
Brrrr… It’s Snowing in North Dakota– In June!
Brrrr… Rep. Broun Gets Cold Shoulder After Confronting Global Warming Hoaxers
bdaman:
“Worrying about the sun when looking at global warming is about as productive as worrying about termite mound in North Africa when looking at mosquitoes in Canada.”
I have now heard everything. That has got to be without a doubt the stupidist thing I have yet to read on global warming. BIL is probably just yanking your chain. He has got to be. There can be no other conclusion.
As you say take the sun out of the equation and what have you got? A dead, cold planet.
I’ll take my stand from this.
The jury is still out on how much sunspots can (or do) affect the Earth’s climate.
Ultraviolet radiation increases dramatically during high sunspot activity, which can have a large effect on the Earth’s atmosphere.
sunspot cycles have been correlated in the width of tree ring growth.
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/fsd/astro/sunspots.php
Buddah I keep bringing up cool temperatures in specific locales like it’s some kind of talisman.
Buddah it’s WORLD WIDE. The middle east recieved snow last year for only the second time. 250 children have died because winter arrived three months early in Peru. Yea the proof is in the pudding my friend.
Gyges do you see that there is a flip side to the coin. I asked Buddah to tell us how much greenhouse gases make up the atmosphere and what percent of co2 is present. Then explain to us how that percentage it makes up of all greenhouse gases will destroy us all. Can you also explain to us the difference between the Global Warming model predictions of 10-15 years ago and the REALITY of what has now taken place.
Did Buddah bother to dabble in that one. Buddah still waiting.
Buddah Worrying about the sun when looking at global warming is about as productive as worrying about termite mound in North Africa when looking at mosquitoes in Canada. Take the sun out of the equation and tell me what you end up with.
bdaman,
It’s atmospheric chemistry and thermodynamics. These was nothing unclear about that. But you keep bringing up cool temperatures in specific locales like it’s some kind of talisman. What it is is denial and scientific ignorance. Worrying about the sun when looking at global warming is about as productive as worrying about termite mound in North Africa when looking at mosquitoes in Canada.
THE PROBLEM ISN’T HOW MUCH HEAT WE GET FROM THE SUN, BUT HOW MUCH OUR ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY ABSORBS INSTEAD OF ALLOWING TO RE-RADIATE BACK INTO SPACE.
If you can’t make that simple distinction, then evidence suggests I’m talking to either a moron in the science department or someone prone to delusional corporate propaganda that suits their fascist interests in profit over all of human life.
Don’t give up that day job.
And please, prove that point by bringing up sunspots again. You’ve done nothing to advance this conversation other than start it with your blatant ignorance of the subject matter.
Gary,
CO2 emissions from natural sources are just that – natural.
But when you want to mention steady state phenomena, then you’ve answered your own question partially. Look into complexity. As you add more of any component to a system you increase instability. That doesn’t mean equilibrium cannot be regained, it just means the addition of anything, in this case heat, will cause disruptions in the systemic pattern as the internal matrix readjusts to new circumstance. It’s the Butterfly Effect writ large.
As for the absorption/emitter issue, you simply don’t understand how planets work if that’s what you think. Planets are not homogeneous. They have varied components that have differing radiation profiles. Some materials absorb or radiate or reflect better than others. Not all radiation comes from fusion or isotopic decay of unstable materials. Magnetic fields generate a lot of radiation. All planets emit radiation back into space if they have a magnetosphere. In fact, Jupiter puts out so much from its magnetosphere that it’s almost a failed star in its’ own right. If we find life on one of the moons there, I can guarantee you this: it will be more robustly radiation resistant than damn near anything on Earth. There is also albedo, or reflectivity. Some of what gets reflected back isn’t just light, but heat and other wavelengths as well. Speaking of which, let’s look at the Earth and Moon. The Earth and Moon both reflect and absorb light and other radiation at differing levels. The Earth is a “strong” (by comparison) emitter compared to the moon because it has a magnetic field. It creates a certain amount of “native radiation”. But the re-radiation back into space is impaired by our atmosphere. A certain amount of energy is lost by being trapped within its’ boundary as air, being a chemical compound, has absorption properties. This is part of why when it’s dark, we don’t all freeze to death. The moon, by contrast, has no native magnetosphere (or one so weak as to be meaningless to this conversation) and all the radiation there is either from space in the form of cosmic rays and sunlight or from Earth via our magnetosphere and Earth’s albedo (since we are so close). But there is no atmosphere on the moon. Nothing traps heat or anything else when it’s bombarded with radiation. It just heats up. No ozone to block some rays so it catches a lot of high energy wavelengths we miss due to our lovely ozone. Nothing to circulate all that accumulated energy like an atmosphere or an ocean – just barren rock that provides little more than a high albedo from being light colored. That’s why it’s a boiling 250 degrees on the day side and an equally deadly -380 degrees on the night side. But your statement “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” is simply wrong and flies in the face of the evidence and science. Some planets emit radiation all the time, but if they are near a star, they all absorb it at rates dependent upon proximity. The two are not mutually exclusive processes. How that energy exchange is manifested on planets depends on local conditions.
Buddah maybe you should contact the Obama admin. sounds like you got it all figured out. Oh and by the way you should contact NOAA and have them retract these statements.
The jury is still out on how much sunspots can (or do) affect the Earth’s climate.
Ultraviolet radiation increases dramatically during high sunspot activity, which can have a large effect on the Earth’s atmosphere.
sunspot cycles have been correlated in the width of tree ring growth.
Because according to your expert analysis Quote: The problem with sunspots is simply this: the sunspot cycle has nothing to do with global warming. Zip, zero and nada.Unquote
Also I would like to point out that we are now well into the 23rd cycle the number of sunspots in this cycle reached a peak in May, 2000 where the number of sunspots were measured at near 170. A secondary sunspot maximum occurred near the beginning of 2002 where the sunspot number was about 150 and according to Al Gore the earth was heating up and as the oceans warm we will have more frequent and stronger hurricanes wiping man kind off the face of the universe. Now we are in a 30 year low for WORLD WIDE tropical cyclone development, close to or at the all time record low. So either Tropical Cyclones just don’t want to form or THE OCEANS HAVE COOLED and we now know that last years Artic ice has returned to the 1979 levels and did it at the fastest pace ever recorded. Of course it wasn’t until someone was caught fudging the data did we learn this.
Buddah could you tell us how much greenhouse gases make up the atmosphere and what percent of co2 is present. Then explain to us how that percentage it makes up of all greenhouse gases will destroy us all. Can you also explain to us the difference between the Global Warming model predictions of 10-15 years ago and the REALITY of what has now taken place.
Buddha:
I tend to agree that sunspots might be a dead letter issue on correllation to climate temperature; the graphs do not seem to be strong or consistent.
I also agree that if the Ozone or oceans break, everyone dies.
Of course that is the gravamen of the conversation, whether what we as an industrial species do has a global effect on climate.
(BTW, I totally am in favor of pollution reduction, and I totally am into and support alternative, renewable energy production)
But please address the few points I first made in this thread, which were of a fundamental scientific basis germane to the question of AGW:
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 even give off methane, water vapor from evaporating ocean, the list goes on.
Ice core samples correlating to CO2 levels in the atmosphere – have been shown that the changes in temperature levels precede atmospheric CO2 levels.
Scientific analysis suggests 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.
Mike,
You’re really going to love this one then.
bdaman,
What part of “tutored astronomy” didn’t you understand? I know more about sunspots than probably anyone here unless we have a professional astronomer lurking. Do you even know what one is?
Sunspots are depressions on the sun that are caused when magnetic currents impede convection and cause cool spots on the sun’s photosphere. These cool spots act like gigantic magnetic self-perpetuating hurricanes. The only reason they look black is that the surrounding material is ridiculously hot and luminous. The sun’s average temp is about 5,800 Kelvin. A sunspot is usually a 1,000 to 1,200 Kelvin lower in temperature, but if the sun wasn’t surrounding it, it’d be brighter than an arc welder. But the effect it has on Earth is minimal as I already described. Most of the energy released isn’t heat, it’s radio and other EM radiation. It doesn’t effect Earth weather expect in the ionosphere where it screws with radio while the ozone there protects use from those same deadly rays. While average luminosity does impact average temperature, your statements show you don’t know squat about ice ages either. They are most likely the result of a combination of variations in eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession of the Earth’s orbit – all of which impact weather in a much more immediate and dynamic way than the sun (excluding novae). You’d know this if you’d taken either astronomy or physical geography. Sunspots take place millions of miles away. Orbital eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession all happen HERE. Apply Occam’s Razor to that. Physics, like politics, is local.
The only other “theory” about sunspot activity affecting life on earth is a strange and probably coincidental increase in flu virus propagation and mutation during high activity cycles, but that is to be expected when you have increase in high energy particles. Viruses are simple creatures. One gamma ray to the right spot on the gene and, hey kids, you’ve got a new virus. This is still just theory as correlation is not causation and we simply don’t have enough historical epidemiological or sunspot data to make anything more than a conjecture. And that is the mistake you keep making. Correlation is not causation no matter how much you want it to be to justify your denial.
Read and understand a textbook on astronomy, chemistry, complexity theory and thermodynamics, because going back the sunspots just shows you don’t know what the hell you are talking about.
The problem isn’t the Sun. It’s doing what it has always done. Makes things warm, cools down a bit, makes things warm, etc.
The problem is atmospheric chemistry. Chemistry we changed with the industrial revolution. Chemistry that keeps the “warm” from escaping the atmosphere because chlorofluorocarbons, useful for their chemical stability and heating qualities, when they reach the upper stratosphere the solar radiation is strong enough to make them UNSTABLE. It breaks apart the chlorine atom from the molecule and chlorine is HIGHLY reactive. It in fact bonds with O3 which makes up our protective ozone in such a way as to catalyze the O in the O3 into plain old O. Which makes it useless in protecting us from solar and cosmic radiation. In addition the CFC molecules themselves have the innate ability to retain heat. That’s why they make fireproofing out of it. This retained heat, as I’ve said before, introduces instability into the thermodynamic engine that is the atmosphere (and oceans). When net heat retention in the system increases, so does instability. Again – CRAZY WEATHER NOT HOT WEATHER. CFC’s don’t occur naturally anywhere on Earth either. We make them. A Belgian scientist from the 20’s named Frederic Swarts is the guy responsible for their development. DO NOT confuse this with the other greenhouse gases like ethane and methane, which can be produced by natural processes like volcanoes and cow farts. They retain heat as well although not as damaging to the ozone as CFC’s (chlorine is vile). Those gases are more problematic to control. Carbon also likes to bond with things like ozone and it also retains heat. And guess what oil is made of and has as it’s primary waste product? Carbon. And carbon is as bonding friendly as chlorine. I look forward to the day when the only use for oil is force feeding it the the Saudi royal family.
You should have stayed awake in high school science.
And Gary, this one is just for you: Everyone dies when either the ozone or the oceans break. You can’t have an economy of ANY scale when everyone is DEAD. That’s the problem with unfettered free market capitalism: it’s myopic, shortsighted and stupid.
Gyges said here in a recent post that the skeptics will dart around the topic so as to just avoid answering a specific objection.
I might point out my earlier post, that almost no one here commented upon in any substantive way, so I will reiterate some of it.
Buddha also defended the position that just because it is getting colder in some places does not disprove global warming, rather it affirms it insofar that it shows that weather is just getting more unpredictable.
And yet this latter argument really feels specious; global warming on the face of its moniker would imply that it means the globe is warming up, not that the globe’s weather is becoming unpredictable.
Just reverse the theory’s name and see how much sense it makes.
Global cooling theory, and yet we find places on earth getting warmer – of course that has to mean that the theory is confirmed, because the weather is unpredictable.
How about global stasis theory, well some places are warmer, and some places are colder, so that must affirme the theory, because on the average the temperature is the same.
The point being, unpredictable weather “patterns” can be promoted as evidence of any theory, or no theory at all.
What and how will the warmers respond if the weather keeps cooling in the next few years? Will that be evidence for global warming also?
I may also ask the question posed by Slartibartfast, at what point, and by what evidence, would you have to begin to question the anthropomorphic global warming theory as viable science?
It appears here that the warmers here outnumber the skeptics.
Interesting statistic, but reasonable insofar that I think that global warming skeptics seem to generally track the political right, which seems to have been motivated by the pro-business postion premised upon the need for industry to be unfettered.
And it would appear that most here lean a little left, politically.
So, right away when one reveals one to be a warming skeptic, warmers will indict you as having some kind of ulterior motive, wheth it be party loyalty, or pro-business agenda.
I myself, just want to go with the truth first, then once the truth is affirmed (with whatever margin of error is acceptable), if it is determined that something undesirable will occur from inaction, what viable action would make sense in the context.
I really don’t have an agenda, I just don’t want to delude myself and become someone else’s lacky for THEIR agenda.
To that extent, I have seen enough impeachment of the evidence and theory of global warming to conclude its predictions are valueless and misleading. That is bad enough, but the ‘solutions’ proffered are totally unviable, and would set all society’s silly enough to buy into them, back into economic depression. It would impoverish people on a mass scale, completely unnecessarily.
I will go into the substance of what has been discussed here in my next post.
Buddah sorry been out all day and just got back. A quick response and I’ll jump back in the saddle. I can see from the above posts that I stand accused of avoiding questions or respond by changing the subject. Not the case but everyone is entitled to thier way of thinking.
Buddah you said The problem with sunspots is simply this: the sunspot cycle has nothing to do with global warming.
OK thats fine, but the average American associates global warming with temperatures thanks to Al Gore. He continues to talk about the planet heating up. Solar flares/sunspots IMHO have alot to do with temperatures. The less active the sun is the less heat it puts out, common sense in my book. Lets look at what NOAA says. Now I will be the first to tell you I don’t agree with everything that NOAA says but thought I would use them as a reference.
Short paragraph here’s the link:http://www.crh.noaa.gov/fsd/astro/sunspots.php
NOAA
But the jury is still out on how much sunspots can (or do) affect the Earth’s climate. Times of maximum sunspot activity are associated with a very slight increase in the energy output from the sun. Ultraviolet radiation increases dramatically during high sunspot activity, which can have a large effect on the Earth’s atmosphere. From the mid 1600s to early 1700s, a period of very low sunspot activity (known as the Maunder Minimum) coincided with a number of long winters and severe cold temperatures in Western Europe, called the Little Ice Age. It is not known whether the two phenomena are linked or if it was just coincidence. The reason it is hard to relate maximum and minimum solar activity (sunspots) to the Earth’s climate, is due to the complexity of the Earth’s climate itself. For example, how does one sort out whether a long-term weather change was caused by sunspots, or maybe a coinciding El Nino or La Nina? Increased volcanic eruptions can also affect the Earth’s climate by cooling the planet. And what about the burning of fossil fuels and clear cutting rain forests? One thing is more certain, sunspot cycles have been correlated in the width of tree ring growth. More study will be conducted in the future on relating sunspot activity and our Earth’s climate.
Now if we go back to the early 1913 when we know that the Sun lit without a spot for 311 days and we see the last year has witnessed cold weather records ALL OVER THE WORLD being broken and alot of those records ARE OVER 100 YEARS OLD. I kinda go hummm. Now you have a point when you say sunspots and flares have nothing to do with global warming, you taught astrology and science. Go back and read that paragraph from NOAA and replace the word sunspot with CO2. I’ll be back.
Mike,
More than anything the thing that keeps me coming back to this site is that there are few days where I don’t have to go to the dictionary or encyclopedia.
Buddha, I echo Gyges’ comments, although I freely acknowledge that I often have to read your “science rants” several times, once for enjoyment, and then two more times to understand them.
Gyges,
Excellent post! No one can hope to be open-minded without having some level of evidence that they accept would prove them wrong. Science is all about figuring out how to prove your theory wrong – an experiment is just an attempt to prove yourself wrong hoping that your failure to do so will lend credence to your hypothesis. I think that not having any way to prove yourself wrong is an essential trait for the follower of any conspiracy theory.
Buddha,
It’s always a pleasure to read your science rants.
IS,
Once again, I don’t mean to offend, and if I did I apologize. Perhaps this will also help illuminate things:
Read through what BDAman has said, and what his critics have said. You’ll see an interesting pattern, every time someone effectively casts doubt on his statements (like when I compared the number of scientists that signed that petition to the numbers in groups that have issued statements supporting the anthropic global warming theory, or Buddha and Slart’s brilliant explanations of why listing record lows proves nothing), he simply changes the topic. He doesn’t bother with a defense, he just moves on.
Now, compare that to what has been going on since the beginning of the “birther” movement in the last Presidential campaign. First it was “he doesn’t have a valid birth certificate” then it was “the one we’ve been shown was a forgery” then when that was debunked it was “Well we still don’t know it’s NOT a forgery, and even if it isn’t his Dad was a Kenyan citizen,” etc. etc. etc.
Skepticism is a good thing. I’m a Skeptic (capitalized), but in order to be a skeptic rather than a denier, you need to have some point at which you’d be convinced. That is what is missing with BDAman, no matter how many time his rationals for doubt get shot down, he’ll think of another reason not to believe.
I think you’re a skeptic on this issue, but there are all sorts of ways that people can rationalize and not even know it. The only way I ever learned to be self critical was by being told when I was wrong.
I ask you, at what point would you be willing to admit that the evidence supports that climate change is being caused by humans?
To paraphrase Animal House…
Buddha, my man.
Stay in your own movie.
-Bob
Buddha,
Hope everything’s okay.