Text 1389, 139 rader
Skriven 2006-06-02 21:29:00 av Robert E Starr JR (1835.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Atheists: America's m
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@REPLY: <1148826538.223080.66670@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com>
On Tue, 30 May 2006 08:03:37 +0000 (UTC), "Vorlonagent"
<jt@otfresno.com> wrote:

>
>"Paul Harper" <paul@harper.net> wrote in message 
>news:ipmn72lpsihhej25lks0u61mf02umkop6f@4ax.com...
>

>> Not quite sure where that came from. Which eminent scientist (or even
>> respect television presenter like Sir David Attenborough) did you
>> think was unsure about climate change?!  The only people who profess
>> to be unsure about this are the oil companies and their political
>> lapdogs. It is fact. We have to deal with it or live with the
>> consequences.
>
>There is no consensus on the CAUSE of global warming, which is the true root 
>issue.

Not true anymore, except in the fantasies of the oil companies and
their bought-and-paid-for shills:

"The American Geophysical Union and American Meteorological Society in
2003 both declared that signs of global warming had become compelling.
"In 2004 the American Association for the Advancement of Science said
that there was no longer any 'substantive disagreement in the
scientific community' that artificial global warming is happening. 

"In 2005, the National Academy of Sciences joined the science
academies of Britain, China, Germany, Japan and other nations in a
joint statement saying, 'There is now strong evidence that significant
global warming is occurring.' 

"This year Mr. Karl of the climatic data center said research now
supports 'a substantial human impact on global temperature increases.'

"And this month the Climate Change Science Program, the Bush
administration's coordinating agency for global-warming research,
declared it had found 'clear evidence of human influences on the
climate system'."

Yada.

http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F40B1EF63B5A0C778EDDAC0894DE404482


>Yes the planet is warming up, and there's a pretty good consensus 
>about that.  But Earth has had a higher global average than it currently has 
>and well before humanity came upon the scene.  We're currently well within 
>natural tolerances.

Not sure what that last means. At one point, the earth was so hot that
when it rained the water boiled. At a later point, the arctic had the
climate of Florida. Both are within "natural tolerances," but neither
situation would be good for the planet as it now stands, for its
species, or for us.

>For global warming to be of concern, the temperature shift has to mostly or 
>comepletly human-made and within humanity's ability to change.  All global 
>warming concern is based on assuming we know the answers on these two 
>points.

We do, to the extent we need to.

>Boilerplate global warming assumes that the shift in temperature is entriely 
>human-made and entirely within humanity's control--but only if we hurry!

I've seen no such assumptions.

>I have never heard a global-warming alarmist ever talk about what percentage 
>of the earth's temperature rise could possibly be due to natural causes, 
>leading to the conclusion that the entirety of global warming is being 
>blamed on humanity.

Perhaps you should read what the scientists have to say rather than
the "alarmists."

>? This seem to me to be naive in the extreme.  We live on 
>a world that is constantly in flux.  If humans never appeared, this planet 
>would still see climate change over time due to solar output and the 
>gods-know-what-all.  There is no constant, static baseline background to 
>measure the current warming against. 

And there's no static background against which to measure whether this
is a hot or cool summer, but we still manage.

>Nor have we taken detailed temperature 
>readings across the planet for a long enough period of time for large-scale 
>trends to appear

We can measure historical temperatures long before there were
thermometers, or even people to use them.

> as evidenced by the fact that as little as thirty years 
>ago enviornmental alsrmists were worried about the onset of the next ice 
>age.

They were?

>Thus I think it can reasonably be said that we don't know what humanity's 
>contribution to global warming is.  Therefore we don't know what degree of 
>threat this warming poses or whether we can do anything about it.

We know enough to know it's a serious man-made problem.

>If, for example, the current warming cycle is 90% nature (about as high as 
>could reasonably be suggested) then hang on, because we're passengers on a 
>roller-coaster.  Eliminating 100% of the world's CO2 emissions would at best 
>put a minor dent in the degree of the shift.  Global warming could be said 
>to be out of practical human control.

But it isn't. This is a recitation of oil company propaganda, not
science. You know, I try to be open-minded, but when I read stuff like
this I hate the Republican Party and conservatism with a passion. I've
seen Democrats and liberals make plenty of mistakes and bad
assumptions over the years, including yes, chicken little doomsaying
about this or that environmental trend, but nothing as in-your-face
malign. It's the tobacco companies denying that smoking causes cancer
all over again, only this time, the issue is far more serious and the
industry a lot cleverer: it doesn't put its name on the phony
institutes and scientists that spout the lies, just pays their bills
and fills the campaign coffers of its bought-and-paid-for Republican
politicians. It is nothing more than a war of lies against the planet,
against the /people/ of the planet, in the name of corporate profit.

-- 
Josh

"I'm not going to play like I've been a person who's spent hours involved with
foreign policy.
I am who I am." - George W. Bush
                                                  
--- SBBSecho 2.11-Win32
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