Re: [asa] Global Warming Stats

Sorry for the late reply - just got back home.

On 5/25/08, Rich Blinne <rich.blinne@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Lynn's reference talked about the Oregon Institute of Science and
> Medicine. ... When I was doing my research for my climate change class at
> church I came upon the deceptive work of Fred Seitz, Fred Singer and the
> Marshall Institute. Fred Seitz was an advisor to R.J. Reynolds so that they
> could prove that there was a lack of "scientific consensus" that tobacco
> causes cancer. [...snip...]
>

My reply: Just have time to address a couple of your comments, here. I
hope the graph comes through okay.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/05/020585.php

May 23, 2008
Global Warming: A Primer

In the web site of the New Zealand Centre for Political
Research<http://www.nzcpr.com/guest98.htm>,
Fred Singer offers an excellent summary of the skeptics' view of
anthropogenic global warming. If you haven't followed the issue in detail
and want to review the basics, it's a good place to start.

Singer makes one point that cannot be repeated too often: the AGW theory
depends entirely on computer models, but we know for sure that those
computer models are wrong. They do not accurately explain either the Earth's
climate history, or the present distribution of global temperatures. This
simple diagram shows how the "fingerprint" predicted by AGW models fails to
conform to observed atmospheric conditions; click to enlarge:

[image: []] <http://www.powerlineblog.com/TemperatureChart23.php>

If you think about it, it is rather remarkable that Al Gore and his
confederates have been able to stampede millions of voters, based on
computer models that are indisputably contradicted by the facts.
Posted by John at 2:37 PM
=====================
Rich Blinn also wrote:

"...Some other things that the Marshall institute said lacked scientific
consensus:

1. The hazards of second-hand smoke
2. That CFCs cause the ozone hole two weeks before the Nobel prize in
chemistry was given for work on this.
3. Power plants cause acid rain.

... Rich

My response: Contact Micael Crichton for the peer-reviewed sources on
second-hand smoke, etc., that he discusses here, if you're interested:

"... So I can tell you some facts. I know you haven't read any of what I am
about to tell you in the newspaper, because newspapers literally don't
report them. I can tell you that DDT is not a carcinogen and did not cause
birds to die and should never have been banned. I can tell you that the
people who banned it knew that it wasn't carcinogenic and banned it anyway.
I can tell you that the DDT ban has caused the deaths of tens of millions of
poor people, mostly children, whose deaths are directly attributable to a
callous, technologically advanced western society that promoted the new
cause of environmentalism by pushing a fantasy about a pesticide, and thus
irrevocably harmed the third world.

Banning DDT is one of the most disgraceful episodes in the twentieth century
history of America. We knew better, and we did it anyway, and we let people
around the world die and didn't give a damn.

I can tell you that second hand smoke is not a health hazard to anyone and
never was, and the EPA has always known it.

I can tell you that the evidence for global warming is far weaker than its
proponents would ever admit. I can tell you the percentage the US land area
that is taken by urbanization, including cities and roads, is 5%.

I can tell you that the Sahara desert is shrinking, and the total ice of
Antarctica is increasing.

I can tell you that a blue-ribbon panel in Science magazine concluded that
there is no known technology that will enable us to halt the rise of carbon
dioxide in the 21st century. Not wind, not solar, not even nuclear.

The panel concluded a totally new technology-like nuclear fusion-was
necessary, otherwise nothing could be done and in the meantime all efforts
would be a waste of time.

They said that when the UN IPCC reports stated alternative technologies
existed that could control greenhouse gases, the UN was wrong.

I can, with a lot of time, give you the factual basis for these views, and I
can cite the appropriate journal articles not in whacko magazines, but in
the most prestigeous science journals, such as Science and Nature.

But such references probably won't impact more than a handful of you,
because the beliefs of a religion are not dependant on facts, but rather are
matters of faith.

Unshakeable belief.

Most of us have had some experience interacting with religious
fundamentalists, and we understand that one of the problems with
fundamentalists is that they have no perspective on themselves. They never
recognize that their way of thinking is just one of many other possible ways
of thinking, which may be equally useful or good. On the contrary, they
believe their way is the right way, everyone else is wrong; they are in the
business of salvation, and they want to help you to see things the right
way.

They want to help you be saved.

They are totally rigid and totally uninterested in opposing points of view.
In our modern complex world, fundamentalism is dangerous because of its
rigidity and its imperviousness to other ideas.

I want to argue that it is now time for us to make a major shift in our
thinking about the environment, similar to the shift that occurred around
the first Earth Day in 1970, when this awareness was first heightened. But
this time around, we need to get environmentalism out of the sphere of
religion.

We need to stop the mythic fantasies, and we need to stop the doomsday
predictions. We need to start doing hard science instead. ..."

You may email him from his web site:
*Environmentalism as Religion
by Michael Crichton, San Francisco, September 15, 2003
*http://www.crichton-official.com/

Lynn

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Wed May 28 13:06:15 2008