Now here’s a program I learned about today while watching BookTV on C-SPAN. It’s called “The Great Global Warming Swindle,” and was broadcast on British television in March of this year.
In a nutshell, it makes the case that man-made global warming is junk science; i.e., that increased CO2 levels are not a cause, but rather an effect, of global warming, and that climate change is instead caused by solar activity. Recent warming is part of the earth’s natural warming and cooling cycles that have gone on for thousands of years, the program goes on to argue. It’s kind of like a rebuttal to Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth.”
There are those who think the documentary is a bunch of bunk, of course (like this site), and in addition to rebutting the claims made in the program, tries to discredit the filmmaker. But then, there are those who think Al Gore’s documentary is full of inaccuracies, too (like this site). Naturally, Wikipedia has an entry on it already (and it’s mentioned in the entry for Gore’s film as well).
All of this leads me to believe that at least one claim in this documentary is true: that man-made global warming has become a bit like a religion, with those who disagree on the tenets being labeled heretics by the opposing side. I don’t see the harm in looking at both sides of the issue. I mean, isn’t science all about challenging hypotheses and testing theories? Why all the fear? I find it amusing that the man-made-global-warming-theorists are calling this film WWII-style propaganda, yet see no irony in their efforts to suppress the release of it in DVD format. Propaganda bad, censorship good? Heh.
The program is on YouTube (what isn’t?), if you’d like to view it and form your own opinion. It’s about 75 minutes long, so it’s broken into eight parts. For your convenience, you can watch it here by clicking the “Read the rest of this entry” link below.
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
I was taught in third grade about the oxygen cycle. Humans and animals– fauna–breathe in oxygen and give off carbon dioxide. Plant life–flora– breathe in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. Since when is the life-giving substance carbon dioxide a pollutant? It is one of two life-giving substances.
Right here in Central Illinois we were once covered in glaciers during the Ice Age. Those glaciers have been retreating northward for thousands of years. They still are.
Al Gore talking about glaciers in Greenland is the same as someone a few thousand years ago being hysterical about the ice caps of northern Illinois collapsing.
In the history of our planet, when carbon dioxide levels are higher there is actually a higher level of flora on planet Earth. The Sahara Desert was once lush with greenery and may well “change” again. That is part of historical change. Change always has some welcome and some unwelcome aspects. But humans are powerless to affect it.
Manmade global warming didn’t cause the hurricane in Galveston that killed 6,000 in 1900. It didn’t casue Biblical droughts or floods. There always have been weather changes and violent weather and there always will be. Nothing has changed.
Global Warming hype is nothing more than a war on the middle class by self anointed elites who have always sought avenues of social engineering. Their solutions are to continue to allow themselves to fly in private jets and have numerous large homes to heat and cool while lowering the standards of the masses.
Al Gore and the huge number of “researchers” on the payroll of gigantic global warming industry financed by grants from governments, foundations and corporations who have been guilt tripped into financing this industry of alarmists won’t end up with no jobs from their prescriptions but millions of middle class will.
These same people alarmed the public in the 1970’s and 80’s with threats of “nuclear winter” and global cooling. Twenty years from now most people will look with amusement at the chicken little’s who are hoisting the global warming hoax on a unwitting public.
The fact that Robert F.Kenndy Jr. said that those in disagreement with the alarmists ought to be tried for “treason,” and other co-horts such as Al Gore who have tried to censor debate on scientific facts speaks volumns. They don’t want their alarmist propaganda held up to light of day with opposing facts. Just end of subject, shut up everyone and follow us is their mantra.
So much for liberal pluralism, diversity, freedom of thought and expression. No right to disagree. And no debating differences. The leaders of the global warming industry alone have anointed themselves to say the debate has ended. Since when is that intellectually honest?
Global Warming is the new facism.
“I mean, isn’t science all about challenging hypotheses and testing theories? Why all the fear?”
It’s not exactly fear, although there’s definitely that contingent. The problem is that many folks “challenging” the science of “global warming” do not understand the science and are not challenging it on a scientific basis. It’s the same reason creationism isn’t “the other side” of the debate about evolution. If it’s not science, it can’t be in the scientific debate. If your theory rests on the premise that the Second Law of Thermodynamics doesn’t exist, well, your theory sucks.
Now, if you want to talk about whether the thermohaline currents are going to stall out and what the meterological results of such a stalling out would be, THAT is a scientific debate about “global warming.” If you want to insist that global warming is “nothing more than a war on the middle class by self anointed elites,” that’s a POLITICAL argument and has no scientific merit.
“that increased CO2 levels are not a cause, but rather an effect, of global warming, and that climate change is instead caused by solar activity. Recent warming is part of the earth’s natural warming and cooling cycles that have gone on for thousands of years, the program goes on to argue.”
None of these points is inconsistent with theories about man-made global warming.
Incidentally, even if it turns out that the current warming cycle is NOT man-made but merely a result of natural cycles, does it follow that we should CEASE BEING CONCERNED ABOUT IT when huge numbers of people could starve?
The current meterological cycle, whether man-made or natural, is going to wreak havoc on global agriculture regardless of what else occurs, as ALL prior meterological shifts in the history of human agriculture have done. It’s going to cause coastal problems that will destroy homes. It’s going to impact availability of fresh water, which is already scarce in many parts of the world.
One of the major differences between today’s cycle and past cycles is that without industrialized agriculture (and particularly artificial nitrogen fertilizer), 2 billion people on this planet could starve to death. Past meterological shifts have resulted in localized mass starvations as agriculture takes time to recover and adjust to new realities and local food stores are impacted. But this time, with a global economy and globalized agriculture, we’re talking catastrophic human suffering on unprecedented scales. (2 billion is the “excess” number fed by the introduction of artificial nitrogen fertilizer, and that extra food mainly comes from regions that will probably be agriculturally hard-hit by climate shift, even if we assume that the massive quantities of fossil fuels required to make artificial nitrogen fertilizer continue to be limitlessly available at reasonably low cost. About 1/5 of the world’s fossil fuel consumption goes to agricultural production.)
The “global warming is teh fraud” people seem to insist that because they dislike Al Gore or science or whatever gets their panties in a twist, we should ignore all the possible effects of even NATURAL climactic cycles and that we should NOT address the policy and humanitarian issues because they disagree with the PRINCIPLE of the problem.
“The problem is that many folks ‘challenging’ the science of ‘global warming’ do not understand the science and are not challenging it on a scientific basis.”
Are you just speaking in generalities here, because the science of global warming was specifically challenged by scientists, one of whom was on the IPCC. Isn’t it possible that labeling any dissent as merely “political” is just a tactic to marginalize critics?
“…does it follow that we should CEASE BEING CONCERNED ABOUT IT when huge numbers of people could starve?”
The problem is that if you misdiagnose the problem, then your solution is going to be ineffective at best, possibly very harmful. If you say that CO2 emissions are the cause or part of the cause, then the solution is obviously to reduce carbon emissions. But if that has nothing to do with it, then those reductions can be harmful — for instance, as was pointed out in the program, it can keep African countries from industrializing and raising their standard of living just like every other industrialized nation has.
See, I think it’s possible the (as you call them) “global-warming-is-a-fraud people” might also be multi-dimensional folks concerned about humanitarian issues, and not merely the straw men you’ve fashioned them to be.
My theory for the last ice age is not that the earth was struck by astroid, but it was caused by the gas expelling dinosaurs! If you think cows produce a lot of menthane imagine what a T-Rex could produce. Also, remember the Dinosaurs TV series that followed the Sinclair family with the baby dinosaur that always said “not the mama”. Look how their technology led to the downfall of their species.
“Are you just speaking in generalities here”
I am speaking in generalities. GGWS is better than most anti-GW movies and, of course, we must make allowances for format. Most major science journals don’t publish papers in consumer-friendly video format. 🙂
“Isn’t it possible that labeling any dissent as merely “political” is just a tactic to marginalize critics?”
No, because I’m pretty sure that “nothing more than a war on the middle class by self anointed elites,” which was my specific example, is actually political rather than scientific. There’s a difference between insisting ALL dissent isn’t scientific and insisting specific dissent that happens to be a majority of dissent isn’t scientific. (Although obviously censoring the video is dead wrong, even if it’s absolutely assinine.)
It makes me think of my medical ethics students who instead of giving me an ethical analysis of the case study at hand like to diagnose the illness. Well, good job guys, but that’s not actually ethics. They’re usually RIGHT about the diagnosis, but that’s not the argument we’re trying to have! The political analysis may be CORRECT in terms of politics; it may be downright brilliant. But that doesn’t make it science.
“See, I think it’s possible the (as you call them) “global-warming-is-a-fraud people””
I think there’s a difference between “Global warming is teh fraud!” (the “teh” is important — it suggests hysteria) and “Global warming is not scientifically supproted” people. The latter are probably your multidimensional humanitarians with scientific background who have disagreements about actual issues. The former are folks who base their scientific “belifs” on the transitive property of politics, that is: I hate liberals. Liberals believe in global warming. Therefore, I don’t believe in global warming.
“The problem is that if you misdiagnose the problem, then your solution is going to be ineffective at best, possibly very harmful. If you say that CO2 emissions are the cause or part of the cause, then the solution is obviously to reduce carbon emissions.”
Maybe. “Reduce carbon emissions” isn’t actually a solution, it’s a GOAL. “Stop tillage farming” is a solution that would lead to your goal of reducing carbon emissions (tillage reduces stored CO2 in the soil). Tillage, incidentally, turns out not to be good for soil anyway and non-tillage, done properly, has higher crop yields anyway. Putting those scrubber thingies on coal factories to reduce their emissions reduces CO2 emissions, but also reduces a huge variety of other pollutants that contribute to smog, asthma, and acid rain.
Most suggested solutions that contribute to the GOAL of reducing CO2 emissions have positive effects in other realms. Now, if you had a solution that ONLY reduced CO2 AND caused other problems and CO2 ISN’T the culprit, then maybe your misdiagnosis issue because genuinely problematic in terms of searching for cures.
“it can keep African countries from industrializing and raising their standard of living just like every other industrialized nation has.”
Again, I’m not sure I believe that. There are REAMS and reams and reams of studies on this topic, which basically comes down to, “The Industrial Revolution had TERRIBLE effects on western societies, from family problems to stress-related and environmentally-caused illnesses to pollution. Why should Africa (for example) be forced to repeat the same errors when we NOW KNOW THEY ARE ERRORS?” IOW, if there are avenues available for “industrialization” (maybe “communicatization,” since we’ve now gone through the communications revolution too) that DON’T repeat all the errors and negatives of the European/American industrialization path, shouldn’t THAT be the optimal path?
Many economists, historians, and political scientists think this is possible and that 3rd-world development agencies should be doing everything possible to leapfrog 3rd-world nations over obsolete or “polluting” technologies into sustainable ones — if only to prevent useless investment in obsolete infrastructure. Just as a very simplistic example, if you were going to build Peoria from the ground up in 2007, you wouldn’t plumb it with lead pipes just because that’s what was available when plumbing was first put in. But there’s a tendency in a lot of development agencies to say, “Okay, this African village is at about an 1902 level of development, so lets put in 1902 plumbing appropriate to their technology level.” These “leapfrog” advocates argue that we shouldn’t force Africans to use lead pipes just because that was the best technology available when WE first got plumbing and we have a certain failure of imagination in insisting development is linear, but instead should seek to make available the best and safest modern technology appropriate to the local area at the lowest cost and build THAT infrastructure.
I don’t know enough about it to know which is likely to be the more successful strategy in the long run, although I know that “leapfrog” works exceedingly well in small areas and that traditional linear infrastructure development has failed spectacularly in Africa more than once. But there’s a certain amount of observation bias there; you don’t get big news stories about superhighways that WORK, just the ones that fail spectacularly.
CJ, just as a question, you seem very interested in the global warming debate — how much do you know about the atmospheric gas cycle, the caloric economy, the thermohaline conveyers, etc?
I ask because it seems like a lot of people who don’t “believe in” global warming or aren’t sure it exists don’t actually understand, for example, where fossil fuels come from and why taking more energy OUT of the system than you put back IN to the system means that you will eventually run out of that source of energy. (Heck, a lot of folks don’t know what fossil fuels ARE!)
Some of these debates get more than a little bizarre when folks aren’t even clear on the basics of an open vs. closed system and a limited vs. unlimited resource.
Its all just an illusion. Created for the socialists to seperate people in society to take control and centralize power.
“Scientists” once proclaimed the earth was flat, and that leeches could “bleed” people to health. Otherwise very intelligent “scientists” in Nazi Germany had elaborate “scientific” explanations for Jewish inferiority. This notion that “science” always produces truth is simply delusional. Politics and ideology and ambition (Al Gore?) play a part, but more importantly, human beings have very imperfect observation and reasoning skills. Sometimes we stumble into the truth, but more often than not we are like the blind men describing the elephant. One has a tail; one a leg; and another an ear. All of them are right and all of them are wrong. And none of them agree. But they are all convinced they have the truth.
Eyebrows — I’m marginally interested in the global warming debate. So no, I haven’t done extensive research on it. You, on the other hand, appear to be very interested in it, and to have done quite a bit of reading on the topic. Are you familiar with the arguments of dissenting scientists?
Yes, I’ve read them fairly thoroughly. (And I was going to group them into categories, but that wikipedia link does a good job of it! — although I probably wouldn’t have mentioned climate projection disputes, because I think that’s relatively tangential to the main argument.) My godfather is actually a PhD in ecology and a TREASURE TROVE of information on both sides of the debate (as well as access to journal articles when I want them, tho now I can get that stuff fairly easily through ICC), and then a very helpful resource for sources to read to learn enough science to understand the parts I don’t know enough science to understand. 🙂
PS to Mouse — the leeches work: They have an anticoagulant in their spit. Leech-bleeding today is used mostly for limb reattachment but could have been life-saving in the past if you had a clot or stroke. It’s the random cutting people with knives to bleed them that doesn’t work. 🙂 And of course the leeches don’t work because they’re taking blood OUT of you as claimed in the past; they work because they’re putting anticoagulant INTO you. But then, the dude who “discovered” quinine as a cure for malaria was just sending back to Italy a common South American cure for the shakes, which happen to be an uncomfortable symptom during malaria. Science is quite frequently about “right answer, wrong question!”
True science does motivate my position on global warming. The documentary is replete with scientists who refute the now politically correct and ever increasing shrill global warming proponents. Even the co-founder of Greenpeace has spoken out.
With all the scientists in the documentary and all the ones I have studiously read over the past decade, how can GW proponents conitnue to say “all top scientists agree.” They do not. And most of the “top scientists” referred to are not climate scientists.
With science as the solid foundation of my position, it is fair to point out the consequences of what GW advocates are pushing and to shine a light on their motives.
Eyebrows says well most of these things should be done anyway. Well, be honest, is all the hype scientific gospel or is it not? When pushed with scientific refutations GW advocates revert to the thin reed of “well we should do this anyway.” It is fair for me then to say maybe GW hype is really just a convenient way to get policies implemented under the guise of impending GW doom.
Eyebrows says “should Africa repeat our mistakes?” That inherently means that what happens in Africa should be left up to us, i.e more enlightened social engineers. If it is good enough for Africa and since “western civilization made so many mistakes that cause stress and family problems,” then let Eyebrows cook with a fire inside her home and have her electricity disconnected until the elites get around to finding the proper way to have Africans live with solar panels etc that is still decades away. Yes, I strongly beleive in leapfrogging with technology for under developed nations. But to say wait for 10 or 20 more years for electricity is outrageous. If burning fossil fuels does not cause global warming then until we find sustainable alternative energy sources on a large scale and reasonable prices then why shouldn’t Africa have electricity now like we do?
We need real proven science before any actions are taken in the name of global warming. Then we can objectively do a cost benefit analysis on proposed remedies. But to take costly measures “just in case” and really a result of a hyped up scam without any solid science is a bad way to formulate public policy.
If something is the right thing to do anyway, then let’s debate that on it’s own merits outside of a concocted arena of false doom and gloom.
The world could use some legitimate debates on manmade global warming. Let Al Gore and scientists he chooses on his side debate these scientists and others in this documentary, point by point with no denigrating the other side personally. Just scientific point and counter point. You know what, the GW crowd won’t do that. They want no debate. They just want to say “heretic!” “Try them for treason!” They want to dictate policy and listen to no scientific dissent.
I would join anyone in working to eliminate real pollution of the environment, even with high costs. But carbon dioxide is not a pollutant–it is one of two life-giving substances, and that my friends is real science.
Eyebrows writes: “Incidentally, even if it turns out that the current warming cycle is NOT man-made but merely a result of natural cycles, does it follow that we should CEASE BEING CONCERNED ABOUT IT when huge numbers of people could starve?”
You cannot have it both ways.
If carbon dioxide does not cause global warming, which climate scientists in the documentary prove with an abundance of evidence, then why should we WASTE time and resources to combat the burning of fossil fuels?
Under Eyebrows’ just stated possible scenario, we must prepare for effects of global warming even IF it is not caused by humans.
If that is the case then ALL efforts would make it prudent not to focus on getting people to drive less or depriving Africa of coal powered electricity but rather moving people away from coasts and gearing up to make agriculture able to produce enough to feed us in a hotter climate.
IF THE DIAGNOSIS IS DIFFERENT, THEN THE PRESCRIPTION FOR DEALING WITH THE PROBLEM IS DIFFERENT.
Actually a hotter climate would allow crops to be grown in areas now too cold for it and higher carbon dioxide levels would allow flora to possibly flourish in areas that are now deserts.
My point is to refute that nonsensical paragraph of Eyebrows’ post.
There are two completely different sets of public policy changes depending on whether global warming is manmade or natural. And both of those are still subject to whether or not slight warming will really produce catastrophe.
Point made, counterpoint delivered.
To gratuitously associate scientific skeptics of global warming as the same as creationism believers is simply an attempt to win the argument the easy way by demogoguery without refuting the science or logic opponents refer to.
If you alone understand the thermohaline conveyer and your godfather has a PhD then explain the science behind your position, don’t resort to lobbing loaded phrases to denigrate the credibility of those you disagree with.