I've watched 10 minutes so far and don't have time to see the rest tonight. Who put this together? Does it say at the end? I've often suspected that global warming hysteria is just like the Emperor's New Clothes.

Oddly enough, when your previous article reviles Time Magazine for being biased, you've wholeheartedly swooned over this piece where one of the scientists presented as supporting its thesis stated the video was "grossly distorted" and "as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War Two." But I can understand how persons who are not close to both sides of the issue can be swayed by such disinformation.

This presents a very narrow skeptic perspective from the same old global warming critics, who previously used to say, "Global Warming is a LIE". Now they say, "Ok, it's warming, but to claim human influence is a LIE". And the majority of those have been funded by oil and coal companies.

Some of the claims are wildly preposterous, such as the claim that volcanoes release many more times the amount of carbon dioxide that human activity does. From the USGS;

"Scientists have calculated that volcanoes emit between about 130-230 million tonnes (145-255 million tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere every year (Gerlach, 1999, 1992). This estimate includes both subaerial and submarine volcanoes, about in equal amounts. Emissions of CO2 by human activities, including fossil fuel burning, cement production, and gas flaring, amount to about 22 billion tonnes per year (24 billion tons) [ ( Marland, et al., 1998) - The reference gives the amount of released carbon (C), rather than CO2.]. Human activities release more than 150 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes--the equivalent of nearly 17,000 additional volcanoes like Kilauea (Kilauea emits about 13.2 million tonnes/year)."
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Hazards/What/VolGas/volgas.html

Over and over again as the main thrust of the video, they completely ignore the thorough explanation of the 1940-1975 cooling, something that Lindzen should be ashamed to have pretended not to know.

There's so many goofs in this polemic that I will simply direct you to a debunking for futher scientific discussion.

And not that tost of the time in the video is spent with non-climate scientists, such as :

* Phillip Stott - Although he presents himself as an expert debunker of environmental myths, Stott does not appear to have had a single paper published in a scientific journal in the fields in which he most frequently applies this 'expertise', eg climate change or tropical ecology. His views are also generally at odds with the scientific consensus on such issues.

* Patrick Moore is not a scientist but an activist.

* Nigel Lawson is a journalist who became a member of Parliament

* Nigel Calder is a author, editor, and TV screenwriter, not a scientist.

* Paul Driessen is lobbyist and currently a senior policy advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality and a senior fellow with the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.

* James Shikwati is a Kenyan libertarian economist.

* Piers Richard Corbyn is a British meteorologist, not a climatologist. He is best known for his controversial claims of an ability to predict the weather up to one year in advance through the study of solar activity, specifically sunspots.

I can understand why you were drawn in by this video, because many conservatives feel as strongly about this as they do abortion; however, emotion should not be the process by which the science is vetted.

And yes, I know you just love to yank my chain...

ERRATA:

"not that tost"

should be "note that most"...

My laptop screen is acting up, and I can only view pages in a tiny window.

Thanks for the tour of that great bastion of academic knowledge,Wikipedia, Will. I wonder how many of the people who worked on those links you so graciously supplied lied about their credentials?

And for all of you that like to casually surf the web, there are a ton of links out there that will take you through the lies, half-truths, and blatant propoganda that was Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth."

blu, why not list one of your URLS, so that we can examine one that you hold to be true, so that we can debunk it for you?

And feel free to find fault with any of the "Swindle" bios, since you questioned the veracity of those who provided the information.

Question the veracity of Wikipedia. Oh certainly not! Who in their right mind would question an open-source website that requires absolutely no credentials for posting. Certainly not I.

Hey, didn't Al Gore invent Wikipedia?

Well since they haven't released the '07 IPCC report yet, just the Summary For Policy Makers which is created by gov't beauracrats and not scientists, we have to look at the '01 IPCC report for the actual science here that the man-made global warming crowd is relying on.

Now if you made it through that incredibly long sentence, there is no "evidence" that man is causing this warming. It is an mix of computer models, incomplete computer models, which say this warming shouldn't be normal, ergo man must be causing it. This is the only "evidence" for man's role in global warming. If anything we should focus on adapting rather than fool hardy attempts to mitigate what is a natural process. I agree we should find better power sources than the internal combustion engine and reliance on fossil fuels, but the global warming crowd is using propaganda to try to achieve this goal.

Very interesting vid with very interesting points. Much gravitas thanks to the preponderance of British accents.

Thanks, A.

Kevin

Still waiting, blu, if you have anything substantial to contribute.

And Scof, all we have of the movements of the Solar System is computer models based on observations. For that matter, the same goes for link between tobacco and cancer; there is no absolute proof, only overwhelming evidence.

Here ya go, Will. Happy reading.

http://www.sitewave.net/news/s49p1523.htm

http://www.ncpa [dot] org/ba/ba230.html

http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/Environment/debunking.htm

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1655856/posts

Give it up, Frank. Your mere links have no effect on our mighty platitudes.

Like Kuato, we shall liberate Annika's mind from the arch-conservative camp.

Before we're finished here, she'll be voting for Nader in no time!

Now, do what Kuato commands! Let me feel it, peons!

"Still waiting, blu, if you have anything substantial to contribute."

Back at ya, Will. So far, you've managed to link to an open source, slacker website whose credibility has been called into question numerous times.

It's fun playing the Will game: never respond with substantial thought - simply say that your opponents are wrong without debating specifics points and then say something about where their funding might come from.

Your game is old, Will, and that's why nobody takes you seriously. Well, accept for you. No get back to that mirror so you can continue admiring yourself.

Frank,
http://www.sitewave.net/news/s49p1523.htm is just a rant site, no science (the 'author' is a Ruskie radiology scientist, no evidence of climate research), just bald assertions.

http://www.ncpa [dot] org/ba/ba230.html

More extensive, and I will address this when I have time (running out the door to an embassy event).

Still waiting, blu, even after you attack the messenger...

Hey Will,

One of your global warming pimps took part in a Waxman's media circus. (The fact that the taxpayers have to pay for this crap ought to offend every American.Gotta give the Dems credit, though, they know that they have the MSM in their pocket and they use it will.) Dr. Hansen, political activist and global warming whore, who likened the Bush administration to Nazi Germany. The same man who openly campaigned for Dems; has given 1400 interviews pushing his point of view while working within the government; and recepient of a quarter million bucks from Dem activist, Teresa Heinz Kerry's, foundation. (You know, one of those non-political institutions with no political agenda or bias.) Darrell Issa tore this pimp a new rear-end and called him out as the political activist that he is. This guy has spent the last few years accusing the gov't of "politicizing" science all the while setting a standard for it.

The global warming movement is nothing more than a well-excuted marketing campaign.

Full disclosure: I'm not typically an Issa fan - for reasons associated to the GWOT - and sure wish somebody else would have stepped and took the pimp to task.

http://www.ncpa [dot] org/ba/ba230.html

This is a 1997 article that is grossly out of date and easy to refute;

"Myth #1: Scientists Agree the Earth Is Warming."

This is in fact true and has been addressed in countless postings here. Even the Lindzen/Spencer/Christy skeptics now readily admit it, though at one time called it a lie.

"Myth #2: Humans Are Causing Global Warming. "

Again, out of date, as likely less than 1% of climate researchers deny anthropogenic warming.
The article mentions the Meteorlogical Society and the American Geophysical Union specifically as disbelieving. Here are current statements by those organizations;

Meteorlogical Society (2003): "There is now clear evidence that the mean annual temperature at the Earth's surface, averaged over the entire globe, has been increasing in the past 200 years. There is also clear evidence that the abundance of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased over the same period. In the past decade, significant progress has been made toward a better understanding of the climate system and toward improved projections of long-term climate change... Human activities have become a major source of environmental change. Of great urgency are the climate consequences of the increasing atmospheric abundance of greenhouse gases... Because greenhouse gases continue to increase, we are, in effect, conducting a global climate experiment, neither planned nor controlled, the results of which may present unprecedented challenges to our wisdom and foresight as well as have significant impacts on our natural and societal systems."

American Geophysical Union (2003): "Human activities are increasingly altering the Earth's climate. These effects add to natural influences that have been present over Earth's history. Scientific evidence strongly indicates that natural influences cannot explain the rapid increase in global near-surface temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century.

Human impacts on the climate system include increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases (e.g., carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons and their substitutes, methane, nitrous oxide, etc.), air pollution, increasing concentrations of airborne particles, and land alteration. A particular concern is that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide may be rising faster than at any time in Earth's history, except possibly following rare events like impacts from large extraterrestrial objects."

"Myth #3: The Government Must Act Now to Halt Global Warming."

From the 2007 IPCC 4th Assessment Summary: "For the next two decades a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES
emission scenarios. Even if the concentrations of all greenhouse gases and aerosols had been kept
constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of about 0.1°C per decade would be expected. Since IPCC’s first report in 1990, assessed projections have suggested global averaged temperature increases between about 0.15 and 0.3°C per decade for 1990 to 2005. This can now be compared with observed values of about 0.2°C per decade, strengthening confidence in near-term projections. " (which confirm the models' predictions of warming)

"Myth # 4: Human-Caused Global Warming Will Cause Cataclysmic Environmental Problems."

They talk about the lack of increase in hurricane activity, though this was to change dramatically after 1997.

From the 2007 IPCC Assessment Summary: "It is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves, and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more
frequent. it is likely that future tropical cyclones (typhoons and hurricanes) will become
more intense, with larger peak wind speeds and more heavy precipitation associated with ongoing increases of tropical SSTs."

Conclusion: This article has been proven to be inaccurate in all of its claims. Little to no scientific research was referenced, so it was little more than a policy puff piece now discarded on the rubbish heap of history.

Scof,

"there is no "evidence" that man is causing this warming.

Your claim is unsupported. Even the majority of the 1%-2% of those scientists identified as skeptics now agree that humans are influencing the climate, though they are simply saying 'we don't know how much'.

Blu,

When will you learn that ideological rants provide no basis for a serious discussion of scientific issues? Why should anyone care what Issa (or any pundit) says on this subject?

More debunking of 'debunkers':

http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/Environment/debunking.htm

This is just an opinion piece published in the Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology with no references to scientific findings (and rife through and through with fallacies itself).

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1655856/posts

This finally gets to the points of "An Inconvenient Truth". Let's take the points one at a time;

most of Florida will most likely still be above water in 2100.

What kind of claim is this?? How much? What will be submerged? Hardly a debunking of the movie.

Gore shows that many mountain glaciers are melting away all around the world—glaciers in Alaska, Europe and Mount Kilimanjaro—are responding to increased warming. (Though the glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro seem to be melting away because of changes in rainfall patterns rather than to increased heat. Of course, it is possible that the shift in rainfall is the result of global warming.)

Is this 'debunking'? Very weak to non-existent. Global glacier mass balance has dropped significantly in the last 50 years. See the data and a striking graph of the data.

"The temperatures in central Siberia are thought to have increased by 3 degrees Celsius over the past 40 years. A Russian study in 2004 found that the average temperatures in Siberia during the Holocene Climatic Optimum around 6000 years ago warmed up by 3 to 9 degrees celcius in the winter, and by 2 to 6 degrees celcius in the summer. Due to changes in the earth's orbit which affect how much sunlight reaches the surface, pretty much the entire Arctic was warmer than now 6000 years ago."

The Russian study was not referenced, so we have no idea of its source, methods, or overall veracity, hence this is an empty claim.

"Gore shows an animation of a polar bear (very reminiscent of the Coca Cola bears) swimming pitifully in the sea trying to haul itself up onto the last piece of ice floating in the Arctic Ocean. In 2002, the World Wildlife Fund issued a report warning that global warming was endangering polar bears. Arctic sea ice is thawing sooner and this means that the bears who hunt seals on the ice have fewer opportunities to feed themselves. This week saw an alarming report that hungry polar bears are turning cannibal. Yet, the WWF report itself found that most bear populations are either stable or increasing (see page 9 of the report). And remember, polar bears evidently survived when Arctic temperatures were warmer 6000 years ago. "

The report is not referenced, yet this article wanders off track by referring to bear populations in general, not just polar bears. And the 6000 year claim from the one Russian 'paper' was not substantiated above. Building houses of cards with shaky findings does not lead to conclusive findings.

"Gore points to the devastation of the Hurricane Katrina and flatly says that global warming is increasing the intensity of hurricanes. But that claim is hotly contested by climate scientists."

I would agree with this. The models predicted it, and it seems to be happening, though the data is not completely out of the margins of errors yet, so there is not a consensus among key hurricane researchers in the US.

"Gore traces a red temperature line inexorably increasing while he declares that 10 of the hottest years on record occurred in the last 14 years. Then he asserts that 2005 was the hottest ever. Pause for effect. Basically, Gore's general point is right but it's just irritating for him not to acknowledge that 2005 is statistically indistinguishable from 1998."

Not much of a point here, especially since the article does not contend with the point that 10 of the hottest years on record occurred in the last 14 years. Trends are what are important, and the trends are clear.

That's all I have time for now (I really must work for a living), but its clear that much of the 'debunking' that's been going on is more directed at public opinion that at addressing the science itself. And that, my friend blu, is called 'spin'.

Guys,

Go read the entire piece. Goebbels, errr, I mean Will, cherry-picked his response as you will see. The piece destryoys Gore's propoganda piece in a very detailed and devastating fashion. And this is just one of many that I've seen. By now, you should all know Will's "m.o.", so ignore him. BTW, op-eds rarely if ever cite references.

Anybody can blather rhetorically and claim to "destroy" their opponent; having solid references to back oneself up with is required just to get in the door of a scientific debate. And an op-ed piece is just an opinion statement intended to sway readership. If unsupported opinions are what you are basing your argument on, then those claims are groundless until shown otherwise. Which might be fine in a debate between ideologues in politics, religion, or philosphy, but they're not the subject domain at hand.

the scientists are right! Global Warming is real. Here is proof:

in 1955, Ansel Adams took this picture of Half Dome.

Now look at it today! Where's the snow?

News flash: the scientists have discovered the real cause of global warming!