Global warming is real. Forget the arguments about what's causing it. Forget trying to figure out whether it's going to be good or bad. Forget wondering what should be done to stop it. The fact of the matter is that the Earth's atmosphere has been getting measurably warmer for quite a few years and shows every sign of continuing.
I don't remember when I first heard of global warming, but I do know that it became a political football soon afterward. Sadly, it seems like the issues around it have turned into a screaming match about whether it even exists. This is silly and needs to stop so that we can figure out what to do next.
I am not an atmospheric scientist. I'm pretty sure I don't even know any. I do follow science news rather closely, though, and it's become obvious to me that almost all scientists agree that the Earth is warmer now than it was a decade ago, that the decade before was even cooler, and that the average temperature has been trending upward.
I've also noticed that while scientists agree that global warming is real, the only groups who disbelieve it are political in nature (including some that I'm usually a part of; more on that later). When presented with a scientific question, I'm more likely to trust experts in the field than politicians.
Along those lines, those politicians who refuse to accept global warming tend to dismiss it as a conspiracy of liberal meteorologists. To me, that idea is just asinine. I was a science major in college, and one of the things I learned very well is that it's almost impossible to get a bunch of researchers to agree on something. No matter how obvious the statement, someone will nitpick it to death and argue until someone is able to demonstrate that the statement is most likely true. Because of that, there are a few reasons why this vast left-wing conspiracy is beyond silly:
First, there is an enormous body of evidence supporting the idea of global warming. Most people seem to think that science is about proving theories, when in reality the exact opposite is true: scientists do their best to disprove hypotheses and only the ones that stand the test of time are elevated to theories. For example, a lot of physicists have made careers of trying to show that some of Einstein's ideas were wrong. Because so many scientists have tried and failed, those ideas are generally accepted as accurate and used as the basis for other theories. If anyone designed an experiment that demonstrated flaws in his theories, that person would win the Nobel prize and be given all the research money they could ever want to run other experiments.
Well, the same is going on for global warming. Researchers from around the world have studied climate data with a fine-toothed comb to look for flaws and anomalies that would show that our atmospheric temperature hasn't been rising. The fact that no one has been able to convincingly do so is a strong indicator that the scientific consensus is correct.
Science is driven by a need to understand the world around us. Possibly the only stronger motivation for researchers is fame. Those Nobel prizes don't only go to physicists; lots of climate researchers would love to see their names in the big journals and on newspaper headlines.
Finally, the scientific community is brutally harsh to its own members who knowingly publish false or misleading results. Even allegations of wrongdoing are sufficient to ruin a lot of careers. No researcher wants to get caught submitting shoddy work or invalid data as the punishment is severe and thorough.
So take your pick of reasons: whether from fear of being caught lying, personal ambition, or of a dogged determination to find the truth, it's just not possible for such a large body scientists to almost entirely claim that global warming is taking place unless they have reason to believe it really is happening.
On thing that drives me absolutely nuts is when people confuse climate with weather when they're actually different subjects. "How can scientists know what the climate will do ten years from now," they'll say, "when they can't even guess what the weather will be next week?" The best analogy I've heard involves boiling a pot of water. Climate is like looking at that pot, seeing that it's on a burner, and using a thermometer to see how fast it's getting hotter. Weather is like trying to figure out where the first bubble will form on the bottom.
Another common misperception is that global warming is the same as universal warming. It's not. A lot of researchers have started referring to "climate change" to more accurate describe what's happening. Basically, as the atmosphere grows warmer, the jet stream moves around, ocean currents shift, and weather patterns change. As some spots on the planet will get much warmer, others will get cooler. The important part is that the average temperature is increasing, even taking into account localized drops.
Think of it like the refrigerator in your house. Anything that uses electricity creates heat - that's just the nature of energy. Your refrigerator uses that electricity to shift some heat from inside itself into the rest of your home. But even if you left the door open, because of the electricity consumed by the motor and turned into heat, the average temperature inside your house will go up.
My last weather-related pet peeve is people who think that unusually cool days are proof that global warming isn't true. Equally bad are ones who believe that warm days prove that it is true. It sounds dumb and is very unflattering. If you do that, stop.
A recent report claimed that the trend to warmer temperatures has reversed and we are actually headed toward a cooling period. The problem here is exactly the same as with weather versus climate, discussed above. The only difference is that the time intervals involved are a year or two instead of weeks. Now, don't get me wrong: I sincerely, wholeheartedly hope that this turns out to be correct and that we're moving toward the same average temperatures our society has learned to handle over the last few centuries. We already know how to deal with the status quo and that's definitely the easiest outcome to manage. However, it's important to remember that it's still too early to know whether this was a one year fluke or a long term change, and anyone who tells you otherwise is probably lying to you.
The most vexing part of the whole subject is why this is such a politically charged issue. Now, I understand the difficulty of agreeing upon an acceptable response to the problem, or even whether it's a problem at all. However, I just don't see why global warming's existence is even in question outside scientific circles. To me, that's like arguing that nuclear fission is a lie because to accept it would mean that people can build nuclear bombs. Our feelings about the implications of the facts are immaterial to whether the facts themselves are correct.
I think it's the height of absurdity that a person's opinions on scientific topics depends on their political leanings. I'm not even sure how views on the matter became so sharply divided along political lines. Since when did a bunch of hippies become true believers in science? And what prompted industry to turn its back on the very idea instead of embracing new markets and a shift to cleaner, cheaper power? This could so easily have gone the other way, but the sides have been chosen and neither shows any sign of wavering. As a conservative, I'm irked to no end that my cohorts have ceded the intellectual high ground to groups who were preaching granola and pyramid power a few decades ago.
In a nutshell, I wish politicians would quit making this an us-or-them issue and accept or reject global warming on scientific grounds. As of right now, that means accepting it. Within the circles of experts on the subject, almost everyone believes that the Earth is getting warmer and will continue to do so. To continue to argue otherwise on emotional grounds does nothing but marginalize the people who should be stepping up to address the issue.
Whether global warming is a problem, whether we caused it, and whether we can do anything about it are questions requiring serious debate. This can't happen until we accept that it is real. It is. Now lets move forward, shall we?
interesting debate.
interesting debate.
Global warming is a very
Global warming is a very dangerous thing which is happening right now. No matter who agrees or not, it is happening and ultimately the world may even come to an end due to mis balance in the environment.
Too far in the other direction
Now, see, that's not helping things either. The truth is that we don't know if it's bad or not. The ecosystem is amazingly resilient and could very well adapt to anything that comes along, quite possibly in ways that we would consider good or beneficial.
...or disease, or a supernova, or a meteorite, or war, or...
There are plenty of things to be concerned with besides global warming.
The Global Warming Fraud
The Global Climate Change Fraud
(or How algore Intends To Enrich Himself At Your Expense
With Active Help From The UN)
This is a straight forward story of the FTM principle. You may wonder what FTM stands for:
As you see, we are basically looking at an enormous transfer of wealth/money away from the hard-working people of the United States of America. Specifically, the money is intended to be transferred to the United Nations so that those crooks can steal even more. And one of the other main beneficiaries is a London, UK, based company by the name of:
This company has another office in Washington, DC, and plans for another one in Australia by 2008 - my guess would be in Canberra. So, a hearty 'WELCOME' to our Aussie friends. I remember the Paul Hogan TV Show in the mid 1970's where he had the 'Aussie Bleeder' character (if memory serves me right, he kept cutting himself shaving). We will have a completely new meaning behind that character! And there will be a lot of Yank, Pom, Frog, Kraut, Gnome and other bleeders, unless, we can stop this fraud! And stopping it means completely discredit the JUNK science, JUNK scientists and arrogant, condescending spreaders of the JUNK, like algore, the UN and companies like Generation Investment Management LLP!
By now there are probably two distinct camps developing on my discourse:
If you belong to the number 2 group take this advice: quit reading this, it will not get any easier on you; pay your carbon credit taxes you love so much and believe in; don't complain being taken to the cleaners by your 'gods'. If you are that stupid, you deserve what you get! And don't complain to me about it! Don't complain to any of the people in group number 1, either!
OK, I just had to get that off my chest, I'm so sick and tired of listening to those pompous, 'politically (in)correct pseudo-intellectual' arrogant morons.
Now, let me set a few more basics to get me to my main point. Below you see an exact copy from the 'Team' link on the Generation Investment Management LLP website (as of date: 3/29/2007) - just in case they change it and someone tries to say I'm wrong, you know how they do it. And I am actually smart enough to know that a website can change at any time, without prior notice - even the web address may change! Particularly, if somebody tries to hide something!
Generation Investment Management LLP website extract:
The Generation team of 23 people represents 9 countries, speaks 8 languages, and integrates traditional equity analysts with experts from the sustainability research field. Within the team, Generation has 12 investment professionals with over 80 years of combined investment experience.
Full biographies of members of our firm [PDF]. (*this link doesn't work here*)
The firm was created in 2004 by six founding Partners:
Our Chairman, former Vice President Al Gore, has assembled Generation's Advisory Board which consists of global leaders and thinkers from capital markets, industry, sustainability, economics, and geopolitical fields. The Advisory Board plays an important part in establishing our long term thematic research agenda into global sustainability issues, such as poverty, climate change, ecosystem services, biodiversity, pandemics, demographics, migration, public policy and responsible lobbying.
My Dim View Of The Intent
Read that last sentence again! And specifically the last 5 words: "...public policy and responsible lobbying." Isn't that nice? If you know how the leftist lot goes about getting their agenda crammed down everybody's throat (or more likely shoved up the other end), you know what that means! And that is a neat segue to show you what the real plan behind 'chairman' algore's company is.
Some days ago (March 2007), 'chairman' algore appeared on Capitol Hill and the only part of his -- how can I put this gently -- arrogant appearance that I was interested in, and I paraphrase: "...the government has to control global warming with regulation and taxation...". Am I the only person in the world who heard that? I certainly did not see or hear too many news stories on that particular point! Of course, I would not expect the leftist 'mainstream' media to make too much of that dumb-ass statement.
Regulation and Taxation are the key words for the whole crooked deal. You may have read the stories of 'chairman' algore's carbon foot print. He is using more electicity in ONE MONTH for his mansion than the average household in the country uses in ONE YEAR. He flies around the world in a private jet because he is too important (to whom?) to use regular airlines. Who ownes/leases that jet? Generation Investment Management LLP? I don't know, but it might be a good question to get answered. To offset his excessive 'carbon foot print', algore buys 'carbon credits' - at least that was his original story. Actually, algore doesn't buy a damn thing. More precisely, Generation Investment Management LLP provides algore with the 'carbon credits'! What's the connection between 'carbon credits' and Generation Investment Management LLP? You're going to love this!
You may have heard the story behind the whole trading in 'carbon credits'. Put simply, you pay someone, presumably some tinpot dictator in some hellhole he created, to plant trees. Or maybe to forego some development project that would 'emit excessive' carbon dioxide. Does anybody check whether the trees get planted or the project 'cancelled'? Frankly, I doubt it! I'm sure there will be some 'photoops' to 'proof' the viability of the whole fraud. But, I think, we all know the real story already.
Anyway, those 'carbon credits' are now worth a considerable amount. My estimate is that for each 5 cents the above mentioned dictator received (I may even be generous), the value is now $1. Can you see the beauty of this plan? No manufacturing plants to build, no environmentalists to screw up the project, no work to be done. Just hand over something like $5 million to some unsavory characters and you're sitting on $95 million of profit! No matter who you are, you have to admit, the plan is brilliant! Don't misunderstand that statement, algore is too stupid to come up with this scheme, but he does make a convenient bait to reel in the fawning idiots that want to believe the 'global warming' story.
As you can see, Generation Investment Management LLP plays an important part in this whole convoluted mess. They 'invest' the money to 'buy the carbon credits' which are then 'traded'. Traded in the same manner as any commodity is traded, such as corn, coffee or stocks and bonds. You may recall the clinton cattle futures deal (payoff) from the 1990's - that was a commodity trade. The $1 nominal value of each 'carbon credit' commodity will now start to fluctuate with supply and demand. The 'investors' (more precisely: speculators) are hoping that the price will exceed $1 or they will 'loose' money. Of course, as long as they can stick someone else for more than their original $5 million, they still profit. The loss comes in because they over-valued the commodity at its nominal value. And they fully expect that the price should go UP from that level!
Here is a crucial point that needs to be addressed. The Supply/Demand scenario has to be created. Let's face it, you, I and Joe and Jane Blow down the block are not going to waste our money to 'buy carbon credits'! However, it is imperative that our money be part of the deal - regardless of our priorities.
Enter: algore and his 'regulation and taxation' scheme.
Another tool for this to work has been around for about 10 years now, and I'm sure you have heard of it: Kyoto Protocol.
While clinton signed the protocol, it was never ratified by the republican controlled US Congress. At this point, President Bush would very likely not sign the ratification and there are not enough votes to override a veto. So, guess what? The democrats and algore (and george soros - he wants a piece of this pie too) hope that they can get control of the US Senate, House and Presidency to ratify Kyoto. This opens the door wide for regulation and, more importantly, TAXATION. You see where algore and Generation Investment Management LLP were heading all along - even if algore doesn't know it - then again, somebody may have tried to tell him.
Now all the pieces are in place for Generation Investment Management LLP to really start cleaning up. Uhm, not the world or the atmosphere, just the money that's on the table. Let the 'carbon credit' trading begin. Taxes imposed on US citizens and residents will easily double the money available worldwide for the 'carbon credit' trading business. The $1 nominal value will certainly be exceeded.By how much? Does it matter? Particularly, if you're on the end that has a government bureaucracy steal your money and hand it to Generation Investment Management LLP or george soros to buy your 'carbon credits'.
But that's not even the end of the story. There will be exemptions to the regulations and taxes. After all, you can't just sink the whole economy because you want to send it back to the 15th century. That might not go over too well! So, exempt companies from some onerous provisions in return for some additional taxes, er, fees. And/Or they are allowed to 'buy carbon credits'. You see the supply and demand thing happening? Hopefully, the companies buying or selling 'carbon credits' will do so through specialised expert companies like algore's Generation Investment Management LLP. Naturally, they will receive 'commissions' from those trades!
The rich private individuals who don't want to cut back on their 'carbon foot print', like algore, will be allowed to 'buy carbon credits' as well. Think John Travolta will get rid of any of his airplanes or SUV's? And here we have the marketing plan for Generation Investment Management LLP: If you open a trading account with us for $x million, we will provide you with y 'carbon credits' per year, $x+ million will earn you y+ 'carbon credits' per year, in addition to your return from the investments.
As you might have guessed by now, you and I and our neighbours will be stuck to pay the taxes. Let see, there are, of course, higher gasoline taxes for our cars, higher taxes on heating oil or natural gas, higher taxes on electricity (generation plants are emitting co2 to generate it) and probably higher rates for electricity as well. The politicians and government bureaucrates then go out and buy the 'carbon credits' for us members of the 'great unwashed' persuasion. As usual, the government will do that through selected 'contractors'. Care to guess who the main contractor will be? If you guessed algore's Generation Investment Management LLP, give yourself a pat on the back.
Last week (last week of March 2007) algore was in Europe. It appears the European socialists are falling all over themselves to suck up to algore. And since his company is in London, and Europe signed on to the Kyoto Protocol, and they are already trading 'carbon credits', algore is already pulling in all kinds of customers. Imagine a former vice-president of the USA, a socialist comrade, trying to get his comrades business, with appropriate kick-backs - no doubt - even if it's only in form of a little bit of taxes from his company. How could those comrades refuse?
Well, this is part one - we'll see how it develops!
Warming
On Serious "Scientific Discussion" Of Climate Fluctuations
Global 'Warming' ?
This is meant as a foreword to the item below. I wrote it about a year ago and the following paragraphs are setting a basis for my opinion.
Kirk is pointing out the downright 'massacres' going on in the scientific community. Whenever researchers, individually or as groups, publish anything about anything, there are plenty of others trying to destroy the project and the author(s). I have seen that, and I am aware of it.
This current 'global warming' hysteria is a completely different story. Anything remotely resembling 'scientific discussion' is absent! It has become purely 'political propaganda'. When you have people yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs (figuratively speaking) that you better listen to them and there is no further need for discussion. The only thing left to do is what they say to 'fix the problem'. And what is the fix? It's spelled 'M-O-N-E-Y'! More precisely: YOUR and MY money in the form of additional taxes. Money that is handed to any number of bureaucracies without checks and balances or, for that matter, any responsible oversight to prevent various schemes to..., how do I put this delicately, ... STEAL the money. Please - don't even try to tell me that would not happen. Think the UN 'Oil for Food Programme'. (Notice how they love to use the 'Queen's English' spelling for those frauds).
Nothing sends my 'stink-o-meter' to the 'dead skunk' level faster than a bunch of arrogant, condescending morons giving me a story that they have the 'facts' and all I have to do is pay up and leave the 'worrying' to them. Add to that those much quoted 'over 2000' climate and weather scientists who 'agree on the facts'. Excuse me? In the meantime, we had at least a third of those scientists retract their support of those 'facts'. They have tried, more or less successfully, to have their names removed from that list and they have publicly denounced the handling of the whole affair. Others simply came out and said that whatever their contributions were, was misinterpreted and they disagreed with the published representation.
Add to the story the actual fact that 'climate' research has only become a viable science over the last 60 years. With improving technology, ground-, air- and space-based, more and better data can be gathered. However, given that the earth has been around for a long time and we 'know' from core samples ('forensic climate research'(?) - by way of geology and geophysics) that CO2 levels have been rising and falling over the millennia. Average temperatures, too, have fluctuated during that time. And all that without the help of SUV's or having money thrown at a bunch of crooks. Amazing!
If you feel compelled to send your money to algore or the UN - be my guest. But, don't you dare make me pay, so that you can feel good about yourself!
But it's still happening.
Unfortunately, this is the kind of politicization I was lamenting earlier. The dialog has leapt right over "is it happening?" and moved right into "we cannot admit that it's happening at any cost!"
Again, there are myriad questions to be answered such as "why is it happening?", "what will the effects be?", and "can we change it?". None of those change the fact that the Earth has been getting warmer for the last few decades. It's perfectly fine - and necessary - to debate the proper reaction. Unfortunately, showing that shadowy conspiracy groups could potentially profit from one path won't make the reality of global warming go away.
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