'If you don't believe in climate change you must be sick'

[LTUME1978]

I am not one that believes in all of that climate change nonsense. I think it is nothing more that a tool the left uses to try to control us and put a lot of money in their pockets. Go to http://www.CFACT.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for a more realistic position (scientific) on the matter of global warming. I am a mechanical engineer that has spent 36+ years in the hydrocarbon processing industry and have seen tremendous reductions in pollution (which is blamed for global warming). I also believe in being a good stewart of the resources with which the Lord has entrusted us. However, most of what is being proposed by the liberal agenda now is way off base.

[philip964]

Since this is a gun forum, something gun related should be said on this topic. The type of people who want to jam humanity into a few mega cities aren't going to be too fond of the shooting sports, nor of self-defense by the average citizen. So, when I vote against global warming zealots, and environmentalist control types, I feel that I'm also protecting firearms rights in a roundabout way.

The firing of a gun could be made illegal as it produces carbon dioxide. Nothing in the second amendment about firing a gun.

Don't think they arnt thinking about it

[Dave2]

Since this is a gun forum, something gun related should be said on this topic. The type of people who want to jam humanity into a few mega cities aren't going to be too fond of the shooting sports, nor of self-defense by the average citizen. So, when I vote against global warming zealots, and environmentalist control types, I feel that I'm also protecting firearms rights in a roundabout way.

The firing of a gun could be made illegal as it produces carbon dioxide. Nothing in the second amendment about firing a gun.

Don't think they arnt thinking about it

I'm sure they're thinking about it, but I can't imagine it ever being taken seriously... What's the point of being able to own a gun if you can't shoot a gun? Of course, 5/9ths of the SCOTUS thinks that congress can tax that which it isn't allowed to regulate, so maybe I should be worried about it.

[tacticool]

I believe. I believe there were Ice Ages in the past and NYC was covered by a glacier during the last one.

That sounds like a strong argument to reverse global warming.

In the meantime, let's reclaim the wetlands around N 38° 53' W 77° 02'

I had a great climate change bumper sticker on my old car.

Nuclear Winter:
The solution to Global Warming

[VoiceofReason]

It's interesting to me to see that people don't believe the climate is changing. I'm going to ignore all the drible about reducing the human population, it's just distracting.

The vast majority of the scientific community believes that the climate is changing (warming). I find it "interesting" to see that many conservatives don't accept it.. And there are liberals too (VM: Progressives) - but I think that denying it at this point is simply sticking your head in the sand.

The question is - how much of it is due to humans and how much of it is something else... I think that's still up for debate, but certainly "we" aren't helping the situation.

How much does the climate need to change before people start to think that it might be a real thing? However much that is, I hope it's not too much...

What if they are right? I have seen some very smart people be wrong and some “very slow” people be right.

There are things we can do just to hedge our bets that would benefit us.

Businesses should be encouraged to turn off their advertising signs when the businesses are closed. This would reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released in to the atmosphere by millions of tons in a few weeks. Drive around any large city at two or three in the morning and notice how many advertising signs are lit up and the business is closed. Add to that the thousands you didn’t see then multiply it by New York, Chicago, Dallas, L.A. etc. etc. Turning these signs off would not cost anything. As a matter of fact it would save the business owner money. It not only would greatly reduce the amount of fossil fuel used to generate this electricity but it may just reduce the cost of electricity and natural gas for everyone. Businesses need to have security lights but they don’t need to waste electricity advertising when the business is closed and very few people are out to see the signs.

The Federal government should subsidize the rebuilding of a new, modern railroad. Passenger cars could be made of newer lighter materials and railroads could be rebuilt to allow trains to run faster and not have to slow as often for city crossings. Freight could be shipped much cheaper and with far less fuel used per ton than by truck. Passengers could travel much cheaper and with far less fuel used per passenger than by aircraft. For an extra charge a passenger’s personal automobile could be shipped in separate cars on the same train. Imagine driving to the train station, handing a valet your keys, traveling in comfort to your destination, and then having a valet bring your car to you with your luggage still locked in the trunk. No baggage checking or baggage claim, no shuttle, no rental car, fewer restrictions on what you can carry, and when have you ever heard of a train being hijacked and crashed into a skyscraper?

There are other things we could do but people are too busy arguing. Well if it is true and we do nothing about it, it will be self correcting.

I sent this as part of a letter with some other suggestions to a number of environmental organizations and even my congressman and the White House. I got the same comments as I got on this forum. None, zilch, zip, nada.

What is wrong with this? I am not fishing for compliments I am just curious why absolutely no one replied. Is it hard to understand? Sometimes I don’t put my thoughts into words very well. Don’t worry about “hurting my feelings” you can’t. I would just like to know if those are stupid ideas, takes too long to read or what.

Flame away.

[Count]

What is wrong with this? I am not fishing for compliments I am just curious why absolutely no one replied.

It's not really a Gun and/or Self-Defense Related Political Issue. However, since you want replies, here's mine.

The government rarely needs to provide incentives to do things that make economic sense. Government incentives, particularly in the IRC, are generally used to push a socio-political agenda by rewarding behaviors that are not economically viable on their own. That's why they need to rob Peter to pay Paul to do those things.

[Vol Texan]

Businesses should be encouraged to turn off their advertising signs when the businesses are closed. This would reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released in to the atmosphere by millions of tons in a few weeks. Drive around any large city at two or three in the morning and notice how many advertising signs are lit up and the business is closed. Add to that the thousands you didn’t see then multiply it by New York, Chicago, Dallas, L.A. etc. etc. Turning these signs off would not cost anything. As a matter of fact it would save the business owner money.
(snip)

(snip)
What is wrong with this? I am not fishing for compliments I am just curious why absolutely no one replied. Is it hard to understand? Sometimes I don’t put my thoughts into words very well. Don’t worry about “hurting my feelings” you can’t. I would just like to know if those are stupid ideas, takes too long to read or what.
Flame away.

No flame coming your way, but I'll share an idea why this won't likely happen. Business are in business to make money. There are many facets to this, but in brief, they will increase revenue and decrease costs where it is sensible to do so. Advertising costs money, but it works. Advertising comes in many forms, including radio, print, television, web adds, and yes, even those large signs. They may feel that keeping their brand name in front of you all the time is worth it, and millions of dollars are spent on branding each year for that very reason.

My wife has a small business in Houston. Her lights on her sign are on all the time when it is dark outside. All it takes is for one person to pass by after hours and say, "Hey, I never knew that place was here" for it to pay off. If that person walks in and buys one big purchase, it could pay for the nocturnal nights for the full year.

As far as 'encouraging' goes...that sounds like a government agency coming and and taxing a behavior out of existence. It's a behavior that is a perceived value to the impacted business, but now some bureaucrat would suddenly decide that it's not in the business owner's best interest to realize that value. Increase the tax such that the value is diminished, and viola! we have a successful implementation! Well, successful for everyone but that small business person who is fighting tooth and nail to get every last customer in the door. Suddenly, a cost-effective advertising stream just became too expensive (and not because of market forces, but because of government intervention), and their revenue that comes in because of that advertising stream drops proportionally.

So this isn't about small businesses...it's about big industry, perhaps? Why draw the line, and where do you draw it? Why punish someone just because they suddenly make more $$ this year than they did last year? How could that drive the wrong result?

Just ask the struggling small business owners around the US that are forcing themselves to stay at 49 full time employees now. They may know just a few more people could make them more profitable, but they know when they bring in that 50th person, their tax burden rises dramatically enough that it costs more money to hire them than they could possibly benefit the company.

[The Annoyed Man]

That sounds like a reasonable assessment with realistic questions to me...
It's much better than spinning it into a political "liberal" issue and totally discounting it.

The problem with climate change isn't climate change. The earth's climate has been changing continuously since it was first formed. The problem with it is our curious need to assign a cause for it, and then to generate social/political policy to "deal with it".

I read recently that the tiny insect population inside average human dwelling here in the United States (mites, etc) is greater than the number of people on the planet. I don't know it that is true or not, but one thing IS true, and that is that the non-human biomass of the planet outweighs the human biomass by billions or trillions to one. ALL of that biomass exudes gasses of some kind or other. Alarmists are upset that cow farts contribute metric tons of methane to the atmosphere, and they want to decrease the production of methane by decreasing animal husbandry. I would reply by pointing out that before we had all these cattle, buffalo roamed the plains in herds so vast that they darkened the earth......and each and every one of them was a prolific farter. So by the alarmists' logic, it is a good thing that the white man nearly eradicated the buffalo.

Humanity's goal shouldn't be to limit the liberty of human beings to try and stop the unstoppable—climate change—it should be to use use human ingenuity to adapt to the change in whatever ways are necessary for survival........ie. warmer or cooler clothing fabrics, more efficient heating/cooling of homes, architecture which heats and cools more efficiently, etc., etc., etc.

EDITED TO CORRECT A SPELLING ERROR....

[The Annoyed Man]

What your addressing is what I like to call "preserving the illusion of control." Many of the hot-button political issues of our day from socializing health care, entitlements, climate legislation, and even anti-gun propaganda is largely an effort to preserve the illusion that we humans are actually in control of the world. It provides an illusion of safety in something we can see, hear, touch, smell, and feel. However, in the long game, such things do little other than make us "feel" safe.

Exactly. I know Who is in control, but not everyone shares that belief. Be that as it may, the notion that this collection of 6 billion miniscule fly-specks can engineer the planet into doing our will is beyond preposterous, and plunges deeply into hubris.

The problem with hubris is that it never goes unpunished in the end, but along the way, millions have to die or have the quality of their lives crumpled inward to satisfy the vanities of the hubristic. My copy of The Owner's Manual says in Proverbs 16:18 "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." (ESV).

Those who will not submit to the climate change dogma are called "deniers". We deny nothing. EVERYBODY knows the climate is changing. You don't have to be a genius to see it. But the entire premise of the alarmist argument is based on a faked "hockey stick" in the data, which has been proven to be fraudulent and virtually disavowed by climatologists (see below). Even most of the alarmists conceded that the hockey stick data is shakey, but they can't give it up because they've got nothing else, and they want to rule the world based on this shaky data. We don't deny that the climate is changing. We deny the shaky data, and the conclusions drawn from it. That's just smart thinking.

And that's another thing......this notion that 98% of scientists agree that it is man-made is eyewash. Maybe 98% of (outspoken leftist) scientists (who are not climatologists) agree that it is man-made. But among climatologists.......those people whose special area of competence is climate change........the issue is still very much in doubt, with maybe as much as half of them not drinking the man-made coolaid, some still on the fence, and some believing it. If THEY are not unanimous, then it really doesn't matter what a collection of sociologists, behaviorists, anthropologists, physicists, and mathematicians believe. Climatology is NOT their area of competence. This would be analogous to allowing a PhD in fluid dynamics perform your heart surgery, just because he has a micro understanding of how blood behaves inside of blood vessels. No matter how much his hubris drives him to try and convince others that his knowledge is enough to safely perform the surgery, I'm not letting him near MY heart with a knife in his hand, because despite all of his knowledge, he does not know what he's doing.

The alarmists decry the shrinkage of glaciers in one area as evidence of global warming. Yes.....well.....that's true.......but they are growing in other areas.

The alarmists decry the fact that temperatures are, on average, a degree hotter in parts of the globe. Yes......well......that's true.....but they are getting colder in other parts of the globe.

Etc., etc., etc.

And on this flimsy evidence, mullet-heads like the "girl" (I'm not sure what it is) in the OP's article want to decrease the male population and force everyone to live in hives..........and the DUMBEST part is that they think people will submit to this foolishness. People have revolted violently over less radical impositions than this (Tea Tax, Boston Harbor, etc.). What makes this foolish twit imagine that anybody with a brain would just knuckle under to her fantasy? And how far have we fallen intellectually as a culture when a lint-brained idiot like that is actually taken seriously by some?

[ShootDontTalk]

As usual, TAM you hit the nail on the head. "Lint-brained idiot". I love it. I always have to shake my head in wonder when I hear the "well settled scientific fact" that humans are responsible for climate change. It surely happens, so logically we humans must be responsible. After all, we have 150 years of data to back up our "scientific" conclusions.

I submit that every student graduating high school should be required to take a semester of geology concluding with a field trip or two. The science of planetary geology clearly teaches us that Texas was almost entirely covered with a warm sea teeming with life. The remnants of that time are easily seen in core samples from thousands of feet beneath the surface. In a later epoch, Pleistocene to be exact, much of North America was covered with glaciers thousands of feet thick. When they melted, the runoff created rivers and canyons that changed the very face of the earth and are still seen today. Arguing that planetary climate change doesn't exist flies in the face of history and most of us know what happens when we ignore history.

However, implying that humans caused that change is simply ludicrous. The earth has been changing for eons in both meso and micro cycles without human help, thank you very much. Call me what you will, but my clear understanding is that much of what passes for "science" today, and in particular "global warming", is nothing more than human greed driven by government grants - pay checks - doled out to those who arrive at the required conclusions (by whatever political agenda happens to control the purse strings). Results-oriented "science" is nothing more than tom foolery. Or maybe stated another way, theft of the treasury.

It reminds me of folks like Bloombergie opening the pocketbooks to achieve gun control at the expense of truth and the Republic.

[mr surveyor]

As usual, TAM you hit the nail on the head. "Lint-brained idiot". I love it. I always have to shake my head in wonder when I hear the "well settled scientific fact" that humans are responsible for climate change. It surely happens, so logically we humans must be responsible. After all, we have 150 years of data to back up our "scientific" conclusions.

I submit that every student graduating high school should be required to take a semester of geology concluding with a field trip or two. The science of planetary geology clearly teaches us that Texas was almost entirely covered with a warm sea teeming with life. The remnants of that time are easily seen in core samples from thousands of feet beneath the surface. In a later epoch, Pleistocene to be exact, much of North America was covered with glaciers thousands of feet thick. When they melted, the runoff created rivers and canyons that changed the very face of the earth and are still seen today. Arguing that planetary climate change doesn't exist flies in the face of history and most of us know what happens when we ignore history.

However, implying that humans caused that change is simply ludicrous. The earth has been changing for eons in both meso and micro cycles without human help, thank you very much. Call me what you will, but my clear understanding is that much of what passes for "science" today, and in particular "global warming", is nothing more than human greed driven by government grants - pay checks - doled out to those who arrive at the required conclusions (by whatever political agenda happens to control the purse strings). Results-oriented "science" is nothing more than tom foolery. Or maybe stated another way, theft of the treasury.

It reminds me of folks like Bloombergie opening the pocketbooks to achieve gun control at the expense of truth and the Republic.

very well said!

[esxmarkc]

TAM,

There are very few posts that your grace this forum with that I find disagreement to. In fact, there have been several cases where I have "re-educated" myself on a position based on one of your extremely intuitive and well thought-out posts. However, I can't say I agree with you completely on this one.

For starters:

Be that as it may, the notion that this collection of 6 billion minuscule fly-specks can engineer the planet into doing our will is beyond preposterous, and plunges deeply into hubris.

If you believe this is true, then by your logic is it hubris to believe that a few micro-grams of Influenza virus could send a 225+ lb. living organism to the grave or that a Batrachotoxin dipped dart could bring down a bull elephant or that a mass 1/1300th the size of the earth could virtually wipe out all the higher forms of life in a single event? If I were a betting man I'd bet that if mankind was to announce that the time has come to commit planetary suicide I'm sure we could develop a simple compound that inhibits photosynthesis and build a couple large facilities on each continent to start dumping it into the ecosystem. Without the bottom of the food chain we are all done. I'm sure we could easily kickstart the process by detonating all the nuclear warheads in our arsenals. Attempting to mount an argument based on the difference size ratios is a losing proposition. The idea that the ratio of the David to the Goliath is irrelevant given the proper leverage is at the very heart of the wonderful legislation that eventually led to the creation of this forum.

Think of it this way: A farmer is but a "minuscule fly-speck" compared to the size of his 2,000 acre farm but he does a pretty impressive job "engineering it to do his will" nevertheless. But I notice you chose your words wisely as "engineer the planet into doing our will" and that indeed is not the argument here - the argument is that we are inadvertently destroying it.

And that's another thing......this notion that 98% of scientists agree that it is man-made is eyewash. Maybe 98% of (outspoken leftist) scientists (who are not climatologists) agree that it is man-made. But among climatologists.......those people whose special area of competence is climate change........the issue is still very much in doubt, with maybe as much as half of them not drinking the man-made coolaid, some still on the fence, and some believing it.

I believe you are in extreme error on this statement. You will find that 97-98% of the top Climatologists agree that the global climate change is anthropogenic in origin. I get my data here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2901439/

The UE group comprises only 2% of the top 50 climate researchers as ranked by expertise (number of climate publications), 3% of researchers of the top 100, and 2.5% of the top 200, excluding researchers present in both groups (Materials and Methods). This result closely agrees with expert surveys, indicating that ≈97% of self-identified actively publishing climate scientists agree with the tenets of ACC (2). Furthermore, this finding complements direct polling of the climate researcher community, which yields qualitative and self-reported researcher expertise (2).

What you will find is that 97% of all peer-reviewed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) articles on the causes of climate change written by Climatologists agree that the root cause can be traced to the burning of fossil fuels releasing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Argue that if you wish and if you come up with a great argument I suggest you contact the National Academy of Sciences and have them amend the article and explain how you believe it is not 97%.

And since you believe that:

If THEY are not unanimous, then it really doesn't matter what a collection of sociologists, behaviorists, anthropologists, physicists, and mathematicians believe. Climatology is NOT their area of competence.

and if you take a look a the "List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sc ... al_warming)
you will find that most of these outspoken names against global warming have Astrophysicist, Geography, Earth Sciences, Physics ,Astronomy, Geology, Biochemist .... heck I can't hardly find a Climatologist in the list so if it's the expert word of a Climatologist is what you are looking for rest assured your argument is upside-down.

This would be analogous to allowing a PhD in fluid dynamics perform your heart surgery, just because he has a micro understanding of how blood behaves inside of blood vessels. No matter how much his hubris drives him to try and convince others that his knowledge is enough to safely perform the surgery, I'm not letting him near MY heart with a knife in his hand, because despite all of his knowledge, he does not know what he's doing.

I wouldn't worry. You're not going to find a PhD in fluid dynamics who is going to even want to perform your heart surgery - that's just not the way good science and medicine work. You may find it interesting that back when I worked on the centrifugal pump heart bypass system the doctors in the program relied on the computational fluid dynamics experts to create the turbulence models to allow them to predict and remove coagulation points in the impeller design. Just as they relied on my team to develop the fly-by-wire control system to maintain the proper flow rate using a dual processor redundant design. That's just how good science get's done - it's often a collaboration of disciplines that contribute to the proper end result. No different that when a climatologist relies on a chemist to explain the diffusion of carbon in the ice core samples or a physicist to explain the proper isotopes of carbon to measure or the issues of the accuracy/inaccuracy of the Ion Chronograph vs. Mass Spec vs. Isotope ratio mass spec etc., etc..

Those who will not submit to the climate change dogma are called "deniers". We deny nothing. EVERYBODY knows the climate is changing...

That one is a new one on me too. I know people that will not even admit the climate is changing. There are several scientists on the previous link that don't even agree that it is changing. So you really can't make that claim but I appreciate the point you are trying to make.

The alarmists decry the shrinkage of glaciers in one area as evidence of global warming. Yes.....well.....that's true.......but they are growing in other areas.

That's not the problem. The problem is that we are loosing ice sheets that are 110,000 years old. And the loss FAR outweighs the gains.

As crazy as it sounds, I'm neither a solid "believer" or a "denier". I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid... yours or anybody else's. I do loads of my own research and reading and as a very dedicated student to the sciences I form my own opinions.

I believe that the climate is changing. (on this we agree)
I believe that most Climatologists agree that it is attributable to the rise of industrialized human civilization. (You don't seem to agree on this.)
I believe that our stewardship of this ecosystem is abysmal especially once we discovered the utility of fossil fuels.

But there are a couple more points we do agree on:
The mullet-head girl in the OP is a "Lint-brained idiot". On this we agree. (And I'd hate for you to believe for one moment that I think ANYTHING like that air-brained megaliberal knucklehead.)
Mullet-heads like the girl in the OP jump to alarmist conclusions and demand everyone "have the quality of their lives crumpled inward to satisfy the vanities of the hubristic" (if I may use your excellent quote)

My plea to you or anyone is this:
Just because the "mullet-head, Lint-brained idiot" liberals are using this agenda to legislate more unwanted crap on our already overtaxed worn-out working arses please don't think it's not happening or is a total fabrication. I PAINS me to even be on this side of the argument. But as a student of logic and good science I must observe that the current body of evidence leans the jury in favor of industrialized civilization as a contributor to the cause.

Don't worry, I'm not running out to buy a Prius tomorrow. I want my oil... I neeeeeed my oil. I don't care if you have to drill through a mile thick layer of baby seals to get to it. Right now it's the only option for survival I have. And when I say "my" oil I'm talking about the diesel that goes in the combine to harvest my corn and the diesel it takes to truck it to the local grocery where I can pick it up. I'm talking about the oil I need burned at the local electric plant that provides electricity to cool my house in this 100 degree weather. I need oil burned elsewhere that forges the steel to build the roads and the buildings and the infrastructure that is makes up the civilized world I live in. And I'm going to need this to continue until the underlying fabric of this infrastructure is changed so I can tap into another form of non-carbon emitting renewable energy. And therein lies the real issue: it's not going to change in my lifetime, it may not change in my children's lifetime. But it will NEVER change if we continue to deny that it's happening just to spite a group of people whose agenda we cant stomach.

[G26ster]

I believe you are in extreme error on this statement. You will find that 97-98% of the top Climatologists agree that this is likely a man-made issue. I get my data here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2901439/

The UE group comprises only 2% of the top 50 climate researchers as ranked by expertise (number of climate publications), 3% of researchers of the top 100, and 2.5% of the top 200, excluding researchers present in both groups (Materials and Methods). This result closely agrees with expert surveys, indicating that ≈97% of self-identified actively publishing climate scientists agree with the tenets of ACC (2). Furthermore, this finding complements direct polling of the climate researcher community, which yields qualitative and self-reported researcher expertise (2).

What you will find is that 97% of all peer-reviewed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) articles on the causes of climate change written by Climatologists agree that the root cause can be traced to the burning of fossil fuels releasing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Argue that if you wish and if you come up with a great argument I suggest you contact the National Academy of Sciences and have them amend the article and explain how you believe it is not 97%.

To be published, you must be doing research. To do research you need grants (money). To get that grant you need to be preaching to the choir. How many climate scientists who are on the other side of the fence do you actually believe are getting research grants that lead to published papers? I don't believe many do.

I have no doubt that man contributes to climate change in some form, but it is the extent of the impact that to me is the issue. The dire warnings of the dominant "published" majority is no different to me than the bias of the dominant MSM to view what does not fit their agenda with disdain. It simply isn't reported. "Settled science" is the buzzword. Less than a decade ago physicists and astronomers were convinced that the universe would expand to a point and than begin to contract in on itself. Now the data shows that the universe will continue to expand for eternity. I don't think science should ever be "settled." Do you?

I believe that the climate change "debate" is a political" football, and following the money will show that there is an agenda at work. Until that agenda can be eliminated, we will probably never know the facts, and those who would gain politically or financially the most, will always have the megaphone.

Is the "root cause" of the climate warming the result of man - maybe. Is the root cause other than man - maybe. Are those who are championing man as the evil culprit going to profit - you betcha. Are those who believe otherwise going to profit - no way. Follow the money.

Just MHO, I could be wrong

[sjfcontrol]

When I was in college back in the dark ages (the '70s), the same people were predicting we'd all die from global cooling. Follow the money...