What's happening to that "consensus" on global warming?

[old_tony]

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport

Another lie of the left being debunked.

 

[Chi City 81]

Re: What's happening to that "concensus" on global warming?

All is well. Huzzah to the minority members of the Committee of Environment and Public Works for making the world safe from global warming!

 

[old_tony]

Damn that "concensus".

Sorry. Was being fixed as you posted.

Nothing else to say?

 

[Dangerous_K]

I was wondering why this sounded like something written at the Drudge Report. Then I looked at the URL: Minority.SenateReport. Interesting.

More importantly though and something that's bugged me for a long time, why should this even be a political issue? What's wrong with trying to form alternative fuels, cutting oil consumption?

 

[old_tony]

I was wondering why this sounded like something written at the Drudge Report. Then I looked at the URL: Minority.SenateReport. Interesting.

More importantly though and something that's bugged me for a long time, why should this even be a political issue? What's wrong with trying to form alternative fuels, cutting oil consumption?

Nothing at all. But doing counter-productive things because a bunch of idiots are pointing a gun at your head is really stupid.

Example: Ethanol uses more energy being produced than it saves in its use and also has driven the price of corn (a major food item) much higher.

The consensus of global warming is a lie. Always was a lie. But it was a necessary lie for people who couldn't argue on the facts.

 

[Dangerous_K]

Yes, the ethanol thing is something of a scam. I think that's being used as a way to placate certain groups.

Honestly whether there is a consensus on global warming doesn't matter to me. The changes people make based on the possibility of global warming are good, whether the threat is as tremendous as Al Gore says, or as minimal as this report says.

 

[Flying Headbutt]

Ethanol has proven to not be the solution, except to a bunch of hicks in Iowa who hold presidential candidates and their early momentum hostage over it. But if Brazil can find something that IS the solution for them, surely we can too.

 

[zeke12]

What a piece of **** that is.

It's a strawman.

Nice try, though, tony.

 

[SigR]

That the general public was duped by a politician on an environmentalist/nwo crusade is understandable. The general public is gullible and easily swindled by such things. What's concerned me all along with the global warming debate is that more scientists don't step up, no matter what their views, and scream from the top of their lungs that the global warming scare is *not* undergoing the full scrutiny of the scientific method. It is fear, hyperbole, and political manevuring.

It may well be that humans are having a scientifically significant impact on global warming, but Al Gore is a politician and should be regarded as such. Environmentalists are environmentalists, the media is the media. A lot of agendas mixed in there that are counter to good science.

 

[Chi City 81]

That the general public was duped by a politician on an environmentalist/nwo crusade is understandable. The general public is gullible and easily swindled by such things. What's concerned me all along with the global warming debate is that more scientists don't step up, no matter what their views, and scream from the top of their lungs that the global warming scare is *not* undergoing the full scrutiny of the scientific method. It is fear, hyperbole, and political manevuring.

It may well be that humans are having a scientifically significant impact on global warming, but Al Gore is a politician and should be regarded as such. Environmentalists are environmentalists, the media is the media. A lot of agendas mixed in there that are counter to good science.

So a politician can't be taken seriously about anything under any circumstances? That's one jaded outlook you have there. Also, Gore is no longer a politician. His political career ended the day SCOTUS awarded the Presidency to Fredo.

 

[D-Backs Hack]

A poster who often claims that Al Gore and other global warming believers "have an agenda" posts something from ... the Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Wonderful. I'm sure their motives are as pure as snow.

And by the way, nobody claimed that global-warming opinion was unanimous. It's still very much a "consensus," and to make it otherwise, you're going to have to find a lot more than 400 "prominent scientists" -- and I'd love to know how the Senate GOP defines that term -- to disagree.

 

[kingcreole]

But if Brazil can find something that IS the solution for them, surely we can too.

Yeah, you would think, wouldn't you? Hard to imagine Brazil pulling off something like that yet we can't.

 

[zeke12]

It isn't a scientific paper -- and I'd bet plenty of the scientists wouldn't be happy to see their names on it. It's a list of quotations from media sources. Probably 90 percent of which don't say what the title of the report says.

So, you have the title: "Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007"

What people read is that 400 prominent scientists don't think man is contributing to global warming. But, of course, that's a lie.

The third guy quoted says this:
One of India's leading geologists, B.P. Radhakrishna, President of the Geological Society of India, expressed climate skepticism in 2007. "There is some evidence to show that our planet Earth is becoming warmer and that human action is probably partly responsible, especially in the matter of greenhouse gas emissions.

Yeah, guess he really disputed "global warming myths." **** like that is probably why you have this handy disclaimer at the beginning.

Disclaimer: The following scientists named in this report have expressed a range of views from skepticism to outright rejection of predictions of catastrophic man-made global warming. As in all science, there is no lock step single view.

And there's the straw man...

Weak sauce, tony.

 

[Chi City 81]

 

[Football_Bat]

Brazil gets its ethanol from sugar cane, which is a much more efficient source than corn. Obviously, Brazil has the climate to grow sugar cane on a massive scale.

 

[sportschick]

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

All is well. Huzzah to the minority members of the Committee of Environment and Public Works for making the world safe from global warming!

This would be Jim Imhofe and his lads.
He stopped being a serious person a long time ago.

 

[zeke12]

Nice report, there, tony. It gets better and better the more I read.

One of its' 400 "scientists" weighs in...

Meteorologist Chris Allen of Kentucky Fox affiliate WBKO dismissed what he termed "consensus nonsense" on global warming. "But, just because major environmental groups, big media and some politicians are buying this hook, line and sinker doesn't mean as a TV weatherperson I am supposed to act as a puppy on a leash and follow along," Allen said in his blog titled "Still Not Convinced" on February 7, 2007. "All of this (global warming alarmism) is designed to get your money and then guilt you in to how you live your life," Allen explained. Allen has the Seal of Approval of the National Weather Association. "As I have stated before, not only do I believe global climate change exists - it has always existed. There have been times of global warming and cooling," Allen concluded. (LINK) "If there is a consensus among scientists about man-made global warming, then at what temperature would they all agree the earth should be before they say global warming no longer exists? The answer - there is not a scientific consensus and will never be. And if there were one, they would not agree as to what temperature the earth needs to be ‘normal' again," Allen wrote in another blog post on June 5, 2007. (LINK)

That's right. A TV weather guy from Kentucky. On a BLOG. Well, ****, I'm convinced.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Ethanol has proven to not be the solution, except to a bunch of hicks in Iowa who hold presidential candidates and their early momentum hostage over it. But if Brazil can find something that IS the solution for them, surely we can too.

This is complicated. But to paraphrase something James Surowiecki did in the New Yorker a year or so ago, and which spurred me to read up on this, we have created such a corrupt ****ed up system that we can't even produce the cheapest form of ethanol. Fuel is a lot cheaper in Brazil, because instead of using corn-based Ethanol, they use sugar cane-based ethanol. Its much cheaper to produce and generates way more energy per unit than corn-based ethanol does. Many cars in Brazil run on Ethanol alone, at half the price of gas.

We can't do that here because our politicians have their hands in the corn and sugar industries' pockets. They keep the price of domestic sugar so high in the U.S. as a boon to the industry that we can't make it cost-effective to use for ethanol, the way Brazil does. Our government actually guarantees producers a fixed price for domestic sugar and they put such high quotas and tariffs on foreign sugar that we can't just import cheaper third-world sugar. It keeps sugar prices twice as high in the U.S. than it is in the rest of the world. It's had ridiculous consequences. The candy industry in the U.S. has been decimated, with thousands of jobs lost to foreign makers. And amazingly, it has made us less fuel efficient.

We can't even just simply import sugar-based ethanol to get around the high price of sugar they have foisted on us. Congress imposed a tariff of 54 cents a gallon on sugar-based ethanol to protect the corn producers from competition. I can't remember the exact numbers, but there was a study from Iowa or Iowa State that suggested that if we just got rid of the tariffs, prices would fall by 10 to 20 percent and we'd use hundreds of millions more gallons of ethanol.

This is one area, you actually can't criticize the Bush Administration (one of the few). They tried to eliminate the ethanol tariff last year, and Congress said "Hell no!" Too many Congressmen getting greased by too many lobbyists. And we all lose. Not that he is alone, but one thing to keep in mind when making your presidential considerations -- Barack Obama was one of the ringleaders among a group of Senators who campaigned to make sure the tariff stayed in place. He is getting greased but good for his efforts. The domestic sugar producers have gotten hugely rich because of Congress and with the boondoggle they get, they have a lot more money to spread it around to their benefactors. It insures that they keep getting this corrupt (and what should be illegal) treatment.

The whole thing is beyond absurd. We actually have a policy in which Congress is paying billions of dollars in subsidies (our tax dollars) to try to induce us to use more ethanol... And at the same exact time, it has enacted tariffs and quotas that guarantee we use less. And as backward-ass as that is, it also just leaves us more dependent than ever on unstable oil-producing countries that screw us every which way they can. With the ethanol tariffs, we actually end up imposing taxes on fuel from countries that are friendly toward us (Say Brazil). But we don't tax fuel from countries that hate our guts and are antagonistic toward us (say Venezuela).

It is America at its most ****ed up.

 

[zeke12]

It's still getting better. Here's another of their quotations which purport to differ from the consensus on global warming:

The Dean of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health, Donald S. Burke, rejected climate fears relating to the spread of infectious diseases in 2007. "There are no apocalyptic pronouncements," Burke said, according to a December 5, 2007 Boston Globe article. "There's an awful lot we don't know," Burke added. The article explained that Burke "noted that the 2001 study found that weather fluctuation and seasonal variability may influence the spread of infectious disease. But he also noted that such conclusions should be interpreted with caution."

Yeah, he really took Al Gore to the woodshed on that one.