Do any republicans believe in global warming?

"Laypeople frequently assume that in a political dispute the truth must lie somewhere in the middle, and they are often right. In a scientific dispute, though, such an assumption is usually wrong." - Paul Ehrlich

I am not a climate scientist, but it is a topic that I have spent alot of time on. I defer my feelings on the subject to those who actually study this stuff for a living. I think if you take the time to try to evaluate the available information that is out there on both sides of the issue, you will find an overwhelming case that global warming is real, significantly influenced by human activity, and a serious threat to human life as we know it.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(chinook-hybrid @ Jun 5 2006, 06:58 PM) [snapback]266291[/snapback]</div>

This bogus point has been made by several posters, and it only serves to demonstrate that those who state this haven't, or don't want to consider the facts. No one denies that the earth has been much warmer and much cooler than it is now. However, the rate of the present warming trend is unprecedented, and is happening in human life times, not geologic millenia. The issue is the RATE of warming, not the extent of warming.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(chinook-hybrid @ Jun 5 2006, 06:58 PM) [snapback]266291[/snapback]</div>

Another point that people who don't like thinking keep dredging up. Do you realize that global warming is the most extensively studied scientific issue in human history? And that the vast majority of the study and research has taken place since the 1970's? Do you go to a doctor when you are sick? Do you realize they used to think that bleeding people was a good way to treat disease? Maybe you shouldn't trust your health to those doctors. They don't seem to know what they are doing....or maybe their scientific understanding has improved?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(chinook-hybrid @ Jun 5 2006, 06:58 PM) [snapback]266291[/snapback]</div>

It is not "Hollywood" that is warning us of the problem. It is the vast majority of the scientists and governments of the world.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute has published ice core data showing a striking correlation between atmospheric CO2 level and temperature. This coupled with the fact that recent human activity has clearly resulted in a short term spike in atmospheric CO2 levels presents a pretty clear, easy to understand perspective on why we should be concerned.
http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publi...ic_evidence.htm

The USEPA under the Bush adminstration says "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities."
http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming....nt/climate.html

NASA "has confirmed the earth's energy is out of balance", and that "the imbalance is an expected consequence of increasing atmospheric pollution, especially carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, and black carbon particles."
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/apr/H...rth_Energy.html

And here is one of the better articles I've seen (from the typically conservative Wall Street Journal) about the science, and scientific debate surrounding global warming.
One particularly telling quote from this article:
"That's why, with glaciers and sea ice melting and rainfall patterns shifting, scientists smell a stacked climate deck. "We have never seen natural variability on a global scale like we've had in the last 100 years," says atmospheric physicist Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University."

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114...ff_main_tff_top

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(malorn @ Jun 7 2006, 08:15 AM) [snapback]267147[/snapback]</div>

malorn,
I'm pretty sure he is refering to the global warming that Al Gore and Co. are trying to "promote", as you put it. You fail to realize that that other "global warming which has occurred natrually over the history of the earth" is nothing like the global warming that is happening now. Ice core research has shown that Al Gore's global warming is happening way way faster than that natural global warming you are referring to. And because the speed with which it is happening is unprecedented over at least the last 400,000 years, it poses a real threat to the future of human civilization. And that is what Al Gore and Co. are trying to tell you. You, however, are free to remain ignorant and to keep your head plugged deeply into the sand.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(kingofgix @ Jun 7 2006, 01:54 PM) [snapback]267332[/snapback]</div>

Part of the problem is that you get scientists making authoritative statements outside of their area of expertise. For instance, in the Wall Street Journal article, you have a marine scientist stating that the 0.1% increase in the Sun's output in the past 40 years couldn't possibly account for the increased temperatures. And therefore the Sun is dismissed as a possible cause.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE("Wall Street Journal")</div>

But, what's missing in the marine scientist's theory is that recent studies have indicated that the Sun is currently the most magnetically active that it's been in the past 1000 years. And coincidentally, there has been a sharp increase in that magnetic activity in the past 100 years.

Solar activity reaches new high

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE("PhysicsWeb")</div>

So, how does that make the earth warmer, if the actually solar energy reaching the Earth has only increased by a little bit? Well, the sun's magnetic field and solar wind shields the Earth from cosmic rays. The more magnetically active the Sun, the fewer cosmic rays reach the earth. The less magnetically active the Sun, the more more cosmic rays reach the earth. Comsmic rays are thought to have a role in the creation of clouds. These clouds have a cooling effect on the earth by reflecting sunlight back into space.

So, the more magnetically active the sun, fewer clouds are produced, resulting in more sunlight reaching the earth's surface, and therefore a hotter planet. The less magnetically active the sun, more clouds are produced, resulting in less sunlight reaching the earth's surface, and therefore a cooler planet. Seeing how the Sun's magnetic activity has increased sharply in the past 100 years, one might expect a sharp increase in the earth's temperature as well.

In flux

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE("The Economist")</div>

Global Warming science is not as settled as you think.

 

One of the world's leading climate/hurricane scientists:

Global warming? It's a hoax, scientist says
It's all part of Earth's natural cycle, contends atmosphere expert



12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, June 4, 2006
By JOEL ACHENBACH The Washington Post


WASHINGTON – It should be glorious to be William Gray, professor emeritus. He's the guy who predicts the number of hurricanes for the coming tropical storm season. He works on a country road leading into the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, in the atmospheric science department of Colorado State University. He's mentored dozens of scientists.

He's a towering figure in his profession and in person. He's loud. His laugh is gale force. He can be very charming.

He's also angry. He's outraged.

He recently had a shouting match with one of his former students. It went on for 45 minutes.

He was supposed to debate another scientist at a weather conference, but the organizer found him to be too obstreperous and disinvited him.

Much of his government funding has dried up. He has had to use his money, more than $100,000, to keep his research going. He feels intellectually abandoned. If none of his colleagues comes to his funeral, he said, that'll be evidence that he had the courage to say what they were afraid to admit.

Which is this: Global warming is a hoax.

"I am of the opinion that this is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people," he said.

He has testified about this to the U.S. Senate. He has written magazine articles, given speeches, done everything he could to get the message out.

"I've been in meteorology over 50 years. I've worked damn hard, and I've been around," he said. "My feeling is some of us older guys who've been around have not been asked about this. It's sort of a baby boomer, yuppie thing."

Dr. Gray believes in observations and direct measurements. Numerical models can't be trusted. Equation pushers with fancy computers aren't the equals of scientists who fly into hurricanes.

"Few people know what I know. I've been in the tropics, I've flown in airplanes into storms. I've done studies of convection, cloud clusters and how the moist process works," he said. "I don't think anybody in the world understands how the atmosphere functions better than me."

In just three, five, maybe eight years, he said, the world will begin to cool again.

He is almost desperate to be heard. His time is short. He is 76 years old. He is howling in a maelstrom.

Since the dawn of the industrial era, atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen from about 280 to about 380 parts per million. In the past century, the average surface temperature of Earth has warmed about 1 degree Fahrenheit. Much of that warming has been in the last three decades. Regional effects can be more dramatic: The Arctic is melting at an alarming rate. Arctic sea ice is 40 percent thinner than it was in the 1970s. Glaciers in Greenland are speeding up as they slide toward the sea. A recent report shows Antarctica losing as much as 36 cubic miles of ice a year.

The 1990s were the warmest decade on record. The year 1998 set the all-time mark. This decade is on its way to setting a new standard.

All of this is part of the emerging, solidifying scientific consensus on global warming – a consensus that raises the urgent political and economic issue of climate change.

But when you step into the realm of the skeptics, you find yourself on a parallel Earth.

There is no consensus on global warming, they say. There is only abundant uncertainty.

Since the late 1980s, when oil, gas, coal, auto and chemical companies formed the Global Climate Coalition, industries have poured millions of dollars into a campaign to discredit the emerging global warming consensus. The coalition disbanded a few years ago, but the skeptic community remains.

Many skeptics work in think tanks, such as the George C. Marshall Institute or the National Center for Policy Analysis. They have the ear of leaders in the White House and on Capitol Hill.

The skeptics helped scuttle any possibility that the United States would ratify the Kyoto treaty that would have committed the nation to cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. (Conservatives object to the treaty for, among other things, not requiring reductions by developing nations such as China and India.)

Dr. Gray said the recent rash of strong hurricanes is just part of a cycle. This is part of the broader skeptical message: Climate change is normal and natural. The divisive nature of global warming isn't helped by the fact that the most powerful global-warming skeptic is President Bush, and the loudest warnings come from Al Gore.

Dr. Gray, for one, has no governor on his rhetoric. At one point during our meeting in Colorado he blurts out, "Gore believed in global warming almost as much as Hitler believed there was something wrong with the Jews."

When I opine that he is incendiary, he answers: "Yes, I am incendiary. But the other side is just as incendiary. The etiquette of science has long ago been thrown out the window."

Dr. Gray has the honor of delivering the closing remarks at the National Hurricane Conference in Orlando, Fla. "I think there's a lot of foolishness going on," Dr. Gray said as he stood before a bank of 10 TV cameras and a couple of dozen journalists.

Hurricanes aren't getting worse – we're just in an uptick of a regular cycle, he said. But the alarmists won't let anyone believe that.

"The world is boiling! It's getting worse and worse!" Dr. Gray shouts. "Hell is approaching."

The core of Dr. Gray's argument is that the warming of the past decades is a natural cycle, driven by a global ocean circulation that manifests itself in the North Atlantic as the Gulf Stream. Warm water and cool water essentially rise and fall in a rhythm lasting decades.

"I don't think this warming period of the last 30 years can keep on going," he said. "It may warm another three, five, eight years, and then it will start to cool."

Dr. Gray's crusade against global warming "hysteria" began in the early 1990s, when he saw enormous sums of federal research money going toward computer modeling rather than his kind of science, the old-fashioned stuff based on direct observation.


He seems to be running out of steam just a little bit. He's given so many interviews, he might have lost a little velocity on his fastball. But everyone claps at the end.

In 20 years, he likes to say, the world will have cooled, and everyone will know he was right all along.

I know he will be dismissed by you as some kind of right-wing wacko.....

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(malorn @ Jun 7 2006, 04:33 PM) [snapback]267436[/snapback]</div>

I don't dismiss William Gray as a "right-wing wacko", but he is an embittered old man. He is quite open about his grudge about funding cuts that he received during the Clinton administration, and he blames Al Gore and funding that went to other environmental research for that.

One of Gray's main arguments, that global warming is not responsible for the recent increase in hurricane activity in the Atlantic, is one that is certainy an open debate and there are other scientists who would agree with him there. Kerry Emmanuel at MIT would argue otherwise.

It is hard to take even a respected scientist seriously when he makes sweeping statements such as, "I am of the opinion that this is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people," - and harder still when he compares Al Gore to Hitler (Godwin's Law has been demonstrated a lot here lately!)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(finman @ Jun 7 2006, 09:26 AM) [snapback]267170[/snapback]</div>

I have some Katrina roof tarps Ill sell to those who are brain washed into thinking that man is a major contributor to global warming & the sky is falling the tarps will protect you from getting hurt when the clouds fall.. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

When they announced the hole in the ozone theroy & the global warming theroies they needed money for funding Im sure the money's going into some ones pocket and its not the dreaded Repubs...

I think its sooo funny that people are still lingering on the 02 election, these are the people our mothers warned us about.. :blink: <_<

 

what happened in '02? I missed that one.

cheers,

Curt.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(finman @ Jun 7 2006, 08:26 AM) [snapback]267170[/snapback]</div>

Peak Oil? What exactly does that mean? We will never find any more oil reserves? We can't pump it out of the ground at a faster rate? Or is that another catchy term thrown around like global warming? Another political term used to make Americans guilty for living. I assure you humans will have no use for oil long before the last reserves on earth are pumped out of the earth. Amuse me, let me know what "PEAK OIL" means to you?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(malorn @ Jun 7 2006, 04:33 PM) [snapback]267436[/snapback]</div>

Very well said!

I cant believe the number of people that continue ie that want to be brainwashed about Global Warming :blink:

its just like the hole in the ozone layer it all adds up to $$$$

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priusguy04 @ Jun 7 2006, 08:26 PM) [snapback]267573[/snapback]</div>

Rather than just finding ONE statement on the subject that confirms your predetermined opinion (which is exactly what the Bush administration does), why not read a variety of literature on the subject? You would find that William Gray and Richard Lindzer constitute a very small minority of scientists. It depends on whether you really want to have an informed opinion, or you are just are looking for a few cheerleaders to support the "global warming is a hoax" mantra.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Jun 7 2006, 09:00 AM) [snapback]267155[/snapback]</div>

I don't have the facts, but I guaran-damn-tee you that there have been more Americans die from asthma-breathing disorders in the past 20 years than your so called "Islamofascism." These have a direct relation to the air quality.

Seriously. It's unreal to me how people point to terrorism as something that is threatening the average American family. Play the numbers game. 9/11 was a horrific occurrence...unbelievable...but horrific occurrences are happening daily when a kid can't breathe, can't find an inhaler, and gets rushed to the ER...only to suffer brain damage from lack of oxygen.

Geez. You are seriously drinking the Bush admin's kool-aid. Don't choke.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priusguy04 @ Jun 7 2006, 06:42 PM) [snapback]267525[/snapback]</div>

Dude. '02? Wth?

 

My my my, I detect a little hostility that seems to follow the far left when challenged by other facts against thier facts.

Its an argument that wont die until it happens and either side will finally be able to say See I told you so!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priusguy04 @ Jun 7 2006, 08:46 PM) [snapback]267583[/snapback]</div>

I have no interest in saying, "I told you so"; I'm only suggesting that people approach the subject with an open mind.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(malorn @ Jun 7 2006, 04:33 PM) [snapback]267436[/snapback]</div>

Not a right-wing wacko. Just a guy that is a wacko because he is dismissing direct measurements and relying on the "moist process" to crusade against global warming. He may know clouds because he flies into them, but I don't think that qualifies him as a global warming expert. I'm sure he can totally tell us about storms...how they happen and why...but global warming? I'm a good tennis player...doesn't make me qualified to play football.

Just my humble, non-flying-airplanes-into-clouds opinion.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priusguy04 @ Jun 7 2006, 08:46 PM) [snapback]267583[/snapback]</div>

Nope. Not hostility. Incredulity.

 

How would science be able to prove that humans are having an effect on the earth's weather? To be able to conclusively prove humans are or are not having an effect on the climate of the earth would you not have to be able to first predict exactly what the earth's climate would be like with 0 humans on earth?
Where I am sitting right now was once covered by over 150 ft of ice. I do know with relatively certainty that humans were NOT responsible for the climate change that melted that glacier. I am not a scientist but couldn't some of those same forces that melted this huge sheet of ice be at work in raising the median temperature on earth less than one degree over the last hundred years?
Again i am not a scientist but I do remember something from some science classes, science is objective and without emotion. Those two words seem to be almost completely left out of this current rush to judgement about the earth's climate.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eyeguy13 @ Jun 4 2006, 01:35 AM) [snapback]265494[/snapback]</div>

WRONG !!!!! Read again, I said BILLIONS of years, that is more than merely "a range of years" per your quote which proves my point....

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Karnac @ Jun 8 2006, 01:28 AM) [snapback]267733[/snapback]</div>

Ice cores are on the magnitude of under a million years (oldest one from Antarctica goes back 800,000 years.) Sediment cores go back further. Oldest continuous record up to the present (published this year by a geologist from Brown University) was obtained in the eastern equatorial Pacific, providing a continuous temperature record for the last 5 million years. Sediment cores obtained from the Arctic by a professor of mine at University of RI, Kate Moran, are 55 million years old.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Karnac @ Jun 8 2006, 12:28 AM) [snapback]267733[/snapback]</div>

Really, that's the best you can come up with to counter my post...lame...

You're smart enough to realize that "range of years" means just that, a range of years, in this case it is a million. Not the billions you talk about but a million years is a pretty long "range of years".

Do you believe in ice core sample technology?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eyeguy13 @ Jun 8 2006, 11:01 AM) [snapback]267914[/snapback]</div>

For whatever reason, I imagined that being shot out as a pick-up line....

:lol:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mystery Squid @ Jun 8 2006, 10:14 AM) [snapback]267923[/snapback]</div>

One nerdy climatologist to another, different sex of course, this isn't stinking liberal Europe after all!