On Dec 21, 2008, at 4:15 PM, R C Macaulay wrote:
Howdy Horace,
Your post contains some profound indictments of common folks that
are painted with the tarbrush by lacking a PhD in nekid king
recognition.
These PhD's are the most learned and surely BO will see to it that
Congress passes a law for the purpose of forever honoring them..
Just think of it.. to have such honor that can only come from being
in that circle. Surely people have worshiped PhD's since the
ancient tower of Babylon was erected in their honor. Why, perhaps,
that's where the Pharoh's got their name.
[snip]
My indictment is not of common folk having an opinion, it is of the
unwarranted *degree of certainty* with which some celebrities and
broadcasters deny anthropogenic global warming and anthropogenic
species extermination and *advocate against action* which is common
sense. Some political minded people seem to me to consider all
things to be a matter of opinion and open to compromise - except
maybe interpretation of religious scripture, which of course is not
open to compromise or debate at all.
To avoid any confusion, my most recent statement in this thread was:
"It is surprising to me that people who are not scientifically
qualified as atmospheric scientists and who deny the possibility of
anthropogenic global warming and anthropogenic species extermination
seem to be unable to accept the possibility they are utterly in the
wrong, especially media pundits who do not seem to realize the
consequences of their being wrong while using their media soap box to
vociferously deny the possibility of it. They should continually be
confronted with the question of exactly what forthcoming facts would
convince them they are wrong, e.g. global fires due to vegetation
drying and high winds, hurricanes with 300 mph winds, loss of coral
reefs, loss of one or more countries to rising oceans, elimination of
polar ice, commonplace summer temperatures of 130 degrees F, killing
of every fish in the ocean, etc. Likely nothing can convince them
they are wrong until it is too late."
You'd think it would be *common sense* for a layman to have *some
degree of doubt* when a large majority of scientists in a very active
field have a contrary opinion, especially when public safety is at
stake. If firemen or police say it is unsafe to enter a schoolhouse
because it is still burning or there is a gunman inside, it is one
thing to take it upon ones self to walk into it and another entirely
to get on the radio and confidently encourage people to send their
kids back into it. There is a substantial and real cost to not
sending kids to school. However, who in their right mind would take
the risk their kids might end up dead in the face of professional
informed opinion that the risk is significant.
On Dec 21, 2008, at 6:21 PM, Mark Iverson wrote:
This is from back in March, and I just wanted to know what's become
of it...
-Mark
--------------------------
The founder of the Weather Channel wants to sue Al Gore for fraud,
hoping a legal debate will settle
the global-warming debate once and for all.
John Coleman, who founded the cable network in 1982, suggests suing
for fraud proponents of global
warming, including Al Gore, and companies that sell carbon credits.
"Is he committing financial fraud? That is the question," Coleman
said.
"Since we can't get a debate, I thought perhaps if we had a legal
challenge and went into a court of
law, where it was our scientists and their scientists, and all the
legal proceedings with the
discovery and all their documents from both sides and scientific
testimony from both sides, we could
finally get a good solid debate on the issue," Coleman said. "I'm
confident that the advocates of
'no significant effect from carbon dioxide' would win the case."
The above gives a hint the kind of asinine overconfidence I'm talking
about.
"As you look at the atmosphere over the last 25 years, there's been
perhaps a degree of warming,
perhaps probably a whole lot less than that, and the last year has
been so cold that that's been
erased," he said.
"I think if we continue the cooling trend a couple of more years,
the general public will at last
begin to realize that they've been scammed on this global-warming
thing."
Coleman spoke to FOXNews.com after his appearance last week at the
2008 International Conference on
Climate Change in New York, where he called global warming a scam
and lambasted the cable network he
helped create.
[deleted...]
The compound carbon dioxide makes up only 38 out of every 100,000
particles in the atmosphere, he
said.
"That's about twice as what there were in the atmosphere in the
time we started burning fossil
fuels, so it's gone up, but it's still a tiny compound," Coleman
said. "So how can that tiny trace
compound have such a significant effect on temperature?
If Coleman doesn't know the answer to that question he shouldn't be
shouting fraud. Further, he shouldn't be shouting fraud if he can't
comprehend that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is in a flow and
a matter of *equilibrium*, the concentration being continually
reduced by the CO2 sink in the oceans, and that global warming has
greatly and possibly irreversibly affected ocean chemistry. It is
killing the very organisms that make the sink possible. This is not
a process that is reversible by a few years of cool weather or lack
of sunspots or possibly even rapid glaciation of higher latitude
land, which might occur when the polar oceans are fully exposed.
The atmosphere was originally low in oxygen, high in methane and CO2.
It was transformed by life. It can regress if the life is removed.
As much as I dislike lawsuits, perhaps Coleman has a point. However,
I think the defendants should be media pundits that act like there is
no possibility they are wrong about the possibility anthropogenic
global warming may be in progress, or that there is nothing we can do
about it - unless maybe it is too late already.
I think here is significant and growing evidence these media global
warming denial "pundits" are wrong. See:
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/MJonesSPF.pdf
http://tinyurl.com/98rory
The question I have is whether there is *any* degree of evidence that
could be acceptable to such true believers that they are wrong.
Further, if there is a reasonable possibility they are wrong, then it
is negligent and irresponsible to advocate against any action when
the consequence of being wrong could be the end of future
generations. I think for some celebrities, admitting they have been
wrong would be unacceptable under any circumstances, and as would be
the realization of the impact they have personally had on future
generations by their daily rantings.
I think if and when the qualified experts are through with their
courtroom battles, it will not be a happy day when the damage to the
planet is measured and responsibility has been assessed.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
