I’m not a scientist, don’t pretend to be a scientist, and have quite a few quarrels with how science is done in various places. However, it does seem from this layman’s perspective that there is an issue of cui bono in the global warming business that casts at least some doubts on the received opinion, even as the doubters have their own agendas. Interestingly, even +++Benedict is among those who say (my paraphrase) “take care of the our environment, but don’t believe everything you’re told in this department.” In large, complex systems (the earth, anyone?), prediction can be a “chancy” matter, no matter how well you’ve mastered fuzzy logic and no matter how many wonderful data points you’ve accumulated. And, wasn’t there something in the Good Book where it is said, “judgement is Mine sayeth the Lord.”?? I think this might qualify as one of those areas!

Silly me. That’s “Vengeance is mine.” But I also remember that “the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God...” and I’m pretty sure that one applies here as well…

As an aside, I have learned so many wonderful things on this site, I want to thank the principals and all who contribute.

Hey Greg,

As your resident contrarian on this topic, I didn’t find your posting very “vituperative,” but it does show your in the Deep South, for it actually proves the point. There is such a thing as “too cold to snow,” as any more northern Boy Scout knows, or why the Antarctica is technically a desert, thus any storms are a sign of warmer air (check out Dr. David Ainley reports from Ross Island and the increase issue the penguins are having with snow). However, I’d agree that this stunt would do very little to accomplish it’s stated purpose if it succeeded.

H6:6 We are talking Greenland here; not Antartica.

Yes, one has the largest land based ice sheet in the Northern hemisphere and the other in the southern hemisphere, but thanks for noticing ...

Hosea6:6,
Can you tell me what the “natural” (not inflated by human caused global warming) temperature of Greenland is?  What was it when Eric the Red established a colony on it and named it “Greenland?”

While I agree that we should care for the environment and not waste resources, we do need to remember that the earth is a very complex system that we don’t understand and we should be hesitant to say that we are causing global warming.

Of course, one has to ask if Al Gore was part of the part trekking across Greenland.  It seems that there is a nasty habit of very cold weather showing up where Al Gore goes to talk about global warming.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Ah yes, the Al Gore effect:

The phenomenon that leads to unseasonably cold temperatures, driving rain, hail, or snow whenever Al Gore visits an area to discuss global warming. Hence, the Gore Effect.

- Australia, November 2006: Al Gore is visiting two weeks before summer begins. The Gore Effect strikes: “Ski resort operators gazed at the snow in amazement. Parents took children out of school and headed for the mountains. Cricketers scurried amid bullets of hail as Melburnians traded lunchtime tales of the incredible cold.” (The Age)

- New York, March 2004: “Gore chose January 15, 2004, one of the coldest days in New York City’s history, to rail against the Bush administration and global warming skeptics… Global warming, Gore told a startled audience, is causing record cold temperatures.” (NY Environment News)

Hi Phil,

You might want to direct your question to NOAA, who funded he Dye 3 & GRIP,/a> cores studies for an in field answer to your question (if you were actually seeking an answer). Per Al Gore ... well, he’s a loser seeking a cause ... then in that both Greg & I would be called “vituperative” for I actually agree that most advocates are ”people with another agenda - one that involves Luddites, hatred of America, heavy doses of socialism and snobbery, and with a dash of Gaia-worship thrown in for good measure… [and that it is] hysterical, agenda-driven nonsense.” Which, tragically does little for or against any true scientific investigation, but does muddy the waters in every other realm. In an ethical stand point, it’s pretty easy and straight forward, Utilitarian any externality must be incorporated in the full cost of appliance or service. Thus if CO2 is an external emission, that it must ethically be incorporated in the full true cost any product or service, thus NO2 or any other emission would also - costs must be viewed as a closed systems (thus up side is positive externalities should be charged for to make all a closed systems). Though I still think our best ecological position is the full unadulterated Christian ethic, “godliness with contentment is great gain,” so far only a few I’ve met embody this in a way I think fully embraces what the Spirit met through the pen of St. Paul.

And don’t forget, according to AGore the big cyclone was caused by Global Warming, too. Couldn’t he just stick with inventing the internet?

Ack!! The disasters that happen in cyberspace when not hitting “shift” when typing a ”<” and it ends up a “,” ... oh the more immediate perils of HTML

The same folks that keep hammering on about global warming were predicting an ice age 20 years ago.  Just look at them trying to force the new light bulbs on us--they are supposed to save us energy, but cannot be thrown in the trash, as they contain enough mecury to contaminate 6000 gallons of water each.

There is a term for people like Al Gore - “Watermelon.” Green on the outside, “pink” on the inside.

Does that mean that we shouldn’t be good stewards of our environment?  Absolutely not!  But we should also not fall for any “quick fix” from government that does not actually address the problem.  It has been my experiences that “quick fixes” from the government are two lies for the price of one.  They are neither “quick” nor do they fix the problem - they often make it worse.

However, we should do what we can.  My wife and I just had our A/C ducts sealed.  We’re increasing the insulation in the attic and we’re going to install a foil radiant barrier - and in Texas, that can mean a lot of savings of electricity, and therefore, carbon emissions.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

I understand that Greenland was named that as a PR ploy, after Iceland received fewer settlers than the leaders of what is now Norway wanted, due to the name.  Iceland is much more habitable than Greenland.

The real point here is the enormous waste of resources caused directly and completely by the domination of our public discourse by lies.

Take a concrete example.  In another “global warming” thread here some time ago, our respected friend Dr+ Radner, who has considerable missionary experience in Africa, mentioned that the increasingly desperate agricultural situation there is due in no small measure to spreading desertification, and expressed the hope that measures to reduce GW might in the long term to some extent reduce the suffering there.

But the most cursory examination of the scientific facts demonstrates

• Yes, Global Warming is occurring.
• No, we have absolutely no definite idea how much the burning of fossil fuel contributes to it, or how much natural solar or environmental cycles may be responsible.
• No, the alarmist rhetoric based on wildly inaccurate computer models should be disregarded.
• No, there is at this point nothing we can do about it.  If we immediately ceased all production of electricity and moved about solely on bicycles, horses, and oxcarts, by all evidence the warming would continue anyway.
• If you declare CO2 a pollutant, you have given the bureaucrats at the EPA the right to forbid burning anything, anywhere.  You can’t burn beeswax candles, Yule logs, natural gas, squeaky-clean coal, holiday fireworks, or New York Strip steaks without producing CO2.  Not to mention Mrs. Schori’s bovine flatulence ...

And consider that the US alone is spending more than $3 billion a year of its taxpayers money for “climate research” based on this hooey.  If, say, 2% of this sum were dedicated to real agricultural research on the desertification problem in Africa—how to minimize it, how to modify traditional practices to make maximal use of available water, how best to train tribal villagers in these newer techniques, and so on—this $60 million, much more than was spent on agricultural extension research in the US dust bowl of the 1930s, might actually contribute to human happiness.

But it would require ignoring the lies.  So of course it will never happen.

Lies and PR have (long since) taken over our foreign policy.  Lies and PR have (for nearly a century) governed our economic policy.  Lies and PR have (for at least 30 years) determined our environmental policy.  Lies and PR have finally even succeeded in corrupting the Gospel in our mainstream churches.

Have we had enough yet?

Craig Goodrich,

If I remember 5th grade science correctly, if we ban CO2 as a pollutant we choke trees and might have to stop breathing ourselves.  Every mammal would be become a pollutant-producing beast to be eliminated.

Actually, Rom 1:16, if human activity emitted no CO2 the world would get along just fine. Your claim that the trees would die is ludicrous.

Humans emit less than 3% of all CO2 released into the atmosphere. So it is also ludicrous to claim we are the culprits in the global warming, er, climate change farce.

Craig. You almost hit the mark. $3B is funding a lot of scientists in the US, who are saying global warming is significant. The numbers get much larger with the worldwide academic community. You take away the money; the scientists whine. The news media and politicians are there to stand with “the experts.”

It takes many years to develop the specialized resources and skills to do science, so changing research directions is difficult. If you want to eat; you conform to the rules of what gets funded. Otherwise, you become a PB.

Now, don’t blame the scientists. They are just like the priests, educators, and other humanist trained folks of today. You can condone pseudoscience and be funded, or be viewed as an unenlightened bigot and starve. At least with funding, your talents are developed and something useful may spin off.

Funding science is a complex political process. It will only become more rational, when skills and talent improve across the American population. Basic math and science skills have have declined over the past 40 years to the point where many college educated can’t do simple arithmetic. We really need another sputnik event to bring back study in math and science. Otherwise, the “enlightened” listen to Al Gore and his claims of inventing the internet and giving him the Nobel Prize for foresight of global warming.

I’m glad to see these folks ran into a blizzard, whether or not it does anything for the cause of science. It just shows they are not in control.

The 11-year sunspot cycle is not getting going very well from the expected sunspot minimum last year.  I raise this up so that I may mention the Maunder Minimum—a time from about 1645 to 1720 when sunspots remained very low and were accompanied by very harsh winters and generally colder conditions impacting agriculture.

Not that anybody is claiming yet that we are in another Maunder Minimum situation, but it is worth noting as the global warming people are crying “disaster” that the immediate conditions could indicate the opposite.

73 de W3TB & G0PWW

It’s all just a a diversion from the real problems.  Another Tower of Babel project to gain global dominance. All this would be impossible if the church and academic programs hadn’t been dumbed down so ignorant people will swollow anything. Look for more loony projects and pronouncements.  Now let me finish my warm coffee and count all my academic degrees again.

Hmmmmm, did anyone stop to think that we exhale carbon everytime we breath?  Does anyone think that an Almighty God would create an earth, then put people on it who would polute that earth with their breathing?  Consider your CARBON breath print along with your footprint.
Want to talk Global Warming.....follow the MONEY !

#13:  Greenland was green when it was settled.  The historical record clearly shows how cooling and freezing caused the death and departure of inhabitants either directly or through starvation. Iceland was settled by Vikings around the 10th century as word got around about its beauty, and by the 15th the Vikings were gone.  The Little Ice Age lasted from the 14th century to about 1850.  During that time the Thames river in England and canals in Holland regularly froze. Since 1850, the earth’s temperature has been gradually rising.  Scientific studies show no causation with CO2 levels and warming; rather, the temperature rises, then the CO2 level rises.  Over 95 percent of the greenhouse effect is the result of water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere. Without that effect, Earth’s average temperature would be zero degrees Fahrenheit. Most climate change is a result of the orbital eccentricities of Earth and variations in the sun’s output. Besides that, natural wetlands produce more greenhouse gas annually than all human sources combined.

21. Charles,

Natural wetlands also absorb carbon dioxide, with little net impact on the change in level observed over the past 50 years.  The mean carbon dioxide concentration in the earths atmosphere has risen by 26% in the last 50 years from about 305ppm to 385ppm.  During the same period of time I would expect available wetlands have shrunk in area.

The great historian Samual Elliot Morrison has a bit different take on what the Vikings did about a thousand years ago.  He says they cleverly mislabled Greenland and Iceland to misdirect other explorers from the prime real estate.  Iceland is favored by the heat of the North Atlantic Drift (of the Gulf Stream) and of course has geothermal hot springs.  The Vikings knew a good thing when they saw it; thus the deception!  --Stan

Lots of us get to Iceland; relatively few to Greenland.
I have been to both and lived in Iceland with the Navy.

For Viking explorers approaching Iceland from the southeast, the first thing they see is an enormous glacier called the Vatnajokull—seen shining white far before the land can be seek and looking for all the world like a land of ice far before one can see the shoreline.

For Viking explorers approaching Greenland, the first thing they see is the moss-covered rugged shoreline which is green in season and hiding the icy interior.

There are some very interesting tourist possibilities in Greenland, and Air Greenland has flights from Baltimore.

One of the points that arises continually in real scientific discussion of the climate issue is how complex the system is and how poorly-understood its incredibly diverse positive and negative feedback systems are.

For example, Charles in #21 quite rightly points out that water vapor is the primary greenhouse gas, and all the models assume that increasing CO2 will cause increased evaporation, i.e. a great increase in atmospheric water vapor.  But increased water vapor leads to increasing cloudiness, which both reflects incoming solar energy back into space (reducing warming) and prevents atmospheric heat radiation into space (increasing warming, especially at night). 

But while thin clouds tend to act as an insulating layer, the deep black thunderheads have within themselves a system remarkably like the refrigerant cycle in an air-conditioner:  convection updrafts move warm, humid air upwards until the reduced temperature of the stratosphere causes droplets to condense, releasing heat.  These heavy little droplets then fall through the cloud, until the warmth of the atmosphere evaporates them again; and of course the evaporation absorbs heat.  The warm vapor is then again shot upwards by convection and the process repeats.  (If the convection currents within the cloud become sufficiently violent to carry condensed droplets upwards, they actually freeze in the upper stratosphere, releasing still more heat, and we may eventually get hail.) Thus, rather than insulating, deep clouds actually are enormous machines for dumping excess heat rapidly and efficiently into the upper stratosphere, where it dissipates in space.

And this is just a brief sketch of one of the simpler heat-manipulating cycles of our lovely little planet.  When we consider the jet stream, tradewinds, ocean currents (both vertical and horizontal), and so on, the complete absurdity of the proposition that a set of politically-determined measures could have any predictable effect on the system at all becomes obvious.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

-- H. L. Mencken