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Stone holm

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So recently a large Protestant umbrella organization indicated that they were going to divest from fossil fuel investments and encouraged their member churches to divest. Is there any chance that our Church will follow suit?

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So recently a large Protestant umbrella organization indicated that they were going to divest from fossil fuel investments and encouraged their member churches to divest. Is there any chance that our Church will follow suit?

 

Don't know what if any holdings the Church has in the petrochemical industries.

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So recently a large Protestant umbrella organization indicated that they were going to divest from fossil fuel investments and encouraged their member churches to divest. Is there any chance that our Church will follow suit?

Are they also going to stop using fossil fuels and encourage their members to divest themselves of their cars?   

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Are they also going to stop using fossil fuels and encourage their members to divest themselves of their cars?

I don't know. Since some are European, I suppose that is possible, but not likely.

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So recently a large Protestant umbrella organization indicated that they were going to divest from fossil fuel investments and encouraged their member churches to divest. Is there any chance that our Church will follow suit?

Why would our Church involve themselves with what members invest in?
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So recently a large Protestant umbrella organization indicated that they were going to divest from fossil fuel investments and encouraged their member churches to divest. Is there any chance that our Church will follow suit?

 

Seems like we need to know if the Church has any investments in the fossil fuel industry before we ask if they will follow suit after something that does not apply to them.  Why is there an assumption that they have?

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So recently a large Protestant umbrella organization indicated that they were going to divest from fossil fuel investments and encouraged their member churches to divest. Is there any chance that our Church will follow suit?

 

 

Hopefully not as AGW has been shown to be fraudulent 'science'. For example NOAA has been fudging the data. The IPCC admitted to being a political, not a scientific body. The notion that most scientists are on board with AGW is a myth. Etc. Etc.

 

 

For years, computer simulations have predicted that sea ice should be disappearing from the Poles.

Now, with the news that Antarctic sea-ice levels have hit new highs, comes yet another mishap to tarnish the credibility of climate science.

Climatologists base their doom-laden predictions of the Earth’s climate on computer simulations.

But these have long been the subject of ridicule because of their stunning failure to predict the pause in warming – nearly 18 years long on some measures – since the turn of the last century.

It’s the same with sea ice. We hear a great deal about the decline in Arctic sea ice, in line with or even ahead of predictions.

But why are environmentalists and scientists so much less  keen to discuss the long-term increase in the southern hemisphere?

In fact, across the globe, there are about one million square kilometres more sea ice than 35 years ago, which is when satellite measurements began.

It’s fair to say that this has been something of an embarrassment for climate modellers. But it doesn’t stop there.

In recent days a new scandal over the integrity of temperature data has emerged, this time in America, where it has been revealed as much as 40 per cent of temperature data there are not real thermometer readings.

Many temperature stations have closed, but rather than stop recording data from these posts, the authorities have taken the remarkable step of ‘estimating’ temperatures based on the records of surrounding stations.

So vast swathes of the data are actually from ‘zombie’ stations that have long since disappeared.  This is bad enough, but it has also been discovered that the  US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is using estimates even when perfectly good raw data is available to it – and that it has adjusted historical records.

Why should it do this? Many have noted that the effect of all these changes is to produce a warmer present and a colder past, with the net result being  the impression of much faster warming.

They draw their conclusions accordingly.

Naturally, if the US temperature records are indeed found to have been manipulated, this is unlikely to greatly affect our overall picture of rising temperatures at the end of the last century and  a standstill thereafter.

The US is, after all, only a  small proportion of the globe.

Similarly, climatologists’ difficulties with the sea ice may be of little scientific significance in the greater scheme of things.

We have only a few decades of data, and in climate terms this is probably too short to demonstrate that either the Antarctic increase or the Arctic decrease is anything other than natural variability.

But the relentless focus by activist scientists on the Arctic decline does suggest a political imperative rather than a scientific one – and when put together with the story of the US temperature records, it’s hard to avoid the impression that what the public is being told is less than the unvarnished truth.

As their credulity is stretched more and more, the public will – quite rightly – treat demands for action with increasing caution…

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When future generations try to understand how the world got carried away around the end of the 20th century by the panic over global warming, few things will amaze them more than the part played in stoking up the scare by the fiddling of official temperature data. There was already much evidence of this seven years ago, when I was writing my history of the scare, The Real Global Warming Disaster. But now another damning example has been uncovered by Steven Goddard’s US blog Real Science, showing how shamelessly manipulated has been one of the world’s most influential climate records, the graph of US surface temperature records published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Goddard shows how, in recent years, NOAA’s US Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) has been “adjusting” its record by replacing real temperatures with data “fabricated” by computer models. The effect of this has been to downgrade earlier temperatures and to exaggerate those from recent decades, to give the impression that the Earth has been warming up much more than is justified by the actual data. In several posts headed “Data tampering at USHCN/GISS”, Goddard compares the currently published temperature graphs with those based only on temperatures measured at the time. These show that the US has actually been cooling since the Thirties, the hottest decade on record; whereas the latest graph, nearly half of it based on “fabricated” data, shows it to have been warming at a rate equivalent to more than 3 degrees centigrade per century.

When I first began examining the global-warming scare, I found nothing more puzzling than the way officially approved scientists kept on being shown to have finagled their data, as in that ludicrous “hockey stick” graph, pretending to prove that the world had suddenly become much hotter than at any time in 1,000 years. Any theory needing to rely so consistently on fudging the evidence, I concluded, must be looked on not as science at all, but as simply a rather alarming case study in the aberrations of group psychology.

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Dr Caleb Rossiter - an adjunct professor at American University, Washington DC - has been fired by a progressive think tank after publicly expressing doubt about man-made global warming.

Rossiter, a former Democratic congressional candidate, has impeccably liberal credentials. As the founder of Demilitarization for Democracy he has campaigned against US backed wars in Central America and Southern Africa, against US military support for dictators and against anti-personnel landmines. But none of this was enough to spare him the wrath of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) when he wrote an OpEd in the Wall Street Journal describing man-made global warming as an "unproved science."

Two days later, he was sacked by email. The IPS said: "We would like to inform you that we are terminating your position as an Associate Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies...Unfortunately, we now feel that your views on key issues, including climate science, climate justice, and many aspects of US policy to Africa, diverge so significantly from ours."

In the WSJ OpEd entitled Sacrificing Africa for Climate Change, Rossiter argued that Africans should benefit from the same mixed energy policy as Americans rather than being denied access to fossil fuels on spurious environmental grounds by green activists. He wrote: "The left wants to stop industrialization - even if the hypothesis of catastrophic, man-made global warming is false."

But the Institute for Policy Studies ("Ideas into Action for Peace, Justice, and the Environment") is ideologically committed to ensuring that Africans only enjoy the benefits of expensive, intermittent, inefficient renewable energy such as wind and solar.

Rossiter told Climate Depot:

    "If people ever say that fears of censorship for 'climate change' views are overblown, have them take a look at this: Just two days after I published a piece in the Wall Street Journal calling for Africa to be allowed the 'all of the above' energy strategy we have in the U.S., the Institute for Policy Studies terminated my 23-year relationship with them…because my analysis and theirs 'diverge.'"

His sacking follows the persecution last month of Lennart Bengtsson, a Swedish meteorologist and climatologist who decided to resign his position at the Global Warming Policy Foundation after being harassed by climate alarmists for his "incorrect" views on man-made climate change.

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The climate change crusaders, who have been at it for a quarter-century, appear to be going clinically mad. Start with the rhetorical monotony and worship of authority (“97 percent of all scientists agree!”), add the Salem witch trial-style intimidation and persecution of dissenters, and the categorical demand that debate about science or policy is over because the matter is settled, and you have the profile of a cult-like sectarianism that has descended into paranoia and reflexive bullying. Never mind the scattered and not fully suppressed findings of climate scientists that the narrative of catastrophic global warming is overstated, like nearly every previous predicted environmental apocalypse. It matters not. The recent crescendo of scary government climate reports and dutiful media alarm has paved the way for the Obama administration to throw its weight around in ways that would make Woodrow Wilson blush.

Making sense of this tiresome issue requires stepping back for the long view. If you strip away all of the noise from smaller scientific controversies that clutter the debate—arctic ice, extreme weather events, droughts, and so forth—the central issue is climate sensitivity: How much will average global temperature increase from adding a given level of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere? The most recent “official” estimate of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), given a doubling of greenhouse gases, is a planet 1.1 to 4.8 degrees Celsius warmer a century from now. On the low end of this range—up to as much as 2 degrees—warming would be no big deal, and possibly a net benefit. Warming on the high end of this range would present significant problems, requiring a number of responses. Narrowing the range of outcomes is therefore the most pressing climate science question. Everything else is a sideshow.

It may well be that it can’t be done. Right now the IPCC can’t settle on a best-guess estimate within the 1.1‑4.8 degree range, though a number of scenarios for the year 2100 cluster around 2 degrees of warming. This is nearly the same range and best guess as the previous four reports of the IPCC stretching back to 1990. More astonishing, this range differs little from that proposed by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius in 1896. It was Arrhenius, winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1903, who first supplied the basic equation that forms the basis for modern climate models. Working without a computer, he estimated a range of climate sensitivity from a doubling of greenhouse gases of 1.6 to about 5 degrees Celsius, with a best guess of about 2.1 degrees.

In other words, despite billions spent on climate research and the development of enormously complex computer models, we are no closer to predictive precision than we were 110 years ago. The computer models are still too crude and limited, especially about the crucial question of water vapor “feedbacks” (clouds in ordinary language), to spit out the answers we’re looking for. We can fiddle with the models all we want, and perhaps end up with one that might produce a correct prediction, but we can never be sure so long as our understanding of water vapor behavior remains sketchy.

While climate skeptics are denounced for mentioning “uncertainty,” the terms “uncertain” and “uncertainty” appear 173 times, while “error” and “errors” appear 192 times, in the 218-page chapter on climate models in the latest IPCC report released last September. As the IPCC admits, “there remain significant errors in the model simulation of clouds. It is very likely that these errors contribute significantly to the uncertainties in estimates of cloud feedbacks and consequently in the climate change projections.” The IPCC’s latest report rates the confidence of our understanding of clouds and aerosols as “low,” and allows that it is possible that clouds could cancel out most of the warming effect of greenhouse gases. If anything, our uncertainty about future climate change has increased with each new IPCC report.

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Where did this 97 percent figure come from? When you explore the lineage of this cliché, it appears about as convincing as a North Korean election. Most footnotes point to a paper published last year by Prof. John Cook of the University of Queensland, which purported to have reviewed the abstracts of over 11,000 climate science articles. But the abstract of Cook’s paper actually refutes the talking point:

    We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW [anthropogenic global warming], 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of self-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus. [Emphasis added.]

In other words, two-thirds of the articles expressed no opinion about the human causation of climate change, while the one-third that did were twisted by Cook into a simpleminded tautology:

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The real “deniers” today are the climateers who refuse to consider that their case for catastrophe has weakened even as they promote unserious solutions that do little or nothing to stimulate the genuine energy transition they say they want. Their default position continues to be simpleminded exaggeration or distortion of every possible angle for political gain.

The best opinion polls from Pew and Gallup show that the public doesn’t buy it and is suffering from a case of “apocalypse fatigue.” The rank politicization of the issue and the relentless demonization of any critics within the scientific community are a catastrophe for science and debilitating for serious deliberation about policy. But the left is so far gone into climate madness, and the Democratic party so beholden to its green faction, that they are likely to persist in their inordinate fear of the Keystone pipeline, natural gas fracking, and the extraordinary revival of American oil production, all of which, in a relatively unmolested market, would tend to displace coal. Absent an unusual level of political resolve from Congress, the climate campaign may yet succeed in hobbling the electric power sector in America. That would be a high price to pay for indulging a fanatical movement that in every other respect must be reckoned a pernicious failure.

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Hopefully not as AGW has been shown to be fraudulent 'science'. For example NOAA has been fudging the data. The IPCC admitted to being a political, not a scientific body. The notion that most scientists are on board with AGW is a myth. Etc. Etc.

 

 

I know you are smart, your arguments are just like young earth creationism propaganda.   

 

National Academies of Sciences (clearly not political) 

 

 

Yes, most climate scientist believe in AGW,  see

http://opr.ca.gov/s_listoforganizations.php

http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

 

I can name many climate scientists (that have a university profile) that believe it. 

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The notion that most scientists are on board with AGW is a myth. Etc. Etc.

 

You can do your own research, I will tell you how. 

First, find at least five climate scientists. After you find them, find out if they believe in AGW. 

Very simple.  You will see that all of them believe in AGW.

 

Look for the climate scientists first, then find out what their position is, not the other way around. 

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You can do your own research, I will tell you how. 

First, find at least five climate scientists. After you find them, find out if they believe in AGW. 

Very simple.  You will see that all of them believe in AGW.

 

Look for the climate scientists first, then find out what their position is, not the other way around. 

 

It is kinda sad when it takes a comedy show on Television to give real news.

SEE http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/05/12/hbos_john_oliver_on_global_warming_skepticism_who_gives_a_shit.html

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Let me know when you come up with the data to prove your point.  AGW so far is dead as the dodo.

 

How about peer-reviewed Papers? 

 

Evidence that Greenhouse gases cause Global Warming 

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v412/n6846/full/412523a0.html

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/320/5875/518.abstract

 

Or simply a science experiment done by a little kid

 

Overwhelming consensus among climate scientists is confirmed by an independent study that surveys all climate scientists who have publicly signed declarations supporting or rejecting the consensus. They find between 97% to 98% of climate experts support the consensus. 

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.abstract

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If fossil fuel investment needs to be avoided because it is believed by infidels that there is a limited and unrenewable supply, the panic might derive from holding a view that they need to last for billions of years more. But those of us who believe that Christ will return sometime in the next ten thousand years can probably continue to invest, in the reasonable hope that Jesus' coming will precede any really bad investment disasters deriving from depletion of natural resources. Even if He doesn't come so soon, it seems likely that rising costs of limited supplies might even motivate investors and inventors of the 12th Millenium to find a different energy source in their own day. For us, why do fossil fuels still provide the most affordable ways to travel and even heat many homes? Because there is a huge supply of course. When it starts getting too expensive to use, then we will know that a crisis is arriving. Assuredly, we might make a fortune if we knew exactly when to invest in alternative fuels, but at this time oil companies are still very profitable and changing stock portfolios to some other kind of energy source seems irresponsibly speculative.

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Who needs to worry about the scientists? Even if they are right about adverse effects of fossil fuels, SOMEBODY is going to continue to profit from the oil industry. Who can place a limit on how much ice belongs at the North pole anyway? What is the best temperature? Who would know? How does anybody go about determining a thing like that? Maybe some of us want it hotter. "That's the way old ball bounces", I say. So people have to move off the beach a few inches a year. Tough luck. I am not going to change my stock portfolio because of some kind of moral obligation to maintain some magic temperature that just has to be maintained or else all the sea shores have to change. Sorry, they didn't use good judgment. They assumed a constant temperature and coastline without doing the necessary research. Sorry, I am supposed to change profitable investment strategies to preserve somebody else's bonehead investments? That's not the way investing works I am afraid.

 

Are they sharing their good fortune with me when the sea shore stays the same because I helped keep the temperature where they want it? Talk about whacked out climate? That'll be a cold day in the hot place when the sea shore dwellers rewarded us inlanders those who save their bad investments!  

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