The Double Bind:
Here's a story guaranteed to induce manic-depression in Global Warming advocates. The Daily Telegraph reports "Polar bears thriving as the Arctic warms up".
A survey of the animals' numbers in Canada's eastern Arctic has revealed that they are thriving, not declining, because of mankind's interference in the environment. In the Davis Strait area, a 140,000-square kilometre region, the polar bear population has grown from 850 in the mid-1980s to 2,100 today. "There aren't just a few more bears. There are a hell of a lot more bears," said Mitch Taylor, a polar bear biologist who has spent 20 years studying the animals.
Naturally, this can't be. So the conservationists have trotted out other arguments to explain what is happening.
Polar bear experts said that numbers had increased not because of climate change but due to the efforts of conservationists. The battle to ban the hunting of Harp seal pups has meant the seal population has soared - boosting the bears' food supply.
But isn't it possible that the same environmental trends which make the polar bear thrive are similarly boosting the harp seals? Or they simply deal dismiss the evidence by calling it irrelevant.
"I don't think there is any question polar bears are in danger from global warming," said Andrew Derocher of the World Conservation Union, and a professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. "People who deny that have a clear interest in hunting bears."
Bear numbers on the west coast of Hudson's Bay had shrunk by 22 per cent over the past decade, he said. "They are declining due to global warming and changes in when the ice freezes and melts in Hudson's Bay," he added. He and other scientists in his group are concerned that the retreating ice in the Arctic may pose a danger to future generations of polar bears because of 'habitat loss'. "The critical problem is the sea ice is changing. "We're looking ahead three generations, 30 to 50 years. "To say that bear populations are growing in one area now is irrelevant."
Commentary
Derocher's need to "patch up" the Global Warming theory adduced as fact by introducing the environmental equivalent of phlogistons, ether and gravitational constants is an indication that maybe we don't really understand what is going on very clearly after all. My own personal worry about enshrining the Global Warming model as "fact" (remember it is not about whether the world is warming, it is a theory that spells out the causal relations between certain activities and warming) and creating internationally binding policies based upon it is that it becomes a kind of terraforming project in disguise. It's really a policy of consciously altering the environment in order to make it conform to a state which environmentalists believe to be "better".
That wouldn't be too bad if we knew what we were doing. But do we? The environment is a dynamic, complex entity. It makes sense to proceed with caution. The polar bear moment is reminiscent of the fictional scene in Jurassic Park when the protagonists discover that the dinosaurs are not behaving according to the predicted model. But they realize it too late.
posted by wretchardthecat at 3/08/2007 06:25:00 PM
29 Comments:
I have an idea, we could terraform Venus first and see how the experiment really works before we try it on our nest. All that time that they spent in orbit in the pursuit of their duties could garner them some good cash too. Hell, I'd donate ten bucks toward the cause.
I remember well the predictions in the 1970's of overpopulation (“we’ll all be a doubling in 32 years”), mass famine, and unchecked pollution. As we know it never happened. Instead the environment got cleaner and new crops provide enough food for everyone if we can get it to them.
I doubt humans are the main cause of global warming, but in any case the point is that technology is always changing. It is doubtful we will be emitting the same amount of CO2 per person as we are today. Engineers are continually making things more efficient. No one purposely designs something to use more energy than the thing it is replacing.
The other thing to keep in mind is that some of the worst case scenarios assume there will be 12 billion people on Earth. I seriously doubt that is going to happen. We’ll be on our way to Mars first.
For me the only reasonable measure of global warming that is clearly measurable and for which there are good historical records is sea level rise. All the other predictions about weather changes and are way too subjective for my taste. Even global temperatures are suspect in my mind because we haven’t had really good ways of measuring global temperature until recently and even the new techniques are problematic.
So sea level is what I’ll be watching over the next 20 years as we go through a solar cycle and we find out if solar output does (as I believe) have a more significant effect on the climate than the CO2 being added by humans.
When Gore’s book is on remainder for 1 cent (plus $3.49 shipping), I’m going to buy a copy and put it on the shelf without reading it (I’ve already seen the movie). In 20 years I’ll take it off and see how many of his predictions (like a 20 foot sea level rise) have come true.
I’ve got my inflatable row boat ready, but without any air in it…
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/02/09/shocking-facts-about-sea-level-rise/
betacygni, World Climate Report is a keeper. Thank you.
Howdy..
Somebody should do a Doctoral thesis on this Great "Global Warming" fiasco.
Get the names of the people involved and trace the sources of their money. This is way more than "Pet Rock" stuff. This is like the Mormons listening to a White Salamander. This is like the Jim Jones Kool-Aid party and those guys who expected to be taken to a Comet that was passing by. All they had to do was dress up and KILL themselves.
Hopefully the bubble on this thing will burst soon and when it does we should put a suicide watch on the ones who seem depressed or upset and won't go to work etc..
Who got them going on this thing? It seems pretty well organized. Time for Sherlock Holmes.
Great Posts.
mike h.:
I rather like the idea of terraforming Venus.
Should I annoint myself President of the Venereal Terraforming Society? Perhaps memberships can be sold for ten dollars a pop.
Once there's a sufficient membership, I could lobby the U.S. government (and perhaps the E.U. as well) to fund research into venereal terraforming. If only I could figure out how to create an apocalyptic scenario of doom that would compel governments throughout the world to see this scheme for terraforming Venus as the only hope for humanity. I suppose it's time to flip through Mayan prophecies, Gnostic Gospels, Kabbalah, and the quatrains of Nostradamus... ;-)
alexis,
The Mayan long calendar of some 5,100+ years ends on 21 Dec. 2012. It was believed that this sequence of a number of series, going back some 27,000 +/- years hearlded the end of this age of man. This has got to be a grabber by the Gorbots. A little (or a lot) of mysticism adds invaluable emotional depth to the paradigm.
Do not quote the dates. I am working from faded memories and the hour is too late for serious research. I am just plaing with the idea.
Even though I hope for the most part that Dr Theodor Landscheidt's theory about the sun is wrong, another part of me is rooting for the good doctor's theory just to watch the global warming fanatics have to scrap some serious egg off their face.
""Analysis of the sun's varying activity in the last two millennia indicates that contrary to the IPCC's speculation about man-made global warming as high as 5.8° C within the next hundred years, a long period of cool climate with its coldest phase around 2030 is to be expected. It is shown that minima in the 80 to 90-year Gleissberg cycle of solar activity, coinciding with periods of cool climate on Earth, are consistently linked to an 83-year cycle in the change of the rotary force driving the sun's oscillatory motion about the centre of mass of the solar system. As the future course of this cycle and its amplitudes can be computed, it can be seen that the Gleissberg minimum around 2030 and another one around 2200 will be of the Maunder minimum type accompanied by severe cooling on Earth......
We need not wait until 2030 to see whether the forecast of the next deep Gleissberg minimum is correct. A declining trend in solar activity and global temperature should become manifest long before the deepest point in the development. The current 11-year sunspot cycle 23 with its considerably weaker activity seems to be a first indication of the new trend."
Time will soon tell whether or not he is correct. And if he is, then we better start burning up fossil fuels like mad in order to maximize the greenhouse effect in time to meet the dwindling solar output.
Those so interested here is the link:
http://www.john-daly.com/solar/solar.htm
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Alexis -
Given what "Venereal" really means, I think your new NGO might be misunderstood by the UN. However, given the times, a Venereal Terraforming organization could probably sell lots of subscriptions in the porn belt.
Isn't venereal terraforming what UN peacekeepers do to local womenfolk?
Even Sports Illustrated is hawking global warming hysteria:
http://www.oscargamblesociety.com/2007/03/08/preening-moral-vanity-thy-name-is-sports-illustrated/
yhqThings brings to mind the early 70's hysterics over the caribou, which were supposed to be wiped out by the Alaska pipeline cutting across their migration routes.
In reality, the Caribou use the pipeline as a highway as well as a quadreped verison of singles bar. Gets them up above most of the biting black flies and skeeters during rutting season. Their population has exploded.
Now, I will admit that concerns over the caribou probably led to making provisions for them crossing the pipeline and that inadvertantly led to them gaining acces to it - but themn gain humans needed that acess, too so it would have been there to some extent.
Also, recent research has found that there were palm trees well above the Artic Circle at one time. Who is to say what is "normal?"
Free Baby Seal! Free Bobby Seale!
Unintended Consequences: Governor Ann Richards of Texas goes ding-a-ling over the Golden Cheeked Warbler, tries to restrict private property rights to satisfy her left wing, and loses the election to George Bush, who springboards it to the King of Rapine of Mother Gaia. Ha ha ha ha!
Update: After costing Richards the election, the Golden Cheek Warbler continued to thrive, as it always had, before Austin watermelons had decided to use the little bird to turn the Texas hill country into a de-facto state park the size of Iowa.
The 1st Church of Global Warming, Rev Al Gore presiding, invites you and yours to a mental orgy of non-think everyday that they can get some print space
GW is just another faith for the soggy-brained 60's generation. Just like the Church of Darwin or the Church of Organic Foods or dangling a crystal above one's head.
The story of the Church of Global Warming is most telling about how the tools of the MSM are pimped to spread the message. That "journalism" has fallen so low as to be a ho for every crackpot idea is the real shocker.
Assuming we are warming the planet, we have no idea what will happen in any particular region, to any particular species, etc. This fact is more important than it first appears because of the natural tendency of controllers and planners, including the environmentalist variety, to underestimate human ingenuity when we are left to our own devices to try out economic experiments.
This means that whatever negative effects might occur will be mitigated, and that whatever positive effects will occur will be consistently underestimated or not predicted to begin with. Given the costs of government centrally planning any global-warming response, this suggests a strong presumption that we should do nothing at all about it.
Absolutely. Lassez-faire is not an opt-out --it is rather the only sure way to avoid a horrendous gov't screw-up. The war on Global Warming will be another War on Poverty (which, in return for massive wastage of money into the civil-service industry, has done nigh-incalculable harm to its supposed beneficiaries).
...this suggests a strong presumption that we should do nothing at all about it
Especially since many species are already adapting to warming.
Sparks Fly,
A note on the "Mormon" White Salamander story. The famous "White Salamander Document" was forged by a rare document dealer who was convicted of a murder committed as his scam fell apart. He set at least one homemade bomb, though I don't recall if this is how the murder victim was killed. Hmmm. White salamander document discredited then, white polar bear disaster discredited now. Hope those proponents of Polar Bears as harbingers of doom don't get as desperate as he did.
If any of y'all have been to California, then you may have seen Iceplant.
Iceplant is a low growing ground covering plant that was imported to reduce erosion along highways and similar locations. It thrives on the small amount of water available in coastal California in the summer months and lives on dew from the fog quite well. It presented no particular problems; once a year or so everyone on Vandeberg AFB turned out to beat the Iceplant back into submission -kind of like a mild version of Pol Pot running everyone out into the fields - and that was that.
But back in the early 90's someone decided that Iceplant was an Alien Invader and that it had to be ripped out and DISPOSED OF AS HAZARDOUS WASTE. Right! PCB oils, contaminated rocket propellants - and Iceplanet - all hazardous waste.
They replaced the Iceplant with grass - which required much more water - which worsened the state's water shortage.
And these are the same kind of people who think that Alien Invaders from across the border
are no problem.
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Rwe, California’s Iceplant sounds lovely compared to the South’s Audrey II, kudzu.
Even if true enviros have an agenda of “freezing” or manipulating the earth into some kind of steady-state utopia (am thinking they must’ve been weaned on the wonderful wilds of Kipling, Cooper, London, Dana, Conrad, Lassie and Flipper and then on all of those crusader cartoons), their political enabler-exploiters have moved the “science” away from pedantic, even wistfully forced logic toward that of sport-like loyalties, for their own material $/political gain. The latest cover of Sports Illustrated shows AGW for the big money game it’s now become, complete with the Green vs. Denialist “teams”, owners, coaches and managers, star players, statisticians, rules, fouls, entry admission, profits and fans. Pick a side. Root and boo. Buy carbon concessions or BYOB. Watch Gore bunt and make it to home because of defender unforced errors.
Haven’t read the issue, but shouldn’t a Marlin be happier completely under water? Dolphins, too. Maybe one day my home team will stop offending native Americans and become the Atlantis Mermen.
re: this discovery has scientists totally rethinking current understanding of..."
But that what science is. Science, despite the best efforts of public and press, is not religion. Science, by definition, must admit falsifiability
Thanks, Bohica.
If Al Gore was selling Mood Rings for World Harmony, and the NYT mentioned them 5,721 times as they have done with "global warming" - half the people in the US would be wearing Mood Rings and living their lives by the colors right now.
RWE - speaking of PCB's, we had a local train yard near here, electric trains, used PCB's in their transformers. Turned into a huge, multi-year SuperFund site with a Grand Re-Opening of the land and all that. One of my neighbors, long time mechanic, pooh-poohed the whole affair. "Down at the shop, we washed our hands in PCB's for 30 years, got the grease right off."
As for kudzu, that was purposely brought in from Japan to stop erosion around the railroad tracks. Genghis Khan couldn't kill that stuff.
Yep, Tony, the South has succumbed to the most damaging idea of the 20th C- Kudzuism. So I'm thinking if you can't beat it, then make ice cream. The Japanese make a sweet tofu out of the K stuff.
Beware the environmental gurus and geniuses:
“One of the most colorful characters associated with kudzu was Channing Cope, who was an agricultural writer for the Atlanta-Journal-Constitution…
“…In 1943 Cope started the Kudzu Club that had 20,000 faithful members. In 1949 he wrote the kudzu bible, Front Porch Farming. In it he advocated planting the entire farm to kudzu and a few other forages and growing cows.
“Even while Cope was promoting kudzu, more sensible people had their reservations. He says that regardless of kudzu’s great merits, he is often cornered by what he calls "shortsighted garden club ladies" wanting to know how to kill the stuff.
“But the bubble burst. People noticed that cows don’t really like kudzu and, perhaps more importantly, they can’t climb trees.
“By 1952 the SCS had stopped recommending planting kudzu and, believe it or not, in 1972 the USDA recognized kudzu as a weed! Attempts to kill it out have been less than promising… a few herbicides actually make it grow better…”
Sparks Fly,
"This is like the Jim Jones Kool-Aid party"
This is your most apt analogy, because of the early support for Jim Jones' socialist/religious utopian vision among the cultural and political left. He got government money to set people up to commit suicide.
But it's not a Jim Jones Kool-Aid party yet. People on both sides need to be willing to examine data presented by persons with opposing views honestly. The alarmists marginalize, discredit and sometimes villify anyone who challenges their positions. This reduces the alarmists' credibility and sets those with opposing data up as heroes to people who distrust the alarmists.
Some of the alarmist politicians and scientists admit that they exaggerate data and suppress dissent because they believe that this is the only way to mobilize action. Often, the actions they propose do not adequately address the problems they say exist. For example, Al Gore does not seem to be asking Americans to drastically change their lifestyles, but he presents images of cities under 20 feet of water. Compact Flourescents just don't seem like an adequate response to me. And Kyoto pretty much ignored the issue of pollution by most of the world's population. These positions just don't make sense unless other agendas are the true motivation.
Meanwhile, "true believers" demand actions consistent with the exaggerated information presented by the alarmists. They start to act just like religious fanatics. Pretty soon, we have a real fight on our hands.
A more recent example than Jim Jones of government support for religious solutions to serious problems comes out of socialized medicine. Who would have guessed 30 years ago that socialized medicine would now be paying people to explore the "world of fairies"?
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWU5YWNiNjJiMzZhMThiY2QyZGI0NDg5YWMyNGRjNTA=
Here are a few links. By the way, "The Great Global Warming Swindle" is now viewable at Google Video.
• The Great Global Warming Swindle --Google video of U.K. Channel 4 documentary, Mar 8, 2007
• The Great Global Warming Swindle --U.K. Channel 4's text summary of the show
• Inconvenient Truths: Novel science fiction on global warming. --Patrick J. Michaels, National Review Online, Feb 23, 2007
• ‘Blame cosmic rays not CO2 for warming up the planet’ --Lewis Smith, Times (UK), Feb 12, 2007
• An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change --Nigel Calder (former editor of New Scientist), Sunday Times (UK), Feb 11, 2007
• Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says --National Geographic, Mar 8, 2007
• The real deal?: Against the grain: Some scientists deny global warming exists --Lawrence Solomon, National Post (Canada), Feb 2, 2007
• Look to Mars for the truth on global warming --Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post (Canada), Feb 2, 2007
• NO: It’s a fact that their numbers are up fivefold since the 1970s (polar bears) --H. Sterling Burnett, McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Jan 2, 2007
• Al Gore Is a Greenhouse Gasbag: Penn professor Bob Giegengack has a few quibbles with the former VP on this whole global warming thing --John Marchese, Philadelphia Magazine, Jan 2007
• Public Disservice: Melting myths. --Patrick J. Michaels, National Review Online, Jul 26, 2006
• Climate of Fear: Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence. --Richard Lindzen (Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT), Opinion Journal, Apr 12, 2006
• There IS a problem with global warming… it stopped in 1998 --Bob Carter (geologist in paleoclimate research), Opinion.Telegraph (UK), Apr 9, 2006
• Open Kyoto to debate: Sixty scientists call on Harper to revisit the science of global warming --National Post (Canada), Apr 6, 2006
• (Beginning of) The Global-Warming God: Must it now be appeased? --Patrick J. Michaels, National Review Online, Oct 5, 2005
• Interview with Dr. William Gray - James K. Glassman, TCSDaily, Sep 9, 2005
• Discover Dialogue: Meteorologist William Gray --Kathy A. Svitil, DISCOVER Vol. 26 No. 09, Sep 2005
• Politicized Science is Dangerous - (Excerpted from State of Fear) --Michael Crichton
• Environmentalism as Religion --Michael Crichton, Sept 15, 2003
• Aliens Cause Global Warming --Michael Crichton, lecture at the California Institute of Technology, Jan 17, 2003
• Clip from Penn & Teller’s “Environmental Hysteria” episode of their cable TV series
Make sure you read this interview with Gore from May 2006 (Hat Tip: OpinionJournal.com) :
http://www.grist.org/cgi-bin/printthis.pl?uri=/news/maindish/2006/05/09/roberts/index.html
In that interview this exchange happens:
Q. There's a lot of debate right now over the best way to communicate about global warming and get people motivated. Do you scare people or give them hope? What's the right mix?
A. I think the answer to that depends on where your audience's head is. In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.
----------------------
For me this is an incredible statement by Gore:
"I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is"
Maybe that explains why Gore says there is going to be a 20 foot rise in sea level and the latest international conference report on Global Warming predicts a range of 7" - 18" over the next century.
Maybe Gore should retitle his movie:
"A Convenient Over-Representation of Facts"
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