[Vision2020] Al Gore's 'Lie' Breaks Records Relevance?

[Art Deco]

To avoid getting confused by charlatans on the global warming issue, there are two fundamental questions to ask yourself:

1.    Is global warming occurring at the present time?

2.    If so, how much has human activity contributed to such warming?



1.    The amount of evidence supporting the hypothesis that global warming is occurring is formidable.  Over the last 50 years the average air temperature computed by considering the temperature from thousands of different worldwide points has undeniably risen.  Glacial and ice mass melt has far outstripped glacial and ice mass growth worldwide.  The ocean level has risen.

One of the sources cited in the last post from news.of.christ.cult at gamil.com is a National Geographic Magazine article.  It has pictures for those not able or willing to read words:
Link to National Geographic Society Story  The visual evidence is quite impressive.  On the local level, those of us who have visited/hiked in the Canadian Rockies over the last 50 years have seen the dramatic decrease of glacial mass firsthand.

There is other evidence from changes in the ranges of biota worldwide.  Only a few skeptics deny that global warming has been occurring.


2.    The debate over global warming is really not whether it is occurring or not, but what are the causes, how much is caused by human activity, and what effects could humans have on reversing the trend.

A synopsis of the almost unanimous scientific community can be found here:
IPCC:  The Physical Basis of Climate Change
It is not light reading.

Of course, there are a few quasi-scientific dissenters.  That is true of almost any current, edge of knowledge scientific theory, including the theory of gravity (yes, even at this late date after we have use it to send to and retrieve persons from the moon), and the theories of the structure of matter.  One of the main arguments for hypothesizing the human causation part of global warming is the vastly increased amounts of atmospheric carbon oxide.  

Human activity is now producing much more of this gas than ever before.  In addition, the natural control of carbon dioxide, plant photosynthesis, has been reduced since massive amounts of the larger of this kind of vegetation has been destroyed in the last 200 years, a great deal of it in the last 50 years (Amazon forests, e.g.).  Not only does the destruction of this vegetation reduce carbon dioxide intake and control, but it also causes climatic changes.

Critics of global warming like to point out that there are natural climatic cycles lasting thousand of years.  That is true.  

The last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago.  Since shortly after that, average world air temperatures have been relatively stable until about 50 years ago, whence they started to climb.  [Although there were not weather stations until the 19th century, there are ways to estimate accurately basic world climatic conditions/temperatures in the past.]  Proponents of the hypothesis that humans are now contributing much more than ever to global warming point to this sudden temperature upswing in conjunction with the vast increase of human carbon dioxide production.


As a side note, I find it amusing that biblical inerrantists like Ed Iverson and his ilk argue against human causation of global warming partly on the basis of past ice ages that apparently started over two billion years ago.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_ages

According to the Bible, the alleged God thereof created the earth less than 7,000 years ago.  Do the math and draw your own conclusions about Iverson's theories, expertise, and even basic arithmetical and logical ability.


Ted Moffett and others have posted evidence about the global warming crisis here on V 2020.  They cite not only the scientific hypotheses, but the factual basis for them.  Critics of the theory frequently cite only a small bit of the evidence, and like their cousins, the creationists, really only show their ignorance of the facts and theory in total.

In small, I like to compare of those who exhort us not to take global warming seriously with another group -- those realtors and developers in parts of southern California who promised that building large, heavy houses on steep hillsides would cause no problems in the future.  This greedy group even produced a few whorish, but hardly competent geologists to support their views.  Unless you live in a cave, you know what happens every year to some of these houses.  What you may not know is that you pay for such folly because those losses impact your home owner's insurance costs even though the losses did not occur in this area.  Apply the same thinking to global warming and include the likely effects on your line of progeny.


W.





----- Original Message ----- 
From: "lfalen" <lfalen at turbonet.com>
To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2007 12:25 PM
Subject: [Vision2020] Fw: [Spam] Al Gore's 'Lie' Breaks Records


Here are some other views to consider on Global Warming. Some of these should probably be taken with a grain of salt, but so should  Al  Gore's. In addition to the NewsMax comments posted below, other books that should be studied are"The Improving State of the World" by Indur M Goklany and "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming" by Chistopher C. Horner. While Global Warming may be occuring, just how much man has to do with it is questionable. Even if man is not a significant contributor to global warming, we should still be looking for other sources of energy  Oil is a finite resource and will come to and end some day like Whale Oil. There are some problems with ethanol and other biofuels. It take almost as much energy to make ethanol as  is produced. Another problem is that the use of corn for ethanol is driving up the price. This creates a problem for livestock produces and the production of tortillas in Mexico.
Air pollution is a health problem aside from any effect on global warming. Just take a trip to Riverside, California and see the smog there. These problems need to worked on. But draconian measures that disrupt the economy are probably not in order at this time. We need to solve these problems, but lets not go back to the stone age in the process.
> 
> Roger
> -----Original message-----
> 
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