<div>The following post was too long to spell check via Gmail's system. Errors in fact and reasoning are my responsibility, but in the age of spell checkers is anyone expected to know how to spell?</div>
<div>---------------</div>
<div>A Vision2020 post on anthropogenic climate change sourced from Dale Courtney's blog, <a href="http://right-mind.us">right-mind.us</a>, apparently authored by Mr. Courtney, posted on Vision2020 June 23, 2008, offers such egregious misrepresentations and omissions regarding the science on climate change, and the attitudes of the climate science community, that if the point of view espoused were not so widespread, hampering efforts to mitigate climate change in the economic and political world, it might be dismissed casually, rather than directly and publicly in detail. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>However, as Keely Emerine Mix recently wrote on Vision2020, "Silence is assent." And when misleading and/or fraud based claims are being successfully and widely promoted as credible, "Silence is assent" in allowing harmful falsehoods to go unchallenged. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Anthropogenic climate change is not a risk to dismiss casually.. Those who publicly promote distortions or omissions of what the scientific community is asserting regarding this problem, are pulling the wool over peoples eyes. Well reasoned and fact based skepticism should be respected. But misrepresentations and blatant omission or distortions of robust scientific findings, should be documented and exposed in detail. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>I am well aware that there is scientific dissent regarding the claim that human impacts are dramatically altering climate. Scientific dissent is present on many scientific theories that are well supported. Let's examine this dissent, and the responses in the scientific community, rather than quoting sources that misrepresent and mislead, to suit an agenda, while claiming the scientific community is "conveniently ignoring" dissenting arguments. When propagandists successfully portray those doing objective careful science as propagandists, Orwell rolls in his grave. The climate science community is not "conveniently ignoring" data on climate science, as any reader of what may be the most informative website on climate science, Realclimate.org, sponsored by a team of climate scientists, will discover. All of Courtney's skeptical arguments regarding climate change are addressed in detail.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>After Courtney's <a href="http://right-mind.us">right-mind.us</a> response from June 23 (someone else posted this <a href="http://right-mind.us">right-mind.us</a> post to Vision2020, not Courtney), I posted responses to several of the claims made by Courtney. These responses are at the URLs below:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2008-June/054638.html">http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2008-June/054638.html</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2008-June/054682.html">http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2008-June/054682.html</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>It might not have been clear that these posts were answering Courtney's post on global warming, so I am responding to Courtney's claims below, some of which I did not directly address earlier, placing my responses into the body of the <a href="http://right-mind.us">right-mind.us</a> post from Courtney: </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Courtney wrote:<br> </div>
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<h4><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://right-mind.us/blogs/blog_0/archive/2008/06/22/60894.aspx" target="_blank">Religion of "<span class="" id="st" name="st">Global</span> Warmers" <span class="" id="st" name="st">Church</span>'s New Sermon</a></h4>
<div>
<p><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2008-June/054601.html" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="http://media.right-mind.us/right-mind/GlobalWarming.jpg" align="right" border="0">Ted Moffett</a><font color="#0000ff"> </font>has taken me to task yet again for my comments that <span class="" id="st" name="st">Global</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">Warming</span> is a fundamentalist religion. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is climate science, not religion, for those who understand the difference. Subject heading tongue in cheek alert for <a title="http://right-mind.us/" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://right-mind.us/tags/Global+Warming/default.aspx" target="_blank">right-mind.us</a> readers, and other deniers of the scientific consensus among the <span class="" id="st" name="st">global</span> climate science community regarding anthropogenic climate change. </p>
</blockquote>
<p dir="ltr">Yet again we have more examples of the anthropogenic <span class="" id="st" name="st">warming</span> crowd acting like fundamentalists. Evidence after evidence demonstrates that they have wrongly interpreted the data, yet they tenaciously hold to their faith-based assumptions. </p>
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<div> </div>
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<div> </div>
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<div>My response:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Courtney offered a long list of attachments that were included with the post from <a href="http://right-mind.us">right-mind.us</a> under discussion. These attachments were mostly aimed, it appears, at showing that solar forcing is a more accurate variable to explain our current warming climate than human impacts, a very common skeptics argument. Who is holding to "faith based assumptions" regarding solar forcing of climate? Who has "wrongly interpreted the data" on this issue?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Courtney's "data" on solar forcing as it relates to contemporary climate change has been examined using spacecraft. According to the "Nature" journal article referenced below, the results do not support the conclusion that increasing global average temperatures, in the past 30 years, can be explained mostly by solar variables. It appears Courtney is not considering all the peer reviewed scientific data published on this issue, though I am not questioning that solar variations have influenced climate change in recent centuries.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Published in the journal "Nature," examining the theory of solar forcing of climate, the findings of which it appears Courtney is dismissing, or ignoring:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7108/abs/nature05072.html">http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7108/abs/nature05072.html</a><br><br>*Nature* *443*, 161-166 (14 September 2006) | doi:10.1038/nature05072<br>
Variations in solar luminosity and their effect on the Earth's climate<br><br>P. Foukal1<<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7108/abs/nature05072.html#a1">http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7108/abs/nature05072.html#a1</a>>,<br>
C. Fröhlich2<<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7108/abs/nature05072.html#a2">http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7108/abs/nature05072.html#a2</a>>,<br>H. Spruit3<<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7108/abs/nature05072.html#a3">http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7108/abs/nature05072.html#a3</a>>and<br>
T. M. L. Wigley<br>4 <<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7108/abs/nature05072.html#a4">http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7108/abs/nature05072.html#a4</a>><br>Top of page<<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7108/abs/nature05072.html#top">http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7108/abs/nature05072.html#top</a>><br>
Abstract<br><br>Variations in the Sun's total energy output (luminosity) are caused by<br>changing dark (sunspot) and bright structures on the solar disk during the<br>11-year sunspot cycle. The variations measured from spacecraft since 1978<br>
are too small to have contributed appreciably to accelerated global warming<br>over the past 30 years. In this Review, we show that detailed analysis of<br>these small output variations has greatly advanced our understanding of<br>
solar luminosity change, and this new understanding indicates that<br>brightening of the Sun is unlikely to have had a significant influence on<br>global warming since the seventeenth century. Additional climate forcing by<br>
changes in the Sun's output of ultraviolet light, and of magnetized plasmas,<br>cannot be ruled out. The suggested mechanisms are, however, too complex to<br>evaluate meaningfully at present.<br>--------------------</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Also, published scientific work on the Maunder Minimum sun spot period, and the Little Ice Age, which are often referenced by anthropogenic climate change skeptics (including Courtney) to argue that current climate warming is a natural effect of solar variations, suggests that the Little Ice Age was more of a local cooling phenomenon in the Northern Hemisphere, with average global temperatures only dropping .3-.4 C. Yes, changes via solar forcing of climate occured, but not as dramatically on a global scale during the LIA as some claim. Climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, one of the authors of the "Science" journal artical below, has argued elsewhere that solar forcing has played a role in 20th century climate change, but that the current upswing in warming cannot be explained mostly by solar variations:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Published in the journal "Science" December 7, 2001:<br><br><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/294/5549/2149">http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/294/5549/2149</a><br><br>Solar Forcing of Regional Climate Change During the Maunder Minimum<br>
<br>*Drew T. Shindell,1 Gavin A. Schmidt,1 Michael E. Mann,2 David Rind,1 Anne<br>Waple3 *<br>We examine the climate response to solar irradiance changes between the late<br>17th-century Maunder Minimum and the late 18th century. Global average<br>
temperature changes are small (about 0.3° to 0.4°C) in both a climate model<br>and empirical reconstructions. However, regional temperature changes are<br>quite large. In the model, these occur primarily through a forced shift<br>
toward the low index state of the Arctic Oscillation/North Atlantic<br>Oscillation as solar irradiance decreases. This leads to colder<br>temperatures over<br>the Northern Hemisphere continents, especially in winter (1° to 2°C), in<br>
agreement with historical records and proxy data for surface temperatures.<br> </div>
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<div>More info from scientists on solar forcing of climate at the URLs below. The second URL below offers a detailed examination of solar forcing of climate by climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, placing the issue within the relevant debates in the climate science community:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Professional Bio from NASA on Gavin Schmidt at URL immediately below:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://www.giss.nasa.gov/~gavin/">http://www.giss.nasa.gov/~gavin/</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=171">http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=171</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/2001/200112065794.html">http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/2001/200112065794.html</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=180">http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=180</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>Quote below from URL immediately above:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Regardless of any discussion about solar irradiance in past centuries, the sunspot record and neutron monitor data (which can be compared with radionuclide records) show that solar activity has not increased since the 1950s and is therefore unlikely to be able to explain the recent warming.</div>
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<div>Courtney wrote:</div>
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<p dir="ltr">First, I'm not too sure how old Ted is. But I'm old enough to remember the scientific consensus in the 70's about the "Coming Ice Age". As history has well demonstrated, having a consensus of scientists on your side doesn't prove anything. </p>
</div></div></div></blockquote>
<div>My response:</div>
<div><br>In fact, according to the climate effects of the astronomically based Milankovitch Cycles, (which involve three primary variables: precession of the Equinoxes, changes in the tilt of the Earth in reference to the ecliptic (obliquity to ecliptic), and changes in the ellipse of the Earth's solar orbit), and other variables, the Earth should be entering a climate cooling phase. The claims of some climate scientists in the 1970s that we could be entering the next ice age have not been refuted. Rather, human impacts as the current dominant climate forcing influence are overcoming the influences of natural variables. Eventually, the natural climate variables causing ice ages may reduce the long term (over centuries or millenia) impacts of anthropopgenic warming, given climate feedback mechanisms (methane hydrate disruption, carbon sink reversal, desertification, albedo reduction due to ice and snow cover loss, et. al.) may shift the Earth's climate into a warmer state lasting thousands of years. The two URLs below offer more info on the Milankokvitch cycles and impacts on climate change, the first from the National Climate Data Center, quoted below:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>"Cool summers in the northern hemisphere, where most of the earth's land mass is located, appear to allow snow and ice to persist to the next winter, allowing the development of large ice sheets over hundreds to thousands of years."</div>
<div>---------------</div>
<div>"Theory suggests that the primary driver of ice ages is the total summer radiation received in northern latitude zones where major ice sheets have formed in the past, near 65 degrees north. Past ice ages correlate well to 65N summer insolation (Imbrie 1982). Astronomical calculations show that 65N summer insolation should increase gradually over the next 25,000 years, ..."</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html">http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/seasons_orbit.php">http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/seasons_orbit.php</a></div>
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<div> </div>
<div>Courtney wrote:</div>
<div><br> </div>
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<p dir="ltr">Second, there are <strong><em>a lot</em></strong> of scientists who flatly disagree with anthropogenic <span class="" id="st" name="st">global</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">warming</span>. 31,072 American Scientists have publicly signed a petition denying anthropogenic <span class="" id="st" name="st">global</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">warming</span>. There are <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.petitionproject.org/gwdatabase/Signers_By_Statephpcontent.php?run=Idaho" target="_blank">228 from Idaho</a> and <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.petitionproject.org/gwdatabase/Signers_By_Statephpcontent.php?run=Washington" target="_blank">603 from Washington</a> that have signed; and 9,021 with PhD's. <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://right-mind.us/blogs/blog_0/archive/2007/09/17/54654.aspx" target="_blank">Over 500 scientists published studies countering <span class="" id="st" name="st">global</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">warming</span> fears</a>. That's not a small dissent. That's a group who is being vilified because they disagree with Moffett's theory. And that's a fundamentalist response, not a scientific one. </p>
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<div>My response:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I will reference info from the top two URLs in this post, both Vision2020 posts answering the claims in the paragraph above. The petition Courtney referenced originated in part from a former president of the National Academy of Sciences, Frederick Seitz, who misused his connections to the NAS to present the peitition as though it originated from the NAS. This forced the NAS to issue a public statement of rejection of connection to the peitition, and an emphatic disagreement with the scientifc claims made in this peitition. The results of any peitition presented with misrespresenation of its origins should be questioned. And the climate science arguments used by Seitz, and his associates promoting this peitition, have been examined in detail and found to be highly questionable (a polite way of saying "junk science"). Where is Courtney's skepticism regarding Seitz and the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine? Apparently, Courtney applies extreme levels of skepticism rather selectively. Seitz, the peition under question, and the Oregon Insitute of Science and Medicine, are examined in detail at URL below:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/10/oregon-institute-of-science-and-malarkey">http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/10/oregon-institute-of-science-and-malarkey</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>At the URL below is the statement from the NAS regarding the petition Courtney cited, with a few quotes below:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=s04201998">http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=s04201998</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>The Council of the <a href="http://www2.nas.edu/nas/"><font color="#000066">National Academy of Sciences</font></a> (NAS) is concerned about the confusion caused by a petition being circulated via a letter from a former president of this Academy. This petition criticizes the science underlying the Kyoto treaty on carbon dioxide emissions (the Kyoto Protocol to the Framework Convention on Climate Change), and it asks scientists to recommend rejection of this treaty by the U.S. Senate. The petition was mailed with an op-ed article from The Wall Street Journal and a manuscript in a format that is nearly identical to that of scientific articles published in the <a href="http://www.pnas.org/"><i><font color="#000066">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</font></i></a>. The NAS Council would like to make it clear that this petition has nothing to do with the National Academy of Sciences and that the manuscript was not published in the <i>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</i> or in any other peer-reviewed journal."<br>
<br>The petition does not reflect the conclusions of expert reports of the Academy.</div>
<div>--------------</div>
<div>Regarding the list of 500 scientists who "counter global warming fears" many of these scientists have stated their work is being misused and misrepresented, and have asked for their names to be removed from this list. This is a fraudulent effort to spread misinformation and misrepresentaion on climate science, in part from Singer and Avery, author of the book "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years." </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Many aspects of climate science are undergoing vigorous debate and discussion. Disagreements are common, which is how science should operate. But many of the scientists in this list of 500 scientists Courtney claims "dissent," who "flatly disagree with anthropogenic global warming," in fact do not dissent. Use of their work in this biased effort is not ethical science. Quotes from some of the scientists who have objected to the use of their name and work in this list are at URL below:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/500-scientists-with-documented-doubts-about-the-heartland-institute">http://www.desmogblog.com/500-scientists-with-documented-doubts-about-the-heartland-institute</a></div>
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<div>More discussion of Singer and Avery's claims in "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years" is presented at Realclimate.org, a website sponsored by climate scientists referenced already. As is clear from the comments section at the URL below, well reasoned and fact based skepticism on climate science is discussed in detail. Even the use of the term "denialist" is criticised, and defended... After all, some do engage in mindless denial of evidence and reasoned argument... But no theroy is "conveniently ignored, " as Courtney writes. Nor does Singer and Avery's misuse of the scientific work of the scientists they claim support their agenda, escape exposure. Courtney should be more skeptical of his chosen skeptics:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/avery-and-singer-unstoppable-hot-air/">http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/avery-and-singer-unstoppable-hot-air/</a></div>
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<div>I make a point of studying all theories on climate science, dissenting or not...</div>
<div> </div>
<div>At the URL below is a famous paper by MIT meteorologist Richard Lindzen, et. al., often sourced by climate change skeptics, arguing for Lindzen's legendary "Iris" effect for dissipation of thermal energy to space, which has been examined by the scientific community, and found to be questionable. However, I certainly don't want to "conveniently ignore" Lindzen's claims: </div>
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<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/adinfriris.pdf" target="_blank">http://eaps.mit.edu/faculty/<span class="" id="st" name="st">lindzen</span>/adinfriris.pdf</a> </div>
<div>-----------------------</div>Courtney wrote:<br>
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<p dir="ltr">Third, to demonstrate causality they have to disprove all other theories (sunspots causing <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://right-mind.us/blogs/blog_0/archive/2007/04/10/51131.aspx" target="_blank"><span class="" id="st" name="st">global</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">warming</span> on Mars</a>, <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://right-mind.us/blogs/blog_0/archive/2007/03/12/50564.aspx" target="_blank">Pluto</a>, <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://right-mind.us/blogs/blog_0/archive/2007/10/08/55133.aspx" target="_blank">Triton</a>). Space.com reports that <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_ice-age_031208.html" target="_blank">Mars is emerging from an ice age</a>. Unless Moffett thinks that Martians are driving too many SUVs around, then there has to be another explanation. And why doesn't that explanation work for the earth and only for Mars/Pluto/Triton/etc? </p>
</div></div></div></blockquote>
<div>My response:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>For a scientific theory to be regarded as credible, the theory does not have to disprove all other theories. No one can <em>disprove</em> <em>all</em> other possible theories for any claim. No scientific theory could pass this test. After examining all known theories and data, the theory that best and most simply (Occams Razor) explains the data is most credible. This does not mean other theories may never be discovered to better explain the data, which would be the case if all other theories were incontrovertibly <em>disproved</em>. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>There is ample data and reliable theory that human greenhouse gas emissions are altering climate. This has been predicted based on prinicples of physics going back to Arrhenius in 1896. And the other theories that could mostly displace human emissions as the cause of the observed warming of the past 30 years have been examined by the scientific community in detail... Maybe new data will refute the general claims of anthropogenic climate change, showing other variables are causing warming more than thought, or that the magnitude of the temperature changes from human greenhouse gas emissions was exagerated. Maybe new data will only reinforce this scientific claim. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>An excellent well researched discussion from the American Institute of Physics (it seems it is not well known that the science behind atmospheric CO2's relation to temperature is a question of basic physics) on the history of the science regarding atmospheric CO2 and temperature is at URL below, with a quote from the article:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The computations pinned down an imbalance. The Earth was now taking in from sunlight nearly a watt per square meter more than it was radiating back into space, averaged over the planet's entire surface. That was enough energy to cause truly serious effects if it continued. James Hansen, leader of one of the studies, called it "smoking gun" proof of greenhouse effect<a id="M_56_" name="M_56_"></a> warming.<a href="http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm#N_56_">(56)</a> </div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm">http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm</a></div>
<div>--------------</div>
<div> </div>
<div>If Courtney is making a scientific argument that solar or other climate forcing variables, external to the Earth's climate system, are warming other planets, therefore this implies Earth's warming is not caused by human impacts (an argument the "religion of global warming conveniently ignores?"), he might ponder the following discussions from Realclimate.org, showing that, one, his claim is not being "conveniently" ignored, and two, is in fact not very credible. Both global warming on Mars, and cosmic rays (our solar system's position in the galaxy has been suggested as a climate change variable responsible for current global warming) are discussed at URLs below:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=192">http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=192</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=180">http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=180</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/03/a-galactic-glitch/#more-534">http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/03/a-galactic-glitch/#more-534</a></div>
<div>----------------------</div>
<div>The rest of Courtney's post focuses mostly on the so called "Religion of Global Warming," not on specific scientific claims, except the chart inserted regarding sunspots and temperature, a subject I already addressed. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Some people approach the subject of global warming like a "religion." In fact, the extreme nature of opinions on this subject have a "faith based" component that swings both ways; those questioning that human impacts on climate are major and should be mitigated are sometimes just as dogmatic and unreasoning as those who have adopted the cause of anthropogenic global warming as a kind of "religion." These sorts of emotional and biased responses are why respect for the scientific method is important to temper the irrational impacts of emotion driven belief. This applies emphatically to many of the unscientific and biased arguments (sometime motivated by economics, politics or religion) against the scientific evidence that human impacts are altering climate. This is not to say there are not well reasoned and fact based arguments to question anthropogenic global warming, or its severity.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Is there a consensus among climate scientists that human impacts are dramatically altering climate? This question woiuld take a tome to answer in detail, but the two following sources lend credence to the claim there is a consensus, which of course does not mean there are not scientists who dissent.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Below read a statement signed by the leaders of numerous scientific organizations worldwide, supporting the scientific conclusion indicating human impacts on climate are a serious issue that must be addressed:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>
<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.nationalacademies.org/includes/G8Statement_Energy_07_May.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.nationalacademies.org/includes/G8Statement_Energy_07_May.pdf</a></div>
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<div>-------------------</div>
<div>Also consider this long list at the URL below, an attempt at collating all the published scientific studies regarding what is called "climate sensitivity," the temperature change to be expected from a doubling of atmospheric CO2. These studies demonstrate that the majority of scientists examining this question have concluded that doubling atmospheric CO2 will warm the climate significantly, though some of the studies show a very slight warming. This is sourced from the website of Barton Paul Levenson. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>The average of the predictions regarding a doubling of atmospheric CO2 is close to an increase of 3 degree C., 5.4 degree F., which represents a radical shift in climate. These findings are a robust scientific argument that increases in atmospheric CO2 are likely to significantly increase temperature, based on well understood principles of physics. Given the gigatons of CO2 the human race is emitting into the atmosphere, and CO2 atmospheric lifespan, it is highly questionable that the measured increases in atmospheric CO2 are not human caused (the oceans are not "fizzing out" CO2 like soda pop, as one Vision2020 post suggested, to explain atmospheric CO2 increases, but in fact are in total absorbing huge amounts of human sourced CO2 from the atmosphere, helping to lower atmospheric CO2, though carbon sink reversal is slowing this process) nor that these increasing levels of CO2 will not eventually significantly raise temperature, especially with continuing high CO2 emissions, without other powerful variables mitigating the climate forcing of CO2:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://members.aol.com/bpl1960/ClimateSensitivity.html">http://members.aol.com/bpl1960/ClimateSensitivity.html</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>Ted Moffett <br> </div>
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<p dir="ltr">There is a ton of evidence that the religion of <span class="" id="st" name="st">global</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">warming</span> conveniently ignores. Since the <span class="" id="st" name="st">global</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">warming</span> alarmists are unable to disprove alternative theories, they ignore them or vilify them. Convenient. And quite the fundamentalist approach. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Fourth, they censor and deionize anyone who doesn't tote the party line. It's funny how "only real scientists agree with us." That's a convenient fundamentalist bate-and-switch tactic. "Only our religion is the true one."</p>
<p dir="ltr">For the record, Ted, it wasn't I who came up with the analogy of <span class="" id="st" name="st">global</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">warming</span> as a fundamentalist religion. It was <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/religion.htm" target="_blank">Michael Crichton in a speech delivered in 2003</a>. </p>
<p dir="ltr">John Brignell compares the religion of <span class="" id="st" name="st">global</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">warming</span> and the medieval Roman Catholic <span class="" id="st" name="st">Church</span> (especially in dealing with that heretic/denier Galileo). <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/religion.htm" target="_blank">Brignell notes</a> many of the glaring similarities. <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://right-mind.us/blogs/blog_0/archive/2008/04/23/59576.aspx" target="_blank">As I've posted before</a>: </p>
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<li>
<div><strong>Faith and scepticism</strong>: "the science of <span class="" id="st" name="st">global</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">warming</span> is settled", as if science were ever settled. </div>
<li>
<div><strong>Sin and absolution</strong>: the sin is your carbon footprint. The indulgence being sold is for "carbon offsets". </div>
<li>
<div><strong>Proselytes and evangelists</strong>: the <span class="" id="st" name="st">global</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">warming</span> crowd are more evangelistic to their cause than any Mormon missionary or Jehovah's Witness door-knocker. </div>
<li>
<div><strong>Demagogues and hypocrites</strong>: Al Gore is the classic example. He chastises everyone for their carbon wastefulness while himself flying all over the world and heating all of his mansions. </div>
<li>
<div><strong><img alt="Sunspot-lenght-&-teperature" src="http://media.right-mind.us/right-mind/sunspotLenghtAndTeperature.gif" align="right" border="0">Infidels and apostates</strong>: anyone who questions anthropogenic <span class="" id="st" name="st">global</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">warming</span> is a "Denier" — as bad as a Holocaust Denier. Heaven forbid someone change his mind on <span class="" id="st" name="st">global</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">warming</span>. He would be an apostate. </div>
<li>
<div><strong>Prophecy and divination</strong>: "huge and generously funded university and government departments do nothing but develop computer models, involving assumptions about physical interactions that are still not understood by science. Their dubious (to say the least) results are used by the new international priesthood to frighten the people into conformity." This goes back to statements like "the science of <span class="" id="st" name="st">global</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">warming</span> is settled." </div>
<li>
<div><strong>Puritans and killjoys</strong>: As Mencken said, Puritans have "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." The <span class="" id="st" name="st">church</span> of <span class="" id="st" name="st">global</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">warming</span> offers nothing in the way of improvement or even maintenance of the human condition. It's as if they wanted us all to become desert hermits — flagellants coercing us into conformity. </div>
<li>
<div><strong>Censorship and angles</strong>: "If you think you have a good case, you can afford to present both sides, but they don't. The great majority of the population have no idea that there is an alternative view. That is not science, it is religion." In Moffett's case, everything that would be a counter-example to his faith is dismissed as an anomaly. Everything that confirms his faith is a fact. That is not science. That's fundamentalism. </div>
<li>
<div><strong>Control and taxation</strong>: People now accept laws that restrict their liberty and standard of living, which would once have provoked riots, because they are cloaked in a quasi-religious formula of <span class="" id="st" name="st">global</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">warming</span>. </div>
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<div><strong>Contradictions and irrationality</strong>: for instance, "The EU, for example, gratuitously destroys a tiny industry making traditional barometers, on the grounds of an irrational fear of mercury, then imposes the use of fluorescent light bulbs that distribute that same dreaded substance in huge quantities across the continent, all on the basis of the threat of <span class="" id="st" name="st">global</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">warming</span>."</div>
<li>
<div><strong>Wealth and power</strong>: "What passed as scientific research a quarter of a century ago now barely exists. To get funding, your project has to conform to one of the mantra descriptions, such as "sustainable development". Doubters are afraid to speak out. Their institutions are dependent on millions in grants at the disposal of green officials to obtain "appropriate" results relevant to <span class="" id="st" name="st">global</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">warming</span> and related scares. When your institution is involved in a fight for survival, you do not rock the boat."</div>
<li>
<div><strong>Confession and salvation</strong>: "Young children now have nightmares about the burning planet, just as some of us once had nightmares about burning in hell unless we believed, and then lay awake at night wondering whether we believed or not, or what "believe" actually means. The ruthless exploitation of the receptivity of the young, and their relentless indoctrination, is one of the less pleasant characteristics of much of religion." "One of the most offensive manifestations of the new religion occurred when hundreds of the priesthood went on one of their lavish junkets in Africa, where all around them was suffering and death."</div>
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<div><strong>Envoi</strong>: "Extremists of the new religion regard humanity as an inconvenience or a pestilence that can be disposed of (not including themselves, of course)."</div></li></li></li></li></li></li></li></li>
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<p>Moffett's religion even has its own pope (Al Gore). </p></div>
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<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://right-mind.us/blogs/blog_0/archive/2008/06/22/60894.aspx" target="_blank">2008-06-22 10:58</a> by <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://right-mind.us/members/Right-Mind.aspx" target="_blank">Right-Mind</a> to <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://right-mind.us/blogs/blog_0/default.aspx" target="_blank">Right Mind</a> </div>
<div><span>Filed under: <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://right-mind.us/blogs/blog_0/archive/tags/Global+Warming/default.aspx" target="_blank" rel="tag"><span class="" id="st" name="st">Global</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">Warming</span></a></span><input type="hidden" value="value:Filed%20under%3A%20%3CA%20href%3D%22%2Fblogs%2Fblog_0%2Farchive%2Ftags%2FGlobal%2BWarming%2Fdefault.aspx%22%20rel%3Dtag%3EGlobal%20Warming%3C%2FA%3E" name="ctl00$ctl00$bcr$bcr$ctl02$ctl14$ctl08$ctl01"></div>
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<div style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </div>
<div style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial"><b>From:</b> <a title="starbliss@gmail.com" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:starbliss@gmail.com" target="_blank">Ted Moffett</a> </div>
<div style="FONT: 10pt arial"><b>To:</b> <a title="vision2020@moscow.com" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com" target="_blank">vision 2020</a> </div>
<div style="FONT: 10pt arial"><b>Sent:</b> Saturday, June 21, 2008 2:56 PM</div>
<div style="FONT: 10pt arial"><b>Subject:</b> [Vision2020] Religion of "Global Warmers" Church's New Sermon</div>
<div><br> </div>
<div>This is climate science, not religion, for those who understand the difference. Subject heading tongue in cheek alert for <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://right-mind.us/" target="_blank">right-mind.us</a> readers, and other deniers of the scientific consensus among the global climate science community regarding anthropogenic climate change:</div>
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<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080619_climatereport.html" target="_blank">http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080619_climatereport.html</a></div>
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<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/images/climatetable.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/images/climatetable.jpg</a></div>
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<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.climatescience.gov/" target="_blank">http://www.climatescience.gov/</a></div>
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<h2>Scientific Assessment Captures Effects of a Changing Climate on Extreme Weather Events in North America</h2>
<p>June 19, 2008</p></div>
<p>Global warming of the past 50 years is due primarily to human-induced increases in heat-trapping gases, according to the report. Many types of extreme weather and climate event changes have been observed during this time period and continued changes are projected for this century. Specific future projections include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Abnormally hot days and nights, along with heat waves, are very likely to become more common. Cold nights are very likely to become less common.
<li>Sea ice extent is expected to continue to decrease and may even disappear in the Arctic Ocean in summer in coming decades.
<li>Precipitation, on average, is likely to be less frequent but more intense.
<li>Droughts are likely to become more frequent and severe in some regions.
<li>Hurricanes will likely have increased precipitation and wind.
<li>The strongest cold-season storms in the Atlantic and Pacific are likely to produce stronger winds and higher extreme wave heights. </li></li></li></li></li></li></ul>
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<div> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett</div></span></div>
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