Hmm. Coworker just dropped a bombshell re: global warming

[Orrex]

"Did you hear that the committee in charge of global warming research just came out and admitted that it's not really happening?"



He wasn't talking to me, and I didn't want to get into a big thing about it here in the customer service department, but he was speaking with that self-assured certainty of the avid talk-radio listener.



So I guess that's it. All of those dead polar bears and vanished ice caps and fucked up jet streams must be lying.

[CrispyQ]

1. He needs to watch "Chasing Ice."

James Balog has photographic evidence that the arctic is melting. Stunning, horrifying, visual evidence.

http://www.chasingice.com/

on edit: Netflix has it.

[hootinholler]

20. He started as a climate skeptic

Great film! It should be required viewing for everyone on earth.

[CrispyQ]

26. Yes, I was so surprised, at the first of the movie, when he stated

that the Earth was so big he didn't believe human activity could impact it. That really stunned me.

This movie had much more impact on me than any other environmental movie.

[Warpy]

2. Buttonhole him later and ask him about his source

Take bets on how long he'll splutter and stammer before admitting "I heard it on the radio."

[Skittles]

3. I think that "committee" is the Heritage Foundation

[Orrex]

5. That would be the itty-bitty-shit-fitty committee

[ThomThom]

30. I think a house committee chaired by a rethug said that

not sure who it was
probably a teabagger

[richmwill]

4. Ha! Ask what this "committee" was called...

Reminds me very much of what I saw after Michael Jackson died, fans of his told me "Did you hear that his accusers went on the news yesterday and admitted they made it all up?".

[Wilms]

6. I'd ask him if he had heard that ignorance was eradicated. n/t

[Jim__]

7. "Global warming? No, actually we're cooling, claim scientists"

From The Telegraph:

...

A leaked report to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) seen by the Mail on Sunday, has led some scientists to claim that the world is heading for a period of cooling that will not end until the middle of this century.

If correct, it would contradict computer forecasts of imminent catastrophic warming. The news comes several years after the BBC predicted that the arctic would be ice-free by 2013.

Despite the original forecasts, major climate research centres now accept that there has been a “pause” in global warming since 1997.

The original predictions led to billions being invested in green measures to combat the effects of climate change.

...

Of course, not everyone agrees with The Telegraph. From Reuters:

(Reuters) - A United Nations panel of experts met on Monday to review a draft report that raises the probability that climate change is man-made to 95 percent and warns of ever more extreme weather unless governments take strong action.

Scientists and officials from more than 110 governments began a four-day meeting in Stockholm to edit and approve the 31-page draft that also tries to explain a "hiatus" in the pace of global warming this century despite rising greenhouse gas emissions.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will go through the document line by line and present it on Friday as a main guide for governments, which have agreed to work out a United Nations deal by the end of 2015 to fight global warming.

"I expect the world will understand the simplicity and the gravity of the message that we provide," Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, said after the opening session.

...

[starroute]

8. It might be the council the new conservative Australian PM abolished

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24216988

An Australian climate change body scrapped by the new government has been relaunched as a non-profit organisation reliant on public donations.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott axed the Climate Commission, set up by the previous government, last week.

But the group resurrected itself as the Climate Council, saying it hoped "Obama-style" public donations raised online would keep it open

Australia is the developed world's worst polluter per head of population.

[Orrex]

9. That might be it, in fact

Thanks!

[Uncle Joe]

18. That wouldn't be logical, this group seems to agree that human magnified global warming is real.

From your own link.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24216988

"We're in the middle of a titanic struggle... I think the fight for a clean and safe environmental future is reaching its peak," he said.

Supporters of the rebranded Climate Council say it will provide impartial and fearless advice about impending threats to Australia from more bushfires, droughts and rising sea levels, the BBC's Phil Mercer in Sydney reports.

They were disbanded by the new conservative Prime Minister Abbott after he came to power.

As a side note, that would also be the same commission that PayPal has blocked from recieving donations.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023730751

PayPal blocks payments to Australia's Climate Commission.

Until the election of Australia's new conservative government, we had a government-funded Climate Commission in place, set up by the Labor government to report to the people on the latest developments in thinking on global warming and climate change.

One of new PM Tony Abbott's first acts was to sack the Commissioners and cease funding the Commission. So its head, scientist Dr.Tim Flannery and the former Commissioners got together and formed a new body, the Climate Council, to be funded by public donations, in order that the Australian people could continue to be informed of the latest developments in the scientific community regarding climate change.

In its first few days, the Climate Council received $500,000 in donations and counting. But today, PayPal decided that it would no longer process payments to the Council. They can't claim that the Council is in any way illegal, so what's their problem? Are they caving in to political pressure, or do they themselves think that global warming is a fantasy? They're not saying.

[starroute]

24. I was assuming the coworker must have gotten the story mangled

According to the OP, he said, "Did you hear that the committee in charge of global warming research just came out and admitted that it's not really happening?"

This is the only story I know of that "just" happened and involved a "committee in charge of global warming" and somebody who claims "it's not really happening."

Of course, it's Howard who pooh-poohs climate change, not the committee that he abolished. But I think that's within the standard range of creative mishearing.

[Uncle Joe]

25. That's possible but it could be related to this

on a thread by n2doc.

http://sync.democraticunderground.com/10023686059

In a Time magazine issue dated September 23, 2013, the “Briefing” section that quotes Russell Brand, Michele Bachmann, and John Kerry also briefly mentions global warming. But using less than two dozen words, it gets it very, very wrong.
The blurb, right in the front of the magazine, suggested that a one-year jump in Arctic sea ice extent could mean “global cooling”:


60%: Increase in ice-covered ocean water since last year, leading some scientists to believe that the planet is actually undergoing “global cooling”


It even has a graphic of a chilly-looking penguin wearing a scarf and a hat with a pom-pom. Blurbs like this make even the most casual reader perk up and ask some questions.

Do penguins live in the Arctic?
No. Not at all.

Is there really “global cooling”?
No. Across the world in August, the average temperature was the 4th-highest on record, according to NOAA.

[CreekDog]

10. Let's celebrate over drinks of carbonated sea water!

[xfundy]

11. Tell him the word "gullible" is not in the dictionary.

He'll say, "Really?"

[deutsey]

12. He's probably referring to something released by the Heartland Institute

From Democracy Now! today:

...the Heartland Institute released a report this week by group of climate change skeptics called a Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change or NIPCC. The 1200 page report disputes the reality of man-made climate change.

The official IPCC report has yet to be released:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is set to issue its strongest warning yet that climate change is caused by humans, and that the world will see more heat waves, droughts and floods unless governments take action to drastically reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The IPCC report, released every six years, incorporates the key findings from thousands of articles published in scientific journals, concluding with at least 95 percent certainty that human activities have caused most of Earth’s temperature rise since 1950, and will continue to do so in the future. “Drought is the number one threat we face from climate change because it affects the two things we need to live: food and water,” says Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the Weather Underground. We also speak to Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo.

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/9/26/as_ipcc_warns_of_climate_disaster

[marshall]

13. It's from some group started by the UN

The actual report won't come out until 2014, so there's time to assess and regroup.

[joeybee12]

14. Ask him, "What committee?" nt

[gvstn]

15. Check the DailyMail

Glance through the first two pages of results and you'll find at least 7 articles with headlines blaring something akin to "Climate scientists coverup data showing they were wrong" in the last week alone. There is definitely a meme going on this past week or so.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?sel=site&searchPhrase=climate+change

[Democracyinkind]

16. This is the yearly denier circus in anticipation of the IPPC's annual report

Same shit every year. This year's meme is "because data shows a normal (downward) fluctuation in the last 15 years, the debate is over"

No matter that the IPCC's report will adequatly account, explain and account the significance of that fluctuation. It's not about arguments. This is the same tactic that forced popsci to close its comment section.

[gvstn]

19. Thanks for explaining the fake story in a nutshell.

I admit to reading the Daily Mail as a new aggregator but these stories really jumped out at me.

Why people want to defend Big Energy when the days of regulated and subsidized energy are gone, I cannot fathom.

[Junkdrawer]

17. ClimateCrocks: IPCC AR5 Drops Tomorrow. Bone Up Today.

Let me extract the key points and figures. Back in July, scientist Dana Nuccitelli summarized a new study, “Distinctive climate signals in reanalysis of global ocean heat content“:

•Completely contrary to the popular contrarian myth, global warming has accelerated, with more overall global warming in the past 15 years than the prior 15 years. This is because about 90% of overall global warming goes into heating the oceans, and the oceans have been warming dramatically.
•As suspected, much of the ‘missing heat’ Kevin Trenberth previously talked about has been found in the deep oceans. Consistent with the results of Nuccitelli et al. (2012), this study finds that 30% of the ocean warming over the past decade has occurred in the deeper oceans below 700 meters, which they note is unprecedented over at least the past half century.
•Some recent studies have concluded based on the slowed global surface warming over the past decade that the sensitivity of the climate to the increased greenhouse effect is somewhat lower than the IPCC best estimate. Those studies are fundamentally flawed because they do not account for the warming of the deep oceans.
•The slowed surface air warming over the past decade has lulled many people into a false and unwarranted sense of security.

...

http://climatecrocks.com/2013/09/26/ipcc-ar5-drops-tomorrow-bone-up-today/

[Orrex]

21. Wow--excellent information. Thanks!

Perhaps I'll print it out and leave it on his desk anonymously...

[Junkdrawer]

23. And, due to the el Nino/la Nina cycle, the oceans RELEASE the heat to us erratically....

which means that when we get a hot year, it's a corker.

And we'll get more and more hot years as time goes on.

A normal year like this will be a welcome (but rare) blessing.

[ThomThom]

31. I believe last year was the warmest on record for the world

except for one year (I think) every year we break the last years record for the last 8 or 10 years

[lpbk2713]

22. Reply ... "Oh, you mean the committee commissioned by Faux News? "

I don't see how people this fuggen stupid make it through the day.

[OmahaBlueDog]

27. I don't have the link, but it's tied to something making the rounds on Facebook

It's allegedly a post by a meteorologist who was among those who wrote the first report on global warming, but who now regrets having "sounded a false alarm" since the data now shows temperatures are no longer rising. It goes on to admonish people to stop with obscene and threatening posts on his Facebook page.

So to recap:

There is no global warming
We can all go back to drilling for oil, using diesel, and (most importantly) using real lightbulbs
Environmentalists are crazy, vulgar, hostile Facebookers.

[onethatcares]

28. well thank gaud,

someone can tell the federal government that they don't have to raise flood insurance premiums 10x over because there is not going to be any extra flooding and the Big Waters Act is all bullshit.

I work outside, have all my life and I'm 62 at present. Each year it gets hotter earlier and stays hotter longer, each day of summer it gets hot earlier and stays hot longer.

Every year more trees are cut down and more concrete and asphalt is poured on the earth making it hotter. More air conditioning units are running blowing the hot air out of the cool working and living areas making the air hotter. I could go on but I'm just stating anecdotal information.

Good luck

[GeorgeGist]

29. He's probably talking about this: "global warming pause."

The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is meeting in Stockholm, Sweden, this week to iron out the final details of a widely anticipated report on the current state of global warming science. There has been much speculation about how the report will address an apparent decrease in the rate of warming over the past few years, dubbed a "global warming pause."


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/09/130925-global-warming-pause-climate-change-science-ipcc/

The ignorance is mind-boggling.