Think Progress on George Will's "global cooling" deceit

[understandinglife]

Gilbert Martinez of the Stanford Democrats blog pulled the original article. He found that Will was being exceptionally dishonest. Specifically, Martinez discovered:

1. The article was discussing the impact of the earth’s orbital variations on global temperatures over periods of 20,000 years or longer.

2. The article’s analysis specifically excluded the impact of humans on the climate. (The predictions “apply only to the natural component of future climatic trends – and not to such anthropogenic effects as those due to the burning of fossil fuels.”

http://stanforddemocrats.blogspot.com/2006/04/george-will-misreading-science.html

http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/#his1976

But Will’s column is deceitful in a larger sense as well. The fact is there was a temporary cooling pattern from the 1940s and the 1970s. Some in the media (notably Newsweek) improperly extrapolated that data into a long term trend of “global cooling.” But there wasn’t a single scientific publication that predicted “global cooling.” In fact, scientists warned against extrapolating the short-term trend into a long-term pattern. (Either through ignorance or malice Will concludes that, in the 1970s, scientists were “spectacularly wrong.”)

Meanwhile, Science Magazine analyzed 928 peer-reviewed scientific papers on global warming published between 1993 and 2003. Not a single one challenged the scientific consensus the earth’s temperature is rising due to human activity.

More at the link to Will-ful Deception:

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/04/03/willful-deception

What can you expect for one the corporatists eager-beaver waterboys - truth, NOT.


If You're pro-Bush, You're Anti-America

[understandinglife]

1. Obama and Center for American Progress on "American oil addiction"

America is Addicted to Oil: 10 Tough Questions and Answers for President Bush on Kicking the Oil Habit

http://www.americanprogress.org/atf/cf/{E9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521-5D6FF2E06E03}/KICKING_THE_HABIT.PDF

"By now, the Bush Administration’s record on climate change is almost legendary. This is the administration that commissioned government experts and scientists to do a study on global warming, only to omit the part from the final report that said it was caused by humans. This is the administration that didn’t try to improve the Kyoto Treaty by trying to include oil guzzlers like China and India, but walked away from the entire global effort to stem climate change. And just recently, this is the administration that tried to silence a NASA scientist for letting the rest of us know that yes, climate change is a pretty big deal.

<clip>

This is not a serious effort. Saying that America is addicted to oil without following a real plan for energy independence is like admitting alcoholism and then skipping out on the 12-step program. It’s not enough to identify the challenge – we have to meet it."

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Full text of Senator Obama's speech here:

http://thinkprogress.org/obama-oil-speech

It's a solid speech. He could be a reasonable and effective leader, but he needs to innoculate himself against further bouts of Joementitis and other virulent forms of DLCitis.


Peace.

[Blue_In_AK]

2. Will's opinion piece was crap,

but there are legitimate scientific theories that the current global warming trend will lead to a new ice age, sooner rather than later...

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0130-11.htm

While global warming is being officially ignored by the political arm of the Bush administration, and Al Gore's recent conference on the topic during one of the coldest days of recent years provided joke fodder for conservative talk show hosts, the citizens of Europe and the Pentagon are taking a new look at the greatest danger such climate change could produce for the northern hemisphere - a sudden shift into a new ice age. What they're finding is not at all comforting.

In quick summary, if enough cold, fresh water coming from the melting polar ice caps and the melting glaciers of Greenland flows into the northern Atlantic, it will shut down the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe and northeastern North America warm. The worst-case scenario would be a full-blown return of the last ice age - in a period as short as 2 to 3 years from its onset - and the mid-case scenario would be a period like the "little ice age" of a few centuries ago that disrupted worldwide weather patterns leading to extremely harsh winters, droughts, worldwide desertification, crop failures, and wars around the world.

Here's how it works.

If you look at a globe, you'll see that the latitude of much of Europe and Scandinavia is the same as that of Alaska and permafrost-locked parts of northern Canada and central Siberia. Yet Europe has a climate more similar to that of the United States than northern Canada or Siberia. Why?

It turns out that our warmth is the result of ocean currents that bring warm surface water up from the equator into northern regions that would otherwise be so cold that even in summer they'd be covered with ice. The current of greatest concern is often referred to as "The Great Conveyor Belt," which includes what we call the Gulf Stream.


<<more>>

[understandinglife]

3. Agree. And, yes, I've studied the literature on various consequences ...

... of alterations in currents like the Gulf Stream. No argument and it's important for folk to realize that our unrestrained behavior can be catastrophic in a variety of ways.


Peace.