Thursday, August 23, 2007

Global Warming heretic

Yes, I'm a global warming denier, and hence a heretic to the church of the Great Al Gore and the faith of the Cataclysmic Global Warming.

Ever found yourself talking with someone who claims that global warming is a scientific fact? If so, ask them the following list of questions and then sit back watching the fuses blow.

  1. When you claim that there is consensus among scientists, can you please list me the names, affiliations and funding sources of said scientists? How about just the top 6? How about just ONE?
  2. When you claim that average global temperatures are rising, can you list the sources of your claims, because I doubt you took measurements yourself? Can you list the locations of the temperature sensors? Do you realize that if these sensors are located in urban areas, that urbanization (and not "global warming") may be the cause of higher temperature readings?
  3. When you claim that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are the cause of global warming, please take a moment to clarify, at least in your own mind, the difference between CORRELATION and CAUSE AND EFFECT.
  4. When you claim that polar bear deaths and glacier melting is proof positive of the dire consequences of global warming, please take a moment to ponder whether the plural of ANECDOTE is really DATA. [Hint: It isn't]
  5. When you claim that climate models predict temperature increases in correlation with rising concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere, please tell me WHICH model(s) you are referring to and note that there is more than one, none of them agree, they vary wildly in temperature increase predictions (by orders of magnitude), and NOT ONE of them could predict the weather 7 days ago, if I fed it the weather data from the last year.
  6. When you claim that observed weather extremes (e.g. hurricanes, snow storms, floods, etc) are proof positive of global warming, please explain to me the process(es) that causes a snow storm in Johannesburg South Africa (first in 21 years) when the global temperatures are INCREASING?
And since the "believers" and global hand-wringers are hellbent on destroying western civilization as we know if ("We consume 50% of world's resources", "We produce most of the worlds CO2 emissions") just so we can be just like the rest of the 3rd world, I think I have the right to demand actual linear (that whole cause and effect thing, again) proof before I'll even listen to their demands that we change our ways. So a few more questions to ponder, and demand answers to:
  1. Is the average global temperature actually rising or falling? Proof please.
  2. If yes, then is the rise directly caused by human activity or by some other processes we haven't even considered or don't completely understand? Which activity? Why?
  3. If yes, then is it actually a bad thing? The last "heating" was correlated with the Renaissance in Europe which I can't say was such a bad thing. Proof please, and don't use anecdotes.
  4. If yes, is there anything humans can do to reverse the effects of said process?
And since governments seem on the verge of declaring CO2 to be a "pollutant":
  1. Please compare the specific heat (yes, the thermodynamics definition which means the capacity to absorb heat) of H2O with that of CO2. You'll find that the former's is 4 times the latter's.
  2. Please compare the percentage constituents (say by volume) of various gasses making up the atmosphere, and then ponder why if H2O makes up far more of the atmosphere than CO2 that the effect of CO2 is so much greater than that of H2O?
  3. And, finally, describe the process by which CO2 results in global warming, when H2O results in stabilization of temperatures -- it's that whole heating, rising into the upper atmosphere where it condenses and either reflects UV or precipitates into rain resulting in cooling, etc. thing.
And finally, the apparent coup-de-grace from the "believers" when they have exhausted all arguments, goes something like this:

"OK, I agree we don't have proof but let's assume that global temperatures are rising, the increase is caused by human activity, that we can reverse it, and that if we don't act now cataclysm will result with the end-of-mankind-as-we-know-it just around the corner. Don't you think it behooves us to do something now, just as an insurance policy, or a hedge?"

OK, I'll play that game. My answer would be the following:

"Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your personal saviour? No? Why not? I know we have no proof of the existence of God, but assuming He-who-goes-by-the-name-of-I exists and only believers will be saved, don't you think you should accept Christ as your personal saviour just as an insurance policy, or a hedge?"

"What?"

"No? Then why should I buy into your fucking faith?"

5 comments:

Weetabix said...

Great post!

When I lived in Fairbanks, AK and called the time and temperature, I knew I had to subtract 10 degrees during the winter. The temperature downtown was always that much higher because of the buildings, cars, people and pavement.

It would be nice if they'd employ some scientists & engineers with no bias and with some brains about data collection.

I also recently read a report from the UN itself that had reduced the number of factors in the model from 12 to 9. They admitted that in the case of 5 factors of the first model and 4 of the second model, they had no idea of how big their impact was, or how to measure it. That's not a model.

Anonymous said...

And now you wonder why the rest of the world thinks that US citizens are all morons! :-D

Felix Estrella said...

Imagine that. A monkey chucking feces.

Kevin said...

Well since anon. can't even answer your questions, let alone refute them, it's much easier for him to just toss out an insult.

Anonymous said...

And another thing.
If Global Warming ® is anthropogenic and has been occurring in ever accelerating measure since 1950 about, then how come when the TV weathercritter gives the day's temperatures and the record, the record high is all over the span of recorded temperatures? I mean if Global Warming ® were really happening as the enviro-totalitarians are claiming, shouldn't every year (or at least every decade) since 1950 result in its own set of record temperatures we break and so we should be breaking records set in 1990, not 1890?
Just asking, is all.