The Last Frost

A documentary made by the UK's Channel 4 called "The Great Global Warming Swindle" has lived up to it's namesake by attempting to swindle unsuspecting viewers into believing what is essentially a work of fiction. 

The documentary has conjured a heated reaction from many including an MIT scientist who says his views were misrepresented and manipulated in the piece and is considering litigation.

I was tipped off about this unfortunate story by the good folks at The Campaign against Climate Change (http://www.campaigncc.org/) and I've decided to pass the guts of their message straight onto you.  Basically it's a list of inaccuracies in the documentary. I don't care what side you're on, just look at all the facts, after the jump.

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I came across an interesting post on the blog ShoeMoney.com. Apparently they've received an email attempting to extort them out of $200 a month. If they do not comply the sender known as "dragon dragon" will use "special robots" to disable the site's Google adsense account.

What does this have to do with global warming and climate change you might ask? Well the scam artist is claiming to need the money for a magnetic energy machine prototype. He even promises to repay all the money after he "registers" the machine. I love this line though, "If you collaborate with me, you have helped to the science. And if not, I will have to close your Google AdSense account."

You can read about the so called machine at the blog given in the email scam: Magnet-Machine.blogspot.com  

Inventor Seeks Funding For Energy Machine From AdSense Publishers [ShoeMoney]

It's disturbing, but it seems like the so called conservative movement (in the U.S. at least) has whole heartedly latched onto the recent theory that the recent warming on Mars proves global warming is natural and not man-made. I think the picture to the left illustrates this best. I feel like the one on the left when I read about things like this.

Our old pal Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma is reported to have handed out flyers at this years CPAC that say Mars is experiencing global warming even without SUVs. CPAC is the Conservative Political Action Conference and was held last week in Washington D.C. I'll cover more about the events at this conference in a later post.

So, Habibullo Abdussamatov purports to have proven that there is an unequivocal link between the warming here on Earth and the warming on Mars. So being the free thinking skeptic that I am, here are a few reasons why any intelligent human being should take this man's "theory" with a grain of salt.

1. The theory is being proposed by a man who isn't even a climate scientist, he's the head of an astronomical observatory in Russia.
2. His work is not accepted as accurate by the majority of his peers.
3. Abdussamatov even denies the existence of the greenhouse effect, which is very well known, absolute scientific fact and the reason you're alive and reading this.
4. We hardly understand what's happening with our own climate much less the climate of a rock between 36 and 250 million miles away from us.
5. Even on the off chance that he is correct, it does not negate the mass of widely accepted scientific research that suggests otherwise.

I can go on and on, but the truth is that this idea should be taken for what it is… an idea and not much more.

"It appears there may have been an orchestrated campaign to mislead the public about climate change" [Rep. Henry Waxman via CNN.com]

Well you don't say! I mean seriously, does this really surprise anyone? Disturbing, yes, surprising? Not in the least. 

Lawmakers hear of interference in global warming science – [CNN.com]

It's rare these days that the American democratic process works in favor of environmental issues.  Exxon has recently been feeling the burn of a Democratic Congress, so much so they pulled the funding from many of their climate change "think tanks". Instead it's going to focus on what can be done to influence the actual policies that will affect them rather than denying there's a problem.

So in other word's their bullshit machine is moving underground where the public has to dig down deep to track.  

Exxon Yanks Funding from Global Warming Deniers – [Blue Mass Group]

On January 2nd, Fox News recently aired a bit on the abnormally warm weather the East Coast has been experiencing and how the media is hyping it all up to global warming. The funny thing is that both of their correspondents agree with each other… so where’s the counter argument? 

There was none, which isn’t really a surprise for the Fair and Balanced News organization. They made some funny comments during the bit though. Patrick Michaels is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute which is a libertarian think tank based out of D.C. He’s got himself a nice reputation as a global warming skeptic. What’s funny is that he makes a statement that goes like this, "if you believe that warming causes cooling, you’re like my neighbors down in Virginia who think that if you put hot water in the ice cube tray it freezes faster". 

This statement pisses me off because when I was in High School I asked my Chemistry teacher if this very thing was true. He said, "no of course not" and I went back to sleep at my desk, unsatisfied. Years later I heard about this thing called the Mpemba effect. Hot water can freeze faster than cold water, and Patrick Michaels is a jackass. If a wikipedia article doesn’t convince you, check this out.

So what though, he got a simple scientific fact which happens to defy common sense wrong. What’s bad is that warming can in fact cause cooling contrary to what this guy thinks. It’s a simple case of feedback loops and science.

Here’s a completely hypothetical example: 

1) The globe warms

2) Polar ice melts (ice is fresh water)

3) Oceans are saltwater and they get diluted by the deluge of fresh water. 

4) Fresh water holds less heat than salt water, so the Earth’s oceans are less able to hold onto their heat.

5) Earth loses heat through the "freshened" ocean’s triggering an ice age.

Warming caused cooling… and Patrick Michaels is still an idiot even though he’s a "contributing author and reviewer of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change". 

FOX News lacks balance on environmental discussion – [You Tube]

So Called "Myth" #10: The earth’s poles are warming; polar ice caps are breaking up and melting and the sea level rising.

Their Argument In It's Entirety: "The earth is variable. The western Arctic may be getting somewhat warmer, due to unrelated cyclic events in the Pacific Ocean, but the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder. The small Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica is getting warmer, while the main Antarctic continent is actually cooling. Ice thicknesses are increasing both on Greenland and in Antarctica." [Read the Friends of Science's other arguments here]

The Truth: Yes, the Earth is variable, but the Earth is not this variable. At least not in recent times, and by recent I'm talking the last 10,000 years.

They argue that small parts of the Arctic are getting warmer while the rest of it is actually getting colder. They are talking about regional variations here not the big picture, so it's irrelevant even if it's true.

The main point they make though is that the ice is thickening in Greenland and Antarctica. Is this part of it true? Who would you trust, these guys who have lied in almost every single argument they made, or NASA. 

"When the scientists added up the overall gains and losses of ice from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, there was a net loss of ice to the sea." [NASA - Impact of Climate Warming on Polar Ice Sheets Confirmed, March, 2006] 

These guys just suck.

Common misconceptions about global warming – [Friends of Science]

So Called "Myth" #9: Receding glaciers and the calving of ice shelves are proof of global warming.

Their Argument In It's Entirety: "Glaciers have been receding and growing cyclically for hundreds of years. Recent glacier melting is a consequence of coming out of the very cool period of the Little Ice Age. Ice shelves have been breaking off for centuries. Scientists know of at least 33 periods of glaciers growing and then retreating. It’s normal. Besides, glacier's health is dependent as much on precipitation as on temperature." [The Full Friends of Science Myth Page]

The Truth: The child in me just wants to write, "ice melting isn't due to warming? You idiots?!" but I'll elaborate a bit more for fairness.

A trip over the articulate folks at RealClimate.org revealed an article about the very recent retreat of tropical glaciers, of which Mt. Kilimanjaro is included. That these tropical glaciers lie right in the path of our planet's most intense solar radiation and yet continue to exist is amazing and a testament to our planets stability but before I get off the point heres an excerpt. 

"The widespread retreat is all the more notable because tropical mountain glaciers are old. They have survived thousands of years of natural climate fluctuations, only to dwindle at a time when other climate indicators — notably surface temperature — are showing the imprint of human influence on climate. Quelccaya is at least 1500 years old, Dasuopo is 9000 years old, and Huascaran has seen 19000 years. A date for the ultimate demise of these glaciers has not been fixed, but the Northern Ice Field on Kilimanjaro may be gone in as little as twenty years, after having survived the past 11,000 years." [RealClimate.org, 2005]

Nothing in our naturally variable Earth has been able to melt the tropical glacier on Mt. Kilimanjaro for 11,000 years, yet we may do it in as little as 250. Are these glaciers our planet's canary in the coal mine?

Common misconceptions about global warming – [Friends of Science]

So Called "Myth" #8: Global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes.

Their Argument In It's Entirety: "There is no scientific or statistical evidence whatsoever that supports such claims on a global scale.  Regional variations may occur. Growing insurance and infrastructure repair costs, particularly in coastal areas, are sometimes claimed to be the result of increasing frequency and severity of storms, whereas in reality they are a function of increasing population density, escalating development value, and ever more media reporting." [Link to their original argument]

The Truth: There is limited scientific evidence and thank goodness there is no statistical evidence yet. This is a difficult myth to bust because they make some good points. They still left me some wiggle room though.

First off it's true that the damage from storms is increasing because of an increase in population density, value of property and things like that. Since it affects more people, it gets more media coverage. So I'll give these guys that.

As for the whole no evidence or statistics line, it's consistent with every other argument that they have made that wasn't a flat out lie. They only tell half the truth.

Weather itself is primarily caused by one thing, the unequal heating of the Earth by the Sun. So will global warming alone cause more severe weather? It's hard to say, if the Earth is heated more unevenly then sure, you could probably safely assume that that could lead to more severe weather. If it warms in a mostly uniform manner, then perhaps there won't be much of a change. 

There is one thing that we do know for sure though. Hurricanes develop from tropical storms when the ocean surface temperature reaches 80 degrees. The hotter the water and the air above, the more moisture and heat energy a storm can pull from.

If our Earth warms so wil the ocean surface temperature, this could lead directly to more frequent and more powerful hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons on a global scale. Was Katrina and the whole 2005 hurricane season evidence of this already occurring? The Friend's of Science say hell no, anyone with a brain would say, it's certainly possible and a plausible threat.

Let's just hope the Friends of Science folks are right on this one. I'll still fight my way toward sustainable living just in case they're wrong. 

Common misconceptions about global warming – [Friends of Science]

So Called "Myth" #7: CO2 is a pollutant.

Their Argument In A Nutshell: CO2 naturally occurs in our atmosphere therefore it is not a pollutant. They then go on to complain that the Canadian government included CO2 on it's list of pollutants in the Environmental Protection Act. [Read their original argument here - Myth #7]

The Truth: This argument makes me sick, just like large quantities of CO2 would. It's been made by several global warming skeptics and is probably one of most short sighted and naive positions took by these clowns. The CEI made a series of ads several months ago that took the same position. The tagline was, "They call it pollution… we call it life", I would love to see the executives who green-lighted that ad put a plastic bag over their heads until they were woozy and then repeat that tagline. 

According to the Merriam Webster's definition of the word pollution, it's, "the action of polluting especially by environmental contamination with man-made waste; also : the condition of being polluted". The CO2 that environmentalists want to regulate is the stuff that is created by man, auto-emissions, industrial emissions, that kind of stuff. No self respecting environmentalist would call for the removal of all CO2 from our atmosphere, what we are calling for is for humans to stop increasing the natural proportions of it.

The whole argument over CO2 not being a pollutant is just meant to distract, and it's complete bullshit. Ever wonder why NASA has atmospheric scrubbers on their spacecraft? It's to remove excess CO2 which can kill the spacecraft's occupants… don't believe me? Look what happened to Apollo 13. So I would consider anything that can potentially kill you, or any animal, a pollutant. Yet these fools suggest CO2 isn't toxic.

CO2 is a man-made waste product, we create it by driving, we create it anytime we use electricity and we create it by simply existing and breathing. Sure it's good for plants, but that doesn't mean it's good for us or the environment in huge quantities. The atmospheric levels of CO2 are increasing every year, the major cause of that atmospheric increase is the burning of fossil fuels. Our lives depend on the stability of our planet and when you mess with the chemical balance of the atmosphere it will have an effect. That effect is what climate scientists call global warming and it means our climate is changing; the full effects of which are not yet fully understood. 

We may not be in any danger of suffocating ourselves with atmospheric CO2, but the gas does trap heat in our atmosphere and that has an effect on many many things we rely on in our daily lives. To argue otherwise is fine, but make sure your argument isn't completely ignorant like these self proclaimed 'Friends of Science'.

CO2 in large quantities qualifies as a natural pollutant if it exists in sufficient quantities to cause harm, it's common sense.

Common misconceptions about global warming – [Friends of Science]