Gore's Inconvenient 9/11 Truth

[Wes Tausend]

Originally Posted by Tday

Hahaha...you've got to be kidding. Time will tell the tale, but I think he's on to something. Thankfully, I'm not the only one.

You're not the only one to think he's "on to something". About 90 percent of the worlds mainstream rational scientists recognize that the climate is not only seriously changing, but that humans still are (or have been) encouraging it to happen. Even G.W. has changed his tune short of just coming out and saying, "My God, they were right!"

There is no doubt Gore is extraordinarily bright, albeit a bit nerdy. But I think he is basically just an enthusiastic celebrity that's using his power of influence to redirect our human capacity to correct a bad direction. He's no scientist nor does he claim to be.

I used to think of Gore as book-smart and street-dumb ...and Bush just the opposite. But lately, I think Rove had most of the street smarts.

I think most of his detractors here don't have any specific item that they can hold against Gore, other than he's a bleeding liberal. They just follow a widespread dislike of his uppity general attitude, probably fostered a bit by the fossil-funded crowd and fringe talk shows.

I could be wrong, of course.


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[bomelia]

Originally Posted by Wes Tausend

You're not the only one to think he's "on to something". About 90 percent of the worlds mainstream rational scientists recognize that the climate is not only seriously changing, but that humans still are (or have been) encouraging it to happen.
...

Wes, post your source.

Mike

[Wes Tausend]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wes Tausend
You're not the only one to think he's "on to something". About 90 percent of the worlds mainstream rational scientists recognize that the climate is not only seriously changing, but that humans still are (or have been) encouraging it to happen.
...

Originally Posted by bomelia

Wes, post your source.

Mike

Mike,

Sorry for the delay but I just got back from hauling another 32,376,000 pounds of soot ...er ...I mean coal, eastward towards powerplants. ....Hope it doesn't quit before I'm retired.

This is a bit embarrassing but I can't find my exact source. I believe I did hear or read it because the 90% figure stuck with me. I thought it was in a documentary called " Global Warming: What you need to know ", that was produced by NBC for the Discovery Channel in 2006. It was narrated by Tom Brokaw. One of my DVD recorders recently copied the re-aired 90 minute segment from the Science Channel. A quick disc scan didn't find it and, where I thought it was, Brokaw merely stated "...the vast majority of scientists...", unless I missed it in my hurry.

Wherever I think I saw or heard, the 90% figure may be from a similar source such as this:
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scienti...climate_change )
...which says in part, "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007
Main article: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
In February 2007, the IPCC released a summary of the forthcoming Fourth Assessment Report. According to this summary, the Fourth Assessment Report finds that human actions are "very likely" the cause of global warming, meaning a 90% or greater probability.[2] ". Not quite the same.

I don't personally think the 90% figure I stated is too far off ...and I did hedge it by including the biased words "rational scientists" ...but 90% is impossible to prove beyond reasonable doubt without an extensive poll of scientists that everyone agrees is accurate. That isn't going to happen soon!

My full original paragraph that you quoted above reads:
'You're not the only one to think he's "on to something". About 90 percent of the worlds mainstream rational scientists recognize that the climate is not only seriously changing, but that humans still are (or have been) encouraging it to happen. Even G.W. has changed his tune short of just coming out and saying, "My God, they were right!" '

On the last sentence, a more trusted brief reference for this particular forum might be G.W. himself:
...From the White house Office of the Press Secretary June 11, 2001, it reads, in part,:
"My Cabinet-level working group has met regularly for the last 10 weeks to review the most recent, most accurate, and most comprehensive science. They have heard from scientists offering a wide spectrum of views. They have reviewed the facts, and they have listened to many theories and suppositions. The working group asked the highly-respected National Academy of Sciences to provide us the most up-to-date information about what is known and about what is not known on the science of climate change." Entire press release brief page at the link:
( http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0010611-2.html )

Nothing, as G.W. says, including Global Warming, is certain. But there is very strong accumulated circumstancial evidence that "global climate change" (better nomenclature, my opinion) is occurring and it's not something we would want to be wrong about ...if we can reasonably modify results to our favor. We need to hedge our bet(s). In reference to the coal I hauled, the Brokaw documentary also stated that China is building one coal-fired powerplant a week for the next seven years. This was in 2006 and China was the second largest CO2 emitter in the world at the time. We're number one.

One peculiarity of this whole thing about energy and sustainable energy.
All the carbon in fossil fuels was once in the atmosphere, one might assume. Sustainable energy fuels such as ethanol take CO2 from the air and it is released back when burnt. So it breaks even. Sustainability.

So what about the fossil carbon in the ground? It seems unlikely that all of it was present in the atmosphere at once. Then again, it had to be in the beginning, not? Releasing it now a problem? I don't know. Maybe. Plant matter must have grown like crazy. Like grain for ethanol. And, "It's whats for dinner ...beef" ...tasty critters that ate plant matter. Mmmm ...beef.

I wonder if the guys that work at ethanol plants get to take a jug home once in a while. I could probably take a bucket of coal home ...but who would want to?


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[BigGuy]

Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years


The Earth currently is experiencing a warming trend, but there is scientific evidence that this warming seems to be part of a 1,500-year cycle (plus or minus 500 years) of moderate temperature swings. It has long been accepted that the Earth has experienced climate cycles, most notably the 90,000-year Ice Age cycles. But in the past 20 years or so, modern science has discovered evidence that within those broad Ice Age cycles, the Earth also experiences 1,500-year warming-cooling cycles. Evidence of the global nature of the 1,500-year climate cycles includes very long-term proxies for temperature change – ice cores, seabed and lake sediments, and fossils of pollen grains and tiny sea creatures. Shorter-term proxies include cave stalagmites, tree rings from trees both living and buried, boreholes and a wide variety of other temperature proxies.

So, is the Earth currently experiencing a warming trend? Yes. Are human activities, including the burning of fossil fuel and forest conversion, the primary – or even significant – drivers of this current temperature trend? The scientifically appropriate answer – cautious and conforming to the known facts – is: probably not.

S. Fred Singer, an Adjunct Scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis, is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science at the University of Virginia, and President of the Science and Environmental Policy Project. He was the first Director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service and served five years as Vice Chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmospheres. He received the first Science Medal from the British Interplanetary Society and won a NASA commendation in 1997 for his research on particle clouds.