You’ve undoubtedly heard the news by now: the Earth is warmer than it has been for 2000 years. Al Gore was right, the rest of us were wrong. We’re all sinners, and we’re all going to Global-Warming Hell.Or, as some news stories are putting it, today it’s “warmer than it was when Jesus was hanging around.”
Now, implicit in these statements is the fact that it must have been even warmer before that. Sometime previously, the Earth was warmer than it is now. Can you believe it? How did civilization survive such a catastrophe? Was that what put Atlantis under the waves — ancient global warming?
What do you think caused it? Was it those coal-fired generating plants the Romans built all over the Empire? Or maybe the SUVs that Jesus and His disciples tooled around the desert in?
What this all goes to show is that the world has been colder than it is now, and it has also been warmer — presumably considerably warmer at times. Regardless of the effects of atmospheric carbon dioxide, there are natural, cyclical fluctuations in global climate that far exceed any changes in temperature that have occurred since the Industrial Revolution.
It’s too early to identify the effects that the human activity has on global temperatures; serious and reliable data have only been available for a micro-instant in climatological terms. The apocalyptic stampede by the cognoscenti to embrace Kyoto and destroy the world’s economy is one of the more foolhardy ideas to come down the pike.
But the elites are certain that Global Warming is Truth; all else is Heresy.
By the way — Biblical scholars have determined that Jesus’ preferred mode of transportation during His temptation in the desert was the Toyota Highlander.
41 comments:
You know, at times like this, when I see a far-left international media using this to destroy the world economy, combined with the Islamofascist-loving traitors of the NY Slimes revealing out secrets (and a President too cowardly to throw these scumbags in jail), combined with the insane America-hatred and Judeophobia of most of the world's media, I seriously begin not only to doubt if we will survive the onslaught of the Islamofascist-Marxist-MSM alliance, I wonder if we even DESERVE to.
zerosum, unless we grow a pair- and fast- we don't deserve to.
dear reader, are you a specialist in weather patterns?
my ignorant belief is that recent global warming is caused by human action, is a problem, and is another signpost on the road to mass destruction.
have a nice day.
Jesus' preferred mode might have been a Highlander, but his Apostles had to make do with car sharing. They were, after all, of one Accord.
Thank you, thank you, you're a great audience. Good night.
What did Jesus drive? That is so easy.
The money changers out of the Temple.
Even before Jesus, people were mobile.
For example, Moses rode round on a British motorcycle.
I quote from the good book:
"And Moses' Triumph could be heard throughout the hills and the valleys".
There you go....!!
fluffresponse -
I'm sure that is your "belief" - your faith, in fact. It's the new secular religion, and it is distressing to see it disrespected by heretical unbelievers. I take it you are yourself not an "expert in weather patterns" either - why should your "belief" carry any weight - just because it is orthodox?
Have a nice decade. maybe by then we'll be back to worrying about global cooling.
Read this - it is not a fake. High Priest Al Gore is.
blubi101 --
I don't agree. This is a juicy MSM meme, so if they could have said "last 3000 years" or "last 4000 years", they would have.
They tracked back along today's average temperature line to the last point when it intersected the global temperature graph. It was about 2000 BP, so that's what they used. Before that it must have been higher.
I'd bet money on it.
Greenie Watch.
This guy knows his stuff. Also, check out Number Watch for a more general depiction of the decline of scientific rigour.
Then there were the Big and Little Optimums, both well within historical memory, and both of which saw Europe with temperatures well above what they are now, to the extent that entirely different crops were viable then than now.
No doubt they were caused by Mother Nature having hysterics at the very thought of industry coming along a few centuries later. Industrial Capitalism is still to blame even though it wasn't invented.
Baron said: "Biblical scholars have determined that Jesus’ preferred mode of transportation during His temptation in the desert was the Toyota Highlander."
This is nonsensical and heretical. Everyone knows it was a Ford Explorer. Toyota wasn't even invented then. *scoff*
Ford was an anti-semite..
Jesus the JEW, would have used mass transit and since there was NO palestine back then there would have been no suicide jew hating palestinians to blow them up...
cato, my belief (faith, as you say) should not carry any weight. i doubt, however, that many of those who speak about this subject know much about it. my personality sniff (which carries more weight, as i am a legend of insight, in my own mind) is that gore is more studious than bush.
folks are always trotting out that newsweek article. proves a need for skepticism, not that global warming is hokum.
lost,
You are leaving out the ice ages which have dominated climate for the last few million years.
Excess CO2 may be a very good thing.
Fluffy, volcanoes such as Tambora cool down the climate by putting sunlight-blocking dust or smoke into the air. If their effect was due to an "expulsion of greenhouse gases" they would (presumably) heat it up.
Baron, et al:
For objectivity in the climate debate, I recommend Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit, esp the threads dissecting the MBH98 "hockey stick" temperature model's statistical manipulations and obfuscations.
There is no question that the Earth's climate has been MUCH warmer and MUCH cooler than today at various times in the distant past.
For instance, about 250 million years ago there was a global drought, and even Siberia was a desert.
And I saw a fascinating show on the Discovery channel a few years ago that said that there may have been a "runaway ice age" around 600 million years ago that froze over the entire planet. Earth at that time would have resembled Jupiter's moon Europa today. (The evidence for this is tenuous and is by no means widely accepted. Then again, that was once the case for plate tectonics.)
These are just the extremes. There have been countless smaller fluctuations.
It was the study of the planet Venus which gave rise to the concept of a ""greenhouse effect". Venus' atmosphere is many times denser than Earth's and is about 98% carbon dioxide. Surface temperatures are higher even than on Mercury, which is closer to the sun.
So what caused the greenhouse effect on Venus? Capitalism?
To add to my previous comment, I'm fascinated by the possibility that perhaps Venus might have been much more favorable to life in the past. Could it have had a more temperate climate 2, 3, or even 4 billion years ago? No one knows.
Anyway, my point is this: The one thing we can be certain about is that Earth's climate will NOT remain the same as we have grown used to for the past several thousand years. That leaves only two possibilities: 1. The climate can get warmer; or 2. The climate can get cooler. If it gets cooler, we may be in for a new ice age, which would be an unimaginable disaster, with large areas of land rendered uninhabitable. Which would you prefer?
Fluff - You're right - a tremendous number of people on both sides of this argument don't know what they are talking about. I can't imagine a less relevant point than the relative "studiousness" of Gore and Bush, though. Quite apart from the merits of an argument from authority, or my own opinions about Mr Gore's credibility as a scientific authority, skepticism on anthropogenic global warming and the merits of Kyoto hardly rests on the president's scientific conclusions.
Supreme Court to Hear Bush Environment Case...
This will be interesting.
They [Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 05-1120] argue that the Environmental Protection Agency is obligated to limit carbon dioxide emissions from motor vehicles under the federal Clean Air Act because as the primary "greenhouse" gas causing a warming of the earth, carbon dioxide is a pollutant.
The administration maintains that carbon dioxide - unlike other chemicals that must be controlled to assure healthy air - is not a pollutant under the federal clean air law, and that even if it were the EPA has discretion over whether to regulate it.
"Was it those coal-fired generating plants the Romans built all over the Empire?"
Snark aside - actually, yeah. Ice in Greenland shows noticable effects (though not nearly on the scale of current alterations) from Roman coal-fired copper smelting, both in CO2 emissions, atmospheric lead concentrations, and other factors.
I'm curious. Just as a psychological experiment, could someone tell me why the world's far left media want to destroy the world's economy? Aren't they all driving limousines and drinking Chardonnay? Seems like a global depression would put a dent in that. Thanks!
Yes, the Earth's climates has gotten both warmer and cooler at various times in the last 6 billion years. What you guys don't seem to realize is that this is not the reassuring news you might think it is. Those shifts actually had large and largely negative effects on human civilization. We, like any other species, live in specific ecosystem, and any dramatic change in that system is likely to hurt. Check out Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabth Kolbert or Collapse by Jared Diamond for numerous examples. Human activity turned the once fertile fields of Sumer into a desert and deforestation altered the climate of the ancient yucatan. Both civiliations underwent catastrophic collapses in population.
What has happened since the industrial age is that humanity has gained the power to change the climate on a global scale, not just in certain regions. Humanity as a species could probably survive a polar meltdown (we're weedy like that), but when rising sea levels swallow the most populous parts of the world and dramatic shifts in temperature and percipitation wreck agricultural production, we could see a collapse of global civilization on par with that of Sumer or Tikal.
Look, most of this carbon we're releasing into the air was fossilized in the ground (as coal and oil primarily) during the the carboniferous and devoniana periods, over 350 million years ago, when seas covered much of N. America, the poles were temperate oceans, and dragonflies were the size of hawks. You can't release all that carbon into the atmosphere and not have huge, deletrious effects on the world. It's just common sense.
jistin k.:
So where did all the CO2 in Venus' atmosphere come from?
Mars' atmosphere is also almost entirely CO2, but it is much thinner than Earth's, consequently Mars is much colder than Earth. Where did Mars' CO2 come from?
Sorry, justin k., not jistin k. My fingers do not always obey my commands.
Doug Truth said...
I'm curious. Just as a psychological experiment, could someone tell me why the world's far left media want to destroy the world's economy? Aren't they all driving limousines and drinking Chardonnay? Seems like a global depression would put a dent in that. Thanks!
Easy. Just look at any Third World country, prerferably one with a socialist economy. You will see a ruling class which owns and controls everything, lording it over a peasant class living in shantytowns. There is no middle class to speak of.
In my opinion, the elites of the Western world want to turn the whole world into the Third World. They'll be fine, since they'll own and control everything.
It's not the world economy they want to destroy, it's capitalism.
linearthinker said...
Supreme Court to Hear Bush Environment Case...
This will be interesting.
They [Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 05-1120] argue that the Environmental Protection Agency is obligated to limit carbon dioxide emissions from motor vehicles under the federal Clean Air Act because as the primary "greenhouse" gas causing a warming of the earth, carbon dioxide is a pollutant.
The administration maintains that carbon dioxide - unlike other chemicals that must be controlled to assure healthy air - is not a pollutant under the federal clean air law, and that even if it were the EPA has discretion over whether to regulate it.
Wow. Somehow I missed your comment earlier.
If carbon dioxide is a pollutant, then I'm polluting the air every time I exhale. And you, and everyone else who's reading this. Along with everyone else who is not reading this. And my cats, too.
How come you deleted my 8:48 comment? Was it because I quoted the profanity in v's 8:44 comment?
I deleted some comments because they contained the F-bomb. I don't object to y'all stating your opinions, but I do want to keep this blog PG-13 for the sake of the Common Room and other home-schoolers who visit here.
I was too tired to copy and paste all your comments with asterisks in place. If you want to do so yourselves, feel free.
dymphna:
OK, fair enough. I'll try to remember to use asterisks next time.
Rickl, I fail to see how the compositions of the atmospheres of Venus and Mars are relevant here. Yes, they both contain CO2. Venus' atmosphere is far thcker and its closer to the sun, hence much hotter, Mars' is much thinner and further from the sun, hence much colder. What's your point?
Unlike Earth, these planets don't contain life (or at least, presences of life large enough to create a discernable trace). Earth's CO2 levels are affected by, among other things, biomass, that is the overall mass of living (carbon-based) lifeforms on earth. The fossil fuels we burn today are fossilized biomass, the traces of the plants that pulled large amounts of carbon out of the air during the early flourishing of life on land. This explosion in vegetation dramatically changed the earth's atmosphere, making the planet cooler and the atmosphere CO2 poorer and O2 richer (this is one of the reasons deforestation contributes to global warming as well). Indeed one of the first known Ice Ages occured in the Perminan, just after the Carboniferous. By releasing all this Carbon that was sequestered in the Earth, we risk dramatically changing the Earth's entire climate. Indeed, we already have, just in the last 150 years, a shocking pace by climate change standards
As for the charges that warning people about climate change is "elitist" or anti-capitalistic, use your heads people. Kyoto will only cause economic destruction if you assume that we're incapable of coming up with new, green technologies. I'm not seeing a whole lot of faith in capitalist invention among the folks here who can't be bothered to think of something better than the internal combustion engine. It's akin to the 19th century thinkers who feared running out of firewood due to deforestation would doom civilization. We need to do better, and by using both the public and private sectors to create new green solutions and implement the ones we have (hybrid cars, wind farms, biodiesel, hydrogen fuel cells (OK these are still in the works), reforestation, carbon sequestration, energy efficiency) we can actually create whole new economic growth areas.
And besides, what kind of capitalist economy can you have with catastrophic climate change? Why do you think so many big companies, including energy giants like BP and Cinergy are investing is green tech? Global warming has the potential to do more damage than Kyoto ever could.
Justin K said--
And besides, what kind of capitalist economy can you have with catastrophic climate change? Why do you think so many big companies, including energy giants like BP and Cinergy are investing is green tech? Global warming has the potential to do more damage than Kyoto ever could.
#1. The global climate is way too complex and chaotic to make predictions with any accuracy. Didn't you learn that from reading the dire predictions of Erlich and the Club of Rome? Here we are, ten years past the point of world-wide famine and zero oil and a world population so large that massive die-off would have begun by now.
IT DIDN'T HAPPEN THEN, Henny Penny, and it's not happening now.
Your notion of "catastrophic" climate change is fundamentally narcissistic. Man is simply not that powerful. Our impact is local, not global. But those who insist, like the pre-Copernicus theologians, that we are the center of all things, will continue talking as if "catastrophe" is just around the corner. And their descendants will, too. And so will the generation after that. IOW, such thinking is not far removed from the man with the sign telling us the world is ending.
#2. As long as the whole globe is not on board with the Kyoto idiocy, then the US would be bugger-stupid to sign on to a protocol that not even the Europeans are compliant with. Thank God we didn't sign because it would simply be one more thing to beat us over the head with.
#3. You'd better take China and India into consideration with these pronouncements because they will shortly pass us in both use of energy and production of emissions. Even China admits that it's situation is so bad that they're moving the worst offenders way off into the rural areas so their emissions can't hurt as many people. No mention of cleaning up their act -- just moving it out of town.
#4."...So many big companies...are investing in green tech" for several reasons: (1)to get the greenie extremists off their backs, and (2) to be prepared when oil does begin to fizzle out, and (3) so they can have the pleasure of telling the House of Saud what it can do to and for itself.
#5. Get.a.grip. Kyoto is a farce, both as an idea and as it has been "honored" by the liars who signed it.
Sounds like you live in a fearful, apocalyptic environment. Now *that* is definitely bad for your health.
I dunno about Jesus - but the disciples drove a Honda...
Acts 2:1 - And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one Accord in one place.
An interpretation, by the way, that makes as much sense as your infantile post...thekeez
Hey, Keez Boy!
You're apparently too sophisticated to notice that mts (comment #4) already made the same joke in this thread.
And with much better style and flair, too, I might add...
Re the climate debate, I haven't ead the thread properly, so this might have been mentioned already, but I'd like to point out that Mars, several of Saturn's moons, Pluto and Uranus' largest moon have all show quite prominent signs of a warming trend over the last decade. Mars has been particularly startk; both its polar caps have melted quite dramatically, revealing features that were previously unknown. Venus is also showing some possible signs of warming over the same period.
Think about it.
archonix:
I already knew about the evidence of global warming on Mars, even though I didn't mention it in my comments.
I haven't heard about Saturn's or Uranus' moons. Pluto could probably be explained by the fact that in recent years it has been near perihelion in its elliptical orbit.
But Venus? Yikes. How hot can it get?
Hot as the goddess it's associated with I guess. Though, by modern standards, Venus was hadly a hottie... but that's probably beside the point.
And, for the record, Jesus really drove a Jeep Wrangler, aka Li'l Mule.
Called Pepe.
Read these
Then this
And this too
Then this.
Incidentally, the evidence for CFCs causing the hole is starting to look a little weak. The original theory aid that there would only be a hole in the northern hemisphere, since that's where all teh CFCs were produced. Then they found a hole in the south, where the atmosphere simply doesn't contain enough CFCs. Further, the actual mechanism whereby CFCs eat ozonwe was never actually explained. IT's possible to catalyse the reaction in a lab, but the presence of certain other chemicals is required, chemicals that aren't actually present in the atmosphere in sufficient quantities to catalyse the reaction.
This is my personal opinion, but I reckon that a much simpler and much more likely explanation as solar wind. The earth's magnetic field funnels solar radiation to the poles by virtue of its shape, and this ionizing radiation is known to break down ozone and other complex molecules. That's just personal opinion, though, so don't take it as fact. Yet. :)
Sheesh, He was a carpenter, he would have an old Ford F-150 with a lumber rack and a DeWalt saw in back!
Y'all that say that humans are causing global warming (or anybody interested): Do a bit of searching around for atmospheric temperature for the last bit. It hasn't gone up for a score of years. Kinda hard to have "global warming" when the *atmosphere* stays the same when we're supposedly distroying it all.
BTW, it's fairly well know: the largest sorce of green house gasses? Volcanoes and forest fires.
Do a google on "Little Ice Age" and "Middle Ages Warm Period" for more variations that didn't destroy Life As We Know It.
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