Ted Rall for February 16, 2011

Tell that to DJ and Harleykinns. They may not understand the science but boy can they talk up a storm.

Har! I expect DJ and Harley to burst into flame any minute now.

i’d be hard pressed to explain this piece to an alien in literal terms, but it be tragically funny. i think you’ve transcended language in a piece that directly references language.

Indeed, there is no other way to convince an idiot than to beat the bleeep out of him.

Church,

Yeah, it’s all a grand conspiracy by those d$%m scientists. Like banning DDT and controlling ground water contamination from excessive use of fertilizers and stopping the destruction of ecosystems by mountain top removal mining and requiring that human waste be decontaminated before sending wastewater into our nation’s waterways…

You want credibility here for your opinions on Climate Change and what to do about it, you need to bring some peer reviewed literature to the table. Otherwise, it’s time to stop typing and start learning.

Heh… Churchy reminds me of how Eratosthenes’ contemporaries must have viewed his proof that the Earth is round…

“Using simple trigonometry and careful measurements of the noonday shadows at two different points on the earth, I conclude the Earth must be sperical in shape…”

”Oh, yeah? Looks pretty flat to me…”

“It’s also so large, that all we can see appears flat…”

”Yeah, yeah, enough of your scientific mumbo-jumbo… you’re crazy if you think I’m going to send ships out past twenty miles from here, they’ll fall off the edge.”

“That’s called the ‘horizon,’ the Earth just keeps going on past that.”

”Right. Shouldn’t we be able to see ourselves if the Earth were ‘round,’ as you say?”

“No. I’ve also calculated that it’s far bigger than anyone can even walk…”

”Ooooooh! It’s big, is it? Well, if it’s so big, how did you measure it, huh?”

ad nauseum.

People were familiar with horizons, Wildcard. In your attempt to sound scientifically superior to global warming non-alarmists, you come off as childish. There are horizons on land, too, y’know, and pretty sure land had been explored from Europe to Africa to east Asia.

I will say it again, as I’ve said it before, even IF man is significantly contributing CO2 to the atmosphere at a feverish pace, there is no proof that this is necessarily a bad thing. It is, as evolutionists are always touting, “change over time.” There is no scientific consensus on the effects of global warming being inherently evil. It merely would change our landscape. Animals and humans would adapt. Once upon a time, the dry land was Pangaea.

Besides that, we can grow millions of acres of industrial hemp instead of corn used for ethanol. That small change in agriculture would remove half the CO2 from the atmosphere.

This whole “debate” is ludicrously imbalanced.

HabaneroBuck: the debate is imbalanced for a reason - nearly all those with the education, qualifications, and information are in agreement.

^Leaving any failings of the comic aside, do you have anything of scientific substance to bring to the discussion? My challenge above stands equally for you (jmattadams) and for the rest of the posters that are making claims about the reality and consequences of Global Climate Change.

The scientific consensus from climatologists and biologists on Climate Change’s reality and our significant role in it is essentially universal. Some of the consequences are still in doubt,but others are not, e.g, rising sea levels, more energy in the system leading to more severe weather.

^Again, you need to cite credible sources. I’ll be happy to send you a scientific literature list that you can start responding to.

Well, since 8 of the 10 hottest years on record (globally) have occurred in this century, I tend to think there may be something behind it. Of course, having looked at the science behind it, I am solidly in the global warming camp (from a geological and paleontological standpoint).

“or a number of other forcible methods…”

Like the Evangelical Right’s “gay is a choice because God says so and f#%*(k you and your science saying anything different” which leads to “screw you we don’t recognize your marriage so you can’t see your partner who’s dying in her hospital bed, suck on it” as she then dies alone.

“That’s the leftwing solution to everything. If you can’t use twisted logic to make people agree with you, set them on fire.”

I didn’t realize the Catholic church was left wing.

Anybody here old enough to remember when the right wing was saying that floride was a Communist conspiracy or that rock music was designed to make teenage boys focus on sex (like they needed help) so the Russians could take over more easily? Here we go again!

Are these the same scientist that in a Time Magazine article dated Jun. 24, 1974 warned of the approaching ice age? http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914-1,00.html By the way, how did the last Ice Age come about? Who was spewing CO2 into the air to make it go away? The earth was covered in ice! A mile thick! Tell me why it isn’t here any more. I don’t doubt we are in a warming trend. That seems indisputable. But tell me how much green house gases man spews out compared to one volcanic eruption? The notion that man, in a span of 100 years, can change the climate of a planet that has gone from one extreme to another over billions of years is ridiculous. Isn’t the more logical explanation is the Earth and Sun is going through a natural change? The people that would make BILLION$ on carbon credits are the ones pushing this junk science!

Can we take the argument back to air quality? It was colder when Neanderthal hunted mammoths & warmer when T.Rex hunted whatever. But it was harder to breathe in L.A. in the ’70s before environmental regulation. It would be nice to clean the air more.

YIPPEEE! I finally got to shovel about 4 inches of snow this morning! That only puts us about 5 feet below “normal” or “average”, again, for the third year in a row. Lakes will still remain dry here, and temperatures have been about 8 degrees above winter “normal”. Denial isn’t a river anywhere, it’s an idiot response from goper sheep.

For all you deniers/skeptics, here are two publications from the National Academies Press.

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12782#description

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12491#description

And here’s a link to the 2007 report from the IPCC

http://bit.ly/2V2kz

All of them contain references to the primary literature if you want to see the basis for their statements.

If you decide to challenge their work, be specific about citing pages, paragraphs and the primary literature so we can judge whether you’re correctly assessing the information.

When you have a loud group of people who insist that “belief” trumps knowledge, you have … ah, the Tea Party!

or your local fundamental (or just mental) church

@HabaneroBuck:

Hmmmm…. perhaps.

Actually this scenario would be more appropriate:

*Excellency, what are you reading?”

Fascinating little tract this Gallileo bloke put out…

Oh? Which tract would this be?

Well, he posits that the Earth goes around the Sun, instead of vice versa. Interesting…

Uh, Excellency? Doesn’t that contradict what scripture tells us?

Hmmm… well, yes, I suppose it does. What of it?

Well, sir, if people start buying into this “helio-centric” understanding of the universe, they might question the veracity of the Bible…

Yes… I’m sure it might make people pause to wonder…

But, if they don’t buy into the absolute truth of the Bible, they might question Church doctrine, as well, and if they doubt that…

God’s wounds! You’re right! That would undermine… *my* authority in the world… take a memo, would you?

A “Bull,” perhaps?

Yes, a “Bull.” To: Gallileo Galilei, courtesy copy: all God-fearing persons in Christendom. Re: Galileo’s presumption that the Earth goes around the Sun… Gallileo, please drop by at your convenience for a cup of wine, and we’ll discuss this fascinating theory you are proposing. Please be prepared to recant everything you’ve said or written on the subject on pain of excommunication and eternal damnation to Hell’s everlasting fires. Yours truly, peace to you from God our Father, etc. etc….

All the assertions about the “religion” of global warming and the idea that it might even be good is simply non-fact-based. The real scientists are spending a great deal of time trying to grapple with vast amounts of information that is nonetheless converging on two clear conclusions:

We are undergoing global climate change, specifically an increase in heat trapped in climate systems Human activity, especially in terms of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere, has had a significant impact on that. Indeed, to ssharpee’s point, which unsurprisingly the real scientists have addressed repeatedly, we should be in an ice age now, based on the Earth’s orbit, solar cycles, and other issues, and the fact that we are not is actually one of our best pieces of evidence that AGW is taking place – we are not following the normal cycle, and the main variable is human activity, specifically CO2, which is at a level that approaches the levels found in the Mesozoic - you know, when the middle of North America was an inland sea? There is plenty of skepticism – defined as informed challenges to established interpretations of data – going on within the climate science community. As a result, there has been vast improvement in the assessments, new means of interpreting the data, and ever more solid predictions of what is likely to happen. As for whether it is good or not, Habanero, you are oversimplifying the concern. Yes, life on Earth will continue; even human life on Earth. The real question is what will happen to our civilization, which is relatively fragile and dependent on a lot of interconnections working just right – interconnections that could be quite derailed by shifts in climate. For example, if Siberia and central Canada become grain belts and the Midwest becomes another dust bowl or comparable to Mexico today, how will that change the balance of power in the world? There is already evidence of movement of animal migrations and insects spreading beyond their previous boundaries – shifts like this are always cause for concern. Change in climate can mean change in available food which often leads to war. Not the ideal climate corrective.

^^ Often leads to war? So, your argument is that if we correct the current CO2 trends, we can avoid war? Please tell me that isn’t what you are actually arguing…pretty sure WWI, WW2, (and WW3 and 4 or whatever) will not in the least bit be dependent on the climate to be initiated.

You are basically agreeing with me, so I don’t see how it is a simplification. Life will go on, but there will be changes. Therefore, not a crisis of mankind. Thank you. That has happened anyway. There no longer is a Roman Empire. There no longer is a Mongol Empire. The Iron Curtain is not even close to what it was thirty years ago….etc.

Simply ignore the climate-change deniers & flat-earthers. The science is well-established, and climatologists and other environmental scientists will continue to refine the theory and make more accurate–and, possibly, more horrific–predictions.

We must continue to demonstrate the science & use reason and visual demonstrations to vote out the plurality of flat-earthers cluttering up Congress.

Beebee Doodle says; KARMA’S A B!TCH (def.) when an acadian goes to alberta to make big bucks working on an oil sands project, moves back to Acadie and buys himself a fancy, expensive and huge mcmansion with a waterfront on the St-Lawrence gulf. He wakes up one morning and finds out the gulf global-warmed its way into his basement, making tens of thousands of dollar’s worth of damage in the process.

(As it happens here several times every year in places that had been settled for over two centuries!)

Build a man a fire and you keep him warm for a few hours. Set a man on fire and you keep him warm for the rest of his life.

^Words to live by! ;-)

The fact is, the economic elite in America stand to lose a LOT if peopel actually come to understand the mechanics of GCC, and actually care to try to reverse it.

For openers, Big Oil would take a hit, as would whatever manufacturing capacity this country hasn’t yet exported to cheaper labor forces. There goes the Dow Index.

If America were to remain competitive in the resulting new world market, the entire industrial infrastructure would have to be rebuilt from the ground up, which brings back memories of WWII: the reason the U.S. came out on top was because of its industrial capacity, and the fact that it was still growing at the time that it was ramping up for the War (eerily parallels China’s current state of development).

For a time after the War, the U.S. was still on top in terms of production, but it was operating on infrastructure built prior to the War. Europe and Japan, on the other hand, thanks in large part to the reparations provided by the Marshall Plan started working with new production facilities using the latest technology at the time, giving the U.S. a Hell of a run for its money.

Now we find the U.S. has allowed itself to fall behind in new technologies, and has opted, instead of persuing higher education and research and development, to outsource its labor to cheaper markets, leaving existing production facilities all but abandoned and a workforce largely idle, or migrating to “service sector” jobs.

Coming to grips with GCC would mean American stock holders would have to wake up to the new reality of the world. People aren’t as impressed with “Detroit Metal” as they used to be, and our workforce, largely ignorant of new essential techs, isn’t nearly as competitive as other labor markets. The corporate powers that be in America is faced with having to invest HUGE sums of money to catch up, or continue on a downward spiral of diminishing returns and influence, sapping the national economy as only a “slash and burn” mentality can.

Even if the scientific illiterates and oil company shills are correct and climate change is a conspiracy (a ridiculous assertion on the face of it) the reduction of other pollutants that would go along with a reduction in CO2 would be extremely beneficial.

No, HabaneroBuck, I am not agreeing with you, and you totally missed one of my two main points: just because life will adapt doesn’t mean it will be pleasant for us in the meantime. Our civilization is very much at risk. If you like living in a technological civilization with access to a wide range of food, then you should think about what we can do to manage AGW.

All I know is that the world has been generally warming since the last ice age. Here in North Idaho, it’s been cooler than last year with more snow.

RV, just reading an article about needing desalinated water in California, and very soon. The article was written about plants being tested- - - in 1961! Water has been the cause of wars already, and the fun is just about to begin!

Sooky Rottweiler says; (sniff sniff sniff) Blazin??? Is that you?

I’m still waiting for some substantive data and analysis from the denier camp. Are you guys really this lame?

Blind assertions about the falsity of GCC do not a persuasive argument make.

church,

You ignored my main condition for scientific primary literature. A talk show host is not anywhere close to peer-reviewed literature.

Is there anything in the list of links on the page you provided that would give us that? The issue of whether global climate change is occurring and the degree to which human activities are causing it, is a scientific question that needs to be resolved by science.

Ted? Why does that woman have 3-4 pointy boobs?