Some posts from a debate I had via FaceBook:
Firstly, whether it is getting warmer or cooler is a different question from whether man is a cause of this “climate change”.
Secondly, why do you say Fox News? They merely report what other news sites report. You seem to encapsulate your question with a bias I reject offhand:
❖ A NASA scientist says this will be the last year of heat: The upshot is chilling: “If we are right, this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades,” Hill states. “That would affect everything from space exploration to Earth’s climate.” (Old link dead, new one added: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/06/suns-output-to-fall-leading-to-a-mini-ice-age.html; Also: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/14/the-major-aas-solar-announcement-suns-fading-spots-signal-big-drop-in-solar-activity/) So Fox news is just reporting what MSNBC and CNN will not… differing views on which way the climate will go over the next decade.
(See more examples in regular media):
✔ http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Widescale+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm
✔ http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/11/ipcc-scientist-global-cooling-headed-our-way-for-the-next-30-years/
✔ http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/227869/global-cooling-chills-summer-2009/deroy-murdock#
You also have to realize what drives these reports of record heat. How are they recorded? Have you ever asked in what way these heat and cool waves are recorded? Or do you just accept as true — without question — what people tell you? I want you to read the following two posts on the matter (one is on my old blog), and ask yourself how this new information changes your view and why satellite data is superior.
1) http://hockeyschtick.blogs
2) http://religiopoliticaltal
Another post:
Firstly, I isolated a small part of a video you may enjoy… the info in it correlates with the info below (http://www.mrctv.org/videos/does-co2-drive-climate).
I know it’s tough to move with science as it evolves. But almost all researchers know Co2 doesn’t drive climate… and that the real debate is in the warming or cooling causing a greater effect on cloud cover, which will cause the catastrophic pictures a middle-school kid is brainwashed with via Al Gore. I cut and uploaded portions of an old interview so we can both talk to each other. The first audio has to do with the question of whether the earth is getting warmer or cooler (http://vimeo.com/28137108). You must get out of the myopic view you are used to seeing and look at a larger graph of temperature change (http://youtu.be/tTp5h9BuQt
The second has to do with how little C02 affects warming, and what and where the real debate is over, clouds (http://vimeo.com/28136890).
As the study and understanding of what drives this mysterious global phenomenon [clouds], and new studies are showing that the sun may be driving them as well (http://wattsupwiththat.com
A final post:
✦ “What an interesting view you have on this subject Sean. I’m not sure how you have found a way to convince yourself that carbon dioxide is not related to temperature, but i would like to offer you an objective, non blog, non bias, and factual link. Are you ready for it?” (quoting Nick)
Well, just so your readers know, in that last post [above] there are links to ~ if you follow them: the second link is audio is Roy Spencer (bio already given below). The third is just a graph of temperature of 2500 years. The fourth is Roy Spencer again. The fifth references a scientific journal. The sixth is a NASA article. The seventh is a NASA filming of the sun. And in the first video link (the actual video that shows up in that last post) there are these people involved:
• Syun-Ichi Akasofu – Professor and Director, International Arctic Research Center
• Tim Ball – Head of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (Misidentified in the film as Professor from the Department of Climatology, University of Winnipeg. Ball left his faculty position in the Department of Geography in 1996; the University of Winnipeg has never had a Department of Climatology.)
• Nigel Calder – Former Editor, New Scientist from 1962 to 1966
John Christy – Professor, Department of Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama in Huntsville and a Lead Author of Chapter 2 of the IPCC Third Assessment Report (Credited in the film as ‘Lead Author, IPCC’)
• Ian Clark – Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa
• Piers Corbyn – Weather Forecaster, Weather Action
• Paul Driessen – Author: Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death
• Eigil Friis-Christensen – Director, Danish National Space Center and Adjunct Professor, University of Copenhagen (who has since criticised the programme for fabricating data and not fully explaining his position on 20th century global warming).
• Nigel Lawson – Former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer
• Richard Lindzen – Professor, Department of Meteorology, M.I.T.
• Patrick Michaels – Research Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia
• Patrick Moore – Co-founder, Greenpeace
• Paul Reiter – Professor, Department of Medical Entomology, Pasteur Institute, Paris
• Nir Shaviv – Professor, Institute of Physics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• James Shikwati – Economist, Author, and CEO of The African Executive
• Frederick Singer – Professor Emeritus, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia (Misidentified in the film as Former Director, U.S. National Weather Service. From 1962–64 he was Director of the National Weather Satellite Service.)[citation needed]
• Roy W. Spencer is a climatologist and a Principal Research Scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville, as well as the U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He has served as senior scientist for climate studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He is known for his satellite-based temperature monitoring work, for which he was awarded the American Meteorological Society’s Special Award. Spencer’s research suggests that global warming is mostly natural, and that the climate system is quite insensitive to humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions and aerosol pollution and suggests that natural, chaotic variations in low cloud cover may account for most observed warming. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wi
• Philip Stott – Professor Emeritus, Department of Biogeography, University of London
• Carl Wunsch – Professor, Department of Oceanography, M.I.T. (who has since repudiated the programme)
So I will restate more clearly: C02 follows temperature change… it doesn’t lead it. That big giant ball-o’-flame in the sky has much more to do with climate change than Exxon… who has less impact on the enviro than volcanic activity (mankind that is).
I give evidence for history being hotter in the past than it is today by substantial degrees in a post that links to my blog. Since there are links out embedded in the below [at my blog], I give the link so you can follow them out from there if you wish… because they do not appear below:
(1) Mars (Uncommon Descent h/t) has had a bout of global warming… last I checked Exxon doesn’t drill there;
(2) In the 8th century AD, the Roman Empire grew grapes used for wine on the slopes of Salisbury Plain (about 80 miles southwest of London) in the United Kingdom;
(3) The Vikings raiding and traveling the seas was made possible by the now frozen “Greenland”actually living up to its name;
(4) NASA‘s “fact” that 1998 was the warmest year (used by Al Gore) was disproved by an amateur mathematician;
(5) In 1970′s, at the first Earth Day rally, scientists, meteorologists and politicians all pushed a theory that there was Global Cooling (Time magazine for instance). While this theory wasn’t as embedded in popular thinking and scientific literature as is global warming, it was still the dominant theory of that time;
(6) There is more ice now that 29-years ago; Antarctic sea ice more than in 1979;
(7) In the 1500′s till the late 1800′s passages that are now iced over allowed for what is termed as the Northwest Passage… Exxon or cars weren’t around then?
❖ “If you are like me and bit foggy on the Northwest Passage, here is a five cent refresher. The British coined the term Northwest Passage for the potential northern oceanic pass that would allow vessels to move between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The earliest explorations for the fabled passage were by Cortes in 1539. The late 1500′s were marked by British explorers, Martin Frobisher, Humphrey Gilbert, and John Davis. Several expeditions followed, all with little success of finding the passage but tempered by the acquisition of new lands. Some attempts lead to deaths of entire crews. Notable of these is the Sir John Franklin expedition in which all of the crew members were lost to starvation, scurvy, cannibalism, and lead poisoning from food sealed in tins. The first to transverse the Northwest Passage was Sir Robert McClure using a combination of both sledge and ship. Ironically this was done during the search for Franklin’s team in which McClure’s own ship became trapped in the ice for three winters. The passage was finally conquered entirely by sea by the Norwegian Amundsen in 1906.”
(9) Acid rain scares of the 1980′s were mostly unfounded and not man-caused;
(10) On the northern side of Mammoth (in California), there are tree-lines that were preserved by a volcanic eruption in A.D. 1350. In this preserved tree-line there were seven species of tree that grew well above the current tree-line in this mountainous range. The Earth would have to be 3.2 degrees warmer (Celsius) in order for these particular trees to grow in this higher altitude.
The above, believe it or not, actually is from one of my blogs on same-sex marriage and involved wine and beer filled discussion between friends at Halloween: “Same-Sex Matters (Race and Gender in Marriage)”: http://religiopoliticaltal