Marc Morano

Marc Morano of Climate Depot Slices and Dices AGW Apologist

Published by Papa Giorgio

The gentleman Mr. Morano was responding to in the video below is the Director of the Sierra Club, Michael Brune. Brune made the point that receiving money from oil and gas was bad. Morano turned the tables not by arguing that oil and gas do not in fact give monies to these groups… instead he used the premise Brune put forward to his advantage:

✦ Implied premise by Brune: “It is bad to receive money from oil/gas”;
✦ Morano’s implied premise: “Okay, fine, if bad for ‘a,’ why not ‘b’.”

“….he’s [Brune] mentioning funding by the way which I think is funny. The Sierra Club took 26 million from natural gas and Michael has the audacity to try to imply that skeptics are fossil fuel funded.”

Oooops!

See Climate Depot

Here is the New York Times on the issue of the Sierra Club taking “dirty” money (see also Time Magazine’s revelation on the matter):

The recent disclosure of the Sierra Club’s secret acceptance of $26 million in donations from people associated with a natural gas company has revived an uncomfortable debate among environmental groups about corporate donations and transparency.

The gifts from the company, Chesapeake Energy, have drawn criticism from some environmentalists. “Sleeping with the enemy” was a comment much forwarded on Twitter posts about the undisclosed arrangement.

“Runners shouldn’t smoke, priests shouldn’t touch the kids, and environmentalists should never take money from polluters,” John Passacantando, a former director of Greenpeace who is now an environmental consultant, said in an interview.

Yet the donations to the Sierra Club, reported by Time magazine’s Ecocentric blog and a blog called Corporate Crime Reporter, have plenty of precedents. Between 2004 and 2006, the National Audubon Society accepted $2.1 million from the chemical giant Monsanto to find a strategy for ensuring the safety of waterfowl near industrial farms using pesticides, for example.

The Environmental Defense Fund was an early adopter of the partnership model, working two decades ago with McDonald’s to stop using polystyrene clamshells for packaging, thus eliminating tens of thousands of tons of waste. Later it teamed with Fedex to reduce the emissions of its truck fleet. But it accepts no donations from corporate partners, its leadership says.

…read more…

Two Steps Back, One Step Forward

(Via Common Sense Evaluation) Electric cars might pollute much more than petrol or diesel-powered cars, according to new research.

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology study found greenhouse gas emissions rose dramatically if coal was used to produce the electricity.

Electric car factories also emitted more toxic waste than conventional car factories, their report in the Journal of Industrial Ecology said.

“The production phase of electric vehicles proved substantially more environmentally intensive,” the report said, comparing it to how petrol and diesel cars are made.

“The global warming potential from electric vehicle production is about twice that of conventional vehicles.”…..

Here is a past encounter (January 2013) between Morano and Brune, Via Climate Depot:

 

 

PIERS MORGAN, HOST:

President Obama is making the fight against extreme weather part of his second term agenda. He believes that science proves it has a human cause. With me now is Marc Morano, editor in chief of ClimateDepot.com, and Michael Brune. He’s the executive director of the Sierra Club.

Welcome to you both. Michael — Marc, I’ll start with you. When I last spoke to you about this, we had a pretty fiery debate about it. And you were impeccably opposed to any suggestion that there’s any real science to confirm global warming or genuine climate change. So rather than me get involved with this, I’m going to rest my weary voice box and let Michael tell you why there is science.

Michael, over to you.

MICHAEL BRUNE, THE SIERRA CLUB:

Sure, well, actually I don’t want to waste any time on this. The science is settled. We noticed that last year we had record numbers of wildfires throughout the Mountain West, as you cited; 61 percent of the country suffered a crippling drought. We had Superstorm Sandy with 1,000-mile diameter storm hitting the east coast, flooded my parents house, caused billions of dollars worth of damage.

The reality is that extreme weather is here. Our climate has begun to be destabilized. The good news is that we can do something about it. We have solutions to the cause of climate change. And those solutions will both help keep our families safe and help our economy grow at the same time.

MORGAN:

OK. Marc, there you have it. What do you say to that?

MARC MORANO, CLIMATEDEPOT.COM:

I say you look at the peer reviewed literature. We now know a study in journal “Nature” show that there’s 60 years, no trend in droughts. In fact, there was a decline in droughts in the U.S., except the most recent one in 2012, which wasn’t even as big as the one in the 1950s or the 1930s.

In terms of flood, 80 to 117 [correction 127] years, there’s no trend in floods. Big tornadoes are down dramatically since the 1950s — F3 or larger. And hurricanes, eight years now — the longest period without a major land falling category 3 or larger hurricane. Eight years, the longest stetch since 1900. So if you start looking at these measures —

 

MORGAN:

Answer me this point. You wouldn’t dispute there’s been increased acceleration in CO2, right?

MORANO:

No, CO2 is rising. Global temperature has now stalled for 15 or 16 years. And that is — now James Hanson of NASA has admitted at least decade of no warming, or as he said flat lining temperatures. This is an embarrassment right now.

So the whole movement has shifted to extreme storms. That’s what they’re trying to focus on now. Evidence is everywhere when you look for extremes. But the bottom line is we have always had extreme weather. In the 1970s, the CIA report and “Newsweek” and all the people worried about a coming Ice Age blamed extreme weather, droughts and bad weather and crop failure on global cooling. Now they have reversed and they are blaming the same phenomenon on global warming. It’s very convenient.

Marc Morano Eviscerates Bill Nye the Science Guy on Climate Change

Published by Papa Giorgio

Here is a partial transcript of Marc’s statements that have links to info (via NewsBusters), Marc IS Climate Depot:

MARC MORANO, CLIMATE DEPOT: We followed the evidence. There are quite literally hundreds of factors that influence global temperature, everything from tilt of the earth’s axis to ocean cycles to water vapor, methane, solar system, the sun, cloud feedback, volcanic dust. The idea that CO2 is the tail that wags the dog is not supportable.

And if you go down and look at the scientific literature, we are finding reams of data. And new peer-reviewed study showing the Medieval and Roman warming periods as warm or warmer than today without our CO2 emissions. So what’s happened here is the whole movement, because now we’ve gone 16 years without global warming, according to the U.N. data [from UK Met Office], and they’ve now morphed into extreme weather.

And we have the absurd spectacle of people claiming that acts of Congress and United Nations can control the weather and make hurricanes less nasty and make tornadoes less frequent, which by the way none of them are showing any trends at all that are unusual.

[….]

(Note on overpopulation claims: see Fred Pearce on ‘The overpopulation myth’: Population growth is slowing…The idea that growing human numbers will destroy the planet is nonsense‘ and ‘Grist Mag. Going Down: Is too few people the new ‘population problem?‘) 

MORGAN: Well, so Marc Morano, if there is a massively increased acceleration in CO2 in the atmosphere at the same time that there’s been a bigger than double the sizing of the population of the planet, why would that not be inexorably linked? Explain to me.

MORANO: CO2 is rising. No one is disputing that. What Bill and I just did was waste everyone’s time explaining that CO2 is rising. The question is what impact does CO2 have on the weather, what impact the CO2 have on climate change. And that, as we you look at the geologic records, we’ve had warmer periods where it’s been — with higher — with lower CO2 and we’ve had colder periods with higher CO2. And you have to go way back for some of that but the bottom line is hundreds of factors are dictating our climate.

The Medieval Warm Period was both southern and northern hemisphere. On my Web site there’s literally [scores of studies] — it demolishes the idea of a hockey stick, new peer-reviewed study, so the idea that Bill Nye is just going around saying CO2 is up, therefore global warming is dangerous, we should be concerned, it’s not. It’s not dangerous. The bottom line is all these factors —

[….]

MORANO: No. You go to the peer-reviewed literature. You’re looking at anecdotal evidence. This is now the level of your daily horoscope. Basically global warmists like Bill Nye say global warming will cause many bad weather events and guess what? Bad weather events happen all the time so people look and they say look, there’s more proof, there’s a bad weather event.

Bottom line, big tornadoes, F-3 and larger since 1950s have dropped dramatically. Bottom line, we’ve gone the longest period without a major U.S. category 3 or larger hurricane hitting the U.S. since 1900, maybe the civil war.

Bottom line, new study in the “Journal Nature,” peer-reviewed, no change in U.S. drought in the last 60 years. Bottom line, a new study out shows that drought has not changed in 85 to —

[….]

MORANO: Why it’s the wrong argument? Because every proposal ever done including the United Nations Kyoto Protocol would not even detectibly impact the temperatures assuming you buy into their science. What we’re talking about —

NYE: We’re not talking about the temperature. MORANO: We’re talking about a climate bill in the United States. President Obama was going around telling people it will keep the planet four or five degrees cooler for our grandchildren. His own EPA said it wouldn’t affect global CO2 levels let alone temperature. And if you actually do —

NYE: CO2 —

(CROSSTALK)

MORANO: Right now the developing world is getting 1,000 plus coal plants, there are 1.3 billion people don’t have running water and electricity. If we actually go the route of trying to stop carbon- based energy which has been their lifeline, which would lower infant mortality and long life expectancy, it would be the most immoral position you can take. So the bottom line is even if the skeptics are wrong the solutions that the global warming alarmists have proposed would have no detectible impact on climate.

[….]

MORANO: … that violate 81 one out of 87 of the basic principles of forecasting.

NYE: So —

MORGAN: Marc Morano, do you accept that the ocean levels are rising, that the planet is getting hotter, that CO2 emissions have dramatically increased in the last 50 years, and —

NYE: And ice sheets are shrinking.

MORGAN: Ice sheets are shrinking and the planet population is doubling and accelerating at a terrifying rate, and that the combination of all these things is likely to be a major problem for the next two or three generations, and therefore, doing nothing shouldn’t really be a sensible responsible option. MORANO: Doing nothing — first of all the United States did nothing, our CO2 emissions are dropping as we move to fracking away from coal through technology so the idea of nothing — there’s nothing to do. The idea of — there’s no way you can solve a nonproblem. Sea level has been rising since the end of the last ice age. There’s no acceleration. The Dutch Meteorological Institute said there’s no acceleration. You can look at the data, the land base data.

NYE: Boy, I just —

MORANO: There’s no acceleration of the sea level.

NYE: We just don’t agree on the facts. So we’re not going to get anywhere.

MORANO: Where it goes — the scary and where the horror story is in all these predictions. And they come out and say it’s worse than we thought. Why —

The Left (in this case Bill Nye and Piers Morgan) are referencing a religious eschatology that use to reside only with the religious… now the professional, secular Left has their own ideology of Armageddon. I would rather depend on more sound — and less eschatological — decisions made on these matters:

▼ “We’re not scientifically there yet. Despite what you may have heard in the media, there is nothing like a consensus of scientific opinion that this is a problem. Because there is natural variability in the weather, you cannot statistically know for another 150 years.” — UN IPCC’s Tom Tripp, a member of the UN IPCC since 2004 and listed as one of the lead authors and serves as the Director of Technical Services & Development for U.S. Magnesium.

▼ “Any reasonable scientific analysis must conclude the basic theory wrong!!” — NASA Scientist Dr. Leonard Weinstein who worked 35 years at the NASA Langley Research Center and finished his career there as a Senior Research Scientist. Weinstein is presently a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Aerospace.

▼ “Please remain calm: The Earth will heal itself — Climate is beyond our power to control…Earth doesn’t care about governments or their legislation. You can’t find much actual global warming in present-day weather observations. Climate change is a matter of geologic time, something that the earth routinely does on its own without asking anyone’s permission or explaining itself.” — Nobel Prize-Winning Stanford University Physicist Dr. Robert B. Laughlin, who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1998, and was formerly a research scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

(From: SPECIAL REPORT: More Than 1000 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims)

Remember, we have had most of the Co2 produced in world history since 1998, and we have had no warming for 16-years. So the connection Bill Nye tries to make is fictitious so far.

Mouse Over Graph

(From a PREVIOUS post) In case you are out of the loop, no warming has occurred in 16-years:

Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released… and here is the chart to prove it

✦ The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures

✦ This means that the ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week. 

The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.

…read more…