High-profile global warming skeptic changes position

I just wanted to add to kingofgx comment above that scientists have also measured the amount of CO2 released from human causes (and by measured, of course I mean very confident estimates based on real measurements), and the amount of CO2 release by humans more than makes up the rise in the atmosphere and the oceans. In other words, it is known as a fact that CO2 release from human sources MORE THAN ACCOUNTS for the increase in the atmosphere and oceans. Please, for the sake of your own embarrassment (naysayers), stop the BS about the whole false claim that 'we pity little humans can't change natural systems' when it is known as a fact through measurements and cause/effect relationships that humans can affect the earth's biogeochemical cycles. We know that we can destroy the ozone layer, we can have rivers catch on fire, we can kill off species, and we can change the climate. Accept the responsibility!

 

Nerfer,

I think you miscontrued my post. I said that those other sources are contributers to GHG and particulate accumulations in the atmosphere. The data is from my Environmental Science text book. For the most part this book is pretty unbiased for an environmental text. They actually give you the pros and cons to DDT and GMOs instead of just syaing it's all bad like some people might say.

Table of contents

The actual book at Amazon.com

According to the text:

1) Trees and bushes emit millions of tons of VOCs (terpenes and isoprenes), creating, for example, the blue haze that gave the Blue Ridge Mountains their name.

2) "While the natural sources of suspended particulate material in the air outweigh human sources at least tenfold worldwide, in many cities more than 90 percent of the airborn particulate matter is anthropogenic (human-caused)."

3) "As table 16.1 shows, more than 90 percent of of the CO2 emitted each year is from respiration (oxidation of organic compounds by plant and animal cells). These releases are usually balanced, however, by an uptake by photosynthesis in green plants.

4) The best current estimate from the IPCC is that between 7 and 8 billion tons of carbon (in the form of CO2) are released each year by fossil fuel combustion and that another 1 to 2 billion tons are released by forest and grass fires, cement manufacturing, and other human activities. Typically terrestrial ecosystems take up about 3 billion tons of this excess carbon every year, while oceanic proceses take up another 2 billion tons. This leaves an average of a least 3 billion tons to accumulate in the atmosphere. The actual releases and uptakes vary greatly from year to year.

I am not in any way a climate change or AGW skeptic but I do recognize that natural sources do and always have played the biggest part in this system.

 

Having heard in the news recently, human exhalation of CO2 being compared with fossil fuel combustion, I did some math. I came up with 1 week of breathing = 1 gallon of gasoline. One could go deeper and realize that food carbon came from the atmosphere this year (or last), but the main idea is to put things into perspective.

Hope this does not stray too far from the topic of this thread.

 

The typcial humam emits something like 730 lbs of CO2/yr. Then there's the methane...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Jan 23 2007, 02:36 AM) [snapback]379397[/snapback]</div>

The question you should be asking, and pondering, is why did the bush administration spend your tax dollars hiring this non-scientist to help craft his science policy?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nerfer @ Apr 16 2007, 01:25 PM) [snapback]424062[/snapback]</div>

Not here, either: fuel efficient cars and motorbikes for many years, I had my house insulated and a high-efficiency furnace put in. I chose to live a half mile from where I work. I walked to work this morning.

Oh, and guess what? I'm slightly to the right of our late, great Ronald Raygun with my politics, and I drive a Prius. Meditate on that awhile, you conservative-bashers.

Harry

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Earthling @ Apr 17 2007, 10:30 AM) [snapback]424713[/snapback]</div>

Hmmm well if the so called conservatives were more, um conservatve, there would be no bashing going on. You must be more aligned with Burke than Bush huh?

 

It'd be nice to have a party I can feel good voting for. I'm a social liberal/fiscal conservative. Ain't no party for me.

What we really need is a centrist/pro environment/anti gun control party.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Apr 17 2007, 01:44 PM) [snapback]424903[/snapback]</div>

Hey, I'll join that party! I'd add small (Federal) government to the mix too, which would probably spoil the convention partying!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Apr 17 2007, 11:45 PM) [snapback]425156[/snapback]</div>

Small is good. Beer ain't that expensive.

 

Arianna Huffington: Probing a Political Paradox: Why the Discredited Right Still Sets the Agenda and Dominates the Debate - Politics on The Huffington Post
It's a paradox: the political center has clearly shifted; what used to be considered "left wing" positions have now become part of the mainstream, and the views of the Right are now at odds with the majority of the American public -- and with reality.

Think about it: on Iraq and the exercise of American power, on economic fairness, on corporate responsibility, on the environment and climate change, on the universal right to healthcare, the progressive policies and positions long championed by the left have moved from union halls and MoveOn emails to the sidewalks, backyards, and kitchen tables of Main Street, USA.
...there are three main areas to look at, not only to help us understand how we got in the mess we're in, but also to help us get out: the media, the role of fear in our politics, and the failure of political leadership.

MEDIA: But not every story has two sides -- and the truth is often to be found not in the middle but solidly on one side or the other.

The earth is not flat. Global warming is a fact. Evolution is a fact -- sorry Mike Huckabee. And not even Republicans still believe in the unfettered, free market. Look how they rushed to Big Government to save their beloved Bear Sterns.
What is behind the media's lapdog devotion to the messages and framing of the Right? It's a combination of self-loathing and abject fear. The media wear their dread like a cheap aftershave.

FEAR: Specifically the right wing's masterful manipulation of it -- has also come to dominate our politics.
You can be sure the Right will play the fear card again in 2008 because that's all that's left in its deck.
The dynamic between the dithering Democrats and the reality-be-damned Republican Right calls to mind that great line from Yeats: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity."

POLITICAL LEADERSHIP: The third factor in the continuing power of the loony Right is the abject, across the board failure of our political leadership to adjust to the fact that the game of "right versus left" has been rendered obsolete by the emergence of a new and vital center. But political movements and political shifts do not fully succeed without bold political leadership -- and if we ever needed that kind of leadership, it is now.
Democratic leaders need to re-define the center of American politics. Right is no longer the opposite of left. It is the opposite of wrong. And what used to be the left needs to redefine itself as something more than just an opposition force -- but rather as an active, positive, mainstream current that includes independents, Republicans aghast at what has happened to their party, and many new voters who are tired of empty partisanship.
Though the era of the Right has exhausted its historic course, collapsing in moral, political and economic bankruptcy, the transformation and co-opting of McCain from a maverick into the Second Coming of George W. Bush shows the durability of the Right and the lingering danger it poses. There is nothing automatic about its disappearance from the stage.

 

Bump because I can't see where this is buried in the forum list.

 

I'd argue that Hilary has demonstrated a competent use of fear tactics as well. It's not solely a tool of the right. I do think that the center has moved to the left and that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned. The important thing is to not move too far in that direction.

 

I'd like to present a different viewpoint, with all due respect:

I think you are absolutely correct in that the political center has shifted from the left to being part of the mainstream, and this is to our great disadvantage. I don't have the time at the moment to expound on my point, but it would be in the direction of declining morals and values over the last several generations and the effect this has had in teenage suicides and anger (e.g., school shootings), not valuing life (whether preborn or the aged), increased divorce rates and the effects upon the family, unwanted teenage pregnancies with girls who don't have the maturity to cope with a new baby, abortions and the innate guilt that virtually all females experience after having one.........

And as for evolution being "a fact," everyone admits it's a theory and nothing more. Except for microevolution within a species, the Darwinian theory is so full of holes (e.g., lack of transitional forms) that it would take more faith for me to believe in that than the alternatives.

 

The problem is people accepting Luntz's opinion of a scientific issue as valid. He is not a climatologist, not even a scientist. The scientific consensus is that global warming is real and anthropogenic greenhouse gases play a significant role.

The opinions of pundits and politics is irrelevant when compared to the facts.

 

spf thank you for your viewpoint. I sincerely doubt the laundry list you present is solely due to the shift toward more progressive attitudes. I could list points which could equally be considered because of the moral degradation of the right wing into winner-take-all-me-first so prevalent in the sacred halls of predominately right-leaning people, starting with the increase of 'us vs them, "you're either with us or against us" attitudes.

However, the point of my posts are to illustrate that in certain social/political/environmental matters it was a few on the wide fringes who made the clarion call which, while originally degraded as 'wacko' left-wing hippie whining has come to pass as accepted in our scientific/social and political circles.

My personal feeling is that when someone comes up with a view outside the mainstream, instead of vilifying the new thought, since sooner or later that new idea/view may become accepted in society, perhaps a less damning oppositional roadblock may be in order. Or to put it another way, we should examine and exploit new thinking right off the bat since in the long run we will go farther/faster as a society.

 

Someone has drunk of the talking points kool-aid..

Your O'Relly and Rush are showing. None of your former points have anything to do with the left and your latter point is ignorant.

 

Are you aware of the work being done on homeobox genes and vesitgial traits locked within those unused portions of DNA? The science behind evolution leaves a lot less gaps than does the history of religion and the bible in particular. Phylogenetic systematics helps fill those so-called gaps rather well, enough so that a few missing fossils are not enough to dispell the whole theory and automatically fill it with god by default. The god hypothesis has not earned the default position IMO. I will grant you science is not always right nor can god be disproven since that idea cannot actually be tested so I'm not trying to slam your idea but just asking if you have viewed any of these new scientific findings and what your opinion is. Please don't copy and past something from an ID site though. Those pregenerated arguements are not designed to make you think.

Thanks for the post MarinJohn. I generally don't like to pigeonhole political sides but it was worth reading.