BBC: The DEBATE Over Global Warming Has Just Begun
Wait, I thought liberals claimed you would be committing crimes against humanity or the equivalent of denying the Holocaust if you questioned the religion of Global Warming?
I guess the BBC decided to depart from the Earthist Scripture this weekend:
For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.
And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.
<…>
So what can we expect in the next few years?
Both sides have very different forecasts. The Met Office says that warming is set to resume quickly and strongly.
It predicts that from 2010 to 2015 at least half the years will be hotter than the current hottest year on record (1998).
Sceptics disagree. They insist it is unlikely that temperatures will reach the dizzy heights of 1998 until 2030 at the earliest. It is possible, they say, that because of ocean and solar cycles a period of global cooling is more likely.
One thing is for sure. It seems the debate about what is causing global warming is far from over. Indeed some would say it is hotting up.
Aside from the bad grammar, this is quite a liberal media breakthrough.
It also kinda sucks when the ACTUAL WEATHER gets in the way of the environmental talking points, eh?
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
UPDATE (from Dan): Gateway Pundit reminds us of another scientific fact: Brrrr… Antarctic Ice Melt at Lowest Level in Recorded History.
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According to the World Climate Report…
So where is all the media attention? NASA researchers for years have dutifully released a plentiful supply of stories about melting sea ice in the Arctic, but icy news at the South Pole has yet to prompt a NASA report. Obviously, if warmers can silence the opposition, it helps build the hoax — er, “consensus.”
Comment by Eric Olsen — October 10, 2009 @ 1:01 pm - October 10, 2009
I’m one of those liberals who isn’t convinced of global warming, or that this warming period is or will be worse than the cycles of warming we’ve had in the past, say 100,000 years or so.
But I disagree, Bruce, with one point that you’ve made in your post. And it’s the same mistake that those who believe we’re heading for global warming make as well. Using evidence of current weather to bolster your case. In other words, what’s happening in Denver and Chicago is zero evidence that there is no global warming. Just like a recent January weekend of over 70 degree weather in NJ isn’t evidence of global warming either.
Comment by Pat — October 10, 2009 @ 1:30 pm - October 10, 2009
Eric, the increased ice in Antarctica has not received the attention of the ozone hole over Antarctica. But I’ve seen graphics over the past few years that while showing the Arctic region having warmer climate and smaller icecap regions, they have also shown that Antarctica has been cooler. So, it’s been out there.
Comment by Pat — October 10, 2009 @ 1:36 pm - October 10, 2009
Having just come in from mowing the lawn, I have to say that global warming IS fact – it’s much warmer now than it was this morning when I let the dogs out! And I expect global cooling to take place as I enjoy a frosty beverage later this evening. . .
Comment by jax dancer — October 10, 2009 @ 1:36 pm - October 10, 2009
Eric – the equation is simple. Taking the square root, integrating over the last twenty years and doing a little factoring, I came up with this:
Global warming stories = more grant money
It’s not warming stories = less grant money
Comment by SoCalRobert — October 10, 2009 @ 4:08 pm - October 10, 2009
Pat: Your point is well taken. There’s a big difference between "weather" and "climate." Skeptics run the risk of sounding as ridiculous as Al Gore and his hurricane predictions.
That said, Bruce’s larger point is still relevant: the computer models could never predict micro-trends and now can’t do macro-trends either. With trillions of dollars on the line in the West and the developing world, we need much better programming.
(Interestring aside: the first computers were envisioned by Johann Von Neumann as a way to predict the weather several weeks in advance. He gave it up as an impossible task back in the 60′s, but we just keep trying. Come to think of it he was pretty conservative and had an encyclopedic store of off-color jokes. Two more points in his favor. We need a new Johnny Neumann!)
Best wishes,
Comment by MFS — October 10, 2009 @ 6:36 pm - October 10, 2009
First snow of the season this morning in Denver; Colorado ski resorts opening at earliest date in 40 years, and yet I still have to avoid eye contact with those seemingly ubiquitous Greenpeace volunteers trying to get me to help save polar bears.
I suppose that’s why it’s now “Climate Change” instead of “Global Warming”–so they can have it both ways.
Comment by Alex in Denver — October 10, 2009 @ 8:16 pm - October 10, 2009
#2: “I’m one of those liberals who isn’t convinced of global warming…”
There’s more than one?
Comment by Sean A — October 10, 2009 @ 11:45 pm - October 10, 2009
I would really love to get excited about the BBC daring to publish a story on October 9, 2009 that doesn’t treat extinction-level, imminent global warming as a foregone conclusion, but any enthusiasm I might have had for this unprecedented, unexpected development from the liberal Euro-media evaporated with the NYT’s October 10, 2009 publication of a joint opinion piece authored by Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) titled, “Yes We Can (Pass Climate Change Legislation)”. Money quote: “First, we agree that climate change is real and threatens our economy and national security. That is why we are advocating aggressive reductions in our emissions of the carbon gases that cause climate change.”
So, it’s irrelevant whether it is now safe to question the existence of man-made global warming or the degree of threat it poses to mankind without being dismissed as an insane, flat-Earth kook. A few months ago, eight GOP representatives screwed their supporters and ensured the passage of the cap-and-tax bill in exchange for political bribes from the Wicked Witch of the West (Pelosi). Now a high-profile GOP Senator (one whose state currently has 11 percent unemployment) has confirmed his inability to resist the seductive reward of MSM adoration by putting his full support behind cap-and-tax in the Senate (struggling businesses and unemployed Americans be damned). A BBC “Climate Correspondent” is now more skeptical of man-made global warming than a REPUBLICAN Senator. Sorry, I’m just not in the mood to hang streamers in celebration.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/opinion/11kerrygraham.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1255244771-4pFWQx5XpmH2a/nbcU7d1w
http://www.wcnc.com/jobteam/stories/wcnc-091809-al-unemployment_numbers.190c234a8.html
Comment by Sean A — October 11, 2009 @ 3:48 am - October 11, 2009
There’s more than one?
Sean, you got me here. I imagine there’s more than one, but I can’t think of any off-hand.
Comment by Pat — October 11, 2009 @ 1:28 pm - October 11, 2009
Funny thing about Von Newman, his VonNewman machines are really examples of government programs. Consuming resources to make more copies of themselves.
Comment by The_Livewire — October 11, 2009 @ 3:51 pm - October 11, 2009
How on Earth did I miss this thread, as Dan knows, this is my all time favorite subject.
Stange thing is, there really isn’t much to say… except….So much for James Hansen’s famed “tipping point”. Sorry Jimmy. There was a tipping point, but it wasn’t in the direction you predicted.
Comment by Sonicfrog — October 11, 2009 @ 5:28 pm - October 11, 2009
It is not a question of man-caused global warming as there is no global warming. Not addressed in the article is the single biggest hole in the fabric of this hoax. The leading “fact” for the warmists was a simple graph (The Mann or Hockey-stick graph) that showed modern temperatures spiking up from a nearly flat past of several centuries duration. This was an obvious fraud to anyone, layman or expert, who reads Dickens and knows the Thames used to freeze solid. Only now decades later is it coming to light that the tree ring proxies used to produce that graph are falsified. Utterly, outright falsified. The other early and leading factor was NASA scientist James Hansen waiving temperature records and declaring AGW as a fact. These data were also falsified and also impacted UP by the removal of old Soviet monitoring stations for political reasons. There is no global warming, friends, except the return to norm that followed the last modest cooling period which anyone older than 30 should know was also hyped into a global calamity in the ’80s.
Comment by megapotamus — October 12, 2009 @ 7:19 am - October 12, 2009
And they travel there in their lear and gulfstream jets are driven there in their gas guzzling limos use up hundreds of kiliwatt hours of electricity and countless gallons of water while desinging ways to control our lives as designed by the sinister CFR
Comment by Flu-Bird — December 13, 2009 @ 12:01 pm - December 13, 2009