The New Flat Earth Society (Doug Patton)

GOPUSA ^ | February 12, 2007 | Doug Patton

[jazusamo]

After scoffing in my last column about the ridiculous Nobel Peace Prize nomination of former Vice President Chicken Little (aka Al Gore), I really had no intention of wasting any more time or thought on the issue of global warming for the foreseeable future. But then columnist Ellen Goodman weighed in with her arrogant opinion, and I just couldn't let it go.

Wrote Ms. Goodman:

"I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future."

Well, Ellen, I would like to say that you, Al Gore, and all your friends in the Global Warming Cult (hereinafter known as "GWC" or "The Cult") are now on a par with the Flat Earth Society.

It was once conventional wisdom that the earth was a flat disk around which the rest of the universe revolved, and off of which any vessel would tumble if it sailed too far in any one direction. Likewise, today's GWC has so successfully dominated the debate on the issue of global warming that it is now conventional wisdom to believe that it is the greatest threat facing humanity. If all rational people believe it, the argument goes, then anyone who doubts it must be a heretic.

As her primary evidence that the case is now closed on the issue, Goodman cites a recent report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which unequivocally blames global warming on human activity. As if we are to believe anything that comes out of the United Nations.

Polling by the Pew Research Center shows that global warming is number 20 on the average person's list of policy priorities, far behind terrorism, tax cuts, crime, morality, illegal immigration and 15 other issues. Of course, Goodman's irrational explanation for these attitudes is to blame the Bush administration and "its favorite media outlets." (Liberals, of course, have no favorite media outlets.)

Goodman refers to the gaps between what she calls "Republican science and Democratic science," and is amazed that "23 percent of college-educated Republicans believe the warming is due to humans, while 75 percent of college-educated Democrats believe it."

She calls James Inhofe a "Big Oil Senator," partly because he is from Oklahoma. But his biggest crime was that he dared to contradict the conventional wisdom of The Cult by describing the UN report as "a shining example of the corruption of science for political gain."

Goodman also attacks the American Enterprise Institute, which she claims has received $1.6 million from Exxon Oil "over the years," for offering $10,000 to scientists who would counter the IPCC report. (Isn't it interesting that liberals don't think Saddam Hussein was collaborating with terrorists, even though he was offering $25,000 to the destitute families of suicide bombers, but they are more than willing to believe that reputable American scientists would risk their professional credentials for a paltry $10,000?)

But Goodman's flimsiest argument comes when she tries to explain why the average person has a different set of priorities than the elites in The Cult: she believes we are psychologically paralyzed.

"It may be, paradoxically," she tells us, "that framing this issue in catastrophic terms ends up paralyzing instead of motivating us."

Quoting author Ross Gelbspan, she continues: "When people are confronted with an overwhelming threat and don't see a solution, it makes them feel impotent. So they shrug it off or go into deliberate denial."

What psychobabble!

Al Gore, Ellen Goodman and the rest of the Kool-Aid drinking GWC are truly the new Flat Earth Society. They are so brainwashed about the "conventional wisdom" of this issue, it never occurs to them that the real reason most Americans believe global warming is less of a threat than zealots flying airplanes into buildings could just be because common sense is more highly prized on Main Street than it is inside the Beltway or in the halls of the UN.

[jazusamo]

Al Gore, Ellen Goodman and the rest of the Kool-Aid drinking GWC are truly the new Flat Earth Society.

LOL...Patton tells it like it is.

[Eagles6]

Anyone with a spare hour and a reputable high school earth science book can put "global warming" in the dustbin of history.

[Graybeard58]

Ellen Goodman weighed in with her arrogant ignorant opinion

[lostlakehiker]

Just because Ellen Goodman says that Global Warming is a Republican Plot, and we all know that's nonsense, doesn't mean that global warming itself is nonsense.

It just means that Goodman is talking nonsense.

There are real reasons to think that global warming is real. For instance, the Arctic icecap is shrinking. Glaciers around the world are in retreat. Just take a look at photos from glacier national park from 50 or 100 years ago, and compare to today.

How much of a threat this is, we can argue. But to sit there and insist that glacier national park hasn't changed, that the snow and ice is still there as much as ever, well, that's just flat wrong. It IS warmer now than it used to be, and human fossil fuel use is very probably one of the big reasons why.

[feedback doctor]

This explain the reason the ice coverage in Antarctica is increasing?

[Grizzled Bear]

"23 percent of college-educated Republicans believe the warming is due to humans, while 75 percent of college-educated Democrats believe it."
________________________________________________________

This tells me that 23 percent of college-educated Republicans are idiots.

What about the 75 percent of college-educated Democrats?

Don't get me started...

[Grizzled Bear]

I would really like you to respond to these questions;

How was it possible to grow grapes in Newfoundland and grain in Greenland 1000 years ago when the areas are under perma frost today?

Why are the icecaps of Mars shrinking?

Why are the temperatures of all the planets in our solar system getting warmer?

How is the terrestrial (Earth) bound human burning of fossil fuels able to effect the "weather" on other planets?

I am eagerly awaiting your response.

[boop]

Uh, NY is under eight feet of snow. I'm sure that the massive cooling is due to global warming.

[Wiseghy]

Maybe so.

However, the chain of reasoning that leads us to embrace drastic, economy crushing controls and cut backs, while China and the third world pump ever larger quantities of pollution into the air is what concerns me.

Fortunately, a consensus on US energy independence is emerging.

However, environmental reasoning has an oddly religious quality to it; I just can't believe that buying "indulgences" in the form of carbon credits will ever deliver the planet from anything. Already, I'm reading about the third world plowing under rain forest at an unprecedented rate to plant corn for ethanol. There is just no escaping from the priests of environmentalism.

[technomage]

I am eagerly awaiting your response.

C'mon Grizzled Bear, your using facts and as we all know, facts mean nothing to those who worship at the alter of man made global warming.

Never mind that glaciers have come and gone for millenia. Never mind that the amount of energy being put out by the sun is the highest it has been in at least 100 years, and possibly much longer. Lets just ignore that last fact, that the largest heat source in the solar system is heating up all the planets. No, we humans are much more powerful than that meager little star called the sun.

[Grizzled Bear]

facts mean nothing to those who worship at the alter of man made global warming
___________________________________________________________

Awwww cmon'

It's so much fun to expose them to truth and watch em scurry back under the refrigerator.

[facedown]

I am eagerly awaiting your response.

What for? All you'll get is more of this:

Posted by lostlakehiker to gcruse
On News/Activism 01/22/2007 11:06:59 PM CST · 23 of 92

No one with any CLUE is arguing. I have seen glaciers fading away, year by year. A lot of us have. The evidence is unarguable except by fools who love the sound of their own voice arguing.

[jazusamo]

It's so much fun to expose them to truth and watch em scurry back under the refrigerator.

:-)

[BlazingArizona]

... human fossil fuel use is very probably one of the big reasons why.

So who's burning fossil fuel on Mars?

[ancient_geezer]

It IS warmer now than it used to be, and human fossil fuel use is very probably one of the big reasons why.

Warming, naturally perhaps, from anthropogenic CO2, not very likely.

Anthropgenic Global Warming hypothesis requires water vapor content of the atmosphere to increase with a comensurate increase in cloud cover to enhance the effect of CO2 in effecting heating of the the atmosphere and surface.

 

http://www.meteor.iastate.edu/gccourse/model/direct/direct_lecture_new.html

Water-vapor/greenhouse feedback.

Relative humidity is reasonably constant despite variations in absolute humidity. That is, an increase in temperature leads to more evaporation and increase in the absolute amount of water vapor in the air (increase absolute humidity). But since the warmer air has a higher saturation vapor pressure (can hold more water vapor), the relative humidity stays approximately constant. The increased absolute humidity, however, increases absorption of infrared radiation by the atmosphere and hence increases the greenhouse effect. Note that this increased greenhouse effect raises the surface temperature, which further increases evaporation. This feedback mechanism is not self-regulating, so we call it a positive feedback.

Cloudiness / surface-temperature feedback.

As temperature increases, evaporation and absolute humidity both increase leading to more cloudiness. But the increase in clouds leads to increased reflection of solar energy and also leads to more trapping of infrared energy from the surface of the earth. The net effect (which depends on the altitude of the clouds) is thought to lead to a cooling, which makes this a negative feedback process.

as quantified by Ramanathan:

"the direct radiative effects of doubled CO2 can cause a maximum surface warming [at the equator] of about 0.2 K, and hence roughly 90% of the 2.0-2.5 K surface warming obtained by the GCM is caused by atmospheric feedback processes described above.
--- "Increased Atmospheric CO2: Zonal and Seasonal Estimates of the Effect on the Radiation Energy Balance and Surface Temperature"
(V. Ramanathan and M. S. Lian), J. Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 84, p. 4949, 1979.

 

Taking a look at what the water vapor & clouds are actually doing:

http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/JPEG/zD2ATMOSCLIM/B128B129glbp.anomdevs.jpg

 

 

http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/zD2BASICS/B8glbp.anomdevs.jpg

 

 

http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/zD2CLOUDTYPES/B32glbp.anomdevs.jpg

 

 

One might guess that something other than changing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere is in the driver's seat.

http://www.sciencebits.com/CosmicRaysClimate

Clouds have been observed from space since the beginning of the 1980's. By the mid 1990's, enough cloud data accumulated to provide empirical evidence for a solar/cloud-cover link. Without the satellite data, it hard or probably impossible to get statistically meaningful results because of the large systematic errors plaguing ground based observations. Using the satellite data, Henrik Svensmark of the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen has shown that cloud cover varies in sync with the variable cosmic ray flux reaching the Earth. Over the relevant time scale, the largest variations arise from the 11-yr solar cycle, and indeed, this cloud cover seemed to follow the cycle and a half of cosmic ray flux modulation. Later, Henrik Svensmark and his colleague Nigel Marsh, have shown that the correlation is primarily with low altitude cloud cover. This can be seen in fig. 3.


Figure 3: The correlation between cosmic ray flux (orange) as measured in Neutron count monitors in low magnetic latitudes, and the low altitude cloud cover (blue) using ISCCP satellite data set, following Marsh & Svensmark, 2003.

[irv]

For instance, the Arctic icecap is shrinking. Glaciers around the world are in retreat.

They can have some of the 6 feet of snow in my front yard.

If I believed global warming, I'd be feeling mighty cheated right now.

[IYellAtMyTV]

"23 percent of college-educated Republicans believe the warming is due to humans, while 75 percent of college-educated Democrats believe it."

Lets assume (for the sake of argument) that lostlakehiker is a college educated Republican, and further assume that these percentages are correct. Does anyone else find it funny that the fourth post (25% at that point) was professing a belief in global warming?!

C'mon lost, you did that on purpose didn't you, fess up...
*chortle, snort*

[Nasty McPhilthy]

[irv]

By the way: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1783234/posts

[dfwgator]

For instance, the Arctic icecap is shrinking. Glaciers around the world are in retreat.

Uhh, not so fast....

Greenland’s Glaciers Take a Breather