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.

[dfwgator]

Beat me to it. Amazing that people want us to accept Global Warming as gospel when scientists are still using conjecture.

[Fiddlstix]

Good Post!

[ancient_geezer]

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

Couldn't have anything to do with the fact the earth came out of a major ice age some 10,000 years ago and they have been on a more or less steady melt down ever since could it?

Remember ice melts as long as its warming than freezing, current global average temperature is 15^oC, and has been pretty much that level, at time higher at time lower for since the last major glacial period.

 

 

Ice Ages & Astronomical Causes
Brief Introduction to the History of Climate
by Richard A. Muller

Origin of the 100 kyr Glacial Cycle

Figure 1-1 Global warming (NOAA land and ocean temperatures)

 

Figure 1-2 Climate of the last 2400 years (GISP2)

 

 
Figure 1-3 Climate of the last 12,000 years (GISP2)

 

 

Figure 1-4 Climate of the last 100,000 years (GISP2)

Figure 1-5 Climate for the last 420 kyr, from Vostok ice

[irv]

Amazing that people want us to accept Global Warming as gospel when scientists are still using conjecture.

It's like any other Liberal dogma. Head start helps kids. There's a glass ceiling keeping women from the top jobs. Bilingual education is the best way to prepare illegal - er, undocumented - immigrant kids to find good jobs in America, etc. etc.

It's not the evidence that counts. It's that if you disagree, you've proved yourself to be a hater.

[Trailerpark Badass]

OK, answer me this. I've been looking (OK, not that hard, but I've been looking) to find estimates on the total volume/mass of dissolved CO2 in the atmosphere. And I've been looking for values of how much dissolved CO2 human activity puts into the atmosphere per year. And also, how that rate had changed over the last ten or so years.

Without firm and consensus estimates on those figures, I don't see how any serious person can say that human activity is doing anything to affect global average temperatures.

But you seem to believe that. Can you point me to reliable estimates on the values I mentioned above?

[Free Vulcan]

Heard another good one the other day. How does the minute amount of CO2 in our atmosphere retain all that energy from the sun? How can the energy capacity of CO2 be geometrically that much higher than oxygen, nitrogen, etc.?

Another thing, in commercial greenhouses, they double the level of CO2 in order to get the growth and production they want. Wouldn't higher levels of CO2 just be offset by plant growth?

[Vanders9]

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


It could very well do. The point is that the AVERAGE temperature of the Earth is increasing. That doesn't mean every part is just 1 degree warmer...for instance...if the ice melts, the relative salinity of the oceans could change, that might divert the gulf stream, which might mean northern europe would get colder. The world and its climate is a very complex system.

[Vanders9]

However, environmental reasoning has an oddly religious quality to it...


Now THAT is true!
Theres an old adage that when people stop believing in God, they dont just start believing in nothing. Rather, they start to believe in EVERYTHING.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I strongly suspect that if you were to ask Ellen Goodman to site one reason to believe that the Earth is round, she would be unable to offer anything more cogent than "Because experts say it is."

She learned in grade school that the Earth is round so she believes it. The nuns told her so. Her belief in global warming is likewise based on recourse to authority.

I do not know what to make of Global Warming Theory, there is no there there. No coherent set of consistent testable hypotheses. GWT has more patches, deus ex machina and ad hoc explanations than a seven year old trying to explain why the cookie jar lay smashed on grandma's kitchen floor.

Karl Popper in the 1930's famously critized psychoanalysis as an ideology rather than a scientific theory. GW behaves more like an ideology than a scientific theory; it is extremely robust with respect to data. All observations confirm it with probability 1.0.

Ask Ellen Goodman what observations would refute Global Warming Theory. She won't even understand the question.

[Vanders9]

I'll respond!

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

Because, very simply, it was warmer in Newfoundland and Greenland 1000 years ago than it is today. That doesnt mean that the average temperature isn't increasing now, which is the point at issue.


Why are the icecaps of Mars shrinking?

I have absolutely no idea. I suspect, as no one has ever gone there to check, that no one else does either. That doesn't mean temperatures arent increasing on Earth as well though.


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

Again, no idea. Probably the Sun is pumping more heat out. Again, doesn't mean that Human activity isnt increasing temperature on Earth though. External factors are MORE responsible, but we could be making the effect worse.


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

It isn't, of course. But the same answer as above holds true.

[listenhillary]

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

Show me the science that supports your statement.

[ExGeeEye]

My question is: would it be a disaster* for the climate to return, via warming back up to the level it was then, to a point where there could be vineyards in Newfoundland and grain in Greenland?

Seems like we've been there, done that, got over it, and survived (even the pore'ol'polar bears), and could do it again.

Just a thought.

*or would it, in fact, be a blessing?

[xcamel]

FReepmail me to get on or off
Click on graphic for full GW rundown

~ posted several times ~

[Vanders9]

Well that's a very pertinent point. There would be advantages to the Earth being warmer.

I'm a humble biologist, not a climate expert, but I was always taught that plant growth needed Carbon dioxide, water, sunlight and nitrates. Any could be in short supply, but usually the limiting factor was Carbon dioxide. If theres more about and the climate is warmer, then it follows there will be more plant growth and longer growing seasons. Could be quite a plus!

[Vanders9]

Logically, Human activity must have SOME effect. If we are pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere, and cutting down trees, producing radioactive waste etc etc, it must count for something...

Personally I think all that Mankind does is dwarfed by other factors but what we do must make some difference. I rate chaos theory.

[shove_it]

Instead of trying to halt global warming, here's an argument for encouraging it:

http://www.dondodd.com/walker/bruce.html

[Dinah Lord]

Global Warming: Brought to you by the same people who brought you Y2K...

[ExSoldier]

There are real reasons to think that global warming is real.

Perhaps, but I think the dispute lies in a politically driven agenda behind the rush to assert that humanity is responsible and further that unless draconian measures are instantly incorporated (like ratifying Kyoto) we're DOOMED! DOOMED!

The fact is that the Earth routinely goes thru climate changes. Some of the warming trends in the past were much warmer than what we face today. The assertion that man made chemicals are causing the cycles to accelerate is simply a convenient fiction. I also dispute the crisis of the so called Peak Oil Theory. Oil isn't dead dinosaurs. It is manufactured deep in the earth's mantle and forced outward by the centrifugal spin of the planet. Every year, including last year, the naysayers have bleated the imminent depletion of all oil resources and use that coupled with global warming to force society into their vision of nirvana. AKA the NWO. Anytime the fanatic lefties start trumpeting their alarms....mine go off. Not in reaction to their issues but to them. It simply illustrates the ultimate conflict between good and evil.

The lefties like to assert that it's alright to kill the unborn and let the murderer go free and to engage in all sorts of hedonistic practices in the name of pleasure simply because they refuse to admit the sovereignty of God. If they do that, their house of cards comes tumbling down. In their growing numbers (lefty whackos and their blind followers) I see the legions of soldiers who will worship the AntiChrist as a god. That time is thundering closer and closer in the hoofbeats of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Shhhhh! Listen. Hear them?

[norwaypinesavage]

" that's just flat wrong."

Your opinion is welcome on this forum. However, I refuse to involve myself in religious debates.

[Iam1ru1-2]

"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."

You are looking at things through Earthbound eyes. It has been shown that the temperature of the Sun has risen, and is responsible for the increase in temperatures in the polar regions and the extreme weather variances. Another factor that influences the Earth is the decreased magnetic field around the Earth. Some say we are in the midst of a polar shift - an area near Antarctica which has no population is experiencing a polar shift which gives some scientists to believe that this is just the beginning of a world wide phenomenon. So taking all these factors into consideration, there is no basis in fact that it is the Earth's surface itself is heating up because of human influence. The Mt. Pinatubo eruption spewed more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than all the pollution that man has spewed in the entire history of Earth, and that's not counting all the other volcanoes that have erupted or are erupting as I write. I'm afraid Mr. algore's reason for spewing this disinformation is to make money off his global warming book. Remember he's the one who said that Bill Klintoon is the greatest president we've ever had.