Global Warming Is 'Very Real for Us,' Palin Says

Associated Press ^ | April 14, 2009 | Kim Murphy

[Free ThinkerNY]

(AP) — ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin acknowledged Tuesday that global warming was harming her state but said stepped-up natural-gas production could mitigate its effects.

Speaking at a hearing before Interior Secretary Ken Salazar -- the third of several he is holding to consider renewed oil and gas leasing on the Outer Continental Shelf -- Palin said that relatively clean-burning natural gas could supplant dirtier fuels and slow the discharge of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

"We Alaskans are living with the changes that you are observing in Washington," she said. "The dramatic decreases in the extent of summer sea ice, increased coastal erosion, melting of permafrost, decrease in alpine glaciers and overall ecosystem changes are very real to us."

[what's up]

Quote from Palin last Fall:

In an interview for the September issue of the conservative magazine Newsmax, Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, said she does not believe climate change is caused by human behavior. “A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made

She's one of those who believes the earth is warming due to cycles, but does not attribute it to humans.

[libh8er]

...just don’t start assuming it’s caused by humans.

[Aaron0617]

Fox Forces Climate Crap on "24" (Rush: "that dunce Chloe")

Will be an interesting Rush show tomorrow.

[Humal]

We were on a trip to Alaska last year, and we went to the Mendenhall Glacier. The guide said that it was receding. When I asked “why, was it global warming, man-made global warming”, he said they don't know for sure. All they know is that it is receding.

[SoCalPol]

No one is really reading what she said.

(renewed oil and gas leasing on the Outer Continental Shelf — Palin said that relatively clean-burning natural gas could supplant dirtier fuels and slow the discharge of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere)

There is a reality to this.

Some of your Third Party folks are into global warming,
deal with it.

[St. Louis Conservative]

Nah. She only believes in a hoax if she said she believed global warming is man-made, which I don’t believe she did.

It’s undeniable that the earth continually warms and cools over time; it’s totally natural, but it happens.

[goodnesswins]

The Glacier has been receding for years.....so what! Used to be there were glaciers all over North America...and, Canada was a tropical paradise.....the EARTH changes....and we can’t control it....only deal with it.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Since this comes from the Ass. Press, I’ll just withhold my judgment for now. I’m pretty sure Governor Palin is a lot smarter than this.

[MadelineZapeezda]

lol

[ETL]

There is no evidence that CO2 has ever caused significant warming on Earth, at least not when the concentrations were within 10-15 times of what they are today. Water vapor is, by far, the most important greenhouse gas in the Earth system. Water vapor accounts for about 95% of the greenhouse effect on Earth. -etl

THE ACQUITTAL OF CARBON DIOXIDE
by Jeffrey A. Glassman, PhD

ABSTRACT:

"Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere [historically] is the product of oceanic respiration due to the well-known but under-appreciated solubility pump. Carbon dioxide rises out of warm ocean waters where it is added to the atmosphere. There it is mixed with residual and accidental CO2, and circulated, to be absorbed into the sink of the cold ocean waters. Next the thermohaline circulation carries the CO2-rich sea water deep into the ocean. A millennium later it appears at the surface in warm waters, saturated by lower pressure and higher temperature, to be exhausted back into the atmosphere. Throughout the past 420 millennia, comprising four interglacial periods, the Vostok record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is imprinted with, and fully characterized by, the physics of the solubility of CO2 in water, along with the lag in the deep ocean circulation.

Notwithstanding that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, atmospheric carbon dioxide has neither caused nor amplified global temperature increases. Increased carbon dioxide has been an effect of global warming, not a cause. Technically, carbon dioxide is a lagging proxy for ocean temperatures. When global temperature, and along with it, ocean temperature rises, the physics of solubility causes atmospheric CO2 to increase.

If increases in carbon dioxide, or any other greenhouse gas, could have in turn raised global temperatures, the positive feedback would have been catastrophic. While the conditions for such a catastrophe were present in the Vostok record from natural causes, the runaway event did not occur. Carbon dioxide does not accumulate in the atmosphere."

http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/10/co2_acquittal.html
_______________________________________________________________

The graph above represents temperature and CO2 levels over the past 400,000 years. It is the same exact data Al Gore and the rest of the man-made global warmers refer to. The blue line is temps, the red, CO2 levels. The deep valleys represent 4 separate glaciation/ice-age periods. Look carefully at this historical relationship between temps and CO2 levels (the present is on the right hand side of the graph) and keep in mind that Gore claims this data is the 'proof' that CO2 has warmed the earth in the past. But does the data indeed show this? Nope. In fact, rising CO2 levels all throughout this 400,000-year period actually *followed* temperature increases -lagging behind by an average of 800 years! So it couldn't have been CO2 that got Earth out of these past glaciations. Yet Gore continually and dishonestly claims otherwise. Furthermore, the subsequent CO2 level increases due to dissolved CO2 being released from warming oceans, never did lead to additional warming, the so-called "run-away greenhouse effect" that Al Gore and his friends keep warning us about. In short, there is little if any evidence that CO2 had ever led to increased warming, at least not when the levels were within 10-15 times of what they are today. -etl
_______________________________________________________________

"The above chart shows the range of global temperature through the last 500 million years. There is no statistical correlation between the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through the last 500 million years and the temperature record in this interval. In fact, one of the highest levels of carbon dioxide concentration occurred during a major ice age that occurred about 450 million years ago [Myr]. Carbon dioxide concentrations at that time were about 15 times higher than at present." [also see 180 million years ago, same thing happened]:
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=010405M
_______________________________________________________________

So, greenhouse [effect] is all about carbon dioxide, right?

Wrong. The most important players on the greenhouse stage are water vapor and clouds [clouds of course aren't gas, but high level ones do act to trap heat from escaping, while low-lying cumulus clouds tend to reflect sunlight and thereby help cool the planet -etl]. Carbon dioxide has been increased to about 0.038% of the atmosphere (possibly from about 0.028% pre-Industrial Revolution) while water in its various forms ranges from 0% to 4% of the atmosphere and its properties vary by what form it is in and even at what altitude it is found in the atmosphere.

In simple terms the bulk of Earth's greenhouse effect is due to water vapor by virtue of its abundance. Water accounts for about 90% of the Earth's greenhouse effect -- perhaps 70% is due to water vapor and about 20% due to clouds (mostly water droplets), some estimates put water as high as 95% of Earth's total tropospheric greenhouse effect (e.g., Freidenreich and Ramaswamy, 'Solar Radiation Absorption by Carbon Dioxide, Overlap with Water, and a Parameterization for General Circulation Models,' Journal of Geophysical Research 98 (1993):7255-7264).

The remaining portion comes from carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, ozone and miscellaneous other 'minor greenhouse gases.' As an example of the relative importance of water it should be noted that changes in the relative humidity on the order of 1.3-4% are equivalent to the effect of doubling CO2.

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/
_______________________________________________________________

Water Vapor Rules the Greenhouse System

Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect (4). Interestingly, many 'facts and figures' regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impacts as much as 20-fold.

Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases (CFC's, etc.), are also mostly of natural origin (except for the latter, which is mostly anthropogenic).

Human activities contribute slightly to greenhouse gas concentrations through farming, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation. However, these emissions are so dwarfed in comparison to emissions from natural sources we can do nothing about, that even the most costly efforts to limit human emissions would have a very small-- perhaps undetectable-- effect on global climate.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
_______________________________________________________________

Water Vapor Confirmed As Major Player In Climate Change

ScienceDaily (Nov. 18, 2008) — Water vapor is known to be Earth's most abundant greenhouse gas, but the extent of its contribution to global warming has been debated. Using recent NASA satellite data, researchers have estimated more precisely than ever the heat-trapping effect of water in the air, validating the role of the gas as a critical component of climate change.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081117193013.htm

[Sarah Barracuda]

I don’t know anything about this whole “Global Warming” debate. To me it doesn’t exist, it’s all made up by the left, but of course I’m not familiar with this at all so I have no understanding of it. Sarah knows what’s going on in her state, so she has more knowledge of this then I would ever have

[Tenacious 1]

I believe in global warming and global cooling. I believe the global climate in earth is in constant flux.

I don’t believe humans have any significant affect to this proven natural process of warming and cooling of the planet.

[SoCalPol]

Thank you, finally an adult has posted

[Mojave]

She's one of those who believes the earth is warming due to cycles, but does not attribute it to humans.

Then how could "stepped-up natural-gas production" act to "mitigate its effects"?

[massmike]

Sarah!!!!You broke my heart!!!!

[ChildOfThe60s]

Palin said that relatively clean-burning natural gas could supplant dirtier fuels and slow the discharge of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere

Fossil fuels are not causing warming. Cleaner fuels are always better, but not for that reason. Man is not causing warming. As a matter of fact, it isn't warming.

Goebbels lives on.

[woofie]

Does she say who invented Global Warming?

[Kirkwood]

There is certainly evidence that the sun drives warming on other planets in the solar system that correlate with warming here.

[libh8er]

I went on a short cruise around Holgate Glacier (Kenai Fjords NP) which is just south of Seward back in 2001. We could see glacier “calving”, that is huge chunks of ice crashing onto the ocean making loud booming noises. The tour guide said ice retreat had speeded up in recent times, but Global Warming was not mentioned as a cause. Of course this was only the early months of the Bush administration and liberals hadn’t yet introduced Global Warming to the public discourse.

[Kent C]

No, she’s not ‘technically correct’ as one poster seems to think. The earth is not warming but in the last decade it’s cooling and the longer term span that the ecowackos assert, is based on data and computer models that were cooked and fit to match their dreams.

Palin should know this and the fact that she doesn’t indicates an absense of information that is necessary to defeat the Left on this issue. When you buy the premise, they’ve got you. No amount of ‘agreement’ with their principles matter. We learned that with McCain. Let’s not make _that_ mistake again.