Posted on 01/22/2014 5:38:40 AM PST by Kaslin
The Hill, the newspaper that covers Congress, says this year, there will be a major policy battle over "climate change." Why?
We already waste billions on pointless gestures that make people think we're addressing global warming, but the earth doesn't notice or care.
What exactly is "global warming" anyway? That's really four questions:
1. Is the globe warming? Probably. Global temperatures have risen. Climate changes. Always has. Always will.
2. Is the warming caused by man? Maybe. There's decent evidence that at least some of it is.
3. But is global warming a crisis? Far from it. It's possible that it will become a crisis. Some computer models suggest big problems, but the models aren't very accurate. Some turned out to be utterly wrong. Clueless scaremongers like Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Cal., seize on weather disasters to blame man's carbon output. After Oklahoma's tragic tornadoes last year, Boxer stood on the floor of the Senate and shrieked, "Carbon could cost us the planet!" But there were actually fewer tornadoes last summer.
4. If the globe is warming, can America do anything about it? No. What we do now is pointless. I feel righteous riding my bike to work. That's just shallow. Even if all Americans replaced cars with bicycles, switched to fluorescent light bulbs, got solar water heaters, etc., it would have no discernible effect on the climate. China builds a new coal-fueled power plant almost every week; each one obliterates any carbon reduction from all our windmills and solar panels.
Weirdly, the only thing that's reduced America's carbon output has been our increased use of natural gas (it releases less greenhouse gas than oil and coal). But many environmentalists fight the fracking that produces it.
Someday, we'll probably invent technology that could reduce man's greenhouse gas creation, but we're nowhere close to it now. Rather than punish poor people with higher taxes on carbon and award ludicrous subsidies to Al Gore's "green" investments, we should wait for the science to advance.
If serious warming happens, we can adjust, as we've adjusted to big changes throughout history. It will be easier to adjust if America is not broke after wasting our resources on trendy gimmicks like windmills.
Environmental activists say that if we don't love their regulations, we "don't care about the earth." Bunk. We can love nature and still hate the tyranny of bureaucrats' rules.
We do need some rules. It's good that government built sewage treatment plants. Today, the rivers around Manhattan are so clean that I swim in them. It's good that we forced industry to stop polluting the air. Scrubbers in smokestacks and catalytic converters on cars made our lives better. The air gets cleaner every time someone replaces an old car with a new one.
But those were measures against real pollution -- soot, particulates, sulfur, etc. What global warming hysterics want to fight is merely carbon dioxide. That's what plants breathe. CO2 may prove to be a problem, but we don't know that now.
The world has real problems, though: malaria, malnutrition, desperate poverty. Our own country, while relatively rich, is deep in debt. Obsessing about greenhouse gases makes it harder to address these more serious problems.
Environmentalists assume that as people get richer and use more energy, they pollute more. The opposite is true. As nations industrialize, they pay more attention to pollution. Around the world, it's the most prosperous nations that now have the cleanest air and water.
Industrialization allows people to use fewer resources. Instead of burning trees for power, we make electricity from natural gas. We figure out how to get more food from smaller pieces of land. And one day we'll probably even invent energy sources more efficient than oil and gas. We'll use them because they're cost-effective, not because government forces us to.
So let's chill out about global warming. We don't need more micromanagement from government. We need less.
Then free people -- and rapidly increasing prosperity -- will create a better world.
Correct. It is a religious cult; it is not a scientific movement.
Will you please read them again, very carefully, and then point out the lies for those of us who can not find them?
Thanks.
The ban on atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons spelled the beginning of the end for all humankind.
The particulate matter such testing spewed in to the upper atmosphere was helping to keep global warming at bay.
Following the ban, it took more than 50 years for the positive effects of atmospheric nuclear testing to dissipate; but now that they have diminished to near zero the planet will be so hot as to be unlivable by the year 2050. If want to save the earth we MUST bring back above-ground testing of nuclear weapons!
That is my theory. I LOVE my theory. I shall entertain NO arguments against it, no matter how factual they may be, and no matter how much evidence to the contrary is presented!
CO2 is NOT a greenhouse gas, and according to geologic record it increases in the atmosphere 400-800 years AFTER the warming.
I believe you but I also know that globull warming is just an organized scam against man... the largest ever conceived and its end is one of the transfer of wealth and power to one class of ruling elite.
#1 THERE HAS BEEN NO WARMING IN THE PAST 17 YEARS
#2 IF THERE HAS BEEN NO WARMING IN 17 YEARS, MAN COULD NOT POSSIBLY CAUSE IT
Sorry, still don’t see any LIES.
What exactly is “global warming” anyway? That’s really four questions:
1. Is the globe warming? *******Probably********(Lie). Global temperatures have risen**********(Lie). Climate changes. Always has. Always will.
2. Is the warming caused by man? Maybe. There’s decent evidence that at least some of it is*********(Lie).
"Maybe. There's decent evidence that at least some of it is" qualifies as an expression of opinion. Sort of like YOUR opinion that "man could not possibly" cause it.
I believe the truth of hard evidence and all hard evidence points to weather stations placed so as to increase the temps that they record, data massaged for the same end (hockey stick East Anglia) and peer reviewed data that is based on all falsified data. You are free to believe whatever you want to believe but even the head climatologist from MIT is calling out these criminal con men.
Thank you for bestowing my freedoms on me.
If you read my postings here, you might find that I am, for the most part, in agreement with you - uo to the point where you called John Stossel a liar.
Which I am more than free to do. I bestowed nothing... I just do not want to argue with you over this... you will not change my mind and I am not going to change yours. Therefore I see no reason to continue in a circular argument. We can see things differently and still be fellow FReepers. My name is not Cuomo.
Good! Neither is mine.
Have a nice day.
You too my friend.
I think our point is that had you read the rest of the article, you would see that essentially, we are all in agreement with the conclusions in the article. Stossel is on our side!
Which, of course, is exactly what the liberals want to do. They would rather rant about climate change than explain how they plan to deal with the national debt or Obamacare.
Ok, I’ll go read it as soon as I get home from work. Thanks.
Report: Obama can advance climate agenda without Congress
UN: Global prosperity is causing global warming
Global Warming on Free Republic
To say some scientific claim is a "lie" means there is "proof" which automatically means it is not science, but dogma.
Good points. We can’t really do anything about greenhouse gases without draconian measures. And we shouldn’t really try to. If there is any warming, or sea level rising, whether it be of natural or man made causes, we should adapt.
So far, we haven’t see anything like what the models predict.
Don’t give up your freedom to a bunch of liberals who want to rule the world. They’re not half as bright as they think they are.
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