Making it sound like CO2 rises are unprecedented and leaping to the conclusion that CO2 causes temps to rise is not good logic.
Posted on 11/11/2007 7:28:52 PM PST by kathsua
Why do they buy the nonsense about alleged greenhouse gases causing dangerous global warming? The claim about the power of greenhouse gases sounds like magic and the evidence for “global warming” is of little value.
Those who talk about global warming claim a 0.5 C (1 F) increase in what they call the global average temperature indicates the earth is getting warmer. You don’t have to be a mathematician or physicist to recognize that one temperature cannot represent every place on earth from frigid polar regions to blazing deserts. Nor can a single temperature represent year round conditions in temperate regions where temperatures can range from -18 C (0 F) in the winter to 35 C (100 F) in the summer.
The claim that a 0.5 C (1 F) increase is significant ignores the fact that the number represents only a 0.17% change over a century. (Note: Per cent changes in temperature must be calculated using the Kelvin scale because of the arbitrary zero points of the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales.) Scientists might be able to obtain an accuracy within 0.17% in laboratory conditions, but not in the real world. Inadequate maintenance of equipment can reduce accuracy. Changes in the area near the site of the reading can affect temperatures.
Carbon dioxide constitutes less than 0.04% of the atmosphere. How can anyone believe that an increase from 0.036% to 0.037%, for example, could possibly increase air temperature?
One of the oldest scams in physics involves the perpetual motion machine. Such machines supposedly operate with little or not energy. The inventor may claim that his machine may produce nearly as much energy as it consumes. Claims about greenhouse gases imply they cause the atmosphere to function as a perpetual motion machine.
The idea that individual CO2 molecules can actually radiate enough energy to heat anything sounds so ridiculous that it’s hard to understand how any logical person could believe it.
Police will tell you that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Scam artists tend to oversell whatever they are peddling. The people who claim global warming, are overselling claims about climate change and gullible journalists are buying what they are selling.
Why can’t this problem be solved by better sealing of greenhouses? Don’t let the gas out, no problem with the gas.
I took earth science for 2 years only because I never did homework. I loved that class otherwise.
Reporters study journalism and social sciences and are not required to have even one Freshman level science course in their curriculum. Reporters have so much liberal arts pumped up their rectums they only spew reverse peristaltic material. Most reporters can't tell the difference between DNA and a phone book.
In the post-journalism days of academia, they were all tough that only bad news sells. In parallel, the left-drifting liberal socialist left has picked up on the same basic core theme, and made bad news and negativism their mantra and purpose for existence (to cure it all). There really is no true, comprehensive journalism any more. The MSM, in all its grotesque beauty, has morphed into a propoganda machine for the dark side of anti-truth as their chosen destiny.
Yes, I am old enough to remember the days when there were REAL investigative journalists that were so good at their craft, they would have hung the Clintons in their first four years of crime in the White House, and put them behind bars....but that is all behind us now as the MSM fawns over these and the other mob bosses of the Beltway. All of it, an ugly sign of things to come for what was once America.
Readers’ Digest condensed version:
1. Ultra liberal profs
2. “advocacy journalism”
3. No “real world” knowledge. There are many TV reporters in their jobs simply because they want to be “on TV.”
4. The more outrageous a story, the better chance you have of getting extra air time (”face time”)
5. Liberal organizations and people, especially the ones who profit hugely from their “cause” (many environmental and anti-war groups.. You don’t think Al Gore, Jane Fonda or Patty Shehan come for free, do you?) work very hard a developing close contacts with the media, while the Conservative groups adopt a ‘screw the media” attitude.
They are not gullible. They are socialists.
>>>>The inventor may claim that his (perpetual motion) machine may produce nearly as much energy as it consumes
Actually they claim the machine produces the same as or more energy than it consumes.
Producing NEARLY as much would just mean it would slow down slowly.
Why do I put it like that? If they were only concerned with the quality of the environment, they would not approve of giving China or India a pass from the pollution they cause. In fact, they give the entire third world a pass. Tellingly, who do they expect should be the first to obey the most stringent standards? The English-speaking world and developed parts of Europe.
Further, they see no conflict in ever-increasing environmental standards in the US even when that means that net world pollution increases when the US imports raw materials instead of producing them locally.
Based not on their words, or the stories and people they champion, but the net effect, the goal is not to improve the environment but to reduce US power and prosperity while increasing the power of groups they approve of.
There is also a measure of what I call “co-credentiallying”, which is where environmental group A gives reporter B an award for his “hard hitting” reporting. Reporter B later speaks very highly of environmental group C. Group C gives an award to reporter D. And so on, in one big, festival of self-elevation.
When this process is mature in some area, like so-called “Global Warming”, people like AlGore can claim the “weight of consensus” on the topic by just counting groups and their staff that all agree.
There is no scientific perpetual motion machine error. The whole system runs for now, while the sun shines. When the sunshine stops, the weather stops, the earth freezes, and it’s game over.
For now, water vapor, CO2, methane, and some other compounds are greenhouse gases. All else equal, an increase in CO2 will just automatically make for an increase in temperature. A 50% increase in CO2 from the time before the industrial revolution is significant. Heaping ridicule on the idea that it might cause a half-degree increase in world average temperature is not good logic. It’s also a mistake to say that we just cannot measure temperatures that accurately. The science of thermometers is very well understood, and the mathematics of taking the average of a lot of data points is understood too. In fact, taking averages tends to average out whatever errors there may be in the data.
in the u.s. journalists are trained at “j-schools”
which originated in the 1960’s.
they’re usually separate colleges within a university; so, they’re isolated from other colleges’ requirements—
like physics, math, chemistry, latin, greek, history, etc.
j-school courses are a snap.
that bidness chick with the blue eyes is DUMB AS A ROCK... but it is fun to watch here talk about capital gains and rising interest..... double entendres are always fun.
~~ AGW™ ping~~
Because “D” grades land one in Journalism schools.
I've met quite a few people who were easily gulled, and were socialists, myself.
Gullible???
That’s their agenda!! - They understand very well that “global warming” is simply a tool to control people, take their money, and shove socialism down our throats.
Actually the science behind it is simple, even simple enough for reporters to grasp...
CO2 molecules don’t radiate energy. Depending on the density of an atmosphere, the sun’s energy hits the surface of a planet. some of that energy is absorbed by the atmosphere. Some of that energy is absorbed by the planet. And some of it is reflected back out into space.
The key is that the denser atmosphere acts as an insulator, absorbing more energy on the way in, and allowing less of the energy to be radiated back into space. CO2 is denser than the normal molecular Nitrogen/Oxygen mixture that primarily makes up our atmosphere. The greater the percentage of CO2, the denser the atmosphere, especially at ground level.
Do I buy the whole “global warming” thing? Well, sort of... I believe that we’re in a natural warming phase of the planet, possibly caused by recent sun storm activity, or possibly by the simple natural cyclic variance of the climate on the earth.
Do I believe that we can control “global warming?” Uh... No.
Mark
But do I buy that
Global warming to a T.
As one who has spent years in the newspaper business and radio broadcasting-you nailed it.
Making it sound like CO2 rises are unprecedented and leaping to the conclusion that CO2 causes temps to rise is not good logic.
You can't use info from "an inconvenient truth" here. This isn't du or the nyt. Please enlighten us as to the science behind this claim. There are counter claims that warming releases co2 from the oceans and that the increase in co2 trails the warming.
Also did you miss the correction that NOAA did on temperature data recently? Seems 1934 was the warmest year on record, not 1995. You also must have missed the gentleman who was posting pictures of NOAA's temperature recording stations, on jet runways, near incinerators, in blacktop parking lots.
"All else equal" = false assumption, as many factors are interrelated and interdependent, and "all else" is NEVER equal in climatology.
A 50% increase in CO2 from the time before the industrial revolution is significant. Heaping ridicule on the idea that it might cause a half-degree increase in world average temperature is not good logic.
False premise = false conclusion.
It’s also a mistake to say that we just cannot measure temperatures that accurately. The science of thermometers is very well understood, and the mathematics of taking the average of a lot of data points is understood too. In fact, taking averages tends to average out whatever errors there may be in the data.
Errors do not "average out" when the instruments themselves are rarely checked or calibrated, and where collecting errors have been ascertained through actual verification measurement, almost invariably have been skewing the temperatures in only one direction - upwards.
Welcome, newbie, if you're genuinely exploring the science of global climatology - but no welcome extended if you're here simply to spout half-baked notions you've picked up from the Gore-acle. You will find that FR is one place where you won't get to spew crap unchallenged.
I keep waiting for the one to answer, "I want to report the news."
A look at a little longer period of earth's history sort of breaks down any simplistic assumptions
about a correlation between CO2 levels and temperature.
Late Carboniferous to Early Permian time (315 mya -- 270 mya) is the only time period in the last 600 million
years when both atmospheric CO2 and temperatures were as low as they are today (Quaternary Period ).
I agree. I don't know what this writer is thinking of by invoking the concept. The criticism seems incoherent.
Heaping ridicule on the idea that it might cause a half-degree increase in world average temperature is not good logic.
Of course, ridicule is never good logic, but it is powerful rhetoric, and irresistibly attractive to many.
It’s also a mistake to say that we just cannot measure temperatures that accurately.
I think there is merit in the criticism of the average temperature concept, which has problems even aside from instrumental and operational issues. What are we taking an average temperature of? Just the air? Just the troposphere? ... the lower troposphere? What about the oceans?
All these temperatures are discussed, but it's not clear to me how they can all contribute to a single "average temperature".
Another point, if we can take a time average temperature of "the earth" or "the atmosphere", we ought to be able to take a global space average which would vary as a function of time. Does the "average temperature" rise at perihelion? What is the time variation, on a scale of hours or days, of the space average? I think this would be scientifically interesting if you did have a scientifically coherent definition of an "average temperature".
The problem is that it's easy to define an average over whatever data is at hand, but a lot harder to establish the physical significance of this kind of heterogeneous data.
Courses from the Dan Rather Correspondence School of Repurting:
Interviewing techniques 101– Easy ways to make people look bad (Like, turn off the air conditioning so they sweat)
Selective Editing 201 – Taking out the parts where you accidentally made them look good
Accuracy and Verification 333 – Everybody pretty much skips this course
Techniques of Omission 158 - How to deal with information that contradicts your story
Fortune Telling 202 – Very popular course
Journalism Ethics 264 - Course cancelled for lack of interest
Document creation 341 - Back up your stories with great-looking “originals” that will pass close scrutiny
CYA In Case You Are Caught 301 - My 92-year-old aunt will vouch for you (She is an expert witness and needs the money)
Because they’re hoping to tell people something everybody doesn’t already know — even if they have no idea what they are talking about, and have been told.
“God, just let me be the first to know something for once in my life.”
They are enamored of the messengers. They consider Algore a brilliant man, and he’s a Democrat, so if he says it, it must be true. No one ever accused Journalism students of the being the brightest lights in college.
Yeah...3% is nothing, eh?
Of course, it was 0.0278% back in 1750 and is now more than 0.038%....a 40% increase. Gee...that can't have an effect!
It's simply holding 2 watts per square meter more energy from the sun than it used to. That's increased only a full third since 1990. Nah, that can't have any impact... </sarc>
The deniers' claims are as disingenuous as the chicken littles'.
Let’s just do an energy balance. Where does all the excess energy go?
Go to a college and see who is majoring in "journalism". Lets see....sleep late, drink beer, avoid all science and math classes, whine about studying and graduate in 6 years..... Just like "education" majors.
Next question please.
The CO2 can be somehwat controlled (although very expensively) but the other greehouse gases (methane, for instance) can’t. However, the combustion of fossil fuels also puts small particles in the air and causes a reflection of sunlight approximately equal to the calculated “forcing function” of CO2 gas.
So the thinking goes.....”we’ll control the CO2, keep the fine particles, and all will be OK and you don’t have to feel guilty about driving your car or heating your home, right?
Trouble is...the CO2 scrubbers, also remove the fine particles !!!
Oh well, back to the drawing board.
It seems reporters are inheritly lazy. they just write what they WANT to believe, because real journalism would require investigation.
have you not heard the latest junk science environwacko meme?
Humans are causing climate change to happen faster.
Watch out, the junk science environwackos will say humans are causing radical climate shifts to happen four times a year...
Usually, but not necessarily, and not if the errors are systematic rather than random.
Weather stations have been, and still are, located in cities and at airports. The airports were originally located away from their cities because that's where the vacant land was. As these cities have grown larger, and particularly as the cities with airports have grown out to and around those airports, "heat islands" have been created due to more paved surfaces, more concrete, more buildings (which are heated) and fewer trees and vegetation to absorb solar radiation. You know what I mean. The weatherman on the TV says the low tonight will be 40 degrees, down to 36 in the outlying areas. That's because of this "heat island" effect. So the recorded temperatures for those locations are going to rise, but that will be a local phenomenon, not necessarily "global warming." It may happen systematically in many cities though, for the same reason.
Of course, GW may still be happening on top of the "heat island" effect, but teasing the data apart becomes difficult. I have seen this problem addressed only once in an article, and that was only in passing.
They are not “gullible.” LOL. The scum know full well what they are doing. The slime are a product of liberal schools. What do you expect?
http://newsbusters.org/issues/media-bias-debate
If a particle of atmosphere was as big as a 1/4 inch square, a million ppm would equal 20,833 lin. ft. 400ppm of CO2 would equal 8.3 lin ft or 1 CO2 particle ever 2,510 lin ft. 40,000 ppm of water vapor would equal 883 lin. ft or one ever 25 ft.
Even on the molecular level, that is a huge distance between ppm's of “greenhouse” gases
And you want me to buy into CO2 drives the climate theory?
Once the CO2 is in balance with the incoming heat energy, it is emitting as much heat energy as it is receiving.
Huh?
Think in three dimensions, and note that emission occurs both up and back down at the earth.
If a particle of atmosphere was as big as a 1/4 inch square, a million ppm would equal 20,833 lin. ft.
You're mixing volume, area, and distance...all while dealing with a three-dimensional (volumetric) system. What are you doing?
they are lazy
All we have to do now is move continents to offset the CO2.
3.225% of 380 ppm = 12 ppm. An increase of 12 molecules of CO2 out of every million molecules of atmosphere. Yet, by your figures, there has been an increase of 102 ppm CO2 since 1750. But if we are increasing it by 12 ppm every year now it should take less than ten years to increase it 102 ppm overall. Where did all that CO2 that man is creating go?
‘Propagandists might be a better term than journalists.’
Yep.
And its worth repeating study after study has shown fully 80% of the ‘media’ is registered as Democrats.
Given that, its not surprising they march lemming like to Al Gore’s insanity.
The so-called schools of journalism are run by Marxists and Stalinists. So what would make you think that they are falling for propaganda? I think they are knowingly participating in a propaganda campaign.
“They are socialists.”
Yes, but they are also: On average, 1. not terribly bright, 2. not intellectually curious, 3. poorly educated, 4. narcissistic, and 5. careerist/conformists
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