[IceBreaker]

Media climate

Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican and chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, will hold a full committee hearing tomorrow on "Climate Change and the Media."

The hearing will look at how the media has presented scientific evidence regarding predictions of human-caused catastrophic global warming, the senator's office said.

"Senator Inhofe believes that poorly conceived policy decisions will result from the media's nonstop hyping of 'extreme scenarios' and dire climate predictions," said committee Communications Director Marc Morano. "This hearing will serve to advance the interests of sound science and encourage rational policy decisions."
Among those who are scheduled to testify at the hearing are geologist David Deming of the University of Oklahoma; paleoclimate researcher Bob Carter of Australia's James Cook University; Dan Gainor of the Business & Media Institute; Naomi Oreskes of the University of California at San Diego and professor Daniel Schrag of Harvard University.

The hearing will be held at 9:30 a.m. in 406 Dirksen Senate Office Building. It can be watched live on the Internet at U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.



Inside Politics�-�Nation/Politics�-�The Washington Times, America's Newspaper


it will be interesting to see this hearing, I'm sure this will rile up the global warming enthusiasts/doomsdayers who can't stand to see their ideology challenged.

[macintologist]

The media has done a terrible job of covering climate change. All reputable climatologists agree that global warming is happening, given the link between increased CO2 and increased temperature over history.

There's no "controversy" other than scientifically-ignorant media personalities calling themselves scientifically-knowledagble. Same thing with the evolution "debate".

[ShortcutToMoncton]

I certainly don't mind to see "my ideology" challenged. I seem to be a little confused over this, though – because to my mind, scientific literature is far more pessimistic about future events than the public media is. As well, why is this even an issue – they're examining "how the media is portraying climate science?" How about "how the media is portraying the war," or any other number of more-relevant issues? It's clearly just an attempt by a guy who doesn't believe in global warming (Imhofe).

I see that the committee includes the usual balance of anti-global-warming-and-liberal (the first three) and the pro-global-warming crowd (the last two). Should be interesting.

greg

[King Bob On The Cob]

So far the dire predictions from the scientific community have fallen flat. Yes, The climate is warming, yes, the CO2 in the atmosphere is going up, but the worst case scenarios are not what's happening, There's about 3 degrees C difference between what was predicted 10 years ago and what is actually happening. We're getting to a point where the US is sick of depending on Middle East oil, so we'll more likely than not, go green within 15 years.

[tie]

Originally Posted by King Bob On The Cob 

Yes, The climate is warming, yes, the CO2 in the atmosphere is going up, but the worst case scenarios are not what's happening.

I don't think anyone necessarily expects the worst-case scenarios to happen. That's why they are the worst-case scenarios. There's a range of predicted scenarios, from worst- to best-case, with the most likely possibilities somewhere in the middle.

Sorry, I really understand your post.

[King Bob On The Cob]

Originally Posted by tie 

I don't think anyone necessarily expects the worst-case scenarios to happen. That's why they are the worst-case scenarios. There's a range of predicted scenarios, from worst- to best-case, with the most likely possibilities somewhere in the middle.

Sorry, I really understand your post.

Yes, but the media likes covering the worst-case. Anyways, according to the class I took last semester, we're not hitting the middle scenarios either, due to the fact that the largest producer of CO2 (The US, for now) has gotten pretty energy conscious and isn't putting out the CO2 that they were expecting. Even the SUVs of today are about as energy efficient as the regular cars from the early 90s when the statistics I'm talking about, came from.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

That's bunk.

greg

[black bear theory]

Originally Posted by King Bob On The Cob 

Even the SUVs of today are about as energy efficient as the regular cars from the early 90s when the statistics I'm talking about, came from.

but there are more of them now than in the early '90's. us vehicle emissions are 5% of global CO2 output. us coal and other power plants produce 20% of the world's total CO2 for a sum 25%.

if that's energy conscious/efficient, i'd hate to see the nation at it's most wastefull.

[Nicko]

Originally Posted by black bear theory 

but there are more of them now than in the early '90's. us vehicle emissions are 5% of global CO2 output. us coal and other power plants produce 20% of the world's total CO2 for a sum 25%.

if that's energy conscious/efficient, i'd hate to see the nation at it's most wastefull.

It's not the just the US. China builds the equivalent of ONE coal plant a week, every week. The emissions from these coal plants don't stay in China either, they drift across the Pacific.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Inhofe's Last Stand

Little article about the hearing. They seem amused.

greg

[IceBreaker]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

Inhofe's Last Stand

Little article about the hearing. They seem amused.

greg

Media Shows Irrational Hysteria on Global Warming
a link highlighting the media/global warming myths discussed.

revelent excerpt:

"There is an overwhelming bias today in the media regarding the issue of global warming. In the past two years, this bias has bloomed into an irrational hysteria. Every natural disaster that occurs is now linked with global warming, no matter how tenuous or impossible the connection. As a result, the public has become vastly misinformed."

[demograph68]

(kinda off-topic) Is there truth to Milankovitch cycles being a key cause to global warming?

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Originally Posted by IceBreaker 

Media Shows Irrational Hysteria on Global Warming
a link highlighting the media/global warming myths discussed.

revelent excerpt:

"There is an overwhelming bias today in the media regarding the issue of global warming. In the past two years, this bias has bloomed into an irrational hysteria. Every natural disaster that occurs is now linked with global warming, no matter how tenuous or impossible the connection. As a result, the public has become vastly misinformed."

The article I posted noted an "out-of-place geologist." From the comments, "it was a specific comment about David Deming, who throughout the proceedings seemed to be very unsure of why he was there or what he was being asked for. Given that sole claims to relevance on this issue is a single paper and a mysterious email from over a decade ago, I think 'out-of-place' is a valid commentary."

There is a Christian Science Monitor article that talks a little about this recent hearing by Inhofe. They have a little quote about Deming:

The University of Oklahoma's David Deming went further, arguing for a form of geo-engineering to forestall the next ice age. In a phone interview, Dr. Deming said too little is known about how the climate system works to overhaul economies in an effort to affect it. He cites the mechanisms that cause ice ages as an example. And he points to work by Richard Muller, a physicist at the University of California at Berkeley who has suggested an unusual cosmic source for cooling cycles that occur roughly every 100,000 years.

But in an interview, Dr. Muller chuckles and notes that measurements he hoped would bolster his case for periodic swings through a patch of cosmic dust as the culprit so far failed to turn up evidence of dust.

He does have misgivings about computer modeling as a forecast tool and about uncertainties in climate-change science. But given the current state of the science, "we can't rule out that a substantial portion of the warming is due to human influence," he says. "And we have a plausible mechanism that can account for the changes. If we extrapolate those forward, the effects would be bad for the US," even if Canada and Russia might like a warmer climate.

So...yeah. Not much going on there.

[black bear theory]

Originally Posted by demograph68 

(kinda off-topic) Is there truth to Milankovitch cycles being a key cause to global warming?

IIRC milankovitch cycles (there are three orbital parameters) are ~ 23,000, 40,000 and 100,000 years. they do influence climate some but couldn't account for the "sudden" changes we've seen in the past hundred years. nor would they have anything to do with CO2 concentrations.

they are more important for the long-term ice age cycles.

[OldManMac]

Inhofe is not a scientist, he is a politician, who no doubt has ties to big oil, so naturally he's going to be in a state of denial. Scientists whose research is published in peer reviewed journals, and who actually know what they're talking about, concur that global warming is becoming a bigger problem. It is inconveivable to believe that billions of people, many of whom have no regard for anyone other than themselves, don't have an effect on the environment. Do some research on China's exploding environmental issues, where increases in asthma and other respiratory illnesses are exploding, and whose massive clouds of soot are traveling the globe and being deposited everywhere. it is a global problem that is only getting worse, and keeping one's head in the sand isn't going to change that.

[black bear theory]

Inhofe gets most of his money from the oil-gas special interest. about $300K.

[IceBreaker]

Originally Posted by black bear theory 

Inhofe gets most of his money from the oil-gas special interest. about $300K.

so?

[IceBreaker]

oh, interesting link:

U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works

[Spliffdaddy]

Inhofe gets most of his money from the oil-gas special interest. about $300K.

Only if "most" translates to "20%".


"Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future…Significant [scientific] advances have been made since the [Kyoto] protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases. If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary,” the 60 scientists wrote."

Paleoclimate scientist Bob Carter has noted that there is indeed a problem with global warming – it stopped in 1998. “According to official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the UK, the global average temperature did not increase between 1998-2005. “…this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,” noted paleoclimate researcher and geologist Bob Carter of James Cook University in Australia in an April 2006 article titled “There is a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998"

excerpts from > U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works

Also available for download, a 68 page common sense guide to climate change:

http://epw.senate.gov/repwhitepapers...ld%20Media.pdf

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Bob Carter and climate change is discussed in the other thread. His assertion that climate change stopped in 1998 is completely false. His misleading arguments are also discussed in the original link I posted above.

Bob Carter is a shill.

greg

[IceBreaker]

lol you sound so serious when you talk of "climate change". relax. its a political agenda. nothin more.

[ironknee]

What global warming?

[Spliffdaddy]

What strikes me as funny is that the factual foundation of 'climate change' is quickly eroding away - just moments after the "global scientific community" reportedly reached a consensus that it was real.

Now, some of that "community's" leading proponents have jumped ship and others are distancing themselves from their past rhetoric. The rest will follow soon enough - before all the life rafts are full.

[tie]

Originally Posted by Spliffdaddy 

What strikes me as funny is that the factual foundation of 'climate change' is quickly eroding away - just moments after the "global scientific community" reportedly reached a consensus that it was real.

Now, some of that "community's" leading proponents have jumped ship and others are distancing themselves from their past rhetoric. The rest will follow soon enough - before all the life rafts are full.

I find it funnier that you can make statements like this with a straight face. Or can you?

Oh, just caught your post a few up. You are joking.

[demograph68]

Originally Posted by ironknee 

What global warming?

Same with Katrina am I right?

[Spliffdaddy]

Some of you look at me like I'm the enemy. Just the opposite, I'm here to help you. I don't want you to be wrong any longer than you have been. I will have failed you if you continue to be duped by a doomsday scenario based on utter crap. If I were truly an uncaring selfish dolt, I wouldn't say anything at all. Life is too short to be a sucker. Use your time to accomplish something meaningful. Get your ass into one of the lifeboats alongside the other ex-members of the "global scientific community". Do it soon, else I fear you will become a "Jack" from Titanic - clinging to a floating door until your "climate change" girlfriend has to pry your cold dead fingers away and let your lifeless body sink like a stone.

Folks, you don't need to be an expert to know that an email from Nigeria promising you an $11 million windfall is a scam.

[tie]

Spliffdaddy, I appreciate your concern. I was just about to donate my life savings to the Sierra Club, too.

Glad I dodged that bullet.

The problem, though, is that climate change is real. Also, as a diver, I'm concerned with ocean acidification affecting coral -- and the link between CO2 in the atmosphere and CO2 in the ocean is direct, with no fancy computer climate modeling required.

[tie]

Originally Posted by IceBreaker 

Among those who are scheduled to testify at the hearing are geologist David Deming of the University of Oklahoma; paleoclimate researcher Bob Carter of Australia's James Cook University; Dan Gainor of the Business & Media Institute; Naomi Oreskes of the University of California at San Diego and professor Daniel Schrag of Harvard University.

I thought I'd follow up on this. Here's Schrag in the Boston Globe:

I AM A climate scientist and an optimist. This may seem like a contradiction, with all the talk of scorching heat waves and bigger, deadlier hurricanes. But it's not.

Let's be clear: I am not a skeptic on climate change. In my earth science courses, I teach that burning fossil fuel is raising atmospheric carbon dioxide to levels not seen on Earth for more than 30 million years. In public lectures, I show pictures of what would happen to Florida and the Gulf Coast if half the Greenland Ice Sheet melted, asking people to imagine abandoning New Orleans and Miami. I tell people that, unless we take action to reduce emissions, the question is not whether this is going to occur, but when.

Yet I am an optimist because I believe we can fix the climate change problem. We can deploy the technologies to meet our energy needs while slashing carbon emissions: plug-in hybrids, windmills, carbon sequestration for coal plants, and even nuclear power. We have responded to larger challenges in the past, such as when FDR appropriated most of the nation's industrial capacity to build ships, tanks, and airplanes for World War II.

Unfortunately, I am a little less optimistic today than I was a couple of weeks ago, before testifying at the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. It was Senator James Inhofe's last hearing as chair of the committee, and the focus was on media coverage of global warming. I was invited by the Democratic staff to counter arguments that global warming is a hoax perpetrated on the American people by scientists like me.

Inhofe is a climate skeptic. But I still hoped I could help educate our lawmakers -- maybe not Inhofe, but perhaps some of the others. In my opening statement, I explained that global warming is not a partisan issue. America should lead the world and capitalize on an extraordinary business opportunity as we invest in new energy technologies, I said.

Then I watched in horror as Inhofe's witnesses spouted outrageous claims intended to deceive and distort. Two were scientists associated with industry-funded think tanks. They described global warming as a "mass delusion" among the scientific community, sowing confusion by misrepresenting the ice core data that connects carbon dioxide and temperature over glacial cycles, and claiming that "global warming stopped in 1998" -- an anomalously warm year. They even recommended burning as much fossil fuel as possible to prevent another ice age.

Unfortunately, the format does not allow for direct debate. Some senators defended the integrity of the scientific community, including Barbara Boxer, who will become chair of the committee in January. But amid the collegiality and decorum that is the tradition in the Senate, no one stood up and called this hearing what it was: a gathering of liars and charlatans, sponsored by those industries who want to protect their profits.

Later that day, Inhofe issued a press release that specifically highlighted my testimony, claiming that I "agreed" with him that the Kyoto Protocol "would have almost no impact on the climate even if all the nations fully complied." In fact, I had interrupted him during the hearing to object to this claim, reminding him that Kyoto was only conceived as a first step, and never as a long-term solution.

I later learned that Inhofe's communications director, Marc Morano, was a key figure in publicizing the swift boat veterans' attack on John Kerry in 2004. Morano, it seems, is still up to his old tricks, twisting the facts to support his boss's outrageous claims. This made my visit complete: a glimpse at our government that sees the world only through glasses tinted by special interests, which treats science as a political football, no matter what is at stake.

I am still an optimist. We still have time to avert a climate catastrophe. But I am not counting on government, or at least this government, to lead us toward a solution. As our leaders accept the outrageous spectacle I saw the other day as just a normal day in Congress, we will have to take the first step without them.

Daniel P. Schrag is professor of earth and planetary sciences at Harvard and director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment.

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by tie 

I thought I'd follow up on this. Here's Schrag in the Boston Globe:

My favorite parts;

- "In my opening statement, I explained that global warming is not a partisan issue."

- "I later learned that Inhofe's communications director, Marc Morano, was a key figure in publicizing the swift boat veterans' attack on John Kerry in 2004. Morano, it seems, is still up to his old tricks, twisting the facts to support his boss's outrageous claims."

Apparently this "non-partisan" climate scientist is also knowledgeable on the swift-boat veterans "attack" on John Kerry and has arrived at the truth using his expertise in scientific methodology to conclude the swift-boat veterans claims were nothing more than a twist of facts to support his boss's outrageous claims. They just can't help themselves.

Is global warming a partisan issue? Abso-freakin'-lutely. I submit Schrag as exhibit A. Thanx tie.

[Pendergast]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

Is global warming a partisan issue? Abso-freakin'-lutely. I submit Schrag as exhibit A. Thanx tie.

Respectfully, I suggest that the right question is:

Is mediatized global warming a partisan issue?

Yes. And:

Can it be used for political and financial gain?

Yes.

What we need is to rely on the facts, just the facts, and even though it is difficult to predict if it will happen, the actual facts are the most important.

[Wiskedjak]

A question for those against "global warming":

Do you believe that the planet is not warming up, or do you believe that humans are not the cause of the planet warming up?

I've seen the same people argue that global warming is natural, and then turn around and argue that it isn't happening at all. Which is it?

[osiris]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

A question for those against "global warming":

Do you believe that the planet is not warming up, or do you believe that humans are not the cause of the planet warming up?

I've seen the same people argue that global warming is natural, and then turn around and argue that it isn't happening at all. Which is it?

Maybe I'm somewhere in the middle. I never doubted the planet warming up part, but have doubted that humans are responsible. Now I'm more inclined to believe that humans are responsible IF the data produced is accurate. Those CO2 rises in the past ~100 years are imposing - but then again - how accurate is that data?

Either way, I feel there is nothing that can be done at this point, as nature will take its course whatever the stimulus. A snowball effect, if you will.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by Spliffdaddy 

Now, some of that "community's" leading proponents have jumped ship and others are distancing themselves from their past rhetoric.

Like who?

[tie]

Originally Posted by osiris 

Either way, I feel there is nothing that can be done at this point, as nature will take its course whatever the stimulus. A snowball effect, if you will.

Interesting. Most scientists are saying that there is something we can do, and the sooner we do it, the cheaper it will be in the end (and economists agree).

Edit: Link which has more links to economic analyses.

[tie]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

Is global warming a partisan issue? Abso-freakin'-lutely. I submit Schrag as exhibit A. Thanx tie.

You're welcome. IceBreaker was surprisingly quiet following up on his gathering of liars and charlatans, so I thought I'd do him a favor. All too often these threads fall off the forum without any conclusion. (BTW, Inhofe issued another press release, which Schrag referred to; see the earlier links.)

[osiris]

Originally Posted by tie 

Interesting. Most scientists are saying that there is something we can do, and the sooner we do it, the cheaper it will be in the end (and economists agree).

Edit: Link which has more links to economic analyses.

I haven't even considered the economic aspects. Gee, a 20% drop in GDP... something to look forward to. I'll read more later...

But I would like to see how we can reverse the situation on our own planet - especially if we're fighting against a natural cycle that we may or may not have accelerated.
Can we chemically neutralize CO2? It's a tough cookie, but if something like this is possible, the ability to terraform other planets becomes a technological possibility (that is IF we can save our own world first).

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Originally Posted by osiris 

Those CO2 rises in the past ~100 years are imposing - but then again - how accurate is that data?

Accurate to within any measure of accuracy you reasonably want.

greg

[osiris]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

Accurate to within any measure of accuracy you reasonably want.

greg

Fine, I accept that.
Now, do you honestly think that it's possible to reverse a human-accelerated act of nature? In other words, how much time can we buy to avoid something that would've happened regardless of our existance?

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

A question for those against "global warming"

This is like saying someone's against little puppy dogs. Of course I'm not against little puppy dogs.

Do you believe that the planet is not warming up, or do you believe that humans are not the cause of the planet warming up?

I believe the planet is warming. I think overwhelming evidence suggests this. I believe the climate is cyclical for a host of reasons and is warming now for reasons that include mankind. I believe mankind's' contribution to it however, is so negligible that any action we take will be in vain and not make the slightest difference in global temperature overall. No matter how in-climate a region becomes one year and how mild the next, it will always point to mankind. It has to. What else are people going to do, yell at the solar activity? Curse the cow fart? If anyone yells it will be the media and they're not yelling "everything's going to be alright!". I can't think of why they should or even if they have.

I've seen the same people argue that global warming is natural, and then turn around and argue that it isn't happening at all. Which is it?

Defecating is natural too, but if it's all the same I'd rather assume it isn't happening at all. Not really all that much to talk about. Tensions are warming in many inner-cities, dinner's warming in the oven, hostilities abroad are warming... so much warming, so little time.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

This is like saying someone's against little puppy dogs. Of course I'm not against little puppy dogs.

That was not unintentional. There appear to be some who are simply against the concept of Global Warming, as evidenced by those who argue it isn't happening.

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

Defecating is natural too, but if it's all the same I'd rather assume it isn't happening at all. Not really all that much to talk about. Tensions are warming in many inner-cities, dinner's warming in the oven, hostilities abroad are warming... so much warming, so little time.

You'll note, I wasn't arguing for human-caused global warming, but rather seeking a clarification of position from those who seem to be arguing both for and against global warming in their effort to argue against human-caused global warming.