And once again, it seems that you can’t formulate an answer to the Bush administration’s statements on global warming. If the president essentially agrees with the gist of Al Gore’s position, where does that leave you guys?

The effect Svensmark has discovered by itself is enough to account for over 2/3rds of the observed warming. Definitely an “inconvenient truth.”

Dishonesty at it’s finest. Ignore the truth, ignore what’s happening, and just sit there and incredulously act like nothing is happening.

I can’t help but suspect that all of this complaining is being done because the skeptic side is angry and frustrated that people don’t seem to take them more seriously. If that’s the case, that’s their problem.

An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change
Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, says the orthodoxy must be challenged

When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works. We were treated to another dose of it recently when the experts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued the Summary for Policymakers that puts the political spin on an unfinished scientific dossier on climate change due for publication in a few months’ time. They declared that most of the rise in temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to man-made greenhouse gases.

The small print explains “very likely” as meaning that the experts who made the judgment felt 90% sure about it. Older readers may recall a press conference at Harwell in 1958 when Sir John Cockcroft, Britain’s top nuclear physicist, said he was 90% certain that his lads had achieved controlled nuclear fusion. It turned out that he was wrong. More positively, a 10% uncertainty in any theory is a wide open breach for any latterday Galileo or Einstein to storm through with a better idea. That is how science really works.

….

Enthusiasm for the global-warming scare also ensures that heatwaves make headlines, while contrary symptoms, such as this winter’s billion-dollar loss of Californian crops to unusual frost, are relegated to the business pages. The early arrival of migrant birds in spring provides colourful evidence for a recent warming of the northern lands. But did anyone tell you that in east Antarctica the Adélie penguins and Cape petrels are turning up at their spring nesting sites around nine days later than they did 50 years ago? While sea-ice has diminished in the Arctic since 1978, it has grown by 8% in the Southern Ocean.

So one awkward question you can ask, when you’re forking out those extra taxes for climate change, is “Why is east Antarctica getting colder?” It makes no sense at all if carbon dioxide is driving global warming. While you’re at it, you might inquire whether Gordon Brown will give you a refund if it’s confirmed that global warming has stopped. The best measurements of global air temperatures come from American weather satellites, and they show wobbles but no overall change since 1999.

That levelling off is just what is expected by the chief rival hypothesis, which says that the sun drives climate changes more emphatically than greenhouse gases do. After becoming much more active during the 20th century, the sun now stands at a high but roughly level state of activity. Solar physicists warn of possible global cooling, should the sun revert to the lazier mood it was in during the Little Ice Age 300 years ago.

Climate history and related archeology give solid support to the solar hypothesis. The 20th-century episode, or Modern Warming, was just the latest in a long string of similar events produced by a hyperactive sun, of which the last was the Medieval Warming.

….

Disdain for the sun goes with a failure by the self-appointed greenhouse experts to keep up with inconvenient discoveries about how the solar variations control the climate. The sun’s brightness may change too little to account for the big swings in the climate. But more than 10 years have passed since Henrik Svensmark in Copenhagen first pointed out a much more powerful mechanism.

He saw from compilations of weather satellite data that cloudiness varies according to how many atomic particles are coming in from exploded stars. More cosmic rays, more clouds. The sun’s magnetic field bats away many of the cosmic rays, and its intensification during the 20th century meant fewer cosmic rays, fewer clouds, and a warmer world. On the other hand the Little Ice Age was chilly because the lazy sun let in more cosmic rays, leaving the world cloudier and gloomier.

The only trouble with Svensmark’s idea — apart from its being politically incorrect — was that meteorologists denied that cosmic rays could be involved in cloud formation. After long delays in scraping together the funds for an experiment, Svensmark and his small team at the Danish National Space Center hit the jackpot in the summer of 2005.

In a box of air in the basement, they were able to show that electrons set free by cosmic rays coming through the ceiling stitched together droplets of sulphuric acid and water. These are the building blocks for cloud condensation. But journal after journal declined to publish their report; the discovery finally appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society late last year.

….

Where does all that leave the impact of greenhouse gases? Their effects are likely to be a good deal less than advertised, but nobody can really say until the implications of the new theory of climate change are more fully worked out.

The reappraisal starts with Antarctica, where those contradictory temperature trends are directly predicted by Svensmark’s scenario, because the snow there is whiter than the cloud-tops. Meanwhile humility in face of Nature’s marvels seems more appropriate than arrogant assertions that we can forecast and even control a climate ruled by the sun and the stars.

Times Online

As I said before, I believe that the sun and our universal positioning is what is mostly affecting the warming and the coolig of the earth and while we as man, may play a small part in it, I think many are giving man way too much credit for something that is “very likely”. We are 90% sure, in other words…we can’t be 100% positive that it is right.

I think this is open for much more debate, and we still have a LONG way to go before we know the answers, and I believe that anyone who shuts down that debate, and tries to itimidate (yank credentials, put them in jail, call them nazis, putting them on par with Holocaust deniers..ect) and calls it over with is more fool than anything else.

Lorica, about those fossilized Alaskan palm trees: is it possible that the particular part of Alaska had once been located in a more southerly latitude millions of years ago, and the land migrated northward due to plate tectonic motion? It’s just a thought. In any case, I don’t think the earth having been warmer millions of years ago is either specifically disputed by many climatologists nor is it incompatible with the current warming trend being caused by recent human activity. I’ve read about a likely global warming episode that was triggered around 50 million years ago by a huge release of methane from the ocean. This was apparently a cataclysmic event that caused major changes in the earth’s animal and plant populations, leading to many extinctions. With regard to the supposed Chinese curse that goes, “May you live in interesting times” I’m not sure that such an event would be something to either wish for or be blasé about.

Baklava was kind enough to respond to my questions to you about the Bush administration’s global warming statements. As I was saying, you all spend so much energy vilifying Al Gore; how do you feel when the Bush administration appears to be largely in agreement with the gist of Gore’s position? Is President Bush an alarmist too?

Heh heh heh…he said asymptotic….heh heh heh…

That’s gonna leave a mark GWR!

With all this hoopla about AEI and their paltry $10,000 fee to cover expenses for scientists to analyze the report, you never hear about James Hansen, the hysterical “they’re trying to silence MEEEEEE” NASA apostle of AGW. He got a grant for $250,000 from the Heinz Foundation after he signed on supporting Kerry for president as one of Kerry’s “environmental” advisers. So I’m forced to ask, if the AEI is unethical, doesn’t that make Hansen 25 times as unethical?

My thoughts on GW’ng are in all actuallity closer to a biblical belief that this earth was created as a paradise. My Uncle drilled oil wells in Alaska, and he told me many times that when they took geological samples before they drilled a well, that many times they found petrified palm trees. This is in Alaska. What/How can palm trees be in Alaska?? This only proves that the earth was warmer than is presently is.

Like I said before, I believe that the earth was created to be a paradise. I also think that the Lord God is going to have the earth in the condition He originally created it. But if you read the book of Revelations, it clearly says that the earth will have no more oceans. So what is going to happen to all that water?? Makes the one wonder. – Lorica

The issue isn’t whether we can have an open debate here. The fact that you’re still around even as your posts asymptotically approach absolute trollhood is proof of that.

The question – now try real hard to focus – is why you and the left are so opposed to any sort of free debate on the subject in any scientific forum, not on a blog. Got the difference? Come on, I know you can tell them apart if you try really really hard.

AEI invites scientists from both camps to debate the topic, and you start babbling incoherently about how Big Oil is out to kill polar bears and flood New York. You leave no doubt that you do not want any such independent inquiry.

But the UN – ah, that’s another story. The conclusions were massaged and politicized to fit your chicken-little scenario, with no evidence to the contrary even examined, and you pontificate about it being proof positive.

The Bob view then, based purely on your own statements:

1. Open inquiry must not be allowed.
2. Politicized pseudo-studies are gospel.

So cut the horse hockey about how you’re not opposed to a true, open, scientific debate, and face the question: why is that?

If you can for once give an honest, reasoned response, you just might pull back from the brink of irrelevance here. Somehow I doubt it, but give it your best shot.

And Baklava, my question about “why do you hate America” was a parody of what I constantly hear from right-wingers (and you actually used it on me in a non-ironical sense later on, just like a real wing-nut), in response to your typically meaningless and disingenuous question in the previous post about “Why are you opposed to a free debate on this topic Bob?” If this hasn’t been a free debate, then what has it been? Were you too intimidated by Ellen Goodman to freely say what’s on your mind? Were you afraid to contradict the president? I don’t understand your constant complaints. If there’s something you’ve been unable to say, please go ahead and say it. I promise not to turn you in to the IPCC.

Bob wrote, “You’re a right-wing extremist. Most honest observers (even Republicans) think that this is one of the most conservative administrations ever.

I say that I’m a centrist conservative because I’d like to see spending actually stay the same for 10 years not cut (as that might head us into a recession) while we re-prioritize what the government spends on to what the constitution talks about.

This country has increased spending every year in every category for over 6 decades. The drive-by media talks about Republican “cuts” but they are NEVER cuts. They are reductions in the amount of increases. 7% increases are NOT cuts.

This government has grown during Bush with a new entitlement program, larger increases in spending for education ever (when that is the state’s responsibility), etc. On every issue Bush has more than compromised (except for the Iraq war) and yet you leftists are spinning out of control with your rhetoric acting like he is a super conservative or far right.

Perspective is key and you have zero. Plus you have zero civility. If you beat your wife why did you marry her. If you can’t discuss things why are you here?

Bob with ZERO reading comprehension ability wrote, “but nothing matters until they’ve actually done something about it.” You SAID you read the article I linked Bob. In it there are PLENTY of words that show they’ve done MORE than any other country on the planet. Can you go print the article show it to somebody else and have them diagram the sentences that talk about doing stuff. Try not to beat them up when they say smarter things than you.

Bob wrote, “Am I wrong about that?”

As far as I can tell you are wrong about everything including the premise of your first question. ZERO reading comprehension, full of inaccurate accusations, the only one with so much HATE here is you. You attack and put us on the defensive. Over and over it’s as if the only one who “cares” about anything is you and we don’t care is what you think. That’s the typical liberal pattern. We can’t have a conversation with most because they think conservatives don’t care. All along the way they say things that aren’t factually true, mean, and without due diligence to see if what they are saying is true. Then they ignore what we or anyone else has said that is conservative whereas we actually do consider and read what liberals have to say.

I’m not just busting your chops. You are so negligent with every topic (research wise) that I think you must hate America. Truly. Additionally, you no longer deserve the respect of a conversation from me. You are out of line and don’t start pointing fingers elsewhere as you usually do. The only person you can control is your own self Bob. And your behavior is awful.