Topic: Natural climate change

[Marc Knight]

Hot - cold - the Earth is affected by endogenous and exogenous influences.  I'm sure humankind has some impact - but our science is far from understanding the causal factors related to all aspects of climate change.  This article is 180 degrees from what the main stream story has been, while attempting to couch a deep freeze into an ongoing global warming phenomenon. 

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/01/11/years-global-cooling-coming-say-leading-scientists/?test=latestnews

[exC2Cfan]

Are you actually suggesting that something from Fox News can be trusted? Come on.

[Marc Knight]

Are you actually suggesting that something from Fox News can be trusted? Come on.

You're very correct in that sense.  To overcome significant bias in any media today, one must pursue primary research (multiple sources) as much as possible.  The same can be said regarding any major secondary source report from the other news channels.

[sanddollar]

To see the full view of Dr. Latif as quoted by the Fox news report you cited, follow the link below;
http://deepclimate.org/2009/10/02/an-email-exchange-w

His full opinion is somewhat different than that represented by Fox.  I really don't think Fox is the first choice for a valid news source, considering the many alternatives.  However, it is a good source of what the neo-cons want you to believe, IMO.

[Michael Vandeven]

The same can be said regarding any major secondary source report from the other news channels.

agreed.

[Ghost to Ghost]

Here's the thing: The earliest reliable, historical temperature data we have dates back to 1861.

That data is for a very few exact spots in the world, so we don't even get a snapshot from it -- just a handful of readings from a few areas, all of them populated. And it continued like that for more than a century -- it wasn't until about 40 years ago that day-to-day, hour-to-hour temperature data became a truly global thing.

That means we have some 40 years of complete data on a planet more than 4 billion years old. But I'm not convinced we can do much with 40 years of data. It's an eyeblink on a planetary scale where ice ages last thousands of years and most true temperature trends likely require thousands of years of observation to analyze.

The way around that problem has been to take samples from pockets of air captured in glaciers. I don't know enough about that method to talk about it intelligently, but I tend to think the concept is similar to chain of custody for evidence -- if we know it's been captured in a tight bubble for 10,000 years, we can be reasonably sure it represents the period it came from. But what about contamination? What factors can change the chemical make-up of the sample?

This is just a long-winded way of saying I don't think anyone has the definitive answers on global warming. And I find it particularly -- and equally -- irritating when conservatives dismiss the issue out-of-hand, or when the left-leaning types insist it's a coming apocalypse and a certainty. (Maybe it fits in with 2012 somehow, eh?)

The only shame is, it's near-impossible to find objective information because even the scientists are playing politics with this issue.

[Michael Vandeven]

...it's near-impossible to find objective information because even the scientists are playing politics with this issue.

agreed.  that's why i think we should perhaps refrain from destroying western economies based on information that seems inherently to lack objectivity.

[mikemcc]

agreed.  that's why i think we should perhaps refrain from destroying western economies based on information that seems inherently to lack objectivity.

Unfortunately, Michael, I think most of the destruction of western economies has already taken place. What used to be called the "middle class" has, for the past year-and-a-half been squeezed like a sponge to provide capital for big banks, insurance companies, financial firms (except for Lehman Bros.), auto companies, and other large corporations. The so-called cap and trade will merely extend that operation.

[Tom from Hong Kong]

There is an extensive, well researched thread on the Anti-Global Warming Debate on a paranormal chat forum called The Paracast Forum, including numerous links to primary source materials.  While I have not gone through it all, the evidence is in fact mixed, with any remedial effort costing society an enormous amount with unclear results.  One of the issues is the computer programming used to decipher the trends supposedly indicated by the source evidence, as well as development around, and movements in, the temperature mesaurement stations.  Of course, any remedial efffort is likely to hurt the poor of the world as much, if not more than, the rich.

None of this obviously argues in favor of pollution.  Stop using plastics, particularly as drinking water delivery vehicles, and take public transport & walk.  Also, think about becoming a vegan, and take steps to reduce the deforestation of the  rainforest.

On the decimation of the American middle class, the movement of manufacturing to low cost centers around the globe certainly hasn't helped, and is probably the main contributor to the dramatic loss in jobs that traditionally supported many middle class families.  The high tax rates used to support various government programs (no value judgement here one way or another) isn't helpful.  In Hong Kong, where I live, the income tax is 16%, although property prices are very high given the lack of available supply (which could be remedied if the legislature had the political will).

[sanddollar]

Just thinking that the human body uses fever to fight off a virus or infection, and the way we treat the earth, perhaps the earth sees mankind as something to be rid of, and is 'turning up the heat'.  No way to prove it of course, just have to take it on 'faith'.

[Michael Vandeven]

On the decimation of the American middle class, the movement of manufacturing to low cost centers around the globe certainly hasn't helped, and is probably the main contributor to the dramatic loss in jobs that traditionally supported many middle class families.

couldn't agree more. 

while i would assess myself as a conservative (on the whole), i feel compelled to qualify that self assessment by adding that i'm also a populist.  i have for a long time felt at odds with others in "my" camp who feel that free trade is ALWAYS good for us.  "free trade at any cost!" they shout.  this vacuous philosophy depresses me.  it represents a complete inability to look just a couple decades into our future without manufacturing jobs.  we can not sustain ourselves over the long term as a service economy while sending all of our wealth to china, an enemy state, in exchange for their poisonous products manufactured by what can only be classified as slave labor.  a decline in our standard of living is an inevitable result, and that decline is already here today.  just look around.  scratch that.  just look at your PERSONAL circumstances today.  if i hear the simplistic, worn out blacksmith analogy used one more time in an attempt to make me think manufacturing in the usa is obsolete in 2010, i'm going to begin raping people in order to blow off steam.  i'm a proponent of protectionist trade.  there, i said it.  i guess that makes me a traitor to the "conservative" cause.  i'm ok being called a traitor, though, because i think people like me are the real conservatives.

in some regards he might have been eccentric (the word is crazy when you're not rich), but people for years laughed at ross perot as he warned of the impending "sucking sound" we would hear when jobs would be exported to third world shit holes like mexico in the name of free trade thanks to globalist billionaire approved measures like nafta.  go try to find a factory job with which you can take care of your family for the next thirty years.  who's laughing now? 

[Marc Knight]

So true Michael... add tens of millions of uneducated, new-slave class illegal immigrants and you get a permanently devastated middle class.  I equate the American middle class to the Earth's biosphere: plentiful and vibrant, but also thin and immensely fragile.  Facts are facts, the wanton greed of previous and current American generations has raped the economy and stomped on the future of young people.  Selfish and ignorant.