11 Comments Add your own

• 1. Neftali  |  July 11th, 2009 at 1:14 pm

  9 of those same 10 points (#4 being the exception), can easily be turned around and used to thwart the conspiracy theory that liberals call global warming.

  I’m disappointed in Pat. Most of this article is just standard points on how to conduct a productive argument, and has little to do with global warming one way or the other. At least in previous posts he pointed to a graph which showed some general warming trends over the past 150 years. shawnnews is doing the same thing as Pat when he posts a link to Shermer’s “The Baloney Detection Kit” which again is just general scientific (but valid) talking points. But they have nothing to do with proving or disproving global warming theories.

  Heck, the EPA and Department of Energy can’t even come close to agreeing how much C02 the US is releasing, and whether any cut backs could have any real affect on the environment.

  http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2009/07/08/huge-co2-emissions-disagreement-between-epa-energy-dept-ignored-msm

  Today’s Score:
  Neftali: 1
  Pat and shawnnews: 0

• 2. Jack  |  July 11th, 2009 at 3:22 pm

  Neftali:

  You must be truly unintelligent (or a paranoid schizophrenic) if you think that all of the scientists, activists, corporate leaders and politicians who have publicly recognized, acknowledged and shown the significant, real threat that global warming represents to the earth are part of an international, “liberal” conspiracy theory. In order for such a conspiracy theory to exist, there would have to be some substantial motive for such a plethora of people to come together and create such a hoax. Why would so many people across so many spectra of expertise come together to further such a conspiracy theory? What would they possible have to gain?

  As for your citation to the “disagreement” between the EPA-Department of Energy, there is bound to be some disagreement and measurement discrepancies with a new area of science. Their disagreement does not prove global warming untrue and your implicit conclusion otherwise shows your lack of logic to all readers of your post. I also find it humorous that you appear to bash “liberals” in the first paragraph of your response, but then cite to two government agencies that are socially perceived as “liberal” (especially under a democratic administration) in the third paragraph of your response to bolster your argument (or lack thereof). Talk about having one’s cake and eating it too…

  I could simply dismiss your entire post as part of some conservative conspiracy theory to post Internet comments, articles and blogs in an attempt to create a counter-discourse that attempts to refute the veracity of global warming (please note my sarcasm), but instead I will urge you to get your head out of the sand and wake-up. Read a book that’s not written by Bill O’Reilly or Michael Savage for a change. Vapid nay-sayors with hollow arguments like yourselves will only be to blame when our human-wide response to global warming comes too slowly to counteract the damage being done to the earth that future generations will inherit.

  -Jack

• 3. Orlando Clay  |  July 11th, 2009 at 3:37 pm

  Newsbusters = Much like Drudge Report and World Net Daily, a widely recognized distributor of right-wing propaganda; credibility is questionable at best.

  Revised score:
  Pat and shawnnews: 1
  Neftali: 0

• 4. shawnnews  |  July 11th, 2009 at 6:30 pm

  It’s not me and Pat versus Neftali. I can’t personally demonstrate how global warming works. I can only say it’s what scientists currently believe in their model of the world. So really there is no score to be kept. I’m not competing with Neftali. I believe the scientific view of the world as much as I can understand it. There are charts and graphs everywhere.
  http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/recenttc_triad.html
  The people to convince would be the hundreds of climate scientists in the universities that make up the scientific consensus on the topic.
  Of course, there are going to be a handful of scientists who don;t agree with the consenus.

• 5. Art  |  July 12th, 2009 at 2:22 pm

  There are over 700 noted scientists that say “Gorebal” warming is not man made and the Earth is cooling. The EPA even has a study that says it is in cooling until 2030. They kept it quiet until after the House voted on Cap and Tax.

• 6. DingDong  |  July 12th, 2009 at 4:42 pm

  Here you go fools, read it yourself. The guy Carlin, who is claiming the data is flawed is not a quack.

  http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/06/26/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5117890.shtml

• 7. Neftali  |  July 12th, 2009 at 7:17 pm

  Jack (a.ka. chicken little) -

  I’m posting on a very liberal blog. I read all of Pat’s lame articles. I’ve even linked to articles that I’ve agreed with on Daily Kos. So for you to call for me to read other non-conservative material highlights the joke of person you really are.

  It’s not me that’s me that’s presumptuous, judgmental, and needs to get their head out of the sand, its you. Why don’t YOU “read some Bill O’Reilly or Michael Savage for a change.” (or better yet, pick up Mark Levin’s new book)

• 8. Jack  |  July 13th, 2009 at 9:38 am

  Art - “Gorebal” - that’s very clever. I hope you had the Tylenol nearby for the headache I’m sure ensued after typing out that thoughtful comment. Where are you getting your 700 scientists information from? I hear there’s a bunch of scientists in Colorado City, Arizona who don’t believe in global warming or evolution.

  Neftali - Come back at me with some real information that backs up your assertions, then I’ll think about responding to you if I have time.

  Mike - That doesn’t make any sense. You and I both know that you dismissed my post after reading 1-2 sentences when you correctly concluded that its ideological background doesn’t jive with your beliefs. Way to test your limits.

• 9. Neftali  |  July 13th, 2009 at 10:01 am

  This article does a job job of exposing the flaws in the global warming theories:

  http://www.qando.net/?p=3517

  Here are the highlights:

  Do you know we’ve only been monitoring the extent of Arctic ice via satellites since 1979? And while Arctic ice coverage has declined, it’s actually been rising since 2006. And have you heard Antarctic sea ice has increased by nearly 14% since 1979?

  Since before the industrial revolution the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been rising, up to around 385 parts per million by volume today. That amounts to a miniscule 0.0385% of the atmosphere.

  Natural cycles play a much bigger role with the sun at the top of the list. A look at total solar irradiance since 1600 shows a distinct correlation to temperature readings. Readings are higher now than anytime in the past 400 years!

• 10. Neftali  |  July 13th, 2009 at 10:02 am

  blah…first sentence should be “good job”

• 11. Jack  |  July 13th, 2009 at 10:35 am

  Everyone:

  I will try and break this down at a very simple level.

  (1) I hope we can all agree that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. That means that as carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere, the atmosphere gets hotter because carbon dioxide traps heat radiated from the sun. (Like a greenhouse in the sun, or a car with the windows rolled up on a hot day - carbon dioxide acts like the rolled-up windows, trapping the heat).

  (2) I hope we can all agree that petroleum (oil and gas) and coal are made up of carbon.

  (3) I hope we can all agree that burning coal, oil and gas creates carbon dioxide as a byproduct (it comes out of the smokestacks of power plants and out of the mufflers on vehicles, etc.).

  Now it might get a bit tougher for the doubters to follow…

  (4) The petroleum and coal that we have been harvesting and using for energy took tens of millions of years to form. Over a period so long that it is hard to comprehend, plants sucked carbon dioxide and, through photosynthesis, created oxygen and carbon, which it stored in the form of wood and plant matter. As those plants died and collapsed, they were covered up by other plants, or oceans, or rock over millions of years and put under tremendous pressure, which squeezed the dead plants and animals (carbon) into coal and petroleum (depending on the environment of formation, sometimes coal and sometimes petroleum).

  (5) The earth, over a period of roughly 5 billion years, has slowly and gradually evolved into a very balanced, delicate system where everything has a niche and everything is roughly in proportion to create a sustainable, dynamic, complex system. When species don’t fit in, they become extinct and another species evolves (or perhaps two or three species) to take that one’s place.

  (6) In the 150-200 years since the industrial revolution, humans have used carbon-based fuels that took roughly 300 million years to create. That’s 200 vs. 300 million. Using these fuels releases carbon dioxide (locked into the coal and petroleum over millions of years) back into the atmosphere. Humans’ rapid release of 300 million years worth of carbon (which was slowly, gradually stored by the earth) has created rapid changes to the earth’s atmosphere and eco-systems. The earth simply was not designed to respond to such quick changes.

  As the planet’s most intelligent species (and the species causing this dramatic climate change), we have a responsibility to work cohesively and intelligently to try and slow (it’s already too late to reverse) this process as much as possible.

  For more information, read Fieldnotes from a Catastrophe or Beyond the Limits.

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