Global warming doesn't exist according to freeper

[linazelle]

I'm in Maryland, and it's steaming hot--it was steaming hot in Chicago when I left. It usually is this time of year nowadays. I was discussing how I thought that the weather is getting much more severe--the storms, the heat, the changes. In contrast to the past twenty years, it seems much hotter now. I don't remember babies dying in cars or pets for that matter, and I certainly don't remember catastrophes like the 700 deaths in Chicago and the 3,000 in France due to heat. Something has changed regarding the climate.

Unbeknownst to me I was sharing this observation with a freeper. (I should have suspected I was in freeperville when another guy--aso in his twenties--remarked that he had viewed the Reagan funeral.)

The response to my suggestion of global warming? "There's no such thing. They said twenty years ago there was going to be an Ice Age and it hasn't happened." I was too taken aback to respond fully. I did say that I don't recall anything about an impending Ice Age, I did hear predictions of erratic weather and heat.

To this the freeper responded, "well it's not enough to change the laws regarding it"--or something to that effect. All I could say is, "you may be right."

The sorry thing is this young man, less than 25 years old, will one day have children and bring them up without concern for their futures because he believes the lies regarding global warming. It's tragic that the right has brainwashed people into believing things that are harmful for them and for society.

[Dogmudgeon]

1. This is a well-worn canard

Global warming has been "debunked" by reference to older data that didn't account for a growing, and potentially nasty, temperature inversion between the ground and the stratosphere.

If you saw The Day After Tomorrow, it was dramatized in the scenes with the flash-freeze downdrafts. Now, for all the squawking about "bad science", those kinds of downdrafts have been observed. Just not to the degree in the movie.

When scientists looked at the temperatures in the different atmospheric strata, they found that the global warming effect was even more pronounced than they thought; and that the stratosphere, which had been measured in the 1950s at around -50F, was now between -100F and -150F (which is where Strieber, Bell, and Emmerich got the number).

Believe me, if and when this inversion collapses, there will be some wicked weather to contend with. Chances are it won't be like the scenes in the movie, but it will be wild, unusual, and potentially lethal.

Meanwhile, as the inversion grows, our summers will get hotter, polar ice will melt at "impossible" rates ... and the Freepers will start paying attention.

Better late than never.

--bkl

[whistle]

2. I imagine that from where this freeper is looking at the world...

...he clearly thinks he is right. Thank God the rest of us are not looking up his ass!

[Jacobin]

3. The evidence is indisputable that global temperatures are rising

The only thing subject to legitimate debate is the extent to which man's activities is contributing to the warming, since the globe's temperature cycles by itself over the eons.

anyone who says flat out that the globe has not been warming over the past 100 years is simply ignorant.

[xultar]

4. Freepers aren't from Earth so they may be right about their planet n/t

[many a good man]

5. The objection I hear is that man-made effects are minimal

They think that real scientists have debunked the greenhouse quacks. They think that warming may be real, but its a natural process and man-made sources have a negligible effect. They say that Mt. Pinatubo spewed more gases in one day than decades of fossil fuel use.

They think we'll discover a technological miracle long before we ran out of oil or destroy the climate.

[linazelle]

6. So sad that they have these beliefs

And the guy refuting global warming is highly educated. That's what I find hardest to understand: that educated people gullibly believe this stuff.

[vote independent]

7. both right and wrong

When discussing global warming, many people have drawn the incorrect conclusions. There are many extremists on both sides that are ridiculously wrong.

some facts:

1) Global Warming EXISTS. To deny that would be insane.
2) What causes global warming the most has not been determined.

Of course it is better for the environment if we drive more efficient cars (or not drive at all), BUT you cannot prove that car pollution causes global warming the most.

We MUST remember that we are exiting an Ice Age, and the earth is naturally warming up. It has yet to be determined exactly what part the car pollution actually plays in global warming.

That being said, I carpool and drive a hybrid car, but still believe that global warming occurs for the most part due to us leaving an ice age.

[many a good man]

8. What about the argument...

that the Kyoto Accord is too modest in its goals of reducing worldwide greenhouse emissions to do any tangible good? That if its standards went into effect it would only delay the consequences of warming by about 10-20 years and in the process divert resources that could be used to feed and care for people and find alternatives?

Maybe we should be more careful when talking about climate change when our arguments aren't persuasive enough to withstand honest scrutiny. I'm all in favor of moving to less-polluting sources of energy -- our goal should be to develop non-polluting energy sources. I think the best case to be made is the national security interest in moving toward energy independence and stick to the proven effects of pollution from coal and oil on our health and the environment. Remember acid rain?

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. It's true that Kyoto is far from a full solution

but I think that a start is better than nothing. As it is, it's proved too 'radical' for the Bush admin and the US Senate. If it delays the effects by a few years, that is also a few years more in which to find the alternatives. It also might create the right mindset - that endless material growth isn't needed for progress, and that international cooperation is vital for issues that affect the whole world.

I do find the arguments about using resources (ie money and technology) to protect those most at risk quite convincing - and if Bjorn Lomborg was in charge of the US rather than Bush, I'd have some confidence that would actually happen. But Bush, and conservatives in general, are so wed to the idea that the poor are to blame for their poverty that I can't see that happening. In many ways Kyoto was an attempt at compromise with the free-market idealogues - create a market in producing less carbon dioxide, and you might interest them. I believe it may have worked with some - Shell and BP, for instance, make noises about future energy sources now. Perhaps that's just PR, but I think it may be their longer-term self-interest starting to make an appearance.

[underpants]

9. Well the Pentagon thinks it is--Is this Freeper being unpatriotic?

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1153513,00.html

Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..
A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'

Don't trust them furrin papers how about Fortune magazine?
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,582584,00.html

The World Bank seems to agree but those are just "money people"
http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/news/details?item_id=415878

World's second largest reinsurer agrees
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0303-07.htm

NASA?
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/forcings/altscenario/

[linazelle]

13. Wow Underpants...that's a lot of good info

I'll bookmark this and educate myself to respond to freepers in the future--and to educate the sane.

[adriennel]

16. ah, but a certain administrator

of a certain government agency doesn't believe in global warming either...yes, it's true, from the horse's mouth, heard just this week.

I'll let you guess which agency :shrug:

[seemslikeadream]

10. They all believe the earth is flat don't they?

[daa]

11. Neither does OxyMoron boy

but then he doesn't believe is divorce or druggies either.

[Az]

14. Keep in mind its called Global Warming

Not its kinda hot around here today warming. The danger is not local temperatures. Some areas may even experience a localised lowering of temperatures. But globally the temperature is rising. This increase in temp means there is more evaporation which in turn puts more water into the atmosphere. What we will experience locally is greater extremes of weather conditions. Harsher rain storms. Longer droughts. Water in the atmospher is like fuel to weather. It gives it more mass to work with.

So when the Freeper talks about how the local weather hasn't been all that bad just remind them its called Global Warming. Not Local Warming.

[RBHam]

15. The Pentagon knows drastic climate change is coming...

Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us

· Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war
· Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years
· Threat to the world is greater than terrorism

Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York
Sunday February 22, 2004
The Observer

Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..
A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'

The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.

more...

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1153513,00.html