The "Galileo Movement" And Their Mashup Of Facts (Irrelevant & Otherwise) And Flat-Out Lies

[hatrack]

EDIT

John Smeed, the movement's co-founder, says the case against carbon dioxide as a global warming culprit is simply a matter of "junior school physics." "If you show this to any scientist and say to them, 'Disprove to me any of these points,' they can't," he said in an interview. And he's right: Many of the facts are perfectly true. But they are also irrelevant in the climate debate. And many facts about CO2 pertinent to climate science are omitted.

DailyClimate.org took up Smeed's challenge and passed the fact sheet on to a climate scientist - Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Science. He also publishes the blog RealClimate.org, a climate science blog. "You've got true facts," Schmidt said of the Galileo Movement's pamphlet. "They're just not the relevant facts." The pamphlet's claims about climate science are not new: They've been well honed over several years' worth of debate, and there's a wealth of information on the web debunking the so-called "denialist" movement's arguments.

Here's a sampling of the Galileo Movement's facts and an assessment of how they stack up against the body of Earth and atmospheric science, based on an investigation by DailyClimate.org of several science sources.

Claim



CO2 is Nature's colorless, odorless, tasteless gas essential for all life on Earth. It's not toxic. It doesn't make land, water or air dirty or unsafe to use. It does not cause disease.


CO2 comprises less than 0.04 percent of the air.

Assessment

True but irrelevant in the global warming debate. Nitrogen, oxygen and argon together make up close to 100 percent of the atmosphere. But all three are invisible to incoming "short-wave" radiation from the sun and outgoing "long-wave" radiation from the Earth's surface. They play no role in regulating the planet's atmospheric temperature. But carbon dioxide and other trace gases in the atmosphere do absorb the outgoing long-wave radiation.

So while their concentrations are miniscule, their effect is anything but: If the atmosphere didn't have those trace amounts of greenhouse gases, New York City would be covered in ice sheets - not sweltering - on a typical summer afternoon. The globe's average temperature would be almost 60 degrees Fahrenheit lower.

EDIT

http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2011/08/carbon-facts-dont-tell-the-whole-story

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Um, actually, CO2 **IS** toxic.

At least to animals, including humans. CO2 from fumaroles leaves the surrounding terrain devoid of animal life.

It is "essential to life" only for plants and bacteria.

I can't believe that's considered "true but irrelevant"; it isn't even remotely true.

Galileo would roll over in his grave. Then he would :puke:.

edit for seplling

[MisterP]

2. does the name mean they're ill-tempered, go beyond the facts, & fail to respect book dedications? nt