more warm feelings

I had read a couple of versions of the various articles reporting the forthcoming UN report. Of course, being me I pointed to an article which pointed out flaws in the forthcoming report. A good friend asked a very reasonable question:

How can you possibly think all of them are wrong?

Certain assumptions should be laid out before I start on this:

1) The New York Times is a paper I find barely credible at all. They are one of the most...if not the most...slanted pieces of major mass media on the scene today. They focus on one side of any given issue regardless of fact, competing views, or any other mitigating factor. Of course, by accusing other media outlets of this they are sometimes able to hide that. I know Fox catches a lot of heat from some people for the same reason...and while I certainly don't spend much time watching their news broadcasts, when I read news I note they typically present things differently than the Times. I have just found them to be better at actually showing the opposition.

2) Many of the things I found flawed in the presentation of the forthcoming report are highlighted in this one piece (which, by the way, only reinforces my already low opinion of said paper)

3) The report shows a tendency I have noticed before in this debate: allowing what they WANT to be happening to take precedence over facts that often show the exact opposite is happening (the "melting glaciers" is one of my favorite examples).

So here we go. Following my habit, quotes from the referenced article will be in italics.


But scientists involved in the effort warned that squabbling among teams and government representatives from more than 100 countries — over how to portray the probable amount of sea-level rise during the 21st century — could distract from the basic finding that a warming world will be one in which shrinking coastlines are the new normal for centuries to come.

I am not even sure where to start here. First off...the squabbling is because the debate ranges over whether the sea level will be miniscule (less than an inch) or so severe that major portions of the world will disappear. In other words... "Well, there is a possibility the sea level will change...we just can't agree on whether it is statistically irrelevant or the end of the world as we know it and, in the absence of actual factual evidence, all we can do is go with whatever we feel should be the right answer and since we take it as an article of faith, anyone who disagrees with us is wrong....even though their evidence is just as legitimate as ours...well, okay, neither of us has certain, verifiable evidence, but we are right and they are wrong and that is how it is!"

Oh, and the shrinking coastlines...that is something that has happened before where apparently they shrink for a couple millenium, then grow, then shrink, then grow...so it is nothing new or out of the ordinary.

Jerry Mahlman, an emeritus researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who was a reviewer of the report’s single-spaced, 1,644-page summary of climate science, said most of the leaks to the news media so far were from people eager to find elements that were the most frightening or the most reassuring.

This should not be anything surprising. After all, if they find there is nothing wrong...then the shrill, over the top alarmist voices that have been haranguing for years...Al Gore comes readily to mind with his Una-bomber like bombast and ridiculousness....have nothing to say. After all, since they have no fact behind them, all they have is what they WANT to be happening. So they keep SAYING there is fact....even though they can't point to a single one. I like the hurricane illustration I referenced the other day...they keep saying global warming is causing more hurricanes...yet the number of hurricanes falls within normal historical bounds and any time the g.w. proponents are asked if a specific one is caused by g.w. the answer is...well, no. But many are. The math just doesn't add up.

One major point of debate in early drafts of the report is the projection of a smaller rise in sea level than the last report as scientists relying on computer models and field observations struggle to find a consensus.

Having researched this through more reputable outlets, the translation is simple. They have done computer models based on their assumptions of how much pollution is in the atmosphere, how much damage it has done, and what the effects are: however, the actual evidence does not agree with those computer projections. So scientists who wish to make a report based on available evidence are trying to counteract the alarmists...who want to go with FICTIONAL COMPUTER MODELS which are based on assumptions and bizarre extraploations, screw the evidence to the contrary. They expect the sea to have risen x amount because we have done y damage, and the fact the sea has risen x-z is not going to get in their way because that might disprove a damage level of y. And you can't disprove it because if you do then their politically based posturing will prove they have been operating based on politics, not science, that the whole g.w. paradigm is based on an agenda that has no basis in fact.

Another possible point of contention during the four days of closed sessions in Paris this week may be assertions in early drafts of the report that the recent warming rate was blunted by particle pollution and volcanic eruptions.

Or, translated, "Another possible point of contention may be early in the process we admitted that global warming has been rendered a non-factor by naturally occurring events. This does not fit well with scientists who are making their money and reputation by claiming the earth has been and continues to be irreparably harmed by mankind using the earth. Therefore, we purged the truth from the record lest people realize the truth is global warming is a mythological hypothesis designed to scare people and bring in more money."

Some scientists say the final report should reflect the assumption that the rate of warming in coming years is likely to be more pronounced than that of previous decades.

Again..."some", a vaguely defined number ranging anywhere from 2 to a majority, want an "assumption" that ignores factual evidence to guide the report. There is an old saying I hear almost every day which I quote for both humor and truth: "You know what happens when you assume. You make an ass out of u and me." (not the clever use of the spelling to make the phrase...) Assumptions are bad science. Always have been when they cannot be proven or disproven. The famous scopes monkey trial hinged on this and ultimately the legal definition tried to define what scientists had always claimed; to be considered acceptable scientific theory a hypothesis must be testable and provable or disprovable. Global warming does not rise to this level. These guys can't even agree on what the hypothesis should be yet we are expected to accept as proven fact the most outlandish of claims.

In a new report issued Monday, his agency said the most recent evidence from mountain glaciers showed that they were melting faster than before.

This must be brand new evidence since less than 24 hours before I read an article saying they have actually INCREASED in size. Pretty unique glaciers to be growing by melting....but all snarkiness aside, it illustrates yet again why global warming is hard to buy into. Because two different people look at the same evidence and reach exactly opposite conclusions. Then a third comes along and says (and google it...you will find the same articles) they actually can't measure whether the glaciers are growing or shrinking. Yet whole bodies of arguments are built around the catastrophic melting of the glaciers...a catastrophe that might actually have THE ABSOLUTE REVERSE EVENT happening! The credibility factor is not high...

In summation, I think one reason the "global warming is fait accompli and all that is left is figuring out how to deal with it" argument finds such ridicule from me is not just its complete ignoring of fact in favor of preferred assumptions (take, for example, the factoid that has been presented that all the temperature increase in this century was from 1940 to 1970 and since then the temp has actually slightly decreased) but the underlying assumption and I think it is something that just finally crystallized in a form I could express.

The philosophy of global warming is part of a belief that the existence of mankind is inherently destructive and he must minimize his presence on the planet because nature is more important than mankind. Anything man does is intrinsically destructive and, by extension, immoral and evil.

When compared to Biblical passages such as Genesis when it speaks of man subduing the earth and using it then it becomes clear: there is a difference between conservationism...the stewardship of the earth...and avoidance of using any portion of the resources which is the spirit if not the letter of the intent of many global warming proponents. The over the topness of the g.w. movement therefore comes across as yet another attack on the existence/relevance/authority of God and is done using the tools of ignorance to "prove" the false. Unfortunately, the good points (there is no purpose whatsoever to mindless, rampant destruction of resources that we often find. There should be intense research efforts to find ways to harness alternatives such as water power, etc) get lost in the rhetoric and just as those who follow the tenets God spoke of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and self control are swept under by the wonders of the Crusades and Inquisitions and so forth, so those preaching a reasonable form of conservation and respect for the wonders God wrought are swept under the cacophony of people pushing the envelope of reality in their desperate search to prove the damage being done.