6/30/2007
Conservatives and global warming
Steven Millroy at Fox talks about a really weird piece at NRO by Jim Manzi advocating that conservatives should just throw in the towel on the global warming debate, sell out, and use it to get votes in 2008.
Manzi responds to Milloy in here and concludes with this:
letting cap-and-trade advocates of off the hook by allowing them to continue to argue at a high rhetorical plane with the straw man of “there is no global warming” is the wrong way to go about winning it.
“There is no global warming” is not a straw man, if you read what climatologists have to say about it in powerpoint presentations, on blogs, etc.. This is misleading and a purely meaningless and rhetorical argument. Manzi calls Milloy Hansen ‘unhinged’ in that piece, based on this quote from Millroy:
it was NASA’s climate-alarmist-in-chief, Jim Hansen, who looked foolish for criticizing Griffin — who holds a doctorate in aerospace engineering and master’s degrees in aerospace science, electrical engineering, applied physics, civil engineering and business administration — as being “ignorant.”
Ignorant, I guess because Griffin said “I am not sure that it is fair to say that [global warming] is a problem we must wrestle with.” Apparently Manzi disagrees. Although Manzi calls Hansen an ‘unhinged ideologue’ which in retrospect may be true, how he can jump to the assumption that we should LEVERAGE global warming when it doesn’t exist to get votes in 2008 is a huge leap. It makes him appear to be not all that different than the ‘unhinged ideologue’ he maligns.
Global warming is a myth; promulgated by clueless people who are not scientists. MIT’s Richard Lindzen Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science:
….lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.
What little evidence we now have suggests that precipitation systems act as a natural thermostat to reduce warming.
And
Finally, remember that phrase, “the Earth’s greenhouse effect keeps the Earth habitably warm?” I’ll bet you never heard the phrase that is, quantitatively, more accurate: “Weather processes keep the Earth habitably cool.”
Were it not for weather, the natural greenhouse effect would cause the surface of the Earth to average 140 degrees.
Dr. Roy Spencer (according to Wikipedia) is a principal research scientist for University of Alabama in Huntsville, has served as Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and is the recipient of NASA’s Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement. He is principally known for his satellite-based temperature monitoring work, for which he was awarded the American Meteorological Society’s Special Award. He is is skeptical of the view that human activity is primarily responsible for global warming.
June 30th, 2007 at 9:16 am
Hi,
I’m Jim Manzi, the guy who wrote the original NR cover story on global warming.
By the way, I’ve never called Mr. Milloy ‘unhinged’, and I don’t think that he is.
I’ve responed to Mr. Milloy’s criticisms of my piece point-by-point in a series of posts at Planet Gore: http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWY4NDAxOGM4MzdlMmEwZmUzMGEyZTdmMGRjZjAxMjg=
Thanks,
Jim Manzi
June 30th, 2007 at 11:28 am
Well, we agree on something! The earth’s history shows cycles of rising and declining temperatures. Global warming proponents dismiss non-human factors behind this phenomenon. Of course, they have a now-popular former vice-president *** movie producer, who purportedly has put the lie to empircal scientific claims of cyclical warming tendencies.
June 30th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Really, “jim”?.
I made the correction to Hansen from Millroy. Quoting Milloy, but saying that Hansen is an ‘unhinged’ ideologue.
Yet it’s not much a difference, just a nitpicky one.
You’re still jumping on the global warming bandwagon by suggesting we can use it to leverage votes in 2008. Does that mean you’re advocating what the ‘unhinged ideologue’ is saying? How does the suggeston that we leverage global warming (which doesn’t exist) to get conservative votes make you any different than the ‘unhinged ideologue’ or even Al Gore?
June 30th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Um…Jim Hansen is a global warming doomsayer (i.e., the exact opposite of Steven Milloy); I said that Hansen is unhinged on this issue because, in my opinion, he has become a zealot who thinks we need to stop virtually all emissions right now.
You can read my original article that started all of this here:
http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/3/19/902907/NR%20%20%20Digital%20Article.pdf
This explains exactly what I adovcate.
Best regards,
Jim Manzi
June 30th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
I read your article, Jim. I’m not sure why you feel it necessary to re-link your trash. Do you have a problem with echlalia or perseveration? Don’t have enough readers who agree with you? Feeling lonely?
You begin with “it is no longer possible, scientifically or politically, to deny that human activities have very likely increased global temperatures, what remains in dispute is the precise magnitude of that impact.” Well, I needn’t go much further than that.
You’re wrong that it’s ‘no longer possible… to deny human activities have increased global temperatures’. The key words that you use are VERY LIKELY. It’s not VERY LIKELY that we’ve had any impact at all. It’s in dispute that we’ve even made a temperature difference of 1 degree.
Scientists deny global warming all the time, climatologists are doing it all the time, and even weathermen are doing it all the time. It’s becoming more politicized, which is why are lot of people are shutting up about it, but to my knowledge, the debate on the issue is still hot and heavy. It would seem to me that you’re an advocate of climate change, and so I really have no interest in your link whoring from my little blog.
Is that clear? I don’t need a mini-me Al Gore coming here link whoring his ********.
It is as Orwell said in Animal farm, “four legs good, two legs bad.”
“Greenhouse” gases occur naturally in mother nature; and there is a purpose for them. By characterizing them as man-made, environazis are leading us to believe that they’re pollutants. They’re not. We make CO2 when we exhale. Plants release CO2 and other GHGs when they die, and when vegetation goes through the normal process of decomposition. The world’s oceans store and release enormous quantities of CO2. Nitrous oxides are greenhouse gases naturally produced in nature in the soil through microbial processes.
Carbon dioxide, in fact, underpins the entire food web. It is a natural fertilizer, in fact, used in agriculture to increase crop yields. It is not a byproduct or pollutant but an intended result of energy production. Efficient combustion of hydrocarbons produces more CO2; just one more reason why those who advocate ‘energy efficiency’ as a global warming solution haven’t quite perfected their argument yet.
Combustion and emissions contribute only about 2% of the ‘GHGs’ that actually KEEP OUR PLANET habitable, while environmentalists focus their diatribes on eevvilll coal mines, SUVs and power plants.
The top graph is the temperature and CO2 concentration in the atmosphere for the last 400,000 years from the Vostok ice core. The second is the temperature change from present, degrees centigrade. (Year before present=1950.) If the two graphs were superimposed, as is customary when comparing similar curves, changes in temperature PRECEDE changes in CO2 concentration by about 400-4,000 years. Petit et al (1999) state that during each of the last four interglacial periods, the Earth was warmer than the current warm period. (courtesy, Lord Monckton of Brenchley, 2006)
In conclusion: Even if we totally eliminate our carbon dioxide contribution, and the only way we can do that is to stop breathing–it’s debateable if anything whatsoever will change. Historically, warming happens BEFORE carbon dioxide goes up in the atmosphere, not the other way around. So it’s literally impossible that this ridiculous theory is correct.
Until the UN’s 2001 report, a mediaeval warming period wasn’t controversial at all. It was warmer then by up to 3 degrees centigrade. We know this from logs from c.1000 AD ships where it was recorded they sailed in parts of the Arctic where there is now a permanent ice cap. (Monckton, 2006)
I’m not sure what kind of explanation you can provide for the medieval warming period shown above, since this was before the industrial age when we started putting all those terrible GHGs into the air through the burning of whale oil, fossil fuels, etc. In the beginning of the industrial age and during, we were in a little ice age–only fairly recently did that end.
The algorithm of Mann et al. (1998, & UN, 2001) was re-tested by McKitrick et al.. Mann et al left out the dataset that included the mediaeval warming period, storing it in a computer file marked “CENSORED_DATA”. When McKitrick et al. ran the Mann et al. model including the missing dataset, poof! the mediaeval warming period reappeared!!! This is the same dataset which had to be eliminated in order to create the infamous -now debunked- hockey stick graph which produced environazi hysterics. (courtesy, Lord Monckton of Brenchley, 2006)
Needless to say, I have been in touch with a lot of people who do these calculations. For the simpler ones, I make the graphs and calculations myself.
June 30th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Earth gets hotter (most likely the same reason that every other planet in the solar system seems to be heating up….ummm, maybe it has something to do with that big ball of hot gas—-the sun not michael moore)…
When earth gets hotter what happens?
More water evaporates…..
When water evaporates what happens?
Clouds form….
When clouds form what happens?
Rain falls….
When rain falls what happens?
Earth gets cooler….
All of the people that believe humans are having a major and detrimental effect on the environment are mental and think a whole lot more of themselves than they should…..but then the left is full of themselves aren’t they?
June 30th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Reference
What I don’t get is how Manzi ended up posting at NRO. Great post, by the way, Kender.
This table demonstrates in a simple visual format that Lindzen’s theory about cloud cover is completely accurate, and that the majority of ‘greenhouse gases’ are made up of water vapor. As you can see, man’s contribution is barely visible here, because it’s minimal! Greenhouse gases are natural; industrialization has done nothing to the environment. Industrialization, burning of fossil fuels, actually adds to the wonderful protective blanket that filters harmful rays from the sun and protects our atmosphere. Greenhouse gases are not detrimental to the environment; these gases feed a healthy environment and are natural; not pollution. It’s a beautiful set up: we exhale CO2, plants breathe and thrive on CO2, and expel oxygen. Increased CO2 in the air is as a result of warming, not the other way around; and it’s nature’s cyclical corrective mechanism that we’re witnessing.
The industrial age didn’t bring about intensive global warming; historical data (ACCURATE HISTORICAL DATA) shows us that. There was a time when there was more CO2 in the air back before the industrial age started; and the temperatures were virtually the same.
We should bear all this in mind with Al Gore and the UN’s power grab coming up.
Thanks to Francis T. Manns, Ph.D., P.Geo. (Ontario), with Artesian Geological Research, who sent me three extremely technical papers on warming, one is a very easy to understand powerpoint presentation, and that’s where this graphic came from. Mirror site where the information is available on a website, here.
Putting it all together: total human greenhouse gas contributions add up to about 0.28% of the greenhouse effect. (Manns, 2003)
June 30th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
I don’t dispute that global warming exists. I dispute the assertions made by those who are members of the cult known as The Church of Global Warming of Modern Day Idiots which Mr. Manzi seems to be an Elder.
Ok, explain to me now Mr. Manzi how man’s contribution to the CO2 in the atmosphere is detrimental to the earth when man only contributes about 3% of the CO2 present? And even at that, CO2 represents only about 1/400th of 1% of the total amount of gasses in the atmosphere, so how can man’s minute contribution put an end to the world?
Of the 186 Billion metric tons of CO2 that entered the earth’s atmosphere in 2004, man contributed approximately 6 billion metric tons. That’s 3%. The other 97%, approximately 180 billion metric tons were contributed by the earth’s oceans and other biologic sources.
Water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas. That said, does Mr. Manzi suggest that we remove the contributing sources of water vapor in our atmosphere?
The whole argument is absurd. The idea that man could have such a detrimental effect on the world is arrogant at best. The dinosaurs had their shot and died when a big rock came plunging into our atmosphere, but yet the earth survived. I don’t think that Mr. Manzi or High Priest Al Gore can humble themselves long enough to realize that the earth is making the rules, we aren’t. Earth’s cycles will happen whether we want them to or not.
And while I mention former VP Chicken Little, why is it that we are to trust that hypocritical idiot when his “carbon footprint” is 100 times the average American?
Get the idea through your head, you can’t sell us flawed computer models based on near surface temperature readings that don’t take into account external factors such as the recovery of the ozone layer, urban sprawl, and other factors. Forgive us if we don’t trust these readings not knowing who set the parameters for the computer models. Computers can output anything the individual who programed it tells it to.
Cao,
Forgive me if I rambled a bit, I’ve been up for nearly 20 hours.
Goodnight all…
June 30th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Night, Grib. Luvs ya, and you didn’t ramble at all. Excellent commentary. The other part that the brain trusts at IPCC forgot as an element that warms the earth is….drumroll….THE SUN!
June 30th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Oh don’t get me started on Sunspot activity. See you woke me back up.
If, now bear with me, if global warming is such a problem because of man, his cars, his burning of fossil fuels for heating his home, etc…, then tell me why there is global warming on Mars? Could it be that we share the same sun and that sun’s activity has been elevated for a few centuries? Would make sense to me.
June 30th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
This is interesting; a few bullet points from Cosmic-climate study cools Kyoto by by Tim Patterson, National Post Monday, July 14, 2003 (I think this guy is also out of Canada).
- When we are in the bright arms of the galaxy, we are relatively close to more supernovas, the galactic cosmic ray intensity is consequently high, we therefore have more cooling clouds, and so we see colder periods on the Earth;
- When we are out of the arms and galactic cosmic ray strength is low, there are less clouds and the Earth is warmer.
Veizer and Shaviv conclude that 75% of the temperature variability in the last half-billion years is explained by cosmic ray changes as we move in and out of galactic spiral arms.
Yet, over the same time frame, the geologic record shows essentially no correlation between CO2 levels and temperature even though CO2 levels have been up to 18 times higher than today. In fact, CO2 concentration was more than 10 times higher than current levels during the Ordovician glaciation, about 440 million years ago.
Veizer and Shaviv use their study results to conclude that a doubling of today’s CO2 levels would result in a change in low-latitude sea temperatures of about 0.5C. This translates into a global temperature rise of only about 0.75C instead of the 1.5-to-5.5C global warming predicted by the IPCC. This new forecast compares favourably with other predictions (e.g. MIT’s Richard Lindzen, 1997) and matches the rate of change observed by weather satellites over the past 22 years.
June 30th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
I trust all will remember the great Immigration fiasco of last week. If you do, you will also recall that Bush and a number of other Republicans supported that gosh awful bill, namely Graham, McCain and mealy mouthed Lott. One theory that has been advanced, and seemingly a good one is that these individuals (and others) have been convinced that by signing on to the bill, the Hispanic community would see that Republicans are pro-Hispanic.
Well, guess what folks, I live in a very politically conservative area known as deep south Texas where the Hispanic community is roughly 80% of the population (and by the bye, I love it here), the folk here are mostly conservative if you talk to them one on one and they hold to the same core values that most conservatives do, but when in the voting booth, they invariably vote Democrat and that is reflected in the fact that the Rio Grande Valley is a reliable dem vote for the Democrats and a deep pocket for Democrat fundraisers (despite the overwhelming poverty).
The chances of the generally at large Hispanic community voting Republican because of that bill is almost nil. The same way, if you think that greens, radical conservationists and tree huggers will vote Republican because we switch to supporting green measures is ludicrous on it’s face.
I’m not sure what the folk proposing this policy are drinking, but can I have some?
June 30th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
lol…that was funny, GM, for a number of reasons. One is…my son went to school in the Valley, so I know the area, have driven through it frequently. It’s not that far away from Matamoros, where my dad travelled to test his engineering designs. Manzi’s smoking some pretty good stuff, I think, to imagine that just jumping onto the green bandwagon of global warming and pandering to the green vote will do anything for conservatives who have enough sense to realize it’s a total power grab based on junk science.
Faster economic progress was a catalyst for developing new technologies. Just like global warming today, things look bad when you take one section of time and don’t look at the entire picture.
Technological progress has had environmental consquences, such as air and water pollution and deforestation, for the short term. But looking at the bigger picture, you can clearly see the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. A stroll down memory lane punctuates that point. 16th century coal mining in Europe was overtaken by 19th century oil drilling. Coal mining and oil drilling saved forests that were being cut down for fuel, and stopped whale hunting for whale oil. Man’s source of power has gradually moved from wood to coal to oil to gas during the last century-and-a-half. Each of these fuels is richer in hydrogen and poorer in carbon than its predecessor, what an epiphany! The de-carbonization of the world economy, accompanied by a shift from dirty-to-cleaner technologies, because of improved technological developments, is occurring all by itself, without any political directives!
This is too bad for the global warming freaks who don’t look back to history.
But they have a political goal in mind: to find a way for government to control human activity. For Manzi to imagine that we would promise to do something about global warming when it doesn’t exist is a ridiculous jump into fantasyland. Does he really believe that slop he wrote in that paper?
The environmental global warming argument is based on forced computer models missing important and critical data (like the sun’s influence, cloud cover [the natural cooling mechanism] and the mediaval warming period)-and is what boils down to the equivalent of communist propaganda.
Which reminds me, David Horowitz has a great article up about Gore/Clinton and the myths and lies that the democrats have manufactured around the war in Iraq. It just demonstrates that they will stop at nothing to do their schtick.
July 1st, 2007 at 3:36 am
Oh This Is Rich…
http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/450392,CST-EDT-REF30b.article
July 1st, 2007 at 5:59 am
That is great, Grib, I think I may turn that into a post.
And where did Manzi go? Guess he doesn’t have much to say because just like feminism, global warming cannot stand up to empirical evidence! That’s the way it is with all of this leftist bs.
They call it “science”, but what you have in the IPCC (which Manzi unquestioningly quotes in his paper) is totalitarian politcal correctness where you’re called a ‘heretic’ if you don’t subscribe to the political line. For crying out loud, those scientists are funded by government money. All you have to do to get grant money today is include ‘global warming’ in your grant application. What you get as a result is models fed with skewed data to achieve the desired result. Hell, the IPCC reported their conclusions first, and then worked on producing the fake evidence to back it up. What a bunch of BS.
Source
July 3rd, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Here is a letter I wrote to NR. Why Cao would wonder why Manzi would write this article for NR makes me wonder if Cao reads NR. It’s mostly a big government rag in conservative clothing full of conspiracy theory scare tactics to grow their aristocracy at the expence of those who prefer to mind their own business.
Dear Editor,
Basically, Jim Manzi’s conservative plan for global warming is just more big government. A billion dollar award for an atmospheric carbon remover and new zoning laws for coastal areas are still nothing more than forced wealth transfers and government mandates.
Richard Branson has the right idea keeping any new technology in private hands. The burden created by mistaken scientific guesses would be bourn by the individuals who risked the funds and government bureaucrats would be kept from ********-up a possible important break-through.
His idea of government funded research is no different from the programs National Review espouses to decry. If the effects of global warming are delt with only with private sector insurance and technology those who benefit will pay, those who don’t will not, and the most economical decisions will leave more capital available to each of us.
Why is that so hard to understand?
Fritz Groszkruger
1820 Warbler Ave.
Dumont, IA 50625
641-456-5524
July 3rd, 2007 at 4:07 pm
I’m glad you know all about it, I don’t. I just went over there to read his article, I don’t hang out there. I was under the impression, that National Review Online was more ‘conservative’ than say Reuters or the New York Times, but I have no idea how I arrived at that conclusion. Misguided, I guess. :shock::shock:
What’s hard to understand is why Manzi is debating with Milloy when clearly Manzi is advocating more government. Maybe he’s not using the same arguments as Gore is, but that isn’t the point.
I never claimed to know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING, and I like to think I’m ‘teachable’.