Boortz on the attack - with a plastic spoon

Submitted by naught101 on Sun, 02/04/2007 - 16:29

Luckily for me, I'd never heard of Neal Boortz up until the release of the IPCC's Summary for Policy Makers, 2007. then in comments on an intro report on the SPM on realclimate ( http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/02/the-ipcc-fourth-assessment-summary-for-policy-makers/ ), a few people mentioned his latest attack: http://boortz.com/nuze/200702/02022007.html

have a read. it's quite entertaining, even in it's simplicity. I thought I'd take a look at it, and rebut some of the more interesting points. If you think I've missed an important one, let me know, I'll have a go at it.

Italics are direct quotes from Boortz's page. (mine are in bold parantesis)


WHY AM I SKEPTICAL ABOUT MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING?A 21-page report from something called the "Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change" has been released today...in Paris, no less... (the point being that if it's french it's untrue?) and as expected, it's predictions are dire. According to the report: "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level." Yeah right...we've heard all this before (and you're still not listening. denier).But the biggest bombshell here is this one: no matter what we do, global warming will not be reversed. It will go on for centuries, according to this report. The sea levels will continue to rise as polar ice caps melt. So I guess if Al Gore wins his Nobel Peace Prize, we'll still experience global warming. So much for riding to work everyday in your hybrid car...it's not doing a thing. The situation is futile, according to this report.(pure tripe. The report says that if we go on, business as usual, the effects will be dire. It also says that if we cut emissions significantly, we can stay under 2°C, the point where a lot of thresholds start being overcome)
But really, it makes sense that the global warming crowd would come to this conclusion. After all, global warming is a religion
(no. it's science. Definitely some environmentalists take it further than the science says, but on the balance, mainstream greenies are calling for less cuts than the scientists). The anti-capitalist enviro-nazis (ohhh... and you call us emotive?) don't ever want the problem to be solved. After all, if global warming were to be solved tomorrow, what would they blame the United States for ? They'd have to find some other reason (how about: fucking over nearly every third world country for it's own financial gain, fucking over it's own citizens for similar reasons, numerous wars, and plenty of other environmental problems).

Sorry .. I'm still a skeptic (no, you're a denier). In no particular order here are just a few of the reasons why I'm not buying this man-made global warming scare:

  • The United Nations is anti-American and anti-Capitalist. In short .. I don't trust them. Not a bit. The UN would eagerly engage in any enterprise that would weaken capitalist economies around the world. (Anti-capitalist, anti-American, call it what you will, I would say that the UN is pro-fairness, albeit heavily restricted by the political wrangling of the US and other major global powers)
  • Because after the fall of the Soviet Union and worldwide Communism many in the anti-capitalist movement moved to the environmental movement to continue pursuing their anti-free enterprise goals. Many of the loudest proponents of man-made global warming today are confirmed anti-capitalists. (yep, soviet communism didn't work as a solution, but the fight goes on. You're not saying anything about the truth of climate change here Neal)
  • Because the sun is warmer .. and all of these scientists don't seem to be willing to credit a warmer sun with any of the blame for global warming.(read the IPCC SPM. They do. It's just that from all observation and experiment, they conclude that the sun is warming us by 0.12W/m2, while Greenhouse gasses are warming the planet by 2.3W/m2 [IPCC SPM07, p.3]. That's almost 20 times as much. Have you been doing and experiments Neal?)
  • The polar ice caps on Mars are melting. How did our CO2 emissions get all the way to Mars?(Mars is a completely different geo-system to earth. There could be any number of reasons why this is happening, not that I've seen your references in the first place)
  • It was warmer in the 1930s across the globe than it is right now. (Not from what I've read it wasn't. Where's your reference?)
  • It wasn't all that long ago that these very same scientists were warning us about "global cooling" and another approaching ice age? (I doubt it was the "very same scientists," although it is possible. Perhaps you're thinking of the possible shutdown of the gulf stream? That's a low possibility, but the oceanic overturning currents ARE slowing down in some areas [NewScientist])
  • How much has the earth warmed up in the last 100 years? One degree. Now that's frightening. (It is if you understand basic chaos theory. Remember the butterfly. One degree (actually it's only 0.72), can do a lot of damage, severely increasing in instability of weather systems. The IPCC suggests that the world is locked into a minimum of 1.1 degrees (assuming we stop emitting all GHG NOW). 1.5°C is where most of the world's coral reefs die completely)

  • Because that famous "hockey stick" graph that purports to show a sudden warming of the earth in the last few decades is a fraud. It ignored previous warming periods ... left them off the graph altogether. (p.8 of the SPM says that the last half-century's worth of warmth is unusual in the last 1300 years, and the last time they were warmer than now for any length of time was 125,000 years ago, when Neanderthals were still around [wikipedia]).
  • The infamous Kyoto accords exempt some of the world's biggest CO2 polluters, including China and India.(Yep, that's because AMERICA and AUSTRALIA insisted that they wouldn't take part unless they had absolutely useless targets (australia has +8% on 1990 levels). Which is why kyoto is practically worthless, and most environmentalists don't even pay a second thought to it any more)
  • The Kyoto accords can easily be seen as nothing less than an attempt to hamstring the world's dominant capitalist economies.(or as an attempt to level the playing field – to punish those who emit too much)
  • Because many of these scientists who are sounding the global warming scare depend on grant money for their livelihood, and they know the grant money dries up when they stop preaching the global warming sermon.(Absolute bullshit. If anything, the Bush administration has been anti-science, and this is probably reflected in their grant offers. The same cannot be said for the climate skeptic camp (real scientific skeptics, not deniers), which is supported by the Oil industry with large sums of money [Guardian])
  • Because global warming "activists" and scientists seek to punish those who have different viewpoints. If you are sure of your science you have no need to shout down or seek to punish those who disagree.(Not like what you're doing right now Neal?)
  • What happened to the Medieval Warm Period? In 1996 the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a chart showing climatic change over a period of 1000 years. This graph showed a Medieval warming period in which global temperatures were higher than they are today. In 2001 the IPCC issued another 1000 year graph in which the Medieval warming period was missing. Why? (Because the Medieval Warm period, as well as the little Ice Age, were confined to specific areas of the globe (Europe and the north atlantic in this case) [Wikipedia])
  • Why has one scientist promoting the cause of man-made global warming been quoted as saying "we have to get rid of the medieval warming period?" (Who? where?)
  • Why is the ice cap on the Antarctic getting thicker if the earth is getting warmer? (while it MAY get thicker, the total ice volume is getting smaller, due to dynamic losses, such as the collapse of the Ross Ice shelf, and the Larsen B ice shelf. Global warming does not mean that EVERY part of the globe is getting warmer at the same time, or at all. It's just an average. I can think of another reason, that I have no hard evidence for: Ozone is a greenhouse gas. Isn't there a huge hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica?)
  • In the United State, the one country with the most accurate temperature measuring and reporting records, temperatures have risen by 0.3 degrees centigrade over the past 100 years. The UN estimate is twice that. (Again, you fail to take into account the fact that global warming is the global average. Different regions operate differently)
  • There are about 160,000 glaciers around the world. Most have never been visited or measured by man. The great majority of these glaciers are growing, not melting. (wrong. The vast majority are shrinking. Pretty sure your information comes from http://sepp.org/controv/glaciers.html (view it here: http://web.archive.org/web/20050209083016/http://sepp.org/controv/glaciers.html and the updated version here: http://www.sepp.org/Archive/controv/controversies/glaciers.html ) or one of it's bastard siblings. Please quote me the reference that they used)
  • Side-looking radar interferometry shows that the ise (ice?) mass in the West Antarctic is growing at a rate of over 26 gigatons a year. This reverses a melting trend that had persisted for the previous 6,000 years. (can I have a reference please?)
  • Rising sea levels? The sea levels have been rising since the last ice age ended. That was 12,000 years ago. Estimates are that in that time the sea level has risen by over 300 feet. The rise in our sea levels has been going on long before man started creating anything but natural CO2 emissions.(yes, but now they're rising quicker. Try reading the IPCC SPM)
  • Like Antarctica, the interior of Greenland is gaining ice mass.(not from what I've read, reference please.)
  • Over the past 3,000 years there have been five different extended periods when the earth was measurably warmer than it is today. (I already countered this above. Perhaps you have a better reference?)
  • During the last 20 years -- a period of the highest carbon dioxide levels -- global temperatures have actually decreased. That's right ... decreased. (Again, that's counter to what the IPCC says, do you have a better reference?)
  • Why did a reporter from National Public Radio refuse to interview David Deming, an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma studying global warming, after his testimony to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee unless Deming would state that global warming was being caused by man? (Now THAT's a good question. Where can I find out more?)
  • Why are global warming proponents insisting that the matter is settled and that no further scientific research is needed? Why are they afraid of additional information? (The IPCC is a continuing study. No one has said it's finished. Nearly all new (peer-reviewed) information points in the same direction to the IPCC. Infact, it's what the IPCC reports are drawn from)
  • On July 24, 1974 Time Magazine published an article entitled "Another Ice Age?" Here's the first paragraph:

    "As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age." (Are you saying that the science in 1974 was better than it is now? If I could be bothered to look, I'm sure I could find updated evidence that disproved that theory... but 1974?)

Hey ... I could go on. There's much more where that came from. But I need to get ready to go on the air. Just know that many of the strongest proponents of this "man-made" global warming stuff are dedicated opponents to capitalism and don't feel all that warm and fuzzy about the United States (all the pictures I've seen of the United states, and most of the ones of it's people are beautiful. I just don't like your foreign policies, materialism, greed, and racism, but that goes for nearly all other first-world countries, including my own).

Neal, you seem confused. Half your arguments seem to be trying to say that climate change isn't happening, the other half seem to be trying to say that the scientists are wrong, because it is happening, but differently. What's the deal Neal?

 

References:

 

[IPCC SPM] – International (INCLUDING the US) Panel on Climate Change - http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

 

[NewScientist] - http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8398

 

[wikipedia] – (oops, sorry. Wikipedia is inherently anti-capitalist too)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_timeline

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_warm_period

 

[Guardian] - http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2004397,00.html

Comments

"There are about 160,000 glaciers around the world. Most have never been visited or measured by man. The great majority of these glaciers are growing, not melting."... How do we know they are growing if no-one has ever seen or measured them