"Policies to limit CO2 emissions by energy or carbon taxes, while superficially attractive, are economically damaging to the great majority of countries..."

Now, the rationale for this, and the scientific unreasoning, have changed often, but never the bottom line... :-)

-John Mashey

I am from Kansas but currently studying climate change at Oxford for a masters degree, and I am constantly amazed at the idiocy of the vast majority of our legislators in my home state. While I love it dearly, quotes like the following from Melvin Neufeld, the Speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives don't give me much confidence in that body's ability to address the issue: "They tell us that if you jog two miles you emit more carbon dioxide than if you drive two miles."

Are you serious?! I mean, I know Melvin is a bit old, but COME ON!

Luckily, Governor Kathleen Sebelius and Lt. Governor Mark Parkinson just GET IT. As you mentioned, they took a huge step in denying permits to Sunflower Electric to built two 700-MW coal-fired plants near Holcomb last fall, and are taking HUGE steps toward making Kansas a world leader in wind energy. I think you will continue to see great things from those two leaders - and they are truly leaders - in the current legislative session and throughout the rest of their term.

And, you're right, Joseph - I don't think anyone in the scientific community takes Fred Singer seriously. Let's hope the Kansas Legislature refuses to take him seriously, as well!

-GreenOx
www.greenox.blogspot.com

-GreenOx www.greenox.blogspot.com

Stuff like:

1. Mars (NASA findings of massive dust storms, why Abrusimov is wrong, and how the mars rover nearly got killed by the storms)
   
2. Nothing on the Lezpig, Lezpig mkII, Canada 100 scientists, or Inhofe 400 scientists
   
3. None of the new admissions by the IPCC, or new studies finding that MAYBE their sea level rise figures were understated.
   

4. Most of the new stuff in by Lomborg/Nordhaus
   
5. Never have seen a page with a good explanation of Milankovitch cycles, why solar forced warming can't explain current warming, and how GHG can explain current warming.  (This is one of our weakest arguments, so we need a very understandable argument for it)
   
6. How we know the CO2 is manmade
   
7. Info on why 2006 hurricanes were weak
   
8. Info on Gore's "Errors" by a UK judge, and the difference between Errors and "Errors"
   
9. Why 1934 really wasn't the hottest year on earth
   
10. Polar Bears
    
11. NAS review of Mann et al. didn't discredit it
    
12. Moberg 2005
    
13. Baliunas 2006 / Singer 2006
    
14. Svensmark 2007
    
15. The issues with the Troposphere, and how John Christy continues to lie about it.
    
16. James Hansen isn't being bribed by George Soros
    

And then just in general, clumps of counter arguments:
The alleged "errors" in An Inconvenient Truth
The real errors in Great Global Warming Swindle

-David Ahlport

Meanwhile in the Arctic, sea ice formation is extremely thin and likely to melt even faster next summer (source:  Jeff Master's blog, highly respected).  

Good article, Mr. Romm. If there was some BS it was about whether CO2 was man-made, which obviously not all is. It should be noted that the generalized models are only capable of measuring increases in anthropogenic CO2, which in turn increases CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, all other things being equal.

Unfortunately, the only way one can portray a "model" to a redneck is to show a cardboard cut-out of Farrah Fawcett with her tits falling off....

Onward through the fog

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_J._Romm

I would say he is a pundit, a policy maker, a political technology advisor...but I don't see any primary scientific research to his credit?

Which could also use some updating, but is well-organized.  In particular:

1. one page that lists all the arguments tersely in one place.  If you can get someone undecided to read that page, it's fairly powerful.

2. Links to a page apiece that describe the argument, point at who uses it, show why it's wrong, and point at relevant articles.

One can easily write: Ho-hum, standard debunked arguments #3, 7, 10 from the website. Ntohing new, and if you have any doubt, look at the scientific references the detailed web pages.

That tends to derail incitements to long discussions that make it look liek there's a real argument.

Here's a usage example, in a site with a tightly-constrained word-count:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest ...

-John Mashey

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-positives- ...

Here's one of the agricultural negatives of global warming.

Rampant, more virulent poison ivy

AGWers are scraping the tarmac...better land and refuel, with some real science!

Saying the same things over and over, as climate change denialists are known for doing, makes these naysayers perverse, not right.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/

Thanks to the lectures from Dr Singer of some 20-25 years ago, I had the opportunity to learn the fundamental bases of heat and mass exchange - of how the atmosphere actually works.  

How many reading here can consider an atmospheric phenomenon - and say, yes, I do understand?  

Industry pays a shill like Singer to lie, then industry shilling legislators have him testify.  It's a great system.  It's called corporatism.

The GOP model of government efficiency.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Naomi Oreskes' talk last year gave a lot more background, i.e., it goes a lot deeper than that:
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/march21/oreske ...

 

-John Mashey

Thanks to Dr Singer, I had the opportunity to learn that his research was funded by Phillip Morris.

Thanks to Dr Singer, I had the opportunity to learn that the ozone hole doesn't have anything to do with CFCs.
http://www.desmogblog.com/deniers-evolution-from-ozone-to ...

Thanks to Dr Singer, I had the opportunity to learn that you can prove anything as long as you use incoherent data without errorbars.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tro ...

-David Ahlport

What abunch of typical BS!

Wouldn't THAT put a lot of research scientists out of a job?

If they were so focused on money, wouldn't they try to drag things out as long as possible, rather than purposely ending it?

-David Ahlport

But how about we put things into perspective
http://greyfalcon.net/iraqvsenergy.png

We're not at that point yet.

-David Ahlport

Wheew, I'm just glad I don't have to worry about global climate disaster anymore.  Thank the mighty chief of all dimbulb limboobs everywhere!

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

One wants to give people visions of doom and despair, the other finds more basis for common sense and moving away from fear.  

Why is it that some people find a message of despair to be far more satisfactory than a message that seems more balanced?  It is beyond me because negative people usually turn other people off.  

Slightly off topic but I really wonder - if the tobacco, pollution, damage, danger message that people are constantly bombarded with by the environmentalists was true, I wonder how anybody living in the year 1920 ever made it past the age of 15?  

For some reason, Dr Singer is absolutely rejected by the environmentalists, and people like Dr Hansen are highly regarded.

Maybe thats because Singer is obviously taking money from blatant stonewalling organizations, makes broad claims which aren't substantiated by the science, and occasionally publishes papers which are thoroughly quashed by open-peer-review, but which he continues to cite even though they are no longer scientifically valid.

-David Ahlport

[Be honest now!  How much does that Academy Award Winner charge even rinky-dink little colleges for that 45 minute Power Point presentation of his?  The thing is so filled with untruth I couldn't give that speech for twice that amount, in all honesty.  I have never taken eight cents for trying to move people away from fear and I get vile letters about being "devious".  Talk about a rewarding job!]

As this shows, I'm not the only one interested in ensuring an informed public sees the truth

And Burger didn't actually publish a paper in Science, he merely made a published comment on someone else's paper.
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/09/25/qu ...

And the link it's referring to is a blog put up by Patrick J. Michaels.
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/personnel

Michaels is the Chief Editor for the "World Climate Review," a newsletter on global warming funded by the Western Fuels Association. Dr. Michaels has acknowledged that 20% of his funding comes from fossil fuel sources: (http://www.mtn.org/~nescncl/complaints/determinations/det ...) Known funding includes $49,000 from German Coal Mining Association, $15,000 from Edison Electric Institute and $40,000 from Cyprus Minerals Company, an early supporter of People for the West, a "wise use" group. He received $63,000 for research on global climate change from Western Fuels Association, above and beyond the undisclosed amount he is paid for the World Climate Report/Review. According to Harper's magazine, Michaels has recieved over $115,000 over the past four years from coal and oil interests. Michaels wrote "Sound and Fury" and "The Satanic Gases" which were published by Cato Institute. Dr. Michaels signed the 1995 Leipzig Declaration. In July of 2006, it was revealed that the Intermountain Rural Electric Association "contributed $100,000 to Dr. Michaels." (http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GlobalWarming/story?id=2 ...) ALEC advisor. http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=11310 and http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3558

_

That said, I absolutely agree Gore is nothing but a Pundit.

However Singer on the other hand acts like he's more than a Pundit.

More importantly as I mentioned, he refuses to use peer reviewed physical science which hasn't already been falsified. And the few parts he does, he makes broad claims which go beyond the evidence.

-David Ahlport

"A June 29, 2007 scientific analysis by Gerd Burger of Berlin's Institute of Meteorology"

There are organisations I suppose, that have an interest in trying to help the public not to be afraid of one thing or another: the good that something brings is often overlooked when people are trying to make people afraid.  

On the other hand, there are organisations out there that see a capital advantage to promoting fear about a lot things.  (Think there's any truth to that statement, Dr Romm?)

Think about the staterment: "refuses to use peer reviewed physical science which hasn't already been falsified."  Now strictly speaking, "peer review" refers to that otiose process of professors being evaluated for tenure. But in all honesty, I don't know of one scrap of "physical science" that has been published in a journal that others capable of evaluating have found to be wrong that anybody continues to use.  Why would they?  If you are referring to Dr Singer himself, then if somebody found errors in his work and others agree and write about (and that disagreement is collaborated), I not aware of it.  Just because Dr Singer writes something and somebody else writes that they don't like it, that doesn't mean it is "falsified."  

Falcon you seem like a nice guy, I would guess, maybe 23-33 years of age.  When I was your age I was even more sceptical than I am now:  everything was wrong until somebody proved to me otherwise.  Now I'm not so critical, but if I see things just promoted to scare people, I can't help but say that's wrong.  The environmentalists seem to be trying to find what is wrong with everything, to make their own ideas about renewables and so on look appealing (or the only legitimate alternative) - and that doesn't really help anybody.  Maybe scepticism comes only with the individual psyche, and it is kind of lonely but there is a lot of room and need over on the other side

Including such whoppers as
The Troposphere is cooling
And
The Medieval Period was warmer than the 1940s, much less today's temperatures

_

And no some guy's comment doesn't amount to a published scientific paper, complete with methods and data, and reviewed for adherence to academic honesty and the scientific method.

-David Ahlport