Disappearing world: Global warming claims tropical island

Parent Cafe
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<p>edad, there will always be “reputable” scientists who can be trotted out to take a contrarian view on any subject. Lealdragon will introduce you to those who hold that the WTC was felled by explosives, not hijacked planes. What is surprising to me is how little effort is made to hide the fact that most are affiliated with industry funded organizations, or work or have worked directly as industrial flacks. Steven Milloy, Philip Stott (quoted in the article you cite) are two examples.</p>

<p>Let me repeat: you don’t personally understand the science any more than I do. Asking "What about this? What about that? There’s no explanation for this – repeating soundbites prepared for intelligent but scientifically unqualifed – and groomed to be gullible – public is just participating in the slick propaganda program.</p>

<p>There is at this time a clear consensus among “reputable scientists” that the global warming theory has successfully explained and predicted real world phenomenon and is a reliable working theory to explain events - a few crackpots, flacks, fringe scientists and paid hacks notwithstanding. There’s always details to work on in science, and the lack of complete explanation for every thunderstorm or heat wave is not to be exptected. But there is a clear consensus. The burden of proof is, at this point, on the other foot.<br>
Electing to believe that it’s all some kind of conspiracy to mislead people ignores the simple, basic test of reliability of information - Who benefits from the belief one way or the other? There are billions at stake and the people with the billions don’t want us to do anything about global warming - it would hurt short term profits.</p>

<p>Gravity is a theory. Smoking causing cancer is a theory. Global warming is a theory. If a consensus of the smart, critical, and contentious scientific community signs on to a belief that the theory is basically valid, I need something better than a handful of publicity seekers to dismiss it.</p>

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<p>It is clear that CO2 has increased due to man’s activities. The increase has been documented and over the past century CO2 has increased from a bit less than 0.03 to about 0.04 ppm. The earth appears to be warming for the past few centuries and especially within the past century. It appears that the warming has been about 0.2 oC and is accelerating, possibly rapidly. Extrapolating the recent rate of increase, yields some scary predictions. It is also true that the majority of scientists believe the warming is causally related to man’s activities. There are however plenty of doubters and many of the sceptical scientists are not weirdos and are not supported by industry. </p>

<p>“There is at this time a clear consensus among “reputable scientists” that the global warming theory has successfully explained and predicted real world phenomenon and is a reliable working theory to explain events…” What global warming theory? I assume you are referring to the popular idea that CO2 (and possibly also methane) in the atmosphere traps heat - the greenhouse effect. Actually the relatively small about of CO2 is not thought to contribute any significant greenhouse effect. The greenhouse models depend on increases in water vapor. Any connection between man’s activities, CO2 and atmospheric water vapor is not clear.</p>

<p>There are some other reasons to doubt the assumption of causal connection between CO2 and global warming. Relatively recently there have been large and rapid shifts in climate, including the mini-ice age and the middle ages warm period. There have also been numerous very large changes, the major ice ages. The reasons for these shifts are not understood, are clearly not due to man’s activities and may have resulted from variations in solar activity. Some shifts may have also occurred as a result of volcanic activity or meteorite collisions. It is tempted to attribute global warming to man’s activities and, if true, there may be very dire, future consequences. There are also plenty of reasons to doubt the connection.</p>

<p>“Let me repeat: you don’t personally understand the science any more than I do.” It is nice that you have such confidence, but that may be an unwarranted assumption.</p>

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<p>Evolution’s a theory. The cell’s basic functions is a theory. Everything in science is based on the theory.</p>

<p>But “theory” is a very different word for laymen.</p>

<p>This is one of the big problems that I find always crops up in any discussion of scientific issues: “but it’s just a theory!” Yep. And so is how gravity works. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll take those plane tickets to Hawaii.</p>

<p>All a theory is to a scientist is a conceptual framework that explains existing observations and predicts new ones. Things don’t become theories overnight. It’s not like some egghead at some lab sat down and said, “I have a theory that the earth is getting warmer!” No. It’s much more complicated. It took years of observation, facts, and working models before this even became a “theory.”</p>

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<p>"Lealdragon will introduce you to those who hold that the WTC was felled by explosives, not hijacked planes. "</p>

<p>Nah, we don’t need reputable scientists like Dr. Steven Jones of BYU. What do their opinions and research matter, anyway? We have plenty of testimony from New York’s finest:</p>

<p>“…William Rodriguez reported that he and others felt an explosion below the first sublevel at 9:00 am, after which coworker Felipe David…came into the office with severe burns…yelling 'Explosion!”</p>

<p>"…Engineer Mike Pecoraro, who was working in the 6th sub-basement of the north tower, said that after an explosion, he and a coworker went up to the C level, where there was a small machine shop. ‘There was nothing there but rubble,’ said Pecoraro. ‘We’re talking about a 50 ton hydraulic press - gone!’ They then went to the parking garage, but found that it was also gone. Then on the B level, they found that a steel-and-concrete fire door, which weighed about 300 pounds, was wrinkled up ‘like a piece of aluminum foil.’ Having seen similar things after the terrorist attack in 1993, Pecoraro was convinced that a bomb had gone off.</p>

<p>Given these testimonies to explosions in the basement levels of the towers, it is interesting that Mark Loizeaux, head of Controlled Demolition, Inc., has been quoted as saying, ‘If I were to bring the towers down, I would put explosives in the basement to get the weight of the building to help collapse the structure.’…"</p>

<p>"Another common feature of controlled demolition is that people who are properly situated may see flashes when the explosives go off…Captain Karin Deshore said…‘Then this flash just kept popping all the way around the building and that building had started to explode. The popping sound, and with each popping sound it was initially an orange and then a red flash came out of the building and then it would just go all around the building on both sides as far as I could see. These popping sounds and the explosions were getting bigger, going both up and down and then all around the building.’ </p>

<p>…Auxiliary Lieutenant Fireman Paul Isaac…said…‘There were definitely bombs in those buildings…Many other firement know there were bombs in the buildings, but they’re afraid for their jobs to admit it because the ‘higher-ups’ forbid discussion of this fact.’</p>

<p>Firefighter Louie Cacchioli…testified in 2004 to members of the Commission’s staff. But, he reported, they were so unreceptive that he ended up walking out in anger. ‘I felt like I was being put on trial in a court room…They were tyring to twist my words and make the story fit only what they wanted to hear. All I wanted to do was tell the truth and when they wouldn’t let me do that, I walked out.’…"</p>

<p>Above quotes from ‘Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11’ by David Ray Griffin. LOTS more testimonies and full documentation. A scholarly work.</p>

<p>btw, WTC7 was not hit by airplanes. And the 911 Commission official report completely leaves it out. Evidently they considered a 47-story building collapsing with no explanation to be unimportant.</p>

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<p>from <a href=“http://www.explosive911analysis.com/[/url]”>http://www.explosive911analysis.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>“There is an explosion at the base of the building ? white smoke from the bottom ? something happened at the base of the building! Then another explosion.”</p>

<ul>
<li>WNYW Fox 5 Anchor Describing First Seconds Of The Collapse Of WTC 2 , 9/11/2001.</li>
</ul>

<p>“My opinion is, based on the videotapes, that after the airplanes hit the World Trade Center there were some explosive devices inside the buildings that caused the towers to collapse”.</p>

<ul>
<li>Van Romero, Vice President For Research At New Mexico Institute Of Mining And Technology</li>
</ul>

<p>“Apparently what appears to happen, that at the same time two planes hit the buildings, that the FBI most likely thinks that there was a car or truck packed with explosives underneath the buildings which also exploded at the same time and brought both of them down.”</p>

<ul>
<li>Jack Kelley, USA Today Foreign Correspondent - 9/11/2001</li>
</ul>

<p>“Just moments ago I spoke to the chief of safety for the New York City fire department, he received word of the possibility of a secondary device - that is another bomb going off … according to his theory he thinks that there were actually devices that were planted in the building.”</p>

<ul>
<li>Pat Dawson, MSNBC - 9/11/2001</li>
</ul>

<p>“There were explosions going off everywhere. I was convinced that there were bombs planted all over the place and someone was sitting at a control panel pushing detonator buttons . . . There was another explosion. And another. I didn’t know where to run.”</p>

<ul>
<li>Teresa Veliz, WTC 1 Employee, 47th Floor</li>
</ul>

<p>“There is an explosion at the base of the building… white smoke from the bottom…something happened at the base of the building! Then another explosion.”</p>

<ul>
<li>WNYW Fox 5 Anchor Describing First Seconds Of The Collapse Of WTC 2 , 9/11/2001.</li>
</ul>

<p>“I was taking firefighters up in the elevator to the 24th floor to get in position to evacuate workers. On the last trip up a bomb went off. We think there were bombs set in the building.”</p>

<ul>
<li>NYFD Firefighter Louie Cacchioli</li>
</ul>

<p>“There was just an explosion in the south tower. It seemed like on television when they blow up these buildings. It seemed like it was going all the way around like a belt, all these explosions.”</p>

<ul>
<li>NYFD Firefighter Richard Banaciski </li>
</ul>

<p>“It actually gave at a lower floor, not the floor where the plane hit. . . . We originally had thought there was like an internal detonation, explosives, because it went in succession, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then the tower came down”</p>

<ul>
<li>NYFD Firefighter Edward Cachia</li>
</ul>

<p>There are LOTS more testimonies, LOTS. You can find documentation in Griffin’s book, among lots of other places.</p>

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<p>“Electing to believe that it’s all some kind of conspiracy to mislead people ignores the simple, basic test of reliability of information - Who benefits from the belief one way or the other? There are billions at stake and the people with the billions don’t want us to do anything about global warming - it would hurt short term profits.”</p>

<p>kluge, I agree with your above statement. </p>

<p>Since YOU brought up 911 in a global warming thread, I ask you this: Who stands to profit more: the people promulgating the ‘Controlled Demolition’ theory, or the govt. who is promulgating the ‘Official Story’ theory?</p>

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<p>

Didn’t you answer that one yourself by continuing to reference a book on the subject? Do you think that the author of the book gets no royalties from its sale? On the otherhand, those on the 9/11 Commission do not profit from their report.</p>

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<p><a href=“http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/008200612300910.htm[/url]”>http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/008200612300910.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“Oceans Warming And Rising - Global ResearchGlobal Research - Centre for Research on Globalization”>Oceans Warming And Rising - Global ResearchGlobal Research - Centre for Research on Globalization;

<p><a href=“http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2110651.ece[/url]”>http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2110651.ece&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,240079,00.html[/url]”>http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,240079,00.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.playfuls.com/news_003677_Another_Global_Warming_Victim_Canadas_Ayles_Ice_Shelf.html[/url]”>http://www.playfuls.com/news_003677_Another_Global_Warming_Victim_Canadas_Ayles_Ice_Shelf.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-12/30/content_5549132.htm[/url]”>http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-12/30/content_5549132.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://heraldnet.com/stories/06/12/29/100edi_editorial001.cfm[/url]”>http://heraldnet.com/stories/06/12/29/100edi_editorial001.cfm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>*Better late than never, science appears to have won a key debate inside the Bush administration. Its proposal Wednesday to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act puts the U.S. government on record as saying that global warming is a real problem with serious effects.</p>

<p>Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, the former Idaho governor, acknowledges that the habitat of polar bears in Alaska - sea ice the bears need for hunting - is shrinking because of rising temperatures in the Arctic, and that human activity is at least part of the problem.</p>

<p>That’s a significant admission, the strongest to date from a Bush Cabinet member. But the real import of Wednesday’s proposal is that it could unleash legal action under the Endangered Species Act forcing the government to do something about that human activity - namely, curbing or capping carbon emissions…*</p>

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<p>“Didn’t you answer that one yourself by continuing to reference a book on the subject? Do you think that the author of the book gets no royalties from its sale? On the otherhand, those on the 9/11 Commission do not profit from their report.”</p>

<p>That’s hilarious. Is that the best response you can come up with, after reading all those testimonies from the firefighters? Are you proposing that they made it all up just to sell a book? Oops, wait, many of those testimonies were from the day it happened. Sorry, you’ll have to do better than that. Think. I’m sure you can figure out who stood to profit from the Iraq war.</p>

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<p>If all these testimonials of firefigthers and employees point to a conspiracy, how does the government keep a lid on all those directly involved? </p>

<p>The media is as aggressive as ever, this story would be a hundred times bigger than Watergate. </p>

<p>Why haven’t any of the hundreds, if not thousands, of government insiders needed for such an undertaking - insiders with clear, qualified facts - come forward? Is every one of them that unconscionable or afraid? </p>

<p>It’s lunacy.</p>

<p>Oh right, global warming. So… what’s the deal with it?</p>

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<p>Well, Lealdragon illustrated my point with gusto, didn’t she? Global warming deniers - meet the 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Conspiracy buffs- meet the warming deniers. Kind of like looking in a mirror, eh?</p>

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<p>“Why haven’t any of the hundreds, if not thousands, of government insiders needed for such an undertaking - insiders with clear, qualified facts - come forward? Is every one of them that unconscionable or afraid?”</p>

<p>Good questions. Many have offered plausible speculation.</p>

<p>But, getting back to the main point: what do you make of these firefighters’ testimonies?</p>

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<p>The 9/11 conspiracy theories, while nominally interesting in some contexts, have very little to do with global warming.</p>

<p>Or maybe I’m wrong.</p>

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<p>I really didn’t get the connection either
unless you get into Chaos theory/butterfly effect- which isn’t hard to do once you start looking at things like increased demand for cheap cashmere sweaters, which the Chinese were only too happy to supply- unfortunately their herds of goats wore the grasslands down to a “moonscape” resulting in duststorms that are having a global effect.</p>

<p><a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003498352_cashmere282.html[/url]”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003498352_cashmere282.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>The connection seems obvious. Kluge contends that anyone who has doubts about the causes of global warming falls into the crackpot category and is likely to believe the world trade center disaster was faked by the oil companies or the government. I guess they might also believe they had been abducted by aliens or seen the Lock Ness monster. </p>

<p>It seems clear that terrorists hijacked planes and flew them into the WTC and pentagon. The global warming facts are considerably more nebulous. It is obvious that man has altered the planet: replaced forests and natural flora with mono culture crops, overgrazed and turned some semi-arid glasslands into deserts, burned vast quantities of hydrocarbons, released all sorts of chemicals into the environment, built dams and flooded large areas, and has built cities with their own microclimates. Global warming has occurred at the same time and it is tempting to attribute the warming to man’s activities. We know that the earth’s climate has undergone large changes and recent warming may only be coincidental to man’s activities.</p>

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<p>Determining global sea level rise</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.agu.org/revgeophys/dougla01/node3.html[/url]”>AGU - American Geophysical Union;

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<p>“We know that the earth’s climate has undergone large changes and recent warming may only be coincidental to man’s activities.”</p>

<p>Key word here is MAY. I contend that people who insist on doing nothing about global warming because it MIGHT be a coincidence are guilty of extreme hubris. It is the height of irresponsibility to be willing to gamble the entire human population on such an assumption. There could be devastating consequences if you are wrong. It is astounding that people are willing to take that chance. This isn’t about PROVING who’s right. It’s about acknowledging that there MAY be a human connection. Surely you can acknowledge that there is plenty of evidence to SUGGEST such a connection, if not conclusively prove it. There is no harm in taking precautions IN CASE global warming IS in fact being accelerated by human activities. Whereas, if you assume there is no such connection and do nothing, you are jeopardizing the stability of the planet for your children and grandchildren. So WHY NOT work together on this. Why keep bickering about inconsequential doubts which could have devastating consequences?</p>

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<p>Re 911, if you were to actually look at the facts with an open mind, you would find that it is NOT so straightforward.</p>

<p><a href=“http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4026073566596731782[/url]”>http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4026073566596731782&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>kluge and I have engaged in 911 debate on other threads. He likes to paint me as a wacko conspiracy theorist. However, my stance has always been to simply make the point that there is information available concerning 911 that Americans should take a look at, without automatically assuming that it is crazy bs.</p>

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<p>Are you willing to sacrifice your or your husband’s job for this possibility?</p>

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<p>A resounding YES!</p>

<p>Are YOU willing to sacrifice your CHILDREN’S LIVES or your GRANDCHILDREN’S LIVES???</p>

<p>job or kids - that’s easy.</p>

<p>Anyway, the blacksmiths DID adjust, after cars replaced the horse and buggy. Progress is a good thing.</p>

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<p>So why do you persist in claiming that “there is no harm” in taking the draconian measures required to make any sort of of impact on CO2 levels? The harm is considerable. The issue is whether the “cure” is worse than the disease. With a substantial amount of dispute in the scientific community about the existence of, causes for and implications of global warming, I don’t find a compelling reason to throw away our economic security following what could very easily be a fool’s errand.</p>

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<a href=“http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm[/url]”>http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>“either the end of civilization, if you believe Gore, or a waste of billions of dollars”</p>

<p>Well now, that sure does put things into perspective, doesn’t it? Money or civilization. Sounds like an easy choice to me.</p>

<p>Not billions, but TRILLIONS of dollars are being wasted in Iraq. I think a few billion to ensure that civilization doesn’t end it a fair deal.</p>