<p>[Is</a> the earth getting warmer, or cooler? | The Register](<a href=“http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02/a_tale_of_two_thermometers/]Is”>Is the earth getting warmer, or cooler? • The Register)</p>
<p>I’ve said Global Warming is a bunch of fear-mongering for years. Finally some paydirt, lol.</p>
<p>It is no longer a topic for discussion but rather a matter of faith. Don’t confuse me with the facts.</p>
<p>I already lived through one decade of environmental and economic ninnyism (sucking in the 70’s.) It pains me to have to hear it all again. I guess it all goes in cycles. I wonder who will be the next Reagan to drag us out of our self loathing.</p>
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Too true. Barrons will believe and repeat any crackpot article attacking the scientific consensus on climate change as if it was written by someone who knew what he was talking about and actually made sense. From the odious Steven "Lying to the American people for Big Tobacco and Big Oil since 1992!) Milloy to - now, Steven (who?) . </p>
<p>If you haven’t kept up, here’s the latest blowback from the Big Lies from the ironically misnamed “skeptics”: [500</a> Scientists with Documented Doubts - about the Heartland Institute? | DeSmogBlog](<a href=“500 Scientists with Documented Doubts - about the Heartland Institute? - DeSmog”>500 Scientists with Documented Doubts - about the Heartland Institute? - DeSmog)</p>
<p>But don’t worry - you’ll find another Reagan to pass off sappy homilies while looting the nation’s treasury and screwing future generations. All it takes is “faith.” :)</p>
<p>I am very concerned about the coming ice age.</p>
<p>I am worried too. There is a risk of global cooling and a heavy duty ice age will kill off most of the earth’s life. Now we cannot afford the costs of petroleum to try to reverse some of this trend. At least we still have plenty of coal. Good thing - we may need to pulverize coal and spray in onto the polar regions.</p>
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<p>If the quoted material is from Nature, it is not a “crackpot article.” Nature is a respected peer-reviewed journal, and leads scientific thought. You might argue that The Herald misrepresented Nature, but it would be a mistake to label anything in *Nature *“crackpot.” Does anyone have access to the original journal article, and is it really an argument against the general global warming theory?</p>
<p>Oh, it will keep going, mainly because of the opportunistic entrepreneurs who see an angle in globabl warming to enrich themselves or at least get 15 minutes of fame. The sad thing is all the earnest souls out there taking it deadly seriously, wringing their hands over their carbon footprint, gnashing their teeth over their own intrinsic consumer tendencies.</p>
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<p>We still have something left in our Treasury? I thought it was all long gone…
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<p>Just read the article. It is not an argument against global warming theory. Nature’s “News and Views” column provides a nonspecialist summary and discussion. In brief: Climate change is not a smooth process on timescales of decades or years. “…it will be modulated by natural climate variations. In this issue, Keenlyside et al. (page 84)2 take a step towards reliably quantifying what those ups and downs are likely to be.”</p>
<p>Keenlyside’s approach is to look at how changes in the ocean’s current system would affect warming models in the short term. The model itself is something relatively simple, as it just considers surface temperatures rather than delving to greater depths. The authors use the model to retrospectively “predict” current weather. Their model is more accurate than past models when applied to North Atlantic, but not when applied to other regions. </p>
<p>Bottom line:</p>
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<p>Then follows a graph which can’t be reproduced here, but the caption is relevant: </p>
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<p>Washdad, the actual article in Nature is summed up (by its authors) thus:
Note key words: “temporarily” and “offset.” Which is to say that the article confirms the fact that warming will continue over the long run, but over a brief period in the immediate future short term factors will "offset’ that warming. The Herald’s headline is quite blatantly false in saying that the article “Cast doubt on Global warming” when in fact it does exactly the opposite. </p>
<p>It’s always been the case that temporary and local factors will outweigh the gradual accumulation of energy in the near term view. That’s why people like Barron’s love to post rubbish like “Last Tuesday was the coldest April 29th in Beaver Falls in nigh onto 60 years! Why if that doesn’t prove that that Al Gore is a big poopyhead I don’t know what does! Hee-yuk!” Local temperatures will always fluctuate, and the fluctuations will be larger than the overall trend, short-term. The problem is the trend in the average temperature over an extended period of time continues to rise.</p>
<p>The article in The Register (?) is just another of Barron’s crackpots further advancing the cause of environmental disinformation. Obviously fertile soil among the flat earth types.
<a href=“cross-posted%20with%20SlitheyTove”>I</a>*</p>
<p>Is there someplace for me to buy stock in anti-global warming equipment? Will China and India buy this product?</p>
<p>The above article is *not *from Nature.</p>
<p>Here’s a quote from the Nature article:</p>
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<p>[Climate</a> change: Natural ups and downs : article : Nature Reports Climate Change](<a href=“Nature Climate Change”>Nature Climate Change)</p>
<p>“The problem is the trend in the average temperature over an extended period of time continues to rise.”</p>
<p>If you can believe the measurements which have been adjusted numerous times to enhance the trend to warming. There is great debate over even how and where to measure temps. Hence the “adjustments” to the observed data.</p>
<p>The Nature article is just the first major crack in the non natural warming orthodoxy.</p>
<p>Barrons, the Nature article isn’t a “crack” - major or minor - in anything except in the minds of the tinfoil hat brigade. Did you bother to read any of the quotes from the Nature article? It is a discussion of short-term, localized weather patterns in light of the fact of global warming, not an argument that it isn’t happening. Do you ever read past the (erroneous) headlines of the garbage you link to? Seriously?</p>
<p>From Nature: “…as we zoom out to longer timescales, the warming trend from greenhouse gases begins to dominate, and the initial state becomes less important.”
:rolleyes:</p>
<p>Sorry, Barrons, Nature is firmly in the global warming camp. You’ll have to stick to your blogs for corroboration–it ain’t there in the reality-based world.</p>
<p>Whatever happened to the ice-age hysteria that was all but certain in the 1970’s?</p>
<p>“Whatever happened to the ice-age hysteria that was all but certain in the 1970’s?”</p>
<p>Hysteria? what hyseria? The next ice age is COMING. Haven’t you been reading the sun spots?</p>
<p>Laxattack - the “ice age hysteria of the 70’s” is 90% current denier hype and 10% overreaction by, in particular, one (1) magazine article in he popular press which was published back then. Back in the 1970’s nobody claimed to be real sure about what was going to happen weather-wise in the future, although global warming was viewed as a likely scenario to some even then based on observations and was probably the plurality, if not yet consensus view of the best hypothesis at that point. But a few (note: few) scientists considered the possibility of climate change tipping the other way. Newsweek magazine jumped on that hypothesis with a front page story in one (1) edition of the magazine. Subsequent research failed to support the cooling hypothesis, and did firm up the warming theory. Global warming theory became not merely the majority, but the consensus view. </p>
<p>So, sorry. There never was any “ice-age hysteria,” at least among scientists. The claim that there was is just part of the snide “wit” deniers use as a substitute for science and reasoned discourse. </p>
<p>Reference: [url=<a href=“RealClimate: The global cooling myth”>RealClimate: The global cooling myth]RealClimate[/url</a>]</p>
<p>[Ecological</a> Footprint Quiz by Redefining Progress](<a href=“http://www.myfootprint.org%5DEcological”>http://www.myfootprint.org)</p>
<p>It’s not just climate change, but overall sustainability that people should be worried about. Most Americans consume too much.</p>