We would know that these thing are true if the rich stop developing these areas and pull all of their resources out. I've seen nothing of the sort.

I am rather cynical with some of what modern science claims, but I do believe global warming is real. However, I don't think it is man-made.

Polar bears are drowning because they have no ice to live on, ditto for baby harp seals....that's not something people with an agenda are inventing, it IS happening, and there must be a reason for it.

We were given this earth to take care of it..that's what the Bible means when it says we are to be good stewards of the earth.

But humans have abused the earth, and we will pay a price. However, as for global warming, while aspects of it may be aggravated by our activities (auto emissions, etc), I do not believe it is entirely man-made.

There is a name for this theory.

It is called The Sun.

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The Phils are champs, go phuck yourself!

That's not what I meant. I realize the sun is the immediate cause but what set it all in motion, in your opinion?

The Sun burns brighter on some occaisons and on others, not so hot.

Our planet's orbit is elliptical. Sometimes it is a little closer to the Sun then others.

To ask for control, each demagogue must appeal to people's fears. If you can come up with a theory that suggests something out of a cheesy 1990's disaster film, and you can get "scientists" to sign off on it, people will assume that these theories are scientific givens. And they will be scared.

If it is true that cow flatuence is the world's leader in CO-2, do we kill all the cows? Will PETA stand in front of every cow that Greenpeace attempts to kill? Will there be a deathcage match between ALF and ELF?

I would rather not give economic control of this country over to enviromentalists. Not for theories so far-fetched that it makes Joseph Goebbels stand up in his condo in Hell and say, "Why didn't I think of that?"

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The Phils are champs, go phuck yourself!

If every issue is framed this way, is there room in today's world for scientific debate?

I mean this one has it all: politics, science, a little religion for good measure. Galileo would be proud. All that's missing is some beautiful women.

No. Because those who doubt the projections of Nebraska becoming oceanfront property are called loons, denyers(sp?), and Dittoheads. Or, we are religous nuts who believe the Bible is a historic document to be believed verbatim.

Forgive me if I sound like John Madden, but until it happens, it hasn't happened yet.

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The Phils are champs, go phuck yourself!

Smacks a little of the Dark Ages, maybe. Listen, I'm well aware that the anti warming camp views this as a 'slippery slope' issue, where conceding 1 inch acknowledges a problem exists, and therefore opens the door to legislation.

True, we're not all going to fry soon and my philadelphia property will not become oceanfront, although that is somewhat appealing to me. What irks me is that caught up in all these politics (of warming and others) is some astounding ideas and science that leads to innovative solutions and yes, business oppurtunity.

A service economy whose leading innovation is the latest Pixar movie will not serve America well for the next 100 years.

Looks like the debunkers have been debunked. So much for the 400 "experts".

Inhofe recycles unscientific attacks on global warming, NYT’s Revkin gives him a pass
So Sen. James “global warming is a hoax” Inhofe (R-OK) issues a report in which he claims:

“Padded” would be an extremely generous description of this list of “prominent scientists.” Some would use the word “laughable”. For instance, since when have economists, who are pervasive on this list, become scientists, and why should we care what they think about climate science?

I’m not certain a dozen on the list would qualify as “prominent scientists,” and many of those, like Freeman Dyson — a theoretical physicist — have no expertise in climate science whatsoever. I have previously debunked his spurious and uninformed claims, although I’m not sure why one has to debunk someone who seriously pushed the idea of creating a rocket ship powered by detonating nuclear bombs! Seriously.

Even Ray Kurzweil, not a scientist but a brilliant inventor, is on the list. Why? Because he apparently told CNN and the Washington Post:

These slides that Gore puts up are ludicrous, they don’t account for anything like the technological progress we’re going to experience…. None of the global warming discussions mention the word ‘nanotechnology. Yet nanotechnology will eliminate the need for fossil fuels within 20 years…. I think global warming is real but it has been modest thus far - 1 degree f. in 100 years. It would be concern if that continued or accelerated for a long period of time, but that’s not going to happen.

And people say I’m a techno-optimist. So Kurzweil actually believes in climate science — rather than the reverse, as Inhofe claims — but thinks catastrophic global warming won’t happen because of a techno-fix that stops emissions. If wishes were horses … everyone would get trampled to death. In the real world, energy breakthroughs are very rare, as we’ve seen, and it’s even rarer when they make a difference in under several decades.

Then we have the likes of this from Inhofe’s list:

CBS Chicago affiliate Chief Meteorologist Steve Baskerville expressed skepticism that there is a “consensus” about mankind’s role in global warming.

Wow, a TV weatherman expressed skepticism. If only the IPCC had been told of this in time, they could have scrapped their entire report. Seriously, Wikipedia says “Baskerville is an alumnus of Temple University and holds a Certificate in Broadcast Meteorology from Mississippi State University.” I guess Inhofe has a pretty low bar for “prominent scientists” — but then again he once had science fiction writer Michael Crichton testify at a hearing on climate science.

I don’t mean to single out Baskerville. Inhofe has a lot of meteorologists on his list, including Weather Channel Founder John Coleman. I have previously explained why Coleman doesn’t know what he is talking about on climate, and why meteorologists in general have no inherent credibility on climatology. In any case, they obviously are NOT prominent scientists.

Then we have people like French geomagnetism (!) scientist Vincent Courtillot, geophysicist Louis Le Mouël, geophysicist Claude Allègre, geomagnetism (!!) scientist Frederic Fluteau, geomagnetism (!!!) scientist Yves Gallet, and scientist Agnes Genevey — whose “research” on global warming is brutally picked apart by RealClimate here and especially here (and again here by other scientists), who together “expose a pattern of suspicious errors and omissions that pervades” their work.

So, yes, the Inhofe list is utterly ignorable compared to either the IPCC report or the Bali declaration by actual prominent climate scientists. The notion it is relevant to the climate debate is laughable, as even a cursuory examination makes clear. And yet in an article unhelpfully titled, “Climate Consensus ‘Busted’?” the NYT’s Andy Revkin amazingly writes of it:

The perennial tug of war over what average people should think and do about human-caused global warming has just experienced another big yank, this time from those saying actions to cut greenhouse gases are a costly waste of time.

Big yank? More like Inhofe is letting go of the rope. Revkin continues

But when you sift through the studies, what emerges (to me at any rate) is not so much the shattering of a consensus as a portrait of one corner of the absolutely normal, and combative, arena in which scientific ideas emerge and either thrive or fade.

What does Inhofe’s list have to do at all with the normal scientific process? What do meteorologists and economists have to do with the normal process of climate science? Should scientists really be influenced at all by one inventor’s wild claim that nanotechnology will eliminate fossil fuels in 20 years. Or by a contrived and mistake-riddled study by geomagnetists?

One final (depressing) note: How effective is Inhofe’s media outreach compared to that of the entire community of climate scientists? Well, according to technorati, as of today, Friday the 21st, the IPCC Synthesis report has had 278 blog reactions since its release November 17, whereas Inhofe’s “report,” issued just yesterday (Thursday), has already had over 300 blog reactions.

We have a long way to go if we’re going to triumph over the disinformation and preserve the health and well-being of the next 50 generations. Let’s all redouble our efforts in the new year.

There’s been a lot of great coverage of this, highlighting Inhofe’s many errors of fact and judgment, including items here, here, and here.

**Happy Holidays**

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"Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness."

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)

Perhaps economists were asked to comment regarding my suggestions that there's huge profit to be made through global warming.