quote:

"Arctic ice is melting & may disrupt global weather patterns." (Al Gore, May 2006)

But the links you posted earlier pointed out that, for various reasons, Antarctic ice is not melting - as Al Gore and everyone else (I guess) would agree.

That Arctic ice is melting and may disrupt global weather patterns is neither a lie nor junk science (particularly with that qualifier "may").

Arctic Meltdown
Rate of Ice Melt

You've yet to actually give a convincing example of where the herd-mentality tree-huggers have gotten it wrong.

Here, let me help:

'...a British High Court judge ruled that Gore's global warming film, "An Inconvenient Truth," while "broadly accurate," contained nine significant errors... ...High Court Judge Michael Burton said that the film is "substantially founded upon scientific research and fact" but that the errors were made in "the context of alarmism and exaggeration."' abcnews.go.com

The movie dramatises things, maybe a little too much. But do we expect cool objectivity and understatement from movies? Looking for the facts on global warming, maybe we should depend neither on movies nor on right-wing bloggers and shock-jocks.

LR has again linked us to the same report, but apparently doesn't yet understand that the Antarctica anomaly has been explained (as have other event that those who just don't understand weather feel are proof that Global warming is bogus).

I do have one question, LR, how is it that Antarctica proves Gore and all the other scientists wrong, while at the same time, you are claiming that the warming is natural? What warming? Look at Antarctica! LOL, you can't have it both ways. I imagine if I looked (and if it hasn't been deleted), I could find a post by you in which you deny any warming, let alone one caused by humans. In a few years, you will be saying, "Well, it's not happening as fast as they said it would." Then, a few years later, "It's not so bad after all. Palm trees along the Arctic Ocean beachfront properties are good, right?"

If the title of this thread, were actually accurate, I can envision the courtroom, packed with the overwhelming majority of scientists in the world waiting to testify on behalf of Gore.

DG: "LOL, you can't have it both ways."

Who's trying to have it both ways??? I've been very consistent on my position that Global Warming is no more than a natural event that goes through its natural cycles. If someone is trying to have it both ways, then I would suggest looking at this...

http://www.livescience.com/environment/041217_sealevel_rise.html

I would assume when NNN posted this, it was for the purpose of showing how man made Global Warming would cause extreme cold weather. But from what I get from the link, that is not the case. Climate change is totally natural.

DG: "I can envision the courtroom, packed with the overwhelming majority of scientists in the world waiting to testify on behalf of Gore."

"Overwhelming majority"??? I highly doubt it. Just who are all of these scientists who would be testifying for Al Gore??? I would also venture a guess John Coleman would certainly have plenty of creditable scientists testifying on his behalf as well.

But ultimately it would come down to this...

(1)Can Al Gore & the environmentalmovement, without a shadow of a doubt, prove their case that the activities of man is the cause of Global Warming???

(2)Can John Coleman, without a shadow of a doubt, prove that Al Gore & the environmental movement, their position is based on fraud.

If this ever does make it to a court room, it could get mighty interesting.

Just watch out for the big shark if you ever go to Amity, LR. (Or, if it is up to guys like you, the southern coast of Georgia.)

The answer to both of Lighteningrodd's questions is of course 'no'.

However (as a kind of summing up of the evidence):

'An international panel of climate scientists said yesterday that there is an overwhelming probability that human activities are warming the planet at a dangerous rate, with consequences that could soon take decades or centuries to reverse.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made up of hundreds of scientists from 113 countries, said that based on new research over the last six years, it is 90 percent certain that human-generated greenhouse gases account for most of the global rise in temperatures over the past half-century...

...the summary did not produce any groundbreaking observations -- it reflects a massive distillation of the peer-reviewed literature through the middle of 2006 -- it represents the definitive international scientific and political consensus on climate science...

...Governments and scientific organizations across the globe nominate scientists to produce and review the IPCC assessment without pay...' www.washingtonpost.com

On the other hand, is there any evidence at all of 'fraud' (maybe just one actual example of it, rather than empty assertions) on the part of Gore, or "the environmental movement"?

Turner: Global Warming Will Cause Mass Cannibalism, Insurgents Are Patriots

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2008/04/02/tur...-warming-cannibalism

I don't get it. Is Turner going to be a witness in the Al Gore lawsuit?

quote:

Originally posted by DorianGreyed:
I don't get it. Is Turner going to be a witness in the Al Gore lawsuit?

Not that I know of...but I hope they do. It would certainly be a great illustration of how silly & extreme the environmentalists are getting pushing their fictional cause.

"It would certainly be a great illustration of how silly & extreme the environmentalists are getting pushing their fictional cause."

As opposed to the sane and sensible idea of suing a man who has an increasingly larger majority of the world's scientists agreeing with his position and who events increasingly show to be correct in his assessment of what is happening with regard to our environment?

So you are saying since these scientists are in the majority, that means they are automatically right...

And do these scientists really & truly believe it themselves or do they have to put on a politically correct front to fund their research...

As much as you try to say man made Global Warming is a fact, I assert it is not a proven fact. The evidence is simply not there to sustain itself.

"The evidence is simply not there to sustain itself."

It is apparent that the increasingly larger number of scientists (in fact, a significant majority) believe there evidence is there. But you can continue to put your faith in DonRent's weatherman (who, I notice, has left Florida for higher ground).

quote:

As much as you try to say man made Global Warming is a fact, I assert it is not a proven fact. The evidence is simply not there to sustain itself.

How is one to prove a prediction of future events?? Or how long do we have to wait for them to be disproved?

And I wonder how many unnecessary problems will be created while trying to solve a problem that is totally debatable if one even exist.

What unnecessary problems? The need for GM to think up an alternative to the chrome-plated Hummer? That some industries or people can't or won't adapt to new conditions is a problem of their own making.

Even if scientists all over the world were falsifying data to keep their jobs (an allegation for which there isn't a shred of evidence), the solutions proposed - reducing use of fossil fuels (which are a finite resource anyway), reducing wasteful consumption (unsustainable as developing countries demand more and more of their share of the earth's resources, anyway) and reducing pollution in general - are good ideas in themselves aren't they?

You say that the problem is "totally debatable", but that would mean there were solid points to be made for either side. What solid points have you shown us for your "everything's fine, please keep consuming and polluting" view? That antarctic ice isn't melting as fast as arctic ice - but there are reasons for that, explained above, and it is melting. That the planet has been warmer in the recent past - but we don't know how widespread the 'Medieval Warm Period' was, as explained above. That global warming is caused by cosmic ray intensity - debunked, according the link above. What else have you got?

There's debate, and then there's just muddying the waters.

What unnecessary problems...

Here's an example. I can remember a time when ethanol was considered a great alternative as compared to straight gasoline. The theory goes, it would burn cleaner & help stretch our oil supply. Now there is concern that it is just as bad a pollutant as the fossel fuels we use. And there is criticism about the energy used to produce ethanol, that nothing is really gained.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/05/03/tech/main508006.shtml

As for the Arctic ice cap melting, I am not denying they are melting. What I am saying is they are melting by natural occurances through the normal weather cycles.

When we try to fight Mother Nature, we're fighting a losing battle.

But ethanol hasn't seriously been suggested as a solution to global warming by the environmental movement, has it?

Everyone knows that it takes a lot of fossil fuel to farm and produce ethanol, and so the CO2 emission benefit has always been in question. The hippy tree-huggers can't stand biofuels - the idea that ethanol can replace oil, and everyone continues just the same without any impact on their wasteful and careless lifestyles is anathema to the green ethos. George W. Bush likes ethanol, but Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming and Energy Program, and Elizabeth Marshall, senior economist at the World Resources Institute, for example, don't.

As you say yourself, ethanol use is about 'stretching our oil supply'.

Al Gore is a proponent of cellulosic ethanol - ethanol made from waste. but we don't have the technology to make that viable yet.

'Our research appears to conclude that ethanol is being pushed forward for political and economical reasons by the USA and many other countries in the world because it is less expensive and reduces the dependency on imported oil - rather than for the purpose of combating global warming.' www.carbon-info.org

'With today's technology, the carbon dioxide released by the fossil fuel used to produce ethanol towers over the amount recycled.' www.caranddriver.com

'The emphasis on ethanol has drawn criticism from environmentalists and others who complain that it will create more problems.' www.washingtonpost.com

It's the current Bush administration, not Gore et al, that is pushing the production of that problematic "solution", ethanol.

This thread is headed by the idea of Al Gore being sued for fraud, but it seems that the only punches you can land are on straw men like Ted "The Mouth From The South" Turner and Dubya's ethanol scam .

On "natural weather cycles":

'Mr Scambos discounted the notion that the sharp warming trend in the Arctic might be due to natural climate cycles. "There aren't many periods in history that are this dramatic in terms of natural variability," he said. He said he had no doubts that this was caused in large part by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.' www.theage.com.au

You seem to be very sure that the ice-caps' melting is caused by "natural weather cycles". Some scientists are not sure, and others (Mr Scambos for example) believe the opposite and can say why they think so. I wonder if you can support your view, maybe showing us how those natural weather cycles have had the same effect in the past.

On the other hand, it is clear that the human activity has released huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, and we know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that causes the planet to warm.

'Scientific measurements of levels of CO2 contained in cylinders of ice, called ice cores, indicate that the pre-industrial carbon dioxide level was 278 ppm. That level did not vary more than 7 ppm during the 800 years between 1000 and 1800 A.D.

Atmospheric CO2 levels have increased from about 315 ppm in 1958 to 378 ppm at the end of 2004, which means human activities have increased the concentration of atmospheric CO2 by 100 ppm or 36 percent.' www.noaanews.noaa.gov

I guess that you can choose to believe that all that CO2 is having no effect, and that scientists are systematically lying about it, if you like, but you'll have to work harder to convince others that the ice caps' melting is a natural occurrence due to normal cycles. Where is the skeptic community's model or theory whereby CO2 does not affect the temperature?

As an aside, for any American taxpayers:

Europeans have a scheme called splash and dash. We send a whole tanker load of biofuel to the US. There we have a few thousand gallons of ordinary fuel added to the tanker load and promptly claim a US government subsidy on the whole lot ! This nets a profit of millions. Thanks a lot !

'Economist Dr. Hazell has said that filling an SUV tank once with ethanol consumes more maize than the typical African eats in a year.' www.theglobeandmail.com

'History may record that the legacy of outgoing U.S. President George W. Bush was the mess in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he will have done far more damage with his 2005 mandate to blend 35 billion U.S. gallons of ethanol into gasoline by 2017. Ethanol processing now consumes a third of the U.S. corn crop.

To meet the Bush targets over the next decade, analysts assert, the entire crop will have to be converted into ethanol...

...The ethanol idiocy is compounded by U.S. policy that not only subsidizes domestic ethanol producers but imposes a high tariff -- about 50 cents a gallon -- on ethanol imports from Brazil...' www.canada.com

Is someone going to sue Bush? I guess they'd have to get in line.