16 Facts about Global Warming

“The Skeptic” offers 16 Facts about Global Warming (see the comments).  This is as good a summary of Global Warming nonsense as any:

OK EVERYONE, just to complete the picture, here is Skeptic’s 16 FACTS that show the ‘catastrophic AGW’ hypothesis to be rubbish:

- Fact 1: The recent warming trend began in the late 1800s & most of it occurred BEFORE C02 levels began to rise after WW2.

- Fact 2: In accordance with fact 1, glaciers world wide have been retreating since the mid 1800s. Again, this is LONG before C02 levels began rising.

- Fact 3: There is nothing ‘unprecedented’ about the current warming (which is coinciding with the rise in C02 levels). E.g. compare the 51 year period of natural climate warming between 1895 to 1946 (i.e. pre C02 rise) with the supposed man-made climate warming period 1957 to 2008. There is NO difference.  The rate of warming is the SAME.

- Fact 4: It was warmer 1,000 years ago (medieval warm period) than it is today and C02 level were much LOWER than today’s levels.

- Fact 5: The paleo-climate record (over 100s of millions of years) shows no evidence for C02 levels driving a hot climate. E.g. there was an Ice Age in the Late Ordovician period while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today (i.e. 4,400 ppm).

- Fact 6: The Vostok ice core records (a more detailed view over the last 500,000 years) shows temperature LEADING (not following) the change in C02 levels by 500 to 800 years.

- Fact 7: The physics behind C02 as a driver of climate used by AGW alarmists is sketchy and speculative. There are significant complexities at play at a molecular level (e.g. infrared radiation, absorption, heat convection, molecular concentration per volume of space, etc).  NO ONE can accurately model and predict outcomes here. On the best evidence & physics, C02 has a diminishing effect on warming as you add more of it. Its maximum warming effect is probably reached at 100ppm.

- Fact 8: In an attempt to negate facts 6 & 7, the AGW alarmists constructed a hypothetical ‘positive feedback loop’ model to support their illusion of C02 causing rising temp (i.e. C02 rises, causing temp rise & rise in H20, causing more C02 rise, etc.). This phenomenon has NEVER been recorded in the paleo-climate records throughout the entire history of the planet (even when C02 levels were 10 to 15 times higher than today).

- Fact 9: Most of the ‘evidence’ for catastrophic AGW is based on hypothetical computer models, which make many assumptions, and have significant gaps in their understanding about the atmospheric system, which is highly complex non-linear system. These models (based off standard weather modeling systems) cannot predict what will happen in a region 5 days ahead, but somehow can magically ‘predict’ what will happen 50 or 100years from now….madness…

- Fact 10: Because they lack evidence, alarmists create hype around natural climate variations & changes across the planet (e.g. slight warming in certain regions, droughts, floods) as ‘evidence’ of man made AGW. This is no different to superstitious people during the Dark Ages fearing some great evil because of some natural weather event or behaviour of some animal (e.g. black cat, flying crow)

- Fact 11: According to AGW, the climate should be heating 0.5 degrees per decade, yet we have cooled for the last decade while C02 levels continue to accelerate.

- Fact 12: According to AGW, there must be extra heat caused by C02, so in an attempt to negate fact 11, alarmists claim the ‘heat’ must be elsewhere. They claimed the warming should be in the ocean. But Argos buoys showed oceanic cooling to 2,000 meters, and Aqua satellite is showing sea levels stable or dropping.

- Fact 13: The IPPC AR4 states, clearly, there should be a specific ‘fingerprint’ of warming in the mid-troposphere and a distinct pattern of warming in other regions too.  This has NOT happened, so the alarmists have been scrambling to create increasingly absurd explanations.

- Fact 14: ‘Ocean acidification’ from too much absorbed C02 is another fabricated scare tactic. The oceans have a vast range of pH levels across different regions, from highly alkaline conditions to somewhat acidic conditions (e.g. 8.2 to 7.9).  There has been NO verifiable GLOBAL trend shift over the last 50 years. In fact, plant life grows better were there is a lower pH (e.g. caused by up wellings from natural C02 sources).

- Fact 15: CO2 is a critical trace gas molecule in the nature, which all plants need to survive.  There is no ‘ideal’ level, and current levels (about 380ppm) are historically low.  Most modern buildings have a C02 level of about 600 to 700ppm, which is a healthier level for vegetation & perfectly safe for humans.  It would take hundreds of years to reach this level in the atmosphere (on current rates).  We would need levels of 10,000ppm before it began to adversely effect humans. It would take 5,000+ years to reach that level, assuming nature doesn’t adjust, which it probably would.

- Fact 16: Over $50billion dollars has been pumped into support & research for the AGW religion, with massive support from world wide media, murky BIG-ECO organizations looking to profit from the gloom predictions and governments keen to extend their control over their peoples. And yet with all this money & support, no one can produce any compelling evidence for this speculative hypothesis.

Thought experiment

Christopher Hitchens on kooky 9/11 theories and bigotry against Jews:

Here’s a thought experiment: you get an email telling you that all the Anglo-Saxons left the World Trade Center just an hour before the planes hit (not having merely stayed away with all the benefit of their advance warning, but having actually gone to all the trouble of turning up at 8am and trustingly assuming that the terror-strike would take place just on schedule and thus give them time to check their Rolexes for an orderly and early departure). See what I mean? It’s just not such a thrilling hypothesis. When directed at the Jews, however, it at least adds insult to injury, and the true bigot knows that every little helps.

via David Thompson

Cystic Fibrosis – too white – too male

I am once again reminded of Jonah Goldberg’s canny observation that “white man is the Jew of liberal fascism“:

Last Monday, the student council of Carleton University attracted much attention to their university and to the city of Ottawa—around Canada and the world—with their decision to cancel their annual Shinerama fundraising efforts on behalf of the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Their argument was that this disease afflicts ”white people and primarily men.” They would rather choose a charity that is more “inclusive.”

via Andrew Bolt

Conservatism builds. Leftism overthrows.

I am not that familiar with Rush Limbaugh to comment on the main thesis of this article but it contains some interesting observations about conservatism:

Plato was a great conservative. Cicero was a great conservative. The American Founders were conservatives, with rare exceptions. The wisdom books of the Bible are full of conservative sayings. That’s what the Ten Commandments are about. “Honor your father and mother” is a profoundly conservative idea.

All high civilizations have been built by conservatives. You can’t accumulate the cultural capital needed to build any high civilization if you try to destroy the past, as the Left constantly tries to do. You can’t build a chariot if you have to reinvent the wheel every generation. The batty idea that kids have the real answers in life is just a modern delusion. It is just ignorant.

Conservatism builds. Leftism overthrows. That is the meaning of that pop word “revolution.” The all-destroying revolution is an adolescent fantasy, and the Left hangs on to those fantasies a lot longer than conservatives do.

White guilt is over!

So good, I have to publish the whole thing:

Tom Adkins

is the publisher of CommonConservative.com

There go my fellow conservatives, glumly shuffling along, depressed by the election aftermath. Not me. I’m virtually euphoric. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not thrilled with America’s flirtation with neosocialism. But there’s a massive silver lining in the magical clouds that lofted Barack Obama to the presidency. For today, without a shred of intellectually legitimate opposition, I can loudly proclaim to America:

The Era of White Guilt is over.

This seemingly impossible event occurred because the vast majority of white Americans didn’t give a fluff about skin color and enthusiastically pulled the voting lever for a black man. Not just any black man. A very liberal black man who spent his early career race-hustling banks, praying in a racist church for 20 years, and actively working with America-hating domestic terrorists. Yet white Americans made Barack Obama their leader. Therefore, as of Nov. 4, 2008, white guilt is dead.

So today, I’m feeling a little “uppity,” if you will. For more than a century, the millstone of white guilt hung around our necks, retribution for slave-owning predecessors. In the 1960s, American liberals began yanking that millstone while sticking a fork in the eye of black Americans, exacerbating the racial divide to extort a socialist solution to the country’s problems. But if a black man can become president, exactly what significant barrier is left? The election of Barack Obama destroys the validation of liberal white guilt. The dragon is hereby slain.

So today, I’m feeling a little “uppity,” if you will. From this day forward, my tolerance level for having my skin color hustled is exactly ZERO. No more Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s “God Damn America,” Al Sharpton’s Church of Perpetual Victimization, or Jesse Jackson’s rainbow racism. Cornel West? You’re a fraud. All those “black studies” programs must now teach kids to thank Whitey. And I want that on the final.

Congressional Black Caucus? Irrelevant. U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.)? Shut up. ACORN? Outlawed. Black Panthers? Go home and pet your kitty. Black separatists? Find another nation that offers better dreams. To those Eurosnots who forged careers hating America? I’m still waiting for the first black French president.

No more quotas. No more handouts. No more complaining that “the man” is keeping you down. “The man” is now black.

It’s time to toss that massive, obsolete race-hustle machine upon the heap of the other stupid ’60s ideas. Drag it over there, right between free love and cop-killing. Careful, don’t trip on streaking. Just dump it. And then wash your hands. It’s filthy.

Obama’s ascension also creates another gargantuan irony. How can liberals sell American racism, class envy and unfairness when our new black president and his wife went to Ivy League schools, got high-paying jobs, became millionaires, bought a mansion, and are now moving to the White House? How unfair is that? Now, like a delicious O. Henry tale, Obama’s spread-the-wealth campaign rendered itself moot by its own victory! America is officially a meritocracy. Obama’s election has validated American conservatism.

So … Wham!!!

That’s the sound of my foot kicking the door shut on the era of white guilt. The rites have been muttered, the carcass lowered, dirt shoveled, and tombstone erected. Dead and buried.

Legalized Utopia

Hitch pours cold water on Obama groupies:

Those who think that they have just voted to legalize Utopia (and I hardly exaggerate when I say this; have you been reading the moist and trusting comments of our commentariat?) are preparing for a disillusionment that I very much doubt they will blame on themselves. The national Treasury is an echoing, empty vault; our Russian and Iranian enemies are acting even more wolfishly even as they sense a repudiation of Bush-Cheney; the lines of jobless and evicted are going to lengthen, and I don’t think a diet of hope is going to cover it. Nor even a diet of audacity, though can you picture anything less audacious than the gray, safety-first figures who have so far been chosen by Obama to be on his team?

There is an element of the “wannabe” about all this—something that suggests that, if the clock were to be rolled back, every living white person would now automatically stand with John Brown at Harper’s Ferry and with John Lewis at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. All the evidence we have is to the contrary: Abraham Lincoln ringingly denounced John Brown, and John F. Kennedy (he of the last young and pretty family to occupy the Executive Mansion) was embarrassed and annoyed by the March on Washington. In other words, there is something pain-free and self-congratulatory about the Obama surge. This has happened before, of course, with the high-sounding talk about the “New Frontier,” the “Great Society,” and “Morning in America.” It’s just that this time it’s more than usually not affordable. There are many causes of the subprime and derivative horror show that has destroyed our trust in the idea of credit, but one way of defining it would be to say that everybody was promised everything, and almost everybody fell for the populist bait.

“Obama victory puts liberals in a bind”

Most whites are tired of racial tension, tired of being portrayed as racist, tired of their children being taught in college that they are either consciously or unconsciously racist, tired of lowering standards for blacks or anyone else.

So the Obama victory puts liberals in a bind. They either acknowledge the reality of an essentially non-racist America and thereby alienate black and white liberals still committed to this proposition or they continue to play the “America is racist” card and alienate many whites.

The challenge the Obama victory poses to many blacks is that they will have to abandon ascribing black problems — such as disproportionate amounts of violent crime and the highest rate of out-of-wedlock births in America — to racism. Fewer and fewer white Americans will tolerate being blamed for problems within black life.

via Five Feet of Fury

Amazing metamorphosis

Graham Cunningham notes the overnight transformation of America:

Let us hurry back to the Barack Obama victory celebration. Change has in fact already come in its wake. Americans are suddenly OK (with a few million exceptions). It is no longer the mythical land of people who sit fat and bloated at the world’s negotiating tables spoiling everything. Who grab the international treaties — that the nice rest of the world have carefully worked out to make the world a better place — only to screw them up and run off laughing. Americans have turned into nice people.

And what “change” lies ahead…

Yes the Change mantra is indeed hard to endure. But at least it will now soon be done with for a while. Obama will start to wrestle with the real world — and by the way, I very much doubt if he is one of those full of vitriol towards his predecessor. He is too smart for such nonsense. But soon enough the media pack will find a reason to repackage him to feed the insatiable appetite for grievance politics. It may be as the man who ‘betrayed’ his race or maybe something else. America’s truly gigantic and sustained contribution to modern civilization will continue to be air-brushed over by the mass-mediated liberal establishment.

For real change to come — for the dominant 20^th century culture of grievance and victimhood to move on to some more healthy social psychology rooted in a degree of personal responsibility and self reliance —  this would take leaders of far sterner stuff than Barack Obama.

“The ignorance of Ph.D.s”

Thomas Sowell on the historical “wrongness” of the intellectuals:

During the 1930s, some of the leading intellectuals in America condemned our economic system and pointed to the centrally planned Soviet economy as a model– all this at a time when literally millions of people were starving to death in the Soviet Union, from a famine in a country with some of the richest farmland in Europe and historically a large exporter of food.

New York Times Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize for telling the intelligentsia what they wanted to hear– that claims of starvation in the Ukraine were false.

After British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge reported from the Ukraine on the massive deaths from starvation there, he was ostracized after returning to England and unable to find a job.

More than half a century later, when the archives of the Soviet Union were finally opened up under Mikhail Gorbachev, it turned out that about six million people had died in that famine– about the same number as the people killed in Hitler’s Holocaust.

In the 1930s, it was the intellectuals who pooh-poohed the dangers from the rise of Hitler and urged Western disarmament.

…

History fully vindicates the late William F. Buckley’s view that he would rather be ruled by people represented by the first 100 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard.

How have intellectuals managed to be so wrong, so often? By thinking that because they are knowledgeable– or even expert– within some narrow band out of the vast spectrum of human concerns, that makes them wise guides to the masses and to the rulers of the nation.

But the ignorance of Ph.D.s is still ignorance and high-IQ groupthink is still groupthink, which is the antithesis of real thinking.

Jihadis rejoice at Obama’s win

New York Times reports:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The leader of a jihadi group in Iraq argued Friday that the election of Barack Obama as president represented a victory for radical Islamic groups that had battled American forces since the invasion of Iraq.

In his address, Mr. Baghdadi also said that the election of Mr. Obama — and the rejection of the Republican candidate, Senator John McCain — was a victory for his movement, a claim that has already begun to resonate among the radical faithful. In so doing Mr. Baghdadi highlighted the challenge the new president would face as he weighed how to remove troops from Iraq without also giving movements like Al Qaeda a powerful propaganda tool to use for recruiting.“And the other truth that politicians are embarrassed to admit,” Mr. Baghdadi said, “is that their unjust war on the houses of Islam, with its heavy and successive losses and the continuous operations of exhaustion of your power and your economy, were the principal cause of the collapse of the economic giant.”

In other words, Obama’s America like the rest of the Western World before it has no balls to stay the course against a more determined and uncompromising enemy. In the eyes of the Islamists Obama’s victory is their win and shows that US of Wimps has no substance. Americans may have the latest tanks and planes but they have no guts for loss of human life and financial burden. And so the weak enemy prevails…

“Of course there is a shift, because there is a new president who came from an oppressed class, and people who had little opportunity,” Mr. Shehadeh said.

So it is OK for a Muslim to say that all blacks are from opressed class, even though Obama’s mother was white? If so, it surely must be also OK to say that all Muslims are terrorosts.