Deseret News | Reader comments: No money in cooling

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Readers' forum: Letters: No money in cooling

Anonymous | 1:16 a.m. June 30, 2009

ahh another example of the right IGNORING REALITY.

Global Cooling | 4:46 a.m. June 30, 2009

Has even began to effect the far left liberal party. What are they going to do, when Obama stands in front of them and starts to say "NO WE CAN'T"????

ustraveler | 5:23 a.m. June 30, 2009

To anonymous 1:16 AM. Before you prattle on about ignoring reality you should look at the case from the other side. The reality is that warming peaked about ten years ago and has not moved up since then. The reality is that James Hansen had to revise his numbers because of faulty readings in a number of stations in North America. His numbers pushed the latest average temperatures down and made the the hottest years last century in the 30's. The reality is that both satellite and ocean readings show no change in average global temperature at all.

There is a reason why those who frame this debate have stopped calling it global warming and now prefer to call it climate change.

Finally, we should ask ourselves 3 questions:
1. Is global warming occurring?
2. If it is, is it bad?
3. If it's bad, can our actions affect it.

Sadly, the answer to all of the above is no. I remain a sincere skeptic.

Comments continue below

to ustraveler @ 5:23 | 7:57 a.m. June 30, 2009

You wrote,

"Finally, we should ask ourselves 3 questions:
1. Is global warming occurring?
2. If it is, is it bad?
3. If it's bad, can our actions affect it."

And then you said the answer to all three is "no" ?!?

It takes a pretty special set of sunglasses to see the world that way.

The truth, of course, is that the answers to all three questions is a resounding YES.

You call yourself a skeptic. That's fine, I'm a skeptic on many subjects, too.

There is a huge difference, however, between being skeptical and being a denialist. Skeptics admit that when the evidence is available to support changing their minds, they change their minds.

Thus far every genuinely "skeptical" question about AGW has been resolved through reasoned analysis and AGW remains a reality.

What would it take to persuade you?

Thinkin' Man | 8:14 a.m. June 30, 2009

I think there's a valid point most could agree on: that "global warming" is being exaggerated and misused for political gain by the press, politicians, and others.

That misuse makes many wary of the entire issue, despite the science, and that's a disservice to science.

No money in cooling? | 8:14 a.m. June 30, 2009

How many of the studies saying there is no warming have been funded by the fossil fuel industry?

@ustraveler | 8:26 a.m. June 30, 2009

"Finally, we should ask ourselves 3 questions:
1. Is global warming occurring?
2. If it is, is it bad?
3. If it's bad, can our actions affect it."

1. Most probably. There is always a place for questioning everything but the scientific world that specializes in this area has reached a consensus that is unshaken by the doubters. Virtually every scientific paper on the topic has presented evidence for the warming and virtually no research shows the opposite.

2. Absolutely! What would a twenty foot rise in sea level do to coastal cities? What would a rise of 2.5 degree Celsius mean for global weather patterns? For agriculture? We base our projections on assumptions of reasonable stability and these scenarios do not include stability.

3. Most probably! We can speed it up or, maybe, slow it down or even stop it over time. If it is anthropogenic, what are the consequences of not acting? See your question #2. If it is not anthropogenic, we still must take actions to buffer ourselves against the consequences.

Oh Please | 8:33 a.m. June 30, 2009

Au contraire, mon ami, all the $$$ are in warming. The hydrocarbon industries have a big dog in this fight and they are feeding it with misinformation all day long. Which of the prominent Deniers is NOT funded by Exxon/Mobil/BP/Shell/Chevron? I challenge you to find one.

Roland Kayser | 10:15 a.m. June 30, 2009

All of the scientific organizations were saying the same thing when all three branches of the goverment were controlled by conservatives. This letter is nonsense.

Steve Glaser | 11:09 a.m. June 30, 2009

Recently Exxon was making 40 billion (that's $40,000,000,000) in profit every year. They could have taken one percent of their profits and funded as much climate change research as the US Government does. But they didn't!

Don't you think if Exxon really thought that the research was tainted and that "good" science would invalidate everything else being published, they would have spent some money on their own research? Especially when everything in the scientific literature was leading to regulations that would put a dent in their profits? Even if it was sham research, just designed to raise a little doubt? The tobacco companies put up more resistance! It wouldn't surprise me if Exxon funded their own studies, didn't like the results, and squashed them so they would never see the light of day.

@ "Steve Glaser | 11:09 a.m." | 11:26 a.m. June 30, 2009

Steve Glaser | 11:09 a.m.

GM also made millions in profits in years past, but where are they now? Could this be the future for most (if not all) American companies that don't have a "GREEN" enough image?

When po-culture and the government allign and put a bulls-eye on your back... There's not much you can do to survive.

Resistance is futile!

Captain Kirk | 11:30 a.m. June 30, 2009

@ Roland Kayser | 10:15 a.m. June 30, 2009
You make the mistake of thinking the republican party is conservative.

Captian Kirk | 11:38 a.m. June 30, 2009

Yes. Every agency's official stance is that there is AGW (human caused global warming)
BUT there have been so many reports of contrary opinions being suppressed within those organizations that it is pretty obvious that the stances are politically motivated.
Just this week another report has been circulating in the mainstream news of a suppressed EPA report that urges us not to make "decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data."

Couple that with many reports of NASA GISS data being improperly manipulated (one of the major sources of data used by scientists) and that many of the stations have an error range of greater than +-2%
Partially due to improper placement.

There are a lot of questions.

There is money on both sides. I can't prove that the "oil funded" surveys were done correctly. But The only evidence ever given is that it was funded by oil money. That's it. The methods are not attacked ... just the funding. I think they look valid and fair.

The methods, funding, validity, and politics of AGW stances are in heavy question from multiple sources.

Anonymous | 11:52 a.m. June 30, 2009

I believe the editorial clearly states an example of the LEFT "ignoring reality." There's a LOT of money to be made in the climate change business. Somebody needs to track those lobbying dollars and see where they come from and where they go. Now that would tell an interesting story ...

Tainted Truth | 12:07 p.m. June 30, 2009

Any study funded by Big Oil is going to automatically argue Big Oil's position. To think otherwise is to be a sillyhead.

Nate | 1:33 p.m. June 30, 2009

For all the talk of "ignoring reality," no one has addressed any of the facts offered by ustraveler in his original post. We see many ad hominem attacks and appeals to authority, but no one willing to deal with the science. No one wants to talk about the fact that warming has not occurred for over ten years, or about NASA's Y2K bug and urban heat island (UHI) problems, or about the discrepancies between land-based and satellite measurements.

I'm ready to be convinced, but please show me some real evidence. Otherwise I'll just go on thinking you're a bunch of Marxists with an agenda.

To Nate | 2:18 p.m. June 30, 2009

When I look at plots by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) of global temperature averages, temperatures were rising steadily, then there was a spike in 1998, then temperatures returned to increasing from the previous trend. I don't see anything that looks like a temperature decline, or even a leveling off. I'm sure the NCDC isn't the only compilation available. Is there another one you are looking at?

Captain Kirk | 2:26 p.m. June 30, 2009

@ Tainted Truth | 12:07 p.m. June 30, 2009

Any study funded by socialists is going to argue the socialist position. To think otherwise is to be a sillyhead.

This adds nothing to the discussion and proves my point.

Thinkin' Man | 2:55 p.m. June 30, 2009

If funding creates bias, then global warming advocates are in trouble. "Big Green" is no sweet princess.

RE: ustraveler
No credible science says the ocean will raise 20 feet (more like 18 inches max), and analysis shows we could mitigate warming by about a tenth of a degree this century--not noticeable--by spending trillions of dollars. Not worth it. Mankind has always flourished during warmer times, and many conclude warming would have net positive effects including increased crop production.

Nate | 3:06 p.m. June 30, 2009

@To Nate 2:18 p.m.

From 1998 to 2008 University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) data shows a very slight rise of 0.028 degrees C.

Over the same period Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) data shows a very slight decline of 0.01 degrees C.

Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature (HadCRUT) data shows a very slight rise of 0.017 degrees C.

For all intents and purposes these are flat charts -- changes measured in the hundredths of a degree. NASA's GISS data, to which you refer, shows an upward trend five times larger than the closest other metric. It also relies a great deal on extrapolation and interpolation. But the computer algorithms which perform these adjustments are not available for scientific review. I wonder whether we can get global warming alarmist James Hansen to open them up to scrutiny. Probably not.

@Nate | 7:30 p.m. June 30, 2009

So trillions of dollars and immense loss of freedom and economic potential will be lost because of extrapolation and interpolation, another words "a guess", and these guesses are not open to scientific review? If people are that gullible, I guess they will get what they deserve. Ripped off. Al Gore, et al, make Bernie Madoff look like a piker.

Anonymous | 7:55 p.m. June 30, 2009

NASA was show there was a mistake in its temperature data that was less than .2 degrees F. After review, NASA changed this data but the tend remained. Why do conservatives omit telling the whole story?

Ice Cubes | 7:56 p.m. June 30, 2009

Just who are the dunderheads that think that the oceans will rise 20 feet. Most of the ice cap is floating on the water. If it melts, the ocean doesn't rise. Get it? If your ice melts in your drink glass,the glass does not overflow. The amount of ice on land is not enough to melt and raise the oceans by any great amount. Get it?

Thinkin' Man | 10:41 a.m. July 1, 2009

Ice Cubes: Most of the ice cap is in Greenland, Iceland, and Antarctica and is on land, not water. If it melts, ocean levels will rise. But it would take hundreds of very warm years to rise more than a few feet.

Nate | 11:15 a.m. July 1, 2009

@Anonymous 7:55 p.m.

After NASA fixed their Y2K bug, 1998 was no longer the hottest year on record. (It was 1934.) Where were the headlines on that?

The fact remains that 3 of 4 datasets agree with each other, and NASA's GISS numbers are the only ones that indicate significant warming over the last decade. Why won't they publish their interpolation algorithms for peer review? This is supposed to be science, after all. How many climate models are relying on what could be bad data?

RedShirt | 3:36 p.m. July 1, 2009

To "ustraveler | 5:23 a.m." there are 2 questions that should be asked of Gore and all man-made global warming advocates. Here they are:

1. What should the temperature of the Earth be?
2. What evidence do you have to support your temperature from question #1?

The data shows a warming trend, but is that necessarily bad? What if, the Earth is warming up to it's ideal temperature and we stop it?

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