From the WSJ:

Climate of Fear
Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.

BY RICHARD LINDZEN
Wednesday, April 12, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

There have been repeated claims that this past year's hurricane activity was another sign of human-induced climate change. Everything from the heat wave in Paris to heavy snows in Buffalo has been blamed on people burning gasoline to fuel their cars, and coal and natural gas to heat, cool and electrify their homes. Yet how can a barely discernible, one-degree increase in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century possibly gain public acceptance as the source of recent weather catastrophes? And how can it translate into unlikely claims about future catastrophes?

The answer has much to do with misunderstanding the science of climate, plus a willingness to debase climate science into a triangle of alarmism. Ambiguous scientific statements about climate are hyped by those with a vested interest in alarm, thus raising the political stakes for policy makers who provide funds for more science research to feed more alarm to increase the political stakes. After all, who puts money into science--whether for AIDS, or space, or climate--where there is nothing really alarming? Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today. It can also be seen in heightened spending on solar, wind, hydrogen, ethanol and clean coal technologies, as well as on other energy-investment decisions.

But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.

To understand the misconceptions perpetuated about climate science and the climate of intimidation, one needs to grasp some of the complex underlying scientific issues. First, let's start where there is agreement. The public, press and policy makers have been repeatedly told that three claims have widespread scientific support: Global temperature has risen about a degree since the late 19th century; levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about 30% over the same period; and CO2 should contribute to future warming. These claims are true. However, what the public fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred. In fact, those who make the most outlandish claims of alarm are actually demonstrating skepticism of the very science they say supports them. It isn't just that the alarmists are trumpeting model results that we know must be wrong. It is that they are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't happen even if the models were right as justifying costly policies to try to prevent global warming.

If the models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature differences between the poles and the equator. When you have less difference in temperature, you have less excitation of extratropical storms, not more. And, in fact, model runs support this conclusion. Alarmists have drawn some support for increased claims of tropical storminess from a casual claim by Sir John Houghton of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a warmer world would have more evaporation, with latent heat providing more energy for disturbances. The problem with this is that the ability of evaporation to drive tropical storms relies not only on temperature but humidity as well, and calls for drier, less humid air. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based upon there being more humidity, not less--hardly a case for more storminess with global warming.

So how is it that we don't have more scientists speaking up about this junk science? It's my belief that many scientists have been cowed not merely by money but by fear. An example: Earlier this year, Texas Rep. Joe Barton issued letters to paleoclimatologist Michael Mann and some of his co-authors seeking the details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis that claimed the 1990s were likely the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the last millennium. Mr. Barton's concern was based on the fact that the IPCC had singled out Mr. Mann's work as a means to encourage policy makers to take action. And they did so before his work could be replicated and tested--a task made difficult because Mr. Mann, a key IPCC author, had refused to release the details for analysis. The scientific community's defense of Mr. Mann was, nonetheless, immediate and harsh. The president of the National Academy of Sciences--as well as the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union--formally protested, saying that Rep. Barton's singling out of a scientist's work smacked of intimidation.

All of which starkly contrasts to the silence of the scientific community when anti-alarmists were in the crosshairs of then-Sen. Al Gore. In 1992, he ran two congressional hearings during which he tried to bully dissenting scientists, including myself, into changing our views and supporting his climate alarmism. Nor did the scientific community complain when Mr. Gore, as vice president, tried to enlist Ted Koppel in a witch hunt to discredit anti-alarmist scientists--a request that Mr. Koppel deemed publicly inappropriate. And they were mum when subsequent articles and books by Ross Gelbspan libelously labeled scientists who differed with Mr. Gore as stooges of the fossil-fuel industry.

Sadly, this is only the tip of a non-melting iceberg. In Europe, Henk Tennekes was dismissed as research director of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Society after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming. Aksel Winn-Nielsen, former director of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, was tarred by Bert Bolin, first head of the IPCC, as a tool of the coal industry for questioning climate alarmism. Respected Italian professors Alfonso Sutera and Antonio Speranza disappeared from the debate in 1991, apparently losing climate-research funding for raising questions.

And then there are the peculiar standards in place in scientific journals for articles submitted by those who raise questions about accepted climate wisdom. At Science and Nature, such papers are commonly refused without review as being without interest. However, even when such papers are published, standards shift. When I, with some colleagues at NASA, attempted to determine how clouds behave under varying temperatures, we discovered what we called an "Iris Effect," wherein upper-level cirrus clouds contracted with increased temperature, providing a very strong negative climate feedback sufficient to greatly reduce the response to increasing CO2. Normally, criticism of papers appears in the form of letters to the journal to which the original authors can respond immediately. However, in this case (and others) a flurry of hastily prepared papers appeared, claiming errors in our study, with our responses delayed months and longer. The delay permitted our paper to be commonly referred to as "discredited." Indeed, there is a strange reluctance to actually find out how climate really behaves. In 2003, when the draft of the U.S. National Climate Plan urged a high priority for improving our knowledge of climate sensitivity, the National Research Council instead urged support to look at the impacts of the warming--not whether it would actually happen.

Alarm rather than genuine scientific curiosity, it appears, is essential to maintaining funding. And only the most senior scientists today can stand up against this alarmist gale, and defy the iron triangle of climate scientists, advocates and policymakers.

M. Lindzen is Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

The debate is not helped by critics of the alarmist crowd who get things wrong themselves. I recall one person's argument that since we can't (according to the alarmists) reverse the effects of global warming, we must not have the power to cause it in the first place.

This is simply wrong. I can cause massive brain trauma in an animal with a simple stick and good aim, but neither I nor any other human can reverse that damage at current levels of technology. Therefore, our inability to reverse global warming is not evidence that there is no man-made effect.

However, the author does make a valid point about the double standard in science... those who raise the alarm in politically correct ways are given a free pass on peer review. Repeatable experiments? Nice to have, but not needed. Reviewable data? No thanks. Someone making a non-contraversial claim with this level of support would be laughed out of academia. Suppose I were to claim that I have developed an alloy of iron and silver that reverses the oxidation of aluminum under exotic conditions (under one-quarter atmosphere of pressure at a temperature of 380-383 kelvins), but I won't release my data or enough information for others to duplicate the effect. Think that would get published?

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

Disclaimer: I'm about to make a very strange analogy, based exclusively on my slightly unique view of both the controversial issues.

So you may ask, what the hell does global warming have to do with WMD in Iraq? Well even if only in my convoluted mind, everything.
Global warming- based on a circumstancial case- as was WMD.
Global warming- always presented in a worst case scenerio- ditto WMD.
Global Warming and WMD- agreed upon by most experts (for WMD that would be intelligence agencies)
And perhaps most important both are used to rally immediate action (I'll get back to this).

Is the world better off without Sadam Hussein in power, yes.
Would the world be better off with less polution, yes.

WMD and Global Warming- are very much the same. They are a short-cut, a means to an end. The most effective way to change the world isn't education, it is as it always has been FEAR. Without Global Warming and its apocalyptic imagery, you would have to convince a large number of the people of the world that cutting polution is worth it. Without WMD, Iraq was a non-threat and you'd have to build a case that toppling their regime is worth it.

Both are very doable, but both require far more time than the agendas can afford. So we get the modern equivilent of a fire and brimstone sermon, just an old trick in new clothes.

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Still looking for something profound or inspirational to place here.

Doesn't this belong over on CPDN? The climate nerds are over there. This is the LGM nerd forum.

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Disclaimer: I'm about to make a very strange analogy, based exclusively on my slightly unique view of both the controversial issues.

So you may ask, what the hell does global warming have to do with WMD in Iraq? Well even if only in my convoluted mind, everything.
Global warming- based on a circumstancial case- as was WMD.
Global warming- always presented in a worst case scenerio- ditto WMD.
Global Warming and WMD- agreed upon by most experts (for WMD that would be intelligence agencies)
And perhaps most important both are used to rally immediate action (I'll get back to this).

Is the world better off without Sadam Hussein in power, yes.
Would the world be better off with less polution, yes.

WMD and Global Warming- are very much the same. They are a short-cut, a means to an end. The most effective way to change the world isn't education, it is as it always has been FEAR. Without Global Warming and its apocalyptic imagery, you would have to convince a large number of the people of the world that cutting polution is worth it. Without WMD, Iraq was a non-threat and you'd have to build a case that toppling their regime is worth it.

Both are very doable, but both require far more time than the agendas can afford. So we get the modern equivilent of a fire and brimstone sermon, just an old trick in new clothes.

You are right, ghstwolf, that both arguments were based on circumstantial evidence, and as every lawyer should know, circumstantial evidence can be every bit as valid as direct evidence, if it is believable. It is odd that conventional wisdom comes down on opposite sides of these two questions: the media and many others disbelieve the circumstantial evidence (after the fact) of WMD, but believe the circumstantial evidence of global warming, in spite of frequent opposite weather trends.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think limiting fossil fuels and cleaning up the environment should be a top priority--for health reasons, not because of possible climate changes. The empirical evidence over the last decade does not support the "warming" prediction that activists touted when global warming was first discussed, decades ago. In fact, the predictions have had to be stretched and twisted to allow for some of the greatest snowfalls, coolest Summers and longest Winters in decades, contradicting the original predictions of warming.

Disclaimer: I'm about to make a very strange analogy, based exclusively on my slightly unique view of both the controversial issues.

So you may ask, what the hell does global warming have to do with WMD in Iraq? Well even if only in my convoluted mind, everything.
Global warming- based on a circumstancial case- as was WMD.
Global warming- always presented in a worst case scenerio- ditto WMD.
Global Warming and WMD- agreed upon by most experts (for WMD that would be intelligence agencies)
And perhaps most important both are used to rally immediate action (I'll get back to this).

Is the world better off without Sadam Hussein in power, yes.
Would the world be better off with less polution, yes.

WMD and Global Warming- are very much the same. They are a short-cut, a means to an end. The most effective way to change the world isn't education, it is as it always has been FEAR. Without Global Warming and its apocalyptic imagery, you would have to convince a large number of the people of the world that cutting polution is worth it. Without WMD, Iraq was a non-threat and you'd have to build a case that toppling their regime is worth it.

Both are very doable, but both require far more time than the agendas can afford. So we get the modern equivilent of a fire and brimstone sermon, just an old trick in new clothes.

The problem is certain very wealthy and influential individuals are continuing to become wealthier both from the removal of Sadam Hussein and it's associated contracts and the continuation of global warming.

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Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.
Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001)

You are right, ghstwolf, that both arguments were based on circumstantial evidence, and as every lawyer should know, circumstantial evidence can be every bit as valid as direct evidence, if it is believable. It is odd that conventional wisdom comes down on opposite sides of these two questions: the media and many others disbelieve the circumstantial evidence (after the fact) of WMD, but believe the circumstantial evidence of global warming, in spite of frequent opposite weather trends.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think limiting fossil fuels and cleaning up the environment should be a top priority--for health reasons, not because of possible climate changes. The empirical evidence over the last decade does not support the "warming" prediction that activists touted when global warming was first discussed, decades ago. In fact, the predictions have had to be stretched and twisted to allow for some of the greatest snowfalls, coolest Summers and longest Winters in decades, contradicting the original predictions of warming.

There are reasonably simple ways to suppliment energy resources by utilizing renewable, green resources. I have ideas for several, as I'm sure many other people do, but the problem is availability of funding to develop these concepts. The US government is giving the money allocated for development of alternate energy sources to the parties benefiting from the absence of alternate energy sources. Then there's the high cost of patents and a policy of granting alternate energy patents to major corporations.

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Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.
Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001)

You are right, ghstwolf, that both arguments were based on circumstantial evidence, and as every lawyer should know, circumstantial evidence can be every bit as valid as direct evidence, if it is believable. It is odd that conventional wisdom comes down on opposite sides of these two questions: the media and many others disbelieve the circumstantial evidence (after the fact) of WMD, but believe the circumstantial evidence of global warming, in spite of frequent opposite weather trends.

It is pretty messed up. Not unexpected, unfortunately. The media is an industry full of a certain type of people, I call them chasers. Chasers are never wrong in their mind, they will make a mistake and rather than admit to it and move on, they stick with it and repeat the same mistake. It would take an ice age tomorrow to get them off the GW bandwagon, but it cannot be an especially warm summer (it can then be justified, as a Day After Tomorrow scenerio).

Now, don't get me wrong, I think limiting fossil fuels and cleaning up the environment should be a top priority--for health reasons, not because of possible climate changes. The empirical evidence over the last decade does not support the "warming" prediction that activists touted when global warming was first discussed, decades ago. In fact, the predictions have had to be stretched and twisted to allow for some of the greatest snowfalls, coolest Summers and longest Winters in decades, contradicting the original predictions of warming.

I happen to agree (I dig the TreadLightly approach), but look at what you lose in that without GW (Ok, I'm officially sick of typing that out). It's not the seventies (or was that 80's) where you have another immediate risk. Acid rain, was a threat people understood, or how about burning leaded fuel. It's not that there aren't risks today, but they are less immediate and debateably of a lower threat.

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Still looking for something profound or inspirational to place here.

Climate Change's Gravy Train
By Peter C. Glover

In an open letter to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, 60 leading scientists called upon him to "re-visit the science on global warming and review the policies inherited from his leftwing predecessor." Referring to Kyoto as "pointless," the letter not only questioned the science of climate change, it also cites as a greater threat the billions of dollars that are to be wasted on associated research and development -- an outgrowth of that self-same science.

Questioning the justification for this R&D will not only attract the ire of researchers on the gravy train, it threatens the sources of fodder for scare-mongers in the mainstream media. Indeed, had 60 scientists written urging almost anything else, it would have, no doubt, received widespread coverage. But this open letter was marked by an almost deafening media silence in the US, UK and elsewhere.

Richard Lindzen, Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) asks a pertinent question: "How can a barely discernible, one-degree increase in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century possibly gain public acceptance as the source of weather catastrophes? And how can it translate into claims about future catastrophes? The answer has much to do with misunderstanding the science of climate, plus a willingness to debase climate science into a triangle of alarmism."

Lindzen goes on to identify how the doom-mongers in both the science research community and media have a "vested interest" in "hyping" the "political stakes for policymakers who provide more funds for more science research to feed more alarm. "After all", Lindzen wonders, "who puts money into science -- whether for AIDS, or space, or climate -- where there is nothing really alarming"?

Lindzen himself knows a thing or two about science research funding. The faculty at MIT has recently suffered cuts. The physics department was only able to accept 25 students this year -- down from 50 last year. And two MIT contracts with NASA -- which PhD candidates rely on to pay for their work -- have been trimmed by 91 percent. During 2005 two research workers turned down funding at MIT to work in Europe where funding is currently less of struggle. But he plainly does not allow this to cloud his opinion on the science.

Even though the US still spends more than any other country on scientific research, federal research funds more generally are currently flat or declining in many areas. But the National Institutes of Health saw its budget double between 1998 and 2003. Still, this year saw the Congress approve the first NIH budget cut since 1970. The National Science Foundation received only a modest increase to its massive $5.6 billion budget. (The usual response from science advocates squaring up to warn of the US 'losing its competitive edge' duly followed.)

The Bush-led government duly felt the full force of the "anti-science" accusation as a result. The notion that there are issues of more immediate financial need, like Homeland Security, cuts no arctic ice with funding ideologues, however.

Lindzen points to how the successes of climate alarmism are directly reflected "in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today." But he notes a "more sinister side to this feeding frenzy." It's that "scientists who dissent from alarmism have seen their funds disappear, their work derided, and libelled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse." The result? "Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis."

Dr. Roy Spencer recently warned that the current global warming hysteria could be assuaged if "more scientists who don't believe in predictions of climate catastrophe...rise above their fears of losing funding and speak out."

In the UK, the trade union Prospect -- which represents 68,000 scientists -- issued a report in March called 'Who's looking after British science?' The report complained bitterly that recent government cuts have "damaged the UK's core science capability." Once again, we are talking about public funding in the public sector. Prospect's real concern was that funding would be switched to "fund research that would only benefit private companies, which could switch the focus of research according to commercial demand."

In response to the publication of 2006 Climate Change Programme, Tomorrow's climate, today's challenge, the chair of the British Local Government Association's Board David Sparks has recently demanded that local government "needs £28 million to meet climate change challenges."

Perhaps never, in the annals of scientific research, has Mark Twain's observation about science been so apt: "One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact." And the fact is, billions in special interests are now controlling the debate.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

Dittos, Rush! :-)

The problem I have with the alarmists' position is that I've seen them be so dishonest in their claims and supposed evidence that I've adopted an appropriately heavy level of skepticism when reading or hearing the global warming fears of the day type news.

As Octagon aptly put forth in his iron and silver analogy in a previous post, that topic would never be politicized. There's no real reason to invent phony evidence, overstate it, or rake in millions of donation dollars advancing it as an agenda. Not so with GW. The agendas of the people promoting it (and filling their wallets in the process) is just no longer trustworthy.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

There's no real reason to invent phony evidence, overstate it, or rake in millions of donation dollars advancing it as an agenda. Not so with GW. The agendas of the people promoting it (and filling their wallets in the process) is just no longer trustworthy.

Yeah, no kidding.

In this case, organizations such as DirtFirst! Greenfarce, and Sierra Schlub have to create an impending crisis. Without one, their development suffers badly.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

You seem to be getting global warming and climate change mixed up. Global warming has been around as a theory for at least 20 years, however, the ability to predict the behaviour of something as complex as the climate of a whole planet is something we do not possess. We cannot currently predict what exactly will happen, but pretty much all scientists agree that something is happening to the climate.

Human behaviour does impact on the enviroment, that is a fact. We are pumping a huge amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, that is a fact. You are in denial if you think that this will have no effect on the Earth's climate.

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Reality Internet Personality

You seem to be getting global warming and climate change mixed up. Global warming has been around as a theory for at least 20 years, however, the ability to predict the behaviour of something as complex as the climate of a whole planet is something we do not possess. We cannot currently predict what exactly will happen, but pretty much all scientists agree that something is happening to the climate.

I'm not getting anything mixed up, it's just a lighthearted thread title. "Something" has been happening to the climate since the earth was formed. It has never needed us for that.

Human behaviour does impact on the enviroment, that is a fact. We are pumping a huge amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, that is a fact. You are in denial if you think that this will have no effect on the Earth's climate.

At no point did I ever say that it didn't. Oddly enough, burning electricty to run this hyah SETI hyah contributes directly to that impact. Think we should stop?

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

Global warming is a laughable concept. Some of you may remember back in the day when the US was first seeking the development of nuclear weapons. Some of the greatest scientific minds protested the use of such a device because it 'could' set fire to the atomshpere.

The reason I say it is laughable is because the Earth has gone through literally thousands of heating and cooling off periods. Scientists in the pro-warming category say we're speeding it up. Maybe, maybe not. But you can't tell me that when a volcano pops, the stuff shooting out 60,000ft up is good for every one.

Regardless, who is really threatened by global warming? The planet has survived asteroids, comets, volcanoes, earth quakes, radiation, solar flares, pole reversals, meteroids, plate techonics, etc. A bunch of humans burning fossil fuels, seems kinda trival don't you think? Admit it, we're not 'actually' killing the planet, we're actually just killing humanity.

That's the root of Greenpeace, Sierra Club, the local recycling center. They're trying to clean up the planet so it is habitable for humans. If the air is so polluted and we can't breath it, we die. After we're gone the cycle will start all over again but with out us.

Or maybe they really are just trying to save the 3 toed sloth.

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Global warming is a laughable concept. Some of you may remember back in the day when the US was first seeking the development of nuclear weapons. Some of the greatest scientific minds protested the use of such a device because it 'could' set fire to the atomshpere.

The reason I say it is laughable is because the Earth has gone through literally thousands of heating and cooling off periods. Scientists in the pro-warming category say we're speeding it up. Maybe, maybe not. But you can't tell me that when a volcano pops, the stuff shooting out 60,000ft up is good for every one.

Regardless, who is really threatened by global warming? The planet has survived asteroids, comets, volcanoes, earth quakes, radiation, solar flares, pole reversals, meteroids, plate techonics, etc. A bunch of humans burning fossil fuels, seems kinda trival don't you think? Admit it, we're not 'actually' killing the planet, we're actually just killing humanity.

That's the root of Greenpeace, Sierra Club, the local recycling center. They're trying to clean up the planet so it is habitable for humans. If the air is so polluted and we can't breath it, we die. After we're gone the cycle will start all over again but with out us.

Or maybe they really are just trying to save the 3 toed sloth.

Sure the planet will survive...but mankind won't.

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Account frozen...

Sure the planet will survive...but mankind won't.

So enjoy it while it lasts!

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Sure the planet will survive...but mankind won't.

I won't miss SOME of the people around here....

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

You seem to be getting global warming and climate change mixed up. Global warming has been around as a theory for at least 20 years, however, the ability to predict the behavior of something as complex as the climate of a whole planet is something we do not possess. We cannot currently predict what exactly will happen, but pretty much all scientists agree that something is happening to the climate.

Prior to "Global Warming" we were having "Global Cooling" back in the 60's and 70's. I remember the change over while I was still in school when one year we were taught all about Global Cooling and the next year we were told to forget everything we learned the previous year and were then taught Global Warming (by the same science teacher no less and the term Global Cooling became a no-no in class along with a loss of class participation points for the day if anyone dared question the change. BTW, I got very poor marks in class participation in the earth sciences class my second year as I questioned the change constantly and never did get a satisfactory answer).

The new up and coming questionable theory for the masses is "Global Dimming" as Global Warming has begun to be questioned by the media and general population. People are beginning to fight back against the theory as they did with the Global Cooling theories since these theories did little but cost everyone more money. It's hard to believe any of this science when the theories do a 180 degree turn every 20 to 30 years, scientists with opposing views are ridiculed and nobody can actually prove much of anything beyond a shadow of a doubt.

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To truly explore, one must keep an open mind...

You seem to be getting global warming and climate change mixed up. Global warming has been around as a theory for at least 20 years, however, the ability to predict the behavior of something as complex as the climate of a whole planet is something we do not possess. We cannot currently predict what exactly will happen, but pretty much all scientists agree that something is happening to the climate.

Prior to "Global Warming" we were having "Global Cooling" back in the 60's and 70's. I remember the change over while I was still in school when one year we were taught all about Global Cooling and the next year we were told to forget everything we learned the previous year and were then taught Global Warming (by the same science teacher no less and the term Global Cooling became a no-no in class along with a loss of class participation points for the day if anyone dared question the change. BTW, I got very poor marks in class participation in the earth sciences class my second year as I questioned the change constantly and never did get a satisfactory answer).

The new up and coming questionable theory for the masses is "Global Dimming" as Global Warming has begun to be questioned by the media and general population. People are beginning to fight back against the theory as they did with the Global Cooling theories since these theories did little but cost everyone more money. It's hard to believe any of this science when the theories do a 180 degree turn every 20 to 30 years, scientists with opposing views are ridiculed and nobody can actually prove much of anything beyond a shadow of a doubt.

RDC, it ultimateley winds up with an agenda that fills these 'non profits' full of stacks of cash. Yes, at some point the scare was that we were heading toward global cooling. Now it's global warming. In 20 years it will be global cooling again...I guess...the con men won't quit

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

RDC, it ultimateley winds up with an agenda that fills these 'non profits' full of stacks of cash. Yes, at some point the scare was that we were heading toward global cooling. Now it's global warming. In 20 years it will be global cooling again...I guess...the con men won't quit

The scariest 3 1/2 words in the english language: I DON'T KNOW. Does anyone else find it funny (in a pathetic sort of way) that as we grow out of our fear of the dark, we grow to fear uttering this phrase?

Well I don't fear those words, and I'm honest enough to say: WE DON'T KNOW. The climate is full of opposing forces, as X happens Y tends to counter it. More CO2 in the air, plants grow faster (maybe greenhouse attendents know something scientists are just starting to realize, they've been pumping CO2 into them for years).

Many of the Climate "scientists" remind me of a 5 year old with a new toy the just cannot stop talking about. Now if we could only regress them enough so that they, like the five year old they sound like, are not scared to say I don't know again.

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Still looking for something profound or inspirational to place here.