Similarities and Differences between 1960's hippies and 2000's Global Warming Alarmists

Similarities: Both promote an alternate lifestyle, simplifying, shunning the trappings of modern society. Both are idealists with a vision of a better world.

Differences: Hippies changed their lifestyles, they didn't bother anyone except their parents. Alarmists didn't change themselves as much as they tried to change everybody else.

Hippies were never shown the errors of their ways, because fundamentally, their approach was sustainable (although not necessarily for everyone). Alarmists were shown the error of their ways, for many it was no fault of their own. and it remains to be seen how they respond in coming years. Ironic that their idealism was not sustainable.

Sustainability Achieved out of the Dying Global Warming Movement!

This has got to be the slowest, most painful death possible for the Warmists. If the mainstream media had just reported on the global warming scandal Climategate and related malfeasances as they happened, it would be a knife through the heart of the movement. There would be a period of chaos among the supporters, followed by their attention moving on to something else.

Instead, the powers conspired to prevent this from happening, some with lofty hopes. Grassroot environmentalists hoped the scandal was all a big mistake and when the smoke cleared, it would all stand as solid as before, reinforcing their long-held belief of how the world really is. And others with not so lofty hopes. The green organizations worried that billions of dollars in donations would dry up if this scandal was not answered. Government leaders worried that their long held dream of energy taxes, redistribution of wealth and a much larger government that must administer these great programs would be set back by years. And the scientists worried that their climate research labs, all of which support the narrative, would lose funding and face downsizing and closure. The mainstream media worried that the large corporations that were so convenient to malign (because they cannot fight back the way individuals and government can), may not have been the bad guys after all. This shatters their very belief system, at a time when news organizations are being pummeled into dust by the Internet. MSNBC may have hoped that if they could only paper over the problem, parent company GE would still receive huge subsidies for wind generators, sweeping legislation would require green appliances in homes and many other financial benefits would be reamed, er raped, I mean reaped from the public. Literally, from an unsuspecting public until now.

Once the scandal broke, it seemed that nothing could save them. What the movement needed was time. Time to stop the lifeblood from spilling out of the environmental body. Time to figure out what would fix the problem. A virtual news blackout in the U.S. ensued. But they overlooked one thing (or hundreds of little things). By being predisposed to the global warming narrative, they were uncritical in the extreme to the strength of every piece of evidence in favor, at the same time feeling they had to come to it's defense and block any evidence against. As a natural result, the evidence for became weaker and the evidence against became stronger. It was a house of cards ready to fall.

The house of cards now falls in slow-motion. By delaying and understating the scandal in the mainstream media for as long as possible, they prolong the death throes of the movement for that much longer. In the long run, it is indefensible, it cannot stand. Today, a tiny minority in the USA is even aware of the scandal, you can see this for yourself by asking people outside of your circle of friends, especially young people. Yet we have a situation where cap and trade legislation is blocked, where support for the UN IPCC is evaporating, where states are fighting back against the EPA CO2 mandates, citizens are railing against shoddy work by government funded research such as at NASA and against perpetuating biased education in the schools. Public opinion polls about the belief in global warming show a declining trend.

All this without the true story of climate fraud reaching most of the people. When it does, slowly, and it surely will, because their supporters made sure the case for is based on only the thinnest verneer of scientific backing, and because this is arguably the greatest scandal in the history of science, the outrage will only grow and the verdict will be complete. In the meantime, the warmists are allowed to believe they still have a chance to recover something meaningful from their efforts as they continue unabated toward the precipice and oblivion and an eventual anonymous grave for the cause.

Warmists, your intentions were nothing but the best but your methods, and unknown to you, the improper methods by those you believed were supporting the narrative perverted all of that. The only outcome is the progressive demise and death of the movement as one percentage point at a time, the public excruciatingly slowly learns the truth. And that, ironically, is how the movement achieved some level of long-term sustainability.

The warmists methods did not kill the movement, it was the facts. Put another way, the movement would not have happened had the facts been given due regard. But since it did, we get some extremely valuable benefits:

1. The eventual death of the movement and the resultant correction of the errs of its ways. The environmental movement has had some important successes in the past but have defintely ventured too far into the ether (and perhaps inhaled it),
2. A deep abiding mistrust of the reliability of scientific claims that will be made in the future, ranging from health risks to asteroid impacts. While I really, really wanted to believe scientific research was objective and illuminating, it is far more valuable to believe that it sometimes will not be,
3. Fresh skepticism of our mainstream media who we thought were watching the science and now we know were - and are - actively hiding it,
4. Renewed wariness of our politicians, who, on some level exist to promote the growth of the political body, always at our expense.

And politics is where we will end. This is where the rubber meets the road, where government regulations and taxes incur real and major costs to taxpayers. Not just by soaking the energy producers, not just the rich but all of us as we pay more for everything they tax, regulate and restrict. And as the taxes, almost a living entity ever hungry for more, spread to more and more of the taxpayer's "environment", the burden on our pocketbooks only increases.

Climategate's Greatest Legacy may be a Healthy Skepticism of All Science-Based Policy

Scientistst should not pout that they lack the compelling charm of a television spokesperson when raising the alarm about global warming.

The climategate scandal has brought into the stark light of day the tenuous connection between global warming -- and the facts. Both the temperature record and the climate computer models are so badly damaged that the hollywood touch, complete with makeup and special effects, cannot repair their image.

This is unfamiliar territory for scientists, most of whom prefer a smidgen of notoriety with a heavy dose of privacy over the heated and politically charged debate. The sparks fly when science enters an area where the discoveries do not produce direct economic value but has heavy implications for how people behave. Global warming regulations and taxes fit that description. Another example is evolution, where many religions depend on a certain outcome of the evolution/creation question. While evolution has little economic value, the moral credibility of many religions and therefore how their members believe and live depend critically on the outcome of the debate.

When a scientific study is primarily of economic value; for example, that a new radio frequency becomes technically feasible for a next generation of cell phone, the controversy is a relatively quiet one behind corporate doors: Will the new radio work? And will the success of the new product justify the investment? If the science is wrong, it is quickly found out (the radio has limited range through walls). In this environment, the science is self-correcting (either fix the problem or move on to a different product), and it happens quickly (in a matter of months to a few years). The emotional attachment is there for a few advocates of the technology, but for the most part, the choices can be made dispassionately.

Undoubtedly, we will continue to face more emotionally charged science in politics. Next up, health care is a technological, moral and economic matter. We develop more and more exotic ways to save lives, but they are getting expensive. An MRI scan can identify tumors that might not otherwise be detected, but the cost is so high to routinely scan every American, that it is dismissed as impractical. Today, that is. But it is routinely used on the elderly in senior care, some of whom are so near the end of life, they could not undergo an operation or treatment if a problem is detected. The test is useless for such a patient. We are already spending money without thinking about how best to spend it and it can only get worse as these services default to entitlements.

It can get pretty confusing, especially when the science is faulty in the case of global warming, where huge government policy implications depend on a certain outcome. What the Climategate scandal teaches us is to be skeptical of the science and to "Follow the Money". Scrutinize who has something to gain from the policy that the science advocates. It is from this "analysis" that the most clear-headed policies can be achieved. And that healthy skepticism will help us keep vigilant in other fields. Thank you Climategate.

NASA's Alarmist James Hansen's Credibility on Global Warming is Hovering Right at Absolute Zero

I've been a big fan of NASA all my life, but I know an overblown bureaucracy when I smell one. My Taxes pay for this scientist and I don't like the job he's doing. He is on the string of Barack Obama to promote cap and trade legislation, part of Obama's unconstitutional control of government policies here. In his most recent letter here, he reinforces his claims about global warming that have increasingly been shown to be supported by weak and flimsy arguments. We still have his dismal temperature database that John Coleman and Joseph D'Aleo reported on in segment 4, and that surfacestations.org surveyed, but Hansen has not cleaned up his act. So how does he respond to such weaknesses?

"We are continually burdened by sweeping FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests, which reduce our ability to do science and write it up"

In other words, the complete documentation, which he has refused to provide in the past and which offers the only way to redeem his credibility (if it did not show such shoddy work and flawed data) is the very thing that he objects to addressing most of all.

Hansen's methods are closely tied to the climategate scandal and his refusal to recognize and act on what is most important to resolving credibility has one positive benefit. It will forever hamper his ability to promote his alarmist agenda.

We should downsize NASA since it has shown itself to have grown to a size that now produces irrelevent, conflicting work and has slid from the cause of science to that of advocacy. I previously talked of downsizing the EPA for passing the point of diminishing returns, and now we have another government agency that has proven itself to have grown beyond usefulness. Second best if we cannot downsize NASA immediately, we can make sure the dysfunctional department continues with the widely discredited James Hansen as the head so that we never forget that this organization has fallen from the true faith of the pursuit of science.

Farmlands, Petroleum and Global Warming

A simple calculation shows that all the carbon generated by 100 million cars across North America operating at the same time generates about as much carbon as that absorbed by a patch of land measuring approximately fifty by fifty miles. As North America is the leading consumer of gasoline for automobiles, this is a reassuring statistic.

Fly an airplane over the American Midwest. The land is not covered with cities or forests, it is farmland. Farmlands are near carbon equilibrium, they absorb it in the summer when crops are growing and release it when they are harvested. Centuries ago, the countryside consisted of natural habitats, including forests and grasslands. Not only did we release carbon forests into the atmosphere by logging and burning over the last few centuries, but we replaced them with land that is dark and barren sunlight-absorbing dirt during the spring and fall when crops are not growing. What is the heating effect of all that farming and how does it compare to, say, petroleum usage?

In the winter, some of the fields are snow-covered, but not entirely and not all winter. The snow-covered fields reflect more sunlight than their forest counterparts, where the barren trees absorb more heat from sunlight. This leads to cooler temperatures in the winter.

Planting takes place in the spring, but for several weeks, the fields are essentially barren. The dark soil thus absorbs more heat than a natural green habitat. How much heat from sunlight are we talking about?

Calculation
If the sun is directly overhead and all the light is absorbed, the earth receives nearly 1400 watts per square meter or 100 watts per square foot. An incandescent light bulb per square foot. That translates to 2.7 gigawatts per square mile. If solar panels were 100 percent efficient instead of 10 percent, that would be enough power to run 270,000 electric cars at highway speeds (at 10 KW average), for each square mile of land.

That is a staggering amount of energy from sunlight. It would only take a square of sunlit land 19 by 19 miles to equal the power of 100 million cars on the road at the same time across the entire North American continent.

While the above calculation was based on an electric car, that is the same energy output required to operate a petroleum powered car of equal size. However, an internal combustion engine is not 100% efficient. It is about 15% efficient (By comparison, commercial solar cells are only around 10% efficient). 15% efficiency corresponds to 6.6 times more energy generated by the engine than it uses. This is released in the form of heat. How much total energy us used by internal combustion? Our 19 mile square grows to 6.6 times the area to a square that is 50 miles on a side.

The heat of 100 million internal combustion cars all operating equals the heat of the sun, directly overhead, falling on a dark square surface only 50 miles on a side, a miniscule fraction of the Earth's surface. The sun does not always shine but neither do that many cars always run. There is a peak at rush hour in each time zone and a minimum overnight.

Environmentalists are not concerned about the puny amount of heat produced from petroleum fuel, they are worried about the carbon in the form of CO2. How much carbon is that? Let us compare it with carbon grown on land. A rough calculation follows.

If plant life is fifteen percent efficient at absorbing sunlight and turning it into carbon capture [CD: this will be checked], that would again require a square of land 50 by 50 miles to match the carbon output of 100 million cars. The interesting thing here is that a lot of cars on the road do not produce a lot of carbon.

Barren farmland does not absorb 100% of sunlight because it is not black. The dark brown color does absorb well over half, which is more than green plant life in the forests. And while that warming is not year-round and in the northern United States it happens at a time of year when the sun's rays are slanting more, it does mean a definite warming of farmlands must be tolerated if we are to have agriculture. And it does seem to be completely tolerated, I do not see anybody arguing against farming.

The good news is the worldwide logging of forests has slowed to a near standstill as replacement trees are planted at about the same speed they are cut down. If any global warming has been due to farming, the rise has occurred over the last few centuries and has recently leveled off. The majority of the planet's surface is neither farmland nor forest, but oceans, mountains, deserts and other terrain.

Most of the earth's surface is capable of absorbing carbon: Mountains absorb it when rain and CO2 react with the rocks. In oceans, sea creatures grow, producing shells made primarily of carbon, which eventually turn into limestone. Once formed, limestone does not readily re-enter the atmosphere. Limestone cliffs are one dramatic example of these gigantic land forms. The stone quarries found all across the Midwest hint at the underground vastness of land-based limestone.

Whereas a 50 by 50 mile square of the ecosystem can absorb the same carbon as 100 million cars, the earth's total area is so large that it contains 78,000 such squares. The total area may not be able to absorb seventy eight thousand north Americas full of cars, but it will never have to. The carbon contribution of all the present and projected future cars is insignificant compared to the natural carbon processes found in the world. In short, we don't have to worry about it.

Every time we cut down a 50 by 50 mile area of forest for cities and highways, do we risk an equal effect? Every time we irrigate that much new land, do we relieve the pressure? In fact, these patches of land are small potatoes compared to the rest of the earth. The rest of the world is busily absorbing CO2 as it always has. If there is a bit more available, it will absorb a bit more, adding up over time, as evidenced by the enormous size of limestone deposits.

The question then remains is why was everyone so worried about petroleum producing high CO2 levels? There are 78,000 reasons not to worry.

RealClimate is good solid science-advocacy

I just got back to a far-out trip to realclimate, where fantasies can become a part of your life. The latest article is about sea level rise estimates out to the year 2100 and how these are actually conservative estimates and still nobody gets credit for doing good science.

Science has many examples of trying to make predictions that are tested far, far into the future. For example, Einstein's theory culminated in the atom bomb decades later. And another of his theories was much later confirmed in "frame dragging" of orbiting bodies in astronomy. And that's just one scientist. Others who have had their theories come true decades later include, er..., well there must be lots of them. It's the failures you don't hear about, the theories that were later disproved.

Today, climate scientists are advancing their theories and projections that may be proven decades up to a century hence (they could predict farther out, their models are flawless and limitless, but there's no darn market for it). While making predictions, they are also advocating doing something about it now, not waiting decades for action (Einstein was a fool!). Which if you think about it, is a very good idea! Because they could be wrong and who would pay anything then? And it doesn't look so good with every temperature database in question, and every computer model wobbly even with a good temperature database.

There has been an imperceptible shift from "we've got to act now to save the environment before it's too late!" to a new urgency, "We've got to act now before too many people discover the science is shoddy!"

But you've got to feel pity, because climate science is a lousy business to be in. People can't do anything good with their results, like come up with some new labor-saving device, or even a toy or military weapon. They can only be taxed to high heaven, just to "keep things from getting much worse". And they can't even be sure if they got it right in their lifetime, only to become another forgotten theory. Except if they're not sure, they don't get the job. Now they are sure!

CO2 Global Warming: Firsthand Experience

In Northern Illinois, you get cold winters and hot summers. On some nights you can strongly experience firsthand the global warming effects of water versus CO2.

Some of us interested in amateur astronomy have long been aware that the best nights for viewing are in the winter. The humid summer nights add a milkiness to the sky when streetlights illuminate it. I do not recall a single summer night that was truly dry enough to lack this milkiness. But in the winter, the sky does lose moisture, allowing us to see more stars as well as faint nebulae and galaxies. These very dry nights are also the times that heat from the ground radiates directly into space, yielding subzero temperatures. This weeds out the weaker astronomers.

A cold nights can occur when we get a cold blast of Canadian air (the Canadians probably just call it 'air'). But on a clear, windless night, meteorologists point out that infrared heat will escape directly into space, leaving us with bitter cold temperatures. Yet many local residents I've asked are unaware of the connection. I recommend everybody take note of this effect, both on cloudy nights and clear nights. You will find the effect to be quite dramatic, differing by thirty or so degrees F.

The same thing happens in daytime, it gets colder than usual under clear skies, but the effect is lessened while the sun is simultaneously heating the ground.

Carbon dioxide blankets the earth evenly, it does not form "fronts" and "systems" the way clouds do, so a night without moisture still has plenty of CO2 present. Stepping outside, we learn that the effects of water vapor dominate temperatures while present levels of CO2 do little to counteract the absence of water.

Mass Extinction believed caused by Dinosaurs Hitting the Yucutan Peninsula at 20 times the speed of a ballet

Most members of the small community of dinosaur scientists (terrible lizard scientists) now agree on what caused the mass extinction at the end of the cantankerous period, adopting a "consensus", which recently became available from climate scientists.

"The impact was so powerful," consensual scientists exclaimed, "It had a major impact." On the environment, "It would have caused forests for thousands of miles to burn. And itch." A variety of disciplines were used to find agreement, including long chains, precise rulers and canings.

Indeed, if the same cataclysm were repeated with humans today, the predicted outcome would also be the same: Predictably, cataclysmic. The latest thinking is that humans are much more intelligent than once believed. As a next step, according to freely available hacked emails, they will begin studying what the outcome would be if the same thing happened to grasshoppers or spiders.

While the majority of the scientific community believe that a consensus caused the extinction, not everybody agrees, "There are always a few outliers." Some of these out and outliers believe in the opposite scenario. Others lie somewhere in-between.

The small team emphasized that Americans have to act now because the lessons of history are clear: A consensus allows legislation to move forward faster than any global event. Especially important in today's world of increasingly competitive disaster scenarios. "There used to be one scare at a time. Now there's even talk of several global disasterists forming coalitions, or simultaneous multisasters to appeal to a larger audience." As of this writing, we had yet to see the list of demands from the dinosaur scientists.