What? Question the liberals on climate change? How dare you! How about because here they are caught lying again... Al Gore will go down in history as one of the biggest charlatans of our time. www.wsj.com Not So Hot August 29, 2007; Page A14 The latest twist in the global warming saga is the revision in data at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, indicating that the warmest year on record for the U.S. was not 1998, but rather 1934 (by 0.02 of a degree Celsius). Canadian and amateur climate researcher Stephen McIntyre discovered that NASA made a technical error in standardizing the weather air temperature data post-2000. These temperature mistakes were only for the U.S.; their net effect was to lower the average temperature reading from 2000-2006 by 0.15C. The new data undermine another frightful talking point from environmentalists, which is that six of the 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 1990. Wrong. NASA now says six of the 10 warmest years were in the 1930s and 1940s, and that was before the bulk of industrial CO2 emissions were released into the atmosphere. Those are the new facts. What's hard to know is how much, if any, significance to read into them. NASA officials say the revisions are insignificant and should not be "used by [global warming] critics to muddy the debate." NASA scientist Gavin Schmidt notes that, despite the revisions, the period 2002-2006 is still warmer for the U.S. than 1930-1934, and both periods are slightly cooler than 1998-2002. Still, environmentalists have been making great hay by claiming that recent years, such as 1998, then 2006, were the "warmest" on record. It's also not clear that the 0.15 degree temperature revision is as trivial as NASA insists. Total U.S. warming since 1920 has been about 0.21 degrees Celsius. This means that a 0.15 error for recent years is more than two-thirds the observed temperature increase for the period of warming. NASA counters that most of the measured planetary warming in recent decades has occurred outside the U.S. and that the agency's recent error would have a tiny impact (1/1000th of a degree) on global warming. If nothing else, the snafu calls into question how much faith to put in climate change models. In the 1990s, virtually all climate models predicted warming from 2000-2010, but the new data confirm that so far there has been no warming trend in this decade for the U.S. Whoops. These simulation models are the basis for many of the forecasts of catastrophic warming by the end of the century that Al Gore and the media repeat time and again. We may soon be basing multi-trillion dollar policy decisions on computer models whose accuracy we already know to be less than stellar. What's more disturbing is what this incident tells us about the scientific double standard in the global warming debate. If this kind of error were made by climatologists who dare to challenge climate-change orthodoxy, the media and environmentalists would accuse them of manipulating data to distort scientific truth. NASA's blunder only became a news story after Internet bloggers played whistleblower by circulating the new data across the Web. So far this year NASA has issued at least five press releases that could be described as alarming on the pace of climate change. But the correction of its overestimate of global warming was merely posted on the agency's Web site. James Hansen, NASA's ubiquitous climate scientist and a man who has charged that the Bush Administration is censoring him on global warming, has been unapologetic about NASA's screw up. He claims that global warming skeptics -- "court jesters," he calls them -- are exploiting this incident to "confuse the public about the status of knowledge of global climate change, thus delaying effective action to mitigate climate change." So let's get this straight: Mr. Hansen's agency makes a mistake in a way that exaggerates the extent of warming, and this is all part of a conspiracy by "skeptics"? It's a wonder there aren't more of them.
This is sad because by environmentalists exaggerating or putting forth misinformation they are risking turning this critical issue into a political one and people will begin not to know what to trust and be generally skeptical. This can backfire and actually work against environmentalists getting what they want.
What misinformation are you referring to? This editorial makes no mention of environmentalists purposely exaggerating or making up claims about climate change. Link to WSJ oped Link to an actually sensible reaction to the NASA mistake
My God, because if environmentalists got their way, the world would be in such deep trouble. I mean, who would want cleaner air, water, and less deforestation?
You mean pollution is actually a good thing? Sweet. How 'bout for a little science experiment you park your SUV inside the garage with the door closed and the engine running and sit inside it for awhile. Naw, it couldn't be that bad for you. Just give it a little try. It won't hurt anything. I promise.
Idiotic. This is only related to US data. The affect this correction has on overall global climate data is ludicrously minute.
I loved his opening line of his excuse...er...speech the other day. "Thank you all for coming out today."
Can you repost the plot of the actual change in the temperature data? I think you posted that. I'm not sure it would mean much to Jorge, who probably took the minimum science requirement as an owl.
I can imagine the young, resolute Jorge, stiff and ramrod erect of posture, in a darkened lecture hall diligently learning that force = mass x acceleration, impervious to the stench of the hippie deadhead scum encamped around him in Introduction to Physical Science for Non-Concentrators 101, aka Physics for Poets. I bet he administered his lab partner a stern tongue lashing for perceived decadence.
To say they lied is going overboard. The article indicates that this is a recent claim from NASA, meaning the information was not previously available to environmentalists and they could well have been making claims based on what was considered to be fact at that time. That happens in science. In fact, it could also be that this is in dispute and NASA is wrong, but you do have a delightful perspective and I appreciate your incredibly non-biased slant.
LOL, you could make the same argument as to why Hillary voted for the war in Iraq. If the climate change conspiracy theorists have such a strong case, then why must they resort to lies and gross exaggerations/sensationalism? Hmm...
i agree. new mexico, arizona, nevada, utah have mass amounts of land that isnt being used for anything. solar power plants... a 100x100 mile area could probably power the entire west coast, southwest, and great plains. 1. we'd have clean energy 2. remove our dependence on foreign oil 3. create new jobs but this will probably never happen bc too many special interests will squash it...
You could cover all of new mexico with windmills and solar panels, and it'd still be a drop in the bucket. To put things in perspective, if you combined all of the solar plue wind power available today in the entire world, it'd be about 1/100th of a single nuclear power plant in terms of output. Still think wind and solar is the solution?
Why do people oppose nuclear power anyway? How can people claim to care about the environment and still not want nuclear power? It blows my mind.
Hate to actually show *data* and let you decide for yourselves if you see a trend, but here we go. Despite my evil covert scientist pledge to hide things from the public and lie to you and pledge allegiance to crazy liberals who want to destroy America... what can I say, I've had a few beers: The reports, originating at FOX for some reason, emphasized the slight changes in US temperature records. Here are the corrected data, for the entire global average: (courtesy NASA.gov) So there it is: the dirty secret of the lying liberal-sack-riding scientific community. My head hurts, and I'm going to have another beer. PS -- Hayes44, I am actually very pro-nuke and share your sentiments. The fear of accidents really rules the day. The sad bit is that fear of fision (dirty, yes) has destroyed federal funding for fusion research. Just my 2 cents.
Something tells me T_J won't be back in this thread. Oops. I guess he didn't realize global warming meant "global" and not "US"?
