So you’ve got the facts to rebut global warming denial arguments like “Al Gore wants our money”, “But it’s snowing!” and “Warming sounds good to me.” From here on out, things get a little more complicated. Claims that use the sun’s influence on the Earth’s climate, Antarctica’s ice gain, reliability of temperature data and supposed evidence of cooling are based on a thin understanding of how climate science works.

There’s no doubt that the world is warming. Get a grip on reality with our debunking of the top 10 denier’s claims – and click on the links to read the studies and analysis that support the scientific consensus for more information. (Click here for the first part in this series.)

5. Antarctica is actually gaining ice, not losing it

Melting at the Earth’s poles has long been considered a major warning sign of global warming, so when two recent studies indicated a slowing of overall surface warming across Antarctica and even some ice gain skeptics took it as solid proof of their point. The problem is, NASA satellite data shows that Antarctica has been losing more than 24 cubic miles of ice each year since 2002.

The “discrepancy” boils down to two things: first, there’s a big difference between land ice and sea ice. Sea ice is increasing, but it’s not because Antarctica is cooling – in fact, the Southern Ocean is warming faster than any other ocean on earth. It’s due to a series of events including the hole in the ozone layer and wind currents pushing sea ice around.

Second, scientists suspect that Antarctic ice shelves are being eroded from underneath by warming seas, and satellites can’t measure under the ice. While there’s not much happening in East Antarctica, which is a high, dry desert making up 2/3 of the continent, West Antarctica a series of ice-covered islands that rest on the ocean floor is retreating at a dramatic pace, especially along the southern portion of the Antarctic Peninsula.

The Peninsula is the furthest point from the South Pole, so its deterioration could be a sign of what’s to come for the rest of the continent.

4. Climategate proves it’s all an elaborate scam

When hackers stole emails written by climate scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in November of 2009, skeptics hailed it as “the final nail in the coffin for global warming.” To much of the public, the content of some of the emails seemed damning: the scientists, including Phil Jones, joked about physically harming opponents and referred to their work in terms that seemed to boast of intentionally manipulating data.

But the quotes were clearly taken out of context. Few people took the time to read the emails in full before deciding that their contents proved global warming a scam.

While Jones himself admits that the personal attacks in some of the emails were “awful”, an extensive independent examination of all 1,073 emails by the Associated Press and a panel of moderate climate scientists found no evidence whatsoever that the science of global warming was faked.

An Academic Board of Inquiry at Pennsylvania State University also cleared scientist Michael E. Mann, who was also a prominent figure in the hacked emails, of any wrongdoing in his widely criticized use of the word “trick”. “The so-called ‘trick’ was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion by a technique that has been reviewed by a broad array of peers in the field,” the panel said.

Since so-called “Climategate” fizzled, skeptics have homed in on a new target: a few minor errors in a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). That’s an entire article in itself – get the facts and spin from the experts at RealClimate.org.

3. There’s no consensus among scientists

The 31,000-strong “Petition Project” is proof that there’s no scientific consensus on climate change! Except that it’s not. An investigation by the Seattle Times into the “scientists” who signed the petition found that dozens of names were made up including “Perry S. Mason”, “Michael J. Fox”, “John C. Grisham” and Spice Girl “Dr. Geri Halliwell”.

Only 0.1 percent of the Petition Project signers have a background in climatology. An unrelated survey found that 97.5 percent of actual climatologists who actively publish research on climate change believe that human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures.

26 scientific organizations and the Academy of Sciences from 19 different countries all support the consensus, and a survey of all peer-reviewed abstracts on the subject of global climate change published between 1993 and 2003 found that not a single paper rejected the consensus position.

2. It hasn’t warmed for over a decade

This wholly inaccurate argument is a favorite of Glenn Beck and his ilk. Here are the facts.

1998 was a record-breaking, blazing hot year. Since average global temperatures haven’t quite reached those levels since, some critics have claimed that the Earth hasn’t continued to warm over the last decade – or even that the Earth is in a cooling period.

That’s just wrong. Though there were several years in the past decade of relatively cooler global temperature averages, that has to do with normal short-term climate variability caused by climate events like El Niño and La Niña. The combination of global warming and El Niño produced the dramatic spike in 1998, while La Niña has contributed to slight cooling in years like 2008 which was still the 10th warmest year on record. In fact, NASA research has found that the last decade was the warmest on record and 2009 temperatures reached near-record levels despite an unusually cold December in parts of North America. Or, put in simple terms: a year of record breaking heat (1998) followed by a decade more of still-record breaking heat isn’t cooling. It’s record breaking heat.

Moreover, surface temperatures aren’t everything. The entire planet, including the oceans, is accumulating heat. Skeptical Science puts the data in terms that are easier for the layperson to understand: the amount of heat that the oceans have accumulated since 1970 is roughly the equivalent of “190,000 nuclear power plants pouring their energy output directly into our oceans.”

1. It’s all the sun’s fault

In 2004, a group of researchers announced that the sun is increasingly active, and that a rise in the number of sunspots corresponds to the rise in temperatures over the last century. Of course, global warming skeptics jumped on this as an easy explanation for warming.

But the fact is, the sun has shown a slight cooling trend in direct opposition to the warming trend on Earth. Naturally, the sun does have a lot of influence on the Earth’s climate, and during the 1150 years for which scientists have records, temperatures on this planet closely correlated with solar activity. It was right around 1960 that the Earth’s temperatures began to break away. Numerous peer-reviewed studies have concluded that the sun’s role in warming trends is, in fact, negligible.

Each week here at EcoSalon, the editors choose a post from the archives that we think you’ll love. The original post can be found here.

Images: Kurt Russill, Fox News/YouTube

The post Top 10 Global Warming Denier Arguments Debunked: Part 2 appeared first on EcoSalon.

Snow in the South, ice gain in Antarctica and scientists seemingly fudging climate data: is the global warming debate over? Definitely.

But skeptics aren’t on the winning side. Global warming deniers have gleefully seized on recent scandals and misinterpreted data to bolster their collection of arguments, but there are these pesky things called facts that keep getting in the way of their agenda.

But how do you respond to that impassioned neighbor, cranky uncle or annoying cocktail party guest who uses sunspots, Al Gore’s supposed greed and a limited grasp of climate science to claim that global warming isn’t really happening? Presenting the top 10 global warming denier arguments, and the facts that thoroughly debunk them. Today’s installment features numbers 10-6, check back tomorrow for the top 5.

10. It’s all a hoax perpetuated by money-hungry Al Gore

“You fools are being taken for a ride! Al Gore just made all this stuff up about ManBearPig global warming so he can roll in the Benjamins at his mansion.”

Fact: Gore donates all of the proceeds from both the book and DVD of An Inconvenient Truth to environmental causes. He also donated 100 percent of his Nobel Peace Prize award as well as the salary from his venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, to the Alliance for Climate Protection.

Al Gore isn’t the only target. Some claim that scientists “follow the money right onto the man-made global warming bandwagon.” But most funding for global warming research comes from government grants, and the money is doled out before the results are determined.

Meanwhile, dirty energy companies and anti-climate-action groups shower scientists who are willing to argue against climate change with cash. ExxonMobil was one of the largest sources of funding for such scientists for over a decade, and purported to stop in 2008. Surprise! They lied. Recently released records show that the oil giant paid out $75,000 that year to several climate action opposition groups.

9. But look at all the snow!

“It’s going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries “uncle,” tweeted U.S. Rep. Jim DeMint (R-SC) on February 9th as a fierce winter storm dropped foot after foot of snow on the nation’s capital. “Record snowfall illustrates the obvious: The global warming fraud is without equal in modern science,” trumpeted an editorial in the conservative Washington Times. And let’s not even get started on The Donald.

Right, because winter is never cold, and all that snow can’t possibly have anything to do with a near-record amount of moisture in the air. Meteorologist Jeff Masters explains that heavy precipitation events are increasing as the world warms, and guess what – at the freezing point and below, that means snow (and lots of it). Global warming doesn’t mean winter is going to go away.

The U.S. isn’t the entire world – it’s only 1.5 percent of the globe. The Earth’s atmosphere is getting warmer, but different climates will be affected in different ways. Local weather is becoming more volatile across the board due both to warming and normal variability, but while that has translated to more frequent, more severe snow events in North America, Brazil is experiencing a near-record heat wave at the same time.

8. Warming is a good thing

“Break out the grill, swimsuits and daquiri mix because a huge chunk of the world is about to turn into tropical paradise! Okay, so not everyone using this argument paints such a laughably simplistic picture of supposed global warming benefits, but it’s still bad: many believe that global warming would be good for the Earth and us.

Some cite fewer winter deaths, an ice-free Northwest Passage and increases in the number of certain species. Others argue that if the climate were to cool instead, even a little bit, a feedback effect would make things worse as growing Arctic snowfields caused more sunlight to reflect away from the ground. And another Ice Age wouldn’t exactly be kind to humanity. But while a few select regions could benefit from a warmer overall climate, most of the world would suffer on a nightmarish scale, and the feedback effect applies to warming as well.

Raging wildfires, extreme water scarcity, expanding deserts, changing ecosystems. Heatwave deaths, the spread of deadly mosquito-borne diseases, growing dead zones in the oceans, death of healthy trees and other vegetation, coral extinction. War. Climate refugees. That’s only a small fraction of the projected consequences, but it’s surely more than enough.

7. Climate change is part of a natural cycle

“How can we, petty little humans that we are, possibly alter something as huge in scope as the planet’s climate? After all, when you think about just how complex the Earth really is, we’re just not that important. So why should we change our habits?”

That might have been true until about two centuries ago, when the Industrial Age came along and we first started burning massive quantities of filthy, CO2-producing coal. Since then, as technology has advanced and our population has multiplied to over six billion people, we’ve gotten a bit big for our britches, pushing the limits of just how much pollution we can pump into the air before seeing catastrophic global effects.

There’s no doubt that historically, temperatures and greenhouse gas levels have fluctuated naturally, but those fluctuations are nothing compared to what we’ve seen in the past century (see charts in #6.)

6. Temperature data is unreliable

Skeptics like to claim that temperature records showing a warming trend are unreliable because weather stations are often located in areas that absorb and radiate heat, like rooftops and asphalt parking lots. But in reality, the Urban Heat Island Effect has had a very small influence on temperature readings and climate scientists adjust the data to account for it.

All major temperature reconstructions for the past 1,000 years published in peer-reviewed journals show some variability in surface temperatures over centuries (above graph), with a dip in the Little Ice Age and a huge uptick during the last century. Even if those reconstructions are excluded and we only look at the last 150 years (below graph), there’s a significant rise.

When it comes down to it, surface temperature records are far from the only evidence of global warming. With borehole analysis, weather balloon temperature data, satellite measurements, glacial melt observations, sea level rise and other indicators can be used completely independently of surface temps.

Each week here at EcoSalon, the editors choose a post from the archives that we think you’ll love. The original post can be found here.

Image: NYC blizzard February 26, 2010 by Sarah Ackerman

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One of my favorite Charles Darwin quotes is from The Descent of Man: “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” Sadly, it appears that lately there are a lot of confident people out there when it comes to knowing what’s real in this universe and what’s not. And science and scientists have taken a bit of a beating. With media darlings like “Climategate” and mismanaged flu outbreaks on one side, and the rise of religious extremism on the other, I’m sometimes frightened that science is being edged out, marginalized by all those folks who seem much more certain than I of the ways of the world. Is it true? Are we really getting medieval on ourselves?

Sometimes, perhaps just for comfort’s sake, I find it’s a good idea to check in with the base and make sure we’re all pretty much on the same page. To that, Scientific American just posted what seem like some encouraging numbers from a web survey that “suggests that the scientifically literate public still trusts its experts.”

To conduct the survey, SA joined forces with its “sister publication,” Nature, to poll online readers and got a huge response – more than 21,000 people. The publications acknowledge it was “a supportive and science-literate crowd,” with nearly 20 percent identifying themselves as PhDs. Nevertheless, the survey points to some interesting trends and some wide variations of viewpoints within the community.

Happily, these variations are not apparent regarding the big question of “Who do you believe about stuff?” When asked how much scientists were trusted “to provide accurate information about important issues in society” versus others groups, such as politicians, religious leaders and friends and family, scientists came out way ahead (four out of five stars as opposed to religious leaders getting only about one and a half stars). What’s interesting, though, is that respondents trust scientists on certain subjects like evolution (that’s for you, Charles) and the origin of the universe, but much less so on issues like flu pandemics, depression drugs, pesticides, genetically modified crops and vitamin supplements. It’s almost as if respondents sniffed out the potential for profits and the possibility of scientists being, how shall we say, less than straightforward.

Another interesting line of questions regards one of our fave topics, climate change denial, particularly among us gringos. “Numerous polls show a decline in the percentage of Americans who believe humans affect climate,” says SA, “but our survey suggests the nation is not among the worst deniers.”

Turns out we’re happily behind France, Japan and Australia on this dubious list. But there’s good news here too as “among those respondents who have changed their opinions in the past year, three times more said they are more certain than less certain that humans are changing the climate.”

One heartening, and particularly timely area of inquiry, indicates that respondents still feel, despite the global econominic situation, that putting cash into science is a good ROI (return on investment) strategy. In fact, 72 percent of respondents think that “investment in basic science is one of the best ways to stimulate jobs and the economy.”

The survey looks into a number of other interesting areas as well, including science and politics, “techno fears” and “suspicion over the flu.” The SA post also has some nifty graphics for you at-a-glance folks.

I do realize that SA is asking the choir (albeit one with a diverse voice) for answers here, but sometimes, when the din of dumb gets loud enough, it helps to turn around, face the home crowd and ask, “You still with us?” A resounding “Yes!” is nice to hear.

Image: Jordan Cole

The post Checking in With the Home Team: You Still Down With Science? appeared first on EcoSalon.

A routine morning click on The New York Times turned up a tiny story buried deep in the day’s news this past April. Nothing more than a blurb in a little roundup called WORLD BRIEFING | EUROPE, the headline read: “Britain: Inquiry Finds No Distortion of Climate Data,” informing me that “a second inquiry has cleared climate researchers at the University of East Anglia of allegations that they distorted the scientific evidence for human-caused global warming. “˜There was no hint of tailoring results to a particular agenda,’ an independent panel of scientists said in a report submitted to the university on Monday.”

My first thought was, “Wow, how’d I miss the first inquiry?” I’m usually on top of this kind of news. I wondered what page that story was on. Then I got angry. For how long and for how many news cycles were we inundated with “Climategate?” Beginning last November, the “scandal” spent months coloring the global warming “debate,” providing rocket fuel for naysayers, creating an entire “elitist lefty scientists lie!” industry. T-shirts and stickers declared: “Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny, Global Warming,” “Green is the New Red!” “Global Warming = Global Hoax!”

So now, for a second time, the “story” behind the global headlines – Grand Conspiracy Perpetrated on Human Race! The Fix is in! It’s All a Big Green Lie! – is debunked! And we get it in WORLD BRIEFING | EUROPE. Word count: 94.

My Facebook post that morning? “Given the amount of copy dedicated to this ‘scandal,’ it’s so nice to find this paragraph buried in the NYT‘s ‘brief’ section.”

The link didn’t get much response from my 327 friends (I know, I’m picky), but at least they paid more attention than the media. Snippets from my wall:

“Thank you for posting this. I was considering this morning how we, socially, seem primed to immediately think the worst of people and then demand that they explain themselves.”

To which: “Indictment is news. Exoneration is not. Sad thing is this ‘story’ continues to be used in misinformation campaigns regarding global warming. Trumpeting this inquiry’s conclusions has true news “˜value.’ NYT drops the ball here.”

The point was eventually well made a few months later by Joe Conason in Salon: “‘Climategate’ debunking is (or should be) major news: The e-mail ‘scandal’ burned scientists on front pages last winter. But editors have buried a series of rebuttals.”

In the story, he points out: “Newspapers, magazines and newscasts ought to be informing the public, fairly and dispassionately, about the series of events that cast fresh doubt on the doubter lobby.”

This is important. That “doubter lobby” was at its zenith late last year and early this. Self-declared independent thinkers were swayed, programs reconsidered, cash flows affected. That bogus story had big old legs and it ran its ass off for months.

Ninety-four words.

So now it’s yesterday, I’m scanning the web and I find this on Green Energy News: “EPA Rejects Claims of Flawed Climate Science.”

Here’s the scoop: Ten “groups,” including the State of Texas, the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Coalition for Responsible Regulation et al (sic), and the Ohio Coal Association, petitioned the EPA to reconsider its “Endangerment Finding,” which basically says greenhouse gases are hurting us and that we’re responsible for creating them. The petitions asserted that the science used to reach these conclusions is faulty, at best, and that a conspiracy pollutes, so to speak, information from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) , the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Global Change Research Program.”

The EPA’s response boils down to: “We’ve looked at your assertions and have this to say re your petitions: Wrong!”

Green Energy News summarizes a few of claims; here’s one example: “Claim: Petitioners say that emails disclosed from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit provide evidence of a conspiracy to manipulate global temperature data. Response: EPA reviewed every e-mail and found this was simply a candid discussion of scientists working through issues that arise in compiling and presenting large complex data sets. Four other independent reviews came to similar conclusions.”

The nine others claims and responses were similar in tone and dismissal.

Stop the presses, right?

Here’s some news for today: With only a few minor exceptions, I don’t see this story getting any serious play anywhere but in the green press. And here’s the problem: In the case of greenhouse gas emissions, the media’s infatuation with inane claims and so-called smoking guns, and lack of any use for sane, consistent scientific assertions can prove fatal to the debate, if not our quality of life.

I often ask myself why people continue to get away unchecked with referring to evolution as a “theory.” Here’s the deal on that one, folks: It’s not a theory any more. And neither is global warming. We have the science. Asked and answered. Data is in. And if we’re going to give our collective attention to those who make a lot of noise asserting otherwise, shouldn’t we give them the same attention when they’re kicked to the curb?

Image: Joel Bedford

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So you’ve got the facts to rebut global warming denial arguments like “Al Gore wants our money”, “But it’s snowing!” and “Warming sounds good to me.” From here on out, things get a little more complicated. Claims that use the sun’s influence on the Earth’s climate, Antarctica’s ice gain, reliability of temperature data and supposed evidence of cooling are  based on a thin understanding of how climate science works.

There’s no doubt that the world is warming. Get a grip on reality with our debunking of the top 10 denier’s claims – and click on the links to read the studies and analyses that support the scientific consensus for more information. (Click here for the first part in this series.)

5. Antarctica is actually gaining ice, not losing it

Melting at the Earth’s poles has long been considered a major warning sign of global warming, so when two recent studies indicated a slowing of overall surface warming across Antarctica – and even some ice gain – skeptics took it as solid proof of their point. The problem is, NASA satellite data shows that Antarctica has been losing more than 24 cubic miles of ice each year since 2002.

The “discrepancy” boils down to two things: first, there’s a big difference between land ice and sea ice. Sea ice is increasing, but it’s not because Antarctica is cooling – in fact, the Southern Ocean is warming faster than any other ocean on earth. It’s due to a series of events including the hole in the ozone layer and wind currents pushing sea ice around.

Second, scientists suspect that Antarctic ice shelves are being eroded from underneath by warming seas, and satellites can’t measure under the ice. While there’s not much happening in East Antarctica, which is a high, dry desert making up 2/3 of the continent, West Antarctica – a series of ice-covered islands that rest on the ocean floor – is retreating at a dramatic pace, especially along the southern portion of the Antarctic Peninsula.

The Peninsula is the furthest point from the South Pole, so its deterioration could be a sign of what’s to come for the rest of the continent.

4. “˜Climategate’ proves it’s all an elaborate scam

When hackers stole emails written by climate scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in November of 2009, skeptics hailed it as “the final nail in the coffin for global warming.” To much of the public, the content of some of the emails seemed damning: the scientists, including Phil Jones, joked about physically harming opponents and referred to their work in terms that seemed to boast of intentionally manipulating data.

But the quotes were clearly taken out of context. Few people took the time to read the emails in full before deciding that their contents proved global warming a scam.

While Jones himself admits that the personal attacks in some of the emails were “awful”, an extensive independent examination of all 1,073 emails by the Associated Press and a panel of moderate climate scientists found no evidence whatsoever that the science of global warming was faked.

An Academic Board of Inquiry at Pennsylvania State University also cleared scientist Michael E. Mann, who was also a prominent figure in the hacked emails, of any wrongdoing in his widely criticized use of the word “trick”. “The so-called ‘trick’ was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion by a technique that has been reviewed by a broad array of peers in the field,” the panel said.

Since so-called “˜Climategate’ fizzled, skeptics have homed in on a new target: a few minor errors in a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). That’s an entire article in itself – get the facts and spin from the experts at RealClimate.org.

3. There’s no consensus among scientists

The 31,000-strong “˜Petition Project‘ is proof that there’s no scientific consensus on climate change! Except that it’s not. An investigation by the Seattle Times into the “˜scientists’ who signed the petition found that dozens of names were made up including “Perry S. Mason”, “Michael J. Fox”, “John C. Grisham” and Spice Girl “Dr. Geri Halliwell”.

Only 0.1% of the Petition Project signers have a background in climatology. An unrelated survey found that 97.5% of actual climatologists who actively publish research on climate change believe that human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures.

26 scientific organizations and the Academy of Sciences from 19 different countries all support the consensus, and a survey of all peer-reviewed abstracts on the subject of global climate change published between 1993 and 2003 found that not a single paper rejected the consensus position.

2. It hasn’t warmed for over a decade

This wholly inaccurate argument is a favorite of Glenn Beck and his ilk. Here are the facts.

1998 was a record-breaking, blazing hot year. Since average global temperatures haven’t quite reached those levels since, some critics have claimed that the Earth hasn’t continued to warm over the last decade – or even that the Earth is in a cooling period.

That’s just wrong. Though there were several years in the past decade of relatively cooler global temperature averages, that has to do with normal short-term climate variability caused by climate events like El Niño and La Niña. The combination of global warming and El Niño produced the dramatic spike in 1998, while La Niña has contributed to slight cooling in years like 2008 – which was still the 10th warmest year on record. In fact, NASA research has found that the last decade was the warmest on record and 2009 temperatures reached near-record levels despite an unusually cold December in parts of North America. Or, put in simple terms: a year of record breaking heat (1998) followed by a decade more of still-record breaking heat isn’t cooling. It’s record breaking heat.

Moreover, surface temperatures aren’t everything. The entire planet, including the oceans, is accumulating heat. Skeptical Science puts the data in terms that are easier for the layperson to understand: the amount of heat that the oceans have accumulated since 1970 is roughly the equivalent of “190,000 nuclear power plants pouring their energy output directly into our oceans.”

1. It’s all the sun’s fault

In 2004, a group of researchers announced that the sun is increasingly active, and that a rise in the number of sunspots corresponds to the rise in temperatures over the last century. Of course, global warming skeptics jumped on this as an easy explanation for warming.

But the fact is, the sun has shown a slight cooling trend – in direct opposition to the warming trend on Earth. Naturally, the sun does have a lot of influence on the Earth’s climate, and during the 1150 years for which scientists have records, temperatures on this planet closely correlated with solar activity. It was right around 1960 that the Earth’s temperatures began to break away. Numerous peer-reviewed studies have concluded that the sun’s role in warming trends is, in fact, negligible.

Images: Kurt Russill, Fox News/YouTube

The post Top 10 Global Warming Denier Arguments Debunked: Part 2 appeared first on EcoSalon.

Snow in the South, ice gain in Antarctica and scientists seemingly fudging climate data: is the global warming debate over? Definitely.

…But skeptics aren’t on the winning side. Global warming deniers have gleefully seized on recent scandals and misinterpreted data to bolster their collection of arguments, but there are these pesky things called facts that keep getting in the way of their agenda.

But how do you respond to that impassioned neighbor, cranky uncle or annoying cocktail party guest who uses sunspots, Al Gore’s supposed greed and a limited grasp of climate science to claim that global warming isn’t really happening? Presenting the top 10 global warming denier arguments, and the facts that thoroughly debunk them. Today’s installment features numbers 10-6; check back with us Monday for the top 5.

10. It’s all a hoax perpetuated by money-hungry Al Gore

“You fools are being taken for a ride! Al Gore just made all this stuff up about ManBearPig global warming so he can roll in the Benjamins at his mansion.”

Fact: Gore donates all of the proceeds from both the book and DVD of An Inconvenient Truth to environmental causes. He also donated 100% of his Nobel Peace Prize award as well as the salary from his venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, to the Alliance for Climate Protection.

Al Gore isn’t the only target. Some claim that scientists “follow the money right onto the man-made global warming bandwagon.” But most funding for global warming research comes from government grants, and the money is doled out before the results are determined.

Meanwhile, dirty energy companies and anti-climate-action groups shower scientists who are willing to argue against climate change with cash. ExxonMobil was one of the largest sources of funding for such scientists for over a decade, and purported to stop in 2008. Surprise! They lied. Recently released records show that the oil giant paid out $75,000 that year to several climate action opposition groups.

9. But look at all the snow!

“It’s going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries “˜uncle’,” tweeted U.S. Rep. Jim DeMint (R-SC) on February 9th as a fierce winter storm dropped foot after foot of snow on the nation’s capital. “Record snowfall illustrates the obvious: The global warming fraud is without equal in modern science,” trumpeted an editorial in the conservative Washington Times. And let’s not even get started on The Donald.

Right”¦because winter is never cold, and all that snow can’t possibly have anything to do with a near-record amount of moisture in the air. Meteorologist Jeff Masters explains that heavy precipitation events are increasing as the world warms, and guess what – at the freezing point and below, that means snow (and lots of it). Global warming doesn’t mean winter is going to go away.

And guess what? The U.S. isn’t the entire world – it’s only 1.5% of the globe. The Earth’s atmosphere is getting warmer, but different climates will be affected in different ways. Local weather is becoming more volatile across the board due both to warming and normal variability, but while that has translated to more frequent, more severe snow events in North America, Brazil is experiencing a near-record heat wave at the same time.

8. Warming is a good thing

“Break out the grill, swimsuits and daquiri mix – a huge chunk of the world is about to turn into tropical paradise!” Okay, so not everyone using this argument paints such a laughably simplistic picture of supposed global warming benefits, but it’s still bad: many believe that global warming would be good for the Earth – and us.

Some cite fewer winter deaths, an ice-free Northwest Passage and increases in the number of certain species. Others argue that if the climate were to cool instead, even a little bit, a feedback effect would make things worse as growing Arctic snowfields caused more sunlight to reflect away from the ground. And another Ice Age wouldn’t exactly be kind to humanity. But while a few select regions could benefit from a warmer overall climate, most of the world would suffer on a nightmarish scale, and the feedback effect applies to warming as well.

Raging wildfires, extreme water scarcity, expanding deserts, changing ecosystems. Heatwave deaths, the spread of deadly mosquito-borne diseases, growing dead zones in the oceans, death of healthy trees and other vegetation, coral extinction. War. Climate refugees. That’s only a small fraction of the projected consequences, but it’s surely more than enough.

7. Climate change is part of a natural cycle

“How can we, petty little humans that we are, possibly alter something as huge in scope as the planet’s climate? After all, when you think about just how complex the Earth really is, we’re just not that important. So why should we change our habits?”

That might have been true until about two centuries ago, when the Industrial Age came along and we first started burning massive quantities of filthy, CO2-producing coal. Since then, as technology has advanced and our population has multiplied to over 6 billion people, we’ve gotten a bit big for our britches, pushing the limits of just how much pollution we can pump into the air before seeing catastrophic global effects.

There’s no doubt that historically, temperatures and greenhouse gas levels have fluctuated naturally, but those fluctuations are nothing compared to what we’ve seen in the past century (see charts in #6.)

6. Temperature data is unreliable

Skeptics like to claim that temperature records showing a warming trend are unreliable because weather stations are often located in areas that absorb and radiate heat, like rooftops and asphalt parking lots. But in reality, the Urban Heat Island Effect has had a very small influence on temperature readings and climate scientists adjust the data to account for it.

All major temperature reconstructions for the past 1,000 years published in peer-reviewed journals show some variability in surface temperatures over centuries (above graph), with a dip in the Little Ice Age – and a huge uptick during the last century. Even if those reconstructions are excluded and we only look at the last 150 years (below graph), there’s a significant rise.

When it comes down to it, surface temperature records are far from the only evidence of global warming. Grist notes that borehole analysis, weather balloon temperature data, satellite measurements, glacial melt observations, sea level rise and other indicators can be used completely independently of surface temps.

Don’t miss part 2 in this series, Common Arguments Against Global Warming and Climate Change.

Image: NYC blizzard February 26, 2010 by Sarah Ackerman

The post Top 10 Global Warming Denier Arguments Debunked: Part 1 appeared first on EcoSalon.

Remember when “Rowdy” Roddy Piper body slammed Mr. T during their boxing match? T was winning. Piper was frustrated. The body slam was utterly against the rules and unsportsmanlike, yet highly entertaining.

The global warming debate going on in the blogosphere this week has been the eco equivalent.

Anti-environmentalists and some pro-business and right wing media have been throwing global warming science into question all month by means both dignified and uncouth. They’re annoyed by increasing global recognition of science that validates the idea mankind should work to control its greenhouse gas emissions.

Then, Monday (Dec. 7, 2009) the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made two important climate change-related scientific “findings” official with what is known as a “signing.” One, that “greenhouse gases”¦threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations,” and another, that greenhouse gas pollution is partly caused by cars or, in government speak, “new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines,” potentially inviting auto industry regulation.

With the EPA signings and the Copenhagen summit on climate change taking place this week, the aforementioned debaters got louder – including Sarah Palin – and suffered rebuttals galore (and by Al Gore) to their arguments including: climate change just happens in nature, so mankind need not worry; scientists inside top research organizations doubt global warming exists or matters and have been hiding evidence that suggests this; and regulations of greenhouse gas emissions are not necessary or helpful to people.

Did they raise some valid points?

Scott Rosenberg, the founder of Mediabugs.org, non-fiction author and a co-founder of Salon.com, says of “Climategate,” that experienced science beat reporters are likely to have covered the issue accurately, while political writers and generalists, who don’t have the time to understand the science as deeply, have too often followed the “on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand” template, amplifying “dissenters in the field who can be found on the fringes.”

Mediabugs.org seeks “to create a neutral forum where journalists and public can talk about these things,” says Rosenberg. In other words, he wants to give the public a respectful and easy way to interact with journalists online when inaccuracies or concerns arise, and to keep news people honest.

Rosenberg also advises the eco-curious online, “Start from a point of knowledge about what you are reading and who wrote it.” If it’s in Forbes, for example, or written by an auto industry reporter the story will likely defend the interests of business, more than it will portray the consensus view of scientists on climate change.

Check the links below for some of the heaviest smack down action between climate change authorities and greenhouse gas doubters.

Basic Reading

“Numerous right-wing media figures have attempted to undermine the case for action against global climate change by comparing the scientific consensus that human activity is driving global warming to a ‘cult.’ However, as the Union of Concerned Scientists has stated, the scientific understanding of climate change is ‘based on the work of thousands of scientists from hundreds of research institutions'”¦” – A comprehensive Media Matters report quoting the press entities who cast doubt about otherwise highly regarded climate change science.

-¦The naysayers literally jumped at the chance to debunk all scientific study pertaining to the effects of climate change, yanking three sentences out of over 1,000 items of correspondence and deeming them a smoking gun”¦Now, the debate is settled. At least, for the intelligent people out there. The idiots are still buying Hummers.”- A blog entry entitled “Climate-Gate for Idiots” by Joe Ascanio at the green travel site, The Daily Beast by Benjamin Sarlin

Further Resources:

An article on MSNBC entitled “Al Gore Rebuts Palin’s Climate Change Claims” that includes links to a transcript of an Andrea Mitchell interview with Al Gore for NBC television, and to Sarah Palin’s original opinion piece.

“Forbes Publishes Fiction on Climate Change Debate” a report by Jim Naureckas for Fair.org.

Gary Sutton’s essay for Forbes called “The Fiction of Climate Science,” in which Sutton says climatologists are (very) wrong about global warming.

The website of the Extreme Ice Survey, an organization using “time-lapse photography, conventional photography, and video to document the rapid changes now occurring on the Earth’s glacial ice.”

This is the latest installment of EcoMeme, a column featuring eco news, tech and business highlights by Lora Kolodny.

Image: Alaskan Dude

The post EcoMeme: Global Warming ‘Debate’ appeared first on EcoSalon.