Global Warming Denial – EcoSalon

Top 10 American Global Warming Deniers

Stephanie Rogers — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:09:06 +0000

These 10 people have unintentionally hilarious things to say about global warming.

We don’t need to save the planet, because Jesus already did it – or so says Michele Bachmann, current presidential candidate and one of America’s 10 most notorious global warming deniers. Sarah Palin calls the science behind anthropogenic climate change “snake oil,” and Texas Representative Joe Barton contends that carbon dioxide can’t ever be a bad thing, because it’s in Coca-Cola. These, ladies and gentleman, are the politicians, commentators, columnists and businesspeople who most ardently (and hilariously) shout from the mountaintops that global warming just isn’t happening. Their words speak for themselves.

Senator James Inhofe, Oklahoma

According to Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, ranking member of the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” That’s right, the man who leads a crucial government committee responsible for dealing with matters related to the environment is a staunch global warming denier. Inhofe, who bases many of his views on the writings of Jurassic Park novelist Michael Crichton (more on that later), is primarily responsible for a report claiming that “Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming.” Too bad the majority of those ‘scientists’ turned out to be highly suspect, with many connected to fossil fuel industries and many more possessing no apparent expertise in climate science. That report, still used by climate skeptics to this day as supposed proof that there is no consensus among scientists on climate change, has been thoroughly debunked.

“Above all, the media must roll back this mantra that there is scientific ‘consensus of impending climatic doom as an excuse to ignore recent science,” Inhofe said in a 2006 press release. “After all, there was a so-called scientific ‘consensus’ that there were nine planets in our solar system until Pluto was recently demoted.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann, Minnesota

Current GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, a U.S. Representative from Minnesota, believes that climate change can’t really be happening, because carbon dioxide is natural. Or something. As she remarked on the House floor on Earth Day 2009, “It occurs in Earth. It is a part of the regular life cycle of Earth. In fact, life on planet Earth can’t even exist without carbon dioxide. So necessary is it to human life, to animal life, to plant life, to the oceans, to the vegetation that’s on the Earth, to the, to the fowl that – that flies in the air, we need to have carbon dioxide as part of the fundamental life cycle of Earth.”

That’s not her only argument. Bachmann agrees with Inhofe in that global warming is one big trick orchestrated by greedy environmentalists and scientists who want more grant money. “The big thing we are working on now is the global warming hoax,” she told Minnesota Public Radio. “It’s all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax.”

Of course, this is the woman who once told Rep. Nancy Pelosi that she might as well give up the fight against climate change, because Jesus has this thing covered. “[Pelosi] is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said she’s just trying to save the planet. We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet – we didn’t need Nancy Pelosi to do that.”

Governor Rick Perry, Texas

“The idea that we would put America’s economy at jeopardy based on scientific theory that’s not settled yet to me is just nonsense,” said GOP presidential candidate and Texas governor Rick Perry at a presidential debate in September. “Just because you have a group of scientists who stood up and said here is the fact. Galileo got outvoted for a spell.” Perry is, of course, referring to the Italian Renaissance astronomer who was outcast as a heretic when he disagreed with the consensus that the sun revolves around Earth.

These quotes reaffirmed Perry’s earlier statements, when he told an audience of voters in New Hampshire that global warming is just too expensive to deal with. “I don’t think, from my perspective, that I want America to be engaged in spending that much money on what is still a scientific theory that hasn’t been proven, and from my perspective is more and more being put into question.”

Donald Trump, Businessman

There are few subjects upon which Donald Trump isn’t willing to yell his red-faced, weird-hair-ruffling opinion, whether we asked him or not. So naturally, the reality television star and repeatedly bankrupt businessman has a few things to say about global warming. You see, it’s been snowing in the winter. So, as the billionaire told an audience of 500 at a country club in February 2010, Al Gore – perpetual bullseye for climate change deniers – should be stripped of his Nobel Peace Prize.

“With the coldest winter ever recorded, with snow setting record levels up and down the coast, the Nobel committee should take the Nobel Prize back from Al Gore,” he said, adding “Gore wants us to clean up our factories… when China and other countries couldn’t care less… China, Japan and India are laughing at America’s stupidity.” Indeed, Donald, many people are laughing at America’s stupidity.

Sarah Palin, Former Governor of Alaska

On the rare occasion when the words that come out of former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s mouth form coherent sentences, they still don’t make much sense. Back in 2008, before she quit her job mid-term, the proud moose hunter led the state of Alaska in a lawsuit against the federal government, stating that the listing of polar bears as a threatened species would cripple oil and gas development.

Speaking about the federal government’s decision to a group of loggers in 2010, Palin said, “We knew the bottom line… was ultimately to shut down our development. And it didn’t make sense because it was based on these global warming studies that we’re now seeing (is) a bunch of snake oil science.” The one-time Fox News talking head did not specify the studies that led her to this conclusion, probably because very few credible ones exist.

Michael Crichton, Author

He has one of the most recognizable names in the history of American fiction, responsible for such mega-hits as the TV medical drama ER. But what you might not know about Michael Crichton is that he was an ardent denier of global warming, writing a seriously misleading techno-thriller called State of Fear that attacks climate science and even advising former President George W. Bush not to address global warming.

Though Crichton studied medicine as a student at Harvard, the author had no experience in climate science. This didn’t stop him from claiming that State of Fear was written “on a firm foundation of actual research challenging common assumptions about global warming.” The book argues that the environmental and scientific communities totally fabricated the threat, portraying all environmentalists in a consistently negative light and using the story to smear real-life scientist James Hansen. This work of fiction remains a major influence on the thinking of many prominent climate change skeptics.

Steve Milloy, Fox News Commentator

He’s a Fox News commentator, founder of a website called JunkScience.com and author of a book called Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them. So you can probably already imagine the kinds of comments that Steve Milloy has to make about global warming. Milloy, a former lobbyist for fossil fuel and nuclear energy, pesticides and the National Mining Association, recently offered a $500,000 prize to anyone who can “prove, in a scientific manner, that humans are causing harmful global warming.” What’s the catch? “JunkScience.com, at its sole discretion, will determine the winner, if any.”

As reported by DeSmogBlog, Milloy proclaims himself to be a pioneer fighting against “faulty scientific data used to advance special, and often hidden, agendas.” Funny that Milloy doesn’t mention his own special interests and connections, including years of funding from major tobacco companies like Philip Morris. Milloy is also an adjunct analyst for the conservative thinktank CEI, Competitive Enterprise Intitute, a global warming disinformation machine that is partially funded by Exxon Mobil.

Rep. Joe Barton, Texas

Known as “Smokey Joe” for his opposition to the Clean Air Act and his efforts on behalf of polluters, Texas Representative Joe Barton famously argued against wind power because harnessing the wind would “slow the winds down,” effectively causing “the temperature to go up.” But that doesn’t mean he supports efforts to fight global warming, which he calls “a triumph over good sense and science.” Climate change is natural, he says, and in response, we should just “get shade.”

In fact, Barton argues, carbon dioxide is obviously harmless since it carbonates beverages. In opposition to the Waxman-Markey bill that aimed to cap CO2 emissions, Barton stated, “I’m creating it as I talk to you. It’s in your Coca-Cola, your Dr. Pepper and your Perrier water. It’s necessary for human life. It’s odorless, colorless, tasteless, doesn’t cause cancer, doesn’t cause asthma. There’s nobody that’s ever been admitted to a hospital because of CO2 poisoning.”

George Will, Columnist at the Washington Post

Among the most reliable sources of global warming disinformation is Washington Post columnist George Will, who regularly rails against “global warming alarmism” armed with misleading quotes selected from 1970’s newspaper articles about global cooling. Criticizing a 2010 error by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the retreat of Himalayan glaciers, Will himself offered a number of incorrect statements and misrepresented data as supposed proof that there is no scientific consensus on glacial retreat. Even after his distortions were revealed, Will continued to claim that he “accurately reported” the contents on an Arctic Climate Research Center document on declining sea ice, ignoring widespread calls for better fact-checking. These supposed facts are then repeated ad nauseam by climate change skeptics, entering the vast mythology of supposed scientific data supporting their views.

Glenn Beck, Radio Host

“Al Gore’s not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization… and you must silence all dissenting voices. That’s what Hitler did. That’s what Al Gore, the U.N., and everybody on the global warming bandwagon [are doing].”

Would you expect anything less from Glenn Beck, the chalk-wielding, sobbing former Fox television personality? The weird thing is, after years of making claims like these, repeating the popular refrain among his conservative buddies that global warming is “the biggest scam in history,” Beck went and gave an interview to USA Weekend in which he said “You’d be an idiot not to notice the temperature change,” admitting that there’s a legitimate case that global warming has been caused, at least in part, by mankind. Then again, Beck himself says “If you take what I say as gospel, you’re an idiot.”

Photos: dawn, wikimedia commons 1, 2, gage skidmore 1 2 3 4 5, lifeisaprayer, junkscience.com, scott ableman

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Top 10 Global Warming Denier Arguments Debunked: Part 2

Stephanie Rogers — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:22:26 +0000

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 NiÃ±o and La NiÃ±a. The combination of global warming and El NiÃ±o produced the dramatic spike in 1998, while La NiÃ±a 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

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Top 10 Global Warming Denier Arguments Debunked: Part 1

Stephanie Rogers — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:21:39 +0000

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

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Global Warming Denial – EcoSalon

Top 10 American Global Warming Deniers

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Top 10 Global Warming Denier Arguments Debunked: Part 2

Top 10 Global Warming Denier Arguments Debunked: Part 1