Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by jedinvest (A) on June 16, 2006 at 13:49:03

In Reply to: Scientists respond to An Inconvenient Truth posted by clarkjohnsen on June 15, 2006 at 09:28:21:

Yes, I intend to take my family to go see this movie. If we are going to live in this world, we might as well do so with our eyes open IMO.

(I have copied my statement from the Outside, as I always think the science is fascinating.)
OK, didn't have to read this article to know that it was all bullshit, but let's examine one of its key statements(below). Typical methodology, go back a long ways to make a point about the present and get a lot wrong in the process.

1. Scientifically, physicists and climatologist know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that it warms the atmosphere appreciably. I never heard any challenge to this fact.

2. Paleo-Climatologists know about the seeming non-correspondence of temperature to CO2, historically speaking. It still doesn't help this argument squat. It says that during cold spells, the buildup of CO2 actually reverses the climate to hotter from very cold. Huh, you say. Well, if the oceans are frozen, they do not absorb CO2 very well and it builds up. That's how you get out of an ice age, stupid. Well, stupid if you believe this article only, otherwise, well, that's why you have scientists to explain these things -- again, climate is not simple at all, but putting CO2 in the atmosphere surely will heat the globe, and that is very simple.

>>>Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and
Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years." Patterson asked the committee, "On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"