Political Discussion - A Place to &quot;duke it out&quot; (13,500+)

Top 1684. Feb 21, 2006 2:48 PM

» SteveT - Warning, Will Robinson, warning! Danger! Danger!

In response to Warning, Will Robinson, warning! Danger! Danger! posted by Kirk:

I find it very interesting to watch the google ads change in response to the ebb & flow of the topics discussed here. smile

-- posted by SteveT

Top 1685. Feb 21, 2006 4:32 PM

» Normxxx - Warning, Will Robinson, warning! Danger! Danger!

In response to Warning, Will Robinson, warning! Danger! Danger! posted by permabear:

You seem to be laboring under twin delusions:

1. That mankind is clearly to blame for a potential 1— 2^oC increase in temperature over the next century, despite the evidence I have alread presented to you— real evidence (see above)— that the Earth can manage swings of +/— 10^oC all on its own, and has repeatedly done so over the last 600 million years or so. Also, you seem to be laboring under the delusion that ~370 ppm of CO² is huge, when I have shown you that CO² has ranged from 7000 ppm (19X the current amount) to the current amount, which is a rarely seen low, or that increased CO² is necessarily going to cause an increase in temperature, even though I noted that a previous Ice Age, the Late Ordovician Period, ocurred at the same time CO² concentrations were nearly 12 times higher than today— 4400 ppm.

I can excuse those "climate scientists" (who still struggle with predicting tomorrow's weather, much less that of the next millenium or so)— what better way to get increased research grants! But I am surprised that you are so easily taken in: think of those "climate scientists" as being no better (or worse) than those Wall Street 'analysts' and 'economists,' who may mean well (though one is entitled to doubt that) but who still generally get it all wrong! And all their hangers on.

GLOBAL WARMING?— The Great Debate
An Interview with Dr. Robert C. Balling, Jr
http://www.evworld.com/archives/intervie...
"The problem is the climate models haven't matched up with worldwide observations, especially from orbiting satellites and weather balloons (radiosondes). While it is true that surface temperature readings in the last 150 years show a steady increase in average temperature, Balling believes this can be accounted for, at least partially, by increased urbanization. The accuracy of climate models has been called into question, Balling said because they [have consistently] predicted that temperatures should actually be warmer today then they are.
Dr. Balling takes issue with the public perception that our global weather is becoming more extreme, with more violent storms and drastic changes in rainfall patterns. Quoting the same IPCC report used by proponents of global warming, he stated that there is no evidence that weather patterns are becoming more extreme. In fact the evidence indicates that there is actually less variability.
"It doesn't make good news copy," Balling suggested. "To go around and say that nothing is happening in variability and extreme weather is not front page news at all. But if you suddenly decide you want to declare that every weather event is being driven by global warming there are plenty of them. There are plenty of hurricanes around the world, plenty of heat waves, plenty of cool waves. What you wind up with is the ability to go out on any given day and find something and claim that's global warming... If Newsweek wants to run cover stories telling you the weather's gotten crazy, it's their right to do so. But it's not at all consistent with the facts."
The earth's climate varies naturally, Balling observed. Whether you believe its warming or cooling really depends on what your beginning and ending points are. He noted that in the middle ages, records indicate that the earth was warmer than it is now and that about 1600, the earth suddenly got cooler in what as been called the "Little Ice Age" from which we are just now emerging.
"As most people are aware, in the last one million years we've had times when glaciers covered large areas of North America, Europe and parts of the southern hemisphere. There are times when the glaciers all but disappeared and the Earth warmed up. It should be obvious that the climate changes without any influence of humans. It's done this many times in the past, its warmed and cooled... There are even people who argue that we should put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to protect us from the onslaught of the next glaciation which is really out there and is going to happen sometime."

2. And, that this is something wecan fix! Hell, we can't even duplicate a simple natural process like hydrogen fusion!

"Balling observed that rising CO²levels may, in fact, not be the chief cause of climate change. There could be many other factors from volcanic activity to el Niño. One possible explanation is the natural variability in the energy output of the Sun over time. Pointing to the work of the Harvard-Smithsonian observatory, Balling stated that when one plots the energy output of the Sun over the last few decades, it appears to match precisely the fluctuations in global temperature on earth.
"It's not as if we're sitting back with no other explanation except the build up of CO2 to describe the trends in various patterns that we see. There are lots of things at work in the climate system from volcanic eruptions to the appearance of Niño to solar output variability. All those things add up to create the temperature trends that we see. Of course, at the same time, we are building up greenhouse gases and the build up of greenhouse gases may also be contributing to the warming, and at the same time we're also putting out sulfate aerosols which cool the earth, and disturbances in dry land create mineral aerosols that cool the earth. There are people talking about ozone depletion and that has a cooling effect. So we have a lot more to look at than just the build up of CO² in attempting to explain trends and variations in temperature over the last century.

The Science of Abrupt Climate Change
http://www.wunderground.com/education/ab...

by Dr. Jeffrey M. Masters
Chief Meteorologist, The Weather Underground, Inc.

In the debate on climate change, we are used to hearing about climate changes on the scale of hundreds or even thousands of years. But since the early 1990s, a radical shift in the scientific understanding of Earth's climate history has occurred. We now know that that major regional and global climate shifts as recently as 8200 years ago have occurred in just a few decades or even a single year. If an abrupt climate change of similar magnitude happened today, it would have severe consequences for humans and natural ecosystems. Although scientists consider an abrupt climate change unlikely in the next 100 years, they concede that their understanding of the phenomena is so incomplete that such a change could be triggered at any time by natural processes or by human-caused global warming.

A Climate Change Primer: Computer Models and the Need for More Research
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?art...
Part three of a three-part series
Written By: Jay Lehr and Richard S. Bennett
Published In: Environment News
Publication Date: July 1, 2003
Publisher: The Heartland Institute

In this third and final part, Lehr and Bennett describe the shortcomings of computer models and emphasize the need for continued climate research.

Computer simulations of the Earth’s climate are not accurate, as they do not take into account all of the variables that affect climate.

We know from simple physics, for example, that the doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO²) adds about 4 watts per square meter (W/m²) of energy to the climate system. CO², of course, is the “greenhouse gas” targeted by global warming adherents as the principal cause of man-made climate change.

But the 4 W/m² of energy that a doubling of atmospheric CO² contributes is dwarfed by the amount of energy supplied by the sun’s radiation: 342 W/m² in the upper levels of the atmosphere.

And 4 W/m² is also small compared to the uncertainties in the climate change calculations.

For example, our knowledge of the amount of energy flowing from the equator to the poles is uncertain by an amount equivalent to 25-30 W/m². The amount of sunlight absorbed by the atmosphere or reflected by the surface is also uncertain by as much as 25 W/m². Some computer models include adjustments to the energy flows of as much as 100 W/m². Imprecise treatment of clouds may introduce another 25 W/m² of uncertainty into the basic computations.

These uncertainties in modeling climate processes are many times larger than the 4 W/m² input of energy resulting from a doubling of CO² concentration in the atmosphere. It is difficult to see how the climate impact of the 4 W/m² can be accurately calculated in the face of such huge uncertainties. As a consequence, forecasts based on computer simulations of climate may not even be meaningful at this time.

A comparison of nearly all of the most sophisticated climate models with actual measurements of current climate conditions found the models in error by about 100 percent in cloud cover, 50 percent in precipitation, and 30 percent in temperature change. Even the best models give temperature change results differing from each other by a factor of two or more.

I don't think folks living in the gulf coast are laughing about chicken little when it comes to the possible effects of global warming.

And the Galveston hurricane of 1901 (I believe), was that also due to Global warming? (Probably not; we hadn't invented "Climatologists" yet— whose prognostications make the economists look like veritable seers!)

-- posted by Normxxx

Top 1686. Feb 21, 2006 4:38 PM

» Normxxx - Warning, Will Robinson, warning! Danger! Danger!

In response to Warning, Will Robinson, warning! Danger! Danger! posted by lcha:

Actually, I didn't forget the poles flipping! But, the estimate is not for another 1200 years; so I figured, what the hell, we'll probably have blown ourselves up by then anyways.

-- posted by Normxxx

Top 1687. Feb 21, 2006 4:45 PM

» Normxxx - Warning, Will Robinson, warning! Danger! Danger!

In response to Warning, Will Robinson, warning! Danger! Danger! posted by SteveT:

I find it very interesting to watch the google ads change in response to the ebb & flow of the topics discussed here.

Somehow I suspect that's the only climate effect likely to be caused by human activity!
<img Align="Left" hspace="10" vspace="5" src="http://digilander.libero.it/katalog/emo/...">

-- posted by Normxxx

http://www4.nas.edu/onpi/webextra.nsf/we...

Top 1688. Feb 21, 2006 5:08 PM

» permabear - Warning, Will Robinson, warning! Danger! Danger!

In response to Warning, Will Robinson, warning! Danger! Danger! posted by Normxxx:

Norm,

You can find scientists who buck conventional wisdom in just about any endeavor or argument. Creation science is a great example. But when it comes to a major issue like climate change, there is a vast consensus amongst the major scientists that the effect is real. 1 degree F change in 100 years is a substantial change and it has been pretty clearly shown that it is due to human activities. What is seen in the arctic is downright scary. You can put on you denial glasses all you want. You will have the company of George W. Bush and the Weekly Standard as your compatriots. You won't have the company of established scientists, either at Bush's own EPA, NASA, the Academy of Scientists, the journals Science, Scientific American, National Geographic or anywhere else. On this issue you are an eccentric and dead wrong.

-- posted by permabear

What Makes A Theory Scientific ?

Top 1689. Feb 22, 2006 1:49 AM

» Normxxx - Warning, Will Robinson, warning! Danger! Danger!

In response to Warning, Will Robinson, warning! Danger! Danger! posted by permabear:

Is that how you judge the stock market? You take a vote of all of the leading economists? Too bad; you should be dead broke by now!

1987: Warmest year since records began. The 1980s turn out to be the hottest decade on record, with seven of the eight warmest years recorded up to 1990. Even the coldest years in the 1980s were warmer than the warmest years of the 1880s.

Sounds really impressive and scary, until you do a little simple arithmetic and realize that, even being the most generous, the record spoken of represents only .000025% of the last 600,000,000 years of which we have very good paleoclimatalogical records. I have provided you with plenty of dissenting scientists, who have painstakingly documented how little we know about climatology (much less than economics). I will believe your climatologists when they can explain to me what happened between about 1940 and 1970 (about 20% of their "record").

Are you willing to sacrifice the future (and probably lives) of perhaps 95% of the people on this planet on science so weak it can't even predict the climate for the next 10 years, much less the next 100 years?

You won't have the company of established scientists, either at Bush's own EPA, NASA, the Academy of Scientists, the journals Science, Scientific American, National Geographic or anywhere else. On this issue you are an eccentric and dead wrong.

Is that supposed to impress me? There are books written on how often the "establishment" of scientists have proved dead wrong— especially in climatology— accoring to the best calculations, the average world temperature today should already be several degrees higher than it is!

You noted previously that this was considered a legitimate scientific debate; obviously that is no longer true for you.

1 degree F change in 100 years is a substantial change and it has been pretty clearly shown that it is due to human activities.

Can you give me a reference? This is confirmed by absolutely no satellite data! And, I am not even saying that no heating is occuring— just that we are not likely to be the cause (the solar data matching the Earth temperature changes over the last hundred years is meaningless to you? Just coincidence?)

Man; you are as bad as the fundamentalists— you just harken to another God! I prefer to rely on real science and my (God given) powers of logic and reason.

Science is what we have learned about how to keep from fooling ourselves." - physicist Richard Feynman

"We believe a scientist because he can substantiate his remarks, not because he is eloquent and forcible in his enunciation." - literary critic I.A.Richards

"Nullius in verba" - Latin for "On no man's word". Motto of the Royal Society of London.

Instead of thratening me with being outcast, give me what the Climatologists predict the temperature change will be over the next 10 years (within a 95% confidence interval), and I will bet you they are dead wrong! We can see who is right at the end of that time, assuming that we both are still here and in our right senses. Kirk can referee the bet! (I will gladly accept any shorter period that those climatologists feel up to.)

A science that cannot predict (with an accuracy better than chance) is a pseudo-science, however many people subscribe to it!

Long term temperature data from the Southern Hemisphere are hard to find, and by the time you get to the Antarctic continent, the data are extremely sparse. Nonetheless, some patterns do emerge from the limited data available. The Antarctic Peninsula, site of the now-defunct Larsen-B ice shelf, has warmed substantially. On the other hand, the few stations on the continent and in the interior appear to have cooled slightly. Antarctic cooling, global warming?

Currently, there is still a major debate about whether the increase in temperature over the past decade is real or not. I am willing to concede the increase, but not that it is caused by human activity. Moreover, I do not believe that humankind can do much to reduce the CO² increase, short of killing off about 90% of the planet's population.

Greenland shows that, in the last hundred thousand years, there have been perhaps "40 abrupt climate change events" And that is probably an undercount, given that Greenland may not record events in the tropics or the southern hemisphere.

Supporters of global Warming will say, "I've know of hundreds of scientists with diverse political backgrounds (from all over the world) that have come to the same conclusion", but taking polls on the opinion of people who's income is tied to the existence of a problem is not science. A poll of PC (Politically Correct) scientists from the year 1400 would have put the earth rather than the sun at the center of our solar system. While there are quite a few PC scientists today claiming to "know" that man is causing Global warming, there are also many other scientists that disagree. The question of man's contribution is not yet a scientifically testable question.

-- posted by Normxxx

Top 1690. Feb 22, 2006 6:13 AM

» lcha - Warning, Will Robinson, warning! Danger! Danger!

In response to Warning, Will Robinson, warning! Danger! Danger! posted by Normxxx:

Permabear, I do not take the effects that global warming may have lightly at all. I'm just not convinced that we can do much about it as I am not yet convinced mankind is the major cause.

My background is geology/geophysics. While I am no climate scientists I have studied environments of deposition(EOD) of sediment and rocks in a geologic time frame. Understanding the climate that was in place when rocks were being laid down and formed is crucial to understanding the EOD.
So I have a reasonable understanding of the variations of our climate, and its sometimes abrupt changes, that are part of the geologic record. Normxx has presented some excellent examples that should not be dismissed.

Global warming has left the realm of science and is firmly anchored in politics at this point. That is a real shame. Real science needs to be done in this area. It is getting done but politics is creating premature conclusions.

When I see that 2400 'scientists' have signed a statement on global warming I have to smile. I doubt there are 2400 scientists in the whole world that are experts on the science of climate change. A biologists is a scientists and that scientists can sign a statement as a 'scientists' but that does not make him an expert in the field of climatology. I would really like to know the background of the 'scientists' that signed that statement. You should too.

The U.S. is the biggest producer in the world and thus we are the biggest consumers of energy in the world. We are also the 'king of the hill' at this point in history and much of the world would like to push us off. Saddling us with the effects of severly reducing our CO2 output in the name of reducing global warming is one way they can knock us from our perch a little faster. That's politics, not science.

-- posted by lcha

Top 1691. Feb 22, 2006 7:13 AM

» Kirk - New Forums for Politics and Global Warming

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In response to Warning, Will Robinson, warning! Danger! Danger! posted by lcha:

Great Discussion! Can I get you all to repost your recent comments and move the discussion to our new Global Warming Forum? The topic effects our investments and is worthy of its own forum on the new site.

I also started a new Political Discussion - A Place to "duke it out" (15,000+) Forum on our new site. Please use that forum for all other posts about politics.

The new site looks much the same, but it has some improvements in the future that you all will like. (Blogs where you can post your favorite links to your favorite posts, for example)

Please move all further discussion from this forum to the new one.

Also, please add this URL to your bookmarks
http://investment.suite101.com/discussio...

Thanks!

-- posted by Kirk

Top 1692. Jun 25, 2006 5:03 PM

» ColonelAngus - David Duke is a malignant narcissist.

David Duke is a malignant narcissist.

He invents and then projects a false, fictitious, self for the world to fear, or to admire. He maintains a tenuous grasp on reality to start with and the trappings of power further exacerbate this. Real life authority and David Duke’s predilection to surround him with obsequious sycophants support David Duke’s grandiose self-delusions and fantasies of omnipotence and omniscience.

David Duke's personality is so precariously balanced that he cannot tolerate even a hint of criticism and disagreement. Most narcissists are paranoid and suffer from ideas of reference (the delusion that they are being mocked or discussed when they are not). Thus, narcissists often regard themselves as "victims of persecution".

Duke fosters and encourages a personality cult with all the hallmarks of an institutional religion: priesthood, rites, rituals, temples, worship, catechism, and mythology. The leader is this religion's ascetic saint. He monastically denies himself earthly pleasures (or so he claims) in order to be able to dedicate himself fully to his calling.
Duke is a monstrously inverted Jesus, sacrificing his life and denying himself so that his people - or humanity at large - should benefit. By surpassing and suppressing his humanity, Duke became a distorted version of Nietzsche's "superman". But being a-human or super-human also means being a-sexual and a-moral.

In this restricted sense, narcissistic leaders are post-modernist and moral relativists. They project to the masses an androgynous figure and enhance it by engendering the adoration of nudity and all things "natural" - or by strongly repressing these feelings. But what they refer to, as "nature" is not natural at all.

Duke invariably proffers an aesthetic of decadence and evil carefully orchestrated and artificial - though it is not perceived this way by him or by his followers. Narcissistic leadership is about reproduced copies, not about originals. It is about the manipulation of symbols - not about veritable atavism or true conservatism.

In short: narcissistic leadership is about theatre, not about life. To enjoy the spectacle (and be subsumed by it), the leader demands the suspension of judgment, depersonalization, and de-realization. Catharsis is tantamount, in this narcissistic dramaturgy, to self-annulment.

Narcissism is nihilistic not only operationally, or ideologically. Its very language and narratives are nihilistic. Narcissism is conspicuous nihilism - and the cult's leader serves as a role model, annihilating the Man, only to re-appear as a pre-ordained and irresistible force of nature.

Narcissistic leadership often poses as a rebellion against the "old ways" - against the hegemonic culture, the upper classes, the established religions, the superpowers, the corrupt order. Narcissistic movements are puerile, a reaction to narcissistic injuries inflicted upon David Duke like (and rather psychopathic) toddler nation-state, or group, or upon the leader.

Minorities or "others" - often arbitrarily selected - constitute a perfect, easily identifiable, embodiment of all that is "wrong". They are accused of being old, they are eerily disembodied, they are cosmopolitan, they are part of the establishment, they are "decadent", they are hated on religious and socio-economic grounds, or because of their race, sexual orientation, origin ... They are different, they are narcissistic (feel and act as morally superior), they are everywhere, they are defenseless, they are credulous, they are adaptable (and thus can be co-opted to collaborate in their own destruction). They are the perfect hate figure. Narcissists thrive on hatred and pathological envy.

This is precisely the source of the fascination with Hitler, diagnosed by Erich Fromm - together with Stalin - as a malignant narcissist. He was an inverted human. His unconscious was his conscious. He acted out our most repressed drives, fantasies, and wishes. He provides us with a glimpse of the horrors that lie beneath the veneer, the barbarians at our personal gates, and what it was like before we invented civilization. Hitler forced us all through a time warp and many did not emerge. He was not the devil. He was one of us. He was what Arendt aptly called the banality of evil. Just an ordinary, mentally disturbed, failure, a member of a mentally disturbed and failing nation, who lived through disturbed and failing times. He was the perfect mirror, a channel, a voice, and the very depth of our souls.

Duke prefers the sparkle and glamour of well-orchestrated illusions to the tedium and method of real accomplishments. His reign is all smoke and mirrors, devoid of substances, consisting of mere appearances and mass delusions. In the aftermath of his regime - Duke having died, been deposed, or voted out of office - it all unravels. The tireless and constant prestidigitation ceases and the entire edifice crumbles. What looked like an economic miracle turns out to have been a fraud-laced bubble. Loosely held empires disintegrate. Laboriously assembled business conglomerates go to pieces. "Earth shattering" and "revolutionary" scientific discoveries and theories are discredited. Social experiments end in mayhem.

It is important to understand that the use of violence must be ego-syntonic. It must accord with the self-image of David Duke. It must abet and sustain his grandiose fantasies and feed his sense of entitlement. It must conform David Duke like narrative. Thus, David Duke who regards himself as the benefactor of the poor, a member of the common folk, the representative of the disenfranchised, the champion of the dispossessed against the corrupt elite - is highly unlikely to use violence at first. The pacific mask crumbles when David Duke has become convinced that the very people he purported to speak for, his constituency, his grassroots fans, and the prime sources of his narcissistic supply - have turned against him. At first, in a desperate effort to maintain the fiction underlying his chaotic personality, David Duke strives to explain away the sudden reversal of sentiment. "The people are being duped by (the media, big industry, the military, the elite, etc.)", "they don't really know what they are doing", "following a rude awakening, they will revert to form", etc. When these flimsy attempts to patch a tattered personal mythology fail, David Duke becomes injured. Narcissistic injury inevitably leads to narcissistic rage and to a terrifying display of unbridled aggression. The pent-up frustration and hurt translate into devaluation. That which was previously idealized - is now discarded with contempt and hatred. This primitive defense mechanism is called "splitting". To David Duke, things and people are either entirely bad (evil) or entirely good. He projects onto others his own shortcomings and negative emotions, thus becoming a totally good object. Duke is likely to justify the butchering of his own people by claiming that they intended to kill him, undo the revolution, devastate the economy, or the country, etc. The "small people", the "rank and file", and the "loyal soldiers" of David Duke - his flock, his nation, and his employees - they pay the price. The disillusionment and disenchantment are agonizing. The process of reconstruction, of rising from the ashes, of overcoming the trauma of having been deceived, exploited and manipulated - is drawn-out. It is difficult to trust again, to have faith, to love, to be led, to collaborate. Feelings of shame and guilt engulf the erstwhile followers of David Duke. This is his sole legacy: a massive post-traumatic stress disorder.

-- posted by ColonelAngus