What is Digg?Warning: The Content in this Article May be Inaccurate
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- ncairns, on 02/22/2008, -25/+53Global warming isn't a theory. It's an observable reality. Even the most profusely illiterate of global warming deniers (a rung you've evidently somehow managed to limbo under) have switched their FUD from 'global warming isn't real' to 'we aren't causing global warming'.
- ICSU, on 02/22/2008, -3/+30On the contrary
"The planet is fine. The people are *****."
--Carlin - PinkFloydFan, on 02/22/2008, -9/+35They forgot the most important one! If the ice caps melt, then Santa will have no place to stay and thousands of cute little elves in little green pointy hats will drown! GLOBAL WARMING WILL KILL ELVES!!!!!
- bullcutter, on 02/22/2008, -24/+46"Green house gases stay can stay in the atmosphere for an amount of years ranging from decades to hundreds and thousands of year"
You forgot to mention the #1 greenhouse gas is water vapor, which is constantly fluxing in and out of the atmosphere.
Incidentally, water vapor accounts for at least 90% of the overall greenhouse effect, and there has been more tonnage of water vapor added to the atmosphere from volcanoes than there is all anthropogenically-derived CO2.
CO2 is also a weaker greenhouse gas than water vapor and until someone can produce proof that an indiscernable rise in atmo CO2 is bad for human kind or life, whatsoever, STOP assuming that it is!
Now for a deconstruction of the ***** "effects" (and they are ALL *****):
5. "As northern countries warm, disease carrying insects migrate north, bringing plague and disease with them. Indeed some scientists believe that in some countries thanks to global warming, malaria has not been fully eradicated."
WHAT THE *****? Malaria has been around LONG before AGW, so because it still exists its GLOBAL WARMING's fault? What are you a *****' moron? Only a total rube would be duped by this duplicitous assertation. If you were please get the ***** off Digg.
4. "As the temperature of oceans rises, so will the probability of more frequent and stronger hurricanes. We saw in this in 2004 and 2005."
So, I guess since 2006 and 2007 were unusually calm hurricane seasons, falling far short of the ridiculously dire forecasting expert's predictions, can we assume Global Warming is now over? This point is an indefensible leap in logic, again only to be gobbled up by the passive feel-gooders and easily-fooled.
3. "Increased probability and intensity of droughts and heat waves"
Fiction. Has yet to happen. Pure speculation that was unscientifically derived (yes, I'm referring to climate models).
2. "Hurricanes cause do billions of dollars in damage, diseases cost money to treat and control and conflicts exacerbate all of these."
Any rise in damage costs will be attributable to the fact that there are 6.5 billion+ people in the world. More people = more buildings = more damage. To attribute increases in damage costs to Global Warming is again incorrect, duplicitously misleading, and utter, utter *****.
1. "Polar ice caps melting"
Unless, of course, you are referring to the Antarctic pole, which has been getting measurably colder. - inactive, on 02/22/2008, -28/+50I can't believe that "it produces huge quantities of stupid hippies" wasn't on there.
- snowskate22, on 02/22/2008, -24/+45Al Gore invented Global Warming
- postingbh, on 02/22/2008, -7/+27"The only debate that can arise now is whether we are responsible for it"
- We must be very cautious at this point and make one thing very clear: the debate must occur within science, not politics. Rather than encourage debate, I think people who understand science should encourage listening to the experts (scientists) instead of non-experts (politicians, pundits, etc.) - bryano, on 02/22/2008, -20/+36What about the effect of FUD mongering ?
- inghamb87, on 02/22/2008, -5/+16The Almighty tells me he can get me out of this mess, but he's pretty sure you're *****.
- Daz3, on 02/22/2008, -21/+32The empirical evidence is for climate change is certainly there. The only debate that can arise now is whether we are responsible for it - to my eyes it seems clear that we are and that we should be setting policies to slow down/reverse the effect we have had.
Even if you do not agree that we are responsible for climate change you can not deny that we adversely affecting not only our own health but the health of countless ecosystems with our waste products. - digging4freedom, on 02/22/2008, -14/+23 Inconvenient Truth--Al Gore's film is chock full of errors!
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerr ...
Download the full article with analysis at:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/p ...
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In October 2007 the High Court in London identified nine “errors” of many found in Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth." The judge had stated that, if the UK Government had not agreed to send to every secondary school in England a corrected guidance note making clear the mainstream scientific position on these nine “errors”, he would have made a finding that the Government’s distribution of the film and the first draft of the guidance note earlier in 2007 to all English secondary schools had been an unlawful contravention of an Act of Parliament prohibiting the political indoctrination of children.
In defense, Al Gore’s spokesman and “environment advisor,” Ms. Kalee Kreider said that the film presented “thousands and thousands of facts.”
This is not true either, and not possible--2, 000 “facts” in 93 minutes would have been one fact every three seconds.
The film contained only a few dozen points, most of which will be seen to have been substantially inaccurate. The judge concentrated only on nine points, which even the UK Government (to which Gore is a climate-change advisor!) had to admit did not represent mainstream scientific opinion.
Thirty five of the errors are summarized below.
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LIST OF 35 ERRORS IN "AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH":
ERROR 1- SEA LEVEL "RISING 6 METERS"
Gore says that a sea-level rise of up to 6 m (20 ft) will be caused by melting of either West Antarctica or Greenland, in the near future.
In the next 100 years, according to calculations based on figures in the IPCC’s 2007 report, melting of these two ice sheets would add a little over 6 cm (2.5 inches) to sea level, not 6 m. Gore has accordingly exaggerated the official sea-level estimate by approaching 10,000 per cent.
ERROR 2-PACIFIC ISLANDS "DROWNING"
Gore says low-lying inhabited Pacific coral atolls are already being inundated because of human caused global warming, leading to the evacuation of several island populations to New Zealand.
There have been no mass evacuations of populations of islanders as suggested by Gore, though some residents of Tuvalu have asked to be moved to New Zealand, even though the tide-gauges maintained until recently by the National Tidal Facility of Australia show a mean annual sea-level rise over the past half-century equivalent to the thickness of a human hair.
The coral atolls are not being inundated, except where dynamiting of reefs or over-extraction of fresh water by local populations has caused damage. Because corals can grow at ten times the predicted rate of increase in sea level, it is not unreasonable that by coincidence that so many atolls reach just a few feet above the ocean surface.
In the Maldives, a detailed recent study showed that sea levels were unchanged today compared with 1250 years ago, though they have been higher in much of the intervening period, and have very seldom been lower. A well-established tree very close to the Maldivian shoreline and only inches above sea level was recently uprooted by Australian environmentalists anxious to destroy this visible proof that sea level cannot have risen very far.
ERROR 3-THERMOHALINE CIRCULATION "STOPPING"
Gore says “global warming” may shut down the thermohaline circulation in the oceans, which he calls the “ocean conveyor,” plunging Europe into an ice age.
It will not. A paper published in 2006 says: “Analyses of ocean observations and model simulations suggest that changes in the thermohaline circulation during the last century are likely the result of natural multidecadal climate variability. Indications of a sustained thermohaline circulation weakening are not seen during the last few decades. Instead, a strengthening since the 1980s is observed.”
ERROR 4-CO2 "DRIVING TEMPERATURE"
Gore says that in each of the last four interglacial warm periods it was changes in carbon dioxide concentration that caused changes in temperature.
It was the other way about. Changes in temperature preceded changes in CO2 concentration by between 800 and 2800 years, as scientific papers including the paper on which Gore’s film had relied had made clear.
ERROR 5-SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO "MELTING"
Gore says “global warming” has been melting the snows of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. It is not.
The melting of the Furtwangler Glacier at the summit of the mountain began 125 years ago. More of the glacier had melted before Hemingway wrote The Snows of Kilimanjaro in 1936 than afterward.
Temperature at the summit never rises above freezing and is at an average of –7 Celsius. The cause of the melting is long-term climate shifts exacerbated by imprudent regional deforestation, and has nothing to do with “global warming.”
ERROR 6-LAKE CHAD "DRYING UP"
Gore says “global warming” dried up Lake Chad in Africa. It did not.
Over-extraction of water and changing agricultural patterns dried the lake, which was also dry in 8500BC, 5500BC, 1000BC and 100BC.
There are multiple stresses upon Lake Chad, but the scientific consensus is that at present those “stresses” do not include “global warming.”
ERROR 7-HURRICANE KATRINA "MAN MADE"
Gore says Hurricane Katrina that devastated New Orleans in 2005, was caused by “global warming.” It was not.
It was caused by the failure of Gore’s party, in the administration of New Orleans, to heed 30 years of warnings by the Corps of Engineers that the levees – dams that kept New Orleans dry – could not stand a direct hit by a hurricane. Katrina was only Category 3 when it struck the levees. They failed, as the Engineers had said they would. Gore’s party, not “global warming,” was to blame for the consequent death and destruction.
ERROR 8-POLAR BEARS "DYING"
Gore says a scientific study shows that polar bears are being killed swimming long distances to find ice that has melted away because of “global warming.” They are not.
The study, by Monnett & Gleason (2005), mentioned just four dead bears. They had died in an exceptional storm, with high winds and waves in the Beaufort Sea.
A report for the World Wide Fund for Nature shows that polar bears, which are warm-blooded, have grown in numbers where temperature has increased, and have become fewer where temperature has fallen. Polar bears evolved from brown bears 200,000 years ago, and survived the last interglacial period, when global temperature was 5 degrees Celsius warmer than the present and there was probably no Arctic ice-cap at all. The real threat to polar bears is not “global warming” but hunting. In 1940, there were just 5,000 polar bears worldwide. Now that hunting is controlled, there are 25,000.
ERROR 9-CORAL REEFS "BLEACHING"
Gore says coral reefs are “bleaching” because of “global warming.” They are not.
There was some bleaching in 1998, but this was caused by the exceptional El Nino Southern Oscillation that year. Two similarly severe El Ninos over the past 250 years also caused extensive bleaching. “Global warming” was nothing to do with it.
ERROR 10-100 PPMV OF CO2 "MELTING MILE-THICK ICE"
Gore implies that the difference of just 100 parts per million by volume in CO2 concentration between an interglacial temperature maximum and an ice-age temperature minimum causes “the difference between a nice day and having a mile of ice above your head.” It does not.
Gore’s implication has the effect of overstating the mainstream consensus estimate of the effect of CO2 on temperature at least tenfold.
ERROR 11-HURRICANE CATERINA "MANMADE"
Gore says that Hurricane Caterina, the only hurricane ever to strike the coast of Brazil, was caused by “global warming.” It was not.
In 2004, Brazil’s summer sea surface temperatures were cooler than normal, not warmer. But air temperatures were the coldest in 25 years. The air was so much colder than the water that it caused a heat flux from the water to the air similar to that which fuels hurricanes in warm seas.
ERROR 12-JAPANESE TYPHOONS "A NEW RECORD"
Gore says that 2004 set a new record for the number of typhoons striking Japan. It did not.
The trend in the number of typhoons, and of tropical cyclones, has fallen throughout the past 50 years. The trend in rainfall from cyclones has also fallen, and there has been no trend in monsoon rainfall.
ERROR 13-HURRICANES "GETTING STRONGER"
Gore says scientists had been giving warnings that hurricanes will get stronger because of “global warming.” They will not.
Over the past 60 years there has been no change in the strength of hurricanes, even though hydrocarbon use went up six-fold in the same period.
ERROR 14-BIG STORM INSURANCES LOSSES "INCREASING"
Gore says insurance losses arising from large storms and other extreme-weather events are increasing, by implication because of “global warming.” They are not.
Insured losses, as a percentage of the population of coastal areas in the path of hurricanes, were lower even in 2005 than they had been in 1925. In 2006, a very quiet hurricane season, Lloyds of London posted their biggest-ever profit: £3.6 billion.
ERROR 15-MUMBAI "FLOODING"
Gore says flooding in Mumbai is increasing, by implication because of “global warming.” It is not.
Rainfall trends at the two major weather stations in Mumbai show no increase in heavy rainfall over the past 48 years.
ERROR 16-SEVERE TORNADOES "MORE FREQUENT"
Gore says that 2004 set an all-time record for tornadoes in the US.
More tornadoes are being reported because detection systems are better than they were. But the number of severe tornadoes has been falling for more than 50 years.
ERROR 17-THE SUN "HEATS THE ARCTIC OCEAN"
Gore says that ice-melt allows the Sun to heat the Arctic Ocean, and a diagram shows the Sun’s rays heating it directly. It does not.
The ocean emits radiant energy at the moment of absorption, and would freeze if there were no atmosphere. It is the atmosphere, not the Sun that warms the ocean. Also, Gore’s diagram confuses the tropopause with the ionosphere, and he makes a number of other errors indicating that he does not understand the elementary physics of radiative transfer.
ERROR 18-ARCTIC "WARMING FASTEST"
Gore says the Arctic has been warming faster than the rest of the planet. It is not.
While it is in general true that during periods of warming (whether natural or anthropogenic) the Arctic will warm faster than other regions, Gore does not mention that the Arctic has been cooling over the past 60 years, and is now one degree Celsius cooler than it was in the 1940s.
ERROR 19-GREENLAND ICE SHEET "UNSTABLE"
Gore says “global warming” is making the Greenland ice sheet unstable. It is not.
Greenland ice grows 2 inches a year. The Greenland ice sheet survived each of the previous three interglacial periods, each of which was 5 degrees Celsius warmer than the present. It survived atmospheric CO2 concentrations of up to 1000 ppm volume (compared with today’s 400 ppm volume). It last melted 850,000 years ago, when humankind did not exist and could not have caused the melting.
There is a close correlation between variations in Solar activity and temperature anomalies in Greenland, but there is no correlation between variations in CO2 concentration and temperature changes in Greenland. The IPCC (2001) says that to melt even half the Greenland ice sheet would require temperature to rise by 5.5 degrees C and remain that high for several thousand years.
ERROR 20-HIMALAYAN GLACIAL MELT WATERS "FAILING"
Gore says 40% of the world’s population gets their water supply from Himalayan glacial melt waters that are failing because of “global warming.”
They don’t and they are not. The water comes almost entirely from snow-melt, not from ice-melt. Over the past 40 years there has been no decline in the amount of snow-melt in Eurasia.
ERROR 21-PERUVIAN GLACIERS "DISAPPEARING"
Gore says that a Peruvian glacier is less extensive now than it was in the 1940s, implying that “global warming” is the cause. It is not.
Except for the very highest peaks, the normal state of the Peruvian cordilleras has been ice-free throughout most of the past 10,000 years.
ERROR 22-MOUNTAIN GLACIERS WORLDWIDE "DISAPPEARING"
Gore says that “the ice has a story to tell, and it is worldwide.” He shows several before-and-after pictures of glaciers disappearing.
Glacial melt began in the 1820s, long before humankind could have had any effect, and has continued at a uniform rate since, showing no acceleration since humankind began increasing the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere. Total ice volumes in three of the last four Ice Ages were lower than they are today, and “global warming” had nothing to do with that.
ERROR 23-SAHARA DESERT "DRYING"
Gore says terrible tragedies are occurring in the southern Sahara because of drought which he blames on “global warming.” Not True.
There is no drought caused by “global warming.” In 2007 there were record rains across the whole of the southern Sahara. In the past 25 years the Sahara has shrunk by some 300,000 square kilometers because of additional rainfall. Some scientists think “global warming” may actually mitigate pre-existing droughts because there will be - bullcutter, on 02/22/2008, -5/+14yeah trying to learn stuff is dorky, we know
- bullcutter, on 02/22/2008, -4/+12"The planet will shed us like dead skin when it wants to."
- inactive, on 02/22/2008, -1/+9It's not the stance on global warming that's the problem - it's this attitude that the planet is more in peril than we are. Lemme put it in perspective - we have the capability to wipe ourselves out a thousand times over, but that's still not enough to prevent the planet from bounching back.
- inactive, on 02/22/2008, -1/+8"Unlike say, Raw Story? Alex Jones? Kos?"
I don't get my science any of these sites and I don't frequent them. - Poovey, on 02/22/2008, -10/+16Warning! Unbelievable *****!
- skyshock1, on 02/22/2008, -8/+14WTF, I'm totally sick of people taking this quote out of context. What Al Gore REALLY said was:
"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating Global Warming."
For *****'s sake get the quote correct and quit trying to say he invented Global Warming. - bullcutter, on 02/22/2008, -4/+10come on now people come on
- Poovey, on 02/22/2008, -6/+12ncairns is right! I have been watching this shrub in my front yard for a couple of years and if it keeps up it's rate of growth, in 70 years it will be 300 feet tall!
- Kagnew, on 02/22/2008, -2/+8Sea level rise since the last ice age = + 300 feet. Earth seems to have survived it just fine.
Maximum sea level rise "if" every spec of ice currently on this planet melts = + another 263 feet.
"Waterworld" is nothing more than a bad movie. - jebidiah123, on 02/22/2008, -8/+13WATERWORLD here we come. I'm going to invest in gene splicing.
- charlie55, on 02/22/2008, -3/+8correct. this is very heavily disputed by a large percentage of hurricane scientists. this is willfully ignored by the global warming community. it is factually inaccurate to state taht we know hurricanes will increase. they may in fact decrease, and the debate on this rages on.
very, very dishonest to claim this as a fact, that hurricanes would increase. - Railer, on 02/22/2008, -4/+9Hey anyone still care that the NOAA just said that Increased Hurricanes is not a part of global warming?
http://digg.com/environment/NOAA_to_Al_Gore_You_re ...
So Much for some of the FUD - capnkevha, on 02/22/2008, -3/+8I just listened to the state climatologist of Delaware explain that only one of five areas where hurricanes occur has had increased activity from 1984 to 2004. This was the Atlantic Ocean, where as the other four regions have actually stayed the same and one region has actually decreased in activity.
- RGWX, on 02/22/2008, -5/+10Unlike say, Raw Story? Alex Jones? Kos?
- darienphoenix, on 02/22/2008, -2/+6"FIRE ZE MISSILES!"
- mjw2025, on 02/22/2008, -4/+8What is the correct temperature for the earth?
- didiman, on 02/22/2008, -4/+8thinkprogress is the only reliable source on digg
/sarcasm - inactive, on 02/23/2008, -0/+4bam, well said.
- inactive, on 02/22/2008, -0/+4And every armchair kaka merchant should aspire to match noun and verb when they grow up . . . .
- skyshock1, on 02/22/2008, -2/+6Why so I can get worse gas mileage than my old '93 Civic?
Hybrids my ass. Renewable energy FTW. - inactive, on 02/22/2008, -0/+4Translated: most people don't come to these sites to read detailed scholarly treatments on topics such as this and, perhaps unfortunately, he's right - few have the time or inclination to do so in such venues. This is more of an observation than a criticism (I hope).
- bullcutter, on 02/22/2008, -7/+11simply put, AGW has never happened before, so how/why is anybody so certain of its outcomes in the first place? Railer's comparison of past data trends is the exact same thing Global Warmists do with ice core data. Increased atmo CO2 has NEVER been demonstrated to be causal of a changing climate, yet since there is a documented relationship between atmo CO2 and temperature no one ever questions its applicability to the novel "problem" of AGW.
Why can't we simply admit that perhaps we aren't 100% certain how the weather & climate works? - bullcutter, on 02/22/2008, -0/+4what does that even mean?
- Railer, on 02/22/2008, -8/+12Bullclutter how dare you put facts into this!
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/21/no ...
You may want to read that, I think you will like it:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - February 21, 2008*** NEWS FROM NOAA ***
NATIONAL OCEANIC & ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION U. S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE WASHINGTON, DC
Contact: Dennis Feltgen, NOAA 305-229-4404Increased Hurricane Losses Due to More People,
Wealth Along Coastlines, Not Stronger Storms, New Study Says
A team of scientists have found that the economic damages from hurricanes have increased in the U.S. over time due to greater population, infrastructure, and wealth on the U.S. coastlines, and not to any spike in the number or intensity of hurricanes.
“We found that although some decades were quieter and less damaging in the U.S. and others had more land-falling hurricanes and more damage, the economic costs of land-falling hurricanes have steadily increased over time,” said Chris Landsea, one of the researchers as well as the science and operations officer at NOAA’s National Hurricane Center in Miami. “There is nothing in the U.S. hurricane damage record that indicates global warming has caused a significant increase in destruction along our coasts.” - 0260, on 02/22/2008, -5/+9al gore "took initiative in creating global warming"
- slezzzter, on 02/22/2008, -5/+9Coincidentally this article is on the FP right next to an article stating that the Milky Way is twice as large as we thought. Any chance global warming could be half as deadly as we are told think?
- digghasnoethics, on 02/22/2008, -5/+9The worst thing about global warming is the continuous bleating of crowds of americans going "it wasn't me, it wasn't me".
You can see why creationism has such a hold in the colonies, the evidence for evolution past the weasel stage is weak in the land of dubya. - inactive, on 02/22/2008, -1/+4Every life-scientist should get an armchair.
- bullcutter, on 02/22/2008, -0/+3"I don't believe a study has occurred to prove shoving a mobile phone in your colon is dangerous"
its unfortunate that you opened up with such a pointless analogy, because i agree with everything you had to say thereafter (the parts that i understood anyway).
Still, there remains no proof that rising atmo CO2 is necessarily causative of warmer global temperatures, and some studies suggest warmer temperatures are what drives up atmo CO2. Seeing as how total human greenhouse gas contributions add up to about 0.28% of the overall greenhouse effect, this inverse of Al Gore's "conventional wisdom" is just as likely (or more) to be true. - Logicexe, on 02/22/2008, -0/+3Yeah, never mind that all these carbon sinks can only sequester approximately 40% of the 25+ gigatons of CO2 we emit every year. No that can't possibly be throwing off the balance of the cycle, no not at all that's just crazy talk from those evil secular liberal ivory tower scientists who hate our freedoms and eat babies.
- BigW, on 02/22/2008, -1/+4Too true. All the planet needs to do is call in one of those big "reset" asteroids it brings in every 100 million years or so.
- Poovey, on 02/22/2008, -2/+5This is hate speech! Kevin Costner has never made a bad movie! Now pardon me while i go watch The Postman.
- bullcutter, on 02/22/2008, -12/+15wow, its impressive how thoroughly you've managed to let yourself be brainwashed.
- OniLynx, on 02/22/2008, -0/+3Well... have a nap. DEN FIRE ZE MISSILES!
- inactive, on 02/22/2008, -1/+4They left off the deadliest effect of Global Warming. The tens of thousands of people that will die in the next few years in Africa of AIDS now that money to AIDS Africa is being cut by the UN to fund Global Warming. Fund it how you ask? Who knows they still have no proof that global warming is man made let alone how to fix it. So the next time some dooche says "so what if it's not real, what harm does it do to try?" tell them that's how.
- kryoptor, on 02/22/2008, -1/+4What the *****, diggers? Are you all seriously brain-dead money-grubbing ignorant *****? Why does stuff like this get tagged inaccurate, while iTunes information hits the top of the list? Jesus ***** christ, grow some balls people.
- Poovey, on 02/22/2008, -1/+4That is not true. I don't care and I drive a car. It's not fuel efficient but it's fast.
- postingbh, on 02/22/2008, -2/+5Absolutely. Science isn't about producing absolute truths. It's about determining probabilities based on the available evidence and explanations.
- bullcutter, on 02/22/2008, -0/+3"Thank you for pointing out exactly how you determine which science is trustworthy and which is not."
Thanks for pointing out you'd rather attack the source than the argument. -
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