Monday, February 12, 2007

Burn the Non-Believers! Burn Them!

(originally posted on Sunday 2/11; updated on Monday and Tuesday 2/12-2/13, at bottom...)

Miss Lisa Margonelli, in Friday's WaPost, tells us there is nothing left to study here:

Now that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has come out with unequivocal evidence of human caused global warming, all eyes are on Capitol Hill to finally come up with a plan to deal with greenhouse gases and US energy security...

"Unequivocal", huh? Well,
mayhaps not:

Scientists say that cosmic rays from outer space play a far greater role in changing the Earth's climate than global warming experts previously thought.


In a book, to be published this week, they claim that fluctuations in the number of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere directly alter the amount of cloud covering the planet.

Henrik Svensmark, a weather scientist at the Danish National Space Centre who led the team behind the research, believes that the planet is experiencing a natural period of low cloud cover due to fewer cosmic rays entering the atmosphere. This, he says, is responsible for much of the global warming we are experiencing. He claims carbon dioxide emissions due to human activity are having a smaller impact on climate change than scientists think.

The controversial theory comes one week after 2,500 scientists who make up the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change published their fourth report stating that human carbon dioxide emissions would cause temperature rises of up to 4.5 C by the end of the century.
Mr Svensmark claims that the calculations used to make this prediction largely overlooked the effect of cosmic rays on cloud cover and the temperature rise due to human activity may be much smaller.

Brave man, Mr. Svensmark is...to dare to confront the possibility that the condition of the globe is not necessarily dictated by the actions of man. Why, listen to how the
Boston Globe's Ellen Goodman describes him:

I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.

Just like a flat earth was once impossible to deny...but don't argue with Ellen Goodman, she has three fluorescent light bulbs in her house, and a Prius in her driveway! So she has the moral upper hand, you see - just like Cindy Sheehan!

The left has become the spitting image of all it damns - a Medieval Catholic Church of the 21st century, holding tight pseudo-science that supports its doctrine while smearing the reputation of any man of intellect whom dares to question their premises.

When will the Galileo-esque heresy trials and arrests begin for climate dissenters? Time for some 21st century witch trials, brought to you by the Democratic party, and sponsored in part by the mainstream media...

And don't forget this.....

UPDATE: Via The Brussels Journal, Vaclav Claus, President of the Czech Republic, scoffs at the global warming alarmists:

Global warming is a myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it’s a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It’s neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment.

This is clearly such an incredible failure of so many people, from journalists to politicians....

Other top-level politicians do not express their global warming doubts because a whip of political correctness strangles their voice. [...] Environmentalism as a metaphysical ideology and as a worldview has absolutely nothing to do with natural sciences or with the climate. Sadly, it has nothing to do with social sciences either. Still, it is becoming fashionable ...

It is not quite exactly divided to the left-wingers and right-wingers. Nevertheless it’s obvious that environmentalism is a new incarnation of modern leftism....

Sound wisdom - too bad nobody's listening; after all, he's only a President of a recently liberated nation; it's not like he's a a movie star, or failed Vice-President...

UPDATE II -Tuesday 2/13: Barcepundit has much more on the subject of our Danish scientist, including this quote regarding the now-infamous "90% certainity" principle:

...a 10% uncertainty in any theory is a wide open breach for any latterday Galileo or Einstein to storm through with a better idea. That is how science really works...

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