Presenting golobal warming as an issue with 2 sides.
Can anyone tell me how many Ice Ages the planet Earth has experienced and what caused them??
I work closely with our EPA and I guarantee you there are two sides to this argument.
One side is that Fossil Fuels and Industrialization are the #1 factor responsible for the current Global Warming Trend and the other side is that they are minimally responsible and that the Earth historically goes through these cycles on it's own.
Check this Forestry site for some of the "other side" to Gore's over-reactionary propaganda.......
Where you can read this....... __________________________________________________________________________________
It seems there is some serious scientific doubt about whether man-made C02 has any significant effect on global warming.
With some research, I found out there is a huge group of scientists who have signed their name to the Heidelberg Appeal. The Heidleberg Appeal expresses these scientists' concerns with "the emergence of an irrational ideology which is opposed to scientific and industrial progress and impedes economic and social development." Their demand is that "this stock-taking, monitoring and preservation be founded on scientific criteria and not on irrational preconceptions." It warns "the authorities in charge of our planet's destiny against decisions which are supported by pseudoscientific arguments or false and nonrelevant data."
The Heidleberg Appeal has been signed by more than 4,000 signatories, including 72 Nobel Prize winners, from 106 countries. The full text of the appeal is not long, about a page, and can be found at http://www.sepp.org/heidelberg_appeal.html
In a related story, Canadian scientists are having trouble getting the Canadian media to let them broadcast their 27 minute documentary arguing against the Kyoto Protocol (that limits C02 production because it is supposed to contribute to global warming). The scientists felt strongly enough about this documentary that they produced it with their own money. The story is at: http://canadafreepress.com/2005/cover050705.htm
More information arguing that the Kyoto Protocol is seriously flawed can be found at a website titled Friends of Science. In their own words . . . "Friends of Science is a non-profit organization made up of active and retired geologists, engineers, earth scientists and other professionals, not to mention concerned Canadians, who believe the science behind the Kyoto Protocol is questionable. Friends of Science has assembled a scientific advisory board of esteemed climate scientists from around the world to offer a critical mass of current science on global climate and climate change to policy makers, and any interested parties."
One section of the website lists the following Myths and Facts:
Myth 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.
Fact: Temperatures have increased around urban areas (“heat islands”) which distorts the overall picture; whereas accurate satellite, balloon and long-term mountain top measurements have observed no increase at all.
Myth 2: The “hockey stick” graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature increase for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.
Fact: Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the "average" global temperature has been rising at a rate of 0.6 to 0.8 degrees Celsius per 100 years; although from 1940 – 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare. The hockey stick not only ignores historical fact, but is also scientifically flawed.
Myth 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.
Fact: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. The CO2 increase was only 0.4% over the last 50 years, rather than the 5% per 100 years quoted by Kyoto. However, as measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the result of, not the cause of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this. There is solid evidence that as temperatures rise naturally and cyclically, the earth naturally produces more CO2 as a result.
Myth 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas. Fact: Water vapour or clouds, which makes up on average about 3 % of the atmosphere, is the major greenhouse gas. CO2 makes up only about 3% of the greenhouse gases, or about 0.03% of the atmosphere. Moreover, because of its molecular weight and absorptive capacity, water vapour is 3000 times more effective than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention this important fact.
Myth 5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming. Fact: Unfortunately, computer models predicting global warming are incapable of including the effects of the sun and the clouds. Further, the main cause of temperature variation is the sun. Its radiation changes all the time, partly in cyclical fashion. The number of sunspots can be correlated very closely with average temperatures on earth, e.g. the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Varying intensity of solar heat radiation affects the surface temperature of the oceans and the currents. Warmer ocean water expels gases, some of which is CO2.
Just a couple of observations in no particular order.
1) I'll be honest, I read this whole thread and expected to read a lot of anti-American, anti-soldier discussion. And I didn't find it. Instead I found a fairly thoughtful back and forth coping with this tragedy on multiple levels that sought to put the incident in context. It goes without saying that what is looking like a massacre and cover up should be punished and it is a reflection of our moral superiority that we air this out in the open, handle it through military law and the courts and publicly condemn it. And while it will most definitely hand a propaganda victory to our enemies, our ability to fight a war and condemn these kinds of excesses reflects ultimately on our strength. Put another way our decency is illustrated in our country's ability to expose and condemn our indecency.
2) I don't know how to say this with nuance, but FUCK BUSH! This has nothing really to do with Haditha because I have not been persuaded that Haditha is a result of a particular policy, other than the fact we went to war--and I simultaneously can acknowledge things suck in Iraq, we are losing and it's a necessary fight both from a moral and strategic perspective, but FUCK BUSH. Why sweet neocon, you may ask, are you cursing the the alpha freedom male, now? Well as many of you know, I live in Cairo now, I just got back last week for some R and R to the states. And I have seen him abandon the one really great policy of the second administration, which was to hold allies and others accountable in the middle east for how they treat their own people. Well that's out the window. Also, there is no defense for the utter contempt the man has shown for science, something I was never down with. Combine this with his spinelessness in bringing back all the old CIA hacks, his demagoguery on homosexuals, and finally his administration's UNPRECEDENTED war on journalism and secrecy, and yes I have buyer's remorse. I can say I like his speech writers, but we wil have to live with a bloated national security bureaucracy now for decades, not to mention a new archapelego of Arab strong men client states. It's the inverse of what I want, and paleoliberal fiscal conservatives need to come to terms with this. Bush and a GOP Congress may well have created a new nomenklatura, a Soviet style national security bureaucracy that will leave us strategically weak and undemocratic in a war against a freaking abstraction---TERROR! Fuck that. We are at war with Iran, al-Qaeda and Syria. Distinct entities. And this is not because we chose it, it's cause they chose it.
I can't tell if we're arguing over shades of difference or a black/white divide. My point is that it's an exaggeration to suggest that MSM has been wholly co-opted by the Right. If that were the case, then I would expect NO dissension or deviation from a party line. In other words, from the way you have described it - and perhaps this is me overreading your comments - it sounds as if the MSM exists simply to repeat Right-wing talking points, i.e. it's just part of a propaganda machine.
I agree with the idea that the MSM is filtered through a mildly conservative (at worst) or weakly centrist (at best) lens but that, to me, is not at all the same thing as saying that the Right runs opinions and news reporting. Again, if the Right's hegemonic control of the MSM was so total, then the GOP wouldn't be in crisis mode, Bush's ratings wouldn't be through the basement and there wouldn't be a popular swing of support to getting out of Iraq.
What complicates this is that the center has shifted far more right than in the past so that today's centrist position already leans rightward and most mainstream "liberals" I can think of are really centrists. They are not in favor of affirmative action, they have no real investment in fighting poverty or segregation. Therefore, the mainstream Left's view, as fafr as news is concerned, wouldn't really deal in the kinds of issues that politically, I would want to see addresssed but that's always been the case. I never lived in America at a time where it was fashionable to deal with those questions - in the media - in any kind of real way. That said, network news and mainstream newspapers/magazines still talk about these issues. They don't pretend they don't exist (even though, sure, there's a lot of censorship still in effect).
Also, just to clarify, for me, I'm most interested in how the politics of American society shift around questions of morality and "values" rather than domestic, economic policy and not even around foreign policy (though obviously, both are very important and pertinent to the discussion at hand). And therefore, when I look at the media, I'm interested in how it frames issues of morality for the American public. While I think there's been a much heavier push towards a strictly moral code coming from a small, but influential segment of the Religious Right, I have yet to see this really influencing the coverage that appears in the MSM.
Now are you just gonna say a few Hail Marys and get on with propagandizing for the far right or are you gonna do a David Brock and fight for your own integrity??? Sentient beings would like to know the deal.
"A version of the Heidelberg Appeal was published in the June 1, 1992 Wall Street Journal over the signatures of 46 prominent scientists and other intellectuals. It has subsequently been endorsed by some 4,000 scientists, including 72 Nobel Prize winners. The Appeal was for an anthropocentric assessment of the world's resources and a utilitarian as opposed to abolitionist approach to hazardous substances used or created by technology. It targeted as irrational, by implication, if not explicitly, both a vision of a "Natural State" with intrinsic rights to impede the activities of man, and hysterical fears of environmental poisons, disproportionate to the threat and dismissive of their associated benefits. Sponsors of the Heidelberg Appeal included the asbestos and tobacco industries. The latter continued sponsorship of the principal proponents of the Appeal, in research directed to discredit concerns over environmental tobacco smoke.[/b]
The Heidelberg Appeal has been enthusiastically embraced by critics of the environmental movement such as S. Fred Singer of the Science and Environmental Policy Project. Conservative think tanks frequently cite the Heidelberg Appeal as proof that scientists reject the theory of global warming as well as a host of other environmental health risks associated with modern science and industry. Its name has subsequently been adopted by the Heidelberg Appeal Nederland Foundation, which was founded in 1993 and disputes health risks related to nitrates in foods and antibiotic-resistant bacteria. However, the Heidelberg Appeal itself makes no mention whatsoever of global warming, or for that matter of pesticides or antibiotic-resistant bacteria. It is simply a statement supporting rationality and science.[/b]
Parts of the Heidelberg Appeal in fact appear to endorse environmental concerns, such as a sentence that states, "We fully subscribe to the objectives of a scientific ecology for a universe whose resources must be taken stock of, monitored and preserved." Its 72 Nobel laureates include 49 who also signed the "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity," which was circulated that same year by the liberal Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and attracted the majority of the world's living Nobel laureates in science along with some 1,700 other leading scientists. In contrast with the vagueness of the Heidelberg Appeal, the "World Scientists' Warning" is a very explicit environmental manifesto, stating that "human beings and the natural world are on a collision course" and citing ozone depletion, global climate change, air pollution, groundwater depletion, deforestation, overfishing, and species extinction among the trends that threaten to "so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know." More recently, 110 Nobel Prize-winning scientists signed another UCS petition, the 1997 "Call to Action," which called specifically on world leaders to sign an effective global warming treaty at Kyoto.[/b]
Presenting golobal warming as an issue with 2 sides. Can anyone tell me how many Ice Ages the planet Earth has experienced and what caused them??
I work closely with our EPA and I guarantee you there are two sides to this argument.
One side is that Fossil Fuels and Industrialization are the #1 factor responsible for the current Global Warming Trend and the other side is that they are minimally responsible and that the Earth historically goes through these cycles on it's own.
Check this Forestry site for some of the "other side" to Gore's over-reactionary propaganda.......
Where you can read this....... __________________________________________________________________________________
It seems there is some serious scientific doubt about whether man-made C02 has any significant effect on global warming.
With some research, I found out there is a huge group of scientists who have signed their name to the Heidelberg Appeal. The Heidleberg Appeal expresses these scientists' concerns with "the emergence of an irrational ideology which is opposed to scientific and industrial progress and impedes economic and social development." Their demand is that "this stock-taking, monitoring and preservation be founded on scientific criteria and not on irrational preconceptions." It warns "the authorities in charge of our planet's destiny against decisions which are supported by pseudoscientific arguments or false and nonrelevant data."
The Heidleberg Appeal has been signed by more than 4,000 signatories, including 72 Nobel Prize winners, from 106 countries. The full text of the appeal is not long, about a page, and can be found at http://www.sepp.org/heidelberg_appeal.html
In a related story, Canadian scientists are having trouble getting the Canadian media to let them broadcast their 27 minute documentary arguing against the Kyoto Protocol (that limits C02 production because it is supposed to contribute to global warming). The scientists felt strongly enough about this documentary that they produced it with their own money. The story is at: http://canadafreepress.com/2005/cover050705.htm
More information arguing that the Kyoto Protocol is seriously flawed can be found at a website titled Friends of Science. In their own words . . . "Friends of Science is a non-profit organization made up of active and retired geologists, engineers, earth scientists and other professionals, not to mention concerned Canadians, who believe the science behind the Kyoto Protocol is questionable. Friends of Science has assembled a scientific advisory board of esteemed climate scientists from around the world to offer a critical mass of current science on global climate and climate change to policy makers, and any interested parties."
One section of the website lists the following Myths and Facts:
Myth 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.
Fact: Temperatures have increased around urban areas (???heat islands???) which distorts the overall picture; whereas accurate satellite, balloon and long-term mountain top measurements have observed no increase at all.
Myth 2: The ???hockey stick??? graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature increase for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.
Fact: Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the "average" global temperature has been rising at a rate of 0.6 to 0.8 degrees Celsius per 100 years; although from 1940 ??? 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare. The hockey stick not only ignores historical fact, but is also scientifically flawed.
Myth 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.
Fact: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. The CO2 increase was only 0.4% over the last 50 years, rather than the 5% per 100 years quoted by Kyoto. However, as measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature h
as done so, and thus are the result of, not the cause of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this. There is solid evidence that as temperatures rise naturally and cyclically, the earth naturally produces more CO2 as a result.
Myth 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas. Fact: Water vapour or clouds, which makes up on average about 3 % of the atmosphere, is the major greenhouse gas. CO2 makes up only about 3% of the greenhouse gases, or about 0.03% of the atmosphere. Moreover, because of its molecular weight and absorptive capacity, water vapour is 3000 times more effective than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention this important fact.
Myth 5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming. Fact: Unfortunately, computer models predicting global warming are incapable of including the effects of the sun and the clouds. Further, the main cause of temperature variation is the sun. Its radiation changes all the time, partly in cyclical fashion. The number of sunspots can be correlated very closely with average temperatures on earth, e.g. the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Varying intensity of solar heat radiation affects the surface temperature of the oceans and the currents. Warmer ocean water expels gases, some of which is CO2.
Myth 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas. Fact: Water vapour or clouds, which makes up on average about 3 % of the atmosphere, is the major greenhouse gas. CO2 makes up only about 3% of the greenhouse gases, or about 0.03% of the atmosphere. Moreover, because of its molecular weight and absorptive capacity, water vapour is 3000 times more effective than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention this important fact.
"However, just because water vapor is the most important gas in creating the natural greenhouse effect does not mean that human- made greenhouse gases are unimportant. Over the past ten thousand years, the amounts of the various greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere remained relatively stable until a few centuries ago, when the concentrations of many of these gases began to increase due to industrialization, increasing demand for energy, rising population, and changing land use and human settlement patterns. Accumulations of most of the human-made greenhouse gases are expected to continue to increase, so that, over the next 50 to 100 years, without control measures, they will produce a heat-trapping effect equivalent to more than a doubling of the pre-industrial carbon dioxide level.
Increasing amounts of human-made greenhouse gases would lead to an increase in the globally averaged surface temperature. However, as the temperature increases, other aspects of the climate will alter, including the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. While human activities do not directly add significant amounts of water vapor to the atmosphere, warmer air contains more water vapor. Since water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas, global warming will be further enhanced by the increased amounts of water vapor. This sort of indirect effect is called a positive feedback."
Now are you just gonna say a few Hail Marys and get on with propagandizing for the far right or are you gonna do a David Brock and fight for your own integrity??? Sentient beings would like to know the deal.
Umm . . . . never. I would never join that credulous moral universe of relativists who denied our own history in the run up to the Iraq war and somehow determined it imperialistic. I leave you and your comrades to such casuistry and fecklesness.
Presenting golobal warming as an issue with 2 sides.
Can anyone tell me how many Ice Ages the planet Earth has experienced and what caused them??
I work closely with our EPA and I guarantee you there are two sides to this argument.
One side is that Fossil Fuels and Industrialization are the #1 factor responsible for the current Global Warming Trend and the other side is that they are minimally responsible and that the Earth historically goes through these cycles on it's own.
Check this Forestry site for some of the "other side" to Gore's over-reactionary propaganda.......
Where you can read this....... __________________________________________________________________________________
It seems there is some serious scientific doubt about whether man-made C02 has any significant effect on global warming.
With some research, I found out there is a huge group of scientists who have signed their name to the Heidelberg Appeal. The Heidleberg Appeal expresses these scientists' concerns with "the emergence of an irrational ideology which is opposed to scientific and industrial progress and impedes economic and social development." Their demand is that "this stock-taking, monitoring and preservation be founded on scientific criteria and not on irrational preconceptions." It warns "the authorities in charge of our planet's destiny against decisions which are supported by pseudoscientific arguments or false and nonrelevant data."
The Heidleberg Appeal has been signed by more than 4,000 signatories, including 72 Nobel Prize winners, from 106 countries. The full text of the appeal is not long, about a page, and can be found at http://www.sepp.org/heidelberg_appeal.html
In a related story, Canadian scientists are having trouble getting the Canadian media to let them broadcast their 27 minute documentary arguing against the Kyoto Protocol (that limits C02 production because it is supposed to contribute to global warming). The scientists felt strongly enough about this documentary that they produced it with their own money. The story is at: http://canadafreepress.com/2005/cover050705.htm
More information arguing that the Kyoto Protocol is seriously flawed can be found at a website titled Friends of Science. In their own words . . . "Friends of Science is a non-profit organization made up of active and retired geologists, engineers, earth scientists and other professionals, not to mention concerned Canadians, who believe the science behind the Kyoto Protocol is questionable. Friends of Science has assembled a scientific advisory board of esteemed climate scientists from around the world to offer a critical mass of current science on global climate and climate change to policy makers, and any interested parties."
One section of the website lists the following Myths and Facts:
Myth 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.
Fact: Temperatures have increased around urban areas (???heat islands???) which distorts the overall picture; whereas accurate satellite, balloon and long-term mountain top measurements have observed no increase at all.
Myth 2: The ???hockey stick??? graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature increase for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.
Fact: Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the "average" global temperature has been rising at a rate of 0.6 to 0.8 degrees Celsius per 100 years; although from 1940 ??? 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare. The hockey stick not only ignores historical fact, but is also scientifically flawed.
Myth 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.
Fact: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. The CO2 increase was only 0.4% over the last 50 years, rather than the 5% per 100 years quoted by Kyoto. However, as measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the result of, not the cause of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this. There is solid evidence that as temperatures rise naturally and cyclically, the earth naturally produces more CO2 as a result.
Myth 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas. Fact: Water vapour or clouds, which makes up on average about 3 % of the atmosphere, is the major greenhouse gas. CO2 makes up only about 3% of the greenhouse gases, or about 0.03% of the atmosphere. Moreover, because of its molecular weight and absorptive capacity, water vapour is 3000 times more effective than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention this important fact.
Myth 5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming. Fact: Unfortunately, computer models predicting global warming are incapable of including the effects of the sun and the clouds. Further, the main cause of temperature variation is the sun. Its radiation changes all the time, partly in cyclical fashion. The number of sunspots can be correlated very closely with average temperatures on earth, e.g. the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Varying intensity of solar heat radiation affects the surface temperature of the oceans and the currents. Warmer ocean water expels gases, some of which is CO2.
Yes, the earth goes through cycles. No, we are not in a warming cycle now, we should be in a cooling cycle. Yes, not all greenhouse gasses are caused by people. Only the greenhouse gasses we have control over are caused by people.
Climatologist and independent scientist who have studied global warming are not among those who endorse the HA. The HA is not a scientific paper nor has contrary scientific views stood up to peer review.
This what I am talking about. The press feels the need to include this stuff when it haves nothing to do with the true science which scientist who study these things agree upon. This is an attack on science by the forest industry who care only immediate profits.
Yes Al Gore is a liberal who cares about the worlds ecology over profits. You can attack him for that. You can say I don't care about global warming I want to live my life, fuck everyone else. Don't pretend you are presenting a different scientific view.
I admit I did not see or read the "other side". I read the section on buying a chain saw.
Just pointing out that there are two sides to the debate.
Right that was my point. The electronic media tends to care only about the debate. Which does have 2 sides. They love bringing on people from both sides and having them yell at each other. Doesn't matter if it's liberal MSNBC, or Fox. Neither wants to take the time to report the facts, which does not have sides.
Just pointing out that there are two sides to the debate.
Right that was my point. The electronic media tends to care only about the debate. Which does have 2 sides. They love bringing on people from both sides and having them yell at each other. Doesn't matter if it's liberal MSNBC, or Fox. Neither wants to take the time to report the facts, which does not have sides.
I believe that humans have contributed to Global Warming over the last 50 years.
I have my own opinions on what the consequences could/will be based on working in the Environmental/Chemical Industry for 26 years.
And as far as facts are concerned just remember this.....
"Statistics don't lie, statisticians do"
I have spent quite a few years helping to develop and promote an aerosol technology that has eliminated gas propellants that contribute to damaging our ozone layer.
I recognize that these gasses are one of the factors that have lead to Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect and our new technology eliminates these gases and uses simple air as it's propellant..
I also had one of the top Environmental Chemists at the EPA tell me that when Mt. St. Helens erupted in the early 80's it did more damage to the ozone layer than 100 years of aerosol use could.
So while facts are indisputable, how they are presented and the outcomes that people assume will result, can be, and should be debated.
Just pointing out that there are two sides to the debate.
This does not mean that both sides are equally valid.
Intelligent design vs. evolutionary science represent two sides of a debate except that the former is primarily based on faith and very, very fuzzy science while the latter is based mostly on scientific method and some fuzzy gaps in the data. But that, to me, doesn't mean that both sides should be accorded equal policy considerations.
I mean, there are two sides to a debate around pedophilia too. I don't think you, of all people, would want to give any real validity to the idea that adults should be allowed to sleep with children even though there are political parties forming to advocate for that very right.
Just pointing out that there are two sides to the debate.
This does not mean that both sides are equally valid.
Rich - I really respect the fact that you think differently from "the herd", and I am glad that you feel free to speak on it. Seriously.
But I tend to detect in your posts a feeling that, if someone yells "fraud" or "lie" then it must be. This natural distrust (not just of authority, but of ANY prevailing viewpoint) I think is good in small doses but ultimately dangerous.
Maybe it's cause I just saw the Gore flick last night, but it occurs to me that we could sit here arguing over this for the next 20 years and waste the opportunity to actually do something about it.
Just to add my 2 cents on the media being either liberal or conservative.
KVH points out that most media outlets are owned by corporations and are therefore inherently conservative and Republican. When I see that media is controlledy by corporations and I watch TV news, either local or national/cable, what I see is an incessant drive for profits over anything else. There have been various studies done of local TV news broadcasting and they show that the stories MOST reported are about crime, disasters, celebrities and animals. Politics ranks way down there. Because of the corporate takeover of media/entertainment outlets in general, they have been pushing the bottom line over everything else. That means they want to report on flashy stories that will get viewers, i.e. ratings, so that they can charge more for advertising. Politics, and especially foreign affairs, are seen as specialist topics. I don't think it's part of some corporate conspiracy to keep the masses dumb, I just think that the corporations don't see much possible $$$ in reporting hard news on TV and hence report on it only in passing to very little. That's why even supposed political shows like Crossfire, etc. are turned into screaming heads matches because that is the real entertainment value that will draw viewers, not what they're actually talking about.
Just pointing out that there are two sides to the debate.
This does not mean that both sides are equally valid.
Rich - I really respect the fact that you think differently from "the heard", and I am glad that you feel free to speak on it. Seriously.
But I tend to detect in your posts a feeling that, if someone yells "fraud" or "lie" then it must be. This natural distrust (not just of authority, but of ANY prevailing viewpoint) I think is good in small doses but ultimately dangerous.
Maybe it's cause I just saw the Gore flick last night, but it occurs to me that we could sit here arguing over this for the next 20 years and waste the opportunity to actually do something about it.
Maybe it's because I'm an old fucker and have seen alot or maybe I've just become a cynic, but there have been plenty of Environmental doomsayers around for the last 40 years.
In the 70's there was a very popular book by Hal Lindsay called "The Late Great Planet Earth" which predicted the world would end in 1988. This book got alot of attention from a wide variety of people at the time but now in retrospect it's apparent that it was, for the most part, bullshit.
I'm sure the movie you saw was scary and had a big impact on you.....but if it's anything like the majority of Environmentalist scare tactics, it's propaganda filled with half truths, and truths that are brought to illogical conclusions.
The "Herd" here at SS has a "Herd Mentality" and when I can no longer bring myself to air an opposing view this place will no longer be entertaining nor imformative.
As far as sitting around and not doing anything about it, it's my JOB to do something about it. My guess is that I've personally contributed more to the betterment of our Environment than any one on SS....yet my opinions are cast aside as "ultimately dangerous".
What I would like to know is what are all the folks who are buying into Gore's scenario doing about it.....maybe even you??
Just pointing out that there are two sides to the debate.
This does not mean that both sides are equally valid.
Rich - I really respect the fact that you think differently from "the heard", and I am glad that you feel free to speak on it. Seriously.
But I tend to detect in your posts a feeling that, if someone yells "fraud" or "lie" then it must be. This natural distrust (not just of authority, but of ANY prevailing viewpoint) I think is good in small doses but ultimately dangerous.
Maybe it's cause I just saw the Gore flick last night, but it occurs to me that we could sit here arguing over this for the next 20 years and waste the opportunity to actually do something about it.
Maybe it's because I'm an old fucker and have seen alot or maybe I've just become a cynic, but there have been plenty of Environmental doomsayers around for the last 40 years.
In the 70's there was a very popular book by Hal Lindsay called "The Late Great Planet Earth" which predicted the world would end in 1988. This book got alot of attention from a wide variety of people at the time but now in retrospect it's apparent that it was, for the most part, bullshit.
I'm sure the movie you saw was scary and had a big impact on you.....but if it's anything like the majority of Environmentalist scare tactics, it's propaganda filled with half truths, and truths that are brought to illogical conclusions.
The "Herd" here at SS has a "Herd Mentality" and when I can no longer bring myself to air an opposing view this place will no longer be entertaining nor imformative.
As far as sitting around and not doing anything about it, it's my JOB to do something about it. My guess is that I've personally contributed more to the betterment of our Environment than any one on SS....yet my opinions are cast aside as "ultimately dangerous".
What I would like to know is what are all the folks who are buying into Gore's scenario doing about it.....maybe even you??
Good posts. I saw MT ST Helens erupt, and I don't doubt your source. Like I said there are human causes and natural causes. We can only effect the human causes.
Thank you for your work for the environment. Your work makes it easier for all of us to make choices that protect the environment. I do consciously make choices that I hope lessen my impact on the environment.
It sounds like you don't believe that there is any danger of global warming or to the ozone layer. So my guess is that you would be just happy making a propelant that would hasten the depletion of the ozone. Correct me if I am wrong.
As far as sitting around and not doing anything about it, it's my JOB to do something about it. My guess is that I've personally contributed more to the betterment of our Environment than any one on SS....yet my opinions are cast aside as "ultimately dangerous".
What I would like to know is what are all the folks who are buying into Gore's scenario doing about it.....maybe even you??
That wasn't quite how I meant that statement, but since you took it that way I'll respond to it as such.
I am sure you are doing great service in your daily work. I (obviously) don't work in that industry and so what I am capable of doing is substantially smaller in scope.... but I try. What don't I do? I don't take public transport really at all; I use my car for work a lot but often it's a convenient perk. Thankfully I drive a car with good fuel economy. I am moving a mere seven blocks from my shop so I will not be commuting - by car or train - anymore. I don't really recycle - and that's something that I've decided to change. It's a bit corny that it took a much-talked about movie to reinforce the point but hey - better late than never.
What I really meant by "ultimately dangerous" was not in respect to the particular issue of climate but the idea that, if you don't believe in anything you become a cynic. I think we are slowly becoming a nation full of cynics, everyone too distrustful of their leaders' intentions to be motivated by their ideas. I think that's dangerous.
What I really meant by "ultimately dangerous" was not in respect to the particular issue of climate but the idea that, if you don't believe in anything you become a cynic. I think we are slowly becoming a nation full of cynics, everyone too distrustful of their leaders' intentions to be motivated by their ideas. I think that's dangerous.
It sounds like you don't believe that there is any danger of global warming or to the ozone layer. So my guess is that you would be just happy making a propelant that would hasten the depletion of the ozone. Correct me if I am wrong.
Well, since I've invested time and effort into the alternative aerosol, and I know for a fact that it performs as well as the current gas propelled products, I'd prefer that Industries made the switch.
But quite honestly I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Our country now consumes twice as many gas propelled aerosol products than it did 20 years ago, and it's continuing to increase.....ironically the biggest jump occured in the 90's when Gore was in office and might have been able to do something about it.
I believe global warming could become a serious problem but I don't feel it's currently, nor will it be anytime in the near future, the doomsday scenario that some are making it out to be.
As a civilization we should make logical decisions on how to continue to maintain advancements in technology and industrialization while stewarding our Environment.
And I believe this can be done without the extreme measures that fringe lunatic enviromentalists are calling for.
It sounds like you don't believe that there is any danger of global warming or to the ozone layer. So my guess is that you would be just happy making a propelant that would hasten the depletion of the ozone. Correct me if I am wrong.
Well, since I've invested time and effort into the alternative aerosol, and I know for a fact that it performs as well as the current gas propelled products, I'd prefer that Industries made the switch.
But quite honestly I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Our country now consumes twice as many gas propelled aerosol products than it did 20 years ago, and it's continuing to increase.....ironically the biggest jump occured in the 90's when Gore was in office and might have been able to do something about it.
Of course Gore never had power for anything beyond streamlining government, which he did well but never talked about.
Clinton's environmental record is an embarrassment. Eclipsed only by Bush's out right attack on the environment.
I thought that aerosol propellants were outlawed in the 80's. What's the story there?
It sounds like you don't believe that there is any danger of global warming or to the ozone layer. So my guess is that you would be just happy making a propellant that would hasten the depletion of the ozone. Correct me if I am wrong.
I believe global warming could become a serious problem but I don't feel it's currently, nor will it be anytime in the near future, the doomsday scenario that some are making it out to be.
As a civilization we should make logical decisions on how to continue to maintain advancements in technology and industrialization while stewarding our Environment.
You are right. The argument that it is hot today, or there is a storm tomorrow because of global warming is unsupported by science, and is part of the media debate that I was deploring. Likewise I've been told that Gore's movie shows Manhattan under water, something that is projected not to happen for 100s of years. Still anything we do today to improve tomorrow is worth doing.
It sounds like you don't believe that there is any danger of global warming or to the ozone layer. So my guess is that you would be just happy making a propelant that would hasten the depletion of the ozone. Correct me if I am wrong.
Well, since I've invested time and effort into the alternative aerosol, and I know for a fact that it performs as well as the current gas propelled products, I'd prefer that Industries made the switch.
But quite honestly I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Our country now consumes twice as many gas propelled aerosol products than it did 20 years ago, and it's continuing to increase.....ironically the biggest jump occured in the 90's when Gore was in office and might have been able to do something about it.
Of course Gore never had power for anything beyond streamlining government, which he did well but never talked about.
Clinton's environmental record is an embarrassment. Eclipsed only by Bush's out right attack on the environment.
I thought that aerosol propellants were outlawed in the 80's. What's the story there?
Various propellants have been banned over the years for various reasons.
ChloroFlouroCarbons, Halogenated CFC and most recently Freon.
There are 3 or 4 different gases still used, but C02 is the most prevelant.
Now are you just gonna say a few Hail Marys and get on with propagandizing for the far right or are you gonna do a David Brock and fight for your own integrity??? Sentient beings would like to know the deal.
Umm . . . . never. I would never join that credulous moral universe of relativists who denied our own history in the run up to the Iraq war and somehow determined it imperialistic. I leave you and your comrades to such casuistry and fecklesness.
Invading as a form of "self-defence" is what? Gunpoint Democracy has worked where? And then there's your economic pietism. Put your money where your mouth is and start sending out resumes.
Photos seem to contradict Marine version of Haditha killings[/b] By Jamie McIntyre CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pentagon sources say some of the most incriminating evidence against Marines under investigation in the deaths of civilians at Haditha is a set of photographs taken by another group of Marines who came along afterward and helped clean up the scene.
CNN is the first news organization to examine those images. They were snapped before an aspiring Iraq journalist videotaped the aftermath of the November 19 deaths. That video convinced Time magazine to pursue the story earlier this year.
Pentagon sources say the 30 images of men, women and children are some of the strongest evidence that, in some cases, the victims were shot inside their homes and at close range -- not killed by shrapnel from a roadside bomb or by stray bullets from a distant firefight, as Marines had claimed. (Watch what the new images show about the civilian deaths -- 2:51)
Senior Pentagon officials have said a probe into the November deaths tends to support allegations that Marines carried out an unprovoked massacre after one of their comrades was killed by a roadside bomb. The military is investigating both the deaths and a possible cover-up.
The Marines originally reported that Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha, a town on the Euphrates River in northwestern Iraq that was the scene of heavy fighting in 2005. They later added that eight insurgents were killed in an ensuing gun battle.
The Marine photographs are evidence in a criminal probe, and only investigators and a few very senior officials have access to them.
"I have seen the photographs, but they are part of the investigation and I'm not going to talk about those photographs," Marine commandant Gen. Michael Hagee told reporters Wednesday.
But a source allowed CNN to examine copies of the photographs, which a military official said match in both number and description the pictures in the possession of investigators.
The source would not allow CNN to have copies of the images out of concern over personal repercussions.
There are images of 24 bodies, each marked with red numbers. Some of numbers are written on foreheads, others on the victim's backs. A senior military official told CNN that in some cases the numbers may denote the location of bullet wounds.
Among the images:
A woman and child leaning against the wall, heads slumped forward.
Another woman and child shot in bed.
A man sprawled face down with his legs behind him.
An elderly woman slumped over, her neck possibly snapped by the force of gunfire. All of the victims were wearing casual attire. Some had been shot in the head. Some were face down, others face up.
The pictures appear to show the locations of the bodies in the houses before a Marine unit loaded them into a truck and brought them to a morgue.
Pentagon officials said there are no plans to release the gruesome images, even after the criminal investigation is complete.
The Haditha photos, like the images of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, would incite anti-American fervor and therefore constitute a threat to national security, they said.
In a separate incident, seven Marines and a Navy medical corpsman are being held in a brig at Camp Pendleton, California, to face possible murder charges in connection with the April killing of an Iraqi man in Hamandiya, a military officer with direct knowledge of the investigation said.
Briefing reporters Wednesday, Hagee was tight-lipped about the investigations but said Marines "absolutely know right from wrong."
Hagee flew to Iraq two weeks ago on a trip the Marine Corps said was already scheduled. But he used the time to lecture his Marines on what he called "the American way of war" amid the two probes.
Hagee said he is "gravely concerned" by the allegations and promised that the investigations now under way will be thorough and complete.
The U.S. command in Baghdad ordered an investigation into the Haditha killings in February, after Time magazine reporters presented video of the scene to American commanders.
Just a couple of observations in no particular order.
1) I'll be honest, I read this whole thread and expected to read a lot of anti-American, anti-soldier discussion. And I didn't find it. Instead I found a fairly thoughtful back and forth coping with this tragedy on multiple levels that sought to put the incident in context. It goes without saying that what is looking like a massacre and cover up should be punished and it is a reflection of our moral superiority that we air this out in the open, handle it through military law and the courts and publicly condemn it. And while it will most definitely hand a propaganda victory to our enemies, our ability to fight a war and condemn these kinds of excesses reflects ultimately on our strength. Put another way our decency is illustrated in our country's ability to expose and condemn our indecency.
2) I don't know how to say this with nuance, but FUCK BUSH! This has nothing really to do with Haditha because I have not been persuaded that Haditha is a result of a particular policy, other than the fact we went to war--and I simultaneously can acknowledge things suck in Iraq, we are losing and it's a necessary fight both from a moral and strategic perspective, but FUCK BUSH. Why sweet neocon, you may ask, are you cursing the the alpha freedom male, now? Well as many of you know, I live in Cairo now, I just got back last week for some R and R to the states. And I have seen him abandon the one really great policy of the second administration, which was to hold allies and others accountable in the middle east for how they treat their own people. Well that's out the window. Also, there is no defense for the utter contempt the man has shown for science, something I was never down with. Combine this with his spinelessness in bringing back all the old CIA hacks, his demagoguery on homosexuals, and finally his administration's UNPRECEDENTED war on journalism and secrecy, and yes I have buyer's remorse. I can say I like his speech writers, but we wil have to live with a bloated national security bureaucracy now for decades, not to mention a new archapelego of Arab strong men client states. It's the inverse of what I want, and paleoliberal fiscal conservatives need to come to terms with this. Bush and a GOP Congress may well have created a new nomenklatura, a Soviet style national security bureaucracy that will leave us strategically weak and undemocratic in a war against a freaking abstraction---TERROR! Fuck that. We are at war with Iran, al-Qaeda and Syria. Distinct entities. And this is not because we chose it, it's cause they chose it.
3) FUCK BUSH.
2003 Ladies' Home Journal interview with the Bushes. Here's an excerpt:
"[Peggy] Noonan: You were separated on September 11th. What was it like when you saw each other again?
Mrs. Bush: Well, we just hugged. I think there was a certain amount of security in being with each other than being apart.
President Bush: But the day ended on a relatively humorous note[/b] . The agents said, "You'll be sleeping downstairs. Washington's still a dangerous place." And I said no, I can't sleep down there, the bed didn't look comfortable. I was really tired, Laura was tired, we like our own bed. We like our own routine. You know, kind of a nester. Like the way things are. I knew I had to deal with the issue the next day and provide strength and comfort to the country, and so I needed rest in order to be mentally prepared. So I told the agent we're going upstairs, and he reluctantly said okay. Laura wears contacts, and she was sound asleep. Barney was there. And the agent comes running up and says, "We're under attack. We need you downstairs," and so there we go. I'm in my running shorts and my T-shirt, and I'm barefooted. Got the dog in one hand, Laura had a cat, I'm holding Laura --
Mrs. Bush: I don't have my contacts in, and I'm in my fuzzy house slippers --
President Bush: And this guy's out of breath, and we're heading straight down to the basement because there's an incoming unidentified airplane, which is coming toward the White House. Then the guy says it's a friendly airplane. And we hustle all the way back upstairs and go to bed.
Mrs. Bush: [laughs] And we just lay there thinking about the way we must have looked.
Noonan: So the day starts in tragedy and ends in Marx Brothers.
President Bush: That's right -- we got a laugh out of it[/b] ."
Comments
Having to politicians argueing instead of reporting facts.
Presenting golobal warming as an issue with 2 sides.
Can anyone tell me how many Ice Ages the planet Earth has experienced and what caused them??
I work closely with our EPA and I guarantee you there are two sides to this argument.
One side is that Fossil Fuels and Industrialization are the #1 factor responsible for the current Global Warming Trend and the other side is that they are minimally responsible and that the Earth historically goes through these cycles on it's own.
Check this Forestry site for some of the "other side" to Gore's over-reactionary propaganda.......
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:M2lq...us&ct=clnk&cd=8
Where you can read this.......
__________________________________________________________________________________
It seems there is some serious scientific doubt about whether man-made C02 has any significant effect on global warming.
With some research, I found out there is a huge group of scientists who have signed their name to the Heidelberg Appeal. The Heidleberg Appeal expresses these scientists' concerns with "the emergence of an irrational ideology which is opposed to scientific and industrial progress and impedes economic and social development." Their demand is that "this stock-taking, monitoring and preservation be founded on scientific criteria and not on irrational preconceptions." It warns "the authorities in charge of our planet's destiny against decisions which are supported by pseudoscientific arguments or false and nonrelevant data."
The Heidleberg Appeal has been signed by more than 4,000 signatories, including 72 Nobel Prize winners, from 106 countries. The full text of the appeal is not long, about a page, and can be found at http://www.sepp.org/heidelberg_appeal.html
In a related story, Canadian scientists are having trouble getting the Canadian media to let them broadcast their 27 minute documentary arguing against the Kyoto Protocol (that limits C02 production because it is supposed to contribute to global warming). The scientists felt strongly enough about this documentary that they produced it with their own money. The story is at: http://canadafreepress.com/2005/cover050705.htm
More information arguing that the Kyoto Protocol is seriously flawed can be found at a website titled Friends of Science. In their own words . . . "Friends of Science is a non-profit organization made up of active and retired geologists, engineers, earth scientists and other professionals, not to mention concerned Canadians, who believe the science behind the Kyoto Protocol is questionable. Friends of Science has assembled a scientific advisory board of esteemed climate scientists from around the world to offer a critical mass of current science on global climate and climate change to policy makers, and any interested parties."
Their website can be found at: http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?ide=3
One section of the website lists the following Myths and Facts:
Myth 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.
Fact: Temperatures have increased around urban areas (“heat islands”) which distorts the overall picture; whereas accurate satellite, balloon and long-term mountain top measurements have observed no increase at all.
Myth 2: The “hockey stick” graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature increase for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.
Fact: Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the "average" global temperature has been rising at a rate of 0.6 to 0.8 degrees Celsius per 100 years; although from 1940 – 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare. The hockey stick not only ignores historical fact, but is also scientifically flawed.
Myth 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.
Fact: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. The CO2 increase was only 0.4% over the last 50 years, rather than the 5% per 100 years quoted by Kyoto. However, as measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the result of, not the cause of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this. There is solid evidence that as temperatures rise naturally and cyclically, the earth naturally produces more CO2 as a result.
Myth 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.
Fact: Water vapour or clouds, which makes up on average about 3 % of the atmosphere, is the major greenhouse gas. CO2 makes up only about 3% of the greenhouse gases, or about 0.03% of the atmosphere. Moreover, because of its molecular weight and absorptive capacity, water vapour is 3000 times more effective than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention this important fact.
Myth 5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming.
Fact: Unfortunately, computer models predicting global warming are incapable of including the effects of the sun and the clouds. Further, the main cause of temperature variation is the sun. Its radiation changes all the time, partly in cyclical fashion. The number of sunspots can be correlated very closely with average temperatures on earth, e.g. the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Varying intensity of solar heat radiation affects the surface temperature of the oceans and the currents. Warmer ocean water expels gases, some of which is CO2.
1) I'll be honest, I read this whole thread and expected to read a lot of anti-American, anti-soldier discussion. And I didn't find it. Instead I found a fairly thoughtful back and forth coping with this tragedy on multiple levels that sought to put the incident in context. It goes without saying that what is looking like a massacre and cover up should be punished and it is a reflection of our moral superiority that we air this out in the open, handle it through military law and the courts and publicly condemn it. And while it will most definitely hand a propaganda victory to our enemies, our ability to fight a war and condemn these kinds of excesses reflects ultimately on our strength. Put another way our decency is illustrated in our country's ability to expose and condemn our indecency.
2) I don't know how to say this with nuance, but FUCK BUSH! This has nothing really to do with Haditha because I have not been persuaded that Haditha is a result of a particular policy, other than the fact we went to war--and I simultaneously can acknowledge things suck in Iraq, we are losing and it's a necessary fight both from a moral and strategic perspective, but FUCK BUSH. Why sweet neocon, you may ask, are you cursing the the alpha freedom male, now? Well as many of you know, I live in Cairo now, I just got back last week for some R and R to the states. And I have seen him abandon the one really great policy of the second administration, which was to hold allies and others accountable in the middle east for how they treat their own people. Well that's out the window. Also, there is no defense for the utter contempt the man has shown for science, something I was never down with. Combine this with his spinelessness in bringing back all the old CIA hacks, his demagoguery on homosexuals, and finally his administration's UNPRECEDENTED war on journalism and secrecy, and yes I have buyer's remorse. I can say I like his speech writers, but we wil have to live with a bloated national security bureaucracy now for decades, not to mention a new archapelego of Arab strong men client states. It's the inverse of what I want, and paleoliberal fiscal conservatives need to come to terms with this. Bush and a GOP Congress may well have created a new nomenklatura, a Soviet style national security bureaucracy that will leave us strategically weak and undemocratic in a war against a freaking abstraction---TERROR! Fuck that. We are at war with Iran, al-Qaeda and Syria. Distinct entities. And this is not because we chose it, it's cause they chose it.
3) FUCK BUSH.
I can't tell if we're arguing over shades of difference or a black/white divide. My point is that it's an exaggeration to suggest that MSM has been wholly co-opted by the Right. If that were the case, then I would expect NO dissension or deviation from a party line. In other words, from the way you have described it - and perhaps this is me overreading your comments - it sounds as if the MSM exists simply to repeat Right-wing talking points, i.e. it's just part of a propaganda machine.
I agree with the idea that the MSM is filtered through a mildly conservative (at worst) or weakly centrist (at best) lens but that, to me, is not at all the same thing as saying that the Right runs opinions and news reporting. Again, if the Right's hegemonic control of the MSM was so total, then the GOP wouldn't be in crisis mode, Bush's ratings wouldn't be through the basement and there wouldn't be a popular swing of support to getting out of Iraq.
What complicates this is that the center has shifted far more right than in the past so that today's centrist position already leans rightward and most mainstream "liberals" I can think of are really centrists. They are not in favor of affirmative action, they have no real investment in fighting poverty or segregation. Therefore, the mainstream Left's view, as fafr as news is concerned, wouldn't really deal in the kinds of issues that politically, I would want to see addresssed but that's always been the case. I never lived in America at a time where it was fashionable to deal with those questions - in the media - in any kind of real way. That said, network news and mainstream newspapers/magazines still talk about these issues. They don't pretend they don't exist (even though, sure, there's a lot of censorship still in effect).
Also, just to clarify, for me, I'm most interested in how the politics of American society shift around questions of morality and "values" rather than domestic, economic policy and not even around foreign policy (though obviously, both are very important and pertinent to the discussion at hand). And therefore, when I look at the media, I'm interested in how it frames issues of morality for the American public. While I think there's been a much heavier push towards a strictly moral code coming from a small, but influential segment of the Religious Right, I have yet to see this really influencing the coverage that appears in the MSM.
Now are you just gonna say a few Hail Marys and get on with propagandizing for the far right or are you gonna do a David Brock and fight for your own integrity??? Sentient beings would like to know the deal.
The Heidelberg Appeal has been enthusiastically embraced by critics of the environmental movement such as S. Fred Singer of the Science and Environmental Policy Project. Conservative think tanks frequently cite the Heidelberg Appeal as proof that scientists reject the theory of global warming as well as a host of other environmental health risks associated with modern science and industry. Its name has subsequently been adopted by the Heidelberg Appeal Nederland Foundation, which was founded in 1993 and disputes health risks related to nitrates in foods and antibiotic-resistant bacteria. However, the Heidelberg Appeal itself makes no mention whatsoever of global warming, or for that matter of pesticides or antibiotic-resistant bacteria. It is simply a statement supporting rationality and science.[/b]
Parts of the Heidelberg Appeal in fact appear to endorse environmental concerns, such as a sentence that states, "We fully subscribe to the objectives of a scientific ecology for a universe whose resources must be taken stock of, monitored and preserved." Its 72 Nobel laureates include 49 who also signed the "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity," which was circulated that same year by the liberal Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and attracted the majority of the world's living Nobel laureates in science along with some 1,700 other leading scientists. In contrast with the vagueness of the Heidelberg Appeal, the "World Scientists' Warning" is a very explicit environmental manifesto, stating that "human beings and the natural world are on a collision course" and citing ozone depletion, global climate change, air pollution, groundwater depletion, deforestation, overfishing, and species extinction among the trends that threaten to "so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know." More recently, 110 Nobel Prize-winning scientists signed another UCS petition, the 1997 "Call to Action," which called specifically on world leaders to sign an effective global warming treaty at Kyoto.[/b]
Presenting golobal warming as an issue with 2 sides.
Can anyone tell me how many Ice Ages the planet Earth has experienced and what caused them??
I work closely with our EPA and I guarantee you there are two sides to this argument.
One side is that Fossil Fuels and Industrialization are the #1 factor responsible for the current Global Warming Trend and the other side is that they are minimally responsible and that the Earth historically goes through these cycles on it's own.
Check this Forestry site for some of the "other side" to Gore's over-reactionary propaganda.......
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:M2lq...us&ct=clnk&cd=8
Where you can read this.......
__________________________________________________________________________________
It seems there is some serious scientific doubt about whether man-made C02 has any significant effect on global warming.
With some research, I found out there is a huge group of scientists who have signed their name to the Heidelberg Appeal. The Heidleberg Appeal expresses these scientists' concerns with "the emergence of an irrational ideology which is opposed to scientific and industrial progress and impedes economic and social development." Their demand is that "this stock-taking, monitoring and preservation be founded on scientific criteria and not on irrational preconceptions." It warns "the authorities in charge of our planet's destiny against decisions which are supported by pseudoscientific arguments or false and nonrelevant data."
The Heidleberg Appeal has been signed by more than 4,000 signatories, including 72 Nobel Prize winners, from 106 countries. The full text of the appeal is not long, about a page, and can be found at http://www.sepp.org/heidelberg_appeal.html
In a related story, Canadian scientists are having trouble getting the Canadian media to let them broadcast their 27 minute documentary arguing against the Kyoto Protocol (that limits C02 production because it is supposed to contribute to global warming). The scientists felt strongly enough about this documentary that they produced it with their own money. The story is at: http://canadafreepress.com/2005/cover050705.htm
More information arguing that the Kyoto Protocol is seriously flawed can be found at a website titled Friends of Science. In their own words . . . "Friends of Science is a non-profit organization made up of active and retired geologists, engineers, earth scientists and other professionals, not to mention concerned Canadians, who believe the science behind the Kyoto Protocol is questionable. Friends of Science has assembled a scientific advisory board of esteemed climate scientists from around the world to offer a critical mass of current science on global climate and climate change to policy makers, and any interested parties."
Their website can be found at: http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?ide=3
One section of the website lists the following Myths and Facts:
Myth 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.
Fact: Temperatures have increased around urban areas (???heat islands???) which distorts the overall picture; whereas accurate satellite, balloon and long-term mountain top measurements have observed no increase at all.
Myth 2: The ???hockey stick??? graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature increase for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.
Fact: Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the "average" global temperature has been rising at a rate of 0.6 to 0.8 degrees Celsius per 100 years; although from 1940 ??? 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare. The hockey stick not only ignores historical fact, but is also scientifically flawed.
Myth 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.
Fact: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. The CO2 increase was only 0.4% over the last 50 years, rather than the 5% per 100 years quoted by Kyoto. However, as measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature h as done so, and thus are the result of, not the cause of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this. There is solid evidence that as temperatures rise naturally and cyclically, the earth naturally produces more CO2 as a result.
Myth 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.
Fact: Water vapour or clouds, which makes up on average about 3 % of the atmosphere, is the major greenhouse gas. CO2 makes up only about 3% of the greenhouse gases, or about 0.03% of the atmosphere. Moreover, because of its molecular weight and absorptive capacity, water vapour is 3000 times more effective than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention this important fact.
Myth 5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming.
Fact: Unfortunately, computer models predicting global warming are incapable of including the effects of the sun and the clouds. Further, the main cause of temperature variation is the sun. Its radiation changes all the time, partly in cyclical fashion. The number of sunspots can be correlated very closely with average temperatures on earth, e.g. the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Varying intensity of solar heat radiation affects the surface temperature of the oceans and the currents. Warmer ocean water expels gases, some of which is CO2.
http://www.gcrio.org/ipcc/qa/09.html
From the United Nations Environment Programme - World Meteorological Organization
"However, just because water vapor is the most important gas in creating the natural greenhouse effect does not mean that human- made greenhouse gases are unimportant. Over the past ten thousand years, the amounts of the various greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere remained relatively stable until a few centuries ago, when the concentrations of many of these gases began to increase due to industrialization, increasing demand for energy, rising population, and changing land use and human settlement patterns. Accumulations of most of the human-made greenhouse gases are expected to continue to increase, so that, over the next 50 to 100 years, without control measures, they will produce a heat-trapping effect equivalent to more than a doubling of the pre-industrial carbon dioxide level.
Increasing amounts of human-made greenhouse gases would lead to an increase in the globally averaged surface temperature. However, as the temperature increases, other aspects of the climate will alter, including the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. While human activities do not directly add significant amounts of water vapor to the atmosphere, warmer air contains more water vapor. Since water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas, global warming will be further enhanced by the increased amounts of water vapor. This sort of indirect effect is called a positive feedback."
Umm . . . . never. I would never join that credulous moral universe of relativists who denied our own history in the run up to the Iraq war and somehow determined it imperialistic. I leave you and your comrades to such casuistry and fecklesness.
Yes, the earth goes through cycles. No, we are not in a warming cycle now, we should be in a cooling cycle. Yes, not all greenhouse gasses are caused by people. Only the greenhouse gasses we have control over are caused by people.
Climatologist and independent scientist who have studied global warming are not among those who endorse the HA. The HA is not a scientific paper nor has contrary scientific views stood up to peer review.
Sorry.
Check this Forestry site for some of the "other side" to Gore's over-reactionary propaganda.......
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:M2lq...us&ct=clnk&cd=8
This what I am talking about. The press feels the need to include this stuff when it haves nothing to do with the true science which scientist who study these things agree upon. This is an attack on science by the forest industry who care only immediate profits.
Yes Al Gore is a liberal who cares about the worlds ecology over profits. You can attack him for that. You can say I don't care about global warming I want to live my life, fuck everyone else. Don't pretend you are presenting a different scientific view.
I admit I did not see or read the "other side". I read the section on buying a chain saw.
3) FUCK BUSH.
Well said.
Right that was my point. The electronic media tends to care only about the debate. Which does have 2 sides. They love bringing on people from both sides and having them yell at each other. Doesn't matter if it's liberal MSNBC, or Fox. Neither wants to take the time to report the facts, which does not have sides.
I believe that humans have contributed to Global Warming over the last 50 years.
I have my own opinions on what the consequences could/will be based on working in the Environmental/Chemical Industry for 26 years.
And as far as facts are concerned just remember this.....
"Statistics don't lie, statisticians do"
I have spent quite a few years helping to develop and promote an aerosol technology that has eliminated gas propellants that contribute to damaging our ozone layer.
I recognize that these gasses are one of the factors that have lead to Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect and our new technology eliminates these gases and uses simple air as it's propellant..
I also had one of the top Environmental Chemists at the EPA tell me that when Mt. St. Helens erupted in the early 80's it did more damage to the ozone layer than 100 years of aerosol use could.
So while facts are indisputable, how they are presented and the outcomes that people assume will result, can be, and should be debated.
This does not mean that both sides are equally valid.
Intelligent design vs. evolutionary science represent two sides of a debate except that the former is primarily based on faith and very, very fuzzy science while the latter is based mostly on scientific method and some fuzzy gaps in the data. But that, to me, doesn't mean that both sides should be accorded equal policy considerations.
I mean, there are two sides to a debate around pedophilia too. I don't think you, of all people, would want to give any real validity to the idea that adults should be allowed to sleep with children even though there are political parties forming to advocate for that very right.
Rich - I really respect the fact that you think differently from "the herd", and I am glad that you feel free to speak on it. Seriously.
But I tend to detect in your posts a feeling that, if someone yells "fraud" or "lie" then it must be. This natural distrust (not just of authority, but of ANY prevailing viewpoint) I think is good in small doses but ultimately dangerous.
Maybe it's cause I just saw the Gore flick last night, but it occurs to me that we could sit here arguing over this for the next 20 years and waste the opportunity to actually do something about it.
KVH points out that most media outlets are owned by corporations and are therefore inherently conservative and Republican. When I see that media is controlledy by corporations and I watch TV news, either local or national/cable, what I see is an incessant drive for profits over anything else. There have been various studies done of local TV news broadcasting and they show that the stories MOST reported are about crime, disasters, celebrities and animals. Politics ranks way down there. Because of the corporate takeover of media/entertainment outlets in general, they have been pushing the bottom line over everything else. That means they want to report on flashy stories that will get viewers, i.e. ratings, so that they can charge more for advertising. Politics, and especially foreign affairs, are seen as specialist topics. I don't think it's part of some corporate conspiracy to keep the masses dumb, I just think that the corporations don't see much possible $$$ in reporting hard news on TV and hence report on it only in passing to very little. That's why even supposed political shows like Crossfire, etc. are turned into screaming heads matches because that is the real entertainment value that will draw viewers, not what they're actually talking about.
Maybe it's because I'm an old fucker and have seen alot or maybe I've just become a cynic, but there have been plenty of Environmental doomsayers around for the last 40 years.
In the 70's there was a very popular book by Hal Lindsay called "The Late Great Planet Earth" which predicted the world would end in 1988. This book got alot of attention from a wide variety of people at the time but now in retrospect it's apparent that it was, for the most part, bullshit.
I'm sure the movie you saw was scary and had a big impact on you.....but if it's anything like the majority of Environmentalist scare tactics, it's propaganda filled with half truths, and truths that are brought to illogical conclusions.
The "Herd" here at SS has a "Herd Mentality" and when I can no longer bring myself to air an opposing view this place will no longer be entertaining nor imformative.
As far as sitting around and not doing anything about it, it's my JOB to do something about it. My guess is that I've personally contributed more to the betterment of our Environment than any one on SS....yet my opinions are cast aside as "ultimately dangerous".
What I would like to know is what are all the folks who are buying into Gore's scenario doing about it.....maybe even you??
Good posts. I saw MT ST Helens erupt, and I don't doubt your source. Like I said there are human causes and natural causes. We can only effect the human causes.
Thank you for your work for the environment. Your work makes it easier for all of us to make choices that protect the environment. I do consciously make choices that I hope lessen my impact on the environment.
It sounds like you don't believe that there is any danger of global warming or to the ozone layer. So my guess is that you would be just happy making a propelant that would hasten the depletion of the ozone. Correct me if I am wrong.
That wasn't quite how I meant that statement, but since you took it that way I'll respond to it as such.
I am sure you are doing great service in your daily work. I (obviously) don't work in that industry and so what I am capable of doing is substantially smaller in scope.... but I try. What don't I do? I don't take public transport really at all; I use my car for work a lot but often it's a convenient perk. Thankfully I drive a car with good fuel economy. I am moving a mere seven blocks from my shop so I will not be commuting - by car or train - anymore. I don't really recycle - and that's something that I've decided to change. It's a bit corny that it took a much-talked about movie to reinforce the point but hey - better late than never.
What I really meant by "ultimately dangerous" was not in respect to the particular issue of climate but the idea that, if you don't believe in anything you become a cynic. I think we are slowly becoming a nation full of cynics, everyone too distrustful of their leaders' intentions to be motivated by their ideas. I think that's dangerous.
I don't disagree
Well, since I've invested time and effort into the alternative aerosol, and I know for a fact that it performs as well as the current gas propelled products, I'd prefer that Industries made the switch.
But quite honestly I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Our country now consumes twice as many gas propelled aerosol products than it did 20 years ago, and it's continuing to increase.....ironically the biggest jump occured in the 90's when Gore was in office and might have been able to do something about it.
I believe global warming could become a serious problem but I don't feel it's currently, nor will it be anytime in the near future, the doomsday scenario that some are making it out to be.
As a civilization we should make logical decisions on how to continue to maintain advancements in technology and industrialization while stewarding our Environment.
And I believe this can be done without the extreme measures that fringe lunatic enviromentalists are calling for.
Of course Gore never had power for anything beyond streamlining government, which he did well but never talked about.
Clinton's environmental record is an embarrassment. Eclipsed only by Bush's out right attack on the environment.
I thought that aerosol propellants were outlawed in the 80's. What's the story there?
You are right. The argument that it is hot today, or there is a storm tomorrow because of global warming is unsupported by science, and is part of the media debate that I was deploring. Likewise I've been told that Gore's movie shows Manhattan under water, something that is projected not to happen for 100s of years. Still anything we do today to improve tomorrow is worth doing.
Various propellants have been banned over the years for various reasons.
ChloroFlouroCarbons, Halogenated CFC and most recently Freon.
There are 3 or 4 different gases still used, but C02 is the most prevelant.
Invading as a form of "self-defence" is what? Gunpoint Democracy has worked where? And then there's your economic pietism. Put your money where your mouth is and start sending out resumes.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/07/iraq.probes/index.html
Photos seem to contradict Marine version of Haditha killings[/b]
By Jamie McIntyre
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pentagon sources say some of the most incriminating evidence against Marines under investigation in the deaths of civilians at Haditha is a set of photographs taken by another group of Marines who came along afterward and helped clean up the scene.
CNN is the first news organization to examine those images. They were snapped before an aspiring Iraq journalist videotaped the aftermath of the November 19 deaths. That video convinced Time magazine to pursue the story earlier this year.
Pentagon sources say the 30 images of men, women and children are some of the strongest evidence that, in some cases, the victims were shot inside their homes and at close range -- not killed by shrapnel from a roadside bomb or by stray bullets from a distant firefight, as Marines had claimed. (Watch what the new images show about the civilian deaths -- 2:51)
Senior Pentagon officials have said a probe into the November deaths tends to support allegations that Marines carried out an unprovoked massacre after one of their comrades was killed by a roadside bomb. The military is investigating both the deaths and a possible cover-up.
The Marines originally reported that Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha, a town on the Euphrates River in northwestern Iraq that was the scene of heavy fighting in 2005. They later added that eight insurgents were killed in an ensuing gun battle.
The Marine photographs are evidence in a criminal probe, and only investigators and a few very senior officials have access to them.
"I have seen the photographs, but they are part of the investigation and I'm not going to talk about those photographs," Marine commandant Gen. Michael Hagee told reporters Wednesday.
But a source allowed CNN to examine copies of the photographs, which a military official said match in both number and description the pictures in the possession of investigators.
The source would not allow CNN to have copies of the images out of concern over personal repercussions.
There are images of 24 bodies, each marked with red numbers. Some of numbers are written on foreheads, others on the victim's backs. A senior military official told CNN that in some cases the numbers may denote the location of bullet wounds.
Among the images:
A woman and child leaning against the wall, heads slumped forward.
Another woman and child shot in bed.
A man sprawled face down with his legs behind him.
An elderly woman slumped over, her neck possibly snapped by the force of gunfire.
All of the victims were wearing casual attire. Some had been shot in the head. Some were face down, others face up.
The pictures appear to show the locations of the bodies in the houses before a Marine unit loaded them into a truck and brought them to a morgue.
Pentagon officials said there are no plans to release the gruesome images, even after the criminal investigation is complete.
The Haditha photos, like the images of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, would incite anti-American fervor and therefore constitute a threat to national security, they said.
In a separate incident, seven Marines and a Navy medical corpsman are being held in a brig at Camp Pendleton, California, to face possible murder charges in connection with the April killing of an Iraqi man in Hamandiya, a military officer with direct knowledge of the investigation said.
Briefing reporters Wednesday, Hagee was tight-lipped about the investigations but said Marines "absolutely know right from wrong."
Hagee flew to Iraq two weeks ago on a trip the Marine Corps said was already scheduled. But he used the time to lecture his Marines on what he called "the American way of war" amid the two probes.
Hagee said he is "gravely concerned" by the allegations and promised that the investigations now under way will be thorough and complete.
The U.S. command in Baghdad ordered an investigation into the Haditha killings in February, after Time magazine reporters presented video of the scene to American commanders.
2003 Ladies' Home Journal interview with the Bushes. Here's an excerpt:
"[Peggy] Noonan: You were separated on September 11th. What was it like when you saw each other again?
Mrs. Bush: Well, we just hugged. I think there was a certain amount of security in being with each other than being apart.
President Bush: But the day ended on a relatively humorous note[/b] . The agents said, "You'll be sleeping downstairs. Washington's still a dangerous place." And I said no, I can't sleep down there, the bed didn't look comfortable. I was really tired, Laura was tired, we like our own bed. We like our own routine. You know, kind of a nester. Like the way things are. I knew I had to deal with the issue the next day and provide strength and comfort to the country, and so I needed rest in order to be mentally prepared. So I told the agent we're going upstairs, and he reluctantly said okay. Laura wears contacts, and she was sound asleep. Barney was there. And the agent comes running up and says, "We're under attack. We need you downstairs," and so there we go. I'm in my running shorts and my T-shirt, and I'm barefooted. Got the dog in one hand, Laura had a cat, I'm holding Laura --
Mrs. Bush: I don't have my contacts in, and I'm in my fuzzy house slippers --
President Bush: And this guy's out of breath, and we're heading straight down to the basement because there's an incoming unidentified airplane, which is coming toward the White House. Then the guy says it's a friendly airplane. And we hustle all the way back upstairs and go to bed.
Mrs. Bush: [laughs] And we just lay there thinking about the way we must have looked.
Noonan: So the day starts in tragedy and ends in Marx Brothers.
President Bush: That's right -- we got a laugh out of it[/b] ."