Global Warming Exaggerations

The problem with the global warming debate and our hopes of arriving at anything resembling a cohesive policy is the fact that the whole issue is being framed by the far-left ideologues.  And that frame is a binary one.  On one hand, you can either be a complete denier.  No warming of the temperature anywhere due to human causes what-so-ever.  The other end of the spectrum; complete global warming alarmist.  The world is going to be massively impacted due to the massive warming caused by human activity.  And not only will this impact to our mother earth be massive, but it will be catastrophic to the human race.

There can be no middle ground.  There is no room for a moderating voice.  Only hot or cold.

So successful is this far-left attempt to frame the debate that they have effectively shut out the dissenting voice as it pertains to the most emotional aspect of their argument; that of global annihilation.  Unless you buy into the all-in position that not only are we warming, not only are we warming at record rates, not only is all it being caused by human activity and that the sum of ALL of this will result in the end of human habitat on the earth, you are a denier.  A denier on par with those religious kooks who deny evolution.  In short, you must take the extreme position or else your position has no merit.

I suspect most people you talk to in the street don’t hold that position.  Admittedly it’s hard to determine.  You can’t simply ask the question, “Do you believe in global warming” so complete is the alarmist’s framing, but you must go through the whole litany of questions until you arrive at the truth.

“Do you feel, that through the sole efforts of mankind, we are causing a chain of events that will result in the end of the civilized world as we know it?  And unless prevented through the use of massively destructive economic forces we will not have any hope of surviving?”

It is illustrative of the framing that the far enviro-left has accomplished that only by such specific questioning does the truth come out.  I, like many if not most people I know, feel that humans have caused some type of warming that otherwise would not have taken place.  Who can argue that a small gentle meadow full of Disney blue-birds is a cooler healthier environment than a black-top covered airport runway system?  Who would argue that a thermometer placed in that location hundreds of years ago would read some amount of degrees cooler than it does today as jet after jet pass it by all the while collecting heat from the sun in its black colored surface?

No one.

And who might argue that CO2, being a greenhouse gas, doesn’t collect or trap heat and that by release more CO2 into the atmosphere, the world might be some degree of degrees warmer?

Few would.

This story best sums up my view of the debate.  In it is discussed a news release focusing on Greenland and its glaciers:

The news release, echoed by the news media, claimed that Greenland had lost 15 percent of its permanent ice cover from 1999 to 2011. That translates to 125,000 cubic miles, according to a rough calculation by Etienne Berthier, a glaciologist with the University of Toulouse, enough melted ice to raise sea levels three to five feet.

The corresponding map in the atlas itself indicated that significant portions of Greenland’s coastline had become ice-free.

Scary, right!?!  From 1999 through this year, a span of 12 years, Greenland has lost a full 15% of its ice.

Jeepers!

Sadly, for you alarmists, it is simply not true:

Glaciologists, previously bruised by an exaggerated claim about the melting of Himalayan glaciers in a 2007 United Nations report that became fodder for global warming skeptics, mobilized as a truth squad.

On blogs, on radio programs and in newspaper columns, they stated emphatically that Greenland has not lost 15 percent of its ice cover in recent years. The retreat, they said, is more like one-tenth of 1 percent. They were quick to add that nobody at the atlas had consulted them.

Ice is melting.  Most likely due to the fact that something in or around said ice is warming.  But the extent of that melt?

1/10th%.  Or, another way:  .1%  Or another:  00.1%

That is, if you multiplied the REAL met by 10 you would get all the way to 1%.  You would then have to multiple by 10 AGAIN!  And even then, even then, you would only be at 10%.  Fully 50% shy of the original claim of 15%.

To get from real melt to claimed melt you have to multiply by 150.  The real melt is 150th of the reported melt.

Which is about where I am on the degree to which humans are actively changing the climate of the earth to the degree that we’ll do any damage to ourselves at all.

Now for my conspiracy report.  Given that alarmists are all into the science when it comes to evolution and stuff like that, I am SURE they know the science of global warming.  And the fact that they ignore said science means that there is another reason for them to foist this fairy tale on us.  My suspicion?

These people believe that the distribution of wealth around the world is too great.  So great, in fact, that they have to find some means to even it out.  And if they can marshal the ignorant left among them to accomplish this goal in the name of global warming, then that’s what they’ll do.