Gee, you sound like a disgruntled oil company employee. Quoting Seth Jarvis <SJarvis@slco.org>:
I've got to ask, "What science did Don post?" I can't find any. Linking to the blog of an oil-state, rabidly anti-environmental senator doesn't (thank goodness) constitute science.
The essence of Don's post was "What about the Medieval Warming Period?
There wasn't one. The paleoclimatological (now there's a fun word to type) research performed by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration is revealing. The findings are highly readable and to the point:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/medieval.html
Don's post also offered a link to an article from CanadaFreePress.com, a website dedicated to pretty much anything far right-wing, especially climate change denial and fundamentalist Christianity.
The CFP article offered was titled, "New Findings Indicate Today's Greenhouse Gas Levels Not Unusual," written by Dr. Tim Ball and Tom Harris, both of www.nrsp.com.
NRSP is the "Natural Resources Stewardship Project." Warm and fuzzy name, don't you think?
One problem, though, is that the NRSP is an organization created and run by energy industry lobbyists. The NRSP's mailing address is the same as the High Park Advocacy Group, which is the PR firm used by the Canadian Gas Association and the Canadian Electricity Association.
Tom Harris, one of the authors of the article Don cites, is the director of a public affairs and public policy at that very same energy industry PR firm.
The article's other author, Dr. Tim Ball, works for the National Center for Public Policy Research, an organization that loves to publish papers questioning global climate change, thanks to a $225,000 grant from Exxon Mobil.
Cigarettes are safe, installing air bags will cripple the auto industry, and global warming is a hoax. How do I know all this? The corporate lobbyists told me so.
Seth
-----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces+sjarvis=slco.org@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces+sjarvis=slco.org@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Lockman Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 5:53 PM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Response to Seth Jarvis
I'm going to try to post this yet another way. Today I haven't been able to get any replies to actually post on the Utah astronomy forum. I got one original composition type test to post. This time I copied another original composition type post to note pad, edited it, then copied it to this original post. This is a lot of effort. I hope it works.
The timing of this is atrocious because for some reason when I replied earlier this morning, the reply never made it to Utah-astronomy. I kept waiting and it never showed up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------- I wrote:
While this is closer to an appropriate response than the one last week, it doesn't really provide the science or claimed science that invalidates the science or claimed science of the information Colton posted last week. I also don't agree that the posting was only remotely astronomical. Except for the few references to the Earth, it was entirely astronomical. The reason I reacted the way I did last week was that It appeared to me you were attempting to censor any information which might conflict with your own opinion on the subject. In "Broca's Brain", Sagan discussed this sort censorship using the way they handled Velikovski's ideas when he tried to publish them versus how they should have handled them. So the only appropriate response to Colton's post, if you didn't agree with it, would be the scientific reasons you think it's wrong.
In response to Seth Jarvis writing:
Bill,
I've been away for a few days. Sorry for the delay in responding. The only remotely astronomical connection to the issue of Global Warming comes from a handful of folks who say that rather than being the result of human activity, the global climate change we're currently experiencing is caused by a change in solar output. That's just not so - it's been investigated thoroughly. Natural causes (solar output, volcanoes, etc.) can account for only a small fraction of the climate change we're experiencing ("Climate Change Science Moves from Proof to Prevention" Scientific American, Feb 1, 2007). Citing an opinion piece by a right-wing blowhard in a Canadian newspaper does not mean the decades of work by thousands of working scientists who've published their work in peer-reviewed professional journals has somehow been disproved. Our sense of "fairness" has been distorted to the point that anyone can say anything, no matter how nonsensical it is, and the press feels obligated to give their ideas equal consideration with the scientific data that professional researchers have labored long and hard to acquire. Remember "Intelligent Design?"
The National Academies of Science, the Association for the Advancement of Science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, American Meteorology Society and other organizations representing professional climate researchers are unequivocal in their position that the global climate change we're seeing is primarily the result of human activities, and they've got libraries of hard scientific fact to back them up. Professional climate researchers are finding _more_ evidence, not less, that the majority of the climate change we're seeing around the world is caused by us.
Global Warming deniers have been shown the data and they're not letting go of their delusions. What good comes from arguing with them?
Seth
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