Al Gore "Chickens Out"

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BoyntonStu

Joined Apr 18, 2009
52
Report: Democrats Refuse to Allow Skeptic to Testify Alongside Gore At Congressional Hearing

Thursday, April 23, 2009By Marc Morano
'House Democrats don't want Gore humiliated'
Climate Depot Exclusive - Updated
Washington, DC -- UK's Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, claimed House Democrats have refused to allow him to appear alongside former Vice President Al Gore at a high profile global warming hearing on Friday April 24, 2009 at 10am in Washington. Monckton told Climate Depot that the Democrats rescinded his scheduled joint appearance at the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Friday. Monckton said he was informed that he would not be allowed to testify alongside Gore when his plane landed from England Thursday afternoon.
“The House Democrats don't want Gore humiliated, so they slammed the door of the Capitol in my face,” Monckton told Climate Depot in an exclusive interview. “They are cowards.”
According to Monckton, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), Ranking Member on the Energy & Commerce Committee, had invited him to go head to head with Gore and testify at the hearing on Capitol Hill Friday. But Monckton now says that when his airplane from London landed in the U.S. on Thursday, he was informed that the former Vice-President had “chickened out” and there would be no joint appearance. Gore is scheduled to testify on Friday to the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment's fourth day of hearings on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The hearing will be held in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building.
According to Monckton, House Democrats told the Republican committee staff earlier this week that they would be putting forward an unnamed 'celebrity' as their star witness Friday at a multi-panel climate hearing examining the House global warming bill. The "celebrity" witness turned out to be Gore. Monckton said the GOP replied they would respond to the Democrats' "celebrity" with an unnamed "celebrity" of their own. But Monckton claims that when the Democrats were told who the GOP witness would be, they refused to allow him to testify alongside Gore.
[ Update: 1:55 PM EST: A GOP House source told Climate Depot that the Democrats on the Committee said “absolutely not” to allowing Monckton to appear during today's Gore hearing. The GOP committee “pushed at multiple levels” to bring Monckton in to testify but the Democrats “refused,” according to the GOP source. Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich was called in to testify after Monckton was rejected by the committee Democrats, according to the Congressional source.]
“The Democrats have a lot to learn about the right of free speech under the US Constitution. Congress Henry Waxman's (D-CA) refusal to expose Al Gore's sci-fi comedy-horror testimony to proper, independent scrutiny by the House minority reeks of naked fear,” Monckton said from the airport Thursday evening.
“Waxman knows there has been no 'global warming' for at least a decade. Waxman knows there has been seven and a half years' global cooling. Waxman knows that, in the words of the UK High Court judge who condemned Gore's mawkish movie as materially, seriously, serially inaccurate, 'the Armageddon scenario that he depicts is not based on any scientific view,'” Monckton explained. Monckton has previously testified before the House Committee in March. (See: Monckton: Have the courage to do nothing...US Congress told climate change is not real ) Monckton has also publicly challenged Gore to a debate. (See: Al Gore Challenged to International TV Debate on Global Warming By Lord Monckton - March 19, 2007 )
A call to the Democratic office of the House Energy and Commerce Committee seeking comment was not immediately returned Thursday night.



Isn't Global Warming a Science issue that requires all input?


BoyntonStu
 

HarveyH42

Joined Jul 22, 2007
426
Is Lord Christopher Monckton a real scientist, or same as Gore, just the opposite side of the circus? Seems to be a huge waste of time and money, if only Gore's view is to be considered, as it would mean they have already made their decision.

We live on this planet, and we should take very good care of it, because we've yet to find another place to defile and destroy. I don't think terror tactics and scary stories will get people moving in the right direction. We don't control the planet, just dirty it up. We don't cause the flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes, or volcanoes, nor do we have any control over these events. Same with Global Warming/Cooling, it's going the happen, and if we want to survive, we should be spending the time and money on ways to ride it out.

Reducing man-made greenhouse gases, won't have much of measurable impact on whatever is to come. Wonder how much of a set-back Mr. Gore took from the two volcanic eruptions we've had these past few months? How many years of 'Save-the-Planet' were lost in just a few days. Guess we all just have to work a lot harder to pass the legislation, so Obama can spend several billion more of our tax dollars, on something that won't amount to much of anything, for the average American, but another huge bonus for the friends of Obama, who helped buy him the White House.


 

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
See: Science News, 171:214 (April 7, 2007). Average atmospheric temperature over Mars' poles has increased 4°C in 30 years. The ice caps are shrinking at an alarming rate releasing billions of tons of carbon dioxide in just the last 4 years.

Let's send Al Gore to Mars where he is really needed.

John
 

thatoneguy

Joined Feb 19, 2009
6,359
There is no global warming.

The south icecap is actually increasing in size.

Global warming concept started out in the 80's and was shouted down. It became a "fad" and "true" in the 90's. Time has shown again, that it is based on "junk science". If anything, Earth is heading towards a global Cooling period.



Notice how CO2 LAGS temperature, not the other way around.
 

leftyretro

Joined Nov 25, 2008
395
Unfortunately these days it's hard to get real facts on the subjects as the politicians play at being scientist and the scientist play at being politicians. The person looking for real information is being recruited rather then educated by both sides, so I'll just ignore it.

Lefty
 

loosewire

Joined Apr 25, 2008
1,686
Take a ruler along your bottom line,It is straight until you get to the
Appox Industrial revovution.Most science say that when our current
spike shot up to where It is now.They prove that with tree rings,
which you are entitled to disagree.
 
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loosewire

Joined Apr 25, 2008
1,686
Gore got all fluttered when some one had written proof that he had talked
about cap and trade back in the clinton years,before It became an issue
that he is defending now.I watched some of that hearing,warner said it best
tell the people the truth about taxing them up front.Can't be much clearer
than that.
 

Mark44

Joined Nov 26, 2007
628
Take a ruler along your bottom line,It is straight until you get to the
Appox Industrial revovution.Most science say that when our current
spike shot up to where It is now.They prove that with tree rings,
which you are entitled to disagree.
I believe you're referring to the "hockey-stick" graph of time versus temperature that Gore used in his "An Inconvenient Truth." That graph conveniently omits the Medieval Warm Period, which occurred between about 900AD to 1300AD. It was during this time that the Vikings founded settlements on Greenland, where it was warm enough for them to raise crops. It was warm enough in England to raise grapes for wine, but the ensuing Little Ice Age came along and it has not been as warm as that since then.

I saw one article about a melting glacier in Switzerland that receded enough to uncover an old mine.
 

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
This is actually old news now, but still worth noting (Supreme Court = US Supreme Court):

On April 2, 2007, in Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497 (2007), the Supreme Court found that greenhouse gases are air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act. The Court held that the Administrator must determine whether or not emissions of greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare, or whether the science is too uncertain to make a reasoned decision.
In other words, the EPA will decide whether the evidence is certain. Then, there will be no further discussion. Effectively, judical notice will be given that man-made GHG's are causing global warming, which endangers humankind. On the other side of the coin, legislation has been introduced, but not yet passed, that will license GHG polluters. In other words, if you want to emit so many tons a year, you can do it so long as you pay the proper fee. NB: It is a license, not a fine.

Is that protecting our health and welfare or just raising more taxes?

John
 

DonQ

Joined May 6, 2009
321
Yeah. Scientists are so stoopid. Like, they say carbon-dioxide is increasing, but you can see by this graph that every spring it goes back down again. Sure, it goes up ever year, but in the spring it goes back down.


http://www.ucar.edu/news/features/climatechange/images/mlo_record.gif

The year before that? Who cares! Anytime I look past the end of my nose it starts to hurt between my ears. :rolleyes:

It's like the ice cap, every year it gets small in the summer, but it gets big again in the winter. Only the scientists cares how thick it is! Like that matters.

And lots of glaciers are shrinking! Well, I can think of a couple of places where it snowed where it usually doesn't. Dozens of glaciers, all around the world, thousands of cubic miles of million-year old snow sure doesn't mean anything when some hodunk town had an unexpected snow flurry! (But it was so sunny and warm the very next day. Who cares!)

Besides, warming happened before, ask any dinosaur or mastodon. Sure it took many thousands of years to develop. We don't have the patience for that! We can do it in just a couple of hundred years, so why should we wait?

It's like the scientists even believe the world is round. Any one who looks out their door (although it hurts so much to look past my nose!) can see that the world is FLAT! In fact, there is a valley just down the street where it's obvious the world is concave!

Scientists are such idiots. They even think that heat and temperature are two completely different things.
 

Mark44

Joined Nov 26, 2007
628
Yeah. Scientists are so stoopid. Like, they say carbon-dioxide is increasing, but you can see by this graph that every spring it goes back down again. Sure, it goes up ever year, but in the spring it goes back down.


http://www.ucar.edu/news/features/climatechange/images/mlo_record.gif

The year before that? Who cares! Anytime I look past the end of my nose it starts to hurt between my ears. :rolleyes:

It's like the ice cap, every year it gets small in the summer, but it gets big again in the winter. Only the scientists cares how thick it is! Like that matters.

And lots of glaciers are shrinking! Well, I can think of a couple of places where it snowed where it usually doesn't. Dozens of glaciers, all around the world, thousands of cubic miles of million-year old snow sure doesn't mean anything when some hodunk town had an unexpected snow flurry! (But it was so sunny and warm the very next day. Who cares!)

Besides, warming happened before, ask any dinosaur or mastodon. Sure it took many thousands of years to develop. We don't have the patience for that! We can do it in just a couple of hundred years, so why should we wait?

It's like the scientists even believe the world is round. Any one who looks out their door (although it hurts so much to look past my nose!) can see that the world is FLAT! In fact, there is a valley just down the street where it's obvious the world is concave!

Scientists are such idiots. They even think that heat and temperature are two completely different things.
OK, I get it. You're really being sarcastic.

Granted, CO2 is increasing, but is there any evidence that an increase of CO2 causes the global average temperature to increase? There is a lot of evidence to suggest that an increase in temperature causes an increase in CO2, but not the other way around. Over the last half-million years, the increase in CO2 has lagged temperature increases by about 800 years.

The graph you showed of CO2 measured at Mauna Loa shows the concentration of this gas to be monotonically increasing, at least over the time interval of the graph. Over many millions of years, the current concentration is a small fraction (about 1/20th) of what it was 500 million years ago.

The principal objection to CO2 seems to be the fear that its increase causes the world to get warmer. Given that CO2 has increased in recent time, has this increase caused the world to get warmer? Apparently not, since the global average temperature seems to have peaked about 10 or 11 years ago, and seems to have decreased since then. A few climate scientists are predicting global cooling within the next 30 years. Here's a link to an article that appeared in Pravda in January -- http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/106922-0/. A study by two Chinese scientists, Lin Zhen-Shan and Sun Xian, was published in 2006 predicts the same -- http://www.springerlink.com/content/g28u12g2617j5021/fulltext.pdf.

Ice caps? The north polar ice cap melted back to very low levels a couple or three years ago, but seems to have recovered much of its lost ice. For the south polar ice cap, the amount of ice there appears to be increasing. A report from October 2007 states that "Antarctic ice cap growth reaches record levels" -- http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2007/10/antarctica-ice-cap-growth-reaches.html

Glaciers? A lot of glaciers have been melting, and have been doing so for many decades. Many of the glaciers in Olympic National Park, close to where I live, and in which I have hiked many hundreds of miles, have been receding since at least the 1920s. Could there be a cause for this other than CO2? Especially since glaciers at the mid latitudes have been receding since the end of the last ice age about 14,000 years ago. John Stossel did a report on GW a couple of years ago, and mentioned that a Swiss glacier receded enough to uncover the workings of a silver mine. Apparently glaciers can grow and retreat.

Many of the old fogies on this board remember the scares of the 70s and 80s, when we were warned about the dangers of global cooling. Sometime in the 90s or so, the tune changed, but a lot of the same people were warning us now of global warming. Here's a link to an interesting Web page that chronicles the fear-mongering that goes back to the 1890s. http://www.jamesphogan.com/bb/bulletin.php?id=1086

Mark
 

DonQ

Joined May 6, 2009
321
Sarcastic? Yeah. But I am just at a loss when I hear this sort of stuff.

It's just that even though there may be valid arguments that global warming isn't happening, every one I've heard includes something so wrong that I just won't listen to anything else they have to say. Even ignoring those with basic conceptual flaws, for every "no problem" argument there is, there are many multiple "big problem" arguments.

As for the conceptual problems:
Temperature instead of heat. Ice area, instead of ice volume. Floating ice versus ice on land. Some short-term variation superimposed on a long term trend (Valleys prove that the world is concave.) If the presenter doesn't know these things, you can safely ignore anything else they have to say.

Even factually correct people can be wrong, but all the factually incorrect people are.

It used to be the argument that CO2 wasn't increasing. Then it was that man wasn't causing it. Now it's that the world isn't actually getting hotter (heat does not necessarily mean temperature!!) What will be the next argument? Hot is OK? It doesn't mean that the ice will melt? Higher sea-levels is a good thing? It's coming, just wait for it.



So the temperature isn't increasing like some people say it should be to justify "Global Warming". Suppose I put a pot of water and crushed ice on the stove with a thermometer in it. It will say 32F. When I turned on the heat, the ice will start to melt, but the thermometer will still say 32F. As long as there is still ice in the pot, the thermometer will continue to show 32 (or close to it). What happens when the last of the ice melts? The heat that was melting the ice will now go somewhere else. I bet when the last of the ice in the pot finally melts, things will start to get different in a hurry!

Point being, while the temperature stays the same, the heat content of the pot is changing quite a bit! And just because the thermometer still says 32F, doesn't mean that things aren't going to start changing pretty soon.

Same with the earth. Slightly different variables, scale, and consequences.


The media are the ones that are so worried about the temperature, whereas scientists are worried about the heat. "Global Warming"?? This is how some media "expert" decided to ignore the explanation of the difference between temperature and heat and come up with something short enough to put in a headline. If you've ever seen media coverage of anything that is important to you, then you know that the media are dolts! So forget the term "Global Warming". It is a media headline, not a scientific explanation of anything.

As an analogy for the Earth, think of an air-conditioner. An air-conditioner is actually a heat pump, much the same as the Earths weather, since weather is based on moving heat (not temperature) around the planet. The energy input of the air-conditioner (the power cord) is listed in watts (remember watts? same as on a heater). The more watts, the more cold the air-conditioner can make. More heat makes more cold!? Yes! But only by putting more heat somewhere else (but not always by increasing the temperature.)

In the end, the earths atmosphere is just a huge heat engine. The output of the engine is the act of moving the weather around. Each and every excessive cold snap could just as easily be a sign of "global warming" [sic] (the version based on heat, not temperature) as a hot spell is. Every time I hear someone say a snow storm proves that there is no problem... Well, there are simply some people who don't have a clue as to how weather works, (or that cold, wet air can have more energy than warm dry air.)

In a heat-engine powered world, some glaciers or floating ice can even grow in volume (most of those that are larger but thinner count as less volume.) Extremes of hot and cold is what is to be expected from a heat engine with more "horsepower". But overall, the combined heat of the ice is greater (much of it has converted to water), even if the temperature isn't.



It is a well known fact that more carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere lets less of the heat (watts) re-radiate to space. The more watts the earth absorbs, and does not re-radiate, the more watts the Earths heat engine has to work with to energize the weather. These things are not debatable. What weather we will actually get, and in what order, is the only part of this that is not fully known, but more active weather is generally not a good thing.

Whether or not it will mean the end of the Earth as we know it is, of course, still open to debate, but I always consider the consequences when I figure the odds. The odds of one full chamber in a revolver coming to the top on my turn in a game of Russian Roulette has to be weighed against how bad it's going to ruin my day if it does. So I don't play that game even though my odds are good. The chance that drastically changing the energy balance in the earths heat engine will change anything at all, has to be weighed against the possibility that it has to ruin a lot of peoples day, in a global sort of way, if it does.

I am much more inclined to believe that causing large changes in a hugely powerful, complex, weather generating engine, is a bad thing, than I am to believe anything from people that don't even know the difference between temperature and heat.

The Earth has been functioning pretty good for the last 40,000 years or more that we've been here, without the massive discharge of CO2 that it has seen in the last couple of hundred years or so (increasing at a far, far greater rate than anything recorded).

Now, it is a real possibility that the pot on the stove has almost melted all the ice. What will happen then?... I would choose to not play that game. I'm aware that others feel differently. But I believe that this version of Russian Roulette should not be played by pointing the barrel at our children and grandchildren.
 

HarveyH42

Joined Jul 22, 2007
426
So, if CO2 prevents heat from leaving the planet, wouldn't also prevent it from entering as well? Wouldn't think it to be a one way gate. I have serious doubts than mankind is the to blame, we only inhabit a small portion of this planet. How much CO2 does a volcanic eruption contribute to the GW problem, not mention the dust, ash, and large quantities of other not so friendly gases? We get 3 or 4 good ones each year, on land. Under the sea, I think it's almost daily... Maybe the saltwater filters it out for us...
 

Nanophotonics

Joined Apr 2, 2009
383
For the time being, our species wouldn't survive without global warming, unless otherwise, time allows us to evolve into a stage where we would be able to "biologically" adapt to an extremely low temperature environment. But how long would it take? and what kind of environmental conditions would allow us to at least survive and start our "evolution" towards the "ice-age"? Certainly not an easy "guess". The question here I believe is probably about how much (how significant is it?) have we mankind contributed/affected/altered to the effect of global warming and will the Earth be as stable as it appears to be if ever we are really dis-balancing the "equilibrium" state. I think if we do finally realize that we've done something "bad", I'm afraid by that time it might be too late to ensure a "safe-reverse" of the situation and we would be facing catastrophic environmental changes. The Earth might not "feel" it, but we will.

Thanks.
 
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Mark44

Joined Nov 26, 2007
628
So, if CO2 prevents heat from leaving the planet, wouldn't also prevent it from entering as well? Wouldn't think it to be a one way gate. I have serious doubts than mankind is the to blame, we only inhabit a small portion of this planet. How much CO2 does a volcanic eruption contribute to the GW problem, not mention the dust, ash, and large quantities of other not so friendly gases? We get 3 or 4 good ones each year, on land. Under the sea, I think it's almost daily... Maybe the saltwater filters it out for us...
It's probably more frequent than daily, like continually. The "smokers" that are present in many places on the sea floor produce huge quantities of CO2 all the time, much of which is absorbed into the sea water.

As the sea water's temperature rises, as it does when the earth's temperature rises, the CO2 comes out of solution, and this is a possible explanation of why the atmospheric CO2 concentration lags temperature. This is the same mechanism that releases carbonation from an open bottle of 7Up or other carbonated soft drink.
 

HarveyH42

Joined Jul 22, 2007
426
It's probably more frequent than daily, like continually. The "smokers" that are present in many places on the sea floor produce huge quantities of CO2 all the time, much of which is absorbed into the sea water.

As the sea water's temperature rises, as it does when the earth's temperature rises, the CO2 comes out of solution, and this is a possible explanation of why the atmospheric CO2 concentration lags temperature. This is the same mechanism that releases carbonation from an open bottle of 7Up or other carbonated soft drink.
So which contributes more CO2, man-made or natural. Any guesses at how we might control or reduce natural emissions. It would kind of suck, if we get beaten in to GW submission, forced to do all the right things, and nature turns around and spews out a 100 times more then we are currently emitting.

People just don't get it, the planet is our host, we have no control, not even a word, in global matters like this, the weather, earthquakes, or volcanoes. These things were going on long time before we arrived, and will likely continue long after we are gone. I do agree with cleaning up our mess, who wants to live in a cesspool or garbage dump. It's kind of rude to the host.

I don't agree with trying to fight this thing, that can not be changed. We should focus on adapting and surviving. That's how we did it in the past, seemed to work well enough, even for the mentally and intellectually challenged.
 
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