June 12, 2007
Global Warming Update (XXVIII)

Another inconvenient truth for Al Gore:

Pictures of [Tanzania' Mt. Kilimanjaro], which has lost 90 percent of its ice cover, were featured in Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth." Greenpeace activists once held a satellite news conference on the summit to sway participants in an international climate conference.

But most scientists who study Kilimanjaro's glaciers have long been uneasy with the volcano's poster-child status.

Yes, ice cover has shrunk by 90 percent, they say.

But no, the buildup of greenhouse gases from cars, power plants and factories is not to blame.

"Kilimanjaro is a grossly overused mis-example of the effects of climate change," said University of Washington climate scientist Philip Mote, co-author of an article in the July/August issue of American Scientist magazine.

One scientist frets that the
new article will be seized on by "global warming naysayers" and could give people the mistaken impression that it calls global warming into question,
No, it should help refocus the discussion on facts and science instead of hysteria.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 12, 2007 07:41 AM | Email This
Comments
1. But, but, the Al Gore hysteria makes it so much more fun.

Wasn't it the cynical Drudge who posted that Denver had the coldest day in May or June just before a global hysteria conference of one sort or another a couple of days ago in that city?

Posted by: swatter on June 12, 2007 08:06 AM
2. From what I have read, the Earth is actually heading into a cooling phase. The warming phase is over. Of course it will take some time for this to be noticed. I have a feeling the global warming socialists are in a mad rush to capitalize on a cooling phase. If they get what they want, they will take credit for cooling temperatures. If they don't get their way and temps cool, they will never be believed again. Back in the 70's they were crying about an upcoming ice age. When that didn't happen they started global warming.

Posted by: william on June 12, 2007 08:28 AM
3. william, where did you get your info? If you didn't know, I am quite skeptical on scientists and their predictions of the weather. My word, they can't even predict the weather today, much less than years down the road.

So, before we have to conserve energy to save the energy for the "global" freeze coming, show me the "beef".

Posted by: swatter on June 12, 2007 08:56 AM
4. BUT, but were all going to die screams Al Bore.

Come on folks get on the dang band wagon. LOL


Time to go fill up my 6000 lbs Land Cruiser. (-:

Posted by: Army Medic/Vet on June 12, 2007 09:35 AM
5. Get the facts about Al Gore:

Al Gore only has a B.A. in Government (no higher degree achieved)

Mr. Gore's high school performance on the college board achievement tests in physics (488 out of 800 "terrible," St. Albans retired teacher and assistant headmaster John Davis told The Post) and chemistry (519 out of 800 "He didn't do too well in chemistry," Mr. Davis observed) suggests that Mr. Gore would have trouble with science for the rest of his life.

Al Gore Refuses to Take Personal Energy Ethics Pledge:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=7616011f-802a-23ad-435e-887baa7069ca

Gore home's energy use: 20 times average:
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54450

Bush's Ranch House 'Far More Eco-Friendly' Than Gore's:
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200703/CUL20070301c.html

Gore's 'carbon offsets' paid to firm he owns:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54528

Al Gore Pushes 'Pollution Tax':
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/9/18/174743.shtml


The Anti "Man-Made" Global Warming Resource:
http://z4.invisionfree.com/Popular_Technology/index.php?showtopic=2050

"There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition."
- Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology, MIT

Posted by: Poptech on June 12, 2007 10:17 AM
6. Why do you hate AlGore?

Posted by: JDH on June 12, 2007 10:31 AM
7. To Williams point about global cooling -

http://www.counterpunch.com/cockburn06092007.html

Posted by: DJ on June 12, 2007 10:49 AM
8. Its easy to hate AlGore...he is a pompous ass, a huge hippocrite and an avowed socialist....everything that true Americans aren't.

Posted by: Allan Rothlisberg on June 12, 2007 10:53 AM
9. Several months ago, the alarmists adopted the term "Climate Change" instead of global warming. This helps in 2 ways:

First, it sounds more dramatic and encompasses a much larger scale of activity as they claim some areas will cool as a result of some areas getting warmer.

Secondly, no matter if it gts hotter or colder, then they can claim to win the argument.

My bigger question is "Why is warming the earth by 1 degree so bad?" Since the earth has gone through much warmer and much cooler periods even in the last millenium, are the impacts going to be detrimental to the earth or merely to humans who would have to adapt to the oceans being about 20 inches higher in about 100 years? (by all estimates except Al Gore)

Posted by: KEn on June 12, 2007 11:16 AM
10. Okay.
What are we going to call Glacier Nat'l Park once those are gone?
There are 40-something left out of about 150.

Posted by: Glacier Boy on June 12, 2007 11:36 AM
11. It has been noted that at best man can alter temp by no more than .050%. That in itself, should cause pause in thinking we can "change" climate. The earth changes climates by itself just as the earths electrmagnetic field changes on its own. The failure to recognize solar activity, volcanic activity, etc indicates that those nut cases who have a religeous belief (read socialist mantras) refuse to listen to anything that gets in the way of their ideology. Truth and facts mean nothing to these people. I feel sad that they are so addicted to the false God of secularism that they now have no real soul...and real common sense.

Posted by: Allan Rothlisberg on June 12, 2007 12:10 PM
12. new article will be seized on by "global warming naysayers" and could give people the mistaken impression that it calls global warming into question,

That's the problem with GW, it's become unfalsifiable.

Posted by: Frank Black on June 12, 2007 12:20 PM
13. Given that the Pacific Ocean is cooling, I think we're heading into a cooler phase as well.

And given that the scientists in that article specifically state about the heat loss of the Pacific:

huge natural heat vent emitted about as much heat during the 1980s and 90s as would be expected from a redoubling of the carbon dioxide content in the air.

And

sudden ocean coolings particularly complicate the problem of separating natural temperature changes from man-made impacts on the Earth's temperature.

Maybe it's not man and CO2 after all? Maybe - just maybe - it's the Earth's normal pattern.

Posted by: Edmonds Dan on June 12, 2007 12:45 PM
14. Who could have said the following:

"You can't go calling global warming a scam. I have a company selling energy credits. And I invest heavily in alternative fuel sources. If there is not a hysteria, how can I make some real dough?"

Posted by: swatter on June 12, 2007 01:47 PM
15. The fact that the loss of ice on Mount Kilimanjaro cannot be used as proof of global warming does not mean that the Earth is not warming. There is ample and conclusive evidence that Earth's average temperature has increased in the past 100 years, and the decline of mid- and high-latitude glaciers is a major piece of evidence. But the special conditions on Kilimanjaro make it unlike the higher-latitude mountains, whose glaciers are shrinking because of rising atmospheric temperatures. Mass- and energy-balance considerations and the shapes of features all point in the same direction, suggesting an insignificant role for atmospheric temperature in the fluctuations of Kilimanjaro's ice.

It is possible, though, that there is an indirect connection between the accumulation of greenhouse gases and Kilimanjaro's disappearing ice: There is strong evidence of an association over the past 200 years or so between Indian Ocean surface temperatures and the atmospheric circulation and precipitation patterns that either feed or starve the ice on Kilimanjaro. These patterns have been starving the ice since the late 19th century--or perhaps it would be more accurate to say simply reversing the binge of ice growth in the third quarter of the 19th century. Any contribution of rising greenhouse gases to this circulation pattern necessarily emerged only in the last few decades; hence it is responsible for at most a fraction of the recent decline in ice and a much smaller fraction of the total decline.- Philip W. Mote and Georg Kaser in American Scientist, July-August 2007

Posted by: Acid Brain on June 12, 2007 02:00 PM
16. Andrew Wilkow on Sirius Patriot made an interesting observation about the so-called carbon offsets. He makes an analogy of if a man rapes a woman and then gives money to a rape crisis center, is he then rape neutral?

Posted by: william on June 12, 2007 02:07 PM
17. Swatter @ 3 in re: William @ 2.
I read the same thing as William not to long ago. I believe it was in the Wall Street Journal. The mention was that the earth was going to start cooling about 2010 or 2012 (I forget which year was cited, I'm thinking at this point it was 2012). Be that as it may, if we are heading into a cooling phase, William is 100% right. I mentioned much the same thing in another post around here somewhere. If the eco-wacko left gets what they want now, they will take full credit for the cooling trend. Emboldened, imagine what they will demand at that point. The control that the eco-wacko left will want over our lives and economy will make Uncle Joe Stalin look like a libertarian.

Posted by: G Jiggy on June 12, 2007 10:02 PM
18. Sounds more the Great Global Warming Swindle with articles like this. The man-made global warming hysterics should be dismissed as global warming extremists.

With that said, contrary to Rush Limbaugh - I am all for cleaning up the environment and the air we breathe, using new technology in an economically-friendly way - those two aren't mutually exclusive are they ?

Posted by: KS on June 13, 2007 12:44 PM
19. I haven't listened to Rush in a long time. I really haven't heard any conservative talk show host out right say that nothing should be done to clean up the environment.Most people should draw the line on feel good fixes over actual results. Ethanol is a feel good fix. Reducing CO2 levels is a feel good fix. Hybrid cars are mostly feel good fixes

Posted by: william on June 13, 2007 01:20 PM
20. Once again I have to agree with William. I don't know anybody who wants to live in/on a polluted planet but for some reason the left has combined Global Warming™ (and/or Climate Change™) and pollution into one. The better to castigate I'd guess. If you are a "Global Warming™ denier" than you automatically want to pee into our drinking water, sprinkle mercury around the playground of the local Montessori School and pour dirty engine oil into the nearest lake. Questioning the mechanism of Global Warming™ will get your "denial" compared to the holocaust deniers. Jeez, no hyperbole there.

Global Warming™ and pollution are two separate things. Ethanol creates more smog pollution than gasoline. How is that a good thing? Crippling western economies to meet an arbitrary CO2 number from the past when CO2 isn't the problem. How does that help anything?

It seems that all logic and any sort of rational cost benefit analysis is lost in the dogma of environmental extremism. At some point the adults will have to take control. I don't expect Algore to step forward.

Posted by: G Jiggy on June 13, 2007 08:44 PM
21. You naysayers are seriously retarded.. 1/2 a degree max? Where do you find this? I hate even coming across sites like this where a cesspool of disinformation forms by those who want to believe it's ok to drive 3 ton land cruisers. The article only states that the melting of peak ice is not ONE of the many effects of global warming. Period. That's it. I can post annoying links too:

LOLOMG 68% Repubs are retarded:
http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=27847

Posted by: pat on June 14, 2007 02:32 AM
22. There are lies, damn lies and statistics. Polls are statistical and always should be taken with a grain of salt.

Posted by: william on June 14, 2007 12:16 PM
23. I've heard that 42% of all statistics are made up on the spot...

Posted by: Ken on June 14, 2007 03:43 PM
24. You're right if it has numbers in it then it can't be reliable..

Durhhhhh.

Posted by: pat on June 15, 2007 11:36 AM
25. Stop Pudge from talking and CO2 production would dramatically reverse!

Posted by: keeppudgehonest on June 16, 2007 10:23 PM
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