The John Kerry Version of Pascal’s Wager

In comments recently, John Kerry tossed out the environmentalist version of Pascals Wager:

If we make the necessary efforts to address this challenge—and supposing I’m wrong or scientists are wrong, 97 percent of them all wrong—supposing they are, what’s the worst that can happen? We put millions of people to work transitioning our energy, creating new and renewable and alternative; we make life healthier because we have less particulates in the air and cleaner air and more health; we give ourselves greater security through greater energy independence—that’s the downside. This is not a matter of politics or partisanship; it’s a matter of science and stewardship. And it’s not a matter of capacity; it’s a matter of willpower.

Compare those statements to Pascal’s Wager and you have an eerie confirmation that anthropogenic climate change theory is in fact a religious dogma—an incontrovertible doctrine of the religion of humanism. Pascal’s Wager goes like this: It would be better to believe in God than disbelieve, since you have a lot to lose if God is real, and nothing to lose if he is not. Notice the similarity?

It is better to believe in global warming. Because even if global warming is completely untrue, we would all be better off in a “green,” post-industrial world.

Farnkly, Pascal’s Wager is much more compelling. But both are reprehensible apologetics in my mind. They are both manipulative. Why is gloom and doom greenhouse fire and carbon emission preaching all that different from “End is Near” street preaching on the imminent unleashing of fire and brimstone? They just aren’t different. The preachers of climate change are the fire and brimstone street preachers of liberal humanism. It’s just that simple.

But there are differences. You could say Christian apocalypse-mongers might actually care about the people they are preaching to. John Kerry, Al Gore, and the rest don’t give a carbon emission about humanity. Their goal isn’t to save humans from destruction, it’s just to save “Mother Earth.” Why do you think they love abortion so much? They want to kill as many people as possible, so that the earth can return to its former untainted glory. But they are also elitists. So… they, of course, would never include themselves in the “much-needed” human extermination.

But my biggest problem with John Kerry’s Wager is this: If his theories on climate change are wrong, there’s nothing that needs to be done. If his theories are right, there’s nothing that can be done. So you can see how a lot of us might not be believers. Spending billions of dollars, fundamentally transforming our way of life, and giving even more enormous power to the civil government while hamstringing our economy… none of these things sound like good ideas, whether Kerry’s right or wrong.

158 responses

  1. The OBVIOUS difference between what Kerry said & Pascal’s Wager is “belief”. Scientistsdo not BELIEVE in global warming. They ACCEPT it because of the enormous pile of data supporting it. Just like they accept that gravity follows an inverse square law,matter is composed of atoms, germs cause disease, and moving electrons constitute electricity. Scientific theories are not a faith. You can test them
    yourself and falsify them.

    • Largely agree, but I also think it’s more reasonable to disagree with global warming than many liberals think.

      1.) Buying global climate means accepting natural history. Natural history is *not* an experimental science that can be verified like Newtonian mechanics or electricity and magnetism. You have to look at historical, natural experiments and infer what happened thousands or millions of years ago and that requires more assumptions than, say, traditional chemistry or physics.

      2.) Geoscience is not as simple a field as physics. You have multiple systems interacting and we are trying to make a prediction about how they will interact. The global circulation models being run generally agree on warming, but they don’t converge.

      I think the evidence for anthropogenic global warming is pretty compelling. I do think reasonable people can disagree on it, but I also think *most* people who disagree with it are being unreasonable. If this weren’t a political issue, most of us would agree that global climate change was a problem being caused by humans.

      • Actually it is all quite simple:

        Only because you wish it to be complex it is for you and many others.

        The history of world temperature made simple along with the current politics of it made simple:

        The earth is cooler now than it was 4 billion years ago right?

        The earth is cooler now than it was 600 million years ago right?

        The earth is cooler now than it was 100 million years ago right?

        The earth is on average cooler now than it was 65 million years ago right?

        The earth is on average cooler now than it was 10 million years ago right?

        As a matter of fact from all these core samples etc. really if you were to smooth the shorter term ups and downs of a 4 billion year chart of the peaks and valleys of the projected past world’s temperatures from all these core samples and the highly technical ways that they have to project the past world’s temperatures you will get a chart with a downward overall trend in the world’s temperature for the 4 plus billion years that the
        scientists project that the earth has been around.

        So, there are debates about the trends in the last couple of hundred years.

        OMG the sky is falling, the sky is falling.

        Man has lived under warmer average temperature conditions in the past and man has lived under colder average temperatures in the past.

        If we are at the end of the last ice age or the start of a new ice age shouldn’t we see a few years of fluctuations in temperatures cooling and warming still or have we all lost simple common sense.

        There is nothing in any of the studies that shows any alarming long term spike that should scare anyone.

        As a matter of fact most all of the studies and graphs show that the historic normal for the temperature and thus weather swings on the planet we inhabit are far more dramatic than our last few hundred years of recording the actual temperature.

        As a matter of fact it seems that it is the interpretation of short term data that is the only thing that should be scarring us right now.

        It is certainly ridiculous to consider abandoning our rights and freedoms to a
        global green cabal over some very probably stupid interpretation of short term data.

        Every time the earth temperature has spiked in the distant past something has happened to bring it back down even to the point of Ice Ages in these cycles and with the overall trend being down suggesting I would say with everyone’s long term data being close to the same we ought to be worried in the very long run about living on a much colder planet not a much warmer planet.

        Also, good science that includes the effects of the sun’s cycles and cooling, and the earth’s rotation, and cooling and tip, and the earth’s cyclical rotation around the sun should be brought to the forefront and this stupid panic assumptive pseudo-science of short term scare tactics should be thrown in the trash bin of history along with things like the world is flat.

        Remember the old saying; assumptions only make an arss out of you and me.

        Also it is important to note that:

        The climate change carbon tax con scam is a debt based enslavement mechanism; carbon taxing on every living organism on the face of the earth because living organisms are greatly carbon, and the only living organism that I know of that knows how to utilize a medium of exchange is humans so guess who the target of enslavement is?

        Wake up and smell the great roses of socialist/commie/internationalist elite enslavement baby if they get their way!

        I pray that everyone will see the light and join the forces that oppose this world wide international enslavement.

        Remember that historically those in a society that assist in taking their society down into enslavement to a dictatorial power are usually the first to be slaughtered by the new dictatorial power because the new dictatorial power always knows that those people are traitors, and weak, and have already been used up to the best benefit to the new
        dictatorial power.

        So, we all need to see the light that this is simply another attempt by the money and power grabbing internationalist elites to financially and physically enslave the world.

        • If you think freedomringsforall’s comment is to long to stop and read don’t its a “must read” s/he has got it down perfect it’s actually pretty short and sweet for the amount of info it contains,.. At least in my opinion ,..

          • I think I addressed some of his biggest points. The fact that the earth has been cooling over the past billion years doesn’t mean that time is a reliable explanatory variable when we also have CO2.

            If you don’t think black people are discriminated against today- if you think that economic discrimination is the real problem- it’s because of the same statistical idea. Adding more information- like greenhouse gas concentrations- does a *MUCH* better job of explaining temperatures than time does. In the same way, adding family income does a better job of explaining education and child’s income than race does.

          • Sorry but I think you must be daft,…
            You tried to hard to link the unlikable,,…

          • No problem. Statistics is basic math. It’s complicated math, but it’s proven, even if you don’t understand it.
            Calculus, Linear Algebra, Statistics, Logic all exist and are true even if you claim they’re false. Rational people therefore conclude that CO2 therefore is a better explanation of warming than time is.

          • Wow you are really smart and rational as-well ,..
            There have been times in earths history while things were creeping and crawling and stomping and munching that the co2 levels were twice or more as high as they are now oh-rational one,… Stick that in your i can’t understand because i am to irrational & to dumb statistically pipe and smoke it,…

          • Sure. And there was also less landmass, too, and less crops were growing. And parts of modern-day Ohio may have been a desert, and the planet may not have been able to sustain 7 billion people back then.
            If you’ll agree that the warmer planet 500 million years ago may not have been able to feed 7 billion humans, I’ll agree that yes, stuff was living back then. Nobody is arguing that the earth will turn into Venus (although that *might* happen if we convert all of the shale into CO2 and the methane clathrates boil off). If anything, humans would stop being able to breath 5,000 ppm CO2 atmosphere before we got there.

          • Yeah just billion of other humping munching crapping creatures , you people are real book smart but crap in crap out , you can thank the modern university system that actually keeps the truth from you so they don’t have to change the text-books amongst other reasons ,.. You really like telling people how smart you are and just why you are the one we should listen to don’t you? I bet most people avoid you at parties unless you are at a mutual admiration liberal save the planet from all the wrong things loser climate change party then you are probable a hit,.. What about all the estrogen mimickers in all the water what about the islands of plastic the size of Texas what about the GEO engineering that Monsanto and other mega corp’s are funding that’s causing drought all over the USA forcing farmers off their land so the mega corps can buy it up what about the FDA being run by the same corps they are supposed to be regulating leading to literal poisons being given to the American people as groceries and medications I CAN GO ON AND ON YOU BLITHERING MORON go somewhere where your BS might be appreciated FOOL,…

          • >You really like telling people how smart you are and just why you are the one we should listen to don’t you?

            I don’t. I like telling people that I have certain knowledge and mathematical ability. If you have the same mathematical abilities, we can have a rational discussion on global climate change.

            >I bet most people avoid you at parties unless you are at a mutual admiration liberal save the planet from all the wrong things loser climate change party then you are probable a hit

            I don’t waste my time partying with plebes who can’t do math… and can’t spell or use grammar, either (Smart, successful people do have awesome parties, though). I prefer to spend my time with the less knowledgeable in more of a discussion/debate setting where education can occur.

            Bottom line is that there are people capable of understanding and discussing the truth and there are those who lack the basic mathematical competency to do so. This stuff isn’t tough- they teach AP Calculus and AP Statistics in high school these days, and that’s about all you need.

            >go somewhere where your BS might be appreciated FOOL

            Knowledgeable people need to dialogue with ignorant people. Otherwise no ignorant people would become knowledgeable.

          • smart, successful people do have awesome parties, though). I prefer to spend my time with them in more of a discussion/debate setting where education can occur.

            I am sure its all quite civilized and erudite,..
            But see what i mean you only want to talk to fellow fools ,..
            You proved my point thank you very much,..

          • I want to party with fellow “fools” at parties and I want to debate and educate the wise conservatives (who not only reject science but also don’t believe in statistics, calculus, math, or grammar, apparently) here.

          • Earlier i argued nothing except your intelligence remember “daft”

            Real scientists say that warming comes before the CO2 not after go back to school i am not buying you scholastic superiority BS,.. Science hating liberal,..there’s a liberal war on science,.. search that term,..

          • Again: nobody here ever said time has anything to do with global warming!

            DUH!

            Also your claim that any significant knowledge of math or calculus or statistics is needed is simply false and a silly attempt to try to puff up your own ego.

            You want to reject the inclusion of proven scientific empirical evidence from other slices of time because they do not fit your false no-science approach and statements of how co2 is the only factor that needs to be argued and taken into consideration in regards to global warming because you believe that you can win an argument about co2 levels (which you can’t) and that If you stand here today isolated in the time space continuum with no empirical evidence from other slices of time and say that an increase in co2 from today’s levels will kill us all; well, who can argue that?

            If though instead you add the empirical evidence that all scientists attest to
            (and that anyone reading here can look up on the internet) that co2 levels were
            much higher (variable but for much of the time much higher) between 20 million
            years ago and 10 million years ago and in that time period there was the greatest explosion of plant life and thus animal life on the earth that the history of the earth has ever experienced, then you have an argument to question and
            possibly refute your argument that increased co2 levels from today’s levels
            will kill life on earth.

            Anyone can look it up on the internet right now and see that the statements above are true.

            The internationalist elites are perpetrating a hoax to conn people like you and
            others into helping them eliminate as much life on the planet as they can to more easily manage a world wide enslaved population taxed into eternal slavery over the very carbon that makes up a great portion of their very own bodies and is instrumental in every living beings feeding and very survival.

            If you do not get it i hope that a lot of people read this and do get
            it and stop supporting the insanity that the internationalist elites are
            trying to perpetrate.

            God speed!
            Long live the Republic!

          • Perhaps you should get away from your books and experience the real world. The only talent you seem to possess is your ability to talk down to people.

            I’m not impressed!

          • People who deny the mere possibility of anthropogenic climate change need to be talked down to.

          • That comment suggests that you really are an Alinsky-ite jerk.

            There are so many comments that maybe i missed something but I haven’t seen one comment by anyone that says that they do not believe that man contributes to global warming.

            The main thing that people of any age at all, or/and any intelligence at all, understand as absolutely foolhardy is to spend the nation trillions of dollars into debt because the same group of people has been claiming over the last 60 years that there is impending doom and we need to spend trillions to do something about:

            first global freezing
            then global warming
            then climate change (how stupid is that any one over one day old knows the climate changes and isn’t foolish enough to think that that is anything to get excited about)
            then climate disruption

            Anyone with half a pea for a brain knows that that makes no sense and that there is a dirty rotten rat in the wood shed.

            It is so obvious and sounds just exactly like a old cliche-ed Jackie Gleason comedy routine where the wife wants some spending money (maybe to get a new dress to go out Saturday night or something) and keeps coming to the husband with all these crazy silly concocted excuses of dire circumstances if he does not give her some money for some catastrophic thing that is about to fall apart in the house and impending doom because of it and on and on and somehow the husband always has an excuse or a fix and the wife gets exasperated and then on Friday night the husband, after he gets paid, says here is some money to get a new dress to go out Saturday night honey and they both chuckle and then she would hug him and kiss him and she comes to understand that all along he understood that all the dire impending doom was just so she could get some money to get what she wanted.

            That is really what is going on here.

            The rich greedy internationalist elites really want to conn us by extorting us with doom and catastrophic doom into enslaved debt to an in-perpetuity carbon tax that taxes us so deep into slavery our decedents are born into the tax slavery because their very bodies are carbon and so they owe for their very existence, and first carbon meal, from the moment they are born.

            And unfortunately we do not all laugh like we would at the end of a Jackie Gleason skit.

            This conn is for an enslaved hell to be unleashed upon the entire world.

            We that understand have stood for decades and decades with a polite smile politely putting off the conn game demands, but i assure you when the internationalist elites become so emboldened and come with guns to demand their carbon tax tribute for our very bodily carbon existence just to enrich themselves, beyond nearly everyone’s belief and understanding through the biggest wealth creating/stealing scam in the history of the world, trust me we will not be smiling or polite anymore.

            They know it and that is why they are trying to take away our rights and freedoms and especially our guns before they come with theirs to enslave us.

            God speed!
            Long live the Republic!

          • You are probably the most conceited individual I’ve ever heard of! One thing is certain, You aren’t from Wisconsin. You wouldn’t fit in!

            What serious discussion? All you’ve commented on were opinions!

            And who are you to decide who can or cannot comment on an article?

            And yet oddly our Constitution affords me the right to read whatever article I want to read, and to comment on it as well. Are you trying to abrogate my constitutional rights?

          • Again:

            As Einstein said:

            “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction”

            Also there is no math needed.

            DUH:
            That is like saying you need a crowbar to be a successful accountant.

            You want to reject the inclusion of proven scientific empirical evidence from other slices of time because they do not fit your false no-science approach and statements of how co2 is the only factor that needs to be argued and taken into consideration in regards to global warming because you believe that you can win an argument about co2 levels (which you can’t) and that If you stand here today isolated in the time space continuum with no empirical evidence from other slices of time and say that an increase in co2 from today’s levels will kill us all; well, who can argue that?

            If though instead you add the empirical evidence that all scientists attest to (and that anyone reading here can look up on the internet) that co2 levels were much higher (variable but for much of the time much higher) between 20 million years ago and 10 million years ago and in that time period there was the greatest explosion of plant life and thus animal life on the earth that the history of the earth has ever experienced, then you have an argument to
            question and possibly refute your argument that increased co2 levels from today’s levels will kill life on earth.
            (that is locked in a time vacuum)

            Anyone can look it up on the internet right now and see that the internationalist elites are perpetrating a hoax to conn people like you and others into helping them eliminate as much life on the planet as they can to more easily manage a world wide enslaved population taxed into eternal slavery over the very carbon that makes up a great portion of their very own bodies and is instrumental in every living beings feeding and very survival.

            Can you get that one simple concept?

            If you do not i hope that a lot of people read this and do get it and stop supporting the insanity that the internationalist elites are trying to perpetrate.

            God speed!

            Long live the Republic!

            P.S.
            It is proven science that the planet 20 million to 10 million years ago was warmer and had higher co2 levels and had the greatest explosion of plant and animal life in the history of the earth.

            Yes that would sustain a lot more humans than the plant and animal life today can.

            (i have not seen any temperature charts that show any colder time than now in the last 400 million years projections)

            Anyone can do a search and look them up on the internet.

          • It is proven science that the planet 20 million to 10 million years ago was warmer and had higher co2 levels and had the greatest explosion of plant and animal life in the history of the earth.
            Yes that would sustain a lot more humans than the plant and animal life today can.

            (i have not seen any temperature charts that show any colder time than now in the last 400 million years projections)
            Anyone can do a search and look them up on the internet.

          • As Einstein said:
            “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction”

            Also there is no math needed:

            You want to reject the inclusion of proven scientific empirical evidence from other slices of time because they do not fit your false no-science approach and statements of how co2 is the only factor that needs to be argued and taken into consideration in regards to global warming because you believe that you can win an argument about co2 levels (which you can’t) and that If you stand here today isolated in the time space continuum with no empirical evidence from other slices of time and say that an increase in co2 from today’s levels will kill us all; well, who can argue that?

            If though instead you add the empirical evidence that all scientists attest to (and that anyone reading here can look up on the internet) that co2 levels were much higher (variable but for much of the time much higher) between 20 million years ago and 10 million years ago and in that time period there was the greatest explosion of plant life and thus animal life on the earth that the history of the earth has ever experienced, then you have an argument to question and possibly refute your argument that increased co2 levels from today’s levels will kill life on earth.

            (that is locked in a time vacuum)

            Anyone can look it up on the internet right now and see that the internationalist elites are perpetrating a hoax to conn people like you and others into helping them eliminate as much life on the planet as they can to more easily manage a world wide enslaved population taxed into eternal slavery over the very carbon that makes up a great portion of their very own bodies and is instrumental in every living beings feeding and very survival.

            Can you get that one simple concept?

            If you do not i hope that a lot of people read this and do get it and stop supporting the insanity that the internationalist elites are trying to perpetrate.

            God speed!
            Long live the Republic!

          • That is a really moronic assessment of my comments.

            That is just simply goofy at best.

            I never said anything about time explaining global warming.
            You mention one factor of Co2 while i mentioned many factors that effect our climate.

            You are very short sighted and myopic.

            Maybe you should re-read my comments a few times over so you can start to understand the concepts that are within:

            Only because you wish it to be complex it is for you and many others.

            The history of world temperature made simple along with the current politics of it made simple:

            The earth is cooler now than it was 4 billion years ago right?

            The earth is cooler now than it was 600 million years ago right?

            The earth is cooler now than it was 100 million years ago right?

            The earth is on average cooler now than it was 65 million years ago right?

            The earth is on average cooler now than it was 10 million years ago right?

            As a matter of fact from all these core samples etc. really if you were to smooth the shorter term ups and downs of a 4 billion year chart of the peaks and valleys of the projected past world’s temperatures from all these core samples and the highly technical ways that they have to project the past world’s temperatures you will get a chart with a downward overall trend in the world’s temperature for the 4 plus billion years that the
            scientists project that the earth has been around.

            So, there are debates about the trends in the last couple of hundred years.

            OMG the sky is falling, the sky is falling.

            Man has lived under warmer average temperature conditions in the past and man has lived under colder average temperatures in the past.

            If we are at the end of the last ice age or the start of a new ice age shouldn’t we see a few years of fluctuations in temperatures cooling and warming still or have we all lost simple common sense.

            There is nothing in any of the studies that shows any alarming long term spike that should scare anyone.

            As a matter of fact most all of the studies and graphs show that the historic normal for the temperature and thus weather swings on the planet we inhabit are far more dramatic than our last few hundred years of recording the actual temperature.

            As a matter of fact it seems that it is the interpretation of short term data that is the only thing that should be scarring us right now.

            It is certainly ridiculous to consider abandoning our rights and freedoms to a
            global green cabal over some very probably stupid interpretation of short term data.

            Every time the earth temperature has spiked in the distant past something has happened to bring it back down even to the point of Ice Ages in these cycles and with the overall trend being down suggesting I would say with everyone’s long term data being close to the same we ought to be worried in the very long run about living on a much colder planet not a much warmer planet.

            Also, good science that includes the effects of the sun’s cycles and cooling, and the earth’s rotation, and cooling and tip, and the earth’s cyclical rotation around the sun should be brought to the forefront and this stupid panic assumptive pseudo-science of short term scare tactics should be thrown in the trash bin of history along with things like the world is flat.

            Remember the old saying; assumptions only make an arss out of you and me.

            Also it is important to note that:

            The climate change carbon tax con scam is a debt based enslavement mechanism; carbon taxing on every living organism on the face of the earth because living organisms are greatly carbon, and the only living organism that I know of that knows how to utilize a medium of exchange is humans so guess who the target of enslavement is?

            Wake up and smell the great roses of socialist/commie/internationalist elite enslavement baby if they get their way!

            I pray that everyone will see the light and join the forces that oppose this world wide international enslavement.

            Remember that historically those in a society that assist in taking their society down into enslavement to a dictatorial power are usually the first to be slaughtered by the new dictatorial power because the new dictatorial power always knows that those people are traitors, and weak, and have already been used up to the best benefit to the new
            dictatorial power.

            So, we all need to see the light that this is simply another attempt by the money and power grabbing internationalist elites to financially and physically enslave the world.

            All that hard work at Princeton.
            I hope that someday it will have been worth it.

            Statistical analytics may be great and fun but there is also something to be said for reading comprehension.

            Being that your, no doubt genius and seemingly condescending, brain couldn’t understand my simple point from my simplistic comments maybe you can begin to understand it if you get a little helpful commentary from a person i would think you might look up to a bit and certainly is far more brilliant than me and a fellow Princetonian of yours;
            Albert Einstein
            Quote:
            “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”

            End Quote

            The trend for ever since the beginning of the world is to cool.
            It is cooler now as a result of millions and millions of years of cooling of the earth.
            “IT IS COOLER NOW than it was and keeps cooling as a long term trend”
            very simple
            The little warming bump from the last min-ice age is nothing in the long term cooling trend just like the many warming bumps throughout the entire history of the earth have not changed the general long term trend in the long term cooling of the planet earth.

            How many extinction and/or near extinction events are known to have taken place throughout the history of our planet?
            Somewhere between a-half dozen to a dozen and there are no predictions of man-made warming to even come close to matching those disasters and guess what the earth came back on track to it’s long term goal of cooling down into a cold dead space rock.
            You, i am sure, and all true scientists have seen the observable and inevitable long term results of planetary death.
            Planet starts out hot molten goo and ends up a cold dead space rock with a lot of drama in-between.
            Very simple.
            Now if that is the observable and modeled reality in the scientific world as to the history of planets then why has earth all of a sudden become a different reality from that just since the 1980’s.
            The entire history of mankind’s totality of science of planet history, on just the earth (no other planet), has totally changed in the last short 25 years with no change in the underlying STATISTICS.
            It has something to do with a word you used.
            The word is BELIEVE.
            You BELIEVE in man made global warming.

            I believe in man made global warming and i believe that everyone should call it man made global warming and discuss the true scientific contribution that man makes to global warming (and add it into a true scientific equation of the study of earth’s climate) instead of all the b.s. going around.

            I also know that when the entire historical statistics do not change and yet an entire group of people start saying that the entire history of the statistics say man is warming the globe uncontrollably and we need to spend trillions of dollars to fix it and just 20 plus years ago the same group of people were using the same statistics and saying the earth is cooling uncontrollably and we need to spend trillions of dollars to do something about it there is something rotten in Denmark or Belgium or what ever (haha).

            That means someone just wants trillions spent by governments and they want some of that good money to stick to their hands.
            It is a simple scam.
            Just because it is done on such a grand scale does not mean it isn’t just a simple scam.
            (Was it Adolf Hitler that said something to the effect that if the lie is big enough lots of people will believe it?)
            Then there is global cooling, then global warming, then climate change ( duh yeah really the climate changes! your kidding me!).
            What a joke they have become and if that hasn’t been unseemly enough to the point of almost begging for the spending of trillions so they can get their hands on it they now are so terribly and abashedly and moronically disposed to change the name again to climate disruption showing such utter desperation to get their heroin like fix of money to effectively bankrupt us and long-term enslave us.

            Your comment is not exactly showing that you have a very scientific mind.
            I mention many variables that scientists have known for centuries that do impact the earths climate but you suggest i am short sighted because, according to you, i did not make mention of the variable of CO2.
            Well, ok lets mention CO2 then.
            Great, glad you brought it up because that little red herring is fun.
            According to all that have seriously studied the science of about 25 million years ago until about 10 million years ago the CO2 levels were up and down of course but would hit the highest levels of the history of the earth and the earth enjoyed the greatest flourishing of fauna and animals every in it’s history.
            Gee, sounds like a veritable garden of eden wow wouldn’t that be terrible to endure now at a time of decreasing fauna and animal life on the earth.

            You are also do not display a great sense of a scientific mind by jumping from climate (what ever you want to call it) to racism.
            It is hard not to feel that because you jump so far afield to that topic like that with no links what so ever that you must have some deep seated racial or racist problems.
            Sounds kind of like hitler; well we are in a depression so we better get rid of the jews.
            Gee, hitler where is the empirical evidence of a connection or where is any connection at all.

            The highest levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the history of the world made a time of flourishing fauna and thus flourishing animal life that the world never saw before and has never seen since.
            Dang that is such a horrible thing.

            Simple scam:
            If the international elites convince you to help them to eliminate as much CO2 as possible then you will be conned into helping them to eliminate as much life off the planet earth as you and they possibly can.

            You will be ultimately helping them to reduce the population of the earth to a more manageable count.

            It also doesn’t seem that you are displaying the greatest scientific mental traits if you can’t take the empirical evidence that the highest carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere in researched history created the greatest bloom in life on the planet and see that there is something wrong with their “science” that all life will die if we get back to those levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

            So, now hopefully you can understand the importance of scientific empirical facts and their effects over time to see that all factors are important not just the singling of items out like “owe wow they say higher levels of co2 in the air will kill us” to see that scientific study of the atmosphere over time is complex and not just about one or two factors that the elites tell you to concentrate on right now or you begin to sound like chicken little.

            You’ll end up following the chicken little propaganda parade; i’ll call it cooling, i’ll call it warming, i’ll call it change, i’ll call it disruption, i’ll call it what ever i have to call it and threaten and extort and do anything i have to to get you to spend those trillions of dollars so that i can push you all further and further in debt to us so that we internationalist elites can own you as slaves.
            That is exactly what you will end up doing in the end if you follow them and their ever changing “science” to force more massive debt spending.

            Really quite simple
            Like occam’s razor:
            sometimes if it looks, acts, and quacks like a duck it is really a duck–

            Gotta like that one huh?

          • I doubt it but maybe you can get one simple concept.

            I never said time has anything to do with global warming!
            DUH!

            You want to reject the inclusion of proven scientific empirical evidence from other slices of time because they do not fit your false no-science approach and statements of how co2 is the only factor that needs to be argued and taken into consideration in regards to global warming because you believe that you can win an argument about co2 levels (which you can’t) and that If you stand here today isolated in the time space continuum with no empirical evidence from other slices of time and say that an increase in co2 from today’s levels will kill us all; well, who can argue that?

            If though instead you add the empirical evidence that all scientists attest to (and that anyone reading here can look up on the internet) that co2 levels were much higher (variable but for much of the time much higher) between 20 million years ago and 10 million years ago and in that time period there was the greatest explosion of plant life and thus animal life on the earth that the history of the earth has ever experienced, then you have an argument to question and possibly refute your argument that increased co2 levels from today’s levels will kill life on earth.

            (that is locked in a time vacuum)

            Anyone can look it up on the internet right now and see that the internationalist elites are perpetrating a hoax to conn people like you and others into helping them eliminate as much life on the planet as they can to more easily manage a world wide enslaved population taxed into eternal slavery over the very carbon that makes up a great portion of their very own bodies and is instrumental in every living beings feeding and very survival.

            Can you get that one simple concept?

            If you do not i hope that a lot of people read this and do get it and stop supporting the insanity that the internationalist elites are trying to perpetrate.

            God speed!
            Long live the Republic!

          • Well, thank you that is very nice of you.
            It is amazing how trying to put thoughts and facts into a concise comment here easily does not appear concise.

          • Not a problem, actually i say the same thing all the time and people even Conservatives call me crazy, so i was really so surprised to see someone else saying darn near exactly the same thing as me word for word , well anyway have a good one see ya,..

          • Yeah
            i have seen and read a lot of your comments and actually get a laugh sometimes.
            You sound like you are not exactly a spring chicken like i am not.
            If you are quite young then i apologize.

          • Yeah I am a old curmudgeon and the weird thing is I am kinda proud of that ,…

          • Good for you 🙂

            Me too, but i am not sure i would want to say curmudgeon,.

            Or maybe i just don’t want to admit to it or something.

          • No i have read a lot of your comments and you are quite eloquent in both your statements and your rebuttals i don’t think i have ever seen you lose your temper, hell its more common for me to be arguing than commenting and i am not much of a writer, but i think i get my point across,…

        • >The earth is cooler now than it was 600 million years ago right?

          Sure. But the earth also had a smaller landmass above sea level 600 million years ago. Perhaps more frighteningly, with shale extraction, we’re putting carbon into the atmosphere that hasn’t been in it in over a billion years. Such conditions were not safe for human beings.

          >As a matter of fact from all these core samples etc. really if you were to smooth the shorter term ups and downs of a 4 billion year chart of the peaks and valleys of the projected past world’s temperatures from all these core samples and the highly technical ways that they have to project the past world’s temperatures you will get a chart with a downward overall trend in the world’s temperature for the 4 plus billion years that the
          scientists project that the earth has been around.

          Having a STEM graduate degree from Princeton, I’m a pretty competent statistician, especially when it comes to regressions. The problem with your argument here is that a 4 billion year regression captures a billion year trend, not a more minute 500,000 year trend. You are claiming that temperature decreases with time, sure. But with the inclusion of other explanatory variables like CO2, time no longer has additional explanatory power.

          This is the exact same statistical argument that protects conservatives against claims that black people are discriminated against. If you add parents’ family income as an explanatory variable on college admissions, the effect of race basically disappears, and can even become conditionally positive when you add interaction terms on wealth.

          If you buy the argument that black people aren’t discriminated against, you also have to buy the argument that greenhouse gas concentrations, not time, determine temperature.

          >So, we all need to see the light that this is simply another attempt by the money and power grabbing internationalist elites to financially and physically enslave the world.
          I’m a conservative, I believe in global warming, and I believe the answer is nuclear power and research into nuclear fusion. Also, wind energy is now cost-competitive against coal.

          • wow

            All that hard work at Princeton.
            I hope that someday it will have been worth it.

            Statistical analytics may be great and fun but there is also something to be said for reading comprehension.

            Being that your, no doubt genius and seemingly condescending, brain couldn’t understand my simple point from my simplistic comments maybe you can begin to understand it if you get a little helpful commentary from a person i would think you might look up to a bit and certainly is far more brilliant than me and a fellow Princetonian of yours;
            Albert Einstein
            Quote:
            “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”

            End Quote

            The trend for ever since the beginning of the world is to cool.
            It is cooler now as a result of millions and millions of years of cooling of the earth.
            “IT IS COOLER NOW than it was and keeps cooling as a long term trend”
            very simple
            The little warming bump from the last min-ice age is nothing in the long term cooling trend just like the many warming bumps throughout the entire history of the earth have not changed the general long term trend in the long term cooling of the planet earth.

            How many extinction and/or near extinction events are known to have taken place throughout the history of our planet?
            Somewhere between a-half dozen to a dozen and there are no predictions of man-made warming to even come close to matching those disasters and guess what the earth came back on track to it’s long term goal of cooling down into a cold dead space rock.
            You i, am sure, and all true scientists have seen the observable and inevitable long term results of planetary death.
            Planet starts out hot molten goo and ends up a cold dead space rock with a lot of drama in-between.
            Very simple.
            Now if that is the observable and modeled reality in the scientific world as to the history of planets then why has earth all of a sudden become a different reality from that just since the 1980’s.
            The entire history of mankind’s totality of science of planet history, on just the earth (no other planet), has totally changed in the last short 25 years with no change in the underlying STATISTICS.
            It has something to do with a word you used.
            The word is BELIEVE.
            You BELIEVE in man made global warming.

            I may believe in man made global warming also but i also know that when the entire historical statistics do not change and yet an entire group of people start saying that the entire history of the statistics say man is warming the globe uncontrollably and we need to spend trillions of dollars to fix it and just 20 plus years ago the same group of people were using the same statistics and saying the earth is cooling uncontrollably and we need to spend trillions of dollars to do something about it there is something rotten in Denmark or Belgium or what ever (haha).

            That means someone just wants trillions spent by governments and they want some of that good money to stick to their hands.
            It is a simple scam.
            Just because it is done on such a grand scale does not mean it is just a simple scam.
            (Was it Adolf Hitler that said something to the effect that if the lie is big enough lots of people will believe it?)
            Then there is global cooling, then global warming, then climate change ( duh yeah really the climate changes! your kidding me!).
            What a joke they have become and if that hasn’t been unseemly enough to the point of almost begging for the spending of trillions so they can get their hands on it they now are so terribly and abashedly and moronically disposed to change the name again to climate disruption showing such utter desperation to get their heroin like fix of money to effectively bankrupt us and long-term enslave us.

            Your comment is not exactly showing that you have a very scientific mind.
            I mention many variables that scientists have known for centuries that do impact the earths climate but you suggest i am short sighted because, according to you, i did not make mention of the variable of CO2.
            Well, ok lets mention CO2 then.
            Great, glad you brought it up because that little red herring is fun.
            According to all that have seriously studied the science of about 25 million years ago until about 10 million years ago the CO2 levels were up and down of course but would hit the highest levels of the history of the earth and the earth enjoyed the greatest flourishing of fauna and animals every in it’s history.
            Gee, sounds like a veritable garden of eden wow wouldn’t that be terrible to endure now at a time of decreasing fauna and animal life on the earth.

            You are also do not display a great sense of a scientific mind by jumping from climate (what ever you want to call it) to racism.
            It is hard not to feel that because you jump so far afield to that topic like that with no links what so ever that you must have some deep seated racial or racist problems.
            Sounds kind of like hitler; well we are in a depression so we better get rid of the jews.
            Gee, hitler where is the empirical evidence of a connection or where is any connection at all.

            The highest levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the history of the world made a time of flourishing fauna and thus flourishing animal life that the world never saw before and has never seen since.
            Dang that is such a horrible thing.

            Simple scam:
            If the international elites convince you to help them to eliminate as much CO2 as possible then you will be conned into helping them to eliminate as much life off the planet earth as you and they possibly can.

            You will be ultimately helping them to reduce the population of the earth to a more manageable count.

            It also doesn’t seem that you are displaying the greatest scientific mental traits if you can’t take the empirical evidence that the highest carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere in researched history created the greatest bloom in life on the planet and see that there is something wrong with their “science” that all life will die if we get back to those levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

            So, now hopefully you can understand the importance of scientific empirical facts and their effects over time to see that all factors are important not just the singling of items out like “owe wow they say higher levels of co2 in the air will kill us” to see that scientific study of the atmosphere over time is complex and not just about one or two factors that the elites tell you to concentrate on right now or you begin to sound like chicken little.

            You’ll end up following the chicken little propaganda parade; i’ll call it cooling, i’ll call it warming, i’ll call it change, i’ll call it disruption, i’ll call it what ever i have to call it and threaten and extort and do anything i have to to get you to spend those trillions of dollars so that i can push you all further and further in debt to us so that we internationalist elites can own you as slaves.
            That is exactly what you will end up doing in the end if you follow them and their ever changing “science” to force more massive debt spending.

            Really quite simple
            Like occam’s razor:
            sometimes if it looks, acts, and quacks like a duck it is really a duck–

            Gotta like that one huh?

          • Oh it’s already paid for itself big time. When you’re in your 20s and work is a choice rather than a requirement, the tuition was probably worth it.

            You are repeating your same argument by claiming there is a cooling trend. I am saying that the cooling trend is better explained by a reduction in co2 levels until 200 years ago.

            >the science of about 25 million years ago until about 10 million years ago

            And I start skimming when you lack the words to form a coherent argument. Don’t blame your poor communication ability on me.

            TLDR. In any case this is why liberal elites like us run the country.

          • You obviously did not read my comment very well or did not comprehend the content of it because i did very comprehensively address your shortsightedness and your misunderstanding about CO2 and it’s roll in our environment.

            I also addressed the roll of CO2 in the scam being perpetrated by the internationalist elite that you are playing right into the hands of because you do not understand the history of the world from either a scientific nor a sociological perspective.

            When you miss the entire comment then yes that is a problem with your reading and comprehension skill set.

          • As Jon Huntsman pointed out during the 2012 debates, the true economic cost of oil is about $10-13 a gallon. If we do the proper cost allocations, pretty much anything is cheaper these days.

          • Then it’s safe to assume that you are in favor of greatly increasing the number of nuclear reactors in the country?

          • Fukushima. Reliance on the current generation of fission reactors is the equivalent of playing Russian roulette, as the country is bisected by the New Madrid Fault.

            I used to be a vocal advocate of thorium-cycle fast-breeder reactors (less hazardous waste), but at this late date, solar may be our only viable option. The technology appears to be developing along the line of Moore’s Law, and we can make gasoline out of wood chips for an $80/bbl equivalent now. We can do a lot more to improve home design (see http://earthship.com/), and reduce auto weight; building and shopping locally helps, as well.

            I’ll be long-dead before things really hit the fan, but I would support efforts aimed at achieving sustainability. Keystone XL, not so much.

          • How are you going to move goods long distances with solar energy as your primary energy source?
            By using wood chips to make gasoline, you’re going to remove CO2 absorbers (trees) out of the cycle so that you can burn them for fuel? How sustainable is that?
            After being in auto industry, reducing auto weight will also compromise passenger safety; is that your intent? You could replace the steel with a stronger material like titanium, but then there’s the cost issue.

          • Solar energy can be converted to hydrogen, which is both clean and essentially inexhaustible. BMW could go into production tomorrow. http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/technology/efficient_dynamics/phase_2/clean_energy/bmw_hydrogen_7.html Hyundai will actually start selling them later this year. http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/171299-hyundai-will-sell-a-hydrogen-fuel-cell-suv-in-2014-300-mile-range-expected

            This little idea could radically improve the efficiency of solar energy collection: http://diply.com/trendyjoe/this-glass-sphere-could-revolutionize-solar-power-on-earth/37310

            As for converting to gasoline, it’s very sustainable. Trees grow back, though the best organic sources are algae ad hemp.

            Ever heard of Fiberforge? The company is no more, but they have some amazing patents on carbon fiber which is as strong as steel. Check out what Avery Lovins is doing (http://www.rmi.org/), as well as Sundrop Fuels (http://www.sundropfuels.com/). We could do this, and it would not take that long.

          • OK, let’s say we want to convert to hydrogen. How long to set up the distribution network? How long to convert carbon fueled vehicles to hydrogen? What do you do with the obsolete cars? How do you force people to convert?

            I’m not dismissing the alternates, just saying that it is going to be extremely difficult to make the conversion.

          • I agree: it won’t be. That is why Sundrop is so important to the equation. As I understand it, hydrogen is created part-way through the process; until we can make the switch, we still have gasoline for those who need it, with less emissions than you will find in tar sands oil.

            The problem with oil is all the easy-to-get stuff is already gone. The days of drilling a hole in Texas and getting your car covered with black gold will never be seen again. And as is the case with any competitive advantage powering an empire, it is eventually lost.

      • It’s no coincidence that the same people of the flat earth society who believe the planet is 10,000 years old deny global warming.

    • “enormous pile of data supporting it”

      You mean like the fact that CO2 concentrations have increased by 10% over the last 15 years, and global temperatures haven’t risen? It’s hard to prove the correlation of “A” (increase in CO2) causes “B” (increased global temps) if “B” is unwilling to cooperate.

      But you are right about one thing; scientific theories are not a faith, they have been tested and found wanting.

        • The graph (source: https://www2.ucar.edu/climate/faq/how-much-has-global-temperature-risen-last-100-years ) you link to is interesting. The time period from 2000 onwards shows a flat trend ( as evidenced by the blue line). How is that explained by the computer models? Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased from about 370ppm in 2000 to just over 400ppm in April of this year (source: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ ). That is an 8% increase in the last 14 years. IF CO2 is the main driver of global temperature as the “settled science” maintains, why does the data not show an increase in global mean temperature over the same period?

          Now use the two graphs (the one you cited and the one I just linked) to look at the period 1960 to 1975. CO2 concentrations rose from about 315ppm in 1960 to about 330ppm in 1975, an increase of nearly 5%. Yet the global mean temperature graph shows no appreciable increase in temperature? Why? A second source for CO2 concentrations (source: http://www.grida.no/publications/vg/climate/page/3062.aspx ) shows that between 1940 and 1975 CO2 concentrations have risen from about 300ppm in 1940 to about 330ppm in 1975, an increase of 10%. Yet during this period, the global mean temperature was at best flat, if not decreasing slightly. I thought that “settled science” told us that increasing CO2 concentrations caused rising global temperatures. Can you please explain the inconsistencies?

          Now let’s look at the time period of 1910 to 1935. Using the second CO2 source, concentrations rose from about 295ppm in 1910 to just over 300ppm in 1935, let’s call it 305ppm. That’s an increase of about 3.5%. The global mean temperature rose about 0.4C in that period, roughly the same as between 1980 and 2000 when CO2 rose from about 335ppm to 370ppm, an increase of just over 10%. Why did the temperature rise so rapidly in the early part of the 20th century? The computer models would not have predicted it to do so.

          I am interested in your answers to the above questions.

          As I said in another post, I don’t deny that the climate is changing, what I do disagree on is the cause of the change and whether or not we can do anything about it.

          • Maso1, unless you happen to be a scientist with a PHD from some major university that has spent your life researching this issue is their ANY reason anyone should believe you instead of those that are?

          • He doesn’t even know what he is looking at. It’s all that Arkansas home-skewelin’.

          • I, along with most others, am smart enough to realize that correlation does NOT prove causation. Go to the following website and tell me if the correlations presented are true causes:

            http://www.tylervigen.com/

            I particularly like the first one, “US spending on science, space and technology correlates with suicides by hanging, strangulation and suffocation. It has a correlation coefficient of 0.992082; almost a perfect correlation. Does that mean the more we spend on science and technology, the more strangulation suicides we can expect?

            Junk science is always junk science. I didn’t believe it in the ’70s when is was global cooling and I don’t believe it now when it is global warming/climate change/climate disruption/whatever.

          • Of course, it doesn’t. But unlike you, most have the good sense to know that a facially plausible theory of causation is needed to reach a conclusion of causation.

            You wouldn’t know junk science from a junkyard dog, if that is the extent of your argument.

          • And what is necessary after the plausible theory of causation that is needed to reach a conclusion of causation? Repeatable results that verify that “A” causes “B”. Unfortunately for the warmists, they can’t produce those repeatable results.

            Why don’t you take a shot at answering the questions I asked about 8 posts ago? I’m actually interested in hearing your conclusions.

          • I find it interesting that the three warmists (PerplexedWisconsonite, Dissenter13a and LABobfromNYC) have not taken the opportunity to answer the simple questions that I asked earlier today.

          • What if I showed you a T-stat of 5.7 showing that atmospheric CO2 changes were correlated with human carbon emissions? Getting a 5.7 is a in in 100,000,000 event. Are you saying we’d have to have 100,000,000 other hypotheses before concluding that one explanation for changes in our atmosphere is our own atmospheric emissions?

          • The question is not whether carbon emissions are human-produced. I believe that they are. The question is whether carbon emissions definitively result in temperature increase. And that question still is not supported by repeatable results.

          • Junk science is always junk science? Like the “junk science” that claims the planet is over 6,000 years old?

          • Actually there is a simple way to resolve this. In statistics we have something called the Akaike Information Coefficient, which factors in both the complexity of the model and the log likelihood of it.
            The problem with your argument here is that in 1 in 100,000 cases, two random variables will have a correlation with a t-stat of 4. However, connecting global climate change to anthropogenic CO2 when science suggests there may be a strong link is not a 1 in 100,000 argument. It’s not even a 1 in 1000 argument.
            Plug in the number of other explanations you think we should try to explain climate change before CO2 emissions, and I’ll give you a T-stat that we need to hit to prove you wrong. For the record, based on the past 50 years of data, the T-stat I get is 5 which is

          • Let me answer your question with a question.

            Why can’t you open your eyes and see the evidence in front of you? I do notice that you don’t have the nerve to attempt to answer the questions or even put forth your opinions.

            You will note that the sites sourced are government funded sites.

            On a different note, does Red Bull have a chance a Monaco this weekend?

          • Monaco is the one track where they have a chance but if Mercedes qualify 1-2 they will run away (rain could obviously change everything). I’m not a scientists so I cannot answer your questions. I just believe that the vast majority of scientists all over the world are not lying in order to get funding.

            http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus.htm

            http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/global-warming-faq.html

            http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence

          • Agreed on Monaco. If Red Bull can’t qualify at the top, this season could very well be Mercedes wins in every race this year.

            I believe that you are smart enough to come to your own conclusions based on the data presented. And what my training in science and statistics tells me is that there is not irrefutable evidence for causation.

            Let’s ask this question; what if there ISN’T a link between human produced CO2 concentrations and global mean temperature? Are you prepared to spend trillions of dollars on something that may not be the cause and may not be a problem?

          • The solution to the problem of global warming is a political one in which people can disagree. The question as to whether it’s real or not is a scientific one that has been answered

          • The question as to whether it is real or not has been answered politically. However, unless the computer predictions can produce repeatable results, the scientific one has not.

          • Absolutely. When the “solution” is increased taxes, that is a political answer, not a scientific one.

          • You simply don’t understand how science works. If you believe that ALL of science is bought off for funding on ANY issue you happen to disagree with (evolution, global warming, gravity, etc) then what’s the point to even speaking about science?

          • I do understand how science works — theory, test, results, verification. if the results don’t match the theory, the theory must be changed. Rinse and repeat.

            I also understand that government science is dependent on government funding.

            BTW, I do believe in evolution,and I don’t believe that the planet is only 6,000 years old.

          • Between the US, China, Japan, EU, and UK, we make up about 85% of the world’s trade partners.
            Don’t want to do something about global warming? Fine, we’ll just enact a tariff on your exports and your economy will suffer.
            The US, EU, and Japan could *easily* force this on the WTO if we agreed to.

            Instead, because of the Rip Van Winkle crowd, we continue to let China and the developing world pollute. Fortunately, the world’s biggest polluter (China) stands more to lose from global climate change than we do.

            The US has 20% of the world’s water and produces 30% of its food exports. The famines and drought brought on by global warming will be a bonanza for US-based farmers while the third world starves. However, we should still probably do something.

          • The link occurs over the period of decades, not years.
            The problem is that we only have 200 years of data on human industrial emissions. In order to go further back, we need to look at CO2 in the atmosphere naturally. But does it matter if CO2 in the atmosphere is coming from human beings or coming from nature?

  2. Kerry is probably wondering who Pascal is….some Italian associate of his from the 70’s?

  3. Anthropogenic climate change theory is in fact a religious dogma – that is a stupid statement. Bitcoin is a religious dogma.

    • Leaving that first phrase stand alone kind of cuts off the point he was making above. He said THIS: “Compare those statements to Pascal’s Wager and you have an eerie confirmation that anthropogenic climate change theory is in fact a religious dogma.”

    • Have you figured out yet what you want the world’s population to be and how you are going to get there? I’m still awaiting your specific number.

      • Are you saying you’d accept global climate change if the conclusions of it were something other than socialism and population reduction?
        As a fiscal conservative who accepts global warming, I can assuage your concerns on this front.

        • The science doesn’t lie. Climatologists and astronomers were concerned about this in theory back in the ’70s, but we didn’t have enough hard data to substantiate the concerns. Now, it is incontrovertible.

        • No, abinico has been challenging “deniers” on this site to state the maximum number of people the earth should support before it starts producing negative effects. I have a “number” and a reasoning behind it, but will not state it until he posts his specific number and how he proposes to achieve it. I have asked this repeatedly of abinico and will continue to do so until said number is stated.

          I don’t deny that the climate is changing; it has done so since time immemorial. What I do dispute is that human-produced CO2 is the sole driver of said change. If the science is “settled”, and human-produced CO2 is the sole cause, what caused the Medieval Warm Period? The Roman Warm Period? The melting of the glaciers 15,000 years ago?

          I believe that there is a lot that the computer models have not taken into account in order to confirm a specific viewpoint. The computers predicted an ice-free Arctic Ocean last year; the results showed ice coverage nearly of record size. The list of failed predictions goes on and on. The science is hardly “settled”. if it were, the predictions of the models would be borne out in the results.

          You are correct on one thing; the fact that climate change is political. The mere fact that it is so political causes me to be skeptical of anything that is said. To me, much of it is a simple case of “follow the money”.

          All that being said, I have great faith in the human race to adapt and overcome whatever comes our way.

  4. Why is it that the question about this subject almost always gets framed by its acolytes and supporters as…’Do you Believe in “IT”. ?? The correct scientific response is, “What is the preponderance of the evidence which would lead one to believe that the facts in evidence support the hypothesis which has been proposed? ” Now… the fellow below is all in favor of this stuff…..piles of data , etc. In 15th century Italy….EVERYONE believed that the earth was the center of the solar system; in other words, a Geo-Centric Model. Galileo and his telescope OBSERVED that something ELSE was actually happening…and had the nerve to say so…and was called on the carpet by the current ‘Experts”…who ALL agreed that Galileo was wrong; The sun goes around the earth. And..under pain of excommunication and house arrest, and worse…he was forced to keep silent. As he left the hall, he reputedly said. under his breath, “Yet it STILL moves.”

    Again…WHERE is the preponderance of evidence? Not anecdotal guesses, like Jerry Brown, or President Lamebrain.

    • Being a stats buff with a copy of MATLAB, I am honestly tempted to run my own study on this.
      1.) To prove that humans are affecting atmospheric CO2, we regress economists’ estimates of CO2 emissions by year against the annual change in atmospheric CO2 as measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii. This regression will have about 60 data points in it (Mauna Loa has been open since the 1950s) and we’ll get a T-statistic and a slope from the regression. The odds of us getting a T-stat of 2 from this if global warming were not occurring would be 1 in 20; a T-stat of 3 would be 1 in 10,000.
      2.) We next regress changes in global temperatures against changes in CO2 over the past 10,000 years in 100 year intervals.
      If both regressions come back with large t-statistics, this constitutes strong evidence that (1) Humans are responsible for increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and (2) increased CO2 levels predict higher temperatures in 100 years.
      Something tells me that climate scientists and geoscientists have run both kinds of these regressions 14 ways from Sunday, and conservatives would easily be able to contradict them using publicly available data.

      • Okay…I THINK I followed that. Will be back later when I can collect my thoughts and logic. Got a previous engagement. Query? How much CO2 does a human being exhale per day? Used to know. Would be nice to see that times the earth’s population.

        • I know the average human consumes ~20 cubic feet of O2 per day. Times 28 liters per cubic feet=560 liters of oxygen per day. Divided by 22.4 liters/mole STP= 25 moles of oxygen, or 800 grams of O2. (O2 has an atomic weight of 16*2= 32)

          • The bottom line is this…the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among scientists that study this issue AND There are no national or major scientific institutions anywhere in the world that dispute the theory of anthropogenic climate change. Not one.

          • Sure. But this is a political issue, and without a debate and a dialogue, other people will have doubts over whether the issue would be settled.
            It is reasonable for a significant percentage of members of the general public to not accept the same assumptions as members of a scientific discipline.

          • The DEBATE is entirely nonexistent. The claim that man COULD cause it if we tried is entirely unsupported. There is no national institution on the planet that engages is HONEST scientific inquiry, because if they don’t follow the POLITICAL desires of the politicians, they don’t get funded.

          • It’s a given that climate change deniers aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer let me ask you this. What seems more likely to you (a) 97% of peer reviewed scientists in the world AND EVERY major scientific institution on the planet have got together falsified evidence to create a global warming hoax in order to get funding OR the 3% of the deniers (funded by oil & coal companies) are telling the truth?

          • Bob: see my post below from about 2 hours ago. Let me know your answers to the questions.

          • R is free:

            http://www.r-project.org

            CO2 data from Mauna Loa is freely available:

            http://co2now.org/Current-CO2/CO2-Now/noaa-mauna-loa-co2-data.html

            CO2 emissions data is freely available:

            http://co2now.org/Current-CO2/CO2-Now/global-carbon-emissions.html

            R has a function called summary(lm()).
            I haven’t run this function myself, so I don’t know the answer, but if you get a positive slope between CO2 emissions and CO2 increase at mauna loa and a t-stat above 2, you have statistical evidence for human economic activity affecting the earth’s atmosphere.

          • Actually, I decided to regress it and got a t-stat of 5 showing strong statistical correlation.
            By adding a time variable, the correlation is still there, but it loses statistical significance.
            Interpret it how you will.

          • I need to ask so that ALL of those that will follow this need ask, ” What is the total difference between the total output of Human’s in a year, and the output of the volcano in Iceland, in a single day” ?
            we need to keep on mind that the Human race has yet to ‘Close down’ a Continent with less than a weeks output, and the results lasted for close to a month! yet when we consider what an Elephant puts out in a day compared to a multitude of humans, and remember that until the those that started to decimate them for the tusks, and lets not forget the Buffalo that could cover 2 or more of the Midwestern states at one time, it is time to have true GROWNUPS! say that the Earth is just fine and that the trouble is from the handful who are unable to sit back and say, ” I AM OF LITTLE VALUE ” therefore I need to just stay quiet!.

        • Here is hoping that my reply to the answer to Your reply will sit those that are nothing more than ‘Malcontents’ Down and we can get to the Base root, and then the real answer!.
          /* [Hand Salute]

      • The evidence in the oceans is more worrisome. Increasing acidity is stressing the lower end of the food chain beyond the breaking point, and the oceans have essentially maxed out their ability to absorb CO2. It is simple science, and we have far more data points.

      • LOGIC tells me you haven’t run the study because you KNOW, or at least strongly suspect, it would prove you DEAD WRONG. Scientists HAVE run the numbers. That is why tho e that claim man made climate change have DESTROYED the underlying data REFUSE to make the underlying data. It is also why they engage in person attacks against anyone that disputes their claims, instead of using the very data you refer to to actually prove their claims.

        Note: Strong evidence of temperature change over 10,000 years would CONCLUSIVELY disprove man made climate change, as their is NOTHING man has been doing for anywhere close to 10,000 that ANYONE claims could cause temperature change.

        • I haven’t run the study because I’m busy right now. You can run it if you’d like.

          If I run it later and post the results here, and I post instructions for reproducing them for free (using R) on your computer, could they change your mind?

          • If you have the time to post these comment, you have FAR more time than necessary to run the study. If you don’t KNOW that, you are not remotely qualified to recognize the study if someone runs it and hands you the results.

          • I ran it. (See other posts). With a t-stat of 5.5, industrial CO2 emissions this year predict the change in atmospheric CO2 concentrations from this year to next year.

            The odds of getting this number randomly without some sort of correlation are 1 in 1,000,000

          • I notice you fail to include CO2 from natural sources. That COMPLETELY invalidates any possible results of your co called analysis. You also fail to provide a source for ANY of the data you allegedly used. In short, you CLAIM to have run a study, ZERO support for the inherent claim you are CAPABLE of doing so. I don’t believe you even know what a t-stat is, or its significance. You are doing an excellent job of hiding any evidence that you know squat about statistics.

          • Actually, by definition, we NEED to leave out CO2 from natural sources if we’re simply trying to determine whether human emissions have an effect on the earth’s atmosphere. Here is the statement that the T-stat gives us:

            “Regardless of natural CO2 emissions, human emissions of CO2 precede an increase in atmospheric CO2”.

            If you’d like, you can build a model for predicting atmospheric CO2 by calculating emissions from natural sources, too. You asked me to model this, you accused me of having a lot of time on my hands to run this study. I ran it. You seem to claim some sort of statistics background here, and you apparently also have the time to make a lot of posts, so you are free to build another regression if you think it would discredit mine somehow.

            R is free, I’ve posted links to the data, you can use the summary() and lm() commands. It will take about 30 minutes. And since you’ve fought me so hard on this, everyone here is interested to see what your results will be.

            Have a nice day!!!

          • To leave out natural CO2 is not logical. You cannot conduct a study without all elements that create CO2. To attempt to run such a study would, by it’s very nature, would be blaming all CO2 on Humans.

            I consider your opinion to be nothing but liberal propaganda!

          • It’s not an opinion. It’s a fact. It’s a fact that a highschool student taking AP Statistics with a (free) copy of R can reproduce. Between 1957 and 2008 (the period over which I can get data) human emissions are correlated with annual changes in atmospheric CO2 with a t-stat of 5.7.

            Natural emissions are simply an exogenous random variable. If we took them into account, we might get a stronger t-stat by taking out that noise. We *probably* would not get a weaker t-stat.

            This is very very basic statistics here. There is no politics or liberal propaganda in mathematics. You either accept math or you don’t. At the end of the day, whether 2+2=4 is not a political argument.

            You can argue with the measurements.

            You can argue with what the correlation means.

            You can argue about the methods used.

            All of these things might be political.

            You can’t argue about the correlation or the level of statistical significance behind it. That this correlation has a t-stat of 5.7 is not an “opinion”- it is a simple mathematical fact.

          • No. I offer a number. 5.7. Regress co2 emissions against change in atmospheric co2 and you get a t statistic of 5.7 based on annual data from 1957 to 2008.

            How is this calculation an opinion? Is 50×40=2000 an opinion too? What about long division?

          • You have nothing but your opinion to back it up!

            Enough of you’re trolling!

          • So prove me wrong. Download a copy of R, run your own regression, show that industrial GHG emissions are uncorrelated with changes in atmospheric CO2.

          • Already did. Twice I gave you an article. But you only seem to value your opinion! Not facts! You’re nothing but more then one of those freedom from religion greenies that spend all their time looking in a mirror and telling themselves how perfect they are.

            Perhaps someday you will grow Up!

          • No I’m a fiscal conservative and a huge proponent of nuclear power and engineering out way out of this. But freepers like you won’t let us.

            It is no wonder the Bush administration laughed at you guys behind your backs. And it’s no wonder you guys are losing primaries. We now need you all to go back to Mississippi and your John Birch Society chapter while the adults in the room focus on saving the planet.

        • Just ran it. T-stat of 5 regressing emissions against change in CO2 concentration over the past 50 years. Humans are *probably* changing earth’s atmosphere.

          • Source? My understanding is that humans account for most CO2 these days. In fact they account for 100x the emissions from volcanic eruptions.

            Here’s a link from me to support *my* claim. This is also a relatively nonpartisan nonagenda link that offers little partisan arguments before it gets to its point. Can you please provide a link?

            http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/archive/2007/07_02_15.html

          • Your source is ALMOST as biased as the UN IGCC, which is cited by it. EVERY actual scientist cited by the IGCC is on record stating that the IGCC either mischaracterized, or outright lied about their findings. The fact you consider ANY government source nonpartisan is sufficient evidence you will dismiss anything remotely resembling an objective source out of hand.

          • PerplexedWisconsinite isn’t interested in facts. He spends most of his time kissing himself in the mirror!

          • LOL you guys are fighting me on everything. The cognitive dissonance must really be making your heads hurt.

            You first claimed that humans account for a miniscule amount of CO2 emissions. I posted a link that came from the Bush Administration’s USGS showing we produce 100x what volcanoes produce.

            You then claimed that humans have no effect on the atmosphere. I took data from economic estimates of CO2 emissions and correlated them with changes in earth’s atmosphere over the past 50 years. We obtained a t-stat of 5.7, which most scientists you would talk to would call pretty strong statistical evidence.

            Your heads are spinning with cognitive dissonance as you try to hold onto your old beliefs.

            If it helps, I am not going to argue that the answer is socialism, carbon taxes, or population reduction. (That is what will happen if Republicans don’t wake up to the reality of climate change and Dems own the subject) I am going to argue that the solution is nuclear power and allowing capitalism to merely do its work on the (expensive) coal plants shutting down in the face of increasing coal prices and coal reserve depletion.

          • If you would bother to read my comment, I didn’t make the claim. I merely posted an article that disagrees with what you are posting.

            However, by your response, I must have hit a nerve. It appears that you are twisting figures around in an attempt to back up your opinion.

            You have failed!

            Once again, I will post the article and the source!

            It is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the asserted global warming crisis, but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus.

            Don’t look now, but maybe a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all. Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.

            http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja

          • The USGS is filled with some pretty darned conservative state school geologists. Further, the article was posted during the Bush administration. Regardless, this number can be confirmed or disproven by others.

            If a Bush administration USGS isn’t conservative enough for you, that’s your problem. For 60-70% of the country, these guys would probably have a conservative bias, if anything. Fortunately for the rest of us, that’s a strong majority.

          • It is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the asserted global warming crisis, but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus.

            Don’t look now, but maybe a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all. Only 36
            percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.

            http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja

          • Go to the college campus of any major research university. Even more conservative places like Princeton, MIT, UChicago. Ask what research is being done on global climate change and whether the geological and atmospheric evidence is confirming or disproving it.

            *My* experience at one of these kinds of schools tells me that if you go to even one of the more conservative research universities, nearly everyone will be telling you that they’re finding more evidence for global warming.

  5. MM: “But my biggest problem with John Kerry’s Wager is this: If his theories on climate change are wrong, there’s nothing that needs to be done. If his theories are right, there’s nothing that can be done.

    I am of the view that you drooling religious nut-jobs have already killed the planet, and about the only hope we have as a species is to try to minimize the damage, in the hope that we can figure out a solution in the next 30 years. But solutions are coming (e.g., http://diply.com/trendyjoe/this-glass-sphere-could-revolutionize-solar-power-on-earth/37310).

    If we had focused on solving the problem a decade ago, I would be more optimistic. But as long as you retarded droolers retard our attempts to fabricate solutions, any hope we have is gone.

    • Then enjoy the ride to your proposed doomed planet scenario. Because once it doesn’t come true (again) then we can just have a big bag of “I told you so”‘s ready for you.

      • Let your grandchildren remember what side you were on. They will despise you, and rightfully so.

        • The thing that our grand children will hate us for is not this phony man made global warming bs. But this government, both parties, spending and putting us further to debt with a burden they will have to carry for us.

          • Why? Governments can and do default.

            Even Fox News has conceded that global warming is man-made. Fox News!!! When you lose Bat-Guano Central, you are left with that rodeo clown Glenn Beck and Caribou Barbie.

          • so you’re saying we shouldn’t take personal responsibility with the overspending and bloated government caused by both parties but should take personal responsibility in something that doesn’t actually exist like man made global warming? a little hypocritical there and by the way I don’t watch Fox News or listen to Glenn Beck

          • No, I am merely saying that from time to time, governments default … and if things get that bad, ours will, too.

            My prescription is meaningful taxation on the wealthy and large multinational corporations–I would impose a 25% tax on book income, and abolition of preferential capital gains tax rates–and a 70% cut in defense spending.

            How is global warming different? Governments come and go–and investors accept the risk of default–but it’s not like humanity has anywhere else to go. Global warming is more about survival.

          • There is an hour long video on youtube called The Global Warming Hoax, a british documentary. Are all those scientists wrong then? And they aren’t paid by big oil, neither am I. Unlike the alarmists, just follow the money.

          • http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/03/cooks-97-consensus-disproven-by-a-new-paper-showing-major-math-errors/

            The new paper by the leading climatologist Dr David Legates and his colleagues, published in the respectedScience and Education journal, now in its 21st year of publication, reveals that Cook had not considered whether scientists and their published papers had said climate change was “dangerous”.

            The consensus Cook considered was the standard definition: that Man had caused most post-1950 warming. Even on this weaker definition the true consensus among published scientific papers is now demonstrated to be not 97.1%, as Cook had claimed, but only 0.3%.  

            Only 41 out of the 11,944 published climate papers Cook examined explicitly stated that Man caused most of the warming since 1950. Cook himself had flagged just 64 papers as explicitly supporting that consensus, but 23 of the 64 had not in fact supported it.

          • I wont deny both sides is about money. Difference is, one can be an economic and self sustaining energy boom for the country. The other, just a flat out lie.

          • You obviously mean the Koch brothers’ scheme when you talk about a flat-out lie.

          • Nope, and you know it. The EPA just needs to go away, and many things would be better financially and economically. You can use your latest democratic Harry Reid favorite punching bag (Koch brothers) all you want, wont make you right.

          • As long as I can pump all the arsenic I want into your drinking water, it works for me. [/sarcasm]

            I LIKE clean air and water. I’m practically addicted to it….

          • You cannot convince the flat earth society of scientific reality because they don’t believe in science

    • You seem to lack confidence in your comments! That would explain you’re feeble attempts at insults and name calling!

        • Now that we know that you lack the ability to comment without insults, we can just automatically down vote you.

          Your comments are all fabrication.

    • If I were you, I’d build a tornado shelter and live out my days sitting in it – cursing the evil Christians.

    • So tell me, just for sh!ts and giggles, what have you specifically done to reduce YOUR carbon footprint and the footprint of those around you?

      • I live in a 600 square foot apartment when I can afford 2000 square feet.

        I heat my apartment to 65 in the winter and use a programmable thermostat that only cools the house to 80 during the day. (72 at night)

  6. Great analysis. It’s not like you’ve done a lot of damage believing in God.

    But you do a lot of damage to people’s lives and their freedoms through implementing the horrors of Agenda 21, etc.

    Not much upside to being a climate disruption believer unless you’re into coercion.

  7. “John Kerry, Al Gore, and the rest don’t give a carbon emission about humanity. Their goal isn’t to save humans from destruction, it’s just to save “Mother Earth.”

    I don’t believe the give a rip about “mother earth” either, Michael. But you are right. They are elitists. Meaning what they truly care about is; 1) the almighty dollar. And 2) controlling the masses. THAT is what this is all about. It’s at the heart of everything that progrssives think, and say, and do.

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