By FITSNews || In the latest public relations debacle for the climate change crowd, the Green Nazis at the United Nations are having to back down from a controversial claim that the Himalayan glaciers will completely melt by 2035.
Apparently the claim is over a decade old – not to mention totally wrong. Of course, that didn’t stop the UN’s “Green Goebbelses” from using it as evidence of “global warming” at a recent international summit in Copenhagen.
From the Times Online (UK):
In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC’s 2007 report.
It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview (in 1999) with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.
Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was “speculation” and was not supported by any formal research. If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research. The IPCC was set up precisely to ensure that world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change.
Professor Murari Lal, who oversaw the chapter on glaciers in the IPCC report, said he would recommend that the claim about glaciers be dropped: “If Hasnain says officially that he never asserted this, or that it is a wrong presumption, than I will recommend that the assertion about Himalayan glaciers be removed from future IPCC assessments.”
Good Lord, people.
This is the same group of globalists insisting on perhaps the greatest redistribution of wealth in world history – a third world spending orgy that will come straight out of the hip pockets of American taxpayers, at least if if President Barack Obama has his way.
And they’re now admitting to basing their scientific conclusions on “speculation?”
Please …
Anytime a fiscal conservative proposes a new public policy, their calculations practically have to be printed in blood on the friggin’ Shroud of Turin – with the Pope signing off on the long division.
Global warmists? They can apparently can pull speculative figures from decade-old conservations out of their asses and receive the UN’s blessing.
By Recovering Lobbyist January 18, 2010 at 11:55 am
It is unfortunate for everyone who cares about our environment that the professional environmentalists decided they needed to whip up a contrived issue like global warming to advance their political agenda.
I remember vividly in the 1970s the environmental alarmists declaring the coming of the next ice age.
Any reasonable person understands that our climate is cyclical. I hope our society has learned from the global warming episode, that we go back to discounting the professional environmentalists as the kooks that they are, and lets get back to the business of keeping our air and water clean and move on other legitimate efforts to protect our environment.
By Pat Hendrix January 18, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Recovering lobbyist, please allow me to call bullsit. There was a single story in a Newsweek article over thirty years ago. A single article is not a consensus.
And yes, the climate is cyclical, but these changes generally occur over millennia and centuries, not decades. This can be clearly seen in the geological (sorry people, the world isn’t 5,000 years old) and archaeological records. So try reading up. On the one side you have the scientific community, NASA, the DOD and those people who don’t think the world is flat. On the other, you, the chamber of commerce, a handful of scientists (and lobbyists) paid to muddy the water, James M. Inhofe, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. Now which group has the larger number of kooks?
By Nathan Rice January 18, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Pat Hendrix,
That would all make sense, if it wasn’t a boat-load of logical fallacy…
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/questionable-cause.html
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/burden-of-proof.html
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-popularity.html
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html
I could name more if I were describing the argument for AGW in general.
By Recovering Lobbyist January 18, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Call away Pat. I lived it. I don’t need an Internet search to tell me what I read and heard in the 70s. And bear in mind that you are not going to find much on the Internet that was written in 1975. On the other hand, it was damn cold in those years. PS: I don’t watch Glenn Beck, or FOX News for that matter. You don’t know me. So who is full of shit now?
By Pat Hendrix January 18, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Nathan,
Thanks for wasting 30 seconds of my life. Try harder.
Recovering, never said you did. Try reading closer, bud. I said there were world renowned climatologists and scientists on one side and Glenn Beck and James M. Inhofe on the other – Find the kook.
The 1974 Time/Global Cooling bit you trotted out is a canard. Yes, and tough to find on the internets.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html
By Genomic Repairman January 18, 2010 at 4:41 pm
First off the New Scientist is a crappy magazine, I say magazine because it does not rise to the level of a scholarly journal. I wouldn’t wipe my sweaty taint with this rag. What we do know:
1. Climate changes tends to be cyclical.
2. It was cold as balls for a week in places where it shouldn’t be (i.e. the deep South) and now its warm as hell.
3. Glaciers are disappearing (no doubt about that, if you do you must also believe the Earth is flat). And they really don’t come back so this is a major issue.
4. Green house gases could contribute to global warming.
We still do not know if this is a permanent trending (if so we’re boned!), if we are the major root cause of the warming, and can we really change it? I wish we all could objectively look at the issue rather than each side going for the other’s jugular.
Sincerely
A skeptical scientist who is still fence sitting on the issue until we have better science and much more definitive answers.
By SnakeMD January 18, 2010 at 4:53 pm
Actually Global Warming might stop the next Ice Age. Tens of thousands of years ago there were wooly mammoths in present day Florida. I have quite a few fossils that I collected there as a kid. Also, what caused the ocean to come up as far as Columbia, SC eons ago and then recede? Do you recall in the 1980′s when scuba divers found cypress tree root/stumps on the ocean floor, several miles out, off of Charleston, SC? The earth was and is a dynamic place. We still need to take care of it, not pass political blame on to others. Global Warming has become a new religion for far left liberals. IMHO.
By James the Foot Soldier January 18, 2010 at 5:59 pm
Pat’s all about “30 seconds”, as in his attention span….his erectile endurance….
By Nathan Rice January 18, 2010 at 7:25 pm
Pat,
Being confident in your inability to form a coherent argument without committing not one, but five separate logical fallacies, isn’t inspiring. It’s sad.
Try harder.
By No Way! January 18, 2010 at 8:02 pm
Don’t mind Pat, he is a poorly educated South Carolinian who cannot understand how science works and how a theory is proven. Just because you think it is true, doesn’t mean it is true!
By Snowdog January 18, 2010 at 8:09 pm
Nathan,
I call BS on you. If you are seriously advocating that the worlds glaciers are static, you need to do some research. In the Himalayas, few measurements go back before 1950, but there are early photos of the Baltoro, Khumbu, …. glaciers (near the mountaineering peaks) to compare ice volume to today’s levels. Some are quite famous shots, taken by Younghusband, Mallory, Crowley, etc. These glaciers have retreated mightily over the last 100 years. The Ganges headwaters are a mile longer than they used to be. Don’t believe me? Then go trek/climb the area yourself…..the terminal point of many glaciers are marked year by year.
Unfortunately, 95 to 99 % of the glaciers on earth are retreating now. I know this from glaciology journals, where the topic is studied in depth (pun intended). Do I believe that elevation 20,000 foot plus peaks will be snow free in 2035? Hardly. But I definitely doubt you.
By BIN News Editorial Staff January 18, 2010 at 11:25 pm
One think for sure. sic(k) willie can still pull wackos to his little porn blog. All he has to do is post about global warming, attack S.C. children and their education or claim the sky is falling. Wackos will respond.
Unfortunately he never came clean about his bogus claim that a Midlands’ elected official has a “Strom problem.” sic(k) willie’s credibility will always come back to that scam.
By Nathan Rice January 20, 2010 at 12:08 am
Snowdog,
I advocate no such thing. My statement had nothing to do with glacial status.
I was simply dismissing to the notion that one can win a debate by citing a questionable cause, shift the burden of proof to the skeptics, appeal to popularity and fear, then to bring it all home, use a straw dummy argument to make skeptics look like they have a few screws loose.
This happens to be my issue with the AGW argument … if the believers aren’t trying to scare everyone into a panic induced statist revolution, they’re confusing healthy skepticism with irrational denial.
There is a difference, people. A big one.
By Sarah January 20, 2010 at 1:14 pm
The article was about glaciers, Nathan. And if you want to morph this argument into AGW, why should we listen to you? I’m pretty good with logic, and like Pat, found your web page links to be a wasted 30 seconds.
Why don’t you tell us the truth on AGW?
By Nathan Rice January 20, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Well, Sarah, it might behoove you to take a gander at the comment order, perhaps paying special attention to the comment made by Pat, and my response to said comment.
If you want to blame someone for morphing the argument, blame Pat, or maybe even “Recovering Lobbyist” … I don’t care, just don’t blame me.
And of course you found the links a “waste” of your time … your argument is weak without reliance on fear and distraction.
This is fairly typical, though, for AGW believers … pin them down on their logical fallacy and suddenly it’s unfair to do so, presumably because your emotional response to a perceived problem has clouded your judgment.
As logical as you may be, you’ve said nothing here that would demonstrate it. Quite the opposite, actually. Same goes for Pat.
And for the record, I have no idea what I believe about AGW, other than the fact that I’m skeptical. Argue about the facts all you want, I just can’t sit idly by while someone employs unfair debate techniques to “win” an argument. It’s gone on long enough, don’t you think?
By Sarah January 20, 2010 at 4:38 pm
Fair enough about the rules of logic.
Now why do you infer that I’m an AGW believer?
By Snowdog January 21, 2010 at 9:47 am
The AGW argument: we are increasing atmospheric CO_2. CO_2 is a greenhouse gas in that it traps solar radiation in the atmosphere. This is why Venus, with its all CO_2 atmosphere, is hundreds of degrees hotter than Mercury, despite the latter being closer to the sun. I don’t think any of this is in dispute.
So there is simple physics behind AGW. The question remaining is whether or not the recent warming the Earth has experienced is explained better by CO_2 increases or other causes. In the last 20 years, there has been considerable scientific evidence pinpointing CO_2, though the matter is not totally settled.
Now Nathan, you’re getting killed here. Best to fight knowledge with knowledge….drop the superflourous issues of debate techniques. They’re not helping your cause.
By Nathan Rice January 21, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Sarah,
My apologies about the incorrect assumption.
Snowdog,
You had me up until your last paragraph. If a person embraces fallacies in logic when arguing for what they believe in, then I have to assume that they also do so when formulating said belief. We’re not really even debating AGW. The first argument offered up in this thread was from Pat, and as I pointed out, it was rife with fallacies in argumentative reasoning.
Plus, as I’ve mentioned several times, I don’t have a cause to help. Skeptics of AGW don’t posses the burden of proof. And until proponents can debate properly, I honestly don’t see any sense in participating.
Just replace the words “Global Warming” with “Terrorism”, and replace “Cap and Trade” with “Patriot Act” and try arguing with a Bush conservative. You’ll see what I mean.
By Sarah January 21, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Snowdog….I also prefer facts to rhetoric. I think you and Genomic Repairman make nice points. I’m not sure what Nathan is talking about to be honest, or if he has a point to make.
By Calendar Is Basic Knowledge February 10, 2010 at 2:40 pm
It is not going to get hotter. It is going to get colder. On the calendar of the Great Year in astronomy it shows that winter is coming, an ice age.
It is easy enough for a child to figure out. A child looks at a calendar and is told that all calendars are made to predict weather. Then the child is asked if it snowed in January of this year, what weather should you expect in January of 2011?
It is the same with the calendar of the Great Year which spans 26,000 years. It is for weather. If the beginning of the Great Year marked the starting era of an ice age that lasted 17,000 years, what weather should the planet expect after the beginning of the new Great Year that begins as 2012 ends?