THE DENIERS HAVE WON
As a former climate change believer, may I personally apologize for condemning billions of children to death by CO2 for 25 years, “just” to get them to turn the lights out more often? I had become the fear mongering neocon of CO2 environMENTALism as I issued CO2 death warrants to YOUR family and mine. I apologize for calling cold -warm, warm -hot and for calling all bad weather -Humanity’s fault. I apologize for splitting responsible environmentalism and dragging progressivism down with it. I apologize for trying to control climates of a planet instead striving to achieve the needed population control. I apologize for our constant demonizing, fear mongering, our utter hate for humanity and our whacko exaggerations of climate change. I apologize for not admitting that Climate Change was the END OF THE WORLD, as in “unstoppable warming” and “out of control warming and “runaway warming“. I’m sorry I forgot this MOST important fact: that it was the trusted scientists and their evil chemicals that made environmentalism necessary in the first place. We admit to being pretend rebels as we were spoon-fed by corporations and politicians promising to lower the seas. The neocons have never admitted their Iraq War WMD’s. I admit my ideology’s WMD’s that led us to another Bush-like false war against a false enemy. Please forgive me?

This MEME MINE apparition has been spamming AGW stories across the internet for the past couple of months. S/he's either OCD or doing it as a full-time paid job.

The reason Dr. Hansen only wants to handle questions from the young is because he cannot deal with legitimate issues. As a meteorologist, I find his attitude condescending and his science a farce. There is no consensus in the climate and meteorological communities on the subject of AGW. It only exists with scientists on the periphery. Treating their beliefs as fact is the same as going to a podiatrist for a heart problem - they are both doctors but who would you trust?

a state meteorologist reason for complaining about Dr Hansen, is because he has a chip on his shoulder about the climate issue which they totally completely got wrong.
Just like most of their weather forecasts.

paulm, here are a few inconvenient facts about the global warming computer model:
1. their model assumes solar energy is a constant - that the variability of output from the sun has no impact on temperature. If that is true, why have all of the planets in the solar system experienced a loss of polar ice caps? We are coming of a period of high solar activity and moving into a less variable period.
2. carbon dioxide is not an independent variable that drives temperature - it is the other way around, changes in temperature drives the carbon dioxide content
3. the AGW model does not work backwards - using their model, they cannot forecast weather in the historical record
4. carbon dioxide is considered a trace element in the atmosphere - 96% of the greenhouse gases is water vapor. Unless carbon dioxide was a deadly element like arsenic, 4% of a substance that is part of the respiration cycle cannot have any statistical impact. 4% of the greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide and human activity is 4% of the total. Do you really believe 1.6% has any statistical impact?
5. the planet is coming out of an ice age and the first stage of the interglacial period is a rapid temperature increase to bring the earth back to stasis. Right now the average global temperature is 2.5c below the interglacial average. Over the last 450,000 years the earth has experienced 3 ice ages - all have similar profiles.

There is nothing political about these easily researched facts.

One more thing, as a scientist I have no use for science being contaminated by either religion or politics. Our job is to be accurate, use proven models, and present decision makers with the best possible information, Dr. Hansen does a disservice to all of us. Sticking to facts on AGW is like being Galileo and dealing with religious correctness of the earth as the center of the universe.

I suppose it is out of the field of concern for " a state meterorologist" of the oceanic changes that are in force because of the massive carbon increases due to the burning of fossil fuels. I am surprise in many comments focused on this issue, it is treated as a seperate issue! Ocean temperatures have and are increasing and also the ph level of the water is becoming more acidic on the scale, 30% more since the dawn of the industrial age.
Even if we discounted "climate change", "oceanic change" is just as deadly to the planet.

Global warming is one of the great hoaxes of all time. Sure, the government is now going to manage the weather. How absurd.

Every generation has its precious little prophets of doom. Some of those swept up are crazy, some are dumb, some are greedy opportunists. Climate Change is no different than the Great Awakening of the 1740s – and run out of Cambridge by Harvard, which demanded that the fire-n-brimstone preachers support their arguments with proof. Oh how little has changed … except our universities had more integrity 2+ centuries ago.

There exists not a shred of objective evidence supporting the basis of the ‘climate change’ theory – nada. Eventually this will become evident to all and they’ll change their name again.

As ‘state meteorologist’ above illustrates, the climate prophets of doom had to employ false assumptions to get the results they desired … it’s simply bad science in every regard.

And when your peddling bad science, best take it to the young … it’s pathetic and dangerous.

to MJ, you are on the money. Since the original thread didn't address the issue - thanx for bring it up. The oceans are a major concern, the natural rise in temperature due to warming in the early stages of our inter-glacial period does increase the ph. We cannot do anything about this source, however it does makes ongoing air and water pollution a multiplier. My concern is by focusing on something that is not true destroys the credibility of the environmental movement and takes our focus away from things we can fix. If there is a significant die-off of phyto and zoo plankton, we will have a serious problem that effects all life on earth. Let's stop stalking windmills with imaginary swords and pour our effort and $$ into something significant. Crying wolf only makes real problems more difficult to solve.

To summarize:

1. Global warming is occuring
2. Don't make it worse

Mr. Lowenstein, you have it right. Global warming is a natural process after an ice age - bringing the earth back into a temperature balance after a period of extreme cold. Man's activity has no impact on global warming because CO2 is a trace gas. 96% of the "greenhouse" effect is from water vapor that is a consequence of warming. The way we minimize its impact is to focus on ecological issues that human activity affects. The place to start in on the no point or no source discharges (fertilizers and herbicides) into waterways that turns major estuaries into zones barren of the necessarily flora and fauna. This will have several positive impacts, first it will minimize the effect on global ph concentrations in the oceans, second it will return the estuaries to their major role as a place for the growth of small fry - fish, crabs, clams, etc to flourish and help alleviate over fishing. Third we need to lower sulfuric acid emissions from industries like utilities by moving away from coal based energy generation to natural gas and nuclear. None of these actions require cutting edge technology and utilizes US natural resources. Solar and wind are unreliable and will require back-up generating capacity to deal with variation and storage issues. My comments are simply directed at fixing what we cause and therefore under our control.

Re: Comment on my coment:

1. blind?
2. deaf?

Nice work, Dick. You really come across as an intelligent, informed individual.

You forgot to mention mature.

That the earth is warming within a geological timeframe is difficult to determine; our tenuous data isn’t that precise for such periods of time, though it’s likely we’re warming after the Little Ice Age ended about two centuries ago. That any of that warming was caused by humans is more supported by hubris than data – no, a few thousand Britons smelting ore didn’t affect solar radiation cycles … hard to believe, I know.

Yet when the prophets of doom declaim the advent of hell of earth, they’re referring to warming beyond any norm for the planet. Such a claim is not only unsupported by data but it’s actually contradicted by everything we know about the earth’s temperature cycles. We’re probably warming to the same temperature of around 1300 A.D. (you know, back when England had a booming viticulture industry … yes, English wine dominated the European markets).

And we all know the first millennium was warm because of fossil fuel burning oxen. It certainly couldn’t be natural variations in solar radiation or thermohaline circulation or – God forbid – some planetary or galactic variation we don’t yet understand.

Nope, it’s some dude in a ’72 Chevy Nova who accelerates too quickly.

Wow, snow in 49 out of 50 states! That's winter for you. Now, how about summer? I wonder if the Greenland Inuits have an opinion on this subject.

Without speculating about causes...

The rate of pace of glacial retreat has been dramatically higher the last thirty+ years, than it was for the century prior to the 1950's (which led into a comparatively brief period of relative stability). One can say that the retreat has been a long-term trend and what does that prove? But that increased rate of retreat is the troublesome evidence.

In the last decade, the national science academies in more than 30 countries have confirmed that the globe is warming and recommending a decrease in greenhouse gas production. Certainly some scientists have disputed the idea that man has caused the problem.

Prior to 2007 the only scientific organization that still flat-out rejected the idea of human impact on climate change was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (talk about a group with a rooting interest) and even they have softened their stance.

I did begin my comment by saying "without speculating about the causes."

But John, you should thoroughly read what you post. From the Nat Geo link:

"Yet overall, "if you account for the gains and losses of all of Patagonia's glaciers, they are [still] losing huge amounts of ice," Rivera pointed out."

And from the Discovery News piece:

"Researchers have also found that glaciers on California's Mt. Shasta have been growing for decades. And glacier recession has been blunted in the mountains of Oregon and Washington state because of increased moisture from the warming Pacific Ocean." Talk about the exception proving the rule.

This is the problem, while there are reasonable people on different sides of issues, but if you are trying dispute one aspect of this that is accepted fact - that of the trend of global warming - then I might as well be arguing with a flat-earther or a creationist.

Again, I'm not making big claims about human behavior versus natural phenomena - though one can make fair presumptions when one knows the effects of certainly chemical compounds on the environment - it's just a matter of determining the degree.

Forest for the trees.

And this just in: Climate change study had 'significant error': experts

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110119/ts_afp/climatewarmingfood_20110119163335