You've GOT to be kidding.....
Semantic horseshit. So who cares if you stop calling it "theory" and call it "fact," once its proven? The concept remains the same. And besides, how do you know something is "inherently" not provable? Someone may devise a proof tomorrow. Unless of course we're talking about religion, wherein I agree things are inherently non-provable. Oh wait, global warming IS a religion....
That's really funny. You honestly think those gasses have no interaction with solar electromagnetic radiation at all? Try again.
Ah here we go. Lloyd's last resort: wild non-sequitir accusations. But I'll play, because Lloyd always loses these.
Actually, I do believe the CFC interaction with ozone was rather well established. By science, not by mythology. I was rather skeptical 20 years ago, but not any more. There was a nice logical progression, each step measurable and traceable, that went from low-altitude CFCs which break down very slowly, to a breakdown mechanism that occurs readily at high altitude, which resulted in free flourine and chlorine, which had a clear potential to break down ozone. The fact that you could fly a U2 or Canberra up there and actually *make* the measurements helped a lot. There was no "and an unknown process that violates everything we know about the stability of the ecosystem occurs here...." step required. And since CFC usage has been curtailed, a measurable recovery in atmospheric ozone has occurred.
Certain aspects of evolution are clear, others aren't. The idea that it is *solely* responsible for life as we know it has some serious problems with basic probability theory... evolution ALONE producing life as we know it would be about as likely as a pencil balancing on its point on Funk N. Wagnall's desk for 100 years and through 2 earthquakes. Not impossible, but not realistically probable, even given a few billion years of random chance. There's more to the story.
Got a one-word answer for ya there: No.
So now what, Lloyd? Gonna accuse me of believing in the tooth fairy next in order to discredit?
No, "all" the scientific evidence doesn't.
Of course not. Because not EVERY scientific agency and group agrees with you.
The mere fact that you routinely throw around words like "all" and "every" proves that you're far from scientific in your thinking. But that's obvious for countless other reasons, too.
Do we not already have scientific proof?
The 'sky is falling' folks keep telling us that man is casing the world to warm by belching more CO2 into the atmosphere. If that is true why has the earths average temperature not risen over the past ten years, even though they insist the CO2 level is continuing to rise? Does that not prove their theory that CO2 cause a rise in temperature? ;)
It is notable that are not cross posting your opinion in any scientific NGs, only as an off topic post in several NGs. I wonder why, is it because you will not be heard in one of those NG? If all you can do to support 'your man is the cause' theory is keep referring to the 'right wing,' why do you not leave this automobile NG and go to one of the political sits to promote your theory with folk the may be able to influence? You certainly are not influencing anybody in this NG, except the other lefty kooks.
Interesting point. If we really knew what causes cancer we could cure cancer. Can you point us to a site that has proof that smoking causes cancer? The fact is millions who smokers never develop cancer and die of old age. If smoking indeed caused cancer why do not all smokers develop cancer?
We know the Rino Virus causes the common "cold," because the US Navy proved that many years ago. Everyone the Navy exposed to a Rino virus develops the symptoms, but not everyone exposed to "the cold," developed systems. Everyone that smokes does not develop cancer. How can that be? The truth is most people that get cancer do not get lung cancer from smoking.
They recently discovered a virus that causes cancer of the cervix in woman and they can give them an injection to help prevent that cancer. If we know the true cause of decease we eventually find a cure.
As to DDT causing the demise of birds, the THEORY presented in the book "The Silent Spring" were disproven years ago.
Do some points in that article bring to mind any of the "man is the cause theorists?
I E "As I neared the middle of the book, the feeling grew in my mind that Rachel Carson was really playing loose with the facts and was also deliberately wording many sentences in such a way as to make them IMPLY certain things without actually saying them. She was carefully omitting everything that failed to support her thesis that pesticides were bad, that industry was bad, and that any scientists who did not support her views were bad.
Dedication: A Lie
Birds Vs. Human Deaths
I then took notice of her bibliography and realized that it was filled with references from very unscientific sources. Also, each reference was cited separately each time it appeared in the book, thus producing an impressive array of "references" even though not many different sources were actually cited. I began to lose confidence in Rachel Carson, even though I thought that as an environmentalist I really should continue to support her.
I next looked up some of the references that Carson cited and quickly found that they did not support her contentions about the harm caused by pesticides. When leading scientists began to publish harsh criticisms of her methods and her allegations, it slowly dawned on me that Rachel Carson was not interested in the truth about those topics, and that I really was being duped, along with millions of other Americans.
As a result, I went back to the beginning of the book and read it all again, but this time my eyes were open and I was not lulled into believing that her motives were noble and that her statements could be supported by logic and by scientific fact. I wrote my comments down in rough draft style, and gathered together the scientific articles that refuted what Carson had reported the articles indicated. It was a most frustrating experience."
That's true. Because most people who get cancer get a different form of cancer. But most people who get lung cancer get it from smoking.
They've known that the virus causes cancer 20 years ago.
Well, no. We know the cause of cystic fibrosis of the pancreas and sickle cell disease, but there is no cure, although the treatments prolong the life of the people with these diseases and greatly improve the quality of their lives. In fact, sickle cell disease was the first genetic disease that we understood the cause.
However, if we understand the cause of a disease, we can often prevent the disease. We can prevent poisoning be preventing people from being exposed to poisons. We know that heart disease is caused by smoking, lack of exercise and poor diet. Not smoking, getting plenty of exercise and a proper diet decreases the incidence of heart disease and reduces the complications. Likewise, not smoking decreases the incidence of lung cancer and bladder cancer as well as arterial disease.
You're welcome to do you own homework and learn more about the causes of lung cancer here:
Jeff
Again you pick and choose to be heard on every thread. What part of "If smoking indeed caused cancer why do not all smokers develop cancer?"
If you are following the thread the comparison was to teh question, If the increase in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is the cause of global warming, as the theorist are contending, why has the average earth temperature NOT risen in over ten years while the percentage of CO2 has gone up by the amount they suggest? ')
No - an inconvenient (for you and your ilk) truth.
Ummm - no.
Whatever you say, Lloyd.
Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')
Read it and weep, Lloyd. Once again, a so-called scientist faking his experiment (by feeding the birds a low calcium diet and blaming the thin egg shells on DDT) - much like the GW people who have gotten caught over and over and over again routinely falsifying their data to get the results they want:
"The DDT/eggshell thinning bandwagon got really rolling with two scientific articles. The first study, 'Decrease in Eggshell Weight in Certain Birds of Prey,' by British Nature Conservancy researcher D.A. Ratcliffe, was published in Nature on July 8, 1967. Ratcliffe claimed that the incidence of broken eggs in nests of peregrine falcons, sparrowhawks, and golden eagles had increased considerably since 1950. He compared eggshells collected before 1946 with eggshells collected afterward, and found that post-1946 peregrine falcon eggshells weighed
19 percent less; sparrowhawks' weighed 24 percent less; and golden eagles' 8 percent less. Ratcliffe dismissed lack of food and radioactive contamination as explanations for the thinning, but noted 'some physiological change evidently followed a widespread and pervasive environmental change around 1945-1947... For the species examined, frequency of egg-breakage, scale of decrease in eggshell weight, subsequent status of breeding population, and exposure to persistent organic pesticides are correlated. The possibility that these phenomena are links in a causal chain is being investigated,' he concluded."Those British results were soon bolstered by the study 'Chlorinated Hydrocarbons and Eggshell Changes in Raptorial and Fish-Eating Birds,' published in an October 1968 issue of Science, and authored by Daniel Anderson and Joseph Hickey, both at the University of Wisconsin. 'Catastrophic declines of three raptorial species in the United States have been accompanied by decreases in eggshell thickness that began in
1947, and have amounted to 19 percent or more, and were identical to phenomena found in Britain,' they declared. The three species were peregrine falcons, bald eagles, and ospreys. They claimed that the eggshell thinning coincided with the introduction of chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides like DDT, and concluded that these compounds were harming certain species of birds at the tops of contaminated ecosystems."Still, the researchers just had a correlation between DDT and eggshell thinning. So they did what good scientists should do?they experimented. Joel Bitman at the U.S. Department of Agriculture fed Japanese quail a diet laced with DDT. His study, 'DDT Induces a Decrease in Eggshell Calcium,' published in Nature on October 4, 1969, found that the quail dosed with DDT had eggshells that were about 10 percent thinner than those of undosed quail. However, Bitman's findings were eventually overturned because he had also fed his quail a low-calcium diet. When the quail were fed normal amounts of calcium, the thinning effect disappeared. Studies published in Poultry Science found chicken eggs almost completely unaffected by high dosages of DDT."
Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')
No it didn't. Either you were overdramatic about your affliction (highly likely), or time healed it. Chiropractic didn't do anything because it can't do anything except snap your neck or cause a stroke.
That's obvious, and it's not a faulty analogy.
Most herbal "medicines" are nothing but a scam to exploit superstition and hypochondria.
It's obvious you're not logical enough to hold any valid scientific opinions, including any about global warming.
Oh - so you saw the x-rays. I would like to know who provided those to you. I over-exaggerated my condition? No - the docs tested and took x-rays. Snapped my neck or caused a stroke? I usually don't get this personal, but you're an idiot.
Hmmm - I would have thought you would say the analogy *was* faulty. Glad you agree.
Like anything else, you do your homework, and you can get some results. Same thing in "real" medicine. Only real medicine is allowed to kill many people in a given year with prescription and OTC medicine, and it's considered routine and statistical, but some guy takes homemade colloidal silver ever day for over ten years and his skin turns blue, and that somehow denigrates all of "alternative" medicine. Let's see - death/skin turns blue. Hmmm...
Your opinion - worth the paper it's not printed on. And Al Gore's qualifications are...?
I am well aware of the left's tactics of character assassination and discrediting of people to stack the deck in their arguments and their politics. Someone disagrees with your politically motivated conclusions, and you throw them under the bus, and then anybody left is by your definition "credible", 99.99999% of whom agree with you. Yes - I am well aware of your dishonest tactics, and the falsification and cherry-picking of data - seen over and over and over again. Quite despicable.
Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')
"Ever since Rachel Carson's 1962 book 'Silent Spring', environmental extremists have sought to ban all DDT use. Using phony studies from the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council, the environmental activist-controlled Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT in 1972. The extremists convinced the nation that DDT was not only unsafe for humans but unsafe to birds and other creatures as well. Their arguments have since been scientifically refuted.
"While DDT saved crops, forests and livestock, it also saved humans. In
1970, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences estimated that DDT saved more than 500 million lives during the time it was widely used. A scientific review board of the EPA showed that DDT is not harmful to the environment and showed it to be a beneficial substance that 'should not be banned.' According to the World Health Organization, worldwide malaria infects 300 million people. About 1 million die of malaria each year. Most of the victims are in Africa, and most are children."In Sri Lanka, in 1948, there were 2.8 million malaria cases and 7,300 malaria deaths. With widespread DDT use, malaria cases fell to 17 and no deaths in 1963. After DDT use was discontinued, Sri Lankan malaria cases rose to 2.5 million in the years 1968 and 1969, and the disease remains a killer in Sri Lanka today. More than 100,000 people died during malaria epidemics in Swaziland and Madagascar in the mid-1980s, following the suspension of DDT house spraying. After South Africa stopped using DDT in 1996, the number of malaria cases in KwaZulu-Natal province skyrocketed from 8,000 to 42,000. By 2000, there had been an approximate 400 percent increase in malaria deaths. Now that DDT is being used again, the number of deaths from malaria in the region has dropped from 340 in 2000 to none at the last reporting in February 2003.
"In South America, where malaria is endemic, malaria rates soared in countries that halted house spraying with DDT after 1993 -- Guyana, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela. In Ecuador, DDT spraying was increased after 1993, and the malaria rate of infection was reduced by 60 percent. In a 2001 study published by the London-based Institute for Economic Affairs, "Malaria and the DDT Story," Richard Tren and Roger Bate say that "Malaria is a human tragedy," adding, "Over
1 million people, mostly children, die from the disease each year, and over 300 million fall sick.""The fact that DDT saves lives might account for part of the hostility toward it. Alexander King, founder of the Malthusian Club of Rome, wrote in a biographical essay in 1990:
"'My own doubts came when DDT was introduced. In Guyana, within two years, it had almost eliminated malaria. So my chief quarrel with DDT, in hindsight, is that it has greatly added to the population problem.'
"Dr. Charles Wurster, one of the major opponents of DDT, is reported to have said,
"'People are the cause of all the problems. We have too many of them. We need to get rid of some of them, and this (referring to malaria deaths) is as good a way as any.'
"Spraying a house with small amounts of DDT costs $1.44 per year; alternatives are five to 10 times more, making them unaffordable in poor countries. Rich countries that used DDT themselves threaten reprisals against poor countries if they use DDT.
"One really wonders about religious groups, the Congressional Black Caucus, government and non-government organizations, politicians and others who profess concern over the plight of poor people around the world while at the same time accepting or promoting DDT bans and the needless suffering and death that follow. Mosquito-borne malaria not only has devastating health effects but stifles economic growth as well."
Your "science" (and politics) kills people, Lloyd.
Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')
Bill Putney wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:
I love these science-political smash mouth, no holes barred discussions by people who are convinced they are right and everyone else is pushing snake oil or faked science. When the answer is in I doubt if any of us will be around to debate it but I would point to a much smaller and more recent environmental issue which has been proven in the last 50 years. It involves the issue of smog which was choking many cities 30 or 40 years ago. The science was somewhat different but the arguments were the same. Many claimed that automobiles were not the main causes of smog and made arguments against smog laws and everyone hated the smog garbage that was added to automobiles and California was criticized for leading the communist type government interference into free market which would destroy the economy and world. I doubt if any of those people who made those arguments would admit it today but man does have the ability to alter the environment world wide like he never had in the past. I find it both foolish and unrealistic to make comparisons to what happened before the last 200 years when mankind certainly didn't have the ability to alter the earths environment and the continued increases in use by man of chemicals and technology which we sometimes only in hindsight realize is dangerous to something never imagined. I don't claim to have the answer but neither do I think some automotive fleet manager who claims expertise on every subject as Mike Who does has any answers either. Denying that mankind of today is capable of influencing the environment is truly baffling to me irregardless of one's occupation or education.
My foolish belief is that the earth is somewhat capable of staying in equilibrium if the industrial evolution had not modified much of the earth's natural environment from de-forestation, huge increases in burning of fossil fuel, mining in area's where man never went before, developing modern chemicals, splitting the atom and introducing the nuclear age, all of which gave man the ability to drastically change nature wherever he goes.
On one hand:
Then there's this about the effects of solar activity (or lack thereof during any given period) overwhelmingly swamping out anything we might do:
"Climate Change: Not every scientist is part of Al Gore's mythical 'consensus.' Scientists worried about a new ice age seek funding to better observe something bigger than your SUV ? the sun.
"Related Topics: Global Warming
"Back in 1991, before Al Gore first shouted that the Earth was in the balance, the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study using data that went back centuries that showed that global temperatures closely tracked solar cycles.
"To many, those data were convincing. Now, Canadian scientists are seeking additional funding for more and better 'eyes' with which to observe our sun, which has a bigger impact on Earth's climate than all the tailpipes and smokestacks on our planet combined.
"And they're worried about global cooling, not warming.
"Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council, is among those looking at the sun for evidence of an increase in sunspot activity.
"Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.
"Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.
"This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until
1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe."Tapping reports no change in the sun's magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.
"Tapping oversees the operation of a 60-year-old radio telescope that he calls a 'stethoscope for the sun.' But he and his colleagues need better equipment.
"In Canada, where radio-telescopic monitoring of the sun has been conducted since the end of World War II, a new instrument, the next-generation solar flux monitor, could measure the sun's emissions more rapidly and accurately.
"As we have noted many times, perhaps the biggest impact on the Earth's climate over time has been the sun.
"For instance, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar Research in Germany report the sun has been burning more brightly over the last 60 years, accounting for the 1 degree Celsius increase in Earth's temperature over the last 100 years.
"R. Timothy Patterson, professor of geology and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Center of Canada's Carleton University, says that 'CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales.'
"Rather, he says, 'I and the first-class scientists I work with are consistently finding excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations of the sun and earthly climate. This is not surprising. The sun and the stars are the ultimate source of energy on this planet.'
"Patterson, sharing Tapping's concern, says: 'Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth.'
"'Solar activity has overpowered any effect that CO2 has had before, and it most likely will again,' Patterson says. 'If we were to have even a medium-sized solar minimum, we could be looking at a lot more bad effects than 'global warming' would have had.'
"In 2005, Russian astronomer Khabibullo Abdusamatov made some waves ? and not a few enemies in the global warming 'community' ? by predicting that the sun would reach a peak of activity about three years from now, to be accompanied by 'dramatic changes' in temperatures.
"A Hoover Institution Study a few years back examined historical data and came to a similar conclusion.
"'The effects of solar activity and volcanoes are impossible to miss. Temperatures fluctuated exactly as expected, and the pattern was so clear that, statistically, the odds of the correlation existing by chance were one in 100,' according to Hoover fellow Bruce Berkowitz.
"The study says that 'try as we might, we simply could not find any relationship between industrial activity, energy consumption and changes in global temperatures.'
"The study concludes that if you shut down all the world's power plants and factories, 'there would not be much effect on temperatures.'
"But if the sun shuts down, we've got a problem. It is the sun, not the Earth, that's hanging in the balance."
Only kooks believe quoting kooks proves their argument.
I see. You couldn't tell or even recognize the truth if your life depended on it.
So you don't care to discuss or argue the FACTS do you Lloyd. Your solution is to simply label someone who posts facts as a kook, and that's proof of your argument.
FACTS such as "In Sri Lanka, in 1948, there were 2.8 million malaria cases and 7,300 malaria deaths. With widespread DDT use, malaria cases fell to 17 and no deaths in 1963. After DDT use was discontinued, Sri Lankan malaria cases rose to 2.5 million in the years 1968 and 1969, and the disease remains a killer in Sri Lanka today. More than 100,000 people died during malaria epidemics in Swaziland and Madagascar in the mid-1980s, following the suspension of DDT house spraying. After South Africa stopped using DDT in 1996, the number of malaria cases in KwaZulu-Natal province skyrocketed from 8,000 to 42,000. By 2000, there had been an approximate 400 percent increase in malaria deaths. Now that DDT is being used again, the number of deaths from malaria in the region has dropped from 340 in 2000 to none at the last reporting in February
2003."Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')
Bill Putney wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:
Bill, I don't think I will try to match you references which prove very little as to whether we should be concerned with global warming or cooling. We can only control human activities which may contribute to problems which are perceived to possibly be a threat. If the sun burns out or the earth start spinning at a terrific rate and throws mankind and all surface objects off I don't think that has any bearing as that is beyond our control. What is within our control is to use common sense and try to minimize mans actions which may well cause problems.
You list two legitimate scientific institutions, but then you list the Hoover Institution, a political think tank/lobby group. You accuse the left of politicizing science, but you're guilty of it yourself.
This will illustrate the problem:
This man is a writer of Broadway musicals, a "trained physicist and inventor".
People that the left wouild say have all kinds of "scientific" credentials buy into utter crap nonsense. The public may or may not believe in the Loch Ness monster, but they would believe in a second that a 1°C rise in 100 years would kill an animal. The same public that would bankrupt us in a minute if they were convinced that it would fix the "problem". That's the problem.
Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')
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