Dobbs again questioned human-caused global warming, suggested sun may be more responsible
SUMMARY: Lou Dobbs again questioned the impact of humans on global warming and suggested that solar activity may be far more responsible for global warming, ignoring the conclusion by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that "it is extremely likely [>95% chance] that humans have exerted a substantial warming influence on climate" and that this "estimate is likely to be at least five times greater than that due to solar irradiance changes."
On the January 5 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, Dobbs again questioned the impact of humans on global warming and suggested that solar activity may be far more responsible for global warming than humans, stating, "[M]any scientists are saying, 'My gosh, compared to what our sun can do, man has minuscule influence.' " However, Dobbs ignored the conclusion by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that "it is extremely likely [>95% chance] that humans have exerted a substantial warming influence on climate" and that this "estimate is likely to be at least five times greater than that due to solar irradiance changes."
During the segment, Dobbs aired a report from CNN correspondent Ines Ferré, which included a clip of meteorologist Joseph D'Aleo stating of global warming: "We are too short-sighted or certainly the -- those who believe in it are not looking at all the big picture, which needs to include other factors than natural cycles in the ocean and of the sun that are the real drivers." Following the report, Ferre stated, "There are also more questions over claims that so-called global warming is manmade. Scientists are looking at sunspot activity. They're linking the presence or absence of sunspots to warmer or cooler temperatures on earth." Dobbs responded, in part, that "what we're watching now -- we're in what, the second year of the solar sunspot activity cycle, an 11-year cycle, and many scientists are saying, 'My gosh, compared to what our sun can do, man has minuscule influence.' "
However, as Media Matters for America has noted, the IPCC's 2007 "Synthesis Report" concluded that "[w]arming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level" and that "[m]ost of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely [defined in the report as a ">90%" chance] due to the observed increase in anthropogenic [human-caused] GHG [greenhouse gas] concentrations." The IPCC report specifically rebuts the suggestion that nature is primarily responsible for global warming in the last 50 years:
The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely [<5% chance] that global climate change of the past 50 years can be explained without external forcing and very likely that it is not due to known natural causes alone. During this period, the sum of solar and volcanic forcings would likely [>66% chance] have produced cooling, not warming.
In comparing human-caused and natural "radiative forcing," (which is defined as "an index of the importance of [a] factor as a potential climate change mechanism"), the IPCC's February 2007 Working Group I Report "The Physical Science Basis" concluded that since 1750, "it is extremely likely [>95% chance] that humans have exerted a substantial warming influence on climate. This RF estimate is likely to be at least five times greater than that due to solar irradiance changes. For the period 1950 to 2005, it is exceptionally unlikely [<1% chance] that the combined natural RF (solar irradiance plus volcanic aerosol) has had a warming influence comparable to that of the combined anthropogenic RF."
From the January 5 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight:
DOBBS: Up next, new indications that the hype over global warming may be based on inexact science and inexact assessment of facts. We'll have that report. Hold your breath, don't get excited, all of you enthusiasts for or against global warming. Just the facts coming up.
[...]
[begin video clip]
FERRÉ: New data from the University of Illinois says ice levels are roughly the same as those seen 29 years ago. But after decades of ice melt in the Arctic, that may be of little comfort. The increase is because of the formation of thin ice, which melts easily once the winter is over.
Even so, one climatologist skeptical of global warming feels the entire debate is muddled with selective data.
D'ALEO: We are too short-sighted or certainly the -- those who believe in it are not looking at all the big picture, which needs to include other factors than natural cycles in the ocean and of the sun that are the real drivers.
FERRÉ: NASA scientists report that more than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, the Arctic, and Antarctic have melted since 2003.
Some farmers fear future regulations on greenhouse gas emissions could include what could amount to a cow tax. The United Nations calculates livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
PAT MICHAELS (Cato Institute senior fellow): Extremism in the pursuit of climate policy is certainly no virtue. And what's really going on is we have rather a moderate increase in temperature, so why would one jump off the bridge and take money away from people?
FERRÉ: The Environmental Protection Agency says methane, a greenhouse gas associated with livestock, is not being considered for regulation at this point.
[end video clip]
FERRÉ There are also more questions over claims that so-called global warming is manmade. Scientists are looking at sunspot activity. They're linking the presence or absence of sunspots to warmer or cooler temperatures on earth. Lou?
DOBBS: Yeah. The one -- the one issue here, and as we have examined and reported on the issue of global warming, it is so clear that on both sides, but particularly the pro-global warming, if there is such a thing, if I can put it that way, they are -- they bring this thing to a personal belief system. It's almost a religion, without any question. And what we're watching now -- we're in what, the second year of the solar sunspot activity cycle, an 11-year cycle, and many scientists are saying, "My gosh, compared to what our sun can do, man has minuscule influence."
FERRÉ: And there's some scientists that say that, for example, last year there were 266 days out of all of last year that there was no sunspot activity.
DOBBS: Wow.
FERRÉ: And so they're saying now this is going to indicate cooler temperatures on earth. But yeah, I mean, people are very passionate about this topic.
I liked the episode of Dobbs show where he tried to figure out why more bullets weren't in prison.
That message at the bottom of the screen is priceless:
GLOBAL WARMING
For more info go to LOUDOBBS.COM
About as helpful as:
CIRCUS PEANUTS
For more info go to NBA.COM
Damn that sun anyway! If it wasn't so hot it wouldn't matter what my carbon footprint was.
I haven't heard any wingnut reports of Global Warming conferences being cancelled due to snow lately. Does that mean winter's almost over?
Oh don't we wish. Naturally there were a number of dumbell letters in the Oregonian expressing that droll little joke in various ways. When someone points out that Global Warming means weather extremes, they weave & dodge away as if it's all just so much poppycock and too much science to bother with.
Here in the midwest they wouldn't stop with the "There's your global warming" routine when we were getting big blizzards and record colds before Christmas. Now that some areas are experiencing flood problems because most of it has melted away already they seem strangely quiet.
Dobbs question AGW doctrine AGAIN? AGAIN?
Gee, when somebody got outa stride in the Bataan Death March, they just shot 'em, man.
Ask Ourselves These EnviroMENTAL Questions
How long has this climate crisis being going on for?
Describe this crisis in detail (no googling).
How has this crisis in climate affected ourselves or someone we know personally?
Who was Rachel Carson?
Do we all have chocking fits when breathing the air?
Why are we living longer now than at any time in human history?
Should we miss living in smoke filled mud huts, fighting for the water hole and using peat moss for toilet paper?
What is the difference between sustainability and poverty?
Since La Nina delayed global warming, why is La Nina not considered stronger than all of the magical forces of global warming itself?
What would have to happen to prove the theory was wrong after all?
The theory started in 1986 and the IPCC has been making predictions of climate crisis for 19 years, so how much longer is the world’s longest emergency going to go on for?
How is the IPCC’s “precaution” or “we better do something just in case” worthy of being called an “exact” science, let alone consensus?
Why do we bow to scientists after they infected our planet with their evil chemicals and are being bought out by evil oil companies to kill clean technology?
Calling a paid consultant a scientist is not illegal we can assume?
Why isn’t there a shortage of Oxygen from all of this evil combustion?
Should we ban or just tax volcanoes?
When so-called scientists, hysterical corporate media, PR firms and pandering politicians all agree on one issue, should we be obedient or suspect?
How did the earth get to be 5 billion years old and not survive the effects of human monkeys?
Can the taxes we give politicians to lower the temperature of the planet make the grass greener and the sky bluer too?
Is the Tooth ferry real?
Do we enjoy threatening our children by denying them a future with their own grand kids and making everyone around us as miserable, frail, sensitive, frightened and hysterical as we are with this aging CO2 theory?
Describe the state of our environment without the CO2 threat?
Why do we always have to be motivated by crisis and not reason?
Will global warming be remembered in history along with Bush’s WMD neocon scam and witch burning?
If we love this planet so much, why are we so determined to believe in it's demise and not consider the denier's side at all?
Why are these predictors of doom not standing on street corners with signs that say what the dogma adds up to: THE END IS NEAR.
Are we in the least bit optimistic that this Armageddon prediction will be wrong after all?
If it takes consensus to prove the theory wrong, how can only simple consensus prove it right?
Would we be willing to work together to find a way to avoid war-causing oil and protect our environment instead of trying to rescue and tax our way out of a crisis that clearly does not exist?
Wow. It might just be the drugs - I have a bad cold and some good drugs - but I swear I can't tell if this is sarcasm or stupidity at work. Are you lampooning the conservatives' positions, or are you asking these inane, but otherwise straitforward and fairly elementary questions in all seriousness? Please let me know. If I missed the joke or something I might consider calling in sick tomorrow. (And I know I could use the sleep.)
Stop trying to stump the faithful, you heretic.
As for myself, I have begun to realize how disrespectful I have been in my references to the AGW faith.
Tolerance would suggest that xmas be called Christmas even by non-believers; therefore I will no longer disrespect the Anthropogenic Global Warming faith by referring to it as AGW.
Well, maybe just one more time: remember, when the collection plate is passed at any one of a million AGW churches (Sierra Club, Wilderness Society, Save Da Bears, ad nauseum) give all you can--there's a lotta "non-profit" salaries depending on you. You can trust 'em--those sob stories can't be faked; it's just not possible.
Lemoc, no matter how moronic your posts are, we still wish you the best.
Save Da Bears, try to not exhale, and may Algor bless you.
New Year's Special!!! Buy my carbon credits @50% off!!
But wait--that's not all--call in the next ten minutes and I'll include a portrait of the last remaining polar bear, signed by the bear hisself.
I will be gracious enough to answer one of your questions. I believe it is the one with the most value.
Is the tooth ferry real?
No, there is no tooth ferry. There is, however, a tooth water taxi and a tooth booze cruise. I recommend the latter. A great ride and all the free listerine you can drink.
We wouldn't want Dobb's or anyone else "questioning" anything now, would we? Think about how ridiculous the title of this discussion sounds.
Question anything you like. We'll be kind enough to show you how wrong you are. That's why we're here. :)
Moonbat is waiting, onionhead(crickets................)
Leave me out of your insectophiliac fantasies please.
As long as you can bring something besides the creationist bible to the table, question away! I should warn you though, the rest of us have moved beyond questioning because the facts bear out enough evidence to move forward.
Mmfa states that the study they reference says global warming in the last 50 years is caused by man-made substances. Simple question for you Snoopy; what caused global warming before that period? Another simple question for you Snoopy; will the cause of global warming before 1960 continue into 2010, or does it stop being a cause?
simple answer for you, phil: Mankind during the last 500 years. See black tuesday for an example...
Well, then.... who is wrong? The scientists who mmfa quoted as saying only the last 50 years are the 'defining moment'? Or... mmfa for missleading it's readers with miss-information?
You said you would bring FACTS. Where are they? The one you tried to bring about mankind causing it for the last 500 years go directly against what the scientists, mmfa is promoting, say. How are YOUR facts better than theirs?
Snoopy, you said you would bring FACTS. Where are they? The one you tried to bring about mankind causing it for the last 500 years go directly against what the scientists, mmfa is promoting, say. How are YOUR facts better than theirs?
Been a couple days, now, Snoopy. As suspected you have nothing to back up your claims of facts and evidence of man made products being the only cause of global warming. You have no answer to why mmfa disagrees with your statement that global warming started 500 years ago.
With no further evidence to show otherwise, I will continue to believe global warming happens on a natural cyclical action and is only compounded by man's actions. If man (and all his pollution) were to disappear today, global warming would still occur. Followed by global cooling ... followed by global warming ... followed by global cooling ... and on and on and on.
People who believe global warming is without natural causes are not very smart or simply dilushional parrots repeating everything they are told to repeat by mmfa.
Bruce, bruce, bruce. Climate change is one of the results of global warming. There are more than one factors impacted here...
If Global Warming really means Climate Change,
The term Climate change was created by republicans (the Bush administartion) when it became obviosu they could no longer ignore global warming. It makes it possible for them to talk about it without being reminded they have been wrong for years.
Lou Dobbs could not be more wrong. We of the surface world are blameless. Any thinking person knows that global warming is caused by the growing industries of Pellucidar (with profound apology to EGB).
Make that a double apology: Fumble fingers here meant ERB (R for Rice instead of G for Goofed).
"Global warming is mainly caused by greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activities; however, current climatic variations may be affected “around 15% or 20%” by solar activity, according to Manuel Vázquez, a researcher from the Canary Islands’ Astrophysics Institute (IAC) who spoke at the Sun and Climate Change conference, organised as part of the El Escorial summer courses by Madrid's Complutense University." "Sun Could Cause 15% To 20% Of Effects Of Climate Change, Researcher Says," ScienceDaily, 18 July '08
"Scientists have been able to say with virtual certainty for the first time that the climate change observed over the past four decades is man made and not the result of natural phenomena. The research compounds the conclusion of the biggest scientific report on global warming to date, the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) last year, which asserted a strong likelihood that human action was changing the climate. The new study raises the likelihood of "unnatural" causes of global warming to near certainty. Authors of the study, published on Thursday in the peer-review journal Nature, examined a greater range of data than any other study so far. "Changes in natural systems since at least 1970 are occurring in regions of observed temperature increases, and these temperature increases at continental scales cannot be explained by natural climate variations alone," they say." --"Proof found of man-made climate change," The Financial Times, 15 May '08
"Satellite data show that changes in the sun are contributing to global warming but to a smaller extent than human activity, a space scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington told a group of petroleum geologists on Wednesday. "The sun is playing a role that you can detect, but it's not the dominant role," Judith Lean told a crowded session at the 2008 convention of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in San Antonio. Climate-change skeptics have suggested that solar cycles may be more responsible than human activity for increasing global temperature. But Lean said her findings showed "the sun is a factor of 10 less than the anthropogenic."" --"Sun cycles seen not key to recent global warming," Reuters, 23 April '08
Here is what Climate Code Red says:
--Human emissions have so far produced a global average temperature increase of 0.8 degree C.
--There is another 0.6 degree C. to come due to "thermal inertia", or lags in the system, taking the total long-term global warming induced by human emissions so far to 1.4 degree C.
--If human total emissions continue as they are to 2030 (and don't increase 60% as projected) this would likely add more than 0.4 degrees C. to the system in the next two decades, taking the long-term effect by 2030 to at least 1.7 degrees C. (A 0.3 degree C. increase is predicted for the period 2004-2014 alone by Smith, Cusack et al, 2007).
--Then add the 0.3 degree C. albedo flip effect from the now imminent loss of the Arctic sea ice, and the rise in the system by 2030 is at least 2 degree. C, assuming very optimistically that emissions don't increase at all above their present annual rate! When we consider the potential permafrost releases and the effect of carbon sinks losing capacity, we are on the road to a hellish future, not for what we will do, but WHAT WE HAVE ALREADY DONE.
One final thing. Most people are underestimating how serious the problem is. It isn't that complicated, global warming means record high temperatures and more frequent heatwaves in the future:
"Few seem to realise that the present IPCC models predict almost unanimously that by 2040 the average summer in Europe will be as hot as the summer of 2003 when over 30,000 died from heat. By then we may cool ourselves with air conditioning and learn to live in a climate no worse than that of Baghdad now. But without extensive irrigation the plants will die and both farming and natural ecosystems will be replaced by scrub and desert. What will there be to eat? The same dire changes will affect the rest of the world and I can envisage Americans migrating into Canada and the Chinese into Siberia but there may be little food for any of them." --Dr James Lovelock's lecture to the Royal Society, 29 Oct. '07
Don't feel bad if you haven't heard of non-irrigated crops failing (and the consequencial famine) by 2040, it was news to Sir Stern. Even with his considerable resources he was caught by surprise:
"We underestimated the risks ... we underestimated the damage associated with temperature increases ... and we underestimated the probabilities of temperature increases." -- Sir Nicholas Stern, author of "The Stern Report," April 17, 2008
...............yeah but when do we get off the island, proffessor?
As far as I'm concerned, I'd put more faith in Fred C Dobbs level of sanity than in Lou Dobbs.
And, as far as his contention that the Sun is responsable for global warming, just google Global Dimming.
Exsistence before 1960? A condemed mythology!
Nah, phil.. the eco-nut, evolutionists are revising their beliefs that man has only been on the planet for 50 years, and the dinosaurs went extinct because they were too flatulent. LOL
Don't ask intelligent questions. You'll be chased up a hill by torch bearing townfolk.
.....heaven forbid they think for themselves and seek information, hidden deep in the caves of libraries.
.....and, when these same, low-browed morons experience a solar eclipse, they'll looked toward Al Gore, renowned scientist and Nobel Peace prize winner(who, by the way, ignores his own advice) to guide them through the chaotic episode and advise them of future tumult.
Ahhh, but they won't see him because he will be standing in the glow of the after-light. That won't stop them from believing every word he says though. Whether he follows his own advise or not! ;)
Sigtek, you'll be flagged, shortly, for being too funny. Be that as it may, you made my evening--you are WAY humorous.
You made my day. I get beat up so often here, it was nice to hear something pleasant. I mean no harm to anyone. Thank you