Apr 18 2006

Liberal Fairy Tales

Published by at 8:06 am under All General Discussions

Richard Cohen enjoyed watching Al Gore’s fantasiful fairy tale about the coming doom of “Global Warming” (think of it in a deep, echoing voice):

But a moment later, you will be captivated, then riveted and then scared out of your wits. Our Earth is going to hell in a handbasket.

You will see the Arctic and Antarctic icecaps melting. You will see Greenland oozing into the sea. You will see the atmosphere polluted with greenhouse gases that block heat from escaping. You will see .photos from space of what the icecaps looked like once and what they look like now, and, in animation, you will see how high the oceans might rise. Shanghai and Calcutta swamped. Much of Florida, too. The water takes a hunk of New York. The fuss about what to do with Ground Zero will turn to naught. It will be under water.

Aptly named ‘Inconvenient Truth’, the movie protrays Al Gore’s cinematic version of the guy on the street corner wearing the sign ‘The End Is Near!”. Yes Al, the world is in a warming trend. But since you are one of the most science and math challenged people on the planet, your hysterical fear is simply not an answer.

We have no idea the root source of the warming. While green house gases have risen, they cannot scientifically explain all (or even a fraction) of the rise we have seen over the last 400 years (since the last mini-ice age). Has the world been warmer? Yes. Colder? Yes. What is going on? No scientist knows. None.

The Sun is one likely culprit – which makes the problem so large and unreachable forget about changing the dynamic. Just figure out how to adjust to the new levels. The El Nino’s which heat up the Pacific basin are not due to heat being trapped by gases above. This would seem to violate a lot of laws of heat transfer.

The Pacific Ocean is the largest body of water on the planet. Water is also one of the fastest conductors of heat (ever sleep on a cold or warm water bed?). The marginal rise in temperature (1 degree or so) should easily disperse in a volume of water the size of the Pacific ocean. It is a surface heat that should dissipate through the depths of the icey cold, even given the stratification of currents and thermal layers. The reason being is the depth of the El Nino – it is quite deep.

Another source of El Nino could be the deep ocean rift where the sea floor is separating through volcanic upwelling. Miles of hot lava bubbling up from the icy depths like a line of gas burners can heat some water.

Basically, what we have with the Global Warming crowd are some skill challenged scientists (goes to show you how far the bar has been lowered to get PhD’s) mated up with anti-capitolist left wingers with over active imaginations.

If you want me to believe reducing US and EU emissions will stop Global Warming, you better come with some math and science in pocket. Feel free PhD’s to line up. The US and EU represent 20% of the world’s populaton. A ten percent reduction would result in no net change at all in green house gases. Why? because China and India, which represent nearly half the worlds population are exempt from Kyoto guidelines, and they are increasing their production at a rate that will overwhelm any paultry production cuts we make. 10% (our target) of 20% (or portion) is net 2% cut. If their increas is 5%, and they are 45% of the problem then they increase the gases by 2.25%.

Now, the fact is we will not be dropping emissions to anything near 10%, and the rate of emission production by the rest of the exempt world will be much more than 5%. I used crude numbers and simple examples to prove a point (yes, I know the dynamics are different and more complex, but the boundaries of what is possible are quite simple to define).

Al Gore is telling a story. He is making up a fairy tale for those who want to believe the world is going to hell in hand basket. Because right now, that is the only belief they have left that has not been proven to be wrong. Or, it is one of the last vestages of liberalism to be knocked down.

4 responses so far

4 Responses to “Liberal Fairy Tales”

  1. Donkatsu says:

    Dear AJ,
    I have taught courses on energy and economics for years. One of my first exercises in the course is to put the carbon and energy situation into some kind of context. Current world oil demand is about 82 million barrels/day. That amount represents roughly 0.0032% of total solar flux and about 0.0046% of useful solar energy (i.e., what is not bounced back into space).

    Total known reserves of all conventional and unconventional oil, at about 2 trillion barrels, is just a little bit more than the useful solar energy received in one day by the earth. In other words, the impacts on earth’s climate of even the tiniest of fluctuations in solar output is greater than almost anything that humans can do with regard to fossil energy use or conservation.

  2. Donkatsu says:

    The grammar police have reminded me that in para 2, “Total known reserves . . . . are . . “

  3. momdear1 says:

    The global warming fantasy was dreamed up by the “I can bullshit anybody about anything” radical activists left over from the 60’s Peace and Civil Rights movements as THE cause which was supposed to unite everyone for their big fight to impose their idea of a perfect society on the world. Too bad there are dissidents, like the radical Islamists who are willing to tell even bigger lies to impose their ideal society on all of us, within the dissident movement. But, if you think about it, both want the same thing. Everybody living back in the dark ages without modern conveniences.

  4. Seixon says:

    One thing that popped out at me from watching the trailer of this thing was Al Gore claiming that the oceans could rise 20 feet, drowning Florida and a bunch of other places.

    Excuse me? Not even the IPCC has dreamed up such a ludicrous fairytale for the future. The IPCC has speculated that the sea level will rise up to 1 meter within 100 years.

    Surely Al Gore knows that 1 meter is not the same thing as 20 feet.