Global warming deniers can deny all they want. But your insurance company can deny too - deny keeping your rates the same or deny insuring that beach-front condo.
Florida real estate is looking less and less attractive by the day. Good luck out there people of Florida. You're gonna need it. (and Alabama, and Mississippi, and South Carolina, and Texas, ...). And the US doesn't have the money to keep bailing you out.
Lloyd's of London, the world's oldest insurer, offered a gloomy forecast of floods, droughts and disastrous storms over the next 50 years in a recently published report on impending climate changes.
"These things are fact, not hypothesis," said Wendy Baker, the president of Lloyd's America in an interview on Monday. "You don't have to be a believer in global warming to recognize the climate is changing. The industry has to get ready for the changes that are coming."
In a report on catastrophe trends Lloyd's is disseminating to the insurance industry, a bevy of British climate experts, including Sir David King, chief scientist to the British government, warn of increased flooding in coastal areas and a rapid rise in sea level as ice caps melt in Greenland and Antarctica.
"The property casualty industry had an easy year in 2006, when there were no U.S. hurricanes," Baker said. "But the next one may make Katrina look inexpensive."
In August, 2005 Hurricane Katrina slammed into the U.S. Gulf Coast, costing the industry more than $38 billion and making it the most destructive storm in terms of property losses ever.
But hurricane modelers say a storm like Katrina hitting the Miami area of Florida or New York could cost as much as $100 billion.
But hurricane modelers say a storm like Katrina hitting the Miami area of Florida or New York could cost as much as $100 billion.
88 comments:
Wow, insurance companies exploiting the global warming hype to raise premiums? I am shocked.
My mom lives in a trailer in Sarasota. She is paying $1,200 a year to insure a 1970s era trailer for $38,000 coverage. I told her that was nuts! Cancel! But the mentality is "You must always have homeowner's insurance".
My brother also lives in Florida. He canceled his insurance when a Realtor told him the home he owes $40,000 on was worth $300,000--- If the house was gone. See, it's just a liability a new owner would have to tear down and truck away before building a new McMansion.
The market sets insurance prices, not insurance companies
Too expensive? Don't buy it.
Nobody offers it at a price you consider "fair", then obviously you don't understand supply and demand.
Prices too high because of corruption or collusion? Then a new competitor would move in. No new competitors = prices aren't too high, potential new market entrants don't enter as risk/reward/ROI is not to their benefit
I don't see how people in Florida will be able to insure their places unless the government (i.e. the taxpayer) picks up the tab. And sky-high insurance is not gonna be good for property prices in Florida.
"You don't have to be a believer in global warming to recognize the climate is changing. The industry has to get ready for the changes that are coming."
No one has ever denied the climate changes. In the 1980's, everyone said the earth was cooling, 10,000 years ago, Alaska had tropical forests. The argument is if it is good/bad, if humans are the cause, and if we need draconian socialistic measures to help (a la Al Gore)...
Marky MArk
shoot, what about alligator insurance? last year's mating season saw several attacks on humans.
Too expensive? Don't buy it.
the other thing is to "self insure." but the problem is that people are so leveraged that they can't do that! it's interesting that people are led to believe that higher home values are good for them but that situation makes it impossible to "self insure!"
I went through Hurricane Andrew in Aug 1992 in Coral Gables, Florida. The night before it hit, I was on Miami beach and at 3 AM the party of thousands was still going when I left. All the people I know said not to worry as the hurricane would not be that bad. Next morning with sirons going, Miami beach was under evacuation. After this giant storm hit and the area looked like it was hit by a bomb, people spray painted their policy number on their house and stated they had a gun as well. I was never a gun owner till after Andrew. More than 10 insurance carriers went out of Florida and some out of business. I can not imagine living in Florida without good insurance. Just hours before Andrew hit, it was a hot sunny August day. If you had not watched the news, you would have no idea what was comming based on the sky.
Global Warming may in fact be real, but it has damn little to do with mankind.
Father of Modern Climatology, Says Man-Made Global Warming Is 'Absurd'
Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him
The Sun Moves Climate Change
These articles are out there Keith, but you must have an open mind. Global warming is being used to take control of ALL the sheeple.
Survey of global warming deniers - do you also not believe in evolution and the big bang?
Just wondering...
For the ignorant, I'd recommend you start with the recent UN study. Once you find yourself disagreeing with a study of this magnitude, and 2000+ scientists, you're heading down "flat earth" crackpot lane
http://tinyurl.com/2psza9
But of course, you won't read it. It might challenge your belief system.
Meanwhile, tell your insurance company you don't believe in global warming. I'm sure they'll love to hear your ideas.
Kieth....why do we constantly say that NAR, BLS, etc. put out "phony" numbers to support a bubble economy, but the UN study is irrefutable?! Think about it...the climate on this planet changes. Constantly. Humans love to believe that we are so menacingly powerful, that the very survival of the planet depends on us (or is threatened by us). Wake up. We are a speck on this planet...and reduced emmisions will not make a sliver of difference in the rate of climate change.
How did we have ice ages in previous millenia if not for climate variability. More importantly, how did we come out of the last ice age? And how hot did it get between ice ages? Clearly, nothing happens on this planet unless evil oil companies are to blame....so I ask you...which oil company caused the Quaternary ice ages?
Bonus Question: Which evil oil company is responsible for the warming surface temperatures on Mars?
Global warming took decades, a global ice age could start in a single moment.
Insurance companies are covering themselves like never before. I just got a letter from Allstate regarding my renewal in July. A new 3% cyclonic (hurricane) storm damage deductible will be applied to my homeowners insurance. I live in central Maryland. I guess lightning strike deductibles will be next.
lookup "Global Warming Swindle"....it was a report/documentary shown on channel 4 in the UK. You will be very surprised Keith.
Anyway.....global warming, peak oil and all the rest of this pseudo science was unheard of 10 years ago.......I wonder why ?
Keith,
Let's not suggest that the UN is an impartial organization on this thing. You want to pull out 2000+ scientists? Try the 15000+ scientists who signed a petition against the Kyoto Protocol for the very same reason.
Speaking as somebody who actually works in the field, there is no conclusive evidence that human beings are responsible for global warming. The sunspot cycle is much more of a culprit...check the recent indications of global warming on Mars. Last I checked, they had NO people.
Why don't you have an open mind yourself instead of believing the gospel preached by environmentalists and the MSM.
MarkIFC said...
My mom lives in a trailer in Sarasota
Ladies and gentlemen I present to you the typical bitter renter out there...trailer park trash.
The earth's climate is changing, I don't deny that. What I deny is the thinking by you idiots who think mankind has the power to change what the earth will do. Billions of years of cooling and heating patterns will not be altered by a few decades of SUV use.
Keith said:
Survey of global warming deniers - do you also not believe in evolution and the big bang?
Just wondering...
For the ignorant, I'd recommend you start with the recent UN study. Once you find yourself disagreeing with a study of this magnitude, and 2000+ scientists, you're heading down "flat earth" crackpot lane
http://tinyurl.com/2psza9
But of course, you won't read it. It might challenge your belief system.
Meanwhile, tell your insurance company you don't believe in global warming. I'm sure they'll love to hear your ideas.
The same goes for you Keith. Your belief system has man creating the possible global warming, but if you believe in evolution, then you are no student of earth history. One super volcano put out more shit in the atmoshphere in a week than man has done in his recorded history. Come to grips with this fact. The big yellow thingy in the sky has more to do with this than anything man could do. By the way, recorded weather history that you and others use is tooooooooooo small a sample in years to be anything other than a pimple on the ass of a fly when you look at the age of the planet.
I know a manic customer of mine who watches the weather on his blackberry 24/7. He frequently cancels meetings we schedule all over the country (USA, Europe), just so that he can fly back to his home in Orlando, FL and batten down the hatches for any hurricane coming its way. As if that's not sad enough, if only you could hear his excuses for leaving everytime. They are classic.
Man, that's no way to live.
Everyone in Florida should start thinking Wisconsin or North Dakota going forward.
One other point on global warming. You are a skeptic when it comes to what the authorities tell us because you believe like most of us that they are controlled by the elites. Why would you not have the same skeptisism with global warming when all they really want (elites) is to control EVERYTHING with the use of whatever is available to reach their goals.
By the way, I have a big winter coat bought in the 70's because they were sure we were in for global warming. So please buy it, as they have now come full circle, or maybe I hang on to it in case they change their minds again.
Yes, the UN study had its problems.
Yes, the 12-year solar ion peaks
reduce high cloud formation by altering geomagnetic deflection
of cosmic rays, allowing more
sunlight to heat the Earth.
But 6 billion humans (rapidly
industrializing) is about three
billion too many. And we better
work on that while we try to avert
megadisasters through other means.
It would be tough to find credible
sources to refute that sea levels
have been rising for a few thousand
years, and that the rate of rise
in the last century has increased
sharply.
Nor that atmospheric 'cooling'
during the brief solar minimums
means little compared to the
longer times required for temps
to 'drop' in the ocean depths and
the land masses.
The really bad news is that maybe all we can hope for is to reduce
the rate and extent of disaster.
Which is all the more reason to do what we can.
But much of this is lost on those who can't spell, or think Alaska
was tropical just 10,000 years ago.
(Keith: Firefox/Mozilla is not
working on comments now.
But evil IE does.)
The "scientists" at UN are in fact politicians and bureaucrats that tell the few scientists that are left in the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) where and what to sign. Many scientists have left the IPCC because they do not support the findings of the bureaucrats. I guess they are not for sale. One scientist who used to be a member of IPCC had to threaten to sue the UN to get is name remove from one of these reports.
Scientists that are non-believers are being targeted as heretics, being called fascists and risk losing their jobs etc. When the true believers do not have science to support their claims they resort to threats and name-calling. Galileo Galilei, Charles Darwin and Ignaz Semmelweis just to name a few scientists in history that have been subjected to this treatment.
Why is it that it's mainly Americans who don't believe in global warming? They think you can burn 80 million barrles of oil a day and it will have no effect - crazy. I guess they are the ones who believe that democracy c an be delivered through the barrel of a gun.
Eight of the 10 warmest years since 1860 have occurred within the last decade.
That must be because of the elites trying to control us using global warming, I guess.
Anonymous said...
The "scientists" at UN are in fact politicians and bureaucrats that tell the few scientists that are left in the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) where and what to sign. Many scientists have left the IPCC because they do not support the findings of the bureaucrats. I guess they are not for sale. One scientist who used to be a member of IPCC had to threaten to sue the UN to get is name remove from one of these reports.
Scientists that are non-believers are being targeted as heretics, being called fascists and risk losing their jobs etc. When the true believers do not have science to support their claims they resort to threats and name-calling. Galileo Galilei, Charles Darwin and Ignaz Semmelweis just to name a few scientists in history that have been subjected to this treatment.
Don't be too hard on the UN because they did a bang up job on Iraq's Oil For Food Program, and they are real humanitarians when they aren't raping and pillaging the ones they were sent to protect, but I degress from the global warming they are so concerned about.
Keith, I have a question for you. They say that global warming will melt the ice in the polar regions, and this in turn will change the landscape on our coasts.
Won't the volume and area of the ice that melts be filled with the water that has replaced it equaling a zero sum outcome?
As an example: If I fill a glass full of ice and add water and forget about it, when I come back hours later and the ice is gone, but the glass hasn't overflowed because the volume and area of the ice were replaced by the water.
Just asking.
Nothing to do with climate change. Get ready for an explosive DOW move this afternoon. We go green before the day ends.
I forgot to mention the Gulf Stream
reliance on salinity in the North Atlantic.
It is believed that we are
approaching the point where melting
of fresh-water ice from the Greenland
area will reduce salinity in the North
end of the Gulf Stream to the point where
the Stream does not plunge and return
at depth to the southern hemisphere.
The result would be cessation of
the warming effects of the GS, and
a rapid cooling of northern
Europe, with draconian change in
its climate within a decade.
They are pissed, and the Queen is likely lecturing GWB on climatology at this moment.
But first she has to start with
reading, grammar, logic,
integrity, and rithmatik.
"if it's (insurance) too expensive don't buy it"........you don't have a choice if you have any kind of loan on your property. The lender requires a certain amount of insurance and if you don't provide proof, they force impound it on you. But Keith you should know that already if you've ever owned a house.
Global warming deniers? Global warming believers? "Believers" vs "Deniers"? This doesn't sound like science, folks...this sounds like RELIGION. Science doesn't use the terms deniers or believers...only religious fanatics do. Keep me out of your odd church.
Global Warming is the BIG LIE to push the agenda of oil conservation and lower pollutants.
Its hard to argue those are bad agenda items. But its a lie. People won't beileve small lies but big ones they will. Such as: religion.
"Don't be too hard on the UN because they did a bang up job on Iraq's Oil For Food Program, and they are real humanitarians when they aren't raping and pillaging the ones they were sent to protect, but I degress from the global warming they are so concerned about."
Yea, but it is different this time....
In the 1980's, everyone said the earth was cooling, 10,000 years ago, Alaska had tropical forests.
Lies.
The idea of global cooling was first thought about a little bit in the 1970's as scientists started to reveal the ice core fossil record and understand long-term planetary dynamics. Those facts are still true, and maybe in 5000 to 500000 years we will have a cooling cycle. But there was no huge worldwide conferences and nowhere near the attention now about how it was going to be bad right away. (And now we know a large part of things was low-level smog which is clearing up (except China), helping people's lungs). (BTW global warming from man-released CO2 was already being considered since 1957 at least).
In fact, one of the authors of the "global cooling" papers in the 1970's (not 80's) has been on TV (I saw him) complaining about the enormous exaggeration about the global cooling thing. It has attracted more attention now by the know-nothing denialists than it did then. Dr "global cooling" in fact agrees completely with the current, very well supported, scientific consensus about climate change. That's because he is a real scientist.
About 10000 years ago we were coming out of an ice age, and no there weren't tropical forests in Alaska. However, much much longer ago, when the CO2 level in the atmosphere was much higher, there were indeed crocodiles in the Arctic.
The fact that climate changed in the past without human influences does NOT mean that current climate change cannot happen without human influences! That's idiotic thinking---like seeing 5 people die from heart attacks (natural causes), and then saying that the gaping gunshot wound in the next body has nothing to do with his death. D'oh!
What matters is the laws of physics, and we understand them quite well now.
This is in fact the exact object of study of modern oceanography and climataology for 50 years. It is impossible to explain current climate observations without the dominant component being anthropogenic global warming, and when you do include it, it explains current observations very well.
Yes, I am a professional scientist.
There is no reason to believe that the laws of nature are going to "split the difference" on any political divide.
If a certain group wanted to dispute the atomic theory of matter, then they're just plain wrong. And if doing so resulted in bad outcomes? They're dangerously wrong and ought to be stopped.
Speaking as somebody who actually works in the field, there is no conclusive evidence that human beings are responsible for global warming. The sunspot cycle is much more of a culprit...check the recent indications of global warming on Mars. Last I checked, they had NO people.
Argh. Baloney baloney and bullcrap.
More anti-scientific inanity.
No, it is not the Sun. People have measured this for a long time.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/07/the-lure-of-solar-forcing/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/09/the-trouble-with-sunspots/
We don't know yet if the warming on Mars is global, and certainly the instrumental record on Earth is zillions of times better. And in any case it doesn't matter---that Mars can warm naturally does NOT mean that the Earth's warming is so as well. Total irrelevancy.
The 'UN' part of the IPCC is simply an organizational umbrella to get the conferences together. You know, hotel rooms, printing programs, yadda yadda yadda. The actual scietntific participants are all faculty and researchers at universities, research laboratories, and companies all throughout the world. They are NOT paid by UN or UN employees.
It could have been International Geophysical Union or something like that.
All the political influences happens after the scientific report and it has all been on the side of wimpifying the conclusions and statements that the scientists really wanted to put in. Look it up, there were news reports of political influence at the end---all to lower artificially the consequences and strength of the scientific conclusions on global warming.
By its very nature the IPCC report is very scientifically conservative---what most of the scientists really think in their hearts is significantly further. E.g. what IPCC says today is about what the mainstream believed in the early 90's.
Scientists that are non-believers are being targeted as heretics, being called fascists and risk losing their jobs etc.
Would you hire a chemistry professor who doesn't believe in atoms because they're not mentioned in the Bible?
When the true believers do not have science to support their claims they resort to threats and name-calling. Galileo Galilei, Charles Darwin and Ignaz Semmelweis just to name a few scientists in history that have been subjected to this treatment.
Now this is so extraordinarily ironic. The disputers of actual scientific facts love to bring them up but the historical reality of course supports the other side.
Galileo was in fact immediately believed by everybody at the time who could be considered a scientist back then. It was right-wing conservative ruling forces who did not like the conclusions of the science who suppressed him. The parallel is the same now---it is scientific truth (i.e. global warming is happening and humans are mostly responsible) versus the forces of privilege and power who want to avoid consequences.
A similar thing happened with Darwin too. Scientists, especially biologists, believed (observed facts became undeniable)---conservatives denied.
Semmelweis got screwed---but that's one person---and mainstream science , like Louis Pasteur, very quickly caught on. Also physicians are more conservative than scientsts and Semmelweis was screwed by them, not university professors in a lab.
One super volcano put out more shit in the atmoshphere in a week than man has done in his recorded history. Come to grips with this fact. The big yellow thingy in the sky has more to do with this than anything man could do.
Again, easy to believe, idiotic talking points.
1) We have not had a 'supervolcano' in recent, relevant geophysical history. So whatever it might hypothetically do is irrelevant.
Analogy. If you were to jump off a high bridge it would be very bad for your health very quickly. This doesn't mean that chain smoking is perfectly fine since jumping off a bridge is dangerous.
2) If the Sun were changing significantly then yes it would have an effect on climate. It is not.
Simply put:
Volcanoes and the Sun have been quantitatively observed for a long time, enough to know that whatever they have been doing, it is not significant compared to the effect from human-released greenhouse gases.
Yes, of course scientists thought about solar influence and volcanoes decades ago. They went out and checked. It was their job.
There is no simple "gotcha" that any amateur can think of that the pros hasn't considered ages ago.
The real question is the origin of the denialism. Why aren't y'all going out and denying the DNA theory of inheritance?
How about the quark explanation for the strong force? The solar neutrino problem?
Warning! Warning! Global warming ensured that the past hurricane season was going to be the worst on record! Huge numbers of high-intensity hurricanes were sure to scour the coast from Mexico to Maine clean of human existence thanks to global warming!
Oops. Except there were not many hurricanes this past season, and the ones that happened were mild in intensity. In fact, the ones that occurred were quite weak.
So what did the alarmists do? Blamed it on "global climate change."
So global warming will result in more hurricanes -- except when it unbalances the earth and results in *fewer* hurricanes.
Something tells me it's not "climate change trends" that are imbalanced!
Eight of the 10 warmest years since 1860 have occurred within the last decade.
That's because temperatures in the last decades have been taken in urban areas, where temperatures are warmer. Teeming cities like Mexico City, Mumbai, Dhaka and Dubai were barely villages in 1860.
If you take enough temperatures in urban areas, you'll get "hotter" readings -- especially in new urban areas that didn't exist 100 years prior.
Incidentally, an uptick in temperatures in a few years out of 150 does not indicate any significant activity on a geological scale, but that doesn't seem to concern anyone either.
Whenever I bring up these inconvenient truths, I get slammed as a "denialist" when all I'm doing is applying scientific rigor to the "trend" in question. The problem is that global warming believers are like religious nuts -- if you question their faith in any area and point out the bits that are dogma unsupported by fact, let alone ask tough questions about why their predictions aren't coming true, they scream abuse at you.
In that way, they're less like scientists and more like proponents of "intelligent design."
I need a tiny umbrella for my drink.
"My mom lives in a trailer in Sarasota."
My crazy uncle lives in house made of aluminum cans in Yuma.
Have you heard about the atmospheric methane problem dubbed "Global Farting"?
Turns out the only way to combat the problem is to light your farts when you feel one coming on. So, next time a buddy is about to cut lose, do the earth a favor and flick your bic (careful not to light pants on fire).
Anyway.....global warming, peak oil and all the rest of this pseudo science was unheard of 10 years ago.......I wonder why?
if resources are so plentiful, why are we fighting over them?
Billions of years of cooling and heating patterns will not be altered by a few decades of SUV use.
there are other things happening as well such as coal powered eletricity and the oceans which we're polluting.
unfortunately, we can check on an earth w/o people to see the difference.
That's why I have my little organic farm in the mountains, overseas, in a place where everything is abundant (i.e., water, food, energy, etc), and no freak weather. And that's why I also rent in the US. Imagine a huge quake hitting San Fran and then a bunch of hurricanes devastating Florida in the same short period, right when the dollar crashes, the housing brings down the economy, and Peak Oil hits. Good luck!
"The market sets insurance prices, not insurance companies"
The problem is that insurance companies don't want anything to do with Florida. These companies are pulling out of that market. The market forces of supply and demand don't apply in this case.
"if humans are the cause, and if we need draconian socialistic measures to help (a la Al Gore)..."
So you propose that we just cross the arms and wait to see. The famous moronic "stay the course" attitude from Republican retards who believe that evolution doesn't exist. No wonder only 16% of Americans have a bachelor's degree. You must love be a bitch of Arabs, Halliburton, and Exxon.
Ummmm.... I hate to break into all the argument over global warming, but could this be the first tropical storm/hurricane of the season? And it's only May.
The deniers of global warming are the same idiots who believed that Sadam had WMDs and that Iraq is related to 9-11.
Keith, you did well for getting a breather from this country. That 28% of Bush lovers from the polls feels like 98% sometimes with all their ignorance.
It's so embarrassing having Americans vomiting this ignorance on the Internet for the entire world to read. Some of us, who had the opportunity to live abroad, know how Americans can be so dumb at times. No doubt the blue states carry this country on the back, because imagine if these idiots could ever create Google, Microsoft, Apple, the Movie Industry...
America apologizes, rest of the world. But keep in mind that not all Americans are stupid like some of the idiots posting absurds on the Internet or voting freaks into office. I'm glad that a majority of them has seen the light. It's only 28% of the country now.
Get the US OUT of the UN !
Fu*k 'em, we DONT need 'em!
"10,000 years ago, Alaska had tropical forests"
Quite possibly the stupidest thing that will be said on this site all week.
Anonymous said...
MarkIFC said...
My mom lives in a trailer in Sarasota
"Ladies and gentlemen I present to you the typical bitter renter out there...trailer park trash."
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the typical HP anon poster with his balls in a dixie cup.
Man, Keith, you managed to attract half of the retarded Republican trolls on the internet with this post.
Look morons, the Sun is not causing the current climate change. If it was, there would be more heating during the day, more heating during the summer, more heating near the equator, and more heating in the upper atmosphere. In fact, the opposite is true for all of those things, which makes sense if you understand that CO2 slows the rate that heat is radiated back into space by the Earth. Unfortunately, you twits are probably too stupid to understand the basic physics - that CO2, methane, and a variety of less common man-emitted gas - the concentrations of which are increasing in the atmosphere - are more transparent to visible electromagnetic radition (aka light) than they are to infrared electromagnetic radiation (aka heat) - so that whole line of argument was probably lost on you.
Anyway, fight all you want, but change always happens. That's why conservatives have always been on the wrong side of history, and always will be.
"They think you can burn 80 million barrles of oil a day and it will have no effect - crazy."
80 million is a BIIIIIIIG number therefore there must be an effect.
Comments like yours prove that democracy is a germ
"Comments like yours prove that democracy is a germ"
Spoken like a true-blue red-blooded America-hating Republican.
Can't people like you lie down and die already?
"If you take enough temperatures in urban areas, you'll get "hotter" readings -- especially in new urban areas that didn't exist 100 years prior."
Bzzt! The data is controlled for the urban heat island effect.
Try again, idiot.
80 MILLION IS NOT SUCH A BIG NUMBER, I KNOW BECAUSE MY CONDO SHTBOX WILL BE WORTH THAT NERXT YEAR, I DO KNOW THAT GLOBAL WARMING MEASURES WILL TIE THE FEET OF THE SHEEPLE AND ONLY THE SHEEPLE AND MAKE GOOD MONEY FOR ALL THE REGULATORSD AND ENFORCERS AND PC SCIENTISTS WHO AGREE TO THE TRUTH OF ITS REALITY IN ORDER TO STAY ON THE GOVT DOLE AND BLEED THE SHEEPLE A SHEERING
RIP OFF ALERTS ABOUNDFING
I first started reading this site because I had 2 rental properties and saw the writing on the wall. I sold the houses just in time. I realized that there was something wrong. Then I started to read and attempted to find some answers.
I found out that almost everything I thought I knew was just a pile of rubbish. Corporate greed, outsourcing our manufacturing, cronyism, incompetence, massive debt, illegal resource wars, climate change, peak oil, and stolen elections all have one thing in common: they are all very real. Some of the trolls on this blog epitomize the illiterate, misinformed lot known as Americans.
"Spoken like a true-blue red-blooded America-hating Republican."
I want you to read this slowly and let it sink into your mind:
I'm going out in SUV with the AC on full blast.
YOU CAN'T STOP ME.
DO YOU HEAR ME YOU IGNORANT BLUE STATE TRASH???
"Bzzt! The data is controlled for the urban heat island effect."
Ahh, but it was the environmentalists who failed to do just that in the earlier studies which started the hysteria.
Ironically, if there is a major problem brewing in the environment, the environmentalists will be as responsible as the oil companies for our lack of attention. You can only cry wolf so many times before Rush Limbaugh comes to be seen as the voice of reason.
Come to think of it, this works the same way that Hollywood got Bush elected twice. There is something so gratifying about canceling out Micheal Moore's vote that the destruction of the world as we know it seems worthwhile somehow.
"But 6 billion humans (rapidly
industrializing) is about three
billion too many. And we better
work on that while we try to avert
megadisasters through other means."
Ahh, the true goal is revealed! Global Warming is a convenient way for certain political persuasions to deal with those pesky, excess humans. But they can't just come out and say they want to off a few billion people, so they hide behind bullshit like this. And I wonder who they'll select as expendable?
Humans are infinitely adaptable, as evidenced by our survival through thick and thin over the millennia. To hear some of these neo-Marxist assbags you'd think we're hopelessly frail and unable to cope with a few degrees of temperature swing. What a bunch of losers!
The world uses 80+ million barrels a day, the US about 1/4 of that. So, wrong again!
What I don't get about "warming" is that why has the earth warmed so little compared to the predictions made 20 years ago. Something like .1 degree fahrenheit. The oceans rising is occuring at millimeters per year.
Also CO2 was 200 parts per million. And now it is closer to 300 parts per million. And? I don't know that just doesn't sound like much. .02% and now it's .03%...an utter catastrophe.
How could such a small change have such a large effect? If the earth's sytem is that chaotic, how did life ever survive here?
Also Richard Lindzen professor of meteorology at that backwoods hick redneck conservative Christian school, MIT, says that global warming is basically nonsense. So does the head of the University of Wisconsin dept...the head of Australia's science department wrote an article in the wall street journal saying Al Gore's movie was a joke and an embarassment.
Are they all republicans? Why do you choose to ignore people who don't sign onto your religion? Fair enough if you want to ignore them, but don't say others are close-minded when you yourself are.
Another thing about global warming that implies it's a scam.
What is to be done about it? Well, punish America for one. Put some kind of UN global warming tax on them!
"What about China?" They build a new coal plant every 8 hours or something like that...they will surpass the US's emissions of CO2 soon. They're to be exempt though, just like in the Kyoto treaty. Why would you exempt them?
Ummm...because global warming is about demonizing americans and the chinese aren't americans, get it?
Only white people are to be punished for this sin, other people are exempt. It's a religion and Americans are the original sinners! Punish them.
The ice caps in Mars are melting, too. Man can those Greenhouse Gasses travel LOL. Or maybe there's a race of single cell organisms on Mars that have their own subterranean Industrial Revolution going on. GW can't possibly be caused by that big, hot ball of gas called the Sun. Nah.
Anonymous said...
Get the US OUT of the UN !
Fu*k 'em, we DONT need 'em!
TOUCHE'!
What Government Doesn't Want You to Know and Rewrote the Science
In my more than three decades in the government I've never witnessed such restrictions on the ability of scientists to communicate with the public. — James Hansen
March 19, 2006
CBS
Amazing that you people believe what the govt. is telling you on global warming. Al Gore said it, so it must be true. PATHETIC!
"Wow, insurance companies exploiting the global warming hype to raise premiums? I am shocked."
I don't blame you for your cynicism, but it doesn't hold in this case. Take Florida for example; there are many carriers just itching to get OUT of the Florida Homeowners insurance market, and the state is fighting like mad to prevent them from doing so.
The mathematical premise behind insurance doesn't work very well for large-scale catastrophes (that's why flood, earthquake and, to a lesser extent, wind coverage is so expensive and subject to so many exclusions). Florida has had too many large-scale events in the recent past. The State Catastrophe fund is empty. Disaster modeling predicts more to come. Insurance companies really can't raise rates high enough to cover the risk.
Naturally, they wish to stop writing property risks. But this doesn't hold true for auto insurance, which is still expected to be profitable. So companies want to keep their FL auto lines but ditch their property lines.
So, the state mandates than any company that writes auto policies in FL, and also writes homeowners in other states, must also write homeowners in FL. The state has to force companies to write in FL.
In the industry there's grumbling about abandoning the FL market altogether by some big players. Think your rates suck now? Just wait.
"The property casualty industry had an easy year in 2006, when there were no U.S. hurricanes," Baker said. "But the next one may make Katrina look inexpensive."
--
in case sh!t don't happen, shouldnt you get your money back??
In fact, the scientific community has re-examined the issue of the thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic and changes from global warming.
It is not now believed that it is likely to have a catastrophic shutdown of the Gulf Stream from this mechanism.
There was a legitimate worry, based on good, but preliminary, observed paleogology and modeling. But more stringent investigation shows that the really catastrophic scenarios are not likely to happen, at least with current understanding.
Note that the really bad scenario did NOT make it into the IPCC reports as probable, meaning that the reflecticve and sober evaluation process of professional scientists works.
This is a good example of mainstream science actually self-correcting and not being an ideological fanatic, contrary to the bogus right-wing propaganda. Scientists do NOT want to kill the global economy or capitalism or any such nonsense, contrary to right wing propaganda. Their jobs depend on continued prosperity.
But they are compelled to tell the story as best as they see the physics and observed data.
Personally, funding for climate change directly competes with my own job prospects and funding and so if I were despicably mercenary I would deny the strength of climate change all for my own self-interest. And yet, I do not. Because actual scientific truth and judgement really does matter, and I believe following legitimate science in service of humanity as a moral imperative.
"Bzzt! The data is controlled for the urban heat island effect.
Try again, idiot."
I wish we had some of that global warning, my nat gas bill says that the last couple of months have been 2 deg cooler than last year.
" Eight of the 10 warmest years since 1860 have occurred within the last decade."
That's because temperatures in the last decades have been taken in urban areas, where temperatures are warmer.
Liar.
Scientists have known about the heat effect of urban areas for a very long time and the instrumental record has been corrected.
Modern temperature records come from the thousands of weather balloons launched every year as well as objective aircraft and satellite instruments.
Scientists are NOT idiotic maroons. And no, no amateur "gotchas" stolen from Rush Limbaugh or whoever are going to trip up the combined, intensive efforts of the planet's geophysical community over five decades.
Any of these issues were already thought about in the 1960's or 1970's for chrissake.
Anyway.....global warming, peak oil and all the rest of this pseudo science was unheard of 10 years ago.......I wonder why?
Because most people are ignorant.
Global warming has been in play among actual scientists since 1957 (look up Roger Revelle), and M. King Hubbert predicted peak oil in USA not shortly thereafter.
In global warming a JASON panel in 1979 estimated the climate warming from basic physics and pretty much got it right.
Late 80's already James Hansen et al made some significant global climate models predicted the course of anthropogenic global warming---his most mainstream scenarios have been essentially validated by the experimental record since then. The biggest surprises have been in the ice shelfs of Antarctica and Greenland, where things have gotten worse much more rapidly than expected.
Already in the early 90's, global warming and man's dominant influence thereof was considered a settled, and inevitable, fact among the professional geophysical community.
"The deniers of global warming are the same idiots who believed that Sadam had WMDs"
yea, those damn gassed kurds. It wasn't sadam poison gas that made it difficult to breath (and live) it was global warming.
Someone remind Angry Physicist that we have only been taking actual observations of these atmospheric and oceanographic conditions for a couple hundred years. And that's assuming they're accurate (and not biased by the fact that many observations are taken - duh! - near centers of human activity, which of course are warmer than normal.
The conveyor belt? Well, if we're pulling out our theory, let's remember that shutting down the conveyor belt is not the end of the cycle. The differences in temperature from pole to equator will heighten, which will affect the salinity gradient and eventually restart the conveyor. The earth is certainly capable of moderating itself...it's done so for millions of years, if you evolutionists are to be believed.
Don't try to pull out ice coring or carbon-dating either. Neither has been PROVEN to be accurate. A great deal of conjecture has been accepted as pure unadulterated fact, when in fact we have no reliable means of measuring information from multiple thousands of years ago.
Enough with the religious fervor. Accept that even though we feel we know a great deal about our environment, there is still a lot that cannot be fully explained. It is completely arrogant to think that we as human beings are solely at fault for the global warming that is supposedly currently taking place.
Stop ridiculing those who actually want a fair debate on the subject.
Re the "Global Warming Swindle"..
"Swindle" is right on the mark to describe that egregious piece of garbage.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled-carl-wunsch-responds/
Read the letter that an actual, legitimate climatologist, Carl Wunsch wrote to protest that highly propgandistic misleading and erroneous editing of the piece that he had been tricked into participating.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled/#comment-27434
Carl Wunsch:
I spent hours in the interview describing
many of the problems of understanding the ocean in climate change,
and the ways in which some of the more dramatic elements get
exaggerated in the media relative to more realistic, potentially
truly catastrophic issues, such as
the implications of the oncoming sea level rise. As I made clear, both in the
preliminary discussions, and in the interview itself, I believe that
global warming is a very serious threat that needs equally serious
discussion and no one seeing this film could possibly deduce that.
What we now have is an out-and-out propaganda piece, in which
there is not even a gesture toward balance or explanation of why
many of the extended inferences drawn in the film are not widely
accepted by the scientific community.
An example where my own discussion was grossly distorted by context:
I am shown explaining that a warming ocean could expel more
carbon dioxide than it absorbs -- thus exacerbating the greenhouse
gas buildup in the atmosphere and hence worrisome. It
was used in the film, through its context, to imply
that CO2 is all natural, coming from the ocean, and that
therefore the human element is irrelevant. This use of my remarks, which
are literally what I said, comes close to fraud.
So. Even when the denialist movement attempts to put on a pseudoscientific rebuttal they can only do so by trickery, deception, and slander. This, against thousands of serious scientists who work very carefully to be precise and open-minded.
The denialist brigades aren't pointing out any parts of actual scientific debate---they are blatantly lying about known scientific issues. They don't care that they're doing so either.
That revolts me.
Enough with the religious fervor. Accept that even though we feel we know a great deal about our environment, there is still a lot that cannot be fully explained. It is completely arrogant to think that we as human beings are solely at fault for the global warming that is supposedly currently taking place.
Arrogance has nothing to do with it. It is physics, validated in lab, and in situ. The amount that the known human influence (increase in greenhouse gas chemistry) can be evaluated quantitatively. If the numbers were way off then yes, we'd think that something else is responsible. They aren't. And the numbers are wrong for every other possible explanation we've thought of.
Scientists really do know where they understand things well and where they don't. Just because there is alot that can't currently be explained doesn't mean that what CAN be explained is also bogus.
And, it is up to scientists, not joe six pack who doesn't want to believe the answers, what is secure knowledge and what is not.
Secure knowledge:
1) DNA is the dominant molecular locus of inheritable geneticcs
2) Molecules are made of atoms on the periodic table.
3) The increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is from human activity, resulting in secular warming
4) The Sun generates energy from nuclear fusion
Not secure knowledge:
5) Dark energy is made of axions and massive neutrinos
6) Greenland is going to melt catastrophically in 10 years.
Seal hunting boat were frozen in in the Artic sea two weeks ago. A very promising seal clubbing season down the drain. What else can happen?
Greg
Also CO2 was 200 parts per million. And now it is closer to 300 parts per million. And? I don't know that just doesn't sound like much. .02% and now it's .03%...an utter catastrophe.
What matters is radiative balance and cross section to IR radiation, you maroon. How many PPM of arsenic to kill you?
On 'Pure physics' the average temperature might go from 270K to 275K (making up numbers) or something. So in 'physics' yes it's "small".
5 degrees K (or C, it's the same) is also the difference between now and a planetary ice age. During that ice age, there were glaciers TWO MILES THICK in New York. So, we're on track to go into a human-induced Heat Age as much above the current climate which has seen the evolution of civilization since 10000BC, as the Ice Ages were below current climate. And you aren't worried?
How could such a small change have such a large effect?
1) It's not *that* small a change.
If the earth's sytem is that chaotic, how did life ever survive here?
'life' will be fine----there will be biological organisms on Earth for a very long time.
Homo Sapiens may not be part of it.
In the past, large shifts of greenhouse gases have corresponded with planetary extinction events.
Solar variability in addition to industrial/automobile GREENHOUSE GASES will do what?
This "irritated scientist" guy must be about the last scientist on Earth questioning whether dumping massive amounts of CO2, methane, etc. into the atmosphere could possibly affect the global climate.
As per past warming cycles, as it happens, the atmospheric CO2 is now twice all the cyclical peaks of the past 800,000 years - and in 30 years with no changes on our part, it will be three-sigma. At the previous peaks, the ice caps melted - what do you think is going to this go-round, Mr. Scientist?
Ice cube question - that's true for ice in the water. But some of polar ice is over land. I'm leaving something out - someone chime in...
Pete said...
The ice caps in Mars are melting, too. Man can those Greenhouse Gasses travel LOL. Or maybe there's a race of single cell organisms on Mars that have their own subterranean Industrial Revolution going on. GW can't possibly be caused by that big, hot ball of gas called the Sun. Nah.
SHHHHH...I'm trying to unload my Martian properties before too many people know there's global warming there to.
Amazing that people who are such skeptics concerning what the govt. says eat the BS global warming like it's banana pudding at a family reunion. Ignorance is bliss.
angry physicist said...
In the 1980's, everyone said the earth was cooling, 10,000 years ago, Alaska had tropical forests.
Firstly it was the 1970's and not the 80's but I degress. Please answer this question for me:
They say that global warming will melt the ice in the polar regions, and this in turn will change the landscape on our coasts.
Won't the volume and area of the ice that melts be filled with the water that has replaced it equaling a zero sum outcome?
As an example: If I fill a glass full of ice and add water and forget about it, when I come back hours later and the ice is gone, but the glass hasn't overflowed because the volume and area of the ice were replaced by the water.
Just asking.
"Stop ridiculing those who actually want a fair debate on the subject."
Exactly. Most people want to hear a fair debate - both sides presented by scientists who have evidence to back their theories.
But, the problem is with the uncivil name callers who spoil everyone's opportunity for honest discussion. When the incivility starts, I go on to other topics.
To SPECTRE of deflation...I agree that most of the crap on global warming is a power grab by the socialist piglets, but your example of ice cubes melting in a glass misses the point. It is ice that is sitting on land, which if it melts, would raise the sea level a few centimeters or many centimeters, depending on which data you include or ignore. Ice around the North Pole is in water, so it would not raise sea level if it melted, though I suppose this would do all kinds of things to ocean currents. Ice at the South Pole is largely on land, so melting this would raise sea levels. Of course, I read recently that ice is actually forming at the South Pole at regions on the other side from where Al Gore's buddies are filming the ice melting. Gore and his type like to only consider data and theories that support their views; they don't want to consider everything.
Keith,
Some housecleaning from yesterday:
Missed the green by 4 yesterday although we finished green at the close. Settlements took us back down into neg territory.
"DO YOU HEAR ME YOU IGNORANT BLUE STATE TRASH???
"
Spoken like a TRUE red state loooozer.... I bet your wife is SOOO fat... MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Anonymous said...
To SPECTRE of deflation...I agree that most of the crap on global warming is a power grab by the socialist piglets, but your example of ice cubes melting in a glass misses the point. It is ice that is sitting on land, which if it melts, would raise the sea level a few centimeters or many centimeters, depending on which data you include or ignore. Ice around the North Pole is in water, so it would not raise sea level if it melted, though I suppose this would do all kinds of things to ocean currents. Ice at the South Pole is largely on land, so melting this would raise sea levels. Of course, I read recently that ice is actually forming at the South Pole at regions on the other side from where Al Gore's buddies are filming the ice melting. Gore and his type like to only consider data and theories that support their views; they don't want to consider everything.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments, and I agree 100% concerning a civil debate.
I would agree with your thought except that the polar regions are ice to the tune of 5 miles thick.
Glaciers and snow melt would contribute to a rise in sea level, but it's the polar regions that count. The others in the pie chart would be miniscule.
A major contribution to increase in sea level is thermal expansion, not just polar melting. And yes, melting the northern ice cap won't change sea level---it is melting of ice on Greenland and Antarctica, which is sitting on solid land, which matters.
And yes, more snow in Antarctica is compatible with global warming. Antarctica is generally extremely dry, there isn't that much precipitation. With warmer air coming in and picking up moisture from the sea and then depositing it over land---that's a sign of climate changes.
The rise in sea level though worrisome is unlikely to be the biggest problem by far. Much much worse is going to be huge shifts in rainfall and agricultural productivity. And insane summer heatwaves---Death Valley type heat (120+).
Already, Australia, a 1st world country is in an extreme drought and may have to import food---them usually being a major agricultural powerhouse. They have but 25 million people or so. What happens when this same kind of stuff hits India?
Exactly. Most people want to hear a fair debate - both sides presented by scientists who have evidence to back their theories.
The issue is that the fair debate took place in the scientific community in the 1960's, 1970's and 80's. There are but a tiny, tiny, number of recalcitrant hangers-on who are actual scientists, e.g. Dick Lindzen.
Even they no longer deny global warming or the anthropogenic greenhouse effect, but are attempting to come up with this and that mechanism to try to make the 'climate sensivity' number come out way on the low, low, side of the reasonable range. He's been looking for mechanisms to do that for a long while (decades), and so far, all of them have been proven wrong by experiment and observation.
So yes, actual scientists did listen to him (when he had something useful to say), but now it's gone so far beyond that.
But Lindzen is especially disingenuous now writing misleading op-eds to various papers (including in my university, which ironically is a key center of physical oceanography), not mentioning all sorts of things that he knows very well---like the fact that the heat capacity of the oceans has precluded the observation of major temperature changes until now on surface despite the increased radiative forcing.
And he's one versus thousands.
Here's a rebuttal of one of Lindzen's op-eds---written by a scientists who was once one of his co-authors!
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/04/lindzen-point-by-point/
Another rebuttal of Lindzen.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/02/richard-lindzens-hol-testimony/
Then there's a legitimate guy in Israel on cosmic rays---but the import of his work has been strongly disputed. Again these are "grasping for straws" mechanisms to attempt to turn down the climate sensitivity to greenhouse forcing to be smaller (but not off).
Not well supported by evidence, whereas the mainstream opinion is. The mainstream opinion in the late 80's, early 90's (e.g. Jim Hansen) has been fully validated by the sufficiently long observational record since then. Not the denialists (who then were disputing that global warming was even happening, as the data then were not quite as overtly obvious).
Also CO2 was 200 parts per million. And now it is closer to 300 parts per million. And? I don't know that just doesn't sound like much. .02% and now it's .03%...an utter catastrophe.
What matters is radiative balance and cross section to IR radiation, you maroon. How many PPM of arsenic to kill you?
-----------------
So CO2 to the atmosphere is like arsenic to a person. Wow, some pretty powerful stuff is that CO2.
Scientists have known about the heat effect of urban areas for a very long time and the instrumental record has been corrected.
Some have. However, the "scientists" screaming about 4 degree temperature changes and "the hottest seasons on record" have NOT "revised the numbers for the urban heat effect." Period.
Neither have the other propagandists.
When you "factor in urban areas," the average temperature isn't even 1 degree Centigrade higher than 150 years ago. Propagandists don't like this point -- it's much easier to say "hottest temperature on record" and then try to recover by pointing to a totally different set of statistics that are "urban adjusted."
Incidentally, the "scientific community" at the UN was warning us in the 1970s that we were headed towards a catastrophic ice age that would destroy life as we knew it. Good thing I was a skeptic back then -- and remain a skeptic.
All the asshats gassing on about "believers" are religious idiots.
As are all the gullible morons who are trying to attach political affiliations to their religious belief in various phenomenons.
I'm not a Democrat because I don't believe in war, or a Republican because I'm skeptical of Al Gore's "buy my carbon credits" fuckwittery. The fact that so-called "scientists" would even utter such crap shows how lousy their analysis skills are -- on every issue.
However, it's not all bad -- it certainly underscores my prior point indicating how utterly bereft of real rigor the whole "theory" and its abusive adherents really are. You cannot have a rational, civil discussion with citations and agree to disagree with these folks -- if you don't accept every tenet of the Green Bible, you will be burnt as a heretic!
The mainstream opinion in the late 80's, early 90's (e.g. Jim Hansen) has been fully validated by the sufficiently long observational record since then.
The earth is 4.5 billion years old.
Let's be charitable and assume that by "late 1980s," you're talking about "observation" since 1987 10 years ago.
That means that you're claiming that observing 0.00000002% of the lifespan of the planet is "sufficiently long an observation record" to conclude -- beyond a shadow of a doubt -- that this highly questionable theory is correct in all aspects beyond a reasonable doubt.
That's simply idiotic, my friend.
I am certainly willing to entertain the possibility, but so far the entire argument revolves around fallacies:
"I'm a scientist and it's true." (appeal to authority)
"2,000 experts say so!" (appeal to authority)
"You're an American Republican idiot for not believing in it!" (ad hominem attack)
Where's the science?
(Incidentally, science reacts to criticism and challenge with robust analysis and reasoned consideration of the questions of skeptics -- not wholesale dismissal and attacks on the skeptics).
Try again.
Keith, if you have an open mind on global warming, check this out.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4499562022478442170&hl=en
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSo2VSsDqsk
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