Putting Catholic faith into action on climate change

[Erich]

• The bulk of the research is based on computer simulations of complex and incomplete mathematical models. These models ASSUME CO2 is the cause of temperature rises instead of a result of it. They also ignore water vapor as factor because it can’t be easily measured. I can write a computer program to get any results I want just by playing with the equations & my assumptions. That doesn’t make it right.

Not only that, but if the models are any good, they should be able to track the past climate simply by running them backwards.

From a paper presented at a Sustainable Development and Global Climate Change Conference (emphasis mine):

“I want to tell you the good news about the most important pattern of climate change in the summer. I wish people who disagree would have read this paper, because it says that the climate models have correctly captured in the Northern Hemisphere the most important pattern of temperature change in the summer. They have done it. This is quite an important achievement. Unfortunately, it is the model without sulfates. As it changed the slopes are correct. This behavior however is not typical. This is the behavior of a winter pattern over time in a climate model. This is reality. There are different signs. This happens all the time.”

• The temperature date used by these researchers is primarily from satellites, which have only been available for the past 30 years. ** Climate change phenomena occur over much longer time spans.** As others have pointed out here, there have been freezing & warming cycles on the earth long before there were SUVs. Even Mars has these cycles.

Here’s one such example:

http://www.andreaharner.com/archives/proof_of_global_warming499x280.jpg

• It’s also notoiously difficult to get accurate temperature readings. The research is based on very small temperature changes. What’s the temperature in your house right now? If you go from room to room, or even to different places in the same room, you’ll see temperature variations of at least a few degrees.

And it doesn’t help that the surface temperature readings upon which global warming theory is built have been distorted by urbanization.

“Due to the solar heat captured by bricks and pavement and due to the changing wind patterns caused by large buildings, a weather station placed in a rural village in 1900 will inevitably show higher temperature readings if that village has, over time, been transformed into small city or a suburban shopping district.”

• A large part of the global warming hysteria consists of dire predictions of catastrophes. Even if we are in a warming trend right now (and the evidence linking it to human activity is even more questionable than that supporting global warming), it could actually benefit people by increasing growing seasons in cooler climates. When Europe had a mini warm spell, food production and the overall standard of living improved. Also, who’s to say the climate of the past 50 or 100 years is normal? Throughout the known history of the climate has always been changing (whether we like it or not). Saying we can change the climate one way or another sounds like arrogance to me.

In theory, increased global warming should lead to increased drought, which should in turn lead to fewer trees which absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which should lead to more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which should lead to further increases in global warming.

I saw once, but can’t remember where, side-by-side photographs of several nature scenes (mostly out West), the first in each set taken a hundred years or so ago (well before the onset of “man-made global warming”) and the second in each set taken recently (after years of “dangerous” carbon dioxide build-up in the atmosphere). In all cases, the “after” photo showed SEVERAL TIMES as many trees per unit area as the “before” photo – i.e. the exact opposite of what the man-made-global-warming-types predict.

There’s also global warming on Mars (and Pluto and Triton and Jupiter) … but there are only two “SUV’s” on the entire planet. It hardly seems reasonable that Spirit and Opportunity are the cause of martian global warming… particularly since all the seas were gone long before we got there

 

[aspawloski4th]

My biggest complaint about this whole topic is how it is either Al Gore this or that. We as Catholics need to care about God’s creation. Why do we have to either be on one side or another? Should we not be looking at the topic instead of the party? We have the numbers to change the direction of the conversation. We can make sure this topic stays in the middle so that it does not go to far right or to far left.

People say they want all the fighting in Washington to stop but I don’t think so. Look at the political section of this site. It is full of nothing but hatred for different political parties, and this is a religious site! It would be different if it were only about abortion but it is not.

Either there is gloabal warming or there isn’t. Most meteorologists like me know there isn’t. I had a British orgin Meteology professor who was very liberal, but if you prosessed a belief in the falacy of global warming you were flunkexd out of his class some fast your head would spin.

 

[aspawloski4th]

So you believe the IPCC has dooped the Pope and USCCB???

Easily yes. They know more about climate than the man on the moon. They are just listening to the loadest voice on the issue.

 

[kennewickmike]

Either there is gloabal warming or there isn’t. Most meteorologists like me know there isn’t. I had a British orgin Meteology professor who was very liberal, but if you prosessed a belief in the falacy of global warming you were flunkexd out of his class some fast your head would spin.

Then I go with there is

 

[kennewickmike]

Does this mean that Al Gore and I are now friends?

Al Gore…Al Gore…Al Gore…Al Gore…Al Gore…Al Gore

 

[aspawloski4th]

Does this mean that Al Gore and I are now friends?

Al Gore…Al Gore…Al Gore…Al Gore…Al Gore…Al Gore

Don’t compalin then. When you can’t pay your power and heat bills because regulations made them too high, don’t snivel when gas gets up to 7 bucks a gallon, like memebers of the Obama administration would like it to be. Don’t complain when your car becomes too expesive to re register because of air polution regulations. Thats whats coming down the pipe soon.

 

[kennewickmike]

Don’t compalin then. When you can’t pay your power and heat bills because regulations made them too high, don’t snivel when gas gets up to 7 bucks a gallon, like memebers of the Obama administration would like it to be. Don’t complain when your car becomes too expesive to re register because of air polution regulations. Thats whats coming down the pipe soon.

Do I need to be Hannitized! Start listening to Rush?

This was all addressed earlier. I do not feel like repeating myself

 

[aspawloski4th]

Do I need to be Hannitized! Start listening to Rush?

This was all addressed earlier. I do not feel like repeating myself

Nope, just become a part of the Savage Nation!

 

[kennewickmike]

Nope, just become a part of the Savage Nation!

Really? Wow. That explains a lot

 

[aspawloski4th]

Really? Wow. That explains a lot

He a mellow kitty cat compared to my family. Try read the book"Trashing the Planet" by Dixie Lee Ray. That will give you a whole new perspective on things.

 

[kennewickmike]

He a mellow kitty cat compared to my family. Try read the book"Trashing the Planet" by Dixie Lee Ray. That will give you a whole new perspective on things.

That is my whole point earlier. I do not want to read your ultra right books and I do not want to read ultra left books. You and I are getting nowhere. I am going to stop and wait to talk to someone else. No hard feelings, we are just not on the same page.

 

[aspawloski4th]

That is my whole point earlier. I do not want to read your ultra right books and I do not want to read ultra left books. You and I are getting nowhere. I am going to stop and wait to talk to someone else. No hard feelings, we are just not on the same page.

There is no middle on this issue. I also don’t care what Rush or Hannity say. I’m a meteorologist, with course work in climatology and astronemy. I think the word of someone like me should be trusted more than Al Gore. What would you middle ground be anyway?

 

[kennewickmike]

My whole position is on post #36 and 39. I believe the world is going this direction whether you, me, or anyone else believes in it our not. Do you think the President and the Democratic majority in the House and Senate are not going to pass legislation on this? That pretty much goes for the rest of the world also with the exception of China and India.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I agree. We should not loose our heads and end up hurting a lot of people to help the environment. Would you be against a nuclear plant in Kansas to take the place of those coal fired plants. My reasoning is that it would be cleaner and create jobs. Hopefully we will not need nuclear one day but until then I prefer it over it over coal.

Not sure if windmills are the answer for the major power supply the population needs yet. We have windmill farms all around where I live and they only offer a fraction of what we need and we are a medium sized community.

I would not oppose nuclear power plants.

I have serious doubts about windmills. I imagine there are some places where they can be effective. I have, in fact, seen a huge wind farm in western Kansas that stretched for miles. But two things make me believe they really don’t have much to contribute. First, where I live, the wind is rarely of any strength at all, and is very irregular. A light breeze at the very most, for most of the year. I question whether it could turn one of those windmills at all. You would have to experience the wind out on those high prairies to believe how strong and how constant they are. But most places aren’t like that. Second, there were once windmills that farmers used to pump water. As soon as rural electrification came along, they were all abandoned. One has to ask oneself why. My guess is that, in most places, they were very weak power producers.

Nor would I oppose drilling for oil in those places where we know oil is. It strikes me as immensely stupid that we would spend a single dollar for overseas oil if we could get any oil at all here to replace that dollar’s worth of oil there. Nor would I be opposed to getting serious about tar sands and shale oil. Nor would I be opposed to covering half the southwestern deserts with solar cells. But I guess the environmentalists don’t want that either.

 

[kennewickmike]

I would not oppose nuclear power plants.

I have serious doubts about windmills. I imagine there are some places where they can be effective. I have, in fact, seen a huge wind farm in western Kansas that stretched for miles. But two things make me believe they really don’t have much to contribute. First, where I live, the wind is rarely of any strength at all, and is very irregular. A light breeze at the very most, for most of the year. I question whether it could turn one of those windmills at all. You would have to experience the wind out on those high prairies to believe how strong and how constant they are. But most places aren’t like that. Second, there were once windmills that farmers used to pump water. As soon as rural electrification came along, they were all abandoned. One has to ask oneself why. My guess is that, in most places, they were very weak power producers.

Nor would I oppose drilling for oil in those places where we know oil is. It strikes me as immensely stupid that we would spend a single dollar for overseas oil if we could get any oil at all here to replace that dollar’s worth of oil there. Nor would I be opposed to getting serious about tar sands and shale oil. Nor would I be opposed to covering half the southwestern deserts with solar cells. But I guess the environmentalists don’t want that either.

I live out in the desert where we get windstorms a lot. That being said, our windmill farms do not create much power. Most of our power comes from damns.

Also we cannot look a direction with out seeing a windmill farm anymore. They have made a lot of the landscape ugly and cluttered.

 

[aspawloski4th]

My whole position is on post #36 and 39. I believe the world is going this direction whether you, me, or anyone else believes in it our not. Do you think the President and the Democratic majority in the House and Senate are not going to pass legislation on this? That pretty much goes for the rest of the world also with the exception of China and India.

Yep and we are headed for a depression that will leave the 1930s in the dust because transportation will be made unaffordable and impossble to afford. The car one has already will be made much more expensive to register therefore taking that car owner off the road. The poor will be first to ha ve it happen.

 

[kennewickmike]

Yep and we are headed for a depression that will leave the 1930s in the dust because transportation will be made unaffordable and impossble to afford. The car one has already will be made much more expensive to register therefore taking that car owner off the road. The poor will be first to ha ve it happen.

The financial impact does worry me. That is why I agree with Bishops letter at the beginning of this thread. We need to make sure we do not do a lot of harm while trying to do some good.

 

[aspawloski4th]

The financial impact does worry me. That is why I agree with Bishops letter at the beginning of this thread. We need to make sure we do not do a lot of harm while trying to do some good.

Any of the ideas our governemnt has will do harm.

 

[kennewickmike]

Any of the ideas our governemnt has will do harm.

I am going to agree to disagree on this one. I don’t think you and I will see eye to eye on this one judging by our previous posts. That is why God gave us free wills though:thumbsup:

 

[aspawloski4th]

I am going to agree to disagree on this one. I don’t think you and I will see eye to eye on this one judging by our previous posts. That is why God gave us free wills though:thumbsup:

If some has a way to address this without hurting people and upsetting their lives I’d like to see it. That means whatever it is has to not increase utility rates, increase gas prices or the affordability of OWNING a car. I see them going after thos first before anything else.