B
buffalo
Guest
And we know that hurricane numbers have decreased since the middle 1800’s.
- Status
J
JanSobieskiIII
Guest
Global warming is the biggest load of CaCa that’s ever been shoved on us. I remember when I was a kid that by now Florida was supposed to be under water and all the ice caps were gonna be gone. They’ve been wrong about every prediction. I have no doubt the climate changes, humans may even contribute to it, but their so called “solutions” are just wealth redistribution schemes.
R
Ridgerunner
Guest
In considering this issue, one needs to realize that for the most part, the “opinions of the bishops” is actually the opinion of one or two bishops only. It is extremely rare for the whole body of bishops to adopt some position.
When one sees, then, an assertion that “the bishops” say so-and-so, look at the announcement itself. It’s almost always the expressed opinion of one bishop or two on USCCB letterhead.
And it can be really wrong, factually. One that particularly sticks out in my mind is some years back when Paul Ryan proposed a budget. One or two bishops on the USCCB attacked it vigorously, claiming it “reduced” welfare spending. Actually, the budget Ryan proposed included an 8% increase in welfare spending, just not the 12% the Dems were wanting at the time.
When one sees, then, an assertion that “the bishops” say so-and-so, look at the announcement itself. It’s almost always the expressed opinion of one bishop or two on USCCB letterhead.
And it can be really wrong, factually. One that particularly sticks out in my mind is some years back when Paul Ryan proposed a budget. One or two bishops on the USCCB attacked it vigorously, claiming it “reduced” welfare spending. Actually, the budget Ryan proposed included an 8% increase in welfare spending, just not the 12% the Dems were wanting at the time.
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
Can you give a recent example of such a statement from the USCCB that does not represent the opinion of a majority of the bishops? I know this thread is about generalities, but in this case I think we need to look at a typical instance of a non-representative USCCB statement. Also, whether or not each bishop voted on a statement, I have to believe they are aware of those statements. If any bishop felt strongly that a statement did not represent his view, he would make it a point to publicize his disagreement. So a citation of such an individual bishop’s objection would help your point.
P
pnewton
Guest
I will be the first to admit that I sometimes need a crutch. I am a spiritual cripple, since birth, by concupiscence. That is also why I do not know every spiritual truth and benefit from the work of the shepherds that God has raised up, with the charism of the Sacrament of Holy Order.
It is sometimes hard for me not to “throw my pearls before swine” so to speak. That is why I try not to answer the same question twice, at least not in the same year, lest I get caught up with pride that somehow my opinion is more than my opinion.
H
HarryStotle
Guest
Thank you for your sincerity.HarryStotle:
I will be the first to admit that I sometimes need a crutch. I am a spiritual cripple, since birth, by concupiscence. That is also why I do not know every spiritual truth and benefit from the work of the shepherds that God has raised up, with the charism of the Sacrament of Holy Order.
It is sometimes hard for me not to “throw my pearls before swine” so to speak. That is why I try not to answer the same question twice, at least not in the same year, lest I get caught up with pride that somehow my opinion is more than my opinion.
There is, I would think a delicate balance with regard to having opinions. You are correct that we can become inflamed by pride when we assume our opinions are more than they are. On the other hand, if there is such a thing as truth then sometimes opinions could be true.
The question is how do we recognize the truth about anything if we assume every thought we could possibly have about that thing is merely an opinion? And when we get close to affirming its truth we back away because we assume it is merely pride directing our assurance? Is there room for truth without pride? How would we recognize the truth without assuming that our sense of truth is merely our pride?
E
Ender
Guest
Well there you go. The whole debate with Metis1 is resolved as I said: there are valid reasons to disbelieve in AGW.
I suggested that article as being counter to a single assertion made by the AGW side about climate instability. Yes, the study was about changes over millennia, and what it indicated was that warmer periods were more stable than colder periods…over millennia. What the AGW claims would have us believe is that warmer conditions will work the opposite way over short periods of time, although the study itself noted changes significantly faster than millennia: “the Northern Hemisphere abruptly warms on a decadal time scale.” All of which led to this conclusion:
“These sensitivity experiments suggest that a key background condition for frequent climate variability under intermediate glacial conditions is reduced CO2, which cools the high latitudes of both hemispheres.”
Compared with the IPCC, WUWT is unquestionably the more trustworthy source.
E
Ender
Guest
What most people will be unfamiliar with is some of the background to the “hurricanes will increase” story. In 2005, Christopher Landsea, who had been both an author and reviewer for earlier IPCC reports, sent a letter to the IPCC severing his association with them. The incident that led to his resignation was precisely in his area of expertise (hurricanes). Here are some of his comments and, as regards earlier comments to @Metis1, indicate why so many people have so low an opinion of certain scientists involved with AGW. His action was taken in response to a press conference attended by Kevin Trenberth, IPCC lead author for the Observations section of the upcoming report (AR4) where he suggested that “the very busy 2004 Atlantic hurricane season as being caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas warming occurring today.”
“I am withdrawing because I have come to view the part of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant as having become politicized. In addition, when I have raised my concerns to the IPCC leadership, their response was simply to dismiss my concerns.”
“All previous and current research in the area of hurricane variability has shown no reliable, long-term trend up in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones, either in the Atlantic or any other basin. The IPCC assessments in 1995 and 2001 also concluded that there was no global warming signal found in the hurricane record.”
“It is beyond me why my colleagues would utilize the media to push an unsupported agenda that recent hurricane activity has been due to global warming.”
“I was disappointed when the IPCC leadership dismissed my concerns when I brought up the misrepresentation of climate science while invoking the authority of the IPCC.”
“I personally cannot in good faith continue to contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound.”
Having resigned from the IPCC in no uncertain terms, however, was not the end if it. The IPCC kept him on the list of contributing scientists until he finally had to sue them to remove his name.
Last edited:
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
The climate instability referenced in this article is not the same kind of thing as the AGW proponents have been talking about. It is not merely a difference of time scale. It is a totally different phenomenon. When we speak commonly about “unstable climate” what we mean is the probability of more intense and more frequent storms, droughts, floods. The stability referred to in the article you cited was the probability of a reversal of temperature trends. They are just not the same thing, and showing that one of them correlates with cooler temperatures (up to a point) does not dispute that the other kind of instability might correlate with warmer temperatures. If you think otherwise, please cite an AGW claim that says something about climate stability in the same sense (but different time scale) as the sense used in your article.
I can dispute that just by looking at the title of the WUWT article. It starts out with the word “inconvenient.” That is the most important point they want to make - that this finding is inconvenient. Inconvenient to whom? The AGW proponents apparently. This title in reminiscent of Al Gore’s move “An Inconvenient Truth.” So if you want to put WUWT on the same level as Al Gore, then fine. They are both essentially political. But the papers published by the IPCC, at least in language, are focused more on the science. They don’t try to say who might find their results to be inconvenient.
I would say the IPCC is undoubtably more trustworthy than WUWT, which can just shrug off their mistakes, like the one I have been pointing out here. But the IPCC has to withstand much more scrutiny.
By the way, if you look closely at the scatter plot in the work referenced by WUWT you will see that the correlation between mean temperature and climate stability is not monotonic. As temperatures decrease from the high range, climate becomes more unstable. But as temperatures decrease further, climate starts to become more stable.
Last edited:
- Status