Du Pont set up, knocked down, global warming straw man: "[I]t is not clear that human activity is wholly responsible"
SUMMARY: In a recent column, Pete du Pont quoted Washington Post columnist David Ignatius's claim that "human activity is accelerating dangerous changes in the world's climate," and responded to Ignatius by claiming that "it is not clear that human activity is wholly responsible" for global warming. Ignatius, however, did not assert that humans are "wholly responsible" for global warming -- he claimed that humans are "accelerating" global warming, as the quote du Pont provided clearly indicated.
In his March 28 column for The Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com, former Delaware governor and one-time Republican presidential candidate Pete du Pont quoted Washington Post columnist David Ignatius's claim that "human activity is accelerating dangerous changes in the world's climate," and responded to Ignatius by claiming that "it is not clear that human activity is wholly responsible" for global warming. Ignatius, however, did not assert that humans are "wholly responsible" for global warming -- he claimed that humans are "accelerating" global warming, as the quote du Pont provided clearly indicated. In fact, the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence supports Ignatius's contention: global climate change is a natural process that is being abnormally affected by anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions.
Moreover, the evidence du Pont provided to rebut the argument Ignatius never made does little to challenge the findings of the scientific community. Du Pont pointed to a report from the Washington Policy Center spanning 44 years of temperature readings from Mount Rainier in Washington and reports of shrinking ice caps on Mars. Du Pont also noted that Duke University scientists concluded that "at least 10 to 30 percent of global warming measured during the past two decades may be due to increased solar output," but failed to mention that the scientists also "emphasized that their findings do not argue against the basic theory that significant global warming is occurring because of carbon dioxide and other 'greenhouse' gases." According to a September 30, 2005, Duke news release: "This study does not discount that human-linked greenhouse gases contribute to global warming, they stressed. 'Those gases would still give a contribution, but not so strong as was thought," [Duke associate research scientist Nicola] Scafetta said."
From du Pont's March 28 column:
So are we now at the beginning of a global warming catastrophe? Again, scientists and the press think so: the same NASA data indicates a 0.7-degree warming trend from 1970 to 2000. The Washington Post's David Ignatius reflects the media view in saying that "human activity is accelerating dangerous changes in the world's climate."
But it is not clear that human activity is wholly responsible. The Washington Policy Center reports that Mount Rainier in Washington state grew cooler each year from 1960 to 2003, warming only in 2004. And Mars is warming significantly. NASA reported last September that the red planet's south polar ice cap has been shrinking for six years. As far as we know few Martians drive SUVs or heat their homes with coal, so its ice caps are being melted by the sun--just as our Earth's are. Duke University scientists have concluded that "at least 10 to 30 percent of global warming measured during the past two decades may be due to increased solar output."
Du Pont quoted Ignatius's March 8 Post column, titled "The Planet Can't Wait." Nothing Ignatius wrote, however, indicated that he believes humans are solely responsible for global warming -- as du Pont suggested -- or that the global climate does not warm through natural processes. The quote du Pont provided indicated as much: Ignatius claimed that humans are "accelerating" changes in the global climate.
Nevertheless, du Pont went on to offer a false choice between the suspected causes of global warming:
So what is causing these cooling and warming increases? Normal temperature trends? Solar radiation changes? Or human-caused global warming? There is little we can do about historical temperature or solar heat cycles, but if human actions are in fact causing global warming, what could be done to reduce it?
Contrary to du Pont's suggestion, global warming may be caused by a variety of factors. According to the Third Assessment Report of the United Nation's International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): "Changes in climate occur as a result of both internal variability within the climate system and external factors (both natural and anthropogenic)." The IPCC report, released in 2001, also concluded that "[e]missions of greenhouse gases and aerosols due to human activities continue to alter the atmosphere in ways that are expected to affect the climate." Citing multiple studies that demonstrated "evidence for an anthropogenic signal in the climate record of the last 35 to 50 years," the IPCC stated: "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities."
The National Academy of Sciences came to a similar conclusion in a 2001 report on climate change commissioned by the Bush administration:
Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability.
Human activity isn't solely responsible. Termite farts, with their methane, might account for as much global warming as fossil fuel burning. However, termites don't choose to fart. We choose to burn superfluous fuels. Therefore, other factors are moot.
Thanks for this. I've tried to blame to odious the smell in my house to termite farts, but nobody believed me. I knew I wasn't crazy!
if other factors are causing warming and we are merely in control of the speed that is important. If the end game is inevitable there is little reason to adversely affect our economy and comforts (like heat ion the winter and reliable foodstiffs).
further no one on the left is willing to accept the trade off that the only clean energy is solar and there isnt enough. second is hydro and wind0 woe to us for flooding pristine wilderness. I like nuclear clean cheap and abundant.
I'm sure DuPont couldn't possibly have any vested interest in disproving the theories behind global warning. Nah.
Lets recap what a true patriot (Republican) believes: pollution is not a concern to the world, but homosexuals are. Starting a war is heroic and noble, but questioning the reasons for this war is akin to treason. Freedom is good, but your govenment can monitor you at its leisure. We should not teach our children to question our government in our schools, but we should teach them about God and how his son walked on water, died for our sins and was resurrected and lives in heaven.
I just wanted to make sure I have everything straight. Now I'll go and butter my paper and read my toast.
Too funny, cantseefade.
Or should I say, "Too unfunny."
I can console myself that it wasn't "wholely" our fault.
living on high ground?
There isn't any place in the world that doesn't have its natural disasters. I would hate to see what your glass house looked like after a tornado. flood, quake, hurricane, wildfire...
...how people can be so intellectually dishonest and look themselves in the mirror. Doesn't Pete du Pont have any pride?
The dinosaurs had no choice but to go on being large-bodied ectotherms despite the obviously maladaptive nature of those traits following the Chixulub impact. They couldn't adapt fast enough, so they went extinct.
What's the corporate right-wing's excuse for its stubborn refusal to seek new ways of thriving in a changing world?
Most current research believes that dinosaurs are most closely related to birds, and some may have even had feathers. Birds are warm blooded. It was also documented in a book back in the '80s called "The Hot-Blooded Dinosaurs", one of the first books to dispute that dinosaurs were reptiles, that the sheer size of many of the dinosaurs would have precluded them being reptiles - their bodies never would haved warmed up enough to sustain metabolic processes. Getting back on topic, however, I believe that "global warming" is probably the wrong descriptive phrase. I have no doubt that mother Earth can withstand our meddling, but we may not like how she does it. As the ocean warms, mostly due to our actions, that energy is disspated through storms - mother nature's attempt to restore equilibrium. There are natural cycles to this, but our global emissions have intensified these cycles. I'm not worried about the Earth - it'll be here long after we're gone - it's our tenure here that's in jeopardy, as well as every other living creature.
As George Carlin said, the earth isn't going anywhere, we are.
It's just too bad he just comes across as a bitter old man in his newest comedy routine - saw him on HBO, and he just wasn't as funny as he once was. But, that's true - we could blow this planet into oblivion, and in a million years or so, some new life forms would be here in place of what is here now. Yes, unless we can keep from blowing ourselves into oblivion, our tenure will be short in geological time. Funny thing is, if you really think about it, we're just part of the evolutionary step ladder - we will crowd out other species - in most ways to our own detriment - end up destroying our pre-eminence in the world, and may eventually be extinct ourselves. Do we look at this as mankind destroying the world? Or just natural selection at work? Really, we're the first known species to be able to ponder that question, or have the ability to place some kind of moral or ethical value to it. We're also the first known species with the technical facility to do something to prevent our own extinction - but will we???
To summarize comments by a climatologist friend, the future is potentially a bit like this - drought and deluge causing failed crops and famine, stronger storms, greater temperature extremes, melting ice caps, more coastal flooding...get the picture so far?
But then comes the big change. Eventually enough ice melts and ocean currents are interrupted. Then pull out your parkas and get ready for a long - really really long - winter.
Hey, this is all theory...the models could be wrong...ignore the mounting evidence...take a chance and keep burning those fossil fuels! What's the worst that could happen? Extinction?
Actuatlly, the ice age, or mini-ice age brought about by a interruption in the ocean conveyor belt can come about in a matter of a few years, whereas the general global warming trend has the advantage of being projected far into the future.
This reminds me of a story regarding scientist Carl Sagan. He had just given a talk to laypeople about the future of the universe. After it was over, an older lady came up to him, obviously agitated. She said, "Dr. Sagan, how long did you say it will be before the sun burns out?". Sagan replied, "Four billion years". The lady seemed relieved, "Whew! I thought you said 4 MILLLION!"
ill be waiting...
First, "reptiles" is a meaningless and taxonomically fallacious catch-all for a set of independent evolutionary lineages, and I never used the word.
Second, birds did indeed evolve from one lineage of dinosaurs, but whether their endothermy is an autapomorphy or pleisiomorphy is hardly contested for lack of evidence in support of the latter hypothesis.
Third, lots of people write books; it doesn't make it so. There is an argument by some paleontologists that skeletal evidence and fossil trackways indicate that dinosuars must have had metabolic rates unattainable by ectotherms. Other paleontologists dismiss that evidence either as simply false, or explain it thusly: Dinosaurs were homeothermic ectotherms, that is, large-bodied ectotherms (sound familiar?) who maintained a fairly constant body temperature through large size and behavioral thermoregulation. Some ectotherms today (crocodiles) are capable of bursts of extremely high aerobic activity because they have a piston-like liver that functions like a diaphragm; however, they are quite emphatically ectotherms.
Dinosaurs (Class Dinosauria), as distinct from birds (Class Aves), did go extinct at the end of the Cretaceous, most likely because of rapid climate changes brought on by an astronomical impact. These changes favored endothermy and small body size -- characteristics shared by birds and early mammals (whose evolutionary ancestors were the same as those of dinosaurs). Many smaller ectotherms also survived the K-T extinction, including Squamates, Crocodiles, Testudines, and Sphenodonts. No large-bodied ectotherms on the scale of Dinosaurs survived.
Uh....Dinosaurs didn't exist. Their bones were planted in the ground by God to test our faith.
That's my bad. You're right, of course, but as this is a left-wing liberal, God-hating, atheistic, blame-America-first website, I had to play along lest the locals get ugly.
that dinosaurs were cold blooded and that book was the first to put forth that hypothesis - a lot has changed in 20 years - heck, who'd have thought a chimp would be able to become president in the 80s? We'd have thought it was because of the mushrooms we were eating causing hallucinations...
Humans must be weak to think cleaning up our endless noxious emissions is "too much of a strain of the means of production". I'm counting greed among our weaknesses. And of course everyone knows what Nature does with the weak:
Chomp! chomp!
IGNATIUS: "human activity is accelerating dangerous changes in the world's climate"
DU PONT (yes, of the Chemical manufacturer and of General Motors too): "it is not clear that human activity is wholly responsible"
what's not at all "clear" about that snippet of dialogue is what the "human activity" is they're talking about; "wholly responsible": there's a disclaimer if I've ever heard one; all you need do is enter in any additional factor, however small and insignificant, to "human activity" to make that "human activity" not "wholly responsible".
Lawyers, and the way they talk (he's got a 'Doctors of Law' degree from Harvard, '63, Pierre S. du Pont, IV does)...
Screw that kind of talk, and those kind of terms; it's an easier dialogue than that, and it starts with the question:
Emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, as emitted by the burning of fossil fuels...
GOOD THING or BAD THING?
Your answer may well depend upon what business you and your family are in.
...in the short term, it's working for the oilmen, but in the longterm, there will be no complete sanctuary. Some will suffer much more than others, but we'll all suffer, as will our children, our grandchildren, etc. I expect that in 200 years, we'll be loathed as the generation undone by greed and the generation that undid ecosystems.
still waiting
They swarm and eat, reproduce and swarm larger, and eat more. Until there is no more to eat. Then they all die.
It's reassuring, I suppose, because eventually they will be back. The important thing is to be the fattest locust in their short lifespan.
Tex wrote: "The important thing is to be the fattest locust in their short lifespan."
And Bush, the oilman, is off the grid at this ranch. And while his policies plunder the Earth, they tiptoe on his portion of the Earth. They're quite eco-friendly there.
So, Bush and his descendents might inherit the Earth. So much for the meek. And so much for hope.
...it's worth reposting and it is germane to this thread:
"However, I also fault anyone with a big car, a big house, and a big lifestyle, which has them flying to some resort for 3 days of amusement. I especially fault someone with a vacation home. Far too many Americans live fat lives. This is why we're dependent on foreign oil. This is partly why Bush (and DuPont) behaves the way he does. The American Way is superfluous consumption: he is its defender. It's easy to blame Bush (and DuPont), but millions of Americans share the blame. If you truly want to remove the incentive for invasion and occupation, walk to work. Downsize. Avoid oil use by buying in bulk, etc. The hippies had it right: the simple, sustainable life is best. And it can save us from WWIII. Bush (and DuPont) serves greed. Whittle away at greed and you whittle away at Bush (and DuPont).