Freedomain Radio

You might like this:

http://www.garagetv.be/video-galerij/blancostemrecht/The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle_Documentary_Film.aspx

Best documentary on the subject, and a must for anyone who ponders the topic of climate change

It's good, but some of their claims, like the direct connection to the sun's activity and temperature flucuations, aren't really proven scientifically. In my opinion, there's evidence on both sides of the global warming argument, and anyone who tells you they know all the causes and can project future temperatures is likely lying.

"It is based on faith"

"It is a conspiracy"

"It is a religion"

"It is invented to fulfill the needs of [hated group]"

Might the rhetorics be familiar?

"The alleged Hitlerian gas chambers and the alleged genocide of the Jews form one and the same historical lie, which permitted a gigantic financial swindle whose chief beneficiaries have been the State of Israel and international Zionism, and whose main victims have been the German people and the Palestinian people as a whole." 

-Robert Faurisson, former profesor of literature and historian, The Guardian Weekly, April 7, 1991 

"Let's face it, secular evolutionists must oppose creation ministries because, if what we are saying is right (and it is) - that God is creator - then their whole philosophy is destroyed. The basis for their philosophy decrees there is no god. If evolution is true, the only alternative is creation. That is why they will cling to the evolutionary philosophy even if the evidence is totally contradictory. It is really a spiritual question."

- Ken Ham, president AnswersInGenesis, http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/the-lie/chapter4.asp

Indeed it sounds very rational.

A basic review of "the Great Global Warming Swindle" can be found here

Swingpirate:

"It is based on faith"

"It is a conspiracy"

"It is a religion"

"It is invented to fulfill the needs of [hated group]"

 

Might the rhetorics be familiar?

 

"The alleged Hitlerian gas chambers and the alleged genocide of the Jews form one and the same historical lie, which permitted a gigantic financial swindle whose chief beneficiaries have been the State of Israel and international Zionism, and whose main victims have been the German people and the Palestinian people as a whole." 

-Robert Faurisson, former profesor of literature and historian, The Guardian Weekly, April 7, 1991 

"Let's face it, secular evolutionists must oppose creation ministries because, if what we are saying is right (and it is) - that God is creator - then their whole philosophy is destroyed. The basis for their philosophy decrees there is no god. If evolution is true, the only alternative is creation. That is why they will cling to the evolutionary philosophy even if the evidence is totally contradictory. It is really a spiritual question."

- Ken Ham, president AnswersInGenesis, http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/the-lie/chapter4.asp

 

Indeed it sounds very rational.

 

A basic review of "the Great Global Warming Swindle" can be found here

 I'm sorry, man. I didn't get your post. Haven't had breakfast yet.

Can you tell me your position?

Thanks.

Swingpirate is accusing global warming skeptics as being the same as holocaust deniers and creationist. There's a whole lot of dead bodies and a  heck of a lot of evidence that shows that the holocaust happened. There's no proof of God,and evolution has been proven to be true

Swingpirate we're not crazy. Global warming skeptics have seen that CO2 doesn't raise tempeture, in fact it's the other way around. Did you watch the whole documentary?

P1) What is told in movies is always true

P2) Storys about mermaids have been told in movies

C) Storys about mermaids are true (from 1&2)

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/08/the-co2-problem-in-6-easy-steps/

I can't imagine that comparing rational skeptics to Holocaust deniers and creationists has ever worked to help them learn a different perspective or opinion.

I think it is pretty hysterical and over-the-top, frankly, and I don't think that it speaks well to your own credibility.

In the future, you may want to consider trying a more compassionate and inviting approach.

Just my two cents.

I didn't compare anyone to holocaust deniers and creationists, I compared the rhetorics. It was an objective review of the points and accusations made against climate research in the "documentary" in question.

To be a "rational skeptic" is not the same as more or less uncritically swallow conspiracy claims from a film that denies scientific consensus. 

Anyone that has some insight in the issue can identify this "dispute" as an ideological one rather than a scientific. Is it merely a coincidence that those who are most eager to be skeptical about anthropogenic global warming are also proponents of the free market and capitalism? I don't think so. We see this trend especially among randian objectivists, libertarians and anarchists. I mean come on, people in general are not dummies. Surely they are not blind to see informal argumentation?

1. If AGW is true, capitalism is in danger

2. The only way to save capitalism is to deny AGW

3. Capitalism should be saved

4. Therefor AGW must be denied 

I personally think that the only way to deal with AGW is by REALLY implementing the free market and capitalism. Just as with the current financial crisis I would argue that climate change becomes a way more dangerous and problematic issue when taking into account regulations through national and supernational interventions. So I would reconsider switching the tactics if I were you before giving the lefties a master opportunity to take the high ground backed by the scientific community and hard facts. 

Perhaps we should go back to the basics?

1. The globe has been warming up steadily since the industrial revolution (not disputed in film)*

2. Greenhouse gases do increase trapping of IR-radiation in the atmosphere and therefor raise the temperature (not disputed in film)**

3. We are vastly increasing the proportion of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and have been doing so significally since the industrial revolution*** (not disputed i film)

4. _______________________________

Fill in the blank.

*http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif

**http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/302/5651/1719

http://wiki.nsdl.org/index.php/PALE:ClassicArticles/GlobalWarming

http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/wdcgg/gas.html

***http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/ndp006/ndp006.pdf

http://www.pnas.org/content/104/24/10288.full.pdf

http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/usinventoryreport.html

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter7.pdf

http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.htm

etc.

Oh, I almost forgot to adress your post Carlos,

Yes, the CO2-levels lagged the temperature at the period (about 240 000-237 000 years ago) highlighted by the diagram that you are refering to (Caillon et al.), but that is besides the point: it doesn't imply that the increase in CO2 had no effect on global temperatures.

In fact, the paper by Callion (upon which the film's claim is based) indicates that the released CO2 did contribute to higher atmosphere temperatures. I shall be straight forward and quote the article itself:

Caillon et al.:

This sequence of events is still in full agreement with the idea that CO₂ plays, through its greenhouse effect, a key role in amplifying the initial orbital forcing. First, the 800-year time lag is short in comparison with the total duration of the temperature and CO₂ increases (~5000 years). Second, the CO₂ increase clearly precedes the Northern Hemisphere deglaciation (Fig. 3).

Caillon et al.:

Finally, the situation at Termination III differs from the recent anthropogenic CO₂ increase. As recently noted by Kump (38), we should distinguish between internal influences (such as the deglacial CO₂increase) and external influences (such as the anthropogenic CO₂ increase) on the climate system. Although the recent CO₂ increase has clearly been imposed first, as a result of anthropogenic activities, it naturally takes, at Termination III, some time for CO₂ to outgas from the ocean once it starts to react to a climate change that is first felt in the atmosphere. The sequence of events during this Termination is fully consistent with CO₂ participating in the latter ~4200 years of the warming.

Any comments on that?

David D. Friedman wrote this the other day re: global warming (and has a more to say in his new book Future Imperfect):

Driving home, I caught a bit of a McCain speech on the radio. He was asserting, for all I know correctly, that Obama's advisors had told him that he would benefit politically from the current financial problems. The clear implication was that that made Obama a bad person and so was a reason to vote for McCain.

The underlying theory has its own latin tag--Cui Bono. When something goes wrong, see who benefits by it and blame him. As a rule of thumb, a first place to look, it makes some sense. But it makes no logical sense here, since McCain is not arguing—could not plausibly argue—that Obama caused the crisis in order to benefit by it. Yet, however illogical, it works as rhetoric. Bad things are happening, Obama is benefitting by them, Obama must be a bad person.

An older and bigger example of the same error was the attack on "malefactors of great wealth," war profiteers, after WWI. There was no real evidence linking firms that manufactured munitions to the war happening. But terrible things had happened, people wanted someone to blame, and those—actual or imaginary—who had benefitted by those terrible things were the obvious targets.

The illogic in both of these cases is in some ways similar to one of the oddities in arguments about global warming. Both sides of that debate seem to take it for granted that if the cause of global warming is human activity, that's an argument for our doing something about it, while if it is something else, such as changes in the behavior of the sun, that is an argument against.

There is a crumb of logic to the argument. If global warming is caused by human activities, then by stopping those activities we could presumably stop it. The behavior of the sun is not something we have any control over.

But it is only a crumb. To begin with, "human" is a species, not a person. "We" don't make decisions. Whether or not humans are causing global warming, my contribution to it, which is what I control, is close to zero. I have little more control over other people living on the other side of the globe than I do over the sun. So even if is true that humans are causing the problem, it does not follow that there is a human solution to it in any useful sense.

Seen from the other side, even if humans are not responsible, even if the cause is the sun, if global warming is a bad thing it might be worth doing something to stop it. Humans are not responsible for the existence of polio, but that is no argument against developing polio vaccines. Various suggestions have been made for things humans could do that would reduce global tempratures. Whether they are worth doing does not depend on whether whatever increase is happening is our fault.

Which gets us, I think, to the emotional core of the argument. It isn't that whether we caused it determines whether we can cure it. It is that if we caused it then it is our fault, and if it is our fault we should cure it. "Clean up your own mess."

That makes no sense that I can see in such a context, since it is extending to the human species an argument applicable only to individual humans. Yet it is emotionally powerful, which is why one side of the argument wants to argue that global warming is caused by humans, the other that it is not.

Thanks for these posts, Swing Pirate and John Ess.  You've really helped me understand this issue in a way that I haven't before.

Though, I will say, Swing Pirate, from my perspective, your first post did seem to imply that AGW deniers are similar to holocaust deniers and creationists.  It may have not been your intention, but intention does not matter much if people experience the opposite.  Do you see how your post could have been interpreted that way?

Nexalacer, I have no interest in personal attacks, I have interest in facts and the argumentation over these facts, and there is no question on where the evidence lead us at this point: AGW is real, just a real as evolution and the holocaust.

On the other hand, the public debate when it comes to the issue right now is truely irrational: on one side there are the "skeptics" that are constantly receding to conspiracy theories, circumstancial ad hominem ("they make money by claiming AGW is true") and genetic fallacies ("IPCC is established by politicians"). On the other side there is a group of (politically active) AGW-supporters mostly dropping appeal to emotion ("what are you gonna tell your children when they ask why you didn't do anything?") and appeal to authority ("Al Gore says..."). We are facing what Stef would call "a nullzone" here. Up is down, truths are lies, and no rational arguments will ever (or very seldom) take roots on the person that is to be found in that area. What someone has accepted without rational cause one cannot reason with him rationally about. 

... and, of course, people are buying this whole pseudo-debate since it is the sole message exposed in the media. That's what happens when you allow ideology and agenda to have primacy over facts. It should be the other way around.      

Remember though that the Holocaust happened because of rhetoric that exploited something real (Jews) and also people's irrational psychological needs and biases.

Creationism also has "proof" that uses certain real facts that lead towards the conclusions people want.