Platform Item 2: Global Warming
We expect our government to do absolutely nothing to combat Global Warming and we reject the notion of any government being able to affect Climate Change. Total budget cost = $0
Affirmative Argument
Perhaps this would be more aptly identified as the negative argument because I intend to make statements here that oppose the world’s initiatives on Climate Change. Let me explain that this is not to say I do not believe we must be good stewards of the land. Our factories have a responsibility to replace the water it takes from the rivers and this water must be clean as it is returned. Industry has the obligation to scrub pollutants from their smokestacks and eliminate as much of the airborne particles as possible. Landfills should be free of carcinogenic contaminants, etc. But the topic of pollution differs from the topic of global warming and whereas I support initiatives to keep our air, water and land as clean as possible while we tap our abundant resources, I oppose all initiatives on global warming.
As someone with some education in the physical sciences including meteorological coursework at one of this nation’s best universities on that subject, Colorado State University, I have always regarded the political issue of global warming to be complete nonsense. This is because from the very beginning it was only a political issue, not a science issue and this position has been borne out multiple times over the last several months.
Consider for a moment the recent discoveries of e-mails that discussed falsifications of documents that supported the concept of global warming. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/science/earth/21climate.html?_r=1 Consider the “fudge factor” used by scientists to adjust raw data to make analytical outcomes coincide with the "scientist's" desired results. Consider that this raw data was conveniently lost and was never available to the entire scientific community for analysis. Consider the refusal of proponents of global warming initiatives to include scientists who disagreed with their conclusions to participate with them on seminar panels, publish their responses in scientific journals and elect them to their powerful boards. Consider that the entire premise of global warming depends upon a fraction of the population to be sufficiently uneducated in the sciences that they will be duped by a linear equation for climate change.
Who among us fears that when the sun sets in the evening that it won’t rise again in the morning?
Who among us fears that when the moon disappears that it won’t reappear on another day?
Who among us fears that when the winter snows come and temperatures drop by 30, 40, 50 degrees or more on average from July to January that in the next six months temperatures will drop to 60, 80 or 100 degrees below the previous summer? And who would build a model that would show temperatures a year and a half later 90, 120 or 150 degrees lower in the next January?
None of us have these fears because we see these cycles many times in our lifetimes and we know that winter will be followed by spring and then summer. We know the sun will rise again and we know the moon will come back and continue to control the tides. Why? Because we understand that our earth completes a revolution in 24 hours and the earth completes a complete orbit of the sun in one year. These are cycles. Aren’t warming and cooling cycles of the earth logically also a matter of a cyclic occurrence? The only difference is the cycles are longer and we may only see two or three complete cycles in our lifetimes.
How is the earth heated? It is heated by the sun. The atmosphere gains its heat from the earth. As air moves over the ground it is heated by the earth and the air rises to be replaced by other air that will also be heated by the earth. If the earth is getting warmer it is logically as a result of its proximity to the sun and the amount of solar activity that is currently being experienced on the sun. If the concern is carbon in the air the result would be a cooling, not a warming. Those who remember the days and weeks that followed the eruption of Mt St Helens in 1980 will recall that the ash from that eruption reached high into the atmosphere and circled the globe multiple times creating a cool summer. Further, the carbon in the air that is in the form of Carbon Dioxide no longer exhibits the characteristics of carbon. It is a gas. It is a necessary gas to continue plant life and in turn it is therefore a necessary ingredient to human life as plants create the oxygen on which humans depend through photosynthesis. CO2 is NOT a pollutant regardless of whether Al Gore or every court in America determines it to be a pollutant.
The concept of the Greenhouse Effect causing global warming is thoroughly debunked by Dr. Roy Spencer. Dr. Spencer, a climatologist formerly with NASA and now with the University of Alabama at Huntsville, is a critic of the global warming projections that pretend scientific law can be based upon a consensus of scientists rather that scientific proof. I invite everyone to his website. http://www.drroyspencer.com/ Dr. Spencer points to the fact that the greenhouse effect is caused by a warming earth. It is not the other way around. Also, the primary component of the Greenhouse Effect is water vapor, not CO2.
But what about those computer models indicating the seas will rise as the earth warms over the next fifty years and New York will submerge under rising tides? Consider first that no program writes itself. Someone had to program that model based upon someone’s assumptions. One of my greatest concerns regarding their validity is as stated above that the projections are entirely linear. As stated above climate movement is not linear. Another concern: Who among us knows every variable that should be included in such a computer model? Who wrote that model and was it written to achieve a specific result or set of results? When looking at those variables did the programmer include the cyclic trends in the weather and if so, for how many years? How many years of history are enough years to adequately project climate trends? If at the end of January my weatherman can’t tell me with 100% certainty how much snow I will get in February how can anyone program a model to tell me what will happen a year from now or fifty years from now? It is all based upon assumptions and it is the assumptions that must be reviewed before we accept the results. After seeing the results of the research at the University of East Anglia it is likely that their assumptions were based upon whatever was necessary to keep their source of funding alive and people concerned about Climate Change.
Has anyone noticed the evidence in the e-mails from the University of East Anglia showed 1998 to have been the second hottest year in the 20th Century, second to a year in the 1930’s? And has anyone noticed that the earth has been cooling since 1998? Could this be the reason that world leaders who would like to convince us that the earth’s climate needs to be controlled have resorted to the name “Climate Change” as used in Copenhagen as opposed to Global Warming that had everyone in a stew in the earliest part of this decade?
For years we were told by Al Gore that ALL scientists agreed with him. Was this because the skeptical scientists had been chased from scientific boards and publications as noted by those e-mails from the University of East Anglia? What are Al Gore’s motives? His own behavior throughout this period seemed to demonstrate little concern for his own carbon footprint? He travels by private plane and the electric bill at his home is reported to be similar to that of a small community.
Professor Bob Clark from Australia points to a history of 10,000 years with evidence of a rise in temperature with the last 2,000 years having relatively flat temperature change. Unless you take a slice of time that is exceptionally small, no warming is taking place and if you take the most recent slice of ten years we have been in a period of global cooling. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1326937617167558947&ei=4mpjS53IEJ_MqQKM_fTZCA&q=australia+climate++hoax&hl=en#
Too often arguments appeal to our emotions and not our reason. When we hear stories of a threatened polar bear or a melting ice cap we are moved to envisage an environment that threatens our food chain, our air and our ability to live. My fear is that if Climate Change legislation is successful our economy will be hurt, our liberty will be lost and yes, we will definitely live in a world unlike any I ever thought could be possible in this country.
I encourage opposing opinions as it is essential to our development as a whole, but when someone backs up their ideas with fallacies, I have a problem.
First off, I would like to point out that there are such things as error analysis and statistics that account for the inaccuracies in models. Instead of asking silly rhetorical questions about the validity of these models, you could do us, your readers, a favor and tell us the experimental error expected instead of imploring us to doubt these models because assumptions are made. I'm sure you know, as someone educated in meteorology, that there are several likely tracks for weather systems. Meteorologists are never exactly sure how the system will move through an area, so they have give the most likely example with some error involved.
Second, ash does not equal CO2. The reason we had a cool summer in 1980 is because the ash acts like a massive cloud and reflects the suns rays out of the atmosphere. Yes, the ash may have carbon in it but carbon dioxide is completely different than whatever carbon you find in ash or sediments.
Third, carbon dioxide IS known to trap heat. Your source, Dr. Roy Spencer, also states this.
Fourth, Dr Roy Spencer does not debunk the green house gas theory. Green house gas theory is simply that gasses do trap heat, and he says that we are releasing far too little to have any significant effect on the environment.
Fifth, yes the Earth temperatures vary in cycles too large for us to notice, but the idea is that we are amplifying and perturbing this cycle. This theory says that we are now heading into unchartered territory where the past will give us a very inaccurate depiction of what can happen in the future. For example, we may no longer be in a cycle.
Global Warming is all a theory and I am not sure whether I believe it or not, but please, do not insult your readers by resorting to manipulation of the facts.
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First off, my statement regarding these models is that they are human. They prove nothing other than the programmers ability to predict future results from a handful of incomplete data as gathered historically. Further, it is evident from the release of those e-mails from the University of East Anglia that the data used in these models was selective. The climatologists denied debate to those who disagreed with their assumptions, their data and their interpretations and denied them access to raw data.
Second, my entire point was that ash does not equal CO2. CO2 is a molecule that includes a carbon atom. It is not carbon.
Third, I do not recall saying that CO2 does not trap heat. I am saying that the global effect of warming and cooling is not materially effected by man. I am also saying that whether the earth is currently going through a warming or a cooling period it is my belief that we are seeing a cycle take place that will consume multiple years. I further state that whether the world is currently heating or cooling there is no way for man to identify whether this is good or bad. Simply because it was 85 yesterday and it is 86 today does not mean that we demand the government fund an enterprise to make it 85 again.
Fourth, Dr. Spencer indicates that the greenhouse gases trap the heat but they don't create the heat. The warming of the surface of the earth creates the greenhouse gases. It is not the other way around. Further, the majority of these greenhouse gases is water vapor. Perhaps we should outlaw water as well or even better, let's tax it.
Fifth, yes the idea it that we are perturbing the cycle but at one time there was no recognition of a cycle at all. This entire nonsense was referenced as global warming. Now because the arguments do not hold water there has been new name given it, climate change. Changing the name of a ridiculous theory does not change the absurdity of the theory. None of it is worth spending a dime of taxpayer money on. If you wish to fund research on climate change be my guest but leave the taxpayer alone.
I have manipulated no facts.
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I believe a Tea Party Party would be an excellent way to bring change, and I believe we should dramatically cut government spending, but after reading your platform, your Tea Party movement sounds like it's very close to the Republican Party, and by that I mean it ignores science, in terms of global warming, and has no vision towards us creating new technologies, such as solar, wind, and others.
We may not be able to stop global warming, but our 19th century technology in oil destroys our environment. Germany and Europe is expanding solar and the industry dramatically, creating jobs and clean energy.
The Tea Party movement, with the beliefs it has now, will probably go the way of the Do Nothing Party, and the Whigs.
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Do you not see all the comments about pursuing alternatives? I have no objection to alternative sources of fuel as long as their introduction is a result of demand in the marketplace.
Your reference to science is completely off the mark. Those of us who believe the theories of global warming are hogwash believe this because the arguments amount to junk science. We know the evidence was faulty. We know the data presented ignored data that did not conform to the theory presented of global warming. We have e-mail evidence that "scientists" at the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit were fraudulently presenting data as science that was completely fudged. Read about it. Educate yourself. Those with a real background in science understood from the beginning that the temperature of the earth is more likely the result of cycles and the periodic proximity between the Earth and the Sun as well as the solar activity on the sun. Thirty years ago scientists warned of the coming Ice Age and now we once again appear to be moving toward another period of cooling. Those with a real background in science also understand that nothing that was ever presented by any of the alarmists, not even the fudged data, constituted scientific proof. Science is not determined by consensus.
I will fully support green energy including solar power, wind power, hydro power, etc. as long as the method is economically viable and is not foisted upon the public by a government intent on creating a multi-billion industry in trading carbon credits to the benefit of people like Goldman Sachs and Al Gore. Follow the money David. You have been duped.
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