Re: Atheists: America's most distrusted minority

On Fri, 2 Jun 2006 21:32:14 +0000 (UTC), "Vorlonagent"
<jt@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"Paul Harper" <paul@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1149235533.022895.111310@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Vorlonagent wrote:

A good answer would be something like a quck set of highlights. "he's
very
complete. he coveres the warming climate and how CO2 emissions
exacerbate
an already warming planet, makes a good case for strong human influnce on
climate and gives good play to the shortcomings in the case for global
warming". A description like that would pique my interest.

Okay, you want me to review a programme that you are, by your own
admission, too lazy to watch yourself. Fine:

Wow. Another personal attack. To hear you talk, I must have some array of
personal problems that keep me from having an interest in hearing the same
thing over and over.

What I wanted was some indication that the program contains something beyond
boilerplate global-warming orthodoxy. If you want my interest, you have to
give me something new. New information, new perspective, something.

Pardon me for having no interest in same-old, same-old repackeged with "new,
improved!" on the box.

Now let's take a look at your description and see if there's anything new
under the sun.


Attenborough says quite clearly that over the millennia the Earth's
climate has changed - he uses the example of NYC which x (can't
remember the number) years ago whould have been at the edge of a two
kilometre high ice ***, and y years ago would have been under five
metres of water. All through natural causes. The ice *** was caused
by a global drop of two degrees, and the water by a global rise of five
degrees. He also gives the example of the rampant plant live at the
start of the carboniferous period (whatever its proper scientific name)
absorbing so much of the atmosphere's carbon dioxide that the planet
cooled, and the plants pretty much died off - causing all the oil, gas
and coal that we so freely use today - allowing the CO2 levels to
restore to a reasonable level.

So, having set the stage for the effects, timescale, naturalness and
range of climate effects that nature has already in the pastgiven us,
he then examines the degree that temperatures have changed (0.6 degree
rise since 1900) and are expected to change given our current and
anticipated greenhouse gas emissions (2 to 6 degree additional rise by
2100) because of humanity's activities.

He then maps these changes to known effects from the planets history
and anticipates the effects it will have on the planet in the future,
ranging from temperature changes affecting plant and animal life, to
weather changes like hurricanes caused by warmer seas to sea level
changes caused by melting ice.

I found it quite a convincing argument, but I very much doubt you will
believe a word of it because you don't *want* to. And that's why you
don't want to see the Gore piece, or watch the BBC programme.

You dislike people telling you what you think, yet feel free to do the same
thing to others.

Interesting.

Did Attenborough trace the rise in global temperature throughout the 20th
century? On a decade by decade basis you'll find temperature rose more in
the first part of the 20th century even though more CO2 output increases in
the later part.


Uh, everything I've heard/read about global temperatures indicates the
the greatest temperate increases in the 20th century were in the 90's.

Here's a link to a page that documents the 20 hottest years since
records started being kept in 1880.

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/recordtemp2005.html

The only year prior to 1983 to make the top 20 was 1944 at no. 18.

1940s 1
1980s 4
1990s 8
2000s 6 (Yes, every year from 2000 - 2005 inclusive appears in the
top 20 hottest years since 1880, with 2005 tieing for equal first
place with 1998).

Trish

Does Attenborough examine the "mini ice age" of the 1700s and account for
how much of global warming is simply the planet coming out of an extended
cold period?

.

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