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Ten scientific problems with global warming alarmism

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How climate scientists adjust the data to prove they need more grant money
How climate scientists adjust the data to prove they need more grant money (see #10 in the list below)

My friend Bruce posted this article from the the Daily Wire, and I think it’s a good summary of the scientific evidence against global warming alarmism. After we go over this, I’ll take a stab at explaining why so many non-scientists desperately want to believe that global warming is true, and why they try to push everyone else to believe it, too.

First, the list:

  1. Temperature records from around the world do not support the assumption that today’s temperatures are unusual.
  2. Satellite temperature data does not support the assumption that temperatures are rising rapidly
  3. Current temperatures are always compared to the temperatures of the 1980’s, but for many parts of the world the 1980’s was the coldest decade of the last 100+ years
  4. The world experienced a significant cooling trend between 1940 and 1980
  5. Urban heat island effect skews the temperature data of a significant number of weather stations
  6. There is a natural inverse relationship between global temperatures and atmospheric CO2 levels
  7. The CO2 cannot, from a scientific perspective, be the cause of significant global temperature changes
  8. There have been many periods during our recent history that a warmer climate was prevalent long before the industrial revolution
  9. Glaciers have been melting for more than 150 years
  10. “Data adjustment” is used to continue the perception of global warming

So, we can’t look at all of these in one post. Obviously, the satellite measurements are the best thing to look at, since they cannot be tampered with as easily as the ground measurements, and they show no warming for 18 years.

But let’s look at number 8 instead:

Even in the 1990 IPCC report a chart appeared that showed the medieval warm period as having had warmer temperatures than those currently being experienced.  But it is hard to convince people about global warming with that information, so five years later a new graph was presented, now known as the famous hockey stick graph, which did away with the medieval warm period.  Yet the evidence is overwhelming at so many levels that warmer periods existed on Earth during the medieval warm period as well as during Roman Times and other time periods during the last 10,000 years.  There is plenty of evidence found in the Dutch archives that shows that over the centuries, parts of the Netherlands disappeared beneath the water during these warm periods, only to appear again when the climate turned colder.  The famous Belgian city of Brugge, once known as “Venice of the North,” was a sea port during the warm period that set Europe free from the dark ages (when temperatures were much colder), but when temperatures began to drop with the onset of the little ice age, the ocean receded and now Brugge is ten miles away from the coastline.  Consequently, during the medieval warm period the Vikings settled in Iceland and Greenland and even along the coast of Canada, where they enjoyed the warmer temperatures, until the climate turned cold again, after which they perished from Greenland and Iceland became ice-locked again during the bitter cold winters.  The camps promoting global warming have been systematically erasing mention of these events in order to bolster the notion that today’s climate is unusual compared to our recent history.

That’s right, the world was much warmer than it is now during the Medieval Warming Period… so warm that you could actually farm on Greenland. But now it’s all frozen over.

Bruce also posted this article from Forbes magazine about the so-called consensus about global warming among scientists.

It says:

It is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the asserted global warming crisis, but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus.

[…]Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.

The survey results show geoscientists (also known as earth scientists) and engineers hold similar views as meteorologists. Two recent surveys of meteorologists (summarized here and here) revealed similar skepticism of alarmist global warming claims.

According to the newly published survey of geoscientists and engineers, merely 36 percent of respondents fit the “Comply with Kyoto” model. The scientists in this group “express the strong belief that climate change is happening, that it is not a normal cycle of nature, and humans are the main or central cause.”

The authors of the survey report, however, note that the overwhelming majority of scientists fall within four other models, each of which is skeptical of alarmist global warming claims.

[…]Taken together, these four skeptical groups numerically blow away the 36 percent of scientists who believe global warming is human caused and a serious concern.

Many people listen to Obama, who never passed a science class in his life, talk about how most scientists support the idea of man-made global warming. But the truth is that his statements are just more “you can keep your health plan” and “you can keep your doctor”. He says what he wants people to believe so they will like him and rely on him to save them. But he has no knowledge of climate science any more than he has knowledge of health care policy.

Why do people believe weird things?

So why do people believe these things? People believe these things for the same reason that primitive people would sacrifice animals in order to get a bountiful harvest or be spared being struck by lightning. They fear the future, and they want to believe that they are doing something in order to save themselves from doom. There is something credulous in us that seeks to know and control the future. When we are told a noble lie by grant-seeking, attention-craving academics, we believe it because we want to believe it. We want to believe that the future is going to be OK, especially when all we have to do to make it OK is recycle cans and turn off our lights when we are not using them.

This is the real psychological motivation behind the desperate desire to believe in the global warming myth. We are scared, and we want someone to save us from the future. And we jump at the chance of controlling the future, especially when it means recycling cans, rather than having to deal with our own sinfulness. We invent a new morality that justifies us rather than having to comply with the old morality. Freedom to commit adultery, as long as we recycle cans to save the planet. Sanctification through purchasing carbon credits, instead of  sanctification through chastity, sobriety and self-control.

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Hate crime hoax: Houston Muslim arrested for setting his own mosque on fire

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Suspect arrested for arson of Houston mosque, liberals hardest hit
Suspect arrested for arson of Houston mosque, liberals hardest hit

Here’s the raw story from the leftist Houston Chronicle.

It says:

A Houston man has been arrested in connection with a suspected arson at a mosque on Christmas Day, but the motive for the crime remains a mystery, with the suspect maintaining he was a regular at the mosque.

A spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives confirmed that the suspect, 37-year-old Gary Nathaniel Moore of Houston, was arrested early Wednesday. Moore appeared in court at 7 a.m., spokeswoman Nicole Strong said, and bond was set at $100,000.

According to a charging instrument released by the Harris County District Clerk, Moore told investigators at the scene that he has attended the storefront mosque for five years, coming five times per day to pray seven days per week.

Moore said he had been at the mosque earlier on Dec. 25 to pray, and had left at about 2 p.m. to go home, according to authorities and court papers. Moore said he was the last person to leave the mosque and saw no smoke or other signs of fire when he departed, authorities said. He maintained he had returned to the scene after hearing about the fire from a friend.

Now, I wouldn’t post this if there was not something to learn from it at a higher level, and there is. There is something to learn about the left-wing, shame the good, praise the evil, mindset.

Breitbart News documents the initial reactions from the mainstream media to the story before it was known who the guilty person was.

Excerpt: (links to other sites removed)

CBS News:

Advocacy groups believe there has been a spike in anti-Muslim incidents across the United States in recent weeks that can be linked to the mass shooting in California and the inflammatory rhetoric of Donald Trump and other Republican presidential candidates. And they say that Muslims are fearful the backlash could lead to further harassment and violence.

CNN:

The Houston chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called on authorities to investigate the fire for an anti-Muslim motive.

“Because of the recent spike in hate incidents targeting mosques nationwide, we urge law enforcement authorities to investigate a possible bias motive for this fire,” Mustafaa Carroll, the chapter’s executive director, said in a statement.

NBC News:

The Houston chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called on authorities to investigate a possible bias motive in the case, citing what it called a “recent spike in hate incidents targeting mosques nationwide.

Now that a devout Muslim has been charged, the DC Media will forget all about the incident.

The media’s playbook is always to immediately use any disaster or crime as a means to make the GOP answer for it. Then, once the facts come out and point to a member of the Protected Class, the story is memory-holed and the accusation against the Republican lingers.

That was very bad, and it should teach you a lesson about how anxious the media is to make traditional groups (conservatives, Christians, orthodox Jews, etc.) feel ashamed, while protecting and praising radical Islamists. They want to force everyone to be “equal” on the moral scale, so that no one can judge anyone else. The problem is, as we see in this story, that not shaming evil causes evil people to more evil, not less evil.

Anyway, all that is well and good, but we haven’t seen the worst media bias. That prize goes to the radically, radically leftist Salon, which not only put up a story blaming conservatives for the arson, but then took it down once the news came out about who was arrested for it: (H/T Weasel Zippers)

Salon took down their entire post to protect radical Islamists
Salon took down their entire post to protect radical Islamists

(click for larger image)

Why did they do it? Because the story only had value to them when it could give America, Christians, Republicans, etc. a black eye. When it gave radicalized Muslim terrorists a black eye, then Salon had to take it down. They didn’t want to make their allies in the culture war look bad. And do you know what else Salon doesn’t report on? Crucifixions, torture, rape and murder by radical Muslims (often against other Muslims!) in other parts of the world. That doesn’t fit their narrative, either.

Do you ever wonder where so many people have an emotional reaction of sympathy for people who do evil? It’s because they’ve been conditioned by the media to think that somehow, some way, evil people are actually justified in doing their evil. And somehow, some way, good people are all hypocrites who shouldn’t judge anyone, because it is mean and makes people feel bad. If you went to public schools in America and listened to the mainstream media, you’ve been indoctrinated in that from birth to present day. It all comes from the shame that people on the left feel for their own immoral actions, and their desperate desire to stop all moral judging as a way of escaping from the misdeeds they committed in the past. This is their way of dealing with their own guilt – stopping everyone else from making moral judgments about anything.

To learn more about media bias from peer-reviewed studies that document it, click here.

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Is there a downside to celebrating homosexuality as normal?

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Making sense of the meaning of atheism
When disagreements come up, it’s good to look at what the evidence is

This article from Touchstone magazine has the numbers. The “CDC” is the government-run Centers for Disease Control.

It says:

We don’t hear much about the HIV/AIDS epidemic anymore. When was the last time you read an article either online or in a newspaper of general circulation, or saw a report on a television news program about HIV/AIDS? And yet, with no media attention or public fanfare, Mr. Obama’s proposed 2016 federal budget requests almost $32 billion for HIV/AIDS treatment and research, an increase of 3.1% over the prior year. Notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s recent decision finding a fundamental, constitutional “right” to homosexual and lesbian “marriage,” there is a deeply dark and dangerous side to today’s American homosexuality. Since the first cases of what would later become known as AIDS were reported in the United States in June of 1981, more than 1.8 million people in the U.S. are estimated to have been infected with HIV, of whom 658,507 have already died. Today, the Centers for Disease Control (“CDC”) estimates that more than 1,218,400 people aged 13 years and older are living with HIV/AIDS in the United States. Of those, tragically, the CDC estimates that almost 1 in 8 (156,300 or 12.8%) are unaware of their infection. Homosexual and bisexual men who have sex with men, particularly young African-American men, continue to be the most seriously affected by HIV/AIDS. Over the past decade, approximately 50,000 people are newly infected annually. In 2013, the CDC estimated that 47,352 people were diagnosed with HIV infection, and an additional 26,688 people were diagnosed with full-blown AIDS in the United States. Again, according to the CDC, in 2012, notwithstanding medical advances, an estimated 13,712 people with AIDS died.

Although African-Americans represent 12 percent of the U.S. population, but accounted for 44% of new HIV infections in 2012, and accounted for 41% of people living with HIV/AIDS. Hispanics/Latinos account for 20 percent of people living with HIV infection. Although homosexual and bisexual men who have exchanges of body fluids through anal intercourse and other sexual contact with other men represent a very small proportion of the male population in the United States, the CDC reports that they account for 78 percent of new HIV infections among males, and 63 percent of all new infections. Importantly, in a typical year, the greatest number of new HIV infections occur in younger African-American males aged 13-24. Younger black men accounted for 45% of all new HIV infections among African-Americans, and 55% of new HIV infections among all younger homosexual and bisexual men.

We can all think of behaviors that are not good for people. Suppose you notice your friend has started smoking, or maybe is eating too much and not exercising, or maybe’s she’s getting really thin and not eating enough – if you loved them, you would say something. What if they got defensive and they felt bad about being judged? I still think it’s good to gently but firmly tell the truth.

In my office, I have leftists who often tell me to recycle cans. If I don’t recycle cans, nothing bad will happen to me. But strangely enough, the leftists don’t have anything to say about behaviors that really would hurt me, like homosexuality. Secondhand smoke? They will condemn that. But engaging in risky sexual activity? They want to celebrate that. What sense does this double standard make? Tell people the truth about what behaviors might hurt them, but do it in a gentle way. Don’t just tell someone “it’s wrong”, either. Instead, show them the facts and the sources so they can check out the data for themselves.