Global Warming and Steve Urquhart
Published by DanM December 16th, 2007 in National and International Issues, Southern Utah Talking Points and Questions, Southern Utah People.Is “the earth is flat” next?
Steve Urquhart is one of the key Color Country representatives to the Utah Legislature, and a pretty good blogger! The district he represents can be roughly categorized as “St. George.” Since he writes an interesting and informative blog and covers a lot of Color Country issues, I link to his blog in my blogroll here.
But he wrote a blog recently that just floored me titled, Global Warming (soon to be, Global Storming). In it, he wrote, “Here’s my prediction. Temperatures will go back down – continuing to cycle up and down like they have for millennia.” He was honest enough to add, “My evidence? None.” But then he claimed that there was no evidence for global warming either and dismissed anybody who did support it as, “movie stars” and “pop scientists.”
Ummmm … No, Steve. Just to set the record straight, here’s Wikipedia’s summary of just who is saying that global warming is so very, very real.
“The conclusion that global warming is mainly caused by human activity and will continue if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced has been endorsed by at least 30 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Joint Science Academies of the major industrialized and developing nations explicitly use the word “consensus” when referring to this conclusion.”
So we have Steve on one side and all these “pop scientists” on the other.
The only real controversy left is not “what” is happening or “why”. The only question left is “How fast?” Or, put another way, will Steve still be alive to suffer the catastrophies to come, or just his children?
But there’s another part of Steve’s analysis that is just jarring, and that is his willingness to gamble it all on his conclusion based on “no evidence”. In the same blog, Steve writes, “My hypothesis is that temperatures will trend back down. If not, I’m real sorry that I helped doom the planet. My bad.”
Is that the way you make decisions when the legislature is in session, Steve?
I’m just real sorry I don’t live in Steve’s district so I can vote against him. Those comments (of Steve’s) are astounding! How can an intelligent person make such comments? However, I suppose I only assuming Steve is intelligent. I have “no evidence” that he is, and, from his comments, it seems I do have evidence that he is not intelligent. How in the heck did you folks ever elect someone to the legislature who would make such statements?!!! I hope you will rectify this situation (Steve’s membership in the legislature) at your very earliest opportunity!
“I hope you will rectify this situation (Steve’s membership in the legislature) at your very earliest opportunity!”
Not likely since the election is decided in the Republican primary down here.
Actually, Steve is very intelligent. You can see that from his blog. But “intelligent” and “correct” are different things.
There’s plenty of evidence that there is no real consensus on man-made global warming. The IPCC was about as political an entity as you can get.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=f80a6386-802a-23ad-40c8-3c63dc2d02cb
U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007
Senate Report Debunks “Consensus”
INTRODUCTION:
Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called “consensus” on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.
The new report issued by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s office of the GOP Ranking Member details the views of the scientists, the overwhelming majority of whom spoke out in 2007.
Even some in the establishment media now appears to be taking notice of the growing number of skeptical scientists. In October, the Washington Post Staff Writer Juliet Eilperin conceded the obvious, writing that climate skeptics “appear to be expanding rather than shrinking.” Many scientists from around the world have dubbed 2007 as the year man-made global warming fears “bites the dust.”
A place where some should spend some time.
http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2007/09/table-of-conten.html
What is too bad is that CW has become more of a religious endeavor than one of science, and being such it removes the area of real discussion about it.
Many as well need to understand how far, particularly the USA and Europe has come on issues of pollution of all kinds. Not that more improvements can’t be made, they can and they will, not all is emotionally perfect yet. Ya gotta remember we have added over 100 million people into the mix just in the US since we as well become aware of the things we were doing that were not so good for us or the earth.
Remember the only sure thing is change!
Oh and if you live i sleepy St George, danged if I know how you can even find your way home each day! Your world changes every week and in dramatic fashion.
You know it’s fine to disagree with Steve, I don’t know the man, but as Dan said, he does seem to be a reasonable person, he just views the world as it is and will be for some time, no amount of wishing something else can replace it helps, Steve has to deal with today first and the realities that are such.
Oh as a side note, Wiki is probably the single most unreliable source on the internet for REAL information on almost any subject. It’s great for an introduction, but not a real source! (see anybody can change the words to fit their agenda at any time)! Well unless you pray to AlGore the inventor of the internet, such could possibly cloud your feelings about it.
I’m going to throw one more at you here.
If you know anything about the Duke LAX case, you should know that any source can be dirtied. You can just look at the case but better yet is to look into the last lawsuit filed by three lax players not indited against 45 defendants.
This will get your feet wet. http://z9.invisionfree.com/LieStoppers_Board/index.php?showtopic=5751
Take what you learn to heart about most controversial subjects, amazing what a doubting thomas can learn. But it takes an open mind from the start.
I know that I am not always that open either. With age comes jaded perceptions. As the years pass you see allot and learn. probably not wisdom, but closes in on it.
Thank you, Mr. Briggs, for your comment. And I mean that sincerely. Without it, I probably wouldn’t have been motivated to write the reply that you’ll find on the blog page:
http://colorcomments.com/2007/12/22/a-response-to-adrian-briggs-and-the-400-scientists/
Thanks again to RRR.
I checked out the “Lie Stoppers” link. There’s much to appreciate there. One thing I noticed on the main page that I can fully agree with is a statement from their Introduction:
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In order to keep the board inviting and pleasant to all, we ask that users refrain from hostile language towards each other while employing proper board etiquette, keeping conversation polite yet enthusiastic and observing all applicable laws regarding copyright, libel and harassment. With your cooperation in this regard, we are hopeful that we will find the moderation of the board to be very low maintenance on our end while providing an environment for the free flow of ideas, thoughts and opinions for all. It is not our intention nor our requirement that the discussions be entirely one sided. We welcome opposing views and opinions although we will frown upon the presentation of bad facts, misinformation and tin foil hat based speculation.
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Great! That goes for this board too!
Other than that useful link, however, I didn’t find much in the way of facts in your post. I did see a lot of opinion. My opinion is that Wikipedia is very accurate and useful. Although you can post changes, bad facts get deleted remarkably quickly because the site is patrolled by people who really care about the truth.
But rather than just leave it as ‘my opinion’ here’s some research based truth about Wikipedia:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061127-8296.html
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/15/1352207&from=rss
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1903728,00.asp
Could it be that you don’t like Wikipedia’s facts and it’s easier to attack the source?