How come global warming skeptics...?

Question

...constantly mention Al Gore as some sort of argument against man-made global warming, and how "liberals are saying this," "liberals want you to think that," etc. The science mostly agrees with anthropogenic global warming in some way, but people ignore that and rant on about politics.

Those skeptics who use science in thier answers, thank you, and I respect you.

Answer 1

Al Gore is the face of the Global Warming movement, and his movie is frequently cited as “The Truth” by global warming advocates (those who do not bother to learn the science behind his claims).  How many times have you heard: “Have you seen Al Gore’s Movie?”  Many people actually believe Al Gore’s wild claims, so skeptics frequently attack him.

Answer 2

They constantly bring up politics becuz they think its part of the "left-wing agenda."  ooooohhhhhh.  (They make it sound so scary when they say it.)  The truth is that many of them don't look up facts, never watched An Inconvenient Truth, and look to blame Al Gore becuz he's trying to actually make them change their ways, something no one has done in years.

Answer 3

1. Al Gore is not a scientist.  Can we agree upon that?

So his credibility is no better than a celebrity tout on an infomercial.

2. His carbon footprint is enormous, and no evidence he has made any effort to personally decrease it.  So he is a hypocrite.

And spare me the carbon offsets.  He can sell his mansions, fly commercial, and THEN start preaching sacrifice.

3. When  Vice President, there is no evidence Al Gore made any effort to push the Kyoto treaty.  Quite the opposite.  See YouTube for his exact words saying why the US wasn't going to support Kyoto.

And finally, science likes lockstep correlations without exceptions.  Like smoking and lung cancer, thalidomide and babies born with flippers.

"... science mostly agrees ..." isn't in the same ballpark.

Since 1998 satellite temps have flatlined and decreased, while CO2 continues to increase.  Not a great correlation there.

Answer 4

Al Gore is such an easy target-he is a politician, so he is a liar, he is a hypocrite, as shown many times in this forum and others, and he makes statements like 'the discussion is over, science proves man made global warming'.....

Your comment that 'science mostly agrees with anthropogenic warming in some way'  is another example of the same type of idiocy...that is your conclusion of raw data, there have been NO SCIENTIFIC STUDIES which allow that same conclusion.

Science is not about 'voting', eg, 'science mostly agrees',  Science mostly agreed that the world was flat,

Science mostly agreed that the earth was the center of the solar system

Science mostly agreed that man could not build a flying machine

Science mostly agreed that the sound barrier could not be penetrated

Science mostly agreed that smallpox was not preventable

Science mostly agreed has been wrong before, they are wrong now, here are some articles for you to review, if you are really interested...if you just wish to continue to write spurious comments, then do not read them.

"A variable sun paces millennial climate" Science,vol 294, Nov. 2001, Richard Kerr

"The origin of the 1500 year climate cycles" Climate of the Past Discussion, Vol 3, Issue 2, 2007

Here are two peer reviewed published articles-you will note, I am not presenting these as STUDIES, they are opinion based on the information-they are reports-I have about 250 of reports like these, fully cited, all of which shoot very large holes in the 'man made CO2 caused global warming'  If you want more, I will send them to you....

Answer 5

It's because the science supports the man-made global warming theory.

http://greenhome.huddler.com/wiki/global...

Global warming 'skeptics' usually aren't 'skeptical' for scientific reasons.  More often they just *need* global warming to be wrong because they're afraid of being taxed and losing their "freedoms".  Since they can't dispute the science, they come up with political arguments and attack the guy who seems like a political opponent - Al Gore.

Answer 6

I believe that the globe is warming.  That said, I haven't been convinced that evil man, and Americans in particular, are responsible as Mr Gore claims.

I have no double that increased population and improvements in the quality of life via energy use has increased pollution.  A decrease in world population per Al's charts would definitely help pollution, but I'm not sure about the effect on warming.  Are you?

Answer 7

Actually, I think that Al serves a dual purpose. On one hand, he and his flawed picture show are cited by global warming proponents as primers on the "science". On the other hand, he and his flawed picture show are referenced by global warming skeptics as proof positive that the entire notion is laughable. One must congratulate Al.

Answer 8

science is voodoo until kaku or hawkings comes up with the little 1 inch equation of everything.

and until politics is unable to, in anyway influence it.

so the agenda is the only valid point.

and the agenda behind gore's awg hypothesis seeks to deprive MY child of any possibility of a decent future.

Answer 9

I think it's because the claims of AGW are being shot at us skeptics from a political point of view, not from a scientific.

I think also because Al Gore who is the face of this movement, won't debate anyone about it, and has shown himself to be a massive hypocrite in his own lifestyle.

Go check out he empirical data (real data, not a computer model) from RSS and UAH and you will see that since 2002 global average temperature has gone down 0.4 degrees celcius.  All of the warming from the last 100 years that everyone was going nuts about was a grand total of 0.7 degrees celcius.

Answer 10

I have never mentioned "liberals" or "Al Gore" in any of my posts in this topic.

However GW IS NOW a political and economic subject-- especially along the lines of "how to mitigate" CO2 emissions.

Answer 11

You stated "science mostly agrees with anthropogenic global warming in some way, but people ignore that and rant on about politics".  

Does science mostly agree with AGW?  Are you sure?  Or are you just hoping it does?  I believe exactly the opposite is true.

Al is mentioned often because he's the self-appointed official spokesman for the cult of global warming.  I call it a cult because it has the same qualities as a cult; the blind following the blind out chasing ghosts.

Al  Gore deserves the respect being paid to him by the skeptics here.  His sci-fi movie was the catalyst that launched the battleships of truth against his canoe.  He, his corrupt 'scientists', the 'companies' that support them, the lobbyists, and their financial advisors deserve far less than they're getting here.  Here's hoping we sink them fast.

Answer 12

You stated "science mostly agrees" and it's true.

It's called Scientific consensus, a close meaning of it is: collective agreement, judgment and opinion of the scientific community.

But scientific consensus is NOT a scientific method.

A scientific method is based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.

Consensus decision-making seeks the agreement of most participants, but also to resolve or mitigate the objections of the minority to achieve the most agreeable decision.

The "skeptics" claim that it is not right to set Global warming legislation based on scientific consensus (which is not a scientific method). They claim that scientific evidence is needed and basically, scientific consensus is just the majority's opinion.

CLARIFICATION:

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In previous answer, another member stated “that skeptics are afraid of loosing their freedoms, Since they can't dispute the science, they come up with political arguments and attack the guy”.

If having a different opinion makes me a “skeptic” then I guess I am, but:

- It is NOT about being afraid of loosing any freedom, it's about principles and morality

- Stating “can’t dispute science” implies that I would do it if I could and I am a researcher, I DO NOT dispute science PERIOD (regardless if I could do it or not).

- I am passionately against politicians meddling in this matter.

Answer 13

Because Al Gore is the mouth piece for all the AGW nonsense and superstitions.  He's also the one who came up with the idea that if we pay his carbon tax, we can pollute all we want.  Now, I'm not an environmentalist, I think the United Nations needs to be disbanded, and I'm not a scientist.  But paying money to a pyramid scheme like carbon taxes is not going to solve litter and air pollution.

Answer 14

Global warming has become a political football that people toss around as casually as they talk about body counts in the Iraq war not being nearly as high as those in the Vietnam war. Big whoop! One dead soldier to one too many.

We're all really great armchair critics as we sit behind the privacy of our home computers and 'talk tough' about the world's ailments and how our leaders (either Al Gore or George W. Bush) aren't competent enough to know what they're talking about (well, okay - in Bush's case, you might have a legitimate argument).

I suspect global warming 'skeptics' have to target Al Gore because they're afraid he's making too much of a solid impact on their discord. "We can't HANDLE the truth!!" (which explains why cowardly politicians of both stripes don't talk about the impending doom-and-gloom that will be created by global warming and idiotic economic policies). The last thing they want to admit is that they don't have a clue as to what to do.

Of course, those skeptics can't point to the preponderance of scientific evidence, nor will they give any regard to the global scientific community that has devoted years of research and intense study to this issue.

We're always afraid of the unknown, so skeptics choose to disavow what they don't want to hear (denial, after all, is more than a river in Egypt). So they target Al Gore. and al Gore is a liberal. Which means "liberals are saying this" and "liberals want you to think that".....

And when it comes crumbling down on top of us, and the environment is truly in crisis mode, and we're using gas masks to breathe fresh air and there's not enough clean water, and hurricanes are slamming into New York City..... those same skeptcis will probably find a way to blame Al Gore and all his liberal friends for not doing enough to warn us about the impending consequences.  They'll do anything but blame themselves for not listening or not doing anything to help prevent the tragedy. -RKO-  07/05/08

Answer 15

The problem is there is no science backing up the theory.

There is currently no evidence that man has made any significant contribution to climate change.

Some interesting facts.

1. During most of the past 2,000 years, the temp has been about the same or higher. Currently, we are barely over the average for the last 2,000 years.

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index....

2. During the medieval warm period (820 – 1040 AD), Greenland supported farming. Those areas previously farmed are now covered in glaciers. Obviously the melting and reformation of glaciers is a cyclical occurrence.

3. The earth experienced a little ice age which ended around the late 1860's or so. This is about the time man started recording temperatures. This would be like measuring a lake depth after a severe drought, then worrying about it flooding as it rose to normal levels.

4. The earth has been warming for the last 18,000 years, since the last major glacier time period. During this time frame, the glaciers have been melting at a fairly consistent rate. Also, for most of the last 1 billion years, the earth had NO glaciers or ice coverage.

http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/i...

5. The AGW theory states that CO2 is the primary driver of temperature. They arrived at this idea because they did not know of anything else which could cause it. But during the 70's and during the current decade, temperatures dropped while CO2 continued to rise. This means that natural occurrences are driving temp, not CO2.

6. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation and sun spots provides a much better correlation to earths' temperature than CO2 levels ever have.

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/200...

http://motls.blogspot.com/2004/09/sunspo...

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/sppi_r...

7. Polar Bears are experiencing a population boom. Coke sales in the arctics are through the roof. Polar Bears have been around for thousands of years, and remember, we are only at the average for the last 2,000 years. They lived through all the previously warmer climates.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/...

8. Many glaciers are expanding. Even Antarctica is growing on 98% of is land mass. Only 2% is melting.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1...

9. There is no consensus on AGW. This was a lie that has been propagated by the media.

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckt...

10. Yes we emit CO2 into the atmosphere and it is a greenhouse gas, but, we only contribute about .28% of all the greenhouse effect. Water vapor makes up about 95% of the greenhouse effect. CO2 and other trace gases round out the greenhouse gases at about 5% for all of them. Of that 5%, only 3% is CO2, and most of that is natural. Again, our contribution to the greenhouse effect is a paltry .28%

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenh...

11. The spread of disease is not attributed mainly to temperature. If this were the case, Florida would be a giant festering disease ridden cesspool. Economic standing is the primary determining factor in the spread of disease. Poor cultures can not fight the disease or eradicate the pests like more successful nations.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB12077886...

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.h...

12. Natural climate disasters (hurricanes, cyclones, etc) have never been scientifically linked to global warming (whether natural or man made).

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppa...

http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?i...

Answer 16

That's typically done by drive-through no-nothings who think (despite all evidence to the contrary) that they are intelligent.  Only a few of the regular doubters around here keep bringing up Al Gore or using the word "liberal" as if it equated to some Satanic-Evil-Empire.

Unfortunately, we have a media system where a lot of people get very rich by creating animosity between different segments on the political spectrum.  This tends to feed the ignorance that global warming is some sort of Al Gore or liberal created conspiracy.

If people could just act like adults, acknowledge that there's a problem, and then work together for a mutually agreeable solution, the world would be a much better place. But the extremists (on both ends) are unwilling to give an inch or ever acknowledge their own mistakes.