Al Gore's Private Jet

Don Tabor wrote:
The Board of the TJCenter is made up of anti capitalist, left wing
political activists.

I don't recognize the names of the trustees but do recognize some of the
affliations. At least one entry contains a political organization I do
recognize and its leanings runs counter to your claims:

"Past Trustees

....

Mary Dent Crisp
Former Co-Chair, Republican National Committee"

From: http://www.tjcenter.org/about/board-of-trustees/

"Don Tabor" wrote:

Do you have anything besides ad hominem as a response? Do you have
anything
that refutes the testimonies before the House Government Reform Committee?

The topic is politicizing the debate.

The Board of the TJCenter is made up of anti capitalist, left wing
political activists.

Did you read the other Muzzle Awards?

That is definitely relevant when an article is cited that purports to
be motivated solely by interest in freedom of speech.

It is not relevant to the factuality of the story, which you have not
materially challenged.

Would you consider doubts about an article on the topic of evolution
written by a supposedly neutral expert who's funding came exclusively
from Regent University to be ad hominem?

No.

But TJ Center did not "write" the story of the Bush Adm.'s suppression of
science it didn't like. That is why *your* objection is ad hominem. I do
not believe you clearly understand the term.

How about dismissing the credentials of scientists skeptical of man
caused global warming who receive all of their funding from fossil
fuel companies?

In that case, a clear conflict of interest exists. Once again, not an ad
hominem. If I said that their work was invalid because they were Democrats
or Republicans or Catholics, that would be ad hominem.

Or would you feel it was necessary to be at least a bit skeptical when
aware of the expert's rice bowl?

Always.

--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM

Don Tabor wrote:
So, please explain how one can tell the difference between coal and
oil and volcanic CO2? The presence of C14 in CO2 can only tell us that
it did NOT come from either, but instead from something more recent.

A good point. That's where the C-13 isotope comes into the picture. Both it
and C-12 are stable isotopes. Chemically C-12 and C-13 are almost, but not
quite, identical. The difference seems to cause plants to metabolize CO2
containing C-12 slightly more often than CO2 with C-13. As a result fossil
fuels have a lower ratio of C-13 to C-12 than that in volcanic emissions.

The ratio of C-13 to C-12 in the atmosphere appears to be declining, so the
increase in CO2 in the atmosphere does not appear to be due to volcanic
activity.

In any case, the USGS (which presumably should be one organization that
knows how to estimate such a number) estimates that average yearly
emissions of volcanic CO2 is 1/100 that produced by humans.

"Don Tabor" wrote:

By the way, Hansen's 1988 source code (along with newer versions) is
available by following the links from this page:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/

This is the same Hansen who has publicly asserted that it is necessary
to strike a balance between the truth and alarmism in order to
motivate the public to act.

Hansen's credibility is on a par with Nixon's in 1976.


Ad hominem again. What's that got to do with the fact that the source code
is available to anyone?

When person in a position of public trust asserts that it is
necessary, or even acceptable, to deceive the public in order to lead
opinion in a direction not supported by fact, everything he touches or
says is tainted.

The source code being available might be of some use to Tony Cox, as
an example, as he is qualified to evaluate it independently, were he
of the need to devote the time to do so. But it is meaningless to me,
just as the Source code to VISTA would be were it available.

In any case, just being associated with Hansen invalidates it in my
opinion. That is not ad hominem, because he has advocated lying on
this topic to achieve his ends.

Source code can can be evaluated objectively for validity. In that sense it
cannot be "tainted" by association.

If you challenge Hansen's testimony on an issue because his integrity has
been shown to be questionable in the past, that is valid. A good example
would be the producer of TGGWS Martin Durkin's claim that he did not deceive
the scientist who complained about being quoted out of context. Since Durkin
has been caught doing just that before, causing Ch. 4 to have to make a
humiliating public apology, we might reasonably doubt his veracity this time.
However, Hansen's honesty has nothing to do with the scientific worth of his
source code, so attacking *this piece* of his work on those grounds is an ad
hominem.

Got it now?

--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM

Jim Logajan wrote:
Don Tabor wrote:
The Board of the TJCenter is made up of anti capitalist, left wing
political activists.

I don't recognize the names of the trustees but do recognize some of
the affliations. At least one entry contains a political organization
I do recognize and its leanings runs counter to your claims:

"Past Trustees

...

Mary Dent Crisp
Former Co-Chair, Republican National Committee"

From: http://www.tjcenter.org/about/board-of-trustees/

In her case hardly a main line Republican.

From 1984 to the mid-nineties, Ms. Crisp served as Senior Adviser and
National Political Director of BENS, Business Executives for National
Security. She serves on the advisory boards of the National ACLU, National
Political Women's Caucus, and the National Advocacy Board of Planned
Parenthood. Her life and political career have been featured in two recent
books, The Republican War Against Women by Tanya Melich and True to
Ourselves by the League of Women Voters.

Don Tabor wrote:
"Don Tabor" wrote:
This is the same Hansen who has publicly asserted that it is
necessary to strike a balance between the truth and alarmism in
order to motivate the public to act.
....

When person in a position of public trust asserts that it is
necessary, or even acceptable, to deceive the public in order to lead
opinion in a direction not supported by fact, everything he touches or
says is tainted.

Your assertion in the first paragraph is not the same as the assertion in
the second paragraph. The only way I can reconcile them is to assume that
alarmism is synonymous with deceptiveness. Since I can think of statements
that are alarmist yet non-deceptive, e.g. "The Titanic is sinking - we're
probably going to die!" or "The theater is on fire - run for your lives!"
(in a theater actually on fire) I do not consider the two terms synonymous.

Maybe you can dig up a source with the original quote so we can
individually make a decision on Hansen's integrity, rather than trust your
conflicting paraphrases?

By the way, if you are believe that global warming is being used as a
pretext by certain political groups to advance their agendas, I too share
that belief. But I think it is unwise and eventually counterproductive to
dismiss objective science in favor of political rhetoric.

"Jim Logajan" wrote:


By the way, if you are believe that global warming is being used as a
pretext by certain political groups to advance their agendas, I too share
that belief. But I think it is unwise and eventually counterproductive to
dismiss objective science in favor of political rhetoric.

Bingo.

Right-wingers have been at war for so long with Left Wing environmental
extremists, they commit the logical error of presuming that anything Lefties
agree with must be false. This had led many of them to attack science when
the real enemy is bad policy.

--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM

You mean you really didn't detect the least little bit of sarcasm/cynicism
in my post?

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 7 Apr 2007 21:30:43 -0400, "LWG"
wrote in :

This country has adopted "From each according to his ability, to
each according to his need."

Are you sure about that?

\ Perhaps you're thinking of another country.

On Wed, 11 Apr 2007 11:00:54 -0500, "Dan Luke"
wrote:

"Scientific measurements of levels of CO2 contained in cylinders of ice,
called ice cores indicate that the pre-industrial carbon dioxide level was
278 ppm. That level did not vary more than 7 ppm during the 800 years between
1000 and 1800 A.D."

DO you ever wonder why the advocates of anthropogenic global warming
always choose that time period? The famous "Hockey Stick" graph used
the same time frame, why not 1000 years back instead of 800?

Could it be that they chose that time frame to exclude the Medieval
Warm Period which was coming to an end about 1000 to 1100AD?

They wouldn't do something that deceptive on purpose, would they?

Don



Virginia - the only State with a flag rated
"R" for partial nudity and graphic violence.

"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...

"Matt Barrow" wrote:


"Comparison of CO2 emissions from volcanoes vs. human activities.
Scientists have calculated that volcanoes emit between about 130-230
million tonnes (145-255 million tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere every
year (Gerlach, 1999, 1992). This estimate includes both subaerial and
submarine volcanoes, about in equal amounts. Emissions of CO2 by human
activities, including fossil fuel burning, cement production, and gas
flaring, amount to about 22 billion tonnes per year (24 billion tons)
[ ( Marland, et al., 1998)


Gee...where did it all go?

The natural CO2? Where it's always gone. Natural CO2 emissions--including
volcanic sources--are kept in rough balance by the carbon cycle and plant
growth. If they weren't, we would all have suffocated long ago.

Yeah, but 22 billion tonnes over what nature produces?


The human generated CO2? A lot of it is still up there, less than we have
emitted because natural systems--e.g. stimulated plant growth--have
buffered some of the excess.

In the last century or so, atmospheric CO2 concentration has been
increasing, leading global temperature rise instead of trailing it as it
has in natural cycles for hundreds of thousands of years.

Why did 60 % of global warming since 1850 occur before 1940, when 80 % of
the human-emitted carbon dioxide occurred after 1940? (1)



"Scientific measurements of levels of CO2 contained in cylinders of ice,
called ice cores indicate that the pre-industrial carbon dioxide level was
278 ppm. That level did not vary more than 7 ppm during the 800 years
between 1000 and 1800 A.D."

And during previous geological epochs, it ranged as high as several
_thousand_ PPM. (Nice cherry picking data - so typical.

"Atmospheric CO2 levels have increased from about 315 ppm in 1958 to 378
ppm at the end of 2004...." (NOAA 2005-035)

Gee...what new large source of CO2 emissions has appeared lately?

- The reference gives the amount of released carbon (C), rather than
CO2.]. Human activities release more than 150 times the amount of CO2
emitted by volcanoes--the equivalent of nearly 17,000 additional
volcanoes like Kilauea (Kilauea emits about 13.2 million tonnes/year)"


It appears to me that the professor *has* confused carbon with CO2, and
his argument collapses, no?

Check a couple other sources.

I already have. It's your turn to show some backup.

Are you going to answer Logajan's challenges to the professor's letter?

I've KF'ed him longgg ago. Are you going to answer Tabor's? How about my
question (1).