Solitude, you're proving my point. Cut off the debate by insisting there is no other "credible" scientific side to the debate. The tack of the left is to ridicule and browbeat anyone on whom you decide is on the "wrong" side, and perpetuate the illusion that there isn't another side, when there most certainly is. Go talk to William Gray, a man of considerable scientific credibilty as one of the world's foremost experts on hurricane forecasting - he's called out this global warming as nonsense for some time now. The hockey stick graph, as I noted before, is basically drawn from junk science basics - create the illusion of causation from correlation.

You want real scientific analysis? Go take a look at Variability of CO2 in 20th century, which is part of a broader scientific summit on geology and environment that demonstrates scientifically, not politically, that atmospheric CO2 concentration has varied during the 20th century, and that the primary repository for it is the world's oceans, and those oceans release CO2 into the atmosphere in accordance with a variety of conditions.

So, now, tell me how this study is corrupt, how its all funded by the right-wing extremists, and we're all protecting oil companies?

In a society that theoretically holds free speech dear, disagreement often "interferes" with discussions wherein "we can all agree" about things. We're not all robots. We never will be. I fear a time, however, typified by this very debate on global warming, that there are those who want to deprive people of the right to express opinion when it departs from "the other side's view" of what's right and wrong. I know multitudes will disagree with things I have to say. I also know that there are those who will agree, even if they never post here.

So if I'm conservative, its because I've been brainwashed by the newspaper? Guess the fact that I don't even take the newspaper isn't even relevant.
Solitude, I will not back down either when hysteria and class warfare is used to substitute for debate. I will not back down when members of the left expect me to because they scream louder. I will not back down when someone tries to use the word "conservatism" as an invective.

Ah, yes, the traditional "rich get richer and the poor get poorer" rhetoric....never mind that the overall standard of living in this nation is higher than at any time in our nation's history...that, as a mathematical inevitability, the gap between "rich" and "poor" will increase as more move out of the below-mean incomes to above-mean incomes - and isn't that what we want?

The broader discussion here is deviating from the topic, so I'm going to shut this down from my end right now. Solitude, you and I are going to disagree vehemently on most issues, and that's fine. But I'm thankful that you and I have the opportunity and right to disagree. There are those on the left's side of the fence that want to take that away, too.

-soonerdave

2 of the many scientific rebuttals that I was able to find in about 3 seconds:

RealClimate
Rabett Run

Keep cherry picking that data, Dave.

In addition to the studies wsucougz posted, it should be noted that Bill Gray's contrarian comments have been completely and thoroughly debunked in pretty much all quarters of the atmospheric science community the last few years. Here's a good summary: RealClimate

Since all those debunkings a couple of years ago, Gray has largely stopped trying to argue and has resorted to personal attacks and grenade throwing, which has alienated virtually the entire community. I personally think it's frustration because his seasonal hurricane forecasting methods he built his career on have proven to be completely useless in the last 15 years (if you follow those seasonal forecasts the past decade you've noticed how bad they are). It's gotten so bad that the AMS no longer invites him to participate in any climate change discussions because he can't conduct himself as an adult. A really sad ending to what should have been a great career.

As for the CO2 study, it's hard to glean much from a graph on the web with no context, and the fact that it's being presented at a "summit" doesn't necessarily lend it a lick of credibility. I'd need to see a peer-reviewed journal article explaining how it was created to be able to say anything about its scientific merit. However, from what I can tell, it seems to suggest that the gray line prior to the 1960s that is the accepted CO2 record is wrong and the red, oscillating line is correct. However, there's a glaring reason to believe it's bogus. That is, they chose to stop their alternative method at the same time the Mauna Loa measurements began. If their method worked prior to the 1960s it should work from the 1960s on and should match up nicely with the Mauna Loa measurements. The fact they don't do this is to me highly suspect. My "scientific gut instinct" is it's BS.

Amen Sooner Dave!
Thank You. for some Midwest reality.
Living out of state I often miss the goodness of the state I grew up in.
I signed up with this site to keep in touch with Oklahoma values only to find the same California idiot (reactionary) thinking I face everyday.

Senator Inhofe is not a saint however I meet with Senators and Members of the House weekly. He is a decent man who is passionate about doing what is right for His state and country on a daily basis.
Many in Washington begin each day with how to push an agenda or score political points against the other side.
He reminds me of Sen. Lieberman of Conn. another wonderful man who would split with his party rather than sell his values.
Both men (who I know) strike me as the kind of people who begin the day with what can I do for my country over what is best for Jim and Joe.

I pointed out good men from both parties.
I would hope that my home state is not becoming a Michael Moore, Huffington, radical agenda driven community.

What about the majority of us who reside somewhere in the middle? Are we Michael Moore's or Jim Inhofe's?

There are too many people like you who look at things from a my team versus yours standpoint instead of looking at both sides of each individual issue and forming an opinion based on that. I think this is a major problem we are facing in this country, and you end up as a pawn.

WSUCougz, if you are referring to me , I am in the middle.
I gave you examples of two great public servants.
The Michael Moore example is to contrast an extremist.
Having known Sen Inhofe, Liberman, Boxer, Fienstein, for example I can recognize the extremist.
Respectfully clarifying,

That's debateable, but I'll leave it for another time because this thread isn't about that. Once again, I'm done with this conversation. Those who have an open mind about things have already turned over the stones that are out there - you're not going to convince guys like Soonerdave of anything they don't already think they know, no matter what you bring to the table.

It's always the same thing. Someone says none of this can be proven or its not realistic, then one of us who is familiar with science tries to politely but strongly point out the poster's misconceptions and provide data, then the poster says he doesn't believe it, it's all a sham... and then somehow all the advanced degrees in the world suddenly mean nothing and the poster "wins" and walks away, only to return and start again at step one.

It is literally painful to see people fall for what is clearly junk science and dismiss the real science. It reminds me of the guy who forgoes chemotherapy and instead relies on herbal remedies to cure his cancer.

Seriously, Americans do not understand science. It's going to be our country's downfall.

Well, if people would just look at it for what it is worth. You don't see people on our side committing outright fraud to prove their point.

500 Scientists with Documented Doubts - about the Heartland Institute? | DeSmogBlog

There is no scientific debate... but the oil companies sure are doing a good job spreading disinformation on the subject.

Well, it could happen! Just look at the movie, The Day After Tomorrow, it all happened within 2 days!

Well, certainly no scientist here but I must admit I have (gasp) tried to read the reports, articles, clips, and junk bond rating of this issue called global warming.

No doubt there are as many opinions as there are articles written. Who do you believe?????

Now any thinking man has to admit something is just plain different about the weather. Yeah yeah yeah, I know its august (ok july) and it always gets hott then, but there is still something just plain different about the weather.

The rain storms seem a little stronger, the wind events a little longer, the hurricanes a little more pronounced......The flooding more frequent......

I swear sometimes the sun actually feels a little more intense, and the sky just seems to look ...different..........

Now I cant tell you who is right, I honestly don't know on this issue, but I have this strange and disquieting feeling, at a visceral level that things just aren't "right"
I cant adequately dispute the group who dismiss the global warming concept, nor can I totally embrace the group who espouse it.

That being said, I see all the cars on the road, and every house seems to have 3/4 vehicles. The house are huge now, I see litter, garbage, junk and trash all about.

Is it just me but what about ole trash day........Have you noticed just how much more is set on the curb each week.....start looking..........We all have these hugh trash cans now and the are always overflowing and with extra piles stacked next to them and each week..............Relevance................not sure just an observation.

More junk and non running cars.... hell for that matter, all of the used cars and car lots every where...........................just observations nothing more.

Point to all this............you decide

I've been on various internet discussion groups since 1991 (back in the listserv days!) and bulletin boards since the software came out around 1997-ish (I was on the first Sooners message board way back then run by the "Weather Nazis"!). Back then people would ask good questions and try to learn. Sometimes people would agree to disagree, but at least there would be a healthy exchange.

Then sometime around the turn of the century something changed. These discussions became overwhelmed with people who were far more interested in posting rationalizations of their opinions than actually having a conversation or learning anything. For climate change topics, I think it's very typical for people to Google something they heard on talk radio or from a buddy at work, make sure it agrees with their worldview and the source has the appearance of scientific credibility, post it without questioning it, think "scoreboard!", accuse anyone who disagrees of being an idiot with an agenda, rinse and repeat. It never occurs to them to see if the topic had been hashed out already, whether the source actually has any credibility, or whether the view has been debunked. It's all about the scoreboard.

Senator Inhofe uses his office to do this very thing. Back when he was the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, he chose to seek out those whose worldview agreed with his pre-conceived notions on the environment and climate change. For example, of all the scientists in Oklahoma who are experts on global climate (dozens), he chose instead to call to a committee hearing an OU geology professor with no formal background on climate change and no relevant journal articles, who provided statements that were long ago debunked (but did a heckuva job repeating political talking points).

The people qualified to give those opinions.

No. We can't make decisions on reality. Reality is reality, regardless of how we decide to view it.

I would love if we could have a Science forum on this site and then discuss things like Global Warming, the weather, etc. The only thing is...politics would have to remain out of it. Something this thread is failing to do. The beauty about science is that it is fact...but you can also hypothosize about what may be...then you can test it out and see what you conclude - and then start all over.

However throw politics you get this...

Left/Liberals - Its big oil, its major manufacturing, its humans, we are sending the earth to doom in just a few years.
Right/Radicals - There is no such thing as climate change, we aren't doing anything, we are giving back to nature already, there is nothing to worry about.
Middles - Someone shut the other two sides up so we can actually figure out what, if anything, is going on so we can decide what we need to change.

Common Sense should dictate what we do. If not to stop any suggested global climate change, but for the health and beauty of our own cities. Do we want to look like LA or China with smog so think people with any slight breathing problems can't go outside? Do we want to deal with our scenic land areas, water supplies, and other natural wonders to become polluted?

Instead of find solutions on how we can fix that, all we get are morons on each side thumbing their chests saying "screw you, i'm driving my big SUV all I want" or "If you don't own a Prius then you are screwing us all over."

Thank you to those on this thread that have tried to take us back to the scientific discuss that are more fact based...unfortunately we still have plenty here that fit the moron definition.

__________________
AnvilCrawlers.com - Oklahoma weather resources

EXACTLY!!! Btw... I sure feel sorry for all of those "junk scientists" who threw their whole life away on worthless degrees.

The only thing is....at some point politics must become involved in the issue. Only through government can American policy be set. It's like a war. You have generals that map the strategy and lay it all out to the president, but then, ultimately the president must set the policy. It's the same on environmental policy.

As for SoonerDave's rant, I will not respond as he was doing to me exactly what he accused me of doing. I felt like I was being lectured by somebody who feels vastly superior to me and others. I will say that nobody has a patent on, "Oklahoma values." I'm 48, was born and raised here and feel very strongly that my values are "Oklahoma values." There is a deep strain of old-fashioned economic populism that has been a part of out state's social fabric since statehood.

I always find it humorous when people scream, "Class Warfare!," as if it's something that is not real. It's very real as the lower and middle classes are sacrificing for the victories of the upper classes at every turn. In other words, damn right there's class warfare.

I'll end this post with a famous quote from Warren Buffet. It originally appeared in this New York Times article.......

“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

I started out poor, got pregnant as a teenager (twice and kept going from there). My brother was and still is a bum spitting out babies every few years with not an iota of sense of responsiblity - so they are on the welfare rolls. My parents begged him to do right but he wasn't the slightest bit interested in working or getting an education. While he was partying, drinking, not working and drugging, I was working, going to school, paying my taxes, investing every dime and second I had to raise my kids right. I went years, literally, without new shoes or going to a movie. I did not accept any money from my family and, frankly, they didn't have any to give me. I now make very good money, certainly in the top 10%. My kids are grown, well educated, good citizens, have good jobs and are good people. The reason I did well and my brother did not - and it has passed down to subsequent generations (brother has a couple of illegitimate grandchildren) - was because I worked my a** off. When I hear people talk about class warfare and how the lower classes are, in so many words, ripping off the upper classes I get steamed. When the lower classes are putting in the time and energy to take advantage of the opportunities we have in America, I might have more sympathy. You won't get ahead if you aren't going to school or working or paying attention to what your kids are doing. If someone isn't willing to do that, then we aren't talking about class warfare - we're talking about class envy. Solitude would expect people like me to shell out MORE money for my brother. My brother would agree.

And what have the lower class sacrificed for me? They don't pay taxes, at least they don't reimburse the government for services rendered to them.

Is their "sacrifice" that they don't get enough of my money?

They do the sh*tty work you wouldn't dream of doing.

I don't know how much you make, of course, but surveys have shown most Americans believe they are in the top ten percent of income. That's because most Americans have no concept of what the top ten percent make. They think they're among the 'winners' in our economy, when in reality they're among the 'losers.'

The lower (and middle) classes have, since the early seventies, worked for an ever-decreasing share of the total revenue generated from America's productivity. This allows corporations to direct more of their income to top-tier executive salaries, and, more significantly, into return to shareholders. This is a good thing, of course, for our retirement funds as well as for those who gain most or all of their disposable income from investments. That would include me.

But it means that people who actually do the work that generates the income get less, especially when adjusted for inflation (and I'm talking about since the seventies, not just the past few years).

I don't have any more sympathy for East Coast Okie's brother than she does. But I know more than a couple of people who are working at a full time job plus a part time job, or even two full time jobs, to keep themselves and their families afloat. I've known people who were working in what you would probably consider a white collar professional position who moonlighted at a department store cosmetics counter because their day job didn't pay enough for them to live on — with no family or children to support.

These working poor often make barely enough to scrape by, but still make too much to qualify for the government assistance.

Sh*tty jobs tend to be ones for unskilled labor but they pay better than the "good" unskilled labor jobs because no one else will take them. Name what sh*tty jobs you are talking about.

If you don't want a sh*tty job, you need to get an education, get training, start showing up for work so you can advance, don't get a criminal record and otherwise make choices that get you to where you want to be in life. Too many adults screw around when their peers are working their butts off or going to school - then they want a "do over" (without the hassle that entails).

As for my income, the truth is that I am in the top 3% by most measures. And that is in the Washington DC area. We make good money. Really good money.

That happened because of the work we put in to get to this point. Not one thing came easy. When other people were out partying it up and dropping out of school, we were studying, taking second jobs, making sure the kids were okay.

Moreover, if you look at the povery levels, one thing that must be pointed out is that the vast majority of people who are in the poverty level today, won't be in ten years. It fluctuates. Students, people just starting out, etc., are counted as poverty stricken. That doesn't mean they are going to stay there. In fact, it would be odd if they did.

The vast majority of people living in poverty who stay in that group for any length of time are UNWED MOTHERS with small children. There is not one d*mn thing I can do about women who have kids without a man in their life to help pick up the slack. I am not screwing over any of them and resent the h*ll out of people preaching to me that I am, somehow.

The big difference between them and me is that I figured out that I didn't always want to be poor and was willing to work to make a good life for myself. If I sat around, not working, not investing in an education, not staying with a job where I could advance, I'd be in the same boat. Instead of partying, I studied and worked. Just like many new immigrants do. It is formula that works but it won't happen if you won't put the effort in.

And the following statement:

<<I don't know how much you make, of course, but surveys have shown most Americans believe they are in the top ten percent of income. That's because most Americans have no concept of what the top ten percent make. They think they're among the 'winners' in our economy, when in reality they're among the 'losers.'>>

How have we as a society reached a point where people who are satisfied with their lot in life and feel like a winner are being used to make the argument that they are really "losers." Come again? Who decides if they are losers? Our standard of living is so far off the charts. The very fact that even the poor have it so good they they don't know they are losers makes the whole argument about the lousy "upper class" exploiting them a joke.

No offense.

I'm talking about an attitude, prevalent in this country since the Reagan era, that there are only two kinds of people: rich people, and inconsequential lowlifes who suck.

Some of the people who hold this attitude actually fall into the 'lowlife' category, but think that their $30K incomes put them into the same category as, to use local examples, the Gaylords, McClendons, et al.

So, they're snickering at all the low-class losers who haven't risen to their august level, while at the Beaux Arts Ball, the people who have real money are snickering at them for being sucky lowlifes and not even realizing it.

By the way... of all the people I have known who have spent significant time below or near the poverty line, exactly one is an unwed mother. She lives in an income-adjusted apartment (not Section 8 — I'm not clear how it works), but beyond that, gets no government support of any kind.

This is silly. This is CLEARLY about class envy. I wouldn't ever get an invitation to the Beaux Arts Ball but can't imagine what relevance or importance that sort of thing has in the lives of 99.9999% of people. Where did this idea of two "kinds" of people get started? What is your evidence? Speaking as someone who started out with one foot in the trailer park and who, at this point, is doing darn well, what you describe is really not been my experience, ever. I recall when I was 16 and had a little old lady in the neighborhood sew a wedding gown for me (I couldn't afford a new one so I took her an old prom dress to alter that I'd gotten at a thrift store). She told me, "Young lady, if you are willing to work, you will do just fine." That little old lady was no sucky lowlife and neither was I. I was just young and needed to pay my dues just like everyone else.

That's their choice. If they don't like doing ****ty work, there are plenty of opportunities out there should they choose to avail themselves of them.

As an aside, I did work a number of such ****ty jobs while in college and high school. I just work a hell of a lot harder than poor people do and now, I'm finally at the point where I'm just starting to see the fruits of my labor.

No one has to work those sorts of jobs because of 'bad luck.' They could always choose to be plumbers or work any number of skilled labor jobs. Alas, many are just too lazy to take the government's free money to go learn a trade.

There's not much I can do about that.

No, it's not about class envy. I can recognize what's happening and I'm clearly in the upper-class on the income scale.

Oh, East Coast Okie, stop it. Do you really expect anyone here to believe that you don't believe that there aren't different classes of people in the United States? You pretending as if you need "evidence" before you believe that is nothing short of ridiculous. You seem fairly intelligent and from what you've told us about your job working with low income people, if that's true, you see the different classes and don't need charts and graphs to provide you with "evidence."

These discussions always bring one thought to mind: Why is it that speaking out or writing about class warfare is somehow bad, while the reality and the actual waging of class warfare is okay? The massive redistribution of wealth since 1980, from the once large middle class in this country to the rich - is nothing short of firing round after round in a war between these classes. The redistribution schemes are pulled off by political officials bought and paid for by these same monied classes. This is all a matter of simple figures from various departments of the government. It clearly shows that the rich are getting richer, the poor getting poorer and the middle class is just barely hanging on. The gap between the very wealthy and everybody else is widening with each passing day. That is class warfare and it's being waged by an army of lobbyists paid by the wealthy. It's being waged by CEO's who protect their inner circle and their millions in salaries at the expense of the workers benefits and even their jobs. To point out and talk about this class warfare is not the crime - the crime is the fact that it is being waged by the ultra-rich against everyone else and the classes outside the loop of the super-rich are being led to believe that talking about it is wrong, not an "Oklahoma value," and otherwise not up for discussion. And then you even get posts like this last one from East Coast Okie claiming to act as if she is oblivious to the fact that there are different classes in America.

Beam me up, Scotty!