[ RadSafe ] Re: The Great Global Warming Swindle Swindle

[Dukelow, James S Jr]

Steven Dapra wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl on behalf of Steven Dapra
Sent: Tue 3/20/2007 7:39 PM
To: radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: RE: [ RadSafe ] Re: The Great Global Warming Swindle Swindle
 
March 20

         This is a very informative website with a lot of useful and 
equally informative links.  My thanks to Brian Riely for posting this link.

         It is beginning to look like man-made "global warming" is a fraud 
and a hoax.  It would seem that the earth is in a cycle of warming, and 
that man-made chemicals have nothing to do with the current warming 
trend.  When you find that the peddlers of global warming are covering up 
or ignoring the role of water vapor (which is 95% of the gases that cause 
warming) you can't help but be skeptical -- both of man-made global 
warming, and skeptical of the honesty of the people pushing it.  No flames, 
please.  It's warm enough already.  (Har, har.)

Steven Dapra
sjd at swcp.com

=======================

There are two technical terms for the argument that Steven Dapra is advancing here.

One is "straw man".  You create a fictitious argument that none your debating opponents actually believes and then proceed to burn it down (up?).  No educated climate scientist anywhere in the world is not aware that water vapor is responsible for most of the greenhouse gas warming effect that makes the earth's surface roughly 33 deg C warmer than it would be if we didn't have an atmosphere that contained greenhouse gases.  Every general circulation model incorporates the greenhouse gas effect of water vapor.  In fact, the warming predicted by GCM's is roughly twice what would be expected from the anthropogenic emission CO2, CH4, nitrous oxide, and CFCs, specifically because the warming that those gases produce will result in more water vapor in the atmosphere -- see the Clausius-Clapeyron equation.

The second technical term for the argument is "lie".  I assume that Steven Dapra is just ignorantly passing along this particular lie being propagated by right-wing disinformationists that are well aware that it is a lie.

More generally, many contributors to this discussion have said something on the order of "I don't know much (or anything) about climate science, but I know who I am ideologically comfortable believing".  Almost everyone reading and contributing to RADSAFE is capable of informing themselves about the the facts of climate scientists so that they can make informed choices of what policies to support.

Best regards.

Jim Dukelow
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Richland, WA
jim.dukelow at pnl.gov

These comments are mine and have not been reviewed and/or approved by my management or the U.S. Department of Energy.