September, 2016, I Am A Global Warming Doubter and a Believer In Science: Real Data From a Real Scientist and The Ever Growing South Pole

Every month we have enough material to return to a continuing theme in this blog, namely that “I am a global warming doubter AND a believer in science.”This became of interest because of people like Al Gore who fanatically and verbosely claimed that you had to be an idiot to not believe in manmade global warming. It has been my life belief that anyone that is that loud and that obnoxious is hiding something, that rather than argue facts and reality it is better to beat down and insult anyone who disagrees.

As we have dove into the whole issue of manmade global warming, or its new rebranded title of climate change, we found that Al Gore and people like him were guilty of a number of things:

• Ignoring science and realities that did not support their opinions and positions.
• Rather than have an adult conversation about climate, these types of advocates like Gore sank to the level of insulting those who dared look at ALL science by calling them a variety of names including racists, homophobes, terrorists, flat earth believers, and other slanderous names.
• Continuing to insist that politicians step up their intrusions into our lives with higher taxes, more regulations, and more control of our freedoms and standards of living based on a shaky theory at best.

To see the past posts and the multitude of evidence that we have compiled that showed it is perfectly okay to be a global warming doubter and a believer in science, enter the phrase "global warming doubter” in the search box above or go through the monthly historical posts listed on the right side of this page.

Thus, let’s see the latest facts and science that prove you can be a global warming doubter and a believer in science, regardless of what Al Gore proclaims:

1) We have covered this story before but are doing it again today since it was from a news source that global warming advocates cannot write off as fringe or crazy. Brian Clark Howard, writing for National Geographic magazine, reported back in late 2015 on how NASA research had shown that the Antarctic ice sheet was growing significantly.

Now, if massive global warming was occurring, one would not expect the South Pole ice volume to be getting larger. Warming means less ice which should mean a smaller ice cap. Obviously, none of the global warming models going back through history ever predicted that global warming would cause the ice cap to get larger.

Specifically, NASA scientists wrote in the Journal of Glaciology that the shrinkage of glacier ice in the pole’s western region was being offset by the thickening of glaciers in the eastern part of the ice cap. This eastern area was not only seeing increased snowfall but helping the South Pole get a net gain in ice of an estimated 100 billion tons of ice per YEAR. This in turn caused the scientists at NASA to reduce the estimated rise in sea levels that they had been using.

Now, the article does point out that some global warming advocate scientists have problems with NASA’s research findings, which is cool, the more input to a problem the more likely the truth will come out. For example, Ted Scambos, the lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center says: “I think there's a serious issue with the study. It’s unfortunate that it made it through peer review.” 

Unfortunately, at least in the article, Mr. Scambos does not say what the issue is so his credibility must take a little hit. But he does point out that the article got through peer review so some scientists, somewhere thought the research effort had some validity.

This is another example where the global warming doubters among us are just looking for an adult discussion of the entire range of climate research and data and not the cherry picking of only the subset of research that seem to validate the views of global warming advocates and ignore other scientific data and views. And NASA and this data show there is a good reason to step back and have that adult, comprehensive conversation.

2) Marc Moran, writing for the Climate Depot website on August 23, 2016, sets up a nice comparison between global warming advocates and global warming doubters. Bill Nye, “The Science Guy," was recently interviewed on TV and claimed that man made global warming was causing massive flooding, much like we have just witnessed in the Baton Rouge area. It is my understanding that the “Science Guy” has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. It does not appear he has an advanced degree of any kind and that none of his education was dealing extensively with climatology.

Mr. Moran’s article focuses on Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr., a professor in the Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado and who is also a Fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. He is also the author of the book, “The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters and Climate Change.”

It is Dr. Pielke’s opinion that there is no linkage of global warming to both the Baton Rouge floods and other types of extreme weather. “Flood disasters are sharply down. U.S. floods not increasing either."

This statement was in rebuttal to the position of economist and New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman, who also linked the Baton Rouge flooding to global warming. Specifically, Dr. Piekle stated: “How does Krugman get away with this?” Did I mention that Krugman is an economist?

Dr. Pielke referred to several sets of real data, not the opinions of a mechanical engineer and economist in his rebuttal: 

• U.S. flood damage as a percentage of the nation’s GDP has been going down steadily from 1940 to 2013, a span of 73 years, enough time to get at least a recent view and trend.
• Back in the 1940s, the percentage of flood damage was consistently in the .2% to .3% range while more recently the percentage has been down to often less than .05% or so, a dramatic decrease.
• He also presents a graph that plots the “Drought Severity Index” from the late 1800s through present time and it is obvious, using real historical data, that droughts have not gotten worse over time, something that was supposed to happen when man made global warming supposedly took off.
• He also graphs how the annual number of hurricanes hitting the U.S. mainland have slowly been trending down over the past century, something that was not supposed to happen according to the global warming models.
• And last, but not least, he shows how the annual number of tornadoes touching down in the country has also been slowly trending downwards.

Dr. Piekle gives a great summary of what scientists should be looking at, the long term, and not the recent weather reports and results like Bill Nye recently did: “Floods suck when they occur. The good news is U.S. flood damage is sharply down over 70 years. Remember, disasters can happen any time and they suck. But it is also good to understand long-term trends based on data, not hype.” Based on data and not hype...or the opinions of a mechanical engineer and an economist.

To see the entire Climate Depot article along with the Dr.’s detailed charts, go to:

http://www.climatedepot.com/2016/08/23/floods-are-not-increasing-dr-roger-pielke-jr-slams-global-warming-link-to-floods-extreme-weather-how-does-media-get-away-with-this/

3) We referenced Bill Nye above and his TV appearance relating to climate change, global warming, and the Baton Rouge floods. This is what he had to say: “I don’t have the answer to this except it is going to get worse. It almost certainly will get worse. Everybody – as the ocean gets warmer, which it is getting, it expands. Water gets – the molecules spread apart and then as the sea surface gets warmer, more water evaporates. And so it is very reasonable that these storms are connected to these big effects. So what will probably happen is people will move.”

Two problems with his statement:

1. “I don’t have the answer.” - Well then, we probably should not be listening to your opinion if you have no back up facts or answers.
2. “It almost certainly will get worse.” But not according to a climate expert, Dr.Piekle, that we just discussed. His graphs show every important climate factor going in the opposite direction of getting worse.

Again, who should you trust: the mechanical engineer who has his opinion or a climate professor who has real data?

That will wrap up this month’s update on the them, “I am a global warming doubter and a believer in science." We heard from a real scientist that was using detailed historical data to show that it is perfectly sane and rational to be a global warming doubter. We also pointed out how a mechanical engineer and an economist opposed that view but provided no real data to offset the trends in climate. We also showed how the Federal government, via NASA, was showing that the South Pole ice cap was getting much larger every year, not smaller, as projected by global warming advocates’ forecast models.

As always, all us global warming doubters are trying to do is have a mature, adult conversation on ALL of the available data, statistics, and research so that a realistic solution, if indeed any solution is needed, can be formulated to attack what root causes, if there are any root causes, to make the climate a better place.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Guest Commentators Christmas Week, Part 2 - America's Lost Decade

This Christmas week we will be sharing the views of other Americans from across the country regarding freedom and liberty. These citizens also realize that we currently are living with a political class that has enlarged government from a servant of the people into an overbearing, intrusive, obese waste of resources that is endangering our personal and economic futures, much along the lines of Jabba The Hutt from Star Wars.

Today’s post comes from an article by Thomas McClanahan of the Kansas Star entitled: “The Obama Years Could Become Our ‘Lost Decade’.” The primary value of Mr. McClanahan’s position is to shed light on the reality of economic history. Specifically, he destroys the myth that people like Obama and other liberals like to espouse is that higher tax rates can produce a healthy, growing economy. These people often point to the 1950s era of high tax rates and good economic growth.

They fail to point out a number of faults in this argument:

• First, while marginal tax rates were higher, the number of deductions was also extremely high. For those of you old enough, you probably remember that at one point in time people could right off the cost of the infamous “three martini lunch,” their membership at private golf courses, and a whole host of other frivolous tax deductions that made a mockery of the high marginal rates. The correct analysis, something these people never do, is to look at the effective, actual tax rates, not the published marginal tax rates.
• Life today is far different than it was in the 1950s. Today, there is a global economy and global competition which is cut throat. High taxes in one country forces companies to move production and manufacturing to other lower tax countries. This was not the case in the 1950s. The world and much of its ability to manufacture had been destroyed by World War II. The U.S. was one of the few remaining economic giants. That is not the case today and to think we can use 1950s economic theory and tax rates is nonsense.
• These liberal leaning economists and politicians like Obama miss the whole point of freedom: you cannot have personal freedom if you do not have economic freedom. As the government confiscates, and eventually wastes, more and more of our wealth via taxes, we have less freedom to live where we want, to send our kids to the schools we want, to start up a new business, etc. Their cold, academic, analytical approach to the economy and economic policy is void of human compassion and respect for freedom.

Given this nonsensical viewpoint and infatuation with high taxes, the author worries if we are going to live through a decade of bad economic policies, much like Japan has lived through several decades of similar bad policies. Let’s be very clear, the first four years of the Obama term in office has been a very bad stretch, a lost four years, of economic policies and results:

• Record high unemployment and underemployment for record lengths of time.
• Record high deficits spending to the tune of over $5 TRILLION in just four years.
• One failed economic policy after another including Cash For Clunkers, Cash For Appliances, Economic Stimulus Program, HARP Mortgage program, etc.
• The first ever credit rating downgrade in the history of the country.
• Record high numbers of Americans on food stamps and collecting unemployment benefits.
• Cronyism economics that has led to dozens of failed political crony-linked businesses, which has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars, including Solyndra, A123, ENER1, Abound Solar, SpectraWatt, Fisker Motors, etc.
• Energy prices are up well over 50% over the past few years, creating a heavy drag on the economy.
• A Federal government bureaucracy that is bloated and riddled with criminal fraud and inefficiency, creating a another heavy drag on economic growth.

Now, many would still blame Bush for these problems, an argument that becomes weaker and more ridiculous every day, every week, and every month that Bush is out of office. But the reality is that unemployment was under 5% and the annual budget deficits were decreasing year over year and were well within reasonable limits until the Democrats took over Congress in 2007, and gas prices were under $2.00 when Bush left office. I was never a Bush fan, never voted for him, but blaming him for the large number of economic failures of Obama is ludicrous and nonconstructive.

But I talk too much. Let Mr. McClanahan explain how Obama’s “taxing the rich” strategy and divisive rhetoric will likely cause us to waste away another four years, eight years total, chasing economic polices and theories that have been proven wrong, both in the real world in and in the world of logic.

*****************************

The Obama years could become our ‘lost decade’

By E. Thomas McClanahan


Updated: 2012-12-02T00:07:20Z

After five years of lousy economic performance, you would think people would be sick of it by now. Guess not. How else to explain why we’re having a big fight over inequality instead of arguing over how to jump-start growth?

There’s no denying inequality has increased. Median wages haven’t kept up while families in the upper tax brackets have prospered. But even so, getting the economy back on its typical growth path of 3.4 percent a year should be the overriding imperative.

That would do wonders for the immediate problem of too few jobs and too many jobless — not to mention the problem of lagging incomes and insufficient federal revenue.

Sadly, that’s not the topic du jour.

Prosperity harbors a contradiction. Rapid economic growth requires a relatively high degree of inequality, which is more tolerable when the pie tends to grow for all.

In hard times, those who succeed and enrich themselves draw more envy and the political left amps up its obsession with punishing the rich — expressed in the form of taxes that impair the economy’s potential.

The current inequality obsession has gotten so bad some people think we would be better off running the top tax rate back up to 91 percent, where it was in the 1950s. Those were prosperous times, they say. Businesses were still created. Investment was healthy. And there was less inequality!

The New York Times’ Paul Krugman gave this a try in a recent column, with the added notion that we would also be better off — less inequality! — if organized labor had the same heft it did in the ’50s. As a Nobel laureate, he had to know better.

Today, the economy is weak even with relatively low tax rates. Yet Krugman and his fellow travelers say the solution to our woes is a job market dominated by labor monopolies — unions — and a tax rate that gives upper-income investors and business owners virtually no incentive to earn an additional dollar.

Krugman forgot that the 1950s were a unique period in our history. Much of the developed world’s industrial capital was incinerated in war and was still being rebuilt. Of course the American economy prospered. How could it not?

Moreover, as James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute recently pointed out, jobs were plentiful in those years in part because the post-war boom came at a time when the size of the labor force was reduced, not only by a Depression-era birth dearth but the loss of potential workers killed or wounded in war.

Krugman would profit from reading a recent column by his Times colleague, Eduardo Porter. It includes several passages that were amazing to find in The Times.

A sample: The U.S. tax system is “one of the most progressive” in the developed world. It does “more to redistribute resources and reduce inequality” than tax codes in other countries. But progressive taxes “make it hard to raise money” because they “encourage people to reduce their tax liability rather than to increase their pretax income.” And:

Hitting top earners with high rates “can discourage work and investment.”

Porter was arguing for flatter, European-style taxes like the value-added tax or a carbon tax — levies few people can avoid, which produce revenue like gangbusters. Porter doesn’t think Washington does enough to support low-income families compared with big-government social democracies, which rake in much more revenue.

The European debt crisis, however, highlights the flaws in that model.

It’s true we must have more revenue and the Simpson-Bowles plan, once assumed to be a roadmap for the fiscal cliff talks, would have produced more by carving loopholes from the tax code. But it also would have encouraged growth by rolling back the top rates. Forget it: Obama now insists we dispense with the rollback. To heck with growth: He wants to carve out the loopholes and raise the rates.

If he gets his way, we could face four more years of economic anemia — which means we may someday look back on the Obama years as the Japanese look back on their “lost decade.”

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w