New Vent: Sen. James Inhofe: An inconvenient senator
posted at 8:37 am on September 14, 2007 by Bryan
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For several years, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) has led the fight against global warming alarmism. Michelle asked the senator where things stand now on the science and the politics of the warming of the earth. The senator also unmasks who or what is most responsible for global warming.
Here is part one of our interview with Sen. Inhofe.
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If this is what you believe, then why are you arguing with me?
This is totally wrong. The earth does not rely on radiating heat into space in order to cool. You did not read or understand what I wrote above concerning the rate at which the sun sends it’s energy compared to the rate at which the earth loses heat via radiation. Read my analogy of the sinking ship again.
In order for the earth to transmit heat from it as fast or nearly as fast as the sun sends it, the earth would have to be as hot as the sun. That’s the information I referred to here.
Evaporation is how the earth cools…. not radiation of IR into space.
Maxx on September 14, 2007 at 5:40 PM
The sun’s strong role indicates that greenhouse gases can’t have much of an influence on the climate — that C02 et al. don’t dominate through some kind of leveraging effect that makes them especially potent drivers of climate change. The upshot of the Earth not being unduly sensitive to greenhouse gases is that neither increases nor cutbacks in future C02 emissions will matter much in terms of the climate.
Maxx on September 14, 2007 at 5:54 PM
Guys, I’ve been trying to read this thread, but by 3/4 of the way through, if I have to read the f’in words, “strawman” “fallacy/fallascious” or “non-sequitur” again… I believe my eyes will begin bleeding.
:)
tickleddragon on September 14, 2007 at 5:58 PM
Here’s a pretty good chart on sunspot activity from NASA.
Maxx on September 14, 2007 at 5:59 PM
Thanks for the Vent, Michelle!
tickleddragon on September 14, 2007 at 5:59 PM
Again from NASA… slightly more up to date.
Maxx on September 14, 2007 at 6:04 PM
Thank you Michelle, that was an excellent Vent ! Americans owe Sen. James Inhofe a great debt of gratitude. He stood alone on this issue for a number of years and endured every kind of ruthless ridicule. Now the tide has turned and scientist are scampering away from the great man-made global warming hoax, attempting to salvage some small part of their credibility. But we need to remember their names because these “scientist” have no credibility. Indeed some of them are the same alarmist that were involved in the global cooling scare of the 1970’s.
But the battle is not yet won. American taxpayers footed the bill for nearly four billion dollars worth of global warming research last year and lesser amounts going all the way back to the early 1990’s. America’s infrastructure is crumbling, we have bridges falling down, yet all of this money wasted on a scare tactic to assault our pocketbooks and our liberties. Enough all ready ! It’s time for the scientific man-made global warming gravy train to stop. Somebody should have to answer for all of this fraud, all of this waste and the fear it has put into the minds of our children. The whole farrago is despicable beyond belief.
And yes, hoax is the correct word to describe man-made global warming… another very expensive hoax, brought to us by the U.N., the IPCC and primarily the Democratic party. Big surprise hun ?
Maxx on September 14, 2007 at 7:16 PM
Reading this thread has been a humbling reminder of how much I don’t know.
My brain hurts.
p.v. cornelius on September 14, 2007 at 7:50 PM
I’m all confused. Wasn’t the last ice age ended by global warming? What caused that and how come we’re not all dead?
Oldnuke on September 14, 2007 at 8:08 PM
how come we’re not all dead?
Oldnuke on September 14, 2007 at 8:08 PM
One of Al Gore’s distant ancestors must have saved mankind somehow.
MB4 on September 14, 2007 at 9:01 PM
Looking for more light reading on the science of CO2? Here’s a good site for some sanity in the Global Warming debate. Enjoy!
Ordinary1 on September 14, 2007 at 9:30 PM
Maxx on September 14, 2007 at 5:26 PM
You are confusing sunspot counts with irradiance. I even said potential effects of sunspots were intriguing.
tickleddragon on September 14, 2007 at 5:58 PM
That’s why I left for a while… I got tired of having to type those words. Hmm, let’s see what Oldnuke has to say…
Oldnuke on September 14, 2007 at 8:08 PM
Uggggh… Serenity now… Serenity now…
DaveS on September 14, 2007 at 9:39 PM
Please stop!
You don’t seem to understand your misplaced arguments are sabotaging people who actually have good arguments against global warming alarmism.
You might as well disprove Communism by producing a theorem that says all socialist eat babies and as soon as anyone agrees capitalism is better they will automatically win the lottery. Nonsense arguemnts hurt the cause not help it.
If you are right is coincidental at this point after statements like that. CO2 is uniformly dispearsed within the atmosphere you would not feel particles of it blowing at you.
Resolute on September 14, 2007 at 10:26 PM
Please give me a sample of one of these arguments that are so much better than mine. If you have crystal clarity on that point, I would love to hear it.
Maxx on September 14, 2007 at 10:47 PM
Sunspots coincide with higher output from the sun. There is no confusion.
Maxx on September 14, 2007 at 10:54 PM
More sunspots correspond to a higher solar energy output while fewer sunspots correspond to a lower solar output.
Maxx on September 14, 2007 at 11:07 PM
That’s contradicted by actual measured irradiance.
DaveS on September 15, 2007 at 12:55 AM
Where’s your link ?
Maxx on September 15, 2007 at 1:28 AM
I already posted this link once, above.
Since you clearly don’t read links, don’t remember things that we have just recently discussed, and–generally speaking–have no willingness to try to understand the issue, this is probably the last time I will respond to this thread. Just letting you know.
DaveS on September 15, 2007 at 1:38 AM
Perhaps you will believe NOAA… then again, maybe not.
Source: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Maxx on September 15, 2007 at 1:39 AM
Your reasoning is faulty. See if this analogy helps you see your error:
The outer surface of a house is made up of 10% windows with the other 90% walls, doors, roof, etc. Yet that 10% of window surface accounts for 100% of the sunlight seen inside the house.
Does that also defy common sense?
Rev Snow on September 15, 2007 at 1:49 AM
Rev Snow… don’t bother. This guy is completely irrational and doesn’t understand basic logic or science. He has just now, for the 3rd or 4th time, confused sunspot activity with irradiance, and short term solar cycles with long-term trends.
DaveS on September 15, 2007 at 2:13 AM
Your reasoning is fine but I don’t see it as a valid analogy.
Consider this, how could a single grain of sand be responsible for 25% of the heat contained within 99 others? It seems to defy physics, but I’m unable to think of a perfect analogy.
The original statement made was:
To me, that statement is not plausible. And I don’t know were he got that. I’ll have to look into it more.
Maxx on September 15, 2007 at 2:16 AM
Get a good nights rest Dave and maybe you won’t be so grumpy.
Maxx on September 15, 2007 at 2:22 AM
You accept that a small percentage
of windows can account for the
total amount of sunlight, because
you know and accept that different
parts of a house have different abilities to
let light shine through. Windows
are really good at letting it through.
Walls are really bad.
Back to the atmosphere. Some gasses
in the atmosphere, like nitrogen, are
really bad at converting reflected light
into heat. It doesn’t matter that
the great majority of the atmosphere
is nitrogen, it still plays almost
no role in the conversion of light
energy into heat energy.
CO2 on the other hand is really good
at converting reflected light to heat.
It doesn’t take
much of something really productive
to generate significant output.
Your confusion suggests that you
think that once the conversion to
heat is complete, and we have heat
energy, that somehow you expect that
heat to remain “stuck” to the CO2 that
converted it. Heat doesn’t do that.
Heat flows from hot to cold through
all substances. All that nitrogen
that played no role in converting
the reflected light into heat is
quite happy to serve as something
to be warmed by that heat, and to hold
onto that energy.
Rev Snow on September 15, 2007 at 2:30 AM
Just a note of thanks to DaveS
for the big efforts to rebut
faulty arguments that cropped
up here. Folks leveling accusations
of “junk science” need to have
their own science arguments up
to snuff.
And in that spirit, I’m disappointed
with the “hoax” language in the video.
Perhaps Michelle is just flattering
the Senator by quoting his words back
to him, but he’s equally wrong. There’s
too much indisputable fact at the
root of this debate to wave it all away
as a “hoax.” CO2 is a greenhouse
gas. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere
has increased over the last century.
That increase is mostly due to our
burning of fossil fuels. And temperatures
are increasing.
Those pieces of the puzzle are real
and true. It may well be that Al Gore
and company are mistaken in the larger
picture they’ve assembled out of those
pieces. But being mistaken, even badly
mistaken, is not the same thing as
being a hoaxer.
Many here would agree it is both wrong
and unfair to conclude “Bush lied!”
when “Bush was mistaken” is good enough
to explain events. It’s likewise
wrong and unfair to conclude “Gore is
a hoaxer, or James Hansen is chasing
after money” when their words and actions
are equally well explained by their
honest (even if mistaken) assessment
of the evidence they see.
Rev Snow on September 15, 2007 at 2:55 AM
So that I’m not just “cursing the darkness,” I’ll strike the match of this link to what seems to me a pretty good layman’s critique of the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory.
Rev Snow on September 15, 2007 at 2:59 AM
I understand perfectly that once the light energy is absorbed by CO2 and converted to heat, that the heat will spread out to other molecules of oxygen, nitrogen and the other various gases that comprise air, via convection. What I doubt is that for any given volume of air that .038% of that air… which is the overall percentage of CO2 in the air according to WIKI, could trap 25% of the total heat of that given volume.
Think of it, when you invert .038% which is .00038, the result is 2,631 to 1. I do not believe that 1 part of 2,631 parts of any kind of gas, or any substance know to man has the ability to absorb heat at such an incredible rate as to be responsible for 25% of the overall heat of that volume. But I will look into it further.
Maxx on September 15, 2007 at 3:01 AM
This is probably a dead thread, but I’ll post this response anyway, feeling comfortable that being overly technical will not scare away too many of the stragglers who may be left. The reason why CO2 and gases like methane and water absorb a heck of a lot more radiation than O2, N2, and argon, is that the latter are either atoms, or linear diatomic molecules, which are IR inactive, while CO2 is IR active. Thus, each CO2 molecule has a much higher probability of absorbing an incident IR photon than most of the rest of the atmosphere. Therefore, one must look not at the overall percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere to understand why it’s a powerful greenhouse gas, but rather the the percentage all greenhouse gases comprised by CO2 modified by the individual probabilities of absorption each of these gases possesses, which are determined by their molecular structures.
Big S on September 15, 2007 at 12:50 PM
You seem to be arguing against yourself, suddenly you are not concerned with the percentage of CO2 in the air. If that’s the case then what’s all the worry about rising CO2 ? Especially in light of the fact that CO2 LAGS warming and is thus NOT the cause of the warming.
Oy.. here it comes… non sequitur and strawman again …. right ?
Maxx on September 15, 2007 at 1:41 PM
I will restrict myself to gloating over the idiocy of the above statement. I suppose I could argue over the inaccuracy of categorically denying global warming, but it is more effort than I feel like exerting now.
thuja on September 16, 2007 at 12:06 AM
To which I replied:
In reply to the above Big S says common sense does not apply:
Then Resolute chimes-in with: Please stop!
Then Rev Snow says my reasoning is faulty:
And thuja puts the icing on the cake by calling me an idiot:
Gee… I got pinged-on by nearly every man-made global warming troll at HotAir, I had no idea the statement was that good or had such power to get under their collective skin !! I’ll have to put that one in my “KEEPER” file ! Thanks guys ! You honor me too much.
Maxx on September 16, 2007 at 1:21 AM
It really irks me when the global warming alarmists employ the denier language to dismiss skeptical criticism of the claims of An Inconvenient Truth and the movement surrounding it. But if those alarmists are referring to the likes of Maxx here, I’m afraid the shoe fits. And it shames me to be associated with it, even at the distance of merely co-commenting on a blog.
Maxx, the only way I can interpret that comment is as a blanket denial that the presence of CO2 in the atmosphere warms the atmosphere. So, please stop pussyfooting around. If you believe that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. If you believe all the claims of the last century of atmospheric science saying CO2 is a greenhouse gas were all a deceitful plot in support of a movement that only sprang up in the last 20 years or so. If you truly believe such nonsense, then just come out and directly say that.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It warms the atmosphere. There’s now more CO2 in the atmosphere than there was a century ago, almost entirely because people have been burning fossil fuels over that time. We can reasonably expect that an increase in the amount of a warming agent will lead to some increase in temperature. The last century of temperature records show a long term trend of temperature increase [*]. Assuming human activity keeps on as it is currently trending, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will continue to grow, and again we can reasonably expect that continued increase of a warming agent will lead to some more increase of overall average temperature.
Accepting those facts does not imply an embrace of An Incovenient Truth or the associated movement. Rather, acceptance of those facts is the entry point to serious comment on the subject.
My own opinion is that the science purporting to demonstrate that some warming will in fact be a catastrophic amount of warming is far less certain than Al Gore believes. But that’s a debate over degree and over appropriate policy response, not a stance that rejects basic facts.
[*] If anything in these fundamentals is subject to attack, I think it would be flaws in the data collection and correction that establish these trends. Those criticisms are quite well covered in the links within in a previous Hot Air story and in the “hockey stick” discussions from a few years back (Google It!). There’s difficulty down that road, though. If someone hangs their hopes in this debate on a discovery that warming is an illusion created by measurement error, then a significant number of non-measurement indicators (retreating glaciers, Arctic Ocean passages open for the first time ever, etc.) need explaining.
Rev Snow on September 16, 2007 at 11:41 AM
I’m impressed by your attempt to put words in my mouth, but of course I never said CO2 wasn’t a greenhouse gas. I certainty never said it or even implied such a thing and it’s nowhere to be found in the quote you referenced. But I did say this:
As for CO2’s role being insignificant in the warming process, look to what scientists have said:
You can view each of these scientists making the above statements HERE.
And finally we see that it is sunspot activity that is overwhelming responsible for the earth’s average changes in temperature:
And yes, I am fully aware of the broken “Hockey Stick,” which was just more fraud by the “global warmers” Mann, Bradley and Hughes back in 1998. Fraud is the norm for the advocates of man-made global warming, we have come to realize that. But if you want to be a true believer in the “Hockey Stick” please be my guest.
And as for this comment:
Arctic Ocean passage open for the first time ever ? Then why do you think it’s called a passage ? According to the Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, it was open in early 1900’s, and that was long before cars and planes and big industry as you might be aware.
As for retreating glaciers… hey, their build-up was largely due to the “Little Ice Age,” do you want to go back to the Little Ice Age just so the glaciers don’t retreat? Besides many glaciers are today adding ice, so there is nothing unusual about that either.
Just relax Rev Snow…. the earth has been both much warmer and much cooler than it is today, we are well within norms and we are not going to die, man-made global warming is just another hoax as the science and evidence has clearly shown. And this particular hoax has been tried several times before, this is nothing new.
Maxx on September 16, 2007 at 6:12 PM
Thank you for the followup, Maxx.
Clearly you can make serious arguments countering the mainstream global warming theory without the need to deny the basic facts underlying the issue. I withdraw my description of you as a denier.
I must say, though, that the fact that you can do this well makes it all the more frustrating that you posted message after message here that (to be as charitable as I can) could so easily be mistaken for denier nonsense. I was not alone in reading the words you wrote and seeing in them evidence of profound ignorance. Too many people in the Al Gore movement already assume that anyone critical of them is a scientific ignoramus. It’s worth some effort not to look like one when speaking out on the matter.
I still find the “hoax” allegation to be unfair and unhelpful, but since we’re undoubtedly the only two left here, we’ll just agree to disagree on that point.
Rev Snow on September 17, 2007 at 12:01 AM
I hate to disappoint you Rev Snow, but I am indeed a man-made global warming denier and very pleased to be one. As such, I find myself in very good company. And I hope I did not post any comment that would lead anyone to believe otherwise. The theory of man-made global warming is nonsense from top to bottom.
And I don’t appreciate your “charity” in the slightest. If your going to snipe at my comments you should at least have the forthrightness to say with some specificity what it was that you believed to be in error.
If you did that, rather than hiding behind your vague accusations, I would be given the opportunity to explain further and show my sources. And who knows Rev Snow, you might even sway me to your point of view on some point, if you made an honest effort to do so. But please spare me your “Charity.”
Maxx on September 17, 2007 at 12:45 AM
Heh… don’t speak so soon. Maxx is a scientific illiterate. You’re too kind.
DaveS on September 17, 2007 at 4:24 PM
Yeah… yeah … and your a smug pseudo intellectual jackass.
And by the way, I looked your document today and as I suspected you got it all wrong. There is nothing in that document to support your bizarre claim that CO2 is responsible for 12% to 25% of atmospheric warmth. The figures you quote are concerned with absorption properties of various gases in relationship to wavelength.
You got it wrong… no big surprise there !!
Maxx on September 17, 2007 at 5:35 PM
Like I said… I didn’t expect you to be able to understand it. This is just another example of you being in way over your head.
DaveS on September 17, 2007 at 11:01 PM
LOL… uh, yeah. That’s called the “greenhouse effect”.
Table 3 very, VERY clearly indicates that CO2 accounts for 29 W/m^2 of radiative forcing, or 26% of the total 125 W/m^2–it is a little less than 50% as impactful as H20.
I don’t see how you can misinterpret that. Since you, oddly, take pride in your ignorance, I’m only posting this so that other people might learn a little something.
DaveS on September 17, 2007 at 11:12 PM
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