French scientist calls Gore a 'crook' and...

[the iron horse]

Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Climate-change skeptics are taking a beating these days even in France, where people long resisted the green creed.

Paris bookstores brim with guidebooks -- including one shaped like a toilet seat -- that tell readers how to help save our planet. Yet the dissidents refuse to shut up, even now that Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize and the U.S. government has agreed to negotiate a new global-warming treaty by 2009.

The most conspicuous doubter in France is Claude Allegre, a former education minister and a physicist by profession. His new book, ``Ma Verite Sur la Planete'' (``My Truth About the Planet''), doesn't mince words.

He calls Gore a 'crook' presiding over an eco-business that pumps out cash. As for Gore's French followers, the author likens them to religious zealots who, far from saving humanity, are endangering it. Driven by a Judeo-Christian guilt complex, he says, French greens paint worst-case scenarios and attribute little-understood cycles to human misbehavior.

The entire article:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...Gr8&refer=muse

[financeguy]

Originally posted by the iron horse
Driven by a Judeo-Christian guilt complex, he says, French greens paint worst-case scenarios....

'Judeo-Christian guilt complex' - it is at least original. Climate change sceptics usually claim that the (overwhelming) majority of qualified scientists who agree that anthropogenic climate change is happening are motivated by a desire to introduce socialism.

Iron Horse, please post up some links to peer reviewed studies which cast doubt on anthropogenic climate change. I would imagine given that there is a lot of attention given to the views of climate change sceptics in the media that there are many such studies.

[Kieran McConville]

Well Financeguy, Jesus was a socialist, so you know, there's a melding of memes there.

[Kieran McConville]

Insert wry smilie here, I should add.

[the iron horse]

"Iron Horse, please post up some links to peer reviewed studies which cast doubt on anthropogenic climate change."

~financeguy


I will, but I'm waiting to hear some rebuttals on what this French scientist says.

Dissent is fun

[DrTeeth]

Originally posted by the iron horse
"Iron Horse, please post up some links to peer reviewed studies which cast doubt on anthropogenic climate change."

~financeguy


I will, but I'm waiting to hear some rebuttals on what this French scientist says.

Dissent is fun

From the article:

While the icecap of the North Pole is shrinking, the one covering Antarctica -- or 92 percent of the Earth's ice -- is not, he says.

From research:

University of Colorado at Boulder researchers have used data from a pair of NASA satellites orbiting Earth in tandem to determine that the Antarctic ice sheet, which harbors 90 percent of Earth's ice, has lost significant mass in recent years.

The team used measurements taken with the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, to conclude the Antarctic ice sheet is losing up to 36 cubic miles of ice, or 152 cubic kilometers, annually. By comparison, the city of Los Angeles uses about 1 cubic mile of fresh water annually.

"This is the first study to indicate the total mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet is in significant decline," said Isabella Velicogna of CU-Boulder's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, chief author of the new study that appears in the March 2 online issue of Science Express. The study was co-authored by CU-Boulder physics Professor John Wahr of CIRES, a joint campus institute of CU-Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

[DrTeeth]

Other stuff from the article:

Nor have Scandinavian glaciers receded, he says.

From Wikipedia (based on peer-reviewed research):

Northern Europe

Arctic islands north of Norway, Finland and Russia have all shown evidence of glacier retreat. In the Svalbard archipelago, the island of Spitsbergen has numerous glaciers. Research indicates that Hansbreen Glacier on Spitsbergen retreated 1.4 km (0.87 mi) from 1936 to 1982 and another 400 m (1,300 ft) during the 16-year period from 1982 to 1998.(Glowacki) Blomstrandbreen, a glacier in the King's Bay area of Spitsbergen, has retreated approximately 2 km (1.2 miles) in the past 80 years. Since 1960 the average retreat of Blomstrandbreen has been about 35 m (110 ft) a year, and this average was enhanced due to an accelerated rate of retreat since 1995.(Greenpeace) Similarly, the Midre Lovenbreen Glacier retreated 200 m (656 ft) between 1977 and 1995.(Rippin, et alia) In the Novaya Zemlya archipelago north of Russia, research indicates that in 1952 there was 208 km (129 mi) of glacier ice along the coast. By 1993 this had been reduced by 8% to 198 km (123 mi) of glacier coastline.(Aleksey)

[DrTeeth]

Article:

To his relief, France has taken another path: Almost 80 percent of its electricity comes from nuclear reactors. What's more, France has a talent for eating its cake and having it, too: Although it signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the country is nowhere near meeting the agreed targets.

Reality:

If all existing and planned domestic policy measures are implemented and Kyoto mechanisms as well as carbon sinks are used, the EU-15 will reach its Kyoto Protocol target. This projection relies on figures from several Member States which suggest that they will cut emissions by more than is required to meet their national targets.

And if you read the complete report, it says that France is on target:

Six more countries anticipate they will exceed (Finland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) or meetSix more countries anticipate they will exceed (Finland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) or meet (France, Germany and Greece) their commitment targets by additional measures, use of Kyoto mechanisms, use carbon sinks or a combination thereof.

Reading is fun

[BVS]

Originally posted by the iron horse


Dissent is fun

Yes, but dissent without reason or research is useless.

[2861U2]

Originally posted by BonoVoxSupastar


Yes, but dissent without reason or research is useless.

Chapter one of Glenn Beck's new book. I recommend reading it.

ETA: Oh, and Christopher Horner's book.

[BVS]

No thanks I like intelligent authors.

[2861U2]

Originally posted by BonoVoxSupastar
No thanks I like intelligent authors.

I like intelligent authors too. I also like getting both sides of a debate, and I especially like hearing about exagerrations and downright lies featured multiple times in a somehow Oscar-worthy film.

[BVS]

There are many intelligent conservatives. Beck is not one of them.

[2861U2]

Originally posted by BonoVoxSupastar
Beck is not one of them.

Why don't you like him? Personally, he's my favorite media personality, and his book is outstanding.

[BVS]

Anyone who makes a comparison between those concerned about humans' effect on global warming and Hitler is an idiot.

[2861U2]

Originally posted by BonoVoxSupastar
Anyone who makes a comparison between those concerned about humans' effect on global warming and Hitler is an idiot.

I'm not sure exactly what quote you're talking about, and it was probably a dumb thing to say, but it's hard to get mad at him when you've got things like this coming from the other side:

"Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and other denies the present and future."

"When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards- some sort of climate Nuremberg."

"Every time you turn on an electric light, you are making another brainless baby."


Unless I'm taking these things out of context, right?

[BVS]

Originally posted by 2861U2


and it was probably a dumb thing to say,

Which is why he isn't intelligent.

Originally posted by 2861U2


but it's hard to get mad at him when you've got things like this coming from the other side:

"Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and other denies the present and future."

"When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards- some sort of climate Nuremberg."

"Every time you turn on an electric light, you are making another brainless baby."

Who are these from?

[martha]

Originally posted by 2861U2


Why don't you like him?

Answering for myself here:

Even before I had any idea at all who he was, I would see him when I was trying to get the headlines on, of all things, Headline News. I would watch a few minutes and be really annoyed at his smugness and lameness. He seemed to be so full of himself, like he was more important than whatever story he was reporting. I still don't know hardly anything about him, but I still find him smug and annoying.

[2861U2]

Originally posted by BonoVoxSupastar


Who are these from?

Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe, David Roberts of the climate website Grist, and Helen Caldicott of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

[2861U2]

Originally posted by BonoVoxSupastar

Which is why he isn't intelligent.

Oh, come on now. You've never said anything dumb? By your standard, everyone on earth is dumb.