Showing posts with label Global Warming Denial Forum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Global Warming Denial Forum. Show all posts

GW Denial Forum: Non-Political Event?
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10:04 PM | Posted in ,
Over the past week I have spent significant time and energy debunking the denial in the recent Global Warming Denial Forum held at the Elk River High School. For my final post on this forum, I would like to address the nature of this event.

In this video, Mark Olson, disgraced Republican from House District 16B, is asked about why only Republicans were represented at the event and also about the funding for the event. His response to the first question is that he invited Democrats in the "area" but none of them chose to accept that invitation. His response to the second question is that this was a legislative event and not a political event.



Given that Mr. Olson never does define what he means by the "area" targeted by the event, it is difficult to determine who he may have invited. So, I emailed Democrats representing districts directly adjacent to the districts involved in the forum. From the legislator responses, it is interesting to note that the first that any of these Democrats heard of the forum was two hours before the event was slated to begin. It seems an empty gesture so that Olson can claim he invited Democrats. The only reason to ever give someone such short notice is so that you can claim you invited them but they just weren't able to attend.

A couple responses:

We received the invitation approximately two hours before the event. At that time, I had other commitments for the evening.


The only invitation that I can recall is the announcement on the House floor that Rep. Olson gave on the same day the forum was being held.


If Olson truly wanted this to be a bipartisan discussion of the issue he would have done more than just invite legislators hours before it was already set to start. He would have aggressively (perhaps not a good word for Olson given his history) sought not just attendance but meaningful participation from Democrats in the "area" and groups with divergent positions. Which leads me to the next issue found in this video.

Olson claims that this was a non-political event meant to "wrestle" with the issue. However, an anonymous source tells me that she attempted to get permission from Olson to hand out information after the event supportive of global warming and supportive of "An Inconvenient Truth". Olson denied her the right to do so deeming it too "political" but as I left the event there was a group from the right wing group, Minnesota Majority, handing out stickers and information from their website. One has to wonder how it is too "political" for someone to hand out information about global warming but not too "political" for a right wing front group to hand out information denying global warming.

Olson and the rest of the legislators involved in this forum have no intention of dealing with this issue in an honest manner. Their hope is to feed their believers with the information they want to hear and shield them from any information that may bring down their beliefs.

Cross Posted on St. Cloud Times
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Global Warming Denial: Al Gore Is A Nazi...
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We have thus far taken bit by bit the information provided by Mr. James Taylor about his love of spinning sound science. While we are not entirely finished deconstructing Taylor and his lack of acceptance of the facts, it is time to highlight the honesty by which the global warming deniers in the room wanted to examine this issue.

This man stood up and expressed his disgust for An Inconvenient Truth. The worst was yet to come as he went on to make the claim that Al Gore is no better than Leni Riefenstahl, the famed Nazi propaganda film maker.



It takes a special kind of hatred of someone to refer to them as a Nazi and it essentially highlights the faux debate that deniers are seeking. There is no amount of information or evidence that could have been provided to this man which would convince him that global warming is real and is being ostensibly caused by man. If you are willing to go so far as to call Al Gore a Nazi, then you have made up your mind and the debate is essentially over. His hatred of Al Gore will always blind him and many other deniers to any of the facts that may come out.

The other classic trotted out by this man was that the big bad education system is indoctrinating our children. After this comment, the rest of the question and answer period was devoted to those liberal teachers who dare show An Inconvenient Truth in their classroom and how we are systematically destroying the ability of our students to debate. Now, mind you, this man has no evidence to back up such a claim and I would daresay that he hasn't set foot in a classroom in many years. It is this type of vitriol towards educators and education that consistently makes my job and the job of teachers everywhere more difficult.

I have NEVER used my position as a teacher to push any agenda, whether liberal or conservative, and have always encouraged my students to discover their beliefs for themselves. I want my students to think for themselves whether that thinking leads them to conservative thought or to liberal thought or somewhere in between. THAT is the difference between myself and this man and dare I say many other deniers. He does not truly want both sides covered. He wants his side covered and the other side dismissed as tantamount to Nazism.

Cross Posted on St. Cloud Times
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GW Denial Forum: Frequency & Intensity
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While I hate to wonder about the education Mr. Taylor received, it does boggle the mind in this particular segment (number five in our series) to hear him mistake the word frequency for the word intensity. Now it is understandable if Mr. Taylor wants to ignore the findings of Al Gore and the vast majority of scientists throughout the world but if he is going to try to discredit their evidence on the INTENSITY of hurricanes he really ought to use the proper words. Given that Gore never related the FREQUENCY of hurricanes to global warming you will find Taylor using a classic strawman argument to prove a point that was never in question.



"The scientific evidence has piled on high against the theory that hurricanes are increasing as a result of global warming."


You are right about one thing, Mr. Taylor, that science has not accepted the theory that hurricanes are increasing as a result of global warming. However, the problem is that Al Gore NEVER SAID THAT! What he did say was that hurricane intensity was increasing.

Mr. Taylor goes to an article by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) to prove his point. Now I don't know how many times we will have to point out that Mr. Taylor is cherry picking from a source that accepts anthroprogenic global warming, but here we go again. In its frequently asked questions about global warming, NOAA says outright that there is "no scientific debate" on the subject.

Setting up his strawman, Taylor reads from the article believing that he has effectively destroyed his strawman. Unfortunately, that same article supports the actual statement of Gore saying that the intensity of hurricanes is increasing due to warming ocean waters.

Hurricanes need warm ocean waters to strengthen and sustain them. Hurricanes do not form unless water temperatures are at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit — hot enough to create atmospheric convection that casts moisture 10 miles up into the atmosphere. Ocean waters were generally two to three degrees Fahrenheit warmer than average during the 2005 season, which favored stronger hurricanes.


Additionally, an article from 2006 indicates that anthroprogenic global warming has contributed to increases in ocean temperatures.

The region of the tropical Atlantic where many hurricanes originate has warmed by several tenths of a degree Celsius over the 20th century, and new climate model simulations suggest that human activity, such as increasing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, may contribute significantly to this warming.


The rest of the video consists of Taylor building up his strawman with statements from other renowned hurricane experts refuting the idea of increasing frequency. It is impossible to dispute these facts but important to point out once again that the point made by Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth was that the intensity was increasing and not the frequency. Thus, these additional quotes become entirely irrelevant to the debate.

Cross Posted on St. Cloud Times
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GW Denial Forum: Using Climate Change...
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In the fourth piece of our continuing series to examine the Heartland Institute's continued denial of anthroprogenic global warming, we find James Taylor using evidence of climate change to disprove climate change. It is yet another example of Taylor picking one piece of evidence that is even in the slightest way contrary while at the same time ignoring the mountains of evidence provided by a magazine he himself deems "sound science".

While I am not entirely sure how you use evidence that something IS happening to prove that it ISN'T happening but here we go:



Let us for a moment examine a couple of key sentences:

"Sound science has proved that global warming is not causing any such recession of Himalayan glaciers."


Really? Mr. Taylor used an article from National Geographic in order to prove his point so I went to National Geographic given that he has termed this magazine "sound science". What you find is that either National Geographic has been taken over by a bunch of liberals or Mr. Taylor has cherry picked an article that suits his argument. First, the magazine put out a Global Warming Fast Facts piece last year that essentially supports the notion held by the IPCC and all but ignores the evidence provided by the Heartland Institute.

As to the claim made by Taylor regarding the Himalayas, a search of the same magazine he uses yields articles that show climate change affecting glaciers in many parts of the Himalyas.
The other sentence in question:

"National Geographic Magazine reported on September 11, 2006, in an article ironically enough entitled Some Glaciers growing due to Climate Change"


Mr. Taylor, are you really trying to tell us that an article discussing the "regionally varying effects" of climate change proves that anthroprogenic climate change isn't real?

This is now the second instance where Taylor tries to use evidence from scientists who believe in anthroprogenic climate change to disprove anthroprogenic climate change. Someone should really tell Mr. Taylor if there is so much "sound science" refuting climate change, then he should probably stop using evidence from scientists who believe in that climate change.

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GW Denial Forum: If You Keep Saying It...
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We often hear that if you make a claim often enough and loud enough there will come a point when that claim becomes truth. James Taylor has mastered this technique and seeks to solidify his "truth" for an audience of mostly willing participants. In the next post in our series (which actually occurs before the video in the first post) we examine another claim made by Mr. Taylor about the Kilimanjaro reference in the film by Al Gore. By the by, as an educator I would say that Mr. Taylor is an absolutely horrendous teacher due to that fact that he flies through his information at such a speed (especially given the nature of that information) that I daresay not a single person in that room retained the details. Perhaps, though, that is the genius of Mr. Taylor for all you need to know as a global warming denier is that this man cited some article that said something that just might question anthroprogenic global warming.

Once again, I present to you Mr. Taylor:


At the beginning, Mr. Taylor once again makes the claim that the Earth has warmed 0.6 degrees since the end of the Little Ice Age. However, if you visit the Goddard Institute for Space Studies you will find that the Earth has actually warmed 0.8 degrees in the past century with 0.6 degrees of that warming coming in the past three decades. Given that this information is around 2 years old, you have to wonder why a man so interested in the science would have ignored this data.

Global warming is now 0.6°C in the past three decades and 0.8°C in the past century. It is no longer correct to say that "most global warming occurred before 1940". More specifically, there was slow global warming, with large fluctuations, over the century up to 1975 and subsequent rapid warming of almost 0.2°C per decade.


Taylor goes on to reference an article he found in Nature Magazine about the glacier found on Mount Kilimanjaro. Given that Mr. Taylor uses Nature Magazine and must hold its findings in high regard I decided to do a little experiment. If you go to their website and do a search for "Global Warming" it yields 1,744 results. I would challenge anyone to go to through those results (subscription required) and find a majority of articles that challenge anthroprogenic global warming. If Mr. Taylor and others claim that the majority of science refutes global warming it shouldn't very difficult to make such a collection of articles.

The article he does use, "African Ice Under Wraps" by Betsy Mason does indeed discuss the idea that deforestation is the cause for the shrinking Kilimanjaro ice cap. However, it is unclear whether this entirely discounts global warming as Mr. Taylor tries to assert or, more likely, that this is not the most pertinent example that could be found.

After hearing this, the friend I attended the Denial Forum with made a good point. If farmers cutting down trees can have an affect on the climate of a mountain, then why is it so difficult to believe that humans all over the planet can have an affect on the climate of the globe?

The folks over at Real Climate do an excellent job of fisking this claim as well:

The Heartland Institute's propagation of the notion that the Kilimanjaro glacier retreat has been proved to be due to deforestation is even more egregious. They quote "an article published in Nature" by Betsy Mason ("African ice under wraps," Nature, 24 November, 2003) which contains the statement "Although it's tempting to blame the ice loss on global warming, researchers think that deforestation of the mountain's foothills is the more likely culprit." Elsewhere, Heartland refers to this as a "study." The "study" is in reality no scientific study at all, but a news piece devoted almost entirely to Euan Nesbit's proposal to save the Kilimanjaro glacier by wrapping it in a giant tarp. The article never says who the "experts" are, nor does it quote any scientific studies supporting the claim. The Mason news article is what Crichton quotes as "peer reviewed research" proving that it is deforestation, not global warming, which is causing the Kilimanjaro glaciers to retreat. (George Monbiot's article in The Guardian documents a similar case of systematic misrepresentation of glacier data by skeptics.)


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GW Denial Forum: Cherry Picking Begins
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5:21 PM | Posted in
This will be the first in a multi post address of the "debate" that occurred after the one hour viewing of An Inconvenient Truth. James Taylor returned to the stage in order to "shed light" on some of the issues mentioned by Al Gore. Mind you, there was no one allowed on the stage who could have challenged the assertions made by Mr. Taylor which is precisely why this was in no way an honest discussion of global warming.














Stop for a moment and think about what Mr. Taylor just attempted to accomplish. His entire argument from the start has been that ALL of the science refutes the concept of anthroprogenic global warming. Yet, he is using the work of two scientists who believe in anthroprogenic global warming but are studying what other factors are in play at Mount Kilimanjaro.

In fact, even though Taylor cherry picks the sentences he feels suit his argument best, if you go and read the entire article you will find that the two scientists in question do not claim, as Mr. Taylor does, that global warming has nothing to do with the ice loss on Kilimanjaro. Rather, they have this to say:

Year-to-year variability and longer-term trends in the seasonal distribution of moisture are influenced by the surface temperatures of the tropical oceans, which, in turn, are influenced by global climate. On many tropical glaciers, both the direct impact of global warming and the indirect one—changes in atmospheric moisture concentration—are responsible for the observed mass losses. The mere fact that ice is disappearing sheds no light on which mechanism is responsible.


The fact that the loss of ice on Mount Kilimanjaro cannot be used as proof of global warming does not mean that the Earth is not warming. There is ample and conclusive evidence that Earth's average temperature has increased in the past 100 years, and the decline of mid- and high-latitude glaciers is a major piece of evidence. But the special conditions on Kilimanjaro make it unlike the higher-latitude mountains, whose glaciers are shrinking because of rising atmospheric temperatures. Mass- and energy-balance considerations and the shapes of features all point in the same direction, suggesting an insignificant role for atmospheric temperature in the fluctuations of Kilimanjaro's ice.


It is possible, though, that there is an indirect connection between the accumulation of greenhouse gases and Kilimanjaro's disappearing ice: There is strong evidence of an association over the past 200 years or so between Indian Ocean surface temperatures and the atmospheric circulation and precipitation patterns that either feed or starve the ice on Kilimanjaro. These patterns have been starving the ice since the late 19th century—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say simply reversing the binge of ice growth in the third quarter of the 19th century. Any contribution of rising greenhouse gases to this circulation pattern necessarily emerged only in the last few decades; hence it is responsible for at most a fraction of the recent decline in ice and a much smaller fraction of the total decline.


Interesting that Mr. Taylor doesn't add in the evidence provided by these scientists indicating possible indirect connections to anthroprogenic global warming. If he was truly interested in the science as he claims he would not have been cherrypicking his evidence so clearly. For other, more detailed rebuttals, you can check out Real Climate.
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GW Denial Forum: Introduction
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On April 17th, roughly 80 people assembled into the auditorium at Elk River High School to hear what was touted as a balanced presentation of the global warming "debate". Unfortunately, both the organizers and the presenter were deniers and thus controlled the flow and direction of the discussion. The following is the introduction of the presentation given by James Taylor of the Heartland Institute. We will have a deeper examination of Heartland and its "nonpartisan" nature of denying negative effects of smoking as well as their connection to the oil industry but for now we focus on this introduction.

The following is the introduction given by Mr. Taylor:


In his remarks he makes the claim that temperatures had been 2-3 degrees warmer than today without giving any explanation of where he came by such a figure. It becomes difficult to refute such a claim without knowing how he came to such a conclusion. However, it appears he was using a regional climate reading and attributing that to the globe as a whole. At Real Climate, there is a good refutation of such claims.

As part of the presentation, Taylor discusses how he will be showing roughly an hour of the Al Gore film, An Inconvenient Truth. I asked Mr. Taylor after the forum was over if he had received permission to show the film and he seemed a bit befuddled until a female supporter jumped in and declared that because it was a free event they need not seek permission. His final comment to my question about copyright was "Al Gore has enough money".

While I am no expert on copyright law, I did find the website of Swank Motion Pictures who own the rights to the film. In order to find out more about whether there is a potential copyright violation here I emailed the group with the following message:

To whom it may concern,

On April 17th, 2008 I attended a global warming forum in Elk River, Minnesota, put on by James Taylor of the Heartland Institute and some area legislators. At that event they showed an hour of your film An Inconvenient Truth. When I asked Mr. Taylor if they had received permission he claimed he did not need permission due to the nature of the event and that there was no charge for attendance.

I am curious as to whether this may be an infringement of your copyright?


Here is my question and the response given by Mr. Taylor. I apologize for the video but the audio is clear.



Cross Posted on St. Cloud Times
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GW Denial Forum: Senator Jungbauer
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Senator Mike Jungbauer introduced the global warming denial tour in Elk River, Minnesota. While much of his speech centered around his own experiences in denying global warming while accepting whole heartedly any science that might shed even the slightest doubt on the phenomenon, what was particularly interesting was the constituency Jungbauer claimed to never think about working for in the state legislature. What might that constituency be? Gays? Liberals? Minorities? Nope, Mr. Jungbauer NEVER thought that he would be working for the poor when he got to the legislature.

Most people will not be shocked to learn that a Republican would never consider working for the poor but to hear it straight from the horses mouth sure does make one wonder if Republicans will be just coming out and admitting they only work for the wealthy rather than trying to hide it behind rhetoric.



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GW Denier Forum: "Al Gore Is A Nazi"
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A friend of mine and I ventured out to Elk River tonight to check out the Global Warming Isn't Real Forum put on by local conservative legislators and the Heartland Institute.

Highlights include:

*Apparently Representative Jungbauer never believed he would be going to the legislature to work for the poor.

*An objective look at global warming means showing An Inconvenient Truth, allowing a global warming denier to cherry pick information in order to cast doubt on its content, then showing The Great Global Warming Swindle after which the same global warming denier controls the stage questioning none of its content.

*During questioning time, everyone's favorite scapegoat, educators were soundly raked over the coals for daring to show the Al Gore film. Oh, and apparently Al Gore is tantamount to Nazi filmaker Leni Reifenstahl.

I don't have the time or the energy to upload the corresponding youtubes with evidence conveniently left out of the discussion, however stay tuned as this will be a good one!

The question I have though, is what sort of copyright laws this group may have violated by showing An Inconvenient Truth without paying for it or getting consent. Perhaps we will have to look into that one a little closer.
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