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Date Posted: 13:11:59 08/04/04 Wed
Author: UBFree
Subject: I promise:my last post on GW
In reply to: Chris 's message, "Re: Experiences in Saudi Arabia" on 10:33:43 08/04/04 Wed

Chris, I though this article would provide some balance on the GW debate.

Something funny: Last Feb/March, Al Gore gave speech/diatribe on GW at the Univeristy of New York. The only problem, that day it was snowing and the temperature reached a record low. LOL! God's practical joke on Al Gore and the environmentalitists!
Here is the article::

Boston Globe: Scientists don't agree on global warming

By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist, 11/05/98

See: Boston Globe Article

Underway in Buenos Aires is a giant international conference on global warming, a follow-up to last December's United Nations-sponsored confab in Kyoto, Japan. Delegates to the summit aim to put teeth into the treaty that came out of Kyoto, which calls for the world's leading countries to reduce sharply their use of energy over the next decade and a half. If implemented, the treaty would force the most productive societies on earth - the ones that have led the way in making human life comfortable, safe, and prosperous - to slow their economic growth and degrade their standard of living.

The organizers of the Buenos Aires conference take it for granted, of course, that global warming is real. The ''consensus'' among scientists, it is said, is that the planet's temperature is rising, the cause of the rise is the use of fossil fuels, and disastrous climate changes are looming unless drastic changes are made. The media likewise tend to take it as a given that the experts are in accord on global warming. So do many politicians. ''The evidence of global warming keeps piling up,'' says Vice President Al Gore, who has made the issue a personal crusade, ''month after month, week after week.''

So if the scientists are all in agreement, who said this?

''We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto. ... The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

''There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing (or will in the foreseeable future cause) catastrophic heating of the earth's atmosphere and disruption of the earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the earth.''

The carping of an oil-industry flack? The ignorant mutterings of fringe antienvironmentalists?

No. It is a petition signed by nearly 17,000 US scientists, half of whom are trained in the fields of physics, geophysics, climate science, meteorology, oceanography, chemistry, biology, or biochemistry. The statement was circulated by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine along with an eight-page abstract of the latest research on climate change. The abstract - written for scientists but comprehensible by laymen - concludes that there is no basis for believing (1) that atmospheric CO2 is causing a dangerous climb in global temperatures, (2) that greater concentrations of CO2 would be harmful, or (3) that human activity leads to global warming in the first place.

The cover letter accompanying the petition and abstract was penned by Frederick Seitz, a past president of the National Academy of Sciences. (All these documents are available online at www.oism.org/pproject.) The scientific ''consensus'' on global warming, it turns out, does not exist.

The Oregon Institute petition is no anomaly.

More than 100 climate scientists have endorsed the Leipzig Declaration, which describes the Kyoto treaty as ''dangerously simplistic, quite ineffective, and economically destructive.'' The endorsers include prominent scholars, among them David Aubrey of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute; Larry Brace of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center; meteorologist Austin Hogan, who co-edits the journal Atmospheric Research; Richard Lindzen, the Sloane Professor of Meteorology at MIT; and Patrick Michaels, a University of Virginia professor and past president of the American Association of State Climatologists.

''The dire predictions of a future warming have not been validated by the historic climate record,'' the Leipzig Declaration says bluntly. ''In fact, most climate specialists now agree that actual observations from both weather satellites and balloon-borne radiosondes show no current warming whatsoever - in direct contradiction to computer model results.'' The declaration, plus a wealth of information on every aspect of the global warming controversy, is posted at the Web site of the Science & Environmental Policy Project, www.sepp.org.

What is going on in Buenos Aires is a costly exercise in futility. The United States has not signed the Kyoto treaty; even if President Clinton does sign it, there is no chance the Senate will ratify it. And without US participation, any plan to curtail CO2 emissions is doomed - as it ought to be.

Nevertheless, it is important to explode the myth that most scientists are worried about global warming. Politicians shouldn't be permitted to hijack science in their pursuit of power. Environmentalists and journalists with an antibusiness itch to scratch should be cross-examined whenever they claim there is only one side to an issue of public policy.

We've been down this ''consensus'' road before. Remember when the Chicken Littles were warning that the earth was getting colder? ''The evidence in support of predictions [of global cooling] has now begun to accumulate so massively,'' Newsweek claimed in 1975, ''that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it.'' Except that there was no global cooling. The alarmists were wrong then. They're wrong now.

>To bolster up the existing clich� of anti-American,
>anti-Bush European environment freaks, I have to admit
>that I fit into that category. I think environment
>protection is a basic element of Christian ethics
>rooted already in the first chapter of the Bible. And
>I agree with Tony that many Christians are unaware of
>the importance of this issue and their responsibility
>in this issue. I also agree with Tony that protecting
>the environment has much to do with protecting the
>poor and exploiting the environment goes often along
>with exploiting the poor.
>
>Concerning �global warming� and �climate change�, here
>we have two questions: First, does it really take
>place? Second, is it caused or aggravated by man? I
>think we cannot deny that it is happening. We can see
>in our personal life. As a child, I used to go skiing
>in a low mountain range nearby. When I grew older,
>year by year there was less snow and the winter was
>warmer. The climate in Germany used to be very
>moderate, we had no extremes. But since several years
>we experienced catastrophic rel=nofollow target=_blank >href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/world/newsid_21
>97000/2197973.stm">floods, rel=nofollow target=_blank >href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/aug2003/heat-a1
>4.shtml">heat waves and rel=nofollow target=_blank >href="http://www.rssgmbh.de/eng/projects/disaster/storm
>/storm-2000.html">storms. During the last two
>years we even had disastrous rel=nofollow target=_blank >href="http://www.tornadoliste.de">tornados in
>Germany, I phenomenon that I knew only from the movie
>�twister� before. The rel=nofollow target=_blank >href="http://www.heute.t-online.de/ZDFheute/artikel/25/
>0,1367,MAG-0-2146041,00.html">last one was just
>two weeks ago. Some will say these phenomena have not
>increased, but we only get better and more reports.
>Maybe. But in addition to these things we cannot
>overlook in our everyday life, we have also facts that
>are hard to ignore such as the rel=nofollow target=_blank >href="http://www.solcomhouse.com/hotwater.htm">warming
>of the oceans, but they are not visible in our
>everyday life. So I believe the fact that there is a
>climate change cannot be denied. (The earth has seen
>many rel=nofollow target=_blank >href="http://www.eglofs.rv.schule-bw.de/energie/klima.h
>tm">climate changes in the past anyway, this
>wouldn�t be so unusual in itself.) The second question
>is: Are we guilty of this, is it the cause of
>industrialization? Some say it is to arrogant of man
>to believe he can change the climate. But I believe
>that things like the rel=nofollow target=_blank >href="http://www.atm.ch.cam.ac.uk/tour/">ozone
>holeand rel=nofollow target=_blank >href="http://www.science.gmu.edu/~zli/ghe.html">the
>greenhouse effect need to be studied and the
>industrial countries should make every effort to
>account for this things. Even if not everything is
>100% clear, in case of doubt assume the worst
>scenario. It can never be bad if we develop cars which
>use less fuel and emit fewer pollutants, and if we
>reduce our use of technology drastically. We need not
>live like Amish people, but we can learn something
>from them. Life with less cars and technology can be
>much happier.
>
>Concerning peace politics much could be done better.
>For instance, last year there was a big rel=nofollow target=_blank >href="http://www.science.gmu.edu/~zli/ghe.html">earthqu
>ake in Iran in the city of Bam. What if America
>had immediately helped there, with a huge engagement,
>and millions of dollars (for the war, billions were
>spent!). Wouldn�t it have created at least some
>sympathy for the US in the Muslim world? Germans like
>Americans because they helped us a lot after the war
>and were very friendly. If they had behaved like they
>do not in Iraq, we would think differently. I think a
>little bit of love bombing could do more good than
>massive real bombing, which has already produced
>thousands of new Bin Ladens, worse than the original.
>
>Back to the task of environmental protection: I don�t
>think Christians should ignore this. First, as Tony
>said, this will always be at the expense of the poor
>and the next generation (and we don�t know how many
>generations God will still allow). The argument that
>Jesus will come soon does not count. Even Martin
>Luther believed that the end was near, yet the
>following famous word is attributed to him: �If I knew
>that tomorrow was the end of the world, I would plant
>an apple tree today!� Second, the environment, our
>earth and everything on it is God�s creation and thus
>has a value in itself, is precious and needs to be
>protected (see how God himself protected the animals
>in Noah�s ark!).
>
>Maybe you know the International Council on Biblical
>Inerrancy who published the famous statement on
>biblical inerrancy in 1978. Besides this, they also
>published a statement on biblical hermeneutics in
>1982, and one on biblical application in 1986, which,
>unfortunately, are lesser known. The last article of
>the statement of biblical application (I cannot find
>it in the Internet) speaks a very clear language about
>Christian responsibility for the environment. Maybe
>somebody can find the article. I think Tony would like
>it.
>
>It will be difficult to discuss these issues in detail
>on this web board, since awareness for environmental
>issues is so different in Europe and US. I remember an
>American girl who was send as a �missionary� to my
>chapter and she just laughed about our habits such as
>reusing plastic bags. At that time waste separation in
>every household wasn�t introduced yet. I don�t know
>what she would have said to this.
>
>Inevitably, this will get out of hand and become a
>huge discussion, which must not be bad, but will
>distract from the UBF issues, which is the actual
>topic of this board.
>
>My suggestion is to create an associated �RSQUBF
>Offtopic Board� where we can discuss all off-topic
>questions among the same community of UBF and ex UBF
>members. The two boards could be linked together in
>the header. As soon as a discussion makes a
>digression, we could point to the Offtopic board.
>
>On that board we could discuss many questions of
>Christian ethics, Christian life, Biblical
>hermeneutics, politics, family life or anything else
>that seems important to us. Things that are related to
>UBF only in so far as they are non-issues there. Or
>did you ever read the Chicago statements on Biblical
>inerrancy, hermeneutics and application in Chicago
>UBF? Have ethical questions ever been discussed in UBF
>�conferences�? Has UBF ever cared about the poor in
>the world?
>
>One UBF missionary told me that he was sent on the
>streets, cafes and taverns for fundraising in Korea.
>They told the people that they were collecting money
>for the poor. When he found out that the money was
>used to buy a UBF chapter instead, he was not able to
>go on the street anymore because his conscience told
>him this was deceit. He spoke with his shepherd, who
>justified this proceeding by saying the money was for
>the �spiritually� poor students who need UBF chapters.
>This happened in the 1980s or even 1990s, it was usual
>practice in Korea UBF, even after the same problem had
>been brought up in the 1976 �rebellion.� As Joe
>already pointed out, money had been collected for a
>Bangladesh flood (Tony was not off topic in this
>regard), UBFins sold peanuts, sold their belongings
>and even their blood to raise some money for this
>purpose, but Lee used it for UBF instead. UBF did
>never show real interest in the poor, nor in anything
>else that was going on in the world.

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Replies:

Re: I promise:my last post on GW -- Tony Lang, 03:10:57 08/05/04 Thu
- Re: I promise:my last post on GW -- UBFree, 13:23:19 08/05/04 Thu