Sir John Lawton, chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution which advises the government, made what the Independent newspaper said was a thinly disguised attack on the stance of U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration.
“The increased intensity of these kinds of extreme storms is very likely to be due to global warming,” Lawton told the newspaper in an interview.
“If this makes the climate loonies in the States realize we’ve got a problem, some good will come out of a truly awful situation,” said Lawton.
I think his remarks are a slander on the venerable Loony Party.
Climate change policies sharply divide Bush from many other world leaders who have signed up for caps on emissions of greenhouse gases under the U.N.’s Kyoto protocol. Bush pulled out of Kyoto in 2001, saying it was too expensive and wrongly excluded developing nations from a first round of caps to 2012.
Asked what conclusion the Bush administration should draw from two powerful hurricanes hitting the United States in quick succession, Lawton said:
“If what looks like is going to be a horrible mess causes the extreme skeptics about climate change in the U.S. to reconsider their opinion, that would be an extremely valuable outcome.
“There are a group of people in various parts of the world … who simply don’t want to accept human activities can change climate and are changing the climate. I’d liken them to the people who denied that smoking causes lung cancer.”
So when we have zero hurricanes next year, will the same people declare that it’s due to “global cooling?”
Is the globe warming? Yes. Will it cool down? Probably – it has everytime it’s warmed before…why not now? Is the warming caused by human (some would like to say, “the activity of The United States of America alone) activity? Probably not. The computer models…suck.
Yet another example of the lengths that W-haters will go to in order to make their case, and why they choose global warming is a total mystery to me. If you hate the guy, there are plenty of reasonable, rational, factual arguments you can make.
The process of global warming is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes thousands of years (hell..maybe even thousands UPON thousands) to produce a global climate change of one or two degrees. Scientifically and historically speaking, the earth goes through such warming and cooling periods AS A NATURAL OCCURENCE, without any human intervention.
Without question, pollution is bad. And as technology improves, we should make a conscious effort to improve our emissions and recycling technologies. But it should be just that…part of the natural progression of technology and human advancement, not sacrificing economies or human livelihood for the sake of an argument that is a pipe-dream at best. Bush has been in office almost 6 years now. Six years to destroy a climate? Ridiculous.
Using the global warming argument to blame Bush for the hurricanes? Who is the REAL looney here?
Neo-cons – Keeping America stupid and greedy for over a 20th of a century.
The Weather is fine, go back to watching your TV.
Wait a while, the Lefties will be accusing Bush of using Rita to cleanse Texas of hispanics/poor like he used Katrina to cleanse Louisiana of blacks. Obviously, Bush controls the weather to benefit his conservative cronies… right?
When El Nino comes we have almost zero hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin and they blame that on Global Warming! Everytime there is a catastrophe these people blame global warming no matter what you do. Catostrophic events have occurred since the planet Earth was formed…it’s not the first time nor will it be the last time.
It’s amazing everything is Bush’s fault. Thanks to Bush my 5 year old car battery died. It’s Bush’s fault I got a speeding ticket.
Isn’t someone concerned about stronger typhoons hitting the Chinese mainland (or surrounding countries) if they keep emitting more and more greenhouse gases? Or would they blame Bush for that?
You have to admit though, if the storms are caused by global warming, there’s some sort of irony in the fact that they’re running roughshod over a bunch of oil refineries.
I won’t comment on whether or not the storms are caused by global warming because I don’t know the science well enough to say. I will say that Bush sucks for pulling out of Kyoto because air pollution is a bad thing whether it causes climate change or not.
Wow we had more hurricanes 70 years ago but somehow global warming is responsible for more hurricanes, tornados, thunderstorms, floods, droughts and BLIZZARDS.
Somehow the Russian scientists reached a different conclusion that all of these guys who believe in glbal warming are the loonies. They only signed on to Kyoto because they make lots of money out of it. Even TOny Blair admits there won’t be a successor to Kyoto after 2012.
Is is his fault, no. Is it too late, probably. Is he a narrow minded intellectually impaired fool voted into office by deluded people that wanted to return to a, “Leave it to Beaver”, era that never existed in the first place?
The debate about global warming can go on forever. Nobody can prove that human activity causes it, just as nobody can prove that it doesn’t. (Although, as Kris states, the world would love to believe that the US causes it.)
Read this article on Science.com about the temperature of the sun increasing and (possibly) causing a related increase in all of the planet’s temperatures. Is this the result of human (or US) activity?
So, Sounds, does this make me a neo-con keeping the world stupid?
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sun_output_030320.html
I take it those who slam the global warming theory are saying that just because they live in places like Pennsilvania where practically
I take it those who slam the global warming theory are saying that just because they live in places like Pennsilvania where practically NOTHING happens?
No, Angel…I say global warming is B.S. from the comfort of sunny florida.
Actually whether global warming is manmade or not can be proven. Take a look at Mars, which has experienced some warming and changes in its atmosphere. Taking a look at a few years worth of data should let scientists isolate out all the variables.
AB CD — don’t waste your words giving credence to the neo-con straw man. Virtually no ecological organization or progressive activists say “global warming is manmade”. Good science describes only that the whole product of the industrial age has contributed – and continues to contribute to natural processes. It would make sense to react to that science by modifying the way we continue to build our economies, especially by utilizing means which put less carbon into the mix.
The reason for the focus on the dolt in the White House is because he leaves us all with nothing more than an administration that relies on prayer instead of science for problem resolution, guns to resolve failed [or non-existent] diplomacy, ignorance and ideology instead of examination, reflection and sound action.
For decades, the United States was a world leader in innovation in science, technology, reasoned concern for future generations. While the nation and most reasonable folks haven’t strayed from that path, our government has abdicated that leadership and turned it over to a pack of right-wing religious kooks whose energies are welcomed by the greediest of short-sighted profiteers.
Measurements of the oceans temperatures have shown an increase over the last few years. Will that have much of an impact on the weather? Yup. Rita was a Category 1 hurricane over the Atlantic and Florida, but the warmer waters of the Gulf fueled Rita into the third most powerful storm on record.
On a longer scale, since 1995 we have seen nine of the 10 hottest years on record. There is strong evidence that the Antarctic and Arctic ice caps are melting; as well as glaciers in the Alps, Himalayas, and Rockies.
For some more facts see:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/global-warming-faq.html
This is not a neo-con versus lefty debate. It is science predicting the future for our foreseeable lifetime. Is Bush responsible for Global Warming? Of course not. He is guilty of ignoring a problem as it increases though.
so what was the equivalent “global warming” previously? Many cooler areas (like the Pacific Northwest and Canada) were tropical…. and many currently nice areas were tundra. Seems a bit more complex, doesn’t it? I can’t believe the easy answer of “greenhouse gas/global warming”. Seems that there are some chunks amiss.
…If the ice melting in Siberia is releasing huge amounts of methane….then, what can I conclude? It was in the atmostphere…since the ice froze…where did it come from? Dinosaur farts? Great quanties of methane can’t be worse than what we have now…. seems it would be a similar effect? But it happened when an ice age was starting? I’m confused….
The question is…..is global warming/cooling a NORMAL cycle?
Remember the famous picture of Washington crossing the froze, icy Delaware? The climate has been generally getting warmer and then colder, and then warmer…..it seems like some long, weird cycle to me.
I’m sorry, there must either a very large long cycle……that we just don’t have the perspectives to view.
Are we jumping to conclusions ?
>Good science describes only that the whole product of the industrial age >has contributed – and continues to contribute to natural processes.
Seems like you are trying to define good science, and anything that contradicts that is automatically bad. There is a great deal of uncertainty on all of these questions, which the UN activists never mention. Try reading the scientists’ section of an IPCC report and compare it to the media reports. It was Russian scientists that declared this global warming focus to be a waste of time.
Wow, even the Union of Concerned Scientists can’t give out definite answers. They basically have no idea what’s going on, because that’s the state of the science. There is no real evidence that the Antarctic ice cap is melting, since it is actually getting bigger while losing area. The Peninsula that is cracking icebergs is a small part. The melting of the North Pole icecap has no effect on seawater height.
You might consider reading the appendices to State of Fear to get a better picture on global warming.