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From what I read and hear, one dare not say anything against 'Global Warming' - Has it become a Religion and not just a theory ?
I just Wikkied Mr Spann and got this:
*Global warming In January 2007, Spann attracted worldwide publicity by disputing the theory that atmospheric temperature increases, better known as global warming, observed in the 1930s and since the 1970s were man-made. Instead, he asserts that they are naturally caused, as part of the Earth's climate's cyclical nature. [2]
He asserts that it is money from research grants rather than genuine science that fuels support for the global warming hypothesis:
'Billions of dollars of grant money is flowing into the pockets of those on the man-made global warming bandwagon. No man-made global warming, the money dries up. This is big money, make no mistake about it. Always follow the money trail and it tells a story. Even the lady at “The Weather Channel” probably gets paid good money for a prime time show on climate change. No man-made global warming, no show, and no salary. Nothing wrong with making money at all, but when money becomes the motivation for a scientific conclusion, then we have a problem. For many, global warming is a big cash grab. [2]
Spann was countering a statement made by Heidi Cullen, a staff meteorologist with The Weather Channel, who had written that those who disagreed with the view that global warming was caused by man-made events should not be given the Seal of Approval by the American Meteorological Society. Spann's remarks in his station's weather blog were linked to by the Drudge Report, which thrust Spann — a well-known personality in north and central Alabama, but little known outside that area — into the larger spotlight.[3]
[edit] Career Spann began his broadcast career in Tuscaloosa, his hometown, in 1973 at WTBC-AM radio. He later was the afternoon-drive announcer at Top 40 station WHHY-FM ("Y102") in Montgomery. His television career has included stints in Tuscaloosa (at 33/40 predecessor WCFT, the "33" in 33/40), Montgomery, Alabama (WSFA), Dallas (KDFW), at two other Birmingham stations, WBRC and WVTM. His 1996 departure from WBRC made local headlines when he left the station, which had just been purchased by News Corporation and was switching its network affiliation to News Corp.-owned Fox. Spann was unhappy with Fox's then-steady diet of reality shows and other programming that he considered to be offensive and in opposition to his evangelical Christian views. Spann ended up at the newly-formed ABC 33/40, which had merged WCFT with WJSU Channel 40 in Anniston and a new low-power repeater in Birmingham, and had taken over the ABC network affiliation that WBRC held before the switch.'
Spann is the founder of The Weather Company, [3] which provides broadcast weather forecasts for a number of radio stations and weather data for industrial and business clients.
Spann is well-known to viewers for his encyclopedic knowledge of Alabama geography. In severe weather coverage, he often locates storm system features by reference to tiny communities,obscure country roads, gas stations, and barbecue restaurants.
Beginning in 2007, Spann could be heard by listeners of the Rick and Bubba Show, a popular syndicated radio show based in Birmingham but heard throughout the country, mainly in the Southeast. Spann's tenure began when the show switched flagship stations in Birmingham to WZZK-FM, where Spann's forecasts had been heard for some time beforehand.
Spann is also the chairman and one of the founders of AllWorship.com, a non-profit organization webcasting three streaming radio stations which feature worship music in English and Spanish. The organization grew out of WRRS/Reailty Radio, a commercial FM radio station that broadcast Contemporary Christian music in the Birmingham market from 2000 to 2001.*
A bit boring to plod all through that, but in my opinion it gives one a better picture of the man who made the statements quoted above. He's one guy. He has vested interests, as do those on the other side of the argument. It's just a question of taking your pick about who to trust, and noting how many other people do agree with/trust them.
10/10/07
The Gore movie: A British judge set out nine alleged errors in the film in which statements were made that were not supported by the current mainstream scientific consensus.
ERROR: Mr Gore asserted that a sea-level rise of up to 20 feet would be caused by melting of either West Antarctica or Greenland "in the near future".
The judge said: "This is distinctly alarmist and part of Mr Gore's "wake-up call".
It was common ground that if Greenland melted it would release this amount of water - "but only after, and over, millennia."
ERROR: The film had also asserted that low-lying inhabited Pacific atolls "are being inundated because of anthropogenic global warming" - but there was no evidence of any evacuation having yet happened.
ERROR: The documentary had also spoken of global warming "shutting down the Ocean Conveyor" - the process by which the Gulf Stream is carried over the North Atlantic to western Europe.
The judge said that, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it was "very unlikely" that the Ocean Conveyor, also known as the Meridional Overturning Circulation, would shut down in the future, though it might slow down.
ERROR: Mr Gore had also asserted - by ridiculing the opposite view - that two graphs, one plotting a rise in C02 and the other the rise in temperature over a period of 650,000 years, showed "an exact fit".
The judge said that, although there was general scientific agreement that there was a connection, "the two graphs do not establish what Mr Gore asserts".
ERROR: Mr Gore had asserted that the disappearance of snow on Mt Kilimanjaro was expressly attributable to global warming. The judge said this had "specifically impressed" the Environment Secretary David Miliband.
But the scientific consensus was that it cannot be established that the recession of snows on Mt Kilimanjaro is mainly attributable to human-induced climate change.
ERROR: The drying up of Lake Chad was used in the film as a prime example of a catastrophic result of global warming, said the judge.
"However, it is generally accepted that the evidence remains insufficient to establish such an attribution.
"It is apparently considered to be far more likely to result from other factors, such as population increase and over-grazing, and regional climate variability."
ERROR: Mr Gore ascribes Hurricane Katrina and the consequent devastation in New Orleans to global warming, but there was "insufficient evidence to show that".
ERROR: MR Gore had also referred to a new scientific study showing that, for the first time, polar bears were being found that had actually drowned "swimming long distances - up to 60 miles - to find the ice".
The judge said: "The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm."
That was not to say there might not in future be drowning-related deaths of bears if the trend of regression of pack ice continued - "but it plainly does not support Mr Gore's description".
ERROR: Mr Gore said in the film that coral reefs all over the world were bleaching because of global warming and other factors.
The judge said the IPCC had reported that, if temperatures were to rise by 1-3 degrees centigrade, there would be increased coral bleaching and mortality, unless the coral could adapt.
But separating the impacts of stresses due to climate change from other stresses, such as over-fishing, and pollution was difficult.
A Government spokesperson said it was not proposing to make any further comment on the case at present.
3/14/09 - Stated very well: Czech President Vaclav Klaus says many global warming advocates are more interested in money than they are in climate change.
Speaking at the opening session of the Second International Conference on Climate Change last week in New York, Klaus — who is also President pro-tem of the European Union — warned that politicians have “succeeded in creating incentives which led to the rise of a very powerful [profit]-seeking group.
“These people are interested neither in temperature, CO2, competing scientific hypotheses and their testing, nor in freedom or markets. They are interested in their businesses and their profits — made with the help of politicians.”
They will profit, he said, from trading the licenses to emit carbon dioxide, and from constructing unproductive wind, solar and similar equipment able to generate electricity only with high levels of subsidies.
They will also make money from doing research, writing and speaking about global warming.
At the New York conference, sponsored by the Heartland Institute and attended by more than 700 scientists, Klaus declared that “there is no fixed and stable relationship between measured temperature and CO2 emissions.
“The believers in this hypothesis are not able to explain why the global temperature increased from 1918 to 1940, decreased from 1940 to 1976, increased from 1976 to 1998 and decreased from 1998 to the present, irrespective of the fact that people have been adding increasing amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere.”
He said global warming alarmists “want to change us and our behavior. Their ambition is to control and manipulate us.”
The global warming debate “has not made any detectable progress and the much needed, long overdue exchange of views has not yet started. All we see and hear are uninspiring monologues.
“It reminds me of the frustration people like me felt in the Communist era. Whatever you said, any convincing and well prepared arguments you used, any relevant data you assembled — no reaction. It all fell into emptiness. Nobody listened.
“They didn't even try to argue back. They considered you a naive, uninformed and confused person, an eccentric, a complainer, someone not able to accept their only truth. It is very similar now.”
Recalling his experience at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he said he spent three hours at a closed session with about 60 people - heads of state and “experts” like Al Gore, Tony Blair and Kofi Annan.
“It was a discouraging experience. You looked around in vain to find at least one person who would share your views. There was no one.
“All the participants of the meeting took man-made global warming for granted, were convinced of its dangerous consequences, and more or less competed in one special discipline — whether to suggest a 20, 30, 50 or 80 percent CO2 emissions cut as an agreed-upon, world-wide project. It was difficult to say anything meaningful and constructive.”
Newsmax reported earlier that during the Davos conference in January, Klaus said: "I'm very sorry that some people like Al Gore are not ready to listen to the competing theories. I do listen to them.
"Environmentalism and the global warming alarmism is challenging our freedom. Al Gore is an important person in this movement."
Klaus concluded in New York: “The environmentalists speak about ‘saving the planet.’ From what? And from whom? One thing I know for sure: We have to save it - and us — from them.”
6/30/08: An award-winning meteorologist has written an article debunking fears of man-made global warming — and predicting that global cooling could be a more likely problem.
James Spann, chief meteorologist at station ABC 33/40 in Birmingham, Ala., first attracted worldwide publicity back in January 2007 when he disputed the assertion that global warming was caused by human activity, instead insisting it is part of the earth’s regular climate cycle.
Now he has posted an article on his station’s Weather Blog, headlined “Global Warming Movement Turns Cool,” which reads in part: “Two years ago, it seemed like nothing could stop the global warming train. Most of the media, those in Hollywood, politicians (many on both sides of the cultural divide), and ‘enlightened environmentalists’ were all telling us that man was causing runaway warming of the earth’s atmosphere, meaning global catastrophe only decades ahead for all of us. Scary stuff.
“The problem is that a majority of those in this almost religious movement have little training in atmospheric science, and little understanding of the issue. They jumped on the bandwagon because it matches their worldview, or pads their pocket.”
The simple truth is that the man-made global warming train has “slowed to a crawl” and the riders are “jumping off as the facts are discovered,” writes Spann, who has been named his state’s best weather anchor nine times and won an Emmy Award for his tornado coverage in December 2000.
Spann notes that the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine this month announced that 31,072 American scientists signed a petition stating that “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will cause in the future, catastrophic heating of the earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the earth’s climate.”
Spann acknowledges that the climate is changing, but maintains that it always has changed and always will. He points to these “simple facts”:
The earth is no warmer now than it was in 1998. Carbon dioxide, which is being blamed for global warming, is not a pollutant but a gas indispensable to plant life. Plants, in turn, release oxygen, which sustains animal and human life. The primary greenhouse gas is not carbon dioxide, but water vapor. The lack of solar activity in recent months suggests global cooling might be our biggest potential climate change problem in coming years. “I have been doing the weather on local television for 30 years, and every year I have had people come up to me and tell me that they can ‘never remember the weather being this strange,’” Spann writes.
John Coleman, meteorologist and founder of The Weather Channel, has called the global warming movement the greatest scam in history, Spann points out, adding, “I encourage all of you to read material on both sides of the issue and make up your own mind.”
Amblessed, this is the one area where you and I really disagree.
As an evanglical Christian myself I would argue that it's global warming denial which has become an article of faith for some American evangelicals, rather than GW itself being a religion.
The science studying global warming is complex and the attempts by governments and individuals to respond to it seem nothing more than common sense, to me.
Instead, the 'blind faith', or even 'ignorant faith' I see is when people attempt to link a minority political view to their religious belief. Remember, this is my faith we're talking about, not just yours, this is my Creator God who is seeing His world mucked up, not just yours. I find it very embarassing to see the bad witness going on when a few American evangelicals decide to link their opinions with their witness to God.
It is only 'a few' - please check out the Creation Care website of the American Evangelical Environmental Network to realise that many evangelicals in the US take global warming seriously.
It is also almost entirely only in the US - I'm a British evangelical in an international evangelical church and only the Americans (and indeed only a few of them) hold global-warming-denial to be an article of their faith.
And I really think you are holding it as an article of faith. God is going to judge me as well as you, and it's always easier to see what he'll judge others for than to spot our own sins, but I truly believe that your lack of Creation Care is going to be a big issue for you. And I also believe you'll be judged on earth by our children and grandchildren, who have to deal with the problems left by our generations.
So, I think you hold a minority political opinion - not usually a sin, and sometimes a positive virtue! But this one is more dangerous than most. Please, whatever you do, don't confuse people disagreeing with you with religious persecution. They're simply paying better attention to the facts and letting political bias affect them less, on this occasion.
1/13/08
A cardinal in the Catholic Church says the hysteria over man-made climate change is akin to a “new religion” and a symptom of “pagan emptiness.”
Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, Australia, has been the target of criticism in his country for expressing doubts about the validity of man-made global warming.
In an interview that appeared in The Catholic World Report, he said: “Right now, the mass media, politicians, many church figures, and the public generally seem to have embraced even the wilder claims about man-made climate change as if they constituted a new religion.
“These days, for any public figure to question the basis of what amounts to green fundamentalist faith is tantamount to heresy.”
Cardinal Pell called long-term weather forecasting “notoriously imprecise,” and pointed to predictions in the 1970s that the planet was about to enter a new ice age because of global cooling.
He said some of the more “hysterical and extreme” claims about impending climate change “appear symptomatic of a pagan emptiness, of a Western fear when confronted by the immense and basically uncontrollable forces of nature…
“It’s almost as though people without religion, who don’t belong to any of the great religious traditions, have got to be frightened of something. Perhaps they’re looking for a cause that is almost a substitute for religion.”
As for Al Gore’s message of doom about climate change, Cardinal Pell noted that there are “significant errors” in his film “An Inconvenient Truth,” and added: “Few of us have the scientific knowledge to question the wild claims Gore has made — other than some grains of common sense.”
It isn't that global warming is a religion, it is just that the vast majority of climate scientists agree that global warming is real and a huge ecological problem. Global warming skeptics are being relegated to the lunatic fringe.
There are people who still believe the Earth is flat even though we have pictures of it from space and there are people who believe the Earth is only about 6000 years old even though every scientific method of measuring its age indicates it is about 4.5 billion years old. People can believe anything they want but just because there are a few credentialed scientists who disagree with the vast majority this does not mean that we should consider both sides to be equally valid.
Much of the funding of global warming skeptics came from the fossil fuel industry and even they are having to acknowledge that global warming is real. They still fund a few "think tanks" who's job is to put the skeptical position in the media as much as possible but like the way tobacco companies eventually had to admit that cigarettes kill people the fossil fuel industry is beginning to admit that burning fossil fuels contributes to global warming.
Global warming is a theory much like gravity is a theory.
amblessed, you might be interested in this...
the National Association of Evangelicals have produced a statement titled, “For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility.” One of the priorities listed was working to protect God’s creation.
The statement declared “God-given dominion” is a “sacred responsibility” that rejects “depletion” and “destruction” of creation. Instead, “our uses of the Earth must be designed to conserve and renew the Earth.”
Bible-believing Christians now understand that their worldview affects all of life, not just personal salvation. It deals with the work place, the neighborhood, politics, arts, and, yes, the environment.
also, this is a great website. http://green.yahoo.com/blog/ecogeek/244/high-school-teacher-spreads-the-word-on-climate-change.html
it does not call for your belief or disbelief in global warming, just weighs the results. it was produced by a teacher.
Jacques Cousteau also said we should take all measures to limit CO2. This interview was 10 years ago and we know a lot more about global warming now than we did then.
The extent of Global Wamring is uncertain because our climate models are not perfect. Some systems self-regulate while other systems can run away after reaching a tipping point and all the ways that systems interact with each other are not known. At no point in Earth's history has the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere increased as quickly as it has since the beginning of our industrial revolution so we have no historical data to go on. As far as I'm concerned we are already playing with fire so to speak.
There are a number of phenomena that scientists have observed since Cousteau's 1996 interview that has increase concerns about global warming. Were Cousteau still alive chances are that he would be more concerned about global warming than he was.
2/18/08: A new report from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that reveal that almost all the allegedly “lost” ice has come back. A NOAA report shows that ice levels which had shrunk from 5 million square miles in January 2007 to just 1.5 million square miles in October, are almost back to their original levels. Moreover, a Feb. 18 report in the London Daily Express showed that there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than usual. The Daily express recalls the photograph of polar bears clinging on to a melting iceberg which has been widely hailed as proof of the need to fight climate change and has been used by former Vice President Al Gore during his "Inconvenient Truth" lectures about mankind’s alleged impact on the global climate. Gore fails to mention that the photograph was taken in the month of August when melting is normal. Or that the polar bear population has soared in recent years.
From ABC news:
"Griffin's comments immediately drew stunned reaction from James Hansen, NASA's top climate scientist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.
"It's an incredibly arrogant and ignorant statement," Hansen told ABC News. "It indicates a complete ignorance of understanding the implications of climate change." "
I won't say that Griffin's a lunatic but he certainly wasn't using logic to come to his conclusion. It doesn't matter whether we now have an optimal climate or not. If global warming increases, the sea levels will rise and millions of acres of crops and homes will be destroyed. That isn't an optimal condition for anyone!
As to whether it's a religion: Global warming offers us no answers to the great philosophical questions and gives us no moral guidance. It is a theory based on evidence and not just faith in the unseen. Just like evolution, it is not a religion. It is science.
"Seventeen-thousand years ago the water level of the sea was 170 meters lower than today. There was no man, no industry, and the greenhouse effect came from volcanic clouds. The cause of the warming up of the earth is not only human it is geophysical. There are decimation periods and their are warming-up periods. We are now in a warming-up period and the level of the sea is increasing four millimeters per year. So I don't know what to say except we should be careful and not add to nature an additional bad factor. But to say we are responsible for the warming up, no. -- The volcanic effects are probably much stronger than the human effects, and what is going to be spilled out of the volcanoes in the future? We don't know. How many spray cans in an eruption of a volcano?" ~ Jacques Cousteau
Above: huge ecological problem - Global warming skeptics are being relegated to the lunatic fringe.
Hmmmmmm.........
Yesterday, NASA administrator Dr Michael Griffin said "I have no doubt that a trend of global warming exists," Griffin told Inskeep. "I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with."
"To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change.
Must not know what he's talking about, right ? - one of those 'lunatics'
Senate report released 12/20/07:
Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called "consensus" on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.
The new report issued by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee's office details the views of the scientists, the overwhelming majority of whom spoke out in 2007.
I use amoeba's websites quite a bit - they're great Christian resources for a green lifestyle and green campaigning. There are other British ones too - most of the Christian Aid Agencies recognise how much Climate Change is affecting/is going to affect the poorest people more than the rest of us, so Tearfund and Christian Aid are big on Climate Change these days.
NOAA: Coolest Winter Since 2001 for U.S., Globe March 13, 2008
The average temperature across both the contiguous U.S. and the globe during climatological winter (December 2007-February 2008) was the coolest since 2001, according to scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center
But for an alternative Christian view, I recommend a good Bible Study from Britain's 'The Evangelical Alliance Relief Fund' (which is snappily known as Tearfund).
http://www.tearfund.org/webdocs/Website/Campaigning/Whose%20life%20Bible%20study%203.pdf
Global Warming has become a religion to some - and you better not say anything against it or you'll be labeled, demonized, etc...freedom of speech/opinion does not apply.
Information: 31,072 signers, including 9,021 PhDs: http://WWW.petitionproject.org/gwdatabase/GWPP/FrequentlyAskedQuestions.HTML
I didn't write that info on the just-released Senate report - you would have to take it up with the author...Merry Christmas !!
Note: Global Warming 'experts' predicted record-setting Hurricane Seasons in '06 and '07...didn't happen.
Founder of the Weather Channel weighs in:
onenewsnow.com/2007/11/founderofweatherchanneldis.php
4/17/09: Denver Colorado is expected to get 29 inches of white global warming today, April !
Interesting article:
//icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/commentsaboutglobal_warming/
Look up, James Lovelock,"The theory of Gaia"...maybe it'll help some. i hope.
I hope not! God will judge what people do...
Thanks for the info amoeba...Take care !!
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