Weather Channel John Coleman's Comments Before the San Diego Chamber of Commerce

A huge box came. Weather charts showing isobars, a few books, a WLS T shirt...all kinds of stuff. What a great guy.

And now, thanks to the support of oil lobby shills, a world-class genius on oil policy! What a magic wave of the wand!

Ethanol's popularity is the brainchild of agribusiness, which in turn feeds oil company profits by using oil-based fertilizers. There's little if any net carbon benefit from corn-based biofuel raised on synthetic fertilizers.

More junk from the usual lame sources.

I am completely open to the idea of anthropogenic global warming being a lie. Do you also believe that the greenhouse effect is a farce as well?

So is it overly simplistic to expect that doubling the co2 in the atmosphere could increase the greenhouse effect by about 3%? Of course, we don't know if other factors would balance the increase, or if the increase would cause an imbalance causing a catastrophic feedback loop. Do we know those things?

space guy: Prospero

I 100% agree that we need alternative energy. Cutting consumption is a zero sum game however. What I support is a dramatic increase in funding for alternative energy, principally solar, fusion, and wind power. Oil is sooo 20th century.

Boy me too. Just think for instance, what we could have done with all those wonderful technologies with the billions of dollars we've been throwing down the Iraq rathole every single month since 2003. We might have been able to retrofit every single home in the country with solar HVAC and modified all our gas-powered vehicles to run on any number of other promising technologies. Might even have high-speed electric trains like France has if we didn't blow all our money on war, death, and destruction the way we do. And to think some people still have the gall to look down their noses at France when they're the smart ones and we're the stupid ones. Just kills me.

Actually if I think too hard about the good we could have done with that money instead of the evil we've managed to accomplish with it, I get so depressed I can hardly stand it. So I avoid doing it. Regret's a @!$%#. But I sure do wish we'd stop doing these awful things to ourselves. Not to mention the rest of the world.

This is a completely different issue than anthropogenic global warming, which is a farce and a lie.

I'm not very smart about the fine print on global warming. All I can see is what a huge benefit it would be to every single person who lives in the good old U.S. of A. to eliminate dependence on foreign oil. I guess I don't care how we get there.

But it wasn't Coleman's point. I don't understand why you can't see that.

So Coleman can lie to make his point, and that's okay? Because that is what he has to do to build his argument (which he doesn't really do, btw).

Space,

I'm not arguing anthropogenic global warming: I'm arguing that Coleman tries to make a correlation between Al Gore saying there is GW and $4 a gallon gas. A case he fails to make, but which you try to use to prove that GW is wrong. It's right there in the title.

The money which goes to GW wouldn't go to making gas $3 a gallon. It wouldn't effect that at all. Why can't you admit that you are trying to use an article which has nothing to do with what you are arguing to make a point the article can't make?

The underlying physics does not support the anthropogenic global warming scenario. Anyone with a science degree can figure this out in about 10 hours of research.

And you honestly expect me to believe that a majority consensus of scientists (many with more than a "science degree") have simply sold their scientific credibility for political reasons, or even for money? (Every single one of them? Or enough of them that the remainder simply fall in line despite contrary evidence?) That the doubting minority are simply "coincidentally" tied to lobbyists and/or energy firms? That there is almost ALWAYS just as much of a motive to deny AGW for those you side with, providing just as compelling a reason to doubt their integrity (being in the minority, and all) as the reason you cite against the majority consensus?

If your argument is: "It's just politics" why shouldn't we be wary of the same argument when it comes to your guys? You want to convince people that they're wrong? Stop falling back on: "All these scientists are simply basing their opinions on politics and money."

Well, let's kill the refinery bull@!$%# first. There have been no new refineries in the Us not because of environmentalists but because the oil companies have chosen not to build them. Why? Because oil companies are out to make a profit and they know that oil is a limited resources and they do not wish to have idle refineries. There are no laws on the books which deter oil companies from building new refineries. So that's a crock.

As for drilling for oil: the Gov't has given out leases for oil exploration in this country to all the major oil companies, yet 80% of those leases go unused. Again, why? Because oil companies are in the business of making money. The price goes up, they make more.

As for your coal plant, I don't know the one you're talking about, but there are other problems with coal than just CO2.

First off, the atmosphere currently contains 388 ppm, not 70. Carbon dioxide, although present in much lower concentrations than water, absorbs more infrared radiation than water on a per-molecule basis and contributes about 84% of the total non-water greenhouse gas equivalents, or about 4.2-8.4% of the total greenhouse gas effect. Kind of hard to believe that you're a scientist, or at least a good one.

70ppm is the increase in CO2 - if you'd read the article you'd know that. 315ppm to 385ppm. That's an increase of 0.0315% of the atmosphere to 0.0385%. Less that 4/100ths of 1%. But they never present it that way.

I have a graduate degree in Physical Sciences from one of the top Universities in the country. I feel qualified to be a skeptic if I want.

I'm skeptical that volcanoes are causing the warming, that it's the sun, cosmic rays, or any natural cycle we know of. I'm skeptical that humans are causing the problem, but it is still a major area of possibility that has not be eliminated yet.

Geez.. sorry guys, guess I did come off as kind of an ass up there. I was hungover this morning, not where I wanted to be on a Friday. Here is the site I got my info from: Cold Facts on Global Warming I believe it states things better than I. I too believe that the whole global warming, climate catastrophe hoopla is as much propaganda as anything, but on the same note, I also believe that we should take care of our environment as much as possible. At the very least, we won't depend on foreign countries for energy. And with alternative energies, with my favorite being solar, we won't have to disturb the natural beauty that lies in Alaska.

he's not a shill just an idiot.. he thinks that as a weatherman.. he knows climate..
sorta like a airline pilot claiming to be an expert on airline design. He might be, but his field doesn't give him any real experience in the field despite they are so interconnected.
The space guys of the world, love to pick weatherman as it confuses the issue well and the fact they cant find any real climate scientists.
If you look at their faked lists.. the weatherman were the most real part of it, despite they arent really in the field. CAnt really blame the weather men... they are so used to fending off things like "why don't we drop a nuke on a hurricane" and idiot things people say when they think they can go up against the awesome power of nature. NAture is powerfull, but we are like a river carving a canyon .. it may be rock and throwing water on rock generally doesn't do anything.. but over time.. it will erode away a grand canyon.

Thats a statement typically made by people who don't under stand scientific principals and are ideologic in nature.

You attempt to make a connection between those who do not believe in evolution and those who are skeptical about anthropogenic global warming. This is the big lie.

I'm drawing a comparison between their tactics, yes. Because they're eerily similar.

The punch-line to my comment comes at the end with the last quote. Worst case scenario, we leave the world a little better off.

Still, this guys premise seems solely aimed at legitimizing the oil industry, and I don't know many people who think that's a valid path for the future.

So, not only are you drawing a spurious comparison, you are actually aiding and abetting bad science by defending it without understanding it or the problems that it has.

I'm not a scientist, so I can only do what a non-scientist can do. Weigh the information, look at the support each side has, and make up my mind based on the available information.

That is essentially how we go about our lives: We trust the experts, doing what we can to educate ourselves so that we're not trusting people for no good reason.

Again, none of this has anything to do with Coleman's conclusion, which the GW sceptics in the comments here choose to ignore.

Coleman does not make an argument for why gasoline prices are higher because of a belief in Global Warming. That is the crux of his essay, yet he does not make that argument.

He does not prove his point, no matter what you believe about GW. If you can't see that, then you are choosing to be willfully ignorant, which damages the credibility of your other remarks.

It's all so ridiculous. Methane and water vapor aren't seeing their concentrations in the atmosphere increase slowly and steadily in the atmosphere... yet. Although if Siberia starts to thaw out on a big-scale, we're going to see a lot of methane released into the atmosphere as well, which is much more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2.

As i understand it, Methane only has about half the forcing as co2.