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Friday, August 16, 2013

Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 21

Regular readers know Dredd Blog often jokes and talks about buying stock in textbook companies.

We do that because science textbooks seem to always be in a state of flux, changing with every new discovery (The Appendix of Vestigial Textbooks - 4).

One positive aspect of the continually changing scientific landscape (besides built-in "planned obsolescence") is that new discoveries often answer questions that were once parts of a perplexing mystery.

Today, we will talk about a discovery that is leading to bigger questions, rather than providing satisfying answers to a mystery:
Between ancient, fragmented specimens and convoluted phylogenetic analyses, early mammalian evolution has long been a topic of scientific debate. Now, two newly discovered Jurassic-era fossils seem to only complicate matters further, suggesting possible mammalian origins that differ by tens of millions of years.

The fossils, presented today (August 7) in Nature, were excavated by two teams working independently in China. Both specimens are nearly complete skeletons of haramiyids—early mammal-like creatures noted for their jaws and teeth—and estimated to be more than 160 million years old. Though the skeletal artifacts suggest the animals may have been relatives, their skeletons show markedly different features.

“Mammalian phylogeny is complex,” said Guillermo Rougier, a professor of anatomical sciences and neurobiology at the University of Louisville, who was not involved in either study. “The events we are trying to resolve occurred in the distant past—pertinent fossils are generally small, difficult to find, and often woefully incomplete.”

However, he added, “the two skeletons just described are precisely the high-quality specimens that allow scientists to contrast and refine our basic understanding of the complex evolutionary patterns involved in the origin of mammals.”

Because of their rodent-like teeth, some researchers have linked haramiyids to multituberculates, a group of ancient mammals. Describing Arboroharamiya, a short-faced, tree-dwelling animal, Jin Meng from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and his colleagues suggest that haramiyids are indeed related to multituberculates, suggesting that mammals may have originated in the late Triassic, more than 200 million years ago.

Meanwhile, a team led by the University of Chicago’s Zhe-Xi Luo depict Megaconus, a terrestrial haramiyid with a primitive jaw and ankle that does not appear related to multituberculates. Compared with the Arboroharamiya fossil, the Megaconus specimen is consistent with a much more recent origin of mammals—around 176 million to 161 million years ago.
(Where Did Mammals Originate?, emphasis added). Those differing million-year figures are 24-39 million years apart (200 - 176 = 24; 200 - 161 = 39).

We may not yet know when mammals originated, but we know that they got a big opportunity when a mass extinction took place about sixty five million years ago:
The Cretaceous-Tertiary [K–Pg boundary; a.k.a. K-T boundary] mass extinction, which wiped out the dinosaurs and more than half of species on Earth, was caused by an asteroid colliding with Earth and not massive volcanic activity, according to a comprehensive review of all the available evidence, published in the journal Science.

A panel of 41 international experts, including UK researchers from Imperial College London, the University of Cambridge, University College London and the Open University, reviewed 20 years' worth of research to determine the cause of the Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) extinction, which happened around 65 million years ago. The extinction wiped out more than half of all species on the planet, including the dinosaurs, bird-like pterosaurs and large marine reptiles, clearing the way for mammals to become the dominant species on Earth.

The new review of the evidence shows that the extinction was caused by a massive asteroid slamming into Earth at Chicxulub (pronounced chick-shoo-loob) in Mexico. The asteroid, which was around 15 kilometres wide, is believed to have hit Earth with a force one billion times more powerful than the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. It would have blasted material at high velocity into the atmosphere, triggering a chain of events that caused a global winter, wiping out much of life on Earth in a matter of days.
(Science Daily). The dinosaurs took a big hit and became extinct, but scientists tell us that placental mammals were able to fit into niches that were thereby made available:
The new study compares fossils from the past 150 million years with living mammals. Its findings support the view that modern placental lineages first appear around 65 million years ago in the Northern Hemisphere.

"This is related to the demise of the dinosaurs," said John Wible, the curator of mammals at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

"The dinosaurs go extinct, and these various sorts of niches that were occupied by the dinosaurs all of a sudden become open, and it was into those niches that opportunistic placentals evolved."
(National Geographic, emphasis added). That the dominant species became placental mammals may involve another recent discovery and another big question and mystery:
If not for a virus, none of us [placental human mammals] would ever be born.

In 2000, a team of Boston scientists discovered a peculiar gene in the human genome. It encoded a protein made only by cells in the placenta. They called it syncytin.

The cells that made syncytin were located only where the placenta made contact with the uterus. They fuse together to create a single cellular layer, called the syncytiotrophoblast, which is essential to a fetus for drawing nutrients from its mother. The scientists discovered that in order to fuse together, the cells must first make syncytin.

What made syncytin peculiar was that it was not a human gene. It bore all the hallmarks of a gene from a virus.
...
It turned out that syncytin was not unique to humans. Chimpanzees had the same virus gene at the same spot in their genome. So did gorillas. So did monkeys. What’s more, the gene was strikingly similar from one species to the next. The best way to explain this pattern was that the virus that gave us syncytin infected a common ancestor of primates, and it carried out an important function that has been favored ever since by natural selection. Later, the French virologist Thierry Heidmann and his colleagues discovered a second version of syncytin in humans and other primates, and dubbed them syncytin 1 and syncytin 2. Both virus proteins seemed to be important to our well-being. In pre-eclampsia, which gives pregnant women dangerously high blood pressure, levels of both syncytin 1 and syncytin 2 drop dramatically. Syncytin 2 also performs another viral trick to help its human master: it helps tamp down the mother’s immune system so she doesn’t attack her baby as a hunk of foreign tissue.

In 2005, Heidmann and his colleagues realized that syncytins were not just for primates. While surveying the mouse genome, they discovered two syncytin genes (these known as A and B), which were also produced in the same part of the placenta. This discovery allowed the scientists to test once and for all how important syncytin was to mammals. They shut down the syncytin A gene in mouse embryos and discovered they died after about 11 days because they couldn’t form their syncytiotrophoblast. So clearly this virus mattered enormously to its permanent host.
...
The complete story will have to wait until scientists have searched every placental mammal for syncytins from viruses. But in the meantime there is something interesting to consider. Some mammals that scientists have yet to investigate, such as pigs and horses, don’t have the open layer of cells in their placenta like we do. Scientists have come up with all sorts of explanations for why that may be, mainly by looking for differences in the biology of each kind of mammals. But the answer may be simpler: the ancestors of pigs and horses might never have gotten sick with the right virus.
(Discover, emphasis added). This is an opportunity for the weekend rebel science hypothesis: what if the asteroid contained viral material that became activated once the catastrophe subsided, and began to spread to surviving mammals, giving rise to placental mammals?

There are some scientists who have impressive arguments and evidence to support the cosmic virus aspects of such a hypothesis:
How did these early Earthly life forms arise? And did they include archae, bacteria, and eukaryotes? Joseph and colleagues (Joseph 2009a; Joseph and Schild 2010ab; Joseph and Wickramasinghe 2010) have detailed and reviewed a large volume of evidence suggesting life arrived here encased in the debris which formed the surface of this planet. By contrast, Russell and colleagues (Milner-White and Russell 2010; Nitschke and Russell 2010; Russell and Kanik 2010) have presented an impressive body of data indicating Earthly life (and even extraterrestrial life) may have been fashioned by the fortuitous mixture of the necessary chemicals within a watery thermal environment. Certainly early Earth was hot. Likewise, evidence of the earliest life was left in rocky formations bathed in water, i.e. banded iron formations consisting of alternating magnetite and quartz dated to 4.28 bya (O'Neil et al, 2008)
...
Richard Hoover has discovered evidence of microfossils similar to Cyanobacteria, in freshly fractured slices of the interior surfaces of the Alais, Ivuna, and Orgueil CI1 carbonaceous meteorites. Based on Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) and other measures, Richard Hoover has concluded they are indigenous to these meteors and are similar to trichomic cyanobacteria and other trichomic prokaryotes such as filamentous sulfur bacteria. He concludes these fossilized bacteria are not Earthly contaminants but are the fossilized remains of living organisms which lived in the parent bodies of these meteors, e.g. comets, moons, and other astral bodies.
(A Structure RE: The Corruption of Memes - 4). No matter how we look at it, the genetic material of viruses in placental mammals, which makes survival during the birth process possible, is quite interesting and mysterious.

That placental mammals arose ~65mya, and a virus is involved, is related enough to look into further (cf. Clocks vs. Rocks).

Mammals replacing dinosaurs was a cosmic accident, in the sense of a random asteroid impact, but we placental mammals are not complaining much about that, whether we are cosmic creatures or not.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Your God Wears Combat Boots - 3

"Don't say that about my mommie's God"
When U.S. soldiers came back from the Vietnam War, it has been said by some of them that they were not, in general, welcomed home like all soldiers from previous, and subsequent, wars had or have been (Learning to come home from war).

In this series Dredd Blog has been looking into various aspects of that meme.

We are finding that the meme basically alleges that "warriors are always welcomed home and celebrated in the same spirit that a particular war is celebrated" (see e.g. The Universal Smedley and On The Origin of The Bully Religion - 2).

Generalities are risky to rely on, but in general we have found that war is not always popular, thus, soldiers fighting a "popular war" are more likely to be welcomed back home than are soldiers fighting an "unpopular war."

In other words, a "good war" merits a good welcome back, while to the contrary a "bad war" merits a bad welcome back.

Therefore, the irresistible question emerges: "what makes a war popular or unpopular?"

My favorite answer used to be "the people."

In future posts we will take a look at my answer for "nowadays."

The previous post in this series is here.

"New Slang" by The Shins ...



Then the rebellion ...

"New Slang' (including LYRICS): by a rebel whistleblower within The Shins ...



Wednesday, August 14, 2013

American Feudalism

Feudalism: military service traded for "security"
Can feudalism, in the sense of its spirit and intent, be or become alive and well today in modern America?

If so, could feudalism fully bloom, in all significant aspects, into its ancient grandeur?

To get closer to the answer to those questions, let's first look a bit more into the concept of feudalism.

But before we look at the dynamics of feudalism in a manner that will allow us to properly understand feudalism, we will have to have some understanding about what germinated feudalism in the first place:
Warfare was endemic in the feudal period, but feudalism did not cause warfare; warfare caused feudalism.
(Univ. Cal. at Santa Barbara, emphasis added). Perhaps a deep understanding of the history of that time led our founders into their understanding and subsequent declaration about the dynamics of feudalism:
"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied: and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.

The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals, engendered by both.

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

Those truths are well established."
(James Madison,"Political Observations," April 20, 1795, in Letters and Other Writings of James Madison, Volume IV, page 491, emphasis added). Madison understood from his study of history, which had revealed and made clear to him, that "those truths are well established."

Let's take a look at various descriptions and definitions of our subject, today, which is feudalism:
Feudalism was the medieval model of government predating the birth of the modern nation-state. Feudal society is a military hierarchy in which a ruler or lord offers mounted fighters a fief (medieval beneficium), a unit of land to control in exchange for a military service. The individual who accepted this land became a vassal, and the man who granted the land become known as his liege or his lord. The deal was often sealed by swearing oaths on the Bible or on the relics of saints.
(Wheeler, emphasis added). The feudal construct is encompassed in, and clearly shown by, the recent development of the post 9/11 American concept of "security":
Before a lord could grant land (a fief) to someone, he had to make that person a vassal. This was done at a formal and symbolic ceremony called a commendation ceremony, which was composed of the two-part act of homage and oath of fealty. During homage, the lord and vassal entered into a contract in which the vassal promised to fight for the lord at his command, whilst the lord agreed to protect the vassal from external forces.
(Wikipedia, emphasis added). The sharing of costs and other economic concepts and dynamics are also part and parcel of the feudalistic system:
Feudalism was a political system which was dominant in Europe during the Middle Ages. First used in the 1600s, the term refers to a hierarchy of reciprocal military and legal obligations among the nobility. In simplified terms, a lesser noble (the vassal) would pledge his loyalty (fealty) to a higher noble (the lord) in exchange for land (a fief). In return, the vassal gave military service to the lord. As armies were expensive to raise and maintain, a lord was able to distribute the cost (in men and money) among his vassals.
(About dot Com, emphasis added). The feudal system was also associated with conquering, which we would now probably call imperialism:
Feudalism was based on the exchange of land for military service. King William the Conqueror used the concept of feudalism to reward his Norman supporters for their help in the conquest of England. Life lived under the Medieval Feudal System, or Feudalism, demanded that everyone owed allegiance to the King and their immediate superior.
(Middle Ages dot Org, emphasis added). We pay taxes to a government that distributes those taxes in the form of a worldwide military power, the likes of which have never before been seen (MOMCOM: A Mean Welfare Queen).

We do so because of the security we are promised for so doing.

Some or all of the spirit and letter of the feudal system remains with us, and will remain with us until we are no longer a Wartocracy which practices the war religion called Mithraism.

None dare call it treason "austerity" (Why Is The Government Conditioning Us To Austerity?).

Stay tuned:
The feudal society was constructed for one reason: security. The nobles wanted the security of maintaining control over their far-reaching kingdoms, so they were forced to delegate power to local control. The peasants wanted security from marauders and barbarians from neighboring lands. They also wanted security from invading armies. And thus the development of the feudal system and the fief structure was almost inevitable. However, all this came at the great expense of the common man. He gave up many freedoms for his security. The question we ask you is: Was it worth it?
(The Feudal Structure, emphasis added). In future posts we will look at notions of Roman Empire Feudalism and other manifestations of feudalism, which preceded European feudalism.

The next post in this series is here.

A Day In The Life (lyrics) ...



Tuesday, August 13, 2013

A Tale of Coup Cities - 5

Oil-Qaeda Cathedral - Bringing Me Down
This series sets out arguments and evidence that there is little to no doubt that a policy coup has taken place which has utterly changed the fundamental nature of the United States government in some significant ways.

But how do we find the perpetrators of the coup and the nature of its originators or perpetrators?

It used to be an oft repeated mantra that investigative reporters were to "follow the money" in order to get to the bottom or top of this or that officially induced crime and/or its cover-up.

That does not always work anymore because it is too easy to set up phony bank accounts and what not in offshore banking systems which are specifically designed to keep investigative reporting to an absolute minimum.

Yes, intended to keep 50 investigative reporters knee deep in paperwork which is designed to lead them down a false path, as well as frustrate them into giving up.

So, in the Dredd Blog post Follow The Immunity we proposed what is hopefully a better technique for discovering who the culprits are, and where they come from.

Anyway, in this series and those related to it we have quoted from Generals, Senators, Cabinet Members, and others who say both directly and "in so many words" that a coup has in fact taken place.

In so doing, we have also questioned the nature of the coup in the sense of whether it was a coup d'état or a less intense coup of another type.

In the "follow the immunity" department, we touched upon the immunity of the Saudi Kingdom because they are part and parcel of Oil-Qaeda.

Today let's take another look at the Saudi, Oil-Qaeda immunity, beginning with some insight from Informed Comment:
In recent weeks Saudi Arabia has launched an offensive against anti-regime activists arresting many and sentencing some to years in jail. Total number of political prisoners has now surpassed 40 thousand according to some reports. The crackdown has even forced a member of the ruling family to defect. RT Arabic spoke exclusively to Saudi prince Khaled Bin Farhan Al-Saud – who accuses the monarchy of corruption and silencing all voices of dissent.”
(Defecting Saudi Prince: Royal Family in Panic, quoting RT, emphasis added). The issue of corruption in both the U.S. and the Saudi governments, for not looking into the 9/11 attacks, has been noticed far and wide.

That includes the immunity of Saudi officials, which is expressed in the videos below.

The moving of the headquarters of Halliburton and USCENTCOM to the gulf area, where bases in Saudi Arabia and other oil kingdoms exist, is also telling (The Chamber of Corruption - 3).

The bottom line to this history, when it comes, will end a long-lasting saga started by none other than Winston Churchill, who began the policy of "managing" the Middle Eastern oil deposits about a century ago (The Universal Smedley - 2).

That bloody saga still drives western foreign policy, and it must be considered in any theory of a coup of the U.S. government (Viva Egypt - 2; cf. MOMCOM: The Private Parts - 5 and Epigovernment: The New Model - 3).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

Hardball, March 1, 2012:



Morning Joe, March 1, 2012:



Monday, August 12, 2013

Agnotology: The Surge - 5

Okie From Denierville
I heard that Senator Inhofe, a notorious climate change denier (Has The Navy Fallen For The Greatest Hoax?) is proud to be a clueless okie ignorance generator.

He is also proud to be studied by agnotoligists who consider him to be to them like when prospectors find a vein of pure gold to examine (agnotoligists are social scientists who study culturally-induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data --see Agnotology: The Surge).

The lackeys of Koch Inc. type ignorance generators are being paid to spread falsehoods, so today I wanted to quote from a site that collects Inhofe myths and sets them straight.

The name of that very good site is Skeptical Science, where you will find global climate system myths debunked.

When you find a myth you have heard or want to clarify, click on the link to the right of the particular climate myth you have heard, and you will then go to a page with comprehensive discussion and debunking of that myth:


Climate Myth vs What the Science Says
1 "Climate's changed before" Climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time; humans are now the dominant forcing.
2 "It's the sun" In the last 35 years of global warming, sun and climate have been going in opposite directions
3 "It's not bad" Negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health & environment far outweigh any positives.
4 "There is no consensus" 97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming.
5 "It's cooling" The last decade 2000-2009 was the hottest on record.
6 "Models are unreliable" Models successfully reproduce temperatures since 1900 globally, by land, in the air and the ocean.
7 "Temp record is unreliable" The warming trend is the same in rural and urban areas, measured by thermometers and satellites.
8 "Animals and plants can adapt" Global warming will cause mass extinctions of species that cannot adapt on short time scales.
9 "It hasn't warmed since 1998" For global records, 2010 is the hottest year on record, tied with 2005.
10 "Antarctica is gaining ice" Satellites measure Antarctica losing land ice at an accelerating rate.
11 "Ice age predicted in the 70s" The vast majority of climate papers in the 1970s predicted warming.
12 "CO2 lags temperature" CO2 didn't initiate warming from past ice ages but it did amplify the warming.
13 "Climate sensitivity is low" Net positive feedback is confirmed by many different lines of evidence.
14 "We're heading into an ice age" Worry about global warming impacts in the next 100 years, not an ice age in over 10,000 years.
15 "Ocean acidification isn't serious" Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains.
16 "Hockey stick is broken" Recent studies agree that recent global temperatures are unprecedented in the last 1000 years.
17 "Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy" A number of investigations have cleared scientists of any wrongdoing in the media-hyped email incident.
18 "Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming" There is increasing evidence that hurricanes are getting stronger due to global warming.
19 "Al Gore got it wrong" Al Gore book is quite accurate, and far more accurate than contrarian books.
20 "Glaciers are growing" Most glaciers are retreating, posing a serious problem for millions who rely on glaciers for water.
21 "It's cosmic rays" Cosmic rays show no trend over the last 30 years & have had little impact on recent global warming.
22 "1934 - hottest year on record" 1934 was one of the hottest years in the US, not globally.
23 "It's freaking cold!" A local cold day has nothing to do with the long-term trend of increasing global temperatures.
24 "Extreme weather isn't caused by global warming" Extreme weather events are being made more frequent and worse by global warming.
25 "Sea level rise is exaggerated" A variety of different measurements find steadily rising sea levels over the past century.
26 "It's Urban Heat Island effect" Urban and rural regions show the same warming trend.
27 "Medieval Warm Period was warmer" Globally averaged temperature now is higher than global temperature in medieval times.
28 "Mars is warming" Mars is not warming globally.
29 "Arctic icemelt is a natural cycle" Thick arctic sea ice is undergoing a rapid retreat.
30 "Increasing CO2 has little to no effect" The strong CO2 effect has been observed by many different measurements.
31 "Oceans are cooling" The most recent ocean measurements show consistent warming.
32 "It's a 1500 year cycle" Ancient natural cycles are irrelevant for attributing recent global warming to humans.
33 "Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions" The natural cycle adds and removes CO2 to keep a balance; humans add extra CO2 without removing any.
34 "IPCC is alarmist" Numerous papers have documented how IPCC predictions are more likely to underestimate the climate response.
35 "Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas" Rising CO2 increases atmospheric water vapor, which makes global warming much worse.
36 "Polar bear numbers are increasing" Polar bears are in danger of extinction as well as many other species.
37 "CO2 limits will harm the economy" The benefits of a price on carbon outweigh the costs several times over.
38 "It's not happening" There are many lines of evidence indicating global warming is unequivocal.
39 "Greenland was green" Other parts of the earth got colder when Greenland got warmer.
40 "Greenland is gaining ice" Greenland on the whole is losing ice, as confirmed by satellite measurement.
41 "CO2 is not a pollutant" Through its impacts on the climate, CO2 presents a danger to public health and welfare, and thus qualifies as an air pollutant
42 "CO2 is plant food" The effects of enhanced CO2 on terrestrial plants are variable and complex and dependent on numerous factors
43 "Other planets are warming" Mars and Jupiter are not warming, and anyway the sun has recently been cooling slightly.
44 "Arctic sea ice has recovered" Thick arctic sea ice is in rapid retreat.
45 "There's no empirical evidence" There are multiple lines of direct observations that humans are causing global warming.
46 "We're coming out of the Little Ice Age" Scientists have determined that the factors which caused the Little Ice Age cooling are not currently causing global warming
47 "There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature" There is long-term correlation between CO2 and global temperature; other effects are short-term.
48 "It cooled mid-century" Mid-century cooling involved aerosols and is irrelevant for recent global warming.
49 "CO2 was higher in the past" When CO2 was higher in the past, the sun was cooler.
50 "It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low" Early 20th century warming is due to several causes, including rising CO2.
51 "Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????" Global temperature is still rising and 2010 was the hottest recorded.
52 "Satellites show no warming in the troposphere" The most recent satellite data show that the earth as a whole is warming.
53 "It's aerosols" Aerosols have been masking global warming, which would be worse otherwise.
54 "It's El Niño" El Nino has no trend and so is not responsible for the trend of global warming.
55 "2009-2010 winter saw record cold spells" A cold day in Chicago in winter has nothing to do with the trend of global warming.
56 "It's a natural cycle" No known natural forcing fits the fingerprints of observed warming except anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
57 "Mt. Kilimanjaro's ice loss is due to land use" Most glaciers are in rapid retreat worldwide, notwithstanding a few complicated cases.
58 "There's no tropospheric hot spot" We see a clear "short-term hot spot" - there's various evidence for a "long-term hot spot".
59 "It's not us" Multiple sets of independent observations find a human fingerprint on climate change.
60 "It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation" The PDO shows no trend, and therefore the PDO is not responsible for the trend of global warming.
61 "IPCC were wrong about Himalayan glaciers" Glaciers are in rapid retreat worldwide, despite 1 error in 1 paragraph in a 1000 page IPCC report.
62 "Scientists can't even predict weather" Weather and climate are different; climate predictions do not need weather detail.
63 "Greenhouse effect has been falsified" The greenhouse effect is standard physics and confirmed by observations.
64 "2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory" The 2nd law of thermodynamics is consistent with the greenhouse effect which is directly observed.
65 "CO2 limits will hurt the poor" Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change.
66 "The science isn't settled" That human CO2 is causing global warming is known with high certainty & confirmed by observations.
67 "Clouds provide negative feedback" Evidence is building that net cloud feedback is likely positive and unlikely to be strongly negative.
68 "Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated" Sea level rise is now increasing faster than predicted due to unexpectedly rapid ice melting.
69 "It's the ocean" The oceans are warming and moreover are becoming more acidic, threatening the food chain.
70 "IPCC were wrong about Amazon rainforests" The IPCC statement on Amazon rainforests was correct, and was incorrectly reported in some media.
71 "Corals are resilient to bleaching" Globally about 1% of coral is dying out each year.
72 "Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans" Humans emit 100 times more CO2 than volcanoes.
73 "CO2 effect is saturated" Direct measurements find that rising CO2 is trapping more heat.
74 "Greenland ice sheet won't collapse" When Greenland was 3 to 5 degrees C warmer than today, a large portion of the Ice Sheet melted.
75 "CO2 is just a trace gas" Many substances are dangerous even in trace amounts; what really matters is the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
76 "It's methane" Methane plays a minor role in global warming but could get much worse if permafrost starts to melt.
77 "CO2 has a short residence time" Excess CO2 from human emissions has a long residence time of over 100 years
78 "CO2 measurements are suspect" CO2 levels are measured by hundreds of stations across the globe, all reporting the same trend.
79 "Humidity is falling" Multiple lines of independent evidence indicate humidity is rising and provides positive feedback.
80 "500 scientists refute the consensus" Around 97% of climate experts agree that humans are causing global warming.
81 "Neptune is warming" And the sun is cooling.
82 "Springs aren't advancing" Hundreds of flowers across the UK are flowering earlier now than any time in 250 years.
83 "Jupiter is warming" Jupiter is not warming, and anyway the sun is cooling.
84 "It's land use" Land use plays a minor role in climate change, although carbon sequestration may help to mitigate.
85 "Scientists tried to 'hide the decline' in global temperature" The 'decline' refers to a decline in northern tree-rings, not global temperature, and is openly discussed in papers and the IPCC reports.
86 "CO2 is not increasing" CO2 is increasing rapidly, and is reaching levels not seen on the earth for millions of years.
87 "Record snowfall disproves global warming" Warming leads to increased evaporation and precipitation, which falls as increased snow in winter.
88 "They changed the name from 'global warming' to 'climate change'" 'Global warming' and 'climate change' mean different things and have both been used for decades.
89 "Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun" The sun has not warmed since 1970 and so cannot be driving global warming.
90 "CO2 is coming from the ocean" The ocean is absorbing massive amounts of CO2, and is becoming more acidic as a result.
91 "IPCC overestimate temperature rise" Monckton used the IPCC equation in an inappropriate manner.
92 "Pluto is warming" And the sun has been recently cooling.
93 "CO2 is not the only driver of climate" Theory, models and direct measurement confirm CO2 is currently the main driver of climate change.
94 "Peer review process was corrupted" An Independent Review concluded that CRU's actions were normal and didn't threaten the integrity of peer review.
95 "Arctic was warmer in 1940" The actual data show high northern latitudes are warmer today than in 1940.
96 "Renewable energy is too expensive" When you account for all of the costs associated with burning coal and other fossil fuels, like air pollution and health effects, in reality they are significantly more expensive than most renewable energy sources.
97 "Southern sea ice is increasing" Antarctic sea ice has grown in recent decades despite the Southern Ocean warming at the same time.
98 "CO2 limits will make little difference" If every nation agrees to limit CO2 emissions, we can achieve significant cuts on a global scale.
99 "Sea level rise is decelerating" Global sea level data shows that sea level rise has been increasing since 1880 while future sea level rise predictions are based on physics, not statistics.
100 "It's microsite influences" Microsite influences on temperature changes are minimal; good and bad sites show the same trend.
101 "Phil Jones says no global warming since 1995" Phil Jones was misquoted.
102 "Humans are too insignificant to affect global climate" Humans are small but powerful, and human CO2 emissions are causing global warming.
103 "Lindzen and Choi find low climate sensitivity" Lindzen and Choi’s paper is viewed as unacceptably flawed by other climate scientists.
104 "Dropped stations introduce warming bias" If the dropped stations had been kept, the temperature would actually be slightly higher.
105 "It's too hard" Scientific studies have determined that current technology is sufficient to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to avoid dangerous climate change.
106 "It's not urgent" A large amount of warming is delayed, and if we don’t act now we could pass tipping points.
107 "It's albedo" Albedo change in the Arctic, due to receding ice, is increasing global warming.
108 "Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960" This is a detail that is complex, local, and irrelevant to the observed global warming trend.
109 "It's soot" Soot stays in the atmosphere for days to weeks; carbon dioxide causes warming for centuries.
110 "Hansen's 1988 prediction was wrong" Jim Hansen had several possible scenarios; his mid-level scenario B was right.
111 "Roy Spencer finds negative feedback" Spencer's model is too simple, excluding important factors like ocean dynamics and treats cloud feedbacks as forcings.
112 "It's global brightening" This is a complex aerosol effect with unclear temperature significance.
113 "Arctic sea ice loss is matched by Antarctic sea ice gain" Arctic sea ice loss is three times greater than Antarctic sea ice gain.
114 "It's a climate regime shift" There is no evidence that climate has chaotic “regimes” on a long-term basis.
115 "Earth hasn't warmed as much as expected" This argument ignores the cooling effect of aerosols and the planet's thermal inertia.
116 "Solar cycles cause global warming" Over recent decades, the sun has been slightly cooling & is irrelevant to recent global warming.
117 "Less than half of published scientists endorse global warming" Around 97% of climate experts agree that humans are causing global warming.
118 "Ice isn't melting" Arctic sea ice has shrunk by an area equal to Western Australia, and summer or multi-year sea ice might be all gone within a decade.
119 "Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project" The 'OISM petition' was signed by only a few climatologists.
120 "IPCC ‘disappeared’ the Medieval Warm Period" The IPCC simply updated their temperature history graphs to show the best data available at the time.
121 "Climate is chaotic and cannot be predicted" Weather is chaotic but climate is driven by Earth's energy imbalance, which is more predictable.
122 "It's ozone" Ozone has only a small effect.
123 "Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were ignored" An independent inquiry found CRU is a small research unit with limited resources and their rigour and honesty are not in doubt.
124 "The IPCC consensus is phoney" 113 nations signed onto the 2007 IPCC report, which is simply a summary of the current body of climate science evidence
125 "Sea level is not rising" The claim sea level isn’t rising is based on blatantly doctored graphs contradicted by observations.
126 "Climate 'Skeptics' are like Galileo" Modern scientists, not anti-science skeptics, follow in Galileo’s footsteps.
127 "Tuvalu sea level isn't rising" Tuvalu sea level is rising 3 times larger than the global average.
128 "A drop in volcanic activity caused warming" Volcanoes have had no warming effect in recent global warming - if anything, a cooling effect.
129 "Trenberth can't account for the lack of warming" Trenberth is talking about the details of energy flow, not whether global warming is happening.
130 "Renewables can't provide baseload power" A number of renewable sources already do provide baseload power, and we don't need renewables to provide a large percentage of baseload power immediately.
131 "Ice Sheet losses are overestimated" A number of independent measurements find extensive ice loss from Antarctica and Greenland.
132 "CRU tampered with temperature data" An independent inquiry went back to primary data sources and were able to replicate CRU's results.
133 "Naomi Oreskes' study on consensus was flawed" Benny Peiser, the Oreskes critic, retracted his criticism.
134 "Melting ice isn't warming the Arctic" Melting ice leads to more sunlight being absorbed by water, thus heating the Arctic.
135 "Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup" By breathing out, we are simply returning to the air the same CO2 that was there to begin with.
136 "Satellite error inflated Great Lakes temperatures" Temperature errors in the Great Lakes region are not used in any global temperature records.
137 "Soares finds lack of correlation between CO2 and temperature" Soares looks at short-term trends which are swamped by natural variations while ignoring the long-term correlation.
138 "We're heading into cooling" There is no scientific basis for claims that the planet will begin to cool in the near future.
139 "Murry Salby finds CO2 rise is natural" Multiple lines of evidence make it very clear that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is due to human emissions.
140 "CO2 emissions do not correlate with CO2 concentration" That humans are causing the rise in atmospheric CO2 is confirmed by multiple isotopic analyses.
141 "The sun is getting hotter" The sun has just had the deepest solar minimum in 100 years.
142 "It's waste heat" Greenhouse warming is adding 100 times more heat to the climate than waste heat.
143 "Water vapor in the stratosphere stopped global warming" This possibility just means that future global warming could be even worse.
144 "It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940" The warming trend over 1970 to 2001 is greater than warming from both 1860 to 1880 and 1910 to 1940.
145 "An exponential increase in CO2 will result in a linear increase in temperature" CO2 levels are rising so fast that unless we decrease emissions, global warming will accelerate this century.
146 "Record high snow cover was set in winter 2008/2009" Winter snow cover in 2008/2009 was average while the long-term trend in spring, summer, and annual snow cover is rapid decline.
147 "Mauna Loa is a volcano" The global trend is calculated from hundreds of CO2 measuring stations and confirmed by satellites.
148 "Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect" Venus very likely underwent a runaway or ‘moist’ greenhouse phase earlier in its history, and today is kept hot by a dense CO2 atmosphere.
149 "Antarctica is too cold to lose ice" Glaciers are sliding faster into the ocean because ice shelves are thinning due to warming oceans.
150 "Positive feedback means runaway warming" Positive feedback won't lead to runaway warming; diminishing returns on feedback cycles limit the amplification.
151 "Skeptics were kept out of the IPCC?" Official records, Editors and emails suggest CRU scientists acted in the spirit if not the letter of IPCC rules.
152 "Water levels correlate with sunspots" This detail is irrelevant to the observation of global warming caused by humans.
153 "CO2 was higher in the late Ordovician" The sun was much cooler during the Ordovician.
154 "It's internal variability" Internal variability can only account for small amounts of warming and cooling over periods of decades, and scientific studies have consistently shown that it cannot account for the global warming over the past century.
155 "CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused" Many lines of evidence, including simple accounting, demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to human fossil fuel burning.
156 "It's CFCs" CFCs contribute at a small level.
157 "Scientists retracted claim that sea levels are rising" The Siddall 2009 paper was retracted because its predicted sea level rise was too low.
158 "Warming causes CO2 rise" Recent warming is due to rising CO2.
159 "Coral atolls grow as sea levels rise" Thousands of coral atolls have "drowned" when unable to grow fast enough to survive at sea level.
160 "Renewable energy investment kills jobs" Investment in renewable energy creates more jobs than investment in fossil fuel energy.
161 "Greenland has only lost a tiny fraction of its ice mass" Greenland's ice loss is accelerating & will add metres of sea level rise in upcoming centuries.
162 "DMI show cooling Arctic" While summer maximums have showed little trend, the annual average Arctic temperature has risen sharply in recent decades.
163 "CO2 limits won't cool the planet" CO2 limits won't cool the planet, but they can make the difference between continued accelerating global warming to catastrophic levels vs. slowing and eventually stopping the warming at hopefully safe levels
164 "Royal Society embraces skepticism" The Royal Society still strongly state that human activity is the dominant cause of global warming.
165 "It's only a few degrees" A few degrees of global warming has a huge impact on ice sheets, sea levels and other aspects of climate.
166 "It's satellite microwave transmissions" Satellite transmissions are extremely small and irrelevant.
167 "CO2 only causes 35% of global warming" CO2 and corresponding water vapor feedback are the biggest cause of global warming.
168 "Sea level fell in 2010" The temporary drop in sea level in 2010 was due to intense land flooding caused by a strong La Nina.
169 "Arctic sea ice extent was lower in the past" Current Arctic sea ice extent is the lowest in the past several thousand years.
170 "We didn't have global warming during the Industrial Revolution" CO2 emissions were much smaller 100 years ago.
171 "Ljungqvist broke the hockey stick" Ljungqvist's temperature reconstruction is very similar to other reconstructions by Moberg and Mann.
172 "Hansen predicted the West Side Highway would be underwater" Hansen was speculating on changes that might happen if CO2 doubled.
173 "Removing all CO2 would make little difference" Removing CO2 would cause most water in the air to rain out and cancel most of the greenhouse effect.
174 "Postma disproved the greenhouse effect" Postma's model contains many simple errors; in no way does Postma undermine the existence or necessity of the greenhouse effect.

Keep in touch with that site as they regularly update debunked myths of the psychologically impaired and Oil-Qaeda controlled politicians in government.

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