SATELLITES SHOW OVERALL INCREASES IN ANTARCTIC SEA ICE COVER http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020820southseaice.html I guess it sucks to be you. Straight from NASA.
This plastic problem in the oceans is truly disgusting. The only thing more disgusting is that most people truly don't give a shit about the problem. They just go on living their lives in a way that is most convenient to them and consume as much as possible to make themselves feel whole. When is everybody going to wake up? I have been just a guilty as anyone in the past by using plastic bags, water bottles, etc... I have turned over a new leaf and refuse to use plastic bags (I carry canvas bags with me) and refuse to use plastic water bottles. It is just one small thing that I can do, and at least in my mind, I think I am making a difference. One small contribution that I can make to make the world a better place for my kids and grandkids.
Firstly, sea ice is floating ice, not the ice caps. Secondly, your article is from years ago. Thirdly, as the polar caps melt they become sea ice. Fourthly, the very first line in your article states that since the 1970's even arctic sea ice has decreased. I don't know how many other ways you can fail. As for the antarctic, here's the actual information about its ice sheet written in an easy to read format: Antarctica losing ice to oceans http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4767296.stm
OPINION: POTOMAC WATCH JUNE 26, 2009 The Climate Change Climate Change The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere. By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation. If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming. Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S. In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-and-trade program. The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.) The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon. Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr. Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence" underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day. The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so easily swayed. Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S., attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't. This week Mr. Fielding issued a statement: He would not be voting for the bill. He would not risk job losses on "unconvincing green science." The bill is set to founder as the Australian parliament breaks for the winter. Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the cost arguments against climate legislation. That's made sense in light of the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push through her bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on the science. One thing for sure: They won't be alone. Write to kim@wsj.com
AAA - The scientific data isn't subject to polls, nor popular opinion, nor the opinion of an Australian MP or geologist. As for your other quotes, Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, is taken fairly rudely out of context and in fact endorses action on global climate change as has been already posted in this thread.
Unless it favors your point of view. The whole consenus argument is simply trying to take a popularity poll without showing any proof to support your point of view. I notice you have disregarded geologists opinions now. Nice. So we can't listen to this guy because he is a geologists, we can't listen to another guy because he is too old, we can't listen to another guy because he worked for Bush. Cherry picking data is not scientific and that appears to be your approach.
Wikipedia "Joanne Simpson (born 1923) was the first woman to ever receive a Ph.D. in meteorology. She eventually became NASA's lead weather researcher and has authored or co-authored over 190 articles. Simpson is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a recipient of the Carl-Gustaf Roosby Award. Simpson has also criticized the arguments for anthropogenic global warming as based on insufficient data. Simpson is a graduate of the University of Chicago where she also taught for about 30 years before joining NASA. During World War II she was a pilot and later trained cadets." Misinformation. Not cool.
So far in this thread I have posted direct links to the NOAA, UK CRA, NASA -- and that's only recently. I have not attempted argument ad populum, and I defy you to link to where I have. Their knowledge of climatology is very limited, and I have not changed in my approach that climatology is studied by climatologists. You may be thinking of some other poster. I have not cherry picked data at all, and in fact keep linking to the original source material. As for 96 year olds with dementia, yes, they are not sufficient for appeals to authority. I have already linked in this thread to the original article that she wrote. Here's the crux of it: âSince I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly. What should we as a nation do? Decisions have to be made on incomplete information. In this case, we must act on the recommendations of Gore and the IPCC because if we do not reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and the climate models are right, the planet as we know it will in this century become unsustainable. But as a scientist I remain skeptical.â Here's how this is characterized in the clearly distorted WSJ article: "Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief." Out of all that text they chose to pull the word "frankly."