Saturday, June 19, 2010

Gregory F. Fegel, 9-11 "Truther" Is on Thin Ice When He Predicts an Ice Age

According to Gregory F. Fegel, a 9-11 Truther and a scribbler for the Russian tabloid Pravda (8-22-08):

A preponderance of evidence shows that the highest officials of the Bush Administration, in collusion with many other officials from the Pentagon, CIA, FBI, FEMA, NSA, NORAD, New York City officials, air-traffic contollers, airline executives, controlled demolitions experts, computer graphics technicians, media executives, and others together planned and committed the horrible attacks of 9/11/2001 against the Pentagon and the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. The 9/11 attacks were immediately blamed on some bogus 'Arab highjackers', a half dozen of whom were later confirmed to be still alive, and therefore innocent, after the 9/11 attacks.

9-11 Truthers typically cite a lot of crackpot engineering and junk science to "prove" that President George Bush masterminded 9-11.

Most people laugh at the far-fetched conspiracy theories of the Truthers, but lately the brain trusts in the Truth Movement have been spreading global warming denialist pseudoscience.

The global warming denialists don't seem to agree with each other about why they reject the consensus of the scientific community on man-made global warming and its consequences. Some denialists say we are heading into an ice age. Some denialists say it is warming, but that the extra C02 will be beneficial for mankind. Some denialists say it has stopped warming. Some denialists say the scientists are "hiding" a decline in temperature. Many of their disparate arguments can be seen and are answered here.

As it happens, the crackpot Truther Gregory F. Fegel also writes for Pravda (1-11-09) on the topic of climate change and claims that earth is "on the brink of entering an Ice Age":

The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years...

Most of the long-term climate data collected from various sources also shows a strong correlation with the three astronomical cycles which are together known as the Milankovich cycles. The three Milankovich cycles include the tilt of the earth, which varies over a 41,000 year period; the shape of the earth’s orbit, which changes over a period of 100,000 years; and the Precession of the Equinoxes, also known as the earth’s ‘wobble’, which gradually rotates the direction of the earth’s axis over a period of 26,000 years. According to the Milankovich theory of Ice Age causation, these three astronomical cycles, each of which effects the amount of solar radiation which reaches the earth, act together to produce the cycle of cold Ice Age maximums and warm interglacials.

Today we are...near to the end...of a warm interglacial, and the earth is now due to enter the next Ice Age. If we are lucky, we may have a few years to prepare for it.

...AGW theory is based on data that is drawn from a ridiculously narrow span of time and it demonstrates a wanton disregard for the ‘big picture’ of long-term climate change. The data from paleoclimatology, including ice cores, sea sediments, geology, paleobotany and zoology, indicate that we are on the verge of entering another Ice Age, and the data also shows that severe and lasting climate change can occur within only a few years. While concern over the dubious threat of Anthropogenic Global Warming continues to distract the attention of people throughout the world, the very real threat of the approaching and inevitable Ice Age, which will render large parts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable, is being foolishly ignored.

Gregory F. Fegel's Pravda article was even praised by writer Noel Sheppard in the "conservative" publication Newsbusters (1-11-09). To the non-scientist, perhaps Gregory Fegel's article sounds like science, but what do qualified scientists who have studied global warming say about this 9-11 truther's "scientific" theory? Do changes in the earth's orbit (and variations in solar activity) trump all that extra C02 that is warming the earth? "Science writer" Fegel seems to assume that changes in the earth's orbit will trump man-made warming. Is there any science to back up this assumption?

Skeptical Science, a site that says we should be skeptical about the claims of global warming denialists, has addressed the unscientific argument that we are heading into an ice age. According to scientists:

The warming effect from more CO2 greatly outstrips the influence from changes in the Earth's orbit or solar activity, even if solar levels were to drop to Maunder Minimum levels....

...[T]here is no ice age around the corner. To those with lingering doubts that an ice age might be imminent, turn your eyes towards the northern ice sheets. If they're growing, then yes, the 10,000 year process of glaciation may have begun. However, currently the Arctic permafrost is degrading, Arctic sea ice is melting and the Greenland ice sheet is losing mass at an accelerating rate. These are hardly good conditions for an imminent ice age. [See the details of the scientific arguments.]

Gregory F. Fegel's alarmist fable about the need to prepare for an imminent ice age reminds me of Disney's WWII Chicken Little cartoon, with Gregory Fegel playing the role of the unintelligent Chicken Little, Newsbusters playing the role of the "smart set" led by Turkey Lurkey, and Pravda playing the role of the sly Fox.

1 Comments:

Blogger j.gabel said...

I agree with GF's conclusion from studying numerous writings and historic records, according to which the earth is overdue for the next ice age

some are making the case that AGW has averted or delayed it - there may be something to this - but the failure of most predictive computer models -- and lack of observable warming in the last 15 years is challenging them -- is this:

climate sensitivity is overestimated due to GG radiative forcing saturation - the logarithmic roll off of the forcing is in the physics - it's just not adequately built into the models - the climate's sensitivity is poorly understood

the larger problem now is that climate science has been trumped by politics - AGW proponents using the 'consensus' argument to make their case is proof enough - that's not science, or at least it wasn't in Galileo's day - then there's the almost religious zealotry of the 'activists'

for example, academically acclaimed climatologist Judith Curry, a lead author in the IPCC AR5 Science Report, a few years ago began speaking out on the IPCC's failure to address the growing level of uncertainty among scientists in the field - soon after, Scientific American profiled here with the headline: Climate Heretic: Judith Curry Turns on Her Colleagues - the more fitting condemnation would have been Climate Apostate for having turned away from the CAGW catechism

10:38 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home