"Global warming, or climate change, has become one of the polarizing issues of our time. Many consider it the most serious threat to mankind, while others dismiss it as a natural fluctuation in our planet’s climate cycles that requires no corrective action.
What the debate means for ordinary folks is often confusion over what to believe. This confusion is entirely understandable, says Eric Chivian, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Harvard professor."
"Chivian was among a group of physicians who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 for their efforts to prevent nuclear war. But as he noted at a New Jersey land conservation conference in March, it’s much harder to convince people to take action against climate change than to persuade them to stop nuclear war."http://www.thedailyjournal.com/story/opinion/2015/07/29/byers-climate-change-debate-confuses-public/30831877/
But guess what... like Michael Mann he is not being truthful or at the very least not correcting an incorrect article. I wonder if he has a fake paper Nobel ,too...
The Nobel Peace Prize 1985 was awarded to International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
17 comments:
Well if you count having 1/135,000 of a Nobel Peace Prize as valid I guess he is a Nobel laureate.
oldwhiteguy says..... I cannot see any scenario where man is going to be able to stop any climate change of any sort. if we all died tomorrow the climate would continue doing what it has for the past millions of years.
He was one of the 7 co-founders of the organization
I'm neither a scientist nor a "warmist". I'm not a "denier", either. But like many other people, I have opinions on the climate change debate. While I disagree with what radical environmentalists would have us do -- get off fossil fuels, shut down the oilsands, rely on wind and solar power, and all the sundry schemes designed to supposedly stop climate change -- I also disagree with those who claim 7+ billion people do not have an effect on the planet, what with all the waste daily living can produce.
However, simply dismissing Nobel laureates without offering any rebuttals is an ineffective way of countering one's opponents' arguments. IMO, the way to combat the extreme "warmist" positions is to admit that yes, mankind does have an effect on the planet, but it can be a beneficial effect. Point out all the progress mankind has achieved thanks to fossil fuels and how new technology can continue that progress. Counter the irrational alarmism and fears with facts. One example? Nuclear power.
For years, because of Hiroshima, Chernobyl and more recently Fukushima, the advantages of nuclear power have been replaced by calls to close nuclear power plants, which produce energy with little to no GHG emissions. Again, I'm no scientist. But if 437 operable civil nuclear power nuclear reactors around the world can function reasonably well http://www.world-nuclear.org/Nuclear-Basics/Global-number-of-nuclear-reactors/, why demand that nuclear power plants be closed down because of events beyond mankind's control (earthquake + tsunami)?
My argument has some credibility. In a new PBS program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_–_Twisting_the_Dragon’s_Tail, the presenter does not go so far as to suggest there should be major investment in nuclear power, but he does allay some fears about residual radiation and points out that new technology can use nuclear waste effectively.
Why my interest in nuclear? Well, could a number of small nuclear power plants built in underdeveloped countries help them advance into the 20th century, if not the 21st? It might stop the deforestation of the planet, allowing forests to continue being the properly functioning lungs of the planet. That should make some true environmentalists happy, don't you think? So, instead of clamouring more billions of money be set aside in a special fund to "combat climate change", western leaders should offer to build those plants, thus stimulating employment & dragging have-not countries into a semblance of modernity.
Chuck T - that may be so - but he is NOT a Nobel Laureate. He was a member of an organization that won a Nobel PEACE (not scientific) prize. The IPCC won a similar award - but none of the 2500 people involved in the organization are permitted to refer to themselves as wither NP winners or laureates.
So it is wrong to call him such or to point to this as an authority for his comments for which he has no more credentials that any physician.
Gabby - I like the way you think... Nuke is the way to go - but it's capital intensive.
but in this field, the warmists continually point to authority to support their positions. But this guy is not an authority any more than a movie star with a grade 10 eduction when it comes to climate science.
Nuclear is "capital intensive"
You're right. But wouldn't it make more sense to use that capital, which developed countries are being shamed or blackmailed into contributing to the "combat climate change" cesspool, to use that capital to build something that may have an actual effect on GHG emission reductions? Countries like Canada & Australia, with their rich deposits of uranium & their scientific expertise, would get to contribute those instead of throwing loads of cash at untrustworthy foreign governments. The countries receiving that aid could get the benefit of training some of their people to build and eventually manage those power plants.
Yes, I know, I'm dreaming ...
I remember speaking with a US Utility exec a few years ago and I commented - "It's gotta be nuke." and he said, "yup".
But of course the "enviro-terrorists" - Suzuki et al - are dead against Nuclear - mostly because they are bolsheviks who wish the world to be completely impoverished except for themselves.
Gabby, the only possible reason to not use fossil fuels (what should be cheap transportable, storable energy) for mankinds economic benefit and comfort, is that the very nominal amount of C02 it introduces into the atmosphere is going to burn the planet up and melt the icecaps (the alarmists position)
But that is not happening and it is not going to.
I agree that 7 billion people can have an impact on the environment, but the area they likely have the very least impact on it is a changing of the climate through our use of fossil fuels.
C02 is a trace gas in the atmosphere - about 400 parts per million. 97% of it occurs naturally.
If man disappeared completely tomorrow, there would be about 11 ppm less of C02 emitted into the atmosphere annually. Or about 1 part per 100,00.
Also remember that C02 is a dynamic cycle - plants absorb it as food. The more C02 there is the more plant growth, which leads to more C02 uptake.
Picture yourself sitting in a 100,000 stadium. You in a red shirt, everyone else in blue. You are the C02. that is the concentration of mans contribution to atmospheric C02.
There is no correlation between C02 levels and temperature, and the alarmists and alarmist politicians know this.
Their predictions have failed to come true, and they get more shrill
This is not about stopping use of fossil fuels to save the planet, this is about control and ration of the economic lifeblood of mankind, and as such power and control over mankind. That is the endgame here.
I realize you are well intentioned in your reasoning, but if we really are concerned about mans impact on the planet, our focus should be on groundwater, real pollutants such as aerosols, deforestation etc.
The world is getting colder, not warmer, and the last thing I would wish for is that when it does enter a Maunder minimum style of cooling, that energy to heat my home, and engage in commerce is cheap and abundant, not controlled by an unelected cabal of power hungry progressives.
Well said, Ward.
The scam is enhanced by the propagandizing use of the word "Carbon" to describe CO2 emissions - when they are completely and unrelated compounds. As the planet develops more CO2 is emitted, this is absorbed by and results in more plant growth. But the environuts show pictures of stacks with H2O being emitted (water vapour) and use it in their promos as if it were "carbon pollution" which is not CO2 emissions.
One of the problems is that media writers are stupid and uninformed and want the biggest headline with the greatest bloodshed and report it as fact.
Thanks Lemon
However I do not give the media the excuse they are stupid and uninformed. They know precisely what they are doing. The average Joe who is more concerned with making his mortgage payment every month might be ignorant of the game in play here, but journalists only job is to check the veracity of their reportage and sources.
You cannot spend 10 minutes on the internet without knowing something is truly amiss in the area of Climate change advocacy. You just cant.
And if your job is to find the truth and report it objectively there is just no way that the vast majority of media (with exceptions I could count on one hand) are missing the fraud that is taking place.
They are part of it.
Mr. Benedict, it may have escaped your notice that I did not mention CO2 once in my initial comment, so I won't waste much of your time trying to either dispute or concur with the information you provide on CO2.
I'm afraid, though, you've misread my admittedly lengthy comment, having concluded that I'm against the use of fossil fuels. For a third time: I'm no scientist, but focussing as I did on nuclear energy, I was arguing for using another much maligned fossil fuel: uranium. Its expanded use might, just might, help to lessen the alarmist cacophony about increasing levels of GHGs. Reduce the levels of GHGs and the warmists won’t have as much ammunition left, will they?
The reality, in my view, is this: the climate change alarmists have been winning the propaganda war. Whether we like to admit it or not, a word from Hollywood personalities has more weight with the general public than all the charts & graphs one can wave at the public. It also doesn’t help that torrential rains, ravaging forest fires, record-breaking blizzards are given extensive round the clock coverage on our all-news channels. So, acting in some concrete way to bring about a true reduction of GHGs -- without closing down our resource sector -- would benefit the non-warmist side. And it would expand job opportunities for those able to work in nuclear related industries.
BTW, I did mention deforestation, as did you. Another reason for turning to a non-GHG-emitting form of energy, nuclear. The more healthy trees left in our forests, the fewer arguments from the warmists that we’re killing the planet with our GHG emissions.
-- comment by Gabby in QC
I think you guys are on the same side of the angels here. Uranium isn't a fossil fuel - but it is clean. The enviro nuts hate it because... they hate it. Fukushima - which is what they are currently pointed to - also destructed because of an entirely natural event - a tsunami. And no one died from the nuke plant destruction.
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (the '85 NPP winner) was a Soviet front.
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (the '85 NPP winner) was a Soviet front.
Well said!
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