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Multibillion climate change bill for U.S.


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(Reuters) - Annual property losses from hurricanes and other coastal storms of $35 billion; a decline in crop yields of 14 percent, costing corn and wheat farmers tens of billions of dollars; heat wave-driven demand for electricity costing utility customers up to $12 billion per year.

These are among the economic costs that climate change is expected to exact in the United States over the next 25 years, according to a bipartisan report released on Tuesday. And that's just for starters: The price tag could soar to hundreds of billions by 2100.

Commissioned by a group chaired by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Secretary of the Treasury and Goldman Sachs alum Henry Paulson, and environmentalist and financier Tom Steyer, the analysis "is the most detailed ever of the potential economic effects of climate change on the U.S.," said climatologist Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University.

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Does anyone know what % of this change is being caused by America? Has it been studied in a reproducible way and peer reviewed? And if every recommendation was followed what impact would it have on the global problem? Additionally, what would the impact to the global economy be if America invested this kind of $ into the climate change issue? Every dollar spent on this is a dollar that can't be invested in other things. I'm just curious to know if this issue can be dealt with successfully by a single country - I'm guessing it cannot.

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Does anyone know what % of this change is being caused by America? Has it been studied in a reproducible way and peer reviewed? And if every recommendation was followed what impact would it have on the global problem? Additionally, what would the impact to the global economy be if America invested this kind of $ into the climate change issue? Every dollar spent on this is a dollar that can't be invested in other things. I'm just curious to know if this issue can be dealt with successfully by a single country - I'm guessing it cannot.

Nobody cares, the bill will come anyway but not in form of somebody demanding payment but in the form of lost production, lost habitat and lost agricultural spaces. We either pay now and try to keep our world the way it is or we will pay later.

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Nobody cares, the bill will come anyway but not in form of somebody demanding payment but in the form of lost production, lost habitat and lost agricultural spaces. We either pay now and try to keep our world the way it is or we will pay later.

I realize a solution is demanded. But ruining one of the best economic engines on the planet won't help - especially if other countries that pollute MORE are ignoring the issue. Seems it's always the US that is expected to carry the load. IF the US is the greatest contributor of greenhouse emissions then that would be fair - but I don't think we are - not even close. As to procrastination - when has mankind ever NOT done so?
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Nobody cares, the bill will come anyway but not in form of somebody demanding payment but in the form of lost production, lost habitat and lost agricultural spaces. We either pay now and try to keep our world the way it is or we will pay later.

Since the Earth and its climate and even its continents have never been static, but always in a state of flux, there is no possibility of "keeping our world the way it is". Since we know through geological records that the Earth has been both warmer and cooler than it is currently, who is to say that the way it is now is the optimum temperature? I think it is merely what we have grown to prefer because we were born into this climate but it is the height of arrogance to presume to speak for all generations to come. Any attempt we make now to change the climate 100 years into the future will undoubtedly be seen as quaint and futile by the very people we think we will be helping. Even worse than our track record for predicting the climate are our attempts at predicting future inventions and advancements. If our Founding Fathers, wise as they were, had attempted to provide for our physical needs and not just our governance, we would have been bequeathed stores of horse feed and sail cloth and other commodities seen as valuable to them that would be useless to us now. Inventions they could not have foreseen would have made their good intentions null and void. We would be better off, and so would our descendants, if we did our best to leave them a thriving country in which to be born and grow. Their resourcefulness in regards to climate change, if indeed we are correct, will far surpass anything we could do.

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Since the Earth and its climate and even its continents have never been static, but always in a state of flux, there is no possibility of "keeping our world the way it is". Since we know through geological records that the Earth has been both warmer and cooler than it is currently, who is to say that the way it is now is the optimum temperature? I think it is merely what we have grown to prefer because we were born into this climate but it is the height of arrogance to presume to speak for all generations to come. Any attempt we make now to change the climate 100 years into the future will undoubtedly be seen as quaint and futile by the very people we think we will be helping. Even worse than our track record for predicting the climate are our attempts at predicting future inventions and advancements. If our Founding Fathers, wise as they were, had attempted to provide for our physical needs and not just our governance, we would have been bequeathed stores of horse feed and sail cloth and other commodities seen as valuable to them that would be useless to us now. Inventions they could not have foreseen would have made their good intentions null and void. We would be better off, and so would our descendants, if we did our best to leave them a thriving country in which to be born and grow. Their resourcefulness in regards to climate change, if indeed we are correct, will far surpass anything we could do.

The biggest issue is not really how hot or cold it will be. The biggest issue will be related to migration. An increase in temperature means a decrease in land mass.

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The biggest issue is not really how hot or cold it will be. The biggest issue will be related to migration. An increase in temperature means a decrease in land mass.

I'm aware of all the changes that go along with climate changes. But the size and shape and even the positions of the continents are not set in stone, as it were. The basic misconception of the people who think we can control climate change is that current conditions should always remain the same. As I stated earlier, nothing about the Earth has ever stayed the same. Just as we have geological records by which we can determine past climate conditions we also have archeological proof that the sea level and coastlines were not always as they are now. The human race, along with all other creatures, has always had to adapt to changing conditions to survive. We would be better off adapting to continual changes rather than wasting time and effort on things we can't change. Just as we don't rule the weather we also don't own the land. Throughout our history we have settled where we can, and moved when we had to. I think our many advances have convinced us that we somehow rule the world instead of being subjects to it.

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The biggest issue is not really how hot or cold it will be. The biggest issue will be related to migration. An increase in temperature means a decrease in land mass.

Studying this and publishing - even pushing the facts through social media and so forth might do more to educate and bring change than just fear mongering as is being done at this point. Provide the facts in a way that common folk can understand and sanction countries that are unwilling to get on board.
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Studying this and publishing - even pushing the facts through social media and so forth might do more to educate and bring change than just fear mongering as is being done at this point. Provide the facts in a way that common folk can understand and sanction countries that are unwilling to get on board.

There are very few countries where people, at this point, don't understand the problem. That the USA is among them is more due to politicking with a serious issue than for lack of information.

This has been handled as if there was a plague outbreak and one political party seez so and the other denies it and now they are bickering until most to get bubonic ulcers.

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Studying this and publishing - even pushing the facts through social media and so forth might do more to educate and bring change than just fear mongering as is being done at this point. Provide the facts in a way that common folk can understand and sanction countries that are unwilling to get on board.

How do you educate people who dont want to be educated?

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How do you educate people who dont want to be educated?

Brainwashing and intimidation seems to be the chosen course.

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Brainwashing and intimidation seems to be the chosen course.

I wouldn't call it brainwashing. However I agree a lot of climate scientists use the " doom and gloom" method. Things are not as bad as some makes it out to be. However I can understand why some scientists use these methods. They have tried to give the public clear facts so they could see we are going down a dangerous path. However this doesn't seem to help. So now some people are trying to use "if you don't get out of the burning house you will get killed"

I would like hear your suggestion on how we can get the public to realise if we don't do something about this soon when we will have to face the consequences.

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I wouldn't call it brainwashing. However I agree a lot of climate scientists use the " doom and gloom" method. Things are not as bad as some makes it out to be. However I can understand why some scientists use these methods. They have tried to give the public clear facts so they could see we are going down a dangerous path. However this doesn't seem to help. So now some people are trying to use "if you don't get out of the burning house you will get killed"

I would like hear your suggestion on how we can get the public to realise if we don't do something about this soon when we will have to face the consequences.

You won't get a suggestion from me in regards to your last point, since I don't believe we have to do anything. My previous post should have made my position clear, but let me restate my view just in case I didn't make it clear enough. The Earth's climate has been changing throughout its long history. Sometimes it has been hotter than it is now and the dinosaurs thrived. Other times it has been colder and the wooly mammoths thrived. The climate has always changed and life has always adapted. That includes us. Personally I don't believe that we are responsible for climate change, since it was going on before we even existed. But if we are, as some claim, then I don't think taxing and regulating ourselves back into the stone age is going to do anything but make us all miserable. And for what? So that we can bequeath our version of an ideal Earth to generations to come that will undoubtedly be more advanced than we are and thus better able to tackle such problems. Every penny of tax and every hardship imposed in the name of climate change would be better applied to building a vigorous economy and encouraging people to be more productive, not less. If and when there is incontrovertible proof that we are responsible, the problem will be solved by human ingenuity, not by political solutions that stifle and punish the current generation for the supposed benefit of those yet to come.

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You won't get a suggestion from me in regards to your last point, since I don't believe we have to do anything. My previous post should have made my position clear, but let me restate my view just in case I didn't make it clear enough. The Earth's climate has been changing throughout its long history. Sometimes it has been hotter than it is now and the dinosaurs thrived. Other times it has been colder and the wooly mammoths thrived. The climate has always changed and life has always adapted. That includes us. Personally I don't believe that we are responsible for climate change, since it was going on before we even existed. But if we are, as some claim, then I don't think taxing and regulating ourselves back into the stone age is going to do anything but make us all miserable. And for what? So that we can bequeath our version of an ideal Earth to generations to come that will undoubtedly be more advanced than we are and thus better able to tackle such problems. Every penny of tax and every hardship imposed in the name of climate change would be better applied to building a vigorous economy and encouraging people to be more productive, not less. If and when there is incontrovertible proof that we are responsible, the problem will be solved by human ingenuity, not by political solutions that stifle and punish the current generation for the supposed benefit of those yet to come.

A few misconceptions stated there.

All changes on the planet have causes which can be measured and attributed to their effects. When you look at what is happening to the earth there are no natural causes which fit the pattern of change which is been witnessed, the only factor which explains what has happened in the past and is happening now is to attribute climate change to the accumulation of greenhouse gases. We know this because the paleoclimate record shows us that when the atmospheric CO2 levels are high the temperature is high as well and we know the mechanism since CO2 traps heat in the planetary system (a process easily verified in a simple lab experiment). If you disagree then please explain what is causing climate change to happen.

Second misconception is that the changes needed to reduce atmospheric CO2 are difficult to make but ultimately lead to a sustainable and prosperous future where our energy needs are met by what the planet has to offer at all times. to continue to relie on fossil fuels as our primary energy source means that the cost of living will continue to rise as the supplies dwindle. Already oil has qudrupeled in price as production has both fallen behind use and reserves are becoming more difficult to bring online. That means that pursuing the status quo will inevitably lead to the very poverty you complain about. We either divest of fossil fuels or face the inevitable fact that the general mass of humanity will become progressively poorer.

The third misconception is that doing nothing will lead to a better outcome than doing what is necessary. That is a very poor reading of the avilable data as there are multiple lines of evidence that point to the environment been in crisis with us causing the 6th mass extinction event on the plenet. We can either learn to live within the limits of what nature has to offer or we can face the very real possibility of collapse in the face of over exploitation of our environment. Again we have the choice and the choice to do nothing will inevitably lead to the worst possible outcome as more species we indirectly relies on to survive are pushed to extinction.

Climate change is just a small symptom of a lifestyle which is unsustainable and which treats a finite resource (the ecosystem) as if it were infinite. Unless we discover, through our ingenuity, ways of living within the means of nature to support us we will look into an increasingly stressed future with ever increasing poverty. To change nothing, and to deny the issues makes human suffering and decline all but inevitable. Denial is no longer an option despite what some politicans are attempting to sell.

Br Cornelius

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A few misconceptions stated there.

All changes on the planet have causes which can be measured and attributed to their effects. When you look at what is happening to the earth there are no natural causes which fit the pattern of change which is been witnessed, the only factor which explains what has happened in the past and is happening now is to attribute climate change to the accumulation of greenhouse gases. We know this because the paleoclimate record shows us that when the atmospheric CO2 levels are high the temperature is high as well and we know the mechanism since CO2 traps heat in the planetary system (a process easily verified in a simple lab experiment). If you disagree then please explain what is causing climate change to happen.

** Nothing to disagree with here. You've explained very well that the mechanisms pushing global temperatures towards the warmer end of the spectrum in ancient times are the same as those operating now. That virtually eliminates human activity as the cause since the same pattern of process and result occurred before humans came on the scene and after.

Second misconception is that the changes needed to reduce atmospheric CO2 are difficult to make but ultimately lead to a sustainable and prosperous future where our energy needs are met by what the planet has to offer at all times. to continue to relie on fossil fuels as our primary energy source means that the cost of living will continue to rise as the supplies dwindle. Already oil has qudrupeled in price as production has both fallen behind use and reserves are becoming more difficult to bring online. That means that pursuing the status quo will inevitably lead to the very poverty you complain about. We either divest of fossil fuels or face the inevitable fact that the general mass of humanity will become progressively poorer.

** I don't expect that we will continue to rely on fossil fuels. Just as climate change is inevitable, so are changes in human behavior. We have not always used oil as our primary source of energy. Wood was used to such an extent that people feared we would deforest the planet. That didn't happen. Not because we restrained ourselves but because progress from inventions and discoveries made it obsolete.

The same for whale oil, which was widely used as lamp fuel to the point where extinction seemed imminent. That also didn't happen. I see no reason to anticipate a decline in human ingenuity. Long before we deplete the Earth's fossil fuels or cause harm to the planet we will discover new methods and sources of energy that we cannot imagine now.

The current flow of oil and temporary shortages are due more to politics than any lack of supply. We have plenty of coal to offset oil usage. We have plenty of untapped or underutilized oil reserves. Changing this situation requires neither science or sacrifice but for the people in power to make decisions to benefit their people. This could happen immediately or never, but has little to do with actual supply.

The third misconception is that doing nothing will lead to a better outcome than doing what is necessary. That is a very poor reading of the avilable data as there are multiple lines of evidence that point to the environment been in crisis with us causing the 6th mass extinction event on the plenet. We can either learn to live within the limits of what nature has to offer or we can face the very real possibility of collapse in the face of over exploitation of our environment. Again we have the choice and the choice to do nothing will inevitably lead to the worst possible outcome as more species we indirectly relies on to survive are pushed to extinction.

** Since the "sixth mass extinction" hasn't happened, we haven't caused it. And since we weren't around for the other five, we didn't cause them either. Many more species are extinct than alive today. This is the natural process of evolution and will continue. Someday it will be our turn no matter what we do. We do not need to learn live within the limits of what nature has to offer, we have no other choice. Nature is self correcting and where we over step our bounds we are quickly reminded that we are not in charge. Our intellect and modest success at transforming our world have made us think that we can avoid adapting to the Earth and all its processes. Because we have changed some things we are emboldened to think we can change the climate or the natural course of species' rise and fall. We cannot.

Climate change is just a small symptom of a lifestyle which is unsustainable and which treats a finite resource (the ecosystem) as if it were infinite. Unless we discover, through our ingenuity, ways of living within the means of nature to support us we will look into an increasingly stressed future with ever increasing poverty. To change nothing, and to deny the issues makes human suffering and decline all but inevitable. Denial is no longer an option despite what some politicans are attempting to sell.

** As I've stated above, I believe we will discover the means by which to adapt to a changing world. We always have. There have been climate alarmists before. According to the "experts" in the 70's we should be in an ice age by now. Where would we be today if we had made the changes they so ardently argued for back then? I see this current hysteria over global warming as just the other side of the coin. Science in the service of politics and politicians in the service of themselves. Real science is usually accomplished in small steps. When we decided to go to the moon, we didn't shoot for it on the first try. First we had to see if the rocket would fly, then if men could survive in space and so on. We should take the same approach to climate change. Before we try to change the climate of the whole planet for all eternity, why not try to change the weather in Minneapolis for the first week of June next year? If we succeed at that I just may get on board.

Br Cornelius

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Unfortunately Big Jim you have made so many grossly false statements there that it would take me a whole day to correct them with appropriate scientific evidence - and you wouldn't read my reply anyway, so I am not going to bother. Suffice it to say that not one of your statements is supportable with evidence - not a single one. However you have built a relatively impregnable fortress of untruth around yourself and you lack of any actual evidence to support your position means that it is highly unlikely that supplying you with evidence would change your position one inch. Its a subtle delusion you live in and you are welcome to it.

Br Cornelius

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I read an item in "Diplomat" today that Bangladesh has been steadily raising living standards and more than feeding itself, and all this progress is now going down the drain because of rising saline levels. Where are we going to put all those people?

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I read an item in "Diplomat" today that Bangladesh has been steadily raising living standards and more than feeding itself, and all this progress is now going down the drain because of rising saline levels. Where are we going to put all those people?

Indeed Frank. The world will become little islands of isolationism looking after the dwindling resources they have and fighting the waves of climate refugees. This, in of itself, will herald the rolling back of 50 years of progress towards a civilized world.

Br Cornelius

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Unfortunately Big Jim you have made so many grossly false statements there that it would take me a whole day to correct them with appropriate scientific evidence - and you wouldn't read my reply anyway, so I am not going to bother. Suffice it to say that not one of your statements is supportable with evidence - not a single one. However you have built a relatively impregnable fortress of untruth around yourself and you lack of any actual evidence to support your position means that it is highly unlikely that supplying you with evidence would change your position one inch. Its a subtle delusion you live in and you are welcome to it.

Br Cornelius

You have no way of knowing what I will read or not, so don't use your assumptions about me to justify your reluctance to refute my statements. Just because I didn't cite evidence for what I said doesn't mean there is none. Without going over my previous post point by point, at least one verifiable statement comes immediately to mind. The climate alarmists in the 70's were indeed predicting an ice age by the year 2000 or so. Many of those books are still able to be found. Hard, solid evidence that at least one of my statements was based on fact, making your sweeping critique wrong. You also have no way of knowing what my reaction would be to being presented with evidence. You make more unfounded assumptions about me than I have made about my beliefs.

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Does anyone know what % of this change is being caused by America? Has it been studied in a reproducible way and peer reviewed? And if every recommendation was followed what impact would it have on the global problem? Additionally, what would the impact to the global economy be if America invested this kind of $ into the climate change issue? Every dollar spent on this is a dollar that can't be invested in other things. I'm just curious to know if this issue can be dealt with successfully by a single country - I'm guessing it cannot.

Hi A.T you are guessing right America cannot do this alone it will take China ,Russia, and Europe to conform to standards set by the whole world,and that aint gonna happen, both China and Russia will pay lip service and continue spewing out millions of tons of toxic gases from coal fired power stations and filling the rivers and ultimately the seas with toxic effluent. The Yangtze (Yellow) river in China is well named , it was a turgid lentil soup looking river when I was there 30 yrs ago, and the sea turns a sickly brownish yellow 25 miles off Mumbai (formerly Bombay) not to memtion the Ganges, Nile , and Danube, which aren't rivers but toxic waste channels.
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You have no way of knowing what I will read or not, so don't use your assumptions about me to justify your reluctance to refute my statements. Just because I didn't cite evidence for what I said doesn't mean there is none. Without going over my previous post point by point, at least one verifiable statement comes immediately to mind. The climate alarmists in the 70's were indeed predicting an ice age by the year 2000 or so. Many of those books are still able to be found. Hard, solid evidence that at least one of my statements was based on fact, making your sweeping critique wrong. You also have no way of knowing what my reaction would be to being presented with evidence. You make more unfounded assumptions about me than I have made about my beliefs.

A minority of climate scientists (a minority of two to be exact) made that prediction. It was discussed and found to be based upon faulty data. The media picked up on it and ran, but a review of the scientific literature at the time showed that most scientists already believed that the planet was warming. You have just stated the myth that the media was a true reflection of the scientific knowledge of the time which is another denialist meme which never dies.

GlobalCooling.JPG

http://www.skeptical...obalCooling.JPG

The peer reviewed literature review can be found here:

Climate science as we know it today did not exist in the 1960s and 1970s. The integrated enterprise embodied in the Nobel Prizewinning work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change existed then as separate threads of research pursued by isolated groups of scientists. Atmospheric chemists and modelers grappled with the measurement of changes in carbon dioxide and atmospheric gases, and the changes in climate that might result. Meanwhile, geologists and paleoclimate researchers tried to understand when Earth slipped into and out of ice ages, and why. An enduring popular myth suggests that in the 1970s the climate science community was predicting “global cooling” and an “imminent” ice age, an observation frequently used by those who would undermine what climate scientists say today about the prospect of global warming. A review of the literature suggests that, on the contrary, greenhouse warming even then dominated scientists' thinking as being one of the most important forces shaping Earth's climate on human time scales. More importantly than showing the falsehood of the myth, this review describes how scientists of the time built the foundation on which the cohesive enterprise of modern climate science now rests.

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1

Again you show your ignorance of even historical scientific knowledge and your full aquaintence with the whole gamit of denialist meme's. Nice work.

So my question is - whats your reaction to been proven wrong on this particular error you made ?

Br Cornelius

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Hi A.T you are guessing right America cannot do this alone it will take China ,Russia, and Europe to conform to standards set by the whole world,and that aint gonna happen, both China and Russia will pay lip service and continue spewing out millions of tons of toxic gases from coal fired power stations and filling the rivers and ultimately the seas with toxic effluent. The Yangtze (Yellow) river in China is well named , it was a turgid lentil soup looking river when I was there 30 yrs ago, and the sea turns a sickly brownish yellow 25 miles off Mumbai (formerly Bombay) not to memtion the Ganges, Nile , and Danube, which aren't rivers but toxic waste channels.

Which is why Spud that China has one of the biggest alternative energy programs in the world. The future of the communist system depends on solving the pollution crisis they have created for themselves - and they know it. I think you are wrong in saying they are paying lip service to tackling the program - they are doing as much if not more than the USA.

Br Cornelius

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A minority of climate scientists (a minority of two to be exact) made that prediction. It was discussed and found to be based upon faulty data. The media picked up on it and ran, but a review of the scientific literature at the time showed that most scientists already believed that the planet was warming. You have just stated the myth that the media was a true reflection of the scientific knowledge of the time which is another denialist meme which never dies.

GlobalCooling.JPG

http://www.skeptical...obalCooling.JPG

Again you show your ignorance of even historical scientific knowledge and your full aquaintence with the whole gamit of denialist meme's. Nice work.

So my question is - whats your reaction to been proven wrong on this particular error you made ?

Br Cornelius

I'm in shock. Never been wrong before, but I suppose I'll get over it.

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I'm in shock. Never been wrong before, but I suppose I'll get over it.

So are you any less certain of your other certainties on climate science ?

Do you now suspect the veracity of your sources ?

I strongly advise you to go away and read a bit more widely on the subject, taking in as many sources in support of the consensus position as against it (though that is not really unbiased in itself since you would need to read at least 90% more sources in support of the anthropogenic explanation to get a real unbiased assessment of the literature).

Br Cornelius

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Do you now suspect the veracity of your sources ?

Before 1990, when computers started becoming a household item, where might we have found the information contradicting global cooling that was being blown out of proportion by every major news source?

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