Middle Ages Warmer Than Today

[ELKCHSR]

From the EIB Network;

Middle Ages Warmer Than Today

April 7, 2003


Scientists from Harvard, which we would all agree is not a conservative university, have found that temperatures in the Middle Ages were warmer than they are today. The UK Telegraph: "Claims that man-made pollution is causing 'unprecedented' global warming have been seriously undermined by new research which shows that the Earth was warmer during the Middle Ages."

Just to remind you, humans didn't burn fossil fuels during the Middle Ages. Conan the Barbarian-types didn't drive around in an SUV. He didn't have air Freon nor did his wife use hairspray. The truth is out there, but those who wish to invent issues as a way to advance their anti-capitalist agenda (notice how the modern environmentalist movement began only after they lost the Vietnam War issue) won't believe it. They'll bury this study just as the World Health Organization buried that study finding secondhand smoke is harmless.

The earth's temperature runs in cycles, people. We had a little ice age, and now things are warming up a bit. We also know that the sun's increased activity is causing Mars to warm up as well - and there are no SUVs on Mars. The scientific method means looking at the facts and finding a result. But science for liberals means coming up with a result, and disregarding any facts that disprove it. Science for the left means shutting out any scientists who disagree with the global warming "theory," as the United Nations does and heralding anyone who wears a white coat as Jonas Salk.

 

[1_pointer]

Rate of increase, not ambient temperature is more important, IMO.

Like I've said before, I hope your right, but if not then we are in for big trouble in the future.

 

[FLIPPER]

"We?"

 

[1_pointer]

If global warming increases as much as some models predict, there will be wholesale changes in the natural environment as well as what crop plants can be grown where. Kansas may end up looking like central WY, that sort of thing. "We" is for anyone on this earth, because it would cause changes for all and most would not be for the better.

 

[FLIPPER]

But..."we" won't be here

 

[1_pointer]

Refer to my definition of 'we'. Your kids or grandkids will be here.

 

[Washington Hunter]

1 pointer, it seems many people aren't concerned with what happens on this earth after they are gone, so if it's going to happen 100 years from now, it just doesn't matter. I guess they don't think about their kids or grandkids. Either that or they just choose to put their heads in the sand and pretend the problem doesn't exist.

 

[tmsander]

"...from the EIB Network..." - reason enough, at least for me, to treat anything that follows as laughable. Rush Limbaugh an authority on global warming? Puuuhhhhlllleeeezeee!

 

[ELKCHSR]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Puuuhhhhlllleeeezeee! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I never see you posting much on any thing!!!

 

[BuzzH]

Come on, you guys dont believe Rushbo? I wonder why not? He's such a reliable source of information!!! hahaha

Check it out!

Rush Limbaugh has gotten a lot of mileage out of his claim that volcanoes do more harm to the ozone layer than human-produced chemicals. He featured it in his best-selling book, The Way Things Ought to Be (paperback edition pp. 155-157): "Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines spewed forth more than a thousand times the amount of ozone-depleting chemicals in one eruption than all the fluorocarbons manufactured by wicked, diabolical and insensitive corporations in history.... Mankind can't possibly equal the output of even one eruption from Pinatubo, much less 4 billion years' worth of them, so how can we destroy ozone?"

Limbaugh calls concern about the ozone layer: "balderdash. Poppycock." The only people who worry about it are "environmental wackos," "dunderheaded alarmists and prophets of doom."

Syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell (New York Post, 1/14/94) used the volcano theory as Exhibit A to illustrate Limbaugh's "very well-informed and savvy understanding of the political issues of our time." "While far more pretentious people have been joining the chorus of hysteria over 'global warming,'" Sowell wrote, "Limbaugh pointed out in his [first] book that one of the high readings of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere came right after a volcanic eruption--and volcanoes can put more gases into the atmosphere than the entire human race."

The alert reader will notice that Sowell has mixed up global warming and the ozone layer, two different problems. Still, Sowell concluded of Limbaugh, "It is obvious that the man has done his homework--and done it well."

Ted Koppel must have thought so, too, when he invited Limbaugh to be on Nightline (2/4/92) as an environmental "expert," opposite then-Sen. Al Gore. "If you listen to what Senator Gore said," Limbaugh proclaimed, "it is man-made products which are causing the ozone depletion, yet Mount Pinatubo has put 570 times the amount of chlorine into the atmosphere in one eruption than all of man-made chlorofluorocarbons in one year."

On his radio show, his syndicated TV show, and in two best-selling books, Limbaugh has advanced the idea that volcanoes are the real ozone culprits. This theory, like so many of Limbaugh's claims, has only one problem: Limbaugh doesn't know what he's talking about.

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A Mountain of Distortion
"Chlorine from natural sources is soluble, and so it gets rained out of the lower atmosphere," the journal Science explained (6/11/93). "CFCs, in contrast, are insoluble and inert and thus make it to the stratosphere to release their chlorine."
Science also noted that chlorine found in the stratosphere-- where it can eat away at Earth's protective ozone layer--is always found with other byproducts of CFCs, and not with the byproducts of natural chlorine sources.

"Ozone depletion is real, as certain as Neil Armstrong's landing on the moon," Dr. Sherwood Rowland, an atmospheric chemist at the University of California at Irvine, told Extra!. "Natural causes of ozone depletion are not significant."

But Limbaugh didn't rely on atmospheric scientists for his information about the ozone layer--he dismissed them as the "agenda-oriented scientific community." Instead, he turned to Dixy Lee Ray, a former Washington State governor and Atomic Energy Commission chair, who wrote Trashing the Planet--"the most footnoted, documented book I have ever read," Limbaugh says.

If you check Ray's footnotes, you'll find that the main source for the volcano theory is Rogelio Maduro, the associate editor of 21st Century Science & Technology, a magazine published by the Lyndon LaRouche network. Maduro is evidently not part of the "agenda-oriented scientific community"--even though he does have a bachelor's degree in geology.

The volcano theorists can't even keep their stories straight. In his book, Limbaugh claims that the 1991 Pinatubo eruption put 1000 times as much chlorine into the atmosphere as industry has ever produced through CFCs; yet on Nightline, Pinatubo is alleged to have produced 570 times the equivalent of one year's worth of CFCs. Both can't be right. It turns out neither are.

The figure 570 apparently derives from Ray's book--but she said it was Mount Augustine, an Alaskan volcano that erupted in 1976, that put out 570 times as much chlorine as one year's worth of CFCs. Ray's source is a 1980 Science magazine article--but that piece was actually talking about the chlorine produced by a gigantic eruption that occurred 700,000 years ago in California (Science, 6/11/93).

 

[BuzzH]

Heres more by our AM radio brainiac...he's real trustworthy.


Limbaugh vs. Reality
Bogus Economics
LIMBAUGH: On California contractor C.C. Myers completing repairs 74 days early on the earthquake-damaged Santa Monica Freeway: "There was one key element that made this happen. One key thing: The governor of California declared the [freeway] a disaster area and by so doing eliminated the need for competitive bids.... Government got the hell out of the way." (TV show, 4/13/94) "They gave this guy [Myers] the job without having to go through the rigmarole...of giving 25 percent of the job to a minority-owned business and 25 percent to a woman." (TV show, 4/15/94)
REALITY: There was competitive bidding: Myers beat four other contractors for the job. Affirmative action rules applied: At least 40 percent of the subcontracts went to minority or women-owned firms. Far from getting out of the way, dozens of state employees were on the job 24 hours a day. Furthermore, the federal government picked up the tab for the whole job (L.A. Times, 5/1/94).

LIMBAUGH: "Banks take the risks in issuing student loans and they are entitled to the profits." (Radio show, quoted in FRQ, Summer/93)

REALITY: Banks take no risks in issuing student loans, which are federally insured.

LIMBAUGH: "Don't let the liberals deceive you into believing that a decade of sustained growth without inflation in America [in the '80s] resulted in a bigger gap between the haves and the have-nots. Figures compiled by the Congressional Budget Office dispel that myth." (Ought to Be, p. 70)

REALITY: CBO figures do nothing of the sort. Its numbers for after-tax incomes show that in 1980, the richest fifth of our country had eight times the income of the poorest fifth. By 1989, the ratio was more than 20 to one.

LIMBAUGH: Comparing the 1950s with the present: "And I might point out that poverty and economic disparities between the lower and upper classes were greater during the former period." (Told You So, p. 84)

REALITY: Income inequality, as measured by the U.S. Census Bureau, fell from the 1940s to the late 1960s, and then began rising. Inequality surpassed the 1950 level in 1982 and rose steadily to all-time highs in 1992. (Census Bureau's "Money Income of Households, Families and Persons in the United States")

LIMBAUGH: "Oh, how they relished blaming Reagan administration policies, including the mythical reductions in HUD's budget for public housing, for creating all of the homeless! Budget cuts? There were no budget cuts! The budget figures show that actual construction of public housing increased during the Reagan years." (Ought to Be, p. 242-243)

REALITY: In 1980, 20,900 low-income public housing units were under construction; in 1988, 9,700, a decline of 54 percent ;Statistical Abstracts of the U.S).In terms of 1993 dollars, the HUD budget for the construction of new public housing was slashed from $6.3 billion in 1980 to $683 million in 1988. "We're getting out of the housing business. Period," a Reagan HUD official declared in 1985.

LIMBAUGH: "The poorest people in America are better off than the mainstream families of Europe." (Radio show, quoted in FRQ, Spring/93)

REALITY: Huh? The average cash income of the poorest 20 percent of Americans is $5,226; the average cash income of four major European nations--Germany, France, United Kingdom and Italy--is $19,708.

LIMBAUGH: "There's no such thing as an implied contract." (Radio show, quoted in FRQ, Spring/93)

REALITY: Every first year law student knows there is.

LIMBAUGH: "Ladies and gentlemen, we now know why there is this institutional opposition to low tax rates in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. It's because [low tax rates] are biblical in nature and in root. When you can trace the lowering of tax rates on grain from 90 percent to 20 percent giving seven fat years during the days of Pharaoh in Egypt, why then you are tracing the roots of lower taxes and rising prosperity to religion.... You can trace individual prosperity, economic growth back to the Bible, the Old Testament. Isn't it amazing?" (Radio show, 6/28/93)

REALITY: Amazingly wrong. Genesis 41 is about the wisdom of instituting taxes, not cutting them. After Pharaoh had a dream that prophesied seven fat years to be followed by seven lean years, Joseph advised him to "appoint officers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years...and lay up corn under the hands of Pharaoh." In other words, a 20 percent tax on the grain harvest would put aside food for use during the famine. Pharaoh took Joseph's advice, and Egypt avoided hunger during the famine.

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Weird Science
LIMBAUGH: "It has not been proven that nicotine is addictive, the same with cigarettes causing emphysema [and other diseases]." (Radio show, 4/29/94)
REALITY: Nicotine's addictiveness has been reported in medical literature since the turn of the century. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop's 1988 report on nicotine addiction left no doubts on the subject; "Today the scientific base linking smoking to a number of chronic diseases is overwhelming, with a total of 50,000 studies from dozens of countries," states Encyclopedia Britannica's 1987 "Medical and Health Annual."

LIMBAUGH: "We closed down a whole town--Times Beach, Mo.--over the threat of dioxin. We now know there was no reason to do that. Dioxin at those levels isn't harmful." (Ought to Be, p. 163)

REALITY: "The hypothesis that low exposures [to dioxin] are entirely safe for humans is distinctly less tenable now than before," editorialized the New England Journal of Medicine after publishing a study (1/24/91) on cancer mortality and dioxin. In 1993, after Limbaugh's book was written, a study of residents in Seveso, Italy had increased cancer rates after being exposed to dioxin, The EPA's director of environmental toxicology said this study removed one of the last remaining doubts about dioxin's deadly effects (AP, 8/29/93).

LIMBAUGH: "The worst of all of this is the lie that condoms really protect against AIDS. The condom failure rate can be as high as 20 percent. Would you get on a plane -- or put your children on a plane -- if one of five passengers would be killed on the flight? Well, the statistic holds for condoms, folks." (Ought to Be, p. 135)

REALITY: A one in five AIDS risk for condom users? Not true, according to Dr. Joseph Kelaghan, who evaluates contraceptives for the National Institutes of Health. "There is substantive evidence that condoms prevent transmission if used consistently and properly," he said. He pointed to a nearly two-year study of couples in which one partner was HIV-positive. Among the 123 couples who used condoms regularly, there wasn't a single new infection (AP, 8/29/93).

LIMBAUGH: "Most Canadian physicians who are themselves in need of surgery, for example, scurry across the border to get it done right: the American way. They have found, through experience, that state medical care is too expensive, too slow and inefficient, and, most important, it doesn't provide adequate care for most people." (Told You So, p. 153)

REALITY: "Mr. Limbaugh's claim simply isn't true," says Dr. Hugh Scully, chair of the Canadian Medical Association's Council on Healing and Finance. "The vast majority of Canadians, including physicians, receive their care here in Canada. Those few Canadians who receive health care in the U.S. most often do because they have winter homes in the States--like Arizona and Florida--and have emergent health problems there." Medical care in Canada is hardly "too expensive"; it's provided free and covered by taxes.

LIMBAUGH: "If you have any doubts about the status of American health care, just compare it with that in other industrialized nations." (Told You So, p. 153)

REALITY: The United States ranks 19th in life expectancy and 20th in infant mortality among 23 industrialized nations, according to the CIA's 1993 World Fact Book. The U.S. also has the lowest health care satisfaction rate (11 percent) of the 10 largest industrialized nations (Health Affairs, vol. 9, no. 2).

LIMBAUGH: Denouncing Jeremy Rifkin of the Beyond Beef campaign as an "ecopest": "Rifkin is bent out of shape because he says the cattle consume enough grain to feed hundreds of millions of people. The reason the cattle are eating the grain is so they can be fattened and slaughtered, after which they will feed people, who need a high protein diet." (Ought To Be, p. 110)

REALITY: Sixteen pounds of grain and soy is required to produce one pound of edible food from beef (USDA Economic Research Service). As for needing a "high-protein diet," the World Health Organization and U.S. Department of Agriculture recommend that from 4.5 percent to 6 percent of daily calories come from protein. The amount of calories from protein in rice is 8 percent; in wheat it's 17 percent (USDA Handbook No. 456).

LIMBAUGH: "Do you know we have more acreage of forest land in the United States today than we did at the time the constitution was written." (Radio show, 2/18/94)

REALITY: In what are now the 50 U.S. states, there were 850 million acres of forest land in the late 1700s vs. only 730 million today (The Bum's Rush, p. 136). Limbaugh's claim also ignores the fact that much of today's forests are single-species tree farms, as opposed to natural old-growth forests which support diverse ecosystems.

[

 

[Washington Hunter]

Buzz, thanks for that...I always knew Rush was a liar, but now there is no doubt. It amazes me that people believe that idiot and actually believe the crap that comes out of his mouth. Kind of funny though...all his believers will keep on smoking those cigarettes and die from it. What would be even funnier is if Rush got sued for promoting cigarettes.

 

[1_pointer]

But remember is is "Liberal school teachers and college professors" that are doing the brainwashing in this country at this time!

 

[Washington Hunter]

Oh, that's right! And Rush Limbaugh doesn't brainwash anybody does he? I guess that's because he's so truthful, so it can't be called brainwashing. He really is a joke. He makes me want to puke.

 

[ELKCHSR]

If you fellas have issues with him, I know for a fact that he would put you right to the top of the list if you called him on Friday's at 1 800 282 2882!!
Put your money where your "MOUTH" is and give him a call... If he is such a liar and what not, you will be able to call him and tell him directly...
He is a very intelligent man though, so have your ideas well formulated and your proof close at hand when you call, or you will be made the fool...
Any one can sit on one of these boards and spout all the drivel they want, when they feel safe from retribution, but when confronted with reality will wilt away and hide...
Now you started this nasty type of debate, don't make any woosie excuses-and call the man, other wise you are just blowing hot air and will be made to look the fool any way. Isn’t it great when you think just because you are in a little cozy group that you can feel safe and puke out what ever diatribe you want, problem is, your not in a green forum here and you will be called on your stuff as you like to call a few of us on ours...
One thing I can say is that I know that you will try and attack me personally, as Buzz has in the past on this, but it will not work. If any of you are man enough to back up your allegations of what was just put out above, then go ahead and make the call, or forever hold your piece, but not in public, the will get you sent to jail!!!
Just to let a few of you newbies know, Buzz and I have went thru this last year and he never made the call… So, how much of all that waste of cyber space that he put up above there is he willing to back up to the man that he so despises because of the truth Rush puts out…
The next call is yours, put up or shut up, it’s as easy as that!!!

 

[BuzzH]

Elkchaser, I hate to break the news, but the above statement is not mean spirited. Its a look at what Rush "claims" to know. The reality is, he's a draft dodger who flunked out of college and brags about never having been able to hold down a job.

He said those things and he's wrong, plain and simple.

As far as calling in, he's already tried, but failed to address the entire book that was written to expose his lies, exaggerations, and junk science...Rush's response? A two page diatribe making personal slams against the authors of footnoted and documented facts on all of Rush's crap.

Rush is a shock jock, just another Howard Stern.

Sorry to pick on your best source of political mis-information and your HERO, but the guys a wing-nut and anybody who believes anything that comes out of his mouth is an even bigger fool.

 

[ELKCHSR]

This is very easy for you to just sit in your easy chair and say with out actually pickning up the phone and making it happen now, isn't it..
And yes, if you read what was posted, it is meant to be exactly as you stated, nothing more.

 

[Oak]

What exactly makes Rush an expert on these subjects? Where's his scientific proof? What's he gonna do if we call and criticize him? Tell us we're wrong and he's right? Wow, convincing. I don't understand what makes folks take every word out of the man's mouth as gospel. He can say anything, and Elkchsr says, "Wow, really? I knew it!!" You're the one who's always spouting off about how we shouldn't believe everything we read or hear. Maybe you should take some of your own advice. Go out and scientifically test some of Rush's "hypotheses" and see what you find out. Before you tell me to do it instead, I don't have to. Real scientists have already done it and proven him wrong. I have a little more faith in them than I do Rush's diatribes. I want to see someone prove him right.

Oak

 

[Dick Reece]

Heeeeey Elkster!! Don't let any of it get the old Blood Pressure up buddy,it ain't worth it,take it from me,I've already had one mini stroke!

I'm a scientist of sorts by trade [ I work in a hospital lab and have to keep up with a lot] and I can tell you that several of the statements by Rush are absolutely false,and most likely all of them are.

But what's the big deal?,who cares,he's just like you and me and Buzz,another man with another opinion.That's it.

 

[1_pointer]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> You're the one who's always spouting off about how we shouldn't believe everything we read or hear. Maybe you should take some of your own advice. Go out and scientifically test some of Rush's "hypotheses" and see what you find out. Before you tell me to do it instead, I don't have to. Real scientists have already done it and proven him wrong. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If I give you the phone number of a global climate scientist that has been published in a peer review journal would you call him and give him your 'theory' of global climate change? What good is calling him going to do? It is obvious that he is not interested in the truth as it is out there and is not hard to find, but yet he says otherwise.

I can tell you that the majority of the scientific community is NOT behind Rush's statements and they are the one's performing the research. But that's just so they can stay economically viable right? What is Rush doing, helping out others? Kinda funny how none of his 'experts' are professionals studying global climate change. How many articles have his 'experts' published in peer reviewed journals on the subject?