Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for November 08, 2015

At least there will be no more Jim Andrews in the future.

Exxon published their data during the decade of the 1970’s. Nothing was hidden or covered-up. Any conclusions based on the data was always open to interpretation. In other words this is all much to do about nothing.

Wow! Even for Doonesbury, the amount of knee-jerk here today is really epic! If GT were trolling intentionally, he couldn’t get any more. Someone should take away his little rubber hammer.

The data show the expected rise in global temperature due to fossil fuel byproducts is only 10% of that predicted. We can’t control the variations in solar output – that’s the cause of global warming. We should first understand that the end product of all human energy production is heat. We are the cause of global heating. What will be the effect of global heating when the other 95% of the world achieve an American standard of energy consumption ? The effect will then exceed the current prediction by 40%. Before that happens, we need to invent new ways of obtaining energy from today’s sunlight instead of releasing yesterday’s sunlight stored in the chemical bonds of fossil fuels. What isn’t talked about is the need for an alternative chemistry to produce goods. Example: the spent sulphuric acid that produces polyvinylcholide plastics is dumped in the ocean, killing the plankton. Killing plants destroys nature’s way of taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. BTW– using recycled paper instead of virgin paper means less trees are planted that will scrub the CO2 from the atmosphere. Just because something is “recycled” doesn’t make it green. Global HEATING is the human contributing to a growing problem.

If there is to be a troll war on today’s strip, I would concentrate on panels 5 & 6. That is where the real red meat is. Well at least to me….

ALL IS WELL! THERE’S NOTHING TO SEE… Just whistle more. And keep clapping!

Don’t worry about climate change because the massive debt run-up by government will result in its own catastrophe for our grandkids long before they need short pants in Fargo in December.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2015/05/19/updated-nasa-data-polar-ice-not-receding-after-all/

I live in Florida. Our esteemed governor Rick Scott has forbidden any state worker from using the term climate change. However, about six weeks, ago, CSM had a six-page article on the coastal cities, including three huge one is Florida, that are already dealing with rising seas due to said changes. One city commissioner was quoted as saying, “Doesn’t matter what you call it, doesn’t matter whether you agree about it, it’s here and we have to deal with it.”

You hit on something about Republicans that has always amazed me – on one hand they yammer on and on about “Think of the debt we are saddling our grandchildren with” but on the other they turn a blind eye to big corporations that pollute and threaten all life on earth, i.e. their grandchildren, you know the same ones that are struggling under all that debt. Although I doubt they’re struggling much with the debt since they can’t breathe, there is mass flooding and there are dwindling food supplies from where the food chain has collapse.

“Never read the comments.” I don’t know why I keep forgetting that. It is amazing how the bullshit Exxon helped create is still going strong, long after they stopped promoting it. Global warming has continued steadily heating the oceans. The connection to air and land temps are affected by the coupling factors, like El Nino. The solar effect has been ruled out. Each time the Koch brothers pay $200k for bad science, they get bad science. Anybody who promotes climate denial bullshit without getting bribed is a fool.

Some issues should not be about liberal vs conservative. As human beings, we only have one planet to live on. Anyone seen “The Martian”? The guy was stuck on Mars. How do you suppose that was going to work out? Today, many Republicans like to beat up on the Environmental Protection Agency, forgetting that it was started by Richard Nixon. Another example is health care. Every other country besides the US has universal health care since there is a recognition of the fact that everyone needs health care. How are we supposed to manage without it? The Affordable Health Care Act was what was originally basically proposed by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative group. It was only opposed once Obama put forth the same proposal. The ridiculous GOP candidate Ben Carson has gone so far as to say that the AHCA is comparable to slavery and he is very popular with the far right. There is no justification for stating that the other side is “just as bad.” That is called false equivalency.

I know the Democrats are not perfect. So what? That does not mean becoming a Republican will solve anything, that is for sure. We have a 2 party system, which means that things are not always going to be easy in terms of finding solutions.

Actually Jimbo, until Canada chased our Heir Harper a couple of weeks ago there were two such countries.

This guy has some problems but nobody can call him a liar.

Without any help from the government more natural gas pipelines are destroying the coal industry. America is not the problem. The problem is China where it’s not healthy to live in their cities because of the pollution.

It is a terrible mistake to use China as the standard by which we should do things in the United States. It is true that there is a terrible pollution problem in China. This does not in any way let us off the hook in the United States. Americans consume far more energy per capita than other places.

Congratulations on your unoriginal, easy cheap shot at me.

Can’t say I am going to lose sleep over a right winger’s imaginary child not being in my class. It is not as if El Segundo would be the first commenter to disagree with me and then state that he would not want his child in my class… Wah wah.

Garry’s last panel simply says it all.

BREAKING NEWS: GARRY TRUDEAU IS A LIBERAL! HE HAS HAD A LIBERAL CARTOON STRIP FOR 45 YEARS! IT IS CALLED DOONESBURY! THERE ARE OTHER COMICS WHICH ARE MORE SUITED FOR SOME (WHO ARE RIGHT WINGERS) BUT THEY WOULD RATHER WHINE IN THE COMMENTS SECTION ON DOONESBURY EVERY SINGLE WEEK!

Calvin and Hobbes are calling you El Segundo.

Calvin and Hobbes is a cartoon strip which is also available to you on Gocomics. I can’t be any more specific than that.

Speak for yourself el segundo

You attempted to speak for both of us with your previous comment.

I will let you go crawl back under your bridge now.

Cute…except intelligent people know that man-made climate change is a political hoax and the theory supporters are pretty much out of “evidence.”

Climate change isn’t a theory. It is a well documented fact. It isn’t up for debate. The point of the strip is that the corporate types decided to paint it as theory, in the same way that tobacco companies tried to claim that tobacco doesn’t cause cancer. Many people bought into the tobacco company lies for a long time too. It would be nice if we could just focus on economic problems instead of all this nonsense, as they have done in other countries. Maybe then we could make some progress.

Of course, there is no way for any of us to verify whether or not one of our fellow commenters is almost 90, smokes cigars and drinks brandy.

I won’t list the people I know who have died of cancer from cigarette smoking. Many people know such people.

NG, I don’t know how “brainwashing” could possibly be applied in Montessori, which involves the child choosing his/her own curriculum each day.

Convert to nuclear source, avoid greenhouse emissions.Save the people on the surface of the planet.(The rest of the planet couldn’t care less.)

Marx himself said he was not a communist.

Updated data from NASA satellite instruments reveal the Earth’s polar ice caps have not receded at all since the satellite instruments began measuring the ice caps in 1979. Since the end of 2012, moreover, total polar ice extent has largely remained above the post-1979 average. The updated data contradict one of the most frequently asserted global warming claims – that global warming is causing the polar ice caps to recede.

The timing of the 1979 NASA satellite instrument launch could not have been better for global warming alarmists. The late 1970s marked the end of a 30-year cooling trend. As a result, the polar ice caps were quite likely more extensive than they had been since at least the 1920s. Nevertheless, this abnormally extensive 1979 polar ice extent would appear to be the “normal” baseline when comparing post-1979 polar ice extent.

Updated NASA satellite data show the polar ice caps remained at approximately their 1979 extent until the middle of the last decade. Beginning in 2005, however, polar ice modestly receded for several years. By 2012, polar sea ice had receded by approximately 10 percent from 1979 measurements. (Total polar ice area – factoring in both sea and land ice – had receded by much less than 10 percent, but alarmists focused on the sea ice loss as “proof” of a global warming crisis.)A 10-percent decline in polar sea ice is not very remarkable, especially considering the 1979 baseline was abnormally high anyway. Regardless, global warming activists and a compliant news media frequently and vociferously claimed the modest polar ice cap retreat was a sign of impending catastrophe. Al Gore even predicted the Arctic ice cap could completely disappear by 2014.

In late 2012, however, polar ice dramatically rebounded and quickly surpassed the post-1979 average. Ever since, the polar ice caps have been at a greater average extent than the post-1979 mean.

Now, in May 2015, the updated NASA data show polar sea ice is approximately 5 percent above the post-1979 average.

Amazing! Judging from the comments above, it would appear that no one has actually read the documents that are alluded to in the Doonesbury cartoon on 11/8/15….including Garry Trudeau himself. The cartoon implies that Exxon knew as scientific fact in 1978 that the Catastrophic Anthropomorphic Global Warming (CAGW) narrative was true; that global temperatures were going to increase 3-5°C when atmospheric CO2 doubled, and that this would cause innumerable global disasters. Trudeau implies (states?) that documents show that Exxon knew this to be fact, but chose to suppress this proven information even though it meant this would create a world unfit for our grandchildren. Well, I’ve read the documents and can state with confidence that this view is inaccurate at best.My reading of the documents revealed to me that there was a great deal of uncertainty at the time and not much fact. These were the takeaway ideas and recommendations that I gleaned from the documents: 1. Atmospheric CO2 is rising, probably due to fossil fuel combustion and deforestation, but the relative contribution of these sources is unknown. 2. CO2 is a “greenhouse” gas, and its increase in the atmosphere will cause an increase in global temps. Just how much, however, is unknown. 3. The predictions for the increase in global temps are based on computer models. Because these models use non-linear equations with multiple variables, some of which are not well-understood or even measureable, “there are major uncertainties in these models….” Nonetheless, these questionable models were used, and the temperature increase from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 was estimated to be from 0.75°C to 3°C ± 1.5°C. 4. Some of the global effects of the increased temps would likely be increased rainfall, longer plant growing season, increased plant growth, and probably little or no melting of the polar ice sheets. But if the West Antarctic icecap were to melt, they estimated it would take up to 1,000 years. There was no mention of mass starvation, global extinctions, and etc. 5.) There is so much uncertainty in even the basic science, more study is needed. The studies they recommended were mainly empirical studies, not the computer “studies” we are fed in the media warning us of future Armageddon. The underlying theme of these documents is the uncertainty of the science and the difficulty in trying to predict the future climate. In fact, one of the documents states: “a serious question has been raised as to whether climate is really predictable.” These documents seem to me to be honest attempts to look at the issue objectively, unlike “the science is settled, the debate is over” (I actually don’t recall ever hearing an open public debate on the issue) approach by today’s climate scientists. Trudeau’s depiction of Exxon is disingenuous and misleading, at best. Exxon may be deserving of criticism for lots of other issues, but this is not one of them, at least not based on these two documents. I encourage you to read them and decide for yourself if Trudeau is an honest person or a political hack: The Greenhouse Effect: J. F. Black 1978 http://insideclimatenews.org/sites/default/files/documents/James%20Black%201977%20Presentation.pdf and Primer on CO2 “Greenhouse” Effect: M. B. Glaser 1982 http://insideclimatenews.org/sites/default/files/documents/1982%20Exxon%20Primer%20on%20CO2%20Greenhouse%20Effect.pdf BTW, I’m a retired surgeon and am still waiting for that fat check from “Big Oil.”