Bill Maher -- Terrorism Versus Liberty -- Sept. 19, 2008

Bill Maher making a great point about the liberties lost in our fight against terrorism.

From Sept. 19, 2008 - Real Time with Bill Maher
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Tags for this video have been changed from 'bill maher, real time, terrorism, liberty' to 'bill maher, real time, terrorism, liberty, security, andrew sullivan, naomi klein' - edited by my15minutes

12989says...

>> ^Arg:
Hurricanes caused by global warming? Maybe she knows something that we don't.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/05/080519-hurricanes.html
As far as England being stoic about bombings; well that may have been true of the IRA campaign in the 1980's but it isn't any more. We have lost a tremendous amount of freedoms since the "War On Terror" began.


From the article:
"Knutson said the new study was based on a computer simulation that used hurricane data dating back to 1980. "

Making a generalization about the weather with only 28 years of data, how is that reliable?
Premature conclusion for a study done with premature data.

Maybe she is right maybe she is not, the fact is there is no consensus yet as to the link of hurricanes to global warming.

Argsays...

>>^millos
Maybe she is right maybe she is not, the fact is there is no consensus yet as to the link of hurricanes to global warming.

I absolutely agree that there's no consensus yet, but the way that she says it leaves no room for doubt.

I don't want to come across as a dyed-in-the-wool global warming denier but it gets my goat the way the media (at least in the UK) have decided that the argument is over.

rougysays...

I think she said we have more hurricaines due to "warming ocean temperatures" not "global warming."

And there seems to be some support for that claim:

...2005 was the most active hurricane season on record, and Atlantic water temperatures were the warmest, about 1.4 degrees above normal. That hurricane season set a new high with 28 storms and 13 hurricanes. Seven of the hurricanes were major storms.

In 1971, when the water temperatures were the coolest, there were 13 storms and six hurricanes, including one major one.

The index of overall hurricane activity was more than twice as high in 2005 as it was in 1971.

The scientists who have linked global warming to stronger storms said the study makes sense, and is, if anything, just repeating and refining what they have already said.


USAToday.com

Hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones have always bedeviled coasts, but global warming may be making matters worse. Sea level is rising and will continue to rise as oceans warm and glaciers melt. Rising sea level means higher storm surges, even from relatively minor storms, which increases coastal flooding and subsequent storm damage along coasts. In addition, the associated heavy rains can extend hundreds of miles inland, further increasing the risk of flooding.

The Union of Concerned Scientists

Argsays...

>>^roughy
I think she said we have more hurricaines due to "warming ocean temperatures" not "global warming."


She actually said:
"..the fact that there are more and more intense storms in the Gulf Coast is actually related to some things that we're doing. It's because of warming ocean temperatures and something that nobody's really talking about for some reason, but yeah there is a connection between warming ocean temperatures, something called global warming, and actually the substance that Republicans want to drill for off the coasts and which Sarah Palin wants to drill for in Alaska. So these aren't just completely random acts and they're not interested in that kind of security." [my emphasis]

I have no problem believing that warmer ocean temperatures leads to a larger number of and/or more intense storms. However she leaves no doubt that she attributes the warmer ocean temperatures to human activity. She uses the words "warming ocean temperatures" and "global warming" right next to each other in the same sentence.

The problem now is that I feel a little bit like I've backed myself into a corner defending the critics of anthropogenic global warming. In actual fact I find that I am yet to be convinced one way or the other. I like to think of myself as being relatively well informed and yet the more I try to research the issues the more I feel like my head is spinning.

The whole topic is extremely complicated and hard to comprehend, even for climate scientists, and yet the media is full of personalities and presenters and news programs and even adverts that seem so certain that they know that the case for AGW has been proved. The constant repetition of the mantra of global warming has an aura of "truthiness" about it. If you repeat it often enough eventually everyone will believe it.

I would like to believe too. I keep waiting for an epiphany to happen. Waiting for the moment when I can finally say "Aha, now I get it. Now I see what everyone else could see."
But really I get the feeling that most people don't really "see it" at all. They just believe what they're told.

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