EMU, Falwell on global warming
Brent Finnegan -- May 15th, 2007
Today the BBC has a story comparing two Virginia Christian colleges’ teachings on global warming.
Jerry Falwell (Liberty University) says, “The jury is still out on global warming,” and students reportedly take his word as gospel truth. Meanwhile, “at Eastern Mennonite University, in Harrisonburg, Virginia, concern about the environment is so high that the college has employed a full-time recycling officer and assistant.” EMU president Loren Swartzendruber says, “There is a massive and mounting body of scientific evidence that global warming is a reality.”
“Frank, watch out…it’s about $2,000 to clean up the mercury, should the bulb burst in your house.”
You got a source on this besides the Worldnetdaily.com article? Just curious. When the Wacknetdaily article was first making the rounds, I couldn’t find anything to back it up.
Actually, I see since then the story has been picked up by the usual suspects. But here’s something on the toxic lightbulb story from snopes.
http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cfl.asp
1) Dave, Patrick Michaels who claimed to be Virginia’s state climatologist has been quite controversial. In 2006, the governor’s office asked Michaels to refrain from using his title on non-state business because they feared his views would be considered as Virginia’s official views. ( http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?ID=6045&Method=Full&PageCall=&Title=Virginia%20Governor%3A%20Michaels%20Does%20Not%20Speak%20for%20the%20State&Cache=False ) And then later the state clarified that the code of Virginia does not appoint a state climatologist ( http://www.dailyprogress.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=CDP%2FMGArticle%2FCDP_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149190060797&path= ) He’s not a good reference.
2) CFLs. John linked to an EPA factsheet above ( http://www.nema.org/lamprecycle/epafactsheet-cfl.pdf ) that describes how incandescent light bulb usage results in more release of mercury into the environment. Here is another link: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/ask_treehugger_14.php . Let me also add that the amount of mercury released from coal burning for electricity to run incandecents is of a greater amount than the mercury in CFLs and the energy to run them combined. Most of the energy for our region comes from coal.
3) I do believe in climate change because I have found a lot of evidence to support it, and no evidence against it that makes sense to me. But regardless of whether you or I believe in climate change or not, there is no reason why we can’t change/improve our behaviors to decrease pollution – think about particulate matter and other toxins that enter the air from cars, coal burning, etc that are also believed to cause climate change. You can’t argue against respiratory problems caused by some of these emissions. Even if you don’t believe there is 100% proof that climate change is happening or that its a result of human activities, why risk putting future generations and the entire planet at risk? It doesn’t hurt to turn off the lights in a room you’re not using, or walking to the store instead of driving your car there… every little bit could (I believe it does) make a huge difference when its added with everyone else’s every little bit.
4) I am glad to see that there are people “talking” about climate change, that its worth something to discuss.
Frank,
I thought we were the world leader on important issues. Since when does America wait for China to take the first step? We are the innovators with the foresight and technology to make smart decisions independently. Don’t countries usually follow our example?
I’m sure it’s all wal-marts fault.
Shipping cheap crap from china and then using trucks to ship it all over the U.S. and the world.
And then everyone drives their SUVs from all over the boondocks to go to wal-mart instead of bying at the mom and pop shop in their own town.
Shop online, the internet has a much better selection and better prices. Buy your produce from your closest grocer / farmers market. The best way to be globally minded is to be locally minded.
Mr. Briggman got these “facts” from where he gets most of his arguing points. Boortz has been spewing the thousands of cubic feet of dirt to contain the mercury nonsense over the past few days.
One would think these bulbs were just invented.
Maria,
I can’t criticize the idea of getting environmental science from Boortz. I get most of my medical knowledge from Grey’s Anatomy. Of course, I keep a general practitioner on the side in case Derek and Meredith are busy pouting when I develop a symptom. I hope those who deny global climate change (can we call them anti-climatic?) keep a spare spaceship on hand for when we burn out this planet.
Uh oh…the “global warming” brigade is beginning to fold, including some of the main scientists who started the hysteria:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=927b9303-802a-23ad-494b-dccb00b51a12&Region_id=&Issue_id=
Oh crap, that damn global warming caused average April temps to fall.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html
Hey, I know…how about all of you who believe in global warming, please tell us that if it is done by human activity, how is it that climate changed prior to man’s arrival on earth?
Dave, honestly…do you think that the burning of fossil fuels has no bad implications on the earth’s climate?
Zen, what would you like us to do about transportation, electricity, and food preperation…
Let me guess what the answers would be…
Walk…can’t ride a bike becuase it takes metals and rubber and synthetic materials to build a bike.
Electricity… can’t be wind turbines, solar energy only works on sunny days becuase the batteries are made while polluting the enviroment with chemicals, can’t use hydro- electric dams becuase you would have to flood areas that people are living in…
Cooking…can’t use trees because cutting tree would cause deforrestation and erosion. Plus the smoke from all those fires would only add to the pollution…
Huh, this should be good.
If the globe were warming, then this would make it worse.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/05/17/climate.ocean.reut/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
It’s about an article from the journal Science. Not the journal Faith. Not the journal Best Guesses. Not the journal Maybe. Science. See how that works.
What are your answers for turning it around JGF ? I need to be shown what the answers are that you guys have…please
Frank,
Here are 6 pages of answers.
Why discount the sun heating up? Gradeschool has been a long time ago, but I think I learned back then that the sun would heat up as it began its eventual self destruction.
I agree that all the green house gases and the like that we produce are no good for the environment, but I have a hard time with the limited average temp records that have been kept that we can say anything firmly. How do we know (100%) that similar things didn’t happen in th 1300′s? Science is a lot of theory and until they can tell me what blew up to create the big bang, I’m not buying a whole lot of it. In math you learn 0×0=0, but in science 0×0=the milky way and I’ll never understand that.
So, just keep doing things as is with some minor changes. i thought you all had something major. Thanks for the 6 easy steps to save the world…who would have known it was SO easy.
As per JGF’s last story, why not look at what the college studies turned up about the Southern Ocean…
http://comm.uea.ac.uk/press/release.asp?id=752
with this little ditty right in the middle of the article…“The Southern Ocean is the least well understood part of the world ocean, but one of the most important parts. We are going to have to understand its circulation before we can make really confident predictions about how the climate is going to change over the next 100 years. ”
They don’t even understand what they found yet.
Frank, I honestly don’t know where your sarcasm and animosity is coming from, man. You asked. I answered.
One note that doesn’t really add to the conversation but corrects Dave Briggman’s “addition”. When quoting the article entitled “Climate Momentum Shifting: Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming – Now Skeptics”.
Dave Briggman was quoting an article written by the minority party (you know>Republicans, this according to the site) and written about a French Socialist scientist’s work. A few things about this seemed really funny to me, but I’ll let you be the judge. I just didn’t want anyone to believe that what he had posted could in any way be misconstrued as science without a unhealthy blend of politics.
Also, the climate change that you refer to prior to man’s existence, took tens of thousands of years. Please argue with complete facts that aren’t derived by Conservative or Socialist think tanks that oppose the Kyoto protocol.
And for God sakes please listen to Thanh’s statement “regardless of whether you or I believe in climate change or not, there is no reason why we can’t change/improve our behaviors to decrease pollution”. It is the best and simplest argument made yet!
I thanked you…nothing more…
Ok Fin ~ 2aplease accept my apology…I might have come off as smart-assed. What I was trying to imply or ask~
Are Americans the only ones that are being asked or reporte to about this. Does the same news reach across the pond?
Are other major economic areas being asked or told to reduce, recycle and reuse or it the world just basically hollaring at US?
As much as I love the net I probably only go to .00001 percent…if that much… of the knowledgable realistic websites.
And just becuase I think you guys might be thinking it “I do not drink the Briggman Kool-Aid”
Frank
I think that most developed European countries (China excluded of course but that is a topic that is under serious debate, see new technology is expensive but developing it has long term benefits, think NASA!) are adopting the recommendations (or already have) that the link referenced. We are behind.
ps. I’m out for the weekend but Frank, love the “And just becuase I think you guys might be thinking it “I do not drink the Briggman Kool-Aid”” See you all next week.
See, I don’t know that we are behind. If we are, then how did it get this far or does it have deeper political roots.
I have never been so informed in my 40 years but info is good.
“Oh crap, that damn global warming caused average April temps to fall.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html”
If you understood anything at all about climate science or global warming, you would understand that the warming part of it does not directly deal with regional temp.’s.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=927b9303-802a-23ad-494b-dccb00b51a12&Region_id=&Issue_id=
The link you posted above is a blog wraped in a bogus government seal. It’s the same list Inhofe has been yelling about for a couple years now. The list is small, and for the most part full of hacks. A list of scientists that support the man made theroy would be diffcult to put togther because of the amount of them.
My question for you Dave is, what if your wrong? How would you
be able to come to terms with the fact that you helped brake your grandchildren’s home? Do you think someone that helped support the destruction of gods greatest creation would burn in hell?
MF,
How arrogant are you that you believe that man could destroy what God has created. Sorry, I’m not a thumper and I don’t believe that the God most believe is a loving God would put people in hell.
I’ve never had any of Dave’s kool aid. What flavor is it?
The following may consist of late night psycobable and it may have a point:
This planet would beso easy to destroy….
Um… I mean yeah God made the planet invincible.
From what I understand this is how things go down:
Ice caps slowly melt, oceans slowly rise, preasure in oceans increase causing the earths oceanic fault lines to shfit causing massive tsunami world wide, land masses decrease in size due to erosion, as land masses fall into the ocean preasure increases even more. All the massive preasure causes volcanos to urrupt and so on and so forth. This planet will fall apart, it was designed that way. If God created this planet then skip to the end of his book read Revelation Chapter 8. If this planet evolved into what it is today than I geuss it’s evolving again. People in billions of years will dig up my ford escort and put it on display and make up stories of how it was an object of worship, or someting like that. I like the version with the four horsemen, it would make a better movie.
Either way, no matter what you believe just start being a less wasteful person. Buy local, use less Energy, recycle. I personally don’t believe in global warming. To me it’s not worth fighting over, because the things that the people in the corner of global warming want us to do are good for us and our communities. What a horrible agenda, live cleaner, save money, create less landfills, use cleaner energy.
What can we as a community do? Harrsionburg should really stop weekly trash pichup and move to a rotation of getting trash one week and recyclables the next.
.5 degress over the last 100 years don’t exactly give me great cause to worry.
Dayton Res is right, we don’t have accurate temps over 100 years old…we can’t even tell what the weather is going to be 24 hours from now, let alone a decade or a millenia.
I’m not understanding why you people are so determined to have global warming exist?
Weather is cyclical, get over it.
heh…”get over it”
Which is the point some are arguing here?
a) Global warming is not a result of human activity?
b) Or, the earth is not warming?
I mean Brigmann, all in one post, doubts the temps are trending higher, and then says it’s getting hotter because of the sun.
Seriously, how valid do you think your point is if it isn’t even consistent?
There’s a difference between being skeptical, and provocatively illogical.
Daytonres, Dave… you are half correct. We only have temperature records for the past 150 years. But scientists (oops, used the science word again) can use other proxies such as tree rings, ice cores and sediment cores to reconstruct temperatures for the last couple of thousand years.
Just thought I’d add to the fire :)
I agree what Barnabas posted about “Either way, no matter what you believe just start being a less wasteful person.” However, I’m not sure I understand his comment about how the City should pick up trash one week and recyclables the next. Are you aware that the City of Harrisonburg will provide residents with a recycling bin and pick up the recycables once a week on the same day as trash is picked up? Call 434-5928 for more information. One thing the City is working on is how to get restaurants and bars to recycle. Most of them don’t. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Do schools recycle?
The amount of glass from places that serve bottled beer (the Dodger, Dave’s, etc) is tremendous. Does all that glass go in the trash every week?
If you are having your trash picked up once a week you don’t really need to recycle in order to avoid having to much trash build up. However if your trash is only picked up every other week then in order to keep it all from building into a huge pile you would seperate your recyclables out so that they can be picked up. This gets people that wouldn’t otherwise recycle have a reason for doing it.
That’s a good point Barnabas. Also wouldn’t the city only be running one set of trucks around town weekly, rather than two?
How about LED stoplights? Or streetlights?
“The amount of glass from places that serve bottled beer (the Dodger, Dave’s, etc) is tremendous. Does all that glass go in the trash every week?”
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but I think they pick up recycling every day downtown. I know they pick up trash every day.
They do pick up commercial trash everyday downtown including recycling. Unfortunately, recycling is volunteer and many businesses are not enrolled, though I can’t imagine what their reason for non-participation would be.
The City has all LED traffic lights, and I believe they are going to switch to LED street lights soon as well.
The recycling every other week idea is good. Charlottesville has a great program for refuse collection, where you are permitted only a certain amount of trash bags a week and you pay per bag if you want extra. the trade off is that you can you can recycle as much as you want for free.
“Unfortunately, recycling is volunteer and many businesses are not enrolled, though I can’t imagine what their reason for non-participation would be.”
Our reason is because no matter what we do, they won’t take it! We have two bins, they know we do, and yet they will not pick it up. They will pick everyone else around us up, but not us! It’s nuts, so we stopped doing it.
Over on this side of town, they collect our plastic/glass on Wednesday morning @9. It has reduced our haul to the garbage alot…just recycling the bottles and jugs from the kitchen as well.
If you need info, you can call Nikki Shifflet at 434-5928
Down under, they’ve come to realize that global warming is a scam as well.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaruherald/4064691a6571.html
It’s silly to debate the truth of global warming anymore. Only the flat-earth folks doubt climate science these days. When even George Bush, Newt Gingrich and ExxonMobil say that it’s real, then it’s time to move on to solutions. That’s the real debate: government regulation or the free market?
As we remember the Rev. Falwell, we should note that Pat Robertson did convert, while Falwell never did:
“Jerry Falwell Scoffed at Global Warming”
http://www.conservemag.com/2007/05/18/global-warming/falwell-scoffed-at-global-warming/
Dave Briggman
“How arrogant are you that you believe that man could destroy what God has created.”
Oh ok. So I guess you think the nuclear buildup during the cold war by Nixon and Regan was pretty pointless then?
The Timaru Herald.
The Timaru Herald?
Timaru?
Oh, I thought we had solved global warming by using “1 square at a time”.
If you see me on the campaign trail make sure you stop me so we can shake hands……
Erik, Newt DOES say it’s real, however, it’s not the catastrophic condition that most of the left makes it out to be.
Newt also postulates that monetary prizes for idea to reduce “global warming” would be FAR more effective than the sham of “carbon credits” or any of that crap.
Here’s Newt on “global warming”:
http://newt.org/backpage.asp?art=4335
MF, I think that the nuclear buildup by Reagan had a very useful purpose, namely, breaking the back of the former Soviet Union.
By the way, I just got threw reading an article on “global warming” which says that bovines throw out 300 POUNDS of methane/a day…most of which comes out as burping — as opposed to flatulence.
Yeah, those ain’t wild cows emitting so much methane. Humans are still responsible.
“the question of urgency isn’t what’s being debated here.”
“So it is a problem. We should address it and we should address it very actively”
“I want a really big solution. I believe a really big solution has to mean very rapid change”
Gingrich on global warming from previously cited article.
“I just got threw reading…” That alone is fascinating.
Perhaps you can read threw [sic] this article that deconstructs the 26 most common climate myths and misconceptions. Included in the list are some favorites like the previous ice age predictions, the sun and not humans are causing it, we cannot do anything about it, oceans are cooling, and many more.