I wouldn’t normally create an entire post out of a comment I receive, but this one stoked my fire. I’ve been seeing this kind of stuff all over the Internet, and it deserves to be answered because it’s exactly the sort of pile-on liberals have been doing to crush dissent from the global warming program.
The comment in question is in response to my post last week, Fight global warming now (before it goes away), which discussed a Russian scientist’s belief that the globe is entering a cooling period. I won’t bother paraphrasing the comment; I’ll let you read it yourself. My response is below in bold type.
From Tededdy:
Sorry everybody …but this article by Sorokhtin about global cooling has some major problems that seriously undermines it credibility. Look at this for example:
“….and no such thing as the hothouse effect.”Dah….” ..hothouse effect” ? Doesn’t he mean the greenhouse effect? Who of any authority gets this term wrong?
And:
“As we know, hothouse gases, in particular, nitrogen peroxide, …”What?! Nitrogen peroxide?! …hothouse gas …This has to be an early April Fools Joke?
Get your BS antennas on!
If the supposed author, Sorokhtin, is referring to NO2 – then that’s not even a minor greenhouse gas!
What’s going on here?
Also who is this?:“..The latest data, obtained by Habibullah Abdusamatov, head of the Pulkovo Observatory space research laboratory, say that Earth has passed the peak of its warmer period,….”
Having done a net search on this guy, the only reference to “Habibullah Abdusamatov” is in regards to this article, that’s posted verbatim all over the net. He certainly has no other braod-based net profile.And also …it seems that there is no scientific paper presenting this so-called “..data..” !?
Come on …here we have a major announcement that global cooling will soon kick-in …but the researcher cited is totally unknown; a scientific paper presenting the information is absent; …and …there are major factual errors in this opinion piece article written by a so-called “..Merited Scientist..” from Russia who announces this groundbreaking research ?!
I seriously wonder if this article is a hoax. I don’t think anyone with scientific credibility could write an article like that.
Geez, do you Algorites just put some stock phrases on your computers and let them post automatically on all the blogs? I swear I’ve read bits and pieces of this comment on at least two dozen different blogs.
I don’t know Dr. Sorokhtin, and I can’t personally vouch for his veracity, but I can point out where your comment is less than truthful or beside the point.
1) Hothouse effect: For the diversity crowd, this is funny. Believe it or not, “greenhouse effect” is not a universal phrase. There are entire parts of the globe, such as Europe and Russia, where it’s called the “hothouse effect” and the chemicals responsible are called “hothouse gases.” This is just stupid.
2) Nitrogen peroxide: No, it’s not likely that NO2 is a greenhouse gas, but the professor in his haste could easily have transposed something in his notes and meant N2O, nitrous oxide, which is, in fact, the No. 3 greenhouse gas on the IPCC’s list. All that means is that the professor made a typo. It doesn’t invalidate anything else he says. Go thump your Chem 101 book elsewhere.
3) Habibullah Abdusamatov: “Having done a net search on this guy …” You should leave it to the professionals. I found him in about two minutes. According to the observatory, the proper spelling is Habibullo I. Abdussamatov, which could be a problem of translating from Russian to English letters, or it could be a symptom of Dr. Sorokhtin’s typo-prone fingers. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess English is not Dr. Sorokhtin’s first language. That doesn’t discount anything he says.
4) The “missing” data: Couldn’t find the study? Honestly, do I have to do everything for you people? I found it in National Geographic, among numerous other references to Dr. Abdussamatov. Here’s a link: Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says. (I’ve also sent an e-mail to Dr. Abdussamatov. If he responds, I’ll post his answer.)
So your entire dispute boils down to a couple of typos and your poor Web search skills.
Like I said, leave Web searches to the pros. And perhaps leave comments on global warming to scientists.
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Infact all of those things do discredit the scientist that worte the article. First any reasearch article should refrence specific data, not here say. Also he doesn’t write NO2 he actually wrote Nitrogen Peroxide, which any idiot knows the difference between nitrogen peroxide and nitrous oxide. If he was a true scientist he would have checked and double checked his work and corrected a simple mistake like that.
Sorry, Matt, I’m not buying it. Dr. Sorokhtin clearly meant to write nitrous oxide, N2O. Since his article was basically a blog post, I don’t think it went through the editing process that a scientific paper would. Further, the data he is referencing is readily available on the Internet and is definitely not hearsay. Dr. Sorokhtin, it turns out, does indeed have a formidable reputation as a scientist. Unfortunately, he’s not the best writer in English. After his article came out, the worst liberals could say to impugn it was that “he wrote nitrogen peroxide,” implying he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. When that didn’t work, liberals switched to the “he works for oil interests” canard. Fact is, Dr. Sorokhtin is a respected scientist who doesn’t buy into the global warming hysteria for several very good reasons. Period.
If you check his references in the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System, you’ll note that Dr. Sorokhtin has written scores of papers on planetary and lunar development, and he is a specialist on the evolution of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. His work is frequently cited by other scientists, in both English and Russian.
Now, you would have us believe that he is unreliable because of a couple of typos in an 800-word or so, blog-style essay written in his second language. In fact, you imply he is an idiot for that reason. However, in your 68-word post, I count at least five typos, at least four places you should have stuck a comma, improper capitalization, bad sentence structure, an improper pronoun and a missing hyphen. So how seriously should we take you and your scientific assessment of global warming?
Comment by matthew — January 21, 2008 @ 6:57 am
Anyone that believes Gore’s lie should read about Ice ages. http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/ice_ages/
Gore also claimed to be the originator of the Internet! What an idiot!
Please explain this to me. The last ice age ended 12,000 years ago. At that time North America was covered with a sheet of ice all the way down to Princeton New Jersey! Please tell me what they were driving 12,000 years ago, to make the ice sheet melt! Gore is an idiot!!!
Al Gore flies around the world in a private jet, burning thousands of gallons of gas yet he expects you to ride a bike to work. Then he expects suckers to spread his stupid lies about global warming! Or are you really the idiot for believing him!
Comment by rick — September 23, 2008 @ 7:18 pm