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there are a lot more. I'm not saying religion in totality is trying to spread FUD I'm sayign certain religious groups are stirring opposition for no other reason then to undermine certain scientific corner stones and theories they find inconvienant. Like parts of geology, astronomy, genetics, immunology, ect..

I am myself a moderate catholic. I find the exstremists and fundementalsist distasteful.

To let you know how accurate the large model for climatologists is look at the weather prediction in your news paper.

There is, of course, a vast difference between predicting weather - which is a local phenomena, with significant specificity - and predicting the climate trends - which is averaging general trends globally. Consider, for instance, that it is very hard to stand on a beach and predict the exact height and shape of the next wave and precisely where and when it will break. On the other hand predicting the approximate height and time of the next high tide is rather easier. GCMs are, indeed, currently rather poor at making predictions down to the level of day to day local weather. They have, however, been very accurate at predicting year on year global climate.

They are not sure as to just what influences our weather let alone to what extent. Ask them how much influence the sun or the earths core temp or the annual freezing of the southern oceans contribute to our weather and all they can do is shrug their shoulders and talk in non specifics.

As noted above, contrary to your claim, the models have proved to be remarkably robust and accurate. They are also, contrary to popular perception in some circles, not just a big pattern matching machine that are "trained" on past data. They are models that are fed in physics. Yes, there are some tweakable parameters, as there should be in any model where there is some uncertainty. The greatest area of uncertainty in models currently is clouds, since they can be both a positive or negative feedback depending on the exact nature of their formation. Of course this problem is taken very seriously and there is a lot of study. The last IPCC report had considerable detail summarising that work. The simple reality, however, is that the models have worked pretty well, and have, in fact, made significant predictions that have since been observed.

But when they draw conclusions they are just blowing smoke the more assumptions the more smoke e.g. higher CO2 means higher temperature, therefore the level of CO2 measured in ice cores proves the temperatures years ago were less therefore we have global warming therefore etc etc

Historical temperatures from ice-cores are determined by ratios of hydrogen or oxygen isotopes in the ice. The guts of the issue is that when combined in water the different isotopes, being different masses, fractionate out at slightly different temperatures, thus the exact isotope ratio is a function of many things, but a very signficant factor is the prevailing temperature at the time the water became vapout before precipitting out. Thus the ratio, while not an exact indication of specific temperatures (unless the many other factors are also accounted for), is a good indicator of general temperature trends over long time scales. For more detail see here. The result is that, using ice cores, we can plot temperature and carbon dioxide independently.

Furthermore, more recent temperature reconstructions (as in reconstructions of only the past 1000 years or so) rely not on ice cores but on a wide variety of sources including coral, tree rings, glaciers, and more. Usually many of these different methods are cross referenced with each other to create any single reconstruction. The results can be seen in this plot of 10 different reconstructions by different independent teams. The results, as you can see, while different, all show the same trend. If you're still uncertain, feel free to use the

Most PC are not OFF when you turn them off. If you look at the switch you will see that it lead to the motherboard not the power supply. These power vampires keep using a small amount of power even when off. Here is a starting point http://www.grist.org/news/daily/2000/10/23/your/in dex.html . Sure, it is vastly less power than even when a PC is in low clock mode, but add house full of appliances in trickle mode and you end up with a surprising amount of power usage over the course of a day. A few mW per appliance is one thing, but some appliances use as much power in stand by, as in active mode.

I did not RTFA, but Grist Magazine recently published a comprehensive guide on How To Talk to a Climate Change Skeptic, which includes a debunking of many of the most common arguments against the climate change consensus. It also amusingly categorizes arguments by scientific veracity as well as "levels of sophistication" (including silly, naive, and specious).

I am a global warming believer. I personally have been concerened about the possibility of global warming since the 80's. A good site on the subject is http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics It contains a complete listing of the articles in "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic," a series by Coby Beck containing responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming. There are four separate taxonomies; arguments are divided by: * Stages of Denial, * Scientific Topics, * Types of Argument, and * Levels of Sophistication.

Not to mention it doesn't support the popular viewpoint that the Earth is heating up to what will next month be catastrophic levels entirely due to BusHitler's failure to sign Kyoto, and anyone who says otherwise, whether or not they're a supporter of the Bush administration, is either mallevelantly evil, or stupid, or most likely, both.

By the way, by taking the position you did, you might be facing Nuremburg style trials in the future:
http://gristmill.grist.org/print/2006/9/19/11408/1 106?show_comments=no

And also, Bush is also responsible for the earthquake in Hawaii:
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2006/10/15/194929 /14/23#c23

solve these just by reducing the population.

1. Religious difference.

Kill all the infidels. Problem solved. :-)

2. Resource difference (from your land is more fertile, has more shiny rocks, is upwind, you name it)

Kill all the infidels with the cool resources. Problem solved. :-)

3. Global Warming (as if its population based, we would just blame it on something else, lets see, the previous conditions work)

Kill all the infidels who dare disagree with our holy global models. Problem solved. :-)

And in case you think I'm *really* joking on that third one: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/9/19/11408/1 106

And if wishes were limosines, beggars would ride in style.

Face it, our luck can run out. Powerful civilisations can fall over in a big heap before beacuse they exhaust thier resources. It has happened before.

You say that if we keep pushing our luck, sooner or later it's going to run out.
I say that if our luck consistently doesn't run out, after a while it's not really luck anymore, is it?

And if wishes were limosines, beggars would ride in style. Face it, our luck can run out. Powerful civilisations can fall over in a big heap before beacuse they exhaust thier resources. It has happened before.

• Improve predictive climate models to allow investigation of a wider range of scenarios and to anticipate how and where changes could occur
• Assemble comprehensive predictive models of the potential impacts of abrupt climate change to improve projections of how climate could influence food, water, and energy
• Create vulnerability metrics to anticipate which countries are most vulnerable to climate change and therefore, could contribute materially to an increasingly disorderly and potentially violent world.
• Identify no-regrets strategies such as enhancing capabilities for water management
• Rehearse adaptive responses
• Explore local implications
• Explore geo-engineering options that control the climate."

Most of the people think, that CO2 just rises the average temerature and even this is doubted. Spare me your arguments whether this is the case and if it is man made.

When I was studying, we had a course in plant physiology discussing CO2 levels and the impact on plant growth and how they can cope with changing CO2 levels. While in general it has been shown, that the amount of biomass per area increases up to 40% with doubled CO2 levels it has also been shown, that the ratio between carbohydrates and other nutrients in the plants changes as well and as expected. In other words; insects,animals and humans have to eat a lot more of these plans to get the same amount of e.g. selenium, chromium and others. While humans can supplement their food with vitamins and trace elements( at least in the western world) animals haven't developed these capabilities so far and may not even know about this problem.

See here: http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/07/12/sche rer-plantchem/

Another impact on plant physiology is the number of stomata with which the plants exchange gas, heat and water with the environment. Increasing CO2 levels lead to the reduction of the numbers of stomata, which in turn makes the plants more sensitiv for "rapid" climate change.

See here: http://www.ucd.ie/cabinets/exhibit1.html/

Just two examples, but if you look, you can certainly find a lot more on these issues. There is a lot of fun coming up and most important, if one doesn't understand what is possibly changing or doesn't care, because we can easily solve the problems we create, it will cost lots of money...

I dunno, clearcutting rainforests to plant soybeans could be one problem:

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/6/27/9325/57 114

http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/02/16/braa sch-tuvalu/

There are countries that could dissapear in our lifetimes, as well as coastal cities.

If sea levels go up one or 2 meters cities like London (pop 8 million) could be floded under one or two meters of water.

I hope you don't mind if I actually respond to your lunacy, besides the fact you didn't respond to a single thing I said, but only extended your own attacks.

Certainly. You know, the best way to help prevent personal attacks is to use your own personal attacks. It's like an anti-missile missile missile system.

I remember around the same time how the phrase "white devil" was exploding among black muslims, and Muslims leaders opining about the world of destruction that white man was causing the black community, and the need for groups like the black panthers to violently rise up against the white man considered "protected by the first amendment".

Yes, which, of course, justifies calling muslims names, and especially blank panthers, because well you know... they're calling us names so we have to do it too otherwise our anti-missile missile missile system will be overpowered.

Wow, that's a nice quote, can you please link the source?

Why I'd love to. Here's me blogging about it Sadly, the news site it was on took it down. It's good to know that even sometimes Republicans realize that their speech is a bit over the top. Like when Vox Day questioned Bush's assertion that we can't deport 11 million immigrants, considering after all the Nazi's got rid of six million Jews in only 4 years. They edited the op-ed over at WorldNetDaily, but plenty of people commented on their enthusiasm for the cause.

Oh, but hey, look at this... I found another person commenting on your friend saying how great it was for Africans to become Americans through slavery.

As I recall, it was the first Republican President Lincoln that used his executive powers to end slavery. And it was Republicans who were 79% in favor of the Civil Rights act of 1964, and Democrats who opposed it by 63%. Oh, and lets not forget than when Democrats tried to filibuster the bill, it was the 81% of Republicans that could have unilaterally ended the filibuster.


Obviously this proves that Democrats are all racists! HA! LOL! Where do you get this shit? Is there some sort of secret "How to be a moonbat" manual? If so, I'd love to read it.

Hey, you know. Back in 1964 it was a Republican who authored the Civil Rights Act, true. But it only passed with the aid of Democrats like Hubert H. Humphrey, Mike Mansfield, Lyndon B. Johnson and not to mention John F. Kennedy. Obviously, according to you this proves the Democrats were all racists.

But which party did Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond and the other filibusterers switch to later on? And which Republican Presidential candidate campaigned against the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

Admittedly Goldwater did later in his life regret his involvement with that. But it's obvious from looking at the map which party opposed Civil Rights that year. The Republican party is no longer the party of Lincoln. It hasn't been since 1964. Abraham Lincoln today would be called a traitor to his country by the members of the modern GOP. :-(

You know for a fact why? Because Google issued a press release, or because the proprietor told you? Because we all know presumanbly political websites have no interest in exposure or fund raising.

Because he said so himself on his blog.

Anyway, feel free to call me a lunatic any time.

"So as you feel your skin cancer forming and watch the ice caps come washing over us..."

Bush doesn't care about the future, because for him and his whole world, there is no future. George Bush is conducting his presidency based on the religious concept of "End Days", which proclaims that the world as it is will be destroyed, and somehow remade, with only "born-again christians" surviving. That should serve as a strong warning about what they might plan to do to the rest of us.

PAY ATTENTION, PEOPLE:

The USA, and therefore much of the world, is now controlled by doomsday cults. That they are not commonly recognized as doomsday cults is an error. They don't specify which day the world will end, but because they are promoting its end "In their lifetimes", and because their older, more influential leaders are nearing the natural end of their own lifetimes, it is probably assumed by many that the "Rapture" will occur within the next 10 years or so. Very similar to GWB's timetable for Iraq. And of course, global warming and other disasters can be allowed to continue, because it's all part of big jesus' mighty plan. Right?

See:
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2004/10/27/sche rer-christian/

And:
http://www.raptureready.com/

In case some of you haven't ben keeping up with the news, a guys in Germany started making if from his trash: http://www.grist.org/news/daily/2005/09/15/5/ Even save you a walk to the curb for you lazy ones. Now we have an in-exhaustable supply and can it can help keep out water clean as well.

Oh, PLEASE.

Michael Crichton is out to make money. He gets money for giving his "daring" speech on the rubber chicken circuit. He gets money on sales of his latest shlock thriller, which has evil grant-hungry climate scientists running weather control machines to terrorize the populace.

Here is what actual climate scientists have to say about the claims in his novel:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74

At CISCOP, Chris Mooney reviews State of Fear:

http://www.csicop.org/doubtandabout/crichton/

A look at the politics behind Crichton's crusade:

http://www.grist.org/advice/books/2005/02/01/rober ts-fear/

Who are your going trust, Crichton or scientists?

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/1/20/234126/ 976

OK. Maybe you can't trust scientists. How about the opinions of another author? Here is what Gregory Benford has to say:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050121/n ews_lz1e21benford.html

Oh, PLEASE.

Michael Crichton is out to make money. He gets money for giving his "daring" speech on the rubber chicken circuit. He gets money on sales of his latest shlock thriller, which has evil grant-hungry climate scientists running weather control machines to terrorize the populace.

Here is what actual climate scientists have to say about the claims in his novel:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74

At CISCOP, Chris Mooney reviews State of Fear:

http://www.csicop.org/doubtandabout/crichton/

A look at the politics behind Crichton's crusade:

http://www.grist.org/advice/books/2005/02/01/rober ts-fear/

Who are your going trust, Crichton or scientists?

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/1/20/234126/ 976

OK. Maybe you can't trust scientists. How about the opinions of another author? Here is what Gregory Benford has to say:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050121/n ews_lz1e21benford.html

There is no need to know if we're running out of oil or if we're not. ... The market provides us with all the assumptions we need to know in ANY trade.

Your faith in free markets is quaint and misplaced. And anyway, just how free is that particular market?

These are families that have existed for 150 years drilling oil and want to make sure their grandchildren continue to be in the family business.

Sounds like more wishful thinking to me. History is rife with examples of short-sighted human greed killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, often with catastropic results, leaving the unborn grandchildren to die, so to speak. A few choice examples are here.

"There is so much land available in the entire globe that I don't see how warlords can use the strength of weapons to take over"

Useable land? Enough useable farmland to support 6 Bn people? Along with the fuel needed to get the same kind of return from the land that we experience now, including distribution of the food?

I suggest you read Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed .

Good insight on the topic.

My point is that faced with a growing population, uncertain sustainability of our current food production methods (e.g., how can we do it without fossil fuels to rely on for production and distribution), and reduced supply of both arable land and waters suitable for food production, how can we expect to keep everyone fed? And if we can't feed everyone, how will disputes be resolved? My guess is through warfare. State action in some cases, "Mad Max"-style in others. If the drop in food production is extreme enough, modern states will collapse, and the "Mad Max" vision may come to pass.

For those interested, here is a true picture of the Google Container in action.

It's the small rectangular box at the bottom of this picture

I had a long conversation with one of the (now common) Prius taxi drivers in Vancouver and he said he has never seen or heard of one have a problem with its battery.

...that was until the commercial fishing and technology came along to start wiping them out

And shark fin soup.

Read about the firestorm that the politically-correct liberals like Walter Cronkite caused when someone wanted to put power-generating windmills in Nantucket Sound near Martha's Vineyard:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/26/sunday/m ain560595.shtml

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/clevey/?i d=110002097

Note how a Kennedy opposes it here:

http://www.grist.org/news/powers/2002/12/19/grisco m-windmill/

Fricken' hypocrits. Nothing like a leftist environmentalist to tell everyone what's good for them, until it interferes with the view from their $10 million estate on the Vineyard.

And speaking of Kennedys, Martha's Vineyard, and submarines:

Q: Who do you get if you cross Mario Andretti and Jacques Cousteau?
A: Teddy Kennedy

Has Tom DeLay or Bill Frist or Karl Rove actually killed anyone?

I have been asked to talk about what I consider the most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.

and later

I studied anthropology in college, and one of the things I learned was that certain human social structures always reappear. They can't be eliminated from society. One of those structures is religion. Today it is said we live in a secular society in which many people---the best people, the most enlightened people---do not believe in any religion. But I think that you cannot eliminate religion from the psyche of mankind. If you suppress it in one form, it merely re-emerges in another form. You can not believe in God, but you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious.

Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.

There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.

Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday---these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know. I certainly don't want to talk anybody out of them, as I don't want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God who rose from the dead. But the reason I don't want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can't talk anybody out of them. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith.

And so it is, sadly, with environmentalism. Increasingly it seems facts aren't necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It's about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them.

Oddly enough, in one of the papers (Who you gonna believe? on the pages you link to, the author who is taking Crichton to task over his views on global warming states:

I'm not a scientist. I know more about science generally

The Easter Islanders, whose competing clan leaders built giant stone statues in order to display their prestige and to symbolize their connection with the gods, cut every last tree in their delicate environment to use in erecting these eerie monuments. Hence the people lost their source of raw materials for building canoes, which were essential for fishing. Meanwhile bird species were driven into extinction, crop yields fell, and the human population declined, so that by the time Captain Cook arrived in 1774 the remaining Easter Islanders, who had long since resorted to cannibalism, were, in Cook's words, "small, lean, timid, and miserable."

Well I never made any particular claims to sanity, as it turns out, but at least I'm not an utter fool, know what I mean?

Not terribly informing, except for the first bit: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/3/22/112743/ 617 I snippet on costs involved, etc: http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid /27514/story.htm Sounds like a good alternative for now, given that you're using biodiesel or SVO.

1. Evidence will certainly appear exaggerated when you see projections which (although I am not a meteorologist) feature predictions that do not at first appear mathematically sound. It's difficult to seem unbiased with cases like journals suppressing dissenting opinion on global warming. It's hard to present yourself as even-minded when you attract support for your cause with slogans like "save the planet."

The IPCC does an outstanding job of researching it, but too few listen to reason and most of the rest content themselves with predicting the end of the world based on incomplete data, and demand that actions be taken which are likely to be either ineffective or excessively costly.

2. There are scientifically literate people on both sides of the equation. The Cooler Heads Coalition, while hardly unbiased, demonstrates that in its selection of articles.

For those who want more, the best links on for intelligent green reading:

WorldChanging.com -- which also has an article about wave power.

TreeHugger, which is already linked in the story.

Dave Pollard, which writes very insightfully about lots of things including environmental philosophy.

Green Car Congress, where you can get the best news about green mobility, cool cars & industrial developments.

IDFuel, which is more about design but covers some of the same ground as TreeHugger.com

FuelCellWorks for all the latest news about fuel cells.

Grist Magazine, for news and a touch of humor, plus lots of interviews.

The guy is a professor of Statistics for Political "Science". Not exactly a great background for commenting on paleoclimatology or geochemistry or environmental biology or any of the other specialized disciplines he asserts have somehow gotten it totally wrong.

(E.O. Wilson's decades of field work? Useless stupidity - how could he learn anything by staring at ants all those years? He should have spent his time productively misrepresenting other peoples work, like Lomborg.)

So it's no surprise his work's not popular with people who actually do science - he doesn't seem to care what is actually going on with the biosphere.

His political and monetary success, however, does at least put the lie to the old saw that "those that can't do, teach" ...

The guy is a professor of Statistics for Political "Science". Not exactly a great background for commenting on paleoclimatology or geochemistry or environmental biology or any of the other specialized disciplines he asserts have somehow gotten it totally wrong.

(E.O. Wilson's decades of field work? Useless stupidity - how could he learn anything by staring at ants all those years? He should have spent his time productively misrepresenting other peoples work, like Lomborg.)

So it's no surprise his work's not popular with people who actually do science - he doesn't seem to care what is actually going on with the biosphere.

His political and monetary success, however, does at least put the lie to the old saw that "those that can't do, teach" ...

First, most of them won't be around by the time those debts need to be collected, which means both in office and some of them may pass on.

Secondly, you would be surprised at how many of them believe that we are in the 'End Times' and they expect the 'Rapture' at any moment. I have read an article recently, , in fact, that details more then a few politicians and their strong religious beliefs and how those beliefs are used to set public policy.

Many of these 'leaders' are doing what they can to make 'Bible Prophecy' true. Quite frankly, I hope that do succeed quite quickly, in bringing about their most 'compelling' prohpecies so that we, as the human race, can move beyond such doomsday beliefs.

Anyway, they don't care about longterm effects of their actions because many of them believe that their 'Rapture' could happen at any moment.

Let's just face the facts that some people are more prone to addictive behaviors, and it can happen with anything: drugs, shopping, gambling, sex, and yes, pornography.

And religion. In some cases getting addicted to religion can be very damaging.

We've got TiVo type boxes with Hard Drives, and DVD type boxes with DivX...really what we need is a more generalized component-sized PC that works to augment out television viewing experience. I know it's been done before, but the public hadn't caught up with the idea of computational ubiquity. Now's the time for:

* Component-sized set top box format
* 20G HD (minimum) for recording shows and user apps
* Low heat processor (e.g. Transmeta or XScale)
* A embedded operating system of one kind or another
* CD-RW/DVD combo drive
* Video in/out, RJ-45 for connectivity
* Front port for wired/wireless keyboard/mouse/joystick

Something like this ought to be doable for less than $500. Advantage: DivX 3.11, Ogg, MAME. whatever you want would be just a download away. Of course, a hacked XBox is already pretty close to this already.