Slashdot Mirror

Even George Bush was on to it before them (4 years ago!).

http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/articles/br_295.asp

It's a serious issue, one that actually should have been addressed a long time ago.

Since people don't pay attention to standby power (except those few of use with Kill-A-Watt measuring devices), there is no incentive for companies to spend even an extra $0.25 reducing the standby power consumption of a device. So they don't, and much power is wasted as a result.

The Energy Star program has been very effective for refrigerators, it should be extended to standby power consumption.

If you read the text of the suit[pdf link], the only monetary relief requested is for the cost of the suit. So... if the suit is decided against NRDC, they lose money; if it's decided in favor of NRDC but costs are not granted, they lose money; and if it's decided in favor of NRDC and costs are granted, they break even.

The alternate claim, that they'll get money from donations, which we can presume might increase following the publicity associated with the suit, is more plausible... but we'd have to consider that a defeat could result in negative publicity, which could harm donations, etc, etc.

Is it at all possible that the group has good enough reason to believe that mid-frequency sonar is killing whales that they're willing to submit it to the independent judgment of a court so that they can get a binding ruling or settlement that would alter the Navy's practices?

As far as your personal experience goes, thanks for the contribution to the discussion, but don't extrapolate too far-- just because I know someone who survived a refinery explosion doesn't mean that refinery explosions don't kill people. Are all the important variables the same in your example as in the suit? Do you even know (answer: no, since you clearly haven't read any of the relevant information)? If you take the time to read the information offered as evidence in the suit, it's far more substantial than your portrayal suggests. If the suit is frivolous, it will be dismissed-- so don't you lose any sleep over it.

Precisely what problem do you have with the Navy agreeing to a settlement that binds them to adhering to the practices requested?

"I was personally involved in an investigation over the death of a dozen beak whales off of the Canary islands...Guess who got blamed for these whales beaching themselves? In the end, it was determined the whales beached themselves trying to get away from the shipping traffic, not the Sonar."

Are you talking about this?

FTA:
"Last year 14 beaked whales were stranded during an international naval exercise off the Canary Islands. They appeared on beaches four hours after the sonars were turned on."

I don't know about "definitive proof" but lets look at our options. Maybe the sonars in some way affected the beachings, or there happened to be a flotilla of shipping traffic due to the heavy volume of canary purchases at ebay.
It's also mentioned in this article. The Nature article they both refer to is entitled "Gas-bubble lesions in stranded cetaceans" if you can get your hands on it. They are, however, cautious to reach any blatant conclusions without sufficient evidence. Also here's some background information on acoustic sensitivities of marine life from NRDC. Sorry, but these "government haters" are trying to save marine life from being trampled by our preparations for armageddon.

This seems like a poorly thought-out comment to me. Basically, you are claiming that all environmentalists are terrorists and/or insane? I guess the same would then apply to all Christians, given some of the less than intelligent things a small fractions of their number have done in the past.

The CNN article doesn't really have much detail. Some trivial googling yielded the following links:

http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/marine/nlfa.asp
http://www.eurocbc.org/sonar_lfas_implicated_in_wh ale_deaths_30oct2002page1253.html

which have more useful information. I think the bigger problem is that the US Navy want to deploy a large scale, permanent sonar system to monitor the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Such a system would flood both areas of sea with very high volume sonar:

http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file =/headlines01/0618-03.htm

Anyway, there is a lot of additional information around about this. Personally, I think the problem of finding submarines should be solvable in a more elegant way than flooding 2 oceans with sonar.

Cheers,

Rhys Hill

one of the most healthy foods you can eat is tuna

While tuna is actually an excellent source of protein (remember that a healthy diet needs many other things as well), there is a downside: eating large quantities can introduce the risk of consuming too much mercury; here's two interesting links:

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:1dWBudmqB9cJ:ww w.mercurypolicy.org/new/documents/CanTheTunaReleas eFinal061903.pdf+tuna+mercury&hl=en&client=safari
http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/mercury/tuna.as p

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cows2aug02 ,0,5709626.story?coll=la-home-headlines

http://www.nrdc.org/water/pollution/ffarms.asp

I'm all for saving the environment. I've stopped eating at McDonalds.

The USA has 7500 nukes, Russia has 18,400; so you were both way out. Source: Wikipedia or NRDC if you prefer something more authorative.

Despite the fact that some (not all) of trees used for paper-making comes from tree farms, there are still problems with the paper industry as a whole. Here are a few paragraphs from an, IMO, interesting article:

Paper Made from Timber

Think bundling your newspapers is "messy"? Not when compared with the process of making paper from virgin timber. While modern paper recycling mills can be designed to operate without producing any hazardous air or water pollution and virtually no hazardous wastes,[16] the virgin pulp and paper industry is one of the world's largest generators of toxic air pollutants, surface water pollution, sludge, and solid wastes. A recent assessment of the virgin timber-based papermaking industry concluded that reducing hazardous discharges at paper mills worldwide to safe levels would cost $27 billion.[17] Indeed, the timber industry has in all likelihood wiped out more habitat and more species per unit of production than has any other industry. Most Americans associate virgin paper mills with both the destruction of resident-species habitat and the contamination of streams and rivers with chlorinated dioxins and other pollutants. But the fact is these mills are also major sources of a wide variety of hazardous air and water pollutants, odors, solid waste, contaminated sludge, and water discoloring agents. Besides their well known, often unbearable emissions of sulfur compounds (causing an odor resembling rotten eggs), pulp and paper mills are classified under U.S. federal law as generators of "significant quantities of Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs) chlorinated and non-chlorinated. Some of these pollutants are considered to be carcinogenic, and all can cause toxic health effects following exposure. Most of the organic HAPs emitted from this industry also are classified as volatile organic compounds which participate in photochemical reactions in the atmosphere to produce ozone, a contributor to photochemical smog."[18]

Moreover, the virgin "pulp and paper industry is the largest industrial process water user in the United States. Approximately 1,551 billion gallons of wastewater are generated annually by pulp, paper, and paperboard manufacturers."[19] Water pollutants contained in these billions of gallons discharged into streams, rivers, and lakes by virgin paper manufacturers include a wide range of hazardous and conventional pollutants as well as volatile organic compounds, including chlorinated dioxins and furans, chloroform, absorbable organic halides [AOX], methylene chloride, trichlorophenols, and pentachlorophenols.[20]

Processing rigid stands of timber into flexible, printable, smooth, glossy (or absorbent) paper requires an intensive chemical and mechanical effort after a tree is harvested. Once roads have been cut into the forest to get to the timber, it is transported to the mill, stockpiled, debarked, chipped, "cooked" in vats of chemicals, and turned into pulp and bleached mechanically and chemically. Then the pulp must be turned into paper or dried and shipped off to another mill. While paper can be recycled even at very large mills using fewer than a dozen nonhazardous chemicals and bleaching solutions that contain, for example, 99.5 percent water and 0.5 percent hydrogen peroxide (a concentration more diluted than the peroxide in your medicine cabinet),[21] most virgin pulp and paper is made using literally hundreds of highly corrosive and hazardous chemicals, including chlorine. As the EPA has documented, this presents enormous problems in reducing pollution from virgin paper mills because "elimination of dioxin, furan, chlorinated phenolics, and other chlorinated organics [can]...not be achieved unless all forms of chlorine-based bleaching are eliminated."[22] This is not expected to happen in the United States for quite some time. In addition, not all of the toxic pollutants discharged in the wastewater produced by virgin pulp and paper mills are currently regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, including certain congeners of dioxin and furans and a range of chlorinated phenols.

Here is the source article.

And, donate your time by discussing the facts and impact of global warming with your family, friends, and co-workers, and by voting!

I wouldn't say that pure capitalism negates having people pay for the negative externalities of their behavior. Even in a purely laissez-faire system there are still laws against dumping hazardous waste in someone's backyard, as well as against dumping something in your own backyard which pollutes water sources that you don't own.

Perhaps I'm associating "stereotypical Republican" anti-environmentalism with capitalism. (I say "stereotypical" with the understanding that there are many Republicans who are not anti-environment.) Many Republicans, however, seem to have a problem with regulating the pollution that companies dump into the air and/or water. (The laughable Clear Skies Initiative comes to mind, "using a proven, market-based approach" (quote taken from the web-site). Nevertheless, the primary problem with the CSI is not the approach, but the weakening of the target standards as well as delaying the enforcement of those standards.) I agree, however, that one could have a capitalistic economy that theoretically figures such things in. I am, no doubt, confusing the terms Republican and Capitalist.

If you're referring to ICBM's, your data is incorrect. It's been over 40 years.

The US had about 1000 Minuteman missiles and less than 100 Atlas missiles in the early 80's. The Soviets had a like number. The SALT treaties and the sands of time have eroded that number greatly since then.

AND the response time was less than 30 minutes!

PLUS Solid rocket fuel absorbs moisture from the atmosphere and is very sensitive to temperature changes. So, boosters must be cycled regularly and overhauled. They are not maintainence free! They are also bulky and difficult to transport. If a crack develops in the booster fuel, a hot spot will develop causing catastrophic failure and loss of payload.

I would suggest a big sling shot to deliver a payload of oxygen and food for stranded ISS astrouauts. Or better yet, escape pods.

This October 2001 analysis updates and replaces an earlier NRDC report showing that China's greenhouse gas emissions fell dramatically in the late 1990s, even as the country's economy grew rapidly. The earlier report was based on U.S. government analyses, which were later questioned in a Washington Post article that prompted NRDC to redo its analysis. Even after using new, more conservative statistics, NRDC has found that the original conclusion still holds true -- China's emissions reductions are real. By comparison, U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide over the same time period actually rose about 5 percent. This demonstrates that it's possible to achieve economic growth without a corresponding jump in global warming pollution, even in developing countries.

China emits 2,893 million metric tons of CO2 per year (2.3 tons per capita). This compares to 5,410 million from the USA (20.1 tons per capita), and 3,171 million from the EU (8.5 tons per capita). China has since ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and is expected to become an Annex I country within the next decade. The US Natural Resources Defense Council, stated in June 2001 that: "By switching from coal to cleaner energy sources, initiating energy efficiency programs, and restructuring its economy, China has reduced its carbon dioxide emissions 17 percent since 1997".

Soon, it will be China and India that you're pointing fingers at, and not the US (or Europe).[1]

So... Then what?

And uh, is this news? Does anyone credible seriously disagree that emissions from human activity are at least in part contributing factors? Or is this another jab at boogiemen that don't exist? There's nothing "remarkable" about these so-called findings.

Also, the "Earth" isn't in danger. Yes, I know this distinction is splitting hairs, but what's in danger is Earth's inhabitants. Our actions are not going to alter a several billion year old rock.

[1] Don't feed me the per capita shit. China will be a far, far greater polluter in this realm, per capita or no. Further, the economic empowerment of the Chinese people will eventually drive them to a level of concern about the well-being of the environment, so, in a way, their accelerated economic development is a good thing, politically and environmentally. Incidentally, China has proven they can reduce greenhouse emissions, even while growing economically (1, 2)...but the point is, they're still on an upward trend. And they've got a lot more people who will begin to thirst for energy-hungry luxuries.

I don't think anyone has to say that, do you? It's pretty obvious. Look at who just won the election. Look at his environmental record over the last four years. Look at what the markets say.

Everyone seems to forget that the US has three governing bodies, each with their own piece of the political power pie.

You seem to forget that all three are now under the control of a single party, which is itself under the control of the polluters. Basically, the current US government couldn't give any less of a fuck about the environment. They might give it some lip service, but in any decision where money is on the line, you can pretty much predict what side they will support.

I personally favor the use of Nuclear energy in efforts to curb or even stop our dependence on fossil fuels. I feel that our dependence on nuclear energy, in the scheme of things, wouldn't last very long until we finally develop new, cleaner sources.

As Nuclear goes today, it's a clean, safe, effective means of generating vast quantities of energy for our ever increasing needs. It holds the potential to reverse this country's disproportional production of greenhouse gases, and also could serve to free ourselves from the lesser acknowledged damage caused by hydro-electric projects.

If we dedicate ourselves to strict safety controls (as do many Nuclear dependent countries like Japan and France), and find uninhabited places to send our waste materials, the staggering half lives of these toxic materials will likely be negated by our future improvements in technology. By that I mean we will likely find comparatively cost effective ways to process these waste materials in later years; or perhaps even ship them to the Sun for incineration.

While seemingly implausible in our current times, isn't it logical to expect, as we continue to improve in our technology regarding energy production, propulsion, space travel, etc., that some day we will be in a position to effectively eliminate the waste materials of our previous centuries? I'm not saying this would happen overnight, but where will we be in, say, 200 years (provided we don't kill ourselves first or are otherwise doomed by a massive meteor impact)? There will be methods of travel and energy production we can't fathom today, and we'll be able to use these technologies to sweep away the last remnants of our admittedly disgusting years in primitive energy production.

Or we can choose to melt our polar ice caps, pollute our groundwater for centuries, dam up our waterways, and exhaust all remaining reserves of fossil fuels-- Problems that will stay with us essentially indefinitely-- Long, long, long after we've since moved away from dino-fuel.

Nuclear is an excellent bridger, and I support it. I claim not that it is perfect, but it's better than continued use of fossil fuels and stands to stop the destruction of our environment right NOW. Before it's too late (if it isn't already).

What a fucking baby. You are completely clueless if all you have to say about Bush is that you are irked about the Patriot Act.

How about making us less safe?
How about repealing environmental laws that protect all of us?
How about blurring the line between church and state?
What about lying about Iraq?
What about giving a huge tax break to the richest americans?
There are so many other things.

If all you can do is whine about being bothered by ads... fuck! You deserve the miserable piece of shit this country will become if we continue to have leaders like GWB.

Sometimes you need to vote against someone. Stop obsessing on Kerry and obsess on Bush.

A. No. The protocol has never been submitted to the senate for ratification. The Bush administration has referred to a vote on the non-binding Byrd-Hagel resolution, which registered views on some aspects of protocol negotiations. The vote on the Byrd-Hagel resolution took place prior to the conclusion of the Kyoto agreement, and before any of the flexibility mechanisms were established. The resolution was written so broadly that even strong supporters of the Kyoto Protocol, such as senators Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) voted for it. In doing so, Sen. Kerry said: "It is clear that one of the chief sponsors of this resolution, Senator Byrd . . . agrees ... that the prospect of human-induced global warming as an accepted thesis with adverse consequences for all is here, and it is real.... Senator Lieberman, Senator Chafee and I would have worded some things differently... [but] I have come to the conclusion that these words are not a treaty killer."

But how about the NAVY take another, and this time for even better reasons.

Take a look here for information on LFA SONAR systems and how they affect marine biology.

"Most of what he said was that President Bush is the worst president the United States have ever had for the environment."

Kennedy, a radical environmentalist and highly-left-leanign Democrat would say that about a Republican? No. This is strike 1 - a logical fallacy which is based on an appeal to authority.

"He also said that in a real free market companies do NOT pollute,"

Kennedy is a dumbass. A true free market economy would cause rampant pollution. Some limited controls are necessary to tax companies who pollute in order to make the cost-saving benefit of polluting go away. The only thing other than environmental legislation that has ever prevented companies from polluting like crazy is conscience.

"..and cited the case of 1100 coal burning plants to produce electricity which produce about 60% of the mercury contaminating the US's waterways today."

Once again you were willfully misled by your idealogical idolatory. According to the National Resources Defense Council, 100 tons of mercury are put into the environment each year through chlorine production. By contrast, coal burning power plants put 50 tons of mercury into the environment each year. Simple math will tell you that coal fired plants account for 33 1/3% of Mercury emissions. That's if you ignore the other top methods of mercury production, such as chemical manufacturing and electronics production. Thats strike 2.

"Or do you favor the coal plants more because they donated over $100 million to your campaign?"

The Kerry-Edwards campaign has claimed that the Bush campaign got $300,000 from the coal industry. Kennedy's claim is about $1.7 million short of the truth. Strike 3.

"...the mercury contamination in water will be responsible for up to 30,000 deaths a year."

Yet another moronic statement. I can predict with equal certainty that nobody will die from mercury poisoning due to contamination in the waterways of the US this year. Thats because so-called "estimates" are based on populations and "risk factors". So 30,000 people out of a population of 280,000,000 people equates to a .00107% risk per unit (person) of death by mercury contamination. I'll try not to stay up late at night.

That, however, is not your strike 4. Your strike 4 is blaming Bush for allegedly relaxing standards for mercury emission at all. The truth is that there has never been a standard for mercury emissions. Bush's 'Clear Skies' plan placed the first ever cap on mercury emissions, and mandated a 54% reduction in emissions by 2010. Clear Skies also mandates a 73% reduction in SO2, which is what is killing our forests - those forests being essential to carbon fixation and sequestration, reducing CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Clear Skies will also reduce NOx emissions by 63%. Bush also fronted an energy plan which would encourage the construction of newer designs for coal plants which would produce zero mercury emissions, and reduced CO2 emissions. Additionally, it would allow new safe nuclear plants to be brought online so we can decommission and clean up the 50 year old designs which are now posing a tremendous imminant threat. Lastly - and most importantly - Bush will commite $1.7 billion to developing hydrogen fuels for power production and automobile transportation. Kerry's answer? He fought the Clear Skies initiative, and the Energy Plan whose provisions he claimed to support. In turn, Kerry wants to offer $10 billion in corporate welfare for car companies - including non-us companies - to develop alternate fuel vehicles. The problem is they are already doing this without one dime of taxpayer money. So for blatently misrepresenting the Bush record,

How about the big Pig industries help clean up the pollution they have caused to our environment. Then we can help you clean the smell out of your hardware.

^_^ I'll bite too.
Bottled water does not go through the same kind of rigorous testing as tap water does. Now one might go on to debate whether the tests are testing for the right things (I've never had a problem with chlorination or flouridation of water, myself), but the fact of the matter is that tap water undergoes more testing for things like bacterial contamination and heavy metals.
Personally, I also prefer the taste of tap water. It has one besides the taste of plastic.

You're right. We should be more responsible with our lakes. Like our neighbours to the south. Lord knows, they have enough uninformed criticism to spew, but not so many answers

And there will be even less nukes in the coming years.

And yes, it is fairly important to be able to nuke somebody before they can nuke us. The US has enemies, and defending America is the top priority of the US Government. Space travel isn't the big concern most Americans have today.

According to the group of ball male honorary professors same university Noguchi, you say that the globefish eats the living thing which has poison such as asteroid and the shellfish which are in the seabed accumulates that poison to internal.

Poisonous Asteroids?

What's next? DDR with DDT?

Do you know what's the biggest cause of cancer in humans due to chemicals? Salt.

You forgot to mention the most dangerous chemical of all, dihydro monoxide. Why worry about mercury, when you have all that H2O around ...

No, the biggest environmental threat to humans isn't either radiation or chemicals, it's ignorance, stupidity, and paranoia.

It is a good thing then that we have Bush in the White House, to fight for more arsenic and lead in the water and more mercury in the air. These stupid environmental laws are just in the way when fighting against ignorance and stupidity.

Just to let you know: this is untrue. You should not have been moderated informative or insightful.

You're right: what's the point of ridding a country from a vicious dictator who brutalizes his own population, destroys the environment, instigates war and supports terrorism unless you actually get some financial benefit from it?!?

No, you are right, we should do it because it is the right thing to do. So, when does the war against Bush begin?

Joking aside, most of the people who criticize Bush and the war are making just your point, though you seem to have missed it: We belive they started the war for their own financial benifit, not because of the goodness of their hearts. After all, they don't mind vicious dictators anywhere else.

While the Environmentalist nuts have been hornswoggling the press and the politicos here in the west they have been quitely blinking at the massive pollution increases in the east. China and India have increased their Carbon Dioxide emissions a total exceeding total US Output by some 5 times(Each)!

Example: Outside geostationary orbit is a great place to be if you want to do something hazardous. Want to build a really messy experimental nuclear power reactor?

What's really funny is that some standards for tap water are actually higher than those for bottled water. A different government agency (the FDA) oversees standards for bottled water than the one (the EPA) for tap water.

Very often bottled water is really just tap water, or worse. Just look at this article. Some bottled water is actually from very dangerous sources near industrial waste sites, and the FDA requires significantly less frequent testing for bottled water sources than does the EPA for tap water.

Some standards, though, like the maximum permissible amount of lead, are actually lower for tap water, but only by a miniscule amount: a difference of 10 parts per billion. If you're really nervous about that insignificant amount of lead, though, you can always get a Brita or Pür water filter to remove it, which is a hell of a lot cheaper than buying water by the bottle (refer again to FDA article for that).

There is also the consideration, though, that the minerals in mineral water make it taste better, not to mention make it possibly better for you, than probably the tap water of your region. But a lot of bottled water, like the Coca-cola company's Dasani, ain't mineral water ("Ingredients: water, magnesium sulfate, potassium chloride, salt"). Be sure about the significance, or lack thereof, to your health of what you're buying. I think that for most intents and purposes bottled waters by varying degrees are scams, and for that matter so are sodas, at the prices we get charged.

sources:

• US Energy Information Administration, Canada Country Analysis Brief, February 2002.
• Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, "2000 Statistics, Key Facts."
• America's Gas tank a joint Sierra Club / NRDC report

Smoking kills about 420,000 Americans eachs year. The 9/11 attackers were pussies they only got about 3,000.

Americans commit suicide at about a 30,000 a year rate. The 9/11 attackers should just leave it to the professionals.

About 16,000 murders take place in America a year. Jeeze -- Only 3,000. These guys need to get their act together.

Now compare that with what a full-out nuclear exchange would do to India and Pakastan. This shows about 1.7 Million dead in India and another 1.8 Million dead in Pakistan.

All I ask is that you switch on your brain.

Ethanol combustion produces friendly CO2 gas

I guess California doesn't see C02 as being very friendly.

On July 22, California gov. Gray Davis signed a bill limiting C02 output of motor vehicles. And the federal government even claims C02 is killing the trees.

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Yes, of course we have to do something about places that have unstable, posssibly insane, unelected leaders, maintain massive nuclear stockpiles, regularly violate international treaties, actively block biological and chemical weapons monitoring, fund active space programs and have had a desire to have weapons in space for years (as long as no-one else can have them).

• Conservation International
• Defenders of Wildlife
• Earthjustice
• National Audubon Society
• National Wildlife Federation
• Natural Resources Defense Council
• The Nature Conservancy
• The Ocean Conservancy
• The Trust for Public Land
• World Resources Institute
• World Wildlife Fund

This is not what they are trying to stop. The legislation is intended to open the door to this practice (DOS attacks) being used to thwart the public distribution of copyrighted material, so the RIAA would not even begin to say 'they' are trying to prevent what happened to their site. Although it is currently illegal to launch a DOS attack, this appears to be a sound demonstration of the problem with this bill. I would say the culprits here have effectively drawn attention to the problem of passing this legislation.

That is, if DOS is legalized in order for copyright holders to suppress illegal distribution of their content, then large corporations can suddenly find themselves the target of these attacks. All it takes is for someone behind an IP-masquerading firewall at Microsoft to fire up a P2P client configured to serve a couple hundred gigs of copyrighted mp3 files. Even though the requests for the material will stop at the firewall, the RIAA hired-thugs will note the available material from microsoft.com and launch a DOS attack.

I honestly doubt this law will get passed, so this is really much ado about nothing.If you're going to get your panties in a twist over something and write to your representatives in Washington, do it over something like Global Climate Change and ask that the US sign onto the Kyoto Agreement.

The human race, our civilization, this ecosystem, et. al. is toast. Global climate change is here. The country with only a small fraction of the world's population generates 90% of the ozone-destroying polution and has no intention of reducing CO2 emissions.

This greasecar development is going to be valuable for the stragglers of humankind. Those who survive the warring over resources between have and have-not countries.

This human condition was effectively portrayed in the movie "Road Warrior". Only true gasoline will eventually run out. Enterprising stragglers will likely turn to alternatives like this vegetable-oil waste for transportation. It's good that we're publicizing this capability now so that the information will have a better chance of surviving the mass extinction.

Funny tidbit on Road Warrior.

As many of you are aware, our righteous pursuit of organized crime in Boston has led to unwarranted criticism since our agents had to become one with the Mob in order to fully develop our intelligence sources within it. We will henceforth improve our public relations posture by returning to the policy of J. Edgar 'There-Is-No-Mob-in-America' Hoover, and refocus on developing intelligence sources within the Islamic Fundamentalist, Catholic Pedophile, and Hippie Treehugging communities.

Pursuant to the new policies, deep cover may require our good agents to occassionally take part in IF and CP activities in order to go after the true heads of those nefarious movements. However, special care must be taken not to go too far.

Get busy! And remember, the sacrifices freedom requires may seem at time distasteful, but to guard the largest number of the American citizenry, we must sometimes prove our trustworthiness to our intelligence sources by aiding in the sacrifice of lesser numbers, such as those jailed and killed to protect our Boston associates. It is a small price to pay.

Remember to wipe the Crisco from your foreheads before undertaking undercover activities. We must not gloat that we are the annointed ones.
___

I probably won't respond to anything else you say on the politial part of this subthread since what I'm really interested in debating is the global warming part.

Agreed. Anyway, as much as I enjoy this challenging exchange (I do, really), it's probably time to move on. I would just like to say one last thing about the whole Chavez affair. While I agree with you that Latin America government are corrupt in general, that paints only half of the picture, i.e. that businesses in those area also tend to be corrupt. After all, to use an appropriate analogy, it takes two to tango. This is why sticking to due process (and in the case of Venezuela, the constitutional process) is essential, and should be encouraged. In my view Bush failed to encourage the constitutional process because his administration clearly dislikes Chavez. That was a blatant faux-pas on the government's part.

In other words, "Global warming is probably real. But if it isn't, we should act like it is since all it means is that it isn't happening now but will probably happen someday." I can't argue with that logic. If that's the way you see it then we might as well abandon all research--if our actions with or without global warming are the same, there's no reason to research it.

Well, that's not exactly what I meant. What I believe would go more along these lines: "Global warming is probably real. Until we know for sure that it isn't, we should act as if it was in order not to make the situation worse. It just so happens that in changing our habits in order to avert this probable catastrophe, we also solve another problem: our dependence on fossil fuels, which has dire economic and geopolitical consequences. So we kill two birds - or at least one and possible other one - with one stone (to use a non-politically correct saying... :-)

If the satellites and radiosondes for the last 23 (satellites) to 50 (radiosondes) years are showing a slight cooling and the surface record shows heating, the surface measurements are not reliable.

Read the stories again: radiosondes measure atmospheric, not surface, temperatures. In the NASA papers, they clearly show that the difference is not between recorded surface temperatures, but between recorded surface and atmospheric temperatures. The surface indeed is warming up, but the atmosphere is not warming up at the same rate, and parts of it are cooling instead. As I said, this shows that the computer models used to predict atmospheric changes are incorrect, which may mean that global warming is slower than expected (let's hope that's what it means). However, the radiosonde data does not invalidate surface temperature records, because it doesn't measure surface temperatures. The discrepancy is with the expected atmospheric warming and the actual recorded one, which is lower than expected. Thus the question of reliability does not apply to surface temperature measurements (save for the so-called "asphalt effect"), but rather to the computer models used to predict atmospheric changes.

In one section it talks about reducing emissions by 17% while in another part it says that it's emissions have increased by half the rate of growth of the economy.

Actually, the arctile says the country's energy consumption has increased by half the rate of growth of the economy, not its emissions. Those are two different things. Emissions did increase in the first part of the 90s, mind you, but they have been decreasing in the second half. A few more links about a piece of news that was quite underreported in the U.S.:

World Carbon Emissions Fall

Carbon Emissions Data | China

China and Climate Change

And here is an analysis by the US NGO that published the original report. In this analysis the researchers said they cross-examined their data a second time after the Washington Post claimed that China had underreported its actual emission figures while inflating its actual economic growth. The NRDC still found that China had in fact decreased its carbon emissions while enjoying a healthy economic growth. So the two are not irreconcilable, and the "China excuse" is not a valid reason for the U.S. to drop out of Kyoto...unless you are suggesting that americans are somehow less capable at taking on the environmental challenge than the chinese are...

Sure, there will be short-term costs, but these will be quickly recouped, and the goal is quite worthy of those small sacrifices (energetic independence and reducing the likelihood of a probable global warming).

Anyway, that's my opinion. We probably won't be able to see eye to eye on this, but still I respect your position.

The list: lawyers who work for the ACLU fighting for civil rights, lawyers who work for NRDC trying to protect the environment, lawywers who work for the EFF, or PFAW, or any other public interest organization. Or all the lawers who work for the state, federal, and local government who try to keep corporations for running amuck. My wife works for the Massachusetts Office of Child Care Services trying to keep kids safe, and help parents find child care they can count on.

And for the record, the attorneys in her office make a lot closer to $20/hour. Care to figure out how long it takes to repay $60,000 in law school student loans at that rate (after you take out rent and food)?

There are thousands of lawyers who choose to work for the public good instead of their own greed. There are tens of thousands who go for the greed, but don't let that make you ignore the ones who Do The Right Thing.

Actually, they're pretty sure it does.

There's an analysis of the likely SIOP at the NRDC. You may be interested in the section on how the ran their sim.

Here is a reprint of the original New York Times Magazine article "Recycling is Garbage".

Ok, enough is enough . I've just wasted some minutes on the distortions and half-truths of the article, here is one example:

We're a wicked throwaway society. Plastic packaging and fast-food containers may seem wasteful, but they actually save resources and reduce trash. The typical household in Mexico City buys fewer packaged goods than an American household, but it produces one-third more garbage, chiefly because Mexicans buy fresh foods in bulk and throw away large portions that are unused, spoiled or stale. Those apples in Dittersdorf's slide, protected by plastic wrap and foam, are less likely to spoil. The lightweight plastic packaging requires much less energy to manufacture and transport than traditional alternatives like cardboard or paper. Food companies have switched to plastic packaging because they make money by using resources efficiently. A typical McDonald's discards less than two ounces of garbage for each customer served -- less than what's generated by a typical meal at home.

Spoiled, stale or unused food (or any organic waste) is not garbage, it's potential fertilizer. To even talk of putting it in a landfill is madness. Whilst *some* packaging can be recycled - with some energy cost. Organic matter recycles itself! Just stack it up and wait a few weeks and you have compost.
Now can we get back to talking about computer parts?

Here is a reprint of the original New York Times Magazine article "Recycling is Garbage".

Yes, recycling is good for some materials, but the idea that extensive recycling (which requires a whole new waste managment infrastructure!) will save the world is preposterous.

As a second note, did you know that there are two types of the Ebola virus that have had outbreaks? One was in Africa, which we all saw on the evening news. It killed humans, but could only be transferred by bodily fluids. Since your entire body turned into jelly, there was plenty of that to go around, but still, the infection rate was not critical. The other strain came to North America with a shipment of monkeys. It did not kill humans (only made you sick), but it was airborne!!! Put the two strains together, couple it with a flight out of Zaire to NYC, and...

Do you want to talk about accentuating the positive? Accentuate the fact that genetically engineered crops with the 'Bt' pesticide inserted are killing off Monarch butterflies. Accentuate the fact that frogs are being born with three legs and two heads due to toxins released during paper processing which mimic hormones. Accentuate the fact that we are destroying species at a rate never before seen in the history of the earth since the meteor that killed the dinosaurs! THERE IS A FINITE LIMIT ON GROWTH. That's right - the Dow Jones can't keep growing forever, because natural resources which we depend on are non-renewable! Of course, in a capitalist system which rewards profit as the most noble of motivations, that issue never comes up.

Trees grow at 2% a year. If you cut timber at 2% a year, and kept the amount of forest protected, you could cut trees forever. However, the stock market grows at 10% (at least). It makes more economic sense to cut down the trees now and invest the money. Does that make sense?

However, you say, technology will find us a way out. The Biosphere II project was an example of how we could use technology to live on Mars by generating a natural environment that would support us. Of course, you don't hear much about the Biosphere project anymore, because it failed miserably. Oxygen levels inside the sealed environment dropped to those found at 12,000 feet. Then Nitrogen levels skyrocketed, causing risk of brain damage. Then most of the plants which were supposed to sustain the bionauts died off, and cockroaches and ants began to swarm over everything. Had they stayed inside any longer, they might have died. The lesson this teaches is that we don't know what the hell is going on in the ecosystem! Working in a lab is fine and dandy, but as soon as you take out the fixed variables that the scientific method is based around and throw your invention into the real world, who knows what might happen? There have already been instances of genes jumping from one species to another, for example in the Mad Cow disease incident... Sheep --> Cows --> Humans. Don't get me started.

Sorry for the flames but I strongly disagree with the cheery optimisim which pervades North American society.