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An engineer is a person who takes responsibility for what he delivers.

You're a fucking moron.

Here you go, all the way from the 70s, and yeah, they got the shit sued out of them.

"They" in this case means the company involved which "settled out of court" whilst nobody even mentioned the specific "software engineers" involved because they all knew they weren't real engineers.

As for engineers in jail, cite?

Five seconds on google searching "bridge collapse jail" would have saved you embarassment:

• In the Maccabiah collapse five people including the engineer were jailed
• this even happens in places like India notorious otherwise for rich people avoiding jail
• or in China
• Gas Engineers too

Sure, you'll run around like a needledick citing cases where engineers covered up malfeasance and went to jail, but NEVER will you cite a situation where an engineer actually went to jail without mitigating circumstances of a crime.

I'd smack you, but shit splatters.

That word, mitigating, I do not think it means what you think it means. But I do apologise because you make me so afraid.

1. Antarctic Global Warming Expedition Ship Trapped in Sea Ice. You may have heard about the Russian vessel trapped 100 miles away from land in 10 feet thick ice in Antarctica and how three ice breakers have failed to rescue it. What you may not have heard is this ship is filled with Climate Scientists studying Global Warming. They are comparing data from 100 years ago when there was no sea ice in the same location.

2. Yachts Trapped in Sea Ice in the Arctic Last Summer. You probably didnt hear about all the yachts, sailboats, rowboats, and kayaks that got trapped by sea ice while trying to sail the fabled Northwest Passage. They were promised an ice free passage.

3. Global Sea Ice at Record Levels. Al Gore and John Kerry 5 years ago predicted that 2013 would be ice free in the arctic. You probably havent heard that the exact opposite came true. 2013 is currently at the second highest volume of sea ice ever recorded and will probably break the all time record before the season is over.

4. Half of Meteorologists Dont Believe in Global Warming. Nearly half of meteorologists and atmospheric science experts donâ(TM)t believe that human activities are the driving force behind global warming, according to a survey by the American Meteorological Society.

5. Only 75 Climate Scientists Believe in Global Warming. You probably have heard ad nauseum that 97% percent of Climate Scientists believe in global warming. That stat was based on a study which counted only 75 of 77 Climate Scientists. Compared to the over 31,000 scientists who have signed a petition saying they dont believe in Global Warming. Thats only 2.3 in 1,000 or .23% of scientists that actually believe in Global Warming.

6. NASA caught fudging historical temps to make it look like the globe is warming. By massively cooling the past in their recent graphs, NASA has exaggerated the amount of warming they report by nearly twice as much as they did 13 years ago.

7. Polar Bear Population at Record Levels. Since we've been keeping count the Polar Bear population is estimated at a record high of 20k to 25k. 5,000 are expected to be born around the New Year in Russia alone.

8. Obama Allows Wind Farms to Kill Eagles Without Penalties. Over 50 years ago the green movement started with the book Silent Spring which alleged that DDT was killing the Bald Eagle. Now we have come full circle by allowing wind power companies to kill eagles without penalty because its good for the planet.

9. The Oceans Arent Rising. Remember in 2009 when the officials of the Maldives held a press conference under water to show that their islands were sinking because of global warming. Well a new study do

Historians better get busy and get their asses back to Greenland, to document modern farming:

"Trees are growing and the fields are full of potatoes, lettuce, carrots and cabbage" to be sold at the local market, explains Anders Iversen, who heads a plant nursery near Qaqotorq in the south.

Temperatures are warmer now, with the mercury sometimes rising above 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit) in summer, he says.

"If global warming continues, we will be able to grow even more kinds of vegetables during a longer season," he adds.

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Global_warming_impacting_Greenlanders_daily_lives_999.html

No. It looks like the huge, rapid introduction of CO2 into the atmosphere without any change in the earth's orbit or solar output is without precedent, at least over the period of time for which we have good evidence.

Fair enough. So if I found a rapid change in CO2 levels without a change in the earth's orbit or solar output (say, 280ppm - 380ppm over 1000 years) in the historical record, you'd admit your hypothesis is falsified? Not saying I have that at my fingertips, but at least now you're talking about something that we can predict and test.

Like what? Ultimately, thermodynamics tells us that the earth's temperature must be determined by the rate at which the earth absorbs energy from the sun and the rate at which it radiates energy to space. Nobody has found any changes in factors that could affect these, aside from atmospheric CO2.

Well, I'll through out the Late Eocene for you - without a great difference in solar output or orbital variation, ocean currents (which carry orders of magnitude more heat content than our atmosphere) made a veritable temperate paradise out of Antarctica. Changes in ocean currents have led to the seasonality we currently experience at various latitudes.

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Oceans_played_critical_role_in_ancient_global_cooling_999.html

We already have fairly good science on El Nino and La Nina dramatically affecting global average temperature, but that's driven by ocean heat, not atmospheric heat. Believing that on one hand the oceans determine our global average temperature over these various cycles, and on the other hand that it's the atmosphere that drives the ocean is odd, don't you think? It's like saying that my hand flushes the toilet, but sometimes, the toilet makes my hand work the flush lever :)

1) Of course I stand by that. To assume that it is natural variation is simple - we simply assume that things happen the same way today for the same reasons that they did in the past. To assume that it is primarily driven by CO2 requires us to assume all sorts of ad hoc explanations for why the past record does not show CO2 as a driver, and all sorts of assumptions as to how CO2 will leverage water vapor in the atmosphere, etc, etc.

2) The reason why we have the kinds of temperature differentials we do during the seasons is because of the complex interactions of oceans and atmosphere, in addition to the tilt of the earth's axis. See: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Oceans_played_critical_role_in_ancient_global_cooling_999.html

3) My hypothesis simply states that you cannot ignore the internal heat of the earth as a non-trivial driver. A falsification of it would be to observe some large volcanic eruption, and note no significant effect on the weather. How many climate models do you know of actually take into account geothermal activity and distribution?

4) Again, you're fighting a strawman I'm not putting forth. I accept that with cherrypicking, you can show the earth is warming, cooling, or even staying stable. My contention is that no amount of warming trend you can show with your cherry picking, it does not refute the idea that this warming is simply a natural occurrence, nor does it prove that this warming must be driven by CO2.

That all being said, enjoy this retrospective on IPCC predictions of temperature: http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=2208

30 years of data, which by your estimate should be enough to validate predictions, right? :)

an hydro dam is a dangerous thing: more dangerous than a nuclear plant looking at history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

a coal plant is a dangerous thing but it's a sort of low level constant danger.
http://www.ecomall.com/greenshopping/cleanair.htm

drilling a hole for gas or geothermal is a dangerous thing
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Locals_Block_Work_At_Indonesian_Mud_Volcano_999.html

etc etc
Every energy source has dangers and problems.
So it makes sense to simply pick the ones which kill the fewest people overall.

As found on the warmlist, this isn't the first time climate change has been accused of threatening coffee. Amazing how climate change seems to be the bane of all existence...

Zappepcs:
New article, suggesting a link between the Sun's geomagnetic (not radiance) activity and climate change, especially in the North Atlantic. The article suggests there might be a 1,500 year cycle of "...weak solar activity caused by fluctuations in the sun's magnetic fields [that] cools the North Atlantic Ocean and creates more icebergs and ice rafting, or the movement of sediment to ocean floors." The authors throw a bone to the man-made global warming crowd by saying: "Global warming will leave things like this in the dust. The natural oscillations here are nothing like what we would expect to see with global warming," Note: The authors speculate that another cycle could occur in 500 to 1,000 years. The article can be found here: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Droughts_Have_Lasted_Centuries_In_Eastern_North_America_999.html
In order for this hypothesis to be true, there has to be a mechanism where the Sun's geomagnetic energy is transferred to or through the troposphere (the lower atmosphere next to the Earth)...what that is, I don't know, but I can speculate that the Aurora Borealis could be an indicator of such a mechanism.

Note: I've posted this anonymously as the Euros and lefties on this site go nuts when someone challenges the possibility that Americans might not be responsible for all things bad in this world, including global warming, hunger, poverty, death, disease, war, natural disasters, etc.

What?? They sure do go dump Toxic Waste because there aren't specific injunctions and court orders not telling them to...
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/11165
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/5/27/93622.shtml?s=ic
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Toxic_waste_dump_killing_children_in_Kenya_UN_report_999.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/06/MN2510MASF.DTL&type=printable

You think these companies waited until they were in trouble to start dumping their crap?

You make it sound as if only the chinese were emitting soot. Actually this is both india and china are contributing 35% of the soot. Remember we are speaking of roughly 2+ billion people out of 6, so roughly 1/3 of the population contributing to 1/3 of the soot. I tried to google for the US contribution, but did not find anything relevant, but it would interesting to know.

But even worst for your theory is this (article) :
"Forty percent of soot comes from the same sources as greenhouses gases, notably the burning of coal and oil, and will only be reduced as quickly or slowly as economies become less carbon intensive. But the remaining 60 percent of black carbon in the atmosphere comes from the more easily altered practices of burning biofuels and forests, the authors say.".

So in other word we are only looking at 40% of the carbon emission from both china and India due to the economic increase for those aforementioned 35%. The rest seems to be from wood burning, domestic use (I dispute that this would be easily changed btw). But the real killer for the "china=reasponsible" mantra many seem to sing is this :
""Providing alternative energy-efficient and smoke-free cookers, and introducing transferring technology for reducing soot emissions from coal combustion in small industries could have major impacts" on reducing soot's role in global warming, they conclude. Such measures would result in a 70-80 percent reduction in heating caused by black carbon in south Asia, and a 20-40 percent cut in China, according to the study. The authors caution, however, that soot reduction can only help delay unprecedented climate change, which is due primarily to CO2 emissions".

In other word, a country responsibility to global GW can still be measured by the carbon footprint per head that its inhabitant left in the past, and by absolute emission today. Which make the US quite responsible for the last few 10s of years , and we can start pointing finger at China, which can then point finger back at the US and EU which jump started their economy and wealth over the back of everybody else and now want to curb everything.

In other word it is way more complicated that you make it.

PS: what I found most interesting is the life time of soot in the atmosphere is 1 week. In other word this is a problem which could be quickly solved by all party, but NOT a solution to the Climate Change.

When corn prices go up for ethanol, more farmers switch from whatever they were growing to corn, because it makes more money.

Corn production is up, and yes that is effecting other food costs, however:"The USDA reports that farmers intend to plant 8 percent fewer acres of corn this year than last. In 2007, farmers planted the highest number of corn acres since World War II....The USDA's report looks at other grains as well. Oat plantings are expected to fall. Sorghum, too. And barley acreage could grow this year " So I guess we should still have some beer supplies coming out of America, the farmers are actually backing off corn production this year. But I don't think Australia's problem isn't corn,it's a drought that has lasted several years. "This lack of rainfall, combined with hotter than average daytime temperatures and strong winds, has led to the rapid deterioration of crop yield potential and in many areas has resulted in total crop failure," ABARE executive director Phillip Glyde said. The three major crops of wheat, barley and canola will amount to 18.0 million tonnes for the year -- about 42 percent below the five-year average but still 4.0 million tonnes above the previous year's output"

Of course, there are plenty of other uses for robots besides war machines and bar disarmament.

Might be a better idea then those Indonesians dumping concrete into a volcano I guess.

Vat-grown, or printed, meat products are produced using the same basic techniques as other forms of printed tissue culture. Tissue engineering of this type was first developed for medical use in the production of autologous tissue for organ replacement. However this sort of tissue culture was soon found to be useful for the direct production of meat for food on spacecraft and habitats in deep space. See bioforgery.

To achieve the goal of meat production, muscle and other flesh cells are grown on a specially constructed biopolymer scaffold, which replicates the natural extracellular matrix found in living animals. This scaffold is generally printed using a rapid 3d printer device, although several other related techniques such as foaming and self-assembly are also used. Cultured cells are then implanted into the scaffolding, and these cells are induced to bind together into muscle-like or vascular tissue. Once the meat block, known as `slab', is established, the tissue is supplied with nutrients and allowed to grow by as much as 400% by volume before harvesting. To ensure the slab has a healthy texture it is stimulated into regular contractions, simulating exercise; the slab is attached at each end to strain gauges to measure the force of contraction. Each slab is connected to a generous supply of nutrient fluid often closely resembling blood.

Matter compilers in meat factories to produce foods. So, this looks like an interesting area of thought to explore further. Starting with cell culture techniques would be the smart thing to do, then confirming that we can identify particularly nutritious cells, and then working on some tissue growth techniques. Maybe this will start with burn victims?

Artificial cells, tissues, organs compilation,
Background notes on tissue engineering,
Engineering human tissue (paper),
An odd government website,
Obligatory Wikipedia article linkage,
Organ printing,
This source is claiming lab-grown meat in five years,
Fetal farming (what?),
New-Harvest.org for bringing cultivated meat closer to reality,

...has been done in Japan, where lettuce is grown in vertical panels using UV lights and hydoponics: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Space-crunched_J apanese_farmer_goes_high_tech.html

Well, just yesterday I read two articles on spacedaily:

1) Griffin Not Sure Global Warming A Problem
2) NASA Research Suggest Earth Climate Approaching Dangerous Point

Somehow I have problems reconciling these two standpoints.

he problem for people who don't accept the 100+yr old repeatable observation that C02 acts as a GHG is to point to an alternative explaination for the observed warming. In other words natural "forcings" have been accunted for, so where is the extra warming coming from if not from GHG emmissions?

They are being cut done for farmland since those farmers use suboptimal farming techniques which necessitate burning through a lot of the land.

I'd like to see something to backup those assertions. My understanding is that farmland has been decreasing in the US for a long time. According to USDA as of 2003:

The Nation's cropland acreage declined from 420 million acres in 1982 to 368 million acres in 2003, a decrease of about 12 percent. The net decline between 1997 and 2003 was 8 million acres, or about 2 percent.

Here's an article indicating the same thing is happening in China:

"The amount of land dedicated to grain production is expected to continue shrinking in the years ahead, but (farm lands) will still have to produce a minimum of 500 million tons to feed China in 2010," the China Daily said.

Not that I particularly care for food raised on modern farms, but it remains that less and less land is producing more and more food.

Ironically, survival conditions on the open Ocean are _better_ than those of a land/crisis situation; on multiple levels.

2004 Earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia: Did Katrina make us forget this one?

Hurricane Katrina, USA:
Hurricane Katrina, USA

At least in a complete water situtation, you're quite prepared for almost anything.

People don't forget the Sun. Certainly solar forcing is a major factor in climate models. However, variations in solar output alone can't explain the warming trend we currently see. See, for instance, this review.

If you want to hurt Putin, it is easiest to do so bt proxy. Gazprom, the state gas and oil company is effectively an organ of Kremlin policy. The company is publically listed and even allows foreign shareholders, but the Kremlin retains control through their majority holding. They already supply a lot of gas to western europe and they are looking to buy up the supply chain, in particular RWE in Germany and Centrica in the UK. As both companies are publicly owned and Gazprom is run by the Kremlin, I'm sure that any such purchase could be reasonably blocked by their respective governmen ts or even the EU. That's unless Blair or Merkel are looking for a Gazprom directorship like Markel's predecessor.

Gazprom still needs access to foreign capital and expertsie. As a state organ, there is much corruption and it is run very inefficiently, as evidenced by its failure to develop fields. Sure the company makes money, but at the same time, it is losing it, with no outside help, this is likely to continue.

Fact #1: The biggest influence on global climate is a big semi stable fusion reactor that has only been studied in detail for a fairly short period of time but is already known to vary its output on multiple cycles measured in years. Several studies indicate solar output is currently increasing.

Fact #2: More and more evidence points to Earth getting warmer.


Fact #3: Fact #1 isn't exactly hard fact.

Fact #4: The physics behind greenhouse gases like CO2 are well-established. Arrhenius figured it out over a century ago.

Fact #5: What's more uncertain is the impact of all the positive and negative feedback cycles. That's where it gets messy.

I concede that the historical pattern of solar intensity isn't as well documented as we would like it to be, due to the difficulty of measurement. But to present the solar intensity argument while ignoring the hard science behind greenhouse gases is preposterous.

Also, one of the dudes who found an increasing solar trend said "that does not mean industrial pollution has not been a significant factor, Willson cautioned."

These are not your garden variety electrolytic caps. Check TFA where it says "storage capacity is proportional to the surface area of the battery's electrodes". Here's another reference to the technology they're taking about.

The use of nanotubes increases the surface area gazillions of times beyond what a conventional capacitor has, and becomes competitive with batteries for energy storage -- without the attendant performace decline over time. The points made elsewhere in the forum about practical all-electric vehicles being limited by the ability to safely transfer lightning bolts is valid, but for lesser uses -- cameras, phones, notebook computers -- these ultracapacitors have genuine promise. Give me an ultracapacitor-powered notebook over a fuel cell powered one any day.

And if we are willing to re-think our paradigms for re-fueling vehicles, we might still be able to have all-electric vehicles (commuter vehicles anyway), with pre-charged ultracapacitors available at gas stations. Just drop one into a loading chute, and return the "empty" for credit and recharging amd you're good to go. I figure something about the size of a bank drive-up tube cannister might work (no calculations, just a SWAG). Maybe it would take several of these to completely "fill the tank" (no fuel tank involved, they ARE the 'fuel tank'), but (I think) such devices could be made reasonably safe to handle in a limited way -- at least as safe as pumping gasoline. Idiots that would extract them from the vehicle and try to take them apart would only improve the gene pool, just like people that smoke while pumping gas.

Hydro; a clean, infinitely renewable resouce.

Sorry, but hydro is not "infinitely renewable" as it is really just an expression of solar energy. Riverbeds move, climate changes, and reservoirs fill with sediment. Second, we have already dammed something like 50% of all the available waterways for power to produce something like 7% of all the needed energy on the planet. What are we going to do to get to 100%? Additionally, damming rivers is devastating to the downstream environment. 200 years ago the Colorado River drained into the sea of Baja, now it just dries up somewhere in Arizona...

And finally, hydro power is not clean! Several studies have shown that the average hydro plant produces more environmental destruction and greenhouse gasses than a similar (in power production) coal plant. So your "clean" energy source is worse for the environment than a filth-belching coal plant. Congratulations.

Me, I'd rather have a nuke plant...

-FL

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-FL

same story here