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Americans Gearing up to Fight Global Warming
TechnoGuyRob writes "Global warming has been one of the most controversial and debated issues in the political and scientific sphere. A recent poll published in the Chicago Sun-Times now shows that 'An overwhelming majority of Americans think they can help reduce global warming and are willing to make the sacrifices that are needed, a new poll shows. After years of controversy, 71 percent of Americans now say they think global warming is real.'" (Jamie adds: and all it took was twelve years of overwhelming scientific consensus.)
This is clearly a situation where strong federal leadership is needed. If Americans are on board with reducing global warming, then let's make reduced fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions a reality by:
- mandating higher MPGs in automobiles
- granting huge tax credits for solar heating/electric panels on private and commercial buildings
- mandating solar equipment for ALL federal buildings
- mandating a switch to ethanol or methanol biofuels for federal fleets
- grant tax breaks for anyone switching to biofuels
- aid to cities that want to build or expand public transportation
- aid to cities to convert existing buses to biofuels
- massage research into alternative energy
- end the war in Iraq to free up the funds for the above initiatives
- Wind mill farms granted more eminent domain power (e.g., to overcome NIMBY opposition by estate owners in Marblehead, Massachusetts because "it ruins the view").
Germany during World War II switched to hydrogen for its cars when its petroleum supplies were cut off. Brazil has switched to domestically produced alcohol. It's all do-able with a strong federal leadership. This is clearly a situation where the market economy is going to favor lower prices, not (necessarily) environmentally desirable results. The federal government is the agent that can mandate the conditions necessary to make this stuff a reality.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
In my philosophy class last night someone was just saying that they didn't believe in that "global warming nonsense". I guess they fall in the 29% bracket.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
What else can I say?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Global warming? Why don't we just instigate a nuclear winter to cancel it out?
Only one person matters who lives in the white house.
And he doesn't seem to gear up.
"Politicians finally came up with a cheap, last-minute solution to control Global Warming: dropping a giant ice cube from the Halley's Comet in one of Earth's oceans every now and then. This fix worked for nearly a millennium, and so by the year 3000, Global Warming was considered by many a scientific fraud, like secondhand smoke."
~The Futurama Encyclopedia
It's wonderful that so many people are willing to say they want to make a difference. That's just as good as actually doing it! Studies also show that 74% of all Americans also say they want to start excersizing regularly, continue their education, spend time with their families, and find a cure for cancer. That's a load off my mind, I'll definitely sleep better tonight.
Regardless of that, the real problem isn't with the masses, its with the elite. My father is a plumbing and mechanics inspector in one of the richest counties in America. He recalls one house he inspected that had 7 heated swimming pools joined together with hottubs. The owner would keep them heated year-round just in case a random party broke out. He also had 10 furnace and airconditioning units in his 35,000 sqft. house that I'm sure he ran the hell out of. He also had a 6 car garage, one spot for each of his SUVs.
The real problem is, there are no limits on how much gasoline, electricity, or natural gas one person is allowed to use. Supplies are being wastefully depleted and turned into greenhouse gasses, and people are blaming the average consumer.
So when gas prices go up by 80%, this rich bastard probably won't even think twice. Meanwhile, an average person is being asked to "turn thermostats down in winter by 2 degrees, caulk around windows, combine driving trips when running errands... wash clothes in cold water, turn down water heater temperature, buy energy-efficient light bulbs, buy energy-efficient appliances, and buy energy-efficient cars." And this is a solution?
It's like having some large corporation lower 100,000 sub-management employee wages by $5 an hour instead of laying off one CEO who is making $500k per year.
Whoever said one person can't make a difference. --
"Man Bites Dog
Then Bites Self"
Capitalism: When it uses the carrot, it's called democracy. When it uses the stick, it's called fascism.
Bush has only just denied global warming is manmade.
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Are these the same 71% that voted in a leader who doesn't believe (or says that he doesn't believe) that global warming is real? Or are these the 71% that voted for the other guys or didn't vote at all?
We've spent so long talking about global warming that I don't think anyone has stopped to consider some possibilities.
First, is it even our fault? Is global warming really a man-made disaster, or is it part of a climatic or solar cycle? It always seemed to be simply assumed that what we have documented is because of something humanity did...what if it's not? If this is a natural occurence, then wouldn't we be doing even more harm to nature by fighting it?
Second, what happens if there's nothing we can do? Action plans are great and all and we need to do everything in our power to reverse any damage we've done, but we need to get our heads out of the sand and have a Plan B. It's very possible that anything we do now will be too little too late, that we have already hit critical mass and warming will accelerate even if we climbed back up in the trees tomorrow.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
For all the BAD things the US does (ie.Iraq invasion) they are undoubtably the best in the world at selling ideas. If the US could SERIOUSLY adopt more environmentally friendly ways of living/working and in industry, is there little doubt that new technologies and practices would be exported to places such as India and China? Isn't this obvious??? And why did it take disasters like Katrina to wake people up?
Bush has only just denied global warming is manmade
He's right, its actually caused by the products of man. Kinda like how guns kill people.
...so they're still not going to actually DO it, just prepare and get ready? (that's the meaning of "gearing up" that I'm familiar with)
Rather than gear up, why not start right now? Sales of Hummers were up 174% from last year. If that's not going in the exact opposite direction, I don't know what is.
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And so does the Washington Times which recently reprinted this 1794 Newsweek piece. The kind of language used is eerily similar to the global warming talk today.
There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production -- with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now.
The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas -- parts ofIndia,Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia -- where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree -- a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars' worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.
To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world's weather. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. "A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale," warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, "because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century."
A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.
To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth's average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras -- and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average.
Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the "little ice age" conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 -- years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.
Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. "Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data," concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. "Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions."
Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term
71% may believe global warming is an important issue but I haven't noticed
71% going out and buying efficient cars. I haven't noticed 71% of companies
switching off their lights after dark or turning down the air con / heating
a notch.
Its easy to say you're concerned about something , its quite another matter
to prove it.
"is there little doubt that new technologies and practices would be exported to places such as India and China?"
Given their current rate of industrialization, increasing demand for energy, and pollution output, I'd say there's plenty of doubt.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
In response, Bush finally agrees that the threat against global warming is real. He declares a "War against Heat" and immediately draws up plans to bomb the Bahamas.
Tluin natha Linux xxizzuss uriu olt bwael mon'tun.
From the article:
>After years of controversy, 71 percent of Americans now say they
>think global warming is real, according to a telephone survey of
>1,200 people for the advocacy group Environmental Defense
So this result has some built-in bias.
since USA is the direct responsible for most of the gases that cause the greenhouse effect, it's reasonable that they do something.
Signing the Kioto protocol would be a good start.
"Between 80 percent and 90 percent are willing to take these energy-saving actions: wash clothes in cold water, turn down water heater temperature, buy energy-efficient light bulbs, buy energy-efficient appliances, and buy energy-efficient cars.
70 percent are willing to drive less, and walk, bike, car pool or take mass transit."
BS. When it comes down to it, people will do what is cheapest and most convenient. It's very easy to tell some pollster you're willing to do something, but when push comes to shove, forget it. There is a social factor in polls that causes people to answer the way they want to be perceived, not the way they actually are.
I take mass transit daily (by choice), and I have lost count of all the people I know who've tried it but given it up as too inconvenient.
And as for energy-efficient appliances, the sticker shock is too much for many people, even when the appliance is cheaper in the long run.
You want real reduction in greenhouse gasses from US people? End the light-truck exemption for mileage standards. Increases mileage standards for all vehicles. Bring mass transit funding levels up to highway funding levels -- if it's pervasive enough, it WILL be convenient. Reducing consumption of power by 15% at home is not going to make near enough of a dent -- it is not enough, and it's irresponsible to let people believe it will be.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
If called upon, I will undoubtedly help to reduce emissions and make an environmental difference. Actually, my family does already. We carpool, telecommute (when possible), walk when we can, recycle everything we can, and use gas-powered tools as little as possible (I love power tools, though).
I have to say that the whole media/government FUD over whether or not global warming actually exists really rings a bell with me. The dis-information campaign (about emissions and pollution) reminds me very much of the decades of time when industry and government were disseminating information that smoking hadn't been proven to cause cancers. Decades of mis-information about nicotine addiction and cancer risks was backed up by industry-paid doctors and lawyers who lulled us to sleep on the issue. The same thing has been going on WRT pollution and global warming.
Humans accelerate climate change - whether it is clear-cutting ancient forests, industrial pollution, wasteful production, or emissions... To me, the real question is, "When will we take a responsible stance/take action on helping the Earth begin to heal?"
A Passionate Independent Musician
The sun is going to burn out in a few billion years. As it does so, it will cool and expand slowly enveloping the earth. The 'global warming' we are experiencing today will be nothing in comparison. The earth will be cooked until it is very well done and once that's over and the sun is completely burned-out, the earth will be frozen solid.
The moral of this story is this: the earth will heat up and cool down based on what the sun is doing. It's pretentious and incorrect to think that something as insignificant as mankind is the main cause of global warming.
You'd have to fire a CEO who made $500K per hour.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I was thinking about this the other day... If oil production has peaked, and we are now pulling less oil/fossil fuels from the ground to burn... won't their be a rough maximum damage/change that we can do to the atmosphere? We are going to run out of these fuels soon (well, not run out, but it will be too expensive to use them like we do now), a hundred years maybe? I'd be interested to see an approximation of the worst possible impact we could have while sloppily burning everything we've got left.
I guess what I'm saying is, it doesn't look like global warming due to pollution from combustion of fossil fuels will not be around much longer no matter what we do.
Note: This sig contains nine S's, nine I's and five O's which... means absolutely nothing.
- building nuclear power stations.
I'm working in Kenya right now. They have massive deforestation here, with only 1.5% tree cover. Right now in the north of the country there are about 5 million people who are starving (or will be in a few weeks). These are the kind of disasters that will happen everywhere in the world if nothing is done. Desertification, crop failures, extreme weather, flooding. What are simple solutions? How about reducing soil erosion? Re-plant forests. Stop building massive houses on sandbars that trigger flooding. Use more friendly power generation to reduce smog and acid rain. ALL of these solutions would have immediate impacts and improve the quality of life not only for the earth but us humans as well. There is a reason why cancer rates and respiratory disorders are increasing. We are quickly poisoning ourselves, and if we don't ack NOW,it will only get worse. (cue Bladerunner opening sequence)...
I think it's great that so many people are interested in becoming better stewards of the Earth. However, voicing an opinion is easy. Actually living up to those convictions is much more difficult. I'd be willing to bet, just from my own anecdotal experience with people in general, that *maybe* half of those that say they want to act more responsibly actually will do it.
It's just so much easier to keep doing what you're doing. Change is hard.
Transistors and Beer!!
70 percent are willing to drive less, and walk, bike, car pool or take mass transit.
Mass transit, what a great idea! Too bad no politician in our Republican-controlled government is willing to invest, or even talk about in a mass transit train system that can easily and quickly move people to and from work/home. This is just one of many solutions that you may never see when Oil barons are running the country.
Exxon/Mobil is #1 on the Fortune500 and for a simple reason - we all drive hugely inefficient vehicles.
The air temperature over the Antarctic has risen significantly, how long will it be before the ice melts and we are up to our ears in water?
SOMETHING has to be done soon, otherwise we may be rowing our boats to work.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
How does this percentage compare to the percentage of people who "believe" in evolution?
Um, so, don't credit Katrina to global warming unless you want to employ the same fraudulent fear-mongering techniques that everyone accuses the administration of. Read your New York Times. Katrina was part of a new, natural cycle of hurricanes and not part of global warming, per se.
Even if global warming is real, and humans are contributing to it, and we can do something about it, why is it a bad thing? Historically, ice ages have been the biggest threat to humanity and life on earth. It seems like turning a large part of the earth's habitable surface (tundra) from a frozen wasteland to habitable ground would be a *good* thing. Sure, there will be transition costs, but humans are becoming ever more adaptable, and creating living space for several more billion people seems great to me.
In the 1970's, there was a ton of hype and fearmongering about "Global cooling" and "the next Ice Age!". That was proved to be a bunch of BS. The same thing is going to happen here.
People are stupid and short-sighted, and they forget that the Earth's orbit around the sun varies enough to cause these symptoms of "global warming". The Earth also wobbles on its axis. This is more than sufficient to cause temperature variances of several degrees. It's all cyclical. It's happened before, and it will happen again.
(Jamie adds: and all it took was twelve years of overwhelming scientific consensus.)
Most global warming sceptics were willing to accept that warming was occurring, but were sceptical about human responsibility. This is the part that has been near impossible to prove. Milankovich cycles probably have more to due with global climate change but human activity now seems likely to affect the rate over a measured period of time.
If it were done when 'tis done, then t'were well it were done quickly... MacBeth
Nuclear Winter is a Myth.
sudo mod me up
... considering the amount of scaremongering that comes out of the "scientific community".
So far, I'm supposed to have been killed by:
- global warming
- global cooling
- global climate change (hows that for waffling?)
- Hong Kong Flu
- Bird Flu
- AIDS
- Ebola virus
- Andromeda Syndrome
- Mercury Poisoning
- Arsenic Poisoning
- Ozone depletion
- Cancer from drinking water
- Cancer from eating food
- Cancer from breathing air
- genetically modified vegetables
- nuclear weapons
- biological weapons
- chemical weapons
- car bombs
- atomic zombies
Either I am one bad-ass dude to have survived all THAT... or the dangers were mildly overstated.
How can this poll be valid? They only asked 1200 people. Probably 1200 people from the same region or area. That's like having a poll in San Diego and asking people if they like the weather. 1200 people is by no means an accurate representation of how the millions of people in the country feel. People just use these "polls" when they want to get normal people into thinking, "Well the majority of people think this is right I think I'll agree." Personally when it comes to global warming I'm in the boat that believes that humans do not understand the planet they are living on and are assuming that we are damaging it when most likely the planet is going through a normal warming up period that happens after an ice age. And this will keep happening until nature takes its course and starts to cool off the planet. Humans need to stop thinking they are causes and solution to all of the planets problems. We are insignificant(sp?), a single volcanic eruption has the power to kick start an ice age and destroy millions of animals and acres of forests. We can't come close to the power that the planet is capable of. A normal volcanic eruption will put out more greenhouse gases then the last 100 years of human industrialization.
And while we're on the subject this doesn't really belong in the "Science" section anymore but into politics. I wonder if Anderson Publishing / VA Software or whoever is behind slashdot gets paid extra whenever they carry one of these articles.
Shouldn't that read "The War on Global Warming"? Or even better, "War on Terra"!
Until it hits people HARD at the bottom line, it means nothing. Me? I live in the North. It's hard not to support global warming.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
So how many are actually DOING any of those things? And did you notice they were good little capitalist consumption-enhancing options? Buy this, buy that. The idea is to *reduce* consumption.
I believe it when I see the first SUV manufacturer file for bankruptcy. There are practical things that *could* be done, like increasing tax on fuel to promote efficient usage, setting real requirements for home insulation, reducing coal burning. However its much easier to say you'll maybe think about buying a new SUV with 2mpg better economy, some point in the future.
Changing mindsets takes much more positive action than this - and I see no sign of a change there.
About 3-4 years ago, while in college, I wrote a paper on global warming and the professor bashed it and argued with me about his personal view on it as well as giving it low marks. I hadn't taken a radical standpoint, and it was all centered around facts and research. Looks like I wasn't so wrong after all.
/endrant
While I personally don't believe humans have any great effect on this planet long-term, we can cause ourselves problems short-term and that is the real crux of global warming. In a million years the Earth will return to stasis either by a massive change or by our own actions exterminating ourselves so that the Earth can slowly recover.
What pisses me off are the folks who claim that they are "saving the Earth." You are not saving the Earth, you are saving your own ass. The Earth could care less, and it and a large number of species will easily survive our worst damage and come back and flourish with no problem.
While I'm on my soapbox, SUV's and 8-cylinder engines should be a relic left in the past. Technology has advanced to the point that 4 and 6 cylinder engines can do just about anything except extreme situations... which is fine for larger engines to be used. I don't care about your political affiliation, or the standard rants against SUV's... what I care about are common sense issues and problems. We have technology, USE IT. The auto industry hangs on to outdated and inefficiency at every chance it can, and the large profit margins of the SUV are the only reason they exist. But Joe Consumer eats it all up and has to have a 3-row seating Yukon XL (because bigger has to be better, right?) to spend 50% of it's life carrying 1-2 passengers max. And the smug assholes who think they are so special and priveledged to drive these vehicles need to be shot. They ruin it for everyone, they cause the gas prices I pay daily, they cause a growing number of traffic accidents, and they are generally unsafe drivers. I spend a large amount of time on the road and can easily back up my claims. Tax cuts should not go to SUV drivers, tax cuts should be going to drivers of fuel efficient vehicles of 30+MPG. With no penalty, or incentive to change we are on a collision course with disaster. I'm not talking about wanna-be "green" hybrids that average out to be just above normal efficient 4-cyl engine cars either, just damn COMMON SENSE. Amazingly there were always large families and they managed just fine before SUV's, we can easily get back to that point if only some things would change.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
This was a telephone survey of 1200. What kind of people agree to be surveyed over the phone? I bet half of the Slashdot community would tell the pollster to get stuffed. So how valid are the results?
And besides, actions speak louder than words. Somehow I don't think many Americans are going to all stop driving their big cars and start taking the public bus any day soon, no matter what they tell a telephone pollster...
http://www.lightwatcher.com/chemtrails/smoking_gun .html
That's impossible! Fox News says so!
Last Saturday morning, Steve Forbes said this about global warming: "There are no real facts to back it up. It's now become a religion instead of science and great fundraiser for extreme environmentalists. I don't think it's a hoax, just bogus science, like eugenics was decades ago.
Well, the extreme environmentalists, like the Kyoto Protocol, want to put a straightjacket and impose socialism which they can't do with red so now they do it with green.
As countries get richer, the environment gets better.
There you have it. America's most popular news station says that global warming is a religion, compares it to eugenics, and claims it's a filthy commie plot. And even if it isn't, it's the poor countries' fault, not America's.
Two words:Kyoto Protocol
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
All that said, the biggest problem is the developing third world which wants planes, trains and automobiles. Already just the cooking fires from SE Asia are a major source of pollution.
America may be ready to fight global warming, but America doesn't have control over the major upcoming sources of greenhouse gasses.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Is it a surprise that a huge amount of the U.S. Presidents personal fortune is in oil?
The entire Bush family exhibits "blatant business cronyism" with their ties to big oil.
Asking Bush to stop Fossil Fuel pollution is akin to asking Bill Gates to stop OS pollution.
...and all it took was twelve years of lies and propaganda. Next goal, convince the Americans that 70% taxation and no property rights is good for them. Pretty soon the US will be just as stupid and inept as most of western Europe.
(Oh, don't get all upset, it's just cheap hyperbole. I'm not going to waste my time actually trying to convince people of what should be completely obvious. Reason matters little to environmental zealots.)
According to The Leipzig Declaration, "There does not exist today a general scientific consensus about the importance of greenhouse warming from rising levels of carbon dioxide. In fact, many climate specialists now agree that actual observations from weather satellites show no global warming whatsoever--in direct contradiction to computer model results." It adds, "based on all the evidence available to us, we cannot subscribe to the politically inspired world view that envisages climate catastrophes and calls for hasty actions. For this reason, we consider the drastic emission control policies likely to be endorsed by the Kyoto conference--lacking credible support from the underlying science--to be ill-advised and premature". This would mean that there is a possibility that global warming could happen, but right now there is no real evidence already happening.
Every time someone declares "Americans are willing to do..." we wind up with useless (and pocket-lining) standards, a'la: R12 refridgerant, low-gpf toilets, and a whole host of other crud, much like in 1973.
First, considering the amount of CO2 that's belched out of a single lava blast, I don't think changing my life or muzzling my cat will do a lot of good.
Second, people seem to think we're mighty on this planet; that we're crowded. In fact, it's been estimated that if all 6b people were shoulder-to-shoulder in a square, we'd occupy the state of New Mexico; we're not THAT crowded, it's a media perception.
Third, I don't want another bandwagon.
Mark my words: we're all going to start doing dumb things in the name of "saving the planet" which will make other people rich and not reverse the problem at all. (Besides; it's not the planet we're saving, is it?)
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Title says it all...
There is a great new Ad Council campaign on global warming. There are two ads available online, here and here. What's even cooler is that every single one of the scientific claims made in the ads is documented at fightGLOBALwarming.com. The campaign itself is non-political, the goal is to teach people what actions they can take themselves without the government needing to pass new laws.
Also of note, there is a new movie starring Al Gore coming out soon. It features him traveling around the country giving talks on climate change. Anyway, as Salon said this morning, all revolutions begin with hope, not despair. And there is every reason to be optimistic here.
Do you not like this thing we humans have invented called 'civilization'? Name a problem in human history that was once thought unsolvable or impossible - and we have solved it. If humans are capable of causing the extinction of thousands of species of animals, we are surely capable of causing weather changes by such things as deforestation and billions of tons of pollutants into the atmosphere. Your view is just fatalistic.
In the 1970's, Brazil's government set up an energy plan to reduce the dependence on petroleum. They kept the price of gas high to subsidize the research and implementation of new technology to combat global warming. They now have cars that run on ethanol and passed legislation to ensure that every new buliding constructed is built with solar panels for water heating. If Brazil can do it, why can't we? It took them 30 years after the government took serious action to tackle the problem.
a) mans activities are the direct cause of global warming
b) global warming is a natural phenomenon, unaffected by mans activities
c) global warming is a natural phenomenon but mans activities have incresed the speed at which it occurs
If we assume a is correct then the data from ice core samples and elsewhere should show an increase in global tempertaures coinciding with the industrial revolution. This has been shown to be true.
If we assume b is correct then the data from ice core samples and elsewhere should show times in Earths past when man wasn't present that the temperature increased. This has been shown to be true.
If we assume c is correct then the issue becomes how much has man influenced the rise in global temperatures. In my opinion this is where the real discussion should lay. Since both a and b have been shown to be true then c is the real answer and we must look for ways to counteract our influence while realizing at the same time that nature will do what it wants and we will have to adapt.
For example, we know for a fact that cities produce their own microclimates. They produce excess heat due to the concentration of paved roads and heat from buildings in a small area which do affect local weather patterns.
We also know that deforestation has lead to increases in local weather temperatures whereas the planting of trees on rooftops has lowered temperatures (not to mention helps suck up some of the excess CO2). Deforestation also has an impact on streams and rivers since the removal of foliage allows the water temperature to rise which prevents certain species of fish and other wildlife from reproducing or significantly reduces their breeding areas. Deforestation also leads to exess silt flowing into waterways which clouds the water and kills off wildlife.
Again, the issue isn't whether global warming is occuring, we know it is, but rather what is causing it? Is it natural, manmade or a combination of both. Data seems to point to a combination of the two. As stated earlier, the real issue is what can we do to minimize our impact on this process?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
We Americans (generally) don't think it's fair that Exxon/Mobil had record profits while we were paying more at the pump, and think the government should do something about it.
Except raise gas taxes.
We want the government to fight global warming, unless it might hurt job growth, or reduce our ability to drive an SUV, or mean the price of homes go up, or mean we have to take public transportation, or impose fines on individuals making behavioral choices that increase global warming.
About the only think politicians feel they can do is give tax rebates on CF bulbs and hybrid cars. That alone isn't going to get it done.
So yes, Americans want to stop global warming, but we don't want to take personal responsibility, and we don't want to feel like the government is restricting or freedom to be selfish dirty consuming pigs.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
The ice caps on mars and neptune have been melting steadily the last few years.
Global warming isn't just happening here on earth.
Maybe we can make a small impact by limiting our own emissions, but in the end it won't amount to much.
I suppose it is human nature to do SOMETHING though.
Deadly Africanized "Killer" Bees (tm)
All's true that is mistrusted
I finally decided to switch my house over to 100% wind power last week. Now instead of killing the environment I just kill birds!
I don't necessarily agree with all the top-down government solutions proposed. I support revising CAFE, but am leary of what/how they get things done. My wife and I put our money where our mouths are. We do this for the environment:
- Drive a high-MPG car, our Matrix gets 34-36 mpg on the hiway.
- ride bikes whenever possible.
- have 1.7kw photovoltaic solar panels on our house, piped into the grid
- other hippy stuff like compost and recycling
I'd also like to say how stupid all the NIMBYs on Cape Cod are. We desperately need wind farms in New England. They complain about the windmills blocking the view, but if there's orange smog over everything you won't even be able to see the water. I've been to Holland and the modern windmills there are elegant and non-intrusive despite the size.
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Great news!
Now any ideas to when the Overwhelming Scientific Consensus(TM) about evolution will be accepted in the US of A?
Three tings I hate about stars: -Wars -Treks -Gates
The sad fact is that since 1988, the contrarian position on global warming has been nothing more than a snow job by Republican politicians and Republican interests, especially right-wing "think tanks" paid to churn out talking points that benefit industry and politicians.
The depth of right-wing hackery is demonstrated not just by George W. Bush, but by George Will, who to this day denies that anthropogenic global warming is real. His denials read like creationists flailing their tiny fists against 150 years of consensus on evolution. "One degree might be the margin of error" -- that is quite simply false.
To see George Will, the face of modern conservatism, in full petulant splendor, you have to watch the video. All he brings to the table -- all any global-warming denier can bring to the table -- is a snow job of out-of-context quotes from the 1970s about how some scientists thought the globe was cooling, not warming. Pretty sad. But that's one of the many differences between scientists and pundits. When new facts come to light, scientists change their minds.
But there has been a Republican pattern, from 1988, when James Hansen went before the U.S. Senate to explain that he was "99 percent" certain that global warming was real and that it was to some extent caused by humans, to earlier this year when the Bush administration's appointee tried to muzzle the very same James Hansen on the very same issue. Over and over we see partisan politics as the opposition to actual science. By arguing that any action on global warming would destroy our economy (not true -- carbon emission per GDP dollar has gone down dramatically since 1970 while productivity has boomed), Republicans play the issue as a political weapon, forcing Democrats to adopt moderate positions. Remember Bush's campaign ad making fun of Kerry for even considering a gasoline tax?
And who suffers? We are already in the midst of the Sixth Extinction, and though the first effects of global warming are just beginning to be felt, it's about to slam the ecosystem like a freight train. The only hope we have is that technology will take a quantum leap soon enough to allow us to effectively change planetary climate, on a scale we can't today engineer. But that's a crap shoot, a total unknown (much like global dimming, by the way, which we also know next to nothing about, and which if part of a natural cycle may mean global warming is going to get much, much worse over the next century). We need to do something besides hope.
It seems that it's too late to halt global warming's effects, thanks largely to fifteen years of Republican dissembling, but maybe if we start now we can mitigate to some extent the horrific human death, disease and displacement that will be everyday news on our grandchildren's planet. All we can do is start now. Maybe if these poll numbers are accurate, finally, finally we may be able to help.
Well they weren't very good at selling the idea that crazed psychos who cut innocent people's heads off or use Mustard Gas and Sarin on poor villagers are the BAD GUYS. Outright stank making that case, judging by some of the comments to this article (RE: removing Saddam and fighting Al Qaeda)
If it were done when 'tis done, then t'were well it were done quickly... MacBeth
Your dad is talking about John Kerry right? I know he has five mansions, a yacht, and a personal jet, but I didn't know about the seven pools. I have even more respect for his global warming sermons now. Thanks!
and FUCK us over while letting China and India grow exponentially with no regard for the environment? No way.
Either way, all economically viable petroleum will be used. Do you want it burned up in a million clean-burning, catalytic converter equiped SUVs or 10 million smoke spewing put-put cars?
When the the change over from a petroleum based economy comes, the rich nations will be better able to cope no matter what.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Twelve years is quite fast. If public opinion has really changed that fast on something that important, it may be setting some kind of record. If the public cares enough to actually do something about it that may be completely unique in the history of mankind.
Societies have repeatedly killed themselves off by wrecking their environment. Mostly they seem powerless to prevent it even when they see it coming. The ancient Greeks knew that cutting down the hillside forests was a bad idea but they let it happen anyway. The people of Easter Island must have known that, if they cut down all the trees, it would lead to their demise but they did it anyway.
Is there any hope? Some people and even some countries seem to 'get it'. In Europe especially, conservation is widely accepted. We have made some progress in America. So, maybe there's some hope.
And if they don't comply, just invade it! Superfun!
The sun is going to burn out in a few billion years. As it does so, it will cool and expand slowly enveloping the earth.
No; the Sun is actually slowly warming up.
It's pretentious and incorrect to think that something as insignificant as mankind is the main cause of global warming.
No; it is realistic and correct. We have already had a significant impact on the composition of the atmosphere in terms of CO2 concentration - the main source of warming.
Man, you must be a complete idiot to write down such a thing!
So, if the Sun is going to swallow Earth in a "few billion years" then you think the global warming is nothing to care about, uh? So probably you don't care about your next generations neither with anybody else than yourself.
This is the kind of behavior (of some american fools like yourself) that makes the rest of the world to hate USA more and more. Looks like you need to suffer with a "normal accident" like Katrina to get something inside your head.
There are so many. If cities would build decent public transportation that went radially as well as from suburbs to city centers, so many good things would happen. First, every household would have an extra couple hundred dollars a month that they're not spending on car payments, car insurance, gasoline, repairs, parking, tolls, and maintenance. Second, instead of playing chicken and road rage on the way to and from work every day, commuters could read a book or the paper or whatever, and generally arrive far less stressed out. And maybe they'd get a little exercise in walking to and from the station, with all the good things that that confers. With fewer people driving, there'd be less wear-and-tear on the roads, which means there would be fewer levies and taxes to repair them. Fewer people driving means fewer people dying in auto accidents. With fewer people driving, there would be a drop in demand for oil. That does a lot of good things, like bringing down the cost of plane tickets and consumer goods that have petroleum-based components (plastic, anyone?). And oh yeah, take the heat out of the oil market and suddenly all the money that Saudi Arabia and others flow to terrorists goes away. And oh yeah, fewer people driving also helps the environment.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
It's like having some large corporation lower 100,000 sub-management employee wages by $5 an hour instead of laying off one CEO who is making $500k per year.
Well - I liked your post however its too bad you end it with such bad math.
100,000 employees * 2000 working hours per year * $5 bux = $1 billion per year.
$500,000 / 1,000,000,000 = 1/2,000 = 0.05%
Thus the hypothetical CEO's wages are more or less insignificant.
-------------------
On this note - it would be very instructive if you bought yourself a $0.69 plastic vernier caliper.
On such an instrument you can quickely locate a number that would represent the absolute amount of water vapour in the atmosphere - which is anywhere from 30,000 to 80,000 ppm. In the hot tropics on a saturated day there is about 8% H2O in the atmosphere. The global average is difficult to determine because there are large regions where the water vapour is practically non-existant - for instance Antarctica - and the reason is because that land mass is below the dew point.
A convinient scale would be to choose each inch to represent say 10,000 ppm. If you choose a metric caliper then choose a cm to represent say either 5,000 or 10,000 ppm. Either is convinient.
Once you have done this - then set the caliper at the CO2 concentration. Its about 370 ppm.
After you do this set the caliper to represent the CHANGE in CO2 which is about say 70-90 ppm. Make sure you use the vernier properly and this is why I suggest a cheap 69 cent caliper - because using a vernier scale will make anyone who does this little excersize think!!!
Just as your math was bad in your post - you will quickly see that since H2O is by far the most powerful greenhouse gas it swamps CO2 by so many orders of magnitude that really the CO2 is probably totally irrelevant.
We do not know if H2O levels over the planet have increased over the last few 100 years or decreased. We cannot measure H2O levels to the required precision. The climate models zero this out. IE - they eliminate the most significant variable.
Further more we do know that when we have a warming in say the Pacific there is a huge increase in precipitation and we can only conclude that water vapour levels have to greatly increase to allow this to happen.
So a very simple napkin style calculation illustrates that if global warming were so sentitive that a 90 ppm change in a green house gas would cause runaway planetary heating then we would have to conclude as well that an increase in the ocean surface temperature in say the pacfic would have a similar effect. Clearly this does not happen.
I am not saying global warming is not taking place. There have been warming trends in the past and we have recently matched a prior warming of a few 1000 years ago. Back then it surely wasn't due to CO2 unless it came from volcanoes. What I am saying is that any global warming is far more likely to be due to changes in water vapour and other variables and the trends of water vapour concentrations is a factor we have not been able to measure.
Until we can get a handle on H2O and whether there is any indication of a trend line in the concentrations - I would suggest we forget about CO2 because it is like comparing the thickness of a sheet of paper to a tree stump. The simple excersize of using a 69 cent caliper will confirm this, and you get a nice (but cheap) instrument out of the deal.
let's make reduced fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions a reality by[...]
- end the war in Iraq to free up the funds for the above initiatives
Apart from that there probably is no way to end the war in Iraq right now (it is perhaps possible to end the American involvement, but the Iraqis can probably keep the war going all by themselves), doing so would be bad for the stated goal. The single most important tool to reduce fossil fuel consumption is high prices on fossil fuel. As long as there is instability in the Middle East, the prices will stay high, and there will be economical incitament to move to alternative fuels.
From this perspective, a little bit of mess in Iran and Saudi Arabia would only be beneficial.
Of course, there are other perspectives too.
Germany during World War II switched to hydrogen for its cars when its petroleum supplies were cut off. Brazil has switched to domestically produced alcohol. It's all do-able with a strong federal leadership. This is clearly a situation where the market economy is going to favor lower prices, not (necessarily) environmentally desirable results. The federal government is the agent that can mandate the conditions necessary to make this stuff a reality.
It seems you agree to my point, then. The strong federal leadership that forced Germany to switch to hydrogen was an act of war (a blockade).
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_ice-age _031208.html
http://www.blog.speculist.com/archives/000145.html
Jamie adds: and all it took was twelve years of overwhelming scientific consensus.)
-- Consensus of a group of "scientists" mostly funded by leftist who are more then willing to take advantage of the general public confusion around causation and correlation to push their political agenda.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
My house is lit almost exclusively by high efficiency bulbs.
Over the last year I have insulated 60% of my house (built in 1890, when wood was plentiful and insulation was non-existant.)
I have recently purchased a VW Golf TDI. It is a diesel that gets 47+ mpg Highway and can run on Biodiesel with no conversions (a kit is required for veggie oil though).
The nice thing about steps like these is that it saves consumers money! With my Wife and I switching most of our driving to the new VW we are saving ~$170 a month in gas. The extra insulation has saved us a ton in heating costs. And those low power consumption bulbs will pay for themselves in savings long before they burn out.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
...is to pontificate while ignoring the facts:
http://www.realclimate.org/
Its pretty easy for individuals to take charge and personally reduce their "carbon footprint". There are several web calculators that given your gasoline, home natural gas and home electricity consumption (coal or nuclear), bus and airline miles a year, will tell you how many tons of carbon you are personally responsible for emitting. People have manyoptions for reducing all three of these and probably save money at the same time.
That's a lie.
Learn to read.
"After years of controversy, 71 percent of Americans now say they think global warming is real."
Science, popular or not, is not democratic. After all, everyone used to think the world was flat. Besides, half of all Americans think the world was literally created a few thousand years ago. I wonder what the Venn diagram looks like combining creationism with the global warming acceptance.
What's with this?
Jamie adds: and all it took was twelve years of overwhelming scientific consensus.
What does this add to the story apart from boosting the image that is a hangout for extreme lefties?
And any use of consensus as an argument for scientific truth needs some boilerplate:
At some point, there was also an overwhelming consensus that the earth was flat.
I've got my SUV all gassed up, filled the back up with a massive amount of disposable cleaning products, stopped by McDonalds, loaded up on cheeseburgers, and made room in my office to organize all this by sending all my old computer junk to the third world.
Just point me in the right direction, and I'm ready to fight global warming!
Why is the chant of the environmentalist crowd always against technology? If humans are indeed capable of inadvertently changing the climate of an entire planet, why don't they every consider solutions that involve using technology to improve our environment? It seems to me that environmentalist will use any excuse possible to bash industrial society. They will only support a technological solution as long as it is impractical and unrealistic. Now that solar, wind, and hybrid technologies are finally becoming mainstream, they have suddenly found reasons why they are stopgap solutions, or kill birds, or ruin the view, etc, etc. Environmentalists don't know what they want to do, but they know that it involves lots of government guns and destroying the industrial society that allows them to exist.
Build more nuke plants. The US and Russia literally has tons of old bomb cores that could be made into many more tons of reactor fuel.
There are already MASSIVE subsidies for biofuels. Ethanol is not that much of an improvement of gas since a lot of fossil fuels are used to grow the corn used to make the ethanol. Methanol is usually made from coal, oil, and or natural gas.
BTW as far as NIMBY goes I agree. I have a nuclear power plant in my city. I like it a lot more than a coal, gas, or oil plant.
Solar is a good but it is not a total solution. It needs to be added to the mix. Wind I have a lot less faith it. I worry that wind will be the hydroelectric dams of the 21 century. They seem clean and green but really are not. I worry about what happens when you extract huge amounts of energy from wind systems. Wind is good for pumping water and very remote sites but massive wind farms seem like a bad idea.
The real issue is that it really isn't simple.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
From Newsweek, April 28th, 1975:
There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production -- with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now.
The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas -- parts ofIndia,Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia -- where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree -- a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars' worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.
To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world's weather. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. "A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale," warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, "because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century."
A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.
To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth's average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras -- and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average.
Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the "little ice age" conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 -- years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.
Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. "Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data," concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. "Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions."
Meteorologists think that they can forecast the
... you can always trust the Americans to do the right thing, but only after they've tried everything else first ;-)
So, there's 207 billion tons of CO2 introduced in to the atmosphere each year. Of that, 7 billion tons per year are made by humanity. The other 200 billion tons per year are produced by nature.
.8 C. Actual rise was .2 C (not bad, only 400% off).
Over the last 30 years, global temperatures were predicted to climb
Suppose that we are able to cut man made CO2 in half. That's a decrease of 3.5 billion tons per year. That's about 1.75% reduction. Any one care to guess-timate (which is all these global warming alarmist are doing) the impact on temperature change? Anyone care to guess the economic impact?
introduce surcharges for:
- any gear that can't be switched of (instead of standby)
- any newly build house, that doesn't use a solar heat collector to warm up its water
- any passenger car with a consumption of more then 8 l/100km
if the surcharges are high enough, the industry will sell ecological useful products, since they are cheaper to the customer.
Yes, that will be some consolation as our planet becomes uninhabitable. We didn't let them Indeeuns and Chinamen screw us! No sirree!
Kudos to you, sir, for correctly choosing temporary economic stability over species survival.
And it is all Republicans fault. They are the ones driving big SUVs and killing babies with their secret plan to warm the planet, preparing Earth for takeover by our lizard-like alien overlords.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115571/
I know it is true, Charlie Sheen never lies and is totally rational.
First of all, DoD spending is indeed massive within the United States. Second of all, neither Social Security nor Medicare revenue is eligible to be spent by Congress. It's not part of the general budget. This was done to keep Congress from raiding the social programs so that they could cut taxes on those who didn't need the social programs.
Some data:
Social security, medicare, and other retirements: 36% (and can't be touched by Congress in the budget)
National Defense and veterans affairs: 23%
Net interest on the Debt: 7%
Physical, human, and community development (nat'l parks, education, job training, NSF, NASA, etc): 10%
Social Programs: 21%
Law enforcement: 3%
So yeah, cutting back on the Iraq war (and the rest of the 31% == 23%/(100%-36%) of discretionary spending Congress spends on the military) would indeed leave quite a bit available for alternative energy research, spending on public and mass transit, pollution enforcement mechanisms, and other ways to reduce global warming.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Americans Gearing up to Fight Global Warming
The media would like to think so. First we have the Time scare piece, then the 60 Minutes Hansen interview/Neo-con hate fest. This guy predicted 10 year warming of 0.8 degrees. We observed 0.15. Before you all put an economic gun to your head, start holding climate scientists to a higher standard or precision and accuracy in their predictions.
an ill wind that blows no good
... 12 years is pretty darn quick, given that these are Americans, most of whom, it seems, aren't quite up to speed with the latest discoveries from 1859 just yet.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Well for those who care but are not into SACRIFICE check out the Lazy Environmentalist. I subscribe to his podcast. Other related podcasts I subscribe to are that are environmental related Earth & Sky, Living On Earth, Pulse of the Planet, and Science Friday. Avoid The Green Peril or you too could suffer the fate of South Park in Smug Alert!
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Then why is it so freaking cold outside?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
One story of the 21 century is going to be the decline of the US standard of living.
Too expensive, no jobs except high-tech - which means 15% employment max, too stupid to stop the flag wavers from ripping off the accumulated wealth of the nation (through 'conservatism' and, lately, 'war on terror'), too lazy to think about doing anything anyway.
No European style social welfare because Christ wouldn't approve of grandma affording her medication. No federal higher education because then the grandkids wouldn't join the army to get shot up on murder raids into Venezuala.
2020: Rich Chinese business men banging starving white teenage hookers in the parking lot of the Reagan Library.
Jamie adds: and all it took was twelve years of overwhelming scientific consensus.
Which is all we have when scientific evidence doesn't back up the claim that global warming is the effect of the actions of humans. Consensus is NOT proof of anything. There once was a consensus the world was flat, there once was a consensus that germs didn't exist.
What's worse is the way things are labled... first of all, I'd bet more than 71% of people believe global warming exists, the question is how many believe it's our fault. Second, the general population is a bunch of idiots, so a poll on this subject is meaningless... more people know more about American Idol and Lost then know who their senators and representative are, or even the name of the vice president. So trusting Americans to determine that something should be done about global warming is not the most brilliant idea.
Look... the planet's getting hotter, the sun has been hotter, the earth goes through natural cycles of warming and cooling. I'm not claiming that humanity is not having an effect, but I would claim it's so insignificant, that even if we could cut our contribution by half (which isn't going to happen), the effect would be negligable. So the question is why we should waste our time, money, and other resources, and cut back on our standard of living, when there is no evidence that doing so would accomplish anything. And don't give me BS about consensus... as far as I know there is no consensus that cutting back emissions a reasonable amount will accomplish anything, and even if there were it's still just a consensus and not proof.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Were I a moderator I would mod you up. If some dweeb mods you down then it is clearly an attempt to suppress the facts.
Your numbers indicate the total CHANGE in CO2 introduced into the atmosphere is 7/207 = 3.4% This is still less than the volatility of CO2 puffed out by volcanoes.
It is estimated that plant growth has INCREASED by about 10% due to increased CO2 levels. If you note the CO2 is in balence over the last few million years with the sources matched by the sinks (obvious) then you would have to conclude that a large amount of the manmade CO2 flux is simply soaked up by the flora on the planet.
For all the BAD things the US does (ie.Iraq invasion)
So Saddam Hussein was a GOOD thing? Like setting 600 oil wells on fire?
http://www.cockettgroup.com/09feb03.htm
Ironically, if we could power our homes, cars and computers on good-intentioned /. posts, both Global Warming AND the Iraq War might be moot points.
Joking aside: we're doomed, and you all know it. These fools won't stop eating themselves to death, I don't see them walking to Krispe Kreme anytime soon.
"I love my kids!"...just not enough to take any responsibility for issues we have *all* been aware of for well over 50 years...
This species is getting exactly what it deserves. No reason to get bent out of shape about it.
Math is math. Regular expression is regular expression. The tools are there. The future is now.
If you really believe in the need for action as you say. You may want to tone down the polarizing hate. It is usually more constructive.
Even in the 2004 federal budget, military spending that is disclosed to the public (not counting all the CIA and NSA bullshit, and all the other shadow-ops shit) was nearly 20% of all federal spending; the only thing the federal budget spends more on is Social Security. So no, it's not small potatoes compared to medicare (11.7%), or social welfare (8.4%), or medicaid (7.9%), or anything else, not to mention when compared to the rest of the world.
And no, the elected Republicans are not indistinguishable from socialists, which is why more and more americans are finding themselves below the poverty line; they are far from socialist in any respect, unless you count meddling in people's lives when not asked to, but that's more of a totalitarian/authoritarian aspect.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
Try a pretty picture.
Here's another.
Or, go to the source. HUD is $44b, health and human services is $697b, social security is $624b, military spending is $541b (DoD is $504b plus $37b for veterans' care).
So even by the official figures, it isn't "small potatoes", it's comparable to the entire social security or health budgets. And then there's the deficit interest payments...
Not that I'm against cutting corporate welfare. Far from it.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Nuclear is the only large scale solution. The dumb environmentalists, while their intentions are great, don't have a basic clue about good science. Nuclear waste is much less toxic than waste left behind after burning coal. Renewable energy sources are great, but the economics will not work. Besides a lot of research needs to be still done in this area, and while this research needs to be backed as much as possible, we need a solution now.
"Jamie adds: and all it took was twelve years of overwhelming scientific consensus"
To quote another:
"I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.
"Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
"There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period."
Is what caused global warming...
I say we bomb them out of existence. Multilaterally if possible, but if the UN says no we'll do it ourselves. Global Warming hates our freedom.
Seriously, why can't Americans discuss anything without using miltary metaphors? A war on warming would continue the tradition of american wars on abstract nouns, and would get us about as far as the war on terror.
No one / company will do anything about "Global Warming" untill they can make a buck at it.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
The SUVs are getting bigger and bigger. =)
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
Then there are the greedy companies like GM http://www.livegreengoyellow.com/ that will prey on people's lack of knowledge about saving the environment by releasing cars designed to run on the negative-net-energy E85 fuel.
GM is releasing a new line of cars that is designed to run on the fuel that takes more energy to produce than is given off through combustion. They'd be more environmentally friendly by just making cars that used the same amount of regular gasoline - but GM had to do something to push their crappy product on gullible people that just want to help out.
General Motors did a study to determine at what point gas prices would influence consumers' demand for SUVs. According to customers who purchased GM SUVs, 87 octane (regular unleaded) gas would have to sell for $5.00 per gallon in order to influence their choice to drive a Soccer-Mom-Assault-Vehicle. I'm all for government influencing consumer choice, but the only way I'd support that level of taxation is if all the money went to building "green" public transportation. And you know that wouldn't happen, we've got a war against Eurasia to fund!
"No beer until you finish your tequila!" -Leela's Dad
In the 1960's it was popularly believed that over population was going to cause wide spread famine, reduce the average life span to 42 years, death of the oceans, the midwest U.S. would be a desert wasteland. When compared to reality can we say that loud mouthed extremists stopped the population bomb in 20 to 30 years? Was it the the wide acceptance of "overwhelming scientific evidence" that reversed the devastating trend within 1 generation? Who is Chicken Little and why is he saying the sky is falling? I would like to believe scientific studies. I also want to believe history. Who is writing and publishing the text?
How much will it cost to improve the fuel economy of autos? How much will it increase the cost of the auto?
How much of a tax credit? Have you priced solar panels lately? How well do they work north of 30 N latitude?
Ethanol and methanol still produce greenhouse gases as a by product. No net gain there.
Biofuels also produce greenhouse gases.
Ending the war in Iraq won't have any effect on this.
It must be nice to live in your world where, the government pays for everything and everything happens with just a wave of the magic government mandate. For adults however, there's a trade off for everything. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
There's only one way to make solar power work for Planet Earth: Space based solar. You have to get the collectors up above the clouds.
Everyone whines about greenhouse gases and acid rain. We've had the means to end this for the last 50 years: Nuclear energy. No greenhouse gas is produced. Yet, no one wants this in their backyard either. Too bad. Grow up. Once we have our energy needs solved by space based solar and nuclear power (fusion or fission, I don't care), then we can focus on using that energy to produce the hydrogen we'll need for our fuel cell automobiles.
Did I mention that fuel cells don't produce any greenhouse gas either?
Instead of having the government mandate or offer tax credits for all this, create an X-Prize for it. Private industry would get this all done while the government is still sitting on it's hands.
I don't deny that Global Warming is happenning but the question is Why? The earth is so complex to say that we understand and that we could cause the earth's temperature to be raised in about 25 years is very arogant. Who knows what the weather is going to be like next winter let alone in 30 years from now. The brup of a volcano puts more pollutants in the air than all the coal plants in North America for a year. I am not against being proactive in gaining indepentance from Oil but for different reasons. Hydrogen fuel cells maybe great but the hydrogen has to come from somewhere ie Nuclear power. If people(everyone) was not afraid of nuclear power starting in the seventies(ie China Syndrome), I think the power grid and ultimately the dependence on oil would not have happened or be as bad as it is and we would be able to convert to hydrogen easier. But as a caveat, nuclear power is not the end all be all.
An Inconvenient Truth = BS
"If you like Battlestar Galactica, you're probably a huge nerd." -Stephen Colbert
Welcome to the world, America.
Hope you enjoy your stay.
Is that you George?
We just need to figure out a way to dress up countering climate change in terms that will make Americans all hot and bothered and pumped up on militaristic patriotism. Then we might actually get to see some action.
:-)
The reason why the current approach hasn't caught on is because it has the definite whiff of Socialist co-operation through bureaucracy to it. Just boring difficult statistics that don't make good CNN two-minute action news footage and serious-looking scientific types and suits making up these restrictive agreements that you actually might have to abide by. Even worse, too much of those agreements are written by foreigners, which is anathema in principle. The fragile American ego can't possibly take not always getting to be the self-declared "leader" that everyone else follows.
The idea of peaceful equitable co-operation for the common good is also teh evil. There needs to be a market-based solution where the weak perish and the triumphant individual ascends, hopefully through being most capable of making short-term profits. This is the toughest part, as sometimes, unfortunately, one HAS to just simply not throw rocks in a glass house, no matter how profitable it may be in the short term.
My idea of this is that the rest of the world somehow needs to make themselves look like "the bad guys" that the USA can then declare a pre-emptive war on... the WAR ON WARMING. It mustn't be called a "protocol" or "treaty" or "agreement" or conference.. it has to be something solvable through the application of direct overwhelming force. It has to be a WAR.
Think of it as some kind of a reverse psychology strategy. It would stroke the American ego while preferably getting them on board without them realizing it. Having a B-2 flatten an obsolete coal plant somewhere in China would be a cheap dismantling strategy too!
I am not sure of the economics of this, but I am sure that somehow we would be able to come up with a "trading mechanism" that would make it worthwhile to engage the US through what they do best.. warfare!
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
I wrote a paper in Grade 9 (20-some-odd years ago) saying essentially the same thing. The Earth has been much hotter and much colder in the past, and will be the same way again. Humanity is just causing a short-term fluctuation.
But the significance of this short-term fluctuation is that it will kill millions--potentially billions--of people. With an ocean thousands of meters deep, a rise of three to five meters doesn't seem that bad, except for the fact that many millions of people live right beside those oceans.
And this won't only affect inconvenient third-world people that you don't think about while driving your Hummer H2 to work. Millions of people around the world will have to re-locate their beachfront condos. And what's worse, the rabble that live in the common neighborhoods that were some distance from the shore will now have prime beachfront real estate! And isn't that the real crime here?
Disclaimer: It's early. My thought processes ramble when I'm tired.
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
and all it took was twelve years of overwhelming scientific consensus
I wonder if the decades-long global cooling scare had anything to do with this...
a) There is no scientific proof that we Little Ants are causing so-called climate change.
b) Is there an abmormal climate change going on - or just a normal cycle that this planet has been going through forever?
c) The people running around - shouting aloud - about how we Little Ants are causing climate change - are the same people who can't get a ninety day weather forecast right. These folks are "right" 50% of the time - like flipping a coin.
d) While these folk run around yaking about climate change - real damage to our health is happening. So instead of talking about how micro particulates from SUVs, Coal Burning Power Plants, deisel trucks, deisel trains, etc. etc are killing people - we talk about how we Little Ants will/can change the universe. Dumb and Dumber
We wins wars against Germany. We suck at wars against drugs, terror... Clearly capitalization is the key to our victory!
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.-TJ
What the parent poster also forgot to realize is that part of the reason we have such an enormous military budget is to deal with the global unrest caused by our insatiable thirst for oil. If we were to eliminate our dependence on foreign energy sources, we could leave the middle east alone and stop propping-up dictators and making life miserable for the people who want to kill us that presently live on top of “our oil.”
Join Tor today!
People, I think we are forgetting that a lot of this "ostrich" behaviour is not relating to a lack of evidence. We have mountains of evidence, some from the very left, some from the very right, some right down the middle...
The problem, I believe, falls with our inability to accept responsibility for our actions. (Or to put it another way, it's psychology not information that is the problem).
Admitting that global warming is occurring is basically the same as saying "Yeah, we screwed up" for most. And you all know how often that occurs without some serious prodding or some ulterior motive. (Look at the legal cases on the books, your neighbours, and yourselves. Its not a 100% thing, but like most behaviour, if enough people act in a particular fashion, the rest will find some way to be inclusive in that pattern. (Again, not a 100%.. I would venture to say that the majority of the Slashdot crowd are not followers to any significant degree. Quite a few of us are iconoclasts *grin*)
But, though we are not followers in this regard, we are still part of the problem. We take the same behaviour as the rest precisely because we are to a greater or lesser extent, outcasts. So we don't rock the boat. We will wax soporific about the woes of the environment and the dangers of greenhouse gases, but we won't do anything about it because its one of the few tendrils of inclusion we have. For some, that IS their sense of inclusion (what we call the "tree huggers" or "eco-nuts")
Even an ostrich with its head buried in the sand can't help but notice that it's getting wetter. *grin*.
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board -- Mark Twain Look for http://Thebar.steelbeachca
Aren't we all supposed to be eating Soylent Green by now?
What?
Actually I think it was the before and after pics of the Ice Caps melting over the last few years that finally got the rest of us to say "FINE, we may have a problem!, are you happy now?". Damn environmentalist and thier facts.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. -Fight Club
aliens cause global warming:
s _quote04.html
http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeche
don't believe it
Unfortunately the majority of pollution causing global warming is due entirely to the environmentalists that are yelling about the global warming.
Nuclear energy is cheap and clean. And on top of that, If we had huge amounts of cheap electricity flowing through the country, it would be a huge push to move other technologies to electric, such as cars and trucks.
But since the tree-huggers throw such a fit about it, we haven't built a nuclear plant in what, 30 years? The rest of the world is merrily building these wonderful clean powerhouses, while we sit here in the U.S. and destroy the atmosphere out of sheer political bullshit.
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
No seriously. Is welfare, social security, and medicare really the cause of 9 trillion dollars in debt?
Or maybe it is all those tax cuts that unbalanced the budget.
I'm not complaining about the economy, but I live in one or the more ghetto cities on the east coast and I have seen visible improvement in housing and the economy.
Either way, you can't possible blame social security on the current trillion dollar debt. However, it is sure going to complicate things in 10-20 years.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
With EdGCM (http://edgcm.columbia.edu/ you can run a NASA global climate model (GCM) on your own computer (Win or OS X). You can set up whatever type of climate you want. Global warming and a few paleo runs come pre-installed. And then you can look at the results. Disclaimer: I'm a programmer on the project.
Space and Computers.
...building a human being capable of living in a quite a narrow temperature bracket, and that's not gonna change overnight.
you can drive any car you like,
but try to tell me what I can drive, and I'll spit on you
buy all the buzz you want from your neighbor's little windfarm, see if it makes a difference
Why can't you 'global warming' hoes just relax and enjoy yourselves?
So here is what happens, we know close to nothing about the climate, we've got computer models that we have "proven" with emperical data and then we plug more data in to them to "prove" points we want proven. It's not exactly science like they used to do it and the rigor is lacking. I'd hate for consensus to be used in place of real research and evidence. I'm not saying that it's not real but the science is very weak by most standards. Worse, and I have a degree in environmental engineering and tend to be an eco person, if you have any ideas other than CO2 causing global warming, the establishment generally treats you like a crank. You will have a hard time getting published, you couldn't get sponsored for an advanced degree (your thesis doesn't have to be right to get a PhD) there are a lot of avenues that will be cut off to you simply because you're anti-establishment. There are a lot of ideas out there too, whether or not they are good remains to be seen but they aren't being properly vetted. The former Soviets in particular (and they are as good as anyone) seem to be coming up with a lot of alternative theories, some of them are big scientists in Russia too, not just hacks that are writing papers. This monoculture kind of scares me; you can say the world will get colder, you can say it will get warmer, you can suggest disasters are coming, you can pretty much say anything so long as it involves change and that it is caused by oil.
Subsequently, regardless of emissions, the earth will warm because it has in the geological record, we have been in a relatively cool time when you look at the geological history of the earth. At some point it will also dramatically cool off, regardless of what we do. We will trash our economy, hand the keys to the planet to India and China and continue to face a changing planet because the planet in pretty dynamic.
We definitely need to be smart about this, blind consensus isn't smart. I'm all about curbing emissions (if for no other reason than to think about the various cancers and other problems some of these chemicals may be causing, in addition to heating the planet) but it means nothing that %71 of the public agree. The media has only been pushing it for the last 15 years, there have been movies and TV shows that hyped the tragedy and impending doom. That's not social awareness, that's hype. How many people believe that Muslums are terrorists? How many people believe that an asteroid is coming pretty soon and we'll have to send Bruce Willis to go get it? How about flu? They've been hyping it for a few years, statistically, we're due, also there probably isn't a reasonable way to "prevent it," it's going to happen. The media will talk about "warning us" when it wipes a few million people out and blame some politicos for their inaction. It's all about pushing an agenda and has very little to do with actual science.
I work in managing cleanup of superfund sites, I'm not a climate guy, even people in the industry care little about the actual science. Very few people are doing it, they just want to believe in something. I don't even know that you can have a very meaningful discussion about it without someone challenging you for just challenging the science. Science is science, if it's true, then it's true, if we're doing good science we should worry about people poking at it, it takes a lot more than media hype to debunk real science. Now if media hype is a substantial part of the science then that's probably a problem, I don't think it's good.
It's not a new thing, Cantor was considered nuts by the math world 100 years ago, he couldn't get published. Then after his death some people championed his ideas and his work provides the foundation for modern math. You could say that about a lot of great scientists, they had ideas that weren't part of the norm and the establishment tried to suppress them. The same thing is going on now.
As Geroge F. Will made plain a couple of days ago, the problem is not global warming but the media spin making it look like there is global warming. Sheesh. The hot air that guy has spewed over the years is a significant contributor to heating up the Earth.
The US Republican Party, with its ties to business, realizes that completely. They do their best to make an economy at least possible by helping business interests where they can (the US Democrats and most of Europe by contrast seem to think corporations can handle any level of taxation in order to support non-producers. As a result, most European economies are in even more disastrous shape than the US.)
Actually, I think Bush's overall plan is to keep things limping along for another 20 years in hopes that something will change. Practical fusion power would be ideal (though I personally can't see much cause for optimism there.) The theory is that business as usual followed by a huge crash in 20 years or so is better than a seriously depressed world economy with dangerous and exponential levels of unrest starting today.
The downside is that, at the rate we're going, Earth will be so trashed in 20 years that a whole lot more people are going to die when it all comes apart and we're left with stripmined national parks, sterile farmland, and empty oceans.
A police state to save the environment is still a police state. If "environmentalists" were genuinely about the environment, then, nuclear power would have been adopted 30 years in the USA, and we would have met Kyoto targets decades ago. Environmentalism is not about solving environmental problems, its about using supposed environmental problems for a coterie of some scientists and activists to get money.
Just the other day, one scientist was cheering for ebola to wipe out 90% of the people to save the animals. Just give me one good reason to trust these people, just one! Sorry, I just can't see the reason that I should put my faith in someone that wants my entire family dead. That's the problem with the environmental movement in a nutshell. After 40 years of hearing these people call humanity a virus, the vast majority of americans backwards, telling us that Europe is better even though you can't get a job over there and they don't reproduce, why we should trust them?
However, with that said, fuel prices are sky high, and if you believe in "peak oil", then they will continue to climb. The free market works better than any federal leadership ever will. Ethanol looks to be a slam dunk replacement, and, with several million ethanol capable cars on the American roads, its only a matter of time before the US follows Brazil's lead and makes the switch.
So, we will get to screw the arabs and you people can have your environmental cake and eat it too. But we on the right wing were oh so right about nuclear power, all along.
This is my sig.
Every now an then a semi will have a poster on the back, "This vehicle pays $$$$ in road-use taxes," with the implication that they're paying more than their fair share. From what I've heard, even at the higher tax rate, semis cause far more road wear than they pay to repair. In other words, they're paying less than their fair share.
Perhaps adding a per-mile component to taxes is a good idea going forward, but I'm going to guess that current hybrids cause far less road wear than other, heavier vehicles.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I'm sure humans can have a negative effect on the environment, that's obvious. But there have been much more dramatic climatic changes in the earths history than the fractions of degree differences that we;re seeing now. Be smart about the environment, but don't panic like it's the end of the world. Sheesh. I would bet my life, that with the longer life expectency of humans, we'll have far over populated the world before it ever gets too hot to live here. And then what do we do? Join together in mass suicides to help the earth? There are bigger issues to worry about.
Watch out what you ask for in change...because it might go...THE OTHER WAY. The next Ice Age will wipe out many Northern population centers.
The worst possible disaster will be global cooling. Predicting what is going to happen is just that; PREDICTION.
A. University of Leicester geologist Jan Zalasiewicz: "Ice Age climate change has been rapid, pervasive and frequent. For instance, during the last 2.6 million years, the duration of the current Ice Age, there have been 104 major fluctuations between global cold and global warmth. Each of the major fluctuations was itself complex, encompassing 'minor' changes of up to 5 degrees centigrade in average annual temperature. As temperature rose and fell, so did global sea level, by up to 130 metres."
B. MAJOR SOLAR ENERGY INPUT FACTORS: Univ of Wisconsin and the Milankovitch cycle http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~aos100-2/clim/> consisting of 1. Precession Wobble of Earth's Axis, 2. Ecliptic Plane change & 3. Elliptical Orbit changes of Earth with respect to the Sun.
C. Earth's movement through the galactic plane every 62 million years or so, & the dust of the central disk.
D. Greenland, and the Antarctic Vostok Ice Cores have shown the 110,000 year cylce in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere repeating for at least the last 500,000 years or so. We are CURRENTLY AT THE HIGH POINT of historic repeatable patterns of CO2 levels.
E. Both rapid changes to lower Numbers of Sunspots and major super volcano eruptions have caused RAPID GLOBAL COOLING IN LESS THAN A YEAR'S TIME (ignoring comet or meteor impacts).
There is far too much uncertainty to ascribe "Climate Changes" to the impact of man.
The hereinafter mentioned nutjobs can tell you just how much could be saved by ending the war in Iraq.
Your statements belie your faith in Gaia. I do not think it is inherenlty bad that you worship "the environment", but you have to be honest that your criticisms come from a religious viewpoint first and foremost. When the science supports your religion, you will tout the science. When the science denigrates your religion, you will discount or ignore the science. That is where I have a difficulty with what you write, as I am interested in the science (i.e., observe reality and make observations and predictions based on experimentation and testing), not in your religious beliefs.
Humans accelerate climate change
This is my problem with the "Global Warming Debate". People keep conflating the question, "Is global warming real?" with "Are humans significantly responsible for global warming?" In other words, environmentalists assume that if you believe that global warming is real, then you necessarily believe that humans are significantly responsible for it. It is an illogical argument, since there may be problems with the definition of "global warming" and also the causes of global warming are in dispute.
- whether it is clear-cutting ancient forests, industrial pollution, wasteful production, or emissions...
Be honest, please. You aren't bothered about "clear-cutting ancient forests" because of global warming. You are bothered because you revere ancient trees as something holy and beautiful. Again, there's nothing inherently wrong with this! In fact, I share similar sentiments to you and thing it's a very ugly thing when an ancient and beautiful tree is cut down to make room for a Wal-Mart. All I ask of you is some candor about where your grievances lie.
Your complaints about "industrial pollution" and "wasteful production" are similar. Are you upset about their nebulous link to global warming or are you more upset about dumping ugly sh*t all over Mother Earth? Speak your heart!
I would agree that emissions might contribute to global warming, but reading the science on the issue is much more difficult than parroting the talking points, isn't it?
To me, the real question is, "When will we take a responsible stance/take action on helping the Earth begin to heal?"
And that's the most honest statement you made. You want the damage done to your god to be reversed. And there's nothing wrong with that! I only ask that you stop hiding it. If your faith really is strong, worthy, and noble, then it should be able to stand on its own and not hide behind science that is, at most, a means to an end.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Will at first it may sound cool, there's something I don't like about that.
I may be over-simplifying the problem, but to me it sounds like, particularly in the US, the administration found a cheap way of fighting global warming by making people feel guilty for it.
It's not all about what's going on in the US, it's happening here in Europe to I think, but I think the US is where it's the worse. Basically, and over-simplistically as I warned earlier, the administration doesn't do anything, and just makes the people feel guilty for the global warming (you often hear about how one american citizen polutes much more than one from another country, as really I don't think the problem is with citizens) so that its the people that makes efforts towards polluting less, for almost free, as really it should be the governement doing stuff so that for example there is no more coal power plant, so that vehicles consume less gasoline (after all, it's not your fault if your SUV drinks 4 times more than it should), etc...
In other words, it's cool that these people care, but it's not because they are those who pollute the most that making them try to pollute less will do what's needed. What I mean is that americans are making efforts as their country isn't ratifying the protocol of Kyoto. It's like trying to fix the leaks around the frame of a window so the cold doesn't come in (although some will argue that it's really the warm that goes away) as the window is wide open.
You just got troll'd!
...just keep telling the same big lie, and eventually most of the sheep will believe it.
"After years of controversy, 71 percent of Americans now say they think global warming is real."
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0111/p01s03-sten.htm l uses algae to remove 40% of the CO2, 86% of NO2 and produces ethanol as a byproduct!
Plus there's tons of coal about (pun intentded)
Parent has his head in the sand
Which is better:
From my point of view it's option 1) we better make some painful decisions right now. We have to increase energy efficiency across the board, penalize people financially for being wasteful (Things like for exapmple: gas guzzling SUVs should be a major luxury for any city dweller who doesn't actually need the off road capabilities of a vehicle like that), provide incentives for industry to minimize the pollution footprints and power consumption of their products, radically rethink the way we build and heat our houses and design our cars, build up mass transport, the list goes on...... To judge from what the Scientists are saying we either do something radical within the next 50 years or so or we are potentially in deep trouble. The argument doesn't revolve any more around debating whether or not we are getting our selves into deep shit. It mostly seems to revolve around how deep into the shit will we sink.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Well, why are then they taxing me for driving my hovercar over the road? During most part of the trip I don't even touch the damn thing. Oh, wait... what's this year again?
Whether the gases pumped out by industry and commerce are mostly/partially/not at all to blame for the warming trend right now is debatable. until there's a proper model for the entire world, and all its subsystems (weather, life, etc etc) then we won't really KNOW. since that model is probably decades away at least, let's focus on the stuf we CAN see.
i believe that, though the current global warmup is natural, we're helping it along, and more ominously, wreaking havoc on the earth's natural cycle, inducing minor warming and cooling mechanisms with far-reaching consequences. i don't really mind, because the earth is just a lump and we're humans, and saving the earth for the earth's sake is dumb, but saving the earth for OUR sake is anything but.
now
the bigger issue, the much more tangible and provable issue, is that the pollutants being pumped into the water and into the air are killing people, plants, animals, everything. the whole circle of life thing is looking like one of homer simpson's donuts. the current EPA is running headlong into ideological mandates set out by the current administration. imo, epa needs to be put above nasa, above most other agencies as far as priority. when epa works, it works well, but when it's limited by inane decisions from the top, it looks like a chump.
global warming is going to happen, or it isn't - it's basically impossible for america (or europe) to do anything about it at this point, mostly because china and india have no reason to care about emissions, they're all about growth at this point, pollution be damned. so think about the factories downtown, think about the stuff getting dumped into the river behind your house. be a good citizen, take care of your community.
and stop denying that there is a regular cycle of ice ages, and that we are due for one? Unless we want 95% of the population to die a painful death of dehydration and starvation, we had better start planning for the future. If today's fashionable science is correct about the effectiveness of CO2 as a greenhouse agent, we should start building massive CO2 generators around the globe now.
The worst that can happen from global warming is that we have to rebuild our coastal cities on higher ground. In the best-case scenario for an ice age, half of those cities would be destroyed and covered over by glaciers, and the rest would be mass graves for people without enough water or food.
I have recently put a Geothermal heat pump in my home, it has cut my cost in half, and will pay for it self in 8 years, (much less if gas keeps rising in price at the same rate). If anyone is intesting, (sorry this site is more for the US) http://www.geoexchange.org/
"...12 years of overwhelming scientific..."
I don't think so. Read Michael Chriton's "State of Fear" and follow the scientific references therein.
I now firmly believe:
a) So-called greenhouse gases are not in fact causing any measurable global warming.
b) Most "scientific" research is based on computer models with generous fudge-factors, to the point they are like statistics. You can make them show anything you want.
c) We are actually due for an ice age. (remember the scares of the 1970s?)
d) I am all for shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. But for the simple reason that they are renewable, and fossil fuels are finite.
e) I believe the "environmental movement" is every bit as big as the big bad "industry" groups. I also believe the environmental groups have just as many vested interests and hidden agendas as any other large group making/controlling hundreds of millions of dollars.
f) I do not believe anyone's propaganda machine on any side. Spare me the rhetoric and show me the evidence.
We are changing the composition of the atmosphere by drilling into the earth and taking out things that have been buried for millions of years, then burning them on the surface (or otherwise releasing them into the atmosphere). Consequently, a significant amount of heat from the sun that would normally dissipate back into space or be absorbed at the surface level is hanging out in the atmosphere. This is further fueling chemical changes of unknown consequences (anyone you know have cancer -- the incidences incease year by year even as treatment improves) and overall average temperature increases of known consequences: more extreme weather and global climate change.
It is pretentious and incorrect to think that humankind is insignificant to the global ecosystem.
You may want to tone down the polarizing hate.
What exactly was hateful about what I wrote? I am only stating the facts, and Oil companies don't like mass transit, otherwise it would be everywhere.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
"This is what 'global warming' alarmists actually believe"
I'd rather suspect that at least 70% of the country has now managed to realize that Bush is barely connected to reality in any meaningful way.
Which goes to show that Americans are merely slow, not stupid.
I don't know what the excuse for the other 30% are, but perhaps we can get them all to move into beachfront property in Florida.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
If "'An overwhelming majority of Americans think they can help reduce global warming and are willing to make the sacrifices that are needed," then they are perfectly free to do so. The problem is that they'll probably feel the need to force the rest of us to "sacrifice" along with them.
The legitimate controversy isn't whether or not "Global Warming" is real, it's whether or not, and/or to what extent, humans have anything to do with it.
For starters, North America needs to get past the idea that everyone needs a car. It simply shouldn't be this way. Nuclear electricity (in existing forms) is also a finite resource. I suspect we should be spending money on effective public transit (ie: forget the diesel-fueled busses that rumble almost empty around the suburbs every hour or so) and human-scale communities.
All in all, we need to realize how much of what we buy is actually unnecessary, and how "hybrid cars" and "hydrogen cars" are false idols (remember that 45% of the energy consumed by a car is used in its construction) -- they merely fit a corporate marketing niche, rather than addressing the fundamental problem.
When has the government (with either party in charge) ever done anything efficiently or competently?
I'd say the US government did superbly manage their involvement into WW2. Minimum loss, maximum return. Take every aspect of the outcome of the war. Military, industry, economics, politics, diplomacy, prestige, you name it... The US ended the war greatly reinforced in any and all of these fields. And, last time I checked, conducting wars was still a government business.
Now, considering how the current administration is managing a comparatively far easier war, I'm not surprised they're trying to push the idea that abysmal performance is the norm in government.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
"There are many languages in the world apart from English, and in some of them it is indeed spelt "Kioto"." So name one. Find one, and link to it, and give an explanation as to why a language misspells a proper name. Then we'll revel in your abject failure to do any of the above, while we laugh at your ignorance.
The single biggest contributor to atmospheric CO2 is "out-gassing" that happens in the mid-ocean plates. Mankind contributes some, but not much.
My issue with all of the Global Warming scare is that it based on computer modeling of temperatures 100+ years out. Our computer models, are only maybe good 10 days out at any given time.
I also want to see the evidence that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is causal to this warming trend. There are significant studies that show no statistical coreleation between CO2 increases and temperature changes.
but don't be smugs about it ... http://www.southparkstudios.com/
the only way public transport gets used is if it is significicantly cheaper than petrol/congestion charging/parking, significantly easier than using a car or you've got no other option.
i hate public transport because its full of the public. screaming kids. surly youfs. yowling idiots on mobile phones. old biddies who yap yap yap about bugger all the whole trip. the selfish with their ipods turned right up (tip: get noise cancelling headphones and you dont have to turn it up so loud to drown out the other stuff AND you save your hearing). And I'm actually talking about the 1st class carriadge of the train commute i used to do to london. i couldnt go cattle class, its even worse.
when you ask a motorist what it would take to use public transport over their nice clean car with their own music, own personal bubble, door to door service at any time - you aren't getting the right answer. refer to the 1st paragraph.
our roads here (southend on sea) are clogged every morning and evening as people drive to the next town with its huge industrial area (basildon) and beyond. how could public transport fix that? theres a train into the town, but the industrial area is about 3 miles out. youd need shedloads of buses to get them from the station to work as a round trip is going to be 25 mins even if you skipped going through the residential areas.
and to be honest the trains are full of commuters to london anyway you couldnt get much more on em.
Congress is legally required to spend money on social security, but you know what? Congress writes the law! If there were enough support for doing away with social security, congress would do it. That's is the only difference between "discretionary" and "non-discretionary" spending. The reality of the matter is that defense spending is not any more discretionary than social security because the government must provide security to US citizens, and defense spending is necessary to achieve that.
People like to complain about the Iraq war, but the truth is that spending is a drop in the bucket compared to what we spend continually expanding and maintaining our military's capability. I'm not saying that makes it okay, but we have much more to gain from trying to operate the military more efficiently than we've spent on Iraq. We need to stop spending money to develop new conventional war machines (like air superiority fighters, warships, and tanks), and spend it instead on developing our intelligence gathering and rapid deployment capabilities (right now we spend a whole bunch on both). It wouldn't hurt to do away with a lot of the pork as well.
As far as shutting down our military and pouring all the money into alternative energy research, it's important to understand what kind of an effect that would have on the status of alternative energy. This nation has a limited number of scientists and engineers, and the ones who specialize in energy research are already working in those fields. So even a massive increase in energy spending right now would only yield a marginal increase in the rate of energy research until more more scientists and engineers are able to enter the field. But that in itself wouldn't necessarily be beneficial because of the resulting lack of progress in other fields. On top of that, we have developed all the nuclear technologies we would need to do away with fossil fuels completely, and for a comparable economic cost to fossil fuels. All we really have to do is build more nuclear reactors, and reprocessing facilities so that we can start decommissioning coal plants. To make that happen, all we need to do this is rewrite some laws, and power companies will build them on their own. Especially if the government starts taxing CO2 emissions at a rate similar to how much those emissions cost society.
I didn't say his evidence doesn't count. I am saying be skeptical of extravagent claims, especially when they are self-serving and politically motivated.
Here you will find other legitimate points of view.
"I believe that the extraordinary should be pursued. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." -- Carl Sagan
an ill wind that blows no good
I've always wondered why they don't treat consumer pollution the same as industrial pollution. That is, everybody gets a certain amount of crap they can put in the atmosphere every year (in terms of, e.g., burning fossil fuels). Those of us who use less can sell credits to the heavy polluters.
Fighting global warming is easy. More concrete in your foundations. Better roofs. New ways to drain water. New ways to transport water where it used to be....
Reverting global warming is the tough bit. Imagine a warmer house in summer. Imagine the end of SUVs. Imagine higher prices for energy. Imagine eating less meat etc...
How may -US and non US- people will draw a line at the SUVs, thinking they've done enough?
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
I was following some commentary on the subject recently and it really gave an interesting thought that I had never before factored into the mental model I had of the global warming scenario.
In the days following 9-11, air travel was halted. During that time, there was a recorded rise in average temperatures. Civilians wouldn't have noticed it so much but the weather folk apparently did. The notion was that jet aircraft have been inadvertently fighting the affects of global warming with their contrails and other atmospheric contributions. So the idea of "cleaning" the air may actually be bad for the Earth as it would further accelerate the negative effects such as the melting of the polar icecaps.
The real solution may be MORE pollution rather than less.
I'm just randomly processing thoughts on the matter, but as the effects of global warming continue, one of the factors effected is the weather. And by weather, I mean the movement of water in the atmosphere. More heat into the water means more water in the air. This means more clouds. The weather is more violent, but the added cloud activity will also serve to help balance out the amount of radiation coming in from the sun as well. I have no conclusions, but those are things swimming around in my presently altered consciousness...
The heat of combustion of coal is about 26 MJ/kg (see here). The overall efficiency of electric power generation for coal is about 35% (see here). Therefore, eight pounds of coal would produce about 28 MJ of electricity. If a laptop uses, say, 50 W maximum, that eight-pound lump of coal could power a laptop under maximum load for about 158 hours, or about 6.5 days. That's a lot of power.
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
Just the other day, one scientist was cheering for ebola to wipe out 90% of the people to save the animals. Just give me one good reason to trust these people, just one! Sorry, I just can't see the reason that I should put my faith in someone that wants my entire family dead.
You hear one person saying this, and conclude that all scientists have this stupid stance. I'm amazed that you even got mod points for your ignorant post.
I know the "sticker" price on almost all of the regular sized ones is over $800... but the local [read: Massive] furniture store carries them for @$680.
I got my first front-loading washer about 5 years ago, and it was the most amazing thing at the time... with how much cleaner my clothes were.
A white sweater covered in blood from a broken nose, that sat in a bag for 2 days came out perfectly clean with just one wash... not sure how I ever lived without.
Hello Everybody!
The science isn't controversial; the main mechanism for global warming has been known since 1935... it has to do with IR active modes of vibration in CO2 vs O2. Send me a message if you want more details or references. The public should go through the record and examine who has held up action on this and hold them accountable.
If we're all moving to NM, I'm calling dibs on my mom's house. I'll take the bathroom! The kitchen is a close second choice. I'll charge for access to the toilet. I'll be rich!
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
You seem confused about a few things. First, any "environmentalist" as you call them that actually knows anything about the environment is a strong advocate of nuclear power, not an opponant. We can probably agree that opposition to nuclear power mostly comes from ignorance of the technology involved. Anyone who, as you say, is just trying to funnel funds into pet projects is hardly an "environmentalist" and more than pat robertson is "christian". Secondly, your view that "the market" (and probably some big invisible hand) is going to solve the environmental problems you are not just wrong, but -dead- wrong. I work at a manufacturing company, and we are currently trying to become compliant with the ROHS initiatives. If you dont know, thats Reduction Of Hazardous Substances .. basically that our products, and thier componants, arent full of toxic chemichals that will kill people if they get dropped into a river. This seemingly no-brainer action has driven our costs of materials -WAY- up, our margins -WAY- down, and made life for anyone working with supply chain -WAY- more painful. The only reason we do this is because we are required too if we want to peddle our wares. Lets be clear here: Government regulation requiring compliance with an environmental initiative is the ONLY reason compliance is being sought. Costs of non-compliant goods are less than half those of compliant ones. This is FAR from a new standard, and the timetable for implementation is very long but also costing us an arm and a leg. I'm not talking fortune 500 here, im talking "smb"land.
Its all about cost. As a self-proclaimed right-winger you can understand this. Bottom line, nothing else. Fuck the deer, fuck the fish, fuck the children across the street, fuck the gub'ment, fuck the employees, fuck everything except the bottom line. When it comes to environmental issues, the balance between environmentally-friendly-corporate-behavior and bottom-line-numbers is ALWAYS going to tip in favour of those bottom line numbers unless something (ie: gub'ment) is forcing business to comply.
Give "the market" 50 years to adapt to an enviro-friendly economy (to let economies of scale kick in and such) and THEN take off the training-wheels of regulation, after its cheaper to be enviro-friendly than to be mercury/lead-king of the world...
Throw all the neo-libertarian conservative rhetoric you have at it, but in the end businesses dont give a damned about the environment unless it helps the bottom line. At -this point in time-, it hurts the bottom line....
As the global warming evidence mounts, I hope we give a big F U to all of the bastards who were skeptical about the science... there has never been a controversy as the mechanism for global warming are about the most stable science there is. It is just basic IR spectroscopy that you have to study to learn why CO2 is heating the planet.
First off, I think the recent jump in gas prices and the resulting continued consumption proves that taxing fuel higher won't really deter most people. If the supply really has peaked in production and will go downhill from here normal supply and demand should take care of jacking up the price anyways. No need for government interference there. Next, If people really want to make a difference then they should. And if they are serious and not just howling with the rest of the conservationist dogs over the topic they shouldn't require a government mandate, huge tax breaks, or anything other than knowing where to buy more efficient items and/or alternative energy systems. Again, no need for the government to stick it's nose in business here. Personally, I have upgraded appliances in my house over time and bought the most efficient models (even though they cost more) because I believe in the long term savings, as well as benefit to the environment. (And when they say a more efficient AC system will "pay for itself" over a 15 year old system which is still clunking along they usually aren't joking, BTW) I do have an SUV, but it's a more moderate sized build and gets over 20 mpg (good for one of those). I have it because from time to time I do need to move things around (like going to home depot to buy fertilizer, large items, etc) Personal opinion of mine would be far more at countries that are ramping up fossil fuel consumption to push their growth agendas. But of course we're the evil American empire and are to blame.. it's OK, I know..
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
Antarctic Ice Core Data
a nning/New_Data/
http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Pl
Enjoy!
1. Develop cleaner-burning turbodiesel engines. DaimlerChrysler's breakthrough BlueTec technology shows you can build diesel engines that are just as clean as gasoline-fuelled engines, and you get the double benefits of 30-35% better fuel efficiency and general compatibility with clean-burning biodiesel fuel.
:-)
2. Get homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) gasoline-fuelled engines into full-scale production. HCCI promises around 33% better fuel economy and lower exhaust emissions compared to today's gasoline engines.
Those two changes right there allow for 20-25% improvements in the EPA Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards without changing current automobile designs one iota.
Further down the road, the imposition of excise taxes based on engine displacement and/or physical size of automobiles may get additional gains on fuel economy, since it would encourage people to buy even more fuel-efficient cars; this is already being done in Europe and Japan.
I'm not into smug assholes, so I'll avoid reading anything by you.
And you didn't answer the question. What does your hyperbolic, inflammatory comment add to the discussion? (Hint: the answer is nothing)
I realize you think this proves soomething, hence your attitude. But the only thing is proves is that you're not qualified to contribute summaries.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
Presuming your hovercar is the air-skirt variety, send them a "road surface cleaning" bill (for blowing the dust and dirt off) tha just happens to equal your road-use taxes. If your hovercar is of the anti-gravity type, you should be paying MORE taxes for the damage you're doing to the space-time continuum of the road area.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
His staff (namely a bunch of Neo-Convervatives - including Rumsfeld) has sought to reclaim power after being marginalized in the public mind for a while. We know they invented a terrorist attack (9/11), and used that to engage in a war where the whole point of the war has yet to be found despite a 3 year occupation. The president has blocked scientific research and even debate on any matter that he objects to.
It is good to see that America has begun to remarginalize the government despite the attempts for the government to create panic. The only sad part is that we are not demanded that the past transgressions be repaired. In this situation, no one wins. The american people must hold their government accountable.
For more information, see Power of Nightmares (Try the free, open source VLC player if you media player won't play)
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
- grant tax breaks for anyone switching to biofuels
- aid to cities to convert existing buses to biofuels
A tax credit (yes, credit, not break) exists. Not only for consumer use, but producer too. And cities (anything government) gets an extended break on a special tax here in Washington. Our state has already passed several bills allowing for funding to build seed crushers for veggie oil, and biodiesel production plants, and more requiring inn the next 5 years all diesel sold in the state to be at minimum 20% biodiesel, with eyes wide and wondering on the possible 1:1 total replacement of diesel by biodiesel, with ALL costs domestic. I'm sure ethanal for gasoline engines won't be too far behind.
I know that was meant as a joke, but the logic is flawed. A hovercraft exerts its entire weight on the road surface just like a wheeled vehicle, the difference is that the weight is distributed over the entire area encompased by the ground effect skirt, not just the tire contact patches. Lower PSI over more inches.
good ol' H2O vapor is the main source of warming. I've heard it is responsible for 31 celcius increase in the planet's temperature. Nifty!
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
as 'global warming' evidence mounts
If you don't know what a climate cycle is by now, you are nuts. In fact, I don't think you really know anything -- clearly you are just angry political reasons, just like all the others. The data just doesn't back you alarmist wackos up.
Buy the european CO2 pollution credits and then dispose of them.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The only drawback to environmental damage is it's resulting effect on the economy, from a public policy perspective at least.
Scientific consensus has nothing to do with it. Americans will believe almost anything once they've heard it enough.
Froogle
Got one myself. Now my clothes aren't ripped apart as with my old top loaded Maytag.
limping along is never a good way to win a race. without a revolution in popular thought, this 20 year tragedy you foresee is inevitable. only through a complete shift in conception about "first world standards" vs an effed up wasteland will the needed amount of attention be given to this issue.
I think these tree huggers have it all wrong. Bottom line is switching from a regular Honda to a Prius and not using hair spray is not going to have a significant impact on reducing greehouse emissions, saving oil, etc... What's that going to give us, maybe a 20% reduction per person. Not going to help much when you have countries like China just spewing smoke into the air. All it really does is make you feel good about yourself and let you look down your nose at everyone NOT driving a Prius.
The real answer is to use MORE. If we are really at the peak of oil production, every environmentalist should use more oil. Keep your house at 85 degrees in the winter. Run the AC 24/7 in the summer. Buy the biggest SUV you can find and commute 50 miles to work every day. This way the oil reserves will be gone sooner and all the damage that can be done will be done. You can probably only reduce your consumption by 20% or so, but you could increase your consumption by 200 or 300% easily.
Find coupons in Greeley
Ergo, the Earth is slowly warming up.
I read
From "Aliens Cause Global Warming"
s _quote04.html
Michael Crichton
http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeche
In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let's review a few cases.
In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth . One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no. In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compellng evidence. The consensus said no. In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent "skeptics" around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.
There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the "pellagra germ." The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory. Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called "Goldberger's filth parties." Nobody contracted pellagra. The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.
Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.
And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therap6y...the list of consensus errors goes on and on.
Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
The US is actually only slightly above average in military spending. The only reason its spending in $ is so high is because its GDP is so huge. Once you normalize it to GDP, you can see that many other countries actually spend more than the US. China and most of the middle eastern countries actually spend significantly more, and "peace-loving" France spends just slightly less than the US.
It's the same argument used against the US when funding the UN. Countries are supposed to fund the UN in proportion to the GDP. "You have more money so you can pay more." Yet for some reason the same reasoning seems to escape people when it comes to military spending. You can't have it both ways. (Note: The US has been successful in trying to reduce its share of UN funding; partially understandable since GDP doesn't take into account taxation rate, so while US GDP is much bigger, the US govt gets to use less of it in its discretionary budget than socialist nations.)
A problem with the studies that affirm global warming is that they're either very speculative or based on too a very narrow data "cut".
In the first case, they're reports on the results of computation using this or that climate model, where the different climate factors, such as percent of CO2 in the atmosphere, receive very arbitrary weights. If, for instance, you attribute different weights to these factors or add more factors, such as the likelihood we're entering a new Ice Age (in the '70s tons of studies focused on this), the results vary a lot. One such calculation might conclude that no matter what humans do the world will end very cold. Other might conclude that our warming actions might actually conter balance the cold, keeping the temperatures as they are. And others will say that our actions are warming the world. Currently these last are favoured, because their results seem to coincide more or less with actual collected data, but it's possible to argue that in others, "global cooling" models, a small temperature increase for some years followed by a sharp decrease in temperature isn't unlikely. So, how can we say which of these models, weights, factors etc. are the correct ones? I don't think it's possible without many centuries of measurements.
In the second case, the studies are based on the behaviour of this or that factor when everything else is excluded. So, if you go study what happens in a lab experiment when there's an increase in the percent of CO2, it becomes absolutely clear that it's a warming effect, no doubt about that. But how does this effect relates with all the other climate-changing effects is difficult to say, which takes us to the above problem of the models.
Furthermore, when one takes this problem from the scientific field to the political, another question arises: a global warming is really a bad thing? I mean, from the point of view of agriculture, more CO2 means, AFAIK, correct me if I'm wrong, bigger crops, bigger vegetables and the like, and so more food. And more food means less hungry people in the world. So, one might ask, without any ill intent, whether the benefits aren't worth the trouble of increased sea levels and some more extinguished species. Are they?
The above points, plus some others I haven't mentioned, don't allow me to buy the whole idea of cutting greenhouse gases as being The Obvious Good ThingTM. There're tons of questions that should be answered, and very well answered, before we're sure that going forward into changing the whole industrial world is really needed. What if we actually do it, causing all the unemplyment and lowering of living standards it'll mean, only to discover in a few decades that the whole effort wasn't needed? Who'd pay the needy for all the social troubles this move will have caused them?
This, IMHO, is a question most people who write on the subject forget to ask.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
We have had efficent and safe nuclear power since the 1950s... The goal of the U.S. government at the time was to convert to a nuclear economy by the 1980s.
But then Cold War politics and the "Enviornmental Movement" made nuclear power politically unacceptable.
Well, sorry, but the so-called "Enviornmentalists" need to accept their responsibility for Global Warming (by making viable alternative to fossil fuels politically unnacceptable). I am not going to conserve energy one bit, or make the tinest personal sacrafice, until organizations like Greenpeace stop politically sabataging alternative energy. I understand that converting to nuclear power from fossil fuels could take decades, and if we were making such a transition, I would be happy to conserve energy. But, those confused old hippies are going to have to give up their dream of taking us all back to the 18th century.
a whole /. discussion on global warming and no mention of the inverse proportion of global warming versus the population of pirates?
RAmen!
http://www.venganza.org/
semper ubi sub ubi
Social Security and Medicare are consistently highly rated for the efficiency of their operations. They both have costs that are very low when considered as a percentage of the payments they disburse. They are government success stories in that respect.
You're probably thinking of the funding issue, which is NOT a failing of the government but rather a failing of the society. The U.S. is a democratic republic--our leaders vote for what is popular. And nothing gets the populace riled up like threats to the holy Social Security and Medicare benefits. In a democracy, the political will must ultimately come from the people, not the leaders. But without a crisis, there is no political will to change the status quo.
The President tried to change the Social Security paradigm, and failed in the face of mass popular resistance. Is that a government that failed, or the people?
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
The TREND did exist, please do not attempt to dispute that. The runaway fears of a return to pre-industrial temperatures came mainly from mainstream interpretation of the data, and statisticians that used measurement data to make basic predictions. The current general scientific consensus was that this prediction (which was based mostly in industrialized countries) came from the local effects of smog, on which controls were placed, which decreased smog, allowing the air temperature and increased radiation from the sun to warm the soil to a greater degree.
If global warming fears were based soley on observational data, I would be inclined to agree with the idea that there is room for doubt. It is not. Please feel free to look at the scientific literature at any time. Carbon Dioxide levels play a role, as do methane and nitrous oxide. The effect of these compounds is under further investigation, but there is little doubt that increases in their levels contribute to greenhouse effects.
hmmmm?
Yes but the problem is that base level top loaders that work as well as any of the higher end units can be had for under $250... hell less than 200 on sale or used. Not like its a high tech thing. 1/2 horse motor, metal tub that agitates back and forth, and spins around at the end.
The diference in energy cost with a 2-300 price differential (worse at most retail locations) makes it about a wash (ooooo, bad pun) in the long run. True the more expensive more efficient machine MIGHT last long enough to make it worth it in savings. Then again it might crap out early on you. In the end the idea that it will last longer than 10 years and actually save you any significant money in the long run is an iffy bet at best for most appliances.
So yeah Americans take the bird in the bush. You telling me that if you faced the same decision you would go for paying double money now to maybe save 12 dollars a year which won't be 'savings' until you have had the appliance for 10 years ?
Give them the choice to buy the more efficient appliance even up and they will go for it unless it just dosn't work as well. Hell just make it so the payback due to efficiency is withen a couple years and most people will still buy it. But when the payback term is out there at the expected lifetime of the appliance nobody is going for that kind of deal. Cause it isn't a deal. It isn't even savings. Its just choosing when you will spend the money.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
The absolute worst thing you can do to the environment as an American is: Give birth to a child.
The cost in energy to raise a child from birth to death in America is astronomical compared to any other country on earth. A few years of harsher than China-style birth control and it's all fixed.
The debate is not whether the temperature is rising, but rather is this a natural cycle as science shows occured sevral times prior to industrialization. Whether humans are the main cause... whether humans can alter it... Whether it is reversable (most scientists who say humans caused it also say it is NOT reversable)... and whether our economies can suffer knee-jerk hippee legislation to punish corporations. As outrageous are the oponents of global warming correction are, so are the the extreme environmentalists. This is partisan issue, a left vs right issue, and really just the same old havenots vs the haves issue, but with environmental guilt and finger pointing.
I drive a Mustang GT, and I get a whopping 15 mpg in town, and as much as 25 mpg on the highway under ideal conditions. I'd say I average around 16... BUT! I more than likely use VASTLY less fuel than you do. I telecommute, I don't drive during times of high traffic volume for any reason, and I end up driving about 6,000 miles a year.
Some of my friends with their 60 mpg Hybrids give me a hard time, but then after we work out that they have a 40 mile commute, each way, every day, that they drive over 20,000 miles a year... we find that they are using the exact same amount of gas that I am... plus they are putting lots of extra wear and tear on their vehicle, which cost them twice as much to begin with, and adds to the congestion on the road, and their own stress levels for having to spend over two hours a day in a car!
So yeah, I say raise the gas tax... make it $5 a gallon. I might cut back on my driving a little bit more -- walk or bike to the store, instead of drive, perhaps... but I can still enjoy my sports car when the weather's nice, and the traffic is light, and the folks who make the DC area roads hell by commuting will pay the price for living so far from where they work.
Oh yeah, one last thing... it's not just the "rich" folks with Hummers and Ferraris... damn near everyone has some sort of SUV or Minivan that gets under 25 mpg. Even a Honda Accord only gets 20-25 mpg around town! And for the most part, you have to be richer to drive an efficient Hybrid than you do to drive an old Cutlass.
So if you want to raise the fuel tax, great. But if you want to raise the tax on "gas guzzlers", you need to do a few things first: 1) lower the cost of hybrids (or better yet, find a low cost alternative)... 2) make fuel efficient cars that don't look like something out of the Jetsons... I'd drive a hybrid Mustang... but a Prius?? I wouldn't drive it even if it did 0-60 in 3.8 seconds!
And that's to say nothing of improving public transportation... anyway </rant>
-brian
Are Americans really ready to give up their automobiles, stop buying throw away electronics? Are they ready to ditch economic growth for the environment? I don't believe most are. To really reduce global warming this existance we call society would be radically different then what most would accept.
What a useless, bullshit comparison of military spending. Unfortunately, statistics can be manipulated in many a stupifyingly irrelevent way, as you just illustrated, and ironically, accused me of. That graph you linked has us beneath the following for military spending (just to highlight some of the more glaringly stupid points of the chart if you use them for comparing military expenditure): Oman, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Burundi, Kuwait, Maldives, Guinea, Djibouti, Macedonia, Armenia, Congo, Yemen, Qatar, Mauritania, Cyprus, Lesotho, Botswana, and Ecuador. Right, that's a relevent display of military spending/power.
And I wonder why you didn't quote this, from the same site, or at least, compare it to the relevance of the GDP figures. Gee, could it be that GDP shows absolutely nothing, and the majority of the countries are listed highly have corrupt governments that use their armies to subjugate a small, poverty-stricken populace? Not only that, but the site's statistics are far from updated; the site has about half the current US military expenditure listed, and is quoting a figure from the Clinton-era.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
Woah, I knew there were a lot of global warming (or "human causation") deniers on slashdot, but I hadn't checked here in a while - didn't realize it was this bad! No wonder I don't come here much any more.
For all y'all's edification, I STRONGLY recommend:
The Discovery of Global Warming
Real Climate
A Few Things Ill-Considered
I'll come back when y'all have read those, ok?
Energy: time to change the picture.
what's real and what isn't real is for science to attempt to discover, science doesn't work by ballot.
I'm a rabbit startled by the headlights of life
is how the current administration has certainly taken the 'the best defense is a good offense' idea and run with it. Compare the DOD spending from last year with a decade ago, and then compare the spending on the border patrol, airline security, and the Coast Guard. Do you notice which one went up?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
1). I can't see it.
2). I can't smell it.
3). I can't taste it.
4). I can't feel it.
5). I can't hear it.
Thats what it will come down to in the end.
NIMBYism and BANANAS (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone) will hold out for a long time yet.
Sorry, but this is true.
The single biggest contributor to atmospheric CO2 is "out-gassing" that happens in the mid-ocean plates.
No, it isn't. If it was, then the oceans would not act as a sink for CO2.
Mankind contributes some, but not much.
Nonsense. Volcanic CO2 production from all sources is less that 1% of the production by human activities.
My issue with all of the Global Warming scare is that it based on computer modeling of temperatures 100+ years out. Our computer models, are only maybe good 10 days out at any given time.
No. With systems like the weather different models are used at different scales. This is entirely appropriate for such chaotic systems. For example, we can't easily model things like turbulent fluid flow at small scales, but we can model the overall gross flow of such system at larger scales.
http://www.oar.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/spot_sunc limate.html
According to the site, climatologists estimate that the sun is responsible for up to 1/3 of the temperature increase we've seen over the last hundred years.
If anything, this is evidence that we should be more concerned about our effects on the environment. The climate is in for some serious adjustments in an evolutionary instant, and the last thing we should be doing is throwing more fuel on the fire.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Has some interesting commentary about this madness.
an ill wind that blows no good
Lol, well its about time people wake up. It'll probably take two more years for the government to do anything about it (having to wait for GWBush-wacker to get the hell out of office). Good news though.
You don't just save money on the less use of electricity when you buy a front loaded machine... the clothes last longer... this saves the cost of the machine many times around.
"No; the Sun is actually slowly warming up."
Ergo, the Earth is slowly warming up.
Yes.... slowly. Over a timescale of hundreds of millions of years. I would be interested how this could explain a recent warming over a period of decades....
When it meets up with George Clooney's speech we're all doomed!
See, "there's no reason to be driving a car with less than 20mpg" is such a bigoted, inexperienced thing to say. A Pontiac GTO gets 17mpg and is the greatest thing since sliced bread. How about, instead of having you steal my money - since I'm already paying for increased gas, I instead say that you just flat out should not be allowed to work at all, and should be you know, sent to Gitmo or something.
This is my sig.
Nothing was done when Clinton was in power either. Not to the extent that you're talking about.
No; the Sun is actually slowly warming up.
Yet the "environmentalist" crowd consistently ignore this fact when saying global warming/climate change/whatever-we're-calling-it-this-week is caused my humans...or to be more specific, it's caused by those evil, capitalistic Americans who are the enemies of the neo-Socialist movement that has emerged from what used to be a credible crowd of tree-huggers.
No; it is realistic and correct. We have already had a significant impact on the composition of the atmosphere in terms of CO2 concentration - the main source of warming.
So a billion or so of us pitiful human beings in our SUV's are having more impact on this planet than a thermonuclear furnace with the mass of 1.3 million earths outputting 2.8 x 10^26 Watts a meere eight light-minutes away? A furnace you admit is growing warmer? Pardon me if I guffaw lightly in your direction. While CO2 may be a greenhouse gas, and we may be adding it to our atmosphere, to say that we are the sole cause of this when the sun is heating up at the same time smacks of blinders on your part. You appear to have completely disregarded the possibility that the Earth may be heating up largely or solely because of the increased solar output. If so, we could do all the CO2 reductions we want -- wrecking billions of dollars worth of industry, putting millions out of work globally, both possibly causing mass starvation, privation, and so forth -- and it wouldn't help a bit. Yet you're all too willing to scream at the top of your lungs "we don't fully understand what's going on, but by God we're going to find some way to penalize those capitalists for their energy greed!"
And environmentalists wonder why they're frequently branded as wackos.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Which is to say, AT BEST, that, "I'm researching these viruses, and if you don't give me any money, then 90% of humanity will be destroyed."
Lies. He's not researching the viruses. Eric Pianka is an expert on small invertibrates such as salamanders, and in many ways is the father of modern ecology.
He's also reported to be a conservative in his political views, despite the fact that he has a full and bushy hippie beard. Direct your friendly fire elsewhere, you ignorant moron.
You're a dirty liar, and you have personally charged the atmosphere in such a way that scientists not associated with Eric Pianka are now getting death threats in regard to this situation. YOU are the problem, YOU are encouraging death, YOU are encouraging terrorism, YOU are advocating the death of innocent people, YOU are the person telling moral people like me to kill themselves, YOU make me sick.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
That's a lot of ENERGY (J). You assumed 50 W of power.
I think we should be trying to increase global warming, at least until the point where we don't get any snow in the winter.
Funny how everybody on /. seems so well informed.
Yet their opinions on climate change are so vehemently diametric.
Those who argue that it exists passionatly quote figures, theories and scientific data.
Those that state that it doesn't exists claim natural causes, past history and government reports.
Each side is angrily well assured of their arguments.
My own view is that we owe it to generations following us to at least acknowledge that it's a possibibilty.
And having acknowledged that, to make what feeble efforts might be within our remit to try to counter it.
"I'm a snake if we disagree"-Jethro Tull, Bungle in the Jungle
Of course they don't! The sun is warming up very slowly over a period of hundreds of millions of years.
So a billion or so of us pitiful human beings in our SUV's are having more impact on this planet than a thermonuclear furnace with the mass of 1.3 million earths outputting 2.8 x 10^26 Watts a meere eight light-minutes away?
Yes, because it is pretty constant.
A furnace you admit is growing warmer?
Over a time period of hundreds of millions and billions of years.
Pardon me if I guffaw lightly in your direction.
No problem.
While CO2 may be a greenhouse gas,
It is.
We are.
to say that we are the sole cause of this when the sun is heating up at the same time smacks of blinders on your part.
Where did anyone say we are the sole cause?
You appear to have completely disregarded the possibility that the Earth may be heating up largely or solely because of the increased solar output.
Of course I haven't! Periodic fluctuations in solar intensity are common and - guess what? They have of course been taken into account! And guess what else? They don't account for anything like the warming that has been taking place.
Two words:Kyoto Protocol
...
Two Words: It Sucks!
1. Kyoto Protocol doesn't count emmisions reduced by replacing fossil fuels with nuclear power. So if the U.S. replaced fossil fuels and reduced it's emmissions by 90% tommorow, we would not have fufilled our "obligation" to the treaty. We don't need to be part of any kind of treaty that discourages viable forms of alternative energy.
2. Kyoto Protocol doesn't count emmissions offset by increasing green plants and conservation of forests. There are political reasons for wanting to tell people the U.S. to be the highest producer of CO2. When you start including CO2 absorbed by forest, the U.S. starts becoming comparible with most European countries (who have virtually destroyed what was left of any real forests, and have a much higher population density and less plants throughout). Conservation of forests, planting of trees, etc., can't eliminate all our emmissions, but it CAN help, and has very good seconday benifits (like protecting the habitat of animals).
3. Kyoto Protocal doesn't apply to developing nations. While the U.S. has hit it's peak of CO2 output, and it is now increasing in proportion to our population, C02 emmisions are increasing exponentially in China and India. China and India will soon surpass the U.S., if they haven't already (there is reason to believe they underestimate their CO2 emmisions, and there are types of CO2 emmisions that aren't counted as C02 emmisions, like burning dung or wood). China and Inda are going to be the biggest producers of C02, yet they are totally unrestricted. Even their internal enviornmental laws are a lot less restrictive. Which means that the U.S. and other countries will reduce their C02 emmissions by exporting factories to China and India, where the factories will still pollute more than they would if they stayed in the U.S.
The Kyoto Protocol is retarded. There was a whole bunch of political reasons for the Kyoto Protocal, but reducing global warming was not one of them.
The Kyoto Protocal:
1. Discourages CO2 free energy sources, like nuclear.
2. Discourages conservation.
3. Encourages more polution, and hurts our economy, by creating artificial incentives for companies to move to where there are no enviornmental restrictions.
And, to put the icing on the cake, there is absolutly no teeth to the Protocal. The U.S., which didn't sign the protocal and is taking no measures to meet the requirements, is actually doing a better job than countries like Canada, which signed the document and claim to support it. There is no penalty for not meeting the Kyoto requirements, and very few countries have met their obligations. The countries that DID meet their obligations are former Communist block countries that saw a collapse in their economy, and a dramatic decrease in industry, and have nothing to do with enviornmental politcy.
"sporty" penis subsitute
There's nothing wrong with facial hair, a fast GPU, or a cell-phone that takes pictures.
...Is a government project to plant a billion trees. Seriously.
The scientific consensus is that global warming is occurring, and that humans have increased the concentration of CO2 in the air by ~100 parts per million. So instead of coming up with ticky tacky ways to decrease fossil fuel consumption by 0.0001% in this country, why don't we address the root problem? That there's too much carbon dioxide in the air?
I say planting a billion trees would be a whole lot easier, politically and economically, then any other solution presented. Cost: ~$10 billion on the high side.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
1Km in US != 1Km in Europe? 1L in US != 1L in Europe?
...
Yes, there are large distances between different STATES, just like going from Spain (a state) to Germany (another state). But a city is a city. Or is there a "space warp" that makes travels longer in the US having the same distance than in Europe? And here the distance to a market can be the same as the place you live.
And for the bus travel you say, I had to take a subway, a train and a bus to get to work when I was working in Madrid. And where I live now (Majorca) isn't better, because there are only buses and more than half of the city is "blue zone". And if you don't live in Palma (the capital) you have to come by car and park "where Jesus lost the shoe" (spanish, don't know if it translates good) and then take a bus.
So, the problem you have is here too.
The real problem (here and maybe there too) is that public transport is a shit. Too much time between buses/subways/trains, too bad "drawn" the lines,
Better public transport = less people using private transport.
End the Iraq War, and expand Eminent Domain? Wait, you forgot:
- Adhere fully to Kyoto Protocols in order to pave the road for global wealth redistribution
- Add an amendment to the Constitution ensuring a woman's right to choose
- National Healthcare
Yeah, there's a lot of potential to MANIPULATE the public fears of global warming towards a preferred set of political goals. Science shows that global warming trends are very likely, but there is NOT a concensus on the level of human contribution to the effect.
If you REALLY want to get away from burning fossil fuels, the solution is pretty simple. The Cold War is over, so purge your hippy-based aversions and GO NUCLEAR! That's a solution I would have no problem with.
My own view is that we owe it to generations following us to at least acknowledge that it's a possibibilty.
And having acknowledged that, to make what feeble efforts might be within our remit to try to counter it.
This is a good argument. The problem is that some think that it would take a lot of expense and economic sacrifice to counteract global warming, and that sacrifice would damage future generations. This is not my personal view.
I could have SWORN in school, we had learned there were 2 ice ages in our past. And that the tempature changes. The earth kind of "wobbles" as it goes around the sun. When it wobbles closer, it gets hotter, when it wobbles away, it gets cooler. So, the tempature is cyclic, we go down/up, down/up. How is a rising temp that bad? It has been going on, throughout Earth's history.
Even if we do all of these things to reduce emissions, we are still going to see the world getting warmer.
Why? I will use small words so the blind and stupid liberals, green freaks, and chicken littles can under stand:
WE ARE COMING OUT OF A MINI ICE AGE.
This has been happening for centuries. Long before the start of the Industrial Revolution the mean temperature has been raising.
I will now get off my soapbox, and prepare for the slings and arrows of fools.
Well sort of, they are the one who will be affected the worst when the gulf stream conveyor belt stops. Just kidding. Really, since this is a global issue and since one country can singlehandedly cause this why do we have to wait for US Public Opinion and Public policy to change? If a guy next to you is smoking and blowing it in your face, would you wait until a law passed saying he couldn't that to you anymore? CZ
now that i got your attention..
5 hemp-photos.htm
,alcohol, tobacco, and many other big industries which are killing us make roughly $1,000,000,000,000 yearly but ill leave the rest to you imagination
probably the best insulation for the lowest resource burning cost is hemp..
http://www.greens.org.nz/campaigns/cannabis/02091
not to mention bio-plastics, bio-fuel, bread, cereal, milk, tofu (its all safer to eat than soy beans and grows faster)
and as you all know 25,000 and more other products..
imagine how many jobs could be created globally to grow hemp..
poor countries can actually learn about this weed which they can build a utopia upon instead of starving or relying on money... what do they care what money is... its fake.. piece of paper with some cotton and plastic coating on it made from oil, the 3 things humans love to consume..
anyways
a small list
http://torontohemp.com/hempuses.htm
what other plant can do that...
ps: it doesn't need pesticides because its a natural pesticide it grows fast (like a weed, in pretty much any climate), grows denser than any forest can (we're still cutting down trees for lumber which eventually gets recycled then we wipe our asses on it... there doesnt take a fuckin scientist to figure that one out) hemp has been used for recorded 10,000 years, but there was a religious war *cough cough* that sought out for hemp to be the devil weed... why?
read the Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer http://www.jackherer.com/
if you dont like reading
Magic.Weed.-.History.Of.Marijuana - documentary has a summarized rendition of what happened to the worlds most useful and renewable resource
i can rant on and on about how the oil,pharmaceutical pills
the cannabis plant family can do all of this, food,fuel,medicine,entertainment,housing..
some governments dont like it because, we can grow our own.. fuel, food, medicine, entertainment, housing...
if you like it or not, hemp is already getting bigger everyday
in bc canada we just got a new 200 acre hemp farm that will first produce enough dietary supplements and hemp yarn to be shiped globally, followed by hemp oils for plastics, soaps and fuel =)
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Of course they don't! The sun is warming up very slowly over a period of hundreds of millions of years.
Perhaps you are unaware of the concept of solar maxima and minima. As it just so happens, we're in the middle of an unusually long warming period for old Sol. But please, don't let facts like that distract you from your logic-lite argument.
Yes, because it is pretty constant.
No, it's not. See prior comment.
Of course I haven't! Periodic fluctuations in solar intensity are common and - guess what? They have of course been taken into account! And guess what else? They don't account for anything like the warming that has been taking place.
And I'm so glad you're the one and only person on the planet that's been charged with the responsiblity of making this conclusion. No doubt the thousands of other climatologists who diagree with you are wrong, despite their years of experience and walls full of degrees. You, sir, know it all and have all the answers. I'm sure you sleep well at night knowing that.
Now, on a more serious note, did you know there's a lot of grants out there for folks willing to study global warming/climate-change/whatever? But did you know that lots of these grants are coming from people that want the end results to be human-caused climate change (alternative energy crowds, anti-capitalists, etc.)? Many prominent climatologists that don't agree with the it's-all-caused-by-humans crowd have bemoaned that many of their peers are snapping up such tainted grants simply because it gets them more grant money. It's like Microsoft funding a study on Windows vs. Linux security. Would you trust the results if it said Microsoft was better?
The facts of the matter are this: for every it's-all-human global warming proponent there's also another equally-qualified opponent who can make a scientific argument to the contrary. The claim that there is "scientific consensus" supporting manmade climate change is the biggest lie there is right now. The biosphere of our planet is an amazingly complex system that we don't even begin to understand. To claim we know it all and can thus say that this caused that is the height of arrogance and hubris.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
While your average run-of-the-mill "I'm on the internet" environmentalist may not be aware of those factors, most of the current research is. All the studies I have seen recently talk about warming in addition to the amount we expect to see from natural CO2 and Methane emissions, as well as solar increases. We're not just up-- we're up past where we would be if it was only natural causes. These variables are widely known and controlled for-- just perhaps not by the "hippies" with their slightly-less-than-scientific version of the global warming theories.
A similar mistake made by the other side is that because there is natural CO2 and Methane, our own emissions do nothing. If natural emissions raise temps, and our own emissions (depending on the particular chemical) are either significant fractions (Methane) of or greater than (CO2) the natural emissions-- then why would anyone expect them to not add to the effect?
While I applaud the efforts of these individuals who are trying to reduce their energy demands, I really don't think that they can do much for global warming. They can however reduce their own costs for/use of energy, which is a Good Thing in any case.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
Decaff posted:
If you include water vapor as a greenhouse gas, humanity contributes 0.28% of the total greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, of which 0.117% is CO2. It's not likely that such a small amount is significant.
http://www.toptechwriter.us/weblog/index.php/2006If you don't include water vapor, our contribution increases to 6%.
How do you know we've had a significant impact on climate change? The most recent climate reconstructions (Moberg and others) have dumped the "hockey stick" graph used in the IPCC for one that includes the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period. When you look at those new graphs, it's clear that there've been warming and cooling cycles before Mankind could have caused them.
You can't trust the models being used to determine policy on AGW, either. Recently, researchers have found "that living plants emit 10 to 100 times more methane than dead plants. Scientists had previously thought that plants could only emit methane in the absence of oxygen." None of the climate models currently account for the impact of living plants on GW.
http://www.toptechwriter.us/weblog/index.php/2006Just last week, we learned that "the sun is getting brighter, increasing the pace of climate change and undermining claims that man alone is to blame."
http://www.toptechwriter.us/weblog/index.php/2006"I improvise. It's my greatest talent. I prefer situations to plans..." --Wintermute, William Gibson's "Neuromancer"
Republican? Pro-big business? Not that it matters, but I think the government can do way more than it's doing now to encourage fuel-efficient cars. If the government were to put a huge tax markup on gas everybody will be affected - consumers, companies, many many airlines will struggle horribly and everntually go out of business. ALL prices will go up across the board because there is not a single company in the world which is not dependent on energy costs. Can you say inflation? Can you say high interest rates? Can you say recession?
If they put in place more stringent fuel-effiency requirements only the car companies will have to struggle (and possibly larger shareholders). I have no problem paying $1-3k more for a car if that's going to save me money on many of the others things that are NOT going to go up!
There are ways to craft those laws so that changes are very highly encouraged. In fact, the government can provide incentives in the form of tax breaks to car companies. They will more than make up the money in the savings from fuel efficiency.
However, that would be against the interests of a whole army of lobbying groups for the car manufacturers and oil companies. This is why it's not happenening.
How is it possible that an entire country (Sweden, read in the news) is able to wean itself from oil and the US is not?
I need to break out my bike again.
I think a lot of people could seriously improve their gas mileage. I've always gotten about six or seven mpg better than the rest of my family, even driving the same car.
* Have a stick-shift? Spend more time in higher gears. (When going downhill, I often throw it into neutral)
* Driving 55 instead of 75 will save you enormously. Driving 75 cuts many cars' fuel economy by a quarter. Remember kids, air drag goes up with the square of your speed.
* When coming to a red light, start slowing down well before you need to stop. If the light turns green, you may still be going 20MPH, which is far better than starting from a complete stop. The more accelerating and decelerating you do, the worse your mileage gets.
* Get yourself one of those 150MPG carburetors that the oil industry has been keeping under wraps. For $25, I'll send you the plans!
For more tips, check out fueleconomy.gov
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Humans ARE no better than bacteria. When humans get overpopulated, there's nothing inherent in human populations that will protect them. Bacteria crash when they are overpopulated. Humans will also crash when they are overpopulated.
Any idiot can see that, but you're insisting on quoting someone out of context, and claiming that they are evil.
YOU are evil. YOU are the genocidal maniac. YOU are the anti-scientist. YOU disgust me.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Read the subject
If you believe in man made Global Warming, your a fucking idiot.
Mother earth is gonna do what she's wants to do and lets just hope the moron parade touting man made global warming is the first she squashes like the mental midgets they are.
If you need evidence of that you only need to acknowledge the abundance of science proving the earth was much warmer millions of years ago (its evidenced in the ice core) way before "industrial man" and since she is billions of years old, this is all just part of the natural order.
Hopefully her natural order also has dominion over the portion of agenda driven science community designed to do one thing, give a leg up to 3rd world losers who still are trying to figure out how to build more than a 1 story structure or that clean running water is the pillar of all civilized life.
Then again how could they, they are too full of themselves being coddled by liberal idiots as to how their lifestyle is more in tune with the earth as she spews toxic gases from her bowels via volcanoes or brings forth destruction like no other force in the form of various weather phenomenom.
Thats how much she is in tune with this bullshit.
We had better colonize space because this is just temporary digs oh and while we are at it, lets leave the GW Crowd on the surface to continue their efforts in the hopes of not getting swallowed up by mother earth when she has just had enough of their drivel.
Give it up, its over.
No, I just think that if you give guarantees, you should have more than your own opinion to back them up.
That was, however, a very effective rant to avoid the obvious fact that you were pulling things from your ass. I'll take that as evidence that you know you were making shit up. The reast of us certainly know it.
"I'll save all the linking and the name calling and just walk away angry... how's that?"
I've got a far better idea. How about you save us the bullshit and unsupported rhetoric? Mmmkay?
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
When humans get overpopulated, there's nothing inherent in human populations that will protect them. Bacteria crash when they are overpopulated. Humans will also crash when they are overpopulated
Oh, now, this is priceless. Last time I checked, humans can manipulate the environment in ways that bacteria cannot. We can alter the planet as we need to, or, colonize new ones. There is no fundamental upper limit to human population.
YOU are evil. YOU are the genocidal maniac. YOU are the anti-scientist. YOU disgust me
That's right. I stand in opposition to your mad plan to loose e-bola on humanity in order to save your pet salamander.
This is my sig.
It now has a name, the "Multi Decadal Variation", so you are correct.
Any moron with cable TV spending a little time watching the Science channel is far more informed than the GW Agenda Crowd.
GW has one purpose, to castrate Western/First World/Idustrialized economies so that those behind the curtain, Iron or Silk if you will, can catch a leg up as we see downturn.
You are deliberately misquoting Dr. Pianka, which is LYING. You take his words out of context and invent meanings to say he's a monster.
You're a LIAR, and I really hate you. Yes, I hate you. I don't think I've written that about anybody on Slashdot before, even the guy that I've annoyed repeatedly here for about two years.
Dr. Pianka isn't lying about anything. He's worried that we have too many people, and because of our great population we're going to have a population crash. It's elementary biology and that you don't understand that indicates that you have a poor education.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
"Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive,
R ICA.html
for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age." - TIME, Monday, Jun. 24, 1974
NOW they're sure?
Let's just point out:
"From around 150,000 to 130,000 years ago, North America experienced colder and generally more arid than present conditions. About 130,000 years ago, a warm phase slightly moister than the present began, and conditions at least as warm as the present lasted until about 115,000 years ago. Subsequent cooling and drying of the climate led to a cold, arid maximum about 70,000 years ago, followed by a slight moderation of climate with a second aridity maximum around 22,000-13,000 14C years ago. Conditions then quickly became warmer and moister, though with an interruption by cold and aridity in many areas around 11,000 14C years ago."
(Jonathan Adams, Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nercNORTHAME
Does the temperature seem to be moving up lately? Yep.
Beyond that, it seems to be a huge guessing game: are humans responsible for the current warming? (personally, I think we probably contribute significantly to it)
Is warming a catastrophe? Even IF you buy into the Cassandras, for every "coral reef is gonna die because the water's too warm!" it's hard to believe that there's not a corresponding expansion (northward) of coral-reef-able zones. For every acre of expanded desert, there's another acre of former-tundra that now has a growing season.
And don't even get me STARTED on "cities will flood" crap. Duh? For ANY city in any location, over a long enough span of time, the odds of it surviving unscathed are ultimately zero. Nobody built the big cities (generally starting as a cluster of wooden huts around a river or nice bay) with an eye toward their long term survivability - NOBODY. To presume at this point that we need to exert every effort to somehow FREEZE Earth's dynamic climate to accomodate habitation choices made 000's of years ago?
That's just stupid.
-Styopa
"because unaided there's no mechanism by which that potential future event has a dollar cost for the companies and consumers involved in energy transactions today."
You're mistaken.
Should I buy this beach front property in Florida? What are the chances that it will be under 3 feet of water in 50 years?
If I had any reason to believe that this were to actually occur, I would adjust the value that I'm willing to pay for that property downward.
The current price of beach front property in Florida is an indication that many people believe that such a scenario is not likely.
Most people probably believe that either the threat of flooding due to global warming is not real, too small to be meaningful, or we will find ways to reverse the process.
However, there is the free rider problem. Why should I, in Iowa or Michigan, care if it floods in Florida because I'm driving my SUV. There's a good case for government intervention.
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
Perhaps you are unaware of the concept of solar maxima and minima. As it just so happens, we're in the middle of an unusually long warming period for old Sol. But please, don't let facts like that distract you from your logic-lite argument.
I am fully aware of this.
And I'm so glad you're the one and only person on the planet that's been charged with the responsiblity of making this conclusion. No doubt the thousands of other climatologists who diagree with you are wrong, despite their years of experience and walls full of degrees. You, sir, know it all and have all the answers. I'm sure you sleep well at night knowing that.
Erm - that is you - you are ignoring the expertise. It is the thousands of climatologists who are fully aware of solar maxima and minima. Please provide some substantial scientific publications that demonstrate that solar intensity changes do indeed account for all warming.
The facts of the matter are this: for every it's-all-human global warming proponent there's also another equally-qualified opponent who can make a scientific argument to the contrary. The claim that there is "scientific consensus" supporting manmade climate change is the biggest lie there is right now.
Prove it. You claim it is a lie - then please provide numbers of papers for and against.
The biosphere of our planet is an amazingly complex system that we don't even begin to understand. To claim we know it all and can thus say that this caused that is the height of arrogance and hubris.
Ah - and that explains how you are so sure that solar output changes explain everything?
It is because things are so complicated that mankind working so hard to double the atmospheric CO2 concentration is so damn stupid.
That in your hurry to make a (very stupid) point about inflating statistics, you choose to inflate your statistics.
"Is unfortunately incorrect and a bit inflated. 500ft/lbs. of tourque is not needed to avoid an accident"
How many v-8's have 500 ft/lbs of torque? Percentage?
You don't like v-8's, and you think you've made a point about getting rid of them. Unfortunately your point is countered by every person with a boat, camper, or trailer of any kind.
You're wrong about v-8's, and your point is just plain dumb.
http://ndrd.gsfc.nasa.gov/ndrdres/natural-disaster s/Atmospheric_Carbon_Dioxide.html
= ecolog-l&P=5239
https://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0505d&L
You might want to check these out.
http://www.columbia.edu/~vjd1/carbon.htm
Here is a very simple explanation.
100% tax on oil. So it would double gas price so that it would be slightly cheaper than in europe.
Similar tax on coal.
Give permissions for building nuclear plants.
Start making federal railroad network just like federal highway network.
Federal goverment should handle the tracks [natural monopoly] while private companies would handle the trains.
Give private companies chance to give up their network for goverment. I mean, offload the expense of upgrading and keeping the tracks in good condition to goverment which probably has more interest there.
Increase amount people could earn without paying income taxes, for compensating the tax on oil, if there isn't deficit after these changes. Oh and get rid of SUV tax evasion.
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
No; the Sun is actually slowly warming up.
Huh? Someone better call god. The sun is violating the Second Law of Thermodynamics again!
But seriously, I don't think Sun's expansion or temperature change is affecting our current situation with global warming... But unless matter keeps getting fueled into the sun from extra solor system sources, its going to burn out (the majority of matter in the solar system is contained in the sun and even if it does consume all the planets via expansion its not going to make much of a difference).
Of course 10 billion years is a rather long time.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I have read many posts about taxing gas and having people live closer to their places of work. Well, I work in downtown Houston, and you're not going to be living closer to work due to the cost of living. Even if you find an affordable home close to the city, it's most likely going to be in a bad part of town. So, taxing gas isn't going to change where I live, it's just going to hurt me more since I'm going to be driving no matter how much the price of gas will rise. More than likely, I'll start driving my wife's 4-cylinder car to work and leave her the mini-van. Yes, I bought a mini-van since I refused getting an SUV for the very reason we're discussing this issue, however the mini-van still sucks gas at 19MPG (most likely less due to the traffic in the morning/evening).
Again, using an extreme example. Eugenics is a possibility. So do we owe it to our future generations to do something about it because in the late 1800's and into the 1900's science thought eugenics was real. It was of course not real and turned out to be an abomination.
I saw a study once which found that something like 98% of road wear and damage is caused by semi trucks. Unfortunately I can't find the link right now. The study basically said if you ran only standard passenger vehicles on the road, it could last for 30 years without resurfacing.
12 years is quite quick compared to how long it took America to accept plate tectonics! (Don't mention evolution...)
***You learn something Every day. And then you die.***
G(lobal) W(arming) Bush has admitted that global warming is real and that humans contribute to it.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Is this a problem with democracy? We seem to elect people often not based on who will make the best decisions in *all* areas, but only *some* areas.
Is this a problem with education? Would our current leader be in power if all of us were better educated?
Is this a problem with the media? Have they dropped the ball on informing us? Are they more profit-oriented and lazy than bearers of the truth?
Is this a problem with Americans in general? Are we too lazy to seek out truth and educate ourselves? Have we forgotten how to learn and let other people worry about big problems because an individual cannot solve a big problem alone?
The answer to these questions is: YES. A big problem needs big answers. And many, many groups to join together attempting to solve them. ALL OF THE ABOVE and more need to have a hand in the solution.
I plan to investigate geothermal heat (with natural gas supplement) for my next house. I'd love to do solar, but it may not be practical. My next car will get better than my current 25 MPG. I support light rail and have written my state legislators about it. I often ride my motorcycle when the weather allows.
I think if more people/groups did *SOMETHING* we might make some progress.
I call bull shit. I think they mean that 70% of respondants are willing to mark the box on the survey indicating that they think taking the bus is a good idea and everybody else should do it.
If 70% of the people were taking the bus there would be a lot fewer cars on the road.
Maybe they meant 70% of the people would take the bus if they didn't have a fancy new car with air conditioning and 7 speakers.
Or 70% of the people would take the bus if the bus ran down the street in front of their house and they put a bus stop in front of their neighbor's house.
or 70% would take the bus if they hadn't already invested in so much in cards with an incapatable architecture
It's not that many people couldn't accept the premise that the climate is getting slightly warmer. If that's all it was there would have been no problem. Rather, many people had a hard time swallowing the idea that they were personally at fault. But even harder to choke down were the invariable "solutions" demanded, such as banning the internal combustion engine, banning hairspray, mandatory recycling of everything, low flow toilets, etc., etc.
Maybe if people didn't have to swallow an entire cult-like ideology and associated lifestyle, maybe they wouldn't have been so resistant to the idea that the world was getting a degree or two warmer.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I really believe that W has a plan to wean us gracefully from our addiction to oil...
The potential of a huge windfall for his buddies precipitated by a global demand outpacing supply can't hold a candle to his sense of caring for the American people.
Speaking of W and plans...
Q- You know the big difference between viet nam and iraq?
A- W had a plan for getting out of viet nam
A couple of comments: It would be a stupid objection even if it were true, because computers and modeling technology have advanced enormously in 30 years. But in fact it is not. The so called "scare" was pretty much confined to this article in the popular press--nothing in the scientific literature supports the claim of a threat from global cooling. Moreover, the scientific paper that apparently inspired the Newsweek hysteria actually reported that cooling would be expected if the effects of human activities were not considered .
If someone had taken a poll 1000 years ago that found 93% of the people believed the earth was flat, it would not change the fact that the earth is round. Regardless of whether global warming is happening and whether human factors are the cause or a contributing factor or not, a poll does not affect the physical reality. The value of this poll (and I would think this would be obvious) is not in making a case for or against global warming, but determining if people are sympathetic to the proposed remedies. It would be silly for anyone to invoke the poll as evidence.
On this left wing site that Slashdot has become, that is necessary.
Anyone who has the temerity to post comments contrary to the left wing whacko point of view will see their karma crash faster than Ted Kennedy's car. This has the practical effect of stifling the speech of anyone who does not agree with the so-called educated left. Kind of a censorship by mob.
Pretty ironic given the amount of whining the lefties do on this site regarding the freedom of speech, scientist being muzzled, etc.
Scientific consensus on the effects of smoking long preceded public awareness. The tobacco industry ran the longest running, most expensive PR campaign in history to keep doubt alive.
They knew eventually it would fail, but it put off the day of reckoning for 30 years, and meanwhile the industry made about $100 billion a year in current dollars, and they liked those numbers.
Those numbers have presumably not escaped the notice of the extraction industries.
It's still happening.
The question is how much it has accelerated.
Old accurate temperature data is scarce.
Analysis is ALWAYS adjenda driven. The 'hockey stick' temperature data is a perfect example of adjenda driven data analysis. Mann has been completely unable to backup his results. He cannot reproduce his analysis. Attempts to reproduce his results required many arbitrary data fills and weightings. The 'hockey stick' temperature data has been shown to have been pulled out of the analysits ass. Mann refuses to publicly defend his results.
So in summary. The globe is warming. We don't know why.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Aren't solar panels just a certain type of silica? Couldn't we make an asphalt that doubles as a solar panel? Then use electric flywheel powered cars? US flywheels has those bitchin' carbon fiber flywheels already on the space station. Why can't we get those to replace traditional batteries by now? Anyone actually work with this stuff? I play violin, so what the fuck do I know!
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Unfortunately, all that means is the asshole who has 7 pools is the asshole who has the right friends in the government instead of the asshole who has too much money.
Well said... defense of capitalism can be tricky in some cases, but you're describing a poorly understood truth there.
Otherwise you just can't make european style transport systems work economically.
But for the Boston-Philly megacity it's basically there. The problem is to get it you have to live in a shithole like Boston.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
and hardly ever drive... not because of this mythical global warming, but because GAS IS FREAKIN $3/GAL!
I've read MANY of the papers by Overpeck and his ilk and not a single one of them make an assertive statement that global warming is because of our fossil fuel habits - not one. They all say it is "likely" or "very possible" or whatever, but they don't say IT IS.
Regardless of WHY the Earth is getting warmer, it is still getting warmer. It has been warmer than this in the past, and without the help of fossil fuel usage.
This is not to say that I am against phasing out fossil fuels in favor of carbon-cycle fuels, nothing could be better. But, the alarmist approach the "it's our fault" crowd takes simply removes any credibility, IMHO.
I have a pet theory that says that transportation is seriously undervalued, and that it's distorting our society in terrible ways. The whole issue of locality of manufacturing changes based on transportation cost, and if transportation is undervalued, manufacturing gets over-centralized, including to the point of being centralized across the world. Cheap transportation, even if temporary, assuming that "temporary" is long enough, can destroy the economic fundamentals of a region.
It also comes out in lesser ways, like driving to the big-box instead of the local hardware store, or driving to the super-duper-market instead of the local grocery. It even shows up in the lack of sidewalks at big-box complexes or even neighborhoods. (like mine) If you choose to not-drive, you're risking your life by the side of the road.
Hopefully the rise in fuel prices as we pass peak oil will be slow enough to allow at least some adaptation.
IMHO, it's too late to fight global warming. It's time to learn to live with it. That's what the whole "tipping point" thing is about. It's on it's way, and if we stopped cold-turkey today, it would still tip. About all we might be able to influence is how far and how long it tips - maybe. But there are other valid reasons for still trying to control emissions, like Peak Oil or air quality, etc.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
These guys have a cause, darn it, and they're gonna fight for it! Never mind the fact that the overwhelming majority of them don't even know basic details about their cause like how much the earth has warmed over the past 125 years (2/3 of a degree) or how much the sea levels have risen (on the order of a millimeter a decade, +/- the same amount). The fact that 2005 was the warmest in 125 years (records happen, and we're talking fractions of a degree over the previous record) and the one with the most hurricanes is clear evidence that people driving to work are killing mother earth and we're all gonna die! Actually, I haven't come across any studies indicating that solar output is increasing, but it is true that the Martian polar icecaps have been observed to shrink surprisingly over the last several decades. The fact that I haven't seen any such studies doesn't mean they don't exist. There is still a lot that we don't know about long-term solar weather. There also may be other factors affecting Earth and Mars independently. The most perplexing question is probably why does Earth go through very long term cycles of heating and cooling? The last major ice age ended long before human CO2 production became significant, yet the temperature difference during and after is estimated at 3-4 degrees (4-6 times as much as human activity has supposedly caused). Disclaimer: I don't claim that global warming isn't happening, but the evidence is not very overwhelming and the statistical correlation to human activity is downright underwhelming. It's definitely a bandwagon that people like to jump on though, especially during the summer and severe storms or in areas affected by smog (which is particulates, not greenhouse gasses).
Giving clean technologies to the developing world makes a lot of sense for example.
Basic R&D usually pays for itself in the long run.
Emmissions trading allows lowest cost emmissions to be cut first.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I am fully aware of this.
Funny, because you're completely (and purposefully) ignoring it.
Erm - that is you - you are ignoring the expertise. It is the thousands of climatologists who are fully aware of solar maxima and minima. Please provide some substantial scientific publications that demonstrate that solar intensity changes do indeed account for all warming.
Oh no no no sir...you've got it all wrong here. You see, it is you who is propounding the idea that we need to reduce CO2 emissions in order to curb climate change, not I. I am saying there is not enough data to make such a conclusion. The burden of proof is on you, dear sir, to provide unquestionable, unassailable, irrefutable evidence backed by broad, overwhelming, near-total scientific consensus that there is a need to reduce CO2 emissions as you advocate. When you provide it, I will promptly, fully, and without reservation endorse the concept of reducing CO2 emissions. Until then, you're spouting poppycock with no proof. You, like thousands of others, are guessing about the cause. If you're going to advocate such sweeping ideas like banning or significantly curbing CO2 worldwide -- and the associated negative effects that could cause global economic catastrophe, especially for developing nations who are huge CO2 polluters -- you'd better have mighty good evidence supporting your position. You don't, and neither does anyone else.
Prove it. You claim it is a lie - then please provide numbers of papers for and against.
If you weren't so blind to things around you (or living in an echo chamber) you'd be aware there are vastly differing opinions on global warming/climate change/whatever. Since you've obviously been content to arrive at your predetermined conclusion, I have no doubt you haven't bothered to research anything that disagrees with said conclusion. However, I'll do you the service of puncturing your self-insulated little bubble with the results of a quick Google search:
Three Views on Global Warming
Research, and Life Experiences, Put Scientists at Odds
Science Has Spoken:
Global Warming Is a Myth
Myths of Global Warming
The global warming myth and its selfish defenders
This is just a quick sample of the 3,940,000 hits I got searching for global warming facts and myths. Seeing as how you're utterly unaware of nearly 3.5 million websites devoted the concept of disagreement over global warming/climate change/whatever, I can only conclude that you're either too stupid to search for it, too apathetic to care, or too biased to risk exposing yourself to contrary opinions. I'll be generous and say it's the latter, but you feel free to give me reason to change that assumption.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
many of the green party I know are pro-nuclear. So dn't go comparing someone who wants to save old growth forrests with someone who is anti-nuclear.
Most people that are anti nuclear are not 'tree hugger' but ignorant masses that ahve spen there life being spoon fed nuclear horro stories without taking the time to study nuclear power.
I saw a lady stand up and be vehemently opposed to nuclear power becasue she didn't want radiation coming through the power lines.
That is ignorance, plain and simple.
If I am not istaken, the co-founder of green peace is pro nuclear.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
> Jamie adds: and all it took was twelve years of overwhelming scientific consensus.
Everything is overwhelming when you only look at one side of the argument.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
While your average run-of-the-mill "I'm on the internet" environmentalist may not be aware of those factors, most of the current research is.
But all of this research assumes a correct model of the atmosphere, and scientists have no such thing. We have approximations, with millions of variables in the mix. How does the earth's cloud cover affect its albedo? What effects do warming have on cloud cover? What about ocean currents, the prime (terrestrial) driver of our atmosphere? What about the unexpected long and large increase in solar maxima during this latest cycle? How has the sun's output varied in the past vis-a-vis its current variations?
This is but a minor, insignificant, beyond miniscule sampling of the questions we have no answers for, and any one of them could complelely throw the entire global warming question out of whack. It could be we've already passed the point of no return on CO2. It could be we never will, that the earth will be self-correcting for whatever us puny humans can do to it. It could be we're doomed anyway because the warming has nothing to do with human activities. Nobody can prove a single one of these assumptions, however, and anyone who claims they can has an equal-but-opposite researcher who can take the exact same numbers and come up with a completely different conclusion. In short, we don't know enough to be making any pronouncements, especially ones that have far-reaching negative effects on economies -- and thus people's lives -- worldwide.
Now there's a vocal subset of the environmentalists who say we ought to curb CO2 anyway, just in case. Well, I don't have cancer right now, but maybe I just get on chemotherapy...just in case, you know. After all, just because it'll cause my hair to fall out, make me vomit constantly, and make me susceptible to all sorts of diseases and maladies doesn't mean it's not a good idea "just in case," right? This is the logic of the "just in case" argument, where the results of the "treatment" may actually be worse than the malady you're trying to cure. It's doubly stupid if there is no malady to cure, or if you're trying to cure the wrong one.
Look, there is no sane person on the planet that would be opposed to reducing CO2 emissions if it were proven beyond a doubt that it's going to kill us all. The fact that there are so many people and scientists against the concept is because nobody has come forth with such proof. Personally I'd be in favor of increased usage of nuclear power, but that's something the enviro-nuts have all but killed in the U.S. I can only assume they want us to go back to living in caves lit by firelight...except that fire is a CO2 emitter...hmmm...maybe they want us to just return to darkness and live in the trees again. Evolution at its finest, I see.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
No; the Sun is actually slowly warming up
So how the heck are we suppose to stop Global Warming if the sun is getting warmer, we have increased Solar Flares, and our magnetic shield which keeps us alive is collapsing?
I have no solutions except trying to become self-reliant when it comes to food and electricity
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/leprechaun.html
I like your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter. Please tell me more about how parents of disabled children should put them up on the market so that thier vital fluids can be bartered off and extracted for our personal use all in the name of social darwinism. Also please do not forget to mention your ideas on how the liberal media gets away with such extreeme slant, considering all the major broadcasters are owned by strongly conservative republicans. How do they get away with that?!
Joule is a unit of energy, therefore, power (Watts) x time (Seconds). 1 J = 1 watt second.
Looks like a case of "the kids have the right idea, yet they won't actually do anything because the parents continue to set the wrong example".
Take the Kyoto Treaty. America put itself in an awkward situation as the only large/rich western country that DID NOT sign this treaty. Why? Tons of neat sounding reasons which I don't really care about (and don't believe in, but I don't want to get into that). In the end we have a somewhat uncomfortable governament that made a decision based on the strongest lobbying groups now defending that decision through blatent propaganda (something they are extremely good in). Leaving the general population devided and unclear as to wether global warming is a serious issue or not. Sad sad sad.
The first source you're quoting has nothing to do with whether or not humans cause a dominant CO2 rise in the atmosphere - it's just very long term trends: "what's going to happen to the Earth." It basically says "yah, the Earth's screwed in about half a billion years." This is ballpark what we knew already - planetary habitable zones migrate outward, and we're on the inner edge.
The second source stems all of its criticism of whether or not humans are causing the CO2 rise on a poor criticism - saying "ocean warming causes CO2 increase, so how do we know the CO2 increase is causing ocean warming, and not the reverse?" The answer to that is simple: we have a coherent model for warming due to CO2 emission. We do not have a coherent model for warming of the oceans causing CO2 emission. Occam's Razor chooses the first: the second requires an additional mechanism for generating ocean warming.
Actually, the second explanation ("ocean warming is caused by some unknown mechanism, which leads to a CO2 increase in the atmosphere") requires even more work than that: it also requires machinery to link the CO2 increase caused by ocean warming to that emitted by humans. The airborne fraction: that is, the fraction of CO2 emitted by humans that we see as an increase in atmospheric CO2 - has stayed pretty constant over 5 year averages.
Oh, and I saved my most damning point for last: you see, you can determine where the CO2 is coming from by looking at the isotopic composition of the CO2 in the atmosphere, and see if it looks like the isotopes from fossil fuels, or other sources (like the ocean). They're from fossil fuels.
The carbon dioxide rise is anthropogenic. There is no scientific debate about this fact anymore.
Erm - that is you - you are ignoring the expertise. It is the thousands of climatologists who are fully aware of solar maxima and minima. Please provide some substantial scientific publications that demonstrate that solar intensity changes do indeed account for all warming.
Ahh...it's so nice to have current news that just illustrates the silliness of your argument. So, if you read here, you see that there was massive global warming 247 million years ago that caused a great deal of death planetwide. So, tell me about all those coal plants, SUV's, and other modern-day accoutrements that existed 'way back when that caused such hideous global warming 247 million years ago. I'm sure they'll dig up a Ford Explorer fossil anyday now. Or (gasp!) could it be that global warming has happened before -- and may be happening again -- all without any ounce of input from us puny humans? Nah, that'd just torpedo your entire argument, wouldn't it? Can't have that, so let's move along...move along...
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
25.1 billion tons, not 7. 7 is just the US total. It does not include all sources, so it is actually higher then the 25.1 billion tons.
_ report/co2report.html#electricb leh1co2.xls
look:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/ta
The effects of glabal warming are readily apperent and viewable. They are not some abstract numbers on a piece of paper; further more the effects of global warming happening faster then the worse case scenerios projected by scientist in the 70s.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It is becoming more profitable for farmes to seel there organics for fuel then to the food market.
So as more people demand more bio-diesel, the price of food will have to rise to stay competitive. So the 200 buck a year you save from biodiesal will mean a higher grocier bill.
I would perfer that the US would clean up there diesel fuel myself. Of coursr that would increase delivery costs for food, but not nearly the impact of all organics going up.
Once a farmer decides they are going to sell to the fuel market, it will be in there best inerestes to grow organics better suited to that, as opposed to food.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"The most powerful greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is water vapour"
"A rise of just 1% of water vapor could raise the global average temperature of Earth's surface more then 4 degrees Celsius"
What could cause an increase of water vapor of this magnitude? Here's one theory.are having more impact on this planet than a thermonuclear furnace with the mass of 1.3 million earths outputting 2.8 x 10^26 Watts a meere eight light-minutes away?
Mere eight light-minutes? Why don't you go out and run that for me? We'll see how 'mere' it is after you've jogged it, kay?
Anyway: the Earth's atmosphere is a very significant player in determining the Earth's temperature. The Sun generates most of it: the Earth's blackbody temperature is ~250 K, and its actual temperature is ~280 K (to two significant digits). So the Sun generates about ~90% and the greenhouse effect about 10%.
The solar constant - flux from the Sun - changes about a tenth of a percent over the solar cycle. Over the past 300 years, that's about the same order of magnitude as the total systematic change: about a tenth of a percent to a half a percent.
So in order to have more impact than that "thermonuclear furnace", we need to change our atmospheric forcing by 1% to 5%.
Remind me again why you think this is so preposterous? We've raised the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide on this planet by 35%. Thirty-five percent! Yah. I think that might outdo a 0.1 to 0.5% increase in the solar constant.
Gosh, if "everybody believed in global cooling" back in 1974, you would think there would be more than one article, wouldn't you?
Check out the link from my previous post. Hansen's testimony is a matter of public record. I am not surprised that realclimate.org is backpedaling. I would be more impressed with these guys if they could model current climate conditions using historical data rather than making extravagent predictions. There's less money in that I guess.
an ill wind that blows no good
And what is with this hunger for government solutions? I just don't get that. Never have and never will. Has no one heard of the Big Dig (leaking like a seive last I heard)? L.A.'s subway to nowhere? The 105 freeway that took decades longer than expected? And half a hundred other big ticket projects that went awry? Seriously, you people who distrust big business and then cozy up to big government mystify me. Same for the opposite side, too.
And?
"I'm a snake if we disagree"-Jethro Tull, Bungle in the Jungle
If you include water vapor as a greenhouse gas, humanity contributes 0.28% of the total greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, of which 0.117% is CO2. It's not likely that such a small amount is significant.
Using the concentrations in the atmosphere as a percentage is silly: the forcing potential of each of the gasses is different.
See the IPCC report on the relative contributions of each gas. If CO2 was the only greenhouse gas present, the radiative forcing would be 25% of what it currently is. Humanity has increased the concentration of CO2 by 35%.
The forcing of each of the gasses isn't additive, so it's not entirely fair to say upping the CO2 fraction by 35% will up the atmospheric forcing by ~8%. Still, saying "it's insignificant" is very misleading - the radiative forcing of water vapor is small compared to carbon dioxide.
And incidentally, while the methane emissions from living plants will likely be significant, it would (at most) reduce anthropogenic methane emissions to about a third of the total.
Funny, because you're completely (and purposefully) ignoring it.
When have I done that? When does 'be aware of' equal 'ignore'?
If you weren't so blind to things around you (or living in an echo chamber) you'd be aware there are vastly differing opinions on global warming/climate change/whatever.
Sorry, you lose! I wanted refereed quality scientific publications, not rants.
And - guess what? Google hits don't equate to scientific research or proof!
I can only conclude that you're either too stupid to search for it, too apathetic to care, or too biased to risk exposing yourself to contrary opinions. I'll be generous and say it's the latter, but you feel free to give me reason to change that assumption.
I am a scientist. I have worked with doubt and uncertainty, and I understand how science works. Science is about contrary opinions. It is about refereed publications, not google-searched rants. It is about consensus built up over decades.
I am saying there is not enough data to make such a conclusion. The burden of proof is on you, dear sir, to provide unquestionable, unassailable, irrefutable evidence backed by broad, overwhelming, near-total scientific consensus that there is a need to reduce CO2 emissions as you advocate.
No, actually, it isn't. Because, strangely, for someone who rants on about controvery, you don't seem to accept that there is no unassailable proof for anything ever. We have to base all our judgements on the balance of evidence. The mere fact you have asked for such thinks proves you haven't the faintest idea about science, or evidence, and so aren't qualified to discuss these matters.
If you are prepared to engage in a debate based on refereed quality publications, fine. But if you are simply going to use google as your research tool, this is a waste of time.
"No; the Sun is actually slowly warming up."
Huh? Someone better call god. The sun is violating the Second Law of Thermodynamics again!
Of course it isn't. It is simply burning different fuels as its composition changes with time.
But seriously, I don't think Sun's expansion or temperature change is affecting our current situation with global warming...
Indeed.
Here is a very simple explanation.
Which is completely irrelevant, as it shows how carbon cycles long term on a time scale of millions of years, and excludes human factors.
Just FYI - ethanol/methanol IS NOT a good fuel choice. Those alcohol fuels are lower energy density than gasoline, and need to be burned in larger amounts (by mass) to generate the same amount of power. They actually tend to produce MORE carbon than gasoline does. Not only that, but alcohols are harder on various components of your fuel system (such as the rubber hoses).
What we need to do is use gasoline as efficiently as possible. A car converts about 15% of the energy in gasoline to mechanical motion at the wheels. By moving to a full-electric drivetrain, with gasoline or diesel-powered generators/gensets/fuel cells and a rechargable energy storage device, far higher efficiencies can actually be achieved. The downside is that weight and cost for a vehicle will be higher.
There are interesting battery technologies being developed now, if the consumer would accept the fact that dedicated BOVs are actually an excellent choice for municipal commutes, we could see more BOVs like the EV come back into the market. I know that electricity is generated from fuel in many places in the US, however, it's far easier to manage emissions from a few power plants than it would be to manage them in a general population of automobiles.
So how the heck are we suppose to stop Global Warming if the sun is getting warmer, we have increased Solar Flares, and our magnetic shield which keeps us alive is collapsing?
:)
The Sun is, on average, getting warmer on a timescale of hundreds of millions of years, and the collapse of the magnetic field will be relatively harmless - it is the atmosphere that shields us from most radiation - not magnetism.
Don't worry
You're absolutely correct. This is also why it seems to make economic sense to move massive amounts of food around the world in ships, meaning I can only get crappy near-dead garlic from China, while no-one in Australia seems to grow it any more (as an example). The same thing goes for the oranges and grapes from California, the asparagus from Peru, etc. No-one is paying the true cost of fossil fuel energy. Yet.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
Ahh...it's so nice to have current news that just illustrates the silliness of your argument. So, if you read here [yahoo.com], you see that there was massive global warming 247 million years ago that caused a great deal of death planetwide. So, tell me about all those coal plants, SUV's, and other modern-day accoutrements that existed 'way back when that caused such hideous global warming 247 million years ago. I'm sure they'll dig up a Ford Explorer fossil anyday now. Or (gasp!) could it be that global warming has happened before -- and may be happening again -- all without any ounce of input from us puny humans? Nah, that'd just torpedo your entire argument, wouldn't it? Can't have that, so let's move along...move along...
Yes - there was massive global vulcanism over a long time period that caused huge heating via CO2 release. It was called the Permian extinction.
Guess what? That isn't happening now - large areas of the surface of the Earth aren't covered with lava. The problem is that our CO2 emissions are affecting the atmosphere as if it was.
But anyway, let's follow your argument to its conclusion, in the context of a more recent extinction event.....
65 million years ago, there was phenomenal explosion due to an asteroid impact. Nothing us humans could do now could get within a thousandth of that effect.
So, here is an idea - let's let off all our nuclear weapons right now! We humans are so feeble, that it has got to be harmless, as the Earth has survived so much more!! Do you advocate that?
The point you seem to want to ignore that even though we can't do a huge amount, we need only do a little to shake up the climate a fraction to make life seriously difficult for a large proportion of humanity.
Hundreds of millions of years ago, 95% of all species disappeared. That is terrifying, as only a few hundred individuals of a species need to survive for it to continue. That means that virtually all life was wiped off of our planet.
Are you willing to risk a thousandth of that effect? A millionth?
Ok, Save the Earth if you want to - go for it! I'm all for you doing whatever you want to "fight the global warming foe", so long as it doesn't impact my plans or impact my family.
So much of the currrent arguments are based on emotion. I don't worry about the earth being here, there is no need to save it - it ain't goin' noplace until the Sun turns into a red giant.
A clean sweep of mamals might be a good thing. Global warming and global cooling have happened a number of times over the history of the earth - get over it, it is nature, or God if you prefer.
Who are you to deny God's wishes?
There are also implications for the cost per gallon of fuel there.
;)
They tend to buy gas (petrol) by the liter (litre) over there (thar').
1 US Gallon = ~3.785 liters. Considering that gas was about $2.60 per gallon here a couple days ago, so hey, let's use that figure. Do the math and people in the US are paying something close to 70 cents per liter of gas, ignoring regional variation.
Now, I can't find any information on the current price of petrol, but it was up to 92p in England a year ago after Katrina hit, so let's assume it's up to 100p or 1 pound. At the current exchange rate, that's 1.435 Euros for a litre of petrol. Multiply to get US gallons and we have about 5.43 Euros per US Gallon. Convert to US Dollars and we find that they are paying about $6.50 per gallon over there.
Just get over it and adapt. Global warming is not something that can be changed. The Earth has gone through many many cycles of warming and cooling. We are going into another cycle of warming. So invest in boats and water pumps and build flood control walls around coastal cities. Things are going to change. Adapt or die.
Or if you want an unchanging environment move off the Earth and live in space.
No; it is realistic and correct. We have already had a significant impact on the composition of the atmosphere in terms of CO2 concentration - the main source of warming.
No, the main source of warming is the Sun. CO2 might trap the heat in the Earths atmosphere, but the bulk of that heat comes from the sun.
No; the Sun is actually slowly warming up.
Is that mankinds fault? Or something we can do something about? If the sun gets hotter, so do the planets.
Yes - there was massive global vulcanism over a long time period that caused huge heating via CO2 release. It was called the Permian extinction.
Actually, we don't know why there was such a massive CO2 outbreak. If you'd RTFA, you'd know that vulcanism could not account for it all. There is speculation it could have something to do with massive amounts of methane being released from the oceans. However, nobody really knows why it happened. You are included in that group, by the way.
The problem is that our CO2 emissions are affecting the atmosphere as if it was.
Really? Prove it! You're the one making the statements here, buddy. Back them up. Show me incontrivertible evidence that manmade CO2 emissions are causing similar effects and you'll win a Nobel prize. You won't, though, because you can't. Far greater minds than yours have worked on this problem and been unable to come to a consensus conclusion. You are not special, so quit acting like you've somehow got it all figured out.
65 million years ago, there was phenomenal explosion due to an asteroid impact. Nothing us humans could do now could get within a thousandth of that effect.
I'll stop the quoting right here and just comment that your "let's set off all our nukes" argument is both silly and poorly applied. You are arguing for a drastic economic change for the world, a change that will have amazingly harsh reprecussions everywhere that qualify as catastrophes all on their own. You have backed up this "call to action" with...nothing. No facts. No figures. Nothing that can be verified. You freely admit your knowledge of the earth's atmosphere is incomplete, yet you're simultaneously claiming to know it all to the point where you can specifically state man is making the planet dangerously warmer. Orwell would be proud of your ability to hold two contradictory premises in your head at once and yet not recognize the contradiction.
It's this simple: if you're going to argue for a big change, you need big evidence. You don't have it. Go find and then get back with me.
The point you seem to want to ignore that even though we can't do a huge amount, we need only do a little to shake up the climate a fraction to make life seriously difficult for a large proportion of humanity.
Really? Prove it! Note that I'd hardly qualify setting off every nuke on the planet as "a little shake up." Furthermore, if you'd bothered to read some of the earlier articles I've shown you, you'd have seen that global CO2 levels and temperature fluctuations haven't always been in sync. Sometimes temps have risen without CO2 increases, other times temps have dropped despite them. All this points to the fact that our models for understanding the climate are woefully inadequate. But don't let that stop you from feeling full of self-confidence in them.
Are you willing to risk a thousandth of that effect? A millionth?
Do you know how many people might die of starvation if, for example, internal combustion engines were outlawed? How many people will freeze to death if coal-fired power plants are shut down? Sure, it won't hurt developed nations that much (more in the pocketbook than anything else), but other nations would be devastated. You could kill hundreds of thousands -- perhaps even millions -- with such stuff as CO2 emission bans due to increased costs of transporting food.
As with any risk, a thorough analysis must be made to determine (a) if the risk is real and (b) what are the costs of mitigating it. (A) has not yet been proven in any way at all. We have models, assumptions, projections, guesses, and wild speculation...but no solid evidence that says, yes, indeed, we humans are hurting the planet in a way that is dangerous and potentially unrecoverable, and the only method to correct the situation is to drastically curb the use of fossil fuels. You keep nimbly attempting to sidestep this point, and I'm going to keep right on dragging you back to
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The problem with that statement is that spending on gas is largely independent of income, while spending on cars is not. Increasing the tax uniformly would place most of the incidence of the tax on the people least able to pay. Almost all economists will tell you a gas tax is actually one of the least "fair" methods of curbing oil consumption.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
! If someone dumps on your property, you can sue for the damages. If someone leaches onto your property, you can sue. If someone emits some gas that kills a bird on my land, then, that's damages as well.
All of which are government solutions, *not* market solutions. This is due to the *fact* that the market does not address these sorts of things at all well.
That would be why it is possible to sue for these things since it was recognized long ago (by sane people anyhow) that the market fails miserably at many things.
This is you:
Someone walks into a crowded room. He says that there are too many of X, that X is terrible. It just so happens, that everyone in the room is studying to learn how to make things that get rid of X. They stand up and cheer and say "Yes, we must get rid of X".
Upon reading about this, you agree, that yes, there are too many X, and that yes, someone should do something about too many X. But, you call yourself ok because you, as the professor writes:
I do not bear any ill will toward humanity. However, I am convinced that the world WOULD clearly be much better off without so many of us.
In this case, X happens to be humans and his audience happened to be biologists. But, if someone said, X = black, or X = jew, the world would be in an uproar.
This is my sig.
Actually, we don't know why there was such a massive CO2 outbreak. If you'd RTFA, you'd know that vulcanism could not account for it all. There is speculation it could have something to do with massive amounts of methane being released from the oceans. However, nobody really knows why it happened. You are included in that group, by the way.
Yes, yes - I know. Much of the methane could have been released as a secondary effect of the original heating caused by CO2. The initial heating as a result CO2 did not have simple effects.
Really? Prove it! Note that I'd hardly qualify setting off every nuke on the planet as "a little shake up." Furthermore, if you'd bothered to read some of the earlier articles I've shown you, you'd have seen that global CO2 levels and temperature fluctuations haven't always been in sync. Sometimes temps have risen without CO2 increases, other times temps have dropped despite them. All this points to the fact that our models for understanding the climate are woefully inadequate. But don't let that stop you from feeling full of self-confidence in them.
At no point have I ever said I have fullconfidence in them. No-one who wants to call themselves a scientist should ever have such confidence. There are very many different effects that can cause temperature fluctations. They include orbital effects (inclination, eccentricity), solar fluctionations, ocean current directions, vulcanism (which, indicentally can work both ways - CO2 can have a temperature increase effect while SO2 can act as a barrier to sunlight).
There are many different controls for temperature, but what no decent physicist or chemist doubts is that CO2 is definitely one of them.
Do you know how many people might die of starvation if, for example, internal combustion engines were outlawed? How many people will freeze to death if coal-fired power plants are shut down? Sure, it won't hurt developed nations that much (more in the pocketbook than anything else), but other nations would be devastated. You could kill hundreds of thousands -- perhaps even millions -- with such stuff as CO2 emission bans due to increased costs of transporting food.
So you have gone from trying to deny that CO2 has an affect to arguing that if we react as if it does, we will cause problems?
No-one is seriously suggesting we shut down all internal combustion engines or coal-fired plants. But, what we should be doing is attempting to cut back on our ever-growing use of such things, and looking at long term substitutes - perhaps nuclear power.
As with any risk, a thorough analysis must be made to determine (a) if the risk is real and (b) what are the costs of mitigating it. (A) has not yet been proven in any way at all.
Sorry to be so blunt - I try not to be rude, but no-one with any sense could not see the plain evidence of increased arctic and antarctic melting, and increased sea levels. This is now historical fact, not subject to debate.
We have models, assumptions, projections, guesses, and wild speculation...but no solid evidence that says, yes, indeed, we humans are hurting the planet in a way that is dangerous and potentially unrecoverable,
Sorry, but we do have considerable quantative and qualitative evidence that human activity is having a dramatic effect on the CO2 concentration.
and the only method to correct the situation is to drastically curb the use of fossil fuels.
Please explain how else you would cut back on CO2 output without putting some restrictions on use of fossil fuels?
You keep nimbly attempting to sidestep this point,
Which point?
and I'm going to keep right on dragging you back to it. You won't like it,
How do you know? I thrive on debate!
but I'm going to force you to substantiate your argument. You can try all the "we'll be extinct!" scare tactics you want,
But you are mistaken! I am not going to say such scary things, as I don't beli
At last, something that is cheaper in the UK! When I moved into my flat two years ago I bought an energy efficient washer dryer for £300 and it works great. Uses less than 1 KW to wash and about 2.5KW to dry.
You are deliberately misquoting Dr. Pianka, which is LYING. You take his words out of context and invent meanings to say he's a monster. You're a LIAR, and I really hate you. Yes, I hate you. I don't think I've written that about anybody on Slashdot before, even the guy that I've annoyed repeatedly here for about two years.
Why don't read what he says on his own damned web site:
"I do not bear any ill will toward humanity. However, I am convinced that the world WOULD clearly be much better off without so many of us."
"What nobody wants to hear, but everyone needs to know"
What more do you need than that? It's right there for you in black and white and you can choose to pretend that what he's not advocating is genocide, but he just told you that EXACTLY that is what he advocates. He lays out the problem of excess humanity just as much as Hitler laid out the problem of too many Jews, or, if you buy into the left wing argument, Bush lays out the problem that there are too many Islamic radicals.
This so called Dr. IS a monster. He's no different from Hitler or Pol Pot or Stalin and you are just a stupid sap that falls for it, because instead of Christian Culture or traditional Khmer culture, or the Soviet Worker, its the environment that must be slaughtered for. He and others of his ilk are laying the groundwork for the worst and most unimaginable genocide ever conceived, killing people solely for the sake of saving other species on the planet.
Furthermore, there are witnesses to what this so called salamander loving quack said at this speech:
Speech
And, if his speech was so innocent, as you claim, then, why did this Nazi of yours demand that video cameras be TURNED OFF.
Something curious occurred a minute before Pianka began speaking. An official of the Academy approached a video camera operator at the front of the auditorium and engaged him in animated conversation. The camera operator did not look pleased as he pointed the lens of the big camera to the ceiling and slowly walked away.
Pianka hammered his point home by exclaiming, "We're no better than bacteria!"
He warned that quick steps must be taken to restore the planet before it's too late.
And here's the doctor's thesis watered down, ala Mein Kampf.
Your doctor, and other "humanity is the problem" advocates such as yourself, are no different than the Germans running around saying, "geez, there is this jewish problem, what should we do?". And you can talk as much as you want about sustainability and coexistence and changes in standards in living, but I know and you know that in your heart of hearts, you and the good doctor secretly cheer every earthquake, hurricane, and yes, are actually praying that the bird flu mutates into a pathogen. Well, except for your doctor, because he doesn't think it is good enough that ONLY 100 million people might be killed from it.
This is my sig.
No, the main source of warming is the Sun. CO2 might trap the heat in the Earths atmosphere, but the bulk of that heat comes from the sun.
'Warming' implies increase in temperature. The Sun does not result in an increase in temperature: its output is relatively constant. CO2 increase will result in an increase in trapping, hence 'warming'.
Is that mankinds fault? Or something we can do something about? If the sun gets hotter, so do the planets.
So what?
Yet you conveniently leave out the following sentences from your quote of the Wikipedia article.
Hmm...now why didn't you mention that little gem? Tell you what, let's just gloss over that and move on, forgetting that our historical knowledge of solar cycles is not even 30 years old, yet you're attempting to extrapolate data from the beginning of the industrial era.
Remind me again why you think this is so preposterous? We've raised the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide on this planet by 35%. Thirty-five percent! Yah. I think that might outdo a 0.1 to 0.5% increase in the solar constant.
In order to bear out your "35%" figure, you'd need to first state what the starting point was. Has it increased 35% since yesterday? Last year? A decade ago? 200 million years? This statement is so lacking in any substance that I'm inclined to disregard it completely. However, you must've gotten the figure from somewhere (hopefully not your nether regions) so I'm going to give you this opportunity to state where you came by the figure and what time period you're referring to.
However, in the meantime, let's cut to the chase a bit and see if this helps you any: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter
So, the DoE says CO2 might be doing this, but then again it might not. It's quite clear we don't fully grasp the situation of what makes our climate tick. Will reducing CO2 emissions curb the warming trend? Nobody can say yes or no to this. Indeed, if you want to examine the fringes of either side of this argument, you'll find some people say we need some sort of global warming to occur to offset a larger, longer cooling cycle the earth is going through. I don't happen to buy this argument either, and for exactly the same reason: lack of damning evidence.
You're claiming the CO2 levels track with the temperature changes. But, during that same time period (1950-present), untold millions of men have also lost their hair due to balding. Clearly balding is the cause of global warming! Toupee's for everyone! Don't you see how silly it is to tie everything to one variable when in fact there are billions of variables here? You're starting with a preconceived notion (CO2 is causing warming) and backtracking through your (sparse) data to prove it.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
You're guilty of the standard "Republican War on Science" meme that says we shouldn't do anything unless we're absolutely sure, and have iron-clad proof of a problem and its solution. If you were 99% sure a loaded gun was pointed at you, would you do something about it? How about 90%? 60%? For most sane people, there's a breakpoint far short of 100%, and you must understand that science -- our single best way of generating new and reliable knoweldge -- almost always falls short of 100%. Now, there's plenty of room for policy debate, and determining the best steps to take from an economic and social cost benefit analysis, but to ignore good science with a vast consensus because it isn't 100% is just foolish. Good policy should always be constructed with our current best understanding, not with wishful thinking (on either side), or the requirement of iron-clad proof. Proof is a very poor standard to use with respect to science, because it's rarely available, even when the science is very reliable.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
You're closer than perhaps you realise to an awkward fact (admittedly one of many) that politicians prefer to avoid: a deep green political
Well that's the whole point of my railing.
The great irony of the environmental movement is that you need a dictator to mandate a clean environment, and a dictator is the last person on the earth that would give a damn about whether or not the environment is clean.
Everyone looks at the "Tragedy of the Commons", and says, oh jeez, democracy fails in this case, and then starts looking for a king to fix it. And, then, your environmental movement comes grinding to a halt when the dictator decides he wants to dump plutonium down the grand canyon. Really, what dictators have ever been really good environmentalists? There's absolutely no need for them to do so.
And oh yes, you can try to have a "littler" dictator, a powerful central government with a huge bureacracy behind it, but all you are doing is slowing down the pace of corruption, and not confronting it. Absolutely power corrupts absolutely, its just that the rate of corruption slows down the more people share it, but in the end, you either wind up with a commons again, by sharing enough power, or you wind up with a dictatorship.
It happened to the Romans, and it's happening to the Americans too. People lose their faith in democratic institutions and seek autocracies as a shortcut to imposing their will.
This is my sig.
If you include water vapor as a greenhouse gas, humanity contributes 0.28% of the total greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, of which 0.117% is CO2. It's not likely that such a small amount is significant.
That is simply incorrect physics. Different types of gas have different absorption effects. For example, even small amounts of methane can have a dramatic influence.
What matters is not the amount - it is the changes.
How do you know we've had a significant impact on climate change? The most recent climate reconstructions (Moberg and others) have dumped the "hockey stick" graph used in the IPCC for one that includes the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period.
Some people have dumped it; others haven't. The consensus seems to be (for now) that it is real. Also, that many of those fluctuations were somewhat localised. We are now experiencing widespread and definitely global effects.
When you look at those new graphs, it's clear that there've been warming and cooling cycles before Mankind could have caused them.
Of course there have. It is not like the Earth was a simple stable system before mankind. However, to deny that dumping vast amounts of CO2 into the atmophere isn't a highly dangerous thing to do and that it could potentially (and most likely has) cause climatic shifts is extremely poor reasoning.
Recently, researchers have found "that living plants emit 10 to 100 times more methane than dead plants. Scientists had previously thought that plants could only emit methane in the absence of oxygen." None of the climate models currently account for the impact of living plants on GW.
And this is irrelevant. Methane levels are low, and if plants are doing this now, they have always been doing it. As I said, that matters is changes in things.
"Sunshine levels had been decreasing by 2 per cent a decade between 1960 and 1980 - a total decline of about 6 per cent. Now they are going up again. Perhaps this is why our Swiss glaciers are melting," Professor Wild said.
Yes, and this is because of pollution controls and a decrease in suspended particulate matter. This is now why our glaciers are melting - it is why they are melting faster, and why they will melt even faster in future. This adds to the effect of CO2 - it does not explain global warming - it makes it more worrying, as the effect of CO2 on temperature could well have been held back by past dimming of sunlight.
There are many different controls for temperature, but what no decent physicist or chemist doubts is that CO2 is definitely one of them.
And anyone who claimed CO2 didn't have anything to do with it would be a fool, that is true. However, your statement leaves out the single most important word: "signficant." Sure, CO2 can increase warming. It's a greenhouse gas. That's what it does. But -- and here's the clincher -- is it the most significant contributor to warming? If it is, we should do something about it. If it isn't, then we need to be worry about whatever else the cause may be. But, as of now, nobody can say with any certainty whether it is the most significant contributor or not. Ergo, it's silly to be making drastic changes globally to attack a problem that may not be the real problem.
So you have gone from trying to deny that CO2 has an affect to arguing that if we react as if it does, we will cause problems?
No, no, no. Do not put words in my mouth. I have never said CO2 has no effect. I am saying that no one has proven it is the largest contributor outside of other possible variables. Until that happens, it's pointless to concentrated on the assumed boogeyman when we may, in fact, be totally ignoring a far more dangerous problem.
Sorry to be so blunt - I try not to be rude, but no-one with any sense could not see the plain evidence of increased arctic and antarctic melting, and increased sea levels. This is now historical fact, not subject to debate.
Very true. And I will not -- and have not -- argued that the planet isn't getting warmer. Any fool with a thermometer and a logbook can show that to be true. What I'm disagreeing with is the root cause of the warming. You seem to think it's CO2. I'm asking you to prove it. You cannot. You can assume. You can hypothesize. You can guess. You can model. You can predict. But you cannot prove. You do not have enough data on the entire system to prove root causes. Nobody does. And unless we study this problem a whole lot more before taking drastic action, nobody will.
Sorry, but we do have considerable quantative and qualitative evidence that human activity is having a dramatic effect on the CO2 concentration.
[sigh] You keep missing the point, either due to ignorance or blindness. I'm not arguing about CO2 levels, I'm arguing about effects of those levels. How much extra warming of the atmosphere is due to the increased level of CO2? You don't know that. The best climatologists in the world cannot agree on it. All the computer models have margins of error so large that the CO2 either has already doomed us or it's not a threat no matter what we do. You seem to think the levels of CO2 are prima facie evidence of the cause of the warming. That's a very convenient assumption given the fact that you do not understand what inputs to our climate produce a given output.
Please explain how else you would cut back on CO2 output without putting some restrictions on use of fossil fuels?
There is no other method. However, it's not been proven clearly that doing so would affect global warming in any way at all. It might. It might not. It all depends on whether CO2 is the root cause, which has not been proven.
Which point?
The point that you have no hard data, no "smoking gun" linking CO2 to warming, other than the fact that (a) it's warmer now than it was in the past and (b) there's more CO2 here now than in the past. You're leaving out, oh, say about about billion other variables, some of which could be contributing far more to global warming than you're considering. But you've stopped considering because you've already come to a conclusion...despite your lack of a full understanding of the situation.
The problem is that I am not very happy with the idea of hundreds of millions of people suffering because of drought, or major wars over water and land resources, as climate c
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
There are plenty of scientists out there with counter-arguments and they're not all crackpots. Yes, some totally deny any warming at all and they tend towards crackpotism, but there is some hard evidence that suggests as much 30% of any warming we've seen is due to the sun's increased output over the past few decades (it's been covered on /. and other places). Before you go around saying "overwhelming scientific consensus" as if global warming is the next general relativity, check the facts. It's not as "proven" as some would have you think.
You are referencing junkscience.com, NCPA, free-eco.org and accusing someone of living in an echo chamber?! How ironic...
Tagged: Vaporware
The idea that Joe Citizen thinks that he can help out was the impetus for the launch of the first ever global warming public service campaign by the Ad Council and Environmental Defense. The ads are entertaining. Some think they are too light, others over-the-top, so maybe they strike a good middle ground for middle America? You can see the ads here: http://fightglobalwarming.com/viewads.cfm
Browsing quickly through this thread..... The bastards running sportscars, BMW etc... My Corvette C5 runs 29MPG MEASURED during mixed driving!!!!! AND it's not trashed after 5 or 10 years. Same thing for my M5 running MUCH cheaper than any small vehicles I've had. You may hate people with MONEY all you want, but stop lying to your self and everyone like you!!!
The answer is climate cycles.
'Global Warming' zombies:
Meet Charlotte, the Vermont whale.
Well,
Not quite right. Most of the scientific articles I have read state that the Earth's Magnetic field stops a bunch of the radition from hitting the earth, without that life would be hard pressed... Unless you have lots of SP99999 on you. =)
Either way the earth as we know will go cold and die. Pessimists of the world unite! =)
From the scientist in question.
I have seen no evidence of him advocating killing off people, only saying that if the earths ecosystem is to survive there must be a massive reduction in the population. And that ebola would be the most efficient method for this to happen.
Personally, I think the world would be better off if there were a disease that induced sterility in a large percent of the population instead of causing death. Much nicer that way. Of course that would have to be created instead of naturally occuring, and I do not support that.
A blog about stuff.
1. Eric Pianka is yet another example of far-left psychopaths in academia, like Ward Churchill - who is most likely your idol.
2. Why the fuck should you get a check, you commie? Land isn't owned by "everybody." Neither is air.
Sigh, you're such a dumbass...
WTF does your post have to do with gallons and quarts?
Admit it; you replied to the GP post so that your post would appear near the top, and for no other reason.
Moderators: Please mod parent down to discourage this sort of behavior.
WTF are "quads", WTF is "mud-blogging", and why would you want to blog in a river anyway?
I really get ticked off by comments like this!
Using biodiesel instead of oil is more sustainable. If all the cars used biodiesel, and we would continue to use it for hunrdreds of years, no additional CO2 will be added to the atmosphere. If, instead all these cars used oil, huge amounts of carbon will be dug out of the ground, and put into the atmosphere as CO2. Anyone fueling their car on biodiesel is doing the right thing (TM).
Now, it is true that you could remove CO2 from the air by growing crops and putting them in mines. But I don't see anyone pay 2$ a gallon for burrying crops into the ground. Any other use of the crops (food, fertilizer, etc) will eventually make its way back into the air.
We need a sustainable source of energy, and biodiesel is one, as far as CO2 is concerned. It is just as good as nuclear, wind, sunlight, or whatever. The only important question is how much space you need to use to grow all the crops, and where you'd get it from.
Regulation do not work.
Our country tries that every so often and then politics gets in the way. Think about all the de-regulation that JC did during the late 70's. In particular, he de-regulated oil (many republicans try to say that reagan did it; he did not). In addition, JC started the main push for alternative power. Cool. But Reagan came in, scaled back the alternative energy credits. Once the price of oil fell and American econ. took off under Clinton, then Americans moved back to low MPG autos. The poor then bought these low MPG cars. Why? because they were cheap. When the oil crunch hit again, the rich simply go out and buy hybrid cars. But what about the poor? They are stuck with low milage cars and can not afford to move to high milage because they have no liquidity.
So what is a real answer that can work.? A long-term Gradual, but guarenteed increase in Gas price. This will encourage the rich and middle class to move to high milage cars today. The poor will pick these up over the long haul. As the gas increase occurs, owners will slowly move towards none gas automobiles.
The correct way to do this, is to apply a tax against gas. Say an additional .25-50 / year with it written in to last for 8-12 years. We need the price to go up $2-4/gallon. This will encourage auto man. to look for alternative fuel or even drive trains. That is they will move us to hydrogen combustion or electrical autos.
Make no mistake about this. regulations do not work. In addition, one of the major problems with pure capitalist econ, is that it works great over a long haul, but allows lots of little spikes to occur which are normally quite painful. But a simple gradual, and known tax will tell all that they must move towards high high milage or alternative power autos.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I thought the goal was to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Reducing the combustion of fossil fuels would address that goal, switching to another combustible fuel - not so much. I think you're missing the point.
But I agree that there are a lot of similarities between the Bush administration and the strong federal leadership of Germany during the 30s & 40s.
Nobody can say that Bush doesn't listen to the people, we just think he ought to get a warrant first.
Of course Bush doesn't even recognize that there is a goal, to him global warming is just something made up by those people that the geeky kids who did well in school grew into. Any attempts to reduce emissions would be bad for the economy and therefore bad for Americans... Let the people in Venezuela, Chile and Brasil worry about emissions.
You're right that there are many, many unanswered questions. Your condition of "beyond a shadow of a doubt" before action, however, is somewhat in opposition to your first point-- if we can never answer all the questions because there are so many variables, we can never meet your criteria to act.
What we do have now is historical correlations between natural CO2 and warming, recent correlations (adjusted for natural emissions) between human CO2 and warming, and a reasonable (but obviously incomplete) set of of variables controlled for in the model.
While it would be entirely possible for the first correlation to indicate that natural CO2 emissions occur because of warming, and not vice versa-- this becomes highly unlikely in the case of man-made emissions. We do not emit carbon because it's warmer-- we emit it because we drive to work and use energy. Since our own increases in carbon produce an identical warming correlation with the natural carbon, it seems likely that carbon does in fact cause warming.
We are well past the point of "reasonable doubt," although I agree with you that we can't know for certain "that it will kill us all" or whether or not we have passed or ever will pass some sort of "tipping point" or "point of no return." All we know for sure is that carbon warms things, nature emits carbon, and we emit more than nature. Will the warming be devastating, or just a widespread annoyance? Why not take the conservative approach and make small, inexpensive changes now rather than rolling the dice on the future?
"Back up your answer with facts."
Good advice...
"All of the scientific consensus in the world has yet to produce a climate model that can *predict* the climate for *any* century in the past."
I call bullshit
"hockey stick" curve anyone?
I call implied bullshit
"hydrogen enthusiasts, water vapor is a greenhouse gas too"
Water vapour lasts 10 days in the atmosphere, unless you are expecting the oceans to boil what is the point of the second experiment you propose?
"Now a "consensus scientist" starts out with a single fact."
You have the terms scientific consensus and industry shill confused. Scientific consensus means the accepted scientific view, if you can point to ANY peer-reviewed study published in the last 10yrs that goes aginst the "scientific consensus" on AGW then please give a link to the abstract. While you are looking think about where all the FUD in the popular press could be coming from and who is paying for it?
After having said all that your first experiment asks some good questions that are still the subject of much research, however there are plenty of studies that attempt to answer them. The basic conclusion is "it depends on the exact method and logistics", some proposed systems are simply political-pork, others can make significant cuts in CO2 emmisions. OTOH: A strong global market for CO2 credits would rapidly find the most efficient large scale methods.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Ooo ooo, I want to play too! Two words: Cost Analysis
They call me the wookie man, I guess that's what I am
Nobody is giving all of the "global warmers" any credit here! And it's not global warming... it's Mars terraforming practice!
Seriously, we are going to need another planet at this rate.
In 100 years if we keep it up...
Are we hurting the planet? Hell yeah.
Will we destroy the planet? Probably not. It will adapt.
Will this planet be fun for humans to live on? Probably not either.
So lets decide right now... who's up for Mars?
(Enough incentive - PC cooling is a whole lot easier there.)
Good thing we have those giant ice cubes eh? They should cool us down real fast
They call me the wookie man, I guess that's what I am
After reading that, I no longer even want to VISIT the Netherlands.
Thanks for the warning!
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Perhaps you're just projecting your own study habits onto the rest of the country. ... You already abandoned our discussion about Intelligent Design because you couldn't be bothered to actually research evolution. Now you're taking potshots at the American people on grounds of superiority? Pot, kettle, black, et cetera?
I am glad we're finally doing something about this. We've had scientific consesus for some time now.