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Venus' Stop/Start History Highlighted By Probe
An anonymous reader writes "Science Daily reports on scientific findings from the ESA's Venus Express probe. The device, which is even now orbiting Earth's sister planet, is feeding back data hinting at Venus' origins. Initially, the probe has found, the planet evolved far too quickly. As a result Venus' liquid oceans were boiled away. With those gone, the planet's development stalled and ceased. 'They may have started out looking very much the same,' said Professor Taylor, 'but increasingly we have evidence that Venus lost most of its water and Earth lost most of its atmospheric carbon dioxide ... The interesting thing is that the physics is the same in both cases. The great achievement of Venus Express is that it is putting the climatic behaviour of both planets into a common framework of understanding.'"
So watching a two hour documentary produced by Al Gore is any better than somebody watching propaganda from some other source?
There are a number of problems with global warming/disastrous climate change in the arguments that are presented. Among them is deliberate manipulation of scientific data to promote more extreme recent climate data to promote their political agenda. Yes, falsification of scientific studies, and it doesn't take much. I've also seen a near religious tone from those who advocate the "awareness of global warming" with nearly all of the trappings of a religious society.
I'm not saying that there isn't bona fide concern about changes to our global and local environments that should be addressed, and from a conservative viewpoint the word is "stewardship". We need to be proper stewards of our environment and take reasonable steps to clean up our own messes. Certainly nobody like to breath polluted air; swim, fish, or go boating in polluted rivers or lakes; or walk across polluted ground that causes you to vomit even to see what is there.
There are some reasonable and legitimate steps that can be done, but the voices of moderation and those trying to make reasonable changes are being drowned out by lunatics on both sides of the argument: Those that want to bury their head in the sand and ignore the problem and those who want to eradicate human civilization taking us back to a hunter/gatherer lifestyle. Neither is a viable solution, so we need to find some way to work with what we have and allow our lifestyles to continue in a more environmentally friendly manner. That isn't easy to accomplish and will take decades if not centuries to achieve.
Problems to earlier pollution problems were found in previous eras, as street sewage and horse manure are no longer major problem in most industrialized communities. I have no doubt that solutions will be found for CO2, ground-level ozone, and other problems that current afflict modern societies. A regular theme in late 19th Century newspapers was concern about massive levels of pollution in cities... referring to all of the horse manure that wasn't being cleaned up and causing major health concerns. Indeed, all things considered, I think automobiles and trucks do far less harm to the environment than what they replaced.
Think about it. The climate changes all the time. However, the alarm was sounded over warming. When it stopped, they all the sudden changed it to change.
In comparison, if I am attempting to predict something and cause you to take a specific action by making the specific statement of if you watering your lawn will cause your well to go dry. Then when it doesn't happen change that statement to "if you water your lawn, someone's well somewhere will go dry, and attempt to claim I was still right in what I said when you and I both know that people's wells go dry for various reasons outside you watering your lawn; you would say I am crazy and attempting to scam you or something. It is perfectly reasonable to asume that I'm talking out my ass when something like that happens. On a similar side, when global warming stopped and they all the sudden claimed it was a global climate change which would or could happen for a number of reasons unrelated to Co2, you should be skeptical too. At least those of us not buying swamp land in Arizona and Florida are skeptical. I don't care what you waste your money on, just don't force me to feed your idiocies.
Well, lets ask that question. When they say that Co2 emissions are causing global warming and the temperature hasn't risen since they sounded the alarm and got people to sign onto a treaty that was little more then a pyramid scheme for most developing nations, Are you harming the environment with Co2 related to your living and enjoying life? (and BTW, I can show some numbers that back up the assertion of a pyramid scam on the Kyoto accord if you need it.)
Lets, take this one step further. Do you think that forcing others to pay more because of your belief in Global warming or not, is an acceptable plan of action?
You have states attempting to sue utility companies servicing their own state in order to place a carbon emissions tax onto the utility bills when the legislation of that same states are too chicken to come right out and do it with legislation. These states aren't stupid, they know that any winnings or penalties will be added onto the electric bills that both the citizens pay to live and the states and municipalities pay to keep the government running. It will be no different then the cigarette lawsuits except instead of effect 25% of the population of the state, it will effect 100% of them.
The bias comes when government and international organizations hijack the cause in a mad attempt to push their own agenda into operation. The suing of utility companies is only a hidden tax without actually passing the legislation, Kyoto is more or less a redistribution o