Depends on what type of driving you are doing. On the highway in a mountainous area I regularly get about 35-38 MPG in my 99 Corvette. In town I usually pull mid-twenties. I'v ebene able to get close to 30MPG in town when I consistently try to. If people pay attention to what they are doing they can save significant amounts of fuel. If their car has an "average MPG" readout/gauge and an "instant MPG" they can learn to drive in ways that dramatically increase their fuel economy. IMO the Prius having an MPG gauge of some sort entices it's owners to learn to improve their driving = just as it does in other cars that have them.
The primary non-human factor in higher MPG vehicles is mass - weight. It affects two of the three uses of energy expended. GM did experiment with a single-seater, "The Lean Machine" - a play on words. It was lightweight, three wheels (Wheels are rotating unsprung mass, particularly irksome), and leaned into turns like a motorcycle. It reported 100+MPG. In the 80's.
The point to be fighting this application is PRIOR to it becoming a patent. Are you saying you'd rather not hear about these until it's much harder? I'd rather we know about these before they are approved and can still be fought much easier.
The real regret is that most of these articles could be about any of the last several presidents.
Pretty much every one of the last several presidents replaced all or nearly all of the US attourneys - except the most recent one. Funny thing is the President has full constitutional and precedential authority to replace them. So why the uproar about him doing things he can and should do? "Oh, it's Political" is a bullshit argument. How is an incoming President replacing ALL of the attourneys his or her predecessor put in NOT political?! At least if you only replace a few there *might* be non-political reasons behind it.
There was a plethora of stories about Clinton and moving toward Martial Law. Same of the previous president. Probably of the last few. Clinton or the prior Bush signed executive orders regarding transfer of control of many aspects of modern industrial life and sectors to the government under FEMA authority. Attourneys have argued for years that the 2nd Amendment only applies to state sponsored militias. Even your linked article says that the thought process goes back to the mid-20th century.
Gonzales is right, the constitution does not explicitly grant the right of habeus corpus. However, the spin in the article make it seem like that's a bad thing. Actually it is a good thing. The US constitution is not an enumeration of rights to be viewed as an inclusive list. In fact if you actually take the time to study the debates surrounding it's creation you will see that the reason the Bill of Rights "rights" were not present in the original constitution is because the framers knew that by listing the rights they would be facing a future where the government would say "the right is not listed so you don't have it". Instead the prohibition against abridging certain rights was to establish that certain rights are sacrosanct to the formation of the government - without them the government is a tool for those who would do "evil things" to the citizens.
The constitution of the US is intended to limit government, and Gonzales' statement regarding H.C. is spot on. The article you linked then tries to compare that statement to other "rights" but again misses the mark - perhaps for political gain or more likely sensationalism? Read the constitution and you will find that it does not grant rights, but limits the government. Specter should have known better, and so should the author of your article. And so should you. Just because a right is not explicitly "granted" in a document that limits government instead of granting rights to the individual does not mean you don't have those rights.
Did you notice how the article did not quote Gonzales saying you don't have the right, just that the constitution does not grant it? Go read it again.
I know it's fun and popular to look at whomever the current president is and bash them, blame them and their cronies for our current statism, but the fact is that it goes back a long way. It is also the case that in so doing you miss the longer term effects. Replacing Bush will not change things. The previous Bush enacted several EOs that concentrated Executive Branch power, but did Clinton remove them? Nope, he added to them. As long as you focus on the players and not the play, you will always have something to complain about even if eventually you no longer are allowed to actually complain.
Corporate IT departments care about compatibility, stability, security and ease-of-support among other things.
I disagree. IT wants us to think that but it generally isn't the reality. Some IT reality:
* Most employees do not need Internet access and publicly available email. * Most employees do not need office suites * Many employees, perhaps most in the broad category of "employees" do not need computers.
The reality of it is that if IT really wanted security, ease of support, and stability, they would spend time analyzing the actual business needs of the company and move in that direction. Take for example a 4000 person company that makes widgets. The vast majority of those employees more often than not will have no business need for public email or Internet access. The sales and marketing force, execs, PR people, and the engineers should have it. But the people on the floor, the custodial crew, etc. generally will have no need for it.
A company can have internal email access and even an intranet without giving everyone an external email account or Internet access. This dramatically reduces not only the cost of IT but the attack vectors, security issues, and support requirements. If a 4000 person company can work with only say 150 Internet-connected employees they will see dramatic savings over that same company giving email and Internet to everyone there. Those with public access can be set on their own "network" treated similarly to a DMZ.
Instead, IT like any other of the corporate bureaucracies seeks to expand and maintain itself. Thus rather than recommend that the groups that have no business need for public access not have it, they instead lobby for more money to expand support bodies, more money for more software, etc.. No, generally speaking corporate IT is interested in sustaining and growing itself; not security, nor compatibility, stability, or ease of support - let alone advancing the business of the company.
For a LOT of families, that second income is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. Mortgage payments are higher than they've ever been. Gas prices are higher than they've ever been. Work for a company that doesn't provide insurance? Insurance prices are ASTRONOMICALLY high.
Wages are higher then they have ever been, and more unnecessary luxuries are deemed as "necessary" than ever before. Blah blah blah. How about using real data? Raw numbers are irrelevant. you need to compare the indices to get a real picture.
Yes, a lot of those families probably don't manage their money particularly well. But even if they did, they probably wouldn't be saving much. They'd still live paycheck-to-paycheck, they just wouldn't be going into debt every month to pay bills.
You are so wrong and your assertion is a prime example of what is wrong. Congratulations you are perpetuating the problem.
Fact is most people, including families, can save a lot of money by paying attention and separating needs from wants, then taking a hard look. For example, take the young couple who become parents. What is the "mainstream" route for them? both are to work so they can have two cars, cable or satellite, plenty of toys for the grown ups, buy formula and diapers. But what really happens? What is really needed? First, the secondary income (hers or his, usually hers) is dwindled away by the cost of childcare and additional taxes. For most people I've dealt with the net "loss" in income from mom staying home is very minor, and more than a third see a net increase in monthly cash flow. That job mom has making 1000/month is usually more like 150 after taking into account the cost of having the job such as transportation (including a second car and the accompanying payments and insurance), childcare, etc..
Next we turn to the "cost of the child" beyond babysitting. Let us start with diapering. Most people lament the high cost of disposables. And rightly so. Disposable diapers are expensive as hell. Cloth diapers and a washing machine are much cheaper. Now I know many of you are having this image of a sheet of fabric held together by "safety pins". This is not the state of cloth diapering today, nor has it been for a decade. Today's cloth diapers are actually easier than disposables to use. A simple "pickle bucket" setup and a good washing machine will ensure that you don't have this stench about the house. If that isn't enough, the cloth diapered children are less cranky due to less irritation, and healthier due to not having chemicals applied to their nether regions that have been banned from feminine hygiene products for toxicity reasons. Using cloth diapers for the first year alone will save over two thousand dollars on average - including the cost of washing them.
Now we turn to the other high cost of young children: formula. Again, by taking the natural route you can save thousands. In addition the children are healthier and happier (by not being as cranky and irritable). Breastfeeding is also very convenient for the parents as well. And while on this subject news flash: a separate nursery for the new baby with beds, changing tables, etc. is also entirely unnecessary. Another several thousand dollars you don't need to spend. Baby should sleep with mom and dad for the first year or so. Don't worry dad, if mom is breastfeeding you'll still sleep well -usually better even.
I've done the mainstream route as well as the route listed above. I can personally vouch for over 5500 in savings for the above route over the "standard" of baby getting room with all manner of furniture, bottles, formula, disposable diapers, etc.. For one child, first year, not counting the unnecessary daily childcare costs. Yet all this is considered "absolutely necessary" today, and it isn't. Buying cotton clothing for your young children (birth through at least 3-4) instead of the more expensive polyester clothing will keep you from spending on "fad" clothing that is really unnecessary. honestly, your 6 month old doesn't care what
No, the system was designed for the people, but the lawyers got their hooks into government and converted it by establishing a protected class called "attourneys"; protected in that only they can "practice" law. When that happened the laws got more complicated in an effort to justify their status as a protected class. Now their position is that they are protecting you by knowing all the aspects you could not possibly know. Not that they do.
When laws are too complex for average people who do not spend their lifetimes in "the law field", you have an oppressive society. For all the libertarian or anti-statist people's complaints about things such as the USAPATRIOT Act or "Total Awareness", etc. the real source of a police state is in the ability to 1) make you a "criminal" and 2) keep you from properly defending yourself.
Item #1 stems from the fact that governments really only have any authority over criminals. Thus in order to establish more control they need more opportunities to make you commit a crime. This brings in item #2.
Item #2 has two aspects:
A) Knowing and understanding what is actually illegal
B) Being able to show you did not actually commit a crime
I submit that 2A is solidly in place. The Federal code along can fill U-Haul trucks when printed on normal sized paper in small font. The notion that any one person knows everything that they could possibly do wrong is absurd. IMO this really tosses water on the notion that "ignorance of the law is no excuse". I also submit that 2B is also firmly in place, as it is a corollary of 2A. How can you show innocence when you don't understand the rules?
To use a phrase, the lawyers are foxes and the hen house is our government. It is often pointed out that "government occupation certification" schemes such as occupational licensing are bad in that they serve only to establish or maintain a monopoly on a given industry. Those in charge of the licensing will raise barriers to entry, in the name of the people, in order to protect their position. The prime example of this is IMO lawyers and the laws.
To use a South Park reference:
1) Make it illegal for average Joes to "practice law" 2) Make the laws to complicated for average Joes to even understand 3) Make obscene profit
Our current system is not a result of design work, but of an occultation, usurpation, and perversion by the Lawyer Caste.
* where the money is going instead? To different NASA projects or to other state projects outside Presumably other NASA projects, according to what I read
* is there less money overall? It is rare to find the US government spending less money overall. Money "not going to NASA" is going elsewhere.
* is the budget determined by the President or the Senate? The Senate holds the purse strings in the US government.
* is there consensus on the role of NASA, or is there variation between Democrats and Republicans? It varies based on how much NASA spends in a given district. The bigger NASA is in a given district, the more that Senator/Representative thinks it's role is important.
* if there had been less spent on Defense [say Iraq war], would that have been allocatable to NASA? Not necessarily. It's essentially one big pool. It goes the other way as well. People often assume that money spent on NASA could be spent elsewhere - usually their pet projects. But the reality is it doesn't work that way. Further, much of the funding for Gulf Wars II is either part of the "normal" defense budget or additional appropriations (i.e. borrowed). This is on contrast to how the NASA budget, in particular Apollo was affected a few decades ago. In that case, funding was actually cut and sent elsewhere. Nowadays, we just borrow additional money for wars. NASA's budget in the overall US Federal budget is actually rather small.
When you are talking trillions, a few billion is "noise". That said, a whole lot of "noise" adds up in the big picture, just not the little one.
You don't consider the cultivation of livestock a human activity? Seriously? Maybe he's part of the IPCC which also doesn't consider it to be so.
In a sense they are right. Cow gas and cow belches are not human activity. Yes mankind has increased the numbers of them.
And the key difference is political impetus and control. Seriously, bovine contribution to GW is approximately 11% greater than human industrial outputs. But you won't see the AGW disasterbators saying we need to reduce the number of cows, or put cows under collection facilities, etc.. Why not? Because for most of the AGW disasterbators it isn't about the environment or the science. It is about control and forcing people to live a lifestyle the AGW disasterbators want them to.
The AGW proponents say it is our industrial output (particularly cars and the "carbon footprint"), but don't talk to the media about the other sources -even when said sources are greater in GWP. The worst moment for AGW proponents was when the founders of the notion said they needed access to government to get them to change the laws to make people do things. It's been downhill since then.
Ed lives, breathes, talks, and walks the environment.
Sort of. Ed also makes it look bad. he misses a lot by falling for most 'saver" methods. Personally I've yet to figure out if his reality show is a con on him or not. Take for example his "rainwater collection" system of a 40-55 gallon drum. Anyone who actually uses, has designed, or developed a rainwater system knows that this simplistic method doesn't actually accomplish the goal. If people see this and think "hey I can do that" and do what he did, then they will "blame" the concept rather than their failed implementation. This is no different than people's association of "solar power" with PV cells. Ed is a great preacher when preaching to the choir. When he speaks to the heathens he comes off as a loon and harms more than helps his cause.
That said I do like that he drives his Prius to events rather than flying, and rides his bike or walks whenever feasible. However, buying "carbon credits" for his wife to fly does not actually do anything for the environment. Likewise, insisting on "no bag" at the store is also foolish and not-helpful. It's theater for himself and nothing more. if he was educated about the realities of the entire system he'd choose paper and compost the bag, for example. Ed is essentially driven by guilt. Someone has made him feel guilty about his existence and he is driven to "make up for it", thus he is easily led into anything that might relieve him of some of that guilt.
I call it "chaotic organization". It isn't a mess, nor is it cluttered, nor is it disorganized. Decades ago I proved it to my mother who quit nagging me to 'clean my room'. One day I got fed up with it and told her it was not messy or organized, just chaotic to her, and that I knew where everything was. So she quizzed me. She would ask me where something was and I'd tell her. She would then check. After about 15 minutes of this she realized I was right. And quit nagging me about my room's "chaotic organization".
What is sad to me is that we still have people that insist that there is one best way for pretty much everything. Well, the "neatness nazis" are claiming their way is best, most "chaotic organization" people simply say theirs works for them. Go figure.
My desk is chaotically organized. I've found the phrase "A clean desk is a sure sign of a sick mind" quite appealing. My computer racks are strictly categorized as are my woodworking and automotive tools. Even to the point of the drawers being labeled (that's new and still advancing however). There is a good reason why for me one works in one area and fails in another.
Ethanol is highly inefficient when mixed with gas, so you lose efficiency in your MPG, so that causes you to buy more fuel, so it is a nasty little cycle.
Saab (GM) has a vehicle that runs anything from 100% gasoline to 100% Ethanol. It gets better MPG on 100% ethanol or E85 than it does 100% gasoline. How does that fact square with your assumption? It isn't a matter of the mixing making things inefficient, it's the assumption made when designing the engine and powertrain. Consider this: a smaller engine that makes use of the higher quality of energy in ethanol (that's what octane basically measures though in detail 100% ethanol has no octane because it does not have the components that octane actually measures. Ethanol and Ethanol/gasoline mixes have an equivalent octane based on their ability to run higher compression without detonation) can be used to replace a larger gasoline engine. This can lead to less fuel consumption.
In fact, studies that have involved taking gasoline-only cars (capable of running E10 per mandate from the 80's) such as small sedans have shown that mixes of up to 15% (the highest they tested) ethanol show increases in fuel economy.
Sugar ethanol is much more efficient, 4x much so I believe.
Corn is, from a process and return standpoint the absolute worst choice for ethanol feedstock. Sugar is much better. However, the reason we don't have a sugar-based ethanol industry here yet is due in greater proportion to the relatively small amount of sugar crop grown in the US. Sugar cane has much higher water requirements, and much warmer or tropical-like climate requirements. That has a much more powerful impact than subsidies and protections.
Ethanol can be produced from many sources including coal. Switchgrass is a "popular" choice - where popular means "the upcoming starlet" type of popular, not the "most used" for the US. This is because comparatively speaking it's growth and harvest requirements are far, far less than corn or sugar cane. It requires less input, and has a higher output. There are others that show even greater results than switchgrass, such as members of the miscanthus family.
Sugar beets yield around 700 gallons/acre in France, Sugar Cane in Brazil around 660gal/acre. Switchgrass comes in around 1000 gal/acre. Miscanthus tops the charts at around 1500 gallons/acre. Corn comes in around 400 gallons per acre. Nypa palm is not something the US could grow in large quantities but it's production in the southern hemisphere such as Brazil is showing ethanol yields in the 1500 gal/acre range as well. Unless something is discovered about the Nypa palm that makes it too expensive or risky to use, I would not be suprised to see Brazil double it's production of ethanol over the next several years by converting their feedstock crop over.
So while your memory of 4X is far from accurate, the general sentiment is correct.
Note that the studies being done with Miscanthus are showing that if 10% of Indiana's current farmland were switched to Miscanthus, they would be able to supply over 4 billion gallons/year of fuel. They currently use 5 billion gallons per year.
We aren't using that because we have subsidies and trade protections for the sugar farmers.
We have that for the corn farmers too. Doesn't seem to stop them from doing it. Sorry, but the issue is not as simple as you make it out to be. If only it were.
how about we get rid of all them? Including the oil subsidies. No more US military providing protection for oil tankers and foreign and domestic oil fields. No more protectionism on our crops and other products either. No more farm corporation subsidies. Did you know that the subsidies on crops actually led to the destruction of the small farmer? Fat lot of good it did. It's high time to get rid of them. All of them, including the petroleum industry ones. Let them all stand or fall on their own.
You say "On human time scales, fertile topsoil is not a renewable resource.".
So let us define human time scales. Is two-three years a human timescale? I'd certainly say it is. Would you disagree? If so please provide your belief on what a human timescale is. I've personally taken sandy dirt that for years wouldn't even grow weeds (note the 's';) ) - as in bare ground, and in a matter of one year turned it into land that could grow basic "green manure" plants. The following year it was growing food. Good, tasty food. No commercial fertilizers were used. Just compost, dirt, and plants.
It is a matter of applying knowledge of how the system works naturally. What causes the misunderstanding is that people, including academics, assume that the practices of the "big/corporate" commercial farmers represent the peak of our agricultural knowledge. The key fact is the practices of the commercial farmer, the row setup, tilling, and fertilizer patterns are not representative of the best by any measure other than "makes it easier for machine harvesting". Using techniques and methods known and developed over the last several centuries (and in some areas over the last couple millennia), higher yield and quality is obtained by not using the row-crop methods. But these alone are not the only changes that demonstrate the fallaciousness of your assertion.
Even the "simple" change of moving to a no-till system of farming dramatically changes the soil and it's fertility. It increases it. No-till farming cuts down on water use, chemical use, and drastically reduces fertilizer and chemical residue run-off. All of these are good things, and increase or maintain (depending on the previous state of the spoil) soil quality. Millions of acres have been used with no-till methods for years with no depletion of soil quality.
The primary topsoil destruction vector is runoff. No-till drops the amount of runoff dramatically. For example in wheat fields studies have shown a full-till wheat acreage to have 4.2 tons/acre of soil runoff/By switching to a no-till method the runoff drops to about.2 tons/acres of soil runoff. That is a reduction of about 95.23%. With this level of soil runoff, collection methods for recovering the soil are actually manageable and realistic. But this is not the complete picture.
One of the aspects of no-till is the use of "cover crops" or "green manure". This part of the process involves growing a different an "overwinter" crop. These crops are usually of the clover or legume family with the primary intentions being to keep the ground covered and healthy (avoids sun-baking and erosion), fix nitrogen, and reduce weed incursion during the "off" season. Reduction of weed incursion reduces the use of herbicides. Once a field has been converted to a full no-till system and has been in place for two years or so (depends on the previous state of the topsoil, the weed levels, the crop choices, etc.) herbicides are generally reduced by large amounts, in some cases virtually eliminated (that's 90+%). The reduction in herbicide usage maintains a healthier topsoil. In a matter of a few years vast amounts of acreage can have their healthy topsoil replenished and set on a course of maintenance. As an added benefit, no-till reduces petroleum usage and leads to lower costs and equal or greater yields after the first couple years of migration.
So this notion that "fertile topsoil is not a renewable resource" on "human timescales" is absolute bunk. Find a patch of land that has been sterilized, and you can bring it to a robust healthy topsoil state in under three years; without the use of (man-made) chemicals petroleum usage, or heavy equipment. You can find the details at your local library - even in books a couple decades old.
We can't seriously believe either side, but must stick to logic and examine all the facts. Both sides have their hysterical evangelists and paid shills.
This is true. It is also true that there is a risk and danger in public disasterbation.
And poster of the story/author of the blurb commits one of them. The poster referred to "the warmest summer US winter in years". This winter's temperatures are irrelevant to GW, AGW, NGW. Would the poster say that GW/AGW is obviously not a risk if this summer is one of the coldest US summers in recent years? The variance in annual temperatures is not part of the GW/AGW proponents' position - and rightly so.
First of all, the GW/AGW people say that the average temperature will rise. There are many ways this can happen, and a warmer winter is not necessarily one of them. Oddly most people understand this, sadly they don't think about it.
Furthermore, AGW==disaster proponents (the aforementioned disasterbators) are eager to tie anything to AGW. From tsunamis to finding whatever weather changes in your areas you wouldn't like and saying that will happen. Yes, this is the vocal minority doing it, but that's the problem; and some of them are doing it right here on/.. I'd say "you know who you are" but sadly, you probably don't. The man on the street sees these claims, sees they are full of hot air, and does what? Dismisses or discounts the entire thing.
The other side of the problem is econazis hitching all of their "solutions looking for a cause" to AGW disasterbation. There are a great many things we can do that might be good to limit AGW that are good ideas even if AGW is entirely bunk. How is this bad? The more stuff is piled on to a notion the more we tend to discount it. It is also bad in that by tying these things to AGW we increase any harm or delay any benefits.
For example, as long as their is public dissent or doubt about AGW, or the costs associated with changes to limit the alleged AGW causes, anything tied to to is delayed due to doubt and suspicion, and caution. Further, if it is shown that GW is more likely to be natural than anthropogenic, or it is shown that we can't stop AGW - i,e. we've reached the tipping point as some disasterbators have claimed (and other climate researches have dismissed) then these measures lose their impetus.
When they lose their impetus and the proponents of them come back with another one, then they lose more credibility because they are suddenly looking for a cause to be the solution for. Ultimately, however, we have the instigators of the AGW hypothesis to thank for this. They stated up front that they should be changing policy and some have been shown to favor hyping the negative and downplaying any positive or non-negative aspects in order to scare the public into taking action they want done. All in the name of them being experts and us being idiots of course.
The AGW disasterbators are the greatest thereat to civil discussion and thorough research, and are their own worst enemy. And in so being, are among mankinds worst enemies.
. I don't think it's appropriate to bash people like this, when they clearly don't have a good grip on reality
Well that leaves out most celebrities, politicians, and tech reporters as well as a large portion of journalists and academecians, most lawmakers, most lawyers, the RIAA and the MPAA.
I'd wager it is just as much abut getting companies to have "Microsoft Trained" people in order to raise barriers to alternatives to MS. This isn't aimed at big corporations, people. This is aimed at small businesses. Gotta get those small businesses better indoctrinated, after all.
At this rate, when we're all in our 80s, our colons will be sending instant messages to our brains reminding us not to shit all over ourselves.
Sure, it's funny now, but it is also likely to be true, or damned close. After all we've got some good research and experiments in reestablishing "communications" between muscles and the brain.
Now, when the ED medication people catch wind of this tech, watch out. We'll be seeing Smiling Bob commercials where he "turns it on and off at will", and slashdot will have jokes about the mechanism being hooked up to clappers.
The bot is already on borrowed time and they've been thru the process with Endurance crater.
So in your opinion your car/truck is on borrowed time when it runs out of warranty? After all that's a pretty fair comparison. Nobody on the rover teams said the rovers wouldn't keep working, they only planned on a mission duration. The automakers don't say your car will drop dead after three years or 36000 miles; that's just the duration they plan to "support" it. And like the rover teams' extension, most if not all new car manufacturers will sell you warranty extensions.
Don't like the car metaphor? Fine go with electronics. Is your TV on borrowed time because it is out of it's 90 day warranty? Here too the stores will sell you extended warranties.
Sure the rovers are rather cool but to say they are on borrowed time is just useless hype.
On the other hand, it's refreshing. Nobody should have any illusions that Warhawk is a decent or even good single player game. I've got no problems with companies releasing MP game sonly, just as I have no problem with companies releasing SP only games. Why does every game have to be ultimate MP and ultimate SP?
Neither style of play is inherently better or easier. We complicate things by demanding they be both.
The onus is on the next gen consoles to have more networked games, for better or worse. IN a global gaming network (Xbox, PS3, PC), multiplayer becomes much more feasible and wlil naturally increase in occurrence. It only becomes a problem if single player games go away.
What am I to draw from this paragraph, other than:
1) The models of the 1980's were such that you could achieve any result you liked.
2) More recent models invariably suffer from the same gross flaw.
Sigh. It is starting to look like you are intentionally missing the point. I see that I dropped an 's' off models, but I would think that you would also see me referring to models plural with the use of "they". At any rate, the models today are still not fundamentally different than they were two decades ago. They are gross simplifications based on a set of assumptions. Regardless of the certainty of some portions of the models, the truth is that vast portions of the models are based on *assumptions*. The most specific one is the problem of cloud formation. Both sides to the AGW debate acknowledge that the modelling of cloud formation is not well understood - largely because our understanding of cloud formation is not understood well enough to accurately (or even approximately) simulate it. Particulate matter is another point of gross simplification in the models.
All the models even today are base don the assumption that while CO2's specific direct effect is actually small (did you know for example that the methane out put of cows is 11% greater in global warming effect than the entirety of human CO2 output?)m that something elseamplifies the effect greatly. one of the main drivers of the amplification is the effect of water vapor, including specifically cloud cover and formation, as well as the direct effects of cloud cover. The inability to even approximately model could formation and effects places serious abstraction and assumption on models that involve it. If you actually read the entire reports done on most models you will see that bit of information buried down away from the summary that the press uses.
My understanding is that, while the current reconstructions aren't perfect, we've gotten to the point that new data usually confirms the current understanding, rather than upsetting it.
Then your understanding ins incomplete. Think carefully here. There is a severe difference between a model written to certain assumptions confirming those assumptions (which is largely irrelevant), and a model that accurately reflects reality and observation. The early models on climate did neither. The data coming out did not match the assumptions that went it, and of course did not match the observed data either. That newer models are more accurately confirming that the assumptions that were programmed into them actually worked. It's like writing a calculator that assumes that 2+2=5 and then writing a simulation (model) that shows that hey if you put into input A the number 2 and into input B the number two, it spits out 5. It still doesn't match the reality of taking two sticks, laying them next to two more sticks, and counting a total of four sticks.
What it appears you are saying or implying is that because you expected to get 5, that we should take the model as accurate. This is part of the difference between accuracy and self-consistency. Much like the problems people have by trying to equate logical with correct and true.
Let me ask you this: If the currently available "gold standard" climate models are as prone to experimenter bias as you suggest, why haven't the AGW skeptics gone in, plugged in their own reasonable assumptions and data, and proven as much? If they could cast such clear, specific doubts upon climatology's most important tools, why haven't they?
I didn't say there was researcher bias as a fatal flaw, though in all science there is observer bias. Merely that the models are base don certain assumptions and that if these assumptions are wrong so are the results (that is logical). That said, in order for someone to "plug in" their data, they would need access to the precise program that ran the model. To my knowledge none of the code behind these simulations has been published as open source. One could easily ask why
You sound so very, very convincing and knowledgeable. But then you dismiss the accuracy of current climate models based entirely on your experiences with a model you toyed with back in the 1980's.
That's just sad.
No, what is sad is that you mistook my speaking of the duration of my experience with models as meaning what I started with is equal to what I used today. I even stated I still do models (there is a big difference between saying you did something once long ago and saying you've been doing something *since* long ago). I just don't consider them "research", definitive, or accurate. However, it also pointed out that the fundamentals of the models do not change. For all the fun mathematical "tricks"[1] and clever algorithms in them, the fundamentals are no different: 1) Make assumptions 2) code the simulation (model) to meet your assumptions 3) Flip the switch.
The models of today are vastly more reliable than the one you played with decades ago.
Our climate models are nowhere near accurate today. I agree they look cooler and have more formula and data points, but a simulation that does not predict correctly is still inaccurate. The main problem is that "climatologists"[2] do not use real world data to correct and hone the models. They merely come up with new facets of assumptions.
The main problem with "climatologists" is that they equate simulations to research and also assume that their knowledge is anywhere near "good enough". While Edmund Haley (?) dates back to the 1800's, the science of climatology itself does not. Climatologists generally do not enjoy admitting (though it's not a snub so I don't see why in principle they should avoid it) is really a very young science (if you can call writing games a science;) ). Recording patterns based on assumptions (however well shown statistically or logically), and then writing simulations really only measures your ability to write simulations to match your assertions.
IMO and experience the workings of climates, even small scale ones, is very complex and multidisciplinary. It involves physics, chemistry, meteorology, chaos theory, mathematics, economics, nuclear physics, statistics, paleontology, emergent phenomena, biology, geology, astrophysics, botany, and more. IMO to call yourself a climate expert would have to include a solid grokking of each of those areas.
Then and only then do you stand a chance at actually grokking a significant part of the environment. That is why there is such vehement disagreement IMO. We dont' have anybody that meets those qualifications. We've got a smattering of disciplines, chief among them modelers.
1. Not meant in a pejorative term, think "hack" but it's math so you can't say "hack", because mathematicians call them tricks. 2. Meaning the vast majority, and certainly the most vocal ones
I was going to say "Ferarri", but I think the climate scientists would be annoyed. They'd probably say that the models are good, but not that good.
I dunno I think you've got it backwards. See, Ferarris look cool, sound cool, and are for the "chosen few". However, to those of us that grok cars, the Ferarri is an inconsistent one-off with expensive maintenance that performs less than expected, and much less than the price should indicate. Much like climate modelers and climate models, they are all one-offs, cost a pricey penny, and dont' deliver eh promised goods; even though they may look cool and sound cool, and are the venue of the self-selected few who can afford to have things made to your basic specs.
On the other hand, a Lexus a Caddy, or a good high end Acura, Saab, or Range Rover are built using standard, understood, and well tested methods based on a solid understanding of the mechanics involved and the nature of their environment. The models use din crash and performance simulations have been refined over many years of trial and error matching assumptions with the reality of physical experim
There is also a time in the planet's history where CO2 levels were an order of magnitude greater than now, but we were in an ice age. Go figure. If higher CO2 mandates higher temps, WTF was going on back then? Or perhaps higher CO2 is not the cause of higher temperatures?
You honestly think that pumping tons of CO2 into the atmosphere has no effect?
I'll assume you mean trillions or billions of tons. honestly pomping ten tons into the atmo of this planet has no effect on the planetary scale, no. Sure it does, do you honestly think it has one and only one effect, and that nothing else changes?
We know for a fact that increased CO2 means highly increased plant growth. Plant growth ranges from a 50% increase to a 100% increase with a 600ppm CO2 concentration on the low end - and for some like pine trees 170% or more increase in biomass at only 400ppm CO2. Plants store CO2 (as we all do). More plant life means more animal life. All of which pulls CO2 from the atmosphere. Further, there are additional effects that are tropospheric that are happening that counteract CO2's "effect" on temperature.
The question is what the *net* effect, if any, there is. If I piss in the ocean while swimming my local temperature will increase slightly for a short period of time, as will the salinity of my locale. But that doesn't mean the entire ocean suffers, or that my change is permanent or even long-term.
To give you an idea of the scale we are talking about, in 2000 the average estimated (yes, estimated, we don't know for fact) annual human carbon (CO2) output was 5.5Gt (giga-ton). The It is estimated that the atmosphere contains 750 Gt of carbon (CO2). All told the ocean is estimated at about 40,000Gt. Annually (according to bio-records) the ocean and atmosphere exchange about 240 Gt of carbon. Annually the surface vegetation (i.e. plant life) swaps some 60 Gt of carbon. That is an annual exchange of about 300Gt of carbon. If the exchange rates vary by as little as 1% the annual variance could be 3Gt/year. If a non-anthropogenic change in the natural carbon exchange rate occurred where the atmosphere picked up 2% more than usual, how would we know? We wouldn't. And that would be more than the estimated human contribution of about 3 Gt per year net.
So let us just explore a few thoughts here. If CO2 levels doubled, plant life could increase by 50% to 100% (assuming we let it) How much of the roughly 60Gt vegetation locked carbon would have to increase to soak up the difference? Just think about it.
It may suprise you to know but the likelihood is that the Earth's atmosphere is not so fragile as to be severely impacted by a 1% change. The anthropogenic GW proponents claim it is but provide no experimental or historical evidence of it. They also want to limit discussion of temperatures and levels of CO2 to only the last 100 years, and claim everything is based off of it. This is persisted despite knowing that in the longer history of the Earth that CO2 level increases have lagged warming by some 800 years. - www.realclimate.org even talks about this. If we take their comments about an 800 year lag (over a 5000 year warming period), and assume (they do not say otherwise last I knew and the site has DB issues atm) that this can be applied to more than one warming period, then we should be able to extrapolate backward by looking at when the warming began and when the CO2 increase began. If we go back to the start of the CO2 rise, and then backtrack 800 years what will we or do we find in the temperature record as we know it?
Sea levels are noticably rising, And falling. Over the last century it has been shown that the global average (global sea level isn't level) has been a decrease, with an annual variation of about 8 inches. Eight inches.
Furthermore, the long term average for seal level on this planet is much higher than it is now. Much higher. Yet the end of the last ice age some 18,000 years ago had sea level nearly 400 feet lower than today, and it has been rising ever since. Some 120,000 years ago it was several meters higher than it is today. All of this is before man was keeping track of this kind of stuff, and ages before we deserved even so much as a thought about our carbon footprint as a species.
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Depends on what type of driving you are doing. On the highway in a mountainous area I regularly get about 35-38 MPG in my 99 Corvette. In town I usually pull mid-twenties. I'v ebene able to get close to 30MPG in town when I consistently try to. If people pay attention to what they are doing they can save significant amounts of fuel. If their car has an "average MPG" readout/gauge and an "instant MPG" they can learn to drive in ways that dramatically increase their fuel economy. IMO the Prius having an MPG gauge of some sort entices it's owners to learn to improve their driving = just as it does in other cars that have them.
The primary non-human factor in higher MPG vehicles is mass - weight. It affects two of the three uses of energy expended. GM did experiment with a single-seater, "The Lean Machine" - a play on words. It was lightweight, three wheels (Wheels are rotating unsprung mass, particularly irksome), and leaned into turns like a motorcycle. It reported 100+MPG. In the 80's.
Hypercar shows the dramatic effect of weight on vehicles. http://www.hypercar.com/
If you want to explore the economy of lightweight vehicles yourself, try out some of the stuff from http://www.rqriley.com/.
The point to be fighting this application is PRIOR to it becoming a patent. Are you saying you'd rather not hear about these until it's much harder? I'd rather we know about these before they are approved and can still be fought much easier.
The real regret is that most of these articles could be about any of the last several presidents.
Pretty much every one of the last several presidents replaced all or nearly all of the US attourneys - except the most recent one. Funny thing is the President has full constitutional and precedential authority to replace them. So why the uproar about him doing things he can and should do? "Oh, it's Political" is a bullshit argument. How is an incoming President replacing ALL of the attourneys his or her predecessor put in NOT political?! At least if you only replace a few there *might* be non-political reasons behind it.
There was a plethora of stories about Clinton and moving toward Martial Law. Same of the previous president. Probably of the last few.
Clinton or the prior Bush signed executive orders regarding transfer of control of many aspects of modern industrial life and sectors to the government under FEMA authority.
Attourneys have argued for years that the 2nd Amendment only applies to state sponsored militias. Even your linked article says that the thought process goes back to the mid-20th century.
Gonzales is right, the constitution does not explicitly grant the right of habeus corpus. However, the spin in the article make it seem like that's a bad thing. Actually it is a good thing. The US constitution is not an enumeration of rights to be viewed as an inclusive list. In fact if you actually take the time to study the debates surrounding it's creation you will see that the reason the Bill of Rights "rights" were not present in the original constitution is because the framers knew that by listing the rights they would be facing a future where the government would say "the right is not listed so you don't have it". Instead the prohibition against abridging certain rights was to establish that certain rights are sacrosanct to the formation of the government - without them the government is a tool for those who would do "evil things" to the citizens.
The constitution of the US is intended to limit government, and Gonzales' statement regarding H.C. is spot on. The article you linked then tries to compare that statement to other "rights" but again misses the mark - perhaps for political gain or more likely sensationalism? Read the constitution and you will find that it does not grant rights, but limits the government. Specter should have known better, and so should the author of your article. And so should you. Just because a right is not explicitly "granted" in a document that limits government instead of granting rights to the individual does not mean you don't have those rights.
Did you notice how the article did not quote Gonzales saying you don't have the right, just that the constitution does not grant it? Go read it again.
I know it's fun and popular to look at whomever the current president is and bash them, blame them and their cronies for our current statism, but the fact is that it goes back a long way. It is also the case that in so doing you miss the longer term effects. Replacing Bush will not change things. The previous Bush enacted several EOs that concentrated Executive Branch power, but did Clinton remove them? Nope, he added to them. As long as you focus on the players and not the play, you will always have something to complain about even if eventually you no longer are allowed to actually complain.
Corporate IT departments care about compatibility, stability, security and ease-of-support among other things.
I disagree. IT wants us to think that but it generally isn't the reality. Some IT reality:
* Most employees do not need Internet access and publicly available email.
* Most employees do not need office suites
* Many employees, perhaps most in the broad category of "employees" do not need computers.
The reality of it is that if IT really wanted security, ease of support, and stability, they would spend time analyzing the actual business needs of the company and move in that direction. Take for example a 4000 person company that makes widgets. The vast majority of those employees more often than not will have no business need for public email or Internet access. The sales and marketing force, execs, PR people, and the engineers should have it. But the people on the floor, the custodial crew, etc. generally will have no need for it.
A company can have internal email access and even an intranet without giving everyone an external email account or Internet access. This dramatically reduces not only the cost of IT but the attack vectors, security issues, and support requirements. If a 4000 person company can work with only say 150 Internet-connected employees they will see dramatic savings over that same company giving email and Internet to everyone there. Those with public access can be set on their own "network" treated similarly to a DMZ.
Instead, IT like any other of the corporate bureaucracies seeks to expand and maintain itself. Thus rather than recommend that the groups that have no business need for public access not have it, they instead lobby for more money to expand support bodies, more money for more software, etc.. No, generally speaking corporate IT is interested in sustaining and growing itself; not security, nor compatibility, stability, or ease of support - let alone advancing the business of the company.
who can you trust?
For a LOT of families, that second income is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. Mortgage payments are higher than they've ever been. Gas prices are higher than they've ever been. Work for a company that doesn't provide insurance? Insurance prices are ASTRONOMICALLY high.
Wages are higher then they have ever been, and more unnecessary luxuries are deemed as "necessary" than ever before. Blah blah blah. How about using real data? Raw numbers are irrelevant. you need to compare the indices to get a real picture.
Yes, a lot of those families probably don't manage their money particularly well. But even if they did, they probably wouldn't be saving much. They'd still live paycheck-to-paycheck, they just wouldn't be going into debt every month to pay bills.
You are so wrong and your assertion is a prime example of what is wrong. Congratulations you are perpetuating the problem.
Fact is most people, including families, can save a lot of money by paying attention and separating needs from wants, then taking a hard look. For example, take the young couple who become parents. What is the "mainstream" route for them? both are to work so they can have two cars, cable or satellite, plenty of toys for the grown ups, buy formula and diapers. But what really happens? What is really needed? First, the secondary income (hers or his, usually hers) is dwindled away by the cost of childcare and additional taxes. For most people I've dealt with the net "loss" in income from mom staying home is very minor, and more than a third see a net increase in monthly cash flow. That job mom has making 1000/month is usually more like 150 after taking into account the cost of having the job such as transportation (including a second car and the accompanying payments and insurance), childcare, etc..
Next we turn to the "cost of the child" beyond babysitting. Let us start with diapering. Most people lament the high cost of disposables. And rightly so. Disposable diapers are expensive as hell. Cloth diapers and a washing machine are much cheaper. Now I know many of you are having this image of a sheet of fabric held together by "safety pins". This is not the state of cloth diapering today, nor has it been for a decade. Today's cloth diapers are actually easier than disposables to use. A simple "pickle bucket" setup and a good washing machine will ensure that you don't have this stench about the house. If that isn't enough, the cloth diapered children are less cranky due to less irritation, and healthier due to not having chemicals applied to their nether regions that have been banned from feminine hygiene products for toxicity reasons. Using cloth diapers for the first year alone will save over two thousand dollars on average - including the cost of washing them.
Now we turn to the other high cost of young children: formula. Again, by taking the natural route you can save thousands. In addition the children are healthier and happier (by not being as cranky and irritable). Breastfeeding is also very convenient for the parents as well. And while on this subject news flash: a separate nursery for the new baby with beds, changing tables, etc. is also entirely unnecessary. Another several thousand dollars you don't need to spend. Baby should sleep with mom and dad for the first year or so. Don't worry dad, if mom is breastfeeding you'll still sleep well -usually better even.
I've done the mainstream route as well as the route listed above. I can personally vouch for over 5500 in savings for the above route over the "standard" of baby getting room with all manner of furniture, bottles, formula, disposable diapers, etc.. For one child, first year, not counting the unnecessary daily childcare costs. Yet all this is considered "absolutely necessary" today, and it isn't. Buying cotton clothing for your young children (birth through at least 3-4) instead of the more expensive polyester clothing will keep you from spending on "fad" clothing that is really unnecessary. honestly, your 6 month old doesn't care what
No, the system was designed for the people, but the lawyers got their hooks into government and converted it by establishing a protected class called "attourneys"; protected in that only they can "practice" law. When that happened the laws got more complicated in an effort to justify their status as a protected class. Now their position is that they are protecting you by knowing all the aspects you could not possibly know. Not that they do.
When laws are too complex for average people who do not spend their lifetimes in "the law field", you have an oppressive society. For all the libertarian or anti-statist people's complaints about things such as the USAPATRIOT Act or "Total Awareness", etc. the real source of a police state is in the ability to 1) make you a "criminal" and 2) keep you from properly defending yourself.
Item #1 stems from the fact that governments really only have any authority over criminals. Thus in order to establish more control they need more opportunities to make you commit a crime. This brings in item #2.
Item #2 has two aspects:
A) Knowing and understanding what is actually illegal
B) Being able to show you did not actually commit a crime
I submit that 2A is solidly in place. The Federal code along can fill U-Haul trucks when printed on normal sized paper in small font. The notion that any one person knows everything that they could possibly do wrong is absurd. IMO this really tosses water on the notion that "ignorance of the law is no excuse". I also submit that 2B is also firmly in place, as it is a corollary of 2A. How can you show innocence when you don't understand the rules?
To use a phrase, the lawyers are foxes and the hen house is our government. It is often pointed out that "government occupation certification" schemes such as occupational licensing are bad in that they serve only to establish or maintain a monopoly on a given industry. Those in charge of the licensing will raise barriers to entry, in the name of the people, in order to protect their position. The prime example of this is IMO lawyers and the laws.
To use a South Park reference:
1) Make it illegal for average Joes to "practice law"
2) Make the laws to complicated for average Joes to even understand
3) Make obscene profit
Our current system is not a result of design work, but of an occultation, usurpation, and perversion by the Lawyer Caste.
Boy are you two saying the same thing.
* where the money is going instead? To different NASA projects or to other state projects outside
Presumably other NASA projects, according to what I read
* is there less money overall?
It is rare to find the US government spending less money overall. Money "not going to NASA" is going elsewhere.
* is the budget determined by the President or the Senate?
The Senate holds the purse strings in the US government.
* is there consensus on the role of NASA, or is there variation between Democrats and Republicans?
It varies based on how much NASA spends in a given district. The bigger NASA is in a given district, the more that Senator/Representative thinks it's role is important.
* if there had been less spent on Defense [say Iraq war], would that have been allocatable to NASA?
Not necessarily. It's essentially one big pool. It goes the other way as well. People often assume that money spent on NASA could be spent elsewhere - usually their pet projects. But the reality is it doesn't work that way. Further, much of the funding for Gulf Wars II is either part of the "normal" defense budget or additional appropriations (i.e. borrowed). This is on contrast to how the NASA budget, in particular Apollo was affected a few decades ago. In that case, funding was actually cut and sent elsewhere. Nowadays, we just borrow additional money for wars. NASA's budget in the overall US Federal budget is actually rather small.
When you are talking trillions, a few billion is "noise". That said, a whole lot of "noise" adds up in the big picture, just not the little one.
You don't consider the cultivation of livestock a human activity? Seriously?
Maybe he's part of the IPCC which also doesn't consider it to be so.
In a sense they are right. Cow gas and cow belches are not human activity. Yes mankind has increased the numbers of them.
And the key difference is political impetus and control. Seriously, bovine contribution to GW is approximately 11% greater than human industrial outputs. But you won't see the AGW disasterbators saying we need to reduce the number of cows, or put cows under collection facilities, etc.. Why not? Because for most of the AGW disasterbators it isn't about the environment or the science. It is about control and forcing people to live a lifestyle the AGW disasterbators want them to.
The AGW proponents say it is our industrial output (particularly cars and the "carbon footprint"), but don't talk to the media about the other sources -even when said sources are greater in GWP. The worst moment for AGW proponents was when the founders of the notion said they needed access to government to get them to change the laws to make people do things. It's been downhill since then.
Ed lives, breathes, talks, and walks the environment.
Sort of. Ed also makes it look bad. he misses a lot by falling for most 'saver" methods. Personally I've yet to figure out if his reality show is a con on him or not. Take for example his "rainwater collection" system of a 40-55 gallon drum. Anyone who actually uses, has designed, or developed a rainwater system knows that this simplistic method doesn't actually accomplish the goal. If people see this and think "hey I can do that" and do what he did, then they will "blame" the concept rather than their failed implementation. This is no different than people's association of "solar power" with PV cells. Ed is a great preacher when preaching to the choir. When he speaks to the heathens he comes off as a loon and harms more than helps his cause.
That said I do like that he drives his Prius to events rather than flying, and rides his bike or walks whenever feasible. However, buying "carbon credits" for his wife to fly does not actually do anything for the environment. Likewise, insisting on "no bag" at the store is also foolish and not-helpful. It's theater for himself and nothing more. if he was educated about the realities of the entire system he'd choose paper and compost the bag, for example. Ed is essentially driven by guilt. Someone has made him feel guilty about his existence and he is driven to "make up for it", thus he is easily led into anything that might relieve him of some of that guilt.
I call it "chaotic organization". It isn't a mess, nor is it cluttered, nor is it disorganized. Decades ago I proved it to my mother who quit nagging me to 'clean my room'. One day I got fed up with it and told her it was not messy or organized, just chaotic to her, and that I knew where everything was. So she quizzed me. She would ask me where something was and I'd tell her. She would then check. After about 15 minutes of this she realized I was right. And quit nagging me about my room's "chaotic organization".
What is sad to me is that we still have people that insist that there is one best way for pretty much everything. Well, the "neatness nazis" are claiming their way is best, most "chaotic organization" people simply say theirs works for them. Go figure.
My desk is chaotically organized. I've found the phrase "A clean desk is a sure sign of a sick mind" quite appealing. My computer racks are strictly categorized as are my woodworking and automotive tools. Even to the point of the drawers being labeled (that's new and still advancing however). There is a good reason why for me one works in one area and fails in another.
Ethanol is highly inefficient when mixed with gas, so you lose efficiency in your MPG, so that causes you to buy more fuel, so it is a nasty little cycle.
Saab (GM) has a vehicle that runs anything from 100% gasoline to 100% Ethanol. It gets better MPG on 100% ethanol or E85 than it does 100% gasoline. How does that fact square with your assumption? It isn't a matter of the mixing making things inefficient, it's the assumption made when designing the engine and powertrain. Consider this: a smaller engine that makes use of the higher quality of energy in ethanol (that's what octane basically measures though in detail 100% ethanol has no octane because it does not have the components that octane actually measures. Ethanol and Ethanol/gasoline mixes have an equivalent octane based on their ability to run higher compression without detonation) can be used to replace a larger gasoline engine. This can lead to less fuel consumption.
In fact, studies that have involved taking gasoline-only cars (capable of running E10 per mandate from the 80's) such as small sedans have shown that mixes of up to 15% (the highest they tested) ethanol show increases in fuel economy.
Sugar ethanol is much more efficient, 4x much so I believe.
Corn is, from a process and return standpoint the absolute worst choice for ethanol feedstock. Sugar is much better. However, the reason we don't have a sugar-based ethanol industry here yet is due in greater proportion to the relatively small amount of sugar crop grown in the US. Sugar cane has much higher water requirements, and much warmer or tropical-like climate requirements. That has a much more powerful impact than subsidies and protections.
Ethanol can be produced from many sources including coal. Switchgrass is a "popular" choice - where popular means "the upcoming starlet" type of popular, not the "most used" for the US. This is because comparatively speaking it's growth and harvest requirements are far, far less than corn or sugar cane. It requires less input, and has a higher output. There are others that show even greater results than switchgrass, such as members of the miscanthus family.
Sugar beets yield around 700 gallons/acre in France, Sugar Cane in Brazil around 660gal/acre. Switchgrass comes in around 1000 gal/acre. Miscanthus tops the charts at around 1500 gallons/acre. Corn comes in around 400 gallons per acre. Nypa palm is not something the US could grow in large quantities but it's production in the southern hemisphere such as Brazil is showing ethanol yields in the 1500 gal/acre range as well. Unless something is discovered about the Nypa palm that makes it too expensive or risky to use, I would not be suprised to see Brazil double it's production of ethanol over the next several years by converting their feedstock crop over.
So while your memory of 4X is far from accurate, the general sentiment is correct.
Note that the studies being done with Miscanthus are showing that if 10% of Indiana's current farmland were switched to Miscanthus, they would be able to supply over 4 billion gallons/year of fuel. They currently use 5 billion gallons per year.
We aren't using that because we have subsidies and trade protections for the sugar farmers.
We have that for the corn farmers too. Doesn't seem to stop them from doing it. Sorry, but the issue is not as simple as you make it out to be. If only it were.
how about we get rid of all them? Including the oil subsidies. No more US military providing protection for oil tankers and foreign and domestic oil fields. No more protectionism on our crops and other products either. No more farm corporation subsidies. Did you know that the subsidies on crops actually led to the destruction of the small farmer? Fat lot of good it did. It's high time to get rid of them. All of them, including the petroleum industry ones. Let them all stand or fall on their own.
You say "On human time scales, fertile topsoil is not a renewable resource.".
;) ) - as in bare ground, and in a matter of one year turned it into land that could grow basic "green manure" plants. The following year it was growing food. Good, tasty food. No commercial fertilizers were used. Just compost, dirt, and plants.
.2 tons/acres of soil runoff. That is a reduction of about 95.23%. With this level of soil runoff, collection methods for recovering the soil are actually manageable and realistic. But this is not the complete picture.
So let us define human time scales. Is two-three years a human timescale? I'd certainly say it is. Would you disagree? If so please provide your belief on what a human timescale is. I've personally taken sandy dirt that for years wouldn't even grow weeds (note the 's'
It is a matter of applying knowledge of how the system works naturally. What causes the misunderstanding is that people, including academics, assume that the practices of the "big/corporate" commercial farmers represent the peak of our agricultural knowledge. The key fact is the practices of the commercial farmer, the row setup, tilling, and fertilizer patterns are not representative of the best by any measure other than "makes it easier for machine harvesting". Using techniques and methods known and developed over the last several centuries (and in some areas over the last couple millennia), higher yield and quality is obtained by not using the row-crop methods. But these alone are not the only changes that demonstrate the fallaciousness of your assertion.
Even the "simple" change of moving to a no-till system of farming dramatically changes the soil and it's fertility. It increases it. No-till farming cuts down on water use, chemical use, and drastically reduces fertilizer and chemical residue run-off. All of these are good things, and increase or maintain (depending on the previous state of the spoil) soil quality. Millions of acres have been used with no-till methods for years with no depletion of soil quality.
The primary topsoil destruction vector is runoff. No-till drops the amount of runoff dramatically. For example in wheat fields studies have shown a full-till wheat acreage to have 4.2 tons/acre of soil runoff/By switching to a no-till method the runoff drops to about
One of the aspects of no-till is the use of "cover crops" or "green manure". This part of the process involves growing a different an "overwinter" crop. These crops are usually of the clover or legume family with the primary intentions being to keep the ground covered and healthy (avoids sun-baking and erosion), fix nitrogen, and reduce weed incursion during the "off" season. Reduction of weed incursion reduces the use of herbicides. Once a field has been converted to a full no-till system and has been in place for two years or so (depends on the previous state of the topsoil, the weed levels, the crop choices, etc.) herbicides are generally reduced by large amounts, in some cases virtually eliminated (that's 90+%). The reduction in herbicide usage maintains a healthier topsoil. In a matter of a few years vast amounts of acreage can have their healthy topsoil replenished and set on a course of maintenance. As an added benefit, no-till reduces petroleum usage and leads to lower costs and equal or greater yields after the first couple years of migration.
So this notion that "fertile topsoil is not a renewable resource" on "human timescales" is absolute bunk. Find a patch of land that has been sterilized, and you can bring it to a robust healthy topsoil state in under three years; without the use of (man-made) chemicals petroleum usage, or heavy equipment. You can find the details at your local library - even in books a couple decades old.
We can't seriously believe either side, but must stick to logic and examine all the facts. Both sides have their hysterical evangelists and paid shills.
/.. I'd say "you know who you are" but sadly, you probably don't. The man on the street sees these claims, sees they are full of hot air, and does what? Dismisses or discounts the entire thing.
This is true. It is also true that there is a risk and danger in public disasterbation.
And poster of the story/author of the blurb commits one of them. The poster referred to "the warmest summer US winter in years". This winter's temperatures are irrelevant to GW, AGW, NGW. Would the poster say that GW/AGW is obviously not a risk if this summer is one of the coldest US summers in recent years? The variance in annual temperatures is not part of the GW/AGW proponents' position - and rightly so.
First of all, the GW/AGW people say that the average temperature will rise. There are many ways this can happen, and a warmer winter is not necessarily one of them. Oddly most people understand this, sadly they don't think about it.
Furthermore, AGW==disaster proponents (the aforementioned disasterbators) are eager to tie anything to AGW. From tsunamis to finding whatever weather changes in your areas you wouldn't like and saying that will happen. Yes, this is the vocal minority doing it, but that's the problem; and some of them are doing it right here on
The other side of the problem is econazis hitching all of their "solutions looking for a cause" to AGW disasterbation. There are a great many things we can do that might be good to limit AGW that are good ideas even if AGW is entirely bunk. How is this bad? The more stuff is piled on to a notion the more we tend to discount it. It is also bad in that by tying these things to AGW we increase any harm or delay any benefits.
For example, as long as their is public dissent or doubt about AGW, or the costs associated with changes to limit the alleged AGW causes, anything tied to to is delayed due to doubt and suspicion, and caution. Further, if it is shown that GW is more likely to be natural than anthropogenic, or it is shown that we can't stop AGW - i,e. we've reached the tipping point as some disasterbators have claimed (and other climate researches have dismissed) then these measures lose their impetus.
When they lose their impetus and the proponents of them come back with another one, then they lose more credibility because they are suddenly looking for a cause to be the solution for. Ultimately, however, we have the instigators of the AGW hypothesis to thank for this. They stated up front that they should be changing policy and some have been shown to favor hyping the negative and downplaying any positive or non-negative aspects in order to scare the public into taking action they want done. All in the name of them being experts and us being idiots of course.
The AGW disasterbators are the greatest thereat to civil discussion and thorough research, and are their own worst enemy. And in so being, are among mankinds worst enemies.
. I don't think it's appropriate to bash people like this, when they clearly don't have a good grip on reality
Well that leaves out most celebrities, politicians, and tech reporters as well as a large portion of journalists and academecians, most lawmakers, most lawyers, the RIAA and the MPAA.
Great, now who can we bash? Spoilsport.
I'd wager it is just as much abut getting companies to have "Microsoft Trained" people in order to raise barriers to alternatives to MS. This isn't aimed at big corporations, people. This is aimed at small businesses. Gotta get those small businesses better indoctrinated, after all.
At this rate, when we're all in our 80s, our colons will be sending instant messages to our brains reminding us not to shit all over ourselves.
Sure, it's funny now, but it is also likely to be true, or damned close. After all we've got some good research and experiments in reestablishing "communications" between muscles and the brain.
Now, when the ED medication people catch wind of this tech, watch out. We'll be seeing Smiling Bob commercials where he "turns it on and off at will", and slashdot will have jokes about the mechanism being hooked up to clappers.
The bot is already on borrowed time and they've been thru the process with Endurance crater.
So in your opinion your car/truck is on borrowed time when it runs out of warranty? After all that's a pretty fair comparison. Nobody on the rover teams said the rovers wouldn't keep working, they only planned on a mission duration. The automakers don't say your car will drop dead after three years or 36000 miles; that's just the duration they plan to "support" it. And like the rover teams' extension, most if not all new car manufacturers will sell you warranty extensions.
Don't like the car metaphor? Fine go with electronics. Is your TV on borrowed time because it is out of it's 90 day warranty? Here too the stores will sell you extended warranties.
Sure the rovers are rather cool but to say they are on borrowed time is just useless hype.
On the other hand, it's refreshing. Nobody should have any illusions that Warhawk is a decent or even good single player game. I've got no problems with companies releasing MP game sonly, just as I have no problem with companies releasing SP only games. Why does every game have to be ultimate MP and ultimate SP?
Neither style of play is inherently better or easier. We complicate things by demanding they be both.
The onus is on the next gen consoles to have more networked games, for better or worse. IN a global gaming network (Xbox, PS3, PC), multiplayer becomes much more feasible and wlil naturally increase in occurrence. It only becomes a problem if single player games go away.
What am I to draw from this paragraph, other than:
1) The models of the 1980's were such that you could achieve any result you liked.
2) More recent models invariably suffer from the same gross flaw.
Sigh. It is starting to look like you are intentionally missing the point. I see that I dropped an 's' off models, but I would think that you would also see me referring to models plural with the use of "they". At any rate, the models today are still not fundamentally different than they were two decades ago. They are gross simplifications based on a set of assumptions. Regardless of the certainty of some portions of the models, the truth is that vast portions of the models are based on *assumptions*. The most specific one is the problem of cloud formation. Both sides to the AGW debate acknowledge that the modelling of cloud formation is not well understood - largely because our understanding of cloud formation is not understood well enough to accurately (or even approximately) simulate it. Particulate matter is another point of gross simplification in the models.
All the models even today are base don the assumption that while CO2's specific direct effect is actually small (did you know for example that the methane out put of cows is 11% greater in global warming effect than the entirety of human CO2 output?)m that something elseamplifies the effect greatly. one of the main drivers of the amplification is the effect of water vapor, including specifically cloud cover and formation, as well as the direct effects of cloud cover. The inability to even approximately model could formation and effects places serious abstraction and assumption on models that involve it. If you actually read the entire reports done on most models you will see that bit of information buried down away from the summary that the press uses.
My understanding is that, while the current reconstructions aren't perfect, we've gotten to the point that new data usually confirms the current understanding, rather than upsetting it.
Then your understanding ins incomplete. Think carefully here. There is a severe difference between a model written to certain assumptions confirming those assumptions (which is largely irrelevant), and a model that accurately reflects reality and observation. The early models on climate did neither. The data coming out did not match the assumptions that went it, and of course did not match the observed data either. That newer models are more accurately confirming that the assumptions that were programmed into them actually worked. It's like writing a calculator that assumes that 2+2=5 and then writing a simulation (model) that shows that hey if you put into input A the number 2 and into input B the number two, it spits out 5. It still doesn't match the reality of taking two sticks, laying them next to two more sticks, and counting a total of four sticks.
What it appears you are saying or implying is that because you expected to get 5, that we should take the model as accurate. This is part of the difference between accuracy and self-consistency. Much like the problems people have by trying to equate logical with correct and true.
Let me ask you this: If the currently available "gold standard" climate models are as prone to experimenter bias as you suggest, why haven't the AGW skeptics gone in, plugged in their own reasonable assumptions and data, and proven as much? If they could cast such clear, specific doubts upon climatology's most important tools, why haven't they?
I didn't say there was researcher bias as a fatal flaw, though in all science there is observer bias. Merely that the models are base don certain assumptions and that if these assumptions are wrong so are the results (that is logical). That said, in order for someone to "plug in" their data, they would need access to the precise program that ran the model. To my knowledge none of the code behind these simulations has been published as open source. One could easily ask why
That's just sad.
No, what is sad is that you mistook my speaking of the duration of my experience with models as meaning what I started with is equal to what I used today. I even stated I still do models (there is a big difference between saying you did something once long ago and saying you've been doing something *since* long ago). I just don't consider them "research", definitive, or accurate. However, it also pointed out that the fundamentals of the models do not change. For all the fun mathematical "tricks"[1] and clever algorithms in them, the fundamentals are no different: 1) Make assumptions 2) code the simulation (model) to meet your assumptions 3) Flip the switch.
The models of today are vastly more reliable than the one you played with decades ago.
Our climate models are nowhere near accurate today. I agree they look cooler and have more formula and data points, but a simulation that does not predict correctly is still inaccurate. The main problem is that "climatologists"[2] do not use real world data to correct and hone the models. They merely come up with new facets of assumptions.
The main problem with "climatologists" is that they equate simulations to research and also assume that their knowledge is anywhere near "good enough". While Edmund Haley (?) dates back to the 1800's, the science of climatology itself does not. Climatologists generally do not enjoy admitting (though it's not a snub so I don't see why in principle they should avoid it) is really a very young science (if you can call writing games a science
IMO and experience the workings of climates, even small scale ones, is very complex and multidisciplinary. It involves physics, chemistry, meteorology, chaos theory, mathematics, economics, nuclear physics, statistics, paleontology, emergent phenomena, biology, geology, astrophysics, botany, and more. IMO to call yourself a climate expert would have to include a solid grokking of each of those areas.
Then and only then do you stand a chance at actually grokking a significant part of the environment. That is why there is such vehement disagreement IMO. We dont' have anybody that meets those qualifications. We've got a smattering of disciplines, chief among them modelers.
1. Not meant in a pejorative term, think "hack" but it's math so you can't say "hack", because mathematicians call them tricks.
2. Meaning the vast majority, and certainly the most vocal ones
I dunno I think you've got it backwards. See, Ferarris look cool, sound cool, and are for the "chosen few". However, to those of us that grok cars, the Ferarri is an inconsistent one-off with expensive maintenance that performs less than expected, and much less than the price should indicate. Much like climate modelers and climate models, they are all one-offs, cost a pricey penny, and dont' deliver eh promised goods; even though they may look cool and sound cool, and are the venue of the self-selected few who can afford to have things made to your basic specs.
On the other hand, a Lexus a Caddy, or a good high end Acura, Saab, or Range Rover are built using standard, understood, and well tested methods based on a solid understanding of the mechanics involved and the nature of their environment. The models use din crash and performance simulations have been refined over many years of trial and error matching assumptions with the reality of physical experim
Aren't the sacrificial virgins supposed to be female? I'm pretty sure most /. virgins are male or some semblance thereof.
There is also a time in the planet's history where CO2 levels were an order of magnitude greater than now, but we were in an ice age. Go figure. If higher CO2 mandates higher temps, WTF was going on back then? Or perhaps higher CO2 is not the cause of higher temperatures?
You honestly think that pumping tons of CO2 into the atmosphere has no effect?
I'll assume you mean trillions or billions of tons. honestly pomping ten tons into the atmo of this planet has no effect on the planetary scale, no. Sure it does, do you honestly think it has one and only one effect, and that nothing else changes?
We know for a fact that increased CO2 means highly increased plant growth. Plant growth ranges from a 50% increase to a 100% increase with a 600ppm CO2 concentration on the low end - and for some like pine trees 170% or more increase in biomass at only 400ppm CO2. Plants store CO2 (as we all do). More plant life means more animal life. All of which pulls CO2 from the atmosphere. Further, there are additional effects that are tropospheric that are happening that counteract CO2's "effect" on temperature.
The question is what the *net* effect, if any, there is. If I piss in the ocean while swimming my local temperature will increase slightly for a short period of time, as will the salinity of my locale. But that doesn't mean the entire ocean suffers, or that my change is permanent or even long-term.
To give you an idea of the scale we are talking about, in 2000 the average estimated (yes, estimated, we don't know for fact) annual human carbon (CO2) output was 5.5Gt (giga-ton). The It is estimated that the atmosphere contains 750 Gt of carbon (CO2). All told the ocean is estimated at about 40,000Gt. Annually (according to bio-records) the ocean and atmosphere exchange about 240 Gt of carbon. Annually the surface vegetation (i.e. plant life) swaps some 60 Gt of carbon. That is an annual exchange of about 300Gt of carbon. If the exchange rates vary by as little as 1% the annual variance could be 3Gt/year. If a non-anthropogenic change in the natural carbon exchange rate occurred where the atmosphere picked up 2% more than usual, how would we know? We wouldn't. And that would be more than the estimated human contribution of about 3 Gt per year net.
So let us just explore a few thoughts here. If CO2 levels doubled, plant life could increase by 50% to 100% (assuming we let it) How much of the roughly 60Gt vegetation locked carbon would have to increase to soak up the difference? Just think about it.
It may suprise you to know but the likelihood is that the Earth's atmosphere is not so fragile as to be severely impacted by a 1% change. The anthropogenic GW proponents claim it is but provide no experimental or historical evidence of it. They also want to limit discussion of temperatures and levels of CO2 to only the last 100 years, and claim everything is based off of it. This is persisted despite knowing that in the longer history of the Earth that CO2 level increases have lagged warming by some 800 years. - www.realclimate.org even talks about this. If we take their comments about an 800 year lag (over a 5000 year warming period), and assume (they do not say otherwise last I knew and the site has DB issues atm) that this can be applied to more than one warming period, then we should be able to extrapolate backward by looking at when the warming began and when the CO2 increase began. If we go back to the start of the CO2 rise, and then backtrack 800 years what will we or do we find in the temperature record as we know it?
Sea levels are noticably rising,
And falling. Over the last century it has been shown that the global average (global sea level isn't level) has been a decrease, with an annual variation of about 8 inches. Eight inches.
Furthermore, the long term average for seal level on this planet is much higher than it is now. Much higher. Yet the end of the last ice age some 18,000 years ago had sea level nearly 400 feet lower than today, and it has been rising ever since. Some 120,000 years ago it was several meters higher than it is today. All of this is before man was keeping track of this kind of stuff, and ages before we deserved even so much as a thought about our carbon footprint as a species.
"Sea level is higher now