How can we fight something we don't know anything about?
Easy. We know what is happening and we know what we are doing. It's just the link between them that's in debate here.
If we are so puny and powerless, what does it matter if we reduce our emissions? If we are powerful, we need to change our wicked ways right now before we cause any more damage. If we take the safe route, we get the added benefits of creating fewer wars about oil, we get less other harmful pollutants (like smog, MTBE, diesel particles and sulphur) and cheaper transportation (less demand and more efficient vehicles makes for cheaper oil). There's also a great opportunity to shift the economic scale away from large oil corporations and to small-scale energy-producing units like community-owned windmill farms (there are several currently popping up here in Sweden, but you knew that) and small- to medium sized ethanol, biodiesel and wood pellet factories for vehicle fuel and heating.
What's the problem?
Should we have waited longer before banning CFCs, even though they weren't fully understood (and to a large extent still aren't, AFAIK)?
I wasn't aware of a discrepancy, actually. But since you asked nicely, here are some satellite measurement links (emphasis mine):
ENN - Environmental News Network (complete with banner ads for Shell Oil, no less.:-) This excerpt is slightly misleading since this particular study mostly used ground station data, but compensating for the urban heat island effect.
"A clear pattern of global warming is emerging as American space scientists analyze satellite data from more than 7,000 weather stations around the world.
The layer of air that wraps the Earth is indeed warmer than it has been in the past, according to Dr. James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and Marc Imhoff of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Atmospheric CO2 has increased about 25 percent since the early 1800s. Climatologists at the Goddard Space Flight Center estimate the increase since 1958 has been about 10 percent. Currently the level of atmospheric C02 is increasing at a rate of about 0.4 percent a year."
" Some reports have pointed to a link between recent warming and rising emissions of greenhouse gases. According to a University of Michigan study,
the last century was the warmest of the previous five.
The new data, collected by two orbiting spacecraft, is consistent with theoretical simulations that have raised concerns over so-called "radiative forcing" of the climate as a result of human emissions of gases thought to cause global warming, scientists said. Radiative forcing is a measure of the climate effect of greenhouse gases.
This is the first direct observation of the effect over an extended time frame, said lead study author John Harries of the Department of Physics at Imperial College in London.
The researchers analyzed the spectra of Earth's outgoing long-wave radiation, which carries the signature of the planet's cooling to space.
The noted differences point to a significant increase in Earth's greenhouse effect and provide the first direct observational evidence for changes in the radiative forcing of Earth's climate over the past 20 years, the authors said."
And to conclude with some fluffier stuff: MSNBC reports of a National Academy of Sciences panel:
has concluded that strong evidence exists to show an "undoubtedly real" warming of Earth's surface over the last 20 years -- even if satellites and weather balloons show little or no warming five miles up."
Apparently, they seem to think the upper atmospheric cooling may be due to ozone depletion or possibly because we just don't know yet how different levels of water vapour in the different layers of the atmosphere affects the climate, messing up the computer models. But it's entirely possible that one pollutant (CFC) could help mask the effects of another (CO2). We just don't know, yet.
Nevertheless, there's a lot of uncertainty going on with regards to the causes of the warming. What I think we can agree on is that some weird shit is happening with our weather and we should try our best to figure out what, why and how to stop it, or if that's impossible, how to adapt to it. Sticking your head in the sand and claiming that there is no problem is simply not an option.
What the developed countries SHOULD do is not to try and maintain the current level of technology with regards to oil-burning motor vehicles and other wasteful resource hogs. This will not end well, if not else for the simple reason that the developing countries also will want these commodities and they will be able to produce them themselves (more and more products are being made in developing nations with low wages). If we take the tech to the next level, we will still be able to sell them our stuff and/or knowledge. Besides, no one has yet started a war to get at another's hydrogen reserves...
Not really. Global warming is a fact. Whether or not humans are warming up the place is another thing. Could be the sun is getting hotter, could be our emissions doing it, could be natural climate cycles, could be a precursor to a magnetic pole shift.
The cause does not really matter.
Whatever the cause may be, the climate patterns of several hundred years (as far back as we have fairly complete and accurate data, basically) have changed markedly in the last decade and it seems rather foolish NOT to try and fight that change. Even if it's a totally natural phenomenon, it is still affecting the human population of this planet, not to mention the economic impacts. And if there's the slightest chance that we are causing it, there's even more reason to fight it.
If we are to survive as a species, we need to terraform this here planet a bit.
Saddam has also replaced his military with a civilian
I believe that should be "the US Marine Corps are currently converting Saddam's military to civilians at a pace of roughly 40 mph (over open desert terrain, YMMV)".
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (hey, one out of four ain't bad... No wait, yes it is) would top my list but Israeli and Pakistani/Indian nukes would be close runner-up. Cuba mostly looks bad compared to the US, not to other Central American countries. The situation in the Emirates and Iran are for a large part a cultural thing and difficult to change with just a new regime. A long hard look at China's ongoing land-grap in Tibet as well as keeping close eyes on the Ivory Coast, East Timor and the whole of Central Africa wouldn't be amiss however, not to mention Chechnya and Dagestan. Peace in our time, indeed.
I think it's hardly because "you really don't like" him.
No, but that's what all the two-bit dictators out there are going to believe. There has always been an unspoken rule in international relations - you don't make it personal. The risks of it backfiring have always been to great. Sure, it's been done in circumspect ways (Salvador Allende, anyone?) but never openly like this. Both the pre-emptive strike in itself and the targeting of Saddam personally sets dangerous precedents.
It would have been better to claim they were going after Saddam to bring him to justice for the war crimes he has committed instead of going through the disarmament charade.
Well, what message does pre-emptively striking at Saddam send? I'm hearing "It's OK to kill foreign leaders you really don't like". So basically, your only hope is that when they get Bush, they'll get Cheney at the same time...
I think President Bush needs to work on his messaging skills.
Well, it's Texas. The next step would be to make sure that blacks pirating country music are put on death row, while white college football stars gets an 'attaboy', provided that they mostly pirate rap music. Ethnic cleansing and all that, you know.
This is what I, and the parent poster, who was full of shit, were talking about.
No, note that I never said VB scripts in the parent post. Most of the stuff I linked to are about one of the older HTML exploits (some of them are a HTML buffer overflow). HTML is (arguably, but in this context definitely) a script language, especially when the HTML code that's run contains ActiceX controls with VB script in them, as these viruses do. Removing VBScript support from Outlook doesn't stop it from running the HTML code (in the preview pane) but it stops all of the currently known exploits of that hole since they require the VB Scripting Support in Outlook 2000 and XP to execute their payload.
I occasionally get an email that pops up a message asking me if I want to run a VB component.
I've never gotten that. My take on VB in an e-mail program is that it may be good in specific intranet app situations (though I'd be hard pressed to think of a good real-life example) and viruses. Not sure if you even would get that popup without the VB support installed, though. It might ask you to install it.:-)
Just for kicks, if you have one of those e-mails lying around and wouldn't mind sharing it, could you forward it to me? It'd be interesting to see what it does.
living proof of how much better outlook was all along.
As one who have used e-mail extensively long before Outlook arrived, I think you're just plain astroturfing, making a silly comment like that. I got my first (Unix shell-based) e-mail account in the fall of 1990, migrated to Lotus Notes in 1995 and to Netscape Mail in 1998, long before Outlook was usable or even existed. How those actual facts can translate into Outlook being "better all along" is frankly beyond me. Outlook really doesn't do anything for the users that MS Mail together with Schedule+ couldn't do years before and Exchange+Outlook can still not touch the groupware features of Lotus Notes or Novell Groupwise. Remember the first "Exchange Client" in Windows 95? You know, the one that couldn't actually connect to an Exchange server? "All along", my ass.
I've never been affected by an email virus.
Anecdotal, at best - what does that prove? Me neither. Then again, I've never used Outlook. I have lots of clients using Outlook though, and before I started forcing them to install virus scanners, they had lots of problems with viruses. That doesn't prove anything either - on the other hand, a brief scan of Symantec's and McAfee's virus databases...
When installing - don't select the Default Settings stuff (don't remember off the top of my head what they call it, it's some Individual Settings blah, blah) - that gives you the ability to select options for the various Office components, among them Visual Basic Scripting Support for Outlook and also the option to not install the Office Assistant. If you already have Office installed, re-run setup and select the Add or Remove Features option. (This is for Office XP, but I seem to recall it was available in Office 2k too)
We used to think that you had to open or, in some case, preview a message for it to infect your system with a virus. It's now been proven that malicious code can enter your system via an Outlook mail message from the Internet -- even if you do not open or preview it. The flaw is in an Internet Explorer component that
Outlook shares with Outlook Express. See Microsoft Security Bulletin (MS00-043) for more details and remedies.
Microsoft has released a patch that eliminates a security vulnerability in
Microsoft® Outlook® and Outlook Express. Under certain conditions, the vulnerability could allow a malicious user to cause code of his choice to execute on another user's computer.
The patch eliminates this vulnerability as well as those discussed in Microsoft Security Bulletins MS00-045 and MS00-046. Customers who already have taken the corrective action discussed in either of these bulletins do not need to take any additional action.
Affected Software:
# Microsoft Outlook Express 4.x
# Microsoft Outlook Express 5.x
# Microsoft Outlook 98
# Microsoft Outlook 2000
Win32/Bugbear.A@mm exploits a MIME vulnerability in
Microsoft Outlook, Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, allowing an executable attachment to run automatically, even if you do not double-click on the attachment.
I normally install Office right after Windows, but before the virus scanner. I guess I'm afraid the virus scanner wouldn't let me install Office if I have that running first...
Especially as Outlook happily opens and runs evil scripts in e-mail messages, even if you just look at the mail in the preview pane. Most of those holes have been patched by now, but I keep seeing new ones in the auto-update logs.
I wouldn't call Outbreak an improvement unless you're a virus writer. First thing I do when forced to install it for a client is to remove the Vicious Basic support, #2 is to install a virus scanner.
Fifty years ago, a casual gesture at a laboratory in London became a defining moment in the history of science. James D. Watson was visiting King's College late one afternoon near the end of January 1953, when a researcher named Maurice Wilkins showed him an X-ray photograph of a molecule of DNA.
Describing the encounter years later in "The Double Helix," Dr. Watson wrote, "The instant I saw the picture my mouth fell open and my pulse began to race."
The image was one of many by various researchers that hinted at a helix, but its singular clarity helped lead Dr. Watson and his colleague Francis Crick to the structure of DNA.
The scientist who took the picture was Dr. Rosalind Franklin, and though they cited other work she had done, Dr. Watson and Dr. Crick did not acknowledge the photograph itself, or additional work by her they had used, in their paper.
Slashdot Mirror
Easy. We know what is happening and we know what we are doing. It's just the link between them that's in debate here.
If we are so puny and powerless, what does it matter if we reduce our emissions? If we are powerful, we need to change our wicked ways right now before we cause any more damage. If we take the safe route, we get the added benefits of creating fewer wars about oil, we get less other harmful pollutants (like smog, MTBE, diesel particles and sulphur) and cheaper transportation (less demand and more efficient vehicles makes for cheaper oil). There's also a great opportunity to shift the economic scale away from large oil corporations and to small-scale energy-producing units like community-owned windmill farms (there are several currently popping up here in Sweden, but you knew that) and small- to medium sized ethanol, biodiesel and wood pellet factories for vehicle fuel and heating.
What's the problem?
Should we have waited longer before banning CFCs, even though they weren't fully understood (and to a large extent still aren't, AFAIK)?
ENN - Environmental News Network (complete with banner ads for Shell Oil, no less. :-) This excerpt is slightly misleading since this particular study mostly used ground station data, but compensating for the urban heat island effect.
Also ENN, but a different study.
And to conclude with some fluffier stuff: MSNBC reports of a National Academy of Sciences panel: Apparently, they seem to think the upper atmospheric cooling may be due to ozone depletion or possibly because we just don't know yet how different levels of water vapour in the different layers of the atmosphere affects the climate, messing up the computer models. But it's entirely possible that one pollutant (CFC) could help mask the effects of another (CO2). We just don't know, yet.Nevertheless, there's a lot of uncertainty going on with regards to the causes of the warming. What I think we can agree on is that some weird shit is happening with our weather and we should try our best to figure out what, why and how to stop it, or if that's impossible, how to adapt to it. Sticking your head in the sand and claiming that there is no problem is simply not an option.
What the developed countries SHOULD do is not to try and maintain the current level of technology with regards to oil-burning motor vehicles and other wasteful resource hogs. This will not end well, if not else for the simple reason that the developing countries also will want these commodities and they will be able to produce them themselves (more and more products are being made in developing nations with low wages). If we take the tech to the next level, we will still be able to sell them our stuff and/or knowledge. Besides, no one has yet started a war to get at another's hydrogen reserves...
Not really. Global warming is a fact. Whether or not humans are warming up the place is another thing. Could be the sun is getting hotter, could be our emissions doing it, could be natural climate cycles, could be a precursor to a magnetic pole shift.
The cause does not really matter.
Whatever the cause may be, the climate patterns of several hundred years (as far back as we have fairly complete and accurate data, basically) have changed markedly in the last decade and it seems rather foolish NOT to try and fight that change. Even if it's a totally natural phenomenon, it is still affecting the human population of this planet, not to mention the economic impacts. And if there's the slightest chance that we are causing it, there's even more reason to fight it.
If we are to survive as a species, we need to terraform this here planet a bit.
I believe that should be "the US Marine Corps are currently converting Saddam's military to civilians at a pace of roughly 40 mph (over open desert terrain, YMMV)".
It'd be a lot funnier if it wasn't true. :-/
But we're off-topic here. Check out Perfessor Multigeek's Journal instead. If you want a look at the other side of the fence, there's always Twirlip of the Mists.
No, but that's what all the two-bit dictators out there are going to believe. There has always been an unspoken rule in international relations - you don't make it personal. The risks of it backfiring have always been to great. Sure, it's been done in circumspect ways (Salvador Allende, anyone?) but never openly like this. Both the pre-emptive strike in itself and the targeting of Saddam personally sets dangerous precedents.
It would have been better to claim they were going after Saddam to bring him to justice for the war crimes he has committed instead of going through the disarmament charade.
I think President Bush needs to work on his messaging skills.
Well, it's Texas. The next step would be to make sure that blacks pirating country music are put on death row, while white college football stars gets an 'attaboy', provided that they mostly pirate rap music. Ethnic cleansing and all that, you know.
I thought it was because they had lots of fibers in their food. *badabing*
No, note that I never said VB scripts in the parent post. Most of the stuff I linked to are about one of the older HTML exploits (some of them are a HTML buffer overflow). HTML is (arguably, but in this context definitely) a script language, especially when the HTML code that's run contains ActiceX controls with VB script in them, as these viruses do. Removing VBScript support from Outlook doesn't stop it from running the HTML code (in the preview pane) but it stops all of the currently known exploits of that hole since they require the VB Scripting Support in Outlook 2000 and XP to execute their payload.
I don't know where it is right now, but it used to be on Broadway. *badda-bing*
What, are you a spambot harvester? ;-) Remove two of the ats and two of the dots. Any two. :-)
I've never gotten that. My take on VB in an e-mail program is that it may be good in specific intranet app situations (though I'd be hard pressed to think of a good real-life example) and viruses. Not sure if you even would get that popup without the VB support installed, though. It might ask you to install it. :-)
Just for kicks, if you have one of those e-mails lying around and wouldn't mind sharing it, could you forward it to me? It'd be interesting to see what it does.
As one who have used e-mail extensively long before Outlook arrived, I think you're just plain astroturfing, making a silly comment like that. I got my first (Unix shell-based) e-mail account in the fall of 1990, migrated to Lotus Notes in 1995 and to Netscape Mail in 1998, long before Outlook was usable or even existed. How those actual facts can translate into Outlook being "better all along" is frankly beyond me. Outlook really doesn't do anything for the users that MS Mail together with Schedule+ couldn't do years before and Exchange+Outlook can still not touch the groupware features of Lotus Notes or Novell Groupwise. Remember the first "Exchange Client" in Windows 95? You know, the one that couldn't actually connect to an Exchange server? "All along", my ass.
I've never been affected by an email virus.
Anecdotal, at best - what does that prove? Me neither. Then again, I've never used Outlook. I have lots of clients using Outlook though, and before I started forcing them to install virus scanners, they had lots of problems with viruses. That doesn't prove anything either - on the other hand, a brief scan of Symantec's and McAfee's virus databases...
When installing - don't select the Default Settings stuff (don't remember off the top of my head what they call it, it's some Individual Settings blah, blah) - that gives you the ability to select options for the various Office components, among them Visual Basic Scripting Support for Outlook and also the option to not install the Office Assistant. If you already have Office installed, re-run setup and select the Add or Remove Features option. (This is for Office XP, but I seem to recall it was available in Office 2k too)
Care to back that up with references?
McAfee Security W32/Nimda@MM Help Center Outlook Virus Misconceptions Microsoft Security Bulletin (MS00-043) Win32/Bugbear.A@mm VIRUS DESCRIPTIONI normally install Office right after Windows, but before the virus scanner. I guess I'm afraid the virus scanner wouldn't let me install Office if I have that running first...
Nah, it's not cool to whine about bugs.
Especially as Outlook happily opens and runs evil scripts in e-mail messages, even if you just look at the mail in the preview pane. Most of those holes have been patched by now, but I keep seeing new ones in the auto-update logs.
I wouldn't call Outbreak an improvement unless you're a virus writer. First thing I do when forced to install it for a client is to remove the Vicious Basic support, #2 is to install a virus scanner.
"Bugs are cool, come get some!"
Judging by the number of lawyers working for them, they might as well be.
In this model, Suns behave just like comets.