Use a horse and not your car

[Gaston in Argentina]

Just found this article by The Independient regarding global warming.-

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2193672.ece

Global Warming article The Independient

Stop to smoke, using deodorant, plastic etc.

Time for buy a conditioned air......

Cheers. Gaston

[elHoagie]

Thanks for the article Gaston, hopefully these scientific conclusions will inspire more people to reduce climate-changing emissions....

[STEVE IN SO CAL]

It appears they were wrong about aerosol being bad for the environment(per this article)...wonder what else they could be wrong about...hmm

[elHoagie]

(STEVE IN SO CAL @ Jan. 29 2007,15:55)

QUOTE

It appears they were wrong about aerosol being bad for the environment(per this article)...wonder what else they could be wrong about...hmm

Ahh Steve, my old nemesis....

My understanding is that aerosols have mitigated the effects of human induced global warming.  Although this is a good thing, it doesn't mean aerosols are good for the planet.

[STEVE IN SO CAL]

So...it's a good thing? Or...it's a bad thing?

Whatever it is, after this winter, I'm looking forward to GW  :cool:

[steve 9atx]

Sorry, Steve

As I've been saying, you better get used to cooler weather.  I wouldn't count on much more "zone creep".  http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm

Steve ;-)

p.s. according to http://www.epa.gov/ozone/defns.html many aerosols are MUCH more prone to promote global warming than lowly CO2.  As you can see by the tables, various halogenic compounds are, molecule for molecule, many thousands of times more apt to promote global warming with the additional side effect of depleting the ozone.

[Walter John]

More global warming points. Sorry lost the link, but here's what some of the points were.

CO2 storage goes into reverse when a forest matures and its older trees die and rot, surrendering their carbon to the air.

New forests might increase greenhouse warming through methane emissions rather than decrease it by being sinks for CO2.

Global warming is a fact and may already be affecting Earth's climate, and the big culprit is the billions of tonnes of CO2 spewed out by burning oil, gas and coal.

From 1990-2000, more than 12 per cent of the world's tropical forests were hacked down.

[steve 9atx]

Wal

I beg your pardon.  The burning of fossil fuels is BY NO MEANS established as the "culprit" causing global warming.  Indeed, we have no idea as to the effect of this practice has on the natural, cyclical although chaotic solar and terrestrial cycles.  Follows the best compendium of debunking the sensational crap you read in the MSM I have found so far: http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Carter/WE-STERN.pdf

Respectfully,

Steve

[Walter John]

pardon me  

How'd you know I burped ?

[SubTropicRay]

Hi Gaston,

Can I skip the horse for a bicycle?

Ray

[steve 9atx]

Wal

Was that a burp?  I thought I heard the sounds of self flagellation.......

Steve  ::

[Neofolis]

I still don't understand why all the debate.  If we don't know if human's are causing the earth to heat up or cool down, surely we should still be trying to reduce whatever impact we may be having.  The fact that we don't know what impact we are having is surely the scarey part.  Arguements for whether we are causing the earth to heat up or cool down seem somewhat irrelevant, we just need to investigate and study further until we do have a better understanding of our impact and, in the meantime, try to minimize all of the things we do that may be having an effect.

[Bilbo]

It would be foolish to say that man had no effect on climate whatsoever; BUT there have been at least 3 Ice Ages and also many periods when the Earth was a lot hotter and had more CO2 and as far as I know back in the Jurassic Mr & Mrs T.Rex were not riding around in 4X4s!

Surely both natural cycles and the Sun are far more important than the puny activities of mankind?

Regardezs

Juan

[Kathy]

(Neofolis @ Feb. 07 2007,05:31)

QUOTE

I still don't understand why all the debate.  If we don't know if human's are causing the earth to heat up or cool down, surely we should still be trying to reduce whatever impact we may be having.  The fact that we don't know what impact we are having is surely the scarey part.  Arguements for whether we are causing the earth to heat up or cool down seem somewhat irrelevant, we just need to investigate and study further until we do have a better understanding of our impact and, in the meantime, try to minimize all of the things we do that may be having an effect.

Brilliant.  No need to fight while the house is burning down.

[Neofolis]

(Bilbo @ Feb. 07 2007,12:23)

QUOTE

Surely both natural cycles and the Sun are far more important than the puny activities of mankind?

The point is we don't know, why take the chance, when there are things we can do to help.

You may be right, but what if you're not.  There is no point in waiting, we know that will achieve nothing, at least if we make an effort, there is a chance some good will come from it.

[STEVE IN SO CAL]

Corey...study is certainly in order. My problem is the environMENTALists insisting that we tie up one leg of industry and progress because they say so. Yes, there is climate change...but it has happened before. We could curb emissions to the point of throwing ourselves back 100 years(riding horses), only to have a volcano erupt and spew mega tons of debris, voiding our efforts.  Not sure what the answer is, but I'm not shutting down because Al Gore says so. Self importance can be as dangerous to mankind as global warming  :cool:

[Neofolis]

I agree that we shouldn't take backwards steps, but there are efforts that we can all make to reduce our emmisions without suffering anything more than a little inconvenience or expense.

Things like alternative fuels, better home insulation, etc. would not cause any changes to our development, but would reduce our impact.

[steve 9atx]

Neofolis

Argument about the "anthropogenic global warming” is very important for two reasons, one pure in and of itself, the other purer still. I am not a scholar in this area, so my links are intended to be few, brief summaries and not scholarly in nature. I encourage you to test the authors’ references and share your comments with this thread.

The first instance reason has simply to do with science. When someone like Al Gore takes two of 100 radial transects of Antarctica which show a decrease in the ice sheet and offers them up as “proof” of the decimation of the ice sheet by man-made global warming while ignoring the other 98 of which a few show no change but the majority an increase in the thickness of the ice sheet (while ignoring the work of other, independent groups confirming the overall thickening of the Antarctic ice sheet) anyone with a true interest in science needs to stand up and call bullshit. Some people are: <http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm>  One of scores of examples of data manipulation by Gore not meant to be caught by the masses.......  http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008597

Now, Al Gore is a layman (i.e. “idiotes” in Greek). But when a climate scientist like Dr. Mann omits, exaggerates, and/or manipulates data in order to come up with the “hockey stick” graph according to his analysis, recent and unprecedented warming by conveniently ignoring the Mediaeval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age, and other natural cycles which would otherwise tend to form an historical sine wave someone REALLY needs to call bullshit, especially someone in his own profession. Some are: <http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=b201301b-6b23-41a9-9226-2e2bada56f6e> Here, I apologize for the synopsis, the original Wegman report I posted on this website appears to be unavailable on-line. If you can find the original Wegman et. al., you will read that they adjudge as a matter of scientific peer review that Dr Mann’s data and methodology so corrupt as to make his conclusions “unsupportable”.  The Mann hockey stick despite having been debunked by peer review (I understand Mann is working on "revisions" to his model now) is still trotted out constantly to "prove" that global warming is recent and unprecedented and therefore must be being caused by human activity.  If the hockey stick is debunked, there's not even correlation, much less causation.  This is no less than the “fudging” of scientific data in order to suggest a simplistic, linear cause-and-effect relationship between atmospheric CO2 and surface temperature; this in lieu of the kind of model that would really be required to explain the complex, chaotic, and indeterminate system that is our climate.

By the way, if you don’t believe that the Mediaeval Warm Period was much warmer than today (like 4-5 degrees C warmer), look around southern England where you are and see if you can see widespread viticulture as existed during the Medieval, and before that, Roman times. A new book by University of Virginia professors Avery and Singer contains a wealth of this kind of evidence for historical climates.  Kind of reminds me of that episode of “Chef” where he’s in a Paris wine shop asking for “vin d’Angleterre”.  Amusant, no?

The second reason may be even more important.  It is what happens when politicians and others call what is at best unproven, "consensus", and then attempt to silence those who have legitimate arguments against their theories, better "hypotheses".  This is an anti-scientific, political agenda and is what we see occurring now. Just in the past week, I’ve seen three US governors seeking to replace the State Climatologists in the States of Delaware, Virginia, and Oregon because they don’t tow the line on the “consensus” of man-made global warning. In Oregon at least, it’s because the Climatologist, a scientist and college professor, is out of step with the State’s “policy” on climate change.

I got it, let’s put the “policy” first and the science after. In Texas, we would call this ass-backwards. Re: http://www.junkscience.com/jan07/Political...nce-WSJ.com.pdf  This method is called by some “preconceptual science” and can be illustrated by the attached diagram http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=761.

Examples: a "PhD TV personality", Heidi Cullen, on the national cable TV Weather Channel has proposed that any professional Meteorologist that suggests anything contrary to the theory of anthropogenic global warming should have his or her American Meteorological Society membership revoked!  The new Speaker of the US House of Representative has stripped a veeery senior Congressman from Michigan of her own party of his chairmanship of the House environment committee simply because he is from a State that happens to have some heavy industry, which she supposes would influence him not to tow the line.  A columnist for the Boston Globe today pronounced that denying man-made global warming is tantamount to denying the Holocaust!  http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=1100095523'>http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=1100095523

Environmental science is becoming something some of us call “scientism”, maybe better "McCarthyism", for those who don’t subscribe to the "consensus".  Is this the same consensus we were all dreading a few years ago about the coming ice age?  (BTW, there is still excellent astronomical evidence that a decrease in solar output will bring this about in the future.)  If you liked Larry's Penn and Teller video about recycling, just watch the one on Environmental Hysteria.

Worst of all, though, is when the politicians listen to the most shrill voices in forming their policies.  Many highly educated, thoughtful, and serious people are telling us that slamming the brakes on fossil fuel consumption 1.) May or may not make a difference to the climate models in any case, http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/fe...ml?id=110009181, http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007104 and 2.) will constitute a de facto massive and multi-generational tax on the poor  http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009552 . We will have withheld the cheapest form of energy known on the planet to developing countries in order to try to preserve some mythical steady-state climate.  

In the worst of all possible cases something like this happens:  http://www.jpands.org/vol9no3/edwards.pdf  This is when the blood on their hands is due directly to swallowing the junk science created by people with an agenda.  In some cases it takes decades to undo public opinion with real scientific proof.  In this case, we traded false data about bird eggshells for millions of lives worldwide.  If you doubt their motives, read the last two sentences of:  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,202447,00.html

In my humble opinion, this is what the debate is really all about.  People.

Respectfully,

Steve

p.s. for those who pooh pooh my links to the WSJ because it is a conservative rag, might want to know that conservative media watch sites maintain that the WSJ opinion page and editorial practices are more reliably liberal than the NYT.

[steve 9atx]

Forgot one:  http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB116960423818685795-lMyQjAxMDE3NjA5OTYwMDk0Wj.html

[STEVE IN SO CAL]

Whilst not as articulate as my namesake in the great state of Texas(of which I am a native), I have a simplistic point I'd also like to make.....

Suppose ol Ma Earth would PREFER it be warmer. What is the "optimal" temperature for our planet? Does anyone know? Is there one? What if this accelerated warming trend is needed to stay on schedule? Perhaps those old nasty ice caps NEED to be melted to continue our planets evolution as intended.

Some people have big egos and there own self importance steers their actions. They think they are powerful enough to destroy the earth...but more importantly, they feel they are powerful enough to SAVE it...that's where it gets scary. Hold on to your wallets.

[Neofolis]

I'm not disagreeing with the idea that science has popular theory trends.  It's common practice in many sciences, particularly theoretical physics, which annoy me constantly with their, popular theories.  Anyone who says something that goes against the grain gets debunked, yet 10-15 years later the same suggestion may become popular in the scientific community and suddenly that same person is a leading figure again.  Science usually goes about these things the wrong way, they come up with a theory and then try to prove it.  Unfortunately, whilst they may find evidence to support their theory, it doesn't exclude any number of alternative ideas that they may not have even considered.

All I am saying is that there are cleaner, renewable fuel sources avialable and we have other means of reducing our fuel usage, so whether it affects climate or not, we should be investing in them.  Just as we shouldn't litter the roads with food packaging, we shouldn't litter the atmosphere with gases.  Humans are driven by a thirst for knowledge and progress and there is no reason that it should change, but we should do it responsibly.  If it costs a little more, then so be it.

[steve 9atx]

All

Sorry to keep beating a dead horse during his well-attended vigil......  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1363818.ece

Steve

[Jim in Los Altos]

As far as I'm concerned, the better reason for reducing our use of fossil fuels is to lessen or eliminate our dependence on oil imported from the Middle East. Say what you will about what's causing global warming, I'm far from convinced that human's are the cause but, that said, I'd be the happiest person on earth if we could thumb our noses at OPEC.

[steve 9atx]

I'm drinkin' so it must be that pony's wake already....  http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279a.html

Steve

p.s. Jim, you have opened the oyster on a pearl of wisdom that many of us share with you.  Re: OPEC, howz about that fancy new dictator they have down there in Venezuela?  Mabye he can come up there and shut down the LA Times for you.