◼ Will Obama ‘Betray’ Environmentalists? "...at least on the surface, there has been a sea change from Obama the campaigner to Obama the soon-to-be president. Can the president-elect’s apparent betrayal of his core supporters go beyond foreign policy, economics, and defense? Yes, it can, right to its “religious” core: environmentalism....
...Obama will have an unexpected excuse if, as I expect (and hope), he abandons economy-crippling environmental aggressiveness in his first term. It is that the European Union has all but abandoned the radical climate change agenda. It is a development that has been virtually ignored by traditional media outlets in the U.S. But it’s happening with a vengeance, and you don’t have to look very hard to find it. Vehement objections are coming from Germany, Poland, Italy, and other EU countries.
What’s more, world opinion is turning against green extremism. The most significant finding at the linked article is that only 27% of those polled in 11 countries, including the U.S., “wanted their governments to participate in Kyoto-style international agreements to reduce emissions.”...
The worldwide economic slowdown is causing a long-overdue reevaluation of global warming (if such warming even exists):
As the global financial crisis takes hold, perhaps people are starting to wonder whether the so-called precautionary principle, which would have us accept enormous new taxes in the guise of an emissions trading scheme and curtail economic growth, is justified, based on what we actually know about climate.
The “precautionary principle,” in essence, says the following: “Okay, maybe we’re not really, really sure that global warming is occurring. And even if it is, we’re not really, really sure that human activity is causing it. But shouldn’t we err on the safe side, thereby formulating and enforcing strict emissions limits, just in case?” Such an outlook, taken to the extreme, would close the door on any and all future human progress. World opinion, which Obama and leftists love to claim should hold so much sway, isn’t answering “No.” It’s screaming “Heck no!" ◼ pajamasmedia.com
Make that "HELL NO!"
Enforcing strict emissions limits would push investment for R&D and create new jobs. Global warming is happening as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rise. NASA, the Pentagon and 99% of scientists agree. You are among the last to know, Rose. You one percenters are very vocal - and very wrong.
ReplyDeleteDred
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=164002
ReplyDeleteNope. Rose is right, Dred.
ReplyDeleteYou make a compelling argument there Fred
ReplyDeleteYou watch 60 minutes last night Rose? They interviewed the President of Saudi Arabia & the head of OPEC. Each basically said that they need America to stay addicted to foreign oil to be a successful nation. They set a target price for a barrel of oil (to be met by next year) that is 50 above what it is now.
ReplyDeleteI say investing in new energy technology is a great thing. Bring on electric cars, bring on nuclear power, bring on solar & research in storing power.
That's an entirely different issue!
ReplyDeleteOf COURSE new energy technology is a great thing!
For God's sake, you don't need the religious aspects of "Global Warming" guilt to beat people up with. We were all there back in the 70s - recycling, refurbishing, turning away from the materialism (then the yuppies happened :).
WILLINGLY!
We don't need threats from the high priest to tell us that oil reserves won't last forever - and no one in their right mind wants to keep funding people who want to cut our heads off.
"Global Warming" is a theory that has become a scam, one of the biggest boondoggles of all time.
Carbon credits? What a JOKE!
It is now called Climate Change rather than Global Warming.
ReplyDeleteI found the Saudi oil sheik fascinating, and he made a good point. We're not going to be weaned away from fossil fuels overnight, so in the mean time, he figures they/we should work on cleaner/greener ways to use it.
ReplyDeleteYes, carbon credits are stupid, but denying human responsibility for climate change is way stupider.
Are people turning against the greening movement? Not exactly, if you read the story Rose linked to:
"There's consumer reluctance that's creeping in, and we've seen that some are being stunned into inaction by the enormity of the task," said Earthwatch executive vice-president Nigel Winser.
I can relate. Changing your lifestyle ain't easy and changing the world is indeed a monumental task. I can't afford a hybrid, and there's no money in our household budget to buy solar panels, but, when my old fridge stops working, you can be sure I'll get a smarter one. Meanwhile, the theromstat's turned down and I'm wearing a sweatshirt.
"...but denying human responsibility for climate change is way stupider.".
ReplyDeleteThat's insane, Bob.
And to reiterate, that's the reason they switched to calling it climate change. Too many incidents of record snowfalls and cold, so they switch it to climate change so their bases are always covered.
The effect people have on climate, if any, is miniscule compared to the effects that the sun, oceans and the earth itself have on it.
Bob, the latest reports indicate global cooling, and Time Magazine once predicted the coming ice age.
ReplyDeleteThe report a week or so ago noted that the irony is, it will take more carbon emissions to warm the planet.
The question then becomes - DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE MAN CAN HAVE AN EFFECT on a global temperature change.
Will driving you car more, or turning up your thermostat PREVENT an ice age?
Don't think so.
You might as well turn up your thermostat, Bob, and spend your remaining days being comfortable. After all, a meteor may hit the earth tomorrow, and it will all be moot. Or one of the Supervolcanoes could erupt, and it will all be moot.
ReplyDeleteBut even if you don't buy that - your neighbor is burning $5,000 a month worth of electricity growing pot while you are putting on extra sweaters and feeling guilty.
Not to mention what Al Gore's many houses are using while he makes you feel guilty. You must be Catholic. Guilty, a sinner, guilty, must atone. Thermostats equal Hail Mary's.
Obama will lead us in a progressive direction by appealing to the right.
ReplyDeleteWell thought out progressive policies are in everyone's self interest. When we are politically battling, we get the worse of whichever side wins.
Obama, by promoting and working with the right, will help us come together by implementing progressive changes that will be to everyones benefit.
jason
What bunk. All he's doing is selling out his liberal base, just like Clinton, just like Carter, just like all you fake Dems.
ReplyDeleteHope you enjoy getting drafted, doufus.
To Bob and all the enviro cultists, you find new and better ways to produce and use. You adapt,that's just human. Conservation is just a better way to live. Just go live with a rancher,farmer,fisherman and you'll see real cause and effect life styles. Now Bob old boy go watch the hand out begging for everything enviro nuts at NEC,Epic,Baykeeper and you will see the wrong world view. Cap and trade is a farce and it's as phony as Pelosi's smile. Evil lurks in slick packages. They'll be calling Obama an uncle Tom soon.
ReplyDeleteClimate change or global warming - it doesn't really matter what you call it - what matters are the measurable change in carbon dioxide rise in the atmosphere and corresponding changes in polar regions and at elevation.
ReplyDeleteSnow pack reflects solar energy back into space. When that reflective surface melts the underlying ground and sea absorbs that energy. The energy is convected back into the atmosphere as heat and trapped by carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide rise in the atmosphere is attributable to our use of carbon based fossil fuels - hydro-carbons. Hydro-carbon molecules are split and each freed carbon atom is combined with two heavier oxygen atoms from the atmosphere to create a carbon dioxide molecule. We convert a cubic mile of petroleum to over three cubic miles of carbon dioxide every year - while extracting two cubic miles of oxygen in the process.
We burn way more coal than petroleum. More carbon dioxide is returned to the atmosphere by the conversion of tropical rain forest to graze lands.
Having driven atmospheric carbon dioxide up by one hundred parts per million - most of it in the last century and increasingly since 1950 - we have reached a tipping point where future forecast projections for sea rise by the end of this century may be closer to twenty feet than the one to two feet that were projected just five years ago. The rate of snow and ice melt is better understood than just five years ago.
Mt. Kilimanjaro, the tallest peak in Africa will no longer be covered with year round snow pack in the next 10 to 15 years. Same thing with snow pack in the Andes that supplies millions with water for drinking and irrigation along the Pacific coast of South America. The melting of glacial dams wipe out villages in the mountains of Nepal somewhat frequently over the past ten years. The amount of fresh water flowing into the north Atlantic from Canada has slowed the north flowing gulf current, that keeps Europe's climate temperate, by forty percent.
Incidences of record snow fall, cold temperature and other extreme weather phenomena fit changing weather pattern predictions associated with climate change. Your neighbor's $5,000 per month light bill chaps your ass for other reasons than global climate change, but it does point to the need for a clean energy solution.
We live on a planet with an atmosphere uniquely suitable to life made possible by a minute quantity of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Unfortunately, we are changing our atmosphere ever more rapidly. Currently the quantity of carbon dioxide is rising by two percent each year.
Dred
Dred, I didn't know you were so dang gullible - but you REALLY ought to watch the Great Global Warming Swindle. I used to have them in the sidebar, maybe I'll reinstall that.
ReplyDeleteDid you catch the great (failed) Kilamanjaro PR stunt, with Matt Lauer's cohort, what's her name?
Don't get me wrong - I'm all for solar, 100% for it, cars, hot water heaters, everything.
ReplyDeleteI also believe we need to commit ourselves, as a nation, to being Middle East oil free, and even oil free within 10 years. We have the knowledge, the technology, all we need is the commitment.
We don't need penalties and all of Al Gore's negative fees and fines and crap to punish and degrade people into bowing to some stupid governmental boondoggle.
Do it as a matter of pride, a positive and meaningful move forward - you'll be surprised how people will respond.
You're bringing the worst of religion into the deal with this Warmista crap.
Dred,
ReplyDeleteEnforcing increasingly draconian emissions regulations will drive up costs to end users and drive businesses closer to bankruptcy. Global temperatures have been up and down (down since 1998) since Earth was formed. That goes also for CO2 levels which have always lagged warming trends by several centuries. Hansen of NASA is totally dependent on governmental (taxpayer) funding and sings the warmista chant because it involves his rice bowl. The pentagon has just released a publication noting that there are conflicting theories on the efficacy of the warmista assertions. A substantial number of former warmista supporting scientists have recanted and joined the ranks of the "skeptics" who now constitute about half of the scientific climate community. You followers of the warmista religion are very gullible and your numbers are dwindling.
Lastly, increased CO2 levels will increase plant growth and thus are a boon to the county's most profitable industry.
Thank you! HH.
ReplyDeleteAnd, Dred, some say that mankind has made his biggest advancements during periods of warming, so you better HOPE that we will yet see that warming trend, as opposed to an ice age which will kill alot more people - and their food source.
I did love the proposals to send up a whole canopy of umbrellas to shade the earth and cool it down, though, offset those carbon emissions...
The Ant Men are arrogant indeed to think they have an effect of the globe's temperature.
On the breathability of its air? Yes. The drinkability of its water? Yes.
Those are the areas that require our ingenuity and commitment, as vital to national security as an army.
Global Climate change will be the United States of America's biggest challenge to domestic security before the end of this century according to the Pentagon.
ReplyDeleteAtmospheric carbon dioxide will double by mid century and triple by 2075. Our use of fossil fuels starting with coal several centuries ago - first for heat and then to fuel steam engines that replaced animal and human labor - allowing our species to cut down the forests of Europe and convert those lands to agriculture which spurred population growth well beyond the historical figure of 500 million that had existed for about 10,000 years. The European colonization of the Americas and subsequent conversion of forests to croplands from the Atlantic seaboard to the Mississippi River allowed for further growth in population until around 1830 when for the first time it reached 1 billion. The industrial revolution followed and the electrification of Europe and America pushed the demand for coal fired electrical generation. By 1930 the population reached 2 billion. The advent of the internal combustion engine created the next big leap in consumption of fossil fuel in the form of petroleum and in its various distillates and natural gas used for transportation, as well the manufacture of plastics and fertilizer and heating fuels of homes and businesses as well as for water and for cooking. Along the way the middle class was created and the demand for energy soared to meet our increasing dependence that has made our middle class lifestyle possible. By 1960 population growth reached 3 billion. By 1975 growth was at 4 billion. By 1990 - 5 billion. 2005 - 6 billion.
I believe that my view of global climate change is based on historical and scientific facts. And those facts can be projected into the future. One only has to look at the growing demand for energy in Asia, Central and South America and the Middle East as those areas of the world develop and create middle class economies that rival North America and Europe.
Carbon dioxide emissions must peak by 2015 or we may all be doomed by global climate change rapidly moving beyond our ability to manage it. This will take the leadership and cooperation of governments and must not be left to unguided motives for profit - though profit motives will undoubtedly come into play. It can't be left to the biggest profiteers in the history of mankind - the oil and coal companies of the world unless mandated that they use their R&D money to help fund research to find and improve alternate clean energy sources and to build the infrastructure that makes those alternate sources available to all. It will take the further efforts of our largest engineering and chemical companies.
I do not call for a religious solution. I do not care for end of the world scenarios.
Dred
By religion I'm referring to the hairshirts and guilt tripping - haven't you read Crichton's piece on Environmentalism as a Religion?
ReplyDeleteAhh, the fall from grace, and the redemption in the form of recycling and paying your carbon credits - an odd form of tithing - all from a people who are said to have turned away from all things religious,,, still that need must be filled.
It's Lord of The Flies, Man. Warmistas.
My favorite part is the hypocrites - the ones with 20 cars and a Lear Jet who want to make the guy with 1 CAR, 3 Bedrooms and a washing machine feel guilty about his "carbon footprint."
Not only that, but they're the ones setting up the pigeon-drop, err, I mean the 'carbon-banks' - they'll be as rich as Soros off of your guilt...
I haven't been to Europe yet, wanna buy my carbon credits? I have a lifetime accumulation... what'll you pay me?
Stand on the steps of the courthouse in Denver, Colorado. The atmosphere has 50% the density at that mile high elevation above sea level. The rise in atmospheric carbon is measurable. We have through ice core sampling measured historic atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and have a record going back 100,000 years - the entire age of man in his modern form. Through comparison of those records with ocean sediment we can project atmospheric carbon levels back to 1 million years - over multiple heating/cooling cycles. The recent rise of atmospheric carbon puts those levels higher than they have ever been in the last million years.
ReplyDeleteWhen I mentioned the 40% weakening of the Gulf current that has allowed Europe - and for that matter Eastern Canada and the USA - to enjoy a temperate climate - it was to a possible rapid cooling event that I was alluding too, Rose. An ice age can happen in under 10 years. The study of ocean floor sediments revealed this fact quite some time ago.
Dred
Michael Crichton was an inspired lunatic. He described ugly little demons that he had attached to his soul that had to be exercised by a witch. Believed every blinkin' word of it, he did.
ReplyDeleteDred
Dred
ReplyDeleteWhat is your degree in? Do you have a Masters Degree or just a BS? Or more than likely no degree at all. A self proclaimed expert.
Degree in CP - - cutting and pasting. Dred, you wrote that the recent cooling is proof of global warming. Yep. Do you think the sun has anything to do with the earth's temperature?
ReplyDeleteOwlgore has been issuing the same warning for over 10 years:
ReplyDelete“Some of the leading scientists are now saying we may have as little as 10 years before we cross a kind of point-of-no-return, beyond which it’s much more difficult to save the habitability of the planet in the future,”
It turns out that these unnamed "leading scientists" are almost totally dependent on government grants provided by politicians who stand to enjoy a huge increase in their power by the institution of cap and trade schemes as well as additions to the proposed bureaucracy.
If sea level rise is an indication of actual global warming due to changes in ice locked in glaciers and ice caps as well as expansion and contraction of the seas due to warming and cooling, then the cessation of sea level rises since 2005 implies what Josh Willis originally concluded from observation of the Argo buoys that the global oceans were cooling slightly was right. He was pressured by NOAA and others to change his tune and help them find some instrumental reasons why his findings were wrong. Another example of how politics trumps science in this new sorry era.
Glaciers have been retreating long before CO2 was a "problem". Now we learn that the glaciers have stopped retreating and are expanding. After years of decline, glaciers in Norway are again growing, reports the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate, as reported in Daily Tech.
DailyTech has previously reported on the growth in Alaskan glaciers, reversing a 250-year trend of loss. Some glaciers in Canada, California, and New Zealand are also growing, as the result of both colder temperatures and increased snowfall.
Glaciers tend to grow when snow fall is greater than snow melt. Other factors come into play, such as water flow that lubricates the contact area between earth and glacier and incline.
ReplyDeleteGlobal climate change has an uneven aspect to it. Arctic regions and high elevations will begin warming up several weeks earlier in the spring and fall will extend into winter by several weeks. The Arctic has warmed by 8 degrees F since 1990. Permafrost is melting to greater depths. Millions of metric tons of methane once captured in permafrost is being released every summer. Methane is 20 times more effective than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. Last winter temperatures were colder in Siberia than northern Canada. But on average, arctic temperatures have warmed considerably more than the rest of the earth. Temperature gradients create weather that you perceive as wind, rain, and snow. Fronts move across North America every 7 days - or there about. That is why if you have a nasty weather weekend, chances are you will have a similar experience the following weekend.
Climate change due to man made carbon dioxide is based on proven multi-disciplinary science. In 1988 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was established by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme. Its main objective is to to assess scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding human induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for mitigation and adaptation. A scam and boondoggle it is not. Some of their science based information include the following:
Yearly global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning, cement manufacture and gas flaring has risen from 5,000 million metric tons in 1950 to 25,000 million metric tons in 2002.
Current global deforestation of 13 million hectares per year result in approximately 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Reducing emissions from deforestation is one of the most cost-effective opportunities for reducing emissions in the short term. While financing from developed countries will play a roll, ultimately carbon markets are the only mechanism capable of mobilizing investment on the scale needed to reduce emissions from deforestation.
"Carbon credits? What a JOKE!"
Fire away, flat earthers!
Dred
Dred, or more likely her cut and paste source states:
ReplyDelete"Global climate change has an uneven aspect to it. Arctic regions and high elevations will begin warming up several weeks earlier in the spring and fall will extend into winter by several weeks."
Please cite the scientific source for this assertion. George Monbiot's blog will not suffice as he is merely a religious activist with no scientific credentials.
"The Arctic has warmed by 8 degrees F since 1990."
Interesting your source would cherry pick a beginning date of 1990. I can cherry pick alternative data to suggest the onset of an ice age since 1999.
"Methane is 20 times more effective than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas."
True enough. Question: Then why not initiate a program to arrest the emission of methane gas from termites which are the major source of that gas? Answer: It is impossible and does not contribute to an accretion of political power.
"...arctic temperatures have warmed considerably more than the rest of the earth."
Does this explain the INCREASE in arctic ice pack and the plunge of recorded temperatures in Antarctica since 2001?
"Climate change due to man made carbon dioxide is based on proven multi-disciplinary science."
Total nonsense. The entire warmista religion is erected on the basis of computer models substituting forced inputs of worse case scenarios for unavailable data.
"...United Nations Environment Programme. Its main objective is to to assess scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding human induced climate change,.."
The IPCC was founded by politicians whose chief agenda is to achieve greater political power by bullying and bribing "scientists" who rely on governmental funding.
"Yearly global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning, cement manufacture and gas flaring has risen from 5,000 million metric tons in 1950 to 25,000 million metric tons in 2002."
And your point is...? There has been no correlation proven between CO2 content in the atmosphere and warming of the planet except that increases in CO2 have followed warming by several centuries.
"Current global deforestation of 13 million hectares per year result in approximately 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions."
Deforestation cannot in itself result in greenhouse gas emissions. Forests convert CO2 to oxygen and the removal of trees is immediately followed by a proliferation of other plant life which continues the process.
At least you got one item right: "Carbon credits are a joke."
Will Owlgore unload is shares in Generation Investment Management? Not likely, nor is the likelihood of any logical or scientific position prevailing in the face of a fundamentally religious belief. Enjoy your delusion. Such a pity you insist on proselytizing the gullible "progressives".
Pay attention, Dred.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't be calling people 'flat-earthers' when you are yourself such a prime example.
Huge numbers of scientists, even those who initially signed on to the Warmista bandwagon, are now changing their positions.
And there are some really sharp people catching errors, even causing NASA to revise their reports.
Rose doesn't suggest that these people are "sharp" until they say something that she wants to listen to
ReplyDeleteNah. It's just that 'sharp' is a way to describe the guy who looked at the climate data - warmest oct on record - and said, wait a minute, something isn't right, and ran the numbers, and found that the reports out of Russia were not for sept and oct, but sept and sept... duplicated, like some lazy guy just resubmitted the numbers rather than submit the new numbers...
ReplyDeleteAnd then NASA quietly revised their report.
Yeah. That does kinda get my attention. Especially when its the second time the 'sharp' guy has caught errors. "Genius' might be a better word, actually.
Western Alaska's Bering sea coast no longer has the protection of sea ice when late fall storms pound the shore line due to an extended warm season. Inuit villages have been lost to erosion. Interior Alaska's permafrost melts to greater depths causing black spruce forests to fall down due to the lack of solidity below their roots. Ive seen video in both cases.
ReplyDeleteMethane is emitted into the atmosphere from many sources but no one source is equal to the amount that is being emitted from the arctic tundra during its warmer and longer summer season which is melting deeper into the permafrost.
Interior Antarctica is not warming as fast as the arctic, though western Antarctic glaciers are melting at a faster rate than predicted. The Arctic ocean has been navigable from the Atlantic to the Bering sea for at least part of the last two summer seasons. I've seen the satellite imagery. This has never been possible.
As I pointed out earlier, ice core samples have been taken to the depth of two miles which encompass one million years of trapped atmospheric gases. Much of that history has been cross referenced with ocean floor sediment core samples containing fossilized remains of known life forms that index average climate temperature ranges plus collected tree ring data going back tens of thousands of years. The evidence shows that historic atmospheric carbon dioxide levels chart climate change as well as precipitation and periods of drought. Your claim that a 200 year lag between changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels do not agree with the charts that I have seen.
Amazon rain forests grow on poor soils that do not regenerate forests easily on their own. When those forests are burned to create graze land for cattle as happened in Brazil, CO2 emissions happen on a large scale. You do not have to agree with the IPCC's scientific data. A rain forest sequesters more carbon than poor grass land that is only fit to be grazed by skinny brahma and zebu cattle.
Two years ago a hurricane crossed the equator and made landfall in the southern hemisphere - first time in recorded history.
Twelve of the hottest years since records have been kept have happened since 1990.
You flat earthers and one percenters can make any claim you want. Tomorrow I can tune into AM talk radio and listen to your source. But I probably won't.
Dred
Gore has Obama's ear on climate change
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/10/MN2H14L3QN.DTL&type=politics&tsp=1
The AM talkers rarely even talk about "Global Warming" anymore. Other than to howl at its new moniker "Climate Change" (or in other words, we'll get you coming or going, by hook or by crook (Goreism)
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice if dred could cite the source from which she cuts and pastes so we could sort out the tinfoil hat folks from the flat earthers and one percenters.
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice if dred could cite the source from which she cuts and pastes so we could sort out the tinfoil hat folks from the flat earthers and one percenters.
ReplyDeleteMy sources are many, heretic. I have not cut and pasted anything. Your heretical opinions will have to be directed at me.
ReplyDeleteDreadful Anonymous
As for my identity, I can only reply that I am an honest man, upright after the fashion of frontiersmen. Though I have killed two our three in brawls, I am not regarded as quarrelsome.
ReplyDeleteDreadful Anonymous
Nah. You're an entertainer, Dred. A playful entertainer.
ReplyDeleteNo, a wuss. Come to my bar and start a brawl.
ReplyDeleteSure! If you can pick yourself off the floor when its over, I will buy you a drink and we will be friends. If not, why, I'll send flowers to your family.
ReplyDeleteDreadful anonymous.
From the preface of Gale E. Christianson's book "Greenhouse":
ReplyDelete"In the rain forests of the world dwell most of the Earth's plant, animal, and insect species, the majority of which are not yet classified by scientists. Locked within the massive canopy are countless billions of tons of carbon dioxide. It is being returned to the atmosphere at a record rate as a result of intentional burning and rampant logging, which, when opposed by environmentalists, has often resulted in murder in the Amazon. Based on analysis of growth rings, the same trees are providing scientists with a crucial record of climate change, one bolstered by the decline of coral reefs, the migrations of diminutive species of butterfly, the shrinkage of glaciers, and ice cores laboriously collected at both poles. Moreover, scientists are using the most advanced computers to create models of climate change in the future..."
Dred
More from the preface of "Greenhouse":
ReplyDelete"Greenhouse" is the biography of a scientific idea, the story of what global warming - or the so-called greenhouse effect - is and how it came to be. The story begins nearly two centuries ago, with the natural philosopher Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier, who came within a hair's breadth of being executed during the French Revolution. Fourier was the first to envision earth as a giant greenhouse whose atmosphere traps radiant heat from the Sun, warming the planet and giving life to every plant and animal inhabiting its surface, a sign to the Frenchman of natures great benevolence."
"In 1896, three-quarters of a century after Fourier published his all but forgotten article, the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius returned to the subject. The future Nobel laureate conjectured that industrial pollutants, most particularly carbon dioxide, were accumulating in Earth's atmosphere. If this gaseous buildup continued, temperatures would gradually rise, although Arrhenius believed it likely that the worlds supply of coal and other carbon fuels would be exhausted long before global warming could have an appreciable effect."
Dred
scientists are using the most advanced computers to create models of climate change in the future..."
ReplyDeleteAhhh. COMPUTER MODELS. I feel so much better now.
I am so happy to be able to assuage your fear of computers and with further attendance, perhaps I may be able to rebuild your faith in science. With patience and understanding I shall proceed with this monumental task and only when the veil is lifted from your eyes will I claim rest as my reward.
ReplyDeleteMore from the preface of "Greenhouse":
"As we have recently learned, only a few degrees separate a warm planet from one shrouded in ice, a tale told in the once mysterious disappearance of the Anasazi from the American Southwest, the parallel demise of the Vikings of Greenland, and the scattering of the "Okies" during the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression. Not until the late 1970s would scientists, armed with data indicating that the planet was warming more rapidly than Arrhenius theorized, sound the alarm."
Dred
Ever read the skeptical environmentalist? That guy IS a scientist... but what is here and there is that the truth is that Dred and other idiots myself included are as about as significant as a tse-tse fly; if and when the earth warms up enough to harm or cool enough to harm or its magnetic poles change or whatever ... you and I will NOT be able to do anything to stop it - the only constant is CHANGE itself - Nature always wins no matter how toxic, explosive or messy. Do something really important in your life: help feed those who do not have food and (drum roll) BE NICE TO EACH OTHER while you have the time.
ReplyDeleteMore from the preface of "Greenhouse":
ReplyDeleteBefore "Fourier and other great scientific figures, Earth's origins and age were based on the chronology set forth in the Old Testament, and it was impossible to grasp the sweep of time or the great changes, both climatic and geologic, to which the planet has been subjected during the 4 billion years of its existence. Among Fourier's fellow voyagers in time travel were James Hutton, a lonely, contemplative Scotsman, and Sir Charles Lyell, an inveterate collector of butterflies. Together they championed the theory of uniformitarianism, which argues that the atmospheric and geologic forces currently at work are the same as those that operated in the past, paving the way for the modern science of geology. And for Charles Darwin as well. Lyells friend and colleague, Darwin added time to the evolutionary scale the way that Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton added distance to the stars. Yet Darwin would have rested much easier had he only known about a simple moth whose coloration was changing in response to the polluted skies of an industrializing England."
"In a series of benumbing changes that bordered on the inexorable, the warp and woof of nature were being rewoven on the loom of industry."
Dred
The author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" is a proven fraud. I bought his book and within weeks it was all over the media that he knowingly perpetrated fraud. His 'science' has been totally discounted. The author is a fraud and the book is a sham.
ReplyDeleteDred
Here are a few more "one percenter flat earth" folks:
ReplyDelete"There is no compelling evidence that carbon dioxide has any significant
control over the direction of global temperature and climate. The
processes that regulate the interannual to decadal fluctuations of
climate are poorly understood and, as yet, unpredictable" William
Kininmonth, Meteorologist, Former Head, National Climate Centre, Bureau
of Meteorology, 1986-1998
Despite last year's United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declaration that climate change was "unequivocal, is already happening, and is caused by human activity," not all experts are convinced.
More than 650 international scientists are disputing those claims in a newly updated report. It adds about 250 scientists to the 400 who spoke out last year — and includes current and former U.N. climate panel members.
Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson writes, "Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any government funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical of anthropogenic global warming."
U.S. Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley Goldenberg says, "It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don't buy into anthropogenic,” that is man-made ‘global warming."
And from Nobel Prize Winner in physics Ivan Giaever — "global warming has become a new religion."
"There is no compelling evidence that carbon dioxide has any significant
control over the direction of global temperature and climate. The
processes that regulate the interannual to decadal fluctuations of
climate are poorly understood and, as yet, unpredictable" William
Kininmonth, Meteorologist, Former Head, National Climate Centre, Bureau
of Meteorology, 1986-1998
Obviously these are all "proven frauds".
From "Greenhouse":
ReplyDelete"Satellite data first became available in 1979 and currently provide the only truly global temperature measurements. Critics of the greenhouse effect have been quick to point out that these readings actually declined slightly over the past two decades. Meanwhile, proponents of global warming hypothesis have mostly relied on data gathered by weather stations at Earth's surface, according to which temperatures have steadily risen, and continue to do so. This disparity between a cooling atmosphere and a warming planet seems to have been resolved by Frank J. Wentz and Mathias Schnabel, atmospheric physicists employed by Remote Sensing Systems, a private research firm located in Santa Rosa, California."
"In a 1998 article in 'Nature', Wentz and Schnabel explain how, in their reanalysis of the satilite record, they uncovered a significant distortion. Scientists had failed to take note of the inevitable decay, or lowering of the satellites' orbits as they encounter atmospheric resistance, the effect of which is to lower the temperature readings taken by onboard instruments. Once this error is corrected, the satellite record reveals a warming of about 0.07 degree Celsius per decade, bringing it in closer agreement with surface temperatures. When asked to comment on the importance of this discovery, an elated James Hansen proclaimed that it could signal nothing less than "a sea change in the global warming debate.""
"As a rule, warmer climates have more uniform temperatures than do cooler ones. The Mercury doesn't rise and fall as much at the equator as it does at the higher latitudes. Thus if greenhouse gases are warming the entire globe, temperature ranges should be narrowing, literally reducing the age-old difference between night and day. According to IPCC scientists, this is precisely what is happening. Climatologists studying several decades of weather records for China, the United States, and the former Soviet Union have found that across the Northern Hemisphere temperatures currently do not swing as widely as they once did in a day-to-day, week-to-week, or month-to-month time frame. The same records that date back twice as far in the United States as elsewhere, also indicate that precipitation now falls more often in extreme bursts of two or more inches in a day than it did a century ago, which is in line with computer models. Whether this is true outside of North America remains unclear."
Dred
Gotta tell ya, Dred, if you believe all that you oughtta be planning the business you are going to start that takes full advantage of those warmer climes. Design a line of really cute bikinis or G-strings... invest in ice-makers... plant crops here that will grow well once we get a bit warmer, maybe we'll finally be able to grow tomatoes....
ReplyDeleteYou know, think. Make it work for ya. You could be set for life just by using your superior brain.
With a mere one degree rise in global temperature following the retreat of the ice sheets, three quarters of North America's large mammals vanished.
ReplyDeleteDred
Well, there ya have it, You can be a modern day Noah. Build an Ark. Save at least two of every animal.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you're wrong and "Climate Change" turns into an Ice Age, will you be ready?
I think it would be more productive for you to look into the Supervolcanoes. They're more likely to be a threat in your lifetime.
I have a book that describes the geology of Yellowstone National Park. Major changes involving man made climate change is more likely this century than a super volcano. And we can do something to moderate that. But the challenge is daunting.
ReplyDeleteDred
"They set an ambush for their own lives." -Proverbs
ReplyDeleteDred
From "Greenhouse"
ReplyDelete"In the Galapagos Islands, the cool misty season known as 'garua' never materialized in June of 1997. Instead, the climate grew hot and sticky, giving Darwins's normally arid paradise the feel of the Amazon. In November came the rains, which in a typical year don't begin until February. Driven by trade winds seemingly gone mad and fueled by energy drawn from ocean waters warmer than average (by three degrees Celsius), they pummeled the score of volcanic islands for months on end, as if God had tired of Creation and wished to begin anew."
"The number of flightless cormorants had fallen by 45 percent during the El Nino of 1982-83. The species, unique to the Galapagos, was now under serious threat again. So, too, were the rare Galapagos penguins, whose numbers had dropped by nearly 80 percent and were just recovering fifteen years later. As before, waved albatrosses failed to breed, while, in the sea, green algae, the main food of the marine iguanas, were replaced by an inedible red species, triggering the lizards' starvation. In just two days in mid-December, rainfall on the island of Espanola totaled 204 millimeters and was rapidly gaining on the 2,770 millimeters of precipitation - six times normal - that had scoured the Galapagos in the early eighties."
Almost overnight, these barren volcano tops, some of which are still in their birth throes, became luxuriant with vegetation. Even the most arid islands were covered with a verdant carpet, an idyllic but troubling sight to resident biologists who believe that such luxuriance poses the most serious threat of all to biodiversity of the Galapagos. Conservationists have been long doing battle with invasive species - rats, cats, goats, fire ants, and biting flies - all of which thrive in surroundings rich in plant life. On the positive side, the native tortoises benefit from an abundance of vegetation, as do Darwin's well-studied finches, which breed as many as three times a year during an explosion of seed-bearing flora."
"Kicking and screaming, El Nino began flailing its way across South America in August of 1997. While blizzards enshrouded parts of the Peruvian Andes in record snowfall, stranding travelers and freezing them to death, Rio de Janeiro recorded its hottest winter day - 108 degrees F - in seventy-five years. Chile's rat population, linked to a killer hantavirus outbreak, exploded in the wake of unusual plant growth, especially the flowering of the bamboo. By January of 1998, Peru's snows had given way to torrential rains, dropping as much as thirteen liters per square meter in a fourteen-hour period. Within weeks fifty-nine bridges collapsed and 530 miles of highways were destroyed. The government, fearful of depleting the dwindling stocks of anchovies, imposed a three month band on commercial fishing. Other normally abundant species all but disappeared, having followed the plankton into cooler waters."
"In Ecuador the number of cholera cases reached 3,084 in mid-February of 1998, surpassing that for all of 1997, while floods and landslides killed 108 and drove another 28,000 from their homes. Some 37,000 acres of banana trees were inundated, ruining one of the country's key exports. Countless ponds became the breeding grounds for diseases ranging from sores on the limbs of children to mosquito-borne malaria, encephalitis, and dengue fever."
Dred
Its not either global warming or an ice age. Ice ages follow rapidly on the heals of extreme warming induced by the rise of greenhouse gases. The gulf stream current that runs north up the east coast is the key.
ReplyDeleteDred
"Greenhouse" continued...
ReplyDelete"Half a world away on the Horn of Africa, the normally docile Juba and Shabeele Rivers merged after three weeks of El Nino-spawned rains to create an inland ocean unlike anything Somalia's pastoral population had ever seen. Two thousand people died, and tens of thousands of animals were swept away. In the deadly competition that followed, marooned Somalis were attacked by hyenas as man and animal fought desperately to claim what little was left of the high ground. The waters had barely receded when the nation's 250,000 homeless were struck by the largest-ever outbreak of Rift Valley Fever, incubated in the residual "virus soup". As in the aftermath of hemorrhagic plague that struck ancient Athens during the Peloponnesian War, wary canines and vultures left the corpses untouched."
"Neighboring Kenia endured similar travail. The worst flooding in the country's history left at least 86 dead and devastated the nations roads and bridges. Sheep farmers were hard hit by an outbreak of bluetongue, a disease last seen in 1905. Losses ranged from 10 to 33 percent of the sheep population and were compounded by drastic falloff in coffee and grain production. Among the good news was a report that normally brackish Lake Nakuru in the Rift Valley, freshened by rains, had attracted 1.5 million flamingos."
Dred
I wonder what Dred's day job is.
ReplyDeleteDouble, double, toil and trouble;
ReplyDeleteFire burn and cauldron bubble.
Dred