BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: GUEST,john f weldon
Date: 15 Sep 11 - 07:58 AM

Ages ago I posted this above the line, but sometimes it's hard to decide... ...so I'll add it here...

feral folk

BTW - In 57 when the Russkis launched Sputnick, it was denounced as a fake by many a commentator. Which was odd, since it was clearly visible to the naked eye.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: EBarnacle
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 10:09 PM

Continuing: If you believe the world is going to end shortly, why worry?

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: EBarnacle
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 10:07 PM

I was just reading "Questioning the Millennium" by Stephen Jay Gould [Thank you, Kat!]. On page 52, he cites former Secretary of the Interior James Warr, also a "prominent member of the Pentecostal Assembly of God, stated that we need not worry unduly about environmental deterioration (and should therefore not invest much governmental time, money or legislation in such questions) because the world will surely end before any deep damage can be done."

This says a lot about why religious [and often political] conservatives resist the logic of cleanung up in the present.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 12:20 PM

this assumption that being a denier is the conservative thing to do.

Fits right in with their total denier mentality.

They deny Evolution. They deny that there are classes in American Society. They deny there is racism in America. They deny that Reaganomics has been an abject failure. They deny that Social Security isn't "going broke". They deny that there is anything positive about Unions. They deny the truth of anything they don't understand or agree with.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: EBarnacle
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 11:52 AM

The other reactionary conservative concern is similar to the story in which the announcement comes over the aircraft PA system: "You are flying in the first fully automated commercial aircraft. It is programmed tyo deal with all contingencies. Rest assured that nothing can go wrong, go wrong, go wrong."

Deniers believe that they live aboard a fully self correcting planet which will correct itself before anything serious goes wrong. The system may correct itself but not necessarily before we are destroyed in the process.

I prefer soft landings myself.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 10:38 AM

Given that there is at least as much money to be made trying to reduce the damage as there is in burying our heads in the sands and carrying on regardless, I am puzzled why there seems to be, especially in America, this assumption that being a denier is the conservative thing to do.

There are of course other aspects to this as well as money making, but that seems to be the primary consideration for these people.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: EBarnacle
Date: 08 Sep 11 - 08:19 PM

Tia,when I say "semistructural," I am also thinking in terms of Florida and similar places. When the underlayment becomes dehydrated, usually due to a drop in the aquifer, the structural value goes down and becomes similar to the chalk cliffs of Dover and similar places. When the right frequency or loading hits, you have a sinkhole.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 09:58 PM

200 years? In 2 hundred years, It'll be back to the future, mini fusion plants in Deloreans running on waste water.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 05:48 PM

Well Bruce.. I tried reading a bit on solar panel and Cadmium in general. Much of it is far too technical for me to evaluate, but I see pages claiming that Cadmium-Tellurium panels are about the most efficient, and the compound is fairly stable, requiring some pretty high temperatures to break down.
   The do say that is is prudent to develop Cadmium recovery systems IF we continue using Cadmium.

this page also suggests that it is not clear yet whether Silicon panels can be as efficient....

If I were betting man, I'd wager a nickle that both types...and maybe some others WILL be used for different applications. I'd wager whole dollar that solar will be a significant way of generating energy in the next few decades....and whatever the safety analysis, I'd wager $5 that overall, solar will be safer & cheaper than coal and nuclear. If I could live 200 years, I'd wager $20 that solar, wind, tides....etc., will be about the ONLY dependable sources beyond the falling water we now use.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 04:31 PM

Don,


"Heavy metals? What heavy metals?"



Yes heavy metals. You know, the ones like cadmium that cause developmental problems and birth defects.

From the article you posted:
"Even though thin-film solar PVs employ heavy metals such as cadmium recovered from mining slimes, the overall toxic emissions are "90 to 300 times lower than those from coal power plants," the researchers write in Environmental Science & Technology."

The problem that they DO NOT talk about is concentration- the difference between a ton of cadmium in a million tons of coal over 30 years vs 6 pounds in a 30 pound panel is significant- and there is cadmium pollution both in production and at end of life.

If you don't think concentration matters, I have a large gold mine with proven reserves of thousands of tons of gold to sell you- The Pacific ocean. Just send me a check...

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: GUEST,raredance
Date: 07 Sep 11 - 03:23 PM

Here is a free link to the Nature publication from the CERN CLOUD project. "Global warming" is not mentioned at all in the paper. "Climate" is mentioned only twice, once in the abstract and once in the introduction. I hope your physics and chemistry knowledge is current. Enjoy

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10343.html

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: kendall
Date: 03 Sep 11 - 07:47 PM

We know there are scientist who insist that we are not causing global warming. We also know they work for the companies that make the pollution.

The Gulf of Mexico is also a caldera. Maybe Yellowstone will give us a matched pair someday.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 03 Sep 11 - 05:32 PM

artbrooks-
That is great to hear. I've got a guy coming out Monday to spec us out for a system. I can't wait to see the meter running backwards!

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Sep 11 - 03:54 PM

Don't waste your time trying to change his mind with facts, gang.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: artbrooks
Date: 03 Sep 11 - 02:33 PM

I went solar in January. We are still on the grid - we sell our excess to the power company - and haven't had a bill since February. Most months we get a check. It cost me about $9K (after rebates), and I expect we'll make that back in about 8 years, assuming constant electrical costs.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Sep 11 - 01:49 PM

Here's a bizarre thought:   people used to live without electricity. Now, how in the world did they manage that!??

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Sep 11 - 01:17 PM

"Remember, it must provide all the electricity you need 24 hours a day."

Well, yeah. If you're living somewhere where there is no electricity at all. So this guy should learn to live without electricity at all?

Here's a suggestion:   How about he not move there in the first place? Who is this genius, anyway?

What's your point, pdq?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Sep 11 - 09:06 PM

And the guy that moved to northern Arizona has even LESS to do with the basic sense of using solar than do the financing & politics and bad business decisions & practices of a single firm.

But it IS pure PeeDee thryu & thru. At least he's consistent.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: pdq
Date: 02 Sep 11 - 08:47 PM

I recently talked to a man who moved to a part of northern Arizona where there is no electricity.

He has a new house built and the cost of a full-function solar system was still $36,000.

Remember, it must provide all the electricity you need 24 hours a day.

Energy must be converted to a storable form and then returmed to energy on demand.

All the other stuff and expert installation ain't cheap.

He will not pay back the system cost in his lifetime (most likely), but this was the price of being free and living where he wanted. Not really an economic choice.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Sep 11 - 08:39 PM

Here you go, BB:

It takes power to make power—even with a solar grand plan. From the mining of quartz sand to the coating with ethylene-vinyl acetate, manufacturing a photovoltaic (PV) solar cell requires energy—most often derived from the burning of fossil fuels. But a new analysis finds that even accounting for all the energy and waste involved, PV power would cut air pollution—including the greenhouse gases that cause climate change—by nearly 90 percent if it replaced fossil fuels.

Check it out for yourself.   Scientific American.

Heavy metals? What heavy metals?

And pdq:   How about the REST of the story?   Forbes.

Don Firth

P. S.   By the way, pdq, it can't be that difficult. I just checked to find out what it would cost to have the building I live in fitted with solar panels, and found that if we were to buy the panels commercially, they would run about $200 each. But, I was informed, with a bit of ingenuity, one can get the materials and make one's own panels for about $90 each.

I'm going to mention it at the next board meeting.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Sep 11 - 08:30 PM

pdq... what does the financing and politics of solar have to do with the basic sense of using solar?

It took YEARS to sort out who would get to drill oil wells and build railroads and manufacture cars!

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: pdq
Date: 02 Sep 11 - 08:19 PM

So, Solar Energy is the answer. Really?



By BY KEVIN FREKING and JASON DEAREN — Associated Press

Posted: 1:36pm on Aug 31, 2011; Modified: 6:36pm on Aug 31, 2011

Solar Manufacturer Bankruptcy

Solyndra workers leave Solyndra in Fremont, Calif., Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2011. The solar-panel manufacturer that received a $535 million loan from the U.S. government has announced layoffs of 1,100 workers and plans to file for bankruptcy. President Obama spoke at Solyndra about the bright future of Solyndra. PAUL SAKUMA       Solar Manufacturer Bankruptcy Solar Manufacturer Bankruptcy Solar Manufacturer Bankruptcy

WASHINGTON — A California solar-panel manufacturer once touted by President Barack Obama as a beneficiary of his administration's economic policies - as well as a half-billion-dollar federal loan - is laying off 1,100 workers and filing for bankruptcy.

Solyndra LLC of Fremont, Calif., had become the poster child for government investment in green technology. The president visited the company in May 2010 and noted that Solyndra expected to hire 1,000 workers to manufacture solar panels. Other state and federal officials such as former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Energy Secretary Steven Chu also visited the company's facilities.

But hard times have hit the nation's solar industry. Solyndra is the third solar company to seek bankruptcy protection this month. Officials said Wednesday that the global economy as well as unfavorable conditions in the solar industry combined to force the company to suspend its manufacturing operations.

The price for solar panels has tanked in part because of heavy competition from Chinese companies, dropping by about 42 percent this year.

Republicans have been looking into the Solyndra loan for months. The House Energy and Commerce Committee subpoenaed documents relating to the loan from the White House Office of Management and Budget. GOP Reps. Fred Upton of Michigan and Cliff Stearns of Florida issued a joint statement on Wednesday saying it was clear that Solyndra was a dubious investment.

"We smelled a rat from the onset," the two lawmakers said.

Shortly after the company's announcement, it became clear that the bankruptcy would serve as further ammunition to criticize an economic stimulus bill that provided seed money for solar startups - even though officials said interest in providing Solyndra with guaranteed government loans was first sought under the Bush administration.

Upton and Stearns said they would continue to seek documents that would provide more details about the Solyndra loan.

"Unfortunately, Solyndra is just the latest casualty of the Obama administration's failed stimulus, emblematic of an economic policy that has not worked and will not work. We hope this informs the president ahead of his address to Congress next week," the GOP lawmakers said.

When Obama, who is seeking to address Congress to unveil a new jobs plan, toured the company's facilities, he said the investment was important because more clean energy would benefit the environment, the economy and national security.

"The future is here," Obama said during his visit. "We're poised to transform the ways we power our homes and our cars and our businesses. ... And we are poised to generate countless new jobs, good-paying, middle-class jobs, right here in the United States of America."

In a blog posting, Energy Department spokesman Dan Leistikow said Solyndra was a once promising company that had increased sales revenue by 2,000 percent in the past three years. The $535 million loan guarantee was sought by both the Bush and Obama administrations, he said, and private investors also put more than $1 billion into Solyndra.

"We have always recognized that not every one of the innovative companies supported by our loans and loan guarantees would succeed, but we can't stop investing in game-changing technologies that are key to America's leadership in the global economy," Leistikow said.

Solyndra was heralded as one of the nation's bright spots of green technology innovation, creating a solar tube of sorts that could soak up sunlight from many different angles, producing energy more efficiently and using less space. The company's panels were also light and easy to install, which was meant to save up front costs.

But over the past few years, other companies caught up and provided similar products at a lower cost.

Brian Harrison, Solynda's president and CEO, said that raising capital became impossible.

"This was an unexpected outcome and is most unfortunate," Harrison said in a statement.

Another solar company, Spectrawatt Inc. of Hopewell Junction, N.Y., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Aug. 19. Its CEO said in the filing that it could not compete with solar manufacturers in China, which receive "considerable government and financial support."

Spectrawatt's filing came four days after Evergreen Solar Inc. of Marlboro, Mass., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Solar industry advocates said the failure of these three companies is not indicative of the health of the U.S. solar industry as a whole and that overall the Energy Department's loan guarantee program has been a success.

"In the last 18 months, solar companies have either added or expanded almost 60 factories in the U.S. and driven the installed cost of solar down by 30 percent," said Rhone Resch, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association.

"To date, solar projects that have received loan guarantees will help to deploy enough clean solar energy to power nearly 1 million homes and create tens of thousands of jobs across 28 states," he said.

Jesse Pichel, a clean energy analyst with New York-based investment firm Jefferies & Co. said Solyndra's products used unique technology that was more expensive to install, "and the improvement was marginal at best."

Dearen reported from San Francisco. AP Business Writer Joshua Freed contributed to this report from

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Sep 11 - 07:52 PM

Yellowstone would be serious, and so would that island in the Canaries falling in half and sending a tsunami at us...and so would the Cascadia fault letting go......but we can't DO anything about those. There is good evidence that we many not even be here for those other catastrophes if we don't deal with population and energy production... at least not as an organized species!

Wind & solar panels ARE better basic options than what we are doing now!

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Sep 11 - 07:26 PM

BB, bird kill-off reports have got to be spurious; a, shall we say, "red herring gull?"

I've seen a couple of wind farms, and

1.   The wind turbines are not tall enough to be in the flight path of migratory birds, as some try to claim; and

2.   The blades move slowly enough, even in a fairly brisk wind, that any bird that gets smacked by one is dumb and uncoordinated enough that it should be removed from the gene pool anyway.

As to solar panels, I don't know. But I've heard sufficient claims from those who are generally opposed to alternative energy sources that I am going to check into the truth of the matter.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: beardedbruce
Date: 02 Sep 11 - 05:33 PM

TIA, Better look at my post- I WAS REFERENCING THE NASA data, that the auther stated showed the UN Model was not being reflected in the data.

"Scientists on all sides of the global warming debate are in general agreement about how much heat is being directly trapped by human emissions of carbon dioxide (the answer is "not much"). However, the single most important issue in the global warming debate is whether carbon dioxide emissions will indirectly trap far more heat by causing large increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds. Alarmist computer models assume human carbon dioxide emissions indirectly cause substantial increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds (each of which are very effective at trapping heat), but real-world data have long shown that carbon dioxide emissions are not causing as much atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds as the alarmist computer models have predicted.

The new NASA Terra satellite data are consistent with long-term NOAA and NASA data indicating atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds are not increasing in the manner predicted by alarmist computer models. The Terra satellite data also support data collected by NASA's ERBS satellite showing far more longwave radiation (and thus, heat) escaped into space between 1985 and 1999 than alarmist computer models had predicted. Together, the NASA ERBS and Terra satellite data show that for 25 years and counting, carbon dioxide emissions have directly and indirectly trapped far less heat than alarmist computer models have predicted."


I look forward to the article showing how the facts that don't match the model are wrong.

If there is a problem with the analysis of the data, I would hope that it would be found- and not just assumed because it does not match what some authorities want to be the results of the data.

The article says

UN Model prdicts certain results.
REAL observations do not show the results that the UN model says should be there.

Seems reasonable to question the UN model.







BTW, Don, Solar panals ( direct solar to electric) are about the most environmentally damaging source of energy ( OVER THE TOTAL LIFETIME) af ANY energy source. LOTS of heavy metal poisoning, but as long as we leave it in the Third world I guess it is fine.

I agree that wind is a good technology, but keep hearing reports of bird killoffs due to the ( limited) wind farms we already have.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 02 Sep 11 - 04:43 PM

Just to be clear in case you missed it - it was precisely this Spencer and Braswell paper that BB provided us a link to in order to assert that "climate models don't match the observed ata according to NASA."

Yup, if two models don't match, one of them is wrong.

But it is not NASA. NASA's data are fine. Spencer and Braswell modelled it inappropriately.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 11 - 04:10 PM

Just to update the original topic

"The editor-in-chief of a climate science journal has resigned in response to an academic controversy triggered by his publication of a paper co-authored by a leading climate sceptic.

Prof Wolfgang Wagner wrote in an editorial published on Friday in Remote Sensing that he felt obliged to resign because it was now apparent to him that a paper entitled "On the misdiagnosis of surface temperature feedbacks from variations in Earth's radiant energy balance" by Roy Spencer and Danny Braswell, was "fundamentally flawed and therefore wrongly accepted by the journal"...
Full editorial

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/02/journal-editor-resigns-climate-sceptic-
paper

Next week, Prof Andrew Dressler of the department of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, is due to publish a paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters offering a detailed peer-reviewed rebuttal of Spencer's paper.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 02 Sep 11 - 03:02 PM

EBarnacle-
You said the key word "semi-structural". The stuff we extract (water, oil, gas) resides within the porosity of the host rock. If the pore fludis are supporting some of the wegith of the overburde, yes, extraction leads to subsidence...the Central Valley of California is a perfect example of widespread and dramatic (>30 feet) subsidence due to water withdrawal.
In many cases, the overburden is supported by the grains in the rock/sediment, so extraction does not produce subsidence (e.g. nearly all shale gas).

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Sep 11 - 02:40 PM

Yeah, Kendall, that one is a doozy. Yellowstone is a caldera. I don't think most people who drive through and ogle at the various wonders such as boiling pools and Old Facefull are aware that they are meandering around inside a huge volcanic crater.

I heard recently that folks noticed that the water in a lake in Yellowstone seemed to be rising. No one had noticed until then that, on the other side of the lake, the water was receding. What was actually happening was that the lake was tilting! This meant that magma was starting to push upward.

If it decided to push upward a bit more enthusiastically, I might get a bit unpleasant in the neighborhood. And beyond!

"To the moon, Alice!! To the moon!!"

Most people would be a bit unsettled, I think, if they realized that the earth is mainly a big ball of boiling iron, and we're living on the slag that's drifting around on top.

This gives you a bit of an idea.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: EBarnacle
Date: 02 Sep 11 - 01:18 PM

I don't know enough about geology to answer this question.

When we finish removing the oil, water, natural gas and other underground semistructural components from beneath the surface
will we have created the potential for at least one "minor" earthquake in the removal zones?

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: kendall
Date: 02 Sep 11 - 12:46 PM

The biggest worry, in my opinion, is the horror that lies under Yellowstone. When that blows it's Adios to all.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: EBarnacle
Date: 02 Sep 11 - 10:53 AM

Read the article by Brown in the current Treehugger. It's about population displacement as a result of desertificatio, falling water tables and contaminated soil.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Sep 11 - 10:32 PM

"Dandy location for a bunch of nuclear power plants, eh?"
Not to mention Hanford
When I lived in Kansas, there was a brief attempt to use salt mines near Hutchinson to relieve the pressure on Hanford. But salt in mines is a fluid! A slow fluid, but we need 30-40,000 year stability.
   Then they decided Yucca Mt. in Nevada(read about THA!) was a better choice. Short story...Yucca Mt. is defunded.

The nuclear waste? Let's just leave it at Hanford, near that Cascadia subduction fault....and let's build MORE nuclear plants.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Sep 11 - 07:49 PM

Just a year or so before Mount St. Helens blew, Mount Baker, to the north, was rumbling some and blowing off a bit of steam. It finally settled down (for now), but while it was doing its little shimmy, a bumper sticker was seen on cars in the Bellingham area (just west of Mt. Baker):   "Vote NO on Mt. Baker Eruption!"

Yeah, Mt. Rainier is one of the biggest, perhaps THE biggest volcano in the Cascade Range, a mountain range rumpled up by the collision of tectonic plates, containing several volcanoes. If it got nasty, it could take out Tacoma and Olympia (state capital) and a bunch of small communities, and do a whole lot of dirt to Seattle.

A couple of offshore underwater volcanoes have been discovered recently in this area.

Lotsa fun!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: kendall
Date: 01 Sep 11 - 07:43 PM

Global climate change is a natural thing and has been going on for many years. Global cooling has also been going on for years. In the 14th century cooling caused crop failures and many starved to death.
Now, it's warming, but unlike other periods in earths history, we have been pumping billions of tons of hydro carbons into the air for the last hundred years. It doesn't take a genius to see that it is making the problem worse.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 01 Sep 11 - 07:23 PM

Just to make sure you are sufficiently scared - Think about Rainier as well. Several of the eastern suburbs of Seattle are built on lahar deposits (melted glacier water carrying soil and rocks) produced by eruptions - one in about 1500, and many many older ones.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Sep 11 - 06:57 PM

I was sitting at my computer, probably on Mudcat, when THIS little jitter happened. I live in a four story, 100 year old brick apartment building.

I thought I was going to have a bunch of upstairs neighbors drop in any second.

Through the ceiling!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Sep 11 - 06:46 PM

Yes, definitely part of the "Ring of Fire." But the whole thing is studded with cracks, tributaries, and offshoots.

The general movement of the Pacific plate is to the north-northwest, but it nudges these satellite plates in various directions. The Juan de Fuca plate is getting pushed to the east, while the North American plate is moving to the west, putting incredible stress on the Cascadia Subduction Zone.

Sooner or later, something's going to give.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Sep 11 - 06:37 PM

The one which geologists at the University of Washington seem to be particularly concerned with is "the Cascadia Subduction Zone, a 1000 km long thrust fault which is the convergent boundary between the Juan de Fuca and North American plates and is the most extensive fault in the Pacific Northwest area. It surfaces about 50 miles offshore along the coasts of British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and northern California. No historic earthquakes have been directly recorded from this source zone. According to recent research, an earthquake estimated to be as large as 8.0 to 9.0 occurred in this zone in January of 1700."

This sucker is a mirror image of the fault off the coast of northern Japan.

But the whole Pacific Northwest area, including under Puget Sound itself, is like a spiderwebbed piece of plate glass.

(Wotthehell am I doin' here!!??)

Don Firth

P. S. Dandy location for a bunch of nuclear power plants, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: EBarnacle
Date: 01 Sep 11 - 06:30 PM

I believe it's also known as the Ring of Fire and circles the entire Pacific.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: BTNG
Date: 01 Sep 11 - 06:21 PM

that fault line runs all the way up the Americas and T's off into the Pacific and thence under Japan, it's the Pacific Rim and yes it's not simply a matter of if the "Big One" is going to happen, it's just a matter of when. It's simply something you live with if you reside anywhere on the West Coast

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Sep 11 - 04:55 PM

I got on a roll. This is long, but I believe that those who are up to reading it will find it informative.

beardedbruce:    "ONE reason I do not believe, nor have seen any evidence that MAN_MADE efforts to STOP climate change ( short of an all-out nuclear winter, that even most here might think was excessive) will have enough effect to be worth the death and destruction that it would cause."

As I drive around the city, here and there I see houses with solar panels on the roof. These, I learn, are installed by the owners themselves. For various motives. Sometimes it's because they are concerned about the environment, but probably more often it's to reduce—or eliminate entirely—their electric bills. Solar panels are an investment that pays for itself, better than some investments. And I might mention that the city I'm referring to is Seattle, not famous for its year 'round sunshine. Yet, solar panels do the job for a lot of folks. And the more people who buy and install them, the less expensive they get.

Some years ago I worked with a fellow who lived in the south end of Seattle, near the northern border of the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. He installed a wind turbine in his back yard. It was not all that large, certainly smaller than the ones you see in wind farms, and height-wise, it was actually not quite as tall as the telephone poles that line the street he lives on. [This becomes important, as you will see.]   The wind turbine provided all of his electrical needs:   lights, kitchen appliances, television, phonograph, computer, the works.

But Seattle City Light noted that his meter was running backwards! This meant that he was putting more electricity into the system than he was using! And this meant that, not only could they not bill him for his electricity use, they owed him money! Randy hadn't even thought of this when he put in the system.

Seattle City Light did their damnedest to make him take the wind turbine down. Since he was near the airport, they got—I forget which, the Civil Aeronautics Board or the Federal Aviation Administration—to get on his case. They came out and surveyed the situation and concluded that any landing airplane that was approaching the runway at an altitude at which Randy's wind turbine, or, for that matter, the nearby telephone poles, would constitute a hazard was already in serious trouble. They did, however, ask Randy to put a flashing red light on the tower, which he did.

Then City Light tried to get his neighbors to complain about the wind turbine being an eyesore. That tactic backfired. Randy's neighbors dropped by to ask him all kinds of questions, and soon other wind turbines started popping up around the neighborhood!

City Light had to pay Randy for the electricity he put back into the grid—and soon, some of Randy's neighbors as well.

(Har-de-har-har!! I tend to enjoy it a bit when, for a change, The System takes it in the shorts!)

Doug Johnson was one of my guitar pupils. He was my last student in the evening, and the two of us would often adjourn to the Pizza Haven on University Way for an evening snack and a coffee or two. Doug was an engineer, and one evening we got to talking about relatively low-tech methods of utilizing solar power. I don't know if the idea was original with Doug, or if he heard it somewhere, but it sounds bloody ingenious to me.

In a desert, or in open country in general that receives a fair amount of sunshine, take a piece of insulating material and place it on or near the ground to provide shade. When the sun goes down, move the insulating material over, so it's directly adjacent to its previous position. Do this for a few twenty-four hour periods and soon you have a hot patch of ground right next to a cold—possibly even frosty—patch of ground. Got it?

Okay. Take a LARGE piece of insulating material, say as large as a football field—or even larger—put it on rails so that it's easy to move, and do the same thing. Soon you have a large patch of hot ground next to a large patch of quite cold ground. Now, run pipes carrying fluid back and forth between the two patches with turbines along the dividing line between the hot and cold patches. The hot fluid races through the turbines into the cold side where it condenses and gets pumped back into the hot side to do it all again.

The turbines produce electricity. Once installed, maintenance is minimal, and since it gets its input from the sun, it just keeps going and going and going ….

Doug said that he knew of a group of Indians in New Mexico who, with a couple of blankets, used to pull this stunt to produce sufficient cold to make ice cream in the desert. (Don't ask me how that works, but I suppose someone can work it out.)

I have a number of friends who are driving hybrids, like the Toyota Prius. And Seattle (and many other cities) has a "Flex car" or "Zip car" system. You join the system for a fee, and this entitles you to use the cars. There are cars parked in neighborhoods around the city, and all a member of the system has to do is walk (usually not more than a few blocks) to where a car is parked, open it with a special key issued to members of the system, then use the same key to start it, and off they go. When they're through with it, just park it in the same spot and lock it.

Since the Flex or Zip car is supposed to be used only around the city and not taken on long trips, many of them are hybrids or full electric (good for maybe thirty-some miles before they need recharging).

Portland, Oregon, to our south, has a similar arrangement. With bicycles. Yellow bicycles in bike stands all over the city. Take a bike, pedal it to wherever you want to go, and leave it at a bike stand there, along with the other yellow bikes. Do the bikes ever get stolen? Oh, a few, perhaps. But why steal something that you can use for free? At any time. Healthy exercise, gets you where you want to go, and uses no fossil fuels.

In the late 1980s, I worked as a technical writer and editor for the Bonneville Power Administration (the same outfit that Woody Guthrie wrote songs for the the 1930s—"Roll On, Columbia," "The Grand Coulee Dam," etc.). The Department of Energy had commissioned the BPA to find new, inexpensive, and non-polluting sources of electricity. After much research, the BPA was dragged, kicking and screaming, to the conclusion that, by far, the most promising AND least expensive AND least polluting source of new electrical power was (steady, now!) conservation! So they instituted a program in which they provided subsidies for people to participate in a home weatherization program. Have their homes insulated, double-pane windows installed, and in general, cut heat loss which would reduce their use of electricity for heating their homes.

This program went over so well that the State of Washington instituted what they called their "Oil Help Program" for people who heated their homes with oil. It, too, proved very popular.

My job was to take the stacks of reports from the staff who inspected the houses after the jobs were finished to make sure they had been done properly and to code, collate the information, and compile all the field reports into a periodic comprehensive reports on how well the total job was being accomplished. As a part of my job, I was required to take a course in residential weatherization, so although I have never actually done it myself (crawled through the InsulSafe in someone's attic with a pen in one hand, a clipboard in the other, and a flashlight in my teeth), I am a qualified and State Certified residential weatherization inspector.

It is possible to greatly reduce our use of CO2-emitting fossil fuels, while at the same time improving our lives rather than creating hardships for anyone

I fail to see, Bruce, how measures such as these to stop climate change (NOT involving anything LIKE an all-out nuclear winter) would, in any way, cause "death and destruction."

I have heard it said that "We will have solar power when, and only when, the power companies figure out a way to run a sunbeam through a meter!"

During the time I was involved with it, I knew that the BPA took a whole lot of crap from the nuclear industry, who wanted to put a string of nuclear power plants around the state, and the State of Washington was getting similar loud static from the oil companies.

Since the oil, coal, and nuclear industries are large and (obscenely) wealthy, they own some of the finest politicians that money can buy, so there is a great deal of interference with such things as getting the kind of funding and other subsidies (routinely available to the established industries) for research and development into non-polluting energy sources. And, of course, the shouting down of various concerned environmental groups, AND the overwhelming majority of scientists qualified to speak on the subject, who try to warn us of the impending dangers inherent in what we humans are doing to our environment.

There are BIG BUCKS involved, and these folks regard the next quarterly report as far more important than future generations—including, apparently, their own progeny.

Obviously, the human race needs to be toilet-trained.

By the way:    regarding nuclear power plants, especially in Grays Harbor County, where the nuclear industry wanted to put one of the biggest plants—the coast of Washington State lies on an earthquake fault; a subduction zone practically identical to the one off the north coast of Japan, where the recent major earthquake and resultant tsunami occurred, with the side effect of wrecking the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Japan is currently trying to cope with what they are now regarding as a nuclear distaster, requiring evacuation and quarantining of the entire area.

And geologists are warning people in the Pacific Northwest, especially along the coastline, that this area is long overdue for a major earthquake, most likely along this subduction zone.

Although they tend to call it a "geological event."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: EBarnacle
Date: 01 Sep 11 - 01:35 PM

Well put, Arkie. Meanwhile, when your boat is leaking, bail like hell.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Arkie
Date: 01 Sep 11 - 12:42 PM

What the CERN experiment has done is provide evidence that global warming might be the result of solar activity. Since the study was performed in a laboratory the case is not closed. But, I thought it common knowledge that the climate of the earth is connected to activity of the sun. The CERN experiment has not proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that man has had no effect on global warming, nor has it proved that gases and waste released into the atmosphere by man made activity are harmless. I would think the CERN experiment would be welcome as a further attempt to understand what is occurring. The opioninizing and politicizing that has followed in its wake is not surprising but neither does it reflect an intelligent managing of information nor is it constructive.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: EBarnacle
Date: 01 Sep 11 - 11:39 AM

If you believe there is a problem, work like hell to do something about it instead of sitting there complaining that it can't be done.

If we can have a positive effect instead of providing an unfortunate positive feedback answer, perhaps we will not have a situation which involves decimation or of homo sap.

Work on things you can work at, like getting the CO2 out of the air. Whether or not it causes global warming, it is not good for us and contributes to the acidification of the oceans You've heard of pH, I presume?

Humans have been changing the world since the first ape began using tools to get more food or protect the family from predators. Think of the effects of agriculture.

If we don't work at it, we will join the dinosaurs.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Sep 11 - 11:17 AM

Ok... after a search, it seems the Will Rogers line is one of those apocryphal remarks which no one can verify that anyone said, but are such good metaphors that they can be inserted by careless (mea culpa)pundits to make some point.
I heard that story LONG before the internet & Google, and neglected to verify it.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: Greg F.
Date: 01 Sep 11 - 10:18 AM

Nor can you supply any evidence that it won't.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 Sep 11 - 09:57 AM

TIA,

I agree about the runaway effect of lessened polar ice caps-

ONE reason I do not believe, nor have seen any evidence that MAN_MADE efforts to STOP climate change ( short of an all-out nuclear winter, that even most here might think was excessive) will have enough effect to be worth the death and destruction that it would cause.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Sep 11 - 07:15 AM

...Will Rogers in the 1940s was being interviewed...

That's impressive in the light of the fact he was killed in 1935.

Subject: RE: BS: Global Warming- CERN says not man-made
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 31 Aug 11 - 10:30 PM

PS
So, anytime someone tells you that CO2 is unimportant because it is such a small percentage of the atmospheric components, think *leverage*
think
*feedbacks*


Most climate bullshit begins with oversimplification and ignorance of the interconnectedness of Earth systems.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.