BS: US Politics and Global Warming

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Peace
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 10:52 PM

Did he really say that? Ah, man, this is grim.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: dianavan
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 02:08 AM

One question, DougR -

How does Bush plan on getting that oil from the Alaskan wilderness to your home?

Oh, thats right! He doesn't make plans. Oops!!!

d

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 09:37 AM

Yes, he really did. Tuesday, September 14, 2004.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Wolfgang
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 03:31 PM

global warming being denied by those ideologoically opposed to accepting it is occurring (Freda)
global warming denial (Mooman)

Sorry, Freda and Richard, I do not understand this particular argumentation here at all. There is no one in this thread (I know I repeat this, but I get the impression that repetition is here necessary) who has denied global warming is observed for some time now. Since you both can read I suspect you do not mean what I read you to say.

Do you mean the fact or do you mean the interpretation which causes the fact? If you mean the fact there is no use insisting upon what is undisputed. If you mean the interpretation I strongly object to the word 'denial'. Denial is used for someone denying something she knows to be true. This is not the case here. You should know that there is an open scientific debate about the causes (or at the very least about the relative importance of the various causes). The word 'denial'/'deny' in a scientific debate should be used with more care. 'Denial' is a term from a political debate and I did not understand you as wanting to contribute from a political point of view.

A debate can never be ended by strong words like denial. And this debate is still open as everyone knows who reads about it. I share your worries that the human influence could be larger than a few percent and I'd act (as a politician) as if the worries were true for the one error (acting without need) is much less fatal than the other (not acting though there is need) and doing our bit to reduce human made 'exhausts' cannot be really bad, for a couple of other reasons too. But I'll do everything I can to keep a debate open when there is still dissent. We can only learn from that and we should be open to errors in our position.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: dianavan
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 03:38 PM

One thing that I do not understand about emission control is why the emphasis is on automobile emission and not jet fuel emission. It seems that jets, trucks and busses are at least partially to blame. Is this being ignored because of the profits involved?

d

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 04:01 PM

There are very few if any qualified scientists on this thread to offer a valuable opinion. There are many who have warned us.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Peace
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 04:04 PM

True, Frank, but it does seem that scientists dance to the tune of the people who issue their pay cheques. Not meant to be offensive; meant to be an observation.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: GUEST,pitythefoo's
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 07:40 PM

I think you're all ignoring one of the most significant sources of dangerous emissions. The level of potentially lethal hot air escaping out of your collective pieholes is enough to make us all go the way of the saber tooth. I'd be interested to see the round of pre-"Y2K" posts attributed to this esteemed panel of experts.
Fair thee well, chicken littles.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 08:14 PM

See also A Foreboding Thaw from the Times editorial section.


A

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: DougR
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 12:54 PM

If you liberals are so concerned about Global Warming, why don't you stop emitting all that hot air? :>)

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: CarolC
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 01:07 PM

You two dinosaurs seem to not realize that typing into a computer creates no more hot air than any other activity in which one sits relatively still for any length of time, like, for instance, watching FoxNews on TV.

Message to dinosaurs... evolve or face extinction.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Peace
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 11:18 PM

Some people are not at all concerned about the world that gets left to future generations. That's too bad, really. Fossil fuels are getting low, but we've always know they wouldn't be here forever. This is not about politics, per se; it IS about survival twenty years in the future. If you expect to have died before then, than maybe it need not concern you. I expect to be dead ten years into the future. However, I had hoped my children and those of other people could continue on with something resembling a decent quality of life. My political views have little to do with this. My personal views have everything to do with this. My human views.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: DougR
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 12:08 AM

brucie: right. I assume from now on you will be walking instead of driving, right? Carol C. would probably be more than happy to join you, but JTS would likely keep an eye on you I expect.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Peace
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 12:11 AM

I drive a four cylinder standard and spend about $35 dollars a month on gas. How's that, Doug? Not bad, huh? And my electric bills are an average of $50 a month. Not bad, huh?

What do you drive, Doug?

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 12:52 AM

We have a van that doesn't get the best gas mileage but we only use it on average once every one or two weeks. On those occasions, we mostly just go within about a 20 mile radius. This probabaly won't change any time in the very near future, because we require the van for when we need to tow our house (last time we did that was around this time last year, but we expect to need to do it again at least once more before we settle into somewhat more permanent housing). But eventually we will probably get a vehicle that has some of the new, less petroleum-dependent technology.

Our current living situation, I have discovered, is making an environmental footprint that is only slightly larger than the average for the rest of the world, and waaaaayyyy below the average for people in the US. We hope to continue to improve our impact in that respect.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 08:55 PM

the US uses up 20mill. barrels per day. If more efficient
mileage regulations were required for vehicles (and required SUVs to meet the same standards as cars) it would save a million barrels a day.
(btw - the Bush administration actually opposes more efficient mileage regulations, and US automakers dont consider that a high priority - as opposed to luxury options)

(More efficient standards would more than offset any oil taken out of ANWR which is only estimated to be 6billion barrels)

in 20 years the US will probably use 30mill barrels per day,
and with China hunger for oil growing so rapidly, one wonders where youre going to find more. Youre going to need a lot more ANWRs.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: DougR
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 01:06 AM

brucie: why a Hummer, of course, what else? :>)

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Peace
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 01:07 AM

Why did I know that?

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 01:17 AM

I bet he doesn't drive a Hummer. I bet he drives a Mercury Grand Marquis.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Peace
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 01:31 AM

So, uh, Doug, it's uh called a Hummer because ..................................................................................................................



















IT DOESN'T KNOW THE WORDS!

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Wolfgang
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 09:51 AM

I'm interested to read about this debate on a more empirically focused level.

(1) The last survey I read about scientists' (experts in that field) opinions was a Gallup poll from 1992. Even then, 60% agreed that the global temperatures had risen but only 19 % attributed the increase to human activities. The opinions may have changed since then. Does anyone have newer polls?

(2) Last time I read about the climate models these models were tested by looking at their ability to predict the past changes starting back from now. The models usually were off from the mark at least by a factor of 2. Does someone have newer information on that question?

(3) There is not the slightest disagreement that carbondioxide in the atmosphere is increasing. There is also no disagreement since at least Arrhenius more 100 years ago that this factor viewed in isolation predicts an increase of the temperature. His prediction of the actual temperature increase was far off, but his argumentation that CO2 viewed alone leads to a temperature increase stands unchallenged. The debate is whether other factors resulting from a temperature increase (like increased rainfall, clouds etc.) will work in the direction of higher or lower temperatures. If someone could point me to newer results I'd like to read them.

Basically the question here is whether the earth climate works in a negative (like for instance in the Gaia hypothesis) or in a positive feedback mode. In a negative feedback mode the effects leading to higher temperatures will on the other hand trigger effects leading to lowering the temperatures, keeping all in all a balance (notwithstanding extremely large natural catastrophes like a hit by a big celestial body). Does anyone have newer informations on a consensus on the mode of feedback?

One last question that is often in my mind in these discussions: Everybody knows that a weather prediction for let's say the weather in two weeks is extremely difficult to make and should not be trusted a lot. Why do some people who on other occasions don't trust long-term (14 days) weather predictions and have a deep mistrust in scientific modeling and predicting in other fields trust here so completely in extremely simplified and simplifying global climate models predicting the weather not in 14 days but in 100 years?

Having said that I still think that acting as if the danger was true is the better option in the light of conflicting theories about the future. But I must say when I look back at the 'ice age' predictions from the 1970s I'm a bit skeptical about the new kids on the block predictions, especially if they come in some cases from the same people who have dismally failed in 1970 to predict the state of the world in 2000.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 08:26 PM

well, Stephen Schneider, one of the main proponents of the global warming theory, in the 1970's warned of an imminent Ice Age. When he was asked about later this he shrugged it off by saying he was wrong.

as far as Wolfgangs last point about not being able to predict the weather more than a few days ahead and people's willingness to trust theories a century ahead, (Chaos theory, or sensitivity to initial conditions makes it difficult to predict what will happen past 6days or so because there are so many variables, on the other hand,
long term trends may not be as difficult, as we know that temperature has gradually increased over the last century, and atmospheric co2 has increased as well.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: dianavan
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 10:23 PM

Here's what David Suzuki has to say about it:

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/Science/

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Wolfgang
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 07:46 AM

Thanks for the URL, dianavan, but that's more or less exactly what at least I do not like reading anymore: Opinion only slightly disguised as science, one-sided selected facts with the deliberate omission of potential problems in the equation. For instance, if one compares the first page CO2 curve (as an aside, look at his clever choice of the numbers at the ordinate making the increase visually larger) with the temperature curve on one of his next pages one sees that most of the temperature increase (roughly two third) in the past century was during those years when the CO2 increase was still small. I see no mention of this problem by Suzuki. From a good site I'd expect more even-handedness and a little more sense of the problems for his position.

Last year I have heard an equally bad lecture (one-sided, selective, ridiculing,...) by a person from the other side of the debate, one from the all-is-well faction. I was the first one to stand up at the questions section and complain about his approach. I'm fed up with halfsense from whichever side it comes. I'm looking for facts (and theories) to help me form an opinion, and whereever I look I see opinions looking for supportive facts and nothing else.

What I'm looking for is, for instance, a doomsayer explaining me from his point of view why the temperature has decreased from 1700 to 1850 and why the decrease started from temperatures as high as in the late 1990s. Or one of the all-is-wellers instead of only criticising others' models for not including one potentially interesting factor leading to negative feedbak making a model himself showing that an increase of CO2 and similar gases does not lead to higher temperatures (at least in his model).

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 08:05 AM

Two things Wolfgang:

1) Predicting weather and predicting climate are two very different things.
2) Brace yourself for some reading, but to get the whole history of global warming research from way back to right now, go here....

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: mooman
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 09:14 AM

Dear Wolfgang,

Of course I appreciate your desire for an empirical scientific debate. The fact is that there are people in political positions and also here at Mudcat who do deny the increasing weight of scientific opinion concerning global warming. There are also those who like to split hairs and sell red herrings on the matter.

The report of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment that I linked above is an authorative scientific report with an impressive list of contributors. I used the word "deny" pointedly here because it seems to me that some peoples' belief systems (not in the religious sense of course) simply do not allow them to accept that which can clearly be observed and measured (not the interpretation thereof) and which now has the overwhelming weight of scientific opinion behind it.

All the best,

Richard

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: GUEST,Chief Chaos
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 11:41 AM

Whether or not global warming is attributable to human activities is a moot point.

We already know that it is real.
We already know that smog causes asthmatic folks problems.
We already know that Ozone is poisonous and not something we want to breathe.
We already know that acid rain is real.

So what are we going to do about it?

Study it until it goes away!

And you just know that the powers that be have good water and air filters in their home so why should they worry?

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Wolfgang
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 12:01 PM

That's a link much more to my taste, TIA. Thanks.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Wolfgang
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 01:59 PM

Skeptical linksite on global warming

That's one of those sites from the other camp I (mostly) dislike. Many piss poor articles sometimes even without an author name and mostly without references. But some of those links lead to good links that have what I like. If one goes at those links one can see easily that there are dissenting opinions.

I have read recently (by whom???) what I recollect as 'a case study of skepticism carried too far'.

CC, your way of arguing does damage to what you want to happen.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 06:33 PM

As a percentage of scientists actually in the field (who said "beware of experts outside their field of expertise"?), the number of dissenters is vanishingly small. Used to be much larger, but the concensus is pretty broad that (in descending order of unanimity):

1) it is happening,

2) it could have cataclysmic consequences,

3) whatever the cause, we would be wise to do whatever we can to, if not prevent it, at least slow it,

4) human activities are at least partially implicated.

The people who continue to crow that it is an liberal environmnetalist whacko myth are the crackpots.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: GUEST,Chief Chaos
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 07:00 PM

Sorry Wolfgang,

Too many years of fighting pollution (that's what I do) and having industry tell me there's nothing damaging about it. I realise my last statement kind of kills it but haven't we all been seeing ads for water purification devices and air purification devices? If things are so hunky dory then why is htere even a market for filtered/bottled water? And for people who are living on paychecks that don't stretch two weeks these things are beyond their means.

All of our actions have had impacts on the weather. We have paved over a great deal of the land changing the albido of the planet.
Whereas it is true that volcanos while active spew tons of sulfates and dioxides as well as other compounds, should we still do nothing and add tons more to what nature puts out?

All the while we have also been losing forests, not by the acre, but by the mile. And our current administration is rolling back laws that protect old growth forests, allow strip mining (which causes the loss of more trees and allows the mine waste to be dumped down the hillside into the streams) without requiring the companies to recover the land.

I've seen part of the proposed ANWAR and it talks about a small footprint. Well according to them the footprint is the concrete base of the facility pier, a 1 ft square piece of concrete. It doesn't account for the masses of metal stretching from base to base.


I am by no means a tree hugger. I have always enforced US law and regulation to the best interest of the public and industry trying to find a balance between economy and ecology. The EPA has not been pursuing violations and unless a state has it's own environmental cops then there is probably no-one else to do it.

The administrations first position was that Global warming didn't exist after years of study. Then they had their own scientists say "guess what, it does exist!" They changed strategy to say that no-one knows for sure that our actions have anything to do with it. This is the same President who reversed course on improving water quality standards saying a lower level of arsenic wouldn't matter.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: dianavan
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 07:38 PM

Wolfgang - It is laughable that you think Suzuki's website is not scientific enough for you. Maybe if you had looked a little further you would have found this link, http://www.acia.uaf.edu/.

d

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Susan-Marie
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 08:43 AM

What has struck me recently is that the same tactics that were used by the U.S. tobacco industry decades ago are being used by the Bush administration now. "Not enough science", "Too hard to predict", "We'll do our own studies because we can't trust you ivory-tower academicians". Here's the latest installment: "Modeling isn't science" Wash Post The Competitive Enterprise Institute has no problem with modeling when it supports their contention that environmental protection is bad for the economy. But when it points out the likely consequences of no environmental protection - THEN it's unreliable.

That's the analytical me talking. My gut is saying "BUNCHA TWO-FACED GREEDY ASSHOLES!" There, I'm glad I got that off my chest.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Wolfgang
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 11:08 AM

Susan-Marie,

the tobacco example is true. But it is easy to compile an impressive list of past warnings that have turned out to be not true. Looking who is it (and what his affiliation is) who says something is true or can still be doubted can help to determine how much one personally trusts a source, but it is not much more than an indication.

A scientist can have a personal reason (like an industry link) to adopt one particular position and can be right, another can have an impeccable record of working for the benefit of mankind and be wrong. Those warning about the global warming have at least one personal interest: inflating the potential danger increases the chances for grant monies. The personal interests of the other camp have been mentioned by Brucie in one old post.

One item from the Scientific American News section in June this year:
Rising Sun
Humans may be shouldering too much of the blame for global warming, according to a new look at data from six sun-gazing satellites. They suggest that Planet Earth has been drenched in a bath of solar radiation that has been intensifying over the past 24 years--an increase of about 0.05 percent each decade. If that trend began early last century, it could account for a significant component of the climatic warm-up that is typically attributed to human-made greenhouse gases, says Richard C. Willson of Columbia University's Center for Climate Systems Research in Coronado, Calif. Willson concedes that the climate's sensitivity to such subtle solar changes is still poorly understood, but the evidence merits keeping a close eye on both the sun and humans to better gauge their relative influences on global climate. "In 100 years I think we'll find the sun is in control," he says. His team's report appears in the March 4 Geophysical Research Letters. (I wouldn't see yet that humans can be held responsible for that)

A policy statement of the American Association of State Climatologists (I can agree with much of what they write)

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: freda underhill
Date: 29 Jul 05 - 10:22 AM

On Thursday, temperatures of 40 degrees were recorded, the highest in Poland in 83 years.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jul 05 - 11:55 AM

At this time the tundra permafrost in Alaska and Russia is softening to liquid at depths that have been frozen for thousands of years; ice shelves are breaking away into the sea in unprecedented chunks as large as small states.

These are empirical data, from what I have read; they werte reported in a series in The NEw Yorker earlier this year; wish I had links to them.

But there is little question, if the author's facts are correct, that the warming phenomenon is outside the range of "normal" rise and fall curves from the last couple of centuries of recorded data.

I'll see if I can come up with a link to substantiate these recollections.


A

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: freda underhill
Date: 29 Jul 05 - 12:05 PM

Greenland glacier 'melting rapidly'; From correspondents in Paris;
July 22, 2005, The Australian

A GLACIER in Greenland is melting very rapidly and has accelerated its slide sliding into the sea, Greenpeace said. The environmental group said the "dramatic" discovery proves that immediate action is needed to stop climate change. "Preliminary findings indicate Kangerdlugssuaq Glacier on Greenland's east coast could be one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world with a speed of almost 14 kilometres per year," scientists aboard a Greenpeace ship in the Arctic said today.

In 1988, the glacier was advancing at just five kilometres per year, the scientists on the Arctic Sunrise ship said, citing satellite imagery. "This is a dramatic discovery," said Gordon Hamilton of the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine in the United States, who took the measurements on the glacier on Greenland's east coast. "These new results suggest that the loss of ice from the Greenland Ice Sheet, unless balanced by an equivalent increase in snowfall, could be larger and faster than previously estimated."

The melting of the glacier could have a knock-on effect on glaciers further north in the Arctic, Mr Hamilton warned, which "could have serious implications for the rate of sea level rise". The Kangerdlugssuaq Glacier takes ice from the Greenland Ice Sheet to the ocean and discharges icebergs which contribute to sea-level rise.

Any change in the glacier's speed would be very significant in terms of sea-level rise, Greenpeace said. Researchers from the Arctic Council last November warned that the Arctic is warming at double the rate as the rest of the planet, and that within the next 100 years the ice cover there will completely disappear in summer and species living in the ice field, such as polar bears, will be threatened.

Seven of the eight countries on the council - made up of Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States - have backed the 1997 Kyoto Treaty on climate change, but have been stymied by Washington, which refused to ratify the pact and then ditched it in 2001. "Greenland's shrinking glaciers are sending an urgent warning to the world that action is needed now to stop climate change," said Martina Krueger, the leader of the Greenpeace expedition said in a statement.

"How many more urgent warnings does the Bush administration need before it takes meaningful action on climate change?"

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jul 05 - 12:24 PM

Two excerpts from a discussion here by the author of the 3-part article I mentioned:

On Alaska:
Alaska is being very dramatically affected by climate change; the state is warming up just about as fast as any place on earth. This is producing a lot of problems in Native communities; several Native villages may have to be moved owing to erosion that is being caused, or at least hastened, by climate change. It's also affecting daily life in places like Fairbanks, parts of which are built on permafrost. As the permafrost degrades, people's houses are starting to split apart. The roads need to be repaired more often; sometimes they just cave in. Ironically, it's also affecting the oil industry. The kind of heavy equipment used in oil exploration is allowed out on the tundra only when the ground is frozen to a depth of twelve inches. Since 1970 the number of days that meet that condition has been reduced by half. Early on, computer models developed by scientists working on climate change predicted that global warming would have a disproportionate effect in the Arctic.

On Greenland:

Outside of Antarctica's, Greenland's ice sheet is the largest in the world. It contains enough water to raise global sea levels by twenty-three feet. There is a very real possibility that global warming will set in motion the destruction of the Greenland ice sheet. No one really knows how warm the world would have to get before that happens, but the signs are not encouraging. Scientists are already seeing changes to the ice sheet that suggest that it could occur at temperatures not much higher than today's. And although the process could take centuries, or even millennia, to fully play out, once the ice sheet started to melt it would become self-reinforcing and therefore impossible to stop.

On lay versus scientific opinions:

I think there is a surprisingly large—you might even say frighteningly large—gap between the scientific community and the lay community's opinions on global warming. As you point out, I spoke to many very sober-minded, coolly analytical scientists who, in essence, warned of the end of the world as we know it. I think there are a few reasons why their message hasn't really got out. One is that scientists tend, as a group, to interact more with each other than with the general public. Another is that there has been a very well-financed disinformation campaign designed to convince people that there is still scientific disagreement about the problem, when, as I mentioned before, there really is quite broad agreement. And third, the climate operates on its own timetable. It will take several decades for the warming that is already inevitable to be felt. People tend to focus on the here and now. The problem is that, once global warming is something that most people can feel in the course of their daily lives, it will be too late to prevent much larger, potentially catastrophic changes.


More at the linked reference above.


A

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: jpk
Date: 29 Jul 05 - 05:38 PM

the sky is falling,it's falling.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 Jul 05 - 06:54 PM

Bra-a-a-wk buck buck buck buck....


That's American bucks BTW...

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jul 05 - 11:08 AM

JPK, I would suggest you get your facts straight and your head back in the sunlight.

Here's Part 1 of the New Yorker Series on climate change, the reduction of planetary albedo and the softening of the deep permafrost.

Read it and learn, grasshopper.


A

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: jpk
Date: 30 Jul 05 - 04:40 PM

yea,eco alarmist,they can work with pita
last time we went camping,had to pick up the trash[lot of it]left behind by a enviro group. they really care,anything for a scare.
got a sun spot pointing at us right now,is it ed dains big one.hmmmpff
bet you eat him up too

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jul 05 - 04:49 PM

Working with pocket-bread? You been in the sun too long, pal. Seems to have burned the back of your neck some. Get some facts.

Oh, and while you're up, mebbe some manners, too?


A

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: jpk
Date: 30 Jul 05 - 04:52 PM

ps push it on the show fear factor
believe all the half science you want
i'll wait for all the facts
don't forget to ask ed dains what his crystal ball shows,and get art bells ideas too

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jul 05 - 05:27 PM

I think you must be talking to some imaginary half-wit you have confused with me. :)

The article I referred you to is one of three very richly endowed with factual observations.

I suspect in waiting for "all the facts" you mean to stay in a cloud of apathetic hostility until you get "raptured" away just in the nick of time.

A

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Jul 05 - 06:52 PM

I don't recall what program it was because I saw it several months ago, but it was either Nova or Nature on PBS or something on the Discovery Channel. It had to do with variations in the earth's climate over millions of years and the various things that precipitate them.

The scientific fact is that the actions of human beings are definitely a major factor in the climate changes that are currently taking place (and they are taking place). Since the beginning of the industrial revolution and the widespread use of fossil fuels (coal) to produce energy, followed by the invention of the automobile and the even more widespread use of oil, humans have poured more hydrocarbons into the atmosphere within the past century and a half than in all of human history.

We don't know what the hell we're doing. One possibility we're flirting with is the runaway greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide blankets the atmosphere, not allowing heat buildup to escape out into space. The earth just gets hotter and hotter. Something like this happened to Venus awhile back. The average temperature there is a few hundred degrees hotter than a pizza oven.

"What do you want on your Tombstone?"

But whatthehell! As long as the quarterly report looks good, who gives a diddly-spoo?

Don Firth

(On the other hand, if the sea level rises, Florida will be under water. I might be tempted to vote for that!)

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: jpk
Date: 01 Aug 05 - 05:17 PM

i died with a smile in my gas hog corvett

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 01 Aug 05 - 05:59 PM

Aren't them Philistines the CUTEST thangs? I want one to hang on my tree.


A

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: DougR
Date: 01 Aug 05 - 07:31 PM

I believe, in spite of all the "factual" refrences Amos provided, the jury is still out on global warming. It could be a problem, but I believe were you to gather a thousand experts in one room you could get a consensus on the subject with the evidence at hand.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Aug 05 - 07:55 PM

I'm curious, Doug R- did you mean to say you believe "they could NOT reach a consensus"? That would seem to be more in tune with your opening line.