BS: US Politics and Global Warming

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 09:12 PM

"He is however, the most ham-fisted and meat-headed blundering idiot to take over the White House in many years, and something of a psychopath, technically subliterate and intentionally and abusively ignorant."

Succinct and to the point.


True story:

A goverment science commitee in Turkey had just gotten a long lecture about an earthquake fault that posed a danger to Turkey and was advised to various but expensive architectural changes that needed to be made.

The commitee recessed and when they returned they asked if the fault line could be moved.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 08:49 PM

... which simple explanation cleverly ignores the physics of energy entrapment and retention in gaseous mixtures on a planetary scale.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: pdq
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 07:35 PM

Back the line a bit, Donuel said...

"I just surfed onto Fox news and they had a kid who was testifying that global warming is a hoax, junk science and a scandal that makes the oil for food scandal tiny in proportion. He said the CO2 in the atmoshere is only a tenth of one percent."

The 'kid' being quoted is off a bit. The generally accepted figures are 0.29% CO2 before the Industrial Revolution in the mid 1800's. Now it is 0.38%. These figures are also expressed as PPM or 'parts per million', an unfortunate term for a folk music forum where 'Peter, Paul & Mary' are more likely the topic!

Will 0.38% CO2 cause a significant increase in global temperature over the previous 0.29%? Very unlikely.

One benefit is an increase in plant growth and vigor, since plants take in CO2 and return oxygen. More plants, healthier plants, more O2 is returned the the atmosphere. Also more food for starving people around the world. Sounds good, actually.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 07:32 PM

I can't imagine anyony taking Art Bell's program seriously. Last I heard, he was promoting the idea of alien civilizations building crystal palaces on the moon. Kind of like Richard S. Shaver back in the Forties with his "hollow earth" stuff. Tried to pass it off as true, but it wasn't even good science fiction. Nor fantasy. I don't know who the other guy is.

Anyone who thinks--or tries to get others to think--that those who are concerned about global warming are in the same catagory as people who believe the stuff that Art Bell's program peddles is either an idiot or working for Karl Rove.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 06:51 PM

Ah, I see. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: jpk
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 06:44 PM

well my dad thought that the one in japland would have made a good test target for a nuc when he got back in the world after the first two fell,needless to say they did'nt treat him to well after batan.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 06:29 PM

Shut down the volcanoes? Simple, jpk. Stuff a cork in it!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: jpk
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 06:26 PM

oh i forgot to mention that ed daines and art bell said all this would come to pass[tounge in cheek]his radio show is cood entertainment,to bad to many people take it so serious.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: jpk
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 06:24 PM

mostly fear tactics to advance a personal agenda,let us work at getting the courts to shut down all the volcainos first.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 06:23 PM

When I was a teen-ager back the Forties, my dad and I used to go fishing a lot. Dad had an outboard motor and we'd rent a boat and go out and hunt the wily salmon. I recall one day—a weird day, when we were fishing off the mouth of a river north of Seattle (Skagit, I think, but I'm not sure now). We came back fishless because the salmon weren't biting. The reason they weren't biting was that they had already fattened up and were headed up-river to spawn. Their minds were on things other than chasing a bit of herring with a hook buried in it.

But it was a sight I'll never forget. There were big salmon, two and a half to three feet long, rolling all around the boat. They were densely packed, only a few feet apart, all swimming toward the river mouth. For as far as we could see, there were salmon. Millions of them. It was awe inspiring.

But no more. The salmon have dwindled to a minuscule percentage of what they used to number. What's killing them? Human activity. Clear-cut logging allows erosion, and the run-off from logged over land silts up the rivers that the salmon use for spawning, we've commercially over-fished like crazy, we've used the rivers and oceans as septic systems (including toxic chemicals that are killing off the plankton, which is the base of the marine food chain), and warming the ocean's waters with our atmospheric pollution.

The end result of all this is that man himself may cease to exist, and this may very well be the earth's way of protecting itself. No matter how smug we grow in our presumed omnipotence, Nature always wins in the end.

Earth abides.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 05:19 PM

It must simply lovely to have such faith in mankind. Never a frown to wrinkle A.E. Newman's brow.

Here are some snippets from a disturbing report:

"SAN FRANCISCO - (Monday, August 1, 2005) Marine biologists are seeing mysterious and disturbing things along the Pacific Coast this year: higher water temperatures, plummeting catches of fish, lots of dead birds on the beaches, and perhaps most worrisome, very little plankton — the tiny organisms that are a vital link in the ocean food chain.

"Is this just one freak year? Or is this global warming?

"There are strange things happening, but we don't really understand how all the pieces fit together," said Jane Lubchenco, a zoologist and climate change expert at Oregon State University. "It's hard to say whether any single event is just an anomaly or a real indication of something serious happening."

"Scientists say things could very well swing back to normal next year. But if the phenomenon proves to be long-lasting, the consequences could be serious for birds, fish and other wildlife.

"This much is known: From California to British Columbia, unusual weather patterns have disrupted the marine ecosystem.

"Off Oregon, for example, the waters near the shore are 5 to 7 degrees warmer than normal and have yielded about one-fourth the usual amount of phytoplankton, said Bill Peterson, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Newport, Ore.

"The bottom has fallen out of the coastal food chain, and there's just not enough food out there," said Julia Parrish, a seabird ecologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Yes, Doug, I realize that the article says that most scientists are not willing to attribute this particular phenomenom to 'global warming', based on a "single incident". (Although I do fail to see why this is called a single incident when it appears to be simultaneous but multi-faceted.)

Much More

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 05:18 PM

Either I mis-remembered the figures in the Smithsonian article (it was sometime in the Eighties) or they've refined them since. Here's a mess of info:   Blicky.

On Fox News, eh? Fox, coyote, pretty similar in a lot of ways.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 05:18 PM

DougR:

That was beneath you -- do you really think you are discussing the issues or the facts when you fall back on such snide remarks? George Bush is not the cause of global warming, and I hope you know I am not quite that dense. He is however, the most ham-fisted and meat-headed blundering idiot to take over the White House in many years, and something of a psychopath, technically subliterate and intentionally and abusively ignorant.

A

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 04:56 PM

Don Firth, The procession of the equinox was probably not always at its current tilt. I would speculate that a sufficient impact could change the tilt.

.........

I just surfed onto Fox news and they had a kid who was testifying that global warming is a hoax, junk science and a scandal that makes the oil for food scandal tiny in proportion. He said the CO2 in the atmoshere is only a tenth of one percent.

The interviewer did make the point that everything is warmer and glaciers have receded etc. The kid said that we are just in a warming period following the little ice age during the dark ages.


The kid went further to say that insurance companies just want to get richer along with fat cat lawyers who try to use the invention of green house gases to pull a fast one.

He did make allowence for REAL science to effect insurence rates for hurricanes and the like.

Speaking of real science, George Bush today said that Intelligent Design should be taught in all public schools.

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: DougR
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 04:32 PM

Gee, Amos, you surprise me. I felt sure you blamed all such happenings on George W. Bush!

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 04:22 PM

Yeah, Doug, I remember the prediction of a new ice age. There was an article about it in Smithsonian Magazine some years back. Rather than due to alterations in atmospheric conditions, it was an astronomical phenomenon—the procession of the equinox, which is a 26,000 year cycle. If nothing intervenes (which is bloody unlikely, unless we can figure out a way to change the 23 degree inclination of the earth's axis, which wouldn't really be a good idea, considering the other effects this could produce), we can expect the onset of a new ice age in approximately 6,000 years. With than much advanced notice, we should be able to make more than adequate provisions for the eventuality. Provided we don't just sit around for the next six millennia saying, "The jury is still out."   

But the current evidence for global warming is manifest, and if allowed to continue unabated, the inevitable result is the runaway greenhouse effect. The questions are, how much momentum has it got so far, and can it even be stopped if we take immediate action?

I recall an animated cartoon I saw some decades back:   I think if was pre-Roadrunner, but it definitely had the Chuck Jones touch. The protagonist was Bugs Bunny, and the villain was either Wile. E. Coyote or his twin brother. The coyote is sitting in a dynamite shack, preparing booby traps for Bugs. He's hollowing out a bunch of carrots and he's stuffing them with dynamite. So intent on his task is he that he doesn't notice that, outside, Bugs has hitch a tractor to the shack and is dragging it into a position where it's sitting on railroad tracks. As the coyote bores a hole in another carrot and prepares to stuff a stick of dynamite into it, he hears a train whistle. Close. Very close! He goes to the window, looks out, sees the headlight of a locomotive bearing down on him very, very fast! He looks out at the audience with a wimpy little expression as beads of perspiration pop out on his forehead, then he reaches over and pulls the blind down. KA-BOOM!!!

Some folks are very much like that coyote.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 03:48 PM

And polar bears are having to wait longer and longer before they can go out on the ice to hunt. In the meantime they scavenge village landfills and garbage cans.

In Alaska there is no doubt at all that there is severe warming already well along. How much of it is due to the world's policies is still not fully determined, of course. But wouldn't you agree, Doug - and others- that we should control or minimize or at least, address, the warming that we know that we are responsible for, that we already know the effects of?

Say that it is raining and has been raining for days. The ground is saturated, the streams are full. Then someone gets the bright idea of getting rid of our excess water because "the water is already running, what can be the harm?" and we start dipping water by the tanker load and dumping it by helicopter on the ground that is already being bombarded by the 'natural' forces.

No harm, right?

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 03:10 PM

Doug:

What dio you suppose accounts for the unprecedented calving of icebergs in the Antarctic which hyave been intact and growing for thousands of years?

How do you explain the softening of permafrost layers which have been solid ice for thousands of years?

How about the gradual disappearance of real estate from the edges of low-lying islands in the near-Arctic regions?

Or, perhaps you have an explanation for the dramatic reduction of firm ice which is disrupting the economy of hunters of Eskimo tribes in certain regions which are usually solid enough to hunt on byut have now become so mushy year-round that they are having to give up practices that have kept their tribes alive for centuries?

All these phenomena and more are carefully documented in the New Yorker series to which I offered a pointer. I am sure your library in Pheonix has the back issues.

Just in case you want to arm yourself with the facts.

A

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: DougR
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 03:05 PM

Very hot, Don, but I've lived her almost fifty years, and it's no hotter than our usual summers.

Seems to me some experts were conderned back in the seventies that the world was going to face another ice age. Anybody remember that?

And Bobert, my friend, I suppose you can support your claim that 9 out of ten experts on global warming and particularly what our present society contributes to it would agree that the concern is a proven, right?

And Ebbie, yes you are correct. I did mean to type, "would not."

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 02:10 PM

A large group of respected scientists of all relevant disciplines, with no particular ax to grind except finding out the facts, and after years of studying the problem, come to the conclusion that pouring hydrocarbons into the atmosphere the way humans have been doing within the past century and a half is causing global warming to the extent that it is altering the climate radically, and that if it continues it could possibly cause a runaway greenhouse effect that would end all life on the planet, and that it already may be too late—and then a couple of scientists employed by those very industries that do most of the atmospheric hydrocarbon dumping say, "That's just being alarmist. We don't really know that," who would an intelligent reasoning person tend to believe?

At the very least, a rational society would err on the side of caution and take steps to stop the atmospheric pollution, if for no other reason than that, as Doug insists, "the jury is still out" If such a disaster is even remotely possible. . . .

Nah! Screw it! So a couple hundred years from now the earth is so hot that life as we know it no longer exists, so what? We won't be around and I gotta keep the stock holders happy!

By the way, how's the weather in Phoenix been lately?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Aug 05 - 10:55 PM

Well, the scientists say
It'll all wash away
but we don't believe in them any more
'cuase we got our recruits
an' out green mohair suits
so please pay covers at the door...

Hey, I don't mind a good scientific debate on global warmin' but when you have 90% of the scientists being shouted down by the 10% on the Bush payroll, somehtin' is wrong...

No, Dougie, the jury isn't exactly out... 9 out 10 scientists say that there is a problem..... Okay, I grant you that 1 in 10 can prolly make a hung jury but yer guys scientists are in such a minority that they are hardly a blip on the sciene radar screen...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: US Politics and Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 01 Aug 05 - 10:36 PM

"The jury is still out"? DougR, let me point out to you that this is phenomenology based on facts, not on which smartass lawyers can sway opinions. There ain't no jury. This is a case where the solar system and thermodynamics are judge and jury.

Suggest pull head out from sand, amigo.

A

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.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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 - 04:40 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 - 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: 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: jpk
Date: 29 Jul 05 - 05:38 PM

the sky is falling,it's falling.

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: 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 - 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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,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: 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: 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/