BS: Where's the Global Warming

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 12:31 PM

Scientific American:

"Despite Climategate, IPPC Mostly Underestimates Climate Change
Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, James McCarthy of the Harvard Medical School Center for Health and the Global Environment noted that the IPCC usually errs on the conservative side. Steve Mirsky reports



Lost in the coverage of the so-called climategate email controversy is a key point about the IPCC's track record of climate change estimates. James McCarthy is on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School Center for Health and the Global Environment. He spoke February 21st at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego:

"If you were to go back and map the IPCC projection for sea level rise and temperature in 1990, look at it in 1995, look at it in 2000. In retrospect you would find that they were conservative. So we talk about errors. If you were to do two ledgers—here are IPCC overestimates, here are IPCC underestimates—over the 20 or so years that these assessments have been running, the underestimate ledger would be much larger than the overestimate. Even with glitches—clearly erroneous editing or sloppy editing that led to these erroneous statements that got us in trouble recently.""

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 12:26 PM

PErmafrost conversion, giant calving of a magnitude not seen in my lifetime, and a LOT of reliable scientific observations tend to support the notion that the rate of warming, not just the temperature, is increasing.

That--to me--is the critical issue.

If you have good reason to believe this is not the case, what facts (rather than an intermittent invalidation) do you base this on?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 12:21 PM

ALL scientific data should be constantly be reviewed, re-evaluated and updated. Sadly, Sawz and BB are twisting this to insinuate that ANY error or update on some detail casts doubt on overall indications and widely accepted general patterns.

(Some conservative politicians and Faux News pundits have actually been sarcastically saying that recent weather in Wash DC indicates that overall warming patterns are an illusion. I think Ebbie in Alaska & various folks in Canada could explain to them that the warmer air ain't gone....it's just relocated briefly)

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 12:00 PM

NO, Amos, as you well know.

"Lemme see--you have just proposed that correcting a single false report about sea-levels rates of rise means that glacier shrinkage measured by international scientific agencies is not clear?
"

**I** state that the fact that the number of reports that have been called into question requires anyone interested in the truth as opposed to a predetermined result will LOOK AT THE FACTS, and stop saying that everything is known and determined.

YOUR statement is flawwed logic, as you know. Any reason you feel your view is so weak that you need to resort to such a cheap shot?

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 11:52 AM

Lemme see--you have just proposed that correcting a single false report about sea-levels rates of rise means that glacier shrinkage measured by international scientific agencies is not clear?

The implication is that when a scientist withdraws an erroneous report, it proves that all scientists are liuars...

I thought you were capable of thinking more clearly than that, Bruce.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 11:49 AM

Amos,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/21/sea-level-geoscience-retract-siddall

"Going around and arguing about them one by one is puerile when the system-wide facts are clear."

And when the system wide facts ARE NOT CLEAR?

Then demanding all believe one view, when it is NOT proven nor accepted by as many as you claim, is even more so.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Wolfgang
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 11:45 AM

Phil Jones' interview by the BBC

I haven't seen a link to this here, just some selected quotes. Apologies If I have overlooked the link to the interview.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 11:38 AM

There are probably 100-200 thousand glaciers on the planet.

Of those being monitored, the net effect planet wide is shrinkage, significant loss of mass.

Going around and arguing about them one by one is puerile when the system-wide facts are clear.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 11:14 AM

The shrinkage in Alaska and at the North Pole is unprecedented in recorded history. As you know.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 11:02 AM

"the glaciers" How many? You have mentioned one that is growing but it is not among the three that are being monitored and are shrinking.

All they do is a sample. Is that sample representative?

Of ALL the glaciers, how many are shrinking, how many are static and how many are growing?

Even after that is determined you have to account for the different sizes of the glaciers to get an accurate measure.

Posted by Sawzall:
"Two hundred years [dating back before the CO2 buildup started] of glacial shrinkage in Alaska,"

Why were the glaciers in Alaska shrinking 200 years ago?

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 10:48 AM

(radioactive ores produce heat)

That is a good point but concentrating the ore does consume a lot of energy just like the production if Cornohol. Or maybe Nuclear could be used to refine the ore.

Ultimately nuclear makes steam which drives a generator which is not 100% percent efficient and it goes through a power grid which is not 100% efficient and drives motors or lighting which are not 100% efficient.

I forgot about Tidal but like Hydro The generators will produce heat that was not there.

Geo takes heat that is already there to heat a home and it takes heat from the home and puts it back in the earth's crust.

I believe that most Geo uses a heat pump to collect the heat which has a motor that uses electricity some of which turns into heat.

The direct Geo system you described would be good with no compressor to waste heat. Run it on solar during the day and wind at night and there will be virtually no heat pollution.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 10:04 AM

Posted by Sawzaw:

"In mid-June, I was surprised to see snow still at sea level in Prince William Sound," said U.S. Geological Survey glaciologist Bruce Molnia. "On the Juneau Icefield, there was still 20 feet of new snow on the surface of the Taku Glacier in late July. At Bering Glacier, a landslide I am studying, located at about 1,500 feet elevation, did not become snow free until early August.

"In general, the weather this summer was the worst I have seen in at least 20 years."

"Never before in the history of a research project dating back to 1946 had the Juneau Icefield witnessed the kind of snow buildup that came this year. It was similar on a lot of other glaciers too."

Living in Alaska, I can attest that the summer of 2008 was a wet, chilly one. It will evidently go down in history that way, because it is frequently referenced locally.

The summer of 2009, on the other hand, was gorgeous. Instead of being the normal "drizzle two weeks and 2 days sun" it was the other way around. That summer too will go down in history.

And neither one has a thing to say about global warming or climate change.

What is true is that the glaciers in Alaska are thinning, retreating, breaking up.

Incidentally, why the U.S. Geological Survey glaciologist Bruce Molnia chose to refer to the Taku Glacier beats me. We are well aware that the Taku is one of the few that is still growing. It    is in the Taku River valley where they routinely experience 35 feet of snow or more each winter; perhaps that is why. You will find no deer there evidently for that reason although there are moose.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 08:22 AM

Guest KP,

"I think you could make the same argument for nuclear. What you are doing is concentrating heat that was already there in the earth (radioactive ores produce heat) and using that to make electricity and creating waste heat. The heat will be coming out into the air (or into the cooling water that nuclear plants) use rather than into the earth's crust so there will be some heat capacity issues but the total amount of heat released will be same. However, I'm more of a chemist than a physicist so I'll check that out some time."

The problem with nuclear ( which I prefer, for other reasons, but realize it's weakness) is that the heat release is accelerated- the natural rate of decay would be thousands of years or more, which a reactor releases in a few years. Waste is a problem ( though less than coal, since the amount of fuel required is so much less) but but recycling of used fuel , and reuse of waste as radioisotopes for medical and industrial use would take care of that.

Recycling in general is good- it takes less energy to reuse aluminum than to produce it from ore.

MOST of what the Goreistas want to do has some benefits- it is just that
1. the reason they give is false, which WHEN CLIMATE CHANGE occurs anyway will invalidate ( to the public) what they propose, EVEN WHEN IT IS a good thing to be doing.
2. They do NOTHING to adapt the population or even civilization to the change that will occur, regardless of their actions. The false sense of "safty" they offer will prevent the required actions to adapt until it is both more exspensive, and much more likely to be done by violent actions.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: GUEST,KP
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 08:01 AM

'Where is the physics guy KP?

What do you think about Geothermal as a partial answer to heat pollution?'

Sawzaw, I'm on a different time zone to most of the rest of you guys (Bruce, Amos etc) hence you'll get comments from me at seemingly random times. Plus I spent much of the weekend digging a car out of a foot of snow in Northern Scotland.

Two points.
1. Geothermal is good. I know people with experience on ground source heat pumps, and who certainly wouldn't build/buy a new house without one. They work well with underfloor heating, which means you don't have radiators taking up wall space. I don't have experience of heat pumps with cooling/conditioning systems as air con is less essential at 55 North...
Main issue with ground source heat pumps is having enough space to drill the holes, especially if you are in town. In much of America, that shouldn't be a problem as you have a lot more room!

In the longer and bigger picture geothermal energy could be very important for the US. There is a technology called 'hot dry rock' or 'enhanced geothermal' where a fluid is pumped into fractured subsurface rocks. The fluid can be used directly for heat or indirectly for electricity. MIT have estimated the US could install 100GW of this technology by 2050 (total US electricity demand is between 650-750GW). Geothermal using existing technology seems undeveloped and there is at least 10GW of buildable plants see
US Geothermal Power Could Top 10 Gigawatts.

Here is a summary I wrote about the current status of various renewable technologies (apologies if I put this up before, its been a long thread!)
Current Status of Renewables

2. Regarding your worry about heat pollution, I think that on a global scale all renewables are good. Let me explain without any maths.

Heat pollution will only warm the planet if the heat wasn't there to start with! So a coal fired plant creates a lot of excess heat (about 45%) that goes into the atmosphere. Where did the heat energy come from? From the chemical energy in the coal, which has been locked up for 250 million years. So burning that coal suddenly is going to release heat that wasn't there before (at least for 250 million years). And there could be a 'global warming' effect.

But think about a wind or wave power plant. Was it is doing, is just concentrating energy that is already there in the atmosphere or oceans of the planet. The waves are already pounding away and the wind is already blowing. Ultimately that energy comes from the heat supplied by the sun - no sun, no atmospheric circulation, no wind. So in a wind/wave plant we are taking a little of the earth's heat, concentrating and transforming it to a convenient form (generally electricity). We are not producing heat that wasn't there before, so on a global scale wind/wave/solar plants are not going to warm up the planet. To get heat from a wave plant, we are in effect cooling the ocean slightly, so it all balances out.

As you have pointed out, all these technologies have waste/inefficiencies. There could well be local heat pollution - in fact there is almost certain to be somewhere, whatever technology you use, but that's a different story and its not going to warm the plant as a whole.

I think you could make the same argument for nuclear. What you are doing is concentrating heat that was already there in the earth (radioactive ores produce heat) and using that to make electricity and creating waste heat. The heat will be coming out into the air (or into the cooling water that nuclear plants) use rather than into the earth's crust so there will be some heat capacity issues but the total amount of heat released will be same. However, I'm more of a chemist than a physicist so I'll check that out some time.

Finally, I am encouraged that both you and Bruce are both (as he puts it) 'all in favor of geothermal, tidal, and hydroelectric power'. I'd guess that Bill D and Amos are as well. So essentially, despite the near 1000 posts of argument here, there is actually a consensus there. Some people might say 'build renewable plants because of global warming' some might say 'build renewable plants to avoid pollution' and some might say 'build renewable plants so we don't have to get oil from the Middle East'.

I just worry that the need to get on and build the things gets obscured by the politics of everything. We know/expect that there are lots of interested parties and vested interests, but the actions that need taking seem fairly clear - build renewable plants, encourage energy efficiency at home and in offices, inflate your car tyres properly. And the nice thing is that some of this is stuff that individuals can do as well as governments and corporations.

If this thread is going to carry on, I'd like to see people trying to aim for a consensus rather than just keep posting quotes that support their arguments - and I'm not looking at anyone in particular there.

cheers KP

PS It amuses me how the most argumentative threads among US Mudcatters are the political ones whereas the Brits get all het up about the definitions of folk music. Do you think I could start an inclusive thread along the lines of 'Obama supports 1954 definition' or 'Palin likes Show of Hands'? :)

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Feb 10 - 07:30 AM

Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels

Study claimed in 2009 that sea levels would rise by up to 82cm by the end of century – but the report's author now says true estimate is still unknown

David Adam guardian.co.uk, Sunday 21 February 2010 18.00 GMT

The Maldives is likely to become submerged if the current pace of climate change continues to raise sea levels. Photograph: Reinhard Krause/Reuters

Scientists have been forced to withdraw a study on projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding mistakes that undermined the findings.

The study, published in 2009 in Nature Geoscience, one of the top journals in its field, confirmed the conclusions of the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It used data over the last 22,000 years to predict that sea level would rise by between 7cm and 82cm by the end of the century.

At the time, Mark Siddall, from the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Bristol, said the study "strengthens the confidence with which one may interpret the IPCC results". The IPCC said that sea level would probably rise by 18cm-59cm by 2100, though stressed this was based on incomplete information about ice sheet melting and that the true rise could be higher.

Many scientists criticised the IPCC approach as too conservative, and several papers since have suggested that sea level could rise more. Martin Vermeer of the Helsinki University of Technology, Finland and Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany published a study in December that projected a rise of 0.75m to 1.9m by 2100.

Siddall said that he did not know whether the retracted paper's estimate of sea level rise was an overestimate or an underestimate.

Announcing the formal retraction of the paper from the journal, Siddall said: "It's one of those things that happens. People make mistakes and mistakes happen in science." He said there were two separate technical mistakes in the paper, which were pointed out by other scientists after it was published. A formal retraction was required, rather than a correction, because the errors undermined the study's conclusion.

"Retraction is a regular part of the publication process," he said. "Science is a complicated game and there are set procedures in place that act as checks and balances."

Nature Publishing Group, which publishes Nature Geoscience, said this was the first paper retracted from the journal since it was launched in 2007.

The paper – entitled "Constraints on future sea-level rise from past sea-level change" – used fossil coral data and temperature records derived from ice-core measurements to reconstruct how sea level has fluctuated with temperature since the peak of the last ice age, and to project how it would rise with warming over the next few decades.

In a statement the authors of the paper said: "Since publication of our paper we have become aware of two mistakes which impact the detailed estimation of future sea level rise. This means that we can no longer draw firm conclusions regarding 21st century sea level rise from this study without further work.

"One mistake was a miscalculation; the other was not to allow fully for temperature change over the past 2,000 years. Because of these issues we have retracted the paper and will now invest in the further work needed to correct these mistakes."

In the Nature Geoscience retraction, in which Siddall and his colleagues explain their errors, Vermeer and Rahmstorf are thanked for "bringing these issues to our attention".

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 21 Feb 10 - 10:40 PM

Where is the physics guy KP?

What do you think about Geothermal as a partial answer to heat pollution?

Even The generator in a hydro electric plant produce heat because they are not 100% efficient.

Same way with Wind power.

Solar does not produce heat when it is generated.

However the energy produced all 3 ways ends up as heat when the electricity is used.

Nuclear generation makes a huge amount of heat.

---

Geothermal heat pumps (sometimes referred to as GeoExchange, earth-coupled, ground-source, or water-source heat pumps) have been in use since the late 1940s. Geothermal heat pumps (GHPs) use the constant temperature of the earth as the exchange medium instead of the outside air temperature. This allows the system to reach fairly high efficiencies (300%-600%) on the coldest of winter nights, compared to 175%-250% for air-source heat pumps on cool days.

While many parts of the country experience seasonal temperature extremes from scorching heat in the summer to sub-zero cold in the winter a few feet below the earth's surface the ground remains at a relatively constant temperature. Depending on latitude, ground temperatures range from 45°F (7°C) to 75°F (21°C). Like a cave, this ground temperature is warmer than the air above it during the winter and cooler than the air in the summer. The GHP takes advantage of this by exchanging heat with the earth through a ground heat exchanger.

As with any heat pump, geothermal and water-source heat pumps are able to heat, cool, and, if so equipped, supply the house with hot water. Some models of geothermal systems are available with two-speed compressors and variable fans for more comfort and energy savings. Relative to air-source heat pumps, they are quieter, last longer, need little maintenance, and do not depend on the temperature of the outside air.

A dual-source heat pump combines an air-source heat pump with a geothermal heat pump. These appliances combine the best of both systems. Dual-source heat pumps have higher efficiency ratings than air-source units, but are not as efficient as geothermal units. The main advantage of dual-source systems is that they cost much less to install than a single geothermal unit, and work almost as well.

Even though the installation price of a geothermal system can be several times that of an air-source system of the same heating and cooling capacity, the additional costs are returned to you in energy savings in 5 -10 years. System life is estimated at 25 years for the inside components and 50+ years for the ground loop. There are approximately 50,000 geothermal heat pumps installed in the United States each year.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 21 Feb 10 - 10:27 PM

Amos:

I found your oil cut off post. #9,401 out of 54,856

Where do you want it?

Here or on another thread?

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 21 Feb 10 - 02:36 PM

"net mass of icebergs from those being monitored has declined continuously over the last 20 years. The measurement population, though, is between 29 and 80 glaciers."

Is 29 to 80 glaciers out of 100000 is a fair sample?

There are 15000 in the Himalayas alone. How many of them are being monitored?

You let someone else do the thinking for you. Are you in incapable?

When asked for some specific facts you refer people elsewhere.

"The USGS Benchmark Glacier Program began in 1957 as a result of research efforts during the International Geophysical Year (Meier and others, 1971). Annual data collection occurs at three glaciers that represent three climatic regions in the United States: South Cascade Glacier in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State; Wolverine Glacier on the Kenai Peninsula near Anchorage, Alaska; and Gulkana Glacier in the interior of Alaska "

3 whole glaciers represent every glacier in the US.

---

Two hundred years [dating back before the CO2 buildup started] of glacial shrinkage in Alaska, and then came the winter and summer of 2007-2008.

Unusually large amounts of winter snow were followed by unusually chill temperatures in June, July and August.

"In mid-June, I was surprised to see snow still at sea level in Prince William Sound," said U.S. Geological Survey glaciologist Bruce Molnia. "On the Juneau Icefield, there was still 20 feet of new snow on the surface of the Taku Glacier in late July. At Bering Glacier, a landslide I am studying, located at about 1,500 feet elevation, did not become snow free until early August.

"In general, the weather this summer was the worst I have seen in at least 20 years."

Never before in the history of a research project dating back to 1946 had the Juneau Icefield witnessed the kind of snow buildup that came this year. It was similar on a lot of other glaciers too.

"It's been a long time on most glaciers where they've actually had positive mass balance," Molnia said.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: beardedbruce
Date: 20 Feb 10 - 07:11 PM

BillD,

"*IF* serious problems continue and the outlook looks bleak, we MUST reduce the overall population of the Earth by at least half.... if serious problems mitigate and we seems to have breathing room, we SHOULD reduce the overall population by 'almost' half.'



I agree. But who gets to decide which half gets reduced? By NOT addressing the problem, and pretending that "carbon limits" will solve all problems, the Goreistas are making the next World War much more likely than any rational reduction of population.

IMO, of course- you may disagree. feel free to tell me how ignoring the population problem contributes to world peace.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Feb 10 - 05:51 PM

"I DO NOT HAVE THE ANSWER- Nor should I be deciding for the Canadian Government. "

Then...I shall provide the answer. It is not possible to both move millions of people from ANY areas which become almost uninhabitable to areas like Canada & Siberia and feed & house them adequately also.

*IF* serious problems continue and the outlook looks bleak, we MUST reduce the overall population of the Earth by at least half.... if serious problems mitigate and we seems to have breathing room, we SHOULD reduce the overall population by 'almost' half.

I could type 9 paragraphs explaining it, but those who agree already understand, and those who don't won't accept it.

(Do I know HOW? Yes.... Do I think there's any possibility of getting any world-wide consensus on any such idea?   No...)

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 20 Feb 10 - 05:32 PM

I don't know why I should do your legwork for you, pal.

To answer your question, a roughly estimated 100,000 exist. Some are growing, most receding.

The net mass of icebergs from those being monitored has declined continuously over the last 20 years. The measurement population, though, is between 29 and 80 glaciers.

Here's the World Glacier Monitoring website.

Here's an inventory of over 100000 glaciers from the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Here's the United States Geodetic Survey fact sheet giving their results.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 20 Feb 10 - 05:05 PM

Amos:

How many glaciers are there in the world?

How many are shrinking?

How many are not shrinking?

How many are growing?

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 20 Feb 10 - 12:00 PM

The retreat of glaciers and the loss of moisture from soil due to climate change will likely increase the number of large-scale dust storms, such as those that blanketed Sydney in 2009, scientists predict.

"Every year, hundreds of millions of tonnes of African dust are carried westward across the Atlantic to South America, the Caribbean and to the North America," as well as across the Mediterranean and the Middle East, said Joseph Prospero, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Miami.

His group has been measuring global dust plumes from a site in Barbados since 1965 – the longest dust storm data so far collected – and matching it with satellite images.

Whitish haze

The storms create a whitish haze in the summer skies for several days, depositing a thin film on homes and cars in southern USA and the Caribbean.

Data from a collecting site established in Iceland in 1991 shows similar dust storms over the Arctic, which dump fine soil over North America and northern Europe. His group believe they most come from retreating glaciers, he told a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego.

"Huge spike"

"Every huge spike we see in our samples – we're talking about hundreds of micrograms per cubic mere of dust – we can identify in satellite images, from the most part, from para-glacial deposits in the five major glaciers on Iceland," Prospero said.

"These glaciers are retreating, and if they continue to retreat, then you're going to be exposing more of this sub-glacial grinding," leading to more dust fallout over Britain and Europe, he added.

Scientists have long known that the grinding of rock by massive icesheets during the last ice age created the rich soils of Europe and North America. "Glaciers are profound producers of fine-grained particles through the rock-grinding process that creates 'rock flour'," said Daniel Muhs of the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver.

"There were periods in the Earth's past that were dustier than now … and those primarily correspond with glacial periods," he added. ...

Cosmos Mag

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: beardedbruce
Date: 20 Feb 10 - 09:07 AM

I am all in favor of geothermal, tidal, and hydroelectric power generation.

There are effectively carbon neutral energy sources ( I am looking at a wood pellet system) and it is reasonable to try to reduce pollution.


This does NOT mean that I think that reducing one of several greenhouse gases will change the climate changes that have been in action for the lasst 1.5 billion years or so.

IF one wishes to take action, how about moving those people in harms way, instead of claiming you can stop the water from rising?




"Seems they are not doing the 'right' things to prepare...like planning to move millions of people further North. He hasn't said what expects Canada to do with all those Latinos...) "

And isn't TODAY the time to ASK about those plans, instead of when those Latinos are moving north because their homes are no longer habitable? I DO NOT HAVE THE ANSWER- Nor should I be deciding for the Canadian Government.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 11:58 PM

I have a thought.

Geothermal energy uses heat from the earth to heat and cool. Therefore it does not use fossil energy or produce any heat to create energy except for pumps. It merely transfers heat to or from the earth's crust.

Geothermal systems are available now. It is not some theoretical unproven future technology.

Perhaps geothermal energy is the answer to thermal pollution.

Up in PA they have hot springs they use for heating.

If you could drill into the magma near a volcano you could produce steam for electric generation.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 03:46 PM

"This endless stream of nullification and negative nabobbery is teeeeejous, man."
Well then cut it out Amos.

Do you have any facts to present or just negative statements, ad hominem attacks and rhetoric?

Amos
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 04:13 PM

The straight answer about ad hominem arguments: they have no lefgitimate place in debate.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 02:51 PM

Can't remember who said it, but:

"We'll not have solar power until they figure out how to run a sunbeam through a meter."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 02:43 PM

(and yes, I recognize the minority opinions, such as beardedbruce, who sort of accepts that 'something' is happening, but still has a list of things to criticize liberals about. Seems they are not doing the 'right' things to prepare...like planning to move millions of people further North. He hasn't said what expects Canada to do with all those Latinos...)

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 02:33 PM

There are various reasons why many people have come to be skeptical about climate change & warming. Part of it is just who they listen to and where they get their news. If they get 98% of what they process is from Faux News and related sources, they are gonna hear "it ain't true" 98% of the time.
There are also those who talk themselves into skepticism because *gasp*,,,Liberals DO mostly accept the climate change scenarios.
Some disbelieve because,like 9/11 conspiracy theories, there are SO many web sites claiming 'evidence' about the 'fraud'.

Now.... the reasons why there are so many ...mostly conservatives... who publish & post and talk and rant about their 'doubts' are quite different. The driving forces behind getting all those sheep to nod and baaaaahhhh in agreement are based on the serious financial inconvenience it will be to certain major corporations and investors IF the world in general takes the problem seriously.
There is WAY too much money tied up in preserving the status quo, or at least delaying action until they can get their cash cows into a different pasture. The trail of who is funding what in denial of climate change/warming is a scary labyrinth of vested interests paying ad agencies and lobbyists and funding 'experts' to do 'studies' which say what they want to hear.
(Remember the campaign to slow down and discredit the anti-tobacco movement? That pales in comparison to this!)

There was a 'rule' propounded about political issues a few years ago..."No matter what they're talking about, they're talking about MONEY!"

(naawwww...don't ask me to 'prove' this. But watch... once alternative energies are common, see who controls them.)

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: GUEST,infowars.com
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 01:53 PM

The best summary of the global warming situation I've come across lately can be found in an analysis of the movie Avatar. The note on "verbal manipulation" at the link below. Second point in that note talks about what happened in March of 2008. Fascinating:

http://www2.moment.net/~michael/Avatar.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 11:17 AM

The fracture lines are countless, but probably the most important one runs through public opinion. A recent poll showed only 36 percent of Americans believing that the evidence of human-induced climate change is firm, down from 47 percent in early 2008. The rise of unemployment has perhaps made people more reluctant to accept adverse news on living standards. There is also considerable public confusion about climate science and possible remedies.

Vested interests, especially coal and oil, play their predictable role. Half the states produce at least some coal, and around 30 states produce at least a bit of oil. In the dozen or so major coal or oil states, opposition to climate change action is politically powerful and well organized. Oil-producing states in the Gulf of Mexico tend to resist climate action even though the Gulf is probably already experiencing damage from rising hurricane intensity.

The environmental community is also divided. Many environmental groups oppose nuclear power and any use of coal, even with carbon capture and sequestration technology. Conservationists have fought many renewable energy projects, opposing wind power near farms and coastlines, solar thermal plants in the desert and high-voltage transmission lines near residential communities.

Another factor is the bargaining approach to climate legislation. Rather than defining a plan toward a low-carbon economy, the White House has left the negotiations to Congress and the lobbyists. The result is sprawling draft legislation, hard for the public to understand and replete with hidden and overt financial transfers to vested interests, especially in the allocation of emissions rights under a complex cap-and-trade system.

Perhaps the legislation can still narrowly pass, which at this point would be the best option. If it stalls this spring, however, the climate and the rest of the world can't wait. A different approach is needed. Here are some components.

First, the Environmental Protection Agency has the mandate to move under the Clean Air Act. It could impose a timetable of emissions standards for electric utilities and for vehicles, which together account for around three fourths of carbon emissions. There is also broad support for needed R&D funds and important scope for energy efficiency through weatherproofing and green building codes.

Second, if cap-and-trade stalls, the administration and Congress should rethink their opposition to the much simpler option of a carbon tax. A predictable carbon tax would be much more effective than the cumbersome and nontransparent cap-and-trade system and might win broader assent as part of a package of deficit reduction.

Third, the public needs to hear a plan. The administration has embraced a goal of 17 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, but it hasn't told us how that would be achieved. The public is scared that even this modest goal would slam jobs and living standards. It's time to spell out the changes in power generation, automobile technology and energy efficiency that can take us to our goals at modest cost and huge social benefit.

Fourth, it's time to step up the response to the climate skeptics, who have misled the public. The Wall Street Journal leads the campaign against climate science, writing editorials charging that scientists are engaged in a massive conspiracy. I have made repeated invitations to the Journal editors to meet with climate scientists publicly for an open discussion or debate, but all have been rebuffed. ... (Scientific American)

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 10:35 AM

Yes, Bruce. As is your little "blame Amos that we are assholes" shtick. There's a point where you have to own your own bullshit, dude, and using me as an excuse is just debilitating to your own soul.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 07:09 AM

Amos,

"This endless stream of nullification and negative nabobbery is teeeeejous, man."


This from YOU???

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 11:21 PM

Sorry Bill My mistake.

That is why the fancy words were gone. I should have known.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 11:19 PM

The leaked emails may be scandalous in the popular hystrionic sense, but they have very little bearing on the real issues.

I don't recall pasting any claim about America's oil had been cut off, but it is for sure it is a lot harder to get than it was fifty years ago.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 10:00 PM

I KNOW Amos...but I am NOT Amos..... I actually use my own name when posting.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 09:21 PM

Amos: Thanks for dropping the fancy words that do not prove or disprove anything.

Read the leaked emails.

---

Logical fallacy:

argumentum ad populum (Latin: "appeal to the people"), in logic, is a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition to be true because many or all people believe it; it alleges, "If many believe so, it is so."

This type of argument is known by several names, including appeal to the masses, appeal to belief, appeal to the majority, appeal to the people, argument by consensus, authority of the many, and bandwagon fallacy, and in Latin by the names argumentum ad populum ("appeal to the people"), argumentum ad numerum ("appeal to the number"), and consensus gentium ("agreement of the clans"). It is also the basis of a number of social phenomena, including communal reinforcement and the bandwagon effect, the spreading of various religious and anti-religious beliefs, and of the Chinese proverb "three men make a tiger".

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: gnu
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 09:15 PM

"America's oil had been cut off." ???? Were gonna hafta buy Calleeforneeahh green?

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 09:06 PM

Amos: Apparently you are not reading this thread because you keep asking questions that have been answered.

As to your objection to cut and paste, I might ask you whom cut and pasted what they claimed was the "truth" in an article that stated America's oil had been cut off.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 07:34 PM

---(from my memory, not a precise quote)......Sawz recently said he DID see some evidence that the was some global warming, and that he thought some of it 'might' be related to human acivity.

Now, I also do not quite understand the effort he is making to find ANY web reference to ANY information the can in ANY way be interpreted to be awkward or embarrassing to ANY liberal or supporter of Al Gore.

He is spending a lot of effort to 'suggest'/insinuate that there is some conspiracy to fudge data on climate change, or that various individuals involved in campaigning to combat climate change shouldn't be trusted because of some personal details.

   I can go find the pages outlining the logical fallacies that are involved, but when I do that, they are usually ignored, denied or dismissed by those making the errors.

I guess I'll just read now & then and hope for something more than long copy & paste 'information'....

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 07:13 PM

Jaysus CHrist, Sawz...what IS your point, really? Are you asserting that the planet is not growing warmer as a result of human activity?

If so, can you tell us what you really believe in simple terms?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 06:52 PM

"Recite specifics of this dubious information"

It has already been posted here in this thread my myself and others. Do you want me to read it to you?

"The fact that his father was connected to Armand Hammer and Occidental Petroleum and sold his son some land is not the same thing as investing in the kind of chicanery your boy Dickhead went through, sucking the whole WHite House intot heoil game."

For instance, Occidental gave $50,000 to the Democratic Party for the 1996 campaign after a telephone solicitation by Mr. Gore from his White House office and another $100,000 after its chief executive, Ray Irani, spent two nights in the Lincoln Bedroom in 1996.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: gnu
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 06:41 PM

Here.... never saw this in more than 40 years... it's been like this for nearly a month that is normally so cold you would need to cover your forehead to avoid a headache...

Issued: 4.00 PM AST Thursday 18 February 2010

Tonight: A few rain showers and flurries ending late this evening then cloudy with 40 percent chance of flurries. Fog patches. Low zero.

Friday: Cloudy. 40 percent chance of flurries changing to 40 percent chance of rain showers or flurries in the morning. High plus 4.

Friday night: Cloudy. 60 percent chance of rain showers or flurries in the evening. A few flurries beginning late in the evening. Fog patches. Wind becoming northwest 20 km/h overnight. Low minus 2.

Saturday: Cloudy with 40 percent chance of flurries. High zero.

Sunday: Flurries and rain showers. Low minus 2. High plus 1.

Monday: Cloudy. Low minus 5. High plus 1. Tuesday:Cloudy with 30 percent chance of flurries. Low minus 5. High zero. Wednesday:A mix of sun and cloud. Low minus 5. High plus 1.

It's just not normal.... we get warm spells, but not for weeks. It's disconcerting.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 06:17 PM

Sigh.

Recite specifics of this dubious information, if you would be so kind. Or, alternatively, consider shutting the ^&^*&$ up-=- I don't mind which. This endless stream of nullification and negative nabobbery is teeeeejous, man.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 05:33 PM

"that helps solve the problem" that Gore promotes with questionable information.

"You really go out of your way to generate illogical stuff."

Generated by the New York Times Pop.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: pdq
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 05:18 PM

"In 1998, the US government sold the Elk Hills naval petroleum reserve to Occidental for $3.65 billion. According to the government, the reserve was no longer strategically necessary, and the reserve was sold to reduce the national debt and the size of the government. Critics cited the "no-bid" nature of the sale, together with Vice President Al Gore's involvement with the company as evidence of graft." ~ Wiki

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 05:05 PM

A conflict of interest? Sounds to me like a convergencew of interest. Gore detects and communicates about the problems of climate change, etc. Gore invests in a company that helps solve the problem. what's the conflict? He's trying to do well by doing good in the face of a lot of ridiculous banderloggery from slow-heads and cro-Magnons.

The fact that his father was connected to Armand Hammer and Occidental Petroleum and sold his son some land is not the same thing as investing in the kind of chicanery your boy Dickhead went through, sucking the whole WHite House intot heoil game. Gimme a break.

You really go out of your way to generate illogical stuff.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 04:41 PM

"you seem to think that investing in green industries is a bad thing. Why would that be? Don't try to tell me you think making money is unethical!!!"

It is not but when the people promoting GW policy stand to benefit monetarily, it is known as a conflict of interest.

Standard #1: Bush the oil man=bad Cheney the oil man=bad

Standard #2: Gore the oil man=good

Gore Family's Ties to Oil Company Magnate Reap Big Rewards, and a Few Problems New York Times

CARTHAGE, Tenn.â€" On the third page of Vice President Al Gore's most recent financial disclosure report, after routine listings for his salary and the value of his house in Washington and his small farm here, is an unlikely entry -- $20,000 for leasing land for zinc mining.

Behind the yearly lease payment, which has earned Mr. Gore about $450,000 since 1974, is the story of a sweetheart land deal from long ago, and the ties between the vice president and his family and Armand Hammer and his oil company, Occidental Petroleum.

While the origins of that relationship lie in these rolling hills of middle Tennessee and date back half a century, it has continued to bring both benefits and scrutiny for Mr. Gore as he has moved through Congress to the White House and finally toward his party's presidential nomination.

For instance, Occidental gave $50,000 to the Democratic Party for the 1996 campaign after a telephone solicitation by Mr. Gore from his White House office and another $100,000 after its chief executive, Ray Irani, spent two nights in the Lincoln Bedroom in 1996.

More recently, Occidental stock in the estate of Mr. Gore's father has made the vice president a target for environmental groups. They have demonstrated at about 30 Gore rallies, opposing the oil company's plans to drill on land in Colombia that Indians contend is theirs.

The broad outlines of the Gore-Hammer-Occidental connection have been reported at various points in the vice president's career, with bits and pieces of it published in books and articles over the years. Mr. Gore's father, Albert Gore Sr., even described the ties in a memorandum for the Clinton campaign when aides were checking his son's background before picking him as the running mate in 1992.

Now, as the pasts and legacies of both Mr. Gore and Gov. George W. Bush of Texas come under scrutiny in a new presidential campaign, the relationship of the Gore family with Mr. Hammer is once again drawing attention.

Essentially, Mr. Hammer sold the farmland to the elder Mr. Gore, then Mr. Gore turned around and sold it to his son, who was then a newspaper reporter in Nashville.

On Tuesday, Mr. Gore said in Nashville that there had been nothing improper about his family's relationship with Occidental and that the company's mineral lease on the farmland had been the result of a free market negotiation.

Officials with Mr. Gore's campaign and his White House office do not dispute the basic elements of the land deal. They also said that there had been nothing wrong with the transaction or with Mr. Gore's subsequent dealings with Occidental and Mr. Hammer, who died in 1990. The aides said the roots of the deal and the relationship were in the friendship between Mr. Gore's father, who died in 1998, and Mr. Hammer.

The elder Mr. Gore was a member of the House and Mr. Hammer was a wealthy businessman when they met in the 1940's at a livestock auction near the Gore family farm here, about 50 miles east of Nashville. Eventually the two men entered into a partnership raising and selling cattle, but that was only the start of a connection that lasted until Mr. Hammer's death.

Over the years, Mr. Hammer would become a legendary tycoon, courting politicians and leaders worldwide and operating many businesses. His close ties with the Soviet Union, where he had run a family company for nine years as a young man, and his freewheeling ethics brought him brushes with the law. In 1976, he was convicted of illegally contributing $54,000 to President Richard M. Nixon's 1972 campaign, though he was later pardoned. Along the way, Mr. Hammer helped make the elder Mr. Gore a wealthy man, and the politician became one of the oilman's most valued allies in Washington.

When J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the F.B.I., wanted to prosecute Mr. Hammer on suspicion of being an agent of the Soviet Union in the early 1960's, Mr. Gore Sr. defended him on the Senate floor. Mr. Hammer was not charged.

Letters in the elder Mr. Gore's papers, which are in an archive at Middle Tennessee State University, show that he provided many other favors to Mr. Hammer. For instance, he intervened with the Defense Department when Mr. Hammer's son, Julian, was having trouble getting a security clearance because of legal problems, and he persuaded the F.B.I. to let an agent testify on behalf of Mr. Hammer's company in a civil trial, according to the letters.....

Occidental entered the chemical business with the acquisition of Hooker Chemicals in 1968, 26 years after the contamination at Love Canal

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: beardedbruce
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 08:12 AM

LH,

I hate it when you are entirely correct- especially when you just restate what I said and don't get criticized for it, and I do.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 12:13 AM

Al Gore: The Other Oil Candidate August 29th, 2000

For thousands of years, the Kitanemuk Indians made their home in the Elk Hills of central California. Come February 2001, the last of the 100 burial grounds, holy places and other archaeological sites of the Kitanemuks will be obliterated by the oil drilling of Occidental Petroleum Company. Oxy's plans will "destroy forever the evidence that we once existed on this land," according to Dee Dominguez, a Kitanemuk whose great grandfather was a signatory to the 1851 treaty that surrendered the Elk Hills.

Occidental's planned drilling of the Elk Hills doesn't only threaten the memory of the Kitanemuk. Environmentalists say a rare species of fox, lizard and the kangaroo rat would also be threatened by Oxy's plans. A lawsuit has been filed under the Endangered Species Act. But none of that has given pause to Occidental or the politician who helped engineer the sale of the drilling rights to the federally-owned Elk Hills. That politician is Al Gore.

Gore recommended that the Elk Hills be sold as part of his 1995 "Reinventing Government" National Performance Review program. Gore-confidant (and former campaign manager) Tony Cohelo served on the board of directors of the private company hired to assess the sale's environmental consequences. The sale was a windfall for Oxy. Within weeks of the announced purchase Occidental stock rose ten percent.

That was good news for Gore. Despite controversy over Dick Cheney's plans to keep stock options if elected, most Americans don't know that we already have a vice president with oil company stocks. Before the Elk Hills sale, Al Gore controlled between $250,000-$500,000 of Occidental stock (he is executor of a trust that he says goes only to his mother, but will revert to him upon her death). After the sale, Gore began disclosing between $500,000 and $1 million of his significantly more valuable stock.

Nowhere is Al Gore's environmental hypocrisy more glaring than when it comes to his relationship with Occidental. While on the one hand talking tough about his "big oil" opponents and waxing poetic about indigenous peoples in his 1992 book "Earth in the Balance," the Elk Hills sale and other deals show that money has always been more important to Al Gore than ideals.

From California to Colombia: Native Lands Threatened

The Kitanemuk are not the only indigenous group threatened by Occidental's oil operations. The 5000-member strong U'wa of northeastern Colombia, have threatened mass suicide if Oxy proceeds with plans to begin drilling oil on their ancestral homeland. The U'wa, who retain their language and traditions, understand the introduction of oil would devastate their culture. They also understand that oil facilities would put them in the midst of Colombia's fierce civil war.

"To the U'wa, oil equals violence," explains Danny Kennedy, director of the Berkeley, California-based Project Underground, which has helped wage an international campaign of support for the U'wa. Oil installations are a favorite target of leftist guerillas at war with the Colombian government. After guerillas bomb the installations, the army occupies the area. "Then comes the paramilitary, who are basically soldiers with hoods on at night. Then comes the terror campaign" says Kennedy. The U'wa, who have little contact with either the government or the guerillas, would end up becoming targets.

The U'wa have attracted international sympathy, but their efforts to enlist the support of Occidental's most famous shareholder -- Al Gore -- have come to naught. Gore publicly met the outcry over the U'wa with silence. The Vice President even refused a request by a Democratic member of Congress that he meet with an U'wa representative who had traveled to Washington to see him.

Meanwhile, Occidental pressed for the massive military aide package for Colombia the administration recently pushed through Congress. Occidental Vice President Lawrence Mirage testified before Congress in favor of the military aide package during the February deliberations, throwing in that those opposed to Occidental's drilling were a bunch of "extremists."

Two things set the U'wa struggle and the Elk Hills sale apart from the corporate welfare so typical of the New Democrats: Al Gore's direct financial interest and his close relationship with Occidental Petroleum that dates back to his father.

A Family Affair

Gore senior first met long-time Occidental CEO Armand Hammer at a cattle auction in the 1940s. When zinc ore was discovered on some of Gore's land, Hammer and Oxy bought it for twice the amount of the only other bid. Hammer then sold the land back to Gore while retaining the mineral rights. The elder Gore then sold the land to his son, Al Jr., who has received $20,000 yearly in mineral royalties from Occidental ever since. Two years after Gore Sr. was defeated in a bid for re-election to the Senate, he joined Occidental as a member of its board of directors and was rewarded with a $500,000 a year job working for an Oxy subsidiary.

Throughout his political life, Al Gore Jr. has received the favor the patronage of Occidental and Hammer's successor, CEO Ray Irani. And for every campaign finance violation Gore has committed, Irani seems to be lurking in the background. He was one of the contributors who slept in the Lincoln bedroom (a couple days later Irani wrote a $100,000 check to the DNC). When Al Gore made illegal fundraising calls from the White House, Irani was one of the recipients (he ponied up $50,000, according to a Harold Ickes memo unearthed during the investigation). In the Elk Hills sell-off , Irani and Oxy finally got the payoff worthy of their long patronage. It is a payoff crooked businessmen have dreamed of ever since the land was stripped from the Kitanemuks during the Gold Rush. Indeed, the history of Elk Hills and corruption is an old one. And it is a story most Americans have heard.

Gore's Teapot Dome Scandal?

In 1922, executives of the Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company (now known as ARCO) bribed Albert Fall, President Warren Harding's interior secretary, to give them leases to two oil fields reserved for a military emergency. One was on field in Wyoming called the "Teapot Dome," the name by which we would forever remember the biggest bribery scandal in modern American history.

The other field in the scandal was the navy's 47,000-acre reserve in the Elk Hills, near Bakersfield in Central California. These were traditional lands of the Kitanemuk people, better known by the name the Spanish gave them, the Tejon. They were forced off the Elk Hills by treaties signed with the federal government in 1851 during the midst of the gold rush and have since lived on the nearby Fort Tejon reservation, now called "Tejon Ranch."

While the scandal scuttled ARCO's plans, Occidental succeeded in acquiring Elk Hills seventy five years later. In 1997, after Gore's recommendation the land be sold, Oxy bought the region from the federal government for $3.7 billion. The sale represented a tripling of the company's U.S. oil reserves. Mired for years by declining reserves, Occidental's revenues for the first quarter of this year showed a dramatic 87 percent increase from the same period in 1999, before it began operations in the Elk Hills.

To complete the environmental assessment, the Energy Department hired a private company to complete the environmental impact statement necessary for the sale. The company was ICF Kaiser International, and on its board of directors sat none-other than Democratic super-fundraiser Tony Cohelo. Cohelo would later become Gore's campaign manager before being dumped after the Democrat's early stumbles. He is currently the subject of investigations by former employers in the State Department and by the Census Monitoring Board, seeking to determine if he misused his positions (both were administration appointments) for personal gain. The Securities and Exchange Commission, meanwhile, is investigating Cohelo's myriad financial empire.

The Elk Hills sale, not surprisingly, was quickly approved. "I can't say that I've ever seen an environmental assessment prepared so quickly," says Peter Eisner, director of the Washington-D.C. public advocacy group Center for Public Integrity.

Meanwhile, as it became clear that Oxy was looking to undertake massive drilling operations in the Elk Hills, the 500 remaining Kitanemuk sought assurances from Oxy that their native sites and burial grounds would not be destroyed. Company officials said they would protect their heritage. But it soon it became apparent that the last of the 100 archaeological sites identified by the tribe would be destroyed by February 2001. Occidental agreed to first allow the State Native American Heritage Commission to retrieve what it feels is most valuable for a future display at a Museum at the California State University in Bakersfield.

"They are going to take the last memories of our people, the last evidence that we once inhabited this land and put it in a box and ship it off to a museum," laments tribal member Dee Dominguez. "All the material culture of the Kitanemuk would be destroyed forever. (But) the oil they are extracting will be completely drained in twenty years."

Dominguez calls Occidental executives "cold" and "insensitive," unwilling even to consider slant drilling that would save pieces of the tribe's history for future generations. "We've never denied them taking oil," she says. "We are not asking for land. We are not asking for royalties. We are just asking them to leave something to show that we were here."

As for Al Gore's role in the whole affair, Dominguez says she has thought about writing him. But she doesn't think it will help. "[Clinton and Gore] sold us down the river," she says. "It turns my stomach every time I hear them talk about family."

Bill Mesler is a Washington-based reporter. His work has appeared in the Nation, Mother Jones and the Progressive, among other publications.