Climate change could mean the extinction of our species

[Ben]

Climate change could mean the extinction of our species...

YouTube- Clive Hamilton on climate change and 'Requiem for a Species' - ANU, March 2010 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zQDBP4YClA)

YouTube- Clive Hamilton on the centres of climate denialism in Australia (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VaTUAGOMoM)

[Ben]

YouTube- Naomi Klein Implicates Corporate Climate Lobbyists at COP15 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO9G1r2aBEo)

[Ben]

YouTube- 350 PPM CO2: Earth's Tipping Point? - Bill McKibben (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Citd9RH7kbU)

YouTube- Interview with George Monbiot pt. 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m76vtDiFdBE&feature=PlayList&p=52B0C4EC672438F8&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=8)

[Ben]

American author Chris Hedges has a pretty bleak take on climate change or climate chaos (as Naomi Klein has dubbed it):

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/calling_all_future-eaters_20100719/

[Cuchulain]

I remember a Rolling Stone interview from a few years ago with the rather remarkable James Lovelock, father of the Gaia Theory. He thinks we're pretty much fucked at this point, no matter what we do. He envisions a not too distant future when a small remnant of humanity will be living in the far north, fighting over the scraps of civilization.

Rolling Stone seems to have purged the article. All I can find is this
http://www.uri.edu/artsci/com/Logan/teaching/html/HPR319_fall_2007/docs/lovelock_Rolling%20Stone_10-17-07.htm
Only the first page is viewable.

Here's a link to Lovelock's site
http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/

Is he right? Damned if I know, but it's a disturbing thought. It will be a sad thing indeed if all the squabbling money grubbers allow us to slide into Armageddon without even trying to prevent it.

[hippifried]

Extinction of our species?

This is why people don't listen to the arguments, whether their legitimate or not.

[south ov da border]

We'll see what happens. I don't know how long this would take. Hopefully it won't happen for a long time...

[loveburst]

.,,..........................

[loveburst]

..since it seems to be happening on all the other planets in this solar system too, I might suggest there is a natural cycle going on, that will not extinct all humans.

Also, since it seems to be, and is, related to the number of sunspots - which at this moment is and has been in the overall, larger than ever in human history within 8000 years - that suggests the climate change being related into a natural cycle even moreso.

What can be seen as good though, in this "end of the world" hype now seen in the mass media, and the suggestion that all this happening due to human activity (ignoring totally what is going on in our solarsystem) - is that it can awaken a natural and logical understanding in some people, about the fact that the current socioeconomical system is both sick, and destroying the beauty we call life..

[trish]

What's happening on all other planets in the solar system? Global warming? On Jupiter? Saturn? Pluto? Oh you mean the inner planets. The climate of Mars is interesting but completely different from ours. It undergoes cycles of dust storms that drift across the face of the planet, plotting out the Sun and freezing the planet. Moreover, if you want to send the message th[at] climate change does not necessarily mean extinction, I wouldn't call too much attention to the example of Mars. And yes, Venus has a hot climate driven by it proximity to the Sun (not just it's proximity to solar radiation but the Sun's tidal influences on the Venusian interior.

Given that we are nearing the peak of a sunspot cycle, the activity has been disappointing to astrophysicists who say it's at an all time low.

http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml

We know what's driving the current climate change on planet Earth and it's not Sunspots, it's the activity of roughly 6.5 billion human beings and their energy consuming industries. If almost all the oxygen found in the atmosphere today was put there by green plants, why is it so hard to believe that humans too, in such abundance, can have a global effect on the atmosphere?

Does climate change mean extinction? There's a lot of lesser difficulties we'll have to deal with first. The loss of arable lands. Migration of crops and vegetation. Loss of crops and vegetation. Rising oceans and changing coastlines. Evaporation of fresh water sources. Patterns of violent weather events. Displaced populations and the resultant political upheavals. Extinction is not an immediate worry.

[Faldur]

Just like the ice age of the 70's..

[trish]

'70's ? Yeah, like the Earth is THAT old.

[loveburst]

What's happening on all other planets in the solar system? Global warming? On Jupiter? Saturn? Pluto? Oh you mean the inner planets.


Nope, we are talking about all the planets in the solar system, undergoing climate changes, or as they are called "global upheavals".



Given that we are nearing the peak of a sunspot cycle, the activity has been disappointing to astrophysicists who say it's at an all time low.


Hmm, I am not really getting into the debate, since there is no point (no dissing to anyone, but I am just too tired to want to prove a point anymore to anyone -that is indeed based in truth and logic- ), but..

..this is similar as to saying, that whenever someone with a growing depression and anger is sleeping, it is to be considered as a sign of an overall bettering in their mental state.. (..this is the logic, that is being fed now in the media..)

We are talking about the overall trend of the sunspots, during the last 8000 years, that relates directly to the warmth of the earth as measured by humans.. the overall temperatures that can be sampled off the ice core, in turn relate to the amount of Co2 that has also been measured in the glaciers (..only it relates into temperature in such a way, that the amount of Co2 is following the raises in temperatures by somewhat 800 years, as is proven by many tests, so logically it cannot be seen as the overall cause for the warmth..)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3869753.stm

But everyone, make up your own minds what hype you believe.. I do not see any point anymore raising the conversation on this issue, since it seems that people (and not meaning this personally to anyone on the board) are simply not open to discussion in matters relating to doomsdayscenarios..

edit: some links

Climate Change / Pluto (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060504_red_jr.html)

Climate Change / Jupiter (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060504_red_jr.html)

Climate Change / Neptunes moon Triton (http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1998/triton.html)

Climate Change / Mars Polar Ice caps melting (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html)

[Johnny O]

I think it is very possible if us humans can't figure it out.
I can't imagine Al Gore made all this up just to get rich, like the fool Fox news sorts say.
I think anyone who reads this will be long gone by the time the S hits the fan.

[Faldur]

'70's ? Yeah, like the Earth is THAT old.

1970? Ya I am pretty sure the earth was here.. could of all been a bad acid trip but I don't so. We were told by "scientists" that the world was heading into another ice age and we were all going to die.

Strange but the big corporations and governments were all quietly standing behind the so called "scientists" ready to rake in all the profits from the "preventive" fixes.

All the global science currently being tossed around is for one reason, for government and corporations to get rich with "fixes" or "credits" call it what you may. Its about MONEY, it has nothing to do with science. The people who pass out this line of BS are the biggest carbon abusers on the planet. Don't you really think if they believed the horse pucky they are trying to sell us they would live by their own advice?

[trish]

We were told by "scientists" that the world was heading into another ice age and we were all going to die.Which scientists at which institutions? Today there is no consensus among scientists on whether the unification of gravity and quantum field theory will be achieved through string theory, or loop quantum theory or some other route. There are competing hypothesis but there is no consensus. In the 1970's there was a hypothesis that had some support among climatologists and even more among the press (because calamity is always good news) that we are nearing the end of a geological cycle that will bring in another ice age. The theory was based on an astronomical explanation of the near periodic nature of past ice ages and some statistic evidence that if interpreted liberally gave the impression of rising worldwide temperatures from 45 to 70. The hypothesis was not widely adopted by climatologists at large. Indeed most of the peer reviewed papers in climatology in the seventies predicted global warming. There were hypothesis, but no consensus.

Today, the atmospheric mechanism is quantitatively understood, simulated and fined tuned by ever more powerful computer models. The evidence is far more extensive and compelling. So much so that there very few dissenters among professional climatologists. The more vocal dissenters are politicians and the corporations they "represent." If you think this is not about science look at the professional peer reviewed journals in climatology: the worldwide consensus of climatologists is that we are experiencing a shift in climate that is driven to a significant extent by our dumping billions of tons per year of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

[trish]

Loveburst, your BBC link is date 2004. The newest data indicates the upcoming Sunspot cycle will be one of the lowest on record. The SOHO observatory is a satellite placed at the Lagrange point between us and the Sun. It's been monitoring the Sun's output for over ten years. Though the Sun goes through cycles, there is no evidence a unusually high levels of radiation, particulate or electromagnetic. Nothing that could drive a planetary climatological change.

Yes, there's a fluctuation in the red spot on Jupiter. Some planetary experts say it may be indicative of a climate change. Others do not agree. The red spot is the vortex of a storm that reaches up into the upper atmosphere of Jupiter. It's been around ever since Galileo discovered in the sixteenth century. Storms are usually that stable; and when they are, fluctuations in their activity are to be expected. Anything could cause a fluctuation in a semi-stable storm. Perhaps the atmospheric layers are somewhat decoupled and the slippage varies the higher atmospheric energy output of the vortex. To call the recent variation in the red spot an upheaval is really loading the dice.

The planets are not static bodies. They are dynamic. Because they many of them have atmospheres, they rotate, their orbits of eccentric, their axis are inclined, they are geologically active interiors that are also tugged upon by the tidal forces of their moons one expects to observe lots of interesting fluctuating phenomena. Otherwise planetologists would be pretty bored. Each and every planet at any given moment is exhibiting interesting climatological or geological behaviors: it doesn't follow that all those behaviors has the same cause or is driven by the same thing. The best approach is to look for separate explanations of each phenomenon.

On our planet, we find the large scale climate is warming. The hypothesis that it's caused by greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere yields the best quantitative fit with the current data. No other hypothesis comes close to producing models as accurate. Of course we could hold out, for a better hypothesis. But solar system wide catastrophe is not an explanation, it's a headline.

[Ben]

YouTube- ‪Meterologist: Record Heat Wave in Russia Could Kill Tens of Thousands 1 of 2‬‎ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2hABHSuV5s)

YouTube- ‪Meterologist: Record Heat Wave in Russia Could Kill Tens of Thousands 2 of 2‬‎ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9dDrhA_skI)

[Ben]

Published on Thursday, August 12, 2010 by Truthdig (http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/news_at_11_how_climate_change_affects_you_20100810/) News at 11: How Climate Change Affects You

by Amy Goodman

Our daily weather reports, cheerfully presented with flashy graphics and state-of-the-art animation, appear to relay more and more information.
And yet, no matter how glitzy the presentation, a key fact is invariably omitted. Imagine if, after flashing the words "extreme weather" to grab our attention, the reports flashed "global warming." Then we would know not only to wear lighter clothes or carry an umbrella, but that we have to do something about climate change.
I put the question to Jeff Masters, co-founder and director of meteorology at Weather Underground, an Internet weather information service. Masters writes a popular blog on weather, and doesn't shy away from linking extreme weather to climate change:
"Heat, heat, heat is the name of the game on planet Earth this year," he told me, as the world is beset with extreme weather events that have caused the death of thousands and the displacement of millions.
Wildfires in Russia have blanketed the country with smoke, exacerbating the hottest summer there in 1,000 years. Torrential rains in Asia have caused massive flooding and deadly landslides in Pakistan, Kashmir, Afghanistan and China. An ice shelf in Greenland has broken off, sending an ice island four times the size of Manhattan into the ocean. Droughts threaten Niger and the Sahel.
Masters relates stark statistics:


2010 has seen the most national extreme heat records for a single year: 17.
The past decade was the hottest decade in the historical record.
The first half of 2010 was the warmest such six-month period in the planet's history.
The five warmest months in history for the tropical Atlantic have all occurred this year (likely leading to more frequent and severe Atlantic hurricanes).

"We will start seeing more and more years like this year when you get these amazing events that caused tremendous death and destruction," Masters said. "As this extreme weather continues to increase in the coming decades and the population increases, the ability of the international community to respond and provide aid to victims will be stretched to the limit."
And yet the U.N. talks aimed at climate change seem poised for collapse.
When the Copenhagen climate talks last December were derailed, with select industrialized nations, led by the United States, offering a "take it or leave it" accord, many developing nations decided to leave it. The so-called Copenhagen Accord is seen as a tepid, nonbinding document that was forced on the poorer countries as a ploy to allow countries like the U.S., Canada and China to escape the legally binding greenhouse-gas emissions targets of the Kyoto Protocol, which is up for renewal.
Bolivia, for example, is pursuing a more aggressive global agreement on emissions. It's calling for strict, legally binding limits on emissions, rather than the voluntary goals set forth in the Copenhagen Accord. When Bolivia refused to sign on to the accord, the U.S. denied it millions in promised aid money. Bolivia's United Nations ambassador, Pablo Solon, told me: "We said: ‘You can keep your money. We're not fighting for a couple of coins. We are fighting for life.'"
While Bolivia did succeed in passing a U.N. resolution last month affirming the right to water and sanitation as a human right, a first for the world body, that doesn't change the fact that as Bolivia's glaciers melt as a result of climate change, its water supply is threatened.
Pacific Island nations like Tuvalu may disappear from the planet entirely if sea levels continue to rise, which is another consequence of global warming.
The U.N. climate conference will convene in Cancun, Mexico, in December, where prospects for global consensus with binding commitments seem increasingly unlikely. Ultimately, policy in the United States, the greatest polluter in human history, must be changed. That will come only from people in the United States making the vital connection between our local weather and global climate change. What better way than through the daily drumbeat of the weather forecasts? Meteorologist Jeff Masters defined for me the crux of the problem:
"A lot of TV meteorologists are very skeptical that human-caused global climate change is real. They've been seduced by the view pushed by the fossil-fuel industry that humans really aren't responsible ... we're fighting a battle against an enemy that's very well-funded, that's intent on providing disinformation about what the real science says."
It just may take a weatherperson to tell which way the wind blows.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
Copyright © 2010 Truthdig, L.L.C.
Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now! (http://www.democracynow.org/)," a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 800 stations in North America. She was awarded the 2008 Right Livelihood Award, dubbed the “Alternative Nobel” prize, and received the award in the Swedish Parliament in December.

[Rogers]

1970? Ya I am pretty sure the earth was here.. could of all been a bad acid trip but I don't so. We were told by "scientists" that the world was heading into another ice age and we were all going to die.

Strange but the big corporations and governments were all quietly standing behind the so called "scientists" ready to rake in all the profits from the "preventive" fixes.

All the global science currently being tossed around is for one reason, for government and corporations to get rich with "fixes" or "credits" call it what you may. Its about MONEY, it has nothing to do with science. The people who pass out this line of BS are the biggest carbon abusers on the planet. Don't you really think if they believed the horse pucky they are trying to sell us they would live by their own advice?

MONEY??? I must seriously be missing out then. :( :cry:

You're repeating more REICHWING PROPAGANDA again, Faldur. ;)
http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/131047.pdf

YouTube- Two Legs Good Four Legs Bad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7gbRa1ccLM)

[Rogers]

This is the best series I've seen on the "Climate Wars" so far. There's three episodes in total.
Earth: The Climate Wars Fightback. Episode 2. (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1668329593924661115)

[loveburst]

Loveburst, your BBC link is date 2004. The newest data indicates the upcoming Sunspot cycle will be one of the lowest on record. The SOHO observatory is a satellite placed at the Lagrange point between us and the Sun. It's been monitoring the Sun's output for over ten years. Though the Sun goes through cycles, there is no evidence a unusually high levels of radiation, particulate or electromagnetic. Nothing that could drive a planetary climatological change.


Actually the newest data we have, is supposing the biggest solar storm in the human history to take place around 2012. (..which will be the peak time of these solar cycles... but that -meaning what is going to happen- will remain to be seen..)

This is due to the fact, that when sun lies dormant during a peak period of sunspots - it is usually merely doing so because it is going to burst.



Yes, there's a fluctuation in the red spot on Jupiter. Some planetary experts say it may be indicative of a climate change. Others do not agree. The red spot is the vortex of a storm that reaches up into the upper atmosphere of Jupiter. It's been around ever since Galileo discovered in the sixteenth century. Storms are usually that stable; and when they are, fluctuations in their activity are to be expected. Anything could cause a fluctuation in a semi-stable storm. Perhaps the atmospheric layers are somewhat decoupled and the slippage varies the higher atmospheric energy output of the vortex. To call the recent variation in the red spot an upheaval is really loading the dice.

The planets are not static bodies. They are dynamic. Because they many of them have atmospheres, they rotate, their orbits of eccentric, their axis are inclined, they are geologically active interiors that are also tugged upon by the tidal forces of their moons one expects to observe lots of interesting fluctuating phenomena. Otherwise planetologists would be pretty bored. Each and every planet at any given moment is exhibiting interesting climatological or geological behaviors: it doesn't follow that all those behaviors has the same cause or is driven by the same thing. The best approach is to look for separate explanations of each phenomenon.


I'd say the best and most probable cause for multiple planets atmosphere warming up would be something they all have in common - in their surroundings, which in our cause would be either the universe, the milky way, or / and the sun..

..all of these, including charged particle clouds coming from the outerspace - will have instant effect on all the bodies in our solar system.



On our planet, we find the large scale climate is warming. The hypothesis that it's caused by greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere yields the best quantitative fit with the current data. No other hypothesis comes close to producing models as accurate. Of course we could hold out, for a better hypothesis. But solar system wide catastrophe is not an explanation, it's a headline.


We must understand the fact, when analyzing this with our rationale, that the sunspots are not causing the warmth -that has been measured to correlate with the amount of the sunspot activity of the sun, throughout the human history, by humans who have observerd these correlations (such as the maunder minimum, the lack of sunspots for several decades that was in part creating the little ice age - this is all written in history, and is well documented even)- but we must understand, that what the sunspots are telling us, is that there is serious raise in the overall activity of the sun happening..

..the periods that sunspots stay dormant, during an overall phase of more sunspots, like we are experiencing just now, is usually just a sign of huge solar bursts to take place - as has been recorded also by humans, through the history.

This is why it is wise to see, that the sunspots, are themselves merely indicating that there is something "boiling" or that something is going on in the sun, that we - as humans-, yet do not understand the cause of.

..therefor it is not just the sunspots what relates to this, it is the "matter" and therefor amount of conductivity - between the sun, and the solar systems planets, that also have an impact in the overall climate of (all) the heavenly bodies inside our solar system.

Since even the planet Pluto has been recorded to be warming up - it is logical to assume, we are not dealing with something that is just happening in the inner parts of the solar system, and since the amount of charged particles has also been shown to have risen in our solar system within the last years - and some people suggest we are entering the horizontal plane of our Galaxy (..as has been measured to have happened in the year 1998, by some..) these all things are perfectly correlating (..alongside the fact, that we must understand that is that Co2 amounts have allways followed the rise in temperature - never the other way round, and they are therefor the causation of the overall rise in temperature, not the cause of it - never, in history atleast, so why should we assume, it would be logical to say that this has simply changed because someone made a documentary, and did not show the graphs they were quoting on top of eachother, due to this obvious contradicting against their theory being presented - as to Co2 being the cause of warmth, when even Al Gores own graph when put atop itself, will show a lagging of 800 years, in the rise of Co2, that follows the global temperature - as recorded by the ice core samples..)

Even the samplist, who have done this job to IPCC are telling, hey people, we have a record that says completely the opposite as to what is being told to you in the media - yet that does not seem so newsworthy.

Carbon dioxide in turn, does not have anything to do with pollution (yet, it can exist as a byproduct of such activity, as it does exist in mere exhaling and volcans erupting). Carbon dioxide (..as we know, but I still feel this must be pointed out..) is something that exists in all living things, and making us fear of something that is estimated, even by the wildest models, to make up to 3,6% of the overall Greenhouse Gases (and which of, only a few percents are estimated to be -Co2- of human production), we must agree, that it is of no logic, seeing what is presented here, to assume the headlines now sold to hold much accuracy.

I still hope there is something good coming out of this hype, but I kind of also know within, that for a good change that is benefitting all to come, there would be a need for truth and (sound) logic basis in the theories sold in the newspapers.

Now it is just merely spin, after spin...

..no honest answers, and that is allways a sign of something...

[Rogers]

(..alongside the fact, that we must understand that is that Co2 amounts have allways followed the rise in temperature - never the other way round, and they are therefor the causation of the overall rise in temperature, not the cause of it - never, in history atleast, so why should we assume, it would be logical to say that this has simply changed because someone made a documentary, and did not show the graphs they were quoting on top of eachother, due to this obvious contradicting against their theory being presented - as to Co2 being the cause of warmth, when even Al Gores own graph when put atop itself, will show a lagging of 800 years, in the rise of Co2, that follows the global temperature - as recorded by the ice core samples..)

Wow, that brings back memories. LOL. We been there done that many times on this board before, loveburst.

So tell us then, has the earth ever seen a species that not only liberates massive carbon sinks from deep inside it and burns them, but destroys and burns it's sinks above the ground too? So how'd you know it doesn't work the other way around then? ;)


Carbon dioxide in turn, does not have anything to do with pollution (yet, it can exist as a byproduct of such activity, as it does exist in mere exhaling and volcans erupting). Carbon dioxide (..as we know, but I still feel this must be pointed out..) is something that exists in all living things, and making us fear of something that is estimated, even by the wildest models, to make up to 3,6% of the overall Greenhouse Gases (and which of, only a few percents are estimated to be -Co2- of human production), we must agree, that it is of no logic, seeing what is presented here, to assume the headlines now sold to hold much accuracy.

More strawmen. I think you need to look up the definition of pollution. Water can be a pollutant. So what's your explanation for the acidification of the oceans, and the massive increase in atmospheric CO2 then? That the sun too, or aliens perhaps?

Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate
(plurality should not be posited without necessity).
http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/Kuhn.html

YouTube- Sheryl Crow - "A Change Would Do You Good" b/w music video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikjmz_SlGhg)

[trish]

Actually the newest data we have, is supposing the biggest solar storm in the human history to take place around 2012. (..which will be the peak time of these solar cycles... but that -meaning what is going to happen- will remain to be seen..)
Hi loveburst. I do have to disagree with you. The newest data indicates exactly the opposite. Solar scientists are betting on a low peak count this coming cycle. This was discussed a few weeks ago on NPR's Science Friday
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201007023
and it is also indicated on the graph I posted on a prior page.

The total electromagnictic power output of a star (in every part of the spectrum) is called its luminosity. The Sun is the most studied, most measured star in human history. It's luminosity has been monitored for centuries, and each decade with better and better instrumentation. One among many satellites devoted to monitoring the Sun, as I mentioned before, is SOHO located at the Lagrange point between the Sun and Earth. It's been monitoring the full complement of solar emissions for about fourteen years. The measured luminosity is a nearly constant 3.839 x 10^26 Watts. It ranges from 3.835 x 10^26 W to 3.843 x 10^26 W. That's a variation of plus or minus one tenth of one percent. This relatively constant stream of power is what you called the
conductivity - between the sun, and the solar systems planets, that also have an impact in the overall climate of (all) the heavenly bodies inside our solar system.... Let's look at its impact on Pluto.

Pluto at Aphelion is 49.305 Astronomical Units (AU) from the Sun and at Perihelion 29.658 AU from the Sun. It's a rather eccentric obit. The Sun's radiation spreads outward to form an expanding sphere. When it reaches Pluto at Aphelion, the radius of that sphere is 49.305 AU. The surface area of that sphere is 4xPIx(49.305AU)^2 which works out to be 6.837 x 10^26 square meters. Divide the total power output by this area and you get the solar flux upon the upper atmosphere of Pluto. If we use the lower bound on the solar luminosity we find that (3.835 x 10^26W)/(6.837 x 10^26 m^2) is equal to 0.561 Watts per square meter. If we use the higher bound on the luminosity we get 0.562 Watts per square meter. Hence the variation in the Sun's luminosity amounts to only 0.001 Watt per square meter of flux variation on the surface of Pluto at Aphelion.

What about Perihelion? Same calculation, different numbers. The Perihelion distance is 29.658AU and at the lowest solar luminosity we find that the flux at Pluto is 1.550 Watts per sq.meter. Using the highest solar luminosity we obtain 1.553 Watts per square meter. At the Perihelion of Pluto the solar variation causes a flux variation of 0.003 Watts per square meter.

Notice the in variation solar luminosity accounts for less than two tenth of one percent of the total solar flux experienced by Pluto whether at Aphelion or Perihelion. The variation in solar luminosity accounts for only about 5% of the total flux variation, whereas the orbital eccentricity accounts for about 95% of the flux variation at Pluto's surface. Clearly, variation in solar power output cannot account for any conjectured climate changes experienced by Pluto. So what could account for a present warming of Pluto?

Pluto's period of revolution is 248 years long. It passed nearest to the Sun 21 years ago in 1989. If we divide Pluto's year into 12 months, we find a month is approximately 248/12 = 21 years long. So Pluto was nearest the Sun just one Plutonian month ago. On Earth the hottest days of Summer occur about a month or more after the Summer Solstice. The coldest days of winter occur a month or more after the Winter Solstice. Hemispheric weather systems and planetary climate systems have a huge amount of inertia and consequently one always expects a significant lag between forces that drive those systems and the responses to those forces.

[loveburst]

Okay, I definetely understand where you all are coming from.

There are still facts that are to be considered.

-Sun has a sunspot period of 11 years, we are now inbetween one sunspot period, no matter how quiet it might seem.
-And all quiet sunspot periods in the history have been known to lead into a buildup of the overall energy bursts of the sun.
-It has been more sunspots during the last decade than during any time in the recorded history.
-There has also been an increase of warmth and (other) climate cataclysms on all planets in our solar system - at the precise same time.

-There is no data, that can confirm the amount of interstellar charged particles
-There is logic in the assumation that there are more of these charged particles and therefor more conductivity at the "centering" axis of the Milkyway.
-Our solar system passing this center has been calculated to have happened in near 1998 - but this is yet to be confirmed, the thing to say is that "it is not possible to deny the fact, or either confirm where we currently are in our Galaxy -> what energies are therefor affecting".
-CO2 values have been recorded to allways go hand in hand with climate change, as in following.

It is indeed a good argument that how can I know that CO2 would not cause global warming, but it is just as good, as saying that to yourself, that how can you know it did?

Since the basis of this assumption is merely in the fact that CO2 values follow the amount of warmth, there is no basis in the assumption that CO2 would cause warming. And this is what every rational being must admit.

There is so as much logic in assuming that it would not be the cause of warming, than that it woud be - from the standpoint that refutes the logic that is supposed to be the reasoning for its functioning as a way to warm up the atmosphere.

Also, the CO2 levels have been on the rise in Mars, so it would be logical to assume, there is either an alien (industry) source pouring that CO2 into our neighbor planets atmosphere, or there is an other common reason for the simultaneous CO2 related climate changes on both planets, that should be indeed taken into consideration, when undestanding also the fact that the sun has had its most ever output during the last decade, we might also understand that there is therefor something else also feeding that kind of behaviour - no matter if one believed the sun to be the cause of warmth on earth or not, it is simply a scientific fact, which I believe should be more evidently shown in the headlines.

Nothing else, I just believe in the truth that can be shown to have its basis in logic and that is rationally sound.

Now it is not rationally sound to assume, that the overall output of the sun, and the overall rise in suns sunspots, and the possible solarsystems entering of the most materialwise rich area of our galaxy would not have side effects that are directly felt on this earth we live in. And it is not rationally sound to assume that it is not actually happening, if most planets in the solar system are experiencing changes in their climate.

It is rationally sound to say though, that we have not been monitoring them that long as to know what is truly going on, but since we have had the possibility of gathering data from the last 20+ years, it is safe to say, we can know it is not the normal behaviour of mars to melt its glaciers, for 3 mars years (6 earth years) in a row, and that it shows something other going on, than the natural yearly climate cycles of that planet.

So I understand there can be lots to handle here, since it is all the time put out in the media how badly humans take care of this planet.

But how about us concentrating on those things, that are indeed provable and have sound truthbasis behind them. And then, from that standpoint think the possible cures for what is going on?

But, I hope that there will be something good coming out of this global warming fear.. Such as ending the massproduction of meat would be very welcome, but at the same time I am afraid that now the masses are being led by irrational fears, and there would be things of more importance that should be taken into account now, when this world is inhabiting 7 billion people, like the pollution in overall.

There should be a total stop to the polluting, and the understanding that we'd need to respect the surroundings we live in more.

As to your question what is pollution, it is "whatever stops life" - that is the definition of pollution, and nope, water cannot be pollutant - there can be polluted water though - and right now there is, which is another thing that should indeed stop.

There is also the pollution of thought and pollution of mind, which from my point of perspective is totally based on lies and unlogical assumptions and irrational fears without any basis in truth - which is why I also see it important to end this polluting of the human minds, with a hysteria that might not actually have an accurate stronghold in reality and truthfullness.

[trish]

Hello again Loveburst

-Sun has a sunspot period of 11 years, we are now inbetween one sunspot period, no matter how quiet it might seem.
-And all quiet sunspot periods in the history have been known to lead into a buildup of the overall energy bursts of the sun.
-It has been more sunspots during the last decade than during any time in the recorded history.Once again the relative variation in solar luminosity (which includes the variation due to Sunspot activity) is only one tenth of one percent.


-There has also been an increase of warmth and (other) climate cataclysms on all planets in our solar system - at the precise same time.The claim that there have been climate cataclysms on all planets certainly overstates your case. The slight warming of Pluto is not a cataclysm. My last post shows that at least 95% of the warming is accounted for by its position in orbit and only 5% at best could possibly be due to a variation in Solar luminosity. Moreover, claim that all planets are experiencing a warming trend is tentative to say the least. There also remain the hundreds of thousands of bodies in the system that are not warming. More on those later.


-There is no data, that can confirm the amount of interstellar charged particlesNot so. Review the SOHO website. You can find the particle count and their energies for each passing hour, and that just one among many of the satellites that monitor solar luminosity and particle counts. There is a much higher fluctuation in particulate energy density, then there is in Solar luminosity. However, even at their highest, the particulate energy flux at Earth is only 0.00007% of the Solar electromagnetic flux. Certainly nothing that can be the cause of moderate climate change, let alone cataclysmic climate change.


-There is logic in the assumation that there are more of these charged particles and therefor more conductivity at the "centering" axis of the Milkyway.
-Our solar system passing this center has been calculated to have happened in near 1998 - but this is yet to be confirmed, the thing to say is that "it is not possible to deny the fact, or either confirm where we currently are in our Galaxy ->Technically we know fairly well where we are in our Galaxy. But I take your point, we don’t always know what particle fields we may be wandering into. But again, satellites that monitor particle counts have not detected a rise that would put the particulate energy flux at Earth above 0.00007% above the flux due to Solar luminosity.


-> what energies are therefor affecting".
-CO2 values have been recorded to allways go hand in hand with climate change, as in following.

It is indeed a good argument that how can I know that CO2 would not cause global warming, but it is just as good, as saying that to yourself, that how can you know it did? Since the basis of this assumption is merely in the fact that CO2 values follow the amount of warmth, there is no basis in the assumption that CO2 would cause warming. And this is what every rational being must admit. This is not the case. The hypothesis of greenhouse warming is not simply based on the extrapolation of a pattern found in the geological past. The basis of the hypothesis is in atmospheric physics and chemistry. The quantitative models, based on atmospheric physics, chemistry and our knowledge of atmospheric and oceanic currents, attempt to follow the energy flows impacting on our planet. The models predict the same quantitative rise in average atmospheric, oceanic and surface temperatures that we have been measuring. The model fits the facts. If you hypothesize there is even more energy coming in via some mysterious and remarkably unmonitored energy source, then the prediction would be greater than current measurements. This suggests that the additional-mysterious-and-unmonitored-energy hypothesis can be tentatively eliminated.


There is so as much logic in assuming that it would not be the cause of warming, than that it woud be - from the standpoint that refutes the logic that is supposed to be the reasoning for its functioning as a way to warm up the atmosphere.

Also, the CO2 levels have been on the rise in Mars, so it would be logical to assume, there is either an alien (industry) source pouring that CO2 into our neighbor planets atmosphere, or there is an other common reason for the simultaneous CO2 related climate changes on both planets, that should be indeed taken into consideration, when undestanding also the fact that the sun has had its most ever output during the last decade, we might also understand that there is therefor something else also feeding that kind of behaviour - no matter if one believed the sun to be the cause of warmth on earth or not, it is simply a scientific fact, which I believe should be more evidently shown in the headlines.We can go through each alleged case of planetary warming and either debunk it, or explain it, as I did in the case of Pluto. Even if as you say, Solar activity is at an all time high, the additional energy flux at any single planet is miniscule compared to the normal flux.


Nothing else, I just believe in the truth that can be shown to have its basis in logic and that is rationally sound.


Now it is not rationally sound to assume, that the overall output of the sun, and the overall rise in suns sunspots, and the possible solarsystems entering of the most materialwise rich area of our galaxy would not have side effects that are directly felt on this earth we live in. And it is not rationally sound to assume that it is not actually happening, if most planets in the solar system are experiencing changes in their climate.It’s rational to expect that if there is an increase in Solar activity that would have climatic consequences or if there is an increase in the particle count that would have similar consequences, then our monitoring satellites would pick up these increases.


It is rationally sound to say though, that we have not been monitoring them that long as to know what is truly going on, but since we have had the possibility of gathering data from the last 20+ years, it is safe to say, we can know it is not the normal behaviour of mars to melt its glaciers, for 3 mars years (6 earth years) in a row, and that it shows something other going on, than the natural yearly climate cycles of that planet.

So I understand there can be lots to handle here, since it is all the time put out in the media how badly humans take care of this planet.

But how about us concentrating on those things, that are indeed provable and have sound truthbasis behind them. And then, from that standpoint think the possible cures for what is going on?Let’s say, temporarily and for the sake of argument only, that you’re right, that Earth is being exposed to a new energy of unknown source. So we have to make an effort to stop the consequential warming. This could be done a number of ways. Release less fossil energy into the environment. Stop dumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Seems the effective steps we should take are the same, whether we know the source of the warming or not.


But, I hope that there will be something good coming out of this global warming fear.. Such as ending the massproduction of meat would be very welcome, but at the same time I am afraid that now the masses are being led by irrational fears, and there would be things of more importance that should be taken into account now, when this world is inhabiting 7 billion people, like the pollution in overall.

There should be a total stop to the polluting, and the understanding that we'd need to respect the surroundings we live in more.

As to your question what is pollution, it is "whatever stops life" - that is the definition of pollution, and nope, water cannot be pollutant - there can be polluted water though - and right now there is, which is another thing that should indeed stop.

There is also the pollution of thought and pollution of mind, which from my point of perspective is totally based on lies and unlogical assumptions and irrational fears without any basis in truth - which is why I also see it important to end this polluting of the human minds, with a hysteria that might not actually have an accurate stronghold in reality and truthfullness.I don’t think I have anything to add to these last comments.

[trish]

But I will add a few remarks of my own concerning the variation in Solar flux at Earth, which is summarized in the following table.

Solar Energy Flux at Earth in Watts/Square Meter
...................Perihelion... Average.... Aphelion
Highest
Luminosity ...... 1411...... 1364 ........ 1319

Average
Luminosity .......1413..... 1365 ...........1321

Lowest
Lumnosity ...... 1414...... 1366........... 1322

Notice the variation in luminosity (which includes the variation over the eleven year sunspot cycles) results in a variation of only 2 to 3 Watts per square meter. The average flux of 1365 Watts per square meter simply swamps the variation. Note too the variation between Perihelion and Aphelion is only about 89 Watts per square meter. The seasonal differences in weather are not due to any of these variations but are instead driven by the tilt of the Earth on its axis.

So let’s look at those seasonal differences and do a very crude calculation. In the Northern temperate zone there may be 18 hours of of sunlight on the Summer Solstice. The energy collected on a long, temperate Summer’s day is about (1365 W/m^2)(18 hr) = 24.57 kilowatt hours per square meter per summer’s day. In the winter the daylight may only last 8 hours. So by a similarly (very approximate) calculation about 10.92 kWh of energy strikes the Earth per square meter (at the Northern temperate zone) per Winter’s day. The variation is 13.65 kWh per square meter per day. The average variation in flux due to the variation in luminosity (from the table above) is 2 Watts per meter square, which converts to 0.048 kWh per square meter per day. This accounts for only 0.35% of the total annual variation in flux. In the temperate zone the temperature may vary as much as 50 degrees centigrade over the course of a year, but only 0.35% of that variation can be attributed to a variation in solar output; i.e. 0.175 C. I admit this is a very very crude calculation, but it does constitute an order of magnitude argument against the hypothesis that climate change on Earth could be driven by variations in Solar luminosity. (So far we've seen that neither the climate of Earth nor that of Pluto are significantly effected by fluctuations in Solar power output, either in the form of luminosity or in the form of the Solar wind).

[Ben]

YouTube- AGE OF STUPID: DVD EXTRAS: GEORGE MONBIOT (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkLEo8tul28)

[hippifried]

We were told by "scientists" that the world was heading into another ice age and we were all going to die.
This is a lie that's been elevated to the status of myth/meme by continuous retelling. It never happened.

What's being referred to here is a theory about the aftermath of M.A.D. breaking down & actually happening. A full scale nuclear war, where the thermonuclear arsenals of the world were unleashed over a very short duration. I can't speak for the science behind it, but if memory serves, the general idea was twofold: First that there would be enough dust & debris lifted into the upper atmosphere to block the solar radiation, or enough of it to start a rapid cooling trend. & second that the conflagration would burn off enough of the natural greenhouse gasses in the lower atmosphere to allow heat to escape more than normal. Hence the name of the theory: "Nuclear Winter".

I don't know if the theory's viable or not. Probably a lot of exaggeration. I do know that it scared the hell out of a lot of people. That's probably a good thing because when President Reagan showed up a few years later, & started talking crap about "first strike" & how America could survive a thermonuclear war, the public reaction was so intense that he backpedaled in a big hurry.

But back to the point of the LIE: The "nuclear winter" theory had nothing whatsoever to do with the climate change that's caused by the artificial increase in greenhouse gasses. The deliberate refusal to see what's happening right in front of you could be seen as a form of insanity. This isn't ideological. I'm a cynic, but ignoring long term damage for short term gain, & making up lies to cover it up, goes way beyond any moral or ethical bounds, & even beyond self-interest. Part of instinctive self interest, whether Ayn Rand understood it or not, is protection of our progeny. "Rational self interest" becomes irrational if that's denied. There will be businesses that end up getting regulated into oblivion. Why? Commies? No! It's their own arrogance that's suicidal. Keep kicking the dog, & sooner or later he'll bite you in the ass. Same goes for people. Stick your middle finger in enough faces & it'll end up broken. Go out of your way to screw things up for people's offspring, & they'll band together to put you down. Self interest. This hubristic lie isn't enough to protect the liars. I have no sympathy.

[Faldur]

This is a lie that's been elevated to the status of myth/meme by continuous retelling. It never happened.

Really???

This is the text, as transcribed at Rush's site. Text omitted in the Rush transcription but included here is in red (thanks to E Zubek).
"The Cooling World" - by Peter Gwynne

April 28, 1975 Newsweek
There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now.

The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.

The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars' worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.

To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world's weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth's climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,� warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.�

A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.

To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras – and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average.

Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the “little ice age� conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 – years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.

Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,� concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.�

Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term results of the return to the norm of the last century. They begin by noting the slight drop in overall temperature that produces large numbers of pressure centers in the upper atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of westerly winds over temperate areas. The stagnant air produced in this way causes an increase in extremes of local weather such as droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons and even local temperature increases – all of which have a direct impact on food supplies. “The world’s food-producing system,� warns Dr. James D. McQuigg of NOAA’s Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment, “is much more sensitive to the weather variable than it was even five years ago.� Furthermore, the growth of world population and creation of new national boundaries make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their devastated fields, as they did during past famines.

Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.

In 1974, the National Science Foundation predicts that declining world temperatures herald the beginning of "the next glacial age." A bestselling book in 1976, "The Cooling," states, "As Earth cools, as sunlight diminishes, as the range of snow and the length of winter increases, the possibility of a snow blitz grows greater and greater....Ice and snow covers more area today than even a decade ago, and by some indications the cooling has only begun."

“Certainly the threat of another ice age was the topic of much scientific and popular discussion in the 1970s. Books and articles entitled ‘The Cooling,’ ‘Blizzard,’ ‘Ice,’ and ‘A Mini Ice Age Could Begin in a Decade,’ abounded. The ‘snow blitz’ theory was popularized on the public television presentation of ‘The Weather Machine’ in 1975. And certainly the winters of the late 1970s were enough to send shivers through our imaginations.”

- Harold Bernard, Jr., The Greenhouse Effect (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing, 1980), p. 20.

“The worriers about cooling included Science, the most influential scientific journal in the world, quoting an official of the World Meteorological Organization; the National Academy of Sciences worrying about the onset of a 10,000 year ice age; Newsweek warning that food production could be adversely affected within a decade; the New York Times quoting an official of the National Center for Atmospheric Research; and Science Digest, the science periodical with the largest circulation.”

- Julian Simon, “What Does the Future Hold? The Forecast in a Nutshell,” in Simon, ed., The State of Humanity (Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell, 1995), p. 646.

“In the early 1970s, the northern hemisphere appeared to have been cooling at an alarming rate. There was frequent talk of a new ice age. Books and documentaries appeared, hypothesizing a snowblitz or sporting titles such as The Cooling. Even the CIA got into the act, sponsoring several meetings and writing a controversial report warning of threats to American security from the potential collapse of Third World Governments in the wake of climate change.”

- Stephen Schneider, Global Warming: Are We Entering the Greenhouse Century? (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1989), p. 199.

“Some climatologists believe that the average temperature in the Northern Hemisphere, at least, may decline by two or three degrees by the end of the century. If that climate change occurs, there will be megadeaths and social upheaval because grain production in high latitudes (Canada, northern regions of China and the Soviet Union) will decrease.”

- George Will, “A Change in the Weather,” Washington Post, January 24, 1975, quoted in James Fleming, Historical Perspectives on Climate Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 132-33.

“The dramatic importance of climate changes to the world’s future has been dangerously underestimated by many, often because we have been lulled by modern technology into thinking we have conquered nature. This well-written book points out in clear language that the climatic threat could be as awesome as any we might face, and that massive world-wide actions to hedge against that threat deserve immediate consideration.”

- Stephen Schneider, Back cover endorsement, Lowell Ponte, The Cooling: Has The Next Ice Age Already Begun? Can We Survive It (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1976).

“Our climate has swung wildly from severe warming during the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s to severe cooling during the 1960s. . . . The cooling is a fact.”

- Lowell Ponte, The Cooling: Has The Next Ice Age Already Begun? Can We Survive It (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1976), p. 31.

[trish]

We were told by "scientists" that the world was heading into another ice age and we were all going to die. The quotation marks around "scientists" is appropriate here. I notice you have not cited extensively, if at all, from the professional peer reviewed literature of the 1970's. Of perusal of that literature would tell you there was no professional consensus on the issue of climate change. I already addressed this here http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showpost.php?p=777763&postcount=16 . The 70's was 30-40 years ago. What field of modern science hasn't advanced through enormous strides in the last 40 years? In the 1970's computer models were in their infancy. Computers themselves were in their infancy. The memory and the computational speed that are required to numerically solve the complex partial differential equations that describe climate evolution just weren't available in the 1970's. Neither was the satellite data that now supplies a continuous feed of climatological and meteorological data that covers the entire globe as well as continuous feeds of data on solar output. The older, "traditional" sources of climate data (ice cores, trees rings and other fossil evidence) have also been more thoroughly investigated and more thoroughly understood. In the 70's no professional consensus was possible. Indeed in the 70's both cooling and warming were hypothesis under consideration. Even then warming was the more viable hypothesis, (since the greenhouse mechanism was well understood) though there wasn't yet a concern with runaway warming. Because of a local dip in temperatures the ice-age scenario captured the public's imagination. News sources then, as today, were eager to publish the latest possible doomsday hypothesis that wasn't yet ruled out by the then current evidence.

Thirty to forty years later climate scientists are in basic agreement: the Earth is experiencing a climatic shift. Less of the heat radiated by the Earth's surface is making it beyond the atmosphere and escaping into space. These observations are quantitatively consistent with the predictions of climate models based on the chemistry and physics of insulating gasses in the atmosphere.

The deniers are desperate. One denying tactic is to cast aspersions. One such attempt was climategate. Independent investigations have exonerated the climatologists who have been maligned by the hackers (and their backers) who have illegally broke into the email records of several English universities in a vane attempt to dig for scandal that wasn't there. Another such attempt is to point to an 35 year old hypothesis, the "next-ice-age-hypothesis" which has been examined and eliminated and claim, "look what those nincompoop 'scientists' told us forty years ago!" Usually when a hypothesis can be eliminated it's called progress. Only a denier could spin it the other way. Yes, the deniers are desperate. Some cling to the claim there's no climatic heat imbalance at all. Some claim the entire fucking solar system is warming, based on evidence so scant it makes ones head spin. Some claim global climate change is a United Nations ploy to establish world government. That's what all this denying is really about: fear that there may be good reason for human beings to cooperate to secure their mutual welfare__fear that 'rational' self-interest may not be the panacea that libertarians claim it to be. Some people would rather several hundred million people die than change their 'world view'. Some people would rather several hundred million persons die then suffer a profit loss.

[hippifried]

Yeah, really. There's always some conjecture or another happening. It's happening now. Who the hell is Peter Gwynne? He was an editor from Newsweek that sent a couple of reporters out to ask why Anchorage was warmer than Miami for a while one winter. The Newsweek research dwelled on the study of localized opacity of aerosol polution that filtered solar radiation, & the dip in the warming trend that had been happening for a couple of decades. But the effects of CO2 were well known & the Gaia effect was gaining traction. This Newsweek thing has been the cornerstone of climate change deniers since the warming consensus was reached in '88.

Rush Limbaugh is full of shit, & so are you, along with the rest of his sycophants. You don't know what you're talkin' about.

[Faldur]

Don't know bout the rest of em Trish, but there is no desperation here. I'm looking at the biggest get rich scheme in the history of the world and I get a good laugh at it.

And Hippi, there were enough articles to max 3 post limits, figured one set was adequate to make my point. I've lived through this before, the same desperate rantings.

[trish]

I've lived through this before...No. You haven't. You have not lived through a prior time (the 70's) when there was a scientific consensus on the issue of global heat imbalance. You know this, but refuse to acknowledge it. There was plenty of talk about both hypothesis in the 70's. You know this. But refuse to acknowledge it. (One of the early articles on warming was written in 1971 by Rasool and Schneide published in Science). As I pointed out in the post above, there have been enormous advances in data collection, data crunching as well as strides and refinements in our theoretical understanding of atmospheric chemistry and dynamics. You know this, but have not addressed it. The cooling hypothesis has long been eliminated. You know this. That's why you have to go all the way back to the seventies to revive it. Since then professionals in climate science are in agreement on this issue. This you know and you know it was not the case in the 70's. But instead of acknowledging any of these things and modifying your argument to meet these points, all you can do is desperately attempt to redirect the argument with the lie, "I've lived through this before..."

[Faldur]

http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/196642

And the beat goes on..
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o178/_chaseanthony/sonny-and-cher-the-beat-goes-on.jpg

[trish]

And the beat goes on..It certainly does. I don't doubt you will ever run out of cheap rags that sell their claptrap using banners like: *** DEBATE: IS CLIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL WARMING JUST A CON?...*** (http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/196681/DEBATE-Is-global-warming-just-a-con-) Did you imagine you were citing the work of a fair and balanced writer? The article begins...


A high-level inquiry ... found ...Yeah, those nameless high-level inquiries (which are neither subject to peer review nor held accountable by any scientific body for their conclusions) set the hallmark standards for all scientific investigations.:roll:

You do realize the 2007 U.N. report on climate change is a report of the consensus on climate change. Finding errors in a report is like finding errors in a newspaper article. The consensus, the evidence and the proofs are to be found in the peer reviewed literature which you again fail to address. Modern climatological research published in peer reviewed journals, with very few exceptions, make the case (or detail various aspects of the case and the evidence) that Earth is no longer capable of radiating away a sufficient quantity of heat to maintain current climate patterns. As a denier, that is the claim you need to debunk. It is not sufficient to simply claim, "Washington will have a warm winter," nor is it sufficient to show, "The Himalayas aren't going to melt for another two score years," nor is it sufficient for you to point out, "The U.N. report is not error free." To make your case (that the hypothesis of global warming is false) you must show: the Earth is indeed radiating at least enough heat into space to maintain climate stability, in spite of the 390 ppm concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. I haven't heard anything from you that remotely supports your claim. Perhaps you can tell us, if the Earth isn't warming, then exactly how is the Earth's radiant heat escaping? How much energy is radiating back into space and at what wavelengths?

[hippifried]

Don't know bout the rest of em Trish, but there is no desperation here. I'm looking at the biggest get rich scheme in the history of the world and I get a good laugh at it.

And Hippi, there were enough articles to max 3 post limits, figured one set was adequate to make my point. I've lived through this before, the same desperate rantings.
& yet with the entire planet in on the giant conspiracy to soak up money like a sponge, our oh so super-smart & easily amused ditto-head Faldur hasn't figured out a way to cash in on it.

Do you even know the difference between an article & a post? Limbaugh as a primary source of information? Pity might be in order, but not from me.

You haven't lived at all. Hangin' out in moms basement doesn't count. Desperate rantings is all your know, if that.

[Faldur]

Lol, hanging out in moms basement? Oh brother... and I don't recall quoting Limbaugh? Mind pointing it out to me?

The largest abusers of carbon emissions are the people running around in a mad panic telling all of us we need to change. Yes a large "money soak", your words not mine. If these people believed the shoe shine they are trying to sell us they would walk the walk, and not live like a rock star and tell the world to change. I really feel sorry for you guys that bought in to this bull shift. Just look to the carbon credit money goes and you will find the wizard behind the curtain.. :)

[hippifried]

Try post #30.

[Faldur]

http://www.printsandphotos.com/Merchant2/images/fullsize/5/5672.jpg

[Ben]

"A world in collapse?"

Robert Jensen interviewed by Alex Doherty, New Left Project

By Robert Jensen (http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/robertjensen)

Source: New Left Project (http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/a_world_in_collapse/)
Saturday, September 04, 2010

Robert Jensen is a professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas. He is the author of Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity; The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege; and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity, among other works. He spoke to NLP’s Alex Doherty about the threat of environmental catastrophe.

Alex Doherty: You have written that: "To be fully alive today is to live with anguish, not for one’s own condition in the world but for the condition of the world, for a world that is in collapse." Even amongst environmentalists it is rare to describe our situation in such apocalyptic terms. Why do you think it is justified to describe the world as collapsing?

Robert Jensen: Take a look at any measure of the fundamental health of the planetary ecosystem on which we are dependent: topsoil loss, chemical contamination of soil and water, species extinction and reduction in biodiversity, the state of the world’s oceans, unmanageable toxic waste problems, and climate change. Take a look at the data, and the news is bad on every front. And all of this is in the context of the dramatic decline coming in the highly concentrated energy available from oil and natural gas, and the increased climate disruption that will come if we keep burning the still-abundant coal reserves. There are no replacement fuels on the horizon that will allow a smooth transition. These ecological realities will play out in a world structured by a system of nation-states rooted in the grotesque inequality resulting from imperialism and capitalism, all of which is eroding what is left of our collective humanity. “Collapsing” seems like a reasonable description of the world.

That doesn’t mean there’s a cataclysmic end point coming soon, but this is an apocalyptic moment. The word “apocalypse” does not mean “end.” It comes from a Greek word that means “uncovering” or “lifting the veil.” This is an apocalyptic moment because we need to lift the veil and have the courage to look at the world honestly.

AD: Why do you think many leftists shy away from such language when discussing the environment?

RJ: I think not only leftists, but people in general, avoid these realities because reality is so grim. It seems overwhelming to most people, for good reason. So, rather than confront it, people find modes of evasion. One is to deny there’s a reason to worry, which is common throughout the culture. The most common evasive strategy I hear from people on the left is “technological fundamentalism” -- the idea that because we want high-energy/high-tech solutions that will allow us to live in the style to which so many of us have become accustomed, those solutions will be found. That kind of magical thinking is appealing but unrealistic, for two reasons. First, while the human discoveries of the past few centuries are impressive, they have not been on the scale required to correct the course we’re on; we’ve created problems that have grown beyond our capacity to understand and manage. Second, those discoveries were subsidized by fossil-fuel energy that won’t be around much longer, which dramatically limits what we will be able to accomplish through energy-intensive advanced technology. As many people have pointed out, technology is not energy; you don’t replace energy with technology. Technology can make some processes more energy-efficient, but it can’t create energy out of thin air.

I’ve had many left colleagues tell me that they agree with some or all of my analysis, but that “people aren’t ready to hear that yet.” I translate that to mean, “I’m not ready to hear that yet.” I think a lot of leftists displace their own fear of confronting these difficult realities onto “the masses,” when in fact they can’t face it.

The other factor is that truly crazy end-times talk, which comes primarily from reactionary religious sources, leads many people to reflexively dismiss any talk of collapse. So, it’s important to be clear: I’m not predicting the end of world on a specific date. I’m not predicting anything. I’m simply describing what some of us believe to be the most likely trajectory of the high-energy/high-tech society in which we live. And I’m suggesting that we keep this trajectory in mind as we pursue left/feminist critiques of hierarchy and domination, in the hope that more egalitarian and humane models for human organization can help us deal with collapse.

[Ben]

PART 2:


AD: Given the severity of the situation you are describing what are the implications for left activism? Should other forms of activism be abandoned in order to focus on the threat of climate change? How realistic are proposals for alternative economic systems such as green bio-regionalism or participatory economics in the context of climate catastrophe?

RJ: First, I think every political project -- whether it is focused on labor organizing, resistance to white supremacy, women’s rights, anti-war activity -- has to include an ecological component. That doesn’t mean everyone has to shift focus, but I think there is no meaningful politics that doesn’t recognize the fragility of our situation and the likelihood that the most vulnerable people (both in the United States and around the world) are going to bear the brunt of the ecological decline. A responsible left/feminist politics should connect the dots whenever and wherever possible. Here’s one obvious example: U.S. imperial wars, born of a patriarchal system, are waged to support corporate interests in the most crucial energy-producing regions of the world, which are predominantly non-white. Resistance to those wars requires a critique of male dominance, white supremacy, capitalism, and the affluent First-World lifestyles that numb people to the reality that they are morally implicated in these wars. Those wars are dramatically escalating the intensity and potential destructiveness of the coming collapse. Concern for justice and ecological sustainability demands an anti-war and anti-empire politics. There is no way to focus on one aspect of an injustice without understanding these intersections.

Second, more than ever, “let a hundred flowers blossom.” When we know so little about what’s coming, it’s best if people pursue a variety of strategies that they feel drawn to. In Austin, I’m working primarily with one group that advocates for immigrant workers (Workers Defense Project) and another that helps people start worker-owned cooperative businesses (Third Coast Workers for Cooperation). Neither group is focused specifically on the ecological crises, but there’s incredible energy and ideas in these groups, and they create spaces for advancing a coordinated critique of capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy, all with an understanding of the ecological stakes. Maybe it’s natural for people to want to believe that they have hit on the solution to a problem, but I believe that the problems are complex beyond our understanding, and it’s not only unlikely that there’s a single solution but there may be no solutions at all -- if by “solution” we mean a way to continue human existence on the planet at its current level. We need experiments on every front that help us imagine new ways of being.

AD: Lately you have been writing about the way people react emotionally to the reality of climate change. Why do you believe that is an important topic? What is your emotional response to humanities current predicament? What reactions have you seen in others?

RJ: It’s not just climate change, of course, but the multiple ecological crises. Anyone who is paying attention is bound to have some kind of emotional response. I think emotions are important because we are emotional animals. It really is that simple. How can we confront the end of the systems that have structured our lives and not have powerful emotional reactions? Yes, we have well-developed rational capacities, but in the end we are animals who feel as much, or more, than we think. And if thinking and feeling are not wholly separate processes but are part of the way people understand the world, it is folly not to pay attention to our emotional reactions. None of this should be confused with the apolitical therapy culture that dominates in the United States. I’m not talking about emotions separate from politics, but the emotions that flow from political engagement.

To borrow a phrase from a friend, I wake up every morning in a state of profound grief. We humans have been given a privileged place in a world that is beautiful beyond description, and we are destroying it and destroying each other. I cope with that by building temporary psychological damns and dikes to hold back that grief. But the emotion comes so powerfully from so many different directions that life feels like a process of constantly patching and moving and rebuilding those damns and dikes. Some of this is intensely personal, but for me the political work is a crucial part of that coping process. If I weren’t politically active, I would lose my mind. The only way I know how to cope is to use some of my energy in collective efforts to try to build something positive.

There is a lot of individual variation in the human species, which means there will be lots of different reactions as the reality of our predicament sets in. I worry that in a society like the United States, where so many have lived for so long with abundance and a sense of entitlement, people won’t be able to face up to the dramatic changes that are inevitable. That could lead people to accept greater levels of hierarchy and authority if political leaders promise to protect that affluence. In that case, people’s inability to deal with the emotions that arise out of awareness of collapse could usher in an era of even more unjust distribution of wealth and resources in an even more violent world.

The only way to combat that is to talk openly about what we see coming and work to create conditions that allow us to rely on the best of our nature, not the worst.

AD: You dismiss the possibility of technological solutions to climate change but given the severity of the crises we are facing do we not have a duty to try everything we can to avert disaster? Shouldn't we be ramping up research into alternate fuels and renewable energy resources? What about geo-engineering as way to avert the worst effects of climate change?

RJ: I don’t dismiss the relevance of advanced technology to sensible policy proposals. I do dismiss the claim that because we want to solve problems with technology we will invent that technology, and that it will be safe and not cause new problems. I reject that because it strikes me as a fantasy that ignores history and diverts us from the reality of the present.

So, yes, we have that duty, and I support serious investment in alternative energy. My concern is that the culture’s technological fundamentalism leaves people vulnerable to scams. The first step is to recognize we are all going to live in a lower-energy world fairly soon, and that means a massive shift in how we live in the First World. There is no replacement for that fossil energy, and we had better come to terms with that. When we don’t recognize that, we are more easily suckered into absurd schemes like the tar sands in Canada, which is an ecological disaster. The same for biofuels and the absurd claim that we can sustainably replace fossil fuels with ethanol, which is also an ecological loser.

Geo-engineering goes a step beyond that, into real insanity. Proposals to manipulate the planetary ecosystem through schemes like putting reflective particles into the atmosphere, or mirrors in space to deflect sunlight, or altering the clouds -- all of them prove that we haven’t learned the most important lesson of the industrial era. We have not learned, as Wes Jackson puts it, that we are far more ignorant than we are knowledgeable. We have a history of imagining that our knowledge is adequate to manage major interventions into the ecosystem, leaving us to face the unintended consequences of those interventions. At this point, there is no rational approach to the ecological crises that doesn’t start with this recognition: We are going to live in a low-energy world that is powered primarily by contemporary sunlight, not the ancient energy of fossil fuels. As a society we are not prepared, in terms of either physical infrastructure or cultural awareness, to deal with that. Anything that further delays coming to terms with this reality is a threat to life on the planet, not a solution.

[Ben]

PART 3:

AD: In a recent talk you said that "I am glad to see the end of most of what we have come to call “the good life,” for it never struck me as all that good, at least not for most people and other living things." In what respects do you think contemporary capitalism has failed to meet the needs of even the most privileged sectors of western societies?

RJ: Capitalism is the most wildly productive economic system in history, but the one thing it cannot produce is meaning. Even more troubling is the way, through its promotion of narcissism and mindless consumption, that capitalism undermines the larger culture’s ability to create real meaning. Virtually all of what is good in society -- solidarity, compassion, creativity, ethics, joy -- comes from outside capitalism, giving the illusion that capitalism is a civilized system. It’s a cliché, but important enough that we sing it over and over: Money can’t buy you love. Capitalism cannot create a healthy human community, and it undermines the aspect of human nature rooted in solidarity and love.

The other obvious failure of capitalism is its contribution to the erosion of the health of the ecosystem. Humans have been drawing down the ecological capital of the planet since the invention of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, but that process has intensified dramatically in the capitalist/imperialist/industrial era. Our culture is filled with talk about the success of capitalism even though that system degrades our relationships and threatens our existence. That’s an odd definition of success.

AD: Are there any writers on this topic whose work you would like to recommend?

RJ: Wes Jackson is one of my most trusted sources on these issues. Wes is a scientist working in research on sustainable agriculture, but his critique encompasses politics, economics, and culture. His new book, Consulting the Genius of the Place: An Ecological Approach to a New Agriculture, is due out this fall, and I’m looking forward to reading. I think Bill McKibben’s latest book, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, is important, though I think his faith in the power of the internet to help us through the transition is dangerously naïve. William Catton’s books Overshoot and Bottleneck have also helped me come to terms with reality.

In addition to the ecological questions, I think we also have to keep focused on the political and cultural questions, about how the existing distribution of wealth and power are serious impediments to meaningful change. That means continuing to think about the predatory nature of empire and capitalism, and the degree to which patriarchy and white supremacy structure our world and undermine our capacity to be fully human.

-----------------------

Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center in Austin. He is the author of All My Bones Shake: Seeking a Progressive Path to the Prophetic Voice, (Soft Skull Press, 2009); Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007); The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege (City Lights, 2005); Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (City Lights, 2004); and Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream (Peter Lang, 2002). Jensen is also co-producer of the documentary film “Abe Osheroff: One Foot in the Grave, the Other Still Dancing,” which chronicles the life and philosophy of the longtime radical activist.

[loveburst]

Personally, I do not care much whatever anyone thinks..

Anyone can test this, individually, with the now changing climate -> Stand in the sun whilst sun is shining -> then stand in the sun whilst it is not shining and it is in the clouds.

(..everyone has noticed, at least on our side of the planet where I come from, which is in the northern hemisphere - in Finland -, that it is noticeably warmer these days when the sun is shining, and really the change between hot and cold is somehing, that cannot go unnoticed..)

Now, if the case was, that the overall temperature was changing, the change between warm and cold, would not be so noticeable as it is - when the sun goes into the clouds.

If the overall atmosphere of earth was getting warmer, regardless of what is going on with the sun - the change between cold and warm, when the Sun comes out of the cloud would be equal to what it was before, and not as drastic as it is now -> change between hot & cold (in the northern hemisphere), whilst earlier (in the last years, and nope, this is no placebo, and it can be measured with temperature devices) it was not at all that noticeable.

Surely this is not anymore much a question of faith, nor is it any good for debate - but it simply is.

Just test this out.. If -the change between suns warmth when it is shining, and it going to the clouds- feels the same as years ago, then you must consider I am wrong.. ..but, regardless of what one wants to believe, this is what is happening on the northern hemisphere - and people are currently getting sick, due to the drastic changes in temperature.. (meaning, there is no right clothing for the temperature changes - it can be ice cold, and suddenly amazingly hot)

In the northern hemisphere this means, if it is shining, it is hot like hell in one minute, and on the other, it is cold as... well not heaven, but something opposed to it.

So if it was just the CO2 - the changes (between sun going in and out of the clouds) would not be that drastic.

[hippifried]

Does the same thing happen when you just step into the shade?

[Faldur]

If a tree falls in the forest... oh never mind..

[PomonaCA]

I was wondering why this thread was in this forum but then it occurred to me. This board is for politics and RELIGION.

[Ben]

I was wondering why this thread was in this forum but then it occurred to me. This board is for politics and RELIGION.

Climate change [or a more apt phrase: climate chaos] has everything to do with politics. Politicians have the power to address global warming or not. They can act to reduce carbon emissions or not. But therein lies the difficulty.
Politicians serve/aid/assist the powerful oil industry. And it's NOT in the the oil industry's interest to start cutting emissions. In fact I'd argue it's quite irrational. It's very rational to maximize private gain. Very rational. Scary. But rational. Remember that corporations are very rational constructs.

[Faldur]

Politicians, you mean the ones with 8x the carbon footprint of the average citizen? If we want to reduce the American carbon impact how about we demand all politicians fly commercial airlines. How about we disconnect Al Gore from the electrical grid, for goodness sakes the moron is using 20x the average citizen's usage. 20-room mansion, eight baths, using more electricity in a month than the average home uses all year.

Sorry, when this is the example the snake oil salesmen set I ain't buying it. Global warming is not a threat, or real. Just look at the actions of the people trying to sell the lie to you.

[PomonaCA]

Climate change [or a more apt phrase: climate chaos] has everything to do with politics. Politicians have the power to address global warming or not. They can act to reduce carbon emissions or not. But therein lies the difficulty.
Politicians serve/aid/assist the powerful oil industry. And it's NOT in the the oil industry's interest to start cutting emissions. In fact I'd argue it's quite irrational. It's very rational to maximize private gain. Very rational. Scary. But rational. Remember that corporations are very rational constructs.


That's what I'm saying, too. Global Warming believers are a religion. It's their belief and God bless them for that. I believe in God, they believe in Global Warming. Both religions.

[trish]

Hello again loveburst.

You might consider doing your experiment over the course of a decade on a daily basis (say everyday at noon) with a thermometer & a calorimeter as anyone can do and many have. The results will show you why anecdotal reports of an individuals perception of heat cannot be regarded as evidence. Perception and memory (from year to year or decade to decade) are colored by expectation, predisposition and age. The fact remains that all measurements have shown for nearly a century and continue to show that the flux of solar energy reaching Earth varies from 1321 to 1413 watts per square meter. The variation includes that due to solar activity (the Sunspot cycles, the coronal flares etc.) as well as the variation due to the varying distance from the Earth to the Sun. There is no increase in Solar luminosity that could possibly account for the current warming of our planet.


Sorry, when this is the example the snake oil salesmen set I ain't buying it.
__Faldur

Don't buy it from Al Gore then. He's just one politician. Look instead at the scientific literature. Perceptions and memory are also colored by predispositions toward political ideologies (as evidenced by your own failure to remember that global warming was the favored hypothesis in the 1970's). The science is not based on anyone's personal perception of temperature nor anyone's perception of the political winds.

[dana295]

um yeah if the climate is changing its is heading to the snow ball one the hot house version of earth .

according to my information before the last ice age summers started going it to the 90+ range and when the north atlantic convaor stopped we had ice pack formation in about ten years that would make everything north of tennisee unlivable so dun be afaid of global warming when we have the orbital decay senirio to worry about

p.s. i canna speel too gud but dat dun detract from da quality of thought

[trish]

p.s. i canna speel too gud but dat dun detract from da quality of thought Your readers will be the judge of that.

[yosi]

The quotation marks around "scientists" is appropriate here..


:iagree:

in the 70's we were heading an ice age.........

these days we are heading a global warming.....

today's "scientists" will be proven wrong......again , in few years about their predictions about the global warming.

everything in this planet goes in cycles , including the weather.

[circ]

Sure, it goes in cycles. But then, so does the enormous spiral in the middle of the Pacific, filled with trash. You've got water shortages all over the world. Everything is polluted, and we have mostly capitalism to thank for it. You can ignore the biosphere changing all you want, but eventually ecology bites everyone in the ass.

[hippifried]

Science, baad.

Blind monkey following of bug-eyed Becky the new age prophet, good.

Ugh.

[Faldur]

Ya, "Science"–noun
1.
a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences.

This not a scientific cause, its faith based. It is a religion like any other, with pretty pictures and stories.

http://oneutah.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/hansen-499x375.jpg

[circ]

Actually that graph looks pretty much spot on. But I guess following the pretty lil' colors is a difficult task.

[Faldur]

Whats 2C amongst friends..

[trish]

This not a scientific cause What the fuck is a "scientific cause"???? You looked up the noun form of "science" but you have no comprehension of how to use the adjectival form. Events are caused by other events. Events are physical occurrences; they are neither "scientific" nor "faith based." The current climate shift we're experiencing now is caused by a set of events which include the dumping of greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere that obstruct the radiative escape of heat, thereby insulating us and raising the mean global surface temperature. You claim to have posted above (the blue curve) Hansen's 1988 prediction of that temperature rise. It doesn't come anywhere close to the sophistication climate models have achieved today. Today we have a network of satellites that continuously monitor winds speeds, pressure fronts, ocean currents, fluctuations in the jet stream, chemical concentrations, atmospheric opacity in a continuous range of wavelengths etc. etc. Today we have desktop computational power twenty times faster and with a hundred thousand times more memory than the clumsy card programmable mainframes that were available to Hansen. Hansen had the theory and he essentially had an abacus. For the very first attempt at a mathematical model of our modern climate, his doesn't to badly. But of course, no one in the field uses Hansen's model anymore. Almost as soon as it was published climatologists began to factor in the elements ignored by the Hansen model as those elements became better known (through satellite data collection) and amenable to processing (thanks to the ever growing computational power of modern technology). So hey, if you don't like the blue curve, you're not alone. It's old hat. So what's your point? That Hansen should've been able to do better with what he had at the time? Maybe you're saying that had you applied yourself in 1988 you would've produced a model more in line with the actual data, purportedly depicted by the orange curve. If so, then you would have predicted an increase in the mean temperature anomaly of half a degree centigrade over the course of half a century (see the orange curve); i.e. you would've predicted a climate shift commensurate with the greenhouse accumulation of heat over time.

[hippifried]

Hansen had the theory and he essentially had an abacus.

Oh c'mon, Trish. I'm sure he had a slide rule.

Regardless: Don't confuse the political theology with facts. If bug-eyed Becky says it's true, it's true. Through his magic drawers, he's tuned into the infallible truths of the Angel Macaroni as imparted to the Mormon President through visions. Maybe he has his own too. Who knows? It's just one of the great mysteries that need to be accepted on faith because Becky's blessed. All hail the new prophet.

Teabags are the new KoolAid.

[Faldur]

http://cm1.theinsider.com/media/0/63/50/global-warming-religion.0.0.0x0.520x388.jpeg

[Faldur]

http://thesaloon.net/globalwarmingralph.jpg

Sorry, little Wednesday fun.. Oh hey look a teabag!

[dana295]

Your readers will be the judge of that.

ofcourse they will cause when one can't spell perfectly only the wise and smart can see what is said and the rest will attack because they are animals and know only fight or flight because high thoughts defy there bit world view

[Ben]

That snow outside is what global warming looks like

Unusually cold winters may make you think scientists have got it all wrong. But the data reveal a chilling truth




http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/11/2/1288723986430/George-Monbiot.jpg (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/georgemonbiot)


George Monbiot (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/georgemonbiot)
guardian.co.uk (http://www.guardian.co.uk/), Monday 20 December 2010 20.30 GMT

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/12/20/1292864667272/A-zebra-stands-in-the-sno-007.jpg A zebra stands in its snow-covered pen at Whipsnade Zoo, north of London on December 20, 2010 Photograph: Max Nash/AFP/Getty Images




There were two silent calls, followed by a message left on my voicemail. She had a soft, gentle voice and a mid-Wales accent. "You are a liar, Mr Monbiot. You and James Hansen (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/hansen) and all your lying colleagues. I'm going to make you pay back the money my son gave to your causes. It's minus 18C and my pipes have frozen. You liar. Is this your global warming?" She's not going to like the answer, and nor are you. It may be yes.
There is now strong evidence to suggest that the unusually cold winters of the last two years in the UK are the result of heating elsewhere. With the help of the severe weather analyst John Mason and the Climate Science Rapid Response Team (http://www.climaterapidresponse.org/), I've been through as much of the scientific literature as I can lay hands on (see my website for the references). Here's what seems to be happening.
The global temperature maps published by Nasa (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/) present a striking picture. Last month's shows a deep blue splodge over Iceland, Spitsbergen, Scandanavia and the UK, and another over the western US and eastern Pacific. Temperatures in these regions were between 0.5C and 4C colder than the November average from 1951 and 1980. But on either side of these cool blue pools are raging fires of orange, red and maroon: the temperatures in western Greenland, northern Canada and Siberia were between 2C and 10C higher than usual. Nasa's Arctic oscillations map for 3-10 December shows that parts of Baffin Island and central Greenland were 15C warmer than the average for 2002-9. There was a similar pattern last winter. These anomalies appear to be connected.
The weather we get in UK winters, for example, is strongly linked to the contrasting pressure between the Icelandic low and the Azores high. When there's a big pressure difference the winds come in from the south-west, bringing mild damp weather from the Atlantic. When there's a smaller gradient, air is often able to flow down from the Arctic. High pressure in the icy north last winter, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, blocked the usual pattern and "allowed cold air from the Arctic to penetrate all the way into Europe, eastern China, and Washington DC". Nasa reports that the same thing is happening this winter.
Sea ice in the Arctic has two main effects on the weather. Because it's white, it bounces back heat from the sun, preventing it from entering the sea. It also creates a barrier between the water and the atmosphere, reducing the amount of heat that escapes from the sea into the air. In the autumns of 2009 and 2010 the coverage of Arctic sea ice was much lower than the long-term average: the second smallest, last month, of any recorded November. The open sea, being darker, absorbed more heat from the sun in the warmer, light months. As it remained clear for longer than usual it also bled more heat into the Arctic atmosphere. This caused higher air pressures, reducing the gradient between the Iceland low and the Azores high.
So why wasn't this predicted by climate scientists? Actually it was, and we missed it. Obsessed by possible changes to ocean circulation (the Gulf Stream grinding to a halt (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2005/dec/01/science.climatechange)), we overlooked the effects on atmospheric circulation. A link between summer sea ice in the Arctic and winter temperatures in the northern hemisphere was first proposed in 1914. Close mapping of the relationship dates back to 1990, and has been strengthened by detailed modelling since 2006.
Will this become the pattern? It's not yet clear. Vladimir Petoukhov of the Potsdam Institute (http://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/global-warming-could-cool-down-temperatures-in-winter) says that the effects of shrinking sea ice "could triple the probability of cold winter extremes in Europe and northern Asia". James Hansen of Nasa counters that seven of the last 10 European winters were warmer than average. There are plenty of other variables: we can't predict the depth of British winters solely by the extent of sea ice.
I can already hear the howls of execration: now you're claiming that this cooling is the result of warming! Well, yes, it could be. A global warming trend doesn't mean that every region becomes warmer every month. That's what averages are for: they put local events in context. The denial of man-made climate change mutated first into a denial of science in general and then into a denial of basic arithmetic. If it's snowing in Britain, a thousand websites and quite a few newspapers tell us, the planet can't be warming.
According to Nasa's datasets, the world has just experienced the warmest January to November period since the global record began, 131 years ago; 2010 looks likely to be either the hottest or the equal hottest year. This November was the warmest on record.
Sod all that, my correspondents insist: just look out of the window. No explanation of the numbers, no description of the North Atlantic oscillation or the Arctic dipole anomaly - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Cyclone_Catarina_from_the_ISS_on_March_26_200 4.JPG" class="image"><img alt="Stub icon" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/89/Cyclone_Catarina_from_the_ISS_on_March_26_2004.JPG/40px-Cyclone_Catarina_from_the_ISS_on_March_26_2004.JPG"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/8/89/Cyclone_Catarina_from_the_ISS_on_March_26_2004.JPG/40px-Cyclone_Catarina_from_the_ISS_on_March_26_2004.JPG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_dipole_anomaly), no reminder of current temperatures in other parts of the world, can compete with the observation that there's a foot of snow outside. We are simple, earthy creatures, governed by our senses. What we see and taste and feel overrides analysis. The cold has reason in a deathly grip.

[Ben]

YouTube - Naomi Klein - The Paradox of Crisis (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHs64Hz3ZJY)

[Ben]

YouTube - Naomi Klein: Addicted to risk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZhL7P7w3as&feature=related)

[Yvonne183]

I don't know if global warming is true or not but for argument sake let's say it is true.

The thing that bothers me is that people have treated me like trash all my life. From old men messing with me when I was a teen to the bashers who's attacking put me in the hospital and now make me fear walking the streets at night. And then there are the people who refuse to give me a chance at a decent job, I could do regular work but they never give me a chance. And now these same people are telling me to save energy so that their offspring can have a better future. i say fuck 'em, I don't care if their childrens children live in a Mad Maxx society,,, they made my life hell let them have a taste of the same.

I don't debate whether global warming is true or not,,, i just don't care. Let the earth rot for all I care.

[russtafa]

Wow the early ice age was brought by carbon emission's.Its a swindle a carbon swindle good for the rich uni types to rip off the workers

[south ov da border]

global climate change is happening, but because the way the sun is acting it would have happened anyway, no matter what they did to the atmosphere...

[trish]

Nonsense. The solar constant (the flux of solar energy striking our planet) has been relatively constant (1.366 +/- 0.04 kW per sq. meter) since it [has] first been measured in the early nineteenth century. For nearly twelve years the SOHO observatory, located at the Lagrange point between the Earth and the Sun, has been monitoring particle flux, energy flux, magnetic field strength etc. etc. and over that time detected no significant increases in solar activity. The quack theory that the Sun is somehow driving climate change throughout the solar system is just that, a quack theory. The current climate imbalance on Earth is due in part to the unlocking [of] vast tonnages of once fossilized carbon dioxide and exhausting it into the atmosphere effectively creating a one way blanket that allows light energy from the Sun through to the Earth's surface where it degrades into heat energy which is then trapped beneath the one way blanket. The changes we're experiencing are characteristic of a climate seeking a new equilibrium because of a persistent energy imbalance.

Humans definitely played a role in getting this "ball rolling." Frankly, I think half the world's fossilized carbon dioxide is already out of the bag and there's little hope of getting it back in. Carbon taxes, if they work at all, are only designed to slow the process of letting the rest of our fossilized carbon "out of the bag" and into the atmosphere. I don't have much hope for the efficacy of carbon taxes or carbon trading. Moreover, the Earth's climate is already in motion...that's a lot of inertia to counter. The Earth's climate is definitely changing, and it's not the Sun's fault. It started with the industrial age. To be fair, in the mid nineteenth century no one suspected the Earth could be damaged in any way by mere human beings. The oceans were thought to be too big to pollute, the frontiers to[o] vast to tame and climate was the province of God. Today, we're the gods. Individually, we know how to plan and think ahead. Our forms of government generally cannot do the same. We're inadvertently terraforming the planet and I'm afraid w[e']ll just have to live or die with the consequences.

[Ben]

I don't know if global warming is true or not but for argument sake let's say it is true.

The thing that bothers me is that people have treated me like trash all my life. From old men messing with me when I was a teen to the bashers who's attacking put me in the hospital and now make me fear walking the streets at night. And then there are the people who refuse to give me a chance at a decent job, I could do regular work but they never give me a chance. And now these same people are telling me to save energy so that their offspring can have a better future. i say fuck 'em, I don't care if their childrens children live in a Mad Maxx society,,, they made my life hell let them have a taste of the same.

I don't debate whether global warming is true or not,,, i just don't care. Let the earth rot for all I care.

The planet is fine, as George Carlin pointed out. (It's a fantastic clip.) There is nothing wrong with the planet. The people, however, are fucked -- ha! ha!
There is the little or big (depending on your view) thing about: future generations. I think as human beings we should have concern about future generations. And children born today bear no responsibility for the way the planet is being destroyed.
The responsibility rests with the institutions of government and corporations. AND FOR OIL COMPANIES: it is AN INSTITUTIONAL IMPERATIVE to destroy the planet.
The CEO of Exxon-Mobil Rex Tillerson is REQUIRED by law to maximize investor return. By law. If he doesn't do that he can be sued. So, that requires the utter trashing of the planet. Again, it is an institutional imperative to destroy the planet. Core changes come when we change the institutional structure of corporations. I mean, now we have to and should regulate the hell out of corporations.
(The activist and writer Helen Caldicott said she isn't really concerned about people. What she cares about are birds, dolphins, tigers and all other animals.
And, well, I mean, look at how we treat animals. Ain't very good. I think in the future, through, say, ethical enlightenment, we'll all become vegetarians.)

YouTube - George Carlin - Saving the Planet (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw)

[south ov da border]

that Carlin Clip is classic. It's us in a nutshell...

[russtafa]

Fools there is always climate change, always will be.Its just the latest boogie man made up by the left and and their brought and paid for scientists

[Stavros]

Carlin is amusing but misses some crucial points that relate to conservation and survival strategies: the cyclone that hit Burman [Myanmar] a few years ago caused excessive damage because of mangrove forest clearance in coastal regions: redressing this damaging alteration to the environment would make sense and I don't even know if left alone the 'natural' processes of the planet would restore the mangroves.

Ben, your comment about Exxon is hysterical nonsense-the company is not trashing the planet. Do you really think that among its 75,000 employees worldwide nobody cares about the environment they live in and share with you and me? Greater environemntal awareness has been a political factor now since the 1960s, it might not 'save the planet', but I have seen bicycle paths in the Netherlands and China, and they work...

[Faldur]

Climate change hits Mars

Mars is being hit by rapid climate change and it is happening so fast that the red planet could lose its southern ice cap, writes Jonathan Leake.

Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period.

Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720024.ece

http://www.discoverynews.org/manbearpig.jpg

[trish]

Mars has a relatively well studied climate, going back to measurements made by Viking, and continued with the current series of orbiters, such as the Mars Global Surveyor (http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/). Complementing the measurements, NASA has a Mars General Circulation Model (http://www-mgcm.arc.nasa.gov/MGCM.html) (GCM) based at NASA Ames. (NB. There is a good “general reader” review of modeling the Martian atmosphere by Stephen R Lewis (http://www-atm.physics.ox.ac.uk/main/dept/index.html) in Astronomy and Geophysics, volume 44 issue 4. pages 6-14. (http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1366-8781)) Globally, the mean temperature of the Martian atmosphere is particularly sensitive to the strength and duration of hemispheric dust storms (http://www-mgcm.arc.nasa.gov/MGCM.html), (see for example here (http://dutch.phys.strath.ac.uk/CommPhys2001Exam/David_Speirs/climateandweather.htm) and here (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v412/n6843/full/412245a0.html)). Large scale dust storms change the atmospheric opacity and convection; as always when comparing mean temperatures, the altitude at which the measurement is made matters, but to the extent it is sensible to speak of a mean temperature for Mars, the evidence is for significant cooling from the 1970′s, when Viking made measurements, compared to current temperatures. However, this is essentially due to large scale dust storms that were common back then, compared to a lower level of storminess now. The mean temperature on Mars, averaged over the Martian year can change by many degrees (http://www.whfreeman.com/ENVIRONMENTALGEOLOGY/EXMOD36/F3614.HTM) from year to year, depending on how active large scale dust storms are.
In 2001, Malin et al published a short article in Science (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/294/5549/2146?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&author1=Malin&titleabstract=Mars&searchi%3Cbr%20/%3Ed=1127335997248_11460&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&fdate=10/1/2001&tdate=9/30/2002) (subscription required) discussing MGS data showing a rapid shrinkage of the South Polar Cap. Recently, the MGS team had a press release discussing more recent data showing the trend had continued. MGS 2001 press release (http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/msss/camera/images/CO2_Science_rel/) MGS 2005 press release (http://www.msss.com/others/preview12Sept05release/spolar4years/). The shrinkage of the Martian South Polar Cap is almost certainly a regional climate change, and is not any indication of global warming trends in the Martian atmosphere. Colaprete et al in Nature 2005 (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v435/n7039/full/nature03561.html) (subscription required) showed, using the Mars GCM, that the south polar climate is unstable due to the peculiar topography near the pole, and the current configuration is on the instability border; we therefore expect to see rapid changes in ice cover as the regional climate transits between the unstable states.
Thus inferring global warming from a 3 Martian year regional trend is unwarranted. The observed regional changes in south polar ice cover are almost certainly due to a regional climate transition, not a global phenomenon, and are demonstrably unrelated to external forcing. There is a slight irony in people rushing to claim that the glacier changes on Mars are a sure sign of global warming, while not being swayed by the much more persuasive analogous phenomena (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=129) here on Earth…

[Ben]

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLA_zAm3YwI)

[Ben]

YouTube - Rep. John Shimkus: God decides when the "earth will end" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7h08RDYA5E)

YouTube - Shimkus: 'Corporate Titans Are My Friends' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14DPZaDsMEw&feature=related)

[ezed]

I AM FUCKING PISSED ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING! There I said it! Shit it's fucking cold outside.

[Ben]

YouTube - Why Are Republicans Against The Science? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaKQCY5ybMY)

[robertlouis]

Re: Climate change could mean the extinction of our species

.....and Gaia will give three exhausted cheers when it finally happens. We don't deserve this place.

[w1s2x3]

Global climate change is the least of our worries compared to the irresponsible who refuse to reform entitlements. When our "government" defaults will our businesses be far behind?

[Cuchulain]

Global climate change is the least of our worries compared to the irresponsible who refuse to reform entitlements. When our "government" defaults will our businesses be far behind?

Wow...just fucking wow. This may be the dumbest post ever. You're saying Social Security and Medicare (entitlements is just a CON buzzword meant to demonize them) are going to do more damage than GLOBAL climate change.

Let's see...the first two are perhaps the most successful and beneficial programs the American government has ever produced. They've hugely reduced poverty for our elderly, granting a level of security and dignity in old age. Grandma has a guaranteed income and can actually afford to see a doctor.

Climate change will have severe to cataclysmic effects on the entire planet (that's where the GLOBAL part comes in, lad).

How fucking twisted - or stupid - must you be to make that comparison?

[Faldur]

If you choose to believe in a religion so be it, but to force your religious beliefs on the rest of the population is where we draw the line. No other religion is trying to tax the worlds population so there high priests can profit. All the while why they live in lavish palaces, drive 8 suv's and fly around the world in private jets.

[trish]

If you choose to believe in a religion so be it, but to force your religious beliefs on the rest of the population is where we draw the line.Christians don't believe that. You don't believe that. You are willing to ignore the findings of science and to sacrifice the well being of others on the altar of Ayn Rand and her lame-brain religion of libertarianism. You don't believe there's a global climate shift because if there is it might cost money,__we might have to work together to deal with it,__ the extreme conservative, "every man for himself" rational-self-interest approach to governance might not be able to address the problem adequately. But political postures are not scientific arguments; they can settle the issue of what idiots will believe and what nations will decide to do, but they bring us no closer to truth than did the inquisition's trails by ordeal.

[Faldur]

Christians don't believe that. You don't believe that.

Huh?

[trish]

Huh?
Go tell it on the mountain.
Have you heard the good news?
Win souls for Christ.
Onward Christian soldiers.
Give yourself to the ministry of the word.
Gay marriage offends God.
Ensoulment occurs at conception.
We are a Christian nation.
Our laws are based on the Ten Commandments.
There should be no Mosque's within four blocks of ground zero.
etcetera, etcetera, et-fucking-cetera.

[Faldur]

Go tell it on the mountain.
Have you heard the good news?
Win souls for Christ.
Onward Christian soldiers.
Give yourself to the ministry of the word.

The Bible instructs Christians to share the gospel. But there is this little thing called free choice, it is completely up to you what you believe. And as a Christian I could really care less what you believe, its YOUR belief.


marriage offends God.

Sexual immorality is a sin, no where does it say Gay marriage offends God. Everyone has to deal with their own sin, or choose to ignore it. But I firmly believe God loves all sinners.


Ensoulment occurs at conception.

Correctamudo!


We are a Christian nation.
Our laws are based on the Ten Commandments.

Our nation was founded on Christian principles. God's name is present in each and every founding document. You want an interesting read sometime read the founders statement of purpose at Harvard University. http://www.constitution.org/primarysources/firstfruits.html


There should be no Mosque's within four blocks of ground zero.
etcetera, etcetera, et-fucking-cetera.

Think that one is non religious, I don't believe the Nazi's have a right to build a statue dedicated to Hitler near a WWII concentration camp. I don't think the Japanese have a right to build a WWII monument to their Air force near Pearl Harbor. To me its not a religious thing, IMO its just damn poor judgement to want to do it.

[trish]

The Bible instructs Christians to share the gospel. But there is this little thing called free choice, it is completely up to you what you believe.Tell that to the witches Christians burned at the steak. Tell it to woman who claim the right to make their own medical decisions. Tell it to gays to want to marry but are obstructed by the religious right.

But hey, not all Christians are extremist assholes, just the ones making the most noise.


Originally Posted by trish http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/images/ca_serenity/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?p=917121#post917121) Ensoulment occurs at conception.
Reply by Faldur
Correctamudo!This is a beautiful example of how Christian theology is being used by extremist Christians to force and bend others to their will.

[w1s2x3]

The war on poverty has only been successful in creating more poverty. 10 Trillion dollars has been spent since the Johnson Administration and the Great Society on "helping the poor." No where has anyone defined "the poor." The measure continues to be relative to those who are successful instead of an absolute "enough." The war on poverty has truly been a war on the "rich." and a desperate attempt to bring everyone to some unobtainable "equal" - which will most likely resemble "1984." Global climate change and other boogieman are being used to help achieve this goal. The math disproves global climate change (not to mention the emails of collusion reported) and the solvency of entitlements as currently structured. By allowing freeloaders to pose as "the poor" these programs become unworkable. People of sound mind and body should be working not participating in leftist plantations of beholden voters for more political insanity.

[trish]

The measure continues to be relative to those who are successful instead of an absolute "enough." The war on poverty has truly been a war on the "rich."In the wonderful world of capitalism the worth of any good is determined by market forces alone; to a capitalist there is no such thing as the intrinsic worth of a resource, a good or a human being for that matter...all is determined by the market. Consequently, in any capitalist system there can be no definition of "poor" that is independent of the relative wealth of everyone else. So duh, of course measures of poverty in a capitalist state are going to depend on the buying power of the income of those making the least amount of money, which in turn depends on how much people who are more successful are willing to pay for goods and services.

We don't need everyone to have everyone to be the economic equal of everyone else, but money is power. When 35-40% of the wealth of a nation belongs to 1% of the people, then roughly 35%-40% of the political power also lies the hands of 1% of the people. The war on poverty is a war for political equality and equal representation in government.

Global climate change and other boogieman are being used to help achieve this goal.Once again, look at the science. Political argument cannot determine the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter; political argument cannot determine the age of the Earth, nor can it prove global climate change doesn't exist. Indeed and unfortunately, the mathematical models assure us that the global climate has been shifting since the beginning of the industrial age and continues to the present.

[Faldur]

Happy Sunday everybody.. enjoy your worship of choice!

http://blog.balder.org/billeder-blog/Cartoon-Deesillustration-Com-Church-Of-Global-Warming-Al-Gore-500.jpg

[trish]

Happy Sunday everybody.. enjoy your worship of choice!Happy trolling anti-science buffoon.

[Faldur]

Happy trolling anti-science buffoon.

Not quite at the buffoon level, but thanks Trish..

[Stavros]

As Keynes said 'In the long run, we're all dead'...isn't planet Earth scheduled to go crispy in a couple of billion years anyway?

[w1s2x3]

In the wonderful world of capitalism the worth of any good is determined by market forces alone; to a capitalist there is no such thing as the intrinsic worth of a resource, a good or a human being for that matter...all is determined by the market. Consequently, in any capitalist system there can be no definition of "poor" that is independent of the relative wealth of everyone else. So duh, of course measures of poverty in a capitalist state are going to depend on the buying power of the income of those making the least amount of money, which in turn depends on how much people who are more successful are willing to pay for goods and services.

We don't need everyone to have everyone to be the economic equal of everyone else, but money is power. When 35-40% of the wealth of a nation belongs to 1% of the people, then roughly 35%-40% of the political power also lies the hands of 1% of the people. The war on poverty is a war for political equality and equal representation in government.
Once again, look at the science. Political argument cannot determine the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter; political argument cannot determine the age of the Earth, nor can it prove global climate change doesn't exist. Indeed and unfortunately, the mathematical models assure us that the global climate has been shifting since the beginning of the industrial age and continues to the present.

In a capitalist system people would be free to contribute to the others without a tyrannical government stealing from people. The current socialist system rewards failure and thereby creates more failure - more people leaching off the government. Your "duh" supports the very definition of the attack on the rich. In any rational program there must be an exit criteria. The "war on poverty" has none - except for the left's need to destroy the rich. It would be so much better for millions of individuals to have a job and to provide for themselves. The war on the rich is a result of the left's vanity for their own intellect. This same intellect that won't admit their mistaken notion on climate change as well.

You write of the 40% of the wealth in the hands of the 1% as it is a bad thing? Did they steal it? What about the NOWS, AARPS, ACORNS and the labor unions don't they count in the war for power? It's not one sided.

People are emotional creatures and scaring them into adding to their tax burden only benefits another group of slave masters. My argument against the hoax of global climate change is the need for people to prioritize the problems facing us. A bankrupt country will occur sooner than climate change - if ever. I hear the President has FEMA working at a fevered pitch to process the 50 million environmental refugees as a result of global climate change. The UN announced in 2005 that by 2010 these 50 million people would need a new place to live.

The computer models of global climate change are still based on Lorentz's original work, which unfortunately is a system of chaotic differential equations. The models continue to create incorrect data about the future and still do not predict the past weather even though some data from the past is available. This leads many to be wary of the purposes behind the need for radical changes in our economies for incorrect computer models.

Individual freedom, individual responsibility, individual choice, limited government, diversity of ideas and freedom of speech without fear of reprisal are the tools of a sustainable society.

[Ben]

In a capitalist system people would be free to contribute to the others without a tyrannical government stealing from people. The current socialist system rewards failure and thereby creates more failure - more people leaching off the government. Your "duh" supports the very definition of the attack on the rich. In any rational program there must be an exit criteria. The "war on poverty" has none - except for the left's need to destroy the rich. It would be so much better for millions of individuals to have a job and to provide for themselves. The war on the rich is a result of the left's vanity for their own intellect. This same intellect that won't admit their mistaken notion on climate change as well.

You write of the 40% of the wealth in the hands of the 1% as it is a bad thing? Did they steal it? What about the NOWS, AARPS, ACORNS and the labor unions don't they count in the war for power? It's not one sided.

People are emotional creatures and scaring them into adding to their tax burden only benefits another group of slave masters. My argument against the hoax of global climate change is the need for people to prioritize the problems facing us. A bankrupt country will occur sooner than climate change - if ever. I hear the President has FEMA working at a fevered pitch to process the 50 million environmental refugees as a result of global climate change. The UN announced in 2005 that by 2010 these 50 million people would need a new place to live.

The computer models of global climate change are still based on Lorentz's original work, which unfortunately is a system of chaotic differential equations. The models continue to create incorrect data about the future and still do not predict the past weather even though some data from the past is available. This leads many to be wary of the purposes behind the need for radical changes in our economies for incorrect computer models.

Individual freedom, individual responsibility, individual choice, limited government, diversity of ideas and freedom of speech without fear of reprisal are the tools of a sustainable society.

As you write: "The current socialist system rewards failure and thereby creates more failure...." Exactly. So why did we give the banks trillions and trillions of taxpayer money? I mean, Ron Paul said don't bail them out. Don't reward failure.
Do people realize that the Internet came from the public sector? Places like M.I.T. and the University of Chicago.
It started in the mid 60s. So the cost and risk and ideas were publicly funded. Then circa '95 it was handed over to the private sector.
So, the costs are socialized. And the profits and management are privatized.
Same thing with TV, radio etc. etc. The cost and risk is born/carried by the public and then handed over to the private sector. (I mean, the government does interfere in the economy -- all the time. Think patents. Government intervention. Think the illegality of hard drugs: government intervention. I mean, we have selective free markets.
Think: controlling immigration. Think: Stop signs. Think: taxes.
Okay, we should leave this ALL to the private sector. I mean, who will build the roads, the bridges, schools etc. etc.)
This utopian vision of a no government society strikes me as very frightening. Essentially we'd all be at the mercy of unaccountable corporate entities. I mean, no democracy whatsoever. No unions.
At times this debate seems idiotic. I mean, who controls the government? Big and powerful corporations. Who does the government serve? Well, big and powerful corporations. Governments serve power. And the most powerful institutions in our society are corporations. The fact is big business want big government. For themselves, to serve their interests. And not the interest of the old widow down the street.
And now to quote Noam Chomsky at some length: 'Returning to the charges against "greedy bankers," in fairness, we should concede that they have a valid defense. Their task is to maximize profit and market share, in fact that's their legal obligation. If they don't do it, they'll be replaced by someone who will. These are institutional facts, as are the inherent market inefficiencies that require them to ignore systemic risk: the likelihood that transactions they enter into will harm the economy generally. They know full well that these policies are likely to tank the economy, but these externalities, as they are called, are not their business; and cannot be, not because they are bad people, but for institutional reasons. It is also unfair to accuse them of "irrational exuberance," to borrow Alan Greenspan's brief recognition of reality during the artificial tech boom of the late '90s. Their exuberance and risk-taking was quite rational, in the knowledge that when it all collapses, they can flee to the shelter of the nanny state, clutching their copies of Hayek, Friedman, and Rand. The government insurance policy is one of many perverse incentives that magnify the inherent market inefficiencies.'

[Ben]

Noam Chomsky sums it up nicely:

YouTube - Noam Chomsky and Bill McKibben on Global Warming (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O3cNc2JoMA)

[w1s2x3]

As you write: "The current socialist system rewards failure and thereby creates more failure...." Exactly. So why did we give the banks trillions and trillions of taxpayer money? I mean, Ron Paul said don't bail them out. Don't reward failure.
Do people realize that the Internet came from the public sector? Places like M.I.T. and the University of Chicago.
It started in the mid 60s. So the cost and risk and ideas were publicly funded. Then circa '95 it was handed over to the private sector.
So, the costs are socialized. And the profits and management are privatized.
Same thing with TV, radio etc. etc. The cost and risk is born/carried by the public and then handed over to the private sector. (I mean, the government does interfere in the economy -- all the time. Think patents. Government intervention. Think the illegality of hard drugs: government intervention. I mean, we have selective free markets.
Think: controlling immigration. Think: Stop signs. Think: taxes.
Okay, we should leave this ALL to the private sector. I mean, who will build the roads, the bridges, schools etc. etc.)
This utopian vision of a no government society strikes me as very frightening. Essentially we'd all be at the mercy of unaccountable corporate entities. I mean, no democracy whatsoever. No unions.
At times this debate seems idiotic. I mean, who controls the government? Big and powerful corporations. Who does the government serve? Well, big and powerful corporations. Governments serve power. And the most powerful institutions in our society are corporations. The fact is big business want big government. For themselves, to serve their interests. And not the interest of the old widow down the street.
And now to quote Noam Chomsky at some length: 'Returning to the charges against "greedy bankers," in fairness, we should concede that they have a valid defense. Their task is to maximize profit and market share, in fact that's their legal obligation. If they don't do it, they'll be replaced by someone who will. These are institutional facts, as are the inherent market inefficiencies that require them to ignore systemic risk: the likelihood that transactions they enter into will harm the economy generally. They know full well that these policies are likely to tank the economy, but these externalities, as they are called, are not their business; and cannot be, not because they are bad people, but for institutional reasons. It is also unfair to accuse them of "irrational exuberance," to borrow Alan Greenspan's brief recognition of reality during the artificial tech boom of the late '90s. Their exuberance and risk-taking was quite rational, in the knowledge that when it all collapses, they can flee to the shelter of the nanny state, clutching their copies of Hayek, Friedman, and Rand. The government insurance policy is one of many perverse incentives that magnify the inherent market inefficiencies.'

I mention limited government in my comments. The bailouts should never have happened.

The ruling class as represented by George, Bill, George and Barry have bailed out their buddies - businesses. Why does one company get bailed out over another? This flies in the face of the 14th Amendment where legal entities are to be treated equally under the law. If Wall Street and Detroit went out of business someone would have bought them. Free trade has handed us many people who no longer have jobs or low paying jobs.

[hippifried]

Why does one company get bailed out over another? This flies in the face of the 14th Amendment where legal entities are to be treated equally under the law.

They were treated equally. That's why TARP went to all the big banks when treasury was only trying to prop up Citigroup. The auto bailout was for the entire industry. Ford refused the money. Ford & GM came back. Chrysler was too far gone & had to sell out.

[Stavros]

From an obituary in The Independent [UK]

Jose Arguelles, who died on 23 March aged 72, was an art historian whose teachings about the Mayan calendar inspired the harmonic convergence event of 1987.
On 16 August 1987, thousands of new agers following the lead of Arguelles gathered at places such as the red rocks of Sedona, Arizona, Serpent Mound in Ohio and the Arthurian town of Glastonbury in England. Arguelles had written The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology, which argued for replacing the Gregorian calendar, said Earth was in the last phases of a galactic beam of light it entered in 3113 BC, and called for meditation to give humanity a chance to enter a new age in 2012

Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/jose-arguelles-2269971.html

[hippifried]

...But Stavros...
This thread is about the environment & how we live in it. The Maya created an ecological disaster by deforestation. I'm not so sure we should be putting any trust in their prognostications since they didn't see the demise of their own civilization coming.:shrug

Besides: How do any of these so-called "historians", & other assorted "Von Dannekoids", know what the Maya were on about? There's no American version of the Rosetta Stone. Do we really know anything about their mathematics, language, history, or civilization at all?

Oh well... I guess I better get busy if I'm going to have enough crystals & wire pyramid hats to sell up in Sedona next year.

[Stavros]

And candles, Hippifried, don't forget the candles...

[Ben]

This will be interesting to some.
Irish-American writer and journalist Alexander Cockburn is far to the left politically. And I mean, far to the left. And: HE DOESN'T BELIEVE IN ANTHROPOGENIC, or man-made, global warming or climate chaos.
At the 2:49 mark he states that the Earth is getting colder. And it has been for 10 years. Remember this is a loony left winger.

YouTube - Alexander Cockburn dumps on nuke loving greens and man made global warming (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n92YenWfz0Y)

[Ben]

This will be interesting to some.
Irish-American writer and journalist Alexander Cockburn is far to the left politically. And I mean, far to the left. And: HE DOESN'T BELIEVE IN ANTHROPOGENIC, or man-made, global warming or climate chaos.
At the 2:49 mark he states that the Earth is getting colder. And it has been for 10 years. Remember this is a loony left winger.

YouTube - Alexander Cockburn dumps on nuke loving greens and man made global warming (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n92YenWfz0Y)

Alexander Cockburn, a left winger, again is stating: "... the global warmers are the greatest collection of liars in the history of the planet."

[Ben]

Worst Ever Carbon Emissions Leave Climate on the Brink


Exclusive: Record rise, despite recession, means 2C target almost out of reach

by Fiona Harvey
Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year, to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach, according to unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency (http://www.iea.org/).
http://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imagecache/headline_image/article_images/air-pollution-canada.-007.jpg Economic recession has failed to curb rising emissions, undermining hope of keeping global warming to safe levels. (Photograph: Dave Reede/All Canada Photos/Corbis)



The shock rise means the goal of preventing a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius – which scientists say is the threshold for potentially "dangerous climate change" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/18/copenhagen-five-climate-scenarios) – is likely to be just "a nice Utopia", according to Fatih Birol (http://www.iea.org/journalists/photos/Birol/CV_Birol_F.pdf), chief economist of the IEA. It also shows the most serious global recession (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/globalrecession) for 80 years has had only a minimal effect on emissions, contrary to some predictions.
Last year, a record 30.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide poured into the atmosphere, mainly from burning fossil fuel – a rise of 1.6Gt on 2009, according to estimates from the IEA regarded as the gold standard for emissions data.
"I am very worried. This is the worst news on emissions," Birol told the Guardian. "It is becoming extremely challenging to remain below 2 degrees. The prospect is getting bleaker. That is what the numbers say."
Professor Lord Stern of the London School of Economics, the author of the influential Stern Report into the economics of climate change (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change) for the Treasury in 2006, warned that if the pattern continued, the results would be dire. "These figures indicate that [emissions] are now close to being back on a 'business as usual' path. According to the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's] projections, such a path ... would mean around a 50% chance of a rise in global average temperature of more than 4C by 2100 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/18/copenhagen-five-climate-scenarios)," he said.
"Such warming would disrupt the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people across the planet, leading to widespread mass migration and conflict. That is a risk any sane person would seek to drastically reduce."
Birol said disaster could yet be averted, if governments heed the warning. "If we have bold, decisive and urgent action, very soon, we still have a chance of succeeding," he said.
The IEA has calculated that if the world is to escape the most damaging effects of global warming, annual energy (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/energy)-related emissions should be no more than 32Gt by 2020. If this year's emissions rise by as much as they did in 2010, that limit will be exceeded nine years ahead of schedule, making it all but impossible to hold warming to a manageable degree.
Emissions from energy fell slightly between 2008 and 2009, from 29.3Gt to 29Gt, due to the financial crisis. A small rise was predicted for 2010 as economies recovered, but the scale of the increase has shocked the IEA. "I was expecting a rebound, but not such a strong one," said Birol, who is widely regarded as one of the world's foremost experts on emissions.
John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace UK, said time was running out. "This news should shock the world. Yet even now politicians in each of the great powers are eyeing up extraordinary and risky ways to extract the world's last remaining reserves of fossil fuels – even from under the melting ice of the Arctic (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/24/danish-commandoes-greenpeace-arctic-oil). You don't put out a fire with gasoline. It will now be up to us to stop them."
Most of the rise – about three-quarters – has come from developing countries, as rapidly emerging economies have weathered the financial crisis and the recession that has gripped most of the developed world.
But he added that, while the emissions data was bad enough news, there were other factors that made it even less likely that the world would meet its greenhouse gas targets.
• About 80% of the power stations likely to be in use in 2020 are either already built or under construction, the IEA found. Most of these are fossil fuel power stations unlikely to be taken out of service early, so they will continue to pour out carbon – possibly into the mid-century. The emissions from these stations amount to about 11.2Gt, out of a total of 13.7Gt from the electricity sector. These "locked-in" emissions mean savings must be found elsewhere.
"It means the room for manoeuvre is shrinking," warned Birol.
• Another factor that suggests emissions will continue their climb is the crisis in the nuclear power (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/nuclearpower) industry. Following the tsunami damage at Fukushima, Japan and Germany have called a halt to their reactor programmes, and other countries are reconsidering (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/25/europe-divided-nuclear-power-fukushima) nuclear power.
"People may not like nuclear, but it is one of the major technologies for generating electricity without carbon dioxide," said Birol. The gap left by scaling back the world's nuclear ambitions is unlikely to be filled entirely by renewable energy, meaning an increased reliance on fossil fuels.
• Added to that, the United Nations-led negotiations on a new global treaty on climate change have stalled. "The significance of climate change in international policy debates is much less pronounced than it was a few years ago," said Birol.
He urged governments to take action urgently. "This should be a wake-up call. A chance [of staying below 2 degrees] would be if we had a legally binding international agreement or major moves on clean energy technologies, energy efficiency and other technologies."
Governments are to meet next week in Bonn (http://unfccc.int/2860.php) for the next round of the UN talks, but little progress is expected.
Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the UK government, said the global emissions figures showed that the link between rising GDP and rising emissions had not been broken. "The only people who will be surprised by this are people who have not been reading the situation properly," he said.
Forthcoming research led by Sir David will show the west has only managed to reduce emissions by relying on imports from countries such as China (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/25/carbon-cuts-developed-countries-cancelled).
Another telling message from the IEA's estimates is the relatively small effect that the recession – the worst since the 1930s – had on emissions. Initially, the agency had hoped the resulting reduction in emissions could be maintained, helping to give the world a "breathing space" and set countries on a low-carbon path. The new estimates suggest that opportunity may have been missed.

© 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited

[russtafa]

:confused:Why has the name changed from global warming to climate change or has the problem changed

[Ben]

:confused:Why has the name changed from global warming to climate change or has the problem changed

Republican strategist Frank Luntz said Republican politicians should use the term/phrase climate change instead of global warming. Because it's less frightening.
Global warming, as Luntz says, suggests something that's cataclysmic. Whereas climate change suggests something more gradual.
Language is very important. Especially if you're a politician.

YouTube - &#x202a;Frank Luntz in the Denial Machine (CBC - Fifth Estate)&#x202c;&rlm; (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WiTVL9iT1w)

[trish]

"Global Warming" is descriptive of the sort of energy imbalance that is characteristic of the current climate shift. It is also descriptive of the large scale effect of the shift (i.e. melting of ice shelves, glaciers and sea level. It is not so descriptive of the shift in the local weather patterns. In many geographical locations Winters will actually be colder and wetter and the Summers hotter and dryer. Weather will oscillate between extremes. The atmosphere will generally hold more water vapor. So when it rains it will rain hard, but there will also be longer drier periods between rainy seasons as the atmosphere will take longer to reach saturation. I have mostly used the term, "Global Climate Shift" or "Global Climate Change." Some suggest "Global Climate Extreming," though it sounds a bit cumbersome to me. Scientifically, I prefer "Global Warming" because it actually describe[s] the kind of heat imbalance which is the root cause of the shift. I tend to use "Global Climate Shift" when talking to lay-persons for political reasons. Not because it's less scary, but because it's less vulnerable to the inevitable and naive witticisms one hears during a record cold week in the dead of winter or during a fortnight of cold rains in late spring.

Personally I don't find Global Warming, the actual phenomena, all that scary. Either we'll do something about it in time or we won't. Either way it will cost us. It's the price we have to pay for the fossil fuels we've already consumed and continue to consume. Evidently, the world's opinion is that the product was and continues to be worth the price.

[hippifried]

:confused:Why has the name changed from global warming to climate change or has the problem changed
"Global warming" rolls off the tongue easier, so thetalking heads glomed onto the one major aspect of what's happening right now as their pet catvh phrase. They need one to talk about almost anything. It just took this long to get them to shut up long enough to pay attention.

[Stavros]

Climate change is a relative term, measured in blocks of years: 50, 100, 500, 1,000 a million and so on. The climate is never really in stasis, so it is always changing, but the politics of the current debate has given the measurement gravitas because the figures are used to compute effects, such as the effects of global warming, based on the belief that we are living through a change which has already seen the mean temperature rise over the last 50-odd years. Global warming will have different effects in the planet's micro-climates, and much of the argument that is raging among politicians and scientists, is either on the macro-historical view that the global warming caused by climate change caused by humans is a myth, or that it is not -if you take the latter position then all of the policy initiatives that have emerged become controversial, because they all cost, and because they are long term measures which, if they work and indeed are based on sound science, will not be confirmed for another 50-100 years or more. You also have the radicals for whom instant action has always been their rallying cry, because if we dont act now, we are all doomed.

I don't have an argument with the general argument that we are living through a warming period, and that it is the generation of carbon emissions since the onset of the industrial revolution that has played a key role. My problem is really with the way that an industry in itself has been created which costs/generates millions, if not billions of $$ a year on non-practical processes such as conferences: similar to the explosion of journals, conferences, and pressure groups that followed the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980s. It bothers me because I can't see the point of academics and policy makers burning carbon on flights across the world to attend meetings and conferences they could conduct on the internet.

Crucially, if you take an holistic view of planet earth, and even if you are a climate change sceptic, the real issue that should be engaging everyone is resource management, with water at the top of the list, followed by forests: to give just a few examples: Lima, in Peru, is running out of water, partly due to the increase in population, partly due to the Conquistadores establishing a settlement where there were but meagre sources of water, but far enough from the Inca and other tribes to be safe. The Yemen is another place where water will run out in 10-15 years time. The world is losing forests at an alarming rate, in the northern hemisphere in Siberia, to some extent in Canada although they seem to have a more sensible attitude to it there; it is critical in central Africa where forest clearance for agriculture doesn't make sense because the soil is inadequate, or where human settlement will finally obliterate primates and other species. Indonesia and the Amazon basin are hugely important as the lungs of planet earth, but are being decimated for profit.

The urgency of the challenge to deal sensibly with water is actually of greater practical importance than the short to medium effects of climate change, with the possible exception of low-lying islands; if we cannot manage something so basic, the future looks bleak.

Finally, the major oil companies actually have reduced carbon emissions more than most industries, because they had the capital to do it; coal-fired power stations are far worse. There are solutions to all these problems, they will cost money, but it will be worth it if they can be made to work; and I don't think it needs five years of conferences to agree to it.

[hippifried]

Climate is always in flux. What has people worried these days is the speed & intensity of the change. The northwest passage is open. Sea levels are rising measurably. The LA smog is visible from the Colorado River. We're dumping more & more crap into our oceans, which actually provide us with most of our oxygen.

Meanwhile we continue to burn everything we can find as fast as we can. It's a mindset that says short term (single generation) gains & comforts are top of the priority list. I don't see much happening unless we can culturally start evolving past this primitive fire culture we've been stuck in since prehistory. Change the mindset, change the world.

[russtafa]

I personally don't give a fuck about climate change because i am very selfish and i don't want to live in a cave because my government say's i should

[Ben]

I personally don't give a fuck about climate change because i am very selfish and i don't want to live in a cave because my government say's i should

That's your choice to be selfish. And I don't think anyone is suggesting we all become troglodytes. Are they??? ha! ha!
It's unrealistic to think we can give up, say, all our technology, our modern lifestyle. It's absurd... for anyone to suggest that.
The likes of Bill McKibben are simply suggesting switching to alternative forms of energy. And, too, it'd bring about competition for the heavily subsidized... and I mean, heavily subsidized fossil fuel industry. We need competition in our markets, as it were. Bringing about more wind, more solar etc... would hopefully bring about that competition.
And, too, the concentration of corporate power -- whether it's Microsoft or Exxon -- isn't healthy for a capitalist society. Capitalism is supposed to be about competition.
What we have is the oil industry being, again, heavily subsidized by the U.S. taxpayers. This isn't capitalism. It's corporatism.
Ron Paul has said we should STOP subsidizing the fossil fuel industry. I agree.
Let's have some competition. Let's stop giving the oil industry an unfair advantage by SUBSIDIZING them.

[Stavros]

Ben, I agree that competition is healthy and that it is unfair when one or two firms dominate a amarket, but that would also mean that they contribute a lot of tax revenue to the state and employ a lot of people, even when, as is the case with oil companies who pay billions of $$ into the treasury every year, they employ an army of tax lawyers to reduce it, and have offshore funds as well.

The key point about renewables is that the technology so far, cannot match the scale of oil, gas and coal: you can power a house with solar panels and have so much extra energy you can sell it to the local electricity supplier and make a profit: but you can't power Los Angeles, the same is true with wind power. Until that threshold has been breached, renewables will remain on the fringe, although motor vehicles are probably going to be the first mass-produced commodities using alternative fuels to gasoline. So here's your chance, Ben, to go into engineering or marketing, and be a pioneer in the American tradition...opening up new frontiers...

[Ben]

The thing about fossil fuels is they're cheap. But what happens when, say, oil goes up to $150 a barrel or $200 a barrel or $250 a barrel. (Plus there's a term in economics called externalities. Which is the effect on others in a market transaction.
There are positive externalities. Like, as Milton Friedman pointed out, if you plant, say, a flower garden. (The very rational Milton Friedman did acknowledge that externalities are a serious problem.)
But there are negative ones, too. Like when someone buys a car. The dealer and the buyer are looking for the best deal possible. What they don't take into account is the cost/impact on others. The impact on others is, of course, pollution. Also: gridlock... which leads to more fuel use and thus higher gas prices -- :() There are also fundamental problems with markets. Markets need to keep growing. Well, economics is the only science that believes in perpetual motion. That we can keep growing and growing. Ya know, pollution isn't a problem. Population isn't a problem. Ya know, we can have 10 billion people on the planet. No probs.
Even Bill Clinton, when he left office, said the oil companies have a lock on energy in the United States. There isn't a free market, as it were. And, yes, it's unfair for the government to subsidize a specific industry. I mean, that's not how the market should work. It's corruption -- to the core. (Oh, and I should add: bailing out the banks is not capitalism -- :))
We can -- and should -- have homes that are energy efficient. Okay, I think we all agree that we should reduce our energy consumption. I mean, that has huge pluses: less pollution, reduced energy costs, reduced gas prices -- :)

[Stavros]

In the short term, OPEC is committed to raising production to reduce the price of oil, although its members benefit from a staggering inflow of cash when the price goes up, OPEC knows it cannot use oil markets as a hostage -in fact, the emergence of the spot market in the 1970s has given hedge funds/speculators the ability to buy oil futures and inflate the price of oil, as they are doing with food stuffs. The paradox of the 'free market' is that if a player with enough cash wants to, they can buy everything: however even in the temple of capitalism known as the USA, monopolies have been broken: Rockefeller's empire in 1911 being the most famous: should anti-trust legislation break up Wal-Mart? Why are those famous Korean groceries in New York in decline?

In the literal sense of the phrase, the world will never run out of oil and gas, but over the next 50 years the volume of petroleum commercially available at current rates of usage, will decline. There will be no energy revolution, but there will be an evolution -which is why technological advances in renewables is so urgent -moving to biofuels may be part of the answer, but is having a deleterious effect on traditional agriculture and crops. The oil industry did not emerge to dominate energy until the 1960s, even though it began in Pennsylvania in 1859. Between 1859-1969 coal, wood and water were dominant -from 1959-to roughly the 1930s, horses were critical, esp for the military: the Russian front collapsed in 1917 in part because they ran out of horses.

Yes, as individuals we can play our part, but what sounds so simple is so difficult to manage globally; would you really flush your loo just once a day to conserve water? If you have the opportunity to visit Europe, are you going to fly or take the boat? (I am not even sure which of the two is more energy efficient). And so on. The point is not to despair, humans have always had the ability to self-destruct, as well as to innovate our way out of a crisis.

[w1s2x3]

Where are the 50 million global climate change refugees predicted 10 years ago?
The sun is leaving it's peak activity and starting to quiet. We will be burning more oil, coal and natural gas to stay warm.

[w1s2x3]

Climate is always in flux. What has people worried these days is the speed & intensity of the change. The northwest passage is open. Sea levels are rising measurably. The LA smog is visible from the Colorado River. We're dumping more & more crap into our oceans, which actually provide us with most of our oxygen.

Meanwhile we continue to burn everything we can find as fast as we can. It's a mindset that says short term (single generation) gains & comforts are top of the priority list. I don't see much happening unless we can culturally start evolving past this primitive fire culture we've been stuck in since prehistory. Change the mindset, change the world.

Can we make these changes in a way that the "ruling class" represented by lefty politicians and their lap dog media have to have the same shortages of resources they want to foist on everyone else - usually through some panel of "experts" at some idiotic international level who are not elected and not accountable to the people they are screwing? They will continue to fly their 757s, ride in limos and drive SUVs.

President Obama's EPA is about to make coal created electricity go up 50% in price. This will make the electric car owners happy.

What we need is innovation. A leap in energy technology would solve about 80% of the world's problems. Cheap energy would make cheap drinking water directly from the oceans. Engineers are the ultimate conservationists. They want to drive to work in a 100 MPG car because they learn more by building such a car.

We are not stuck in a fire culture. We are in a cheap culture where we want stuff cheap. Cheap crap from China screwed many Americans out of a job. Screwing people at tax time to subsidize an energy solution that is more expensive than oil doesn't work. Changing the culture through conservation arguments is a logical approach and preferred over the "back room of experts"
approach taken with scaremongering on the environment.

[russtafa]

That's your choice to be selfish. And I don't think anyone is suggesting we all become troglodytes. Are they??? ha! ha!
It's unrealistic to think we can give up, say, all our technology, our modern lifestyle. It's absurd... for anyone to suggest that.
The likes of Bill McKibben are simply suggesting switching to alternative forms of energy. And, too, it'd bring about competition for the heavily subsidized... and I mean, heavily subsidized fossil fuel industry. We need competition in our markets, as it were. Bringing about more wind, more solar etc... would hopefully bring about that competition.
And, too, the concentration of corporate power -- whether it's Microsoft or Exxon -- isn't healthy for a capitalist society. Capitalism is supposed to be about competition.
What we have is the oil industry being, again, heavily subsidized by the U.S. taxpayers. This isn't capitalism. It's corporatism.
Ron Paul has said we should STOP subsidizing the fossil fuel industry. I agree.
Let's have some competition. Let's stop giving the oil industry an unfair advantage by SUBSIDIZING them.
the Juliar gillard Labour government of Australia wants us all to live in darkness and poverty.She wants to kill off our industries and our quality of life and make most of our population unemployed lol

[hippifried]

Can we make these changes in a way that the "ruling class" represented by lefty politicians and their lap dog media have to have the same shortages of resources they want to foist on everyone else

Not everyone. Just you. Since we rule, we can just put the shortages on the mentally inferior right wing wanna-be usurpers & other enemies of democracy.

[w1s2x3]

Not everyone. Just you. Since we rule, we can just put the shortages on the mentally inferior right wing wanna-be usurpers & other enemies of democracy.

Thank you for showing the true colors of the left - probably once again. Your idea of democracy most likely includes a single vote for a slate of slave masters and then no more votes are required.

[trish]

Thank you for showing the true colors of the leftAre you reading-challenged or are you simply too stupid to understand sarcasm? Just curious.

[w1s2x3]

I apologize. I was looking at the message behind the sarcasm - that wasn't there. I don't have any love for the republicans either - they love to sit on their thumbs.

[trish]

Where are the 50 million global climate change refugees predicted 10 years ago?
The sun is leaving it's peak activity and starting to quiet. We will be burning more oil, coal and natural gas to stay warm.
What reputable source predicted there would be 50 million global climate change refugees by 2010? Names and specific references please. Where these refugees supposed to be from rising oceans? From growing arid regions? Refugees from the increase in hurricane, tornado and storm activity? Refugees from the increase in uncontrollable fires? Be specific.

The near periodic fluctuations in coronal and solar spot activity is detectable as frequency and amplitude modulations in the radio bands here at Earth, but there is very little effect on the solar luminosity. That's why it's call the solar constant. Consequently Sun spot activity doesn't correspond with any statistical fluctuation in weather activity nor climate. We will not be burning more fossil fuels to stay warm because of a diminution of coronal activity.

[Dino Velvet]

Bring it on, Climate Change! I got yer extinction of our species right here for 'ya! I hate this World more than you do! Go back to Russia!

[Faldur]

Climate change lives in Russia?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/14/ice_age/

[trish]

Climate change continues:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/06/solar-minimum-climate/

I addressed this issue several times in the past:
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showpost.php?p=782866&postcount=27

The variation in the solar energy flux is swamped by comparison to the mean flux itself.

[recently ran across this:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/17/are-we-headed-for-a-new-ice-age/ ]

[russtafa]

hi Trish how is life treating you.Hope you are happy and healthy

[RaskiaLorenz]

Global warming is real, the ice sheets are melting and under the ice "perma frost" there is a time bomb! there are billions of tons of methane under the ice cap, which is 20 times stronger than CO2, if the ice continue melting the methane will be liberate to the atmosphere, then humans will be walking in a planet never seen before.

People who don't believe in climate change, need to wake up! they haven't looked both sides of the debate or they are totally ignorant people!

All the best well known and Nobel Scientist in the world are telling us to stop, stop now or we will fuck up the only home we have, the Earth!

If a doctor tell you that you have an infection and you need to take antibiotics as soon as possible or you will die, you will listen to the doctor, because he knows about your body.
90% of the Scientists out there are telling us the same thing, we are killing our home planet, we need to STOP now when the Earth still have the ability to heal itself from what we've done, but we are not listening.

I have a gorgeous Nissan leaf electric car, the best car of the year in 2011, the best electric car of the year 2011, and the best car I ever had. Brazil 7th largest economy on Earth have 98% of its energy from renewable sources, clean energy from hydroelectric powered plants, Denmark together with other Northen europen countries already have 60% of their energy from green source like Wind and solar powered plants, UK just started the largest wind farm on earth, producing an astonishing 1 Gigawatt and will have 22% of its energy from clean energy by 2018. US just started constructing the biggest solar powered plant on Earth, over 1 Gigawatt. We already damage the Earth too much, the time to change is now.

I'm also vegetarian, no animals paying cruelly with their own life for my stupid pleasure, no agriculture to feed animals to be a beef for me, instead of animals agriculture should feed people, there are millions dying every week of hunger!

DNA have proved we are naturally vegetarians, meat short our life span with many diseases.

Think about it people, for the ones who still don't believe we are fucking your world and only home, wake from your defence mode, and try to see the things from a different perspective. It will good for you and everyone else.

love

Raskia Lorenz xx

YouTube - &#x202a;Fire and Ice: Permafrost Melt Spews Combustible Methane&#x202c;&rlm; (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1liqk9UQNAQ)

YouTube - &#x202a;Farm to Fridge - The Truth Behind Meat Production (sub Español/Vietnamese/Português/English)&#x202c;&rlm; (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBbYUdvGWk0)

YouTube - &#x202a;Nissan LEAF: Gas Powered Everything commercial&#x202c;&rlm; (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn__9hLJKAk)

YouTube - &#x202a;2011 Nissan LEAF Review&#x202c;&rlm; (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R4GhhVyEI0)

[Stavros]

I have a gorgeous Nissan leaf electric car, the best car of the year in 2011, the best electric car of the year 2011, and the best car I ever had. Brazil 7th largest economy on Earth have 98% of its energy from renewable sources, clean energy from hydroelectric powered plants, Denmark together with other Northen europen countries already have 60% of their energy from green source like Wind and solar powered plants, UK just started the largest wind farm on earth, producing an astonishing 1 Gigawatt and will have 22% of its energy from clean energy by 2018. US just started constructing the biggest solar powered plant on Earth, over 1 Gigawatt. We already damage the Earth too much, the time to change is now.

The important point here is that there are practical measures that can reduce carbon emissions, while making the transition to new sources of energy -the problem with the insistence on immediate change is that it sounds like panic, and thus tends to alienate people. I am not saying the situation is not serious, but we need to generate a feeling that change is possible, as much as that it is necessary.

[Ben]

YouTube - &#x202a;Gore Slams Obama On Climate Change&#x202c;&rlm; (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3ZDd5je-K4)

[Ben]

Daryl Hannah Speaks About Her Arrest, and Sends A Message To Stephen Harper To Stop The Tar Sands! - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4D86wuL7ow)

Naomi Klein Arrested Protesting Tar Sands Outside White House - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4LqrAhpGB0)

[russtafa]

this issue is bringing the socialist Australian government down with a disapproval rating of 83 percent

[trish]

Really? There's a socialist government in Austalia? And the the Keystone XL Pipeline is a big issue there? Look again, I think you got something wrong.

[russtafa]

No a climate tax on carbon emissions which everyone has had a gutfull of and that's why[government] they are on their last legs

[trish]

Someplaces the revenues.collected from specific taxes are funneled to specific projects. For example, some States in the US dedicate gasoline tax revenues to road maintenance and construction. Lottery money (a disguised poor man's tax) goes to education. Just curious if the Australian carbon tax revenues are dedicated to any particular public service?

[Stavros]

Australia is not really a country but a continent, and one that has had a volatile climate for millenia -it's the nature of the place. One of my favourite poets, Judith Wright, born in New South Wales in 1915, wrote a compelling book about her father and the sheep farmers who were based in Cairns (The Generations of Men, 1959) which chronicled the difficulties new farmers had with local Aborigines, but particularly the ferocious droughts which decimated herds, destroyed livelihoods and sent many south never to return. Thomas Kenneally, after the fires in 2009 wrote a typically eloquent piece on the deliberate bush-burning which was practised by Aborigines and inherited by settler communities -none of which endorses climate change but does emphasize the fact that even in Sydney or Melbourne the climate will one day catch up with you -because you live in Australia.

My guess is that the Gillard governmet has opted for Pascal's Wager on climate change: better to introduce policy now than lose in the long term. In any case I can never understand why people would be opposed to the reduction of carbon emissions, to take one policy strand -who wants to live in a gaseous cloud that might kill them and their children and turn the sky a sickly orange-brown colour at 3pm every day?
The fundamental argument, taken from the Stern Report, is that the cost of taking action now will be cheaper than taking it when the flames and floods are inside your door.

The Kenneally article is here, highly recommended:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/20/australia-climatechange

[russtafa]

no go's into politicians pockets and crushes our mines and factories and makes the workers a little bit poorer that's why they are at 23percent in the polls and a good chance they wont be back for many,many years hopefully

[trish]

Really? It goes into politicians' pockets? If you're sure about that, then your beef isn't with liberalism: it's with corruption. Liberalism is about empowering laborers, putting money in the pockets of ordinary working folk and sharing the nation's natural resources with every day people, not just the corporations that only want to exploit them. Get yourself some real liberals.

[NaughtyJane]

The extinction of the human species, oh no. That's awful. Who'll be here to tear up and pollute the earth for the other species? We are such a NICE bunch we deserve to stay and fuck everything up even more... especially the way we breed like bacteria- as in logarithmic population growth, ahem, not asexual reproduction.

My point being if we want to hang out, we all gotta cool out.

[trish]

The extinction of the human species, oh no. That's awful. Who'll be here to tear up and pollute the earth for the other species? ...Pigs will be next. Earth will become the Planet of the Pigs. No, wait...it already is. The pigs have everything.

[russtafa]

no our beef is with a socialist inept,and corrupt government that believes in global warming and shutting our power stations down ,taxing our steel refineries so that they go off shore to Asia,taxing our transport and leaving it's workers and middle class in the poo.The governments supporters are the inner city yuppies on high wages and rich university students while our conservatives support the workers and middle class and are against a carbon tax which will harm Australia and benefit our competition Asia which does not comply with our strict pollution laws

[Stavros]

Trish you need to understand that after the debacle in the 1970s when Gough Whitlam was ousted in a palace coup, the Australian Labour Party re-defined itself as a cuddly, Koala Bear party everyone could vote for -and under Bob Hawke most did -so successful that Hawke's model was studied by Mandelson and other 'thinkers' [sic] in the British Labour Party close to Anthony Seldom Blair. As in the UK, the end of the Cold War meant that sharp ideological differences on economic, social and foreign policy were blurred (I almost wrote Blaired); this is one reason why issues like Climate Change and Immigration have been so toxic in Australia -they don't really have much else to dispute, other than the perennials like the First Nations, drought, fire and floods. Russtafa's point is political -but economically, carbon taxes and other green initiatives would not make industry more or less expensive: the costs in Asia are that much lower if steel and other industries were to locate it would have nothing to do with Climate Change policy. Labour is as incoherent in Australian as it is here in the UK, I sometimes think they have latched on to Climate Change as a 'defining' policy difference with the Conservatives, not the best basis for policy. Whatever one's fundamental position, Julia Gillard comes across as a ruthless, humourless mistress-of-the-machine that is Australian Labour; a sort of down-under Gordon Brown. Basically most of the liberal-democracies are in a mess, they don't seem to have any new ideas in Australia either. And their so-called beer/lager is also just gas -albeit more drinkable than the stuff off the coast of Western Australia...

[Ben]

No a climate tax on carbon emissions which everyone has had a gutfull of and that's why[government] they are on their last legs

I always look at the upside of taxes. I mean, taxes are revenue that pay for schools, roads and bridges. And, too, we have to remember that tax dollars pay for the salaries of nurses, police officers, firefighters, doctors. I mean, we can cut taxes down to zero and privatize everything including the police force. I think that's a bad idea -- ha ha ha! :)
I don't think there's an elaborate conspiracy (as suggested by Alex Jones and others) with respect to global warming to bring in a carbon tax. Seems a lot of effort to go to to just bring in a simple tax.
I mean, I remember reading about the GST (goods and services tax) up in ol' Canada. Um, 93 percent -- that's ninety three -- of Canadians were opposed to it. Didn't matter. The government of the day just instituted it. There was no elaborate scheme, as it were.
So, if a government wants a so-called carbon tax, well, they'll just institute it. They aren't going to come up with some elaborate scheme that's been going on for four decades. (In the 70s at M.I.T. scientists there knew about the dangers posed by climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions.)

[NaughtyJane]

Hell with this, I'm gonna go fuck.

[trish]

Well, I'm clear ignorant of Austrian politics, but in one sense I guessed correctly: they have no real liberal party...just one with very Blairry vision. Thanks for the mini-lesson Stavros.

Jane, I think you've got the right idea. Fucking is a whole lot more fun :)

[hippifried]

Hell with this, I'm gonna go fuck.
Don't forget to pay your insertion tax.

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=trish;997902]Well, I'm clear ignorant of Austrian politics, but in one sense I guessed correctly: they have no real liberal party...just one with very Blairry vision. Thanks for the mini-lesson Stavros.

No problem, but I was referring to Australia. Have you been hitting the bottle again? russtafa can have that effect on people...

[trish]

So was I, but my spell checker thought I meant what I wrote, Austrian!! Stupid spell checker! Thanks again.

[Ben]

The leading climatologist James Hansen:


The White House & Tar Sands


by James Hansen (http://www.commondreams.org/author/james-hansen)


Tar Sands Action (http://www.tarsandsaction.org/) organized a civil disobedience sit–in at The White House to oppose construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline that began on August 20 and will culminate in a big rally on September 3rd. On August 29 I joined 60 religious leaders and other fellow protestors. I was arrested that day. But before I was handcuffed, I addressed fellow activists who had gathered outside The White House with these words:http://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/resize/imce-images/picture_3_3-250x355.pngDr. James Hansen arrested outside the White House on August 29, 2011. (Photo: TarSandsAction.org)

Let us return for a moment to the election night in 2008. As I sat in our farmhouse in Pennsylvania, watching Barack Obama's victory speech, I turned my head aside so my wife would not see the tears in my eyes. I suspect that millions cried. It was a great day for America.

We had great hopes for Barack Obama — perhaps our dreams were unrealistic — he is only human. But it is appropriate, it is right, in a period honoring Martin Luther King, to recall the hopes and dreams of that evening.

We had a dream — that the new President would understand the intergenerational injustice of human–made climate change — that he would recognize our duty to be caretakers of creation, of the land, of the life on our planet — and that he would give these matters the priority that our young people deserve.

We had a dream — that the President would understand the commonality of solutions for energy security, national security and climate stability — and that he would exercise hands–on leadership, taking the matter to the public, avoiding backroom crippling deals with special interests.

We had a dream — that the President would stand as firm as Abraham Lincoln when he faced the great moral issue of slavery — and, like Franklin Roosevelt or Winston Churchill, he would speak with the public, enlisting their support and reassuring them.

Perhaps our dreams were unrealistic. It is not easy to find an Abraham Lincoln or a Winston Churchill. But we will not give up. There can be no law or regulation that stops us from acting on our dreams.

Tar Sands and Unconventional Fossil Fuels

In a previous post “Silence Is Deadly” I wrote (http://www.climatestorytellers.org/stories/james-hansen-silence-is-deadly/), “The environmental impacts of tar sands development include: irreversible effects on biodiversity and the natural environment, reduced water quality, destruction of fragile pristine Boreal forest and associated wetlands, aquatic and watershed mismanagement, habitat fragmentation, habitat loss, disruption to life cycles of endemic wildlife particularly bird and caribou migration, fish deformities and negative impacts on the human health in downstream communities.”

http://www.climatestorytellers.org/stories/james-hansen-white-house-and-tar-sands/fossil-fuel-emissions.jpg

Figure 1: Total conventional fossil fuel emissions (purple) and 50% of unconventional resources (blue).
Now, I’ll illustrate the emissions scenario from potential burning of tar sands oil and other unconventional fossil fuels (UFF) as contrasted with conventional fossil fuels (oil, gas, and coal). Figure 1 (http://www.climatestorytellers.org/stories/james-hansen-white-house-and-tar-sands/figure01.html) helps make clear why the tar sands and other unconventional fossil fuels ought not to be developed and burned. The purple bars show the total emissions to date from the conventional fossil fuels. These past emissions, plus a smaller contribution from net deforestation, are the cause of the CO2 increase from 280 to 391 ppm — where we are today. I wrote before, “Easily available reserves of conventional oil and gas are enough to take atmospheric CO2 well above 400 ppm, which is unsafe for life on earth.”

The blue bar is 50% of known UFF resources. Supporters of UFF development argue that only 15% of the tar sands resource is economically extractable, thus we may exaggerate their threat. On the contrary, Figure 1 is a conservative estimate of potential emissions from tar sands because: the economically extractable amount grows with technology development and oil price; the total tar sands resource is larger than the known resource, possibly much larger; extraction of tar sands oil uses conventional oil and gas, which will show up as additions to the purple bars in Figure 1; development of tar sands will destroy overlying forest and prairie ecology, emitting biospheric CO2 to the atmosphere.

We show in “The Case for Young People (http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ejeh1/mailings/2011/20110505_CaseForYoungPeople.pdf)” that it is probably feasible to avoid dangerous climate tipping points, but only if conventional fossil fuel emissions are phased down rapidly and UFFs are left in the ground. If governments allow infrastructure for UFFs to be developed, either they don't “get it” or they simply don’t care about the future of young people.

Preserving creation for future generations is a moral issue as monumental as ending slavery in the 19th century or fighting Nazism in the 20th century.

Citizen's Arrest on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama?

George Bush confessed our addiction to oil. Taking tar sands oil amounts to borrowing a dirty needle from a neighbor addict. Fortunately, Congress adopted and Bush approved the Energy Independence and Security Act 2007, which was intended to prevent US agencies from buying alternative fuels that generate more pollution in their life cycle than conventional fuel from customary petroleum sources. Tar sands oil not only exceeds conventional petroleum, but the energy used in mining, processing, and transporting tar sands oil makes it slightly worse — in terms of CO2 produced per unit energy — than coal.

Who would drive a car powered by coal!?

This raises a question: if the Keystone XL pipeline is approved, can we make a citizen's arrest on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for violating the Energy Independence and Security Act?

If they were put in the back of a hot paddy wagon in DC and held for at least several hours with their hands tied behind their backs, maybe they would have a chance to think over this matter more clearly.

Real Solution

Let's address a common criticism: “It does no good to stop the Keystone XL pipeline, because other pipelines will be built.” Indeed, pipeline opposition and other stopgap actions (closing a coal–fired power plant, etc.) have little ultimate effect unless we put in place the real solution.

Let me address the following points that would lead to the real solution:

a. 'Law of gravity': as long as fossil fuels are cheapest, someone will burn them.

b. Fossil fuels are cheapest because: direct/indirect subsidies; human health costs not paid by fossil fuel companies; and climate disruption costs not paid by fossil fuel companies.

c. Only workable solution: rising across–the–board flat fee on carbon, collected from fossil companies at point where fossil fuel enters domestic market (domestic mine or port of entry).

d. Larson rate — $10/ton of CO2/year — at year 10 yields 30% reduction in US emissions.

e. 30% of US emissions is ~ 13 Keystone XL pipelines!!!

By year 10 the Larson fee is equivalent to $1/gallon of gasoline. The public will not allow this to happen unless 100% of the collected fee is distributed to the public, which could be done electronically to bank accounts or debit cards. By year 10 the fee collected from fossil fuel companies would be over $500 billion per year, providing $2–3,000 per legal adult resident of the country.

Jim Dipeso, Policy Director of Republicans for the Environment, endorses this approach, saying that it “makes use of market principles, by prodding the market to tell the truth about the costs of carbon–based energy through prices. It would not impose mandates on consumers or businesses, create new government agencies, or add a penny to Uncle Sam's coffers.”

Further: “Businesses would seek out more opportunities to improve their energy efficiency. Other businesses would sell products and services that enable them to do so. Low carbon energy sources would be more competitive with high–carbon sources.”

Finally: “Transparent. Market–based. Does not enlarge government. Leaves energy decisions to individual choices. Takes a better–safe–than–sorry approach to throttling back oil dependence and keeping heat–trapping gases out of the atmosphere. Sounds like a conservative climate plan.”

How could this be achieved, given our well–oiled coal–fired Congress? Not easily.

Obama had the chance when he was elected. He would have needed to explain to the public that national security, energy security and climate security all yield the same requirement: an honest price on carbon emissions that provides market–based incentives for moving to clean energies.

Obama lost his chance for a spot on Mount Rushmore by not addressing the moral issue of the century. He would have needed Teddy Roosevelt's drive and Franklin Roosevelt's ability to speak to the public. A second chance if re–elected? It would be much harder, even if characters like Inhofe are smoked out by then. And it cannot be done with a sleight–of–hand approach, pretending there will be little impact on fossil fuel prices as in the proposed cap–and trade, or with government picking winners as in the would–be “green jobs” program.

The energy/climate matter will be addressed eventually. But will it be in time and which country will lead? There is an incentive to be the first to put an honest price on carbon: future global technologic and economic leadership. Europe squandered its resources on government specified inefficient technologies. If the United States continues on its current path, and if China seizes the opportunity to be the leader by putting an honest price on carbon, it will probably mean second–rate economic status for the United States for most of this century.

If President Obama chooses the dirty needle (approves the Keystone XL pipeline) it is game over (for the earth's climate) because it will confirm that Obama was just greenwashing, like the other well–oiled coal–fired politicians with no real intention of solving the addiction (of fossil fuels). Canada is going to sell its dope (dirty tar sands oil), if it can find a buyer. So if the United States is buying the dirtiest stuff, it also surely will be going after oil in the deepest ocean, the Arctic, and shale deposits; and harvesting coal via mountaintop removal and long–wall mining. Obama will have decided he is a hopeless addict.

Have no doubt — if the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is approved, we will be back, and our numbers will grow. For the sake of our children and grandchildren, we must find a leader who is worthy of our dreams.
© 2011 ClimateStoryTellers

[russtafa]

[QUOTE=trish;997902]Well, I'm clear ignorant of Austrian politics, but in one sense I guessed correctly: they have no real liberal party...just one with very Blairry vision. Thanks for the mini-lesson Stavros.

No problem, but I was referring to Australia. Have you been hitting the bottle again? russtafa can have that effect on people...
no but "juliar" gillard or prime minister "no carbon tax under the government i lead" is thinking of having along drink with only 20 percent of the population supporting her= the lowest support of any political party ever in Australia lol fuck the socialists/greens

[Ben]

As John Ralston Saul points out, "... if there's a 50-50 chance of global warming (caused by humans) then that's an unacceptable risk."

The Climate Change Gamble: An Unacceptable Risk? - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXqOLXSZ5Xs)

[Faldur]

http://www.babyshowerstar.com/BabyLaugh.gif

I'm so serial! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9wmczxnT3c)

[russtafa]

Best scam the UN ever produced lol

[Ben]

Best scam the UN ever produced lol

It's a dearth or lack of trust.
I mean, we certainly don't trust politicians. Ya know, why should we trust the government? They lie. Steal. Ya know, taxation (according to right-wing libertarians) is merely organized theft. So, governments lie and steal. So, why should we trust them?
We don't trust the UN. We don't trust businesspeople. I mean, the essence and core of business is deception. And control. So, they lie. We can't trust them.
So then why should we trust climate scientists? I mean, why should we have any confidence in science? I mean, maybe Rick Perry is correct and evolution is just a theory that's out there.
I think that's the core of it. Just the lack of trust, trustworthiness.
As Noam Chomsky articulates: If you do a cost-benefit analysis. As he points out, Suppose the people who deny it are correct. And you do something about it. OK, you've spent some money doing things you should've done anyway. Like more renewable energy and so on. (Getting off fossil fuels will be great for reducing pollution. That's an immediate benefit.) But suppose that the scientific consensus is correct, well, we're screwed.

Noam Chomsky and Bill McKibben on Global Warming - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O3cNc2JoMA)

[Yvonne183]

If you do a cost-benefit analysis. As he points out, Suppose the people who deny it are correct. And you do something about it. OK, you've spent some money doing things you should've done anyway. Like more renewable energy and so on. (Getting off fossil fuels will be great for reducing pollution. That's an immediate benefit.) But suppose that the scientific consensus is correct, well, we're screwed.

I am not being religion or anything but the above is very similar to what Christians say about their religion.

Suppose people who deny Christianity are correct, OK you spent some time doing things you should have done anyway, go to church, live a decent life and so on. But suppose the Christians are right, well then the people who deny Christianity are screwed.

I know that had nothing to do with climate change but I thought it strange the way the two say similar things.

I said it before, I feel that the whole climate change thing is about keeping people in their place, especially the poor and working class. It is designed to keep more cars of the road by making emissions tougher and making alternative fuel cars too expensive, which means the poor and working poor will suffer.

Where I lived in Maryland, they have High Occupancy Lanes on the highways where people can use these lanes if they have two or more passengers in their cars. Some people are trying to change that where by people can pay a toll so to speak so they can travel in these lanes with a sole driver,, hence,, for the rich and those who can afford it not the poor.

One can give me link after link about some guy or scientist who says that climate change is a real danger, but I will never, ever believe anything a politician says, anything a big business says or anything a scientist say that comes from a university that could possibly have an agenda. We, the people have been lied to so many times buy so many different people, that i gotta say, sorry, I don't believe there is a wolf out there, even if he is there.

Also, until all the politicians, rich people who believe in climate change is a problem, Hollywood stars that believe in this as well, until the day I see them riding bicycles to work or taking the bus like i do, that will be the day I believe they are serious, but as of right now, the rich liberals continue to waste energy so I don't believe climate change is a threat cause the people who tell me it's a threat don't live like it's a threat.

[Ben]

If you do a cost-benefit analysis. As he points out, Suppose the people who deny it are correct. And you do something about it. OK, you've spent some money doing things you should've done anyway. Like more renewable energy and so on. (Getting off fossil fuels will be great for reducing pollution. That's an immediate benefit.) But suppose that the scientific consensus is correct, well, we're screwed.

I am not being religion or anything but the above is very similar to what Christians say about their religion.

Suppose people who deny Christianity are correct, OK you spent some time doing things you should have done anyway, go to church, live a decent life and so on. But suppose the Christians are right, well then the people who deny Christianity are screwed.

I know that had nothing to do with climate change but I thought it strange the way the two say similar things.

I said it before, I feel that the whole climate change thing is about keeping people in their place, especially the poor and working class. It is designed to keep more cars of the road by making emissions tougher and making alternative fuel cars too expensive, which means the poor and working poor will suffer.

Where I lived in Maryland, they have High Occupancy Lanes on the highways where people can use these lanes if they have two or more passengers in their cars. Some people are trying to change that where by people can pay a toll so to speak so they can travel in these lanes with a sole driver,, hence,, for the rich and those who can afford it not the poor.

One can give me link after link about some guy or scientist who says that climate change is a real danger, but I will never, ever believe anything a politician says, anything a big business says or anything a scientist say that comes from a university that could possibly have an agenda. We, the people have been lied to so many times buy so many different people, that i gotta say, sorry, I don't believe there is a wolf out there, even if he is there.

Also, until all the politicians, rich people who believe in climate change is a problem, Hollywood stars that believe in this as well, until the day I see them riding bicycles to work or taking the bus like i do, that will be the day I believe they are serious, but as of right now, the rich liberals continue to waste energy so I don't believe climate change is a threat cause the people who tell me it's a threat don't live like it's a threat.

Bill Clinton said awhile ago (after he left office, of course -- :)) that the oil industry has monopoly power over energy use.
But suppose we lived in an actual market system. Whereby the sellers (meaning the car companies and oil companies) actually paid the cost of what they produce. Meaning externalities. The cost to others, to us. In terms of pollution etc. (The point being: if the polluter pays, well, maybe electric cars could then compete. What we sorely lack in our economy is competition. Because large companies pretty much control the marketplace. Which isn't healthy.)
What companies don't do is internalize the costs of what they produce. So, Pepsi produces cans of, well, whatever is in the drink -- :). They make the profit. But who bears the cost of picking up all those cans? Well, the taxpayers. Through trash collection and so on.
Same with cigarettes. Who profits? The companies. And who bears the costs? The public. Alcohol? Who benefits? Who pays the costs. (Externalities are inherent in any market transaction. And it's a profound problem. Like say you buy a car. You're looking for the best deal possible. As is the seller. What doesn't come into the transaction is the cost to others. In the form of pollution. Gridlock. And higher fuel prices.)
Now in a market system, well, a few things have to happen in order for it to work efficiently. You need fully informed consumers making rational choices. You need the sellers, again, bearing the full cost of what they produce. And, also, in order for markets to work you need investment income staying in the country. That's a requirement for markets to work.
And, lastly, savings must be spent on real wealth not phantom wealth. Ya know, building a bridge. Instead of gambling with stocks. Which isn't real wealth. But phantom wealth.
So, part of the problem is that big corporations have such a grip, as it were, over the overall economy. And we haven't fully addressed what economists call externalities....

Chomsky on the Environment, Corporate Propaganda and Externalities - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i6C0Vs-xw8)

[Ben]

If you do a cost-benefit analysis. As he points out, Suppose the people who deny it are correct. And you do something about it. OK, you've spent some money doing things you should've done anyway. Like more renewable energy and so on. (Getting off fossil fuels will be great for reducing pollution. That's an immediate benefit.) But suppose that the scientific consensus is correct, well, we're screwed.

I am not being religion or anything but the above is very similar to what Christians say about their religion.

Suppose people who deny Christianity are correct, OK you spent some time doing things you should have done anyway, go to church, live a decent life and so on. But suppose the Christians are right, well then the people who deny Christianity are screwed.

I know that had nothing to do with climate change but I thought it strange the way the two say similar things.

I said it before, I feel that the whole climate change thing is about keeping people in their place, especially the poor and working class. It is designed to keep more cars of the road by making emissions tougher and making alternative fuel cars too expensive, which means the poor and working poor will suffer.

Where I lived in Maryland, they have High Occupancy Lanes on the highways where people can use these lanes if they have two or more passengers in their cars. Some people are trying to change that where by people can pay a toll so to speak so they can travel in these lanes with a sole driver,, hence,, for the rich and those who can afford it not the poor.

One can give me link after link about some guy or scientist who says that climate change is a real danger, but I will never, ever believe anything a politician says, anything a big business says or anything a scientist say that comes from a university that could possibly have an agenda. We, the people have been lied to so many times buy so many different people, that i gotta say, sorry, I don't believe there is a wolf out there, even if he is there.

Also, until all the politicians, rich people who believe in climate change is a problem, Hollywood stars that believe in this as well, until the day I see them riding bicycles to work or taking the bus like i do, that will be the day I believe they are serious, but as of right now, the rich liberals continue to waste energy so I don't believe climate change is a threat cause the people who tell me it's a threat don't live like it's a threat.

[/QUOTE] I feel that the whole climate change thing is about keeping people in their place, especially the poor and working class. It is designed to keep more cars of the road by making emissions tougher and making alternative fuel cars too expensive, which means the poor and working poor will suffer.

Where I lived in Maryland, they have High Occupancy Lanes on the highways where people can use these lanes if they have two or more passengers in their cars. Some people are trying to change that where by people can pay a toll so to speak so they can travel in these lanes with a sole driver,, hence,, for the rich and those who can afford it not the poor. [/QUOTE]




Just an addendum. There's an 80-20 rule they teach you in business school. It's that 80 percent of your profits come from 20 percent of the population. So, businesses and governments don't care about 80 percent of the population. We should remember: governments and corporations are not benevolent or kind and caring institutions.
I think free trade agreements (which means the free movement of capital) are designed, as it were, to keep poor people in their place. I think demonizing unions are about keeping people in their place. Ya know, Unions are about solidarity. That working people care about one another. That's a huge threat to the capitalist class, as it were.
I've mentioned Adam Smith before. He said, and it's true, that corporations are going to pursue their own selfish and greedy interests regardless of the harmful impact on others....
George Carlin sums it all up perfectly:

George Carlin ~ The American Dream - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5Ujn2UxTcY)

[trish]

But Yvonne, you must agree that's a very unpersuasive argument. It strikes me of having pretty much the following form:

Premise 1: Well understood principles of physics and chemistry predict that the "sudden release" (over the time scale of a couple hundred years) of fossilized greenhouse gasses will slow the rate at which the Earth can radiate energy but not slow the rate at which it receives energy. The prediction correlates with the meteorological records (man made records, ice core records, tree ring records, the northward shifting of habitats etc.). The overwhelming majority of climatologists are persuaded by the evidence and the physical theory that indeed the Earth's climate is undergoing a period of heat imbalance due to the release of fossil carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses and is consequently seeking a new equilibrium which will result in noticeable climate shifts.

Premise 2. We get to decide what if anything we want to do about the climate change. Tax fossil fuel consumption? Encourage the invention and use of other forms of energy production? Forget about it? What to do about climate change is a separate issue, distinct from the issue that climate change is currently being driven by the burning of fossil fuels.

Premise 3. Some Hollywood movie stars endorse the idea that we should enact conservation measures to help offset if not equalize the current unequal rates at which the Earth gains and loses energy.

Premise 4. Some of those Hollywood movie stars (to which premise 3 refers) are not perceived as leading very conservation minded lives.

Conclusion: Therefore the whole theory of global warming is bogus.

You don't have to base your conclusions on what non-experts (whom who find irritating) tell you. You don't need premises 3 and 4. Indeed, premise 3 and 4 are absolutely irrelevant. You're smart enough to look into it yourself and arrive at a conclusion based on rational procedures.

[trish]

Let’s examine the charge that Michelle Bachmann as made (and that has been repeated here) against climatologists. It is the charge that the model of global climate change endorsed by most climate scientists is a scam for raking the dough and getting rich on grant money. Obviously Michele doesn’t know how the grant system works.

The average university climatologist will make somewhere between $35000 to $100000 a year. Those near the top end of the range are the rare and considered the big guns of climate theory. Compare that to what the average oil company CEO makes. Compare it to what the secondary executive officers make.

What happens when a climatologist wins a grant?
The scientist never touches the money directly. The money goes through the university system and the grant funding agency. The scientist’s salary doesn’t go up. The grant does not supplement his or her salary. Instead the scientist draws his usual salary from the university, but the university reimbursed for that salary by the grant writing agency. See how that works. What else happens?

There’s usually equipment to by and people to hire. The climatologist will need to buy equipment and set up a lab. She will have to hire lab assistants and research assistants; i.e. jobs are created. They are typically filled by graduate students who work for very low stipends and free tuition. The climatologist research the equipment to buy, make out an order and submit the order to the grant funding agency. The agency will okay the order and pay the suppliers directly, or the university will pay the suppliers directly and then be later reimbursed by the grant funding agency. Similarly, the stipends for the labs and research assistants will be paid for my the university and the university will be reimbursed by the grant funding agency. It used to be the case that research involved a certain amount of travel. Of course it still does depending on your experiment. But it also involved traveling from one school to another to visit with colleagues in order to exchange ideas, advice, expertise etc. Skype has reduced the need for those sorts of one on one in-person conferences.

So far I don’t see a lot of money going to those alleged professorial swindlers. So what’s in it for the scientist who applied for and was awarded the grant?

Well here’s the deal. When not on a grant a research scientist is expected to teach, monitor the research of doctorate students and share in the executive responsibilities of the department and university. But when a research scientist has a grant, she will be relieved of some portion of these duties in order to work on the research for which the grant was awarded. That’s it. That’s the big deal. That’s what Michelle thinks scores are climatologists are falsifying their research for and risking their careers for...a diminished teaching load for a semester or two. Of course the real reward is the opportunity to explore a hypothesis, discover a tiny truth, push the boundaries of knowledge and perhaps contribute positively to the progress of science.

There is simply no big money to be made by faculty through the grant system. Now, as I already mentioned, there are some big guns who make in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand dollars a year. They’ve acquired those salaries through competition with their peers. Universities want professors with big names to draw students. Also professors with big names have those big names because they’re good, and because they’re good they can get grants. If they can get grants, their salaries will be paid by the grant agency, not the university. So the university will offer the big guns bigger salaries. Not so difficult to follow is it?

The typical research professor will make way less than the typical provost. And at a large school, the typical provost will make way less than the football and basketball coaches. In academia, the money is in sports, not academia.

In regards to climate, if you want to follow the money, you need look no further than the oil, natural gas and coal interests. The corporations and cartels that drill, mine and refine.

[Stavros]

The only thing I would add to Trish's last post, is that in the UK, we have something called the Research Assessment Exercise, which ranks departments and universities according to a set of indicators, one of which is the ability to attract research funding. Although universities still get a government subsidy, since 1981 the government has expected departments to be as self-sufficient as they can be, which makes the academics go out into 'the market' to find money for research projects. The hard sciences do well, because new research in chemistry in relation to the drugs/medicine business, computing software, engineering and so on -have practical benefits to industry.

Climate change is an oddball, being a toxic mixture of science and politics -and economics and social policy too if you want to extend it- there is a lot of money in it right now, comparable to the explosion of research on HIV/AIDS in the 1980s, so its the kudos of having a world-renowned Centre for the study of this or that, or an eminent much-quoted/cited professor -in a sense, it is a pity that the need to attract research funding can sometimes make it look like the search for that money is more important than the research its supposed to be doing, but thats academic life.

Spare a thought for some poor sod in an English department who wants research funding to write a book on Images of Transexual Desire in the English Novel Between Richardson and McEwan...and yet publishers still agree to waste paper printing books about Shakeseapeare, like there is anything new to say about him.

[Ben]

The best environmental song...

Marvin Gaye - Mercy Mercy me - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WxgeYXCjM8)

[Ben]

Naomi Klein Debunks Ethical Oil at Tar Sands Action - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctwgcBe8Bzs)

[russtafa]

well global warming is as popular as as a turd at a pool party in Aussie

[Ben]

Published on Tuesday, September 27, 2011 by The Hill (Washington, DC) (http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/183901-eu-climate-chief-shocked-at-us-debate) EU Climate Chief ‘Shocked’ at US Debate

by Ben Geman

European Union climate chief Connie Hedegaard is disposing of diplomatic niceties when describing U.S. political battles over climate change.
“I’m shocked that the political debate in the U.S. is so far away from the scientific facts,” she said, according to The Copenhagen Post.
“When more than 90 percent of researchers in the field are saying that we have to take [climate change] seriously, it is incredibly irresponsible to ignore it. It’s hard for a European to understand how it has become so fashionable to be anti-science in the U.S.,” Hedegaard said in the Post account, which reprints comments she made to the Danish paper Politiken.
“And when you hear American presidential candidates denying climate change, it’s difficult to take,” she said.
Her remarks come amid a split in the GOP presidential field, where candidates including Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann dispute the mainstream scientific view that the planet is warming and human activities are a key factor.
The European Union in 2007 committed to cut its overall emissions by at least 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and has offered much steeper cuts if other major emitting countries agree to an international deal.
The EU has also implemented a cap-and-trade system to curb emissions from power plants, factories and other facilities.
In the U.S., climate change legislation collapsed on Capitol Hill last year, while Environmental Protection Agency plans to craft greenhouse gas standards for power plants and refineries are under attack by Capitol Hill Republicans and some major industry groups.
EPA recently said it would delay the unveiling of proposed emissions standards for power plants that had been slated for Sept. 30. The agency maintains that it's committed to issuing the rules.
Internationally, hopes have faded — at least, for now — for a binding emissions-reduction treaty any time soon to replace the Kyoto Protocol, although the last two major United Nations summits have led to more modest agreements on deforestation, climate finance and other matters.
The next big U.N. climate summit will take place in Durban, South Africa, in late November. “In Durban we will attempt to lay out a plan with deadlines for when we will arrive at a legally binding agreement that includes both the U.S. and China,” Hedegaard said.
President Obama on Sunday attacked Perry (http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/183783-obama-knocks-perry-on-climate-change) on his climate views, drawing a counterattack (http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/183805-perry-camp-calls-obamas-climate-jab-outrageous) from the Texas governor's camp. The president also said it’s imperative that “our planet doesn’t reach a tipping point in terms of climate change.”

© 2011 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp.

[russtafa]

climate science is a lot of bull and the left loves to suck up this bull which is made up by the UN scamer's, the real problem is their are far to many people on this earth

[trish]

...the real problem is their are far to many people on this earthToo many people demanding oil and gas, burning it as fuel and releasing the anciently sequestered, infrared opaque carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, preventing heat radiation from escaping into space and fucking the the oceanic/atmospheric balance of energy and causing a global climate shift. Haven't you noticed whole bands of flora and fauna moving poleward?

Seems to me russtafa would like the UN to implement incentives for nations to downsize their populations. We should start with putting a limit on the number of children bigots are allowed to have.

[russtafa]

:rolleyes:yeah yeah i seriously doubt it

[Faldur]

Dr. Ivar Giaever knew the score, and got tired off all the bullshit.

In 2010, Giaever was quoted by the New York Times as saying global warming “can’t be discussed, just like religion.”

http://dougsworld.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/popeal.jpg?w=600&h=399

[trish]

Well Ivar (a one time quantum engineer, not a climate scientist) doesn't know what he's talking about because there are thousands discussions going on every day in refereed scientific journals. Poor Ivar just isn't holding his own in the tough and tumble of evidence-based discussion on climate. Not only is there discussion in scientific journals, but even the supposedly liberal New York Times by your own account interviewed Ivar and gave him a forum for his views. So what the fuck are you and he whining about??

[Ben]

climate science is a lot of bull and the left loves to suck up this bull which is made up by the UN scamer's, the real problem is their are far to many people on this earth

Per capita consumption is the problem. I mean, the U.S. uses 25 percent of the world's energy resources.
It's a simple law of physics and chemistry: we can't have infinite growth on a finite planet. It can't happen. It's impossible.
In the 1960s U.S. tobacco firms commissioned their own studies and found that cigarette smoking was indeed addictive and harmful. But decided to obfuscate or conceal these facts from the public.
Same with climate change. In the 1990s the energy companies commissioned their own studies and found that climate change is real and is extremely serious.
I mean, the one's that want to conceal the truth about climate change are the oil companies because they stand to benefit.
Again, I find it astounding that people are rejecting science.
And, too, the interesting thing about belief is, well, everyone can believe what they want. One can believe the moon is made out of cheese. One would be wrong. But one can believe that.
I mean, 98 percent of climate scientists are saying it's real and very serious. How can we simply dismiss science?
I mean, what if Einstein were a climate scientist today. Would we all just dismiss him as being wrong and idiotic and involved in some conspiracy ??? -- ha ha! :)

[russtafa]

science can be brought and that has already happened and you can write your own conclusion if you have enough money

[trish]

Yes, science can and should be brought to bear on the problem of global climatic energy imbalance. And NO, science cannot be bought. See http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showpost.php?p=999064&postcount=162

[hippifried]

Oh ye of little faith...

We can fix all of this by just sacrificing a few virgins to the volcano gods.

[russtafa]

science can be bought when these scientists are given grants and the ones that don't agree don't get their papers published or not given grants,it's that easy especially when the UN is sponsoring this scam

[Stavros]

Russtafa I think you are approaching this issue from the side entrance -there is a growing 'market' in carbon trading and the prospect of money being raised as a carbon tax is making the eyes of some bankers and politicians roll with dollar signs like in a cartoon from years ago, but remember what the real purpose of these processes intends to achieve.

Global warming is scientific fact, and it is going to affect the planet over the next milenium: the precise details get lost in the various micro-climates which mean that for example, Scotland will have a different experience from Spain, but the fundamentals are not in doubt.

The critics who say we have always had climate change, ignore the key point -not that we have had Tropical Britain and a Little Ice Age since 1066 so what is all the fuss about -but yes, in terms of the history of the planet global warming is a localised event in time- problem is, we are living through it. The planet may have been warming without modern industry, but carbon emissions since the industrial revolution are one of the main causes of its acceleration.

And this is the key point about carbon tax and trading: it is not a scheme designed to make more money for bankers, it is supposed to go to the root of the problem and persuade industry that its long term costs will be reduced if they reduce emissions from their business; with benefits to society as a whole. The long term aim is to reduce emissions. You could be cynical and argue that if the world is running out of carbon-based energy sources like oil and gas, what's another 100 years? We will run out of it anyway, and I will be dead. But what will the quality of life be like for those who remain?

You then have a moral choice: to make a judgement about what the right thing is to do. An analogy would be the arguments over lead in petrol that flared in the 1970s -by that time lead had been used in petrol/gasoline for years to deal with 'knocking' in engines that caused wear and tear: but was also damaging people's health. Some said reducing and eliminating lead in petrol would crash the car industry: it didn't: lead was removed from gasoline and cars are now cleaner than ever before but still emit carbon which is an additional problem: but it can all be solved, and the short terms costs have been offset by long term profits. Same with clean air legislation that has transformed major cities from brown-orange balloons into urban environments where you can see the sky is blue (not the case in Beijing or Shanghai these days, esp around 3pm).

A new energy mix is already part of the energy profiles of Brazil and Germany. France invested heavily in nuclear power in the 1970s and now most domestic energy is generated fom nuclear sources and their prices are cheaper than the UK. Nuclear has its critics, for obvious reasons -but there is no single solution. You can run a home on solar power, but not Los Angeles: the future will not be as simple as it is today. Coal remains a common source of energy, particularly in China, but is expensive and inefficient to produce, and a heavy emitter of carbon.

Unfortunately, as I said at the beginning, money rather than the feasible alternatives to oil and gas, are driving this debate, and squabbles over the international agreements and who should pay or not pay or how much. We can plan now to gradually phase in alternative energies as oil and gas declines, or you can whistle in the wind and pretend its not happening; to me its what the Americans call a no brainer; choose the whistling option and you end up without a world, never mind a fried brain.

[russtafa]

i look at it as a very high tax that our government admits will keep rising every year and which our supermarkets ,bottle shops,transport,hospitals will pass on to the public and most people wonder why when we contribute less than one percent of emissions of this planet but have to wear the brunt of this idiocy and we produce very cheap coal and of high quality and are one of the biggest exporters of coal .as for global warming i doubt it when i see no proof of this con job

[Faldur]

And NO, science cannot be bought.

Oh no the "science" or "preaching" if you prefer of man made climate change is always solid. NO one is twisting the results to sway their theology.

The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World showing an alarming 15% reduction of the Greenland ice shelf. Holy Crap!!! Oh wait, lets look at the facts. Reality is that less than 0.1% of the shelf has receded. Another example of the religious belief that is man made global warming. Your science was bought a long time ago..

[muh_muh]

you can really tell their criticism comes from a long career in science and the associated experience with how scientific work... works

[Faldur]

you can really tell their criticism comes from a long career in science and the associated experience with how scientific work... works

Ouch that really hurt muh_muh. Ya and I can't tell when I'm sick either because I'm not a doctor, nor eat any of my own prepared food because I'm not a chief, forget about doing my own taxes goodness I'm not an accountant. I'm not a rocket scientist either, but I know the sky isn't falling, and the odds that the moon are going to collide with the earth are pretty slim.

[muh_muh]

theres a difference between seeing the obvious and understanding one of the more complex sciences
especially when youre blocking yourself through a filter of equal parts stupidity and ideology

also my point was that clearly neither of you understand how science and procuring grants works but im not the least bit surprised you didnt get that

[trish]

Idiots have been known to poison themselves by taking homemade cures for psychosomatic ailments they didn't have. And a lot of would be chefs poisoned themselves and their guests because they just weren't conversant in the proper protocols for food preparation.

[russtafa]

Lord Christopher Monckton seems to know what he is talking about he will debate any pro warming scientist that cares to debate him

[hippifried]

Monckton is just a professional contrarian.

[russtafa]

Monckton is just a professional contrarian.

what the fuck hippie:confused:

[Faldur]

what the fuck hippie:confused:

He is referencing the "potty peer" Christopher Monckton.

[russtafa]

he seemed coherent to me

[trish]

he seemed coherent to meAnd your area of scientific expertise is...?

[Stavros]

Christopher Monckton is the son of the 2nd Viscount of Brenchley which means he can claim to be the 3rd, but at the time of his father's death Parliament had passed a law abolishing hereditary peerages so he is not entitled to sit in the House of Lords, he cannot vote, and the Lords have protested at Monckton's claims which he in turn says are granted by the Queen as a personal favour. In fact, there is nothing in English law to prevent anyone from claiming an honorific title, with the exception that if say, Russtafa wants to call himself Dr Russtafa Sydney, he should make it clear that he is not a medical doctor and that he has no legal right to practice as a doctor. He might not have a PhD either, but if he changes his name by deed poll, he could be Doctor, Professor, or Lord Russtafa of King's Cross.

Moncton read classics at Cambridge, and became associated in the 1970s with the nucleus of the Centre Policy Studies which Keith Joseph ('the Mad Monk') set up as a direct challenge to the Conservative Party Research Department, and which developed the anti-Keynesian, pro-monetarist-Hayeki-Miseresian slash and burn ideology that was the foundation of Margaret Thatcher's success -he was in her Downing St poliy unit by 1982.

He is politically to the right but certainly at the start did not deny the human element in global warming, but has consistently claimed the consequences will not be as dire and that any new taxes are anathema. He has moved further to the right by becoming a prominent member of the United Kingdom Independence Party. UKIP argue that all of Britain's woes are caused by multiculturalism, immigration, and our memberhsip of Europe even though its leader Nigel Farage is married to a German and is the only elected UKIP member, sitting in, you guessed it, the European Parliament.

I once had a ridiculous exchange of views with a UKIP die hard on the usual issues and eventually got him to admit Britain had really started to go downhill as a consequence of the Roman invasion, even though Julius Caesar is not normally cited as the villain. I have little time for Budicaa of the Iceni, and much as I like forests and the colour blue, I don't intend to spend my sunset years running around Sherwood Forest wearing nothing but blue paint in search of a wild pig or some berries for my supper -luckily most of the British electorate doesn't want to either.

The point being that a lot of this so-called debate isn't actually about the climate, or the causes and effects of global warming: its about taxes, government, and who makes policy -by the time that governments come to a universal agreement, we could all be toast.

[russtafa]

And your area of scientific expertise is...?
i have a brain and can think for myself same as you i presume

[muh_muh]

And your area of scientific expertise is...?

he saw a universtity from the inside... once

[Faldur]

he saw a universtity from the inside... once

He knew someone who paid taxes.. once

[russtafa]

he saw a universtity from the inside... once
same as most people on this site with an opinion

[trish]

Don't make fun of russtafa, he had actually had a thought...once; but it turned out to be somebody else's thought, and it was wrong.

[russtafa]

Don't make fun of russtafa, he had actually had a thought...once; but it turned out to be somebody else's thought, and it was wrong.
so say's miss know it all:dead:

[Ben]

Watching the Arctic melt, I realise apathy must be frozen out

by Laurie Penny (http://www.newstatesman.com/writers/laurie_penny) - 24 September 2011

We can choose abject complicity, or we can decide that it's not too late to build a better world.
http://images.newstatesman.com/articles/2011//20110924_arctic_w.jpg The Fjord of Ilulissat in Greenland, which has lost 1,500 billion tonnes of ice since 2000, Photograph: Getty Images

There's nothing like a glacier crumbling into the sea in front of your eyes to remind you that climate change is more than an abstract reason to recycle egg boxes and wine bottles.
Right now, I'm writing from a small ship's cabin in one of the most isolated, desolate places on earth: the northern tip of Svalbard in the high Arctic, where I have come on an expedition, part of the point of which was to see what I've just seen. Which was a shelf of translucent blue ice the height of a house falling into the water like wet cake.
It's not that I didn't believe in climate change before this. On the contrary: I am of the background and generation that grew up in the mid-1990s with the notion of environmental destruction as an inevitability.
I was raised on the animation FernGully: the Last Rainforest and traumatic colouring books full of sad baby seals and herons choking on plastic bags. This gentle indoctrination was supposed to motivate us to grow up and save the planet, but by the time we were old enough to object, the forests were disappearing and the oilfields burning fast enough for it all to seem too late.
I now realise that, even before the Copenhagen Summit 2009 put paid to the prospect of a green international deal, I had decided that there was nothing I could do. At some point, I decided that my special fight was simply to make sure, to the best of my limited ability, that whatever society is left after the floodwaters settle is as fair and free as possible. I have this luxury, of course, because I grew up in a hilly place in England and my house is not going to be underwater for a while yet.
This, for the generation that grew up after the collapse of communism, is the way the world ends: not with a bang, but a bonfire. When I tried to explain the sense of finality to a friend who is old enough to have collected vinyl records before they were niche, he laughed at me. "Don't talk to me about Armageddon," he said, "when I was your age, we had the bomb to worry about."
The bomb, however, was a very different apocalypse from the inevitable, collective entropy of climate change and it demands an entirely different sort of complicity.
The greatest threat to the future of humanity is now not political brinkmanship, but paranoid indifference: the certainty that the future is both finite and short and that all we can do is burn what little of the remaining money we have and hope civilisation outlasts us.
This is a terribly foolish way to live. The anarchist thinker David Graeber writes in Debt: the First 5,000 Years that in response to the blinding obviousness of economic and ecological world buggeration, "the most common reaction - even from those who call themselves 'progressives' - is simply fear. We can no longer imagine an alternative that wouldn't be even worse." Graeber adds: "About the only thing we can imagine is catastrophe."
There is a bitter paradox to this apathetic fatalism that somehow incorporates its own denial. The abstract enormity of climate change and economic meltdown encourages a sort of helpless liberal Calvinism, complete with little rituals of composting orange peel and purchasing sustainable lingerie, as if such devotions might somehow spare us . Which, in a way, they will - if we are lucky enough to live in the cosseted bourgeois west, where you have to be flown out to witness a melting glacier to appreciate the cold reality.
Of course, many millions of people don't need to be told that burning half a trillion tonnes of fossil fuels has had some dodgy consequences for humanity.
At the same time as I'm on a boat watching the Arctic ice-shelf contribute theatrically to rising global sea-levels, hundreds have died in flooding in Pakistan, and over five million have been affected.
There comes a point when you have to make a choice. When a colossal wall of thousand-year-old-ice explodes right in front of you, with a noise like a very large bomb falling very far away, and you feel the chill sting of spray on your face as the ice is eaten away by human greed, you realise that a choice is still possible.
We can choose abject complicity, or we can decide that it's not too late to build a better world. My boots are still wet, so I'm for the latter.

[Stavros]

The Arctic is going to be the focus of intense political battles over the next 10 years, although I suspect the protagonists will not be the Arctic states, but those states and environmental activists in Greenpeace and similar bodies. The Arctic region's first nations have already had their lives turned upside down and inside out, the region is amongst the dirtiest per sq km in the world because for decades it was used as a global rubbish dump, a nuclear weapons testing site, and those vanity projects when some jaded sportsman or out of work comedian take a dog sled to the North Pole along with a camcorder. As for Pakistan, if they had a superior water management system than they have today, they could harness the power of water and control it, instead of being at its mercy -there are solutions to everything, there is no need for this cultural despair in the face of crumbling icebergs.

[russtafa]

:dead:fuck i will have to tell my ex to sell her waterfront property to me extra cheap lol

[Prospero]

Yeah why not take a nap on the beach in the Maldives Russtafa - by way of offering some scientific verification of your lunatic arguments

[russtafa]

:dancing:better to buy all the mansions around the harbour .with your lunatic arguments i will be a very rich man in Atlantis

[russtafa]

:dead-1:Look,look the water is coming in!Look,look the water is going out.Don't they call that a tide?

[trish]

No, that's not the tide; it's your investment washing out to sea! lol

[Stavros]

My late mother used to live in Atlantis, but that was a long, long time ago.

[russtafa]

No, that's not the tide; it's your investment washing out to sea! lol
wow easy come ,easy go that's the tide for you :)not climate change

[Prospero]

Stavros - you must be a very, very ancient greek

[Prospero]

Russtafa... could you change your onscreen name to Nero

[Stavros]

Stavros - you must be a very, very ancient greek

? I don't get it -a) in her most recent incarnation, mother was born in Lambeth; b) in her previous incarnations, Ancient Egypt, and Atlantis -neither of which were Greek; more specifically, they were not Lambeth either. There is a link there somewhere, it took me decades to work out what it was she was talking about. As to my previous incarnations, I have a theory about it...but...
We are all affected by climate change one way or the other...

[Faldur]

I experienced climate change one time... We flew out of a cold Seattle and landed in Maui, whew this is some serial stuff.

[Stavros]

Sorry Faldur, this thread is about a change of climate, not a change of clothes, even if you do look swell in a Lei and shorts...I was in Seattle once -it was on my itinerary and I am a devotee of The Parallax View- but oh dear, once you have been up the space needle, it is awfully dull -but thats before Amanda K was born...

[russtafa]

:dead:i believe in climate change it's even have divided into four seasons a year on the calendar ,spring,summer ,autumn ,winter

[trish]

Now russtafa, you're being an idiot. The change of seasons is not a change in climate and indeed a stable climate would display the periodic seasonal fluctuations that accompany the relative tilt of the Earth with respect to the Sun as it orbits the same.

The present climate shift is due to the energy imbalance caused by a relatively constant mean input of solar energy but a diminishing capacity to radiate energy away into space due to the increasing volume of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. One effect in the Northern Hemisphere is a northward shift of flora and fauna. Another is the melting of the Arctic Ice Cap.

This is not the first time the overabundance of a biological family created a massive atmospheric change. Before the evolution of photosynthesis the atmosphere has just about zero oxygen. Oxygen breathers wouldn't have survived. The oxygen now in the atmosphere was dumped there by oxygen producing plants.

[russtafa]

Now russtafa, you're being an idiot. The change of seasons is not a change in climate and indeed a stable climate would display the periodic seasonal fluctuations that accompany the relative tilt of the Earth with respect to the Sun as it orbits the same.

The present climate shift is due to the energy imbalance caused by a relatively constant mean input of solar energy but a diminishing capacity to radiate energy away into space due to the increasing volume of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. One effect in the Northern Hemisphere is a northward shift of flora and fauna. Another is the melting of the Arctic Ice Cap.

This is not the first time the overabundance of a biological family created a massive atmospheric change. Before the evolution of photosynthesis the atmosphere has just about zero oxygen. Oxygen breathers wouldn't have survived. The oxygen now in the atmosphere was dumped there by oxygen producing plants.
yeah, yeah, yeah,when i see all the rich folks selling up along the harbour i will know its real and not a scam

[Prospero]

Well ignoring the words of blithering fools here, my response to the initial question here is YES. Unless we do something. James Lovelock of the Gaia principle believes it is already too late.

[russtafa]

Well ignoring the words of blithering fools here, my response to the initial question here is YES. Unless we do something. James Lovelock of the Gaia principle believes it is already too late.
yes so why should they pay any attention to you :dead:

[russtafa]

Gaia principle is that hippies and rolling joints and beat the establishment maaaaaan lol

[Prospero]

The fools response. In the face of vast scientific evidence. Yep guys - it is, of course, all a vast conspiracy.

[russtafa]

The fools response. In the face of vast scientific evidence. Yep guys - it is, of course, all a vast conspiracy.

yep a fools response but some idiots will always buy magic beans

[trish]

yep a fools response but some idiots will always buy magic beansExactly. There's science and then there's "magic." There's intellectual integrity and there are lies. The wonderful (and truly incredible) news that we can burn all the fossil fuel and release all the long sequestered carbon dioxide we want without disrupting the dynamic thermal equilibrium of the atmosphere is the bag of beans being sold to you by the big oil corporations. Follow the really big money.

[Faldur]

Follow the really big money.

Yup, and keep your eye on who receives money for carbon credits.

Hey Stav, you know how you tell when its summer in Seattle? ... The rain gets warmer..

[trish]

Yup, and keep your eye on who receives money for carbon credits.

Hey Stav, you know how you tell when its summer in Seattle? ... The rain gets warmer..It will be corporations and businesses, not climate scientists, I assure you.

[Faldur]

It will be corporations and businesses, not climate scientists, I assure you.


Ahh.. So Al Gore.. ok got it

[Prospero]

Yup, and keep your eye on who receives money for carbon credits.

Hey Stav, you know how you tell when its summer in Seattle? ... The rain gets warmer..


Funny someone said that to me at a bustop in Manchester onetime. The rain capital of the UK.

[Stavros]

Hey Stav, you know how you tell when its summer in Seattle? ... The rain gets warmer..

It's not the warm rain you should be worried about, Mr Faldur, its the hard rain that's gonna fall...they have warm rain in Singapore, I was ok with that. But San Francisco? That's a whole other type a rain....but the view from the space needle over Puget Sound, one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Shame to lose it.

[Faldur]

Shame to lose it.

Curious, how are we going to lose it?

[robertlouis]

Funny someone said that to me at a bustop in Manchester onetime. The rain capital of the UK.

Often said in Scotland too, Prospero. There's a variation in Cornwall where they say that in summer at least the rain is vertical....

I have a vision of the climate change deniers still pouring scorn on the great conspiracy as the rising waters finally close over their heads.

I go walking in the Alps every other year, and can say from the evidence of my own eyes that the rate at which glaciers are disappearing is frightening, What were formidable ice sheets just 15 years or so ago are now just scraps in a muddy landscape. And what is the main carbon deposit up there in these 3,000m mountains? Diesel from cars and industrial applications.

The Alps have a delicately balanced climate and ecology, but they also have a profound effect and act as a control valve of sorts on the relatively benign weather of much of the western European landmass. As the glaciers continue to erode, the airflow that passes over the alps changes too, and if it continues at the present rate, the glorious high alpine scenery and way of life will go first, but the impact on agriculture in northern Italy, southern Germany, the midi in France and Austria will be immense. Wine yields and other crops are already down and the region has had worse flooding, again of arable land, in the last ten years than in the previous hundred.

I'm no scientist, haven't read much on the subject, but I believe the evidence of my own eyes. It may be too late already.

[russtafa]

Often said in Scotland too, Prospero. There's a variation in Cornwall where they say that in summer at least the rain is vertical....

I have a vision of the climate change deniers still pouring scorn on the great conspiracy as the rising waters finally close over their heads.

I go walking in the Alps every other year, and can say from the evidence of my own eyes that the rate at which glaciers are disappearing is frightening, What were formidable ice sheets just 15 years or so ago are now just scraps in a muddy landscape. And what is the main carbon deposit up there in these 3,000m mountains? Diesel from cars and industrial applications.

The Alps have a delicately balanced climate and ecology, but they also have a profound effect and act as a control valve of sorts on the relatively benign weather of much of the western European landmass. As the glaciers continue to erode, the airflow that passes over the alps changes too, and if it continues at the present rate, the glorious high alpine scenery and way of life will go first, but the impact on agriculture in northern Italy, southern Germany, the midi in France and Austria will be immense. Wine yields and other crops are already down and the region has had worse flooding, again of arable land, in the last ten years than in the previous hundred.

I'm no scientist, haven't read much on the subject, but I believe the evidence of my own eyes. It may be too late already.

gurgle,gurgle the water is over my head a polar bear just floated by:dead:

[Stavros]

The science of cimate change was born in the Alps with John Tyndall's observations of glaciers in the mid-19th century...

[robertlouis]

gurgle,gurgle the water is over my head a polar bear just floated by:dead:

Sometimes it isn't worth the effort of replying, but I've done it anyway. :dead:

[russtafa]

climate change is good for a laugh

[Prospero]

....If you enjoy graveyard humour.

[russtafa]

good for you can i sell you some magical climate change beans

[trish]

Science is the opposite of magic. It is you, russtafa who bought the magic beans; and judging by your inane belching they have given you a bad case of gas.

[russtafa]

Science is the opposite of magic. It is you, russtafa who bought the magic beans; and judging by your inane belching they have given you a bad case of gas.
yeah Trish that's why all the rich people are selling their mansions on the coast and running for higher ground .if they don't believe this shit i cant see any reason to believe these fairy tales.This stuff is a UN scam to suck the morons in and nobody has brought it:rolleyes:

[Prospero]

Russtafa... do you sincerely believe this? About the UN? Do you think the UN then is a sinister organisation out to control the world? I am asking in this in all sincererity? Where is your evidence for this vast conspiracy?

[russtafa]

yes i do that's why the Al Queda bombed the UN building in Bagdad because they thought it was a threat and so do i

[Prospero]

ahhhh so you're a member of al Queda... their primitive medievalism and yours are a fine match

[Faldur]

Russtafa... do you sincerely believe this? About the UN? Do you think the UN then is a sinister organisation out to control the world? I am asking in this in all sincererity? Where is your evidence for this vast conspiracy?

Not sure I would use the word sinister, but the UN would like nothing more than a world wide tax that comes through their coffers.

[russtafa]

ahhhh so you're a member of al Queda... their primitive medievalism and yours are a fine match
the UN would love nothing better than a world government

[BluegrassCat]

Not sure I would use the word sinister, but the UN would like nothing more than a world wide tax that comes through their coffers.

I would also like a worldwide tax to come through my coffer. Doesn't mean it's gonna happen.

[trish]

Has the UN ever proposed a tax, or even assigned a subcommittee to look into the possibility of formulating such a proposal? How do you know the UN has no dearer desire than to levy a tax on its membership?

McCain has eight homes and his wealth is not even in the same class as that of the Koch brothers. How many of McCain's homes are on the ocean? If you had the money the Koch brothers have, you'd could have a dozen homes and still have billions of dollars to burn. Why not have one or two or three on the ocean. Hey, when you got money you can live for the day. Nevertheless, I'd wager way more than 3/5 of the homes of the super rich are above the flood zones predicted by the current global warming models.

[Faldur]

What Senator McCain has as possessions is his, as long as he obtained them in a legal manner. Your "things and stuff" envy is embarrising. If you want 8 homes on the sea you live in America get your ass out there and earn them, and quit sitting around bitching that everyone else has more than you.

Ever hear of a guy named Steve Jobs? Try following his example..

[trish]

Did I disparage McCain in this last post? Did I disparage the rich? Then show me where. The point of the post is if you're super rich you can afford the risk of having a couple of ocean side homes and a few more on less risky ground and still have most of one's worth in stocks, bonds and maybe bullion:). Gee, either you're kinda touchy or your diversionary tactic just backfired.

[muh_muh]

Ever hear of a guy named Steve Jobs? Try following his example..

unlike steve her claiming shes sterile and couldnt have fathered a daughter to dodge paying child support would be credible

[Ben]

What Senator McCain has as possessions is his, as long as he obtained them in a legal manner. Your "things and stuff" envy is embarrising. If you want 8 homes on the sea you live in America get your ass out there and earn them, and quit sitting around bitching that everyone else has more than you.

Ever hear of a guy named Steve Jobs? Try following his example..

Acquiring inordinate riches is very rational. It's rational self interest. I mean, why should I care if the old woman down the street doesn't have enough to eat. Ain't my problem. Or the old guy down the street doesn't have health care. Who cares. (I, of course, am being somewhat flippant. But it is rational to pursue riches. And we live in a culture that places undue emphasis on greed. But we omit the fact that we live on a finite planet. We cannot continue to grow forever. It's physically impossible. So, if we continue to pursue policies of growth, well, at some point the ecosystem will crash. It's inevitable. It might be in 100 years -- or whenever. But it will happen.
But, of course, under the principle of greed future generations have absolutely no meaning. I mean, take, say, oil. We're going to use as much as we can. Now! And leave as little as we can for future generations. Well, who cares. Ain't our problem.
It's the greed aspect. I mean, there's no concern at all with, say, conserving oil use for, well, future generations. So, future generations can have oil, as it were. I happen to think we should move toward alternative energy, cleaner energy.)

The YT clip below explicates externalities:

THE CORPORATION [4/23] Externalities - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCGTD5Bn1m0)

[Prospero]

The UN can hardly ever agree on anything (when it comes to effective interventions someone invariably vetoes things at the security council. This week it was any condemnation of murder by the Syrian government). it has never espoused the idea of taxes and as for a world government - that's just a joke Russtafa. Are you still reading your marvel comics for info? You guys crack me up.

[russtafa]

the amount of shit they have put on Israel is joke

[russtafa]

the UN is like a boa constrictor slowly strangling the world

[trish]

The UN is hardly the world's government. It is not a state. It has no sovereignty, no currency, it can't wage war, it can't levy taxes, it can't even make it's member states pay their dues. If one insists on calling it world government, then it's the smallest, loosest, most minimal sort of government a world could have. It's a tea-bagger's ideal.