Report on economic impact of climate change by ex-cheif economist of WB [Archive]

xrayzebra

10-30-2006, 09:28 PM

Here my friend is why their is so much fuss being made
about "global warming". It is another way to tax people
and countries and give to the have nots. Global Warming
is a farce. It is a movement that is socialist in nature.
Anyhow, it wasn't that long ago they were talking about
an ice age. Anyhow. Read away. Aussie Land cant
be far behind their Mother nation. Great Britain.

The Times October 31, 2006

Green tax on holidays and food splits Labour
By Gary Duncan, Economics Editor and Philip Webster, Political Editor
CONSUMERS could be hit by steep price rises for a range of goods from food to hotel breaks under plans to tackle climate change being considered by David Miliband.

The Environment Secretary is consulting taking sweeping powers to extend curbs on greenhouse gas emissions so that they cover many more businesses, including supermarkets and hotel chains — curbs that at present apply only to the big industrial users. The costs incurred are potentially huge and are likely to be passed on to the consumer.

The proposal to take “enabling powers” to extend the carbon-trading scheme to other sectors will be taken in the new Climate Change Bill, Mr Miliband confirmed yesterday.

But amid signs of a government split on how to respond to Sir Nicholas Stern’s report on the impact of global warming, Gordon Brown is to reject Cabinet calls for swingeing tax rises on motorists and domestic consumers, The Times has learnt.

Airline passengers and drivers of large “gas-guzzling” vehicles will bear the brunt of green tax levies, to be introduced by the Chancellor in his last Budget in March. But Mr Brown is opposed strongly to measures that would allow petrol prices to rise even when the world price of oil slumped, as proposed in a leaked letter to him from Mr Miliband.

The disclosure over the weekend of Mr Miliband’s “wish list” of taxation measures angered the Treasury and sources were blaming “rogue elements” in No 10 yesterday for its appearance over the weekend. Mr Brown was said to be upset because the leak focused attention on speculation about tax rises rather than on the central message of Sir Nicholas’s report; that if the world took concerted action on global warming growth need not be affected.

Allies of the Chancellor described the leak as an attempt to put pressure on Mr Brown and to test his modernising credentials.

When they appeared with Sir Nicholas at the launch of his report yesterday both Mr Brown and Tony Blair emphasised the importance of international action - rather than domestic taxes - to reduce carbon emissions. Mr Brown made it plain that he was pinning his hopes on a massive expansion of the carbon trading scheme, by which governments aim to reduce pollution through market mechanisms.

He suggested that the scheme, under which firms have to buy credits to emit more than a set level of greenhouse gases, should be extended by linking it with others in California, Australia, Japan and elsewhere.

The Climate Change Bill will enshrine in law the Government’s long-term aim of reducing carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. Thousands of organisations, from supermarket groups to hotel chains, are not covered by EU schemes limiting carbon emissions. The “enabling powers” would allow ministers to extend these curbs at will across the rest of Britain’s businesses — with potentially huge cost consequences. Many companies that broke possible limits on their emissions and were forced to buy “carbon credits” would be likely to pass on costs to the consumer.

The Environment Department confirmed that the powers could be used to extend curbs to “non-energy intensive” sectors. It said in the summer that measures for businesses not covered by the EU trading scheme, and which account for a tenth of Britain’s greenhouse gases, could bring carbon savings of 1.2 million tonnes a year by 2020.

David Frost, the head of the British Chambers of Commerce, said that the measures would amount to “stealth tax” in which “business becomes the villain”.

++++===++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I read a piece earlier today that said it would cost
the average English family about 1300 pounds a
year. That is a whopping tax.

boutons_

10-30-2006, 09:37 PM

dubya will respond like he did in Aug 01 when told of chatter of attacks on US soil:

"thanks for your warning, you've covered your ass"

:lol

RuffnReadyOzStyle

10-30-2006, 11:19 PM

xray, you are ignorant. You have no idea about the science that has proven anthropogenic global warming, nor the possible impacts. Read the science then talk to me. If you don't want to read the science, read the link above - a 700p report BY AN ECONOMIST (ex-World Bank Cheif Economist) on the seriousness of what we are facing.

This has nothing to do with socialism and everything to do with environmental catastrophe. At the moment we don't pay for the full costs of our energy and water consumption, but the days are long past where atmospheric pollution and water use were on a scale that had no effect on our environment. Do you have grandchildren? If you had read the science, you would be worried about the world we will be leaving them.

Where the hell does socialism come into this? There is a lot of money to be made in switching to a low emission economy! See, you don't know what you are talking about.

I really suggest you actually learn something before you spout off about this stuff, but then message boards are a breeding ground for ignorance, so carry on I guess...

Oh, and as for the UK taxes, I'd approach it differently. Drop income taxes progressively over the next decade to almost nothing, and at the same time increase consumption taxes in line with the energy and water that goes into manufacturing a product or service. Give people an incentive to save by taxing them directly on their consumption.

Couple that with globally capped CO2 emissions and a global carbon trading scheme - that would prevent absurd results like Brazilian ranchers burning down rainforest for pasture that lasts 3 yrs before it is exhausted and has no economic value, and producing 1000t CO2/Ha from the burning, while Europeans pay each other $15/t to reduce CO2. Under my scenario, the Europeans pay the Brazilians a carbon credit price for their land (in this case, about $15,000/ha) which they would otherwise be paying for carbon credits. The forest gets saved and placed in trust which prevents the CO2 emissions of burning it down, the locals get to improve their economic situation, and it doesn't cost the Europeans a dime more than it otherwise would.

Currently, burning of forests worldwide generates twice the CO2 emissions of cars and trucks!

And the cost of switching to a low-carbon economy? 1% of world GDP. I'll say it again, 1%. We can't afford 1% of world GDP to ameliorate a crisis that is changing the very climatic systems (and thus biogeography) of our world? Now THAT is false economy!

xrayzebra

10-31-2006, 09:59 AM

I am ignorant and you are so smart. Well tell you what: Read the following little
article by someone is is a hell of smarter than either of us in this matter. This is
just a little of what I have read. Maybe it is you that should pull you head out of
the sand and read both sides of the argument. Prof. Gray has spent much of his
life studying the climate. He isn't the only one who says what he says. But you
should know of him down under. It is a socialist movement, has been from the
beginning and their agenda is to take from the rich and give to the poor nations.
Otherwise, why impose a tax? Why not just come up with other solutions. No
we must have taxes.

We have a water problem here in San Antonio, Texas. Why, because the politicians
and environmentalist (socialist) insist that we do. We obtain our water from an
aquifer, that no one really knows how much water is contained in said
aquifer. But many years ago when the only pumps that were available could
pull water from a certain depth it became the bench mark for measuring the
depth of the aquifer. There is a spring fed source of water in a town north
of San Antonio that has some type of rice and minnow (artificially introduced
minnow) that they claim must be kept flowing. So at about the depth set by
a court and politicians, we must cut back on water usage. Never mind that in
years past this spring has gone dry and both of the above species has survived.
Another crisis that is no crisis. Read and learn.

Friday, October 20, 2006

HURRICANES AND CLIMATE CHANGE: ASSESSING THE LINKAGES FOLLOWING THE 2006 SEASON

By: Prof. William M. Gray

WHO AM I TO COMMENT?

I am a Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University where I have been employed since 1961. I have been performing meteorological research, teaching, and forecasting for the last 53 years. I have participated in many tropical field experiments over the last 50 years. These experiments were directed to the study of cumulus convection, condensation heating, evaporation cooling, sea-air energy-moisture exchange, hurricane formation, etc. These are topics of crucial importance to the physics of global temperature change. But they are not well understood by the human-induced global warming proponents. The incorrect handling of these moist processes is responsible for the major flaws in the human-induced global warming scenarios.

I hold MS and PhD degrees in meteorology and geophysical sciences from the University of Chicago. Few professors of atmospheric science have had a finer group of graduate students than I have over the last 40 years (50 MS graduates and 20 PhD graduates).

I am well known for my Atlantic basin seasonal hurricane forecasts of the last 23 years. Making public verified seasonal hurricane climate forecasts (2 to 6 times per year) for 23 years demonstrates, I believe, an in-depth knowledge of the atmosphere. My overall 53 years of experience in weather forecasting, atmospheric research, and teaching is, I believe, more than sufficient to justify the credibility of my comments on hurricanes and global warming. I am more than willing to discuss or debate with any of my critics provided there is an impartial moderator.

I have never had a grant from the fossil-fuel industry. I presently do not draw a salary. I live off of my retirement income. To support my small Colorado State University research project I presently have two quite modest research grants, one from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for hurricane research and the other from Lexington Insurance Company (Boston) for US hurricane landfall probability prediction.

My main motivation to continue my research is to help maintain the integrity of American science which, in my view, has been badly compromised by the global warming issue and now recently by the issue of global warming causing more frequent and more intense hurricanes. Having received federal support for my meteorological endeavors for over 50 years and having devoted my entire career to atmospheric science, I also feel I have an obligation to speak out on issues involving my expertise. I would feel guilty if I did not do so.

[...]

10. SUMMARY

It is irresponsible to claim that the scientific debate on global warming is settled. A true scientific debate on this topic has not yet taken place. The debate that has occurred has been conducted largely by the media, the environmentalists, and the scientists receiving federal grant support to supply evidence of human involvement in global temperature rise. Most warming skeptics have been purposely ignored. Federal research funding for scientists skeptical of the human-induced global warming hypothesis has not been available.

Human-induced global warming scenarios have been in the headlines since the hot summer of 1988. These scenarios have been grossly exaggerated by a broad spectrum of scientists who know little about the processes of the atmospheric- hydrologic cycle and how the globe's atmosphere and oceans function in unison. It has been to their careers advantage to exaggerate human-induced global warming. They have received notoriety, career advancement, and research grants from their warming exaggerations.

Many of my older colleagues and I, who have invested decades of our lives in the study of how the atmosphere functions, have been appalled by the many alarmist statements issued by high-ranking government officials and prominent scientists who have little real understanding of how the atmosphere and ocean function. Their views have been shaped by selective sources, in particular the environmentalists and the large GCM groups, who have a vested interest in promoting the warming threat.

It is surprising that more experienced meteorologists and oceanographers have not spoken out about the reliability of the general circulation model simulations and the overly simplified arguments of the warming advocates. This may be partly due to the mild form of McCarthyism that has developed toward those scientists who do not agree that human-induced global warming is a great threat to society. Those holding contrary views have often been smeared as tools of the fossil-fuel industry, as if those warming advocates receiving large federal grants or grants from environmental groups were not also tools of the federal government or the environmental lobbyists. Our country has far more serious problems to worry about than human-induced global warming. Figure 17 shows the cover of Time Magazine almost 30 years ago when the majority of meteorologists and world governments were worried about and predicted a coming ice-age.

APPENDIX

How Did We Get Into This Warming Hysteria?

We will probably have to wait a few decades for history to fully explain to us what really has been going on during the last 15-20 years and how human induced global warming was thrust before the world as such a major threat. How was it possible to 'brainwash' so many scientists, government officials, the general public, etc.? We likely can't put all the pieces together right now, but we already know enough to speculate on some of the reasons which are listed below in no particular order:

1. The winding down of the cold war and the perceived need to generate a new common enemy so as to keep the public willing to continue to support the large science efforts typical of our prior perceived need to keep ahead of the Soviets.

2. The banding together of an international group of sagacious government leaders, scientists, environmentalists, etc. who wanted a science-based political cause to unite behind. Global warming was an ideal vehicle for their desire to organize, propagandize, force conformity, and exercise political influence. Big world government could best lead (and control) us to a better world!

3. Natural causes of global climate change are not well understood. Who would be able to say with confidence that global warming was not human induced if you had no other physical mechanism to blame it on? Of course, many examples of temperature increase are going to be found during any warming trend. There has been a selective emphasis on observations of warming and a glossing over of data that shows no temperature change or cooling. The ignorance of other past historic events (Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age trends) and the many paleo-global warming-cooling events has also contributed.

4. The grant money desires of a broad spectrum of agriculturists, biologists, environmentalists, disease specialists, sociologists, weather and climate types, etc. New research missions to justify grant support needed to be found. The dangling of research funds is a powerful persuader. It didn't matter much if the globe warmed or not. What was necessary was to know what would happen if it did. Who among us would be stupid enough to criticize this 'need to know' if we could get grant support to study it.

5. The media's desire to profit from controversy of any type at the expense of critical evaluation. For instance, the surrender of media judgment by mouthing the verbatim views of almost any credentialed scientist out for notoriety, grant money, or who has a selective warming observation to show off. It makes for good press. Opposite examples of no climate change or cooling doesn't make news. Why discuss these examples?

6. It is interesting to note that most of the primary players in the international global warming crusade are credible and experienced scientists with well deserved reputations. Most of them, however, have had limited or no experience with real weather and climate studies and weather forecasting. They are being asked to make technical decisions on topics for which they have little or no background. They tend to believe what a selective set of politically motivated scientists tell them. But how are Nobel Prize winners in physics, chemistry, or medicine (as brilliant as they might be) able to make scientifically sensible statements on the possible association of rising level of CO2 and global warming? They are just responding to the similar upward-slope of these two curves.

7. The universally recognized momentous contributions to society of the computer and the growing belief that almost everything coming out of a computer is numerically correct and valid. But computer output is only as good as input, and most of the GCM modelers have not put all the right things in. Computers only allow for a bad model to be precisely wrong!

8. The last 40 years of continuous improvement in initial value global numerical weather prediction out to 5-10 days. This has been a great success story. It has led to the false belief among many scientists (most of whom are without forecast experience) that this same approach could be extended to the longer climate periods.

9. The great technical achievements in the computer industry led to the encouragement of never before held beliefs that skillful numerical climate models could actually be constructed that would be able to deal with the gross complexity and infinite chaos of the climate system. All you needed was bigger and better computers.

10. The lack of understanding of the complicated physics of the cumulus convection process of the tropics and higher latitudes. This led to the naive assumption that climate modelers would be able to 'hop-scotch' over the sub-grid scale parameterization problems in their models and get results which had validity. They were wrong. Cumulus convection was too complex of a problem for GCMs to face up too. Right or wrong, the GCMs proceeded forward with their output runs not knowing how to deal with the sub-grid scales. They, of course, would obtain the inevitable global warming output that they wanted. And this created a stir that led to favorable publicity and continued grant support. After awhile the GCMers had gone too far to turn back. They were now too committed to global warming to worry about their sub-grid scale parameterization problems. Retreat was unthinkable. Global warming had to be the answer at least until their retirement.

11. The take-up of the global warming cause by so many celebrities to demonstrate their social consciousness. Global warming was an 'IN' and fashionable cause among the elite. That they had absolutely no technical background to make such judgments did not matter.

12. The overall 'quietude' of the meteorological community - many of whom knew better. We are scientists and should be above all this media-hype and controversial political in-fighting? To paraphrase John Burke, "All that was required for the triumph of human-induced global warming was that a substantial number of those meteorologists who knew better said nothing."

George Gervin's Afro

10-31-2006, 10:06 AM

People like Ray and current day GOP will be ridiculed by future generations because of their ignorance. The argument that these folks put is foward is very simple. They acknowledge that the earth is warming but they claim it cannot be 100% proven to be attributed to human activities. So their response: DO NOTHING

xrayzebra

10-31-2006, 10:26 AM

Sec24Row7

10-31-2006, 10:38 AM

I'm sure humans caused all the previous climate changes in the last million years too...

George Gervin's Afro

10-31-2006, 10:45 AM

I'm sure humans caused all the previous climate changes in the last million years too...

well that's just stupid and simplistic. Another hush bimbo taliking point. We may not have been the cause in prior generations but we sure as hell are speeding up the process..is that a problem that you and ray can understand?

George Gervin's Afro

10-31-2006, 10:47 AM

^^How do you, are you superior to Prof Gray? How many years experience do you
have in studying the climate? Oh, I know. Gore told you all you need to know and
you watch all the CNN specials on global warming.

What you know is what has happened in your lifetime, nothing more, nothing less.
Just maybe it would help if you did a little reading on both sides of the argument and
just not take everything said in the popular media as the whole truth.

For your information Ray I did acknowledge that it cannot be proven to be 100% caused by humans but instead of putting our collective heads in the sand why don't we try and be pro-active? You will acknowledge that ,while we are not the sole reason, human activities have had an impact.

xrayzebra

10-31-2006, 10:59 AM

^^Oh, are you one of those, lets fix it before it breaks kind of guys?

If you don't mind, I would like to keep government out of my pocket and life as much
as possible. I already have government to involved in telling me I have to have
car insurance, wear seat belts, turn lights on when I run the wipers and on and on
you know low flush toilets, restricters in all faucets. People want them to tell
restaurants (New York) what they can serve or how they must prepare food.

By the way Gray's little article didn't ring any alarm bells with you? Strange I
thought he said everything really well.

George Gervin's Afro

10-31-2006, 11:34 AM

DFW Spurs

10-31-2006, 11:56 AM

Libs are pro-active and Republicans are reactive. Is that what you are saying?

This is the attitude that's going to be the down fall of America. Blind faith in specific party’s ideologies is dangerous regardless of loyalty. What’s sad is there's no true difference between the two beside what they determine is important to the public. Gay Marriage, Abortion, etc... It’s the slight of hand trick to avoid the real problems in America... The rich get richer and the poor get screwed. :dizzy

Personally I find this article enlightening... A different insight to the debate... Is the threat of global warming true, yes it’s real possibility, but we should always play devil's advocate.

temujin

10-31-2006, 04:28 PM

I'm sure humans caused all the previous climate changes in the last million years too...

Yes, all in 20 years.

Like this one.

temujin

10-31-2006, 05:07 PM

HURRICANES AND CLIMATE CHANGE: ASSESSING THE LINKAGES FOLLOWING THE 2006 SEASON

By: Prof. William M. Gray

WHO AM I TO COMMENT?

I am a Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University where I have been employed since 1961. I have been performing meteorological research, teaching, and forecasting for the last 53 years. I have participated in many tropical field experiments over the last 50 years. These experiments were directed to the study of cumulus convection, condensation heating, evaporation cooling, sea-air energy-moisture exchange, hurricane formation, etc. These are topics of crucial importance to the physics of global temperature change. But they are not well understood by the human-induced global warming proponents.

Me, the Light.

The incorrect handling of these moist processes is responsible for the major flaws in the human-induced global warming scenarios.

I hold MS and PhD degrees in meteorology and geophysical sciences from the University of Chicago. Few professors of atmospheric science have had a finer group of graduate students than I have over the last 40 years (50 MS graduates and 20 PhD graduates).

This latter statement, even provided it is true, sounds pathethic.

I am well known for my Atlantic basin seasonal hurricane forecasts of the last 23 years. Making public verified seasonal hurricane climate forecasts (2 to 6 times per year) for 23 years demonstrates, I believe, an in-depth knowledge of the atmosphere. My overall 53 years of experience in weather forecasting, atmospheric research, and teaching is, I believe, more than sufficient to justify the credibility of my comments on hurricanes and global warming. I am more than willing to discuss or debate with any of my critics provided there is an impartial moderator.

Bring back to the spotlight.

I have never had a grant from the fossil-fuel industry. I presently do not draw a salary. I live off of my retirement income. To support my small Colorado State University research project I presently have two quite modest research grants, one from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for hurricane research and the other from Lexington Insurance Company (Boston) for US hurricane landfall probability prediction.

My main motivation to continue my research is to help maintain the integrity of American science which, in my view, has been badly compromised by the global warming issue and now recently by the issue of global warming causing more frequent and more intense hurricanes. Having received federal support for my meteorological endeavors for over 50 years and having devoted my entire career to atmospheric science, I also feel I have an obligation to speak out on issues involving my expertise. I would feel guilty if I did not do so.

The doomers and their damn global warning theories stole all my grants. And I am left with this ridiculous NSF grant.

10. SUMMARY

It is irresponsible to claim that the scientific debate on global warming is settled. A true scientific debate on this topic has not yet taken place. The debate that has occurred has been conducted largely by the media, the environmentalists, and the scientists receiving federal grant support to supply evidence of human involvement in global temperature rise.

The conspiracy of the doomers.

ùMost warming skeptics have been purposely ignored. Federal research funding for scientists skeptical of the human-induced global warming hypothesis has not been available.

Human-induced global warming scenarios have been in the headlines since the hot summer of 1988. These scenarios have been grossly exaggerated by a broad spectrum of scientists who know little about the processes of the atmospheric- hydrologic cycle and how the globe's atmosphere and oceans function in unison. It has been to their careers advantage to exaggerate human-induced global warming. They have received notoriety, career advancement, and research grants from their warming exaggerations.

Grants again. Ah those fat federal grants!

Many of my older colleagues

Older?
Joking or what?

and I, who have invested decades of our lives in the study of how the atmosphere functions, have been appalled by the many alarmist statements issued by high-ranking government officials and prominent scientists who have little real understanding of how the atmosphere and ocean function. Their views have been shaped by selective sources, in particular the environmentalists and the large GCM groups, who have a vested interest in promoting the warming threat.

Unlike the franciscan purists of the business-as-usual community.

It is surprising that more experienced meteorologists and oceanographers have not spoken out about the reliability of the general circulation model simulations and the overly simplified arguments of the warming advocates. This may be partly due to the mild form of McCarthyism that has developed toward those scientists who do not agree that human-induced global warming is a great threat to society.

Ah, so it does exists!
It's just that it is not a threat to society.
By the way which society?

Those holding contrary views have often been smeared as tools of the fossil-fuel industry, as if those warming advocates receiving large federal grants or grants from environmental groups were not also tools of the federal government or the environmental lobbyists. Our country has far more serious problems to worry about than human-induced global warming.

Indeed this WAS true.
It's somebodyelses's problem.
hence, non existant.

Figure 17 shows the cover of Time Magazine almost 30 years ago when the majority of meteorologists and world governments were worried about and predicted a coming ice-age.

APPENDIX

How Did We Get Into This Warming Hysteria?

1. The winding down of the cold war and the perceived need to generate a new common enemy so as to keep the public willing to continue to support the large science efforts typical of our prior perceived need to keep ahead of the Soviets.

I thought the large science and the fat grants were OK (see above), provided that they fell on the right turf.......

2. The banding together of an international group of sagacious government leaders, scientists, environmentalists, etc. who wanted a science-based political cause to unite behind. Global warming was an ideal vehicle for their desire to organize, propagandize, force conformity, and exercise political influence. Big world government could best lead (and control) us to a better world!

"They" reformed the Third Kommunist International.......

3. Natural causes of global climate change are not well understood. Who would be able to say with confidence that global warming was not human induced if you had no other physical mechanism to blame it on? Of course, many examples of temperature increase are going to be found during any warming trend. There has been a selective emphasis on observations of warming and a glossing over of data that shows no temperature change or cooling. The ignorance of other past historic events (Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age trends) and the many paleo-global warming-cooling events has also contributed.

So, again, GLOBAL WARNING IS WELL IN PLACE.

4. The grant money desires of a broad spectrum of agriculturists, biologists, environmentalists, disease specialists, sociologists, weather and climate types, etc. New research missions to justify grant support needed to be found. The dangling of research funds is a powerful persuader. It didn't matter much if the globe warmed or not. What was necessary was to know what would happen if it did. Who among us would be stupid enough to criticize this 'need to know' if we could get grant support to study it.

Grants!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's becoming an obsession.
This article ain't about global warning.
It's about who gets the Grants!

5. The media's desire to profit from controversy of any type at the expense of critical evaluation. For instance, the surrender of media judgment by mouthing the verbatim views of almost any credentialed scientist out for notoriety, grant money, or who has a selective warming observation to show off. It makes for good press. Opposite examples of no climate change or cooling doesn't make news. Why discuss these examples?

Chicken or egg?
It's the politicians/GRANTED scientists cohalition
or
the media conspiracy.
Just, exactly, who invented the existing global warning?

6. It is interesting to note that most of the primary players in the international global warming crusade are credible and experienced scientists with well deserved reputations.

Ah.
I'll bet many are former friends.
Some among the ex PhDs and post-docs, even?

Most of them, however, have had limited or no experience with real weather and climate studies and weather forecasting. They are being asked to make technical decisions on topics for which they have little or no background. They tend to believe what a selective set of politically motivated scientists tell them.

Competent,
but idiots.
Interesting.

But how are Nobel Prize winners in physics, chemistry, or medicine (as brilliant as they might be) able to make scientifically sensible statements on the possible association of rising level of CO2 and global warming? They are just responding to the similar upward-slope of these two curves.

7. The universally recognized momentous contributions to society of the computer and the growing belief that almost everything coming out of a computer is numerically correct and valid. But computer output is only as good as input, and most of the GCM modelers have not put all the right things in. Computers only allow for a bad model to be precisely wrong!

I couldn't agree more.

8. The last 40 years of continuous improvement in initial value global numerical weather prediction out to 5-10 days. This has been a great success story. It has led to the false belief among many scientists (most of whom are without forecast experience) that this same approach could be extended to the longer climate periods.

9. The great technical achievements in the computer industry led to the encouragement of never before held beliefs that skillful numerical climate models could actually be constructed that would be able to deal with the gross complexity and infinite chaos of the climate system. All you needed was bigger and better computers.

10. The lack of understanding of the complicated physics of the cumulus convection process of the tropics and higher latitudes. This led to the naive assumption that climate modelers would be able to 'hop-scotch' over the sub-grid scale parameterization problems in their models and get results which had validity. They were wrong. Cumulus convection was too complex of a problem for GCMs to face up too. Right or wrong, the GCMs proceeded forward with their output runs not knowing how to deal with the sub-grid scales. They, of course, would obtain the inevitable global warming output that they wanted. And this created a stir that led to favorable publicity and continued grant support. After awhile the GCMers had gone too far to turn back. They were now too committed to global warming to worry about their sub-grid scale parameterization problems. Retreat was unthinkable. Global warming had to be the answer at least until their retirement.

Look, I have not started heating yet.
First time in my life.
I will make a prediction.
Won't start in one week.
Totally absurd by the 80s and 90s standards.

11. The take-up of the global warming cause by so many celebrities to demonstrate their social consciousness. Global warming was an 'IN' and fashionable cause among the elite. That they had absolutely no technical background to make such judgments did not matter.

Indeed this is the MAIN problem.
That all these jerks go out and talk about it is a major drawback to global acceptance of the phenomenon.

12. The overall 'quietude' of the meteorological community - many of whom knew better. We are scientists and should be above all this media-hype and controversial political in-fighting? To paraphrase John Burke, "All that was required for the triumph of human-induced global warming was that a substantial number of those meteorologists who knew better said nothing."

There is preciously nothing in this that argues AGAINST a human causative input of global warning.
Give his Grant back to the old man, please.

xrayzebra

10-31-2006, 05:52 PM

Love the phrase: "causative input of global warming". Now just what is suppose
to mean. More ambiguous BS.

temujin

10-31-2006, 06:36 PM

Love the phrase: "causative input of global warming". Now just what is suppose
to mean. More ambiguous BS.

It is supposed to mean that global warning IS taking place -as correctly stated by this Emeritus- and that one animal species on this planet is causing global warning.
As to which one is it, well, it takes some article of another Emeritus.
Zoologist, this time.

RuffnReadyOzStyle

10-31-2006, 09:06 PM

Ray, when you have a chance go to some universities with climatology departments, or ecology departments, and talk to the scientists. I challenge you to find ONE who doesn't support the scientific evidence for anthropogenic climate change.

Please link your article - I want to look at it properly.

A recent study of 928 peer-reviewed journal articles related to climate found that none disagreed with the consensus (I posted it last week). A counter-article then stated that it found 34 out of 1117 articles that showed some doubt, but when pressed the author could only cite one article and admitted that his sample was different to that of the first author.

The greatest scientific minds and organisations in the world have been accumulating evidence about this for 30 years - 5 years ago there was still some debate about what was happening, today there is none. Scientific consensus has been achieved. And yet you are asking me to take the word of Professor Gray over the rest of the world's scientists? There ARE NOT many others who agree with him, as you claim, and even the greatest skeptic of them all, Bjorn Lomberg of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" fame has now admitted that EGW is taking place. Leading business forums and economists across the world are now working out what we have to do and how much it will cost. When business leaders start investing money in it, as they are right now, you know the science is pretty strong.

I am an ecologist studying towards my PhD, and I have read the science, and it is highly convincing. This IS NOT some socialist conspiracy to shift money to poor nations - that doesn't even make sense! How are we going to shift this money to them, and why? The money involved in lowering carbon emissions will go to the industrial sectors of developed nations (the third world's carbon emissions are negligible), and any taxes govts are bringing into the mix are part of a price signal to reduce demand for high carbon products, or a mechanism for shifting investment towards clean industry.

Ray, read the executive summary of the Stern report. Learn something. Right now you are not even making sense.

I'm getting really sick of debating this with people who site one source (usually funded by the petroleum lobby) or one retired scientist, and then presume that to be a more powerful argument than that put forward by the sum of the greatest scientific institutions in the world! It's plainly ludicrous. And if you actually take time to look at the science (ie. read a few articles in Nature or Science, or a good book like "The Weathermakers" which puts all of the pieces together from primary sources, and is fully referenced for follow-up), you can plainly see how the scientific community has come to the conclusion that we are causing climate change.

Oh, and Ray, I was a skeptic about climate change. Throughout the 90s I thought "nah, we can't affect the earth", then I actually started to look at the scale of human activities in terms of the way we have modified the environment, and I started to look at the science, and the evidence has gotten stronger and stronger to the point where it is pretty difficult to refute. Burying your head in the sand does not make that go away.

jochhejaam

10-31-2006, 09:11 PM

LaMarcus Bryant

10-31-2006, 10:08 PM

Where is hegamboa when it comes to climate change? He has scientific credentials but only uses them in a religious context. Go figure.

RuffnReadyOzStyle

10-31-2006, 10:59 PM

Marcus, I am also a scientist (in training), although I suppose my credentials don't matter unitl I have a PhD and 5 publications under my belt. However, I'm not an idiot, and I am a born skeptic, and I have read a lot of the science, and it does not appear to me to be the basis for a worldwide conspiracy of scientists to overthrow good sense. The science may be the start of some semblence of good sense coming into the world (if we are smart enough to act on it).

Ray, I dug up the original source of Professor Gray's address, and it was a speech to the George C. Marshall Institute "WASHINGTON ROUNDTABLE ON SCIENCE AND PUBLIC POLICY" on 11 Oct 2006 (click on the "source" link at the bottom of Jo's link to find it).

Now, the George C Marshall Institute is partly funded, not surprisingly, by the fossil fuel lobby:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=George_C._Marshall_Institute

and I would speculate that our Professor Gray was the only scientitst with any credentials that they could get to speak. Note also that he lives "off his retirment savings", so the $10K or $20K they pay for him to speak is no doubt helpful in his dotage.

As for Professor Gray's discussion on the "hysteria" surrounding EGW, sadly he is correct to a point - the debate has been hijacked in the media by extremes of both camps. Joche and I discussed this at length here:

http://spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49026&page=2&highlight=climate+change

particularly the case of eminent German climatologist Has von Storch, whose views were widely misrepresented - you ought to read his address to the US House of Reps (linked in the thread).

Funny how a little research reveals a lot about these prominent "dissenters", as I revealed in the thread with joche, many of whom are either non-scientists paid by Exxon, or scientitst who have been misquoted or were trying to make a different point to the matter at hand.

As for Gray's contention that other scientists, including climatologists all over the world, don't properly understand the hydrological cycle and ocean-atmospheric interactions, huh? So he is the only scientist in the world who REALLY understands these things? Is he the only one who is right while all the others are wrong? I don't think so.

If I had time I could list you 50 institutes across the world who have thousands of scientists working on these very matters, and yet they are all co-opted and working together in a massive peer-reviewed conspiracy to defraud the world!? Wake up, ray, please! If this makes sense to you, then we may as well stop discussing this because you are clearly insane.

Try looking at the ACIA, the IPCC, the EEA, the CSIRO, the US EPA, etc. etc. Try looking at the websites of the Ivy League universities, or Oxford/Cambridge, or my alma mater the ANU (16th best university in the world). Try understanding the science, then examine the claims of the skeptics. That's what I've done, and frankly, the few skeptics that there are today are wrong or flip-flopping their position to the other side, like Lomborg.

This thing is real, and if we don't do anything about it, at the very least it is going to cost us trillions, and at the worst it could lead to the disintegration of our civilisation. You don't seem to appreciate just how finely balanced the world's climate had to be to spawn the settling of humanity over the last 8000yrs. To put that in perspective, there is only a 5C difference between the last ice age and the present warm period. A 2-3C change is enough to vastly remodel the planet. Think about that for a moment, and READ THE GODDAMN REPORT!

PixelPusher

10-31-2006, 11:20 PM

Relax Ruff, Tony Snow says Dubya is on the case...

Snow: President Bush Has ‘Actually Taken The Lead’ On Climate Change (http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/31/snow-lead-climate-change/)
(click link above to view video)

Today White House Press Secretary Tony Snow stated that “contrary to stereotype,” President Bush has been “actively engaged in trying to fight climate change.” He also took issue with a reporter’s comment that the United States has been absent from a global emissions and cap trade program, arguing that the Bush administration has “actually taken the lead on those kinds of innovations.” Watch it:

President Bush has taken very little real action to fight climate change and even refuses to admit that it is manmade. He broke his promise to cap carbon emissions and insists that global warming can be fought through individual “voluntary” programs.

Despite being the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, the United States has refused to participate in the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement that assigns mandatory targets for the reduction of greenhouse gases. Between 1990 and 2004, emissions of all industrialized countries decreased by 3.3 percent, but in U.S. emissions grew by almost 16 percent in that same period and now accounts for approximately two-fifths of the industrialized world’s greenhouse gases.

The rest of the world is leading and the Bush administration isn’t following.

Full transcript below:

SNOW: The President has in fact, contrary to stereotype, been actively engaged in trying to fight climate change and will continue to do so.

REPORTER: The one area that is notably absent and that even Shell Oil and other major players are calling for is a global mandatory emissions cap and trade program. Unless do you this on an international basis, it’s not in the long-term economic interest of the United States, which seems to be one of your arguments that somehow will benefit the United States in the long-term.

SNOW: Well, what the United States has done is we have actually taken the lead on those kinds of innovations.

The sad thing about this is, Snow can get away with such blatant bullshit cause they're only interested in soothing their "FOX News only" base.

RuffnReadyOzStyle

10-31-2006, 11:52 PM

These lying SOB fossil fuel lobbyists, and the lying SOBs in our governments who take their policy cues from them, are going to be labelled as environmental criminals by generations to come. Their graves will be spat upon by our grandchildren, and rightly so.

About 1% of world GDP for the next 45yrs will allow us to stabilise CO2 at 500-550ppm (natural levels over past 10,000yrs; 200-280, 200 during cooler periods, 280 during warmer periods), hopefully containing the temperature rise below 2C and saving roughly 9 trillion dollars in costs associates with climate change.

RuffnReadyOzStyle

11-01-2006, 12:03 AM

xrayzebra

11-01-2006, 10:19 AM

Okay, here is Dr. Gray's slide show that accompanied his talk. You are supposedly
a scientist in the making so you may be interested in all the slides. Obviously, like
many others you have already made up you mind on the subject. I haven't. Too
many politicians are cutting their teeth, see Mr. Al Gore, the idiot, on the subject. Be
warned that this presentation is 61 pages long and some of his slide comments will
no doubt offend you. Since in your opinion he is a scientist on the take.

http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/461.pdf

I happen to respect the gentleman since he is the go to guy on hurricanes. And
has been proven correct in most of his long range predictions on major storms. But
you are entitled to your opinions. Like I am to mine.

Remember something, everyone said the world was flat at one time.

xrayzebra

11-01-2006, 10:30 AM

Pixel, that is SOOOOOOOO funny! Bush has been actively IGNORING and MISINFORMING about climate change science for as long as he's been in the public eye. What a joke.

Oh, and my CO2 emission figures for the US are old - I thought it was around 30% of world total, this article says 40%.

And the ultimate irony:

"Shell Oil and other major players are calling for is a global mandatory emissions cap and trade program. Unless do you this on an international basis, it’s not in the long-term economic interest of the United States, which seems to be one of your arguments that somehow will benefit the United States in the long-term."

They want a cap and trade system so that the marketplace has certainty and can start investing in mitigation technologies. The uncertainty caused by lack of a global trading scheme is stifling investment in better technology! Get on with the trading, and suddenly we will see a clean, renewable energy boom much akin to the oil and infotech booms of last century!

(they also want a global scheme so they can seek to lobby it into the shape they want, but let's just ignore that for the moment and hope that any scheme that is devised will largely exclude vested interests)

If I am not mistaken, isn't China and India, two of the biggest so called
polluters exempt and other third world countries exempt in the Kyoto
treaty?

And the world is so fragile, give me a break. One volcano puts more junk
in the air than we (people) do in a decade. If we are so damn good at
stopping this global warming how come we cant stop tornado's, hail
storms, hurricanes. Man is so damn puny when it comes to mother nature
that we have no lasting effect. You doubt me. How about the lost
cities of the world, and their great cultures? Mother nature took back
control as soon as they disappeared and reclaimed her land. You as
a budding scientist need to learn one real quick lesson and remember it.
Common sense has always trumped brilliance.

temujin

11-01-2006, 03:44 PM

If I am not mistaken, isn't China and India, two of the biggest so called
polluters exempt and other third world countries exempt in the Kyoto
treaty?

Isn't this guy printing money pretending that he is poor?
What the heck I'm printing money too!

And the world is so fragile, give me a break.

Not the world, mankind. It's just a species way too enlarged.

One volcano puts more junk
in the air than we (people) do in a decade. If we are so damn good at
stopping this global warming how come we cant stop tornado's, hail
storms, hurricanes.

In fact, it might be too late for someone.

Man is so damn puny when it comes to mother nature
that we have no lasting effect. You doubt me. How about the lost
cities of the world, and their great cultures?

In general, they were filled with bunkheads, at their very end.

Mother nature took back
control as soon as they disappeared and reclaimed her land. You as
a budding scientist need to learn one real quick lesson and remember it.
Common sense has always trumped brilliance.

Brilliance is the eventual form of common sense.
And common sense is pretty straight on the subject.

xrayzebra

11-01-2006, 03:50 PM

^^I guess, whatever you are trying to say.

RuffnReadyOzStyle

11-01-2006, 07:58 PM

Yes, China and India are exempt from Kyoto, but when have I mentioned Kyoto? Kyoto is a largely symbolic treaty that is meant to be a pre-cursor to a real effort to reduce CO2 and other emissions by formalising a global trading scheme. The planners knew that none of that would be achieved in the first treaty, it's the next treaty after 2012 that will include the whole world in a binding agreement to cap and trade carbon emmissions (hopefully).

Oh for god's sake ray. The biggest volcano in the last 150 yrs, Krakatoa, put 2% of America's current annual greenhouse emissions into the air, and it actually caused ocean cooling over a period of decades due to the dust it spewed into the atmosphere. I covered that last week right here (with links), and also talked about China and India:

http://spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52554

As for your argument that we cannot affect nature, you are blatantly, patently and obviously WRONG. We have already affected nature in a million ways. To say that proves that you know absolutely nothing about ecology or science in general.

We have altered the concentration of trace elements in the atmosphere. We have changed the albedo of massive swathes of the planet. We have reshaped, moved or destroyed entire ecosystems. We have altered the concentration of the oceans. We have massively deforested most of the planet. We have destroyed fish stocks of NE America, the North Sea, SE Asia and NZ. We have introduced species to foreign continents. And that is just off the top of my head - the list goes on and on.

And every friggin year we are putting over 14Gt, that is 14,000,000,000, of CO2 (and rising) into the air. In the last 150 yrs we have changed the concentration of CO2 from 280ppm to over 380ppm, and guess what, CO2 conc. is a key temperature regulation mechanism for the planet. The concentration of CH4, another key trace gas which traps 6x the heat of CO2, has risen 145% in 150 years due to our agricultural and industrial practices.

The world is not fragile WITHIN LIMITS. It is a gigantic and massively complex system comprised of myriad smaller interlinked system, and it is very resilient within certain boundaries. The whole point is that in lots of ways we have pushed the earth's systems outside their natural boundaries, over what are called "tipping points" in the systems, and many systems are now switching into new equilibria with new boundaries. See, if you knew a damn thing about science you'd understand this. The world is not infinite, and its systems are not infinitely resilient. There are now over 6,600,000,000 humans on the planet (up from 1,500,000,000 a century ago), and each one is using 10x the energy on average of a century ago. That is affecting the earth's systems.

You talk about the fall of civilisations? I have studied that too, and that is exactly what we are currently facing if we don't act, the fall of our civilisation.

Ray, you clearly make up most of what you say from your own head, and that's fine, but you could really do with actually reading some books on subjects like this before you spout off, because your arguments are all over the place and often make no sense.

And as for Professor Gray, maybe he does believe what he's saying and I will now take a look at his slide show. However, I have 10,000 other professors out there who have the same or greater experience than Gray and who say something is happening and have published peer-reviewed papers on the matter. My head tells me to go with them, because I've read the evidence, and it is now overwhelming.

Believe what you will, BUT YOU ARE WRONG and it is as simple as that.

boutons_

11-01-2006, 08:06 PM

As if facts would change the radical right away from Repug/corporate "ideological" science or cause the Repug-bots deviate from Repug talking points:

==================

October 31, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist

Scandal Below the Surface

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

The crucial issue this year is Iraq, and the most important issue this decade may be the risk that nuclear proliferation results in the incineration of Wall Street by terrorists. Both topics are spurring useful debate this campaign season.

But one of the more important issues this century is generating no serious discussion on the campaign trail. And, in place of a drumroll, let's look at the chemistry experiment in which we're all taking part.

If you think of the earth's surface as a great beaker, then it's filled mostly with ocean water. It is slightly alkaline, and that's what creates a hospitable home for fish, coral reefs and plankton * and indirectly, higher up the food chain, for us.

But scientists have discovered that the carbon dioxide we're spewing into the air doesn't just heat up the atmosphere and lead to rising seas. Much of that carbon is absorbed by the oceans, and there it produces carbonic acid * the same stuff found in soda pop.

That makes oceans a bit more acidic, impairing the ability of certain shellfish to produce shells, which, like coral reefs, are made of calcium carbonate. A recent article in Scientific American explained the indignity of being a dissolving mollusk in an acidic ocean: "Drop a piece of chalk (calcium carbonate) into a glass of vinegar (a mild acid) if you need a demonstration of the general worry: the chalk will begin dissolving immediately."

The more acidic waters may spell the end, at least in higher latitudes, of some of the tiniest variations of shellfish * certain plankton and tiny snails called pteropods. This would disrupt the food chain, possibly killing off many whales and fish, and rippling up all the way to humans.

We stand, so to speak, on the shoulders of plankton.

"There have been a couple of very big events in geological history where the carbon cycle changed dramatically," said Scott Doney, senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. One was an abrupt warming that took place 55 million years ago in conjunction with acidification of the oceans and mass extinctions. Most scientists don't believe we're headed toward a man-made variant on that episode * not yet, at any rate. But many worry that we're hurtling into unknown dangers.

"Whether in 20 years or 100 years, I think marine ecosystems are going to be dramatically different by the end of this century, and that'll lead to extinction events," Mr. Doney added.

"This is the only habitable planet we have," he said. "The damage we do is going to be felt by all the generations to come."

So that should be one of the great political issues for this century * the vandalism we're committing to our planet because of our refusal to curb greenhouse gases. Yet the subject is barely debated in this campaign.

Changes in ocean chemistry are only one among many damaging consequences of carbon emissions. Evidence is also growing about the more familiar dangers: melting glaciers, changing rainfall patterns, rising seas and more powerful hurricanes.

Last year, the World Health Organization released a study indicating that climate change results in an extra 150,000 deaths and five million sicknesses each year, by causing the spread of malaria, diarrhea, malnutrition and other ailments.

A report prepared for the British government and published yesterday, the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, warned that inaction "could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century."

If emissions are not curbed, climate change will cut 5 percent to 20 percent of global G.D.P. each year, declared the mammoth report. "In contrast," it said, "the costs of action * reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change * can be limited to around 1 percent of global G.D.P. each year." Some analysts put the costs of action higher, but most agree that it makes sense to invest far more in alternative energy sources, both to wean ourselves of oil and to reduce the strain on our planet.

We know what is needed: a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system, a post-Kyoto accord on emissions cutbacks, and major research on alternative energy sources. But as The Times's Andrew Revkin noted yesterday, spending on energy research and development has fallen by more than half, after inflation, since 1979.

Melting glaciers and corroding pteropods aren't as sensational as a Congressional page scandal, or as urgent as the Iraq war. But they are just as scandalous. We have no responsibility greater than as stewards of our planet, and we're blowing it.

RuffnReadyOzStyle

11-01-2006, 08:17 PM

I looked at that slide show and it is a poorly constucted mish mash of ideas about cyclone prediction, climate change, media and political ethics and skepticism for it's own sake.

The only "scientists" he quotes are his buddy Richard Lindzen (another well-known dissenter) and Michael Crichton! :lol

Notice that none of his slides go back more than 1000yrs. Why? Because if he did that and actually looked at the evidence over geological timeframes (we can go back over 65mil yrs), his argument would be shot to pieces.

Read "The Weathermakers". You may learn something.

Oh, and I don't doubt Gray's cyclone predictions. But I do doubt his pre-eminence as a global climatologist, given that he and Lindgren are pretty much alone out there opposed to thousands of others.

xrayzebra

11-01-2006, 09:29 PM

Well, obviously you are so well read in this area and I am so dead
wrong there is little sense in going on with this discussion. You
obviously know more than a PHD with 53 years experience. I guess
we can look forward to your most astute observations of the
future in short order. In short what I am trying to say is: obviously
you are a know it all! So have a nice life as that preeminent
"in the making scientist".

smeagol

11-01-2006, 09:47 PM

xray, you are ignorant.
What he said.

xrayzebra

11-01-2006, 09:50 PM

^^What I said. Double it and you take one of the "know it alls".

RuffnReadyOzStyle

11-01-2006, 09:53 PM

Ray, as I keep saying to you, he is right where thousands of others just as qualified and experienced are wrong?

It is not about ME knowing more than Professor Gray. As I said before, his history of cyclone prediction is indisputable. Does that mean he's right about global anthropocentic climate change? No it doesn't. He is blatantly ignoring reams of peer-reviewed science by thousands of scientists from the best institutions and universities in the world. I accept their evidence over his hodge-podge of junk ideas, because that's what they are, junk skepticism, not science.

Notice also that I have actually bothered to read your evidence, while you haven't bothered to educate yourself about mine. Your fake moral highground means nothing to me old man, because you won't even open your mind to the premise that you may be wrong. I am not the close-minded one, you are.

As I also said before, 5 years ago I would not have had this debate with you because there was still a debate going on in the scientific community, and I was also undecided, but the volume of evidence today, in conjunction with the last 30 years of evidence, is quite overwhelming.

Don't trust me - as I have already said to you, go to your local university and discuss it with scientitst there. Read some books. Read some journal articles. Then come back and talk to me.

I mean, you don't even respond to me when I preove your ideas (such as the volcano idea) patently false. Why do I bother debating with someone who has no knowledge of science, natural processes, or the evidence? I don't think I will bother any more.

BTW, if you were counting, not one of your arguments stands up to any test. this thread is 10-0 RNROS.

xrayzebra

11-01-2006, 10:04 PM

^^What ever. You have proven everything in your mind. Don't
pretend to have proven anything to me. No one has. We are talking
opinions not evidence. Like Dr. Gray says. Proof in the scientific world
is something that can be reproduced to be correct. You should know
that. It is also like he said using a computer to prove something
is BS. Garbage in garbage out. Hell even the computer you are
using now shuts down on you for no known reason from time to
time. So give it a rest, old man. This old man is not trying to
convenience you of anything except that you can be wrong as well
as myself. And in your mind there is a scoreboard. In mine, it
doesn't exist. Oh, and I have read quite a bit on the issue and
I will stay with my opinion until the next ice age, which is just
around the corner. You have all the answers. I have none, to
your satisfaction. After all it is only suppose to be a conversation,
and expressions of our opinion. And I have expressed mine.
As a layman. You as a "hope to be" scientist. By the way. What
is going to be your field of expertise?

RuffnReadyOzStyle

11-01-2006, 10:11 PM

In addition to boutons' article, the point the author doesn't make very successfully is that if microscopic shellfish cannot form their shells and their population crashes, as is occuring, suddenly the fish that rely on them as a food source starve, and the entire ecosystem collapses. It is these kinds of complex system chain-reactions that we are seeing in ecosystems across the planet as we change its natural systems beyond their resilience boundaries. If we continue to do this, it makes it more difficult to sustain humanity on the planet, because WE ARE INEXORABLY LINKED TO ALL OF THESE SYSTEMS. That is something most people never consider - WE UTTERLY RELY ON THE HEALTH OF THE PLANET FOR OUR OWN EXISTENCE.

Here's the extract of a related article about the relationship between krill (a once abundant food for organisms higher on the food chain, now in decline) and sea ice - the sea ice is disappearing, and so are the krill (and thus fish, penguins, seals, whales, etc are all affected):

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15525989&dopt=Citation

Do you know that 75% of the world's primary production (that is, energy in the form of carbohydrates produced by photosyntheis) occurs in the oceans? Yes, phytoplankton, microscopic sea plants, produce 75% of the primary production of earth, and thus are also responsible for 75% of the CO2 absorption. We MUST look after the oceans! If phytoplankton numbers plummet, the oceanic food chains collapse and the effect of our CO2 pollution expands because the CO2 taken out of the atmosphere by the oceans declines.

That is called science, ray. Read and learn.

RuffnReadyOzStyle

11-01-2006, 10:25 PM

Ray, science is not "a matter of opinion". The very object of science is to produce empirical results that are reproducible and testable, and that is what the peer review process is about. If you find something out, and no-one else can reproduce it, then it is not acceptable science.

As for computer modelling, you make a major mistake (and Prof Gray a major omission) by presuming that all of the evidence for EGW comes from "models". It doesn't. Modelling is used, with varying degrees of accuracy, to predict future results, but the evidence for climate change comes almost entirely from HISTORICAL SOURCES. That is; ice core samples, tree rings, climate records, geological sediments, natural history studies (bird migration, tree flowering, insect population migration, etc), etc. See, I don't believe that you have read much on the subject because if you had you'd know that. Did you also know that modelling is not reliant on "junk in junk out" - if a model cannot accurately predict past behaviour, it is discarded. Sure, there are junk models out there, but once again, most of them are discovered through the peer-review process. Modelling is predictive, not prescriptive, and all models state their assumptions and confidence intervals (know what they are?) so they can be tested by others - that's why there is always a range of predictions related to uncertainty in the model, which is in turn related to the complexity of the system under study.

What you state is all "opinion". What I'm talking about is empirical evidence, which you obviously have not read and will not read.

Do you live in SA? When I come there in Jan-Feb, why don't you and I go down to UT SA and talk to some climate scientists there? I'm up for it (if they have a climatology or ecology dept).

George Gervin's Afro

11-02-2006, 08:55 AM

Scientists Say White House Muzzled Them
Nov 01 11:43 PM US/Eastern

By JOHN HEILPRIN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON

Two federal agencies are investigating whether the Bush administration tried to block government scientists from speaking freely about global warming and censor their research, a senator said Wednesday.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said he was informed that the inspectors general for the Commerce Department and NASA had begun "coordinated, sweeping investigations of the Bush administration's censorship and suppression" of federal research into global warming.

"These investigations are critical because the Republicans in Congress have ignored this serious problem," Lautenberg said.

He said the investigations "will uncover internal documents and agency correspondence that may expose widespread misconduct." He added, "Taxpayers do not fund scientific research so the Bush White House can alter it."

Messages left Wednesday at the offices of the inspectors general, which serve as the agencies' internal watchdogs, were not immediately returned.

Kristen Hellmer, a spokeswoman for the White House Council for Environmental Quality, said Wednesday night that the administration has supported the scientific process in its approach to studying climate change.

"We have in place the most transparent system of science reporting, and claims that the administration interfered with scientists are false," Hellmer said. "Our focus is on taking action and making real progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The nearly $2 billion worth of climate science we publish annually leads the world and speaks for itself."

Carbon dioxide and other gases primarily from fossil fuel-burning that scientists say trap heat in the atmosphere have warmed the Earth's surface an average 1 degree over the past century. The White House has committed to reducing the "intensity" of U.S. carbon pollution, a measure of the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of economic growth.

But the total U.S. emissions, now more than 7 billion tons a year, are projected to rise 14 percent from 2002 to 2012.

In February, House Science Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., and other congressional leaders asked NASA to guarantee scientific openness. They complained that a public affairs officer changed or filtered information on global warming and the Big Bang.

The officer, George Deutsch, a political appointee, had resigned after being accused of trying to limit reporters' access to James Hansen, a prominent NASA climate scientist, and insisting that a Web designer insert the word "theory" with any mention of the Big Bang.

A report last month in the scientific journal Nature claimed administrators at the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration blocked the release of a report that linked hurricane strength and frequency to global warming. Hansen had said in February that NOAA has tried to prevent researchers working on global climate change from speaking freely about their work.

NOAA has denied the allegations, saying its work is not politically motivated

xrayzebra

11-02-2006, 04:38 PM

Oh yes, peer review. Except most of the peers are
in favor of exempting all governments except those that
have deep pockets. My Friend from down under, ever
heard about DDT? The scientist told us it was
destroying the world. Well it wasn't we now know,
but what it did destroy was mosquito's who carried
a deadly disease that has since killed millions of
PEOPLE because DDT was banned. There is now much
talk about it being brought back.

Please don't worship at the feet of scientist. Many
have been found to fudge somewhat on so called
results of their findings. Like you know the latest
from South Korea. Oh, I know you are studying
and have been thoroughly convinced that they can
do no wrong, except when they don't agree with the
ones that want comply with their idea's to change mankind for their own good.

Money, my friend, directs many to find the "facts"
that they find. As well as their politics. I am well into my twilight years and
have heard all the many stories about the wonderful
discoveries that "scientist" have made. Except, well,
maybe they didn't made those wonderful discoveries,
their ideas needed more research, would you, the
taxpayers, just give us more money. Yes, you are
correct in one thing. I don't read all their junk, and
junk science it is. Why, well they have wanted to
mix politics into the science. Like you, if we used
just 1 percent of the GNP of the world we could cure
everything. BS. 1 percent would is just the starting
point. Like curing poverty. Money has never cured it
and never will. The poor will always be amongst us,
just like dirty air is in some parts of the world. By
the way. You want to know who one of the biggest
polluters in Texas is: Our friends to the South, Mexico.
While you are in Texas make a trip to Big Bend Park,
in West Texas. You cant see the mountains any more.
Compliments from one of the exempt countries, that
we can buy carbon credits from.......

Oh, and another point should be made about those
terrible hydro-carbons. More than likely the clothes
on your back are made from them. The tires (tyres)
on your car is made from them. Your shoes too, more
than likely, contains an abundance of them. The food
you are worried about is fertilized with them.

You see I do read just a little bit. Even the life saving
product ethanol depends on the fertilizer.

And one other point. Much of science is based on
opinion. The one that produces a finding that
supports their opinion. And that my friend, from
a lay person, is my opinion.

RuffnReadyOzStyle

11-03-2006, 02:41 AM

Who said scientists can do no wrong? They are just as fallible as any other human beings, but the process of peer review is an excellent way of ensuring quality - people who do what you do from all over the world can check what you do, and if they find something different, report it. It is then a matter of examining the rigours of the studies (how good is the experimental design? are there confounding factors? are the statistics analysed fairly or to produce a biased result? etc), and the financial interest (if any) behind the scientists.

More than that, the process of scientific advance is one of hypotheses, based on the evidence available at the time, which are often incorrect and evolve over time as further evidence comes to light. We get it wrong, we study the subject from more angles, we refine our hypotheses, we get closer to the reality of the process in the natural world. The current climate change hypothesis is based on over 40 years of inquiry to the point where the evidence has become overwhelming. I can see that. Millions across the globe can see that. You choose not to.

I know what hydrocarbons are, what they are in, and what they do. Plastics, paints, pharmaceuticals, fibres, fertilizers, fuels, etc. They are extremely useful substances. Unfortunately, I also know that our entire economy is based on them, and that they are in fixed supply, a non-renewable resource set to run out this century or next. And far before they run out, due to rising demand and fixed supply, they will become far more expensive than they are today. As a consequence, shouldn't we be developing and switching to alternatives to soften the transition between a hydrocarbon and a renewable economy? Does it not make sense to reduce our reliance on them in order to prolong supply? We have alternatives, so why not start switching away from a hydrocarbon-based economy, both for reasons of pollution and resource depletion?

You mention ethanol - while lower emission than petroleum, I don't consider that it is a "life-saving product" as you say, because, for example, replacing the US's petrol supply with ethanol would take 3x all of the arable land in America (from which you could then not grow food). It is a very small part of the big complex solution to carbon emissions and peakoil.

You mention fertilizer - yes, fertilizer production consumes hydrocarbons, and that is a bad thing. Not only are we one day going to have to farm without fertilizer as hydrocarbons run out (so we should adjust to that, starting now), but the overuse of fertilizers is leading to land and river salinity problems all over the world.

Science IS NOT BASED ON OPINION. In saying that you demonstrate that you do not understand the scientific method. Science is about hypotheses which are supported by reproducible empirical evidence that can be used to explain natural phenomona. The whole point of the scientific method is that opinion is not part of the mix. How the knowledge is used or misused by media/politicians/lobbyists is another matter.

You keep intimating that I've been brainwashed, when in fact I've read books and studies in world-respected journals, and used my own brain to join the dots, as have millions of scientists and other interested persons across the globe. And not one argument you have used in this entire thread in any way shakes the strength of current knowledge on climate change. I have shot down your misnomers one by one, because in studying this subject I have already explored both sides of the argument for each of your contentions.

Oh, and you mention Mexican pollution. The idea of globally capping and trading carbon emissions is that the Mexicans, if they want to keep polluting, WILL HAVE TO BUY THE CARBON CREDITS FROM CLEAN INDUSTRY, PROBABLY IN AMERICA! See, you just don't know what you are talking about. Capping and trading is a way to encourage industry all over the world to clean up their emissions or pay the price. That's why we need a global agreement.

So are you coming to the university with me or not?

jochhejaam

11-03-2006, 07:28 AM

Most of us are out of our element here, in that we are novices in the field of climatology. Although I have bought into anthropocentric GW, I won't readily buy into the predictions of large populated land masses being under water in 60 years if we don't drastically and immediately change course.
I'm not aware of there being a consensus on this forecast, or is there?

RuffnReadyOzStyle

11-03-2006, 11:44 PM

jo, it goes like this. Land-based ice is what will cause sea level rise, so firstly what we're worried about from that aspect is the Greenland ice sheet, Antartica and glaciers. If the Greenland ice sheet melts, and there are indications that it is melting faster than we've ever seen (last summer 250cubic kms of ice over the average), global sea levels will rise about 7m. Once the ice sheet starts melting, the process is accelerated by the albedo differnece between ice and water, a classic feedback loop - ice has an albedo of 80-90%, while water's is 10-40% depending on the angle of the sun - so as ice melts, the water on its surfaqce has a lower albedo, absorbs more heat, and speeds the melting of the ice. And once the Greenland ice sheet is gone, there's no resurrecting it, at least in time frames that are relevant to humans.

66% of humanity lives within 80kms of the ocean, and a 2m sea level rise would displace hundreds of million of peiople across the world, especially in the Pacific, Holland, Bangladesh, India, China and the US.

The other aspect to sea level rise is thermal expansion of the oceans as they warm. This is a much smaller effect, but could still contibute a 10-40cm rise over this century.

I don't think anyone has said that "large populated land masses" will be under water in 60 yrs, but with heavily concentrated human habitation on the coast, a 2m sea level rise will seriously affect hundreds of millions if not billions of people, not to mention the infrastructure it will destroy and the land it makes useless. It is already displacing people on Pacific Islands. Tuvalu is suing the US over this.

xrayzebra

11-04-2006, 10:42 AM

So are you coming to the university with me or not?

Nope, why would I want to go through that ordeal. But wouldn't mind
sharing a cuppa or a beer if you are so inclined.

I am sure you have
already read the report in the following link. But it will give you something
else to worry about.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20061103/D8L59FQ00.html

We are going to run out of seafood in about 50 years. Guess that ties in
with all the other reports I have seen or heard in my lifetime, the world
will be unable to feed everyone. Riots in the streets, on and on and on.
Oh, you never want to forget others who have predicted the end of
the world entirely. And the meteors that are hurling through space
that "may" strike the earth and destroy all of mankind and the animal
kingdom. And the need for more money to study and find these
"rogue" meteors. Always about the money, always. Government money.
You know that stuff you and I send to our respective governments
each year. I do assume you have an income.

One small problem. Everyone is now bitching the world is too fat. You
cant have it both ways. I mean after all, all the these "reports" and
"studies" are put out by scientist.

I am still wondering what you field of expertise is? You never answered.

RuffnReadyOzStyle

11-04-2006, 11:03 PM

Ecology, Ray. The study of ecosystem relationships. You could say I'm a generalist scientists - I have a basic understanding about many subjects, as you can no doubt tell from my posts. At the core, I am interested in urban sustainability, which means finding a way to balance the use of energy, water and resources by those of us in urban environments with the need to preserve the ecosystems that sustain us (like agricultural land, rivers, forests, fisheries, the atmosphere, etc). Urban sustainability is a subset of human ecology, which is interdisciplinary - we take from all kinds of science, sociology, and economics to try and find long-term solutions to humanity's challenges.

If you're not willing to go and speak to real, qualified scientists, then you are the one with a closed mind.

As for the fisheries, yes, they are fvcked. Do you not know about the complete destruction of the fishery off the NE US? Many an American songwriter has lamented that over the last 2 decades. The same has happened in the North Sea, the South China Sea, the Orange Roughie off NZ... you can't dispute this one Ray. We have been monitoring the size of fisheries all over the world for a century now, and the tonnages for many fisheries have dropped well below replacement level, which means that those populations are in inexorable decline. Highly developed technologies, lack of marine parks (which allow fish to breed and grow), destruction of underwater habitat (drag netting is the slash-and-burn of the oceans), illegal fishing (particularly by Japan, Taiwan, Russia), and ignorance about fish life histories (how long they take to breed, to develop to sexual maturity, etc) has led to the devastation of fish populations across the planet. You're not trying to suggest that this is another grand conspiracy are you? :rolleyes

I've worked 14 different jobs and paid taxes for 15 yrs.

The world isn't too fat, but the developed world, and in particular the US, is. Over 30% obesity, 65% overweight+obesity. Obesity is related to 35 fatal diseases including heart disease, stroke, a variety of cancers, and type II diabetes, a disease that virtually did not exist until the last 50 years. Your taxes are paying for the health care of all these obese people, Ray, and it's a massive bill - you're not concerned about that?

You are a typical close-minded conspiracy theorist, Ray - skeptical of everything, and even when presented with facts and arguments that demonstrate your lack of understanding, you still cling to your conspiracies. I'm not sure we'd gain much by having a beer because we really don't have much to talk about - I know where you stand and vice versa - although I appreciate the offer.

xrayzebra

11-05-2006, 11:22 AM

I'm not sure we'd gain much by having a beer because we really don't have much to talk about - I know where you stand and vice versa - although I appreciate the offer.

Oh, now who is being closed minded? You might find me entertaining. After
all think of all the conversations you could have talking about the idiot
Texan you met to your other learned friends.

No there is much I don't know. And even you, my friend, with all your
education, have much to learn. Mostly about life in general. And yes,
I do take most things with a grain of salt. Politics, science and life in
general. I learned that through a little thing they call: living. And I
might add all over most of Europe, Canada and the United States. And
the only thing I regret and may make up for yet is not being able to visit
your country. I even thought about trying to make it in the "outback"
back in my younger years, the first time I retired. Yeah, I have retired
twice, well actually three times, but went back to work after the
first and second retirement. Funny thing I noticed about your employment
record, all the many jobs you held. Oh, well, no matter.

I love your term "general scientist" much like a "jack of all trades" and
"master of none".

My Grandfather had a saying which you would do well to heed:

Don't believe anything you read nor half you see. It is good advice.

As evidenced on this board.

Oh, and one other little thing. Found this little article that many
interest you, since so much is known by our scientist, well maybe not

Posted: Wednesday, November 1st, 2006 5:15 AM HST

Scientists find new species at French Frigate Shoals

By Associated Press

HONOLULU (AP) _ Researchers on a three-week mission to French Frigate Shoals in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands found 100 species never seen in the area before -- including many which are entirely new to science.

Joel Martin is a zoologist in charge of invertebrates for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

He says those on the trip were amazed by what they were finding.

Researchers returned with at least one-thousand species of invertebrates, including worms, crabs and sea stars. One hundred and 60 unique species of limu were also found.

The findings of the expedition will be used to establish what species live in the area. And further studies will determine how well the area's ecosystem is being managed and what threats it faces.

(Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Here is the link to story:

http://www.kpua.net/news.php?id=9762

Tell you what, just goggle: new species and check out all the stuff
you get. Might really surprise you what science didn't know or
doesn't know. But who am I. Just an old skeptic.......
:elephant

temujin

11-05-2006, 05:47 PM

And one other point. Much of science is based on
opinion. The one that produces a finding that
supports their opinion. And that my friend, from
a lay person, is my opinion.

I guess that's the kind of science against global warming.
In most cases, for a good Cau$e.
In others, such as for Gray, for free,

RuffnReadyOzStyle

11-06-2006, 12:56 AM

Ray, what you posted doesn't surprise me at all - we have catalogued less than 10% of the planet's species diversity. But the discussion about global warming is not about what we don't know, it's about what we do. And even a two degree warming is going to wipe out species far too numerous to mention, both species we know about and those we don't. Species adapt to certain niches in the environment - change the temperature, you change the niche - and for a lot of species that means extinction.

You seem to think I am a young fool Ray, but I'm not. I've worked tough jobs like cab driving, and easy jobs like the civil service, I've been to over 30 countries and lived in Japan and the UK. I read voraciously. I have a diverse circle of friends from across the world. I've seen the dark side of life, and the high side. I'm not a fool, nor I am I trying to mislead anyone.

In this thread I have corrected your misnomers, and I've tried to educate you about the science, but it's obvious that your mind is made up and there's nothing that will change it. Fair enough, that is your right, but I think it is a shame.

As for having a drink, maybe, I'm sure you are a nice guy and that I could learn a lot from your experience of the world. However, I am frustrated by the fact that I keep presenting you with evidence that counteracts your opinion and proving your arguments wrong, and yet you still cling to your mistaken beliefs. Once again, your right, but I find it frustrating, and frankly I have enough frustration in my life.

boutons_

11-06-2006, 06:15 AM

jochhejaam

11-06-2006, 07:49 AM

he's totally ignorant, prejudiced? His shit isn't worth reading, and certainly not worth replying to.
Self analysis.

And to RnR, well done on the topic. Thanks.

xrayzebra

11-06-2006, 10:48 AM

. But the discussion about global warming is not about what we don't know, it's about what we do.

I think one thing you have missed. I have no doubt the earth is in a warming mode at this time. The difference of opinion is what is causing it. You say you are basing everything on evidence that it is man made. I then ask you this question: Is it the scientist job to tell us how to solve it without politics or with politics. Trading carbon credits (for money) so they "rich" countries have to pay, while the so called "poor" countries don't seems much like a political decision. Not a scientific solution.

You seem to think I am a young fool Ray, but I'm not.

Not in the least do I think you are a fool. On the contrary I think you show much intelligence. But I do think that you keep confusing the issue of science and politics. But in urban planning I know you are taught to be involved in the politics of a community. Which I don't consider the realm of scientist. I don't think the two mix, simply because it clouds to thinking of the scientist because of his political leanings. Tell someone the problem and what must be done to fix the problem, Not how to fix the problem.

In this thread I have corrected your misnomers, and I've tried to educate you about the science, but it's obvious that your mind is made up and there's nothing that will change it. Fair enough, that is your right, but I think it is a shame.

RnR, I too have read much on the subject of global warming and the effects and how it will affect everything. But remember one thing. There has been several ice ages on this old world. And there has been several global warming events, thank goodness or we might not be here. In the past, man didn't have anything to do with the warming. And from what I have read, warming may not be occurring at the rate some would like you to believe. I even read an article that stated the ice sheet has actually increased in some areas. Now this I do know. Everyone that supports man is the cause of global warming gets into the political realm of the argument by saying only certain countries must pay and certain countries must be exempt. Money, money, money. In all cases taxpayer money. In most cases it is a socialist solution to ending the global warming. I am a political animal not a scientist, I do not claim to be a scientist. But this I do know. You also get into the political realm by advocating the Kyoto, except you do acknowledge it is only the beginning, and all the other scientist implore us to consider the political solutions offered by them and their pol buddies. As far as my mind being made up, until I am convinced otherwise, I dint think global warming is man made.

As for having a drink, maybe, I'm sure you are a nice guy and that I could learn a lot from your experience of the world. However, I am frustrated by the fact that I keep presenting you with evidence that counteracts your opinion and proving your arguments wrong, and yet you still cling to your mistaken beliefs. Once again, your right, but I find it frustrating, and frankly I have enough frustration in my life.

Don't be frustrated. And don't say you have proven me wrong. You have presented a set of facts that you consider to be the answer to the problem. I reserve the right to disagree. I may be mistaken, but on the other hand, you may also. Not about the facts you present, but the conclusion you draw from those facts. And about frustration in life, That is life in general, there is just different degrees of it. But this forum is just what it is a forum. For all to present their ideas. I enjoy it, Even old boutons and Nbadan have their entertainment value. I enjoy having a conversation such as you and I have had on this subject. I hold no hard feelings about anything you have said, and hope you have none about what I have said. My curiosity factor is what keeps me going. I always figured two things about my death. I would die of the common cold, which puts me down in short order, and regretting I wouldn't know what was going on tomorrow with my family, friends and in the world. I often wonder how this global warming thing will end up. Because it wont be settled in my lifetime and more than likely for years to come.

xrayzebra

11-06-2006, 10:50 AM

"Much of science is based on opinion."

How you people even waste your posts on this dumbfuck XZ when he's totally ignorant, prejudiced? His shit isn't worth reading, and certainly not worth replying to.

Ah boutons, if you aren't careful you are going to hurt my feelings. And
please stay out of my bathroom and quit reading my s........ :lol

Your head keeps getting in my way.

xrayzebra

11-18-2006, 10:42 AM

^^Another little article on "warming" I found interesting.

Thursday, August 17, 2006
New data shows ocean cooling
By DENNIS AVERY and ALEX AVERY
The world's oceans cooled suddenly between 2003 and 2005, losing more than 20 percent of the global-warming heat they'd absorbed over the previous 50 years. That's a vast amount of heat, since the oceans hold 1,000 times as heat as the atmosphere. The ocean-cooling researchers say the heat was likely vented into space, since it hasn't been found stored anywhere on Earth.

John Lyman, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, says the startling news of ocean cooling comes courtesy of the new ARGO ocean temperature floats being distributed worldwide. ARGOs are filling in former blank spots on the world's ocean monitoring system – and vastly narrowing our past uncertainty about sparsely measured ocean temperatures.

Lyman says the discovery of the sudden ocean coolings undercuts faith in global-warming forecasts because coolings randomly interrupt the trends laid out by the global circulation models. As Lyman puts it, "The cooling reflects interannual variability that is not well represented by a linear trend."

The new ocean cooling also recalls several NASA studies in the past five years that found a huge natural heat vent over the Pacific ocean's so-called warm pool, a band of water thousands of miles wide, roughly astride the equator. Studies coordinated by Bruce Weilicki, of NASA's Langley Research Center, found that when sea surface temperatures rise above 28 degrees C, Pacific rainfall becomes more efficient. More of the cloud droplets form raindrops, so fewer are left to form high, icy, cirrus clouds that seal in heat. As a result, the area of cirrus clouds is reduced, and far more heat passes out into space. This cools the surface of the warm pool, the world's warmest ocean water.

Weilicki's research teams say that the huge natural heat vent emitted about as much heat during the 1980s and 90s as would be expected from a redoubling of the carbon dioxide content in the air. They used satellites to measure cloud cover and long-range aircraft to monitor sea temperatures.

Layman says the sudden ocean coolings particularly complicate the problem of separating natural temperature changes from man-made impacts on the Earth's temperature. The impact of human-emitted CO2 has been assumed to accumulate in a straight-line trend over many decades.

Meanwhile, since the 1980s, the Earth's ice cores, seabed sediments and cave stalagmites have been revealing a moderate, natural 1,500-year climate cycle linked to solar irradiance. Temperatures jump suddenly and erratically 1 to 2 degrees C above the mean at the latitude of Washington, D.C., and New York City for centuries at a time, and more than that at the Earth's poles.

Temperatures vary hardly at all at the equator during the 1,500-year cycle, and Bruce Weilicki's NASA heat-vent findings seem to indicate why. The warm pool of the Pacific acts like a cooking pot, with its "lid" popping open to emit steam when the water gets too hot.

The more we look, the more we learn about the Earth's complex climate forces – though not much of the new knowledge comes from the huge, unverified global circulation models favored by the man-made warming activists.

Oh, my, did he say "Unverifed". Oh, my....... :ihit

RNR, is this just one man's opinion or a scientific finding? Oh, my!

xrayzebra

11-18-2006, 11:04 AM

And then you have this article, which says.....well what is it saying?

Mercosur
Friday, 17 November

Unprecedented warming cycle and declining sea ice in Artic

The Arctic is undergoing a substantial and unprecedented warming despite sporadic signals of a cooling trend reports an international panel of scientists. (Who says you cant have it both ways?}

"For the last six years, Arctic temperatures were above average," said Jim Overland, an oceanographer at Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle and one of the authors of "State of the Arctic", the report issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The area in the Arctic covered by sea ice is declining, vegetation is now growing in tundra regions previously hostile to such growth, and the glaciers at the edge of the Greenland ice sheet are sliding away faster than ever, the panel said.

Yet ocean and atmospheric patterns in the Arctic are still shifted around owing to natural cycles (or less-than-natural perturbations such as climate change), he said, which means short-term or localized measurements can give results that can, taken alone, indicate cooling.

"The Arctic has large region-to-region differences" Overland said and these transient, regional cycles that involve cooling could be masking the overall warming trend. Evidence of thickening of the ice sheet in some places, the slowing down of a wind-producing atmospheric cycle known as the Arctic oscillation and other pieces of the puzzle describing the Arctic environment have in the past been indicators of a cooling trend.

"There are these (cooling indicators) that the region is fighting back"

(Bet you didn't know that "Mother Nature" fights back, did you? She is a living, breathing thing, you know human)

said Jacqueline Richter-Menge, lead author of the NOAA report and a sea ice expert at the US Army's Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, New Hampshire.

But although the ice sheet might be thickening in some places, there's no question that the geographic area covered by ice in the Arctic continues to shrink. (See I told you, you can have it both ways)

"It was alarmingly thin in 2000, but it has thickened a bit lately," said James Morison, a University of Washington oceanographer who regularly measures Arctic conditions as director of the North Pole Environmental Observatory, sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Morison was not an author on this report.

The NOAA report is a consensus document reached by 20 experts from the U.S., Canada, Russia, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany and Poland, which merely reviews current data and agrees as to what is happening now to the Arctic.

Overall, the scientists agreed that the Arctic has been warmer by nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit for the past five years; the extent of the sea ice in the polar regions has been shrinking; significant areas of permafrost are thawing; vegetation is spreading northward; and glaciers appear to be melting at a faster rate.

.........

Hope you enjoyed....

RuffnReadyOzStyle

11-19-2006, 07:46 PM

Link your articles, Ray.

Yeah, that would be such a powerful article except that it's written by a non-scientist, non-climatologist lobbyist, which somewhat reduces his credibility on the matter. Dennis Avery is a well-known climate change and organic food skeptics at the Hudson Institute:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Dennis_Avery

His credibility is further reduced because he SPUN THE SOURCE ARTICLE!!!. Here is the actual scientific paper that some of the article is based on:

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/people/lyman/Pdf/heat_2006.pdf

1. Introduction
With over 1000 times the heat capacity of the atmosphere, the World Ocean is thelargest repository for changes in global heat content [Levitus et al., 2005]. Monitoring ocean heat content is therefore fundamental to detecting and understanding changes in the Earth’s heat balance. Past estimates of the global integral of ocean heat content anomaly (OHCA) indicate an increase of 14.5 × 1022 J from 1955 to 1998 from the surface to 3000m [Levitus et al., 2005] and 9.2 (± 1.3) × 1022 J from 1993 to 2003 in the upper (0 – 750m) ocean [Willis et al. 2004]. These increases provide strong evidence of global warming. Climate models exhibit similar rates of ocean warming, but only when forced by anthropogenic influences [Gregory et al., 2004; Barnett et al., 2005; Church et al.,2005; Hansen et al., 2005].

While there has been a general increase in the global integral of OHCA during thelast half century, there have also been substantial decadal fluctuations, including a short period of rapid cooling (6 × 1022 J of heat lost in the 0–700 m layer) from 1980 to 1983 [Levitus et al., 2005]. Most climate models, however, do not contain unforced decadal variability of this magnitude [Gregory et al., 2004; Barnett et al., 2005, their Figure S1; Church et al., 2005; and Hansen et al., 2005] and it has been suggested that such fluctuations in the observational record may be due to inadequate sampling of ocean temperatures [Gregory et al., 2004]. We have detected a new cooling event that began in 2003 and is comparable in magnitude to the one in the early 1980s. Using high resolution satellite data to estimate sampling error, we find that both the recent event and the cooling of the early 1980s are significant with respect to these errors.

5. Discussion
This work has several implications. First, the updated time series of ocean heat content presented here (Figure 1) and the newly estimated confidence limits (Figure 3) support the significance of previously reported large interannual variability in globally integrated upper-ocean heat content [Levitus et al., 2005]. However, the physical causes for this type of variability are not yet well understood. Furthermore, this variability is not adequately simulated in the current generation of coupled climate models used to study the impact of anthropogenic influences on climate [Gregory et al., 2004; Barnett et al. 2005; Church et al. 2005; and Hansen et al., 2005]. Although these models do simulate the long-term rates of ocean warming, this lack of interannual variability represents ashortcoming that may complicate detection and attribution of human-induced climate influences.

Changes in OHCA also affect sea level. Sea level rise has a broad range of
implications for climate science as well as considerable socioeconomic impacts
[Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, 2004]. Diagnosing the causes of past and present sea level change and closure of the sea level budget is therefore a critical component of understanding past changes in sea level as well as projecting future changes. The recent cooling of the upper ocean implies a decrease in the thermosteric component of sea level. Estimates of total sea level [Leuliette et al., 2004; http://sealevel.colorado.edu], however, show continued sea-level rise during the past 3 years. This suggests that other contributions to sea-level rise, such as melting of land-bound ice, have accelerated. This inference is consistent with recent estimates of ice mass loss in Antarctica [Velicogna and Wahr, 2006] and accelerating ice mass loss on Greenland [Rignot et al., 2006] but closure of the global sea level budget cannot yet be achieved. New satellite observations from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE; launched in March, 2002 and administered by NASA and Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt, GRACE will map Earth's gravity field approximately once every 30 days during its lifetime) should soon provide sufficient observations of the redistribution of water mass to more fully describe the
causes of recent sea-level change.

Finally, the estimates presented here are made possible only by recent
improvements in the global ocean observing system. The sharp decrease in the error since 2002 is due to the dramatic improvement of in situ sampling provided by the Argo array of autonomous profiling CTD floats, and the real-time reporting of Argo data made it possible to extend the estimate through 2005. Characterization of the error budget, which is of paramount importance in the estimate of such globally averaged quantities, was made feasible by the long-term maintenance of high quality altimeter missions such as TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason. The issues relating to sea level rise and the global water budget can only be addressed when the record of satellite gravity measurement from GRACE achieves adequate duration. GRACE, Argo, and satellite altimetry are core components of the global ocean observing system. Failure to maintain any one of these observing systems would seriously impair our ability to monitor the World Ocean and to unravel its importance to the climate system.

See, Ray, here's one of your problems, which I've told you about before. You have to go to primary sources or you are relying on someone else's take on the evidence. The extracts above, from the primary paper, clearly illustrate that Lyman's work does not challenge anthropocentric EGW and rather are an attempt to add more data to the models. In his article, Avery twisted the words and intent of the study to his own purposes. Please put a link in so I can send it to Dr Lyman and inform him that Avery is misrepresenting his study in this way.

You can take down your little punching guy, I think I just knocked you out... again. :rolleyes

Thanks for posting the second article as it only supports what we already know - ice is thickening towards the pole, thinning rapidly further south. Your emboldening is a total sham. No scientists has said that there is uniform warming across the globe or across time - a few places will get cooler, and there will be year-to-year variability. As the last paragraph states:

Overall, the scientists agreed that the Arctic has been warmer by nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit for the past five years; the extent of the sea ice in the polar regions has been shrinking; significant areas of permafrost are thawing; vegetation is spreading northward; and glaciers appear to be melting at a faster rate.

That article supports the anthro EGW theory. I have no idea why you posted it since it detracts from your argument. Want to know more about the impact of warming on the Arctic, wheck out the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment:

http://www.acia.uaf.edu/

As for this:

"(Bet you didn't know that "Mother Nature" fights back, did you? She is a living, breathing thing, you know human)"

you are talking about GAIA, and if you really believe this you ought to read James Lovelock's 1980s book on it, or the update in 2000. Fascinating man, Lovelock:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lovelock

You realise, of course, that Lovelock was one of the first scientists to raise the alarm about EGW back in the 1980s (or was it 1970s)?

Once again Ray, you have proven nothing but the fact that you don't have a clue what you are talking about, and nor can you research it properly. Please give up as you embarrass yourself. Or better yet, get a clue and pull your head out of the sand.

RuffnReadyOzStyle

11-20-2006, 07:05 PM

BTW, has everyone seen the Mauna Loa CO2 curve?

http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.php

It's a brilliant piece of science - you can see the general rising trend in CO2 level (because we humans produce so much more of the stuff than can be absorbed by the carbon cycle), but the neat little oscillations in annual cycles show THE EARTH BREATHING! In spring the atmospheric CO2 level declines a little as new plant growth fixes carbon from the air, then the level rises again in late summer-autumn-winter as tree growth slows and stops, leaves decay and CO2 is returned to the atmosphere. Very cool.

RuffnReadyOzStyle

11-21-2006, 12:54 AM

Hmmmm... conspicuous silence when the skeptics get caught out using their lying scumbag tricks.

See, these people like Avery and Ebell and Milloy have no scientific or moral credibility. They read papers and then very selectively take a line here or there out of context to bolster their agenda, the facts be buggered. They are LYING SCUMBAGS, and right above you is clear evidence of the tactics they use.

Notice that the article quotes Lyman once in inverted commas, suggesting that he has spoken to the author, which is clearly not the case since that line comes straight out of the primary paper. The line about the heat vent comes from a 2001 hypothetical idea by infamous climate change critic Richard Lindzen (one of the few skeptics who is actually a scientist) that hasn't been borne out by later research. They even get Lyman's name wrong later in the piece, later calling him "Layman". All-around shoddy work by co-opted souls desperate to support an agenda before any real consideration of the facts.

Phenomanul

11-21-2006, 09:29 AM

Phenomanul

11-21-2006, 09:32 AM

Where is hegamboa when it comes to climate change? He has scientific credentials but only uses them in a religious context. Go figure.

:dramaquee

Don't worry about me... OK. I don't live in the forum or live for the forum... I've got other things to do outside of it...

Thanks. :wakeup

xrayzebra

11-21-2006, 09:54 AM

RuffnReadyOzStyle

11-21-2006, 07:51 PM

Here's my mid-to-long term solution:

Invest heavily in reforestation programs... In fact sometimes I wish that the millions of dollars being spent on environmental lobbying would just get applied directly to the solution. You get the best bang for the buck by using nature's own Oxidation Machines. Biology 101: Plants remove CO2 from the air and release O2.

That's a small part of the solution, but that's all. We couldn't plant enough trees to absorb the CO2 we currently put into the atmosphere, let alone the future increase in CO2 emissions. Then you have the problem that trees only capture CO2 up to a certain point in their maturation, then they lose their potential as carbon sinks. When they die and decompose, they re-release the CO2 they absorbed earlier. As I said, it is part of the solution, but no a fix-all.

Actually, more importantly, and much easier to accomplish, would be to PREVENT FURTHER DEFORESTATION in countries like Brazil and Papua New Guinea. Anthropogenic deforestation results in roughly double the CO2 emissions of the world's fleet of cars and trucks. However, you have to give poor people an incentive not to destroy the environment, and that's where cap and trade comes in. I posted an article about this somewhere, but I can't find it.

The broader point is that there is no "one, simple solution" to a complex problem like EGW. It's going to take a mixture of adoption of renewable energy generation, tree planting, behaviour changes, etc.

Well RNR, guess it is just that your so smart and we are so dumb. So
Guess you win. Like ChumpDumper says: "We are Doomed".

And the next time one of your scientist admits, well, we made a little
mistake. I promise I wont say: "Told you so".

As I've said time and again Ray, it's not a matter of me being "so smart", it's a matter of integrity. Avery misquoted from Lyman's research to further his skeptical agenda. He used what Lyman reported in his paper out of context for his own political purposes, as I've clearly demonstrated above. That is simple intellectual dishonesty, and I didn't have to be very smart to find it - all I had to do was actually read the original research. You'd rather trust guys who have to perpetrate dirty tricks to build a flim-flam argument than the world's best scientific minds? That's your right, but to me that is absurd.

As for "we're all doomed", who said that? We're NOT DOOMED if we act now. That is the whole point of my posting this stuff here - to get people to think about their behaviours, the impact of their consumption on the world, the impact of their political decisions, and to do something about them. Pretending that "this is not my problem" is the worst thing any of us can do. We are all responsible for the choices we make, moreover we are responsible to future generations of human beings for the damage we are doing to what will be their environment.

You won't get to say I told you so, because I wouldn't be saying what I'm saying if the science wasn't irrefutable. It is I who will certainly say "I told you so" to you, although I wonder just what level of proof you need to believe that humans are impacting on our climate? I fear that nothing science could ever discover could sway you and your ilk from the comfortable inertia of your "opinions".

Oh, and do you not link your sources out of laziness, or is it to obscure the sources? Your mind-tricks do not work on me, Sith... :lol

xrayzebra

11-21-2006, 08:37 PM

That's a small part of the solution, but that's all. We couldn't plant enough trees to absorb the CO2 we currently put into the atmosphere, let alone the future increase in CO2 emissions. Then you have the problem that trees only capture CO2 up to a certain point in their maturation, then they lose their potential as carbon sinks. When they die and decompose, they re-release the CO2 they absorbed earlier. As I said, it is part of the solution, but no a fix-all.

Actually, more importantly, and much easier to accomplish, would be to PREVENT FURTHER DEFORESTATION in countries like Brazil and Papua New Guinea. Anthropogenic deforestation results in roughly double the CO2 emissions of the world's fleet of cars and trucks. However, you have to give poor people an incentive not to destroy the environment, and that's where cap and trade comes in. I posted an article about this somewhere, but I can't find it.

The broader point is that there is no "one, simple solution" to a complex problem like EGW. It's going to take a mixture of adoption of renewable energy generation, tree planting, behaviour changes, etc.

As I've said time and again Ray, it's not a matter of me being "so smart", it's a matter of integrity. Avery misquoted from Lyman's research to further his skeptical agenda. He used what Lyman reported in his paper out of context for his own political purposes, as I've clearly demonstrated above. That is simple intellectual dishonesty, and I didn't have to be very smart to find it - all I had to do was actually read the original research. You'd rather trust guys who have to perpetrate dirty tricks to build a flim-flam argument than the world's best scientific minds? That's your right, but to me that is absurd.

As for "we're all doomed", who said that? We're NOT DOOMED if we act now. That is the whole point of my posting this stuff here - to get people to think about their behaviours, the impact of their consumption on the world, the impact of their political decisions, and to do something about them. Pretending that "this is not my problem" is the worst thing any of us can do. We are all responsible for the choices we make, moreover we are responsible to future generations of human beings for the damage we are doing to what will be their environment.

You won't get to say I told you so, because I wouldn't be saying what I'm saying if the science wasn't irrefutable. It is I who will certainly say "I told you so" to you, although I wonder just what level of proof you need to believe that humans are impacting on our climate? I fear that nothing science could ever discover could sway you and your ilk from the comfortable inertia of your "opinions".

Oh, and do you not link your sources out of laziness, or is it to obscure the sources? Your mind-tricks do not work on me, Sith... :lol

First, linking my sources, no it is not laziness
or is it to obscure the sources. It is because I
haven't figured out some of the complexities of
of the computer. I should have as I was a
cryptographer for many years, but that is a whole
different story. I am just getting old and maybe
I lied, I am lazy sometimes. And as an Aussie
you can understand the "scotch and water"
syndrome. Or better yet, a good old "fosters"
of course from my Aussie friends, yeah I have
a few, that isn't the best.

Like I told you once before, I reserve the right
to question any and all "scientific" information
proffered. It really isn't a political issue with me
in so many ways, and it is in others, it is just that
they want to be so damn right, when in so many
ways they are proven so damn wrong.

I can understand, really I can, your reluctance to
to acknowledge this. This is your bailiwick. But
I know in my career it was understood, that with
persistence and Patience that codes could be
broken, even those they were supposed to not
be prone to attack, they were. Anyhow. Just
let me conclude with, Google crypto and cps 2900
and you will find that computers put a lot of
folks out of business. So don't be too complacent
with the knowledge that you have attained.
Knowledge is never ending. It changes in
seconds.

By the way. Do you play golf? I am not great
but for an old man, I do pretty good and I know
most of the courses here in town. And I have
an extra set of clubs.

RuffnReadyOzStyle

11-21-2006, 09:20 PM

Like I told you once before, I reserve the right
to question any and all "scientific" information
proffered. It really isn't a political issue with me
in so many ways, and it is in others, it is just that
they want to be so damn right, when in so many
ways they are proven so damn wrong.

That is called advancement. As I explained before, we hypothesise on the available evidence, and as the evidence grows the hypothesis refines. I am so strident about EGW because, IMHO, and the opinion of the scientific community, the evidence for it has become overwhelming.

Sorry, my father plays golf, but not me. I can't get any clubs to fit as I am 6'7". Thanks for the offer though.

Oh, and Aussies don't drink Fosters. It's our shitiest beer, so we export it! :lol

xrayzebra

11-21-2006, 09:30 PM

Oh, and Aussies don't drink Fosters. It's our shitiest beer, so we export it! :lol

Thats what they all say. That is why I stick to
..........oh, well. It isn't Fosters. But I do like
the scotch, it's really the water.....I prefer... well
it makes a good excuse. :drunk

xrayzebra

11-21-2006, 09:33 PM

That is called advancement. As I explained before, we hypothesise on the available evidence, and as the evidence grows the hypothesis refines. I am so strident about EGW because, IMHO, and the opinion of the scientific community, the evidence for it has become overwhelming.

Sorry, my father plays golf, but not me. I can't get any clubs to fit as I am 6'7". Thanks for the offer though.

Oh, and Aussies don't drink Fosters. It's our shitiest beer, so we export it! :lol

I have access to some clubs that would fit you.
Or we can always just play the 19th hole.... :lol
Honestly I do.....

RuffnReadyOzStyle

11-21-2006, 10:56 PM

Thanks, but I have no game. No swing. No clue.

If I didn't have shot ankles, I'll take you down into the low post and mess you up though!

:lmao @ the thought of me and Ray playing ball!

boutons_

11-26-2006, 03:40 PM

Energy Firms Come to Terms With Climate Change

By Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, November 25, 2006; A01

While the political debate over global warming continues, top executives at many of the nation's largest energy companies have accepted the scientific consensus about climate change and see federal regulation to cut greenhouse gas emissions as inevitable.

The Democratic takeover of Congress makes it more likely that the federal government will attempt to regulate emissions. The companies have been hiring new lobbyists who they hope can help fashion a national approach that would avert a patchwork of state plans now in the works. They are also working to change some company practices in anticipation of the regulation.

"We have to deal with greenhouse gases," John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Co., said in a recent speech at the National Press Club. "From Shell's point of view, the debate is over. When 98 percent of scientists agree, who is Shell to say, 'Let's debate the science'?"

( another fucking corporate liar. Shell and all the energy companies have been funding think tanks, agit prop, school books, films, etc, etc for years to fight scientific research proving global warming)

Hofmeister and other top energy company leaders, such as Duke Energy Corp.'s chief executive, James E. Rogers, back a proposal that would cap greenhouse gas emissions and allow firms to trade their quotas.

Paul M. Anderson, Duke Energy's chairman and a member of the president's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, favors a tax on emissions of carbon dioxide, the most prevalent greenhouse gas. His firm is the nation's third-largest burner of coal.

Exxon Mobil Corp., the highest-profile corporate skeptic about global warming, said in September that it was considering ending its funding of a think tank that has sought to cast doubts on climate change. And on Nov. 2, the company announced that it will contribute more than $1.25 million to a European Union study on how to store carbon dioxide in natural gas fields in the Norwegian North Sea, Algeria and Germany.

These changes come as Democratic leaders prepare to take over key committees on Capitol Hill. Sen. Barbara Boxer (Calif.), who calls global warming "the greatest challenge of our generation," will take the place of Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) as chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Inhofe refers to global warming as a "hoax."

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), the incoming Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairman, said he hopes to "do something on global warming." Even though the Bush administration's expected opposition might make the enactment of legislation unlikely in the next two years, many companies cannot put off decisions about what sort of power plants to build.

Duke Energy, for example, has not added significant power generation in two decades, and customer demand is rising 1 to 2 percent a year. The company has included a price for the carbon emitted in its cost estimates for a new coal-fired generating plant proposed for Indiana.

"If we had our druthers, we'd already have carbon legislation passed," said John L. Stowell, Duke Energy's vice president for environmental policy. "Our viewpoint is that it's going to happen. There's scientific evidence of climate change. We'd like to know what legislation will be put together so that, when we figure out how to increase our load, we know exactly what to expect."

One reason companies are turning to Congress is to avert the multiplicity of regulations being drafted by various state governments. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a group of seven Northeastern states, is moving ahead with a proposed system that would set a ceiling on greenhouse gas emissions, issue allowances to companies, and allow firms to trade those allowances to comply with regulations.

California is drawing up its program. Other states are also contemplating limits. Even the city of Boulder, Colo., has adopted its own plan -- a carbon tax based on electricity use.

"We cannot deal with 50 different policies," said Shell's Hofmeister. "We need a national approach to greenhouse gases."

( bullshit, what Shell, etc need is a way to return the Repugs to Congressional power so the emissions problem can be kicked down the road as long as the Repugs are in power)

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether the federal government is obligated to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant; its decision could force the government to come up with guidelines.

( there ya, go, corporate fuckers. The Repug-packed SC will save your asses and define CO2 as non-poluting gas. Enjoy your $Bs in Repug-protected profits. )

Though many energy firms had already voiced support in recent months for federal regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions, the coming changeover in Congress has intensified the discussions.

"There have been many more folks wanting to engage on the detailed architecture of climate-change legislation," said Jason S. Grumet, executive director of the bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy. "The tenor, tone and the detail of discussions has changed in the last couple of months. Nobody's going to want to be the last company to come before the Congress and say, 'I've been opposing you for five years, but now can I have my piece?' "

( so what happens to the radical right sheeple-bots who have been indoctrinated to "believe" (don't hassle them with facts) Repug "science" that global warming is natural and not man-made?

Soviet "science", Repug "science", Genesis "science", all are self-serving total lying bullshit )

Some businesses are making new hires based on the assumption that legislative activity on global warming will increase in the coming months. Truman Semans, director of markets and business strategy for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said at least half a dozen of the companies that belong to the center's Business Environmental Leadership Council have recently hired staff members focused on global warming.

Not every energy company is planning to curb greenhouse gas emissions in the near future. TXU Corp. is planning to spend $10 billion to build 11 new coal-fired power plants, which would more than double the company's carbon dioxide emissions, from 55 million tons to 133 million tons a year. That increase in emissions is more than the total carbon dioxide pollution emitted in all of Maryland or by 10 million Cadillac Escalade sport-utility vehicles.

In an e-mail to The Washington Post, TXU spokeswoman Kimberly Morgan said that the company supports "a comprehensive, voluntary, technology-based approach to global climate change based on carbon intensity" that is both "flexible and cost effective."

( iow, "we'll fucking do fucking nothing about fukcing spewing as much fucking pollution as we want to optimize our profits" )

"We are at a point in time where other states and businesses are starting to take global warming seriously," said Colin Rowan, spokesman for the advocacy group Environmental Defense. "California is heading toward the future, and TXU and Texas are sprinting full speed back to the 1950s."

The company's approach may pay off in the short term, but it may not last. "Over the next two years I don't think environmental policy is going to change radically," said Carl Pope, executive director of the advocacy group Sierra Club. But he added, "I think the environmental agenda and conversation will change radically."

Corporate America wants to be part of that conversation. Duke Energy's Stowell said: "Industry is coming together and saying, 'Okay, if we're going to do this, let's do this in a way that won't wreck the economy.' "

( wreck the economy, ha! iow, "let's do nothing in a way the leaves our polluting profits untouched" )

=======================

1000 new coal-fired plants world-wide are scheduled to be built in the upcoming years. Right now they are all going to be plants that emit Ms of tons of CO2 annually.

RuffnReadyOzStyle

11-26-2006, 06:57 PM

As I have been saying all along, once coal and oil industry lobbyists, and the insurance industry (the world's risk assessors) have bought into Anthropocentric Climate Change, which they now have, the science must be pretty staggering, which of course I already know it is. We'll never get an apology from all the lying scumbags out there who have been obfuscating the truth for so long though.

New coal fired power plants should literally be banned unless they include CO2 sequestration technology. Want more base-load power - build gas-fired plants. They are more flexible and efficient and produce 60% less CO2/unit of power. Otherwise, all our new generation capacity should be going into wind, solar, geothermal and tidal power.

boutons - your bracketted comments are spot on.

That final comment on wrecking the economy is such a massive furphy - renewable energy will actually create jobs and wealth over the long term, and it will be even bigger than the tech boom over the course of the next 50 years... if we ever get around to actually making it happen.

xrayzebra

11-26-2006, 08:40 PM

I found this quite interesting and humorous.

RECORD COLD, FEWER HURRICANES: MUST BE GLOBAL WARMING

Mocking comment from Harvard by Lubos Motl

Eastern Australia hasn't seen this November cold for 100+ years: it was the coldest November day in a century. Recall that "November" in Australian can be translated as "May" in the U.S. Nevertheless, they have had mushy snow in Canberra, a blast of Antarctic magic. A goosepimply, teeth-chattering Sydney has another reason to shake its collective head at the weather gods today.

Nevertheless, intelligent journalists immediately explain us that cooler weather and fewer hurricanes do not lessen global warming trends because weather is not climate, just like religion is not faith. The climate and the climate change are not only independent of the weather but they are independent of all other things that can be measured, too.

More precisely, weather is only climate when it's getting warmer and when the hurricane frequency increases. When the weather is getting cooler and the hurricane rate is decreasing, weather is no longer climate. It follows that the climate is always getting warmer - QED Amen. That's why Kofi Annan can tell us that we, the skeptics, are out of step, out of time, and out of arguments. He is out of tune, out of touch, and out of mind, trying to build the 1984-style global government.

Want a link:

http://antigreen.blogspot.com/

Several more real interesting comments if you want
to read them.

RandomGuy

11-27-2006, 12:02 PM

^^Another little article on "warming" I found interesting.

The more we look, the more we learn about the Earth's complex climate forces – though not much of the new knowledge comes from the huge, unverified global circulation models favored by the man-made warming activists.

Oh, my, did he say "Unverifed". Oh, my....... :ihit

RNR, is this just one man's opinion or a scientific finding? Oh, my!

Such models are indeed "unverified". The only way they could be verified is with the passage of time.

Here's a question for you:

Take a revolver with one bullet in it. I have an unverified statistical model that says you probably won't blow your brains out if you point it at your head and pull the trigger.

If I gave you $100, would you do so once?

xrayzebra

11-27-2006, 05:35 PM

^^Only if you put the hundred on the table, do it
yourself six times, then I would.

So your saying, it is such a serious problem, we must
accept their theory. We just afford not too.

Real smart.

RuffnReadyOzStyle

11-27-2006, 08:58 PM

As I have explained before, models evolve over time and are run in historical scenarios millions of times to see if they produce the actual observed historical outcome, as a means of improving accuracy. Modelling, like any engineering, is an iterative process. As the breadth of our knowledge increases, so does the accuracy of our models because we can factor in more variables more accurately. Models will always have confidence intervals and thus produce ranges of probable outcomes (eg. CO2 to 550ppm will result in a 1.1-3.2C increase in global temp).

cooler weather and fewer hurricanes do not lessen global warming trends because weather is not climate

Exactly. Weather is day to day, climate is long term observed trends over decades/centuries/millenia. The semantic games played by climate change skeptics don't change one bit of the scientific evidence.

This fits perfectly with global warming theory anyway, which states that there will be greater variability in weather and more extreme weather events. In Canberra, we also had the warmest August (ie. winter) that I can remember, with a fortnight over 20C (unheard of here - August ave is 12C).

Why are we even discussing this? Day to day or month to month trends don't mean much - trends over decades, centuries and millenia are the timescale on which EGW theory is based.

And as for the source, thanks for citing, but antigreen.blogspot is hardly credible science. It is opinion. In scientific debate, opinion mean nothing. Empirical evidence is the currency.

RuffnReadyOzStyle

11-27-2006, 09:00 PM

Ray, how do you explain the oil and coal companies now bowing to the weight of scientific evidence and asking for market certainty (ie. a gloabl cap and trade system or a carbon tax)? It is diametrically against their interests to do so, so why would they unless they accept that the evidence is now so strong that they look like idiots by trying vainly to refute it?

How does that fit in your skepticism? The guys who've fed you all your falsehoods are now admitting they were wrong. :lol

RandomGuy

11-28-2006, 10:34 AM

^^Only if you put the hundred on the table, do it
yourself six times, then I would.

So your saying, it is such a serious problem, we must
accept their theory. We just afford not too.

Real smart.

No. The potential consequences of failure in this case are catastrophic.

We have fire insurance on our houses for a reason. We don't expect our houses to burn down, but we pay money in case it does, so that we haven't lost anything.

This is the same concept. We hope and don't expect the earths climate to change catastrophically, but we invest a little bit to lower the possibility that it does.

Is that really unreasonable?

xrayzebra

11-28-2006, 10:45 AM

Well RG and RNR. I would like for you to read this little article I lifted from the
same site I posted in post #69 above. Now you tell me if the guy from India has
a point or not.

"IMMEDIATE STEEP REDUCTIONS OF CO2 EMISSIONS TURN OUT TO BE A FANTASY"

Immediate steep global reductions in the emissions of the chief greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, turn out to be a fantasy. This was made plain by a panel discussion today which featured the release of a report by the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies. The panel aimed to outline the "economic case for action on climate change," but the realities of global poverty overwhelmed it.

First, the CEPS report itself with the fetching title, Revisiting EU Policy Options for Tackling Climate Change, was a kind of Stern Review-lite. The Stern Review released by the British government the week before the Nairobi climate conference convened argued that avoiding climate change must begin now and was surprisingly affordable. It achieved that conclusion by among other things positing a very low discount rate so that investments made now to avoid climate change look cheap when compared to the costs of adapting in the future to climate change. The CEPS report also applied a relatively low discount rate and included measures for the "social costs" of externalities and for valuing energy security. The CEPS report amounted to interesting intellectual exercise that focused on the sorts of expensive actions that already rich countries can afford to take even if they turn out to be economic dead ends.

The CEPS report made the magnitude of the proposed reductions clear. In order to make sure that the CO2 concentrations do not rise beyond 550 parts per million in the atmosphere by 2050, the current annual level of global emissions of 33 billion tons of CO2 would have to be slashed by 25 billion tons by 2050. A drop of around 70-80 percent. However, if no emissions reductions policies are put in place, the CEPS report notes that global emissions would rise from 33 billion tons of CO2 today to 51 billion tons by 2050. For comparison, the European Union's Kyoto Protocol reductions amount to 400 million tons of CO2 by 2012.

Next, Surya P. Sethi, the principal energy policy advisor to the Indian government, showed that the CEPS study is basically an exercise in climate change policy whimsy. Sethi began by reviewing the development challenges faced by India. He pointed out that 50 percent of its people have no access to electricity; cooking was the largest use of energy for 75 percent of households; and 70 percent of cooking was done using traditional biomass, wood and dung. In addition, 35 percent of India's people live on less than $1 per day and 80 percent live on less than $2 per day. He pointed out that lack of access to modern energy supplies correlates with high infant mortality, low life expectancies, high gender inequality, and low literacy rates.

Sethi then noted that India's economy must grow at 8 percent per year for the next 25 years in order to lift the bottom 40 percent of its people to a decent standard of living. He pointed out that India was falling behind in achieving it Millennium Development Goals of reducing poverty due to persistent energy shortages. "Energy is central for development. Our energy consumption must go up," declared Sethi. Today India uses 471 million tons oil equivalent (MTOE) of energy each year of which 327 MTOE is primary commercial energy. The rest comes from burning traditional biomass. In order to achieve its poverty reduction goals, Sethi asserted that India needs to grow its energy supplies by 4.3 to 5.1 percent per year and to consume 1536 to 1887 MTOE by 2031. (For comparison the US consumes around 2300 MTOE annually now.) "India will need to tap all available energy supplies and pursue all available energy efficiency technologies. For India it is not a choice between energy supply and energy efficiency. It is both." said Sethi.

Sethi contrasted India's current total primary energy supply (TPES) per capita energy use with other countries. TPES per capita is calculated as the energy equivalent of the amount of oil in kilograms (kgoe) a person consumes per year. In China the amount is 1090 kgoe, Brazil 1094, Denmark 3852, UK 3906, US 7835, Japan 4052, and the world average per capita energy use is 1688. Where does India stand? The average Indian consumes the equivalent of 439 kilograms of oil. The eight percent annual economic growth that Sethi hopes India will experience over the quarter century would mean that the average Indian would be consuming between 1065 and 1279 kgoe in 2031. That's about what the average Chinese uses now and is only 70 percent of world's current per capita average.

Sethi said that India could cut projected CO2 emissions between 2012 and 2017 by 550 million tons at an additional cost of $25 billion for more energy efficient technologies. However, he pointed out that the Indian government spent that amount on its social and poverty reduction goals in the last five years. He then pointedly added, "I do not have the funds for both. My choice is to improve the lot of India's poor or reduce CO2 emissions so the developed world can breathe easier." Paying for the new energy efficiency technologies would also raise the price of power and thereby delay its delivery to the poor. Besides, Sethi observed, Indians already pay the highest rate in purchasing power parity terms for energy in the world. In fact, the average household spends one and a half times more on energy than it does on food. Finally, Sethi told me that even after implementing the most efficient energy conservation technologies over the next 25 years, India will still be emitting 4 times more CO2 in 2031 than it does today.

A Swede in the audience reminded Sethi that the Stern Review had declared that urgent action toward reducing CO2 emissions is needed now. Sethi's response made it clear that restricting the access to energy by world's poor was unacceptable. "You cannot tackle climate change unless you make dramatic lifestyle changes in the West," replied Sethi. I think it is a safe bet that few Westerners will decide for the sake of the climate to live like poor Indians. So humanity will have little choice but to adapt to any future climate change. Fortunately, economic growth makes that easier to do.

Tomorrow-the environment ministers finally gather here in Nairobi to ratify and complete what their underlings have been negotiating for the past week which, as far as I can tell right now, isn't much. A couple of side events intrigue me so I may cover sessions on climate and forests, the role of policies the enable adaptation to climate change once the Kyoto Protocol comes to an end in 2012, and another that asks if it is time to set a long-term global climate. The last is basically asking where humanity wants to set the planet's thermostat.

Source

Winehole23

03-31-2014, 08:36 AM

Coca-Cola has always been more focused on its economic bottom line than on global warming, but when the company lost a lucrative operating license in India because of a serious water shortage there in 2004, things began to change.Today, after a decade of increasing damage to Coke’s balance sheet as global droughts dried up the water needed to produce its soda, the company has embraced the idea of climate change as an economically disruptive force.

“Increased droughts, more unpredictable variability, 100-year floods every two years,” said Jeffrey Seabright, Coke’s vice president for environment and water resources, listing the problems that he said were also disrupting the company’s supply of sugar cane and sugar beets, as well as citrus for its fruit juices. “When we look at our most essential ingredients, we see those events as threats.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/science/earth/threat-to-bottom-line-spurs-action-on-climate.html?_r=1

Winehole23

03-31-2014, 09:02 AM

Nike, which has more than 700 factories in 49 countries, many in Southeast Asia, is also speaking out because of extreme weather that is disrupting its supply chain. In 2008, floods temporarily shut down four Nike factories in Thailand, and the company remains concerned about rising droughts in regions that produce cotton, which the company uses in its athletic clothes.

“That puts less cotton on the market, the price goes up, and you have market volatility,” said Hannah Jones, the company’s vice president for sustainability and innovation. Nike has already reported the impact of climate change on water supplies on its financial risk disclosure forms to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Both Nike and Coke are responding internally: Coke uses water-conservation technologies and Nike is using more synthetic material that is less dependent on weather conditions. At Davos and in global capitals, the companies are also lobbying governments to enact environmentally friendly policies.

same

boutons_deux

03-31-2014, 09:10 AM

"companies are also lobbying governments to enact environmentally friendly policies."

:lol as long as the companies profits aren't reduced. All y'all go fix the environment that we fuck up.

Winehole23

03-31-2014, 09:16 AM

for better and for worse, economic rationality is where the rubber meets the road

Winehole23

03-31-2014, 09:55 AM

sidebar: http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/14/2987/2014/acp-14-2987-2014.html

DarrinS

03-31-2014, 12:30 PM

sidebar: http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/14/2987/2014/acp-14-2987-2014.html

wut?

Winehole23

03-31-2014, 12:31 PM

that was my reaction too

MannyIsGod

03-31-2014, 02:33 PM

for better and for worse, economic rationality is where the rubber meets the road

Undeniably the truth. I tend to view it as for better, as we simply need to change environmental costs from being current externalities to actually reflected in the ledgers of the appropriate parties. Your links are absolute proof that when this is the case action happens.

IE - If companies whose actions result in more CO2 emissions felt the appropriate costs of those actions they would then mitigate those costs appropriately.

boutons_deux

04-01-2014, 03:29 PM

Exxon Is Behind The Landmark Climate Report You Didn’t Hear About (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/01/3421417/exxon-mobil-climate-risk-report/)

Climate change is already impacting (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/29/3420711/ipcc-report-all-continents/) all continents. But it isn’t yet impacting all companies. The latest installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report released on Monday confirmed the former. A report (http://corporate.exxonmobil.com/en/environment/climate-change/managing-climate-change-risks/carbon-asset-risk) released by Exxon Mobil the same day about how greenhouse gas emissions and climate change factor into its business model found that climate change, and specifically global climate policies, are “highly unlikely” to stop it from selling fossil fuels for decades to come.
Exxon is the first major oil and gas producer to publish a Carbon Asset Risk report to address investor concerns over how market forces and environmental regulations might impact the production of some of its reserves. The company agreed to publish the report several weeks ago (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/24/3417692/exxon-climate-risk-disclosure/) after Arjuna Capital, a sustainable wealth management platform, and As You Sow, a non-profit promoting environmental corporate responsibility, agreed to drop a shareholder resolution on the issue. These shareholders have concerns that Exxon Mobil’s assets will become worth less as fossil fuel restrictions come into place in coming years and climate change becomes an even more immediate and dire societal problem.

In the report, Exxon didn’t feel the need to sound any alarm bells.

“We know enough based on the research and science that the risk (of climate change) is real and appropriate steps should be taken to address that risk,” Ken Cohen, Exxon’s government affairs chief, told (http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2023271795_apxexxonclimatechange.html) the AP in an interview Monday. “But given the essential role that energy plays in everyone’s lives, those steps need to be taken in context with other realities we face, including lifting much of the world’s population out of poverty.”

Exxon said they take the risk of climate change seriously, but steps to address the problem “will be most effective if they are informed by global energy demand and supply realities, and balance the economic aspirations of consumers.”

( iow: "BigOil has industrial society by the balls, and has and will continue to slander and kill any and all attempts to release our mortal grip.")

Balancing these economic aspirations means that carbon dioxide emissions from energy sources peak around 2030 and begin to decrease within a decade after that as demand for access to electricity and heat is offset by increased efficiency and advances in low-carbon and renewable technologies.

Natasha Lamb, director of equity research at Arjuna Capita, told (http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2023271795_apxexxonclimatechange.html) the AP that while the report is a milestone, she was disappointed that it failed “to explain what would happen if society did in fact adopt policies that would lead to sharply lower emissions, something known broadly as a low-carbon standard.”

The world will require 35 percent more energy in 2040 than in 2010, according to the report, and Exxon Mobil does not believe that new forms of energy will be able to supplant traditional hydrocarbons in that period.

“Exxon Mobil has acknowledged the significant risks climate change poses to its business, the likelihood of a price on carbon, and growing momentum to address climate change — yet still calls a low-carbon scenario unlikely,” Andrew Logan, director of the Oil & Gas Program at Ceres, said in a statement (http://www.upstreamonline.com/live/article1356971.ece). “Investors disagree, and will continue to push Exxon Mobil to align their planning with this reality.”

“This reality” being the one depicted in the new IPCC report that warns of (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/30/3420723/climate-breakdown-of-food-systems/) the breakdown of food systems, new and prolonged poverty traps, and increased risks of violent conflicts and civil war. These warnings go far beyond investor’s concerns, and would require a commitment from Exxon Mobil to address — not just a statement of acknowledgement.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/01/3421417/exxon-mobil-climate-risk-report/