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Thread: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    (snip)"The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should according to the fundamental theory behind global warming – the greenhouse effect. Something else is happening and it is vital that we find out what or else we may spend hundreds of billions of pounds needlessly.

    In principle the greenhouse effect is simple. Gases like carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere absorb outgoing infrared radiation from the earth’s surface causing some heat to be retained.

    Consequently an increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases from human activities such as burning fossil fuels leads to an enhanced greenhouse effect. Thus the world warms, the climate changes and we are in trouble.

    The evidence for this hypothesis is the well established physics of the greenhouse effect itself and the correlation of increasing global carbon dioxide concentration with rising global temperature. Carbon dioxide is clearly increasing in the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s a straight line upward. It is currently about 390 parts per million. Pre-industrial levels were about 285 ppm. Since 1960 when accurate annual measurements became more reliable it has increased steadily from about 315 ppm. If the greenhouse effect is working as we think then the Earth’s temperature will rise as the carbon dioxide levels increase.

    But here it starts getting messy and, perhaps, a little inconvenient for some. Looking at the global temperatures as used by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the UK’s Met Office and the IPCC (and indeed Al Gore) it’s apparent that there has been a sharp rise since about 1980.

    The period 1980-98 was one of rapid warming – a temperature increase of about 0.5 degrees C (CO2 rose from 340ppm to 370ppm). But since then the global temperature has been flat (whilst the CO2 has relentlessly risen from 370ppm to 380ppm). This means that the global temperature today is about 0.3 deg less than it would have been had the rapid increase continued.

    For the past decade the world has not warmed. Global warming has stopped. It’s not a viewpoint or a sceptic’s inaccuracy. It’s an observational fact. Clearly the world of the past 30 years is warmer than the previous decades and there is abundant evidence (in the northern hemisphere at least) that the world is responding to those elevated temperatures. But the evidence shows that global warming as such has ceased.

    The explanation for the standstill has been attributed to aerosols in the atmosphere produced as a by-product of greenhouse gas emission and volcanic activity. They would have the effect of reflecting some of the incidental sunlight into space thereby reducing the greenhouse effect. Such an explanation was proposed to account for the global cooling observed between 1940 and 1978.

    But things cannot be that simple. The fact that the global temperature has remained unchanged for a decade requires that the quantity of reflecting aerosols dumped put in our atmosphere must be increasing year on year at precisely the exact rate needed to offset the accumulating carbon dioxide that wants to drive the temperature higher. This precise balance seems highly unlikely. Other explanations have been proposed such as the ocean cooling effect of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation or the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.

    But they are also difficult to adjust so that they exactly compensate for the increasing upward temperature drag of rising CO2. So we are led to the conclusion that either the hypothesis of carbon dioxide induced global warming holds but its effects are being modified in what seems to be an improbable though not impossible way, or, and this really is heresy according to some, the working hypothesis does not stand the test of data.

    It was a pity that the delegates at Bali didn’t discuss this or that the recent IPCC Synthesis report did not look in more detail at this recent warming standstill. Had it not occurred, or if the flatlining of temperature had occurred just five years earlier we would have no talk of global warming and perhaps, as happened in the 1970’s, we would fear a new Ice Age! Scientists and politicians talk of future projected temperature increases. But if the world has stopped warming what use these projections then?

    Some media commentators say that the science of global warming is now beyond doubt and those who advocate alternative approaches or indeed modifications to the carbon dioxide greenhouse warming effect had lost the scientific argument. Not so.

    Certainly the working hypothesis of CO2 induced global warming is a good one that stands on good physical principles but let us not pretend our understanding extends too far or that the working hypothesis is a sufficient explanation for what is going on.

    I have heard it said, by scientists, journalists and politicians, that the time for argument is over and that further scientific debate only causes delay in action. But the wish to know exactly what is going on is independent of politics and scientists must never bend their desire for knowledge to any political cause, however noble.

    The science is fascinating, the ramifications profound, but we are fools if we think we have a sufficient understanding of such a complicated system as the Earth’s atmosphere’s interaction with sunlight to decide. We know far less than many think we do or would like you to think we do. We must explain why global warming has stopped."(snip)

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    Senior Member Tara_SW's Avatar
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    well there is a tremendous amount of factual scientific data that says you couldn't be more wrong. So much so that anyone still trying to say all this crap about global warming being some kind of hoax played on the rest of the world just makes you look silly and ill informed about reality.

    Seriously get with it, you are surely not a dummy so why go around acting like it ???

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    This isn't worth an argument, but you may want to do some independent research into the 'factualness' of the actual scientific data ... versus the projections of (flawed) computer models based on (flawed) urban ground temperature measurements that were the basis for the original global warming 'hockeystick' prediction.

    The difference between true science and religion is that science accepts new data that contradicts familiar theories, abandons those familiar theories as overly simplistic and/or incorrect, and formulates new theories that do conform with the actual data - whereas a religion declares such new contradictory data as heresy and simply attempts to ignore / discredit any data that doesn't conform to it's dogma (as well as those persons who attempt to make new contradictory data public).

    From a personal standpoint, until somebody in the global warming camp can conclusively explain away contradictory data ... such as and and ... I'll continue to be a 'doubter'. This is particularly the case when some major proponents of human CO2 based global warming have also positioned themselves to profit tremendously from gov't actions which will be mandated as a result of 'official gov't acknowledgement' of the human based CO2 theory - both in terms of 'carbon credits' trading, and in terms of gov't research grants and development grants. One lesson I learned long ago was that if an investigator wants to find out what's REALLY going on, follow the money !!!

    ~
    Last edited by Melonie; 12-31-2007 at 06:52 PM.

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    Senior Member Tara_SW's Avatar
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie View Post
    This isn't worth an argument, but you may want to do some independent research into the 'factualness' of the actual scientific data
    well you're correct about it not being worth a fuss and thanks for the suggestion on doing further research but I've been there and done that and still look into all the latest on a regular basis.

    While I do appreciate your posting links I also recognize them to be some of the most biased, slanted (and sad to say intentionally false) sources around. If that's where you get your information from then it makes perfect sense why you take the point of view you do on global warming.

    I will say that your follow the money comment is spot on except the money leads to oil and coal companies buying fake news stories and the like so... anyway thanks for the discussion even if we don't see eye to eye.

    Got to run now. Off to a party. Hope you have a wonderful New years!

  5. #5
    Jay Zeno
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    It's good to hear that the polar ice actually isn't disappearing and that arctic mammals aren't losing habitat after all. The polar bears and seals just have bad science.

    When I walk over bare ground in Wyoming and New Zealand that was covered with glaciers 30 years ago, I'm relieved that it's really not that way. My vision just isn't independently researched.

    When we free up billions of tons of carbon from the ground and put it into the air, it's good to know it'll have no effect. When a bunch of it then falls into the ocean where the algae that provides the majority of our oxygen lives, it's good to hear that concerns about increased acidity are unfounded.

    Not to say that it's catastrophic. The planet has been both warmer and colder than it is now. Humans are adaptable and will find ways. Species may disappear, the environment may get worse, our children may experience a decreasing biodiversity, but humans will live on, noble creatures that they are.

    Just as the cycle of life, there's a cycle of faith approaches to knowledge. First, denial, then disclaiming, then divergence. Ask Copernicus and Galileo. Don't like the way knowledge is going? Deny it. Once it becomes obvious, disclaim its importance or marginalize its influence. When, finally, it's inescapable, leave it alone and diverge to deny the next round of knowledge that is uncomfortable to the faith.

    China is becoming the most toxic landfill on the planet, and we offer carbon credits. We not only use up resources that cannot be renewed but build systems that encourage increased use of them. Our approach to the environment has all the concern of a chicken that pecks through its own shit for food. But the chicken lives on. it adapts to its own filth, as will we, noble creatures that we both area.
    Last edited by Jay Zeno; 01-01-2008 at 12:58 PM. Reason: minor whoops edit

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    BrunetteGoddess
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    Wow, welcome back Tara...

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    Senior Member Tara_SW's Avatar
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    Quote Originally Posted by BrunetteGoddess View Post
    Wow, welcome back Tara...
    huh??? weird but oh well. whatever

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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie View Post
    http://www.newstatesman.com/200712190004

    (snip)"The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should according to the fundamental theory behind global warming – the greenhouse effect. Something else is happening and it is vital that we find out what or else we may spend hundreds of billions of pounds needlessly.

    )
    I didn't read the rest of the article because this totally made me lol

    Deny deny deny.

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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    I didn't read the rest of the article because this totally made me lol

    Deny deny deny.
    Indeed ...




    (snip)"Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).

    Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

    In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say "how silly to judge climate change over such a short period". Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming. Tosh. Our devotee will also pass by the curious additional facts that a period of similar warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate.

    Does something not strike you as odd here? That industrial carbon dioxide is not the primary cause of earth's recent decadal-scale temperature changes doesn't seem at all odd to many thousands of independent scientists. They have long appreciated - ever since the early 1990s, when the global warming bandwagon first started to roll behind the gravy train of the UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - that such short-term climate fluctuations are chiefly of natural origin. Yet the public appears to be largely convinced otherwise. How is this possible?

    Since the early 1990s, the columns of many leading newspapers and magazines, worldwide, have carried an increasing stream of alarmist letters and articles on hypothetical, human-caused climate change. Each such alarmist article is larded with words such as "if", "might", "could", "probably", "perhaps", "expected", "projected" or "modelled" - and many involve such deep dreaming, or ignorance of scientific facts and principles, that they are akin to nonsense.

    The problem here is not that of climate change per se, but rather that of the sophisticated scientific brainwashing that has been inflicted on the public, bureaucrats and politicians alike. Governments generally choose not to receive policy advice on climate from independent scientists. Rather, they seek guidance from their own self-interested science bureaucracies and senior advisers, or from the IPCC itself. No matter how accurate it may be, cautious and politically non-correct science advice is not welcomed in Westminster, and nor is it widely reported.

    Marketed under the imprimatur of the IPCC, the bladder-trembling and now infamous hockey-stick diagram that shows accelerating warming during the 20th century - a statistical construct by scientist Michael Mann and co-workers from mostly tree ring records - has been a seminal image of the climate scaremongering campaign. Thanks to the work of a Canadian statistician, Stephen McIntyre, and others, this graph is now known to be deeply flawed."(snip)

  10. #10
    Jay Zeno
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    These people don't get out much.

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    and another 'country' heard from !



    (snip)"The real reasons for climate changes are uneven solar radiation, terrestrial precession (that is, axis gyration), instability of oceanic currents, regular salinity fluctuations of the Arctic Ocean surface waters, etc. There is another, principal reason—solar activity and luminosity. The greater they are the warmer is our climate.

    Astrophysics knows two solar activity cycles, of 11 and 200 years. Both are caused by changes in the radius and area of the irradiating solar surface. The latest data, obtained by Habibullah Abdusamatov, head of the Pulkovo Observatory space research laboratory, say that Earth has passed the peak of its warmer period, and a fairly cold spell will set in quite soon, by 2012. Real cold will come when solar activity reaches its minimum, by 2041, and will last for 50-60 years or even longer.

    This is my point, which environmentalists hotly dispute as they cling to the hothouse theory. As we know, hothouse gases, in particular, nitrogen peroxide, warm up the atmosphere by keeping heat close to the ground. Advanced in the late 19th century by Svante A. Arrhenius, a Swedish physical chemist and Nobel Prize winner, this theory is taken for granted to this day and has not undergone any serious check.

    It determines decisions and instruments of major international organizations—in particular, the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Signed by 150 countries, it exemplifies the impact of scientific delusion on big politics and economics. The authors and enthusiasts of the Kyoto Protocol based their assumptions on an erroneous idea. As a result, developed countries waste huge amounts of money to fight industrial pollution of the atmosphere. What if it is a Don Quixote’s duel with the windmill?

    Hothouse gases may not be to blame for global warming. At any rate, there is no scientific evidence to their guilt. The classic hothouse effect scenario is too simple to be true. As things really are, much more sophisticated processes are on in the atmosphere, especially in its dense layer. For instance, heat is not so much radiated in space as carried by air currents—an entirely different mechanism, which cannot cause global warming.

    The temperature of the troposphere, the lowest and densest portion of the atmosphere, does not depend on the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions—a point proved theoretically and empirically. True, probes of Antarctic ice shield, taken with bore specimens in the vicinity of the Russian research station Vostok, show that there are close links between atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and temperature changes. Here, however, we cannot be quite sure which is the cause and which the effect.

    Temperature fluctuations always run somewhat ahead of carbon dioxide concentration changes. This means that warming is primary. The ocean is the greatest carbon dioxide depository, with concentrations 60-90 times larger than in the atmosphere. When the ocean’s surface warms up, it produces the “champagne effect.” Compare a foamy spurt out of a warm bottle with wine pouring smoothly when served properly cold.

    Likewise, warm ocean water exudes greater amounts of carbonic acid, which evaporates to add to industrial pollution—a factor we cannot deny. However, man-caused pollution is negligible here. If industrial pollution with carbon dioxide keeps at its present-day 5-7 billion metric tons a year, it will not change global temperatures up to the year 2100. The change will be too small for humans to feel even if the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions doubles.

    Carbon dioxide cannot be bad for the climate. On the contrary, it is food for plants, and so is beneficial to life on Earth. Bearing out this point was the Green Revolution—the phenomenal global increase in farm yields in the mid-20th century. Numerous experiments also prove a direct proportion between harvest and carbon dioxide concentration in the air.

    Carbon dioxide has quite a different pernicious influence—not on the climate but on synoptic activity. It absorbs infrared radiation. When tropospheric air is warm enough for complete absorption, radiation energy passes into gas fluctuations. Gas expands and dissolves to send warm air up to the stratosphere, where it clashes with cold currents coming down. With no noticeable temperature changes, synoptic activity skyrockets to whip up cyclones and anticyclones. Hence we get hurricanes, storms, tornados and other natural disasters, whose intensity largely depends on carbon dioxide concentration. In this sense, reducing its concentration in the air will have a positive effect.

    Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change. Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of humankind. Man’s influence on nature is a drop in the ocean."(snip)

    (snip)"What can’t be cured must be endured. It is wise to accept the natural course of things. We have no reason to panic about allegations that ice in the Arctic Ocean is thawing rapidly and will soon vanish altogether. As it really is, scientists say the Arctic and Antarctic ice shields are growing. Physical and mathematical calculations predict a new Ice Age. It will come in 100,000 years, at the earliest, and will be much worse than the previous. Europe will be ice-bound, with glaciers reaching south of Moscow.

    Meanwhile, Europeans can rest assured. The Gulf Stream will change its course only if some evil magic robs it of power to reach the north—but Mother Nature is unlikely to do that.

    Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin, Merited Scientist of Russia and fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, is staff researcher of the Oceanology Institute. "(snip)

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    God/dess Paris's Avatar
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    I see the global warming debate a lot like the obesity debate. No one is really sure how to cure obesity, but a good rule of thumb is to eat less and exercise more.

    Ditto with the whole global climate change thing. Common sense dictates that if pollution disrupts the environment, then maybe we should work on cutting back on pollution. Duh.

    I'll let the scientist hash out the causes and effects amongst themselves. For now, until we fully understand our planet and how it manages to survive, the best we can do is exhibit some common sense.

    Common sense dictates that pollution is bad. Therefore, less pollution is good. Everything else is just details.

    What we really need to work on is defining what pollution is and isn't. That is some actual useful information.


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  13. #13
    TheSexKitten
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    Quote Originally Posted by Paris View Post

    Common sense dictates that pollution is bad. Therefore, less pollution is good. Everything else is just details.

    What we really need to work on is defining what pollution is and isn't. That is some actual useful information.
    Agreed. Whether or not we'll be roasting in a flooded overn 30 years from now is really secondary to the simple fact that pollution = bad and that there are ways we can combat it which we should embrace sooner rather than later because we have the means to do so.

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    more and more announcements ...



    bad and that there are ways we can combat it which we should embrace sooner rather than later because we have the means to do so
    Exactly what are those 'means' you refer to ? We certainly can't invade China and force them to stop building unscrubbed coal fired power plants or force them to install basic pollution controls at their industrial plants. Yes we have some control over domestic pollution levels and CO2 production ... but at a tremendous cost, and with tremendous unintended consequences. But as California's recent air quality stats clearly point out, despite California's strict environmental laws having driven most heavy industries (along with their tax revenues and their jobs) out of the state, and as a result having significantly reduced in-state emissions, California's air quality is no longer improving. The reason of course is that China's emissions are being blown back to California by the trade winds !!!



    Common sense dictates that pollution is bad. Therefore, less pollution is good. Everything else is just details.
    In general I totally agree with you and so do most people. However, there is such a thing as the law of diminishing returns. Reducing pollution 90% is relatively easy to do and relatively affordable. This is the reason that US industries are already the 'cleanest' in the world (with localized exceptions in Western Europe). But reducing pollution 99% is NOT so easy to do and very expensive. When states like California put mandates in place that seek the 99% level, rather than attempt to meet that standard and risk bankrupting themselves in the process, most California heavy industries simply decided to pack up shop. However, in place of the 90% pollution controlled heavy industries that ceased to exist in California, the equivalent products are now imported from Chinese heavy industries that utilize nearly zero pollution controls. So by attempting to go from 90% reduction to 99% reduction in pollution levels this policy essentially INCREASED total global pollution by a factor of 10 X via the de-facto closure of 90% pollution reduced California heavy industires and de-facto substitution of 0% pollution reduced Chinese heavy industries to manufacture the same goods for sale in California.

    However, for many the important distinction of this policy was that California pollution was reduced, while the unintended consequence that Chinese pollution was massively increased in order to make the same product in the absence of pollution controls was not their problem. While most of the early advocates were not concerned with this unintended consequence as long as their own back yard was arguably cleaner, they are now FORCED to be concerned about it ... as the trade winds now blow some fraction of that Chinese pollution right back to California - which is arguably just as much pollution as the former 90% pollution reduction California heavy industries emitted, but which the state of California is powerless to stop !

    My point here is that the massive additional expense and de-facto reduction in the US standard of living necessary to reduce pollution / carbon emissions to that 99% level MIGHT be worth it IF the intended end result were actually achievable. However, unless and until some means can be found to reduce global pollution / carbon emissions to even the 90% level (versus the near zero emission reductions / pollution controls that are presently in place in 3rd world countries), attempting to take our own domestic emission reductions down from the 90% level to the 99% level will achieve extremely little except replacing more and more relatively 'clean' 90% emission reduced US heavy industries with extremely 'dirty' heavy industries in Asia that employ essentially zero emission reduction equipment. It will, however, take a tremendous toll on the US economy and US standard of living.

    Western Europe has discovered that the exact same problem exists with eastern european countries becoming the 'magnets' for heavy industries, for coal fired power generation etc. Of course Europe has the dubious advantage that their prevailing winds blow eastern european generated pollution toward Turkey / Russia / the middle east, instead of right back towards Western Europe.

    ~
    Last edited by Melonie; 01-06-2008 at 07:26 PM.

  15. #15
    Jay Zeno
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    I'm confused, because the thread title and OP refers to a denial of global warming, while the last posting acknowledges global warming but protests a 99% pollution free goal, which is the first time, as far as I can tell, that it's shown up in the argument.

    As long as we're using carbon-based fuel, I think 99% is unattainable, China or not. When you break down carbon-based materials, you'll get carbon-based byproducts. Carbon doesn't give up energy for free.

    I'm not a doomsayer with global warming, but I think it's comical to stick one's fingers in one's ears (or eyes) and go, "no, no, not happening, global warming, not happening." Perhaps take some comfort that humans outlived the Ice Age. They'll continue to exist if we go into a Desert Age. And for all we know, one of the consequences of global warming could be to generate a bunch of cold current that could ultimately serve to cool the planet.

    But the big lesson is that we can't continue to dump shit into our kitchen and bedroom, and we can't continue to use up nonrenewable resources uncaringly without paying for it down the road. The fact that it costs to mitigate the damage doesn't mean that mitigation is unneeded. I mean, in any other arena, that would be the conservative approach.

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    Senior Member Tara_SW's Avatar
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    Quote Originally Posted by Jay Zeno View Post
    As long as we're using carbon-based fuel, I think 99% is unattainable, China or not. When you break down carbon-based materials, you'll get carbon-based byproducts. Carbon doesn't give up energy for free.
    yup. that's why whenever possible each person who gives a damn about the planet should try and use energy from other sources.

    I saw something today on a news report about the big electronic convention going on in Las Vegas this week. I thought these were super cool. They are mini solar panel things for small personal electronics. The one for bluetooth's was like only 2 or so inches big. Two hours of powering off that solar panel gave 12 hours of talk time on your bluetooth! Using it would mean never using a carbon based energy source to recharge. They had other similar solar panels for other things too. The largest one I saw was maybe two feet long by 6 inches wide. Can't remember what it powered but the concept is FAB!

    I know. I know small changes aren't going to save the planet overnight or anything like that but we got to start somewhere.Things like those mini solar panels are yet another way individuals can take some personal responcibilty for the problems we have created on a mass scale.


    Just think about how much better it would be if people spent as much time and money creating and using new and less damaging ways to harness energy as they do trying to ignore the problem.

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    I know. I know small changes aren't going to save the planet overnight or anything like that but we got to start somewhere.Things like those mini solar panels are yet another way individuals can take some personal responcibilty for the problems we have created on a mass scale.
    Again the photo-voltaic aspect of alternative energy, like the wind power aspect, the ethanol aspect etc. only APPEAR to work because nobody looks at the details. Detail #1 is that the manufacturing of photo-voltaic systems / batteries / inverters etc. is a 'dirty' business environmentally speaking. Of course, like the California 99% pollution reduction mandates, photo-voltaic power angle looks clean from an American viewpoint but requires that one ignore the pollution and CO2 emissions generated in China where most of the system components are manufactured,

    Detail #2 is relative cost. In the case of a photo-voltaic panel for a bluetooth, who cares if the photo-voltaic panel adds $25 to a total cost of several hundred dollars, versus a commercial power cost of a fraction of a cent per day to charge batteries without the photo-voltaic panel. But for any 'practical' application, the cost difference is huge. A practical photo-voltaic system to run a single house with electric utility backup will cost $50,000, and close to $70,000 without electric utility backup. Of course, thanks to gov't subsidies, fellow taxpayers will be forced to pick up about $10,000 of that cost via tax credits. Also fellow electric utility customers will be forced to pay higher electric rates in order to continue providing backup electricity when the photo-voltaic system has a problem or several cloudy days in a row run the battery bank dead. But the bigger question of course is who the hell is going to loan out $50k-$70k to allow the photo-voltaic system to be purchased in the first place (in the absence of a US taxpayer guarantee against loan default), and how the potential photo-voltaic system buyer is going to afford an additional $3-400 a month in photo-voltaic system loan payments in lieu of say a $150 a month electric utility bill. And that of course doesn't take into account the $10k that will need to be spent every 10 years (or sooner) to replace the battery bank (or the pollution generated from battery recycling).

    Yes the tiny photo-voltaic add-ons to electronic equipment are 'cute', but they certainly aren't cost effective any more so than their bigger brothers. Arguably, neither reduces total worldwide pollution or CO2 emissions significantly ... however they do 'transplant' pollution / CO2 emissions from America to Asia !

    But the big lesson is that we can't continue to dump shit into our kitchen and bedroom
    well, this is the basic point that I'm trying to make. We can spend incredible amounts of money to make our own kitchen and bedroom 99% free of s#!t instead of 90% free of s#!t, and that appears to be a very good thing. But the unintended consequence will be that in exchange for reducing our own s#!tpile from (100-90) = 10 to (100-99) = 1, we are also causing the garbage heap in the neighboring country to increase by 100 !!!!! How is this really accomplishing the stated objective other than making sure that the ten times larger s#!tpiles are 'not in my back yard' ?

    ~
    Last edited by Melonie; 01-08-2008 at 11:05 AM.

  18. #18
    Senior Member Tara_SW's Avatar
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie View Post
    looks clean from an American viewpoint but requires that one ignore the pollution and CO2 emissions generated in China p>
    ~
    gosh, I wish you would make up your mind. One day you are posting about how you think there is nothing to worry about regarding this general subject. Even sounding like you refuse to believe it even exists.The next you are posting the opposite. pick a side already, geez.

  19. #19
    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    gosh, I wish you would make up your mind. One day you are posting about how you think there is nothing to worry about regarding this general subject.
    I never posted that I personally think that there isn't anything to worry about. What I DID post was more than one source showing that the accurately measured average mean temperature of the earth has NOT increased since 1998.

    In regard to personal opinion, I feel that there is a HUGE environmental problem that needs to be dealt with ... but that problem primarily exists in China / India / Russia etc. where US law has no ability to force reductions and where the Kyoto Treaty has not called for reductions (with these heavy polluter countries being on record as saying they will not accept reductions in any case). However, US law DOES have the ability to force relatively 'clean' US industries to go bankrupt or cease to exist in America vs attempting to comply with regulations mandating they be 'squeaky clean', being replaced in turn by very 'dirty' industries in China / India / Russia etc. from whom Americans buy equivalent products !

    Yes it is my personal opinion that spending billions / trillions of dollars to clean up 'your own back yard' logically accomplishes nothing if an unintended consequence will be that your neighbor's back yard will grow a s#!tpile that is 10 times as high as the one you just paid to clean up, with at least 10% of the neighbor's new s#!tpile then spilling back over your own back yard fence completely replacing the amount of s#!t that you just paid billions / trillions of dollars to supposedly clean up.

  20. #20
    God/dess Paris's Avatar
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie View Post
    well, this is the basic point that I'm trying to make. We can spend incredible amounts of money to make our own kitchen and bedroom 99% free of s#!t instead of 90% free of s#!t, and that appears to be a very good thing. But the unintended consequence will be that in exchange for reducing our own s#!tpile from (100-90) = 10 to (100-99) = 1, we are also causing the garbage heap in the neighboring country to increase by 100 !!!!! How is this really accomplishing the stated objective other than making sure that the ten times larger s#!tpiles are 'not in my back yard' ?

    ~
    People always look at me like I've got three heads when I point out that China's pollution is really OUR pollution because we are the ones who keep buying the cheap crap that they offload on us.

    Of course they have a choice...Stop polluting and lose the global edge and experience economic collapse or they can keep on polluting, survive for a while longer until the pressure becomes too great and polluting becomes too expensive (in terms of human cost).

    Cleaning up our global pollution is one tough nut to crack. But, I think once we've cracked that nut, it will be a financial/economic windfall for the whole planet.

    To veer off topic, again; aren't the photo voltaic solar cells old technology? I thought that the new technology used silicone wafers and nanotech to create the new solar cells? Maybe that isn't in mass production like the photo voltaic cells.


    Promote yourself and earn more money! This is a business that is owned by strippers for strippers. Let's make that money!


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    Senior Member Tara_SW's Avatar
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie View Post
    In regard to personal opinion, I feel that there is a HUGE environmental problem that needs to be dealt with
    wait. You have been pushing all these seriously factually flawed "it's not a problem" links and articles all while having the personal opinion that it is a problem and in fact a huge problem?

    yeah.ok. that makes sense. NOT!!!!

  22. #22
    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    People always look at me like I've got three heads when I point out that China's pollution is really OUR pollution because we are the ones who keep buying the cheap crap that they offload on us.

    Of course they have a choice...Stop polluting and lose the global edge and experience economic collapse or they can keep on polluting, survive for a while longer until the pressure becomes too great and polluting becomes too expensive (in terms of human cost).

    Cleaning up our global pollution is one tough nut to crack. But, I think once we've cracked that nut, it will be a financial/economic windfall for the whole planet.
    well, one thing is for certain ... that many of the corporations that closed down US manufacturing facilities to avoid the additional cost of going from 90% emissions reduction to 99% emissions reduction are now raking in a windfall of 'offshore' profits by owning a 'piece' of the Chinese / Indian / Vietnamese (or wherever) manufacturing facilities that are now producing the same products for sale to the same US customers ... but with near zero emissions reduction requirements and near zero additional production costs !

    This is where the common sense element must come in. Why would any party to this arrangement want to change it ? The US corporations and their stockholders are earning bigger profits than ever. The American consumers are paying lower prices for products now manufactured offshore than they previously were for US made products under 90% reductions. The foreign governments would prefer to have brown air and high employment levels versus clear air but unhappy unemployed 'peasants' with too much time on their hands. The Californians would prefer that all heavy industry was relocated far, far away from their own back yard. Of course this requires a continuation of 'green hypocracy' i.e. your friends looking at you like you have 3 eyes when you point out that America has not actually reduced pollution at all on a global basis, but merely 'exported' former US pollution to Asia --- plus multiplied it by a factor of 10 by closing down 90% remediated US factories and starting up 0% remediated Asian factories --- plus also exporting jobs and tax revenues --- plus also increasing the US trade deficit i.e. the amount of interest that US consumers / taxpayers ultimately pay to keep spending more and more 'borrowed' money that no longer recirculates directly into the US economy as it used to when 90% remediated US factories were still in operation (buying goods and services from other US businesses, paying locally resident employees who also bought US goods and services etc.)

    If the US gov't were to actually take effective action to reduce pollution generation in China / India / Vietnam (or wherever), this would have to take the form of import tariffs or outright bans on imported merchandise produced in totally 'dirty' overseas plants. The first problem would be that there are not enough US manufacturers left to take up the slack, leading to outright shortages. The second problem would be that new US manufacturers would have to meet the 99% reduction instead of the 90% reduction, resulting in MASSIVE price increases for equivalent products (IF they could even find the financing to erect new US manufacturing facilities). The third problem is that if unilateral US gov't action were to cut off Chinese imports from 'dirty' Chinese factories, the Chinese could and would retaliate in a variety of ways (one of which would simply be dumping their US T bonds and US$ forex reserves, tanking the dollar and immediately doubling the US$ denominated price of oil / food / every other global commodity that American consumers must buy).

    In regard to human cost, ultimately the govt's of China / India / Vietnam (or wherever) really wouldn't be bothered if their population growth rate was slowed a tiny bit by the premature deaths of a few hundred thousand factory workers and factory town residents every year.

    In regard to my personal opinion, the Kyoto approach is simply a more expensive version of what has already taken place in regard to 'domestic' pollution reduction mandates ... which not only failed but made the pollution problem worse on a global basis as well as bringing about a host of unintended consequences (i.e. closure of US factories and outsourcing to Asia).


    You have been pushing all these seriously factually flawed "it's not a problem" links and articles all while having the personal opinion that it is a problem and in fact a huge problem?
    Again please check your facts. I said that I thought the near total lack of pollution controls in China / India / Vietnam (or wherever), in conjunction with the ongoing shutdowns of 90% remediated US industries and their replacement with new 0% remediated industries in China / India / Vietnam is indeed a huge problem. I did NOT say that I thought that human activity based CO2 emissions were a huge problem. I will say that the release of yet more accurately measured mean global temperature data showing no increase in temperature again this year, despite massively higher CO2 emissions from new unscrubbed Chinese / Indian / Vietnamese power plants starting up with each passing week and from new unremediated manufacturing plants in China / India / Vietnam fed by those coal fired power plants, doesn't improve my 'faith' in the scientific accuracy of the CO2 greenhouse gas theory of global warming. Are increased CO2 emissions a good thing - obviously not ! Are increased CO2 emissions a sufficiently proven huge problem to devastate the US economy and the standard of living of average Americans to achieve meaningful reductions ... but reductions that will be more than offset by increases in future CO2 emissions from China / India / Vietnam - also obviously not ! There is definitely a huge problem that needs to be tackled, but US CO2 emission levels are FAR from the most urgent problem, and will provide extremely little end result in exchange for the tremendous additional costs involved for all Americans.

    ~
    Last edited by Melonie; 01-09-2008 at 03:35 PM.

  23. #23
    Jay Zeno
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    Another (maybe not important but..) interesting statistic (well, more hypothesis than statistic, but this whole thread is more hypotheses than statistics) regarding climate change factors.

    There are some pretty informed estimates that there is more carbon volume locked up in methane hydrates in the world's ice than there is in all the fossil fuel deposits in the planet. Methane is a greenhouse gas with over 20 times the heat trapping efficacy of carbon dioxide, the current popular bad guy.

    As the ice continues to retreat (because whether you deny global warming or not, the glaciers and icecaps are retreating), what happens when those trillions of tons of methane get unlocked and permeate the atmostphere?

    I don't know the answer, but it's interesting to think about. There's not a lot of good outcomes about it.

    Methane can be viewed, of course, as an energy source. There would be some practical issues in trying to mine methane out of ice fields.

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    ^^^ actually the Japanese are already attempting to 'mine' methane hydrate ... which is making a whole lot of people rather nervous.




    As to receding arctic ice, it is arguably being 'replaced' with thickening antartic ice and thickening greenland ice ...



    (snip)"To further thicken the plot, not to mention the mass of Antarctica, a recent article by Van de Berg et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research describes a reassessment of the surface mass balance of Antarctica. The group compared results of the model-simulated surface mass balance for the continent to all available mass balance observations in a recalibration process that allowed them to construct a “best estimate” of contemporary Antarctic mass balance. What was found by the work is striking: the newly estimated surface mass balance “exceeds previous estimates by as much as 15%.” The largest differences between the findings of Van de Berg et al. and those of previous studies were up to one meter per year greater in the coastal zones of East and West Antarctica, which are “without exception in areas with few observations.” The coastal zones of the continent are areas most susceptible to melting and calving, or breaking apart, of ice (Monaghan et al. 2006).

    The group of Dutch researchers contends that the new estimate of the mass balance of Antarctica is as reliable as the reliability given to current atmospheric models. The only improvement that could be offered would have to come from new surface mass balance observations from poorly covered high accumulation regions in coastal Antarctica. Until then, there is little evidence to disprove their conclusion that the mass of Antarctica’s grounded ice sheet steadily grew from 1980 to 2004.

    The doomsday portraits of Antarctica’s glaciers reacting to a global climate change should be blurry at best. Consensus on changes in ice sheet thickness and their causes is difficult, and therefore of limited use on either side of the global warming debate."(snip)



    (snip)"By combining tens of millions of data points from ERS-1 and ERS-2, the team determined spatial patterns of surface elevation variations and changes over an 11-year period.

    The result is a mixed picture, with a net increase of 6.4 centimetres per year in the interior area above 1500 metres elevation. Below that altitude, the elevation-change rate is minus 2.0 cm per year, broadly matching reported thinning in the ice-sheet margins. The trend below 1500 metres however does not include the steeply-sloping marginal areas where current altimeter data are unusable.

    The spatially averaged increase is 5.4 cm per year over the study area, when corrected for post-Ice Age uplift of the bedrock beneath the ice sheet. These results are remarkable because they are in contrast to previous scientific findings of balance in Greenland's high-elevation ice.

    The team, led by Professor Ola M. Johannessen of NERSC, ascribe this interior growth of the Greenland Ice Sheet to increased snowfall linked to variability in regional atmospheric circulation known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). First discovered in the 1920s, the NAO acts in a similar way to the El Nińo phenomenon in the Pacific, contributing to climate fluctuations across the North Atlantic and Europe.

    Comparing their data to an index of the NAO, the researchers established a direct relationship between Greenland Ice Sheet elevation change and strong positive and negative phases of the NAO during winter, which largely control temperature and precipitation patterns over Greenland.

    Professor Johannessen commented: "This strong negative correlation between winter elevation changes and the NAO index, suggests an underappreciated role of the winter season and the NAO for elevation changes – a wildcard in Greenland Ice Sheet mass balance scenarios under global warming."

    He cautioned that the recent growth found by the radar altimetry survey does not necessarily reflect a long-term or future trend. With natural variability in the high-latitude climate cycle that includes the NAO being very large, even an 11-year long dataset remains short."(snip)


    From the point of view of a skeptic, what we seem to have here is 10 years or so worth of accurate actual temperature measurements that show the average global temperature of the earth is not increasing, and we have the same 10 years or so worth of accurate actual ice thickness measurements that show the mass balance of major ice sheets is arguably not declining. As the scientists themselves state, 10 years or so worth of data is too short to provide clear evidence of anything. However, given that the world's output of CO2 etc. has increased massively during the same 10 years, as a skeptic this data at least prompts one to question the validity of the human activity based CO2 greenhouse gas theory.

    ~
    Last edited by Melonie; 01-09-2008 at 11:44 PM.

  25. #25
    Jay Zeno
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    Default Re: another important year end statistic now in ... re global warming

    Arguably indeed, with ice shelves breaking off from Antarctica, the higher than normal temperatures there, and the glaciers in the Southern Hemisphere receding as rapidly as those in the Northern. And that's not "arguably." I've stood on them.

    And I'm not forecasting or buying in to doomsday, by the way.

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