Discussion: Global Warming and Other Environmental Issues

[Mr Sparkle]

terraforming, haha, I always think like we're boarding the SULACO when I hear that word.

 

[Tron5000]

And CellSlim is Palpatine. Tron can be Vader b/c he turns good in the endt:

I'll take that, but I was kinda hoping for Wedge. He was always my favorite.

But Vader totally kicks ass.

 

[Superman4ever]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7299561.stm

Glaciers suffer record shrinkage

The rate at which some of the world's glaciers are melting has more than doubled, data from the United Nations Environment Programme has shown.

Average glacial shrinkage has risen from 30 centimetres per year between 1980 and 1999, to 1.5 metres in 2006.

Some of the biggest losses have occurred in the Alps and Pyrenees mountain ranges in Europe.

Experts have called for "immediate action" to reverse the trend, which is seen as a key climate change indicator.

Estimates for 2006 indicate shrinkage of 1.4 metres of 'water equivalent' compared to half a metre in 2005.

Achim Steiner, Under-Secretary General of the UN and executive director of its environment programme (UNEP), said: "Millions if not billions of people depend directly or indirectly on these natural water storage facilities for drinking water, agriculture, industry and power generation during key parts of the year.

"There are many canaries emerging in the climate change coal mine. The glaciers are perhaps among those making the most noise and it is absolutely essential that everyone sits up and takes notice.

Litmus test

He said that action was already being taken and pointed out that the elements of a green economy were emerging from the more the money invested in renewable energies.

Mr Steiner went on: "The litmus test will come in late 2009 at the climate convention meeting in Copenhagen.

"Here governments must agree on a decisive new emissions reduction and adaptation-focused regime. Otherwise, and like the glaciers, our room for manoeuvre and the opportunity to act may simply melt away."

Dr Ian Willis, of the Scott Polar Research Institute, said: "It is not too late to stop the shrinkage of these ice sheets but we need to take action immediately."

The findings were compiled by the World Glacier Monitoring Service which is supported by UNEP. Thickening and thinning is calculated in terms of 'water equivalent'.

Glaciers across nine mountain ranges were analysed.

Dr. Wilfried Haeberli, director of the service, said: "The latest figures are part of what appears to be an accelerating trend with no apparent end in sight.

"This continues the trend in accelerated ice loss during the past two and a half decades and brings the total loss since 1980 to more than 10.5 metres of water equivalent."

During 1980-1999, average loss rates had been 0.3 metres per year. Since the turn of the millennium, this rate had increased to about half a metre per year.

The record annual loss during these two decades - 0.7 metres in 1998 - has now been exceeded by three out of the past six year (2003, 2004 and 2006).

On average, one metre water equivalent corresponds to 1.1 metres in ice thickness. That suggests a further shrinking in 2006 of 1.5 actual metres and since 1980 a total reduction in thickness of ice of just over 11.5 metres or almost 38 feet.

In its entirety, the research includes figures from around 100 glaciers, with data showing significant shrinkage taking place in European countries including Austria, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.

Norway's Breidalblikkbrea glacier thinned by almost 3.1 metres in one of the largest reductions.

 

[Handsome Rob]

We've been hearing on the news about global warming/climate change, carbon credits, Al Gore, etc.

But, environmentalism is about more than this one narrow topic. For instance, even global warming skeptics like me don't deny the negative effects of dumping pollutants/chemicals into our oceans and on our ground, the effects of suburban sprawl, energy consumption, the growing piles of trash, etc.

So, I thought we could have a thread about taking care of our environment that stays away from the politically-charged topics in my opening sentence; instead, we could focus on the day-to-day things we do to try and make this world a cleaner place than we left it--or, at least try to minimize our negative impact.

For instance, I use a lot of rice in my meals. I've found that I can get organic brown rice from Wild Oats (soon to be Whole Foods) cheaper than I can get Uncle Ben's at Kroger. I buy it in bulk (2 lbs of it, last time) in a thin plastic bag--then, I transfer it to a glass jar with a screw-on lid. So, instead of throwing away a box of UB brown rice a week (it has two cups of rice in it) along with the plastic bag that the rice comes in INSIDE the box, I only have one thin bag to throw away every few weeks. I cut down on trash and save money at the same time.

So, what ideas do you have?

*First thread started ever!*

 

[Carcharodon]

Wait until later in life to have kids.

 

[SuBe]

I take my V8 Silverado and drive it around with no intention of stopping until I having to buy gas again. Does that make me a bad guy?

I'm kidding, I do the same thing with Rice. We re-use Plastic Grocery Bags to pick up our Dogs Poo.

 

[Captain Planet!]

I want a Hybrid car. One that looks like a '56 Corvette. That would be swell.

 

[Handsome Rob]

My dad bought a Prius a couple of months ago. He loves it . . . he gets around 51 mpg on it. My next vehicle will almost certainly be a hybrid. Right now, I'm OK, but if gas prices more than double, I'll start cycling to work most days. I only have a 6 mile commute, so I could do that in 30 minutes or so.

 

[Superman4ever]

More fake news about the fake Global scare.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/03/25/antartica.collapse.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Huge Antarctic ice chunk collapses

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A chunk of Antarctic ice about seven times the size of Manhattan suddenly collapsed, putting an even greater portion of glacial ice at risk, scientists said Tuesday.

Scientists flocked to take pictures and shoot video after a massive chunk of the Wilkins ice shelf collapsed in Antarctica.

Satellite images show the runaway disintegration of a 160-square-mile chunk in western Antarctica, which started Feb. 28. It was the edge of the Wilkins ice shelf and has been there for hundreds, maybe 1,500 years.

This is the result of global warming, said British Antarctic Survey scientist David Vaughan.

Because scientists noticed satellite images within hours, they diverted satellite cameras and even flew an airplane over the ongoing collapse for rare pictures and video.

"It's an event we don't get to see very often," said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. "The cracks fill with water and slice off and topple... That gets to be a runaway situation."

While icebergs naturally break away from the mainland, collapses like this are unusual but are happening more frequently in recent decades, Vaughan said. The collapse is similar to what happens to hardened glass when it is smashed with a hammer, he said.

The rest of the Wilkins ice shelf, which is about the size of Connecticut, is holding on by a narrow beam of thin ice. Scientists worry that it too may collapse. Larger, more dramatic ice collapses occurred in 2002 and 1995.

Vaughan had predicted the Wilkins shelf would collapse about 15 years from now.

Scientists said they are not concerned about a rise in sea level from the latest event, but say it's a sign of worsening global warming.

Such occurrences are "more indicative of a tipping point or trigger in the climate system," said Sarah Das, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

 

[SuBe]

More Real News about Real Science, not Politics:

Sea ice finally growing, but slowly

By Doug O'Harra

Source: NSIDC

After shrinking to its smallest summer extent in modern times, the pack ice of the Arctic Ocean has slowly begun to refreeze. By the end of November, the new ice and floes had grown enough to cover an estimated 3.9 million square miles, according new online analyses posted this week by the National Snow and Ice Data Center ice index.
Remember, sea ice bottomed out at about 1.59 million square miles in September — reflecting the utter dissolution of a summer ice habitat the size of California and Texas combined.
Over the past two months, the frozen world has almost doubled. The Arctic’s November ice no longer sizzles in record territory: 2006 had slightly less ice cover. So this is good news? Not especially.
Don’t forget that November 2007 extent covers only 90 percent of the 4.3 million square miles normally covered by this time of year, based on the 1971-2000 mean.
Making matters worse, the missing ice has left the Chukchi Sea largely wide open, a situation that has threatened several Native villages with erosion during storms.

Source: NSIDC

The latest charts and analysis from ice desk at the National Weather Service in Anchorage shows a vast reach of open water stretching northwest of the Seward Peninsula.
Still, an expected plunge in temperatures could start filling in the northern Chukchi Sea, according to the text analysis.
The most recent chart posted online by the National Ice Center provides the same Chukchi information in color.

Feature



Sea Ice May Be on Increase in the Antarctic: A Phenomenon Due to a Lot of 'Hot Air'?

08.16.05



A new NASA-funded study finds that predicted increases in precipitation due to warmer air temperatures from greenhouse gas emissions may actually increase sea ice volume in the Antarctic’s Southern Ocean. This adds new evidence of potential asymmetry between the two poles, and may be an indication that climate change processes may have different impact on different areas of the globe.

Image to right: Example of North Pole Sea Ice Decrease: This image shows that sea ice in the North Pole has been on the decline, with the most significant loss in the past three years. This occurrence runs counter to the paper’s new finding that sea ice in the Antarctic’s (or South Pole) Southern Ocean appears to be on the increase. Click on image to view animation (no audio). Credit: NASA

"Most people have heard of climate change and how rising air temperatures are melting glaciers and sea ice in the Arctic," said Dylan C. Powell, co-author of the paper and a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. "However, findings from our simulations suggest a counterintuitive phenomenon. Some of the melt in the Arctic may be offset by increases in sea ice volume in the Antarctic."

The researchers used satellite observations for the first time, specifically from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager, to assess snow depth on sea ice, and included the satellite observations in their model. As a result, they improved prediction of precipitation rates. By incorporating satellite observations into this new method, the researchers achieved more stable and realistic precipitation data than the typically variable data found in the polar regions. The paper was published in the June issue of the American Geophysical Union's Journal of Geophysical Research.

Image to left: Arctic Sea Ice: The image is that of a multi-year sea ice in the Arctic's (or North Pole) Beaufort Sea. Sea ice around the world combined covers an area as large as the United States, and has been found in the paper to possibly be on the increase. Credit: NOAA

"On any given day, sea ice cover in the oceans of the polar regions is about the size of the U.S.," said Thorsten Markus, co-author of the paper and a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "Far-flung locations like the Arctic and Antarctic actually impact our temperature and climate where we live and work on a daily basis."

According to Markus, the impact of the northernmost and southernmost parts on Earth on climate in other parts of the globe can be explained by thermal haline (or saline) circulation. Through this process, ocean circulation acts like a heat pump and determines our climate to a great extent. The deep and bottom water masses of the oceans make contact with the atmosphere only at high latitudes near or at the poles. In the polar regions, the water cools down and releases its salt upon freezing, a process that also makes the water heavier. The cooler, salty, water then sinks down and cycles back towards the equator. The water is then replaced by warmer water from low and moderate latitudes, and the process then begins again.

Image to right: Antarctic Snow Depth on Sea Ice: Antarctic snow depth on sea ice derived from satellite passive microwave data for October 1989 and 1996. Maps like these were assimilated into the model. On the color bar, blue and green are the smaller amounts of snow depth, while red and purple indicate highest snow amounts. Click on image to expand. Credit: NASA

Typically, warming of the climate leads to increased melting rates of sea ice cover and increased precipitation rates. However, in the Southern Ocean, with increased precipitation rates and deeper snow, the additional load of snow becomes so heavy that it pushes the Antarctic sea ice below sea level. This results in even more and even thicker sea ice when the snow refreezes as more ice. Therefore, the paper indicates that some climate processes, like warmer air temperatures increasing the amount of sea ice, may go against what we would normally believe would occur.

"We used computer-generated simulations to get this research result. I hope that in the future we’ll be able to verify this result with real data through a long-term ice thickness measurement campaign," said Powell. "Our goal as scientists is to collect hard data to verify what the computer model is telling us. It will be critical to know for certain whether average sea ice thickness is indeed increasing in the Antarctic as our model indicates, and to determine what environmental factors are spurring this apparent phenomenon."

Achim Stossel of the Department of Oceanography at Texas A&M University, College Station, Tex., a third co-author on this paper, advises that "while numerical models have improved considerably over the last two decades, seemingly minor processes like the snow-to-ice conversion still need to be better incorporated in models as they can have a significant impact on the results and therefore on climate predictions."


Gretchen Cook-Anderson
Goddard Space Flight Center

http://www.farnorthscience.com/2007/12/06/climate-news/sea-ice-finally-growing-but-slowly/
http://www.nasa.gov/lb/vision/earth/environment/sea_ice.html

 

[SuBe]

Commentary with Links to REAL SCIENCE:

[SIZE=+1]The global warming scam[/SIZE]
Melanie Phillips ^| 09 January 2004 | Melanie Phillips's Diary

Posted on 01/10/2004 6:01:06 PM PST by Lando Lincoln


The global warming scam



The British government's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, has said that global warming is a more serious threat to the world than terrorism. His remarks are utter balderdash from start to finish and illustrate the truly lamentable decline of science into ideological propaganda.

Sir David says the Bush administration should not dismiss global warming because: 1) the ten hottest years on record started in 1991 2) sea levels are rising 3) ice caps are melting and 4) the 'causal link' between man-made emissions and global warming is well established.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong. There is no such evidence. The whole thing is a global scam. There is no firm evidence that warming is happening; even if it is, it is most likely to have natural, not man-made causes; carbon dioxide, supposedly the culprit, makes up such a tiny fraction of the atmosphere that even if it were to quadruple, the effect on climate would be negligible; and just about every one of the eco-doomster stories that curdle our blood every five minutes is either speculative, ahistorical or scientifically illiterate.

To take a few examples from Sir David's litany.

1) Sea levels are rising. As this article explains, this claim is not the result of observable data. Like so much of the global warming industry, it is the result of frail computer modelling using dodgy or incomplete data. It is therefore not an observed value, but a wholly artificial model construct. Furthermore, the data fed into the computer is drawn from the atypical North Atlantic basin, ignoring the seas around Australia where levels have remained pretty static. And anyway, as this article explains, sea level rises have nothing to do with warmer climate. Sea levels rose during the last ice age. Warming can actually slow down sea level rise.

2) Ice caps are melting. Some are, some aren't. Some are breaking up, as is normal. But some are actually expanding, as in the Antarctic where the ice sheet is growing, as this article points out. The bit of the Antarctic that is breaking up, the Larsen ice-shelf, which has been causing foaming hysteria among eco-doomsters, won't increase sea levels because it has already displaced its own weight in the sea.

3) The hottest years on record started in 1991. Which records? The European climate in the Middle Ages was two degrees hotter than it is now. They grew vines in Northumberland, for heaven's sake. Then there was the Little Ice Age, which lasted until about 1880. So the 0.6% warming since then is part of a pretty normal pattern, and nothing for any normal person to get excited about.

4) The causal link is well established. Totally false. It is simply loudly asserted. Virtually all the scare stuff comes from computer modelling, which is simply inadequate to factor in all the -- literally-- millions of variables that make up climate change. If you put rubbish in, you get rubbish out.

That's why this week's earlier eco-scare story, that more than a million species will become extinct as a result of global warming over the next 50 years, is risible. All that means is that someone has put into the computer the global warming scenario, and the computer has calculated what would happen on the basis of that premise. But -duh! -the premise is totally unproven. The real scientific evidence is that -- we just don't know; and the theories so far, linking man, carbon dioxide and climate warming. are specious. There's some seriously bad science going on in the environmentalist camp.

After Kyoto, one of the most eminent scientists involved in the National Academy of Sciences study on climate change, Richard Lindzen, professor of meteorology at MIT, blew the whistle on the politicised rubbish that was being spouted. Since his article was so significant, I reproduce it in full here:

'Last week the National Academy of Sciences released a report on climate change, prepared in response to a request from the White House, that was depicted in the press as an implicit endorsement of the Kyoto Protocol. CNN's Michelle Mitchell was typical of the coverage when she declared that the report represented "a unanimous decision that global warming is real, is getting worse, and is due to man. There is no wiggle room."

'As one of 11 scientists who prepared the report, I can state that this is simply untrue. For starters, the NAS never asks that all participants agree to all elements of a report, but rather that the report represent the span of views. This the full report did, making clear that there is no consensus, unanimous or otherwise, about long-term climate trends and what causes them.

'As usual, far too much public attention was paid to the hastily prepared summary rather than to the body of the report. The summary began with a zinger--that greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise, etc., before following with the necessary qualifications. For example, the full text noted that 20 years was too short a period for estimating long-term trends, but the summary forgot to mention this.

'Our primary conclusion was that despite some knowledge and agreement, the science is by no means settled. We are quite confident (1) that global mean temperature is about 0.5 degrees Celsius higher than it was a century ago; (2) that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have risen over the past two centuries; and (3) that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas whose increase is likely to warm the earth (one of many, the most important being water vapor and clouds).

'But--and I cannot stress this enough--we are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to carbon dioxide or to forecast what the climate will be in the future. That is to say, contrary to media impressions, agreement with the three basic statements tells us almost nothing relevant to policy discussions.

'One reason for this uncertainty is that, as the report states, the climate is always changing; change is the norm. Two centuries ago, much of the Northern Hemisphere was emerging from a little ice age. A millennium ago, during the Middle Ages, the same region was in a warm period. Thirty years ago, we were concerned with global cooling.

'Distinguishing the small recent changes in global mean temperature from the natural variability, which is unknown, is not a trivial task. All attempts so far make the assumption that existing computer climate models simulate natural variability, but I doubt that anyone really believes this assumption.

'We simply do not know what relation, if any, exists between global climate changes and water vapor, clouds, storms, hurricanes, and other factors, including regional climate changes, which are generally much larger than global changes and not correlated with them. Nor do we know how to predict changes in greenhouse gases. This is because we cannot forecast economic and technological change over the next century, and also because there are many man-made substances whose properties and levels are not well known, but which could be comparable in importance to carbon dioxide.

'What we do is know that a doubling of carbon dioxide by itself would produce only a modest temperature increase of one degree Celsius. Larger projected increases depend on "amplification" of the carbon dioxide by more important, but poorly modeled, greenhouse gases, clouds and water vapor.

'The press has frequently tied the existence of climate change to a need for Kyoto. The NAS panel did not address this question. My own view, consistent with the panel's work, is that the Kyoto Protocol would not result in a substantial reduction in global warming. Given the difficulties in significantly limiting levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, a more effective policy might well focus on other greenhouse substances whose potential for reducing global warming in a short time may be greater.

'The panel was finally asked to evaluate the work of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, focusing on the Summary for Policymakers, the only part ever read or quoted. The Summary for Policymakers, which is seen as endorsing Kyoto, is commonly presented as the consensus of thousands of the world's foremost climate scientists. Within the confines of professional courtesy, the NAS panel essentially concluded that the IPCC's Summary for Policymakers does not provide suitable guidance for the U.S. government.

'The full IPCC report is an admirable description of research activities in climate science, but it is not specifically directed at policy. The Summary for Policymakers is, but it is also a very different document. It represents a consensus of government representatives (many of whom are also their nations' Kyoto representatives), rather than of scientists. The resulting document has a strong tendency to disguise uncertainty, and conjures up some scary scenarios for which there is no evidence.

'Science, in the public arena, is commonly used as a source of authority with which to bludgeon political opponents and propagandize uninformed citizens. This is what has been done with both the reports of the IPCC and the NAS. It is a reprehensible practice that corrodes our ability to make rational decisions. A fairer view of the science will show that there is still a vast amount of uncertainty--far more than advocates of Kyoto would like to acknowledge--and that the NAS report has hardly ended the debate. Nor was it meant to.'

As Professor Philip Stott wrote in the Wall Street Journal on April 2 2001:

'"Global warming" was invented in 1988, when it replaced two earlier myths of an imminent plunge into another Ice Age and the threat of a nuclear winter. The new myth was seen to encapsulate a whole range of other myths and attitudes that had developed in the 1960s and 1970s, including "limits to growth," sustainability, neo-Malthusian fears of a population time bomb, pollution, anticorporate anti-Americanism, and an Al Gore-like analysis of human greed disturbing the ecological harmony and balance of the earth.

'Initially, in Europe, the new myth was embraced by both right and left. The right was concerned with breaking the power of traditional trade unions, such as the coal miners -- the labor force behind a major source of carbon-dioxide emissions -- and promoting the development of nuclear power. Britain's Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research was established at the personal instigation of none other than Margaret Thatcher.

'The left, by contrast, was obsessed with population growth, industrialization, the car, development and globalization. Today, the narrative of global warming has evolved into an emblematic issue for authoritarian greens, who employ a form of language that has been characterized by the physicist P.H. Borcherds as "the hysterical subjunctive." And it is this grammatical imperative that is now dominating the European media when they complain about Mr. Bush, the U.S., and their willful denial of the true faith.'

Go figure.

 

[Mr Sparkle]

"Making matters worse, the missing ice has left the Chukchi Sea largely wide open, a situation that has threatened several Native villages with erosion during storms."

did you bother to read that from the " real news" site?

 

[Mr Sparkle]

"This adds new evidence of potential asymmetry between the two poles, and may be an indication that climate change processes may have different impact on different areas of the globe"

seriously, do you read them at all?

 

[chaseter]

"This adds new evidence of potential asymmetry between the two poles, and may be an indication that climate change processes may have different impact on different areas of the globe"

seriously, do you read them at all?

"Vast Cooling, No More Hot Air?"
-Well it looks like Global Warming has been proven a hoax as a new Ice Age approaches, cooling the Earth on average 50 degrees."

HAHA...they just read the titles.t:

I made that up by the way

 

[Zero_Vault]

For once I agree with this global warming skeptic: http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-adapt26mar26,0,4227673.story

 

[Red Mask]

That article sounds more defeatist than skeptical.

And while we continue to argue the existence of it, another large piece of antarctic has broken off recently. The piece is half the size of Scotland.

 

[SuBe]

U.N. Forecasters: Global Temperatures to Decrease

Friday, April 04, 2008

in 2008 are forecast to be lower than in previous years, thanks to the cooling effect of the ocean current in the Pacific, U.N. meteorologists say.
The World Meteorological Organisation's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, said it was likely that La Nina, an abnormal cooling of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, would continue into the summer.
If the forecast holds true, global temperatures will not have risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory.
A small number of scientists doubt whether this means global warming has peaked and the Earth has proved more resilient to greenhouse gases than predicted, but Jarraud insists this is not the case and notes that 1998 temperatures would still be well above average for the century.
"When you look at climate change you should not look at any particular year," he told the BBC. "You should look at trends over a pretty long period and the trend of temperature globally is still very much indicative of warming."
"La Nina is part of what we call 'variability'. There has always been and there will always be cooler and warmer years, but what is important for climate change is that the trend is up."

Experts at the U.K. Met Office's Hadley Centre for forecasting in Exeter said the world could expect another record temperature within five years or less, the BBC reports, probably associated with an episode of El Nino.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,346310,00.html

 

[Mr Sparkle]

'but Jarraud insists this is not the case and notes that 1998 temperatures would still be well above average for the century.
"When you look at climate change you should not look at any particular year," he told the BBC. "You should look at trends over a pretty long period and the trend of temperature globally is still very much indicative of warming."
"La Nina is part of what we call 'variability'. There has always been and there will always be cooler and warmer years, but what is important for climate change is that the trend is up.""

AGAIN.

do you like actually read them?

 

[Memphis Slim]

There IS a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998

By Bob Carter


For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. 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.

There are other reasons, too, why the public hears so little in detail from those scientists who approach climate change issues rationally, the so-called climate sceptics. Most are to do with intimidation against speaking out, which operates intensely on several parallel fronts.

First, most government scientists are gagged from making public comment on contentious issues, their employing organisations instead making use of public relations experts to craft carefully tailored, frisbee-science press releases. Second, scientists are under intense pressure to conform with the prevailing paradigm of climate alarmism if they wish to receive funding for their research. Third, members of the Establishment have spoken declamatory words on the issue, and the kingdom's subjects are expected to listen.
On the alarmist campaign trail, the UK's Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir David King, is thus reported as saying that global warming is so bad that Antarctica is likely to be the world's only habitable continent by the end of this century. Warming devotee and former Chairman of Shell, Lord [Ron] Oxburgh, reportedly agrees with another rash statement of King's, that climate change is a bigger threat than terrorism. And goodly Archbishop Rowan Williams, who self-evidently understands little about the science, has warned of "millions, billions" of deaths as a result of global warming and threatened Mr Blair with the wrath of the climate God unless he acts. By betraying the public's trust in their positions of influence, so do the great and good become the small and silly.

Two simple graphs provide needed context, and exemplify the dynamic, fluctuating nature of climate change. The first is a temperature curve for the last six million years, which shows a three-million year period when it was several degrees warmer than today, followed by a three-million year cooling trend which was accompanied by an increase in the magnitude of the pervasive, higher frequency, cold and warm climate cycles. During the last three such warm (interglacial) periods, temperatures at high latitudes were as much as 5 degrees warmer than today's. The second graph shows the average global temperature over the last eight years, which has proved to be a period of stasis.

The essence of the issue is this. Climate changes naturally all the time, partly in predictable cycles, and partly in unpredictable shorter rhythms and rapid episodic shifts, some of the causes of which remain unknown. We are fortunate that our modern societies have developed during the last 10,000 years of benignly warm, interglacial climate. But for more than 90 per cent of the last two million years, the climate has been colder, and generally much colder, than today. The reality of the climate record is that a sudden natural cooling is far more to be feared, and will do infinitely more social and economic damage, than the late 20th century phase of gentle warming.

The British Government urgently needs to recast the sources from which it draws its climate advice. The shrill alarmism of its public advisers, and the often eco-fundamentalist policy initiatives that bubble up from the depths of the Civil Service, have all long since been detached from science reality. Intern-ationally, the IPCC is a deeply flawed organisation, as acknowledged in a recent House of Lords report, and the Kyoto Protocol has proved a costly flop. Clearly, the wrong horses have been backed.
As mooted recently by Tony Blair, perhaps the time has come for Britain to join instead the new Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (AP6), whose six member countries are committed to the development of new technologies to improve environmental outcomes. There, at least, some real solutions are likely to emerge for improving energy efficiency and reducing pollution.

Informal discussions have already begun about a new AP6 audit body, designed to vet rigorously the science advice that the Partnership receives, including from the IPCC. Can Britain afford not to be there?

• Prof Bob Carter is a geologist at James Cook University, Queensland, engaged in paleoclimate research

 

[Memphis Slim]

This is how crazy this has gotten!!!

Paper or plastic? You may pay 20 cents either way

Some plastic, foam containers would be banned under proposal by mayor, council president

By ANGELA GALLOWAY
P-I REPORTER
Seattle could trump even the greenest of American cities with fines on foam and taxes on bags -- both paper and plastic, city politicians say.
Seattle would impose a 20-cent-per-bag "green fee" and outlaw foam food containers next year under a proposal announced Wednesday. Aiming to persuade Seattleites to ditch disposable bags, the city hopes to send a free reusable bag to every Seattle household, Mayor Greg Nickels said.
"No other city has done what we're suggesting here," Nickels said. "These actions will take tons of plastic and foam out of our waste stream. ... The best way to handle a ton of waste is not to create it in the first place."
Eventually, Seattle restaurants also would be forbidden from using plastic food containers that can't be recycled or composted, according to rules being developed by Nickels and City Council President Richard Conlin.
Some major questions about the policies remain -- from political differences over how to spend the taxes to outstanding technical dilemmas.

If adopted by the council, the fee would apply to disposable bags distributed at grocery, convenience and drug stores. The polystyrene foam ban would force restaurants and stores to find alternative egg cartons, meat trays, plates, "clamshells" and cups.
The foam and bag rules would go into effect Jan. 1. The plastic food container restrictions would be implemented July 2010.
"It's a big symbolic step, but it's also a very concerted step in the right direction," Conlin said.

The grocery bag fees would generate about $10 million a year, according to Seattle Public Utilities. The money would be used to administer and enforce the rules, to buy and promote reusable bags, and to expand recycling, environmental education and waste prevention programs.
But Conlin has another idea: He would like some of that money to go to garbage rate reductions. The difference will be resolved politically, after Seattle utility and legal officials draft the legislation and present it to the council. That is expected to happen next month.
Seattle consumers use 360 million disposable bags each year, according to Seattle Public Utilities. About 73 percent of them come from grocery, drug and convenience stores, Nickels said. Most are plastic, and most wind up in landfills.

But paper bags are even worse for the environment, once you factor in the tolls of logging and shipping the bags, officials said. That is why the fee would apply to both, they said.
San Francisco prohibited supermarkets from using plastic bags in December. City leaders there gave out several thousand free reusable bags made of scrap cloth, officials said.

Seattle, too, has been handing out free reusable bags in recent months. The more than 5,000 bags the city bought are made of polypropylene, not recycled materials or the especially environmentally friendly cotton canvas, officials said. But they are recyclable and cost considerably less than some alternatives.

"Our decision was (based on) getting as many into the hands of people as we could," said Alex Fryer, spokesman for the city's Office of Sustainability and Environment.
Seattle officials considered banning disposable bags outright, Conlin said. "The problem with a ban is that all it does is leave people without a choice," he said.
Many agree an across-the-board fee is a better approach. Ireland imposed a fee on plastic bags in 2002. Since then, plastic bag use has dropped 90 percent, Seattle officials said.
"If you're trying to reduce bags, that's the way to go," said Mark Westlund, spokesman for the San Francisco environmental department. San Francisco officials considered a surcharge, but California law prohibits such fees, he said.
A lobbyist for Washington retailers said he would withhold judgment on the plan until he had a chance to run it by members of his group.
"If the consumer says, 'I'm not excited about paying 20 cents per bag when I go shopping,' that is probably going to be an issue for us," said Mark Johnson, vice president of government affairs for the Washington Retail Association. "If they're saying, 'No big deal,' it might not be an issue."

Some grocers already promote the use of reusable bags. For example, Thriftway gives a nickel back to customers who bring their own bags.
"I don't know if consumers know how much plastic and paper bags cost," said Josh Angle, store director of the Magnolia Thriftway. Paper bags cost at least 13 cents each, plastic bags cost about 9 cents.
At the PCC store near Green Lake Wednesday, the idea of answering the question of "paper or plastic?" with "cloth" seemed entirely Seattle to Wendy Asbury. Asbury switched to cloth bags when she moved here eight months ago, she said.
"I'm from the Southwest, where everything is about gluttony and waste," she said. "That's what I loved about moving here; everything is so 'green.' "
But there were opponents, too, and the proposal set off a debate between friends in the PCC parking lot.
Jenn Young said encouraging people to use cloth seemed less onerous than penalizing them with the fee.
"I disagree," responded Naomi Fujinaka. "I've been bringing my cloth bag for 25 years."

Young said: "It might be hard on families. If you have a family of six with four kids, and you go shopping once a week and you have 10 grocery bags, that can get to be a lot of money."
"Then you'll know to bring your bag next time," Fujinaka said. "We really have to change our behavior."
For every 20-cent bag fee collected by Seattle, most stores would be allowed to keep 5 cents to cover administrative costs and taxes. (The fee itself would be subject to the state sales tax.) Small stores -- those collecting less than $1 million in gross revenues each year -- would be allowed to keep the entire 20 cents.
Grocers would be required to explicitly list the fee on receipts.
More than 20 cities have banned polystyrene foam packaging at restaurants and other business, including Portland, Ore. After more than 20 years of foam-free fast food services, Portlanders are accustomed to the eco-friendlier alternatives, said Cynthia Fuhrman of the Portland Office of Sustainable Development.
"I think it's just a given -- people have just accepted it," Fuhrman said.

CITY'S PLAN AT A GLANCE


BAGS


PROPOSED: A 20-cent green fee on disposable shopping bags, both paper and plastic.
WHERE: Grocery, drug and convenience stores.
WHEN: To begin Jan. 1.
EXEMPT: Bags used inside stores to contain bulk items, bags for prepared food, newspaper and dry-cleaner bags.
WHY: Seattleites use 360 million disposable paper and plastic shopping bags every year. Almost 240 million end up in the garbage. That's close to 4 percent of all residential garbage, by volume. This will save 4,000 tons of greenhouse gases per year, the same as taking 665 cars off the road.
FOAM


PROPOSED: A ban on the use of expanded polystyrene (sometimes called Styrofoam) containers and cups.
WHERE: All food service businesses, including some of the foam packaging used in grocery stores, such as meat trays and egg cartons.
WHEN: To begin Jan. 1.
PLASTICS


PROPOSED: Switch from one-time-use, disposable plastic and plastic-coated paper food and beverage containers and utensils to fully compostable and recyclable substitutes.
WHERE: All food service businesses.
WHEN: By July 1, 2010.
__________________________________________________________

And Al Gore won't even debate this issue!! Putting people through all of this crap over something that is still hazy at best??????????

This Global Warming crap is really getting bad!!

 

[Memphis Slim]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSlB1nW4S54


AND I'M GLAD THIS NUT IS ON YOUR SIDE, SPARKIE....

 

[SuBe]

Slim

What are they going to do with the Tax Money raised? Fund the Adimistrative cost of Taxing the Bags! All it is is more wealth re-distrubution!

The funniest thing about it is they are only taxing Bags to fund their ability to tax bags! Stupidity.

 

[Memphis Slim]

Slim

What are they going to do with the Tax Money raised? Fund the Adimistrative cost of Taxing the Bags! All it is is more wealth re-distrubution!

The funniest thing about it is they are only taxing Bags to fund their ability to tax bags! Stupidity.

Pure stupidity........

And extortion....you should not force money from people this way.

Ted Turner is gonna go Soylent Green on us!!! t:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sp-VFBbjpE&feature=related

 

[Mr Sparkle]

wow, I now know why people are on the "no global warming" side.
they can't read Celldog has been told thousands of times that Al Gore didn't invent global warming and that thus he shouldn't debate it, but still he keeps almost signing his posts with " Al Gore won;t debate this...." .
and SupermanBeyond just posts articles without reading them, my guess is, based on the headlines.
if only he was as passionate about the environment as he is about the fairtax

 

[SuBe]

wow, I now know why people are on the "no global warming" side.
they can't read Celldog has been told thousands of times that Al Gore didn't invent global warming and that thus he shouldn't debate it, but still he keeps almost signing his posts with " Al Gore won;t debate this...." .
and SupermanBeyond just posts articles without reading them, my guess is, based on the headlines.
if only he was as passionate about the environment as he is about the fairtax

Nope, I read it. It said the UN is forcasting that 2008 is going to be a cooler year. And the Global Temp hasn't risen in over 10 years. Did you read it?