Global Warming - Questions and other BS.

Sure we can improve, and should. I have yet to see anybody suggest we can reduce emissions to pre-industrial levels, however. So if the theories are to be believed, maybe instead of doubling CO2 concentrations in 50yrs, we'll take 70 or 80. But soon we'll be at double, and perhaps triple. Avoiding that would require 1) sweating a lot more in the warmer parts of the country, and 2) mass relocations out of the cold parts of the country, and virtual abandonment of Canada. Sure, some could live up here, burning biomass and whatnot, but we aren;t on the brink of a full-replacement heat source in the next several decades.

As to the sham Alcoa et al are putting together, the fine print is that they want to convert their legacy of mass pollution into an asset. They take their 2005 emissions levels, and turn them into tradable CO2 credits. The credits idea is all well and good, but their issue is to have them assigned to existing industries initially, rather than openly traded as a commodity. Obviously then they'd be leading the "green" parade, blocking creation of more credits so their pollution shares would be more valuable.

Steve

Yes...pretty soon these companies are going to become like many who sell on e-bay........companies will make their profits trading CO2 credits just like many on e-bay who make their biggest profits on shipping........

BeGreen,

Many months ago I sent Bush and the Energy Dept letters stating that Bush needed to take a page out of the John Kennedy play-book (Kennedy's challenge to get to the moon in 10 years) and challenge the best and brightest minds in the country to get us off oil and onto some other form of cleaner, less political energy source......I got a letter from the Energy Dept saying virtually nothing and got that (nothing), not even a letter, from Bush. I told them both that the Energy Dept has, I think, a $22 Billion budget and we've got little to nothing to show for it........another example of our corrupt government in action and I say this with standing in the community........20 years in the military watching Billions outside of military programs going down the rat hole and into the cesspool..............

In 1996, the company I work for sold a computer controlled instrument (with computer) to the DOE. In 1999 they shipped the computer that ran it back to us to be certified as Y2K comliant.

It was returned in the original packaging - the box had not been opened yet.

Buy a mac instead.....they were always Y2K compliant.........

Craig, I am surprised by your statement I’m told that if it does exist, it will take decades of reversal to change it. In other words, not during my lifetime. That automatically means it moves down my priority list. There is really no debate among scientists that global warming exists and is happening right now. There are front groups for big oil companies, mainly ExxonMobil, who try to make it look like the scientific community isn't sure about global warming. They are sure, it is just that it is inconvenient for big oil, and for Bush and Cheney, to admit that global warming is a problem. Notice that the Republican term for it is climate change, not global warming. Although even the Shrub has admitted now that global warming is happening. Anyway, here is some info that might inspire you to believe that global warming is quite real, and why people are mislead into thinking scientists aren't sure.

ExxonMobil's been under intense pressure to stop funding front groups and think tanks that put out disinformation on global warming. A new report released last month by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) documented how ExxonMobil employs the same tactics, and some of the same personnel, to deceive the public on global warming as the tobacco companies did with smoking. The report ties about a dozen scientists whose views on global warming are discredited by the scientific community to scores of Exxon-funded front groups and think tanks, and shows how this tobacco-style technique insidiously spreads false doubt around global warming.

America's vocal disgust over oil has also played an instrumental role. Recently Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV) wrote ExxonMobil to urge the company to "come clean" about its funding of global warming denier groups and be a more responsible corporate actor. The U.S. Senators' letter was not the first one ExxonMobil received. The Royal Society, among the most respected scientific academies in the world, established in 1660, detailed its research showing ExxonMobil spent $2.9 million in 2005 funding some 39 groups that “misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence." Research by Greenpeace shows that ExxonMobil has spent $19 million since 1998 funding more than 70 institutes and front groups that have worked to delay crucial action on global warming by injecting uncertainty into the scientific discussion and by falsely claiming that climate policies would result in economic ruin.

The Royal Society revealed that Exxon had said it would stop funding the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a U.S. group that claims carbon dioxide is good for you and that global warming isn’t a threat. CEI is one of Exxon's favorite front groups, receiving over $2,000,000 from the company since 1998.

Due to public pressure. ExxonMobil claimed it stopped funding "five or six" of these groups, but there are thought to be dozens if not hundreds of other ones they still fund. Isn't it a shame that instead of working on ways to slow down global warming, they would rather spend the money on PR efforts to make themselves not look so bad?!?

Just a short post from me for a change. I wanted to share just one sentence from the latest National Resource Defense Council's quarterly publication onearth. "Even conservative global warming models predict an astounding 60 percent reduction in soil moisutre on U.S. farmland in this century." I would think we would all be anxious to try to stop?!?

My best friend was in the Peace Corps in Kiribati, a Pacific island nation which consists of coral based islands. They are expected to be the first nation lost to global warming, as their islands are only a few feet above sea level.

If you're going to use the term, alteast use it correctly. What you are talking about is Advanced Global Warming. Sure, the planet is warming, but it's far from certain that humans are the direct cause.

You're wrong on that statement..... there are many reputable scientists who say that while we are going through a warming period, that it is natural and not man made. Just because you chose to ignore these people and their opinion, doesn't make them any less credible......

Wow, that little spin's never been brought out before....

Is the Fraiser Institute paid off also?

http://www.ccnmatthews.com/news/rel...earchText=false&showText=all&actionFor=633895

Some Like It Hot - 06 February 2007 01:47 AM
There is really no debate among scientists that global warming exists and is happening right now.

Castiron says in reply:
You’re wrong on that statement..... there are many reputable scientists who say that while we are going through a warming period, that it is natural and not man made. Just because you chose to ignore these people and their opinion, doesn’t make them any less credible......

My dear castiron, it must be months since we have argued, did you miss me? ;-) The average temperatures around the globe are going up, the ice is melting, blah blah blah. I don't know of anyone credible who refutes this. Yes, a few say it is natural, and many think people and all their mess has a lot to do with it. However, that does not negate the fact that global warming exists and is happening right now, regardless of what you think the cause or reason is. The only ones I know of saying that the earth is NOT getting warmer or that giving off more carbon dioxide is a good thing are getting funds from ExxonMobil. What credible climatologists do you know of that don't think the earth is getting warmer right now? Give me a couple names and what groups they are affiliated with. Preferably none that get their funding from oil companies or power plants.

Craig explains
First of all, the scientists all agree that the action=reaction time is decades long....are you claiming that something can be done about it and get results in less than 20-30 years?

I thought you were saying it wasn't urgent to DO something about global warming now. Yes, it takes a long time to see the results, both for it to have happened initially, and for it to slow down if we cut emissions of gases that contribute to global warming. But, if we don't work on it real soon and accomplish some real cutbacks of emissions, it will be MUCH TOO LATE in 20-30 years to start actually doing something once the results are dreadful and the average joe starts to get nervous. What I am saying is action is needed promptly, BECAUSE global warming is already in motion and will continue to be for some time, whether we change our ways or not. There are considered to be certain points of no return, after which is won't really matter what we do, we are screwed. I would prefer that not to happen.

Global warming leads glaciers to melt, exposing more dark soil and boulders, which absorb light and hence heat more than the shiny reflective ice did, which leads to more global warming, regardless of us putting out more carbon dioxide, etc. Or the frozen tundra that is melting, same thing, permafrost melts, trapped methane is released, increasing the rate of global warming. So basically global warming leads to more global warming, even if we all died tomorrow and stopped making pollution of every sort.

The problem is that ordinary people don't understand global warming or its consequences very well, not suprising considering how stupidly many people vote and shop and spend money and things like that. So since it is cold today, they think global warming isn't happening. They don't understand or even know about glaciers melting in the Himalayas and the resulting new lakes being created and building up and making huge flows of icy water that destroy villages, things that like. And if they do, they think they are safe because they don't live by a glacier or the sea.

I used to spend a lot of time on a sailboat in the Caribbean, people there already notice the water getting warmer, coral and other species having a too rapid die-off, etc. In WI it isn't very obvious, except that in recent years we have had some amazingly late first killing frosts, and we all think that is a nice thing. Well, it is nice for us gardeners. But the problem is that global warming seems neither urgent nor applicable to most people, so they ignore it or say it isn't real.

As for the Kyoto protocols, we are one of the few big countries that has resisted going along with it for a long time, most countries we do business with are already on that boat.

I don't think they're disputing that it's getting warmer, just the cause and the ultimate effect of the warming. What we and quite a few scientists are saying is that there is no cause for the "Panic" mentality. According to the science models, the temp rise in the next century is only 2-3°. This is GLOBAL. This means that some areas will warm, others will cool. After all, the global mean temp average baseline is 59°. Last year, the global average was 57.53°.

Nice try, trying to discredit a group of researchers just because their foundation recieved money from Exxon. As a total of their funding, it only equals about 5%. Not really an attempt to change results. Unlike the IPCC report. They put out a summary before the report is even finalized. They are working the final draft to match the SPM.

How do you explain the growth in total ice in the Antartic region? The Antartic ice will actually lead to a negative forcing on global sea levels. Fact.

It's been proven that Greenland was once.......oh my, GREEN. Meaning it wasn't always covered in ice. So there's precident for the glaciers to melt. And it obviously wan't catastrophic then, why should it be now??

As for Kyoto, there are alot of countries that are regreting signing. They are seeing their governements spend trillions of dollars and not getting any benifit. The science is not conclusive that CO2 will cause the massive problems that have been perpetuated by the MSM and environmental activists. In fact, they have proven that temps rise BEFORE CO2 levels. How do you explain that?? Just goes to show that not enough is known about the climate engine of Earth, so why cripple our economy trying to change something that isn't a factor anyways. Total human contributions to greenhouse gases account for only about 0.28% of the "greenhouse effect"


http://www.reason.com/news/show/34939.html
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/index.html
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/cause.html
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/Greenhouse_not_a_problem.html
http://www.skepticism.net/faq/environment/global_warming/

Other than the fact that they were melting PRIOR to the industrial age? You claim that the rate is unprecedented. I'm saying we have no research to suggest it is.

Another thing I would like to point out about the forcasts by the IPCC. They are based off of a global population growth that is completely unrealistic. They also used unreliable ground based temp measurements that don't match up with satellite observations.

Still not showing me any corelation between rising CO2 followed by rising temps causing out-of-norm glacial melting.

And I never disputed that CO2 levels are higher than they were. I stipulate that they're still not the highest seen on the planet and there is no reason to try and regulate levels that even if doubled would only lead to a temp increase that still falls withing natural climate changes. Also, CO2 has very limited capabilities to contribute to AGW. Feel free to peruse this page:

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/index.html