1. Welcome Hearth.com Guests and Visitors - Please enjoy our forums!
    Hearth.com GOLD Sponsors who help bring the site content to you:
    Jotul Cast Iron Stoves
    Woodstock Soapstone Stoves
    Hearth and Home (QuadraFire and Harman Stoves)
  1. Doug MacIVER New Member

    joined: Nov 21, 2012
    73 posts
    se mass
    one last word, a great read is michael crichton's "state of fear" 2004. makes alot of sense today and it's fiction! only fictional novel that i've read that is footnoted

    Helpful Sponsor Ads!



  2. semipro Minister of Fire

    joined: Jan 12, 2009
    1,701 posts
    SW Virginia
    Its interesting too that the slowing of the Gulf Stream has been attributed with the decrease it the swell that occurs in the Sargasso Sea resulting in higher than expected sea level rises on the east coast.
  3. semipro Minister of Fire

    joined: Jan 12, 2009
    1,701 posts
    SW Virginia
    Agreed that local highs or lows are really outliers.
    The temps cited in the link are crazy though!
    Its interesting that many climatologists have said that global climate change will be most evident from temp extremes (high and low) and increasingly violent storms.
  4. begreen Super Moderator

    joined: Nov 18, 2005
    36,118 posts
    South Puget Sound, WA
    Dissenting opinions are good in science. Quite frankly, it doesn't matter if he is wrong or right in the sense that even if we are on a natural cycle, we are exacerbating it. Once we pass the point where thermoclines stop or methane volume releases from permafrost are accelerating unchecked, there will be huge impacts and costs. To ignore change or to hold up planning for what seems to be inevitable is like telling the watch on the Titanic to go to bed while cruising at maximum speed through an iceberg field. The odds of a major catastrophe occurring go up exponentially.

    As a counterpoint to Spenser I recommend you read up a bit of info left by Dr. Stephen Schneider: http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/index.html
    Mrs. Krabappel likes this.
  5. begreen Super Moderator

    joined: Nov 18, 2005
    36,118 posts
    South Puget Sound, WA
    Not uncommon. It's sometimes used to imply credibility to the text. And sometimes the footnotes are just made up. Look at Manual Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman or Vladimir Nabokov’s novel, Pale Fire or The Athenian Murders, by José Carlos Somoza. Often they are used comically like in The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud

    You might be interested in this review (by a doctor of meteorology) of Crichton's novel. Here's a sample:

    "On a scientific level, Crichton has obviously done a lot of research. The high-tech schemes of the baddies to create fake climate mayhem are all delightfully improbable, but based in fact just enough to leave you wondering if such things are really possible (not!). Unfortunately, Crichton presents a error-filled and distorted version of the Global Warming science, favoring views of the handful of contrarians that attack the consensus science of the IPCC."

    http://www.wunderground.com/resources/education/stateoffear.asp?MR=1
  6. Doug MacIVER New Member

    joined: Nov 21, 2012
    73 posts
    se mass
    only if you believe one side, and you do. good luck, you bought it. to quote h. clinton "never waist a good crsis" it helps to create a "state of fear"
  7. Doug MacIVER New Member

    joined: Nov 21, 2012
    73 posts
    se mass
    ever read it?
  8. begreen Super Moderator

    joined: Nov 18, 2005
    36,118 posts
    South Puget Sound, WA
    What I believe doesn't really matter. I'm not a climatologist. What I respect a large body of evidence and concerns presented by scientists that have been studying this for a long time.
    TradEddie likes this.
  9. begreen Super Moderator

    joined: Nov 18, 2005
    36,118 posts
    South Puget Sound, WA
    Not yet. Probably unlikely too.
  10. jharkin Minister of Fire

    joined: Oct 21, 2009
    2,061 posts
    Holliston, MA USA
    Somebody gave me that book State of Fear as a gift.

    One glance and I circular filed it.
  11. Hearth Mistress Minister of Fire

    joined: Jan 24, 2012
    580 posts
    Point Pleasant, PA (SE PA)
    Not sure how I missed this thread but can this be as simple as weather just runs in patterns,way beyond our life spans and we just happen to be living during the "warm time" (which I'll take over an ice age any day)

    Have you ever noticed a 7 day weather pattern, like it rains every Tuesday until the jet streams change? I'm not sure what to believe or really what I can do about it but am facinated by the passion of both sides.

    Since this a forum for burning....here's fuel for the fire....feel free to discuss :)

    http://www.greatglobalwarmingswindle.com/pdf/2007 05-03 AusIMM corrected.pdf
  12. begreen Super Moderator

    joined: Nov 18, 2005
    36,118 posts
    South Puget Sound, WA
    Good fuel for another day Jeni. It's late and time for bed. I agree that this needs to be an open scientific debate, not an emotional one and certainly not a political one.
  13. Doug MacIVER New Member

    joined: Nov 21, 2012
    73 posts
    se mass
    even i know that should be waste
  14. Doug MacIVER New Member

    joined: Nov 21, 2012
    73 posts
    se mass
    now you did it under "is there consensus" that discredited mike critchton is quoted. that'll throw that paper out!
  15. jharkin Minister of Fire

    joined: Oct 21, 2009
    2,061 posts
    Holliston, MA USA
    My wife has this fascination with meteorology and forward me this blog from her favorite local weatherman.

    http://www1.whdh.com/weather/blog/posts/BO149512/

    Sadly I fear he is right that people just dont care enough to be bothered to make radical change... And I fear that his proposed savior of CCS is going to turn out to be too energy expensive on the down slope of the fossil fuel age to be of much help.
    vinny11950 likes this.
  16. oldspark Minister of Fire

    joined: Feb 16, 2010
    5,113 posts
    North West Iowa
    Well we have to get the rest of the world on board, we cant do it by ourselves, so it might not work no matter what we think, time to invest in air conditioning companies maybe.
  17. Frozen Canuck Minister of Fire

    Your wife has a weatherman thats not afraid to be honest. Trouble is he has it pretty much pegged too.

    Forget about radical change, how about any change? Heck how about some education so folks are able to think big picture rather than..... the world that matters stops at the end of their nose. As long as people are willing to have others tell them what to think in the forum of a political slogan, do no research/reading/investigation, never mind independant thought...well lets just say it's going to be a long tough row to hoe.

    Most folks on this forum are the exeception rather than the rule when it comes to energy conservation. Bottom line in much of the world energy is just too cheap to encourage any kind of conservation......Drill baby drill......Burn baby burn.......was spoken along time ago & holds true to this day.

    Oh yes CCS as it exists right now = non starter. Big bucks being spent but so far......
    vinny11950 likes this.
  18. woodgeek Minister of Fire

    joined: Jan 27, 2008
    1,424 posts
    SE PA
  19. Doug MacIVER New Member

    joined: Nov 21, 2012
    73 posts
    se mass
    Geez, I see that Dr. Schneider predicted back in 1979 that the west antarctic ice shelf would melt as early as 2000.That would also be accompanied with a 25 foot sea level rise. Did we miss sometyhing,shame he''s not here to expain it, maybe he did,but I have seen it yet.
  20. vinny11950 Feeling the Heat

    joined: May 17, 2010
    396 posts
    Eastern Long Island, NY
    the carbon industry bullies the networks not to mention climate change. on the Sunday shows i always see commercials for gas and oil companies. money talks and ... well you know the rest.

    even when debating it, people who don't understand the issues still give equal weight to both sides of the argument, not realizing that most of the science supports climate change/warming. enough think tanks have been set up to counter and put into doubt climate change, even when it is already making havoc in our own back yards.

    millions of tons of carbon fuels still have to be pumped and profited from so i doubt anything will be done. we will just have to continue to endure the effects until we can't anymore and then who knows.

    but the rich usually get what they want, so i completely expect the rich oil companies to get their way and block any reasonable approach to energy conservation or carbon tax.
  21. Redskins82 Member

    joined: Feb 5, 2010
    20 posts
    Alabamy

    Yep, and now the NYT is closing their environment desk. Maybe they know we'll never survive a large arctic methane release and the environment is toast so there's no reason the report on it anymore.
  22. oldspark Minister of Fire

    joined: Feb 16, 2010
    5,113 posts
    North West Iowa
    Why is it that a lot of people who believe in god dont believe in man made global change?
  23. begreen Super Moderator

    joined: Nov 18, 2005
    36,118 posts
    South Puget Sound, WA
    Corporate economic decisions often do not relate to reality.
  24. woodgeek Minister of Fire

    joined: Jan 27, 2008
    1,424 posts
    SE PA
  25. begreen Super Moderator

    joined: Nov 18, 2005
    36,118 posts
    South Puget Sound, WA
    A man will say anything when his salary depends on it.

Share This Page