Climate Change

[5VP]

I clicked the link you posted GB and read more often than not your objection is financial in nature.

Yes - financial in nature. How silly of me to consider who is supposed to pay for things, and also to consider the $68 billion that the Obama administration has already poured down the black hole of the AGW fraud in the last four years alone. It sure is nice not to let the concept of blowing taxpayer cash on absolutely NOTHING not bother you. Good grief - you guys really just take the cake here - no one is ever supposed to ever worry about how things are paid for, we should just shut off our brains and pay for them. And when questioned, we can reply with silly idioms like "Can we afford not to?? What about our grandchildren???"" Blah blah blah. So in pursuit of solving some problem that doesn't even exist in the name of our grandkids, we are willingly saddling them with trillions of dollars of bills they'll never be able to afford to pay. Instead of drowning in Al Gore's non-existent ocean rise, they'll drown in debt. But at least all of you who don't concern yourselves with petty issues like spending money on useless made up causes can keep that warm feeling in your liberal tummies - the one that shows what a great person you are, because you are beyond issues like money and debt, because you "care". Oh barf.

Are we Americans here??

What's with the constant referrals to the American economic problems as they relate to the environment? Think Globally; sure but try acting locally for once in a while too.

Al Gore was yesterday's news several years ago already and it's obvious by now that his message has been lost to the tsunamic disagreements of corporate interests who were bailed out by Obama.

These same (GM, banks etc.) corporations are now back trumpeting about their billion$$ in profit once more, while "Mom and Pop Justlostthefarm" have to still pay the taxes on the interest the central banks charge for printing money in the first place while also pay the cost of having their living spaces torn up in the name of supporting the false economy and being told to just shut up, sit back and take it up the hoop.

I see a huge reality disconnect here.

Since you are so concerned about financial status of Americans perhaps you might want to focus on how those trillion$ of debt were actually incurred.

Try focusing your rage and rhetoric on the banks global cartels and the privately operated central banking systems that are the real culprits impeding growth and environmental R&D on this planet and which are, in effect, funding the environmental death of this planet through BIG OIL instead of constantly laying blame on the little guy...

[The Green Barbarian]

I see a huge reality disconnect here.

Truer words were never spoken.

[5VP]

I see a huge reality disconnect here.

Truer words were never spoken.

Exactly!!

Which is why I mention that fact.

When I see you get off the "Sky is falling cuz Al Gore is a poo-poo mush-head" routine I'll believe that you may be making progress back towards reality.

FYI: Canada is also heavily indebted to the central banks practices. These central reserve banks are private for-profit cartels that control everything related to the flow of money. They also fund the wars for control of global oil resources and are the drivers of the industries that create the enviro disasters that our tax dollars end up paying for anyways.

We are the sheeple consumers that pay for all of this and we sheeple can also decide how our collective wealth should be spent.

When I see people of minimal standing (you et al.) constantly shilling for the big $$ guy$ I'm reminded of seeing flies guarding a piece of dung (your wages) while singing the praises of the animal (corporate elephant) that excreted it; all the while not stopping to realize that the elephant is eating and digesting all the fruit (global re$ource$) before it gets to you.

Let's focus on issues in our own back yard first instead of throwing out the same dried out old basket of red herrings that you ordered up here from the American Republican party back in the 50's...

[Fixer 166]

Check this out
If it doesn't work (iPad) YouTube search Earth 2050 - full length video
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yFr-OocOb7Y

[Fixer 166]

There is a quick trailer to the vid if it's too long for you to watch. It's really quite interesting.

[Fixer 166]

I used to believe humans were causing a bit of this alleged climate change and while I still feel we should do what we can, I now believe humans affect on climate change is about as great as a mouse peeing in the ocean to change its level. I been doing more reading lately on this and have joined the side that this is the biggest cash grab going. Last night I watched a program about the Iceland volcanos. Wow! Think humans affect the environment? Think again. Ever heard of Katla? I bet you will. Ever heard of what happened in Europe in the 1700's? It will happen again. Do some reading, google is your friend.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAHoCJuB6yA

[Glacier]

2012 was the hottest year ever in Texas (tied with 1921).

[hobbyguy]

Fascinating interview with Rex Tillerson, CEO of EXXON.

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12808

The discussion of global warming/climate change from Exxon's perspective seemed quite balanced to me. Mr. Tillerson acknowledges that AGW is a significant problem and CO2 emissions are part of the problem.

His outline of the scale of the energy supply problem visa vi "green" technologies, and the hope offered by natural gas as a transitional, and the complexities of the climate system are put forward in very pragmatic and sensible fashion. I especially liked his outline of the energy transition timelines from wood to coal to oil. It is actually quite heartening to see that the brass at Exxon are fully aware of the issues and are in fact moving toward solutions.

If you are not a believer in AGW, or a believer that all of the problem is AGW, or a believer that solving CO2 emissions is a "magic bullet", then you might want to take the time to watch this.

[StraitTalk]

http://www.skepticalscience.com/new-res ... rated.html

Bit of a long read but well worth it.

[hobbyguy]

The reference to feedback mechanisms is the scary part. There are so many self-reinforcing feedback loops that it is not a wonder that there is controversy in the scientific about magnitudes and speeds of change.

The two that stick out in my mind are the permafrost release of methane (much more dangerous as a greenhouse gas than CO2) and glacial lubrication.

The methane containing layers of the vast swaths of permafrost (notably in Siberia and northern Canada) were thought to be 1 meter thick, but are now found to be more like 3 meters thick, with a corresponding increase in potential release volume. It seems that once a section of permafrost starts to release the methane, the process is locally a feedback loop for a microclimate patch (as well as for the macroclimate). Once you reach a tipping point, there is nothing that can be done.

The big holes showing up in Greenland glaciers caused by surface meltwaters cascading down cracks in the glaciers are providing a pathway for melt water to get under the glacier. Once that happens, the water lubricates the surface of the underlying rock, and the glacier speeds up, creating more cracks, allowing more melt water in, causing the glacier to move even faster etc. etc. The scary part is that it isn't the loss of sea ice that is going to cause dramatic rise in sea levels, it is these glaciers sliding into the ocean and melting. Best not buy any real estate in Richmond. Unfortunately, a huge chunk of the world's population lives in similar low-lying areas.

And those are just two of the feedback loops. We have an obvious one (not so obvious when it started) in BC with the pine beetle where dead trees are releasing CO2 etc. as they rot and at the same time not absorbing CO2.

As Mr. Tillerson points out, it seems to take us 100 years to move on to different energy sources. Pretty sure we can't dawdle along at that pace without some pretty dire consequences.

[Woodenhead]

http://www.ipcc.ch/index.htm

Probably should have linked that one long ago.

[averagejoe]

He got to be kidding??????

An environmental group focused on the dangers of climate change is lobbying for Canadian municipalities to pass bylaws that would require warning labels on gas station pump nozzles.

Lawyer Robert Shirkey says the warning labels on the nozzles would be similar to those found on cigarette packages and would act to warn users of the negative effects of fossil fuels.

More....

http://www.castanet.net/edition/news-st ... .htm#89954

[logicalview]

He got to be kidding??????

An environmental group focused on the dangers of climate change is lobbying for Canadian municipalities to pass bylaws that would require warning labels on gas station pump nozzles.

Lawyer Robert Shirkey says the warning labels on the nozzles would be similar to those found on cigarette packages and would act to warn users of the negative effects of fossil fuels.

More....

http://www.castanet.net/edition/news-st ... .htm#89954

just more proof that too many people have far too much time on their hands. It is good comedic relief though. We'll see if this actually takes hold. I know those warning labels on cigarette packs have really made my friends cut down on smoking all right...

Meanwhile...back on topic...

Climatologists are no Einsteins, says his successor

Freeman Dyson is a physicist who has been teaching at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton since Albert Einstein was there. When Einstein died in 1955, there was an opening for the title of "most brilliant physicist on the planet." Dyson has filled it.

So when the global-warming movement came along, a lot of people wondered why he didn’t come along with it. The reason he’s a skeptic is simple, the 89-year-old Dyson said when I phoned him.
"I think any good scientist ought to be a skeptic," Dyson said.

Dyson came to this country from his native England at age 23 and immediately made major breakthroughs in quantum theory. After that he worked on a nuclear-powered rocket (see video below). Then in the late 1970s, he got involved with early research on climate change at the Institute for Energy Analysis in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

"I just think they don't understand the climate," he said of climatologists. "Their computer models are full of fudge factors."

That research, which involved scientists from many disciplines, was based on experimentation. The scientists studied such questions as how atmospheric carbon dioxide interacts with plant life and the role of clouds in warming.

But that approach lost out to the computer-modeling approach favored by climate scientists. And that approach was flawed from the beginning, Dyson said.

"I just think they don’t understand the climate," he said of climatologists. "Their computer models are full of fudge factors."

A major fudge factor concerns the role of clouds. The greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide on its own is limited. To get to the apocalyptic projections trumpeted by Al Gore and company, the models have to include assumptions that CO-2 will cause clouds to form in a way that produces more warming.

"The models are extremely oversimplified," he said. "They don't represent the clouds in detail at all. They simply use a fudge factor to represent the clouds."

Dyson said his skepticism about those computer models was borne out by recent reports of a study by Ed Hawkins of the University of Reading in Great Britain that showed global temperatures were flat between 2000 and 2010 — even though we humans poured record amounts of CO-2 into the atmosphere during that decade.

That was vindication for a man who was termed "a civil heretic" in a New York Times Magazine article on his contrarian views. Dyson embraces that label, with its implication that what he opposes is a religious movement. So does his fellow Princeton physicist and fellow skeptic, William Happer.

"There are people who just need a cause that’s bigger than themselves," said Happer. "Then they can feel virtuous and say other people are not virtuous."

To show how uncivil this crowd can get, Happer e-mailed me an article about an Australian professor who proposes — quite seriously — the death penalty for heretics such as Dyson. As did Galileo, they can get a reprieve if they recant.

I hope that guy never gets to hear Dyson’s most heretical assertion: Atmospheric CO-2 may actually be improving the environment.

"It’s certainly true that carbon dioxide is good for vegetation," Dyson said. "About 15 percent of agricultural yields are due to CO-2 we put in the atmosphere. From that point of view, it’s a real plus to burn coal and oil."

In fact, there’s more solid evidence for the beneficial effects of CO-2 than the negative effects, he said. So why does the public hear only one side of this debate? Because the media do an awful job of reporting it.


"They’re absolutely lousy," he said of American journalists. "That’s true also in Europe. I don’t know why they’ve been brainwashed."

I know why: They’re lazy. Instead of digging into the details, most journalists are content to repeat that mantra about "consensus" among climate scientists.

The problem, said Dyson, is that the consensus is based on those computer models. Computers are great for analyzing what happened in the past, he said, but not so good at figuring out what will happen in the future. But a lot of scientists have built their careers on them. Hence the hatred for dissenters.

"It was similar in the Soviet Union," he said. "Who could doubt Marxist economics was the future? Everything else was in the dustbin."

There’s a lot of room left in that bin for the ideas promulgated by people dumber than Dyson. Which is just about everyone.

ADD: This quote from the great H.L. Mencken captures perfectly the religious nature of those in the climate cult:

"The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea, however fundamental it may seem to be, for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable."

http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/20 ... stein.html

Oh no!! The Star Ledger is now "in the pay of Big Oil!"...

[ForestfortheTrees]

Well this statement is just plain wrong:

the models have to include assumptions that CO-2 will cause clouds to form in a way that produces more warming.

I always find these articles, and the people who post them, rather entertaining. Where is the critical analysis of what is being said? Just because Freeman Dyson is a great scientific mind does that mean that everything he says should be taken as--dare I say it--gospel. Where is the sentence in the article that say's "based on the findings from Dyson's recent research paper . . ."?

And joe, where is your discussion about the accuracy of the reporter? The above quote appears to be an interpretation by the journalist which indicates his complete lack of knowledge on the mechanisms of climate change. Please show me where climate scientists say that "CO-2 will cause clouds to form in a way that produces more warming".

Joe - it seems your own truths might also be somewhat "immutable"!

[logicalview]

Forest, if you actually care about what Freeman Dyson has to say on the AGW hoax, here's some Youtube clips...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k69HUuyI5Mk

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

Dyson worked in Oakridge and did do climate modeling. His main point though isn't that the models are so flawed and wrong, his main issue is with people who want to claim that the hypothesis of man-made warming can't be challenged, that a consensus exists in the scientific community, and that the debate is over. Only religion does that. Science doesn't do that. Science always questions, and when it stops questioning, it stops being science.