The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

The science seems to be supporting common sense conclusions. Must be crackpot. Won't some fundamentalist please tell us what to think?!

May you live in interesting times, motherfuckers

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

It isn't falling so much as coming at you vertically -- with sustained speeds of over 150mph as it peels the roof of your house.

Careful, Kevin. This guy is still an outlier, and just because he made some bold claims at a conference -- and the media went nuts about it -- is no reason to elevate him to the status of "conventional wisdom."

The science around global warming and current extreme weather events is still very tentative. Let's all chill out and wait for it to develop. There are plenty of good reasons to take action on global warming that are not tied to any individual weather event.

You know, if we somehow managed to take money and profit out of the equasion I wonder how many people would still doubt global warming? If it wasn't a direct threat to their bottom line would they still fight tooth and nail against the idea especially when you can see the ice caps melting and the storms increasing in strength? I fear that most of the "doubters" are only against the idea due to their ideology of greed and when they finally drown in the rising waters it will be because they refuse to leave all of their stuff behind.

during the one of the many hurricanes following katrina, i recall one of the cnn anchorettes actually asking the weather bunny if global warming played any part in the increase in number and severity -- and was treated with a cheery dismissal. now, on to commercial.

If there's a bad winter its global warming melting ice, triggering cold winters

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,872591,00.html

If there's a bad summer its global warming

If there's a storm there's global warming

Strangely enough the state of computer modelling in climatology means that you can declare anything, AFTER THE EVENT to be caused by greenhouse gases.

Of course, to be credible enough to convince people to take rises to energy prices, they have to predict stuff BEFORE THE EVENT which they haven't done to any accuracy.

At present climatology is a religion, with a bunch of high priests playing with unrealistic models, to satisfy their funding (be it corporate or green lobby).

Lord, here comes the flood
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent
in any still alive
It'll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry.

Peter Gabriel

We simply do not have enough data points to sort this out. We will not have the science to "prove" this relationship anytime in the near future. Instead this is a risk question related to our values. What if we do nothing and the phenomenon turns out to be real vs. what if we change our way of life and it turns out to be mostly a natural cycle. We do not spend enough time discussing future _scenarios_ and what we are willing to trade off. Instead we see another round of this sirt of debate.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0819/p16s01-sten.html

And there's people blaming earthquakes on global warming!

Climatologists are soothsayers. Everytime something bad happens, they run around saying "you did not do what I say". Then hope for more funding. Or restrictions and more funding to recognize the impact of the restrictions.

Actually, it isn't the straight line winds, the storm surge, the relentless rain or the powerful impact of the storm itself, but the humidity that gets you.

The humidity, eh? Sounds like another problem that only the Invisible Hand can solve for us.

it looks like the connection between Katrina and global warming is hardly the laughable notion conservatives made it out to be last year. In fact, it's very nearly conventional wisdom.

Correction, Kevin, it's very nearly convention wisdom among scientists-- the very people whose opinions don't matter one bit to right wring pundits and policymakers.

Everytime something bad happens, they run around saying "you did not do what I say".

Funny, you do the same thing when talking about Muslims.

Does that make you a soothsayer too?

The science around global warming and current extreme weather events is still very tentative.

On what planet?

Let's all chill out and wait for it to develop.

How long?

Shit that must mean it's time for Bush to give the oil companies another tax break!

The science around global warming and current extreme weather events is still very tentative. Let's all chill out and wait for it to develop. There are plenty of good reasons to take action on global warming that are not tied to any individual weather event.

As an environmental scientist, with a paper in review that deals with spatial variability of lake effect snowfall and climate change, I'm still skeptical as well and agree with the above. There's a fine line between the logic and common sense thinking that fuels these hypotheses, and the unmitigated fact that the earth's climate and associated weather is a vast, extraordinarily complex system. 40ish years of data is still rather limited when dealing with interrelated cycles that are 10, 20, and 50 years long or longer.

That's not to say that a trend does not exist, but there's also thinking that with global climate change tropical storm generation could be impeded by changed atmospheric conditions.

Man this reminds me --- what's happening in Australia? Wasn't a place called, ironically enough, Darwin in the sights of a Cat 5 this week?

....toddles off to another part of the internets....

Ok, it's called Monica and it was heading for Darwin based on stuff dateline Apr 24th, but I can't find anything newer (and I think if it's an Austrialian site that means it's 2 days, not one old)

Sounds like another problem that only the Invisible Hand can solve for us.

Posted by: Windhorse on April 25, 2006 at 10:49 PM | PERMALINK

Actually the economics behind the Invisible Hand is well advanced and would note that environmental issues (due to the free rider problem) can't be solved by the Invisible Hand.

Invisible Hand requires:

1. Willing buyer, willing seller
2. Competition

There is no 'buyer' for the environment. I have the same weather whether I drive a Hum-vee (I wish) or a Prius.

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog interviews four Republican Senators on the subject of global warming:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3356749997251913569&q=earth+to+america&pl=true

...the connection between Katrina and global warming is hardly the laughable notion conservatives made it out to be last year.

Conservatives?

You mean those dinosaurs that won Iraq for us?

I mean really... so-called conservatives make a stopped clock look brilliant.

PS: New Orleans is going to get hit again this summer. Hope the levies are up and built to conservative specs.

LOL.

Where as climatologists are..... and are strangely effective at declaring any short-term weather phenomenon to be caused by global warming....but ineffective at getting any 20 year prediction right.

Um, bullshit, dude. You are talking out your ass. The modeling has consistently predicted the magnitude of global temperature warming over the past decade. The models have gotten just better and more accurate.

I'm still such a middle-aged newbee at this, but, boy, is this as suprise!

After hitting so many juvenile sites or rabid, right-wing, no-debate pages, this seemed like a haven of reasonable sense. Decent to some excellent comments and information, cites, links, etc., etc.; right-wingers putting in an oar for legitimate to illegitimate counter perspective. Compared to so many others (help me, if you want) seemed OK.

Now this!

So, damn me, I can't give a cite or link, but . . .

I read an article a couple of months ago about one of the primo US tropical storm predictors. Seemed like he had a fairly conservative statistical outlook. Last year, he predicted 13 major tropical storms in the Gulf and S. Atlantic. There were 26. Not only that, but their strength was also much greater than predicted. This was such an extreme statistical anomaly that his prediction for 2006 is -- guess what -- 13 major tropical storms. So, statistically, I'd say we've got a 3 year window to beat that to show a trend. If it happens this year we're in real trouble.

PERSONALLY, I'd take scientists (real ones, Al et al) over politicians or energy execs if my life relied on it.

Global warming is a scientific high-probability. In the 1950s the Dutch, after flooding, had the sense to bet on a 10,000 year probability--with their present-day science!

We're not even betting on 100 years in our 2100 year present day science!

WE ARE SUCKERS!!!!!

No, I'm not that old. It's 2006.

Isn't it?

Blaming any one event on global warming isn't responsible, from what I gather, but that's partially because it provides fuel for the moronic "skeptics".

Inevitably, there will be some wild exaagerations and careless soothsaying associated with global warming--not by scientists, but by the dreaded mainstream media. Dire predictions will always sell more copies of Time.
But there is also a reality out there called "climate change"--and it is very, very well established by mountains of evidence.

Real Climate has a good post up about alarmism in the media right now:

http://www.realclimate.org/

As does Grist:

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/4/24/164937/859

It's especially fun to read the comments in the former when "skeptics" write in and try to spout the kind of bullshit McA has been spouting here, and encounter real scientists.

And note the effects on plant and animal life: people ill from eating raw oysters raised in Alaska that were infected with a type of cholera-like bacteria, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, that normally grows on shellfish harvested in much warmer waters.

The solution is clear. This Greg Holland guy needs to be muzzled, while Homeland Security investigates to see if he ever voted against God's Own Party.

Sounds like another problem that only the Invisible Hand can solve for us.
Posted by: Windhorse on April 25, 2006 at 10:49 PM PERMALINK.

Absolument mon ami...

But it is even worse than that:

The Invisible Hand insists on a transportation system that kills 40,000 Americans year after year (Imagine if the Amtrak lost 109 people a day).

The Invisible Hand has create hostile and ugly traffic jams in every substantial American community in the country. Wasting huge amounts of our finite lifetimes in gridlock and fuming behind red lights.

The Invisible Hand has usurped vast amounts of prime American acerage for paving. Funny: How come everybody wants to drive but NOBODY wants to live on a busy street? Don't ask the invisible hand that question: it's dumber than dog shit and will give you NO intelligible answer.

The Invisible hand has turned Americans into fat dollops with legs that look like jello mixed with cottage cheese. Ugly. Fat. Diseased. Legs.
In short: The Invisible hand has stolen the legs right out from under Americans and only given them illness in return.

The Invisible hand is the CAUSE of global warming. And is INCOMPLETLEY incapable of addressing its solution.

Conclusion:

The Invisible Hand is not entirely worthless. But
it needs to be put on a leash and made to serve mankind.

Further conclusion: Anybody who still thinks the Invisible Hand will solve global warming needs to be chopped up and fed to either fish or trees. That is the only higher purpose they can ever attain to...

BTW, the first part of Kevin Phillips's book American Theocracy discusses the degree to which oil has shaped America and American politics and the unlikelihood that, as we hit peak oil and beyond, the country can rethink its energy sources. Fascinating book.

koreyel:

The Invisible Hand likes to give us the Invisible Finger.

Bob

Superb example of another media propaganda blast.

Experts: Global warming behind 2005 hurricanes

Note how that is worded. A slam-dunk conclusion by the article writer, who knew exactly what he wanted when he went to the conference, and wrote the article accordingly.

Why are some of these "experts" considered to be right (three mentioned by name) while the other ones are automatically wrong (one mentioned by name)?

A study Holland helped write last fall wasn't nearly as certain in its conclusions.

So what makes someone a real scientist if he's only right in hindsight? Or if they resort to disinformation to try and avoid debate?

There's a logical step between A and B:

A. Climate change is happening

B. Regulating man's economic activity would result in a reduction in that climate change that would be of benefit to mankind

A is one thing. B is another. Trying to use A to dodge debate on B is a political tactic, not science.

I don't know about you guys, but I don't need the thought of hurricanes pounding the Gulf Coast to scare the shit out of me about global warming. Imagining parts of the U.S. underwater and the global economy tanking does the trick quite nicely, thank you.

off topic, tbrosz, but I thought you of all people might appreciate this .

Opening graph:
"I've always thought that one of the perverse consequences of a libertarian utopian government that does nothing but national defense, policing and dispute resolution would be that this government would naturally seek to expand its powers in those areas. If a state's only function is policing, it functions as a ... police state."

craigie--

you must have some special privilege on this site, as your post of 12:18 am was not deleted even though it does not relate to the topic of the thread.

in the previous thread my reference to the Illinois Legislature's effort to ask the Congress to impeach the President under a never used Congressional rule was unceremoniously deleted.

"So what makes someone a real scientist if he's only right in hindsight? "

As has already been stated, "real scientists" have not been right "only in hindisght."
The models have so far understated, not overstated, the extent of climate change. Try doing some homework away from right wing think tanks.

"Or if they resort to disinformation to try and avoid debate?"

That's a fair characterization of the so called "skeptics," who continually make up horseshit about the "medieval warming period" or produce lists of skeptical "scientists" who turn out to be dentists and chiropractors.

"There's a logical step between A and B:

A. Climate change is happening

B. Regulating man's economic activity would result in a reduction in that climate change that would be of benefit to mankind"

You're right, and boy that sure would be a dumb argument. Of course, it's a strawman argument, like so much else that comes from the clowns on the right.

Try this one:
A. Climate change is happening; serious negative consequences as predicted by the models are already happening.
B. Continued climate change is very likely to have extremely negative consequences, possibly devastating ones.
C. Man made carbon dioxide emissions appear to be by far the most significant cause of climate change.
D.We must reduce carbon dioxide emissions and avoid worsening the situation (though we will also have to discuss ways to adapt to the mess we've already made.)

After that comes a conversation about ways to reduce carbon emissions--and that includes nuclear power, among other solutions. Of course it also includes further arguments that the economy will be just devastated if we make any changes, often backed up by speculative economic forecasts that make the shakiest psuedo-science look like gold. But this is the conversation that serious people need to have--and many corporations (including WalMart!)and even some republicans are joining it.

lib:

I've never heard of anyone's posts being deleted here, lib.

Including those Chinese character spammers ...

You must've missed yours somehow. People post OT all the time here and I've never seen it deleted.

Bob

lib: you must have some special privilege on this site, as your post of 12:18 am was not deleted even though it does not relate to the topic of the thread.

I knitted craigie a magic cape. It was supposed to make Bush go shushy every time craigie donned it, but I don't knit very competently. So all it does is protect his posts.

in the previous thread my reference to the Illinois Legislature's effort to ask the Congress to impeach the President under a never used Congressional rule was unceremoniously deleted.

No, really? I've never seen ANYTHING deleted here except a really long piece of snuff spam, after many requests from all and sundry.

I'm just waiting to see if we get another season of Category 5 hurricanes following one on another like baby ducklings, just as we had last year. Plus so many smaller hurricanes they ran out of cute names for them.

If we don't, great. If we do, maybe this notion that it's just normal variability will lose a little steam.

rmck1 and shortstop

I was surprised too. Perhaps it was deleted because it was the first post, and Kevin didn't want to start the discusssion with an OT comment.

Wasn't a place called, ironically enough, Darwin in the sights of a Cat 5 this week?

Darwin, of course, was completely flattened by Cyclone Tracy on Christmas Eve 1974 (I think '75...). Completely flattened - 70% of housing destroyed.

Darwin's on cyclone alert again due to Monica bearing down from the north.

BTW, we are facing a banana shortage in Australia due to the fact our entire f*cking crop (sorry, industry) got wiped out by cyclone Larry a month ago.

We're expecting more.

This is not a usual cyclone season for us.

Dang, floop, hang in there. Rough year for Oz.

A single event is not statiscically viable. Katrina is not useful in itself.

Which "Invisible Hand" are we talking about? I prefer to stick to Adam Smith rather than the usual modern co-opt of other people's creations. Wish the oldies had copyright the same way the Repubs have exrended it to anyone the last few years.

I wish the US education system was better. Teach critical facilties and logic. Then we wouldn't have to put up with specious arguments we hear about science. IT'S ALL THEORY.

Harsh, but:

The right wing Bush/Fundamentalist Christian/Scientologist/Neanderthal people who don't understand 17th Century science, let alone 21st Century science: NOTHING IS CERTAIN.

Read Popper's "The Logic of Scientific Discovery." It's all theory.

So we seek truth without predicated bias or belief. Whoops! Kind of rules out religion. Lots of religious scientists but they manage to put that to one side as they work. Unlike politicians who, particularly in the US, think religion trumps logic.

I don't bet against gravity and the math that derived. I don't bet against thermodynamics. I don't bet aganst aerodynamics, which 100 years ago were almosat totally unknown but now an aircraft can be totally designed by computer. I'll bet against cancer and the human genome (they're interlinked) that we can cure the one (we were promised that 25 years ago now) or fully understand the other in 25 years (and that is a low estimate).

So, let's get serious. We, need to understand we have headed down a dead end street at 120mph.

When do we put the brakes ON?

Ok, I confess. Kevin and I are lovers. That's why I can write whatever I want.

No, that's not true. The truth is, I am Kevin.

Ok, that's not true either.

It must be shortstop's magic cape. Which hangs just low enough to protect my, um, posts. You naughty girl! And up so late, as well!

Just trying to recover from the ballpark-induced hypothermia, monsieur le craigie. (3-1...take that, Marlins! Have I ever mentioned how much I don't like the Marlins?)

floopmeister:

Oz, eh. Well, g'day 'n' g'luck. Plenty of bananas here in the US but too cheap. You may know that.

So what can you give us?

With global warming, the sea mass and lower land mass in the southern hemisphere means slower change. But we hear about the snow melt on the Antarctic peninsula.

What's the view down under?

RU or RL?

Or perhaps the phrase impeachment of the President is verboten here.

To hell with center leftists.

lib, I really don't think it was that. If you're concerned, why not e-mail Kevin and ask him? He'll tell you.

Actually, I think Inkblot answers all of Kevin's mail. But yes, you'll get a response.

the analogy of CFCs, presented w/i a longer post by Dr. Jeff Masters:

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=341&tstamp=200604

Here's the excerpt near the end of the longer post:

"Flashback to 1974

On June 28, 1974, Sherry Rowland and Mario Molina, chemists at the University of California, Irvine, published the first scientific paper warning that human-generated chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) could cause serious harm to Earth's protective ozone layer. They calculated that if CFC production continued to increase at the going rate of 10%/year until 1990, then remain steady, CFCs would cause a global 5 to 7 percent ozone loss by 1995 and 30-50% loss by 2050.

They warned that the loss of ozone would significantly increase the amount of skin-damaging ultraviolet UV-B light reaching the surface, greatly increasing skin cancer and cataracts. The loss of stratospheric ozone could also significantly cool the stratosphere, potentially causing destructive climate change. Although no stratospheric ozone loss had been observed yet, CFCs should be banned, they said. At the time, the CFC industry was worth about $8 billion in the U.S., employed over 600,000 people directly, and 1.4 million people indirectly (Roan, 1989).

Critics and skeptics--primarily industry spokespeople and scientists paid by conservative think tanks--immediately attacked the theory. Despite the fact that Molina and Rowland's theory had wide support in the scientific community, these handful of skeptics, their voices greatly amplified by the public relations machines of powerful corporations and politicians sympathetic to them, succeeded in delaying imposition of controls on CFCs for over a decade. Scientists who advocated CFC controls were accused of being alarmists out to get research funding. One CFC industry magazine stated in 1975, "The whole area of research grants and the competition among scientists to get them must be considered a factor in the politics of ozone" (Roan, 1989).

DuPont, which made 1/4 of the world's CFCs, spent millions of dollars running full-page newspaper advertisements defending CFCs in 1975, claiming there was no proof that CFCs were harming the ozone layer. The chairman of DuPont commented that the ozone depletion theory was "a science fiction tale...a load of rubbish...utter nonsense." (Chemical Week, 16 July 1975). The aerosol industry also launched a PR blitz, issuing a press release stating that the ozone destruction by CFCs was a theory, and not fact. This press release, and many other 'news stories' favorable to industry, were generated by the aerosol industry and printed by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune magazine, Business Week, and the London Observer (Blysky and Blysky, 1985). The symbol of Chicken Little claiming that "The sky is falling!" was used with great effect by the PR campaign, and appeared in various newspaper headlines.

The CFC industry companies hired the world's largest public relations firm, Hill & Knowlton, who organized a month-long U.S. speaking tour in 1975 for noted British scientist Richard Scorer, a former editor of the International Journal of Air Pollution and author of several books on pollution. Scorer blasted Molina and Rowland, calling them "doomsayers", and remarking, "The only thing that has been accumulated so far is a number of theories."

Sound familiar?

In a 1984 interview in The New Yorker, Rowland concluded, "Nothing will be done about this problem until there is further evidence that a significant loss of ozone has occurred. Unfortunately, this means that if there is a disaster in the making in the stratosphere we are probably not going to avoid it." The very next year, all the "Chicken Little" scientists were proved right, when the Antarctic ozone hole was discovered. Human-generated CFCs were indeed destroying Earth's protective ozone layer. In fact, the ozone depletion was far worse than Molina and Roland had predicted. No one had imagined that ozone depletions like the 50% losses being observed by 1987 over Antarctica were possible so soon. Despite the continued opposition of many of the skeptics, the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement to phase out ozone-destroying chemicals, was hurriedly approved in 1987 to address the threat. By 2003, it appeared that the ozone hole had stopped growing, thanks to the quick action. Molina and Rowland were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1995. The citation from the Nobel committee credited them with helping to deliver the Earth from a potential environmental disaster."

Here's another possibility, lib: user error. I'm pretty sure that's what Occam's razor leaves behind.

Actually, I think Inkblot answers all of Kevin's mail. But yes, you'll get a response.

And craigie would know, given their special relationship. Just kidding, lib. Seriously, just follow up with Kevin.

1. I hope McA's island is completely flooded by rising sea levels.

2. I hope that Houston is wiped out by a hurricane this season.

Neocons will still be blaming liberals. But at least some of the worst loudmouths will be gone.

I'm just waiting to see if we get another season of Category 5 hurricanes following one on another like baby ducklings, just as we had last year. Plus so many smaller hurricanes they ran out of cute names for them.
Posted by: jimBOB on April 26, 2006 at 12:36 AM | PERMALINK

This year, we should just name them all George.

Hey! I live in Houston - and we're not all energy barons, you know, ;-)...

Seriously, though, if Rita would have stayed just a little bit south of it's final path, you might have had your wish last summer...

Even the so-called evacuation was ghastly: Many people died simply evacuating from this huge area (not just Houston, but much of this part of the state), stuck for hours and hours in non-moving traffic, w/o air-conditioning in their cars (which would use up their gas, which was running out everywhere, as cars simply crawled, if not stopped all together) in above 100 degree heat... Many were camping out in parking lots along miles of the freeway (hotels and shelters having filled up quickly).

If Rita had actually passed through the main route of evacuation, it would have been a nightmare... My family was fortunate, for we had family to stay w/ in a fairly safe place not too far away from our home.

Just the prospect of evacuating for many, especially the sick and elderly was terribly daunting, considering what people would face attempting to evacuate...

But, we in Houston imagine that this will not be a unique event for us now. And, although this has been my family's home for decades, we are planning to move as soon as we are able to do so. And I would guess that we're not the only ones thinking this way along much of the Gulf Coast now...

LindaG:

Despite the continued opposition of many of the skeptics, the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement to phase out ozone-destroying chemicals, was hurriedly approved in 1987 to address the threat. By 2003, it appeared that the ozone hole had stopped growing, thanks to the quick action. Molina and Rowland were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1995.

Situation as of January, 2006:

Stratospheric temperatures rose rapidly in November and the 2005 ozone hole is over. Generally ozone levels are at their summer maximum, with a weak gradient across the continent. The 2005 ozone hole was one of the deepest and largest recorded, with a peak of 25 million square kilometres in early September. Ozone values at Rothera in September were among the lowest recorded at this time of year, and values around 110 DU were reached on September 11, 19 and 20. Both Halley and Vernadsky recorded their second lowest values ever during September.

It's a no-lose situation. If the hole shrinks in the near future, t's because of the ban on CFCs. If it stays pretty much the same for many years to come, it will be because it takes "decades" for the fix to work.

And don't forget the two Cat 5 tropical cyclones that have now hit Australia (Cyclones Larry - the worst in decades - and the most recent, Monica, which reached up to 220 mph, http://www.cnn.com/2006/WEATHER/04/24/cyclone.monica.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest)

C. Man made carbon dioxide emissions appear to be by far the most significant cause of climate change.
D.We must reduce carbon dioxide emissions and avoid worsening the situation (though we will also have to discuss ways to adapt to the mess we've already made.)

Posted by: zip on April 26, 2006 at 12:32 AM | PERMALINK

I think C is unproven, and environmentalists try to make up for that with advocacy not science.

D is only true if the costs of reduction are less than the benefits.

If you shut down the world economy and carbon dioxide increases go down by only 25%...the world's still getting warmer. You are way better off hoping that economic development leads to some kind of energy technology breakthrough or
the biotech to do massive reforestation or desert conversion.

The DDT issue is another example, there are certainly some enviromental benefits to DDT being banned but I don't know if they exceed the number of lives lost to Malaria in the third world.

Global warming is pretty much accepted in Australia - there's not much argument about it.

Of course, that doesn't stop our government making us the other country not to sign the Kyoto agreement...

We're prtty much the biggest polluter per head, given that we live in a continent-sized sandbox of mineral goodies. Much of our power comes from dirty brown coal - we are sitting atop millions of tonnes of the stuff (that's what happens when a continent that was once green becomes desert...)

Nuclear energy is on the agenda again, and we've just signed a massive agreement with China to supply them with uranium (again, we have the largest supplies in the world). We're also seriously discussing selling uranium to India - but no plans to have reactors here yet.

Hopefully we'll continue our development of solar power (gee - plenty of sunlight too!) since we're pretty good at fiddling around with that technology.

Our problem is that we are pretty much self-reliant in energy resources - we don't have the sense of energy panic like Europe does.

This is an example of something that's currently in development - 200MW being the projected output.

I think C is unproven, and environmentalists try to make up for that with advocacy not science.

And of all people, YOU would know.

Do you have any evidence, you insufferable pest?

Do you have any evidence, you insufferable pest?

Posted by: obscure on April 26, 2006 at 2:32 AM | PERMALINK

No, but who should bear the burden of proof before they mess around with something like energy policy?

One would assume it was 'science'.

Funny kinda of science that says, its true unless you can prove otherwise.

(that's what happens when a continent that was once green becomes desert...)

Posted by: floopmeister on April 26, 2006 at 2:24 AM | PERMALINK

And how was that caused by industrial development?
I heard a rumor that the natives didn't have much in the way of SUV's while the desert was already there.

http://www.amureprints.com/img1/Toles/2002/tt020613.gif

(that's what happens when a continent that was once green becomes desert...)

And how was that caused by industrial development?

For crying out loud, don't be such an idiot.

http://www.amureprints.com/img1/Toles/2002/tt020613.gif

Posted by: me on April 26, 2006 at 2:57 AM | PERMALINK

The logic behind a threat by a world power intimidating a state that aids or shelters terror
is better demonstrated than the proportion of Global Warming caused by mankind.

Its called Gunboat diplomacy or Pax Romana and worked for at most Empires.

The Democrts have been handed a huge campaign issue and they are so stuck in their scaredy-cat conventional reactive thinking that they won't use it. Here is the speech, you bunch of cowards!

"Why are the Republicans SOFT ON GLOBAL WARMING? Could it be because they have two oilmen in the White House? Because they are in the pockets of the oil companies? We can't wait any long for them to figure it out. Vote for us or your children will be washed away by the rising sea levels and intensified storms. They will starve because the changed weather patterns will turn0 farmland into desert!"

For heaven’s sake, if the situation were reversed, don’t you think Karl would pin the hurricanes, the rising tides, the burning brush-lands, totally on the Dems?

This is all true stuff and yet the wimpydems are so afraid of being bold, they won’t touch what is potentially the most effective campaign issue of the century!

Kevin: "In fact, [the connection between Katrina and global warming is] very nearly conventional wisdom."

Except, of course, among those 32% of Americans who still think the Bush Administration is -- to quote the Bushmeister himself -- "doin' a heckuva job."

Fortunately, their numbers are dwindling -- not fast enough for my satisfaction, but they're still in decline.

James of DC: "This is all true stuff and yet the wimpydems are so afraid of being bold, they won’t touch what is potentially the most effective campaign issue of the century!"

Not all Democrats are "wimpydems" -- just approximately 80% of the professional Democrats who reside within the Beltway and serve in Congress.

It's the amateurs like us out in the hinterlands who are ready to kick some corpulent, corrupt Republiican ass! We just may have to kick some reluctant DC Democratic booty out of the way first in order to do that -- present company excepted.

Kevin: "In fact, [the connection between Katrina and global warming is] very nearly conventional wisdom."

Posted by: Donald from Hawaii on April 26, 2006 at 4:03 AM | PERMALINK

Unless a lack of wind causes environmental damage. In which case, some climate guy will blame lack of wind and subsequent problems on global warming...then find a climate model to justify the statement.

Oh, look someone already has.!

Nasty Global Warming causes evil storms as well as unusually weak winds impacting plankton.

"But this year, the winds have been unusually weak, failing to generate much upwelling and reducing the number of phytoplankton."

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/08/02/marine_problems_plague_pacific/

It's a no-lose situation. If the hole shrinks in the near future, t's because of the ban on CFCs. If it stays pretty much the same for many years to come, it will be because it takes "decades" for the fix to work. -tbroze

-------

Well, it wasn't a ban, it was a phase-out, so that by the current day, the total global accumulation has slowed and has begun to decrease.

Did you happen to look at some of the links from the page you cited in order to find out more about the topic that you so readily dismiss out of hand?

If not, you might appreciate reading from this one...

http://www.epa.gov/ozone/science/unepSciQandA.pdf

"To help foster a continued interaction, this component of the Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2002 presents 20 questions and answers about the often complex science of ozone depletion. The questions address the nature of atmospheric ozone, the chemicals that cause ozone depletion, how global and polar ozone
depletion occur, and what could lie ahead for the ozone layer. A brief answer to each question is first given in italics; an expanded answer then follows. The answers are based on the information presented in the 2002 and earlier Assessment reports. These reports and the answers
provided here were all prepared and reviewed by a large international group of scientists."

For one thing, it explains well the differences between the every day naturally occuring compounds (and there are some), which do play a part in the destruction of ozone, and those that are man made, which were specifically designed for their extraordinary endurance, and play a much greater role in ozone destruction...

It shows what happens w/ solar radiation variation and w/ volcanic eruptions, for example, and shows what distinguishes them from the contribution of man-made chemicals...

It's an informative article...

Floopmeister: okay, you've got coal, uranium and sunshine; how are you fixed for wind? (Apart from the hurricanes, of course.)

Best to save the coal and uranium for export if you can be self-reliant on renewables alone.

There are two things we really need to do at this point.

The first is, on this thread, to stop even paying attention to the weirdos who are still trying to deny the reality of global warming.

The second is to start making it very clear to the "don't build anything anywhere ever" folks that human beings need energy to live, and it has to come from somewhere. The sneering upper-class privilege that would ban offshore wind farms in order to keep their sunset views looking it's still 1800 is a deadly threat to Planet Earth.

Anyone who thinks wind turbines are ugly and anti-nature needs to take a quick trip to Holland. When you see a long stretch of green meadow covered with sheep, and a wind turbine in the background, and you realize that the reason the meadow can stay green for the sheep is BECAUSE of the wind turbine, you start to get the picture.

The wind turbines kill birds. This is a problem we can fix, but we do need to fix it. That said, I find them an aesthetic enhancement.

I think that photovoltaic canopies would do wonders for parking lots, and perhaps even for highways. Intelligent design of buildings would make use of wind and sun and might largely obviate the need for air conditioning, particularly in the arid southwest US.

Transportation's the killer, though, and clean electricity probably won't solve it. We need to revise land use patterns so that we could depend on public transportation instead of personal vehicles, and that will probably take more than one generation to accomplish.

the meadow can stay green for the sheep is BECAUSE of the wind turbine, you start to get the picture.

Posted by: brooksfoe on April 26, 2006 at 4:56 AM | PERMALINK

Unsubstantiated. In most cases, global warming will actually increase land available for agriculture. Less snow, more green.

Just don't own too much beachfront land.

Being in Holland, the particular meadow in which those sheep graze would a. be underwater since the 16th century if not for the wind power used to pump the water out of it, and b. will be underwater again within 200 years if the maximal global warming scenario comes to pass. Holland can survive a 5-foot rise in sea level; it can't survive a 20-foot rise.

"More agricultural area" is unsubstantiated. Much tundra will not be suited for agriculture or grazing due to thin or erosion-prone topsoil. (Ask the Vikings who settled Iceland and Greenland.) Meanwhile, warming is turning large areas of China, India, Brazil and Africa into desert. And while rainfall is up in Europe, it's down in the western plain states, threatening agriculture in Kansas, Nebraska, Montana and so on.

I've seen 50 years of weather--rather more than most who post here. It seems painfully obvious to me that the weather we see today is much more severe than what I saw 25 or 30 years ago. I mean, we had thunderstorms and tornado warnings in my small Michigan town in January--in January!--this year.

If you can't see this, you're blind, or too young to see the trend.

The increasing number of scientists concluding that the 2005 hurricane season was affected by global warming seems to be driven both by the extreme nature of that season as a whole and by increasing information on ocean temperatures and other factors that contributed to it. Dissenters seem to feel that ocean salinity, current patterns and other cyclical patterns have more or an impact on tropical ocean temperatures than overall atmospheric conditions.

To understand just how extraordinary last years hurricane season was and why the normal cyclical patterns are considered less likely to account for it, consider just how many records were broken last year.

1) Most tropical cyclones -- 28, previous record 21.
2) Most hurricanes -- 15, previous record 12.
3) Most catgory 5 hurricanes -- 4, previous record 2.
4) First, fourth and sixth most intense hurricanes ever recorded.
5) Highest Accumulated Cyclone Energy value (which tracks intensity and duration of all storms over the season) -- 250, previous record 243.

The season also featured several records and anomalies for numbers, strength and length of storms for various periods early and late in the season, as well as storms forming farther north and east that normal and in conditions that included heavy windshear that would normally weaken or disrupt storm systems.

Note that records are considered complete back to 1944 when systematic aircraft reconnaissance began for both tropical cyclones and disturbances that had the potential to develop into tropical cyclones. Prior to that extensive records are available for tropical cyclones that made landfall on the USA East and Gulf Coast back to 1899.

See The Tragedy of the Commons, Garrett Hardin, 1968.

The notion can be applied to the atmosphere as well as to grazing areas. As each person (individual, town, corporation. . .) seeks to maximize their advantage by adding pollusive gases to a finite atmosphere, there is a positive (the gain that person or entity experiences by adding pollution) and a negative (the harm we all share as a result of polluted air).

As each individual decides for themselves to add more gases, the negatives eventually grow to outweigh the positives. It could be because of harm to lungs, or, in the case of global warming the suffering caused by drought, intense storms, rising ocean levels, melting tundra. The benefits and costs are quite measurable.

In this day and age it is utterly rediculous to consider the benefits of adding more CO2 to the atmosphere without considering the costs. I have invented a new word to describe this state of denial: trogladitic.

Isn't it interesting that the same people who wanted us to go to war on the evidence of known liars, a complete lack of unequivocal support, and considerable testimony AGAINST the claims of WMD now feel that the considerable scientific evidence and near-unanymity of QUALIFIED scientists -- those actually in the field, and not bought and paid for by commercial interests -- is an insufficient base for action? Funny how that works.

It is kind of funny that people who can see Jesus in the grease of a frying pan...can't see God when he sends a few extra hurricanes and tornadoes, plagues of stinging insects, and throws in a few good boils for comic effect.

Hurricanes and torndoes are heat engines- add more heat and get more hurricane.

And yes, they did double check that.

lucky for republicans, conservatives, and religious fundameltalists, hurricanes only kill and destroy the property of the poor, gays, feminists, and democrats who so richly deserve god's wrath...just ask Pat Robertson.

look on the bright side, more natural disasters means more opportunity for republicans to line their pockets with disaster recovery money.

You have to be an idiot not to accept that there's global warming, than man is reponsible for that warming in large part, and that it's going to have a dramatic effect on the world's weather and climate.

So, you'd have to be McA and tbrosz.

"Climatology is a religion" and "Climatologists just want funding"

Er... if that's true, then how come climatologists are routinely arguing for money to go to ameliorative policies and programs that they would have little if anything to do with? Most climatologists I've heard are always arguing for something to be done on the political front, not for more funding for climatological research.

In fact, it's the nay-sayers in the fossil fuel industries and the Bush administration that are always saying "we need to do more research."

It's the people who are against what the climatologists are saying who are arguing to give said climatologists more money to do more research...

Increasingly, it's going to be possible to make someone look like an idiot and exclude them from the debate simply by noting that they are a global warming denialist.

Much like saying someone is a Holocaust denialist excludes them from further debate.

brooksfoe is (as always) right...why even waste time arguing with the last remaining deniers? They're the global-warming equivalent of yelling "Clinton's penis!" every time the Iraq war is mentioned. Just ignore them and keep the information flowing.

There are still some doubters, but ...

And the jury is still out on tobacco and Darwin, yeah.

In the trailer park, I mean.
.

doc: The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

Are you mocking Bush about Iraq?

Or maybe about Iran?

Or leaks of classified info?

Or Social Security?

McAnus: At present climatology is a religion, with a bunch of high priests playing with unrealistic models, to satisfy their funding (be it corporate or green lobby).

At present, Bush administration policy is a religion, with a bunch of high priests palying with unrealistic models, to satisfy their egos and lust for power and revenge.

McAnus: Trying to use A to dodge debate on B is a political tactic, not science.

Trying to dodge B by lying about A is a partisan political tactic designed to enrich the already rich, not sound public policy.

If tanj is still out there, your list of hurricane/cyclone records for 2005 is interesting. What we're talking about here would be a trend - do the 2000-2004 seasons also tend to the top of those or related categories?

afg,

This is all nonsense driven by the fact Kyoto is such a disaster. No one is listening so they need to scream louder. These same idiots tried to ram Kyoto down everyones throats but could only get the fools to sign. Now Canada and the rest are looking for a way out. Kyoto accomplished the exact opposite of what it was designed to do. It created pollution.

The eco-freaks see it all slipping away and are using Katrina as a desperate attempt to change the subject and get more publicity. They had to be really spooked at the recent Gallup poll showing the environment ranked 13 of 20 issues. Allow me to explain, no one believes you!!!!!

No, but who should bear the burden of proof before they mess around with something like energy policy?

The people trying to mess around with energy policy by, e.g., weakening existing environmental regulations to promote greater production and, therefore, use of fossil fuels. That would be, btw, the Bush Administration, right now.

Just curious . . .

Why do we call oil, coal, shale oil etc. "fossil fuels?" Because they contain fossils?

I don't think so. We should name them for what they are -- carbon-based fuels, in honor of their contents and the gases they release into the astmosphere.

It would also force the trogladitic thinkers who deny global warming to at least acknowledge the active release of carbon when their favorite sources of energy are burned.

rdw:

To quote Boudewijn de Grote's Dutch version of "The Times They Are a-Changin'",

Luister nou even en hou je bek
Want je staat in het water tot aan je nek

"Listen a minute and shut your trap,
'Cause the water you're standing in is up to your neck"

Rather an appropriate sentiment for the Dutch at this point in history. At least Phillips Petroleum has been working on alternative energy sources for 10 years already, and the Dutch have signed Kyoto and are a leading user of wind power. Not that it'll help them any if we in the US continue burning gasoline like crazy and manage to sink Amsterdam and Miami.

My apologies: it's Boudewijn de Groot, and it goes

Kom mensen en luister en hou je bek
Want het water dat komt jullie al tot je nek

The translation is about right. Also nicely for the metaphor, he translates Dylan's song title as "Er Komen Andere Tijden", but "tijden" in Dutch means both "times" and "tides".

OK,OK we are warming up due to emissions.

But at least I am sequestering lots of carbon in my 1.5 acre lot. (For sale by the way, owner finacing)

At least Phillips Petroleum has been working on alternative energy sources for 10 years already, and the Dutch have signed Kyoto and are a leading user of wind power.

All of the majors are investing in alternative energy sources and the Dutch as well as the Canadians and the Spanish have INCREASED emissions MORE than the USA since 1990. Kyoto is a piece of crap. You would be lucky if it was just useless. It's not useless. It's made the situation WORSE!

Pull up some of Tony Blair's recent speeches on the subject. Kyoto is dead. Canada WILL pull out and the Dutch and Spain will follow. If not they get to pay fines to the Russians who've done NOTHING to stop polluting. It's the dumbest treaty in all of History. The Russians treated the entire thing with contempt and only signed to make money. You are fools!!!!

It's not clear that global warming contributed to the severity of Katrina, but it is probable that global warming contributed to the number of tropical storms and hurricanes last year.

Sorry, but this just keep getting better: the song goes on

En geef toe dat je nat bent, doorweekt tot je hemd
Probeer het maar niet te vermijden.
Want wie niet wil verzuipen is wijs als ie zwemt.
Want er komen andere tijden.

"And admit that you're wet, soaked to your shirt,
Quit trying to avoid it.
For he who doesn't want to drown is wise to swim.
For the times, they are a-changin'."

Compare Dylan, greater still, obviously, as the orginal:

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Note that records are considered complete back to 1944

This makes them worthless for long term trend analysis. The foundation for your arguments is sand.

Wah! Wah! Wah! Wah! Wah! Wahwahwahwahwahwah!

rdw: the Dutch as well as the Canadians and the Spanish have INCREASED emissions MORE than the USA since 1990.

Carbon emissions for the US and Canada have gone up steadily since 1975, including since 1990, while emissions for Western Europe remained steady or decreased slightly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Carbon_Emission_by_Region.png

You just make this stuff up, don't you?

By 2016 I will be ready to decide whether humans had anything at all to do with the present global warming, or whether this warming has gone into remission, continues to accelerate, or whatever.

In the meantime it isn't a bad idea to reduce our dependence on imported oil. In my ideal world, about 75% of our fixed-station generating capacity would be nuclear, most people would have solar features to their highly insulated homes, and all sensible people would forget about wind power and quit cluttering the skies with those bird-killing subsidy freaks.

Will the world climate spiral out of control if we do nothing for another decade? I am convinced that even a 20% cut in carbon emissions by theUSA unilaterally would do nothing measurable in terms of climate consequences but would have economic impacts highly disproportionate to the working class and working poor in America.

I maintain that cheap energy, particularly gasolene, has been the only real mechanism to actually increase the quality of life for the lower classes for some time, because cheap mobile transportation makes it easier for us lower types to balance our needs to seek speciality work and education opportunities even while we are forced out of expensive housing areas. I rode a metro bus to work for ten years and despised every trip with a hatred that far surpassed the mere inconvenience and slowness of this form of transportation. I got tired of witnessing crimes on the bus.

rdw: If not they get to pay fines to the Russians who've done NOTHING to stop polluting.

Carbon emissions from Eastern Europe and the former USSR dropped by 40% from 1990 to 2000 due to the collapse of the region's economies. They have still not recovered to their 1990 levels.

This explains why the Russians have little responsibility at this stage to curb CO2 emissions. Forcing impoverished Russians to bear the brunt of these changes while wealthy Americans do little or nothing would be obscene.

James Hansen, NASA head, said exactly this at a conference on February 10. He said that NOAA claims at the time that there was no connection between last year's hurricane intensities and global climate change was directly the result of intense political pressure. I looked up his scientific papers, which go back to the late '70s, and he is the real thing. He knows what he's talking about when he talks about science, and he knows what he's talking about when he talks about political pressure.
Now the kicker question: Why on earth should this be a political issue?

I maintain that cheap energy, particularly gasolene, has been the only real mechanism to actually increase the quality of life for the lower classes for some time

Too bad, it's gone forever. Time for us to start figuring out other ways to live, eh?

Anyone who thinks wind turbines are ugly and anti-nature needs to take a quick trip to Holland.

Or southern Minnesota. We are starting to see a few sprout up. Farmers like them because they do not disrupt their crops and they provide another income from the fields.

They are no more ugly than water towers, and a lot less ugly than city power lines. They are just new - a change.

And puhlease stop the 'windmills kill birds' BS. The freaking blades are up higher than the birds usually fly, and they turn slowly no matter what the wind speed. Sheesh, it's not like there are a bunch of frigging fan blades slicing up the songbirds.

And puhlease stop the 'windmills kill birds' BS.

Thank you! Anybody who's seriously concerned about this can start a movement to ban plate glass; then I'll take them seriously.

we had some other moronic troll here a couple days ago, ranting about how no one would want an "ugly" windfarm near their property--then the idiot was going on and on about how nuclear was the only option.

Let's see, "no one" wants a wind farm, but they would welcome a nuclear power plant instead? Or a coal plant? Or many other types of factories that pollute as opposed to some windmills?

That's conservatard logic for you.

out of control thrill-seeking gangs displaced by hurricanes, running wild throughout the country killing millions of birds with handguns.

Probably illegal immigrants, mostly.

But all these Category 5 hurricanes are just a lot of hype by our sensationalistic media. How come the media never talk about all the nice weather in other parts of the country? On the very day Katrina hit, it was gorgeous in LA and balmy and clear in Minneapolis - but you wouldn't have known that from those left-wing propagandists at CNN.

Probably illegal immigrants, mostly.

And decadent. Don't forget their sexual decadence.

Windmills don't kill birds; people with guns kill birds.

Except for Cheney.

On a reality-based note:

Reuters, April 6: US Utilities' CO2 Emissions Up Since 1990 - Report

...between 1990 and 2004, the power producers' emissions of sulfur dioxide decreased about 44 percent, and those of nitrogen oxide fell 36 percent.

However, the report said their emissions of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas that scientists believe causes global warming, rose about 27 percent in the period and can be expected to increase further as new coal-fired power plants are built...

"Voluntary approaches for curbing greenhouse gas emissions are not working," Ceres President Mindy Lubber said in a statement. "Instead of reducing pollution, we now have a spate of new coal plants and inevitable greenhouse gas limits on a collision course that puts companies and shareholders at financial risk."
...

Daniel Lashof, science director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Climate Center, said the report proves the efficacy of market-based emissions caps, like those used to regulate SO2 and NOx in the United States.

Except for Cheney.

ckelly shoots, scores and snags MVP!

McA: Strangely enough the state of computer modelling in climatology means that you can declare anything, AFTER THE EVENT to be ca