of course they wont cover the 350 gatherings... do you have any idea what kind of ratings they'll get at the end of the world, you know, before the grid goes down?

haven't you seen the movies?

we aren't dealing with sane adults...we're talking about the media: they are children and crazy.

My rational mind is in full support of the global climate 350 challenge, but emotionally I'm not moved. I think I am like many others.
First of all, the media typically hypes a "scare du jour." The current "scare du jour" is H1N1; climate change had its figurative "moment in the sun." But you can't keep scaring people and expect them to react to it. The second reason is that I live in the Northeast and I just can't root for more cold or longer winters. The idea of a warmer climate is very seductive. And of course, a longer summer would greatly reduce carbon emissions because less energy would be used for heating homes. Middlebury had a 350 event today that I really thought I would participate in, but it is cold and raining and that in itself puts me in a totally different frame of mind.

So criticize me all you want, I understand. Like I said, my rational mind agrees with Bill McKibben 100 percent. But emotionally? That's a different story altogether.

Once again Jon Stewart has already covered this thoroughly, contrasting the coverage of the Teabaggers and the Gay Rights marches.

tomb your comment about your emotional status as it refers to climate change puts me in mind of the attention span of a gerbil.

Obama chickening out of going to Copenhagen doesn't help. It gives wingers the message they can continue to "push" on this issue.

http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2009/10/obama-ditching-copenhagen-climate.html

the media typically hypes a "scare du jour."

Tomb, you're exactly right about that, which is why the media yawns about climate issues today. But this event should be about 'awareness', not the 'scare'. I can understand peoples emotions and concerns over climate waxing and waning, but what I can't wrap my head around is the 36% of Americans who don't think climate change is human created.

This isn't about 'feelings' or beliefs or politics or voodoo science or even good sound science. It's about math. The Earth may be big, but it's very much quantifiable. Ditto the atmosphere, which is just 300 miles beyond Earth. Double ditto all the excess carbon released by burning coal and oil over the past 150 years. The volumes we're talking about are massive but the results are not any different than filling up a smaller space with the same heat trapping gases.

What climate deniers are saying, is akin to the lethality of carbon monoxide from a running vehicle in a closed garage. Nobody disputes the lethality of that, but park that same car in a huge domed sports stadium and those same people would laugh at you for saying that it's just as dangerous. But leave that car running long enough, and even though it may take weeks, months or even years, I guarantee it would kill just the same.

To quote the movie, Titanic. "this ship will sink, it's a mathematical certainty".

Wonder if Senator Pig Shit from Oklahoma is running around like the made man that he is to all these protests all over the world and screaming that they are delusional.

Gandalf:

Calling people names is a very clever rhetorical device - and very persuasive too!

[...] a longer summer would greatly reduce carbon emissions because less energy would be used for heating homes. -- tomb, 17:23

You're forgetting that those of us in the South would run our AC that much more, to compensate. And as for the seductiveness of warmer Northeast. Wonder how much you'll enjoy it, when some of us are flooded out of our areas (the seas are going to be higher, once the ice caps melt) or when droughts burn us out (look how much more frequent CA wildfires are. Ditto Greece and Spain, in Europe). We're all gonna move your way; you didn't expect us to stay where we are, did you? Will your infrastructure support the new density? Will you like it when you or your children are called to fight in the Water Wars?

I grew up in a coldish country (Poland) and didn't, especially, like the cold and dark of the winters, the short summers, etc. But now, when I go to visit, I like it even less. It's a bit warmer there now, but the winter darkness is the same. And rain in winter is much more depressing than snow and dry cold. The summers are bug-infested; the larvae of many of them need 6 weeks of frost to die off, but don't get it any more. Plants which used to thrive don't anymore, which means that a lot of my favourite foods are no more (or outrageously expensive), either. Etc, etc, etc. It's a death of thousand cuts...

we aren't dealing with sane adults...we're talking about the media: they are children and crazy.
Posted by: neill

your comment reminds of an op-ed i read recently from a conservative who complain of the liberal bias in the media because the new york times put that big conservative gathering in washington on page 22 instead of page 1.

As a subscriber to FT and an inveterate reader of foreign news, I would ask that references to the media be marked as the US media. Elsewhere in the world, people are generally aware of the issue and in favor of action to reduce GGs.
Not all, mind you, there are deniers everywhere, but they don't have quite the verve of those here.

Exlibra:

The comments about the warmer winters saving carbon emissions is my rationalizing so I won't feel bad about not feeling bad. And of course all your logic is correct and everything, it's just that the damn winters are too damn long and even the best of logic can't compete with the dread of winter in Vermont that lasts through March.

Recently, concerned scientists wrote to the Senate. Eighteen major scientific organizations were signatories of the letter, including Keith Seitter, of the American Meteorological Society.

“We, as leaders of scientific organizations, write to state the consensus scientific view… Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver… The severity of climate change impacts is expected to increase substantially in the coming decades.”

These are real scientists not TV pundits with opinions.
If you had a serious medical problem, would you consult a TV personality, a faith healer and an economist for advice? A wise person knows what they don’t know. A wise person would consult a doctor rather than a “pundit”.

TV Pundit definition: may tout biblical literalism, anti-evolution creationism; global warming is a hoax, etc. Try’s to appeal to values voters, whose culture and world view are scoffed at by elites with advanced degree. Try’s to capitalize on frustration aimed at cultural liberalism.
TV Pundit synonym: arrogant, chesty, self-important, swelled, vain glorious, big headed, persnickety, snooty, snot-nosed, snotty, stuck-up, too big for one's breeches, boastful, braggart, cock-a-hoop, crowing, self-aggrandizing, haughty, imperious, lordly, overbearing, prideful, supercilious, swaggering

Exlibra is on to it folks. Here's your kids future. People will migrate to where they perceive there to be a better climate, just as they do now. But in ten years (or less!) they may have to move again.

Not everyone gets to move and those left behind will quickly adapt to their new, constantly changing and mostly unpredictable conditions, or perish.

tomb-

Move South if you want warmth.

Frankly I'm offended more by tomb's sentiments than the deniers. At least the deniers are trying to pretend there is no looming catastrophe, rather than admitting it exists and embracing it for the most shallow of motives.

tomb, @21:32,

I know where you're coming from; none of us likes to think poorly of oneself, so we all make excuses for our behaviour. But, in the long run, it just doesn't work.

The most memorable "maxim" of my life came not from a recognised and widely published philosopher but from my own Mother. I was about 5yrs old and, prompted by my little friends, tried my hand at lying. It (and my failure at it) prompted the ""dictum", which I have followed ever since and tried to teach to my own son as well: Don't lie; it's too much trouble to remember and to keep it straight. If you have to lie, lie to strangers, not those nearest and dearest. Once in a while, you'll feel it necessary to lie to those nearest and dearest; it's stupid, but happens sometimes. *Under no circumstances, ever* lie to yourself; it's suicidal (she then had to explain what "suicidal" meant).

So, I'm like you; I'm always aware when I'm trying to lie to myself, in order to make myself feel better. But, unlike you, I then groan and go do whatever it is I don't feel like doing :) You might want to try it yourself, in the future; the virtuous feeling you get from that is priceless.

Go tell it on Mount Olympus

Yawn...
All those extremist voices don't matter a poop.

What the world needs to know is: Where does Olympia come down on climate change? Snowe has such a great smile and she is so middle-of-the-road sane. She really represents sane democrats and sane republicans. Face it, her trigger idea was ground-breaking in the health care debate. She and her horse Trigger rode in just in time to save the country from the savages and their socialism. Now if she could just do something about those nasty public libraries and the lies about our planet heating up...

Hey here is a question for you:

Given that polls show Americans favor a public option, and given that Olympia and her White House servants apparently don't give a damn what the people want...

Given all that:

What do you think will happen with the cap-and-trade legislation when the polls continue to show diminishing public support? What will Olympia and her White House enablers do in their smoke-filled room knowing that? Do you think these folks will come anywhere close to doing the right thing with zero public pressure?

I have an answer for you: We're so fucked.
And a new slogan for you: Change you can step in...

The "350" crowd hits like a mudslide

oops.

my previous post read 36% don't believe climate change is man related, should be the inverse, (64%) don't believe it. Even sadder, is that education has little to do with it. College grads are about as likely to believe the republican talking points (30% in 2008 and 42% in 2009) as people who didn't finish high school (28% in 2008 and 44% in 2009).

I think I'll go pontoon boat shopping next weekend.

Don't miss Climate Fools Day.

The 5,200 events in 181 countries are being covered, and you can read about them all over the web. Glenn Reynolds at instapundit has the Sydney rally. I look forward to the turnouts in Beijing, Shanghai, Mumbai and Bangalore.

or here:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/day_of_apathy/

Perhaps there would be more urgency if we adopted the term "global climate destabilization" instead of the inappropriately neutral "climate change" or (seductive, as Tomb put it) "global warming".

Global Cooling and The Carbon Dioxide Global Warming Hoax

Global warming is a hoax. We are now in a global cooling cycle. Many scientists and fossil fuel global warming skeptics have cited excellent scientific reasons why the fossil fuel carbon alleged reason for dioxide global warming is a hoax. Please refer to Related Links. Examples are that burning fossil fuels and carbon dioxide from industry and automobiles are insignificant compared to the carbon dioxide from the oceans. Carbon dioxide is only 0.04 percent of the Earth's atmosphere and has little or no effect on the temperature of the Earth. Another proof of deception is that the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide is negligible compared to water vapor in the atmosphere as a result of the increased temperature of the ocean. More scientific proof of the fossil fuel global warming misinformation is that while the surface of the Earth and oceans are heated by the Sun, the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere is primarily caused by the temperature of the ocean. The temperatures of Jupiter, Mars and our oceans are also increasing because of Jupiter's, Earth's, Mars and the Sun's magnetic fields, and not because humans are putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Jupiter is the main cause of global warming.

It so happens that the atmosphere of Mars is over 95 percent! Yet Mars has no greenhouse affect whatsoever. The temperature of Mars ranges from plus 20 - 40 F during the day to minus 400 F during the night. The almost pure carbon dioxide atmosphere of Mars does not hold the heat at night that is produced by the radiation of the sun during the day. To justify the 0.038 percent level of carbon dioxide on earth as greenhouse effect, scientists promoting global warming claim that nitrogen and oxygen in the air (approximately 79 percent and 21 percent respectively) are diatomic and therefore cannot store heat energy, while carbon dioxide is triatomic. They conveniently overlook the fact the H2O is also triatomic and ranges from about 20 percent to 100 percent relative humidity. This gives water vapor thousands of times more heat storage ability than the extremely low level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere carbon.

The atmosphere of Mars is 95.32 percent carbon dioxide; yet the temperature goes from about +0 C during the day to about -140 C at night, depending on the source of information. The atmospheric pressure is only 0.7 percent of that of the earth. If I understand this correctly, 0.007 X 95.32.% = 0.667% carbon dioxide on Mars when equated to earth's atmosphere, compared to 0.038% CO2 on earth. So Mars has 17.55 times the carbon dioxide density of the CO2 on earth, and yet cannot hold the temperature of Mars overnight. Density takes into account the gravity of both Mars and Earth. The sad fact is that carbon dioxide has no greenhouse effect at all!
http://www.intelligentdesigntheory.info/carbon-dioxide-global-warming-hoax.html

garnash said that I should move south. He's absolutely right. In fact, everyone living in the northern climates should move south. We are living in an area not fit for human habitation for 6-9 months of the year. There was no year-round humn habitation in Vermont until the Europeans came. Abenakis travelled through the area during the warmer months but did not settle here. People living in northern climates are the primary cause of carbon emissions. We should move. Or at least we should migrate with the seasons. I can tell global warning is real cause some people are getting real hot under the collar and completely lose any sense of humor.

John Bates Taylor quotes from an intelligent design website.

And in just 10 hours and 18 minutes somebody proves my post! Unbelievable.

John Bates is a fucking moron. And like most shills for the oil industry he points to a few trivial facts to "prove" his misbegotten beliefs.

True, Mars has an atmosphere composed of 95.3% carbon dioxide. However, Mars atmosphere also happens to be about 1/100th as thick as Earth's. It's extremely thin. Mars is only slightly larger than half of Earth's size and has much less gravitational pull to keep light gases in its atmosphere. Mars gravitational field is also spotty as compared to Earth's more bubble like field, which causes solar winds to rip its atmosphere apart. With hardly any atmosphere, Mars's daytime and nighttime temperatures are almost purely at the mercy of solar radiation. In addition, Mars is mostly bare rock and dust while Earth's surface contains 70% water which acts as a heat moderator. Mars is also colder because its orbit averages about 50 million miles further from the sun than earth's. In addition, it's elliptical path causes much more fluxuation in temperature than earth's more circular orbit.

Bates nonsensical blathering about gravitation fields, oceans, and rising temperatures is horseshit. I'm not even sure what point he's trying to make. Does he believe Mars and Jupiter have oceans? I'm not sure.

Finally, I often hear from John Bates-types about Earth's "normal" warming and cooling cycles. Usually they're referring to a slight wobble in Earth's orbit which causes a 21,000 year cycle of warming and cooling. However, that cycle is now in the cooling phase and Earth's poles should be about 1 degree colder on average than they were a thousand years ago. Today however, the poles' summertime averages are 2.5 degrees warmer.

Global warming is a hoax, and the only politicians who are advocating it are the ones who have already invested in the schemes to profit from it (carbon credits, anyone?).

BTW, 300 miles of atmosphere above the Earth is an AWFUL LOT of volume for all of that CO2 to dissipate into (not to mention that it is ESSENTIAL to life.........).

The key, dear ones, is WATER VAPOR -

http://wattsupwiththat.com/

kamikazesquirrel: Global warming is a hoax,

I don't think that's true. AGW may yet be shown to be false or correct, but there is some evidence -- it's spotty and subject to selection bias, and has other problems. But "hoax" is the wrong word. The movie has it right: "Not Evil, Just Wrong".

Katie: Perhaps there would be more urgency if we adopted the term "global climate destabilization" instead of the inappropriately neutral "climate change" or (seductive, as Tomb put it) "global warming".

NO. Global warming is the key proposed result of CO2 accumulation. Without that, there is no causal connection between CO2 and "global climate change", hence no reason to reduce CO2 to 350ppm.

I looked at the pix at 350.com. In Shanghai, a city of around 17 million, there seems to have been a turnout of a few dozen on the roof of one building. In fact, all the turnouts seemed pretty small. Still, coordinated activity all over the earth is a substantial demonstration of the power of globalization.

Matthew,

You may be right - hoax is probably too strong a word for it. However, James Hansen has completely destroyed his reputation as a scientist by virtue of the fact that he espoused Global COOLING in the 70's and then turned right around and said that warming was the problem not 20 years later.

He is also, I believe, the one who said that unless a theory was "scary enough", no one would pay any attention to it, and thus no funding would be given for further research. Thus, the "hoax" label.

Personally, I am amazed that people were willing to listen to that titan of the scientific community, Al Gore (with a grand total of 2, count 'em 2, science courses in college - earning a C and a D, no less), in the first place.

The Nobel Peace Prize lost what little credibility remained at that point........

Matthew,

You may be right - hoax is probably too strong a word for it. However, James Hansen has completely destroyed his reputation as a scientist by virtue of the fact that he espoused Global COOLING in the 70's and then turned right around and said that warming was the problem not 20 years later.

He is also, I believe, the one who said that unless a theory was "scary enough", no one would pay any attention to it, and thus no funding would be given for further research. Thus, the "hoax" label.

Personally, I am amazed that people were willing to listen to that titan of the scientific community, Al Gore (with a grand total of 2, count 'em 2, science courses in college - earning a C and a D, no less), in the first place.

The Nobel Peace Prize lost what little credibility remained at that point........