Climate Change: Summary of Current Science
Cap and Trade, Global Warming, and Climate Change all have significant implications for we humans. The following analysis was done by Cato scholar, Andrei Illarionov, formerly Vladimir Putin's chief economic advisor. As an economist he studied the available literature and synthesized the current state of the scientific evidence on climate change and global warming. It is significant in that the "solutions" coming out of Copenhagen are really political in nature and not necessarily based on the best science or the best economics.
For the record, I believe in climate change and global warming, as the science suggests. The issue is the extent and impact of human behavior ("anthropogenic factors"). I think the scientific evidence presented by Illarionov and Cato, as well as the Competitive Enterprise Institute is pretty good.
I will also refer you to RealClimate.org which is run by four climatologists, and who have excellent resource materials. I will not comment on their objectivity or accuracy because I am not a climatologist. So, you can compare some of their data to those that Illarionov and Cato present. I checked a few and there is some agreement on the data, but perhaps not the overall view of things.
I will say that much of what is written about global warming and climate change is bunk. I think that it is the latest movement around which people who hate capitalism and free markets gravitate toward. And I am skeptical about the political solutions offered, especially those coming out of Copenhagen. My guess about Copenhagen: nothing major will happen.
A Few Notes On Climate Change
By Andrei Illarionov
December 11, 2009 at 5:33 pm
As the Copenhagen Climate Conference is taking place, it is appropriate to clarify once again what is more or less accurately known about the climate of our planet and about climate change.
Obviously, a brief post can not substitute for detailed studies of professionals in a variety of scientific disciplines – climatology, atmospheric physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, and economics. However, a short post can summarize basic theses on the main trends in climate evolution, on its forecasts, and on its actual and projected effects.
1. The Earth’s climate is constantly changing. The climate was changing in the past, is changing now and, obviously, will be changing in the future – as long as our planet exists.
2. Climatic changes are largely cyclical in nature. There are various time horizons of climatic cycles – from the annual cycle known to everyone to cycles of 65-70 years, of 1,300 years, or of 100,000 years (the so called Milankovitch cycles).
3. There is no fundamental disagreement among scientists, public figures and governments about the fact that the climate is changing. There is a broad consensus that climate changes occur constantly. The myth, created by climate alarmists, that their opponents deny climate change is sheer propaganda.
4. Current debate among climatologists, economists and public figures is not about the fact of climate change, but about other issues. In particular, disagreements exist on:
- Comparative levels of modern day temperatures (relative to the historically observed),
- The direction of climate change depending on the length of record,
- The extent of climate change,
- The rate of climate change,
- Causes of climate change,
- Forecasts of climate change,
- Consequences of climate change,
- The optimal strategy for human beings to respond to climate change.
5. Unbiased answers to many of these issues are critically dependent on a chosen time horizon – whether it is 10 years, or 30 years, or 70 years, or 1000 years, or 10,000 years, or hundreds of thousands or millions of years.Depending on the time horizon, the answers to many of these questions may be different, even opposite.
6. The current level of global temperature in historical perspective is not unique. The average temperature of the Earth is now estimated at about 14.5 degrees Celsius. In our planet’s history there have been few periods when the Earth’s temperature was lower than the current – in the early Permian period, in the Oligocene, and during periodic glaciations in the Pleistocene. For most of the time during the last half billion years, the air temperature at the Earth’s surface greatly exceeded the current one, and for about half of this period it was approximately 25°C, or 10°C higher than the current temperature. Regular glaciations of cold periods during the Pleistocene era lasted for approximately 90,000 years, with a low temperature of approximately 5°C below that of the present, alternated by warm interglacial periods (for 4,000-6,000 years) with temperatures of 1-3°C higher than at present. Approximately 11,000 years ago the last significant increase in temperature began (of approximately 5°C), during which time a huge glacier, that covered a considerable part of Eurasia and America, had melted. Climate warming has played a key role in humanity’s acquisition of the secrets of agriculture and in its transition to civilization. Over the past 11,000 years there were at least five distinct warm periods, the so-called “climatic optima” when the temperature of the planet was at 1-3°C higher than at present.
7. The focus of climate change depends critically on the choice of time horizon. In the past 11 years (1998-2009 years) global temperature was flat. Before that, in the preceding 20 years (1979-1998 years) it increased by about 0.3°C. Before that, during the preceding 36 years (1940-1976 years) the temperature fell by about 0.1°C. Before that, for the preceding two centuries (1740 – 1940 years), the overall trend in global temperature was mainly neutral – with periodic warming, followed by cooling, and then again warming. Over the past three centuries (from the turn of 18th century), the temperature in the northern hemisphere has increased by approximately 1.3°C, from the trough of the so-called “Little Ice Age” (LIA) during the years 1500-1740 years, followed by the contemporary climatic optimum (CCO), which started around 1980. During the three centuries preceding the LIA, the temperature in the northern hemisphere was falling compared to the level it was during the medieval climatic optimum (MCO) in the 8th – 13th centuries. Depending on the chosen time frame the long-term temperature trend has a different trajectory. For periods of the last 2,000 years, the last 4,000 years, and the last 8,000 years, the trend was negative. For periods of the past 1,300 years, the last 5,000 years, and the last 9,000 years it was positive.
8. The rate of contemporary climate change is much more modest in comparison with the rate of climatic changes observed earlier in the history of the planet. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) describes the increase in the global temperature by 0.76°C over the last century (1906-2005 years) as extraordinary. There is reason to suspect this temperature value is somewhat overstated. However, the main point is that previous rises in temperature were greater than those in the modern era. Comparable data demonstrate that the increase in temperature, for example, in Central England in the 18th century (by 0.97°C) was more significant than in the 20th (by 0.90°C). The climatic changes in Central Greenland over the past 50,000 years show that there were at least a dozen periods during which the regional temperature increased by 10-13°C. Given the correlation between changes in temperature at high latitudes and globally, those shifts in temperature regime in Greenland meant a rise in global temperature by 4-6°C. Such a rate was approximately 5-7 times faster than the actual (and, perhaps, slightly exaggerated) temperature increase in the 20th century.
9. The rate of current climate change (the speed of modern warming) by historical standards is not unique.According to IPCC data, the rate of temperature increase over the past 50 years was 0.13°C per decade. According to comparable data, obtained through instrumental measurements, a higher rate of temperature increase was observed at least three times: in the late 17th century – early 18th century; in the second half of the 18th century; and in the late 19th century – early 20th century. The centennial rate of warming in the 20th century is slower than the warming in the 18th century that was instrumentally recorded and slower than the warming in at least 13 cases over the past 50,000 years that were measured by palaeoclimatic methods.
10. Among the causes of climate change in the pre-industrial era there were hardly any anthropogenic factors – due to modest population size and mankind’s limited economic activities. But the range of climatic fluctuations and their rate and peak values in the pre-industrial era exceeded the parameters of climate change recorded in the industrial period.
11. During the industrial age (since the beginning of the 19th century) climate change is believed to be under the impact of both groups of factors – of natural and of anthropogenic character. Since the rate of climate change in the industrial age is so far noticeably smaller than at some time in the pre-industrial age, there is no basis for the assertion that anthropogenic factors had already become as significant as natural factors, even less for the assertion that they overwhelm natural factors.
12. Factors of anthropogenic climate change are rather diverse and can not be confined to carbon dioxide only.Mankind impacts local, regional and global climate by constructing buildings and structures, heating houses, industrial and public premises, by logging and planting forests, plowing arable land, damming rivers, draining and irrigating lands, leveling and paving territories, conducting industry, issuing aerosols, etc.
13. There is no consensus in the scientific community on the role of carbon dioxide in climate change. Some scientists believe that it is crucial, others believe that it is secondary to other factors. There are also serious disagreements on the nature and direction of possible causality between concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and temperature: some researchers believe the former causes temperature to rise, others argue the opposite – that fluctuations in temperature cause changes in carbon dioxide concentration.
14. Unlike carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2) is harmless to humans; in contrast to aerosol, a harmful and dangerous substance, carbon dioxide does not pollute the environment. It has neither a color, nor a taste, nor a smell. Therefore, popularly used photos and videos showing factory chimney stacks emitting smoke and cars emitting exhaust to illustrate carbon dioxide are just misleading – CO2 is invisible; what is visible in those images are pollutants. It should also be noted that the increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the air has a positive impact on the productivity of plants, including agricultural crops.
15. The relationship of the concentration of carbon dioxide to climate change remains a subject of intense scientific debate. True, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the past two centuries increased from 280 parts per million of air particles in the early 19th century to 388 particles in 2009. It is also true that the global temperature in that period rose by about 0.8°C. But whether these two factors are connected is unclear. The dynamics of CO2 concentration did not correlate well with the expected changes in temperature. The significant and rapid increases in global temperature during the interglacial periods of the Pleistocene, during the Medieval Climatic Optima, in the 18th century, were not preceded by an increase in carbon dioxide concentration. In the industrial age, an increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere was not always accompanied by a rise in global temperature. In 1944-1976 CO2 concentration increased by 24 units – from 308 to 332 particles, but the global temperature fell 0.1°C. In 1998-2009 CO2 concentration increased by 21 units – from 367 to 388 particles, but the global temperature trend remained flat. In the first half of the 1940’s the decline in the concentration of carbon dioxide by 3 units (as a result of the massive destruction caused by World War II) did not prevent the global temperature to rise by 0.1°C.
16. So far global climate models demonstrate their limited effectiveness. The complex nature of the climate system is not reflected adequately enough in the global climate models whose use has recently spread around the world. The projections developed on their basis in the late 1990s through the early 2000s predicted the global temperature to rise by 1.4-5.8°C till the end of the 21st century with a 0.2-0.4°C increase already in the first decade. In reality during 1998-2009 the temperature was flat at best.
17. Forecasts of global climate change made at the beginning of this decade by Russian scientists (from the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, the Voejkov Main Geophysical Observatory) predicted a fall in the global temperature by 0.6°C by 2025-2030 in comparison with a temperature peak reached at the end of the 20thcentury. So far the actual temperature for the last decade has not risen.
18. Implications of climate change for human beings differ greatly depending on their direction, size and rate. An increase in temperature leads as a rule to a softer and moister climate, while a decline in temperature leads to a harder and drier climate. It was a climatic optimum in the Holocene period with temperatures 1-3°C higher than today that greatly contributed to the birth of civilization. Conditions for people’s life and economic activities in warmer climates are usually more favorable than in colder environments. In warmer climates there is usually more precipitation than in drier areas, the cost of heating and volume of food required to sustain human life is lower, while vegetation and navigation periods are longer, and crops’ yields are higher.
19. Methods “to combat global warming” by reducing carbon dioxide emissions suggested by climate alarmists are not only scientifically unfounded in the absence of extraordinary or unusual changes in climate during the modern era. Such measures, if adopted, are especially dangerous for mid- and lower income countries. Those measures would effectively cut those countries off the path to prosperity and hinder their ability to close the gap with more developed nations.
20. The impact of all anthropogenic factors (not only CO2) on climate is unclear when compared with factors of nature. Therefore, the most effective strategy for humanity in responding to different types of climate change is adaptation. That approach is exactly the way that humans have reacted to the larger-scale climatic changes in the past, even though they were less prepared then for such changes. Now mankind has greater resources to adapt to lesser climate fluctuations and it is better equipped for them scientifically, technically and psychologically. The adaptation of humanity to climate changes is incomparably less costly than other options being proposed and imposed by climate alarmists. Human society has already adopted to climate change and will continue to do so as long as economy and society are vibrant and free.
Andrei Illarionov is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. From 2000 to December 2005 he was the chief economic adviser of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Illarionov also served as the president's personal representative (sherpa) in the G-8. He is one of Russia's most forceful and articulate advocates of an open society and democratic capitalism, and has been a long-time friend of the Cato Institute. Illarionov received his Ph.D. from St. Petersburg University in 1987. From 1993 to 1994 Illarionov served as chief economic adviser to the prime minister of the Russian Federation, Viktor Chernomyrdin. He resigned in February 1994 to protest changes in the government's economic policy. In July 1994 Illarionov founded the Institute of Economic Analysis and became its director. Illarionov has coauthored several economic programs for Russian governments and has written three books and more than 300 articles on Russian economic and social policies.
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on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 16:53
#161458
The best AGW skeptic blogs are (IMHO):
Bishop Hill and Watt's Up With That
This is an excellent summary of the climate controversy. Climate is changing (as it has always done) and the effect of man upon climate is unknown but seems to be small compared to natural processes. Man must (and can) adapt to a changing climate but should focus on addressing real environmental issues (over fishing, pollution, habitat destruction), and not destroy modern society (and our freedom) to address an imaginary problem such as ABW.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 21:35
#161637
you are fooling yourself if you think we can continue to pump 30 billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year and not pay a price
so far the effects have been muted by the oceans rapid absorption of CO2 with concomitant acidification which is destroying coral reef habitats
but with continued warming the oceans will be less and less able to serve this function
yes its true the planet was very warm especially 100s of millions of years ago...yes indeed before the huge carboniferous forests , since submerged as coal and oil blanketed the earth
as we re liberate that carbon look to the past to see the future
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 23:04
#161689
Since your an expert MT tell us this,
one of the claims is a rapidly warming, due to AGW, ocean(s), rapid acidifcation.
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V12/N22/EDIT.php
But a warm liquid expels gas it doesn't absorb gas as it would if it were cooler. energy states, right??
But the atmosphere can only warm the top 1mm of the ocean surface, solar heating goes down 100mts & more.
So which is heating the ocean?? I would venture to suggest several hundred years of slow, monotonous solar baking. But then again I'm not employed by FatAlbert like RealCrimates scientists.
regards
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 10:13
#161895
you accuse me of being an expert
i gather you are being snide...not helpful
it is true as a liquid warms its capacity to store a volume of gas decreases...as you indicate, and thats why the CO2 currently being absorbed into the oceans will curtail
you are incorrect about atmospheric warming of oceans limited to the top 1 mm because you are not taking into account convection
your reference to fat albert like real crimates scientists demonstrates a glib view of debate and derisive attitudes towards me that are unwarranted
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 10:14
#161896
you accuse me of being an expert
i gather you are being snide...not helpful
it is true as a liquid warms its capacity to store a volume of gas decreases...as you indicate, and thats why the CO2 currently being absorbed into the oceans will curtail
you are incorrect about atmospheric warming of oceans limited to the top 1 mm because you are not taking into account convection
your reference to fat albert like real crimates scientists demonstrates a glib view of debate and derisive attitudes towards me that are unwarranted
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 19:42
#162575
youre right. we need to get a handle on these SUVs. that is the ONLY explanation i can think of that the moon and mars and other planets seem to be warming slightly over the past few decades....
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 23:17
#162802
Hopefully you're joking. Forget about the climate change, the world is going to do what it wants.
We should focus more money and attention on recycling and producing less expensive renewable energy...but I think the energy industry is the largest in the world. No wonder they need Cap and Trade and all of this global warming BS as law...so they can retain their control and power over all of it. Global warming is just the excuse used and the closest thing they have that is highly unprovable and highly debatable.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 23:05
#161690
Hi Turtle. Looking forward to that dino=steak
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 10:17
#161899
yep me too
and those bronto burgers at Mc Dinosaurs' ought to be quite tasty
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 00:07
#161717
Actually, the increase in PPM of CO2 remains relatively insignificant. Most of the scare tactics are just that - scare tactics.
I don't believe in AGW. It makes not a whit of sense. More importantly, there is no clear tie between CO2 increase and increasing temperatures. In fact, there seems to be significant divergence - if CO2 does indeed increase temperatures significantly, why has it not occurred yet?
Correlation, as we know, is not causation. The increasing temperatures we have experienced for years have not increased with the rapidity the climatologists suggest should occur.
Melting glaciers? Point me to the temperature data which shows the temperatures in these regions has been significantly HIGHER than average. In some of the key glacial data, it's not happening. It seems the glaciers are "melting" due to wind or increased light. Another possibility is lack of snowfall to replenish the glaciers. None of these is, in and of themselves, indicative of AGW.
The land based temperature readings, as we have seen from ClimateGate, is inconsistent and fraught with problems. Not the least of which is encroaching urbanization - a classic example I've seen is a reading center which suddenly showed significant increases in temperature during the summer for several years. A picture, taken of the weather measurement center, showed the temperature booth had an air conditioner exhaust directly on it. The installation of this AC unit coincided with the spike in temperatures. Was it fixed? No (it happens to be near my house, so I can see it regularly).
Fact is, there is an agenda being pursued. I want no part of it. Is anyone surprised that most of the skeptics happen to be Physicists? Why? Because they are forced to adhere to rigor which climatologists are not.
In fact, climatology as a science is a joke. I have yet to see one accurately predict the number of hurricanes in a season to any reasonable extent. Forget about predicting landfall.
Climatology is simply a 5 day forecast thing, and they barely get that right. Good luck with any long term view.
And to make it more interesting, has anyone noticed that AGW (global warming) has shifted? It's now AGCC (global climate change). Why? Because it may not be warming....
They have NO IDEA what's happening. Get over it.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 10:37
#161907
without greenhouse gases in our atmosphere the earth would be a ball of ice
this is not disputed
the amount of leading greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased more than 1/3rd in the last century
water of course is a leading greenhouse gas but adding water doesnt affect climate because we are already at overflow..ie there are lakes and oceans on the planet and more water would deepen the oceans...when CO2 reaches equivalent levels it will rain CO2 and there would theoretically be lakes of it
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=environment_how_...
as for your point that temperature is not responsible for shrinking glaciers verses wind and sun reducing glaciers...the suns output varies by about 1% or less over the last several centuries as indicated by sunspot activity and other measures
temperature has increased significantly since the industrial revolution and the melting of glaciers parallels this change
this is not proof as the connection may be associational
check out these pegs....especially the 4th and 5th in the series...the changes are startling
http://www.livescience.com/php/multimedia/imagegallery/igviewer.php?gid=42
ive been climbing in the colorado rockies and the pacific northwest for 40 years and going back to ice fields and glaciers were ive climbed 20 or 30 years ago in horrifying
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:47
#161971
CO2 greehouse effect debunked by physicists - peer reviewed paper.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v4.pdf
Also see this:
http://nov55.com/gbwm.html
Another good site is climateaudit maintained by a University of Guelph statistician and tomnelson.blogspot.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 19:18
#162541
That paper has been widely debunked. Do some fact checking, moron
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 13:10
#162080
This is a serious site on global warming:
http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2214
Regarding the so-called climategate, there is
no such thing. By now we all know it was a
fabrication of the usual US business and partisan
politics:
http://rawstory.com/2009/12/business-interests-suspected-fabricated-climate-scandal/
Neither tea nor party for me, thank you.
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 07:31
#163074
"But Hoggan said close examination shows the email messages are not "scandalous," and the real issue is the identities of whomever stole them and is "attempting to create or fabricate this scandal."
Yeah - that's the ticket. In this Fight Club, I call out and pummel all Anonymous!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mxmo9DskYE
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 23:52
#162839
Your beloved glaciers and even the Polar ice crusts melted 4 (FOUR) times and reformed even before mankind appeared!!!!
The Sahara was NOT always a desert, and to be abundant with water and vegetation it must have been a WARMER and consequently moister climate!!
Get over it, not one single word you said and not one single number you threw around made any connection or point in favour of being mankind and not simply natural cycles the basis of climate changes.
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 08:45
#163121
What do you recommend doing when the earth starts cooling again? Because it will. Go hug some ice. Scientists can barely agree on temperature readings. I've studied this stuff enough to know that scientists agree on nothing.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 15:51
#162293
-100
Picking and choosing little sound bites and slapping together doesn't make for a coherent argument. You say you want no part of an "agenda" being pursued, but yet it seems you're carrying the torch of your own cause. And it is good science to openly question prevailing beliefs, so the mere existence of skeptics doesn't disprove an entire theory.
Those that understand climate processes get the fact that climate change is real. The name had to change away from global warming because that had become too politicized. And here we are trying to make even climate change taboo. Ask island nations how their receding coastlines are working out for them. Even ask Sarah Palin, she has seen the evidence of climate change in her home state of Alaska.
Society needs to get beyond arguing what is or is not real. We need to be good stewards of the land that supports us. It is easy to comprehend the local effects of anthropogenic pollutants... why is it so difficult to conceive that this may also be working on a global scale?
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 03:42
#161813
Hi Mock Turtle Neck-
This is the best piece I have ever seen on AGW:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stij8sUybx0
This is Lord Mockton discussing the data, he won the Nobel prize when it was still legitimate. He also challenged Al Gore to a debate on AGW but Gore refused.
I highly recommend it, and would welcome an attempt by debunkers.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 10:24
#161903
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/05/moncktons-deliberate-manipulation/
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 12:21
#162016
Realclimate.org is the mouthpiece of Mann and Jones, and the emails confirm this. They are not a credible source of information, period. They simply publish coments that agree with their positions, and provide cover for the scam.
This essay was an excellent summary of the whole issue, and I wholeheartedly agree.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:03
#161922
Apocalypse Now
im looking at the power point presentation that accompanies the 1 hour video you linked... that will take time for me to understand
thanks for the link
im not a scientist, but my brother is a petrogeologist and a hydrologist...and my daughter is a climate scientist so i will bounce the info you linked off them
let me say that im somewhat familiar with Monktons arguments and his references to anthropogenic climate change proponents as hitler youth and his claims that switching over to alternative energy sources thru gov direction and treaty will lead us to communism...all very hyperbolic and extravagant pronouncements to my way of thinking and does not encourage me to adopt his point of view
but at your recommendation i will watch the video
let me close by saying anybody who is intelligent about this entire affair has to recognize that we can not, on either side be 100 percent certain in our conclusions
this is very complex science and either side could be wrong
the real issue is the relative contribution short term...centuries, to climate change that is natural and change that is human induced...it is certain both inputs are significant...what we dont know is the relative weight to give to each
god help us if both the natural and human induced inputs are significant and positive and additive all at the same time
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 12:46
#162051
"let me close by saying anybody who is intelligent about this entire affair has to recognize that we can not, on either side be 100 percent certain in our conclusions
this is very complex science and either side could be wrong"
If that's the case, then perhaps the world's governments should not be making landmark policy decisions about controlling the lifestyles of people in industrialized nations until they have an accurate view of what is going on.
The reason Climategate is rocking the AGW debate right now is because these scientists have been promoting global armageddon "IF WE DON'T DO SOMETHING NOW!!!!" for the last 20-25 years. Now that their "scientific" process has been shown--by their own words--to be a manipulated, homogenized mess, their peer-review process to be a circle-jerk of methodologies seen more often in religious apologetics, and their transparency of the data to be completely lacking in any of the transparency whatsoever, people are starting to rightly ask if the entire global economy should be completely overhauled on a mere supposition.
The whole field needs to start from zero, do the research ALL over again, and ALL the data made public. Not the weasel game of three card monte the CRU played for years in conjunction with Mann and Hansen.
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 06:23
#163053
?I'm confused? or? Are not oceans the biggest reservoire of CO2? If temp.
of the water increase CO2 is released. From what I know the increase of
temp. of the planet is followed by CO2 with 800 years lag, this due to the
ocean's thermal inertia.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 22:34
#162754
Hydrocarbon man's ethical responsibility is not to kill off its host, or the environment of the other inhabitants, at least until a better solution for all its inhabitants exists, with a special notation of the Boreal Forest.25
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 16:55
#161461
If you prefer the Reader's Digest version...
Michael Mann's computer model output predicted a hockey stick increase in temperatures ( not sawtooth, no back-tracking, straight the fuck up ). It didn't happen, it didn't come close to happening. End of theory, end of story.
Oh, and CO2? This dastardly gas, which comprises such a minute percentage of the atmosphere, and the man-made contribution "minuter yet". Gosh, it must be one hell of an absorber of IR ( heat reflected off the Earth ). Uhh, no. It absorbs IR in only three narrow spectra.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 17:09
#161477
Is GoldmanSachs secretly funding some of these global warming protest groups ?
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 18:02
#161519
Listen, when we start talking misdirection and disinformation, don't always try to link everything back to GS.
They play their part, but you are under-rating the involvement of other groups, that is, who does GS work for?
Or do we honestly believe self-interest alone has created the behemoth of GS. No, the elites use GS for their purposes. That traders get huge bonuses for carrying out the destruction of equity and currency markets is just a bonus.
GS is not pulling the strings, they are just one of many tools.
I would imagine 'The Brotherhood' funds ALL kinds of global warming sites. Blogs in favor of carbon tax, news sites in favor of doing nothing, ClimateGate blogs. Never underestimate their desire to control both sides of the debate. Much like what we have seen with the inflation/deflation debate the last year!
It doesn't matter, what matters is the end result, and what can we do before its too late!
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 00:39
#161745
Lets not forget that GS is the trustee of the country's largest private land owner: The Nature Conservancy. If they can monetize the carbon sequestration of the millions of acres it would be billions upon billions of dollars worth of carbon credits longterm.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 10:14
#161883
These bankstas know how to plan ahead. Let's give credit. Goldman helped finance this video, which looks to me like another attempt to brainwash the youth about the fraudulent climate crises.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S58xZVx0PEo
Let's give Merrill Lynch an Honorable mention for doing their part in promoting the fraudulent climate crises.
http://www.nature.org/joinanddonate/corporatepartnerships/partnership/ar...
JP Morgan and Jamie Dimon amp it with the purchase of EcoSecurities.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601072&sid=aSR_1eiU6K0Q
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:32
#161956
whoa squid, nice call! can't tell you how many times i've noticed that little tidbit and the connection passed me right by.
from wiki:
The Conservancy has over one million members, and has protected more than 69,000 square kilometers (17 million acres) in the United States and more than 473,000 square kilometers (117 million acres) internationally.
The Nature Conservancy is led by President and CEO Mark Tercek, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs, and an adjunct professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business.
117 million of undeveloped acres represents a nice big pile of carbonaris they can peddle to their clients, yes? taking a big hunk of carbon cash for themselves in brokering the deal of course.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 19:59
#162599
Oh snap tip e and squid. Thanks for connecting those dots. The tentacles reach far and sting deep. I'm going to re-read your post with this music playing in the background so I can appreciate the pure genius of GoniffSachs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkTQdEZbjQA
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 21:33
#162700
Simply brilliant, you get a gold star.
Just like implementing the fractional reserve system for gold (paper gold and ETF's) to make money on assets held in trust, this could do the same by turning land into an income generator without the need to develop the land or farm it. Ted Turner would probably support this since he may be one of the largest landowners in the US. I like the idea of not having to develop the land (cutting trees, building housing developments, and over farming) to create an income stream. That is very interesting and would benefit very wealthy individuals owning land.
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 15:56
#163632
here's another connection..
The British Royal Family and their support for cap'n trade legislation makes sense.
Geez, do they own allot of land or what? They illegitimately owned the land for centuries and now they get paid even more tax payers money just to have the land and not to use it.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 17:12
#161481
Heres the graphs from NOAA (US government AGW believing agency guys) showing the global climate over the last couple hundred thousand years in incremental graphs. IPCC can't argue with this... sorry "gassers".
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/12/historical-video-perspective-our-current-unprecedented-global-warming-in-the-context-of-scale/
With such extreme natural variation it is impossible to determine the effect of the anthropogenic component of co2 which will warm things up only a very tiny bit. That is the IPCC's problem which is why they created the now discredited Hockey Stick graph.
AGW is not a problem. Period.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 18:12
#161527
ZERO;
That's one of several sites that blast this russian's BS to hell all day every day.
The moment of truth happened for me. When GE bought Vetco Gray and started scarfing $20 billion dollar deep water contracts in Brazil.................?!?!!!
That's when "I" knew cap and trade was a scam and man made global warming was a fraud.
Google GE oil and Gas see for yourself!
When GE gets ass deep in Big oil it's time to GTFO of green energy.
T. Boone Pickins dumped green energy a long time ago.
This article sounds like Algore or better yet...the last remaining 12yr. old in the neighborhood that still thinks wrestling is real.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 19:25
#161574
It's NOT real??? Shit.
I'll tell you what is real though... The University of East Anglia through the CRU boys trying to get money out of Shell. While anyone who questions their work is in the pay of Big Oil...
ClimateGate... the gift that keeps giving... the turd that will not flush...
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/12/05/climategate-research-unit-sought-funds-shell-oil
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 20:25
#161600
Are you attempting to say that this article on ZH is pro warming? If so please re-read the article...the whole thing and get back with me.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 19:28
#161577
It's a great site. One of my readers turned me on to it.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 21:57
#161644
sure climate change is not a problem and the planet has been much colder and warmer in the past
and if you are ok with bringing on some of those changes in the next 50 years or less its not for me to say you wont like it
the us midwest bread basket reaching temps of 115 in the summer and the arctic ice cap melting causing a foot or more rise in ocean level
hey if you are kool with that NP
life on earth will adapt, species will change or go extinct, and im reasonable certain that at least a billion human beings will survive...more than enough to my way of thinking, so go on, piss in the well
besides why eliminate half of the current account deficit by shifting to nuclear, wind, solar geothermal etc... after all, middle eastern terrorists need those oil dollars as much as anyone else, right? (snark meter pinned)
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 00:17
#161725
Now let me see..
"the arctic ice cap melting causing a foot or more rise in ocean level"
Did you learn this from the Al Gore University, perchance?
The Arctic Ice Cap is floating on water. It displaces its own weight in that water. When (if) it melts, it will cause no sea-level rise.
Experiment:
Put a couple ice cubes in a glass. Fill the glass to the rim with water. Tell me if the water overflows the rim once the ice has melted.
Once you've got that one into your brain, you will begin to spot the other "porky pies" being spread about AGW more easily. Like this one:
Al Gore said (in at least 4 interviews) that Climategate was nothing and questioned why anybody would get excited about a bunch of 10 year-old emails.
The Truth? The most recent are 1-2 months old, and many are from the last year or two.
FInally, there is a growing number of Temperature Stations around the world being discovered to show a cooling trend in the Raw Temperature Data (ya know, one of those thermometer thingies) while the "adjusted" temperature data (GISS GHCN) shows a warming trend. Here's one:
http://thedogatemydata.blogspot.com/2009/12/raw-v-adjusted-ghcn-data.html
Mock Turtle, we've ben HAD! It's all a fraud, and what we are witnessing now is the many guilty parties covering up like mad eg. GISS Raw Data has recently been removed from their website.
Great, balanced article, by the way.
Ron from Down Under.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:06
#161931
you are absolutely correct that the ice in the water has LESS of an effect (not none)
however significant portions of ice surrounding the north pole are on land in canada and greenland etc
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:11
#161936
btw i dont want to defend some of the east anglia scientist's emails or behavior
if you look at the AP story i linked below you will see things are not what they seem
but in any case there are good and bad scientists on both sides of the debate and we are better off sticking to the data rather than arguing if lord monkton is better than al gore or beck is smarter than olberman...
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 07:24
#163070
Mock turtle - you stated that oceans would rise due to arctic melting. When someone pointed out the objective falsehood of that conclusion, you retrace and data mine to restore your initial conclusion (which is still dubious, at best). You are pathetic, and your behavior is disgustingly similar to the scientists behind climategate.
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 10:51
#163213
mock turtle, et al;
We have TWO polar ice caps. The one to your south is NOT melting, it is increasing. Please explain.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 00:29
#161740
It's hard to give up false beliefs, when you tie your self esteem to them.wake the fuck,up, and quit pushing this wheelbarrow full of crap, you're not the smartest guy in the room, and repitition, does not increase plausibility.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 09:19
#161864
This sort of apocalyptic prognosticating is based in cherry-picked data and resulting straight-line graphs. This sort of thinking means a DOW of 50,000 in the near future.
Besides, if the breadbasket of America really gets that hot, we'll have some real nice cropland available in Canada and Siberia.
You are a leftist stooge and too young to know better yet.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:15
#161938
i have a significant net worth
i was an alternate delegate to the state republican convention several years ago
i have supported good candidates from both the right and the left side of the aisle
and your impulsive comments designed to insult me indicate that i am very much older than you
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 17:22
#161486
Illarionov is a smart guy. I know him :)
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 17:43
#161503
I am a scientist, and I strongly agree with this article.
The only thing that I disagree with is the use of aerosol as a polutant, when it is only particles suspended in the air. A cloud would be an aerosol.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 19:18
#161569
Then share your data.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 00:15
#161723
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aerosol
Americans survived the dirty thirties, I think we will survive a little dust in the air. Also, I worked in a plant that, before they cleaned up their act, had coolant mist so thick you couldn't even see 100 yards. People were retiring after 30 years of that kind of atmosphere.
As for changing global temperatures, there are 1000x more clouds than there are dust clouds. (This is my estimate. But since the surface of the earth is 71% ocean, I don't think that I am very far off.) This would make dust clouds .1% of the reflective layer in the atmosphere. Now lets say that humans are responsible for 30% of that. .03% Not very likely to change anything.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 17:54
#161514
One certainty about the additional atmospheric CO2 load being created by human activity is the acidification of the oceans. Read up about it: its ramifications are not pretty, and as such, I really don't care what excuses are used to reduce CO2 emissions - they must be reduced.
RE: "senior fellow at the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. From 2000 to December 2005 he was the chief economic adviser of Russian President Vladimir Putin."
What's next... a white paper from Sarah Palin reviewing the scientific literature behind evolutionary theory... from the Heritage Foundation?
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 18:45
#161544
Here come the Climategate deniers!
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 22:16
#161655
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091212/ap_on_sc/climate_e_mails
AP IMPACT: Science not faked, but not pretty
LONDON – E-mails stolen from climate scientists show they stonewalled skeptics and discussed hiding data — but the messages don't support claims that the science of global warming was faked, according to an exhaustive review by The Associated Press.
snip
The AP studied all the e-mails for context, with five reporters reading and rereading them — about 1 million words in total.
snip
The e-mails also show how professional attacks turned very personal. When former London financial trader Douglas J. Keenan combed through the data used in a 1990 research paper Jones had co-authored, Keenan claimed to have found evidence of fakery by Jones' co-author. Keenan threatened to have the FBI arrest University at Albany scientist Wei-Chyung Wang for fraud. (A university investigation later cleared him of any wrongdoing.)
snip
The e-mails also showed a stunning disdain for global warming skeptics.
One scientist practically celebrates the news of the death of one critic, saying, "In an odd way this is cheering news!" Another bemoans that the only way to deal with skeptics is "continuing to publish quality work in quality journals (or calling in a Mafia hit.)"
snip
One e-mail that skeptics have been citing often since the messages were posted online is from Jones. He says: "I've just completed Mike's (Mann) trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (from 1981 onward) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."
Jones was referring to tree ring data that indicated temperatures after the 1950s weren't as warm as scientists had determined.
The "trick" that Jones said he was borrowing from Mann was to add the real temperatures, not what the tree rings showed. And the decline he talked of hiding was not in real temperatures, but in the tree ring data which was misleading, Mann explained.
read the entire article...very thorough and well done
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 22:55
#161684
If you believe Yahoo and AP, you probably get your financial advise from Jim Cramer. MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING IS NOW PROVABLE FRAUD!!
Told you the Climategate deniers were coming!
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:23
#161944
i rely on reputable news outlets only to the degree that the reporting is verifiable by other sources
yahoo carried the story...researched and written by AP reporters
name another outlet that has read ALL the emails and come to alternative conclusions and i will be glad to weigh that input
ive read only a few of the emails myself and so im looking to intelligent discourse to add information
id be interested to hear your take on the emails referenced in the AP story when you get the chance to read them
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 16:34
#162345
BTW: On the AP being a good non biased source of news:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/12/aps-seth-borenstein-is-just-too-damn-cozy-with-the-people-he-covers-time-for-ap-to-do-somethig-about-it/
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 15:27
#163579
As with Revkin at the New York Times the journalist Seth Borenstein of AP has no journalistic integrity. Here is his email to the gang. On July 23, 2009 he wrote, “Kevin, Gavin, Mike, It’s Seth again. Attached is a paper in JGR today that Marc Morano is hyping wildly. It’s in a legit journal. Watchya think?” “Again” means there is previous communication. A journalist talking to scientists is legitimate, but like the email’s tone and subjective comments are telling.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 21:55
#162721
You're right. All this time and I never saw it...God's Blood, you're right!!!
I'm cancelling my subscriptions to Nature and Scientific American. To Reuters/AP/Al-Jazeera, all guests are to leave the premises! Google & Yahoo news feeds, NYT, Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone, Daily Show / Colbert Report, and Jim Lehr News Hour all need to GTFO!
From now on, I'll get my wires from respectable sources. FOX News, The Weekly Standard, and NewsMax FTW. Let's get this party started!
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 18:20
#163861
Don't forget the Washington Times!
A paper with more integrity has never existed outside of South Korea.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 00:14
#161722
Hey dip, I read that article and a ton of others. I've even read a good amount of the emails.
One of the key parts is the Harry Read Me portions, where it is clear he is making things up. He admits it. He admits the flaws in both the data AND the model.
I build models for a living - it's what I do to prepare for the coming year. Guess how many have been accurate?
Which is why, as a model builder, I have several on hand, to prepare for "inconvenient truths". Sadly, as I review the models which "prove" AGW, they lack any rigor. There are no alternatives. There is only one potential outcome - disaster.
Don't buy it, never will. I can build a model like that, but if I run into contrary data like, oh let's say....10 years of declining temperatures...I may have to say...."hide the decline". Yes, another quote from the CRU.
Furthermore, the concept that a "trick" is a real way to fix a model is more of a joke than I've ever heard. Model builders use "tricks" all the time. Why? Because we are PURSUING A PREDETERMINED OUTCOME. So, is it valid? Absolutely - IF WE BELIEVE THE PREMISE UPON WHICH WE ARE BUILDING THE MODEL. Otherwise, it's pure bunk. Which this AGW is.
Get over your bad self.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:27
#161949
you started out calling me a "dip
and ended by telling me to "get over my bad self"
in the middle was bragging about how you create models for a living
all of these ad hominum arguments are irrelevant to the case at hand
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 00:17
#161726
Dude. "Hide the decline" was a shift of databases. They shifted from proxy data to real temperatures. So, while that is not statistically "viable", it does allow them to pursue their agenda.
Why was the proxy data suddenly wrong? And why was the temperature data previously wrong?
Interestingly, neither of these items are discussed. Why? Because they would cause significant modelling problems.
Fact is, the temperature data IS discussed, at length, in the emails. It is determined to be badly flawed, but will be used anyway to pursue an agenda. This is clearly mentioned. But many journalists, in order to HIDE the real story have casually glossed over this point.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:30
#161953
i agree with you that the shift in data bases was bad science and your point is well taken
there are other data sets gathered by noaa, the japanese and others
we will have to see if these have also been corrupted..im watching...we all are
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 19:10
#161562
LMAO...
Common guys, once again you're under estimating the amount of money involved in the status quo versus a real change to renewable forms of energy. Which choice would be better for humanity in the long run?
Even if man made climate change were a hoax we still win as a species by changing our habits in the long run...
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:49
#161972
yes, and many of us believe that the only way to 'win' as a species to change our habits in allowing a very small minority of humans to maintain power to control the rest through fear & manipulation.
this to me is the central point in this argument. everything else is a ruse to keep people divided by using deep emotional triggers on the primal level so that they are forced to choose one side or the other and bicker with each other over unresolvable issues.
if you wish to change your habits, change them. encourage others to do so & offer them methods on how to do it. habits are not broken through negative reinforcement, ask any smoker.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 19:26
#161576
Have you seen John Stossel's new program of Fox Business? It is on every Thursday. His first program dealt with climate change. His guest was Jerry Taylor of Cato. They discussed this issue. I also suggest that you read this: Cato Policy Handbook, Chapter 45. Before you dismiss it, I am reprinting the resume of Pat Michaels of Cato who wrote it.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 20:55
#161620
I have a hard time reading anything that uses IPCC information to make a point about temps. We know that those graphs were "tricked" and so what is the point. It is bs.
NONE of the temperature variability is due to humans.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:33
#161957
you say none of the temperature variability is due to humans?
no one disputes that C)2 is a significant greenhouse gas
we pump 30 billion metric tons of it into the atmosphere each year
no effect? at all??
i admire your confidence
personally is suspect that global warming is both man made and natural...the two ganging up
thats was so worrisome
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 17:28
#162401
"you say none of the temperature variability is due to humans?"
With no positive feedback loops in the climate (such as is posited by the AGW model), CO2 is a mild greenhouse gas. The increase that would be caused by anincrease in CO2 that is not amplified by positive feedback is so small that you wouldn't even see it in the noise. I don't believe this is in dispute by either side.
The AGW folks posit a theory in which positive-feedback causes small increases in CO2 to have a much larger than linear effect on temperature. I did another long post on this thead that goes into a lot more detail on the subject. The AGW models do not do a very good job when you take their predicitons and run them against the real world record.
I started out thinking there could be something to the AGW theory some years ago. But long before climate gate, I had concluded that there was something very fishy in the science being presented. You know that Mann, Jones, Hansen et al have refused to release their date or code despite repeated requests for at least 5 years. Climate gate released some of it; but we still don't have their raw data because it was "lost or destroyed" (which is, of course, exactly what Mann and Jones discussed doing (climate gate emails again) if it looked like they were going to have to release the raw data.
That is outrageous behavior for scientists with respect to published journal articles. The whole idea is to have others be able to replicate their results. The only ones replicating their results are them and their posse.
When you see this type of thing consistently (and we have), you think South Korean cloning or Cold Fusion.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 23:34
#162818
Poppycock...pure grade A Bullshit.
http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/vostok.png
Here is a record of temps for the last 400,000 years and it exposes this nonsense for the bullshit that it is. This is simply the play by a bunch of green motherfuckers who want to control us. Please wake up and stop them...you can better than I since I cannot stand to be in the same room.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 23:55
#162850
Exactly that no PROVEN effect.
CO2 is NOT linkable to any increase in temperature, go back and reread the principal article...slowly.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 00:21
#161729
Are we forgetting that several members of the IPCC are AGW skeptics, and have written articles which not only firmly showed the flaws in the IPCC data sets, but mentioned that their voices were stifled as the IPCC sought to pursue an agenda?
Sure, some warming has occurred. But climate change has occurred for millenia. Where's the PROOF that man has played a role? I want incontrovertible evidence. There is none.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 03:40
#161811
Econophile- This is the best piece I have ever seen on AGW:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stij8sUybx0
This is Lord Mockton discussing the data, he won the Nobel prize when it was still legitimate. He also challenged Al Gore to a debate on AGW but Gore refused.
I highly recommend it, and would welcome an attempt by debunkers.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 14:06
#162146
Apocalypse Now,
This Global Warming is the biggest HEADFAKE of all time, thanks for the link.
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 06:51
#163060
Stossel is a worthless hack, why the hell would I take anything he says at face value?
As for The Cato Institute, are you guys kidding me?
You complain about climate scientists having an agenda and then cite a "think tank" (oxymoron if I've ever heard one) that is corporate sponsored and has a history of reliably producing junk science to back it's sponsors views.
It boggles the mind!
How obtuse do you have to be to even think they are a credible voice in this debate?
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 07:35
#163077
Darn straight - everyone knows Brookings is MiniTruth. Obama spoke there!
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 09:12
#163139
Who cares where the hell Obama spoke, and what exactly does it have to do with Cato churning out pseudo science tailored to it's paymsters requirements?
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 20:01
#161580
Another myth I'm afraid...
Yup I just did read up about it... read this article and tell me where you have issues with it. You can help straighten me out if I am wrong. My first degree was in Geology so heres your chance to prove a "geologist" wrong.
Remember the largest coral populations ever occured during a geologic period when co2 concentrations were 5,000 PPM not the present 387.
Just sayin'
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/31/ocean-acidification-and-corals/
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 22:06
#161648
ah so since the planet had high concentrations of CO2 before, you are thinking that transitioning back to the conditions prevalent hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago is no big deal
super volcanoes have erupted from time to time and thrown the planets climate into the icebox for a decade or more....a natural event...doesnt mean setting fire to the worlds forests or nuclear winter is an acceptable or desirable outcome
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 22:08
#161651
Oh, come on...sheesh...you give me a link to another "Hey! Look Ma. I made a web site!" as a reference? Are you a geologist, or a past geology major?
Just so others don't waste their time, the graphic in your link is *made up*, with no reference, and is linked to the far, far right "Hey! Look Ma. I made a web site!" "Frontiers of Freedom". If you want to exchange peer-reviewed references to argue a point, that's fine. But please don't waste my fucking time with such worthless links.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 16:36
#162348
Read the information... check it out from reputable scientific information sources on the net and then approach me with evidence not vitriole... thanks :)
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 00:45
#161749
what's Watts smokin? and who's he smokin it with?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_0-gX7aUKk&feature=player_embedded#
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 16:39
#162355
Davey Davey Davey... I'm trying to help you out here...
This ClimateGate turd will not flush... keep taking the blue pills for as long as you need my friend :)
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 00:49
#161753
"Peter Sinclair producer of the well-known "Climate Crock of the Week" video series, posted a video debunking weatherman Anthony Watts who runs a Climate Denier Den also known as his Watt's Up With That blog.
The video was auto-scrubbed by YouTube after Watts claimed the video broke YouTube's copyright rules. The video has since been reviewed by a number of US copyright experts and (big surprise) there appears to be nothing that could be construed as anything but fair use.
This whole situation has raised the ire of even some of the more ardent commenters on DeSmogBlog who normally disagree with pretty much everything we say on this site. One such commenter, Rick James wrote:
"I have to admit it doesn't look good for the skeptic side when something gets scrubbed like this. Watts loses some stature here unless he can post something convincing about why he did it on his blog. Silence won't get it done."
One could speculate that Watts had a problem with the clips Sinclair used of Watts being interviewed by Glenn Beck on Fox News (Watts formerly worked as a weatherman for a Fox News affiliate), but that would be pretty weak given that Watts has no problem excerpting large swaths of print articles like this one posted tonight from the BBC on his own website."
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 03:43
#161814
DJ Locker-
This is the best piece I have ever seen on AGW:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stij8sUybx0
This is Lord Mockton discussing the data, he won the Nobel prize when it was still legitimate. He also challenged Al Gore to a debate on AGW but Gore refused.
I highly recommend it, and would welcome an attempt by debunkers.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 16:43
#162361
From a "Denier" to a "Gasser"...
Just read or watch the opposing viewpoint and research it to find out the holes... I read all the AGW stuff BTW. Bring the evidentiary "holes" to us and we will be happy to examine what you have found.
I love your posts... they make me laugh sometimes...
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 17:59
#161517
Moron's Choice
So your friend gives you a 5 gal drum of gasoline.
Where to store it, where to store it?!
Basement of your house? The house where you keep irreplaceable things like, you know, children - pets - spouses - family heirlooms?
Maybe the garage is a better choice, keeps the replaceable stuff like the car and camping equipment? Hmmm.
Well, gasoline is a known flammable liquid, but it's never proven to burn down your house, because you know, it hasn't done it yet. Heard some crazy story about it happening to someone else, but never to someone you know or to you directly so it's purely hypothetical.
Hmmm.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 18:39
#161542
Kinda like BO getting bitch slapped in Copenhagen for the Olympics. If it happened once..........
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 19:58
#161587
You said Morons choice... and here I am...
Awful analogy BTW.
Let's spend $30 billion dollars to research this "problem" so we can impose a trillion dollar tax on the citizens of the world to finance the building of a secure underground storage facility in the backyard.
Or you can do what a farmer does and just pour it into the gas tank.
Just Sayin'
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 00:41
#161746
yucca flats, turned out to be such an effective, government sponsored environmental solution, and only over budget, by how many billions? for a big man made cave, that is not gonna be used now, because the science involved in it's design, was faulty. but this time will be different, we can trust them, now, cause they've learned from their mistakes NOT
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 00:24
#161733
BS analogy.
There is tons of evidence of the danger which you discuss and anyone who ignores it is an idiot.
On the other hand, where is the tons of evidence proving AGW? OK, I know you'll link to the IPCC and one or two other sites, but the fact is each of those has a skeptic to refute it. So where is the PURE, UNADULTERATED ABSOLUTELY UNDENIABLE evidence?
It doesn't exist.
Unfortunately, gas being flammable - show me a scientist who would be skeptical about that. Oh yeah, they don't exist. Like the AGW evidence.
FAIL!
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 18:48
#161546
The following is the most profound issue IMO
The billions that are being spent on Cap n Trade and related C02 BS are billions that could be spent towards fasciltating adaptation to what ever climate change will bring hot or cold, wet or dry.
Somone mentioned Goldman above - they and JPM are playing this for all it is worth - if Carbon tax goes ahead it could be a trillion dollar market, and that is why it will go forward.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 00:47
#161750
we could spend some of that money, extinguishing the many global underground coal seam fires. spewing toxic gasses, 24 hours a day 7 days a week, for decades. our cars are not a very big part of the problem
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 20:31
#161602
I want it warmer...I only WISH man could turn the stat up. Will someone please tell me why an ice sheet over North America is good for me?
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 20:52
#161618
90% of the time over the last 700,000 years... the place where I sit right now is covered with a continental ice sheet that is between one (1) to two (2) miles thick... while ocean levels are 120 meters lower than today.
Detriot... Chicago... Boston... same.
Martha's Vineyard is a terminal (glacial) morraine if memory serves...
People just have no clue sometimes... (all the time)
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 22:23
#161659
climate change will rock your world
pestulance and desease migration, species extinction, desertification in places that were agricultural centers etc will cuase huge shifts in immigrant populations across boarders in periods of time so short that civil authorities will be unable to manage and compesate
enjoy the malestrom
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 23:56
#161709
I hope the data on which you are predicting our demise is more reliable than your spelling. I believe you set a new ZH---and perhaps Internet Blog---record for the most spelling errors in a short post. Twelve and a half percent error rate. pestulance, desease, cuase, boarders, compesate, malestrom ( I prefer petulant femalestroms myself)
I’ll take a stab and guess your real name is Mark Tuttle but it just gets lost in translation.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:36
#161960
em serry fur mi mess splellungs
i gets exsighted sumtize and hit save b 4 chekking
an i dont tipe so gud
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 00:50
#161754
all that stuff already happens, albeit on a much grander scale than your alarmist mind can grasp
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 09:35
#161870
So you are saying that the Hispanics are migrating for climatological reasons? Not economic?
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 20:33
#161605
Simple study of GISS data from a 6th grader shows
no warming in rural US over the past 111 years:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_G_-SdAN04
Warming has apparently only happened around
urban "heat islands", which retain heat during
the daylight hours.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 22:27
#161661
not so the decade from 1990 to 2000 is the warmest on record
the current decade represents a down turn
climate data is erratic thats why long term trends are important
the science is not perfect and no one can be 100% certain, but the evidence is convincing and the cost of doing nothing if indeed we are warming the planet will be catastrophic
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 22:47
#161678
Your records, does CRU ring a bell, are as phoney as the BLS data. But you are correct in the long term trend is what matters.
The trend has been warmer for several hundred years. Ever since we left the last Ice age. Glad you bought it up. The other proven trend which the scammers deny is that CO2 rises in concentration several hundred years after the warming commences. Like 100 years ago. DUH!!!
regards
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 22:57
#161685
read the AP story...5 reporters read all one million words of email
decision...the science was good not faked
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091212/ap_on_sc/climate_e_mails
as for the up trend... yeah long term theres been warming...short term there has been even more warming...there is subtlety in the data look closely the stakes are high...much higher than our fear of or hatred for taxes or regulations
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 00:29
#161738
FAIL!
One article, from an unreliable source that more than likely has an agenda, is FAIL. Loaded with fail. Massive tons of fail.
Read the emails yourself, as I have. Journalists who have no backing in science wouldn't realize this. THEY'RE REPORTERS!!!!!!!! They had C averages in college, couldn't do anything rigorous, so they BECAME REPORTERS!!!
Not to mention, as studies from Pew have shown, 85% of all reporters are of a leftist sympathy....which naturally means what?
AGW sympathy. Stupidity. Ignorance.
You need to vet your sources.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 01:41
#161774
defending global warming by siting AP reporters??? Where's YOUR integrity??
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:39
#161961
ah but yet you accept AP reports when they announced the bogus data and conspiratorial emails
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 22:01
#162726
The lead AP reporter who wrote the article was also one of the guys who was caught in the ClimateGate leaked emails... you can read his "unbiased" emails they are now on-line... quite a personal friend of CRU Jones et al BTW... refers to these guys by first names even... hmmmmmm.
Would you at least admit before hand that if this was true that a conflict exists? Just askin' MockMann...
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 22:52
#161682
if this is only an urban phenomena please explain the record melting of the arctic and the opening of the northwest passage
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 23:13
#161693
The only traffic through the northwest passage has to follow Us Or Russian ice breakers same as always. If you would do some research and stop talking book for Algore. You might not look as foolish as you do right now.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:43
#161965
why do you want to insult how turtles look
what did we ever do to you
btw regardless of cause, are you denying that the ice in and around the arctic circle has not melting away over the last century?
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 22:05
#162731
Wrong... the passage was also open in the 1940's and sailed through with an RCMP wooden hulled schooner called the St. Roch.
Google it and weep guys...
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NWpassageAndStRoch.jpg
Took just over 30 days on one crossing...
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 21:49
#162714
I just wanted to update you, the polar ice caps have expanded for the last two years along with temperatures that are cooling.
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 00:32
#162908
60 Minutes famously broadcast an AGW pitch piece based around a Patagonian glacier which melting at an astounding tempo.
Left unsaid was that an active volcano was raining ash all over the place -- visible in the extreme discoloration now evident in the glacier.
Agitprop all the way down the line.
The Arctic Ocean is similarly beset with soot: from Chinese emitters too callous to operate the bag-house. Their recent exponential expansion has caused them to surpass America as the largest emitter of carbon dioxide. And on their exponential track will be emitting twice as much as America in less than a decade. Of course, China is exempt from any limitations making any of our efforts futile.
///
Carbon dioxide is FERTILIZER. NASA has known that for decades. During research into long term space flight NASA tried to complete the food cycle with algae. Only super-elevating the carbon dioxide concentration kicked the algae into high gear.
Much more than you might think of the Green Revolution is, at the margin, the result of modestly higher partial pressures in carbon dioxide.
On the evidence it would appear that carbon dioxide levels have actually gotten too low and are thwarting the biota.
////
Within the emails of Climategate lie the programming used to establish MANN-made warming. If you were to feed flat-line inputs such as 15 C across the years you would still get a snappy hockey stick output.
Since this series is foundational to the AGW shtick one can only conclude that the entire enterprise is a hustle with the purpose of rent-seeking on a global scale.
Do not tie your emotions to this garbage scow.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 20:33
#161606
climate science from Russia? Putin???
Russia is the main non-mover for obvious iol & natural gas resource reasons and Putin has a lock on the country
Funded climate skepticism? Duh
Allowed to start threads here??
So much for this website's integrity
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 05:04
#161827
You should do some research before posting. Illarionov has been in opposition to Putin's regime during the last 5-6 years.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 10:12
#161893
Since the attack on Yukos to be precise, after which he resigned from his position of economic advisor.
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 16:03
#163646
The difference between Russians and Americans in 2009 is that Russians have had 20 years to look behind the curtain and expose the wizard.
Americans haven't done so yet. They're being lied to and manipulated by propaganda day in and day out under the guise of "democracy".
When it comes to science and news, I trust the Russians more than the Americans in this day and age. Russians got nothing to hide. They're the worst of the worst and the world knows it. That's why you can trust them.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 20:56
#161621
If renewable energy makes us feel good - does it really matter what it costs?
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 23:03
#161688
Guilty victims always overpay for their feelings. The liberal elite's are counting on folks like you. That's how they get rich.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:45
#161967
"liberal elites"
uh as opposed to conservative elites?
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 21:50
#161642
I see the general drift - article and comments - is all is good. Do nothing.
Fine, do nothing, I don't care.
You have made your bed now your children will lie in it.
You borrow trillions from your children. You use all your children's fuel. You use as much of your children's water as you can then pollute the rest. You pave over or your children's productive farmland. You cut your children's trees, exhaust their fisheries, deplete their minerals, degrade their institutions, create whole nations of your childrens' enemies ... There is no indication that you are doing anything to make your children whole in any of these or other categories. Where is the 'giving back'?
I'm not going to waste my time arguing science with numbskulls. Which world do you live on? This one? Excellent! I suppose most of you are a lot younger than I. I am old, I have no children, the only thing I will miss will be the looks of panic and despair as any or all of the things that I listed above are carried forward to their logical outcomes because you are too stupid to do anything. You should be ashamed of your cowardice.
If you are lucky your children won't boil you alive, I hope you won't be lucky.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 22:15
#161654
A recent study of aperiod 33 million years ago found that a significant colling occured leading to an ice age when CO2 was 2 x the level of today in concentration. How do the models explain that. Anyone who does any sort of modelling including predicting stock prices would know how you can produce any result you want with a tweak to the assumptions.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 22:30
#161669
i understand your frustration but namecalling and insulting the other side wont help
those who deny human inducced climate change are also angry and frustrated with us
best for all concerned is argue this out as intelligently as we all can
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 00:26
#161736
See, dipweed, that's the difference between you and US.
AGW supporters see an ARGUMENT. Skeptics are looking for an OPEN DISCUSSION.
Being shouted down at every conference on AGW - argument.
Actively discussing the problems of AGW modeling - discussion.
FAIL!
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 08:48
#163123
"See, dipweed, that's the difference between you and US."
amigomouse, we are all US, even the dipweeds.
i'ma dipweed, you'ra dipweed, we're all-a dipweed.
if you make a honest attempt at initiating discussion from that foundation, you might not encounter so many arguments.
but what do i know, i'm just a dipweed.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 22:38
#161671
Ooooh, boiled alive--I hate it when that happens! Seriously, you really need to get out more...
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 22:40
#161673
I enjoy a nice warm bath.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 00:58
#161758
mock turtle you too, do your kids a favor, and expire, before you become a burden. I would've said bore, but its too late on that score. I'm more afraid of someone like you getting into a position of power, than I am of weather change.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 06:11
#161832
It feels good to rant sometimes and just let it all out, exercising works too.
Some interesting points, however I am not sure what that has to do with global warming.
Fear not Steve, but also do not try to terrorize others - you fit the actual description of a terrorist - using terror for political ends.
Watch this video, it's the best piece I have ever seen on AGW:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stij8sUybx0
This is Lord Mockton discussing the data, he won the Nobel prize when it was still legitimate. He also challenged Al Gore to a debate on AGW but Gore refused.
I highly recommend it, and would welcome an attempt by debunkers.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 22:42
#161676
This goose quotes Realclimate as a source of unbiased, informed information. Good Grief, the worlds gone to pot.
RC is a political advocacy site. It was established by FatAlbert & his crimeslime twin M Mann to cover their arses after the Hockey stick was statistically proven to be fraudlent, an invention.
The so called climate scientists on that site are more like censors. Try getting a thread going that disputes their religious dogma and you will not get it through.
By the way the Russian science minister was here in OZ 2-3 years ago and was quoted as saying AGW is a crock of shyte. The only reason putin likes the tax is obvious to anyone who watches empires crumble in debt.
regards (we're cooling. check the hurricane level in the US over the last 3 years.)
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 23:05
#161691
yes we are in a short term cooling trend
the warming of the planet will not happen in a straight line
btw there are natural events that can and may counter act AGW
we have seen a record low solar output in the last 2 years virtually no sun spot activity for an unusually long period
and the unpredicatable swing back to an ice age related to the milankovitch cycle is due in the next 1000 years or so
its all complex with everything at stake
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 23:50
#161708
Thanks for clearing that up MT! Here I was all calibrated by Carl Sagan on the terror coming real soon now with global cooling--his solution? Get rid of CO2 producing facilities to clean up the air and get more insolation to slow the inevitable cooling trend and btw avoid nuclear winter.
Then the global warming argument morphs into AGW and the news magazines withdraw their all too serious discussions of global cooling, since warming leads us to the promised land. But warming might be unproven, so let's change the discussion to climate change, kinda covering all the bases.
Good on you for bringing up low solar output--I think I'll propose a simpler theory that temperatures are set fundamentally by insolation. With water vapor acting as the greenhouse gas with contributions in the 40-70% range and CO2 contributing say 4-6% of the total, and CO2 in the +/- 380 ppm range, we can do separation of effects and see that a 10 ppm change is noise with respect to greenhouse gas effectiveness in trapping heat.
Anyone done the calc on solar production of electricity? Dark panels or Stirlings change albedo to trap heat, electrical losses are heat, I squared R losses at the load are heat--seems that solar is a heat trapping machine.
Everything at stake--I buy that. Political fraud and economic mis-allocation of scarce resources due to faulty reasoning.
Smart people leading to some result will be surprised at the "unintended consequences."
Good posts, thanks to all.
Ned
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 17:35
#162405
Mock wrote "yes we are in a short term cooling trend"
We are. And have you read what Trenbleth (one of the main AGW guys) says in private about that (another gem from Climategate)? He admits that the AGW models cannot account for that trend AND THAT THE FAILURE TO DO SO IS A "TRAVESTY." Trenbleth used the word "travesty," not me.
Do you really want to spend trillions of dollars to fix a problem predicted by models whose predictions (in the words of one of the modelers) are a travesty?
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 23:12
#161692
"Climate change" is an irrelevant distraction from the real problem, which is that there are TOO MANY DAMN HUMAN BEINGS ON THE PLANET.
on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 23:19
#161696
agreed...btw...climate change will take care of that :)
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 01:08
#161760
yeah I heard that too, India China Indonesia, never been there, but who the fuck do they think they are, having kids and stuff. maybe we should go over there, and kill a bunch of them, remind them who's runnin the show. maybe we'll earn some carbon credits in the process.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 01:38
#161773
Wrong, plenty of land, more like too many damn humans are centralized on this planet. Why? Think about it, hmmmmm.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 03:15
#161804
And that is the real agenda, according to a recent Canadian newspaper calling for the implementation of the one child policy in China.
Do us all a favor RA (the sun god I believe), and kill yourself if you believe the number of humans is too high - you sound like scrooge - and "deplete the surplus population". Perhaps this is a property rights issue, who is more deserving of life on the planet?
Reduction of the ability for developing countries to access and use resources (through CO2 limits) would be a death sentence for millions and reduce the population.
This is what the malthusian luciferians want. We could fit every person on earth comfortably within the land mass of Australia, however non-renewable resources could be limited due to scarcity. From a national security perspective, I am sure the question was how can we use our lower sized and more aged population as a strategic advantage or their higher population numbers against them - or it will challenge our super power status.
By the way, that piece you did on explaining the details of Liesman's statement on EUC would suggest you had some form of personal involvement (just speculating) - I can't believe anybody would do that much apologetic work to explain how Liesman came up with his EUC figure.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 00:24
#161734
In the absence of knowing what the global temperatures would have been without an anthropogenic component, it appears yet difficult to assess whether current changes are man-made.
I lean towards the latter because I don't think the hole in the ozone layer was caused by natural factors...but correct me if I'm wrong.
True, climates and ecosystems fluctuate naturally.
But to me the question is whether we, as humans, are fouling our collective nest faster than we can recover from once we see the error of our ways. Adulterated temperatures is but one way of fouling the nest.
Also troubling, more so than climate change, are the myriad 'solutions' being offered - these will simply create worse poblems in due time. Create a second stink to mask the first one (and forget that then you have two). I don't think mindful living has a healthy substitute, but on this too I can be corrected.
Greed and carelessness work against us, but maybe they are inherent factors necessary to activate the natural culling of overly concentrated populations.
Everyone knows about the Titanic, but learnt we did not.
We are living through the Great Recession, and learning now we do not.
(Inversions in English must be handled carefully - otherwise infelicities of style we would get. The verb at the end of a sentence could be put, but only rarely. A. McCall Smith)
Very depressing, but we'll compensate with quantity for quality...
Undecadent
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 10:15
#161898
A friend clued me into something that made the ozone hole
people froth at the mouth. Freon is CCl2F2. Two Cl and 2 F. There are many sources of atmospheric Cl. Vulcanism is a big source. There are very few sources of
atmospheric F. And F reacts energetically with any Ca to form solid and insoluble calcium flourite and thus tends to be strongly removed in the lower atmosphere. There fore since Freon is breaking down in the upper atmosphere and releasing the Cl that destroys the Ozone the C and the F should also be present. The spectroscopic adsorbtion bands of both F and Cl are easy to observe. The concentration of F in the upper atmosphere implied that Freon was responsible for .003% of the Cl. The data was quickly buried and never referenced again. Everyone knew that Freon was extremely stable and required high intensity UV to force degradation so it must be a stratospheric phenomenon. Late it was discovered that 'dust' containing Ca and metals in the presence of moisture would photochemically degrade Freon. The resultant CaCl2 and CaF2 washed out with the rain. OOPS. Replacement
is ~10% less energetically efficient. Looks like we need a nice big war. Nothing focuses the mind on reality like someone trying to kill you. And wasting resources on philosophy is un-patriotic.
Freon
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 00:54
#161756
I fear Climate Change and Polution have been inappropriately mixed together.
When I see the news of Copenhagen intending to save us all, and yet I walk into Sam's club and they no longer sell incandescents only mercury fill fluorescents, then I know there is clearly a problem. And when I purchase those fluorescents, they have no reasonable useful life. And each time I approach the service desk at Sam's and ask why they no longer sell non toxic incandescents bulbs they look at me like I'm an idiot for even considering their use, and they confirm their entire staff knows they no longer sell such bulbs.
I literally had to stop eating fish as my mercury level was getting close to the need for medical intervention. Having stopped eating my favorite food (fish) for years, and performing detox, my mercury level is down around the detectable limit. I found out about the problem when my nails wer not growing correctly and had thyroid problems for which the Dr's wanted to destroy part of my thyriod.
I had to go well outside "modern medicine" to find the linkage to mercury poisioning due to fish.
We humans can adapt to "Climate Change", but not polution. And my life experiance suggest the two are not so linked as today's media wants us to beleive.
Then we have depleted uranium being spread around the middle east setting the stage for the entire planet to become uninhabitable at any temperature hot or cold. Our genetics just will not adapt that fast to this toxin as births in the middle east are demonstrating.
Thus I find it impossible to beleive anything I'm told about Climate change. For to many obvious inconsistancies.
When I see incandescent light return to the shelves of Sam's club, and an end to massive biosphere poisoning by DU, then I might start listening to governments stories about Climate change ... Hypocracy has a way of making one tune out and say no to everything.
Someone please let me know when it's safe to eat fish again, or let me know how carbon credits will mean I can eventually eat fish again ... And why DU in fish will never be a problem. Thanks.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 12:16
#162009
thank you for your post. extremely well said (although i would prefer the day when LEDs are also sold at sam's club, but that's me).
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 15:56
#162297
I agree with LED lighting. I see such lighting available for verious OEM uses, but the cost is still very high. Fortunately many industries are embracing it for many reasons.
LED is still a "dirty" product, but at lifetimes around 50 years, it's very clean in a time relative sense.
Again, I suggest flourescent are serving as a barrier to the growth of LED lighting (consumer independence). However in this case I think that scam is going to lose.
Give it a few more years and I think LED lighting is going to be at "the tipping point". The last problem to be solved is that LEDs are very directional by the nature of their design. So we'll not see a single LED that replaces a light bulb. You need lots of LEDs "on the surface of a sphere" in order to replace a bulb, thus LED "lights" need to be very cheap in order to make that hundreds on the "sphere" cheaply to replace a standard bulb (meet current consumer expectations of what a light bulb is expected to do, radiate light in all directions). This is pure cost issue, and it will happen fast, espicially given that light bulb will last for 50 years ....
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 10:15
#163134
"The last problem to be solved is that LEDs are very directional by the nature of their design."
edit : not for long --
http://www.toshiba.co.jp/lighting/exhibitions/newyork2009.htm
now all they have to do is to convince customers that a light bulb is a 50 year asset instead of a disposable one. maybe they could offer a 7-10 year guarantee?
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 01:08
#161762
I watched ABC World News tonight, for the first time in months. They did a long story about the glaciers melting in Bolivia resulting in the destruction of the highest altitude skiing area in the world, as well the water supply for the nearby villages. It was a touching story. Evo Morales demanded money. There was no mention of Climategate.
The fuckers won't go quietly into the night, it could be -100 outside and they would still chirp about heatwaves. The criminals need to be defeated. Some days I just ask myself "How can these lies just go on and on?" and I have no answer. This is how Fascism and Communism killed millions by have millions believe in lies. Fight this shit! Damn you Algore, you bovine turd!
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:52
#161977
Right on. Now they've even captured the protestors. Notice how the mainstream only reports on protestors who call for more action on climate change legislation?? What bullshit is that?? There is no room for independent journalism anymore. Even CFR run NPR and PBS are toeing this big turd.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 01:09
#161763
I watched ABC World News tonight, for the first time in months. They did a long story about the glaciers melting in Bolivia resulting in the destruction of the highest altitude skiing area in the world, as well the water supply for the nearby villages. It was a touching story. Evo Morales demanded money. There was no mention of Climategate.
The fuckers won't go quietly into the night, it could be -100 outside and they would still chirp about heatwaves. The criminals need to be defeated. Some days I just ask myself "How can these lies just go on and on?" and I have no answer. This is how Fascism and Communism killed millions by have millions believe in lies. Fight this shit! Damn you Algore, you bovine turd!
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 01:43
#161775
Here is all you need to know about CO2 caused global warming:
Carbon is a lagging indicator. Increasing/decreasing carbon levels lag increasing/decreasing temperatures by ~800-1200 years (it varies a bit).
Check it out, look at the graphs, espcially the peaks and valleys to see which comes first (chartists will find this easy).
Yes Virginia... The entire premise of CO2 caused global warming is FALSE ON IT'S FACE.
If your really feel like torturing yourself, try reading some of the explanations out there how carbon can lag temperature, but still be the cause of temperature changes. If we could hook up a turbine to capture a small portion of the resulting wind from furious hand waving this nation could be energy independent.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 01:47
#161777
a message to the pro-AGW crowd, from an old 1980's environmentalist:
YOUR SIDE IS THE PIGS
flush the fuzz out, my friends, then we can talk about the science.
"this machine kills fascists"
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 02:30
#161793
Frankly I'm beginning to feel that whether the AGW/Climate Change arguments here do or don't exist are irrelevant, save in their obvious political/economic potential to create a supposed solution that won't work (carbon markets). I still believe that Peak Oil/Peak Water will render most of this discussion moot long before either side can gather enough data together to prove unequivocably that there is a problem.
We're in a mode right now where our current petroleum based economic operating system is coming up against its upper limits, inducing energy shocks which in turn serve to both incentivise dangerous speculation and provide a means for the kleptocracy to siphon what little is left of the collective middle class wealth to the financial elite (and those who don't believe that the ultimate cause of the 2008 crash is peak oil and declining EROEI needs to seriously study up on the subject).
Carbon sequestration and climate markets don't significantly limit the use of oil by the largest, wealthiest consumers, but it does mean that they can effectively take advantage of declining power output ahead of the average person - who will likely feel the pinch in sustained high unemployment, diminished wages, then as the decade progresses spot shortages of gasoline, rationing of oil products, and the increasing unreliability of the electrical grid. To me, GCW provides a means to justify the imposition of such rationing.
I'm not denying de-glaciation or global warming patterns, but I also find it significant that the base timelines involved are short; our ability to accurately measure most of the key "indicators" of global warming extends back less that a hundred years, and many cases less than fifty. In the 1970s the key concern was global cooling, in the mid 1990s the concern was an inversion of the Atlantic Conveyor, leading to a potential "flip" of the Gulf Stream and the sudden imposition of extreme cold throughout much of Eurasia and North America. In the last decade, as solar activity has declined (to the current VERY quiescent sun), global temperatures have generally either leveled or dropped in places - not uniformly, but enough that most of the extrapolations being made from the 1990s datasets are now appearing too high.
By an increasing consensus of those climatologists who are staying out of the debate, we're probably in for a forty year cooling trend after hitting a peak in 2003-5. This means that even if the AGW types are in fact correct, we're likely to have a counterveiling trend for some time, though by 2080 things could get exciting as we hit the next peak with global warming adding in. However, by all indications, the next five to fifteen years could have a far more significant impact upon our ability to produce carbon dioxide. By the time 2080 rolls around, we may be in a position where either we have perfected non-carbon energy technologies (watch what happens with the ITER fusion reactor in Europe between 2015 and 2024), or we're essential back to 1850s technology and civilization has dramatically collapsed at least once.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 05:03
#161826
Quoting Illarionov on climate change (economics, etc.) is like quoting GWB on Italian poetry of the 15th century.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 06:36
#161834
It's good to hear ZH's voice of sanity in the mass AGW pointless hysteria. AGW is an unproven theory not fact, and this theory is convenient for the parasites to demonstrate their false irreplaceability, distract the public from being robbed blind and for some to profit handsomely. For one instance I feel sympathetic to oil lobbies fighting off this BS. As a physicist, I like this online lecture disproving most AGW pivots: http://videolectures.net/kolokviji_singer_nnha/
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 06:37
#161835
It's good to hear ZH's voice of sanity in the mass AGW pointless hysteria. AGW is an unproven theory not fact, and this theory is convenient for the parasites to demonstrate their false irreplaceability, distract the public from being robbed blind and for some to profit handsomely. For one instance I feel sympathetic to oil lobbies fighting off this BS. As a physicist, I like this online lecture disproving most AGW pivots: http://videolectures.net/kolokviji_singer_nnha/
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 06:37
#161836
Hmm I didn't know ZH is doing censorship... interesting
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 10:24
#161902
Yeah, that CAPTCHA kills me too
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 00:22
#162889
Yup, noticed that too here... some of my posts were removed for no reason...
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 09:07
#161861
+1 excellent Kurt!
Following up on what Kurt said:
1. we are bumping up against peak "fossil fuels" in the economic sense: there will still be resources left to use, but they will be of lower quality and higher cost to extract and therefore I venture to predict that due to their increasing costs, and the law of supply and demand, fossil fuels will automatically be used in lower quantities over time. The era of extremely intense (and carbon dioxide "freeing") burning of fossil fuels is shifting into non-growth mode, and will go to shrinking growth mode, by itself for reasons other than a voluntary tapering due to perceived ill effects of same. Lesson from Human Nature 101: reality is that no one will stop using fossil fuels voluntarily, while they are such a powerful and efficient source of energy.
2. Switching to green energy, and cutting back on consumption all-together, will be the natural response to Peak Fossil Fuel. But you need those fossil fuels to build, transport and install wind towers, solar panels and nuclear plants. Nonetheless, alternative energy and energy conservation will happen, by themselves, as a response to Peak Fossil Fuels. An important reality check: this may or may not happen in time to "beat" the eventual exhaustion of the fossil fuels themselves, if you happen to believe such an event can occur - many do, and many do not. But reality does not care if we are right or wrong, survive or perish.
3. Whether the data supports or does not, what everyone needs to understand is that the current carbon cap and trade proposals are without a doubt the work of the "of like mind" elitist/globalists: it requires vast government intervention, it centralizes control, it restricts our activities, and, there can be no doubt, it will enrich the few - the global corporations and their mercenaries - at the great cost and to the detriment of the many. The few promote this on the altruistic premise that the great unwashed are incapable of taking care of themselves, and since they know what is best for the rest of this, they will nobly undertake the task of getting this done, and as their just reward for saving us from ourselves, profit immensely. The profit motive so strongly criticised as the motivation behind those who oppose carbon legislation turns out to be the same motive powering the proponents, who wear black tie instead of blue collar.
4. Celebrity politicians are trotted out to shovel the propaganda, those who question it are attacked and criticized, and our normally remarkably sluggish and unresponsive US legislative process now races to make this carbon regulation nonsense law with nary a speed bump in the way. Compare that against another remarkable legislative achievement in the face of huge public opposition: the TARP bailout (ask yourself: who paid, and who benefited?) Then consider our elected "representatives" cannot pass even one legislative sentence that effectively regulates a demonstrably clear and present danger, our rogue TBTF financial institutions that blew up last fall.
So contrary to what you might think, the legislation being pursued now is not being pursued for altrusitic objectives, i.e, our general good or welfare, but rather for the profit of the global elites, the empowerment of whom in this decade is growing by leaps and bounds. Even promoters of this need to step back and think about who they are empowering by pushing this, in their unquestioning allegiance to a seemingly innocent and laudable objective of saving the world, and consider the concrete and calculable collateral damage to our rapidly eroding political freedoms.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 22:26
#162747
Well articulated thoughts NZ.
I would only add two possibilities:
1. This could be just another plot trying to divide two sides - pitting analytical / driver personality types against emotional / amiable personality types as the left/right or democrat/republican hegelian false choice illusion is fading.
2. I have noticed significant use of non sequitir arguments whereby a proponent of AGW says something true like we are polluting the environment (not specific to CO2) and we are using up resources (not related to CO2 or global warming) but then conclude that AGW must exist and we must combat global warming with no premises that support the arguments conclusion. For those that don't know here is the definition: Non sequitur (Latin for "it does not follow"), in formal logic, is an argument in which its conclusion does not follow from its premises.
The truth for those that have open minds is that the owners of the largest banks (central banks and TBTFs are one in the same) own the world, they own a significant portion of the shares of many multi-national corporations including the large oil corporations. The owners of big oil, big corporations, and big banks influence government by lobbying/bribing politicians and sponsoring their campaigns.
To say that we can believe AGW when Goldman Sachs and JPM are behind a cap and tax scheme, or to say that we can't believe the AGW skeptics because of big oil (and vice versa) is equally ignorant because they are both owned by the same people. This is the same as the false left/right paradigm. Beware black/white binary choices presented by the same people.
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 07:34
#163076
Divide and Conquer
One must know where the real enemy resides.
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 00:50
#162924
It's entirely unintended but every effort to make more efficient use of any fossil fuel extends the economic life of the resource.
So increasing CAFE standards actually permits accepting oil imports at even higher prices than could be tolerated before.
////
By comparison, due to political considerations, spent nuclear fuel is not reprocessed. The amount of energy value trapped in this 'waste' is vast. Because of our marginal burn-up of fissile Uranium there is already concern that any ramp-up of nuclear power -- as proposed -- is going to face critical fuel shortages very quickly.
Inefficient use collapses the economics of the resource.
////
I'd really buy into Peak Oil but for the fact that so much acreage is politically off limits. When the Caspian was opened up to western oil new 'elephants' were promptly found. When Iraq let big oil in, new reserves doubled the national estimate.
Since Russia and China and others don't permit best practices in oil exploration or extraction who can say when Peak Oil will be reached?
As for volcanic carbon dioxide emissions: every estimate I've ever seen places them way beyond those of man.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 09:42
#161873
I also agree, somewhat, with Kurt and Ned.
For folks who love charts and predictions and such, I find it amusing how the focus is not on population versus commodities, the true driver of living standards.
Peak Oil, when you have one huge economy designed on cheap oil in all spread sheets and minds is extremely disrupting.
Also people societies do not change until they are forced too change thru huge pain.
France and the 1970's oil shock forced them into nuclear, and Brazil ethanol, due too intrinsic limits in their societies.
Now, why I say "somewhat" is because I still have not personally adjusted in my own mind to the kleptocracy and financial elites idea of they are sheer geniuses. This is most likely due to upbringing believe systems and such.
As I study more history though, over the last five years to somewhat get a grasp on it all, I must say the feelings of it's all a folly, a tragedy, or perhaps it is just the simple fact of that society by nature will always be classed based, and as a young man everyone preached all men are equal, which I don't disagree, yet, in my own vein I feel I have misjudged the pyramid of things, and that power and money will always be the driving influence due to that fact it has in certain ways unlimited strategies or dozens more than the average folk to control what they want when they want.
The trouble I have not resolved in that one is the continuation pattern, and again perhaps I am making it more complex than it is. They can, so they do, for ones ownself thine be true.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 09:55
#161881
For some time now, I have imagined an article in The Onion from The Galactic Times with the following headline: Carbon-based life form declares war on carbon.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:01
#161927
Wait, I thought we all now agree everyone is an Evolutionist (at least all of the Democratic Presidential candidates indicated such in an early debate). So why wouldn't humans just evolve to handle hotter or colder temperatures? We are the moral equivalent of dogs and cock roaches you know. Why spend any resources trying to change things?? Maybe we can evolve to yet a higher form.....sorry, can't do that since nothing is really higher or lower - we are equal to all other species.
And if per chance the human race was eliminated by such heating or cooling, why would that be bad?? Are we happy or sad the dinosaurs got wiped out??
What is the "correct" temperature for the earth?? The one humans like the best?? How self centered is that? Consider what other species may evolve and thrive in a colder or hotter envirionment. Who is looking out for them (our moral equivalents)??
Oh you misguided pathetic narrow self centered humans who may think you are somehow different than a cock roach.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:53
#161980
The world has gone mad. Whether it's "let's spend trillions to combat the non-existing AGW problem" or "let's spend trillions to save our economy from collapse", this liberal mass psychosis of betting everything on clearly insane solutions BY GOVERNMENTS to sometimes non-existing problems seems to indicate that we are determined to cause our own demise.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 11:54
#161983
As we come to the end of the line here in many ways: Terminal population expansion, terminal natural resources, and terminal climatic tolerance, judgement has simply disappeared.
I was once told: Strangely, organically intelligent people can individually, and en masse, act in such a way as to insure there own destruction. In fact, they will often act in such a way as to lose the ability to maintain self preservation.
It doesn't matter what they do in Copenhagen--it's too late, and like it or not humanity is preparing for a little trip through the Olduvai gorge.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 15:45
#162287
Nah, hardly the Olduvai gorge. There is still, when you get down to it, a great deal of plentiful energy in the world, and we have in the last half century developed an understanding of the structure of matter and energy to such an extent that, if our backs are against the wall, we will figure out how to use it.
The challenge we face today is the operating system. Petroleum implies its own operating system - centralized control over energy production and shipping, centralized control over the financial systems, continent-sized nation states with their own petroleum fueled armies, factory oriented manufacturies, the centralization of money (though not value) creation, and so forth. Because we are part of the system, it is difficult to see it from an outside perspective, but there's nothing that formally requires that this be the primary operating system we work from.
I think that the next few decades are going to truly challenging, because we're going to have to shift to a different operating system; petroleum will play a role, but it will need to shift to more localized power distribution, will require the shift to a more "open standards" and "open source" approach to energy production as well as intelligence at both the production and consumption standpoint, will require a rethinking about political and financial structures, and will otherwise challenge much of the status quo. Since the status quo is very much likely to fight any such changes from the top, most of this will end up taking place at the bottom, primarily through the mechanism of deprivatizing local energy systems into local governmental hands.
I think privatization and market economics have a necessary role to play (nationalizing car production, or mortgage origination for that matter, seems to me to be assinine). Energy, on the other hand, is the foundation for everything else - from effective food production to transportation to the political structure itself, and a big part of the problem that we face today has to do with the fact that we've let the national power structure become captured by a small group of very wealthy individuals and corporations who have no self-interest in making that energy available at production cost.
Move to a system where you can run your transportation infrastructure primarily on an electricity grid and the means of power production become irrelevant. Move to a system where you can use multiple redundant energy systems and the big challenges to integrating solar or wind systems into the network - irregular load factor - become much less of an issue as well. Provide open communication standards and intelligent framing and it makes it easier to insure that power goes to where the demand is, rather than being wasted in attenuation when demand is low. Shift investment away from the costs of drilling for and catalysing oil products and towards materials research and you can get more R&D into storage capacity, fusion generators and extraplanetary microwave transmission. That you coincidentally cut your carbon footprint is no small win either, but you're not going to reduce your carbon footprint by buying up existing forests and then bartering them as chits - that only serves to consolidate power in the hands of the status quo.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 20:03
#162607
Kurt, Are you suggesting the government control the energy system? Are you serious? If it's good for energy, why not have them control everything in a rational, logic, central planning way? Can you think of anything the government runs that is efficient and not politically controlled? Who is to decide all these things? Bureaucrats. No discipline from market, profit and loss, or consumer demand? Is this some sci fi thing where the technocrats of the future with incredible large bald domes press buttons for our benefit?
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 00:39
#162892
Suggesting nothing of the kind - I am suggesting that local power supply needs to be controlled at a local level, not a federal level. I'm saying that we're better off with lots of localized distributed power systems working with common standards for power interchange, and that at least some of those DO need to be controlled by governments, but only at the local level - think power co-ops or similar mechanisms.
I think a better way of putting this is that I feel that it is the responsibility of a municipality to insure the integrity of their own power supply. So far, most of the experiments I've seen in power privatization have been disasters - PGE comes to mind, or Enron. Profitability came before infrastructure investment, the potential for corruption was (and is) huge, and quite frequently power - one of the more essential commodities in modern life - was denied to people who were too poor to pay in order that the shareholders received their dividends.
When your power system is centralized and requires massive investments to bring new power online, such systems are usually run at a loss, though there were local profits that could be made by market manipulation - this was a big part of the reason that governments undertook these and acted as the bonding agents in the first place.
What I see instead is the emergence of microproducers, a mix of public and private concerns all pushing power into the grid as well as pulling it out. I see companies like Google selling their excess electrical power production into the Silicon Valley grid, for instance, or even people selling their excess solar pV power back in. The role of government in that case basically ensures that the ensuing markets remain fair and that standards exist for that level of interchange.
At some point in the not too distant past, this was the role of governments in the financial sector, until that sector effectively took over the government. The same was true of the electrical system before Reagan decided to privatize everything. Before that time, the Public Utility Districts generally managed to keep the lights on and the power flowing, and people weren't fleeced in the process, a la Enron. The danger comes from too much consolidation and centralization and too little accountability, a problem that seems just as endemic within the private sector as it does in the public.
Some large scale power investments will still be necessary and be made - investments that frankly should be made by governments rather than private companies; however, as much as possible these should also take advantage of the local power generative capability - geothermal (nice piece earlier on Geothermal on this site that should be read) where you have adequate thermal gradients, hydro and hydrothermal, wind and solar where conditions are conducive. Beamed emission, biofuels (a company near where I live runs a county-wide biofuels generator that runs on cow manure, and is doing quite well, thank you), and yes, natural gas, oil, shale, coal, and so forth in the areas that have it. If you shift to hybrid fuel systems you'll still need the oil, just not as much of it.
However, the mantra here is keeping it local, manage your own resources first, and only then sell off your excess into the open market. The effect of that is going to be profound in the long term - reshaping of cities and larger political units, regions of the country that will simply end up off the grid because they either failed to invest or the cost of living in those areas is too high compared to the energy expenditure, and quite possibly significant political realignments to more accurately reflect the new power distributions.
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 14:26
#163500
I say do away with power monopolies enforced by the government and let the market sort it out. If you want local, decentralized power, great. The consumer will determine how and where power is produced. No top down stuff. And, if we really value property rights, I can sue you for polluting my air. Deregulation has been a joke. In California, they deregulated by stripping the utilities of their power plants, deregulated the price they would pay for power, and regulated what they could charge customers for power. Result: chaos. Most of the problems can be traced to government manipulation of utilities and enforced monopolies. The free market can produce everything else we need, power is just another product.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 13:52
#162123
Regarding population control:
How is it that people on a financial website can forget that improved economic status reduces the birth rate as parents no longer feel the need to hedge by having large families to compensate for the loss of a high percentage of their children?
Taxing people into poverty increases family size.
Poluting the environment increase the death rate and thus family size.
Focusing on polution reductions in turn causes the development of new clean technologies which builds new industries for which all can participate in. But then the dirty corps have no place to get rid of their waste, and so they continue to lobby to prevent transistion to clean technologies - They distract us with plant food, AKA CO2.
Next up: DHMO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAI1JAYj53k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkcxSWErLvA
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 14:07
#162149
global warming is a totalitarian hoax invented by the oligarchs and other cancers on humanity to extend their control of peoples' lives....
the earth has always experienced temperature changes none of which is attributable to human activity....if you want to eliminate co2 emissions then empty the oceans....if you don't like the temperature oscillations get rid of sun spots or better yet get rid of the sun....
it's a game of greed and power....and arrogance...
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 15:08
#162244
Some weather recording stations have been taking data for over a century. There has been significant urbanisation around many of these stations but little talk of the "Heat Island effect" on their data.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 15:20
#162262
There is no man-made global warming. Deny it proudly. Don't focus on the hypocricy of the limousing and private jet liberals. Focus on the lie. There is not science there. There are no falsifiable predictions that came true. There is nothing but a list of natural disasters that always happened being attributed to global warming.
The liars and the squishy middle often want to focuse on the goodness of reducing the use of fossil fuels. Don't let them. Even if doing something because of a lie will lead to some good results, that's not enough to continue spreading the lie. They are evil. They are like the Roman church that burned heretics. They either believe in a hoax or want you to believe in a hoax, it doesn't matter. Deniers of the world unite!
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 16:16
#162324
I have said this elsewhere, but it bears repeating here:
Marshall Macluhan wrote "All myth is compressed wisdom".
The operable myth for climate change is neither "Chicken Little", nor "A Stitch in Time".
It is "King Canute".
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 16:38
#162354
This will all be moot after the asteroid hits-
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 17:00
#162379
The main problem here is the not so bright Yanks who don't want their "lifestyle" changed. What's so great about driving their fat asses in a SUV to an empty mall?
Rising sea levels? Cities like Miami and New Orleans are already doomed. Read Orrin Pilkey.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 19:59
#162602
I would rather die from woble garming than commit suicide from reading one more word about this inane subject.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 20:12
#162620
New Orleans is below see level so it's not necessary to read anyone to know it's doomed. As for Miami, hey if Orrin Pilkey says it's doomed, I guess it's doomed. Who the hell are you @17:00 to tell Yanks what their lifestyle should be? Are you a wannabe dictator? There are enough real ones and the pipeline to the top is full already, you're not gonna make it.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 21:13
#162681
1) I distinctly recall having global *cooling* propaganda forced on me in grade school in the early 70s
2) Even if AGW is real - I sure don't think it is - we'll destroy our ape-species-selves long before the climate will. Does anyone really believe humans will exist in say, 500 years?
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 21:35
#162699
Dateline, upper Great Lakes. The late 1960s and 1970s were colder. The 1980s and 1990s were warmer. The late 1990s were blazing hot. The 2000s have been really colder again. Like record setting cold and snowy. Anthropogenic global warming my ass. Someone's running a scam and they want my money.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 21:41
#162706
*Winces at post*
It's always nice to see a post claiming to have the summarized "facts" of the climate change debate (even though the "facts" are being relayed to us by a policy institute with both a strict anti-intervention agenda and who've been responsible for providing congressional testimony countering any and all evidence supporting the theory of climate change)!
Ahhh, to hell with peer-reviewed journals of professional science and their politically-packed, crackpot hypotheses. Academic scientists don't know jack. I'm gonna get my scientific facts from Cato's staff of economists and policy analysts. Hell, maybe I'll get them from the American Enterprise Institute or the Competitive Enterprise Institute. They seem reputable. Shiiii....maybe I'll just make up my own facts. I'll start right now!!!
*Goes into kitchen, turns faucet on and off*
I'm in California, and they say there's a massive drought here. Puh-leeeez! The tap water out of my faucet works fine. I say this drought is bullshit. Probably just a left-wing authoritarian scam to federalize water resource authority and prevent competitive resource production from the free market. Don't take my word for it, though. My buddy, Dave, works for Sparkletts. The water company. He doesn't think there's a water shortage, and he WORKS with and for water suppliers. He'll e-mail you his/my talking points if you want.
Yeah, now I'm on the right track!!!
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 22:36
#162757
The water shortage isn't about you. It's NaNa Pelosi using her fish trick to turn Cali farm land into affordable housing. Besides Mexico has tomatoes that's what NAFTA is for.
on Sun, 12/13/2009 - 23:13
#162798
Drought? In California? Well that clearly proves global warming. Now THAT'S science!
Actually it's raining like crazy where I am in California, but what does that have to do with anything?
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 00:11
#162870
I still think we could all plant trees in our yards. Every tree breathes in CO2 and breathes out O2. How can you lose?
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 09:34
#163154
i agree...unfortunately the econazis have given greenturds a bad rap, but mother earth don't care if we come from the left side or the right side or the upside or downside. she just wants us to plant seeds.
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 00:15
#162880
People in the north-central part of the Canadian province of Ontario are digging out after one of the worst snow storms on record.
Some areas north of Toronto received as much as 100 centimetres of snow over the past three days.
The main highway through the region re-opened for the first time in days, but nearly all side roads remain closed, blocked by a thick blanket of snow, in some areas chest high.
More than 100,000 people have been affected by the storm, either cut off in smaller communities, or in their cottages, or stranded by the road closures.
In one town the mayor declared a snow emergency, shutting schools and businesses.
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 00:26
#162893
Watch the latest episode of the Simpsons... Homer ask Lisa if there's global warming, then why is it snowing in Springfield... you remind me of Homer...
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 02:09
#162977
funny how these posts get more sensible as the east coast falls asleep
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 02:44
#163000
Based on the majority of reasoned comments I have read in this and the other weather change thread, my hope that truth and sanity will prevail over greed and power has been bolstered.
Thank You Zero-Hedge community.
-Objective Soul
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 03:52
#163026
Great... we now have a fucking economist giving his 2 cents on science. These fuckers with PhDs in finance can't fucking run a bank properly and now they're science experts?
I'm a physicist myself and even in my field there are heated debates about many issues and consequently in the future some physicists will be proven right while others will be proven wrong. However, I don't want any fucking economist to give his opinion on these issues since they have no fucking clue about them. For this reason, I'm totally on the fence about climate change, and these idiots from the Cato Institute will do us all a great deal of good if they just STFU. This guy's opinion on climate change is as valuable as Al Gore's and it amounts to bupkis. However, useful idiots will always be happy to get behind one side or the other without knowing shit about the subject. Sadly, many on this site are also experts in climate change and are quick to cite some obscure websites, usually maintained and paid for by people with clear interests on this subject. In their eyes, science is just a whore ready to be had in a back alley for a few cents. In the end, however, the scientific fact will reign supreme, as nature doesn't really give a shit about what douchebag from the Cato institute thinks about it.
\end{rant}
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 05:37
#163038
Quantum,
Can you lend your expertise on a question which I keep wondering might be fundamental to all this. That is, the role of CO2 and the 2nd law of thermodynamics (ie how can a cooler body - co2 - can "trap" and "radiate" heat to a warmer body - the earth)? I am not being sarcastic, but confused on the whole physics behind "greenhouse".
Disclosure: I am a banker and indeed we are finding many ways to make a buck on carbon trading, green tech financing using tax payer money guarantees and other initiatives so there is a bit of me who applauds the political motivations due to the massive amounts of money to be made.
Lastly a direct quote from Al Gore, about the GW issue from Grist in May 2006 (underscore is mine): "Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis. "
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 10:48
#163206
snowman, while we await quantum's answer, a question for you:
ignoring the current political & scientific realities for a moment and approaching this from purely a design perspective, is there a possibility of creating an open-source, fully transparent, free market-based global carbon exchange that is based on voluntary contribution of wealth (wealth being defined in the broadest sense, including land, labor, resources & capital) and incentivizes the long-term value of the asset and discourages volatility?
i'm not a banker, so excuse me if i'm not using the proper termonology, but i guess what i'm thinking is like an ebay for carbon or an open-source trading mechanism where everyone is able to contribute on equal terms if they choose to do so.
curious to hear your thoughts based on your knowledge from being in the inner sanctum...thanks.
on Tue, 12/15/2009 - 04:20
#164302
tip-e,
I don't think so. Carbon exchanges face the same 80/20 rule concentration-of-players issues as other exchanges. First, there are the "issuers", ie those companies who have carbon to exchange. They tend to be big industrial or service firms who in turn dominate their industries (Exxon, Walmart, Toyota etc). Just like the S&P or a commodities (Cargill) exchnage dominated by relatively few companies who supply the inputs.
then you need market makers who supply pricing and maintain liquidity. Again, due to economies of scale (e.g, scale of capital, scale of risk management, scale of pricing arbitrage information), this would be concentrated to relatively few players. It is no secret Goldman (must we mention them once again??) has a vested interest in being big in this feld, success transfer of algo/HFT and "data intelligence" of the value chain can provide enormous advantages. Deutsche Bank is along the same lines, leveraging their leadership in FX.
Could a system be available for the common man to participate? Sure, just like you can participate in equities, fixed income and FX. But the deck will be stacked against you.
on Wed, 12/16/2009 - 09:37
#165848
thanks snowman for bringing me back to earth. i guess it's a mix of idealism & ignorance that made me think that somehow someway something radical could be structured in the security itself that would force that 80/20 concentration of capital to play on equal terms with the reverse 80/20 concentration and that somehow a free exchange could be set up that wasn't controlled by the squid and their bretheren.
maybe next liftetime...
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 14:43
#163516
Q Boy:
I understand that you are a physicist, but so what. How do you know the economist isn't qualified to make these statements? How do you know if Cato is right or wrong? You can close your mind and rant all you want but you are missing the point.
It is well known that scientists choose data they want to prove their point, as you well point out. So, who to believe in this so-called hard science climate change debate? Are you saying that no one can have a valid opinion unless they are climatologists? How do you know if the guys you listen to aren't prejudiced in favor of AGW?
Basically you have no clue about the economist author or Cato and their credentials, so you just rant and libel Cato. If you wish to rant fine, but it doesn't add anything to the debate.
Please tell us then, how we are to make judgments in this debate?
I choose the scientists who have excellent credentials and who can’t be accused of skewing the data in favor of draconian restrictions on my liberty, and who have convinced me that we aren’t in any great peril thus far. If there were great peril, they would have no stake in denying it.
That being said I would appreciate it if you would go back to Cato and read this: Cato Policy Handbook, Chapter 45. Before you dismiss it, I am reprinting the resume of Pat Michaels of Cato who wrote it. After that, then I would be interested in hearing your opinion on the related political and economic issues.
on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 20:52
#164041
>the scientific fact will reign supreme, as nature
>doesn't really give a shit about what douchebag
>from the Cato institute thinks about it.
Oh for the days when researchers where given grants without strings attached. They competed based on competency and based on donors actually caring about truth, for the benefits their children will gain, and there grand children will gain ... That humanity will gain.
The problem I fear is that the truth will not be available in time to overcome the lies.
Me, I've got lots of University paperwork stating I know something about engineering and science, and even have some papers with "honors" on them saying the same thing ... They are all framed and now collecting dust in a closet ... I've spent the last decades learning about the reality these "respected" organizations never told me about. Still not sure what all the paperwork they handed me really means, although at one time I was sure I did know and so I had them framed ....
I don't care what anybody has for "credentials" these days, they are all meaningless. The very curruption that I think brings most of us to this site speaks volumes of that fact.
Like the virgin mind of a child asking a question without bias, or making a claim without bias, it's best to leave "the creds" at the door with all debates. Let everyone give their opinion, and then we all apply Occam's Razor ruthlessly.
We learn NOTHING by being right, we only learn by being wrong, that's part of being human. Beware those with all the answers ....
Thus everyone should speak up and expect to be torn apart. I know, it's hard not to take it personally, but if you do nobody learns anything .....
on Tue, 12/15/2009 - 08:04
#164346
In academic circles, that's called a defense. Anyone who believes scientists are not held to a high level of scrutiny has never been exposed to the rigors of peer review.