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I Lose a Bet, Start an Argument
Back on November 17, 2011 I penned a piece in response to Fed Governor Bullard's assertions regarding the collapse of MF Global. Bullard thought there was no lasting consequences to that blow-out: .
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At the time, I thought that Bullard was full of crap, and that there would be significant consequences to the collapse of MFG. My words:
Okay, Mr. Bullard I'll make you a wager. A six pack of your favorite beer. Give the MFG story another month and it will be a problem. It will undermine markets. It will impact confidence in our financial system. It will impact liquidity. As those things will occur it will force both the Treasury and the Fed to take actions.
I was wrong, Mr. B was right. There were no consequences to the MFG disaster. No heads rolled. No one went to jail. There were no lasting economic consequences. There were were no regulatory changes. The MFG affair was buried. Bullard never accepted my bet, but I still feel I owe him. If he reads this and sends me a note I will forward his beer. He deserves it. He won. Unfortunately, we all "lost" as a result. Today we have yet another MFG in our laps. Perigrine Financial has followed the exact same path as MFG. The PFG bankers looted customer accounts.
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I lost a bet for $12 worth of beer. Customers at Peregrine have lost $220m (so far). I can’t help wondering what would have happened had won the bet. If there had been hell to pay regarding the MFG affair, things might have turned out differently for Peregrine’s customer. But there was no market reaction, the CFTC ignored the signs, the SEC never lifted a finger. Nothing changed, so history has repeated itself.
Perigrine customers, looking at a loss today, might be warming up lawsuits against Bart Chilton and the CFTC. He clearly fell down on the job. I think he should be fired on the spot. Fed Governor Bullard is not responsible for the failure of Peregrine (or MFG), but his dismissing attitude is:
This is no big deal, it will blow over”
To that extent, he shares in the blame.
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The markets are boring, so let's talk about global warming
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I have absolutely no credentials or expertise to discuss matters related to climate change. I’ll do it anyway. I follow this topic and read what I can. In my opinion:
I) - Climate change is happening on a global scale. The evidence that this occurring is conclusive.
II) - I don’t know if humans are contributing to the rapid change, but I suspect they are.
III) - Even if there were conclusive evidence that human activity was contributing to global warming, I’m not at all sure that there is anything that can be done about it.
Consider these before and after pictures from NASA. These are images of the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska.
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May 13, 2012
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One month later
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Okay, so some ice melted. Is that a big deal? The folks at NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) think it is:
Sea ice retreat in June is typical, but the first half of June 2012 brought unusually rapid ice loss.
How unusual?
On June 19, 2012, NSIDC reported: “Recent ice loss rates have been 100,000 to 150,000 square kilometers per day, which is more than double the climatological rate.”
Double the rate? How much ice is melting every day in the Beauford Sea? About the size of the state of Illinois – big!
As of June 18, temperatures were above freezing over much of the sea ice in the Arctic, and snow had melted earlier than normal, leading to warming on land.
June 18? It has been hot as hell over the globe since then. This year’s arctic ice melt will set a record.
The rapid melt north of Alaska was part of a larger phenomenon. Sea ice across the entire Arctic reached record-low levels for this time of year. It was also lower than the extent in June 2007; Arctic sea ice reached its lowest extent ever recorded by satellite in September 2007.
This is not a record that we want to set. Now consider this number:
20,900,000,000,000
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20.9 Trillion is the number of pounds of CO2 that humans sent into the atmosphere in the last 12 months. It’s hard to relate to a number as big as that. Think seven billion Hondas. But even that is a number that is hard to fathom, as there are only a billion cars in the world today. How could we be producing 7Xs the weight of all the cars, every year?
Is there a connection to the incredible output of CO2 and the rapid ice melt that is happening all over the world? I wish I knew the answer to this question. I do know that CO2 emissions are directly tied to population growth/economic activity. The question is how rapidly CO2 output will rise:
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Any thoughts?
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Well... you did a pretty good job of painting the picture, and of NOT trying to poke things in people's eyes. But...
Global warming is the precursor to the glacial period. Melting glaciers cause an imbalance in the oceans' ability to moderate weather and temps: this is referred to as "ocean conveyor belts." An increase in water vapor (which some here have correctly pointed out) creates more clouds which in turn reduces incoming solar radiation and the planet then tips into the glacial cycle.
I like the storyline painted by John D. Hamaker (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Hamaker) in his "End of Civilization" book. He suggests that glacial periods act as big tototillers and reintroduce minerals for the rebuilding of topsoil, topsoil that, man or no man, eventually sheds off into the oceans through the constant cycling of the water cycle (errosion). Hamaker also believed that it could be possible to DELAY the next glacial period through re-mineralizing soils*.
* Those who don't have a clue about farming will laugh at this, but farmers do this on a very regular basis. They do it to help build up topsoil and GROW stuff! A weak spot in Hamaker's theory is that of the CO2 released in the pulverizing of rocks, whether that activity wouldn't be discharging more CO2 than the resulting remineralization could reduce through improved carbon sequestration.
Bruce, if you'd admit to being a loser in your own profession, it may not be wise for you to venture into territory where only the climate scientology retards and the IPCC still dwell. Methinks you are in serious need of attention and a hug. Since you're a contributor here at ZH, and we all love you, you will find both here with me because it is our duty to try to make you look less stupid....
And your hit's keep coming... You're now aware of the Drudge link today that shows we have had 2000 year trend s of cooling? No surprise to the scientifically literate. It's actually been more like a 500 million year trend of cooling, based on ocean sediment sample studies that have been well known for a long time.
Bruce, ever heard of the Carboniferous Period? So, how do you think the fossil fuels from all those giant ferns got under your frozen Tundra in Canada's far North? No, they didn't all drift up there with the continent from the Equater. It used to be warm and subtropical in Canada, way before a single SUV was ever thrown up into the atmosphere.
Earth's temperature has averaged 66 degrees F -- now it is only about 54.5 F. The CO2 was as high as 6000-5000 ppm, now it is only 385 ppm, barely enough for plants to thrive. Technically, we're still in the tail end of the Pleistocene Ice Age, or a brief interglacial period. If the CO2 levels actually ever do increase to 400-500 ppm, the plant life and abundance on Earth will explode from the extra nourishment -- like some are made to do artificially in greenhouses.
The current total Atmospheric CO2 tonnage is about 700 Trillion tons. It is very stable because it is dwarfed by the presence of the huge Oceanic 40,000 Trillion tons of CO2 which buffers the levels in the Atmosphere.
So sorry, but your 20 Trillion tons isn't Jack Shit.
And only climate retards think CO2 goes up in the sky and just stays there. A like amount is taken out and recycled yearly. Rocks and plants re-sequester atmospheric CO2 and are continuosly completing the carbon cycle all the time. Every square meter of the Earth's surface naturally emits (680 Trillion tons) CO2 -- 97% of the total. Bacteria the organics, and rocks release CO2 through erosion. The Himalayas alone release 25% of all Earth's CO2.
Your picture of melting spring snow and ice of the Bay is delightful, but it will just as quickly freeze up again in the Fall, as ever. Santa and his Reindeer will be fine.
Big Picture: the massive continent of Antarctica is experiencing record snow and cold for the 7th year in a row, so all the cherry-picked anectdotes from alarmists are nothing more than childish attempts to hide their wet bed.
"If the CO2 levels actually ever do increase to 400-500 ppm, the plant life and abundance on Earth will explode from the extra nourishment -- like some are made to do artificially in greenhouses."
Greenhouses PASS through solar radiation.
Others here have clearly pointed out that water vapor is a BIG mechanism in blocking incoming solar radiation.
As the planet heats up the glacial melts release more water vapor. I'm thinking that it's fairly safe to argue that this in turn would necessarily mean MORE clouds. More clouds = MORE rain.
Given the current state of our topsoils I'm not thinking that we can deal with more and heavier rain, and that more and heavier rain WILL further erode soils.
Plants need minerals in a more powder form, bringing up more rocks (which increased rainfall would do), no matter if the temperature is more conducive, will be a big negative.
To test your hypothesis build yourself a greenhouse and plop it on a slab of concrete and then see if plant life thrives. You can add water if you like (but you cannot add any soil [because soil is basically deteriorating, in which case adding it for your little test would be going counter to what is happening in the real world]).
More people need to understand soils and or farming...
Wow... the climate history of the earth spelt in roughly 4 paragraphs...
Jeez, G5, if it was so fucking simple....So how many mammals were around then in the Carboniferous? Based on our knowledge of how people die from heat, what fraction of the planet do you think humans could live in during the Carboniferous....
Why don't you explain to everyone your theory of the Carbon cycle.... I am sure you have it figured out while everyone else got it wrong...
Your Big Picture consists of cherry picking some data from Antarctica.... How about a plot showing 40 years of Arctic Ice extent?
Using a graph which starts at 1900 to analyze climate data is akin to using a single day's S&P500 delta as a measure of economic well being.
Yep, that is why we use data from ice cores going back 800,000 years among other things....Stuff like satellite that can measure the Infra-Red spectrum....
I sense a strong case of cognitive dissonance going on here...
On just about every other topic folks here tend to demand more data. Yet, here we are getting down-arrowed for suggesting that MORE data is used.
Nah, core samples, meaningless! But, my aunt Bea once blah blah, so, I'm going to go with her (though if that same mindset were running a big bank and fucking up, then everyone would be calling for her head to be chopped off).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=A7ktYbVwr90
Surely all true scientists are evolutionists. Survival of the fittest. All species are morally equal. Why does it matter if the earth heats or cools??? Why does man get to decide what the "correct" temperature is?? Why wouldn't man just adapt to the new climate?? Some species would prefer a warmer or cooler climate.
It is one of the more amusing aspects of the political left in the US that they are sneeringly pro-Darwinian theory in any religious discussion but have a very deep fear of its actual application.
I suspect that deep down they understand their own unfitness to live in any real struggle for existence.
Ask the dinosaurs how they liked their extinction level event. Much of science it tasked with making our lives better - so while the tool itself might not have an ethical purpose, it's focus and lessons can.
Every scientist I've spoken with on the topic (many) would prefer their families and offspring live in a vibrant, diverse, and healthy world, not through the early stages of a mass die-off with any future re-birth of diversity eons into the future.
Ah yes, a "vibrant, diverse, and healthy world" --- as only man defines it. What about all the morally equal species that would prefer a colder or warmer climate? How can a true evolutionist be so man centered??? Absurd. Hypocrisy abounds.
"How can a true evolutionist be so man centered??? Absurd. Hypocrisy abounds."
Absurd that a human would view things from the point of view of a human?
I love how all these kinds of arguments turn into childish name-calling... any time logic is put forward, if it should be what others don't want to hear, it gets trashed. Group-think...
I think BK just trolled all you guys, hard-core. MDB-style.
All he had to do was mutter "AGW" and everybody came out of the woodwork.
Next time, Bruce, do something on religion, homosexuality, or guns. I want to see the comments section explode.
Naw... ya think?? But then, he is a Canadian with an anti-boomer, "save-all-the-good-stuff-for-me" socialist streak. So, when it comes to global warming, I must assume he's still in character, even if in cheek.
I'm a lot of things, but not a Canook. Born in the USA.
Whew! Headache thread if I ever saw one. Remarkable emotional level.
A few thoughts if anyone is still reading:
No doubt humans are screwing the environment. That is a no brainer for anyone with eyes and a nose. Are humans warming the earth? Anyone who has done real scientific modeling through a cycle of knowledge ought to know better than to make dramatic claims.
Models of any complexity beyond a Newtonian trajectory with exactly two bodies and no real world variability never work correctly on first try. And by first try I mean that multiple, distinct datasets are required to verify and correct the model.
Astrophysicists can manage this requirement to some extent, for example, because they can test a model regarding one celestial body on others in the same class but with somewhat different characteristics. Even so, the models are almost always overturned in time by new data.
There is exactly one data set for AGW models and a multitude of mitigating factors that are being added in endless journal articles. To believe that "they have it right" is way, way beyond naive.
It is an open scientific question, partial consensus notwithstanding, and should remain so. IMO, the human response should be the same whether it is accurate or not. That is, we desperately need new energy sources and should be working on research and all current alternatives.
Carbon taxes are so obviously ridiculous as to be not worth discussing. As someone else said above, any reductions in carbon fuel use in the west will be immediately met by increases in the east.
Why all the sound and fury? The needed course of action is clear.
"Anyone who has done real scientific modeling through a cycle of knowledge ought to know better than to make dramatic claims."
Yes, but really, modeling ISN'T the necessary issue, is it?
There's ample PHYSICAL evidence for how this planet works. And, anyone denying that humans unlocking trapped energy has no affect on global temperatures either doesn't understand thermodynamics or, fuck, I don't know... a troll (a flat-earther perhaps).
The logic of the climate-change deniers goes like this: TPTB are looking to make money off of this subject (like this is something new?); TPTB are bad (no disagreement here); climate change is a conspiracy by TPTB (so they can ram another tax up our asses).
I suggested a course of action. What's yours?
Or are you simply applying for a position with the thought police?
Think of the Sun. Now think of the Sun being effected by the gravitational forces in the Solar System upon the center of the Sun in its relationship to the center of mass of the Solar System. Now think of the cyclical redundancy the movement of our Solar System has upon the solar flares emitted by the Sun that showers the Earth with plasma charges solar storms of energy.
Those 7 billion Honda's are starting to look small, aren't they. Especially when you consider Honda hasn't been around for much more than 50 years, and we have weather data going back at least 8000 years that says we've been cooler, and we've been warmer. Still think its Honda's, or the mathamatical cyclical nature of our Solar System that the worlds intelligensia continues to ignore?
I'm just asking, but I think it is the right question. Certainly, we should always try to do more with less when we can, but to mandate uneconomic improvements to energy use based upon the unproven history of 7 billion Honda's in the air each year doesn't make sense, especially when we are under the wheel and heel of a criminal ruling financial elite that has strapped America and the world with their version of oppression in order to keep their own personal feast going one more year.
My money is on the Sun and the Solar System and you can keep your 7 billion Honda's.
NAR: I've taken both sides of this warming argument, but 20.9 TN is a big number. Solar cycle might in fact be playing a role, sure, and magnitudes should be considered. I am guessing if population keeps growing and CO2 output with it, we'll get some pretty conclusive evidence that we're part of the problem, not the solution.
Unfortunately, my money is on nature, and that at some point either the the ability of humans to extract easily available high energy density fuel (aka OIL) will vanish, or our impact on the environment will create conditions such that the energy expenditure required to survive becomes unsustainable and the whole system reboots. Humans are an interesting species, but far from perfect. Assuming the planet still sustains life, perhaps there will be better luck a couple hundred million years hence.
+1000
BTW - We cannot look in the mirror, therefore we cannot be part of the problem. </sarc>
Denial is just so much easier. Doesn't require one to do anything. I think I'll go out and burn up a bunch more diesel in the hope that it'll help wipe out a bunch of these idiots...
The Catholic Church fought science over the positions of the sun and the earth. It lost.
The fundamentalist Christians fought science over the descent of man from earlier primates. They lost.
Now the Republican Party and Rupert Murdoch are fighting science over global warming. Where should the smart money go?
The most idiotic non sense gets repeated. Man is not decendent from apes. We have a common ancestor. Big difference.
How did you equate "apes" with "earlier primates"?? Do you think that "apes" could have decended from "earlier primates"?
Your non logic is astounding. How is it you have survived this long.
You pick three items, either religious or right wing and with those specific instances, you assume that all arguments are done and over with, thus anything those religions or right wing ideology support must also be wrong. I'm not even going to go any further in destroying your post as I just realized what a waste of time it would be and I will simply add another down arrow.
It's not just three LITTLE things, now is it? These LITTLE things resulted in people being MURDERED because it didn't fall into line with "conventional" thinking(?).
Further, these were key points in pushing the notion of the scientific approach to understanding things. Knee-jerkers will trump up failed argument that because some scientists have been proven to be abusing their trade that ALL science is therefore questionable. This one is just really fun now, we've got a challenge of scrutiny of those who are supposed to be using good scrutinizing practices, but the scrutinizing practices by the challengers don't seek to apply sound scrutinizing practices. Fucking Alice in Wonderland...
But, you waste time writing what you did... Clearly an emotional knee-jerk. What major religion do you belong to? Using the deniers logic I should be able to easily pick out a bad member of that religion and then call ALL of it false.
Come on... show us your stuff, I dare you....
Why is it that the only significant "institution" in the world that vehemetly denies GW is the Republican Party and those parties funding it?
If everybody in the world believes in AGW then why did the US have to threaten and bribe other nations to support the Copenhagen accord?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-us-manipulat...
Imagine that -- more lies and threats used to be "effective" in the world of climate science.
The leading paragraph of that link:
Listen, the affects are going to be huge for all the big players. This is all positioning. Some stuff is going to be highly inflated, but that doesn't mean that the premise is wrong.
I'm against the "carbon tax" because I know that big business will control the playing field (as it does everything else).
Not that I believe that it should be done, but when you're up against the most powerful sector/force on the planet -Wall Street - that lies, cheats and steals...
How to Get Ahead on Wall Street: Lie, Cheat, Stealhttp://www.mybanktracker.com/bank-news/2012/07/10/wall-street-ethics-sur...
By your logic all of Wall Street would be false (no matter if some of it were valid [perhaps the 75% that don't lie, cheat and steal? maybe a similar survey of scientists is in order?]).
I think the arguments for or against global cooling-warming or climate change is for the most part an exercise in futility. For the simple reason that the weather manipulation variable cannot be filtered out of the data. Let's take the 300+ twisters that touched down during 3 days in April last year when the average was 300 for the month as an example, or the extremely heavy snowpack in the Sierras of a couple of years ago. Or better yet a Geneva treaty in 1976 banning using weather as a weapon of war. See below links.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3436120/UN-1976-Weather-Weapon-Treaty
http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=674
http://earthchangescentral.com/research/Project2025/vol3ch15.pdf
Project Stormfury (USAF)
What's the problem? Suck the oil out of the ground, burn it, then melt the ice caps and pour the extra water into the hole in the ground where the oil used to be, rinse, repeat. Saudi Arabia will be a lush jungle in no time. Sounds like perfect central planning to me. And as a benefit, there would be no more underwater homes, and so that should really ramp up the S&P. I just love it when a central plan comes together.
Anyone remember flying into L.A. about, oh, 20 years ago or so? The blanket of sulfurous looking smog was so thick, it was like the the coming together of a new life form. Half an hour in the valley would leave me teary eyed, hoarse and itchy. I had to drag the memory from deep in the file cabinets of my mind, cos I don't see it anymore. Happened in many cities across the United States. Rivers don't spontaneously combust, they actually look like water flowing, imagine that! No mention of acid rain! It's a beautiful world.
People fought tooth and nail about the regulations then as well. Same freaking nonsense as I'm hearing now. There are DEAD ZONES in our oceans because of the crap we dump into it. You pay a $500 fine if you litter the roadways. You can see the garbage then, you can't see the garbage we spew into the sky. The only animals that foul their own nest are ones who are sick or on the brink of extinction. Where do you think we are right now on that spectrum? The carbon tax idea was to generate money for someone, it got killed because it wasn't generating it for the right someone. In killing the idea, they also went after years of effort in housekeeping, and the valiant effort of the EPA. I don't know if the earth is cooling or heating up, I'm not a scientist. What I do know is what I have experienced first hand. Who am I to believe? People who cherry pick data through millions of years of history to prove their point, or what I have seen with my own lying eyes?
Tree-rings prove climate was WARMER in Roman and Medieval times than it is now - and world has been cooling for 2,000 years
By ROB WAUGH
PUBLISHED: 07:22 EST, 11 July 2012 | UPDATED: 07:22 EST, 11 July 2012
- http://f.dailymail.co.uk/i/furniture/spt_previewlinks_5.gif); background-position: -30px 0px;">
Comments (223)Rings in fossilised pine trees have proven that the world was much warmer than previously thought - with measurements dating back to 138BC
Rings in fossilised pine trees have proven that the world was much warmer than previously thought - and the earth has been slowly COOLING for 2,000 years.
Measurements stretching back to 138BC prove that the Earth is slowly cooling due to changes in the distance between the Earth and the sun.
The finding may force scientists to rethink current theories of the impact of global warming.
It is the first time that researchers have been able to accurately measure trends in global temperature over the last two millennia.
Over that time, the world has been getting cooler - and previous estimates, used as the basis for current climate science, are wrong.
Their findings demonstrate that this trend involves a cooling of -0.3°C per millennium due to gradual changes to the position of the sun and an increase in the distance between the Earth and the sun.
‘This figure we calculated may not seem particularly significant,’ says Esper, ‘however, it is also not negligible when compared to global warming, which up to now has been less than 1°C.
'Our results suggest that the large-scale climate reconstruction shown by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) likely underestimate this long-term cooling trend over the past few millennia.’
The finding was based on semi-fossilised tree rings found in Finnish lapland.
Professor Dr. Jan Esper's group at the Institute of Geography at JGU used tree-ring density measurements from sub-fossil pine trees originating from Finnish Lapland to produce a reconstruction reaching back to 138 BC.
In so doing, the researchers have been able for the first time to precisely demonstrate that the long-term trend over the past two millennia has been towards climatic cooling.
‘We found that previous estimates of historical temperatures during the Roman era and the Middle Ages were too low,’ says Esper. ‘Such findings are also significant with regard to climate policy, as they will influence the way today's climate changes are seen in context of historical warm periods.’
The annual growth rings in trees are the most important witnesses over the past 1,000 to 2,000 years as they indicate how warm and cool past climate conditions were.
More...Researchers from Germany, Finland, Scotland, and Switzerland examined tree-ring density profiles in trees from Finnish Lapland. In this cold environment, trees often collapse into one of the numerous lakes, where they remain well preserved for thousands of years.
Global cooling: It is the first time that researchers have been able to accurately measure trends in global temperature over the last two millennia
The annual growth rings in trees are the most important witnesses over the past 1,000 to 2,000 years as they indicate how warm and cool past climate conditions were
The density measurements correlate closely with the summer temperatures in this area on the edge of the Nordic taiga; the researchers were thus able to create a temperature reconstruction of unprecedented quality.
The reconstruction provides a high-resolution representation of temperature patterns in the Roman and Medieval Warm periods, but also shows the cold phases that occurred during the Migration Period and the later Little Ice Age.
In addition to the cold and warm phases, the new climate curve also exhibits a phenomenon that was not expected in this form.
For the first time, researchers have now been able to use the data derived from tree-rings to precisely calculate a much longer-term cooling trend that has been playing out over the past 2,000 years.
MOST READ NEWSRead more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2171973/Tree-ring-study-proves-climate-WARMER-Roman-Medieval-times-modern-industrial-age.html#ixzz20LvUbyn3
The bread belt during Roman times was present day Libya. Makes you wonder "what happened"? Anywho the bread belt of the world today is the USA...Russia looks to be making some noise in the that space...and certainly Brazil which pretty much single handedly created the fast food industry in the 80's and 90's. The problem of course is that the only true mass of arable and buyable land is in Europe...and i've never understood the European real estate...is it a market? I mean...who owns that stuff?
Instead of relying on the DailyMail, try this
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/07/tree-rings-and-climate-some-recent-developments/
Sort of puts things in context eh?
If you are still driving a vehicle, if you live in a home using electricity, if you work at a place using electricity, and are a AGW Church member, you are a hippocrite.
Go live like the Amish or off yourself, don't tell me I have to reduce my foot print while you true believers continue to destroy the planet, according to you.
In other words, I call Bull Shit. A good comparision to you morons would be a Anti-Abortion Pro-Lifer working in a abortion mill to pay off previous abortions.
Fucking pull up the kitchen sink and toss it while you're at it.
Once a Stooge always a stooge...
LOL
The Amish actually WORK, none of these little hothouse orchids would last a day outside of their air conditioned pampered urban lifestyles. Outside of the bubble environment they live in (which they so amusingly decry) their survival rate would drop to zero on a very short timeline.
One thing that really struck me in my youth was the relatively short period of time that "man" has existed on earth in relation to it's age.
The hubris exibited by the human population has never failed to amaze.
Climate changes.
We don't like change.
How else can you explain the desperate attempts by the FED to bring the economy back to 2005?
I don't trust anyone who tells me that they can in any way "change" climate.
I especially don't trust anyone that believes we can stop change.
And this totally twists the logic. Toss the premise and you can say just about anything I suppose...
"Climate change" is what the climate always does. Any issues here?
The climate will change one day such that humans will no longer exist on earth. Care to discuss? (remember: one day the sun will burn out)
You cannot see/feel/smell or otherwise interact with something without having an affect on that thing. Care to discuss? (remember: humans are drilling, plowing, burning and otherwise doing a bit more than just seeing, feeling and smelling the planet)
So...
Humans inhabit earth, a planet whose climate is forever changing. Humans require changes to the planet in order to live, and these changes affect the environment (if they didn't then WTF would we be making changes?). Changes to the environment can alter the environment's climate: cities absorb more heat than outlying areas.
So, the take away is this: Don't trust yourself! (because, yes, you DO affect the climate, which is, a CHANGE!)
My dad once kicked a dog I had. That was bad. I hate my dad for that. I hate my dad. My dad was a scientist. All scientists are bad... (no, my dad never kicked my dog; but, I DO hate the Fed)
George Carlin said it better than all of us;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB0aFPXr4n4&feature=related
amen
Corzine is free because Phil Gramm is still running around free.
You're not paying attention here!
Democrats = bad!
Republicans = good (except when they don't agree with Ron Paul [which is almost always]!
Climate change: is impossible/doesn't exist, is a conspiracy theory used to make everyone a Democrat (or a lover of centralized power, or a devil worshiper)!
To arrogant climate people:
Um, are we all supposed to forget that the DATA WAS FAKED? The high-falutin' British Professors (who drank tea with their pinkies out, no doubt) wrote down PHONEY DATA. The hockey stick WAS A LIE.
They LIED and MADE UP DATA.
Do you think we forgot that part?
umm.. wrong, data was not faked, You are just ingorant as to how numbers are used. The data was found to be scientifically valid, try again sport.
You know there used to be a time where stupid people were actually a little ashamed of the fact, now the stOopid is worn as some sort of badge of honor.
Funny, you seem to be ignorant as how the same set of data can be used to support two diametrically opposed viewpoints. Your current level of reasoning/debate suggests that you are yet to rise above the level of monkeys flinging poo around thus implying that your knowledge of science is on the "regurgiate" level...
Hello CD, do not try to argue with the "no global warming", "obama is the antichrist", "the bible is literally true" whackjobs on this site using facts. It only irritates them and causes them to engage in all sorts of ad hominem arguments in response.
Heh you guys are funny. So here's a question for you.
How do you get a scientist to change his mind?
A: You offer him a research grant!
The sad thing is that this is true. I have a close friend that worked in one of the institutions where they were researching climate change and man's contribution to climate change. I am informed reliably that the data does not support any conclusion other than that there are long term cycles - the Thames used to freeze over in Victorian times and vines were grown in Northumberland in Roman times - these are two select instances that show that things were not always as they are now. However (and this is the BIG issue) political pressure was brought to bear on the researchers (including discussions about funding) to ensure that conclusions be drawn from the data TO SUPPORT A CERTAIN VIEWPOINT (which incidentally would be used to support carbon trading etc). I said worked - my friend being an honest man resigned rather than betray his principles (he is afterall a very good scientist).
BTW disableman, nice ad hominem. Found any straw men to attack recently?