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Guest Post: Melting Ice And Freezing Fossil Fuels Ambitions
Submitted by James Stafford via OilPrice.com,
It’s not mere anecdotal evidence: Visibly melting sea ice is the best evidence that the planet is warming. So prospecting for oil in the Arctic is a tricky endeavor that must be undertaken slowly and with extreme caution, argues Fen Montaigne, senior editor of Yale Environment 360, author of “Fraser’s Penguins: A Journey to the Future in Antarctica” and other books, and contributor to National Geographic, The New Yorker and Smithsonian magazines.
So just how hot is it going to get? Hotter than we can handle if we fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly, Montaigne tells us in an exclusive interview in which we discuss:
• Why prospectors should proceed with extreme caution in the Arctic
• Just how hot it’s going to get with global warming
• Why science is being side-lined in the climate change debate
• Why oil companies will have to keep their assets in the ground
• Why we need to rethink agricultural subsidies
• What we can expect next from the volatile EV market
• What really concerns environmentalists about natural gas
• The great fossil fuels paradox
• Why natural gas may not only be a bridge to the future, but the future itself
• Why the US government has no business mandating ethanol
Interview by James Stafford of Oilprice.com
Oilprice.com: We’ll start with the Arctic Sea because so much of your work has focused on this area. Right now, the talk here is of vast opportunities, and vast environmental concern. How can we balance these two, and what is at stake?
Fen Montaigne: I am in the go-slow camp when it comes to developing the Arctic, whether it be the region’s fossil fuel riches, its minerals, or its fisheries. I think the problems that Shell has experienced in its early attempts to drill off Alaska’s coast bolster the case for a cautious approach. Cleaning up an oil spill in that environment would be far, far more difficult than in the Gulf of Mexico, and a spill’s effects would be more severe and long lasting in a cold-water environment than in warm waters.
The Arctic nations — as well as other interested countries, such as China — need to carefully survey and assess the resources of the Arctic basin and draft a conservative plan for their exploitation. That may include a ban on drilling for oil and gas in large sections of the Arctic.
Oilprice.com: How can you make the case for global warming using the decline in Arctic Sea ice, and how profound will the consequences be?
Fen Montaigne: No better evidence of the warming of the earth in the last century — and particularly in the last 30-40 years — exists than the melting of the cryosphere, or ice zones. More than 90% of the world’s glaciers are in retreat, and the disappearance of Arctic sea ice is nothing short of stunning.
I have seen this melting with my own eyes, having spent 5 months researching a book on the Antarctic Peninsula, where sea ice and glaciers are retreating rapidly. Earlier this year, I visited a glacier in Switzerland that has retreated by a half-mile since I last saw it 20 years ago; this is not mere anecdotal evidence, as nearly all the glaciers in the Alps, Andes, etc., are in rapid retreat.
The world is warming. The overwhelming evidence is that it’s caused by human activities. The only question is how hot things are going to get. If we continue doing as little as we are doing now to rein in greenhouse gas emissions, it is entirely possible that the world might be 5 to 10 degrees F warmer in a century or two, which is not a world I’d like my children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren to be living in.
Oilprice.com: More broadly on the climate change scene, Yale Environment 360 recently published an article discussing the implications of a climate activist movement seeking to persuade universities, cities and other groups to sell off their investments in fossil fuel companies. What’s the long-term logic behind this movement and what will the impact be?
Fen Montaigne: I won’t attempt to predict the impact of the divestment movement. But to me one thing is clear: If in the next 100 years the world’s oil, gas and coal companies develop all the fossil fuel assets that they’re now sitting on, the world is going to be a very unpleasant place in which to live, barring some technological miracle that enables us to suck vast amounts of CO2 out of the air. It’s this realization that is driving the divestment movement and the fight to slow climate change.
Believe me, as a 60-year-old American, living in the most affluent country in the most affluent period in history, I appreciate and value what fossil fuels have done for civilization. I know we’re not going to be able to transition to a non-fossil-fuel economy overnight. But if you keep approving tar sands projects, or massive pipelines, or drilling in the Arctic, when does it stop? When does this movement to a renewable energy economy begin? If I were running a fossil fuel company, I’d be uneasy about the concept of so-called “stranded assets,” because at some point — when seas begin to rise significantly, when weather is sufficiently wild and destabilized, and when things are just too damn hot — people, business owners, and governments are going to say it’s time to stop burning fossil fuels as if there is no tomorrow. I think that as global warming intensifies, it’s likely that a significant portion of the assets of fossil fuel companies are going to have to remain in the ground.
Oilprice.com: As the climate debate increasingly polarizes the American public, science seems to be getting in the way of agendas on both sides. Your magazine recently noted how even environmentalists are ignoring science when it stands in the way of furthering their agendas. Are we entering a period in which scientific facts will be completely sidelined as climate change becomes the strict purview of politics?
Fen Montaigne: It’s indeed unfortunate that climate change has become so intensely politicized in the US and that both sides resort to twisting the facts and using super-heated rhetoric.
From my perspective, however, I think there is a lot more distortion of science on the climate change denier side. Still, when global warming activists ring alarm bells every time there is a heat wave or a period of intense storms, I think that’s a mistake. What happens if we have an unusually cold spring in the eastern US or Europe, like the current one? Does that mean global warming is a hoax? Of course not. Short-term ups and downs in the weather should not be the cause for either side to crow or cry wolf.
I also think it’s unwise when global warming activists warn that it’s “game over” for the climate if something like Keystone XL is approved. OK. So what happens if Keystone is approved? If that means it’s “game over,” then why should any of us worry about reducing CO2 emissions?
I do believe that in the US, we’ll soon be moving into a period where there is less debate about the science of climate change, for the simple reason that it’s going to become increasingly clear that human-caused climate change is affecting the world, from our backyards to the poles. Of course, the debate over whether global warming is real scarcely exists in Europe, which has far less of the contrarian, anti-science streak that exists in the US.
Oilprice.com: There is a significant amount of resistance to the Ethanol mandate, not only because of the connection to food crops with corn-based ethanol. Do you think America is ready for this mandate?
Fen Montaigne: I think that the US’s byzantine system of agricultural subsidies is a mess and needs to be seriously reformed. And I don’t think the US government ought to be in the business of mandating ethanol production.
Oilprice.com: What can we expect from the electric vehicle market in the next 2-3 years? Why have they experienced so many ups and downs? Where has it gone wrong?
Fen Montaigne: I am no expert on electric vehicles, but I am confident that reasonably priced EVs and hybrids will become increasingly common, especially as batteries improve and charging stations become more widespread.
As has been widely noted, the Obama administration’s mandating of far-better fuel economy standards was probably the most important environmental achievement of Obama’s first term. I think that the federal government, working closely with the private sector, also has to become far more involved in stimulating the transition to a renewable energy economy.
Ultimately, it’s innovation and advancement in science, engineering, and the private sector that are going to help solve this climate problem, but a transition as massive and revolutionary as the one away from fossil fuels cannot be done without government involvement.
Oilprice.com: What do you think of T. Boone Pickens’ idea to convert US trucking fleets to natural gas? Is this viable over the long term?
Fen Montaigne: I think using natural gas as a “bridge to the future,” including powering more trucks with natural gas, is a good idea. But many environmentalists are right to be concerned that natural gas is looking less like a bridge to the future, than the future itself. As I said earlier, societies have to take major steps to wean themselves off fossil fuels, and few countries are doing that now, with notable exceptions such as Denmark.
Oilprice.com: Is it possible for the fossil fuels and alternative energy industries to work together to create a viable “transition” period for a sustainable future?
Fen Montaigne: Of course it’s possible. The challenge is that it’s just so easy to keep using fossil fuels, as they are such a compact, relatively inexpensive, and effective source of energy. The profits are enormous, far greater, at this point, than in the renewable energy industry. This is why it is so hard to disrupt the status quo, but that’s what has to happen. What we’re looking at is one of the great paradoxes of history — the very sources of energy that have enabled us to achieve such an advanced civilization and to bring us so many comforts and conveniences are also the sources that threaten to dangerously destabilize the climate that has fostered the growth of human civilization over the past 12,000 years.
Oilprice.com: Are there any significant ways in which the environmental movement has metamorphosed in recent years due to the shale revolution, the natural gas boom, and other energy-related developments??
Fen Montaigne: Leading environmental thinkers such as Bill McKibben have pointed out that the environmental movement used to take heart in the prospect of peak-oil or peak-coal. I think the shale gas and shale oil boom of recent years, as well as the discovery of new oil and gas fields, have demonstrated that fossil fuel use is not going to decline in the next century because oil and gas fields or coal mines are tapped out. That changes environmental strategy, and is one of the reasons that McKibben’s 350.org and other groups are now targeting specific projects like Keystone XL.
And I am sympathetic to one of their central arguments: At some point, you’ve got to stop developing new oil and gas reserves and begin seriously developing alternative sources of energy. Otherwise, it’s going to get awfully hot, and rising seas are going to pose a major threat to cities from Shanghai to Miami.
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...He has a day job. (grin)
I have wondered the same thing. An ice age would be a disaster of unprecedented magnitude in modern society. This made me wonder, if you believe the one variable theory of carbon dioxide would the same GW believers then advocate higher levels of carbon emissions to ward off an ice age? Methinks not.
What I do believe is that the opposite disaster would still be blamed on a different man caused variable and the call would still be for higher taxes, more government and less freedom. The answer for the Left is always, always, always the same.
Ahh yes the old sophist chestnut.
"prove that ( unproven claim )does not exist"
Example
Person A. "All right then prove that the loch ness monster doesn't exist"
Person B. "Hang on, you are the one making the outlandish claim you provide ME with the scientific evidence"
I am disappointed with such a cheap response, even from you, for a second I thought you might do better than that, silly me. Keep peddling the Al Gore snake oil, that's a good boy...
Update: On August 2nd, after spending two long weeks threading his way through ice fields off the coast of Baffin Island in heavy fog and a faulty radar, Captain Tommy decided that even though he made it to the doorway of the Northwest Passage, that the voyage just wasn't meant to be.
"After hours of staring into the unknown I see the fate of Franklin" Capt Tommy stated, "The misery of Amundsen, the disappointment of those who tried and failed and those that tried and died. I’ve seen enough ice to last a lifetime. It was a beautiful dream to sail the Northwest Passage and now it is a beautiful reality to turn my back on it and head toward other adventures. If we’ve learned anything at all, it is this: The journey and not the destination is the adventure. The destination was just a wonderful excuse. Let’s go to Labrador and look for white bear!"
too bad I can not post a picture of this guys sail boat stuck in ICE that was of course not there per our AGW know it alls..at least this guy put to action his belief in AGW had melted all that ice..LOL just gotta LOL.
That is actually how the conspiracy theorists work. They spin an invisible conspiracy and force you to prove it is wrong.
"AGW is real, get over it..."
Prove it.
Lacking that, which you do, predict the warming. Good scientific theory should be able to make predictions of future observational data.
Your climate models can not predict what we have already observed. Therefore the models and thus the theory based on them are wrong. The theory lacks foundation.
What you adher to is religion. You believe even in the face of the failure of the models.
Wrong on so many levels it is beneath reply, fractally wrong as they say
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/02/2012-updates-to-model-observation-comparions/
Here is some more flak Mr: Stats show that most men who get cancer and die have size nine feet, therefore is it reasonable to assume the cause of cancer can be attributed to shoe size. No of course not, size nine is the most common adult male foot size. You have to be very careful with the interpretation of data; there is a temptation to make the results fit your theory. It is a very seductive form of self-deception, many a scientist have fallen foul of it.
Umm funny that when I was studying for my BSc a professor told me all scientific theories are only fact until proven otherwise. There are no absolutes.
The best branch of science is physics; those guys can make up any old crap.
Troll, and not a very good one...
Troll: Kettle calling the pot black. I studied Global Warming at Uni, I was sceptical then and have become more so over the years. When people try to ram scientific theory down your throat as fact, when in fact nothing has been proven beyond reasonable doubt, be careful. The debates over GW or CC have become an unbalanced formula. Anyone who questions the data and or the methods has been labelled a heretic.
The climate debate has turned into a fundamental religion; anyone who disagrees with it will be verbally stoned to death.
Quit making shit up...
BFD if you happened to have taken an intro enviromental science glass and got it ass backwards...
What does OHC stand for? TOA? GISS? You don't know shit and you write like that too...
Thanks for the Ad hominem fest, very mature.
Well it is high time the idiots are called out.
I doubt you can explain the physics behind the reason you don't freeze to death when the sun goes down.
Maybe you can explain why every climate model predicting global warming has been wrong?
Now you are simply making stuff up....
http://skepticalscience.com/lessons-from-past-climate-predictions-broecker.html
This is a paper from 40 years ago.. He fucking nailed it...
"The predictions made using these models almost always seem to underestimate the effects of climate change. That’s true in this case, too. So it’s not that the models are wrong and therefore climate change doesn’t exist. It’s that the models aren’t perfect, and it’s looking like things are worse than we thought." - Phil Plait
Answer the question, but we know you can't...
It is not ad hominem to call someone unqualified if they are truly unqualified... And you demonstrated that you are UNQUALIFIED...
Sure. The increase in solar energy has had nothing to do with it.
What they don't mention is that there have been long periods in the earth's past with much higher temperatures. Current relatively mild temperature represents the planet comming out of a ice age. Destroying the economy will have no effect on temperature change. The death's of many resulting from the lower living standards from economic decline will only mean that fewer people are around to deal with the inevitable higher temperatures.
I'm not advocating any tax or economic measure. I'm just pointing out the obvious, that the planet is warming drastically. Yes, the climate has warmed before, but there weren't 7 billion people on the planet it and when it happened and it didn't warm this quickly. Weather disasters are happening more often and more severly than they ever have. Droughts come more often. Every country's population but ours has accepted this science as fact, but there is an idiotic core idiology at play in this issue that is as comfortable refuting the science of global warming as they are the science of evolution. It's the same crew. Ignorentia.
You are talking shit man
jesus Christ. This is a finance site. You people are supposed to be able to read charts.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/2000_Year_Temperature...
What is so hard about this?
In the scientific literature, there is a strong consensus that global surface temperatures have increased in recent decades and that the trend is caused mainly by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases. No scientific body of national or international standing disagrees with this view,[177][178]
Everyone knows that the earth gets hotter and colder and that CO2 levels, sea levels and land levels rise and fall.
Shit man I learnt that in year 9 geography.
This is NOT NEWS OK....
Now if you have some useful SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE to further peoples understanding, let's have it.
I'm sorry but crappy computer climate models and hockey stick "graphs" comprising cherry picked and blended data just don't cut it.
There also used to be a strong consensus that the Earth was flat. Consensus is not science. It either is or it isn't.
Given the hubris involved that we understand how the entire Earth's climate works, I suspect this issue is subject to STRONG revision in the future.
When I was in grade school scientists were convinced we were about the enter another ice age (70s). Now we're all going to fry like potato chips.
Color me a bit sceptical this is "settled science".
I like reading your posts. We may not know how the climate works precisely, but we can use basic thermometers to measure changes in temperature. NASA"s observatory shows the average temperature changes of the last 20 years:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page2.php
We should be able to agree that the temperature is rising. We can disagree on why. 90% of scientist and all major scientific papers back the idea that it is our doing and I believe them. When I was a kid, Pluto was a planet.. things change.
Who the fu** cares what the so called scientists say? "Scientist" is a subjective label, just like "economist". We all know not to believe an "economist" simply because they are labelled such. They all have agendas for the most part. "When I was a kid, Pluto was a planet.. things change." Precisely, things change, including the temperature. The only difference is that when Pluto was designated a non-planet, fucking politicians didnt come to me with a loaded gun and try to force me to fund some stupid ass planetary saving program. I am not encouraging pollution. I am not encouraging wastefulness. I am simply discouraging corrupt government and theft. "We may not know how the climate works precisely." If you do not know how the climate works, then why do you so vehemently propose solutions to a so-called problem you admit you don not understand?
The difference between a scientist and an economist is that scientists came up theories that work so that dumb little shits like you would someday have this Internet thingie... Science works, Bitchez
Economists can't do that stuff like that...
PS Your Pluto argument is simply asinine and irrelevant...
And yet none of the (previously accepted by the IPCC) models predicted the current 15-year hiatus in warming.
Does this give the warmists pause? Good lord no! I expect it just means they need even more money for more research!
Hey Flak, I keep hearing about how you guys could be earning twice as much in the private sector with your skills and discipline. This raises the obvious question - why aren't you?
Let me answer - because you prefer to work in academia. So for whatever reason, climate scientists are so wedded to their 'work' that they'd turn down twice the salary. No incentives to keep bigging up the AGW there, I see.
It doesn't give them pause. It gives them a reason to go back and adjust the observed data to make it fit the models!
Which is of course exactly what they have done. They rig the real data to fit and not the other way around. That isn't science. That's marketing.
Here is the all data, show me a statistically significant pause.
http://skepticalscience.com/trend.php
I dare you to try....
I suggest you read this before making a bigger fool of yourself first though:
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/gwpf/
Your memory is selective. The majority of the papers in the 70s expected warming...
Here are the papers:
http://skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s-intermediate.htm
The science and data are stone cold looks, the scientific argument is over for all intents and purposes... The only "confusion" exists because monied interests are selling FUD...
No, no, no - that's not possible at all.
The Oil & Gas industry (and their buddies, the Military Complex) would never lower themselves to start a disinformation campaign against climate change science (and science in general), buy PR against climate change, buy the MSM to spew their message and even pay hefty "consultancy fees" to a couple of "scientists" to publish papers against climate change.
These guys, as History shows, are the most righteous and ethical people around (who only think about the good of everybody else) and would just quietly see their whole industry be brought down from their place of global dominance (to the point that many, many wars fought are about Oil) and be replaced by those upity new startups in the green energy industry.
You sir, are insulting the fine upstanding gentlemen in the Oil & Gas industry with your allegations ...
/sarc off
And yet.. some 'our' most dedicated MIC puppets - Tony Blair, for instance - have been most ardent supporters of the AGW sky-is-falling thesis.
Makes you wonder if the MIC skim it both ways.
Butwe CAn trust government and we therefore must be able to trust government funded "scientists". Government afterall is our protector.
That chart is just as reliable amd accurate as the politically-motivated, heavily manipulated BS that the BIS and other government agencies like to publish.
That's the second time this chart has been referenced. Where is the data for the last 9 years? Surely we have recent temperature readings.
bk, the 'science of evolution', now you got me laughing. Prove it.
Yes those that deny climate change also tend to deny the fact that humans evolved via natural processes over millions of years.
The idiocy runs extremely deep.
Well, I don't deny that evolution seems to be the most likely explanation for life on earth. And neither do I 'deny' that the climate changes... there are plenty of graphs showing enormous variations in the planet's temperature (and CO2... the latter of which is stilll very, very low by historical standards)..
What I do deny is that the degree to which recent climate change is anthropogenic is by any means 'settled'... or that attempts to prevent it are cheaper than dealing with its consequences.
So peddle your absurd conflations and strawmen elsewhere. I suspect you'd be very wecome over at HuffPo - they seem particularly challenged by anything approaching critical thought over there.
There are no 'facts' proving evolution, yet you say there are. Fact is there are no facts proving evolution or creation. One must be skeptical of either or believe by 'faith' in one ot the other. It could just as easily be said 'yes those that believe in climate change also tend to believe that humans evolved via natural processes over millions of years.' The idiocy runs extremely deep.
The science is not the problem, it is all the BS related to the 'potential solutions'. This has become a religious issue and people on both sides exercise religious ferver when talking about it. To think we are going to get the third world to give up their lives to mitigate global warming is absurd ... as an Indonesian why he is working to deforest his homeland and he will tell you he needs money to eat. Will you tell him to starve? You are blogging on your computer ... why not log off and save a tree. People are not going to change ... we're all toast (if global warming) cooks us.
Politics did not get us into this state and it will not get us out.
No - the science is a problem. Climatogy models do not reflect reality, not without huge fudge factors. The fact is they can't capture the variables and processes enough to create a good model, the Climate is too complex and there are too many unknowns.
Ahhh ummm actually Antartic ice is thickening http://en.mercopress.com/2012/03/31/height-of-antarctica-ice-sheet-increasing
human = 98.6 degree body temperature
7 billion of them on planet = hot
more of them = getting hotter
The weather disaster thing is such BS. I grew up in the Caribbean and Florida. Look at your hurricane plots over just the last century, much less farther back when the Thames used to freeze over. The idea that there is much accurate worldwide history on typhoons and hurricanes to measure against is wishful thinking. Did the American Indians or Inca keep good records for us to compare?
Yea bkbroiler, it's the same scientists that were saying in the 1970's that we are headed into an ice age. Guess they couldn't make any money on that lie.
Are you a fool or a liar?
Here are the papers:
http://skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s-intermediate.htm
Lets have a facts based discussion....
Ok, fact 1
The most important greenhouse gas is water vapor, water vapor has mutch more effect on the climate than CO2.
Fact 2
The effect of water vapor is not included in the climate models becouse the climate scientists are not able to predict the levels of water vapor.
So please tell me, if the can not predict the levels (and so the effect) of the most important green house gas, than how can the climate models be correct.
And if the sciense is based on models that are incomplete then how can you be so sure about the science?
The models that you may be refering to are called Regional Climate Models, they are used to estimate what the effects of AGW will be on a specific region of the globe. In that case, simulating the global flow of water vapor is a difficult problem.
However, for the purposes of avergage global WV effects and Top of Atmosphere radiative imbalances the models can rely on the Clausius-Claypeyron equation. This has been demonstrated to be very accurate as you do not need to know the instantaneous distribution of WV....
Here this may help:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas-intermediate.htm
then
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-vapour-feedback-or-forcing/
If you can point to the person who predicted this 10 year cooling spell, then I will consider their arguments. Everyone else who predicted a parabolic rise in temperature can submit a case study as to why they were stupendously wrong and I will consider it.
First off, there has been no cooling spell. NADA, please see the OHC data here:
http://skepticalscience.com/clarifying-continuation-global-warming.html
Secondly, we cannot predict the time of the ENSO (El Nino/La Nina) oscillations. There has been a bias to La Nina or cooler conditions over this time period. Thirdly, the role of the S02 emissions from Chindia was not simulated. You do recall the explosive growth in coal burning starting in 2000?
No serious prediction of a parabolic rise over a 10 year period was made.
If you are really interested here is the definative source of discussion
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/02/2012-updates-to-model-observation-comparions/
I would address detailed specific questions on their open forum thread.
First off, there has been no cooling spell
Nice redirection there, Flak.
The point is... none of these models predicted a 15-year (and counting) hiatus in warming. They all predicted a steady increase of temperatures in line with increasing CO2... and they were all wrong.
And we're supposed to think the 'science' is 'settled'... when you people can't even "predict the time of the ENSO (El Nino/La Nina) oscillations"???
Jesus, it would be laughable if only you hubristic fuckers weren't giving our oligarchy political cover for yet more NWO bullshit.
Well, I assume it's just hubris. Maybe you're just more of an outright shill.
It isn't hubris. It is a concerted effort for control. It's what governmetns always do, and if you look at where all this AGW bullshit comes from it is always government.
The tinfoil lined collander has apparently cut off circulation to your brain...
You're a poopyhead. So there! Nyah nyah nyah!
BK the Douchenozzle troll, Greenland was called GREEN-Land because it was green and good for crop farming when the Vikings landed there 1000 years ago during the Medieval Warming period, the same pre-industrial warming period you mouthbreathing book-burners claim never happened and tried to do cover up.
The MWP was a local not global and Greenland was not that Green.
Here are the temperature records:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/medieval-warm-period-intermediate.htm
Several decades ago some of the same people that are currently in a tizzy about CO2 and global warming, were in a panic and just as insistant as you are, except the chicken-little flavor of the month was an encroaching ice age.
Also, I would like to know why all these "climate specialists" brush off the effects of the shrinking heliosphere, resulting in increased cosmic radiation containing heavy iron nucleai reaching the Earth's atmosphere, knocking off electrons and ionizing molecules, attracting water molecules, resulting in increasing humidity and global dimming. Not to mention the reduction in pan evaporation rates, also a consequence of increased H2O saturation in the atmosphere. A couple years ago I actually read an article in a "science" magazine blaming the shrinking heliosphere on man. That sheer, politically-motivated absurdity was enough for me to cancel my subscription permanently. Then another scientific magazine printed an article about an experiment to save lakes by covering the surface of lakes with black, plastic, floating balls to block the sunlight and prevent heating of the water. Black! Yes, that is the color I would use to reflect sunlight! Not to mention the lack of sunlight on all living things below the surface. Even my 12 year old niece could tell me what is wrong with that. Then you have moron Gates funding a project to build barges that eject ocean water high into the atmosphere to create salty clouds because the salt crystals will reflect more sunlight. So, what happens when it falls onto plants amd fresh water lakes as salty rain. All these crackpot schemes to "reflect" sunlight will just mean that plants and plankton.won't be able to photosynthesize as much CO2 into Oxygen. And this will help reduce CO2 how?! Who put all the idiots and morons in charge? Never mind, I know. The sheeple can blame themselves.
Honey, where did you cut and paste this this nonsense from? You are aware that we do measure cosmic rays and magnetic field and such things rather precisely....
Show me what you are talking about in the following measured CR spectra:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/cosmic-rays-and-global-warming-advanced.htm
It isn't nice to copy or make things up. Didn't your mother teach you otherwise?
Sweetie, it's all those idiots at NASA. http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/23sep_solarwind/ Not to mention the amateurs running Project Cloud at CERN. PBS presented a nice 2-hour documentary a few years ago on pan evaporation rates and global dimming. There are other scientific studies available. You can look them up yourself.
Could you tell me in your own words about CLOUD?
I've read the paper and know what it said, at it is at odds with what you think.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10343.html
And there is this as well:
Lead author Jasper Kirkby has tried to set the record straight, stating (emphasis added):
"[The paper] actually says nothing about a possible cosmic-ray effect on clouds and climate, but it’s a very important first step."
More recently, in May 2013 Kirkby reiterated this point.
"At the present time we can not say whether cosmic rays affect the climate"
From:
http://skepticalscience.com/cern-cloud-proves-cosmic-rays-causing-global...
There are many that disagree with that polittically correct conclusion. Look them up yourself. Here is one to get you started. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/17/new-study-links-cosmic-rays-to-aer...
I am done for tonight and going home. Enjoy the rest of your day.
Sorry WUWT is not a reputable source unlike the actual paper I quoted and the lead author of the paper in question.
Sorry...
Forgot one. http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/07/13/another-cosmic-ray-p...
Thats a 4 year old link about something very different... I;ll give you a hint, all those CRs are included in what I showed you earlier...
You seem very very confused....
You're wrong about climate change Flak - and I can't wait until reality proves it to you.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/weather/research/2010-06-10-cloud-whiteni...
Notice that not one fact is presented and discussed with the "data" to support it. Last I checked (several years ago) the sea level rise was diminimus. Politicized science is dangerous as it is AGENDA driven. Also what about the area opposite the Ross Ice Shelf in Antartica. Last I heard the ice was growing?
It grows and shrinks every year with the passing of the seasons.
There are papers which expect this behaviour in the Antarctic.
Do some real work, you should be able to find them with google in 1 minute, don't be lazy...
Moreover, the total area of the combined Poles is shrinking on a year-over-year basis...
http://www.skepticalscience.com/arctic-antarctic-sea-ice.htm
Lets stick to facts, not bullshit....
Yes for the children.
Here are some of my problems when the statist-leftists in particular as they seize the issue of global warming with orgasmic enthusiasm:
1. The world has been this warm before and the oceans have been free of ice and the world did not end. The science is not settled as to cause and solution yet everyone runs to the most simplistic solutions. Maybe the solution is not less carbon but doing something else to the atmosphere to reflect more sun, etc. Maybe the earth compensates on it's own in ways we do not yet understand. We have had ice ages and higher temps before.
2. If you send another trillion or ten trillion to governments and the U.N. what temperature do we get? I suspect what we get are more rich politicians, their cronies and the same temperatures. We often discuss the megalomaniacal, narcissistic, sociopathic politicians who rule the world. Do they go away with more money and power?
3. Why does government get bigger, more authoritarian and more controlling for every damned problem in the universe?
4. If we get poorer does the atmosphere get better or does it work the other way around?
5. I would like words like "theory", "we think", "hypothesis", etc. to be used more than this idea we actually know what will happen and how. I mean this for both sides of the debate for intellectual honesty.
6. Is a warmer earth all bad? The author states he does not want his kids and grandkids to live in a world 5 or ten degrees warmer. Would he prefer an ice age? What temperature exactly are we aiming at?
Here is something for thought: http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/09/14/us-climate-vikings-idUSTRE68D1L120100914
The Left is off to its usual mad scramble for more power with this issue which is too perfect for statists. If they didn't cry "Wolf!" at every other problem in the world and demand more money, power and immediate action we might listen.
Even if the world is warming and man has a big hand in it color me skeptical on the Leftists and their ability to solve it.
Here educate yourself
http://www.skepticalscience.com/history-climate-science.html
Science works, bitchez.....
Climate Scientist: Global Warming Models Could Be Fundamentally Wrong (21-Jun)
In an interview with the German news publication Der Spiegel, meteorologist Hans von Storch said that scientists are so puzzled by the 15-year standstill in global warming that if the trend continues their models could be “fundamentally wrong.”
"If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models,” Storch told Der Spiegel. “A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario. But even today, we are finding it very difficult to reconcile actual temperature trends with our expectations."
Yes, but it'll be a cold day in hell when the German government stops taxing me extra for the amount of CO2 my car puts out.
Follow the money.
There is no 15 year standstill.
EVERY year has been warmer, every single year.
To deny this means you've already smashed every thermometer you could find so you can't see the real temperatures anywhere.
SANTA IS REAL, DAMN IT. HE COMES TO MY HOUSE EVERY SINGLE YEAR. TO DENY THIS MEANS YOUR SHOES ARE TOO TIGHT AND YOUR HEART IS TWO SIZES TOO SMALL.
Solar input to the earth only matters to heating and cooling when Milankovitch cycle variations govern/moderate photon inputs, and their geographical distributions, over Earth's surface with time. And as watts per meter squared of photons hitting the material surfaces, is after all what ultimately heats and cools earth ... thus ... if the sun's wattage increased, or decreased ... independently of mere orbital variability ... and we already know the sun does do this ... nah, ... that couldn't have anything direct, nor indirect to do with climate variability, and driving, ... as that's only the energy-budget of the whole solar system in flux ... and that couldn't possibly have any detectable effect and make a trend in the climate of earth! ... that would be IMPOSSIBLE!
Yeah, yer right Flak ... it must have been humans driving around in SUVs, and eating extra-farty cows ... it makes total sense.
--
edit: and I don't want to rain on your worry-wart parade or nothing, but I'm pretty sure humans had zero to do with this natural climate variability of a past few million years!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Five_Myr_Climate_Chan...
Stuff that in your science 'doctorate' pipe, and smoke it - FUCKHEAD! Apparently the global data is plainly showing you that the AGW theory is horribly, utterly and entirely wrong, and you ain't even aware enough, or honest enough to face that. This isn't a resources-industry conspiracy against AGW bud, it's just the hard data from the global rock record, so I guess the rocks must be wrong, for 4 billion years or so, and you and IPCC wanker-set must be 'right', since ~1986, huh?
No reeeeaaallly! ... dah humans did eet!!! ... zey deeed! .... wreeeaaaawrllyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
See your little problem here Flak? ... We actually KNOW you're completely full of shit. You just stupidly blamed humanity for earth's observed naturally wildly-swinging climate variability! So we actually KNOW you're completely wrong, so you can scream and whine all you want about how 'right' your conclusions are, but we KNOW you're wrong and have totally rejected pseudo-science cretins like you, and it isn't even hard to tell any of this, we've KNOWN all along, since the first UN IPCC report that all you AGW clowns are completely wrong, and totally dishonest idiots.
And that's why guys like you are just sad little fools inevitably destined for the great rejection shite-pile.
I know this is hard for you to face, but sometimes, just sometimes, the cosmos really did do it ... and has been doing it for billions of years, before we even showed up in fossil beds of the late Quaternary.
Welcome to science.
Incorrect.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=78869
warmer and warmer every single year with July 2012 the hottest month globally since 1880 and hottest in the United States EVER recorded PERIOD.
It is 100% fraud to declare any stop or pause to global warming. It never slowed down or stopped at all. Period.
Hey stumble-bum, hate to break it to you, but you're talking about weather, actual global climate-change, Like that shown in the graph above, is detected on a time-resolution trend of about 500 YEAR RESOLUTION TIME BLOCKS.
And notice within that linked graph that climate is - get this -
A L W A Y S C H A N G I N G !
DUH!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Five_Myr_Climate_Chan...
What that graph is showing is the actual observed nature of normal natural (non-anthropogenic) global climate change, and how radical it commonly and naturally is, and how persistent and unstoppable it is. We are totally irrelevant to what the Earth has been doing. And every one of those spikes and troughs represents a major excursion in sea level of a 100 meters (300 feet) or so.
But what do you suppose the TIME RESOLUTION of that actual real-world global climate-change data is in that graph?
Can you see any mere 20-year weather cyclic trends within that anywhere, bitch?
So yeah 'trend-setters', like that graphs shows, climate is always either going up, or it's going down. You can crap-on like an imbecile about temporary weather fluxes all that you want, but anyone who knows a damn thing about the actual palaeoclimate variability record knows that you are referring to mere weather variability, not climate-change, because there is no such thing as a climate change trend in the palaeoclimate record on the resolution of a mere 20 years.
What you are looking at, fool, is noise, transient blip, short term variability within a long-term background that is much more gradual, and inertia-dominated.
So you AGW idiots need to have a look in about the year 2,350, and you might then be able to say something intelligent about actual climate-change trend, from 1850 to 2350 and prior, but anyone claiming climate is 'changing', on the basis of a shorter period of observation, like just 20 years, is an ignorant incompetent clown, who should be discounted and ignored because they have ZERO sense of proportions and is totally ignorant of what is normal-variability on this planet. Climate changes, but weather variability in sub-500 year time-blocks does NOT equate to actual global climate-change, or any sort of trend.
What you are therefore ploting is climate NOISE.
Certainly you don't want to be making public policy on their say so, as that would quickly become a discredited hopeless complete cluster-fuck.
And so it is.
You need to stop crying in your pathetic little climate-change pity-party, and adjust mentally to revealed reality, and GET THE FUCK OVER IT.
NOPE. What's happening now is a speed-up of warming not seen in Earth's history. We're doing in 50 years what beforehand took thousands.
There's no "getting over it".
We either fix this now by wasting less pollution of heat & gases into the air OR we exterminate all human life FOR SURE within 200 years. Gone. All of us.
OK, I want to see your thermometer and time machine and the continuous GLOBAL daily record data set, from every continent and ocean, for the past thousand years.
Frankly, I don't lay awake at night wondering if humanity is dumb (as I know it is), or will wipe itself out (obviously we will, we almost had a re-run of the bronze-age in Nov 1962), as life's like that. Just look at any fossil bed, full of critters that came and went un noticed. We will go the same, one way or another, at some point. I don't care one bit if it's in 20 years, or next year, or in 50k years. It doesn't matter to me, at all, and no I don't care about our/your genetic posterity.
The simple truth is climate-change is about the very least of our global pseudo-'worries', we have numerous things that we did do, and which are much more threatening and pending, and which we also can't realistically manage or control.
So to laughable guys like you, all I can say is, great big ...
Y A W N ! ................ </snore zzzzzzzzzzzz>
no, that's the point: you don't ever want to see it. That's what climate-change science is and that's why no matter the research, results, evidence, you will declare it null and void. Your empty brain is already made up.
There's nothing to 'make-up', I looked at it, like I look at many things, and there's no crisis, no problem, just a bunch of idiots who refuse to mentally-adjust to the fact that life, and earth, and its climate - changes - always. This was evident when I read the very first IPCC report (not voluntarily though, I had too for my job at that time), it was completely obvious then from geological data that the green house effect was complete nonsense, the post 2005 hardline AGW version of the green-house theory simply clinched the case, from the geology palaeoclimate data, that AGW is total baloney.
What is different however is that a new tribe of morons arose, who imagined they could use political processes and tax dollars to change this.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHAAHHAHAHAH!
... and then some ... it's fucking pathetic to watch though ... lol.
As for 'ignoring' evidence, HA! suck it:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Five_Myr_Climate_Chan...
You're doing the ignoring sport, AGW as a paradigm is hopeless laughable garbage.
in the known history of the Earth this rate of change has NEVER happened before, except just prior to the Permian Extinction Event.
In case you're too dumb to figure that out, that means we all fucking die and very soon.
The CO2 is up, methane is up, volcanic activity is NOT UP and our dumping of these gases into the atmosphere is now exceeding anything nature's done before (except ancient volcanoes, not today's activity).
If the rate of change were real, and so patently obvious, then AGW fraudsters and conman would not have been caught red-handed systematically rigging and biasing the data, in the biggest scientific fraud scandal that I have even heard of within my life time.
If it were real there would be zero need to do that. If that dataset were real and solid then you definitely wouldn't have to do that.
Which is massively damaging to credibility, and if that wasn't for you, then you need to look at yourself, because you have a problem.
So sorry if I seem a little doubtful of your call, it's called being rational and scientific and not jumping at the shadows on the cave wall due to conmen, playing with the climate noise.
Provide real evidence that data critical to AGW conclusion has been faked....
they weren't caught. They didn't do it.
ONE did it. That's a HIM not a "they". ONE.
Element, you rock. While I would not put it the same way, I have decided not lose any sleep on this.
However, I did read that the moon moves one inch farther from the earth every year and now I am worried what that will do to the tides, climate, tectonices etc in a million or 100million years. Maybe we should have a government program for that, too?
Damn it! Now I need that Ambien again!
Your comment at the top was spot on. AGW reminds me a bit of the anti-commie era, the proponents seem very much that way inclined. Present the boogie-man, accuse people of being aligned with faux boogie-man, politicize boogie-man, destroy unbelievers and falsely-accuse the 'heretics' with exceptionally thin, contrived and dubious pretext, whilst asserting all sense and intelligence must be sacrificed to defeat the ever-present menace, that may be so much worse than we expect, or presently accept.
Eventually people woke up to the anti-commie charade, too. The 'threat' was minor, to pathetic, and mostly completely imaginary.
But it seemed so real ... to some. After all, they kept finding so much 'evidence' of commie plotting every time they looked for it ... it was so compelling, they were under the bed!!! lol
"EVERY year has been warmer, every single year."
Citation needed.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=78869
Water vapor is the leading green house gas, not carbon dioxide. But your statist, flat earth friends can't find a way to tax something the oceans naturally produce so they focus on carbon. And did you ever think that maybe the sun has a whole lot to do with warming? Probably not.
Yes, and what happens to water vapor when the relative humidity exceeds the limit imposed by the Clausius-Clapeyron limit at a given temperature? What happens to excess C02?
If you do not know, you should simply STFU and stop parading your ignorance...
It doesn't take a scientist to realize the sun makes heat. Sometimes it takes a child to tell the king he has no clothes.
Me thinks you have a very bad afflication of Dunning-Kruger....
At firsrt i thought you were were being facetious and sarcastic, then i realized you are serious. Someone must care enough about you to see that you get help.
I got a better idea.
Let's first make all the fucked up assholes like Al Gore, Barack Obama, and Nancy Pelosi take a train or fly commercial coach class everywhere they want to visit for the next 5 years just to set a good leadership example for the entire planet.
They should already be doing that if the situtation is so desperate (it's not).
Sacrifice of various sorts is always for the "little" people. Meanwhile, Kerry is looking for a lower tax state for his yatch while Al Gore sells out to Dubai.
+1 for topping out the Sarc meter...
Exhalation tax.
Big ice pack in the Canadian arctic right now.
Come on everybody, breathe out, we need to melt that shit so we can drill for oil.
MisterMousePotato re : "I copied this, IIRC ..."
+infinity! (yes, that's a factorial sign, not an exclamation mark!)
Regardless of whether or not global warming is real, it's funny how all climate-change "solutions" involve taxing and oppressing the plebs and giving money to the people who already have plenty. I swear that when WW3 breaks out, corporations will be claiming carbon credits for the people they kill. (Has anyone checked to see if this isn't already happening?) After all, dead people don't drive gas guzzling V8s (or even 4 or 1 cylinder for that matter).
Meanwhile, we'll continue sending crap all over the world when it can be produced locally,continue built-in obsolescence ('cos business models are sacred, doncha know), keep building cities where people live in one suburb and work and shop in different suburbs a few miles away, we'll keep building "the tallest building in the world", grabmint will continue to pay people to have babies (my goodness, how did all these extra people appear? Don't you know you're destroying the planet? Shame on you, we haven't got enough water or electricity, you'll have to go on rations ...), etc, etc, etc.
Whether GW is a scam or no scam, TPTB will milk the fuck out of it, but at the end of the day they really don't look like they're serious about anything other than lining already - well - lined pockets.
i'm so sick of reading and hearing this global warming myth. Wake the fuck up scientists and engineers and stop listening to the Libtards who want to line their pockets with carbon credits.
Global warming
Global cooling
Global climate stability
All the bad things are caused by the "naughty" free market capitalism, while all the good things are caused by "good" United Nations globalists. Beware if you think nothing is actually happening , watch out! It soon will as we are all to blame and therefore either must be taxed, spanked, forced to comply, or burnt at the stake.
We simply cannot manage without some benevolent central authority watching over us ready to save us from ourselves.
Viva la international committee on human behavior modification!
You'd think some people never heard of 'Climategate' or bothered to look into it.
You'd think they never heard of the impact of sunspot activity on weather.
There's lots of information out there for those who care to investigate.
Of course, these things likely clash with their green religion.
Useful idiots are so helpful to the globalist fascists.
Wow you must pretty ignorant if you think that it is as simple as that, sun spots?
Here is the chart:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm
I linked the version for dummies....
Sticks and stones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Lie
Anyone who would suggest that climate scientists would overlook the role of the sun while simultaneously being capable of measuring sea ice volume from the minute gravitationally induced differences in a pair of satellite orbits is a fool and completely ignorant of how smart we can be as a species....
It is called the Dunning-Kruger effect and is very common among deniers of AGW....
And so, the knowledge of a man, who did work hard for a long time to gain it in the first place, falls victim to the contempt of those who deem it the hubris of someone just being presumptious, where the dumbocracy shares it's gifts oh-so equally among us all.
This is in fact Dunning-Kruger ...
Sorry, that is not DK, thanks for playing though...
That is not Dunning Kruger. Absolutely right - that's in fact Horkheimer and Adorno. (I thought you would recognize.) But the underestimation of others knowledge and the bare possibility of that knowledge is an essential part of DK, wouldn't you agree? Anyways, thanks for trying to establish a somewhat scientific accurateness.
Actaully, reconsidering what you wrote is one way to express DK... My bad, sometimes I get a little hasty here...
Ummm did you know (of course you didn't) the methodology for measuring Sun spots has been changed in recent times, and guess what the result has been? The Sun spot number has increased.
You would think that someone wants to hide something. Luckily some use the old method that gives comparable data continuity, so the distant past can be compared to the present. http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/50
Write a paper on it and submit it for peer review... Offer to collaborate with Anthony Watts, get funded by the Kochs, They would pay millions to anyone that could falsify AGW in a scientific journal of even modest repute...
But we both know why you won't do that....
"climate-gate" is super-busted, absolutely debunked.
ONE just ONE study had some false data in it. Discarding that ONE study from GLOBAL WARMING is like discarding ONE, precisely ONE article on zerohedge out of ALL of them ever written on gold.
It changes NOTHING.
The end result of GW and the eco-freak movements is that some or many people need to "go". Everything is a manmade and population problem that leftist elites must solve. Carbon dioxide is now a pollutant and we are all guilty of pollution by our mere existance. Someone will have to decide who lives and who...becomes fertilizer for the good of the planet.
common myths on zh:
gold is a bubble
government is a myth
we can print our way to prosperity
fascism is capitalism
quotes from revelations
any serious claim that god(s) are real
any claim the bible is credible or moral
global warming is a hoax
fascism is socialism
gold has no yield so it's a bad investment
communism is socialism
"The world is warming. The overwhelming evidence is that it’s caused by human activities"
computer says no - show your data
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
Is that best you can do?? A web site funded in part by the Koch Bros?
Too funny. Do you think that there might be issues with impartiallity?
What I like is that funding by anyone on the right is suspect but not the left or those with an interest in ever bigger government. The Kochs are libertarians as far as I can tell which makes them rationalists and skeptics in general. That makes them good people in my book.
Even the ice in my freezer melts around the edges.
If we did not have ice melting, the planet would be covered in ice, Even during the ice age, ice was melting at the limits of ice mass.
This has always been the dumbest proof for this topic.
i would seriously like to eat poalr bear, tomrrow.
some times you eat the bear
sometimes the bear eats you ..
it is 92 degrees ..too hot
north of the alaskan range
Not this climate change nonsense here on ZH too. Take your religion somewhere else!
Thank you!
Peddle this populist bullshit in another venue... Please.
Populist? No.
Libtarded? More like it.
No shit...perhaps the site has been sold with no announcement?
SPIEGEL: How long will it still be possible to reconcile such a pause in global warming with established climate forecasts?
Storch: If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models. A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario. But even today, we are finding it very difficult to reconcile actual temperature trends with our expectations.
SPIEGEL: What could be wrong with the models?
Storch: There are two conceivable explanations -- and neither is very pleasant for us. The first possibility is that less global warming is occurring than expected because greenhouse gases, especially CO2, have less of an effect than we have assumed. This wouldn't mean that there is no man-made greenhouse effect, but simply that our effect on climate events is not as great as we have believed. The other possibility is that, in our simulations, we have underestimated how much the climate fluctuates owing to natural causes.
SPIEGEL: That sounds quite embarrassing for your profession, if you have to go back and adjust your models to fit with reality…
Storch: Why? That's how the process of scientific discovery works. There is no last word in research, and that includes climate research. It's never the truth that we offer, but only our best possible approximation of reality. But that often gets forgotten in the way the public perceives and describes our work.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-hans-von-storch-on-problems-with-climate-change-models-a-906721.html
Clearly, there is a need for a new-newer-newest-improved-expanded-mathematical-presuppossed model to better predict the inaccuracy and irrelevancy of past climate models for the posterity of mankind...or sumpin ;-)
if we have global warming what do we need oil for?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLOzy4G0LYU
It's the sun's fault.
Invade, pacify, nation build and teach Mr Universe a lesson, Goddammit.
Oh yeah, He might have something to do with it. Or mother nature...
Yes, isn't it amazing that this Big Blue Marble has endured through billions of years. Its experienced asteroid hits, volcanoes, and shifting continental plates. But somehow puny man will screw it all up unless we pay money to Al Gore ?
George Carlin's take:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c
I think you're leaving out those "extinction level events" which wiped out large swaths of life on Earth.
This WILL be one of them and then we're done. Gone. No more humans.
If it eliminates all the damned leftists, it might be worth it.
Nuke the sun from space
It's the only way to be sure...
the revolution will be sold...
at a discount.
Starting to look that way guys...unless this shit stops.
Need those guys who built the models for Lehman Bros.
No Risk. MOAR.
Is this guy a Squid lackey or what?
Best bumper sticker ever: Nuke Gay Whales For Christ
I hope I live long enough to ride on an electric powered aircraft. There is no pollution generated when charging and no efficiency loses through this process. The manufacturing of EV's,wind turbines,solar panels etc. are pollution free too. Really glad that these new technologies stand on their own without subsidy. And a good thing that the wanton pollution generated by the likes of China and India stops at their borders. What's not to like?
Whale oil is a renewable resource. It can be burned in diesel engines. May be it's The Answer To Our Dilemma.
Anybody want to buy some stock in a whale farm?
"Otherwise, it’s going to get awfully hot, and rising seas are going to pose a major threat to cities from Shanghai to Miami."
Yeah but we also lose DC, New York, and London. That's a win in my book.
Yea verily, +1
Fuck that. They'll just move to our cities and then what?
Roadblocks and spike strips, they will not make it very far on foot.
A win win win, even. Triumverate of serpents.
Great, but we're still stuck with Detroit, Baltimore, etc.
Could we find a way to slide the left coast underwater, too?
It will happen in time.