The Federal government released its latest multi-agency report on climate change this week. The report is more bleak than past versions. Less and less of the climate change debate is focused on future projections as we start to experience the changing climate in ways that are increasingly apparent in the present. A few highlights:
Arctic Sea Ice
“Sea ice in the Arctic has decreased dramatically since the satellite record began in 1978. Minimum Arctic sea ice extent (which occurs in early to mid-September) has decreased by more than 40%. This decline is unprecedented in the historical record, and the reduction of ice volume and thickness is even greater. Ice thickness decreased by more than 50% from 1958-1976 to 2003-2008. The percentage of the March ice cover made up of thicker ice (ice that has survived a summer melt season) decreased from 75% in the mid-1980s to 45% in 2011.”
Awesome graphic: http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/highlights/report-findings/our-changing-climate#graphic-20966
Changing frost zones
“The lengthening of the frost-free season has been somewhat greater in the western U.S. than the eastern U.S., increasing by 2 to 3 weeks in the Northwest and Southwest, 1 to 2 weeks in the Midwest, Great Plains, and Northeast, and slightly less than 1 week in the Southeast. These differences mirror the overall trend of more warming in the north and west and less warming in the Southeast.”
Carbon Emissions are the driver for warming climate
“The conclusion that human influences are the primary driver of recent climate change is based on multiple lines of independent evidence. The first line of evidence is our fundamental understanding of how certain gases trap heat, how the climate system responds to increases in these gases, and how other human and natural factors influence climate. The second line of evidence is from reconstructions of past climates using evidence such as tree rings, ice cores, and corals. These show that global surface temperatures over the last several decades are clearly unusual, with the last decade (2000-2009) warmer than any time in at least the last 1,300 years and perhaps much longer.
“The third line of evidence comes from using climate models to simulate the climate of the past century, separating the human and natural factors that influence climate. When the human factors are removed, these models show that solar and volcanic activity would have tended to slightly cool the earth, and other natural variations are too small to explain the amount of warming. Only when the human influences are included do the models reproduce the warming observed over the past 50 years.”
Yes, it still snows sometimes…
“Winter storms have increased in frequency and intensity since the 1950s, and their tracks have shifted northward over the United States., Other trends in severe storms, including the intensity and frequency of tornadoes, hail, and damaging thunderstorm winds, are uncertain and are being studied intensively. There has been a sizable upward trend in the number of storms causing large financial and other losses.”
Sea level rise
“Global sea level has risen about 8 inches since reliable record keeping began in 1880. It is projected to rise another 1 to 4 feet by 2100. The oceans are absorbing over 90% of the increased atmospheric heat associated with emissions from human activity. Like mercury in a thermometer, water expands as it warms up (this is referred to as “thermal expansion”) causing sea levels to rise. Melting of glaciers and ice sheets is also contributing to sea level rise at increasing rates.”
As the evidence of climate change becomes more immediate and undeniable and the denial more blindly obstinate, it’s worth remembering an entertaining irony. The most palatable, just, and affordable strategy for coping with the problem of climate change comes, as is so often the case, from a Libertarian economist. Ronald Coase was part of the now-legendary core of University of Chicago economists who helped bring Libertarian theory into mainstream public policy. Coase, along with his “Chicago School” colleague Milton Friedman, helped design pollution markets as an alternative to regulation.
Of course, what passed for Libertarianism a generation ago is a bit too thinky for a movement that’s been taken over by Neo-Confederates. Nevertheless, Libertarians deserve credit for cap and trade. It remains the best solution we have.
Chris Ladd is a Texan living in the Chicago area. He has been involved in grassroots Republican politics for most of his life. He was a Republican precinct committeeman in suburban Chicago until he resigned from the party and his position after the 2016 Republican Convention. He can be reached at gopliferchicago at gmail dot com.
GOPLifer 
oh man the rucas posse is stirred up!!
Look at all the stuff they are screaming about shutting up about!
“Look at all the stuff they are screaming about shutting up about!”
What does that even mean, my good friend?
“What does that even mean, my good friend?”
Nothing, rucasdad. DanMan just has a persistent case of logorrhea; he can’t control either the timing or the logical consistency of his outputs.
Duly noted, Owl. By the way, always good seeing you and reading your comments.
Reminds me of the time Chris said goodbye to us here because he was off for vacation and Dan was gloating about “my work here is done”. Made no effing sense at all.
Dan is special. We must always keep that in mind when engaging with him.
shut up!
you preening liberal dumbasses are a hoot though…on to the next thread
“shut up”? How childish.
“Ted Cruz Refuses To Surrender! He Has Introduced Legislation To Investigate Benghazi!” reads the fundraising solicitation from the group, Patriots for Economic Freedom. The email goes on to ask for contributions, ranging from $25 to $1,000, to support Cruz “in his efforts to create a Senate select committee to investigate Benghazi.”
I can not…for the LIFE of me…think of another politician that is as successful and productive at making people hate them as much as Theodore does. It’s actually brilliant if his schtick wasn’t serious.
Well there is some good news. Tea Party challengers in most of the primaries that have been held so far are dropping like flies.
Sassy, despite all their faux rage (tea baggers), they are still just rats in the establishment cage.
But they are losing their teeth Rucas, may be the beginning of something like sanity coming back to the GOP.
When you are hated by the right people, that is good news indeed. Thanks.
“When you are hated by the right people, that is good news indeed. Thanks.”
Ok, no worries…you’re welcome.
Just as I suspected, North Korea and the GOPTPS are brothers in arms.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/north-korean-screed-against-obama-illustrates-race-based-worldview/2014/05/08/9bc7a68f-7b71-4110-b4f1-85ae05c92777_story.html?hpid=z3
That awkward and ironic time when republicans became Hanoi Jane.
http://benghaziwatchdogs.com/
Yea, just let that settle in for a moment…
You’re right. The democrats refuse to investigate the deaths of four Americans. That is deplorable.
Even after taking your opinion into account, Kabuzz, the fact remains that it is republicans that are benefiting monetarily off four dead Americans killed overseas. And that, is disgusting even for modern day republican standards.
The Republicans have got nothing. Making themselves look stupid is becoming a full time occupation.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/06/opinion/kohn-benghazi-gop/
Investigate what? Four men died in the service of their country. It was unfortunate and probably could have been prevented (like most of the 3,000+ servicemen and women who died in Iraq). They deserve to be honored as the brave Americans that they were. End of story.
Why were the troops held back, John? Why was the requested extra security not allowed? Why did the Obama adminstration keep tring to blame it on a video (actually that one is obvious)? Yes, there are people that do care about things like terrorist attacks (human caused disasters if you listen to Obama) against our people.
On Iraq, you should have convinced Saddam Hussein to stop waging war against us. Probably would have been even better if you had convinced him not to invade Kuwait and start the war in the first place.
Capt (god, I don’t know why I or anyone else wastes the time), if we’re to take your ad nauseam right wing talking points as fact (which they’re not) – does that make it ok for republicans to benefit monetarily off the bodies of four dead Americans?
That’s a “yes” or “no” question.
No, that is called begging the question.
The troops were held back because there was no way sufficient force could be projected into the area in time to prevent the deaths.
The extra security was not provided because resources are finite and State underestimated the risks.
The Obama admin has not blamed it on a video since a few days after the attack. If you’re keeping score at home, that makes one week of citing the video and 85 weeks of declaring it was a terrorist attack.
Saddam Hussein was no immediate threat to us. We invaded based on faulty intelligence (kind of like that faulty intelligence in Benghazi) and utterly botched the follow up (kind of like Benghazi). The primary difference is 3,000 lives and about $1 trillion. If one was a screw up worthy of investigation, then the other one was too. Have the honesty to be consistent for one second.
There was plenty of time to get the troops there, even justr drop some bombs. Of of tthe troops died painting the targets with a laser, expecting help at any time.
Extra security was justified and needed, especially considering there was plenty available to turn the country upside down. The Obama administration spent weeks blaming it all on a video.
The 2003 incasion of Iraq was not based on faulty intelligence. Iraq was and always had been in violation of the imposed cease-fire. We not only removed the warring Hussein regime, but actually acomplished quite a bit more, like coming close to actually destroying al Qaeda. Don’t worry though, Obama is working hard to reverse that.
Grow up rucas, both parties do that. Cheesh!! You can’t be that naïve can you?
JG, please look up the facts before to tout DNC talking points.
The ambassador was on the phone with Washington begging for help before he was murdered. The president of Libya said almost immediately it was a planned attack. France had more security then Libya. Clinton said she did not read the cables herself but had an underling do it. There is so much wrong and you know, and we know that if a republican had done this, you would be all over it.
Kabuzz, I am completely willing to admit that mistakes were made. There should have been better security. I said that in a response to Sternn, who completely missed the point, as usual. Are you willing to admit that mistakes were made in Iraq? And that those mistakes cost 750 times more American lives than Benghazi?
The fact is that when distress calls were made, there wasn’t a police station down the road. The nearest help was embassy security staff two hours away in Tripoli. Had those personnel been transferred to Benghazi and an attack occurred in Tripoli, then I’m sure you would be reserving judgement (right?). The nearest uncommitted forces were many hours away.
Sternn, you’re going to have to learn to type in English before I understand what you accuse me of.
I didn’t stutter, John. The attack in Banghazi lasted for several hours, so there was plenty of time for troops to be scrabled and get there.
Mistakes were made in Iraq. It was wrong to complety dismantle the military and police forces after the invasion to remove the Hussein regime. That doesn’t compare to the Obama administration doing nothing, then blaming a video for weeks on end.
That doesn’t compare? Fundamental strategic errors that went on for years and directly or indirectly led to the deaths of thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of (mostly innocent) Iraqis doesn’t compare? Your moral compass needs to be reset.
Fund raising on the graves of Americans. Par for the course.
The really sad thing about this entire event is that if Republicans would have focused on the real scandel here (i.e. that the office was obviously underprepared from a security standpoint given the unrest in te country at the time), they could have raised an important polical issue and perhaps gained some politcal points at the same time.
Instead, they attempted to play this war of words over whether the attack was terrorism; inspired by Al Queda; inspired by some nutjob’s film in Southern California; a mob; an organized mob; planned by Al Queda; not planned by Al Queda…in the end WHO CARES!
Republicans have shot themselves in the foot repeatedly since Obama took office. They have especially fumbled any chance they ever had at proper criticism. So, in the end, to me, it’s not necessarily “who cares” but more of a “I really don’t give a shit about what they’re talking about anymore”. I really don’t. I can’t think of a more deserving group that needs a tall glass of SHUT THE F*** UP.
Fantasy land fellow’s. The GOP is focusing on the call for more security at the time. The ambassador that was murdered was on the phone begging for help. It seems everyone is aware of Clinton and Obama’s screw up but you guys. Read other things. Learn. It is exciting.
Capt, my apologies, I should have just done what I thought initially and asked the one with the real marbles….
Tutt, if we’re to take Capt’s ad nauseam right wing talking points as fact (which they’re not) – does that make it ok for republicans to benefit monetarily off the bodies of four dead Americans?
Thanks in advance!
[vow of silence]
He won’t even let you speak now? You….poor thing. Make an obvious typo if you need help!
🙂
What makes you think republicans are benefitting, other than exposing the lies from democrats? It is starting gto look as if you want it all swept under the rug so democrats can benefit from the bodies of four dead U.S. Citizens.
They do Captain. The echo chamber just will not own up to the disaster that killed four Americans and the cover up that ensued.
http://gawker.com/watch-bill-nye-bully-a-climate-skeptic-with-facts-on-1573589262
(Sigh)… Why, S.E. Cupp, WHY!!!??
Good for the young’ins! It’s their world we are destroying so makes me happy to see them fighting back.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/5/4/youth-sue-governmentforclimateinaction.html?utm_campaign=wklynewsletter050814&utm_source=editorialnewsletter&utm_medium=email
Another off topic comment:
It seems the “Patriots” supporting Bundy are getting more brazen with their methods. I federal wrangler transporting horses on Utah’s I-15 was threatened by several men that brandished a firearm at him. Why we are tolerating this band of fools is beyond me.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57917374-78/wrangler-blm-reid-pickup.html.csp
Apparently White, right-wing terrorists are just *fine* to conservative Republicans….
The citizen’s of the town are getting fed up with them and if someone gets shot the shit’s going to the fan.
**hit the fan.
The Mormon Church has had about all they can stomach to the Bundy 3 ring circus.
http://www.mynews3.com/content/video/default.aspx?videoID=5069420
Bundy is one of those offshoot fundamentalists with lots of wives and about 50 kids. They are all anti-government and refuse to recognize US federal law and all the while their “spiritual” wives get welfare checks because they are technically single mothers.
The Mormon Church does not recognize polygamy these days. But the U.S. was at war with them at one point, and governor ordered their extermination. Gee, I wonder why they have no real trust in government?
Cappy – The US Government was never at war with Mormons. The infamous Utah Wars was started by a bunch of conspiracy weirdos that live in paranoia (see mirror) that ended up massacring a bunch of settlers traveling through the region. The Mormons tried to blame the Native Americans for the massacre and after slaughtering all the men, women, and older children they kidnapped the children under 7 years of aged and gave them to Mormon families.
Do not try to rewrite the history of these events,
Turtles, why is it that the Mormons settled in Utah? That is not where they started.
Cappy wrote: Turtles, why is it that the Mormons settled in Utah? That is not where they started.
Because areas like Missouri, Ohio, and Illinois the local people often through the use of local and state government sought to suppress and kill LDS members. In Missouri the non-Mormons in the area harassed and committed acts of mob violence on members of the LDS Church. There were number of reasons for these acts but mainly it was because the LDS communities by working together became very prosperous, they began to gain political power, and LDS members held held abolitionist views.
The Utah territory was settled to escape the hardships visited upon them and to this day we celebrate this migration.
Which is kind of my point, why would the Mormons have any real trust in governemnt to begin with? I find it very understandable why they wouldn;t.
But are you not the one that continuously claims that local governments govern best? In this example it like other examples in our history the source of oppression came from state and local governments. The federal government had nothing to do with these acts.
The Utah Wars were the result of local governments trying to assert control and they massacred innocent people in doing so.
Why did the Mormon Church abandon polygamy, Turtles?
Why? Because the Church President at the time issued a statement that no more plural marriages were to take place. The Prophet at the time President Woodruff received a revelation from Jesus Christ that the practice of plural marriages was to end. This improved relations with the US government and helped pave the way for statehood.
So in answer to your question, the Prophet halted plural marriages within the LDS church due to a revelation by Jesus Christ.
Trivia Time. Which party ran on a platform that compared plural marriage to slavery?
Republicans.
In fact they campaigned that Democratic President James Buchanan was weak on both issues.
http://www.ushistory.org/gop/convention_1856.htm
Why won’t the democrats investigate the deaths of four Americans? I mean, they weren’t threatened, they were killed. You don’t have to be white to want to know the truth do you?
Oh hell Buzz, I guess because most Americans are tired of wasting money on the GOP witch hunts. You got nothing, nada, zilch. Why throw the race card in there?
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/06/opinion/kohn-benghazi-gop/
The new committee to investigate Benghazi has hit the road running. Look at the tough questions they are asking:
1. Why was security lacking during the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S.?
2. Why weren’t military units moving to support consulate personnel?
3. Why were references to “terrorist” and “attacks” edited out of the Obama administration’s talking points?
Who cares if these questions have been asked and answered multiple times. The only scandal around Benghazi is the money republicans are making from “investigating” it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/07/trey-gowdy-benghazi-questions_n_5283863.html
Four Americans dead and turtles sums it up like Clinton. Who cares?
When you don’t care for the military, I don’t expect much else.
F*ck off Buzzy. At least in war time I did not volunteer to sit safely on some ship.
Off topic, but who cares………
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/05/08/americas-game-of-thrones/
Great article and very true.
…so saith the progenitor of ever sovereign of England, Scotland and now the United Kingdom since Henry IV.
It’s okay I was going to post this off-topic link.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/new-life-scientists-create-first-semisynthetic-organism-9333371.html
I read your article, went to Wikipedia– I’m very stupid.
Well then, I’ll post this one.
http://econbrowser.com/archives/2014/04/state-employment-trends-does-a-low-taxright-to-worklow-minimum-wage-regime-correlate-to-growth-addendum
It turns out that an ALEC-inspired agenda of low taxes, right-to-work union-busting policies, and low minimum wage actually has NO correlation to growth for a state.
It’s awfully useful for the rich, though, if they can buy the politicians to implement it.
This is a good one. Trust Michelle aka “Crazy Eyes” Bachmann to come up with this.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/08/1297857/-Michele-Bachmann-delivers-with-insane-rantings-against-women-s-history-museum?detail=facebook#
Owl-
A group of people form a club in the lunchroom of a company. They elect officers. They invite other employees in the club. They charge dues. From these dues, they pay the officers, (some of whom so much that they treble their salaries), and form lobbying groups that funnel money to politicians. They achieve through this method influence enough to get the politicians to pass laws that effectively require everyone working at the company to join the club. If an employee doesn’t like the causes that the club supports with his money, well tough shit. He can’t work there. End of story.
Right to work? What have I missed here, Owl? Have you, my feathered and erstwhile intelligent and articulate friend, completely lost your freaking mind?
Thanks for the backhanded complement, fifty. 🙂
Unions are not perfect. They can also be pernicious, and certainly have been.
Of course, the same can be said for company management.
Labor unions have had an undeniable effect on improving the lot of the common laborer in the United States. And they can be an important balancing force in what can otherwise become the very lopsided relationship between management and labor.
Do I think labor unions need regulation? Absolutely; at least as much as does corporate management. There’s a balance to be struck, and government *should* be a valuable third leg of the triad, never leaning too much toward one side or the other. (The fact that the two political parties which represent the only viable choices in our current electoral system have become identified with opposite ends of the management-labor relationships represents part of the fatal flaw in that electoral system!)
Hmmm, there is a big part of me which thinks, ‘Unions, part of our past, served a purpose but now…..Stallone, corruption, dudes sitting by the side of the road getting paid, teachers who can’t be fired…..’
And I think I’m in agreement with Fitty on unions, they are a relic of the past and another piece of oligarchy which doesn’t bother the cool kids–but the whole ‘low taxes, no regulation and don’t ever touch minimum wage’ is strictly creditor, entrenched interests, b—s–t.
They certainly are. About 30 years irrelevant.
Owl- Thank you for taking (not unexpectedly) my comment as I intended.
Actually, I take issue with nothing you said, save the part regarding ‘management’ needing ‘government regulation’. If, by that you mean companies should be enjoined from stealing, ripping off shareholders, misleading customers or otherwise violating contracts, and a host of other practices, then again, we have no disagreement.
But as crogged stated, unions have largely outlived their usefulness in America. While I would absolutely oppose any legal prohibition regarding their existence, formation, or membership, the right of a worker not to join one is, (or should be), axiomatic – if not perfectly symmetrical.
This Sunday will be the 100th anniversary of “Mothers Day”. “In May 1907, Anna Jarvis, a member of a Methodist congregation in Grafton, West Virginia, passed out 500 white carnations in church to commemorate the life of her mother. One year later, the same Methodist church created a special service to honor mothers. Many progressive and liberal Christian organizations — like the YMCA and the World Sunday School Association — picked up the cause and lobbied Congress to make Mother’s Day a national holiday. And, in 1914, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson made it official and signed Mother’s Day into law. Thus began the modern celebration of Mother’s Day in the United States.”
Don’t forget to let the mothers in your life know how special they are.
Amen.
http://www.mothersdaycentral.com/about-mothersday/history/
The real and whole story not a pick and choose version. Also, Anna Jarvis fought very hard to have the day taken off the calendar when she saw how commercial it became. Good try to link it to progressives but, EH! Wrong.
I have very much respect for mothers of my generation, but today’s mothers that treat babies as something they can kill because it is inconvenient to their life at that moment tarnishes the image. So this mother’s day, I hope all women who had abortions will consider how old the child will be and what that child might have done for the world.
I knew it–PAGANS are behind Mothers Day and those damnable French stole it from us too. Out of deference to Julia Ward Howe’s poem I wonder if Fox News will declare Sunday “Benghazi Free Day”?
kabuzz, abortion doesn’t “kill” a “baby”, except in potential.
Obviously.
Perhaps your own mother should have raised you to be less of a cretin.
You may hope but I doubt they will. Most women go into clinics after much thought and consideration. They make their choice.
Wandering through an airport and unable to really participate, but I was just struck by the meanness and unpleasantness of Buzz’s comment regarding women today.
Oh, the good old days of your generation when women were just better people.
It may do you some good to fire up the old google machine to check a bit of your history because oddly enough, abortion wasn’t invented with Roe v Wade.
Estimates of the number of illegal abortions in the 1950s and 1960s ranged from 400,000 to 1.2 million per year. The good and wholesome women of your generation had abortions, they just had to do it illegally, at great risk to their lives and well-being.
I’m pretty sure I want to live in the world where today’s smart and wonderful women have more control over their lives and do not have to hide from judgmental [insert bad word] who never have to worry about walking a mile in anyone’s uterus.
Maybe kabuzz just needs to look at some actual data (quelle horreur!) rather than issue tired broadsides of talking points.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/01/daily-chart-15
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/graphusabrate.html
Abortion rates are declining, and have been ever since Roe v. Wade, despite the apocalyptic ravings of the forced-birth crowd. But many fewer women have died due to the frantic resort to an illegal abortion, too.
Of course, perhaps kabuzz figures that such women *should* die. It would seem to fit with some of the rest of his outlook.
No hate Homer just truth my friend. I said tarnish, OMG. And of course your statistics of abortions before Roe are spot on.
Buzz…who said anything about hate…other than you?
You mention just “the truth” but it certainly doesn’t seem like your generation was much less prone to “killing babies”.
If you have other data regarding abortion in your generation, I’d be interested in seeing it.
I’m assuming you are just a bit older than me, and let’s just say you are at or near your 60s. All those good and wholesome women of your generation would have been in their prime unintended pregnancy years in the 70s, and there were a whole bunch of abortions going on in the 70s.
Why, with the significant reductions in abortion over the past 20 years, it almost seems like women today are more thoughtful and careful than those of your generation.
However, let’s be sure to keep them off your lawn.
I don’t buy into that claim, HT. There is no real way to track illegal abortions before Roe vs Wade, so you can just make up numbers to suit your argument. Killing innocent people for convenience should be illegal no matter what stage of life they are at, what color their skin is, what religion, if any, they practice.
Owl, when do you expect to reach the level of being a person since you are only a potential human being at this point?
Captain, that is my point. Homer is blowing smoke.
Declining or not, it is still killing. Instead of a million a year dead, we have 976,000. Hooray! Success. How tragic.
Make sure to compost those Mother’s Day flowers – or buy a potted plant. Organic materials produce large amounts of methane in landfills.
http://www.cawrecycles.org/issues/ghg/compost
Celebrate Mother’s Day responsibly. 🙂
🙂
WE don’t do the flower thing. We just do something special like a dinner out and a long walk on the beach.
I’m too old to have kids at this stage in my life, and I was thinking just this morning how I will never see life from the perspective of a mother, like most women do. I will always be a “kid.”
In Mexico, Mother’s Day is May 10 no matter the day of the week, so I will be calling my aunts this Saturday. My tías are all 80-ish — traditional Mexican wives and mothers. Things are much improved for women now, but God bless those ladies from past generations for their sacrifices.
Tutta, I’ll bet your tias are thrilled that you appreciate them enough to call on Mother’s Day. I had Tantes (although these church ladies were not related) who kept me in line growing up – while trying to instill values of thrift, diligence and industriousness. They were not successful in my case, but I still wish I was more like them! These older ladies truly are a treasure.
I plan on opening a bottle of wine and maybe taking a walk to see the “purple mountain majesties” Crogged has mentioned. There is a not a beach within a thousand miles of where I live … although there are vast quantities of sand. Still, the mountains and mesas are beautiful out in the distance.
Good discussion but the die hard ‘the sky is falling’ refuse to believe anything but the worst. Expected.
I like what Tutt suggested. We all do our own little thing in our lives to make the planet clean.
Thank you.
The AGW alarmists love to focus on CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels, but that is ignoring reality, science and basic facts. CO2 is a very minor greehouse gas. Water vapor makes up 95% of the greenhouse gas in our atmosphere. So CO2 plays a small part at best, and the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere generally follows the rise in temperature instead of preceding..
Human activity contributes about 3 billion tons of CO2 per year, while natural forces contribute around 210 billion tons per year according to scientists. The alarmists claim that global warming will, has and does cause extreme weather events, but expert scientists in that field say the opposite would be the case.
Bottom line, human activity has no real effect on the global climate. As I mentioned to Fly far below, the alarmists might as well blame humans boiling water on the stove as the culprit since water vapor makes up so much of the greenhouse gasses.
So, next time you decide to make some pasta, don’t do it because you are causing global warming with all that steam. Yes, HT’s satire/sarcasm really did a great job of painting a picture of the alarmists.
HT, I did save that comment. Don’t be suprissed if you see it in the future, but I will always give credit where credit is do. You could even become a hero to the skeptics of AGW. Maybe I can use it to start a chain mail. I would love to see that take off. I would have to take one of those chain mails with the FW: FW: FW: FW:(tons of email addresses) and hijack it, of course. Shouldn’t be too hard. 😉
It’s 30 billion tons per year released by human activity. This is in excess of the carbon cycle of CO2 produced by animals and absorbed by plants. No natural process that doesn’t involve asteroids, comets, or cataclysmic volcanoes can explain rises in atmospheric CO2 or temperatures as fast as in the last 100 years.
But don’t worry: you’ll be dead before this has much impact on you, so keep playing that fiddle.
You say 30, scientists say 3. I think I will go with what the scientists say and you can stick with being the science-denier.
Now don’t use any warm or hot water, water vapor is the biggest greenhouse gas. And don’t pee into the Gulf, that “influences” sea levels.
The graph in the link shows the emissions of CO2 from the United States alone. They hover around 5,000 million metric tons per year, or 5 billion metric tons or 5.5 billion English tons. Your understanding of what scientists say on this subject is mistaken, continuing a long trend of such misunderstanding. Further evidence would be your suggestion that peeing into the Gulf would raise sea levels.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.html
Sternn, have human beings and our civilization had a significant effect on the amount of water vapor consistently present in the atmosphere?
“Well, gawly, Owl, no….”
Sternn, if every human being on the planet (10 billion or so) discharged a full bladder (750 mL or so, on average) into the world’s oceans (area approximately 510 million km^2), they’d raise sea level by (10^9 people * .00075 m^3) / (510 * 10^6 km^2 * 10^6 m^2/km^2 ) or 0.0000000015 meters. That’s 1.5 * 10^–9 m, or about a quarter the size of a hemoglobin molecule. Big whoop.
Now, if the West Antarctic ice sheet (2.2 * 10^6 km^3) were to collapse, sea levels would rise 4.8 meters. For reference, that’s about 3 *billion* times the effect of humanity’s combined bladders.
“Gawly, Owl, Ah was gigglin’ about that there piddlin’ in tha story than Ah was aktually inclined to do any math….”
Such is obvious.
As for the question of magnitude, the EPA ( http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.html ) indicates U.S. CO2 gas emissions to be consistently above 5,000 million metric tons. Since that’s just the U.S., I suspect John Galt’s figure is more reliable than yours.
Which, again, is no big surprise.
So, John, there really is no consensus among scientists about all this. Imagine that.
Owl, do I need to explain what that “whooshing” sound you heard was?
Nope, I got it.
It’s the vacuum between your ears.
There is a fine consensus, Sternn, you simply have it wrong. I posted a link to the US numbers only, which far exceeded the 3 billion tons to which you keep clinging. As a helpful hint, you stand a chance (not a good one, at least based on your history) of arguing interpretations. You stand not a snowball’s chance of arguing facts. I won’t post more than one of the literally dozens of links that all show the same basic figure – in this one it was 31 billion in 2010 and 34 billion in 2012.
Click to access pbl-2013-trends-in-global-co2-emissions-2013-report-1148.pdf
My source would be from 2008, John, so it is possible that the numbers have increased, especially due to China and India. But I do noty believe they have increased by that much.
And CO2 is still a minor greenhouse gas. Owl doesn’t realize it, but his numbers are a good example of how little influence human beings and human activity have on “influencing” the climate. We have nothing on nature when it comes to things liek that. Imagine that, both Owl and HT explaining how little “influence” humans have while not realizing what they were doing.
Sternn, define “minor” as you’re using it above.
Oh, but I forgot: definitions, and indeed the logical structure of the entire world, are mere putty in your childish hands, so long as it keep your fantasies intact and safe.
Twit.
People who say AGW is a scam are a curious, if unsurprising, bunch. What exactly do scientists get out of scamming the public on something like this? The usual answer I hear is that scientists are all trying to score grant money. But a scientist can get grant money from a variety of sources, including the petroleum industry, which has a huge interest in disproving AGW. Just ask the Koch brothers, who blew through a good pile of cash trying to find a scientist that would disprove it and found out they were wrong.
Science doesn’t give a crap about your economic philosophy, people. It is what it is.
If a scientist is as committed to his climate religion as you seem to be perhaps his income based on that fervor is merely gravy.
It isn’t just the few scientists, it is mostly politicians trying to get someting for their nation while slowing down others.
Y’know, it would be useful if perhaps the yammering crowds of conspiracy theorists could present some actual *proof* of their claims. But we all know that Republicans stopped living in the “reality-based community” sometime during the George W. Bush years.
Several folks have shown clear connections between funding by the Koch Brothers or their minions (such as the Heartland Institute), or multinational petroleum companies, and scientists who take a contrarian view of global climate change. Yet no-one has shown such a connection between the supposed masterminds behind the climate-change “conspiracy” and the vast majority of scientists, from a multitude of fields, who use publicly available data and peer-reviewed publications to demonstrate the clear reality of anthropogenic climate change.
Reality obviously has a liberal bias; that must be why so many conservatives prefer to spend most of their time elsewhere.
Ever hear of the IPCC, Owl? Politicians appointed by politicians in the UN. And that “peer reviewed” material, usually comes from a student paper not based on anything to do with reality.
Some of us didn’t fall off the turnip truck just this morning. And we already know you and others will just dismiss any links. To be fair, so will our side.
No Sternn, you are right, that train left the station some time ago.
I don’t particularly care about the IPCC, Sterrn. I care about the vast majority of actual, working scientists in a variety of disciplines who have demonstrated with a remarkable amount of evidence the ongoing warming happening to our planet, and its clear correlation with the massive CO2 releases coincident with the Industrial Revolution.
But I understand your desire to avoid actually talking about science. It apparently doesn’t agree with you, either digestively or epistemologically.
Again, for the slow learners. Global warming is happening but we believe it is cyclical. Human’s may have an effect but a little one. Many of those ‘scientists’ you worship believe it is cyclical.
Unless you are talking Dr. Phil, or Oprah.
“Many”? Name some.
Or run away. As usual.
So you’re a proponent of cap-and-trade, Chris?
If tomorrow we were to shut down all carbon dioxide-emitting vehicles, power plants, and factories in the U.S., climate change scientists hypothesize that that would decrease global warming two-tenths of a degree Celsius by the year 2100.
What about the warming “pause” we’re currently experiencing that’s in its 17th year and shows no signs of abating?
How about the all the scientific articles coming out that report the earth’s climate sensitivity to be on the lowest end of the range predicted by the IPCC?
http://www.cato.org/blog/more-evidence-low-climate-sensitivity
I suppose it’s at least somewhat encouraging that you’ve expanded your horizon to 2100 rather than just the next election cycle; but climate change is a problem which will continue for centuries beyond that, with results strongly influenced by how much CO2 we produce within the next few decades.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-too-hard.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-limits-will-make-little-difference.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-limits-wont-cool-the-planet.htm
We’re not in a “warming pause”. You’re just dishonestly cherry-picking statistics, or placidly listening to those who do.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Phil-Jones-says-no-global-warming-since-1995.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-cooling-january-2007-to-january-2008.htm
And what are “all the scientific articles coming out”? One would think honesty would compel you to cite a few, but I guess not. In reality, the IPCC deliberately described several scenarios, but even the lowest end of the range is not promising for civilization as we know it.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-sensitivity.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Earth-expected-global-warming.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Lindzen-Choi-2009-low-climate-sensitivity.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/roy-spencer-negative-feedback-climate-sensitivity.htm
anybody else not going to waste their time reading 10 links from ‘skepticalscience’? somebody besides a synchophant give us a summary if you do
I read one, Dan. It claimed greenhouse gasses have increased by 40%. I don’t get how the global humidity increased by that much and we are not seeing world wide flooding.
Here are some articles that cite the various scientific reports (in addition to the one I posted that references two):
http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/4/785/2013/esdd-4-785-2013.html
http://www.cato.org/blog/still-another-low-climate-sensitivity-estimate-0
http://www.masterresource.org/2012/03/lower-climate-sensitivity-estimates/
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21574461-climate-may-be-heating-up-less-response-greenhouse-gas-emissions
I see, Owl, that you use skepticalscience.com as a kind of handbook. Talk about placidly cherry-picking…
So, when are ya’ll going on Comedy Channel with this act? It’s a good one, follow up every conversational statement with a non sequitur, and then congratulate each other, with a high five fail.
Sigh. I tend to use skepticalscience.com because it’s usually well written, with a general audience in mind rather than providing unalloyed (and easily misunderstood) quotes directly from the scientific literature, and because it provides bite-sized arguments against individual denialist arguments. But attacking the source is the oldest trick in the book for those who simply don’t want to have to think about alternatives to their own comfortable position.
And, by the way, it’s “sycophant”.
Sternn, an honest man would offer the specific link and a specific quote. As it is, your inability to read anything beyond about the third-grade level is well known. Or go ahead and prove me wrong.
Juarez, so far as I can tell your first link (Skele, et al.) merely indicates 1.8ºC of warming between pre-industrial times and 2010, and has nothing to say about results for the twenty-first century and beyond. As for the second link, I’m not as interested in wading through the Cato crud, but it seems to be the usual guff about taking the IPCC’s highest estimate (usually of 3-4 scenarios) and then crowing about how some study disagrees with that extreme value. The third link is a blog post with some quote-mining; again, too time-consuming for me to address in this venue.
As for your last link, to the *Economist* article, let me point out a quote from the point after you probably stopped reading since you thought it fully agreed with you: “Lastly, there is some evidence that the natural (ie, non-man-made) variability of temperatures may be somewhat greater than the IPCC has thought….”
So you don;t read your own links, Owl? That means you are just doing a quick search and throwing the out based on ignorance with no clue what they actually say. Now that is a real reason to completely ignore that site, you know that anything they write is will support the argument for AGW and you don;t even need to check to see if a link you post would contradict what you claim. Completely partisan and politically driven web site.
Captain, just like you predicted, the Owly just discounts any link that isn’t in line with her faith.
I read my own links and I don’t recall a statement of the sort that you cite, Sternn.
So I claim that you’re lying.
Again.
“Over the past 150 years greenhouse gas levels have increased 40 percent …”
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period.htm
You just got busted, Owl.
Thank you for the specific link and quotation. You were correct, and I was wrong.
I was mislead by your blathering about “global humidity” and assumed you were talking specifically about atmospheric *water*. But you began that digression after specifically citing “greenhouse gasses”, which include far more than H2O. The fault for not reading more carefully, however, remains mine.
I had posted this on another discussion, but it has died out so I will repost here. The deniers remind me of the Quote by Dr. Isaac Asimov:
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”
The fraudulent “scientists’ petition” that Sternn dredges up frequently when this topic is discussed is a prime example. Do dentists and electrical engineers have the right to form and express opinions about the effects of human activity on the environment? Of course they do. Are they entitled to have those opinions carry the same weight as those from actual climatologists? No they are not, and anyone who tries to present them as equal is telling a perverse lie.
I’m not going to lie. I am not a climatologist, and because I am not, I don’t have the knowledge and background required to critique the papers published in that field. But I do have relevant knowledge that so many laypeople lack (based on the statements I read from them about science). That knowledge is about the process of science.
One accusation I hear constantly is that this is all a scam to get more grant $. Basically scientists are the intellectual equivalents of prostitutes, that we are so ready and eager to sell ourselves to whomever shows us the money. Of course the deniers never seem to consider that this accusation is actually a two-edged sword. If $ is what really drives the scientists to make their claims, consider that there are some very, very deep pockets on the denier side, i.e., big energy. So shouldn’t the love of all that sweet, sweet $ drive at least a few AGW-supporting scientists to change their minds? But when we look at prominent figures in this debate who have changed their minds, we see them going from denier to believer. Richard Muller is one of the biggest names, an actual qualified scientist, and he had even been funded by the Koch brothers (I wonder if they asked for their $ back), but he couldn’t deny the data. There’s also Bjorn Lomborg, who was a major voice for the denier side, seeing the error of his ways. These are science journalists who have changed sides: Michael Hanlon, Michael Shermer, and Gregg Easterbrook. I can’t say I had much luck finding people on the AGW side who converted to deniers; the closest thing would be Lovelock backing away from some of his dire predictions (which were overblown ITFP), but he hasn’t joined the denier side. So the hypothesis that scientists= whores isn’t fitting the data, but perhaps Google is just part of that vast conspiracy to funnel wealth to China.
I also hear plenty of accusations of fraud, that these scientists are just making things up. So let’s do a little mental exercise, something I call “So you want to commit scientific fraud for fame and fortune”. To have any hope of a big payout, you need to be working in a “hot” field. I use several criteria to define that: the field needs to have a lot of potential for advancing understanding and to be taken into applied science, it needs to attract a critical mass of talented people, and to generate some MSM buzz. To get that big grant, you need a big claim and a way to convince people that it’s right. So let’s suppose you decide to show that A causes B, something that would be a huge result, and guarantee funding. So you start up your research. With honest research you are able to show a correlation between A and B (so close!), but the significant demonstration of actual causation just isn’t quite there. But if you tweak a few data points just a little, viola! those P-values now look really nice. So you submit this for publication, in a top journal of course, and because you were prudent enough not to cheat too outrageously, you can get it past the reviewers. So now it’s published and you’re home free, right? Uh, no. Because it’s a hot field, you will now have many of your peers looking at it very closely. Some of them are working on different hypotheses, such as A causes C instead of B, or that Z causes B. Your conclusion, if it were right, would put their ideas out of business. So they are going to be very motivated to redo your experiment to see if they can duplicate your results, and they are doing it from the adversarial point of view. On the other side, others in the field may look at your paper and say “Hey, if A causes B, we predict that would result in C negatively impacting D”. They too would be interested in replicating your results, although from an allied point of view. But since your results are really false, none of them are going to be able to repeat them. So they’re going to start asking more questions about your result and exactly how did you get it, and would you be so kind as share everything, especially any raw data/samples you have, since everyone is having these difficulties. The bottom line is that when you make a claim in science, others can and will check your work, and the bigger the claim, the more checking that will happen. This makes it very, very difficult to sustain a fraud.
This makes me think of what happened when it was announced that evidence of ancient Martian life was found on an asteroid. It, understandably, received a lot of media attention at the time of the announcement. But the media also did a good job of pointing out that this was just the initial phase of a purported discovery. Subsequently, my understanding, many other experts have concluded that the evidence is not what it seemed or is not conclusive as to the evidence of life on Mars.
Climate change theory, while of course always changing slightly, has been fairly consistent over the years despite some fairly entrenched interests trying to find any crack possible.
First off your premise if wrong. I will type slower for you. We believe in global warming but also believe it is cyclical and humans have little to do with it.
Also by your gauge, we shouldn’t ever question the intelligence community when they say there is WMD in Iraq or generals when they say they need to stay in Iraq longer, because we don’t have the specific training to question such things. That is not a very intellectual stand to take.
Well I am glad that you at the very least accept that some type of climate change is occuring.
And of course it is an simplification. There are numerous other issues (for example, “Even if we accept that climate change is real and that human actions are a major factor, can we do anything about it?”). My point was that the FACT that climate change is real is different and apart from any steps to mitigate it.
Mixing economic factors into a discussion on whether or not one even accepts the reality of climate change suggests to me that one can’t distinguish between the two.
kabuzz — Science, unlike most espionage, relies upon publicly available data and the actions of implacable, impersonal natural forces rather than capricious human beings. So your analogy is more than a little flawed.
If you believe that the current climate changes are merely cyclical, it’s because that’s what you *want* to believe, not because that’s what scientists are finding or what the data actually suggests.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-natural-cycle.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Arctic-sea-ice-melt-natural-or-man-made.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/1500-year-natural-cycle.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-shift-synchronized-chaos.htm
It’s crazy, isn’t it JG? This notion that scientists are just raking in the $. Even postdocs can have COI issues if a vendor gives them a box lunch. The ignorance about science and the people who do it is getting dangerous.
“First off your premise if wrong. I will type slower for you. We believe in global warming but also believe it is cyclical and humans have little to do with it.”
Hey Buzzy, we perfectly understood your take the first time you said it. But all the sarcasm in the universe doesn’t compensate for the fact that the data don’t agree, and the people who know the most about the field don’t agree.
FP,
I just get frustrated with people who automatically bring up economic factors in these discussions and use the claimed economic “armageddon” as an excuse to dismiss climate change outright.
They are two different issues. One is whether or not it exists. The other is what are we going to do to mitigate it and how much will that mitigation cost.
It is the same for all environmental risks. Everyone with half a brain knows that millions of people driving cars in concentrated areas like cities causes air pollution. This air pollution can be very harmful; even deadly to people with certain conditions. But the question of mitigating that harm is a seperate question and in that case you consider economic factors. We could eliminate all such pollution if we just banned automobiles. But that’s not going to happen as, among other things, it would cause a huge economic problem. So you balance the cost of mitigation against the harm. It may sound morbid but you actually measure the value of a life and how many lives you’re going to save as compared to the cost of meeting such a standard.
nice and very long winded try fly
Why was data manipulated?
You claim proving research is done in an adversarial way and the opposite occurred. The approved recognized reviewers only review certain results. They refused to review results that don’t reflect the desired outcome. That was proven many times when the dissenters pointed out they could not get reviewed so could not be cited in sources used by the ‘consensus’ crowd.
What are the 95% of the published models that were developed over the past few years wrong? Al Gore is famously wrong for his predictions as are so many others.
Why did we get the same story in the 70’s about Global Cooling, by the same James Hanson mind you?
You expect us to believe that people with a vested financial interest in climate change discussion are as pure as the driven snow and totally apolitical while at the same time telling us scientists that work for the other side are bought and paid for lunatics on the right.
The declaration that further discussion is worthless because the science is settled is laughable when every front of science except this one is still being studied.
The face of the EPA admits no impact on her data points is expected by her proposed policies to address those very data points.
There are other examples but you get the gist. Liberalism is your religion. You are as passionate in your promotion of it as any evangelical is on his religion. You have true faith with scant evidence.
It is not our fault you can’t see this.
The grant money argument amuses me. There are so many easier ways for reasonably smart people to make (even more) money than inventing a global guild of conspiracy and fraud that it really would be silly to waste the effort making things up to compete for increasingly scarce grant money to pay one’s summer salary.
You’re easily amused. James Hanson has made a very lucrative career peddling this mess. Al Gore even more.
I wasn’t aware that Al Gore was competing for research grants. James Hansen worked for NASA for 45 years, at which he did not have to write research grants, was paid a federal scale, which is not terribly generous for people with Ph.Ds, and where he was under fairly strict federal conflict of interest guidelines that would have limited his outside income.
Got any others?
did he give away his books and speeches?
I don’t know what the COI policies are for NASA, but I am familiar with them for the NIH, whose employees are largely not permitted to accept outside compensation for professional activities related to their official duties. My department invites speakers to visit all the time and pays a token honorarium for this (like $250). There are a different set of rules for speakers from federal agencies and they are not permitted to accept even this token amount. Maybe Hansen figured out a loophole for books or some kind of speaking engagements, but I doubt he got rich off this.
I generally like to think that I have a healthy sense of skepticism. But, I am not a scientist and if the overwhelming number of scientific experts in the world report that climate change is a reality and that human activities (primarily the burning of fossil fuels) are major contributing factor, I have to accept the consensus as fact.
I have never seen the entire solar system (obviously) and I am not an astronomer but given the overwhelming consensus of experts state that helio-centrism is a reality, I accept that the sun is the center of our solar system. The universe is FAR too complex to become an expert in every facet of every issue or question. The key word here is a “healthy” sense of skepticism. Many on here border on conspiracy and absurdity.
I have a healthy sense of skepticism about the scientists that form the consensus you rely on to form your opinion. When the person trying to ram the EPA’s job killing policies through agrees her own EPA policies to address climate change won’t impact her own metrics she uses to measure said factors my skepticism is well founded.
Well, the pharse “job killing policies” shows me that you are mixing issues.
The first question is “Is climate change a reality and are human factors are significant cause?” That is different and apart from the policies used to address climate change.
It is like acid rain. Do you accept that acid rain is happening or not? Then you turn to the solution to a known and identified problem. The second issue can take into account the economic factors involved. The first does not.
Many people on here refuse to even accept the initial issue because of their concerns of the second.
But this involves a willful or else bone-headed misunderstanding of the various roles, sensitivities, and timetables of “metrics” and “measurement”.
You’re going to believe what you want to believe, no matter what the evidence. But your propaganda deserves to be called out for what it is.
Acid rain was pinned on unregulated smokestack industries proximate to the impacts they were witnessing locally. Many steps were taken to great effect.
It occurs to people outside of the bubble pushing cap & trade as a solution to a problem that can’t be quantified that the left has merely devised a new taxing scheme based on an expanded and wildly variable field of study that overwhelmingly dominate.
“Pinned?”
Acid rain and the effects of acid rain was seen and proved to be caused by NOX and SO2 emissions from various sources. A major source was emissions from coal generating power plants. For example, coal generating power plants in the Ohio Valley, famously, were a major driver of highly acidic rain in the North East.
The scientific consensus was that the high levels of acid rain were primarily caused by human emissions. The primary mitigation was aimed at largest single source of such emissions (i.e. the power plants).
Other steps were of course taken. Cars were required to gace catalytic converters. But the bulk of the reduction we have seen is due to cap and trade.
Of course, we still have acid rain (and frankly, we always will). Eliminating all human emissions of these chemicals would be hugly expensive and have marginal effect on acid rain levels. Volcanos also cause acid rain and there are other natural emissions of NOX and SO2 that cause such rain. That is why cap and trade is a mitigation effort, rather than an elimination effort.
We who don’t swallow the whole alarmist memo do believe in global warming. We are skeptical in the causes as we believe it is cyclical.
Volcanoes cause damage to our ozone. Forrest fires, etc.
KaBuzz,
Breathing emissions from volcanoes can cause lung cancer. That fact doesn’t mean that smoking doesn’t.
any idea how many tons of nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide have been reduced since the acid rain issue died down?
SO2 emissions have been cut about 40% from 1990’s levels (i.e. before the program was instituted).
http://www.sfgate.com/green/article/Cap-and-trade-model-eyed-for-cutting-greenhouse-3300270.php
It is estimated that the yearly cost to comply with the program for the entire industry is between $1-2B. Assuming that is born entirely by consumers, that means it costs each American about $5 a year. A family of four would pay about $2 a month. Hardly the “destrution of capitalism as we know it.”
Sternn, you did so much heavy lifting yesterday we’re hoping to give you a break on the easy stuff. And I realize it comes incredibly easy for you to be so correct in your takes.
Like I said before, you’re the Francisco D’Aconia of this site.
I am flattered, Dan. I am still chuckling over HT’s satire and how well it sums up the alarmists claims.
Careful, Danny. With your head that far up Stern’s ass he might make a sudden turn and give you whiplash.
you can do better than that mon petit ami,
or perhaps not
Ditto my good Captain.
You think Sternn is d’Anconia and I’m Meigs. That’s funny. No, really, I laughed out loud. There’s no comedy like the unintentional kind.
that’s why we get a kick out of you Cuffy, and we especially like that you know it
And we appreciate the new level to which you bring our discussions, Dan. Of course that level is 6th grade playground, but nobody does it better.
The National Climate Assessment results are clearly visible at your local supermarket regardless of whatever political conspiracy theories that can be attached as evidence (sic).
Ask any woman, and you will get the truth about that…
Actually Gina McCarthy did weigh in
Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) questioned Administrator McCarthy over whether the EPA’s regulatory actions have an impact on climate change. EPA’s website lists 26 indicators used for tracking climate change, however, McCarthy conceded that “it is unlikely” that any of EPA’s climate-related rules will have a meaningful impact on these climate change indicators.
http://energycommerce.house.gov/press-release/subcommittee-examines-administration%E2%80%99s-climate-agenda
Thanks for the suggestion.
In the words of EPA Commissioner McCarthy: “Climate change requires a global effort….”
Your argument is the same as that of someone who says that littering doesn’t really matter, since individual actions are inconsequential compared to the greater whole.
And the aptly-named Pompeo doesn’t seem to understand that, if everyone in his town begins to eat French fries with every meal, the effects may not become apparent by the next Congressional hearing, but you’ll see definite consequences down the road. Science does not always obey the dictates of the election cycle.
She has 26 data points she uses to measure climate that won’t be moved by her policies. Her words Ms Owl. That she contradicts them with her actions is merely a liberal behaving naturally.
Sigh. If you think changes in “streamflow”, “ragweed pollen season”, “length of growing season”, “leaf and bloom dates”, and “bird wintering ranges” (and there’s 20% of your much-beloved “data points”!) can be easily and uniquely attributed to U.S. policy changes, then you’re a scientific idiot.
It’s much like the problem in connecting any given cancer uniquely and specifically to a given company’s pollution. Yet we don’t claim that companies shouldn’t pollute.
There’s that sweet attitude Ms Owl exhibits when she’s mad and wants you to know her gravitas is based on that.
Piss off bitch until you can control your bad self lightweight. Those are her data points, take it up with her sweety.
You don’t understand the science or the situation, so now you’re acting snitty.
Did you forget your bipolar meds today?
jes feeding it back to you, enjoy
fiftyohm makes a very salient observation than none have countered except flypusher. flypusher is suggesting a global carbon tax. What it will solve is left unanswered. What it’s objective is to tax production everywhere. Who gets the dollars? Those that control the production.
And the only way to get to a global carbon tax is through a global mandate. Do you guys ever tire of pushing this stupid notion of a one world government?
This doesn’t get as much press, but the biologists find this troubling:
https://web.duke.edu/nicholas/bio217/spring2010/chang/Causes%20of%20Ocean%20Acidification.htm
Well, Homer’s tweak at ‘sheeple’ certainly apply to the echo chamber especially on this post.
Let’s see, IRS investigation is ramping up, the Benghazi investigation is forming a committee and Carney got caught lying to the media by ABC no less and we have mid term elections this year. Obama and the DNC are thinking, “what can we do?” Let’s release a report on global warming that will scare people and take the other issues off the news. Won’t work.
Why? The OIG has been trying to investigate the EPA for corruption but the Department of Homeland Security won’t let them. Why? National Security issues. What? Yea! That’s what I thought.
It won’t hold. The EPA will be inspected eventually and they will find that reports have been chosen for political weight. Any bets?
And you sheeple fall right in line. Tsk!
Does it ever occur to you that people live their lives outside your conspiratorial bizarre contraptions of political thought? The report which was cited was not written in a day or two, the analysis of the data didn’t quite happen as quickly as yet another empty headed “BENGHAZI”! post was made on this blog. The Benghazi investigation is yet another Whitewater, we can depend on Republican’s for putting on the best theater of the absurd.
yeah, they’re called liberal democrats and they don’t want to hear any of this evidence of their lying
Notice crogged didn’t comment on the OIG not being able to investigate the EPA. Of course 4 Americans killed is nothing to Crogged.
Yes, there must be something sinister, the man on TV said ‘investigation’. Of course 4 Americans killed is fodder for your further witless regurgitation of endless drama, which is true patriotism.
Crogged, like Hillary does not believe it matters.
Crogged, do you know or even care why our ambassador was not at the US Embassy but in a rented and unsecured facility that day? Do you know or even care why there were over 30 State Dept. and CIA employees in another unsecured annex nearby?
They were there because they were patriotic Americans working under the orders of other patriotic Americans in the State Department. It was a ‘choice’ in that they decided on a career in the State Department and not everyone gets to choose France as their destination of their career. Of course you don’t want to address the fact that the State Department didn’t have the same size budget from earlier years and thus had to do more with less, because every witless Republican regurgitation apparatus knows that to grow an economy, everyone has to quit spending money.
as the head of the State Department and the one who ordered them there, have you ever heard Hillary say why they were there?
The amount of the money pot was reduced Crogged but not where to use it. That was up to Obama’s administration. You would think Libya would need more security than France. But no. Hillary had much more security in France.
When I want a cat in a hood to determine the budget of international global diplomatic initiatives I know where to go. What you did is called ‘pass the buck’ because you are glad it wasn’t your _ss on the line about how much money to spend where when geniuses decided to give you less of it.
exact same metric used when Hillary left the agents she deployed unprotected on a date anybody could have predicted would be significant, and she defended herself with your observation. It wasn’t her ass on the line so what difference did it make?
Are you really shocked that Libya after Qaddafi was a dangerous place and you could have tripled the budget in favor of security, but if someone wanted to get you, they probably could? Ok, it’s Hillary’s fault. What new conspiracy can you impress us with? SAT tests have been written by secular humanists (which btw, where have they gone–back in the day it was all the fault of ‘secular humanism’ or Catholics).
moving the target when losing the debate is classic admission of defeat, see your first post in this particular thread
You claiming ‘victory’, ENDLESS.
thanks
Buzz…bless your heart buddy.
I’m starting to think you actually believe some of this stuff.
DNC: “Hey guys, Issa is getting awfully bold with his investigations, lots of bad stuff going on, we should call the White House to see if there is something we can do to distract the public”.
Obama: “Hey, thanks for calling me directly, it is wonderful that you guys and I work so closely together on all of the issues.”
DNC: “We really have been doing some bad things and the public is starting to notice, what can we do?”
Obama: “Hang on, I need to sink this putt….dang it, I missed. Anyway, maybe we could release a report on an issue no one understands, few American care about, and on which almost no one bases their votes.”
DNC: “Brilliant, but doesn’t a big report take months and months of data analyses, reviews, writing, and further reviews before it can be released?”
Obama: “No, not at all, we are sitting on a few dozen completely made up reports on a wide range of topics, and we just release them when we need a political distraction.”
DNC: “Really, that is cool. How in the world are you keeping all of that a secret?”
Obama: “Well, even though we are completely incompetent in just about all aspects of governing and politics, we are masterminds at enormous conspiracies involving thousands and thousands of people without it ever leaking to the public. ”
DNC: “Great. Don’t forget, we have the secret Americans for Communism gala coming up next week. We’ve made all the travel arrangements for Chavez, Ceausescu, and Kim Jong-il, and I think you are personally picking up Fidel on your way to the gala. I hate that we have to keep all these guys in hiding, but I keep hearing that they are loving Camp David.”
Care to tell us who the “New World School” are and why they are giving so much money to democrats?
If you believe an alarmist report, for the first time warning present day is NOT politically motivated or decided, well my friends, your knowledge of politics is nil.
That’s awesome, Homer.
Oh buzz…I think you should probably read your post again.
Your position is that the report was released as a distraction because of….”Let’s see, IRS investigation is ramping up, the Benghazi investigation is forming a committee and Carney got caught lying to the media by ABC no less and we have mid term elections this year.”
Undoubtedly, politics plays a role in almost all position papers, but this paper could have been released a year ago, and you would have said it was to distract from the IRS “scandal”.
It could have been released four years ago, and you would have said it was to toss red meat to liberals upset that Gitmo was still open.
It could be released a year from now and you would say it was released to distract from the fact the the Democrats lost the Senate and the new class of Republicans are making waves.
The beauty of your conspiracy theories is that they will always fit any situation, and if they don’t fit, it is just more evidence of the extent of the cover-up.
Seriously, if you think the DNC/Obama released this report this week because of the IRS, Benghazi or any of the other scandal du jour, I don’t know that anyone can help you.
While this is an important issue, it is an issue that affects practically zero votes and won’t be on the news next week.
“it was the video”
Homer, the great SEER. Knows what and when we will do or say things. Tell me Oh Great One. When will the seas flood Florida? Gore said that should have happened by now. Oh Great SEER, what really happened in Benghazi? When the ambassador was murdered, he was the sixth ever in our history. But don’t look here.
HT, you are a wonder! Grins is good.
Obviously, simple statistics cannot completely capture such issues.
But maybe Republicans should have it pointed out that the deaths in Benghazi amount to:
* 13.33%, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, of fatally violent hate crimes committed against lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender victims in 2011 (4 out of 30);
* 4.17%, according to journalist Bob Cesca, of those killed in attacks on consulates and embassies during George W. Bush’s administration (4 out of 96);
* 3.81%, according to the “Officer Down Memorial Page”, of law-enforcement officers killed in the line of duty in 2013 (4 out of 105);
* 1.66%, according to Wikipedia, of American deaths in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing under President Reagan (4 out of 241);
* 0.18%, according to the Associated Press, of U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan since 2001 (4 out of 2,179);
* 0.13%, according to CNN, of immediate casualties from the 9/11 attacks (4 out of 2,977);
* 0.09%, according to OSHA, of American workers killed on the job in 2012 (4 out of 4,628);
* 0.01%, according to the CDC, of U.S. firearm deaths in 2010 (4 out of 31,672);
* 0.009%, according to a recent Harvard Medical School study, of estimated annual U.S. deaths associated with the lack of health insurance (4 out of 45,000);
* 0.007%, according to MIT’s Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment, of U.S. early deaths attributable to pollution solely from power generation (4 out of 52,000);
* 0.0008%, according to the CDC, of estimated annual U.S. deaths due to smoking tobacco (4 out of 480,000);
* 0.0007%, according to the CDC, of estimated U.S. pregnancies annually ending in miscarriages (4 out of 600,000).
But I haven’t lately heard anyone accuse the Republican Party of a sense of perspective.
and 100% of the reason Hillary is running from it and your are defending her in doing so
Actually, I’m not a huge fan of Mrs. Clinton. (I don’t call people by their first names unless I know them. Perhaps you were raised in a less civil household.)
I’d far prefer Elizabeth Warren, both for her communications skills, her leadership abilities, and her policies — but she’s made it clear she’s not in the running.
Still, even Hillary Clinton is a clear choice over whomever the Republicans seem likely to run as a candidate.
My tea went through my nose when I read Owly lecturing on civility. Wow! Just…wow! Enough said.
Those who are uncivil don’t usually deserve much civility.
Asshole.
heh, that rich stuff there
For those who might actually want to look at the science:
http://climatechangenationalforum.org/
Okay. I did. Here is the summation:
I’m not aware of clear evidence supporting the “certain collapse of ecosystems” claim. I think scientists should be careful in their public statements with regard to certainty of projections, particularly concerning ecosystem changes which are not well understood. What is more, today’s editorial in the New York Times argues that scare tactics don’t work in communicating climate change. The rate of global surface temperature change for the past 15 years has certainty not been underestimated. It could be argued that it has been overestimated. – See more at: http://climatechangenationalforum.org/pliocene-perils-and-global-warming-scare-tactics/#sthash.fuRQNndw.dpuf
No, you just looked for an except you liked and ignored all the rest.
“I’m not aware of clear evidence…”
Coulda stopped right there, or made that a personal tagline.
First you link an article, I read the article, post the summation and then you say what??? I don’t get it??? This is your link. Yours.
That was not a summation Buzzy, and you know it. It was one post of many, one opinion of many, on that site. But I learned long ago not to expect any intellectual honesty from you.
So you attach your support to those you agree with but I can’t??? You must be a liberal.
You can support whatever you want Buzzy. But if you choose to lie by saying that one excerpt summed up the whole website, I’m going to call you out as a liar.
kabuzz, plant a flag…another one bites the dust
my goodness the subject of your article discounts your assertion and kabuzz is the liar? wow!
Last Sunday,s “Cosmos”. Had some good commentary:
http://news.yahoo.com/neil-degrasse-tyson-ghost-climate-change-future-episode-131724820.html
As Dr. Tyson said “The dinosaurs never saw the asteroid coming, what’s our excuse?”
Of course Strenn provides the textbook case of people making excuses, any excuse, to ignore harsh reality. All the scientists are in a conspiracy to lie for grant $! It’s all a plot to redistribute wealth to China!! Humans can’t CONTROL the climate. It’s all bs that has been refuted again and again, but it’s like a religious faith.
Also you have been corrected again and again on this, but one more time for the record, NOBODY is claiming that human can CONTROL the climate. INFLUENCE, yes, CONTROL, no. Those two words do not mean the same things. To control is to make a change to produce a precise outcome. To influence is to cause a change, but not necessarily towards a specific outcome. The deniers will then say that human are too puny to influence such a big planet. More bs. Living things can and do cause major changes. The oxygen in the atmosphere is exhibit A. It doesn’t get there in large quantities without the action of living things (puny little photosynthetic bacteria) and concentration isn’t maintained without continued influence from living things.
I suppose if those ancient bacteria had been capable of politics, there would have been a faction denying that rising O2 levels were having any environmental impact.
From your link:
I’m not aware of clear evidence supporting the “certain collapse of ecosystems” claim. I think scientists should be careful in their public statements with regard to certainty of projections, particularly concerning ecosystem changes which are not well understood. What is more, today’s editorial in the New York Times argues that scare tactics don’t work in communicating climate change. The rate of global surface temperature change for the past 15 years has certainty not been underestimated. It could be argued that it has been overestimated. – See more at: http://climatechangenationalforum.org/pliocene-perils-and-global-warming-scare-tactics/#sthash.fuRQNndw.dpuf
Bottom line: The science isn’t nearly settled to raise fears but yet you try to.
I’m sorry but this isn’t that difficult of a thing to understand. We are talking climate, and we have an education system which delivers certificates which denote a human has a specific knowledge regarding the subject, otherwise known as ‘college degrees’. Unless you have evidence of Greenpeace actually paying the tuition of a large portion of those people who hold doctorates in the field of ‘climate’, then we have to assume these are people motivated by something other than ‘gettin’ paid’.
These people, let’s call them ‘climate scientists’ are then paid to continue studying and researching what they spent 8 years studying for no pay whatsoever. If this process means they are ‘biased’, then what differentiates ‘climate scientists’ from say, “Republicans”, who also went to school, received degrees and then started receiving salaries. If pay causes bias, then we are all biased–and thus can rest easy in our assumption that rather than addressing the maker of the argument, we need to address the argument itself.
And if you are actually sincere in your doubt, Captain and Kabuzz, then go here and ask the m___therf___rs who know what the H E double hockey sticks they are talking about, rather than the scientists and experts who are getting paid to tell you what you want to hear.
http://climatechangenationalforum.org/
Want to tell us when the first 8 year Climatology degree was issued and who issued it? We’ve had under and post graduate degrees conferred in every field of science for decades. I don’t know of a single field other than climate that has said with 95% of its graduate’s bonafide certainty their assumptions are settled and their is no more debate needed.
Only climatology has all its questions answered. That’s kind of odd isn’t it?
I know, what a pity when science isn’t ‘conservative’.
science is not partisan Crogged. You mentioned climatology as a science degree, care to answer my question or have you run out of gas
Crogged, it is obvious you have no idea about the grant system and universities. Those scientists depend on those grants to continue working. I can’t believe I even have to explain that to you.
Dan you didn’t ask a ‘question’ you made an assertion that somehow it’s mysterious that 95 percent of climate scientists don’t think there’s much doubt regarding the LIMITED observation that global warming since 1870ish is to a great extent caused by the dominant biological species on the planet. That is all they have stated. After that, individual scientists, Al Gore and Captain Stern, have offered some possible results of this observation. Try going to your neighborhood physicist and telling him you long for the days of Newton, when down was gravity…..
“… dominant biological species on the planet”
Termites?
Since you brought it up and defend the consensus these degree holders have on the subject it seems you would be able to answer when the first degree was conferred and by which college. Are you unable to provide that?
WTF? If you know when the first climate degree was awarded go ahead and state it–why do I have to do your research? Did it happen in NEW YORK CITY? Why is your thought model consistently aligned as if you are on the side of good vs the machines in the Matrix?
I challenge any of you to answer the question. I happened to call a well cited university that confers honorary climate degrees to ask this same question. They said they would get back to me. Apparently they don’t even offer them but do offer honorariums.
I will await a return call to try to answer the question but it is the height of arrogance to assert all this consensus among learned climatologists is a basis for changing our way of living because “the science is settled” in this one particular field but is still evolving and advancing in all other areas of science. I will wager almost every scientist in your consensus is getting paid to agree with that consensus by research grants based on the hypothesis.
Google ” universities that confer climatology degrees ” as a start.
Anonymous commentator to a blog calling a ‘well cited university’ is some really fine journalism and now I’m going to wonder for the rest of the day what all this fuss about physics has been about.
You don’t address the argument about climate change, but I will let you in on a secret, neither can I. I also can’t address the prescriptions of my doctor, and sometimes use my own judgement rather than hers, which even the climate scientists do, particularly the male ones I’m certain.
Who am I supposed to trust here, are you really going to pretend your fake online persona is somehow equal to the link I included? Why, is this an ego thing or it helps you develop even more entertaining conspiracy theories?
I can name the school, give the name and number of who I corresponded with but I’d like to get an answer first. I do note the founder of the website you linked is a first year law student at the University of Houston who is relying on donations to fund him.
Do you know who Tom Steyer is btw?
Hillary on a good day?
I’m not going to do your work for you. If you have some big giant factual conspiracy about how you are being held back from driving two bad azz Chevrolet Camaro’s by those sinister, liberal, commie, college freshman climate scientists, then it is your solemn duty as an American patriot to help us out.
DanMan, here are a few such programs, to answer your question. It really didn’t take that long on Google, maybe because I actually had an interest in finding out the truth rather than just bolstering my own opinion in spite of any contrary facts.
The University of Nebraska’s Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences offers an advanced degree in climatology (http://www.unl.edu/gradstudies/prospective/programs/EarthAndAtmosphericSci).
George Mason University offers a Ph.D. program in climate dynamics (http://aoes.gmu.edu).
Ohio State also offers graduate degrees in atmospheric and climatic studies (http://www.geography.ohio-state.edu/atmospheric-and-climatic-studies).
any idea how long they’ve been offering such degrees?
No. But one need not have a degree specifically in climatology to work in the field. In certain circumstances physicists can do work in chemistry, and chemists in physics, for example.
And the Cyanobacter Commission for the Greater Global Good in a tidepool in Pangea would have decreed mass suicide.
There is a middle ground between “deny anything is happening” and “everybody has to go back to living in caves and eating roots”.
If your conclusion is that I have ever ‘denied anything is happening’, fair Damsel of Drosophila, I suggest you reread what I have written. And while you’re at that, take a shot at answering the question in the original post.
The “deny anything is happening” is for Buzzy and Sternn. As for the question (“The dinosaurs never saw the asteroid coming, what’s our excuse?”) it’s several factors. Humans live for decades and can have a hard time comprehending events that take centuries, or millennia, or longer. There are also those who are convinced that the universe revolves around and is meant to serve humans. But the main factor is that we’ve made a very comfortable lifestyle for ourselves and it’s human nature not to want to give that up. When you can dump your externalities elsewhere it’s even easier to be complacent. I think we’re coming to that point where we can’t shove the externalities under the rug anymore, mostly because of places like India and China and Brazil wanting that 1st World lifestyle.
and here you are to deny them that
You are still wrong Fly. Captain and ‘Buzzy’ do not deny global warming. Just that it is cyclical and not caused by humans. So what do you say now?
That you are still in denial and 100% wrong in the assumption that there can’t be more than one contribution. It’s not OR, it’s AND. Natural cycles and human activity are not mutually exclusive.
so quantify the contribution and do the same with the proposed policies to address it
shift those goal post Fly. Are you saying we are deniers but not total deniers? Is this like ‘a little pregnant’ where you either are or aren’t?
Five years ago you on the left owned this subject because most bought it hand and foot but now little by little the truth is coming out and you guys can’t stand it.
Further to Fitties point regarding China and it’s economy effected by externalities…..
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/alibaba-by-the-numbers/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&smid=tw-nytimesbits&_r=1&
I meant its, not it is…….sheesh.
Sure, and as HT pointed out, having the people of China pee into the ocean influences sea levels, and probably to the same extent that human beings influence the global climate. In fact, he summed it up so well I think I am going to copy his comment and plagerize, though I will give him credit for it.
You just snap up the bait, don’t you?
Call it bait, satire, sarcasm or snark, whatever, but he really did a great job of summing up the argument of the chicken littles.
besides, what’s a little extra nitrogen going to do anyway, it can’t be nearly as bad as 8 billion people spewing carbon dioxide all day and night
I’m not very interested in the subject of climate change and global warming — not in the scientific aspects and much less in the political bickering over the issue. I would say that I’m environmentally responsible in my personal life, not for activist reasons, but simply because I detest waste, so maybe I’m an accidental environmentalist. I keep my energy consumption to a minimum, I recycle, I own very few appliances and electronics and use them until they give out completely, instead of replacing them over the slightest reason. When I have no use for something, I donate it to neighborhood thrift shops, and I often buy used items — preferably antique and vintage. I’m also a regular Metro rider.
As for the human race or certain societies harming the environment as a whole, I think it makes sense to be environmentally responsible as best as we can. If we focus on keeping our air and water clean, and otherwise protecting the quality of life of the world’s population, does it really matter whether global warming is real or not? It’s become little more than a reason to have an intellectual, abstract debate, and another excuse for partisanship.
It’s all ok. I’m off to do some fracking in Yellowstone just for grins…
There’s a big, fat, smelly gorilla in the room. He’s wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words, China, India, and the Rest of the Developing World. (It’s a metaphor!)
The CO2 emissions of the US and the West have been falling for a long time.now. This has happened and will continue to happen for many reasons. Our rancid friend continues to flatulate at an ever increasing pace, and likewise is slated to continue unabated.
This begs a very simple question: How much would the west need to reduce its emissions to compensate for the gassy gorilla?
Here’s a hint: It can’t. China is commissioning a new coal fired power plant every few weeks. We could drive our emissions to zero in two decades, and CO2 concentrations would continue to rise.in the atmosphere.
For the West to squander unilaterally massive resources in a futile effort to reduce atmospheric CO2 in the face of the farting gorilla is the most profoundly stupid concept I believe I’ve ever heard. No one – not a soul – has even suggested by how much, despite the trillions of dollars the West might spend, atmospheric CO2 might be impacted by our efforts. Not a word.
Oh! But fifty! It’s the right thing to do! We must set an example! It’s a start! JCoaB.
So Fifty I take it that you do not deny the science you just don’t believe that there is a way to resolve it because China and others refuse to limit the amount of their emissions so therefore we shouldn’t do anything because…… sounds like a nah nah nah boo boo argument to me.
I never ‘deny science’. Nor politics. What I refuse to accept is the waste resources on stupid futility. If you can answer my question, you might have an argument.
Has the the US ever developed any policy that was accepted anywhere in the world?
There’s prolly quite a few but the aggregate of our policies when weighed against immigration indicates our policies do certainly attract the most immigrants from everywhere in the world so there is that quantifiable measurement.
Trade in dollars, international flight conversation conducted in engrish, shipping coordination and such things are steeped in US influence if not policy.
Kind of a specious and goofy question but even the US will adopt foreign policies if they are efficient.
You are right Fitty. India and China are just starting to mass produce automobiles, which are by far the biggest emitters of co2 here in the states. Attacking power and industrial emissions is also chasing mosquito farts by comparison…..
So cars are second to power generation. But politically untouchable.
go ahead, make it your issue to squelch their modernization
The fight against futility can never be deemed as “stupid”. Granted that there are always a number of daunting hurdles to overcome, but success can mean the advancement of knowledge and perhaps the survival of the human race.
I don’t lay heavy odds on the latter due to prevailing attitudes among supposedly connected political leaders. Their collective political power will certainly cause us to be too late, too little in saving ourselves.
So be brave in the face of futility in spite of it’s demeaning appearance…
“There’s a big, fat, smelly gorilla in the room. He’s wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words, China, India, and the Rest of the Developing World. (It’s a metaphor!)”
That’s why we need to go with a carbon tax.
FP- I sit here attempting to figure out in what language that statement makes any sense whatsoever.
“FP- I sit here attempting to figure out in what language that statement makes any sense whatsoever.”
Had to find the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/opinion/28inglis.html?_r=2&
“The United States can’t solve climate change alone. The Kyoto climate treaty was rightly rejected by the Senate because China and India weren’t subject to its provisions. If China and India join the United States in attaching a price to carbon, their goods should come into this country without a carbon adjustment. But if they do not, every item they place on our shelves should be subject to the same carbon tax that we would place on our domestically produced goods, again offset by a revenue-neutral tax cut.”
Will this be easy? Of course not. If we put a carbon tax on their goods, there will be a whole lot of bitching and moaning, maybe even saber-rattling. But in the end, they very much do want to trade with us, and if we stand firm they’ll give in.
We (US and Europe) benefited from the Industrial Revolution, we had our own fuel (oil and coal), Europe, not so much (coal, not so much oil). Thus just as China, India and other Third World countries stand to benefit from industrialization, power generation and transportation-we tell them, NO–it’s a bad thing, find another way. Controlling carbon output isn’t taking our money and giving it to China as some of the unhinged on the right suggest, but it is telling the Third World to never mind the industrial revolution and we will admire your quaint, but environmentally conscious, lifestyle. Maybe technology will be developed to slow this trend, maybe it will find ‘solutions’ to getting the excess carbon out–but unless you can incentivize the growing third world economies with a cleaner energy, they will use the cheapest method to prosperity.
“…but unless you can incentivize the growing third world economies with a cleaner energy, they will use the cheapest method to prosperity.”
Yep, that’s 100% right. It’s quite hypocritical of the West to enjoy the cars, and the electricity, and all the other modern conveniences, but then tell the Third World, no you can’t have any of this.
Crogged, here is your link …
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/02/05/in-their-own-words-climate-alarmists-debunk-their-science/2/
Has it occurred to anyone that the economies of China and the Developing World are not entirely driven by exports of trinkets to the West? Has anyone considered the fact that there are about as many farmers in China as the entire population of the United States? Or that these economies are driven primarily by internal the consumption of their 6 billion or so citizens? And still some believe they will be so daunted by the prospect of trade barriers that they will revamp their entire production base, at massive expense, to appease western greenies?
It is true that the US finds itself in the position of global financial hegemony. But – it is patently ridiculous to extrapolate that to being a dominant internal influence in China. Or India. Or…
Please watch this. It’s one of the most fascinating and thoughtful on the issue, http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_machine
Technology got us into this mess (and it will be a mess–particularly if we warm this place up enough for the tundra and oceans to release methane) maybe it will find a way to stop and/or cope with the changes. This isn’t as cynical a statement as may be assumed, we could ‘blame’ Thomas Edison for some of this warming.
crogged – You make a fair point.
I think we should take the possible consequences of global warming very seriously, but we won’t solve it by hoping everyone rides bicycles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event
“Has it occurred to anyone that the economies of China and the Developing World are not entirely driven by exports of trinkets to the West?”
Indeed it has. There are other factors in play. China especially is coming up against another harsh reality, that their pollution levels are bad enough to start choking people to death. The Chinese government is dealing with something harsher, more powerful, and more unyielding than it is. All the propaganda in the universe can’t blind people to the smog. All the intimidation and “re-education” and other means of gov’t control are going to be ineffective once the pollution caused health problems reach a critical point.
FP – Stay on topic. Smog has nothing to do with CO2. Don’t conflate issues here.
I see that as all connected 50; CO2 is just one part of the changes we’re contributing to. But even looking just at CO2, China’s going to have issues if the weather becomes less favorable for growing crops, and ocean food chains start collapsing.
The Earth will go on, no matter what we do. Some species will adapt, some will die out. But will the Earth be able to sustain 7 billion plus human lives as/ after it changes? That’s what this all boils down to.
Again FP, industrial pollution is not going to affect global ecosystems in the long run. The types of pollution abatement the West has implemented over the last few decades are simple and well understood, aqnd pretty darn effective. They are also relatively cheap. These can be transferred to the developing world. The issue of CO2 is about basic principles of physics, thermodynamics, and chemistry. There is no extant answer. When you talk about people living in smog-filled cities, you are talking about a thing fundamentally different than planetary climate change. It’s a conflation, pure and simple. Thinking about the two in the same terms leads to erroneous conclusions. The last thing we need here are more erroneous conclusions – we’ve quite enough of those.
Good video.
We see the world from our own perspective of a civilization afforded freedom to travel from automobile. Realize what will happen when this luxury of mobility is afforded to a much larger population in India and China, you will not be able to stop it. Of course it would be better if our own example didn’t include 400 HP Dodge Challengers, but tell me which political party in the US would survive mandating 100 HP vehicles for all……
You realize your example manufacturer was sold by our wonderful government to Italy don’t you? To pay the debt the UAW benefitted from even.
btw, did you know a new Ford Taurus uses less than 15hp of it’s capacity to roll down the road at 70mph?
The gorilla of China, India et al., is an important issue, but the answer of throwing up our hands and doing nothing is short-sighted and lacks a sense of history. Yes, China is building lots of new coal-fired power plants. They fuel these by digging up and importing western Australia. You could walk from Darwin to Java to Malaysia on the flotilla of ore carriers. That is also unsustainable and the popular pressure is rising in China against the deplorable air quality in some of the largest cities. This will eventually boil over. India has lots of coal, but virtually no oil and its balance of payments are really hurt by these imports.
Solar power is getting better and better. It is not at par with fossil fuels yet, but if there is a market, it will continue to improve, like all technology. A breakthrough that would increase efficiency by an order of magnitude is possible. Wind is nearing competitiveness with fossil fuels. We can help foster this market by properly pricing carbon emissions: the current prices do not consider any of the externalities imposed by fossil fuel consumption. While this would hurt some people or companies in some sectors, it would in the long run promote a more efficient economy, contribute to turning the US energy independent, and help the environment globally in small ways and locally in larger ways (coal-fired power plants emit more than CO2). The short-term losers could be compensated in other ways if needed.
Then, when our fantastic innovators develop these improved technologies, we can sell them to the Chinese (who will then steal the designs, produce them more cheaply, and re-sell them to us).
” We can help foster this market by properly pricing carbon emissions: the current prices do not consider any of the externalities imposed by fossil fuel consumption. ”
Amen. That’s the main source of the denial. Too many people are not seeing the total balance sheet.
There is the thing, nobody is sugesting doing nothing, nobody is suggesting that we just pollute with no regulations or restrictions. We have had some proper regulations in place for decades and things have cleaned up pretty good. The problem the alarmists have is that they want overregulation on first world economies, to slow the growth or even bring them down a few notches, but don’t touch China or India, then pay third world nations for damages they perceive as caused by global warming.
The whole AGW mess is a scam, a wealth redistrubution scam. It really has nothing to do with the climate or pollution. Even the so-called “experts” have said that the climate will continue to change no matter what we as human beings do. Well of course it will, just as it always has. Nature is not static, and there is no more evidence that human activity has any more of a contributing factor that HT’s suggestion that having all the people of China pee into the oceans will have an affect on sea levels.
“Even the so-called “experts” have said that the climate will continue to change no matter what we as human beings do. ”
And of course you don’t bother to consider that the RATE of the change and the AMOUNT of the change matter a whole lot. If left solely to natural cycles, the ave. temp goes up a few degrees, but over a few hundred years, that can be adapted to. But if human contribution in combination with the natural trend makes that change happen in 50 years, then we have a problem.
It isn’t happening, Fly. Nothing we are doing is changing anything, not accelerating it, not slowing it, not making it worse or less. We don;t have the ability to do it.
Then again, if you believe we can, well, we saved the planet from the glaciers that were supposed to cover North America by the year 2000. Yay humans!
“It isn’t happening, Fly. Nothing we are doing is changing anything, not accelerating it, not slowing it, not making it worse or less. We don;t have the ability to do it.”
Just because you say so? Given your documented cluelessness about science, and how science is done, I’m not inclined to trust your judgment on this.
I listen to what scientists say. CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas, and our contribution pales compared to nature. Water vapor makes up 95% of the greehouse gas in our atmosphere. We contribute to that when we boil water on a stove. You really think that is making much of a difference?
” A breakthrough that would increase [solar] efficiency by an order of magnitude is possible.” -JG
No it isn’t. Cost – maybe, but not efficiency. And then there’s the issue of energy storage which is, in many ways, even more difficult.
Wind is no where near ‘competitive’ with fossil fuels when infrastructure and reliability are considered, as they must be. Land use as well as esthetics as well. Talk about externalities.
And I’m really not at all sure what ‘energy independence’ even means in a global economy. Is it simply that we produce more than we consume? We’re a stone’s throw away from that right now.
There is no rational model upon which to “properly price’ carbon emissions, nor is one free from political interference and the associated distortions, (seen the tax code lately?), even conceivable. You’d have better luck trying to develop a 99% efficient solar cell.
My point here is this: unless and until carbon emissions by the major (and growing) emitters are addressed in a substantive way, expensive measures taken by the West will not only result in absolutely zero quantifiable impact on global climate, but will slow the economy, which in turn will impede the technological progress needed to address the issue over the longer term. The EPA’s overreach into the regulation of CO2 is a costly, fetid, feel-good power grab.
One does not begin the construction of a house by nailing 2x4s together, in a vain attempt to ‘show progress’ before the foundation is poured. Oh – we need a roof over our heads, alright – but those 2x4s that got nailed together will just get burned in the later scrap pile and contribute to climate change.
Solar from a practical point has a long upside in efficiency gains. While some formats can get 30-40% efficiency, these are very expensive and a (cheaper) residential installation might be 5-8%. If an order of magnitude is an exaggeration, it’s not much of one in terms of cost-effectiveness. The DOE estimates on-shore wind turbines as the third cheapest energy source for facilities planned to go on-line in the next few years, behind gas and geothermal (not available in many places). This is without any form of tax subsidy. Yes, wind requires infrastructure investment. So do all forms of new power generation. No, the turbines are not particularly attractive. Neither is the Texas Panhandle, where lots of them are being installed. Neither of these will eliminate dependency on fossil fuels for electricity generation, but they could produce a significant share in the next 20-30 years.
Sitting on one’s hands because the Chinese won’t do anything is not an energy policy. For the reasons I stated above, the Chinese will find that burning coal produces more than electricity and be interested in alternatives themselves in a few years.
JG- So it appears that what you’re saying here is that we should nail a bunch of 2x4s together in order that we do “something” until the foundation is complete.
You sheeple really need to think this through rather than following along with what “they” keep telling you.
Who needs energy from oil and coal? China
Who pollutes without gov’t regulation? China
Who wants to bring the US down? China (and liberals)
There are so many other explanations for this, and you sheeple refuse to believe it. Obviously, China is the main benefactor of the US trying to do something about global climate change.
Hmmmm, what are some ways to raise the ocean level and the ocean temperature?
Well, China has 1.3 billion people, an authoritarian government, and a desire to damage the US economy. All you sheeple can’t think for yourself and see the obvious.
The Chinese government has ordered everyone in China to go pee in the ocean. 1.3 billion people emptying their bladders of 98.6 degree liquid a few times a day would easily raise the ocean levels and temperature.
The human bladder can hold like 1000 cubic centimeters of fluid…and you have to pee several times a day.
The volume of the oceans is something like 1.37 billion cubic kilometers. There is literally one Chinese person for every billion cubic kilometers of ocean water. Coincidence? I think not.
So, lets just go with a conservative estimate that people pee 1000 cubic centimeters a day, and there are 1.3 billion Chinese ordered by their gov’t to pee into the ocean.
That is like, hmmm…one thousand cc’s times…1.3 billion…uhhh, carry the one, like 1.3 quadrillion cc’s.
Now, you don’t have to be a scientist or a Canadian to understand the impact of 1.3 quadrillion cc’s of 98.6 degree pee compared to only 1.37 billion cubic kilometers of ocean.
Folks, this is just basic science. China is causing the rising oceans and ocean temperatures with pee in an attempt to hurt the US economy.
Wake up sheeple!
You qwack me up!
Ht, I am pretty sure that was satire, but the fact is that it basically is the whole argument that human beings cause climate change. Both arguments are equal on scientific standings. Chinese people pee in the ocean therefore sea levels rise. Human beings exist therefore human beings cause climate change. I think everybody should step back and read your comment, because that is how we see the chicken littles running around screaming about the falling sky on climate change.
The fact that you do not know for sure HSAT’s comments were satire really cracks me up.
The fact you missed Sternn’s point cracks us up. Homer’s sarcasm is your reality.
Oh my, the sky is falling! We must destroy the U.S. economy while promoting China and pollution. We must take money from the U.S. and give it to poor nations. How will we ever restore the glaciers that covered most of North America 10,000 years ago?
Wait, in the 1970s we were warned about global cooling, North America would be covered in glaciers by the year 2000. Crops would fail and there would be famine, disease and starvation. Half the population would die off. Oh my, the sky is falling!
Ever wonder why these “scientists” start their measurements in the late 1800s, at the end of the Little Ice Age? Ever wonder why they try to erase the Medieval Warm Period? Ever wonder why it is all political and not based on real science? Ever wonder why there has been no real warming since the middle 1990s? Ever wonder about the fact that termites alone account for ten times the biomass of humans? Ever wonder why these “scientists” would rather destroy their data than have it made public and peer reviewed? Ever wonder why opposite views have been squashed? Maybe you don;t believe in evolution, that nature is and should be static? Maybe you believe the Earth is only 6,000 years old?
Do you ever question anything, or do you simply follow the left like a good little sheeple?
Guess what, the climate changes, weather happens, and human beings don’t control weather, climate, solar activity, the orbit of our planet around the sun or the orbit of our moon.
Do you ever get tired of looking stupid?
That’s all ya got, Way? Nothing factual, just name calling and dismissive?
Yep, that’s it, it is a monumental waste of time trying to make sense with someone who has such a firm grasp of fantasy.
the irony is hilarious with Way2Gassy
Yet another smelly little troll rears it’s ugly head to spout one more juvenile attempt to tick someone off with his usual name calling. How old are you anyway.
hmmm, I seem to recall that being asked you young lady
Try again, troll, you missed!
Sternn, you are someone who recites bullet points of of websites, rather than look at the science. This MWP you and others so love to cite was not global, for example. Scientists have looked at it, you just ignore that fact because it doesn’t fit what you want to believe,
show me who’s paying he scientist and I’ll predict his conclusion…with 95% accuracy
Destroy the US economy?
The only person with a “sky is falling” mentality is you sir.
“Nevertheless, Libertarians deserve credit for cap and trade. It remains the best solution we have.”
bwaahhahahahahaha!! to a problem that we don’t have sure
Lifer doesn’t understand the libertarian view. He confuses it with socialism/communism/fascism and then anarchy. I have posted the link to the LP Platform several times, but he still can’t accept it. While I am not a pure libertarian, I have strong liertarian leaning views, as does the tea party movement in general.
Capt,
I think GOP Lifer is referring to the libertarian solution to a known and identified problem. Cap and Trade is most certainly a libertarian, market-based solution to a known problem. It was used most successfully to address the problem of acid rain.
What you are talking about is ignoring the problem entirity or pretending it doesn’t exsit. Accepting science and the consensus of science that climate change is real and is happening does not equate to socialism/communism/fascism. Just as accepting science and the consensus of science that acid rain is a problem is not socialism/communisum/fascism (or for that matter accepting helio-centrism).
Do we still have acid rain? It hasn’t been in the news for awhile so bring us up to speed.
Here is the LP Platform. See what you can find on cap and trade in it.
http://www.lp.org/platform
Yes. As long as we have SO2 and NOX emmissions, we have some type of acid rain. Such emissions have dropped significantly since their peaks in the 1970’s I believe, but acid rain still occurs and is still polluting our water and soil and still destroying our buildings and statutes. It just occurs at much lower levels.
by all means, let’s protect our buildings and statues at any cost
Where did I say “at any cost?” We are talking about reducing the amount of such emissions, not eliminating them.
You obviously have an inability to grasp such a distinction.
poor 75 can’t walk and chew gum. Is it verboten to consider costs or not?
I’ll say it slowly this time:
Consider cost in an argument about what to do about climate change? Logical.
Consider cost in an argument about whether climate change is happening or whether human activity has a major effect? Illogical.
Word missing?
Libertarianism a generation is a bit too
Yup. Thanks.
Still proud of that fan base?