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| | Author | Messages | |
jhall
Posts:1237
 | | 12/20/2007 11:54 AM |
 Alert | | http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=f80a6386-802a-23ad-40c8-3c63dc2d02cb | |
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
--Edmund Burke | |
| | JasonY
Posts:2581
| | 12/20/2007 3:00 PM |
Alert | http://www.globalwarming.org/
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/
http://www.climatehotmap.org/ | |
"My favorite health club is the International House of Pancakes" -- Lewis Black | |
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| | rex
Posts:295
| | 12/20/2007 3:39 PM |
Alert | | I agree that man makes no impact on his environment. That's why I stopped flushing the toilet and taking the trash out from my house. I don't believe those brownhouse gasses in my house are man-made either. | | | |
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| | hastings1066
Posts:879
| | 12/20/2007 4:35 PM |
Alert | | Global warming is a fact. But, to say that humans are the cause is open to debate. In the earth's 4 bill years it has gotten warmer then colder over and over again. In the last ice age much of Europe and N. America were under vast sheets of ice. Did a few 1000 cave men cause that ice to melt? I think not. This is not to say that human activity does not have an impact, but the amount is debatable. | | | |
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| | AZ Dreaming
Posts:292
| | 12/27/2007 11:01 AM |
Alert | I agree hastings - it may be due to human behaviors or maybe it is just time for another climate change that earth goes thru, as it has done for millions of years. Either way, there are definite changes happening and it will remain to be seen if the human species can survive this one. Extinction of species due to climate changes over the millions of years is one of the by products of these changes. Mother nature cannot be controlled.
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Senior Member
Joined July, 2005 | |
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| | CliffinAZ
Posts:405
| | 12/27/2007 11:17 AM |
Alert | | In the historical scope of climate changes on this planet, I'm not even sure if this qualifies as major, or just one of earth's little 'hiccups.' It remains to be seen... | | | |
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|  | Cactus Rob
Posts:1031
| | 12/27/2007 11:54 AM |
Alert | I'm so busy covering my landscaping plants in an attempt to keep them from freezing, I don't have time to think about it.
I recently read that one of the headlines for the year 2020 might read like this:
"Al and Tipper Gore lost in sub freezing blizzard. Forth year in row temps 40 degrees below normal. Scientists baffeled."
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| | kharless
Posts:79
| | 12/27/2007 3:37 PM |
Alert | Regardless if Man is impacting the environment, which I for one believe he is, or if his impact is negligible and we are simply in one of the many heating/cooling cycles the planet has gone through in it 4+ billion years, moving to a more sustainable method of energy use is in our best interest. Don't tell me you can't feel the effect of smog on your lungs?
So if we clean up our planet, and its getting warmer still, then either we started too late, or its just getting warmer, but we will be less polluting and all the better for it.
If we continue to pollute at the exponential rate we are, and the planet gets warmer, we are actually adding to the effect, or were not and it's just a warming trend, but regardless, at the end of the day, the planet is more polluted than at the beginning of the day.
Which future world would you rather awake in?
Argue all you want, the planet will be what it will be, with us or without us, I just hope it's with us! | |
47.2 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot!
1,283,412 POSTS (Am I the weaner yet?) | |
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| | jhall
Posts:1237
| | 12/27/2007 5:56 PM |
Alert | | What really bothers me is that these global warming worshipers won't take in to account the radiation released by our sun the single most contributer to temperature and weather on our planet....follow the money straight into Al Gores carbon credit company owning pockets. Hope the snake oil is working.... | |
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
--Edmund Burke | |
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| | GilaGuy
Posts:789
| | 12/27/2007 7:21 PM |
Alert | Posted By kharless on 12/27/2007 3:37 PM
Which future world would you rather awake in?
The one where every country except China is NOT shackled by arbitrary "green" anti-industrial regulations. The Kyoto Protocol was a sham when it was drafted, it makes even less sense today.
I am all for personal responsibility, up to and including limiting one's utility usage on an individual basis. That's how many of us live, and that's how it should be. But to take orders from Al "Private Jet" Gore or other fatcats who burn more fuel in three weeks than the rest of us do in our entire lifetimes is outrageous.
Compulsory cutbacks and enviroregulation is merely the latest form of socialism. And I cannot support that. | | | |
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| | hastings1066
Posts:879
| | 12/27/2007 7:40 PM |
Alert | | Most of us are in favor of less polution and a wiser use of resources, including using sustainable energy. However, to criple our economy to conform to some pop science theory while letting India, China, and the entire undeveloped world continue business as usual would be foolish. This is just another facet of the blame America first foolisness that much of the world, including much of the American left, enjoys. | | | |
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| | CliffinAZ
Posts:405
| | 12/27/2007 11:13 PM |
Alert | GilaGuy, I don't really think of as environmental regulation as socialism. While I definitely believe that capitalism works better than any other economic system, I don't believe in complete laissez-faire, "let businesses do anything they want because they'll inevitably do the right thing" capitalism. I don't think that environmental regulations are socialism any more than I think that the other existing laws and regulations that organizations have to abide by are socialism.
I'm not thinking about global warming here at all, but more along the lines of stories I've heard about particularly toxic factories opening up and heavily polluting nearby existing towns, and the impact this has on individuals in those communities (e.g., ridiculous rates of cancer, respiratory disease, stillborn/deformed babies, etc.) This isn't something like global warming, that may or may not have anything to do with human activity, but harm to people caused clearly and directly by the actions of particular organizations that weren't concerned with the impact of what they were doing on those nearby. I don't think that the environmental regulations that are in place to prevent such things from happening are socialism at all, but an absolutely necessary function of government; the rights of organizations should not supercede the rights of individuals to live safely. Another example--prohibiting use of asbestos in building homes (definitely an environmental regulation). Are you including such regulations in your definition of environmental regulation as socialism? If not, where does that line get drawn? To me, it's not really a question of socialism vs. capitalism, but whether or not our environmental policy is (a) based on sound science and (b) practical.
In general, I do think that some environmental regulation of organizations is necessary, but my concerns are less about global warming (which the jury is still out on in terms of human impact) and more about exposure to known carcinogens and other pollutants--i.e., things that have been pretty clearly established to be harmful to us by science. I also don't believe that we need to (or should) go so far as to cripple our economy--just that there should be some healthy and sensible balance. | | | |
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| | GilaGuy
Posts:789
| | 12/28/2007 2:59 AM |
Alert | Posted By CliffinAZ on 12/27/2007 11:13 PM
In general, I do think that some environmental regulation of organizations is necessary, but my concerns are less about global warming (which the jury is still out on in terms of human impact) and more about exposure to known carcinogens and other pollutants--i.e., things that have been pretty clearly established to be harmful to us by science. I also don't believe that we need to (or should) go so far as to cripple our economy--just that there should be some healthy and sensible balance.
Cliff, you hit the nail right on the head. Indeed I do differentiate between environmental safety regulations (i.e. "don't be dumping acetone into the water supply") and the far more touchy-feely Global Warming mandates (i.e. "nobody can purchase the light bulb of their choice anymore, it's a 13-watt Compact Fluorescent for all, at taxpayer expense"). I don't think anyone has a compelling interest in preventing the government from enacting the sorts of regulations that keep us free of a Chernobyl-type disaster.
Where it becomes socialism is in the European-style edicts that have recently been all the rage. The aforementioned light bulb example is one that has recently overtaken California...I happen to love those CF bulbs (they do save a good bit of energy over time), but I resent the notion that I should be held at gunpoint and compelled to buy them because the world has come off of its recent period of cooling and is now trending the other way. More evidence of socialism comes when governments employ methods of social engineering to force individuals towards a certain choice (i.e. tax credits for a Toyota Prius that gets the same number of miles per gallon at high speed as a gasoline-fueled Toyota Corolla). Capitalism already has a method of taking care of that...folks observe that a) their gasoline bills increase constantly or b) their gasoline purchases fund unlikeable regimes in the MidEast, and they make the informed choice to purchase a more fuel-efficient car on their next go-round.
That's the sort of thing that I bristle at...because like most people, I'm not a member of the limousine set. Folks like Al Gore don't care what edicts are placed upon the common man, because he and his ilk can afford to circumvent such mandates with money you and I do not have. Go figure. | | | |
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| | jhall
Posts:1237
| | 12/28/2007 7:42 AM |
Alert | I also thought this was interesting....
Top 10 Climate Myth-Busters for 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
By Steven Milloy
“I’ve made up my mind. Don’t confuse me with the facts.” That saying most appropriately sums up the year in climate science for the fanatic global warming crowd.
As Al Gore, the United Nations, grandstanding politicians and celebrities, taxpayer-dependent climate researchers, socialist-minded Greens, climate profiteers and other members of the alarmist railroad relentlessly continued their drive for greenhouse gas regulation in 2007, the year’s scientific developments actually pointed in the opposite direction. Here’s the round-up:
1. Cracked crystal balls. Observed temperature changes measured over the last 30 years don’t match well with temperatures predicted by the mathematical climate models relied on by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), researchers reported.
The models predict significantly warmer atmospheric temperatures than actually occurred, despite the availability of more and better quality data and improved modeling efforts since the late-1970s.
“We suggest, therefore, that projections of future climate based on these models be viewed with much caution,” the researchers concluded. Read more…
2. The big yellow ball in the sky. The Sun may have contributed 50 percent or more of the global warming thought to have occurred since 1900, according to a new historical temperature reconstruction showing more variation in pre-industrial temperatures than previously thought.
The researchers found that “the climate is very sensitive to solar changes and a significant fraction of the global warming that occurred during the last century should be solar induced.” Read more…
3. Pre-SUV warming. Another new temperature reconstruction for the past 2,000 years indicates that globally averaged temperature 1,000 years ago was about 0.3 degrees Celsius warmer than the current temperature. Since that climatic "heat wave" obviously wasn’t caused by coal-fired power plants and SUVs, the current temperature is quite within natural variability, deflating alarmists’ rash conclusions about the warming of the past 50 years. Read more…
4. A disciplined climate. Runaway global warming -- the alarmist fantasy in which a warmer global temperature causes climatic events that, in turn, cause more warming and so-on in a never-ending positive feedback loop -- was cornered by new data from researchers at the University of Alabama-Huntsville (UAH). The new research sheds light on the mechanism by which the atmosphere self-regulates. Read more…
5. A gnarly wipeout. Climate alarmists gleefully surfed a 2005 study that claimed greenhouse gas emissions would slow Atlantic Ocean circulation and cause a mini ice age in Europe. But an international team of researchers reported that the intensity of the Atlantic circulation may vary by as much as a factor of eight in a single year. The decrease in Atlantic circulation claimed in the 2005study falls well within this variation and so is likely part of a natural yearly trend, according to the new study. Read more…
6. A pollution solution. A new study reported that the solid particles suspended in the atmosphere (called “aerosols”) that make up “brown clouds” may actually contribute to warmer temperatures -- precisely the opposite effect heretofore claimed by global warming alarmists.
“These findings might seem to contradict the general notion of aerosol particles as cooling agents in the global climate system …,” concluded the researchers. Read more…
7. Lazy temperature? Researchers reported that the rate of manmade carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions was three times greater during 2000 to 2004 than during the 1990s. Since increasing atmospheric C02 levels allegedly cause global warming, the new study must mean that global temperatures are soaring even faster now than they did during the 1990s, right?
Wrong. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Climatic Data Center, ever-changing global temperatures are in no way keeping pace with ever-increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Read more…
8. Don’t plant that tree! Researchers reported that while tropical forests exert a cooling influence on global climate, forests in northern regions exert a significant warming influence on climate. Based on the researchers’ computer modeling, forests above 20 degrees latitude in the Northern Hemisphere -- that is, north of the line of latitude running through Southern Mexico, Saharan Africa, central India and the southernmost Chinese Island of Hainan -- will warm surface temperatures in those regions by an estimated 10 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100. Read more…
9. The Tropical Arctic. Dutch researchers reported that during a period of intense global warming 55 million years ago -- when the Arctic Ocean was as warm as 73 degrees Fahrenheit -- there was a tremendous release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But which came first, the warming or the greenhouse gases?
It was the warming, according to the researchers. Read more…
10. Much ado about nothing. In a report to Congress, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency revealed greenhouse gas regulation to be quite the fool’s errand. In estimating the atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases 90 years from now under both a scenario where no action is taken to reduce manmade emissions and a scenario where maximum regulation is implemented, the estimated difference in average global temperature between the two scenarios is 0.17 degrees Centigrade.
For reference purposes, the estimated total increase in average global temperature for the 20th century was about 0.50 degrees Celsius.
That’s what researchers have reported this year. And let’s not forget the spanking a British high judge gave Al Gore’s movie for all its scientific inaccuracies and the thrashing non-alarmist climate scientists gave to alarmist climate scientists in a debate sponsored by the New York debating society Intelligence Squared.
Al Gore and the alarmist mob claim the debate about the science of global warming is “over.” Given the developments of 2007, it’s easy to see why they would want it that way.
Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and DemandDebate.com. He is a junk science expert, an advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. | |
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
--Edmund Burke | |
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| | mrhawk
Posts:57
| | 12/28/2007 9:15 AM |
Alert | Interesting...Steven Milloy, should be noted, has been a paid advocate for Exxon Mobil. He is a noted Libertarian, and has shown repeatedly that indivual freedom to do whatever you want to do trumps all else so long as there is no direct harm caused (indirect harm is another story - see his past statements on the Clean Air Act, GE's independent decision to curb greenhouse gases, asbestos use, etc). Government regulation of almost anything is high on his hit list.
This topic is much too long and complicated to fully address in a post on a message board, which is why it repeatedly gets boiled down (by both sides) with simple talking points, out of context quotes, etc. It's hard to decipher those studies that were funded by people with direct monetary stakes in the game (i.e. studies with connections to energy companies constitute the majority of those that argue against global warming), or conflicting personal interests.
My take on the issue is that we know what affect greenhouse gases have on the atmosphere (this is a fact everyone agrees to), and we know that humans create greenhouse gases at an ever increasing rate. This issue is too important to guess wrong, so let's control what is within our power and reduce our impact. | | | |
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| | geewiz
Posts:323
| | 12/28/2007 10:04 AM |
Alert | | global warming is caused by all the enviromentalist blowing off hot air. If they shut thier mouth just for a week the earth will cool down at least 4 degrees. So that does make it man made but just not the way they say it happens. | | | |
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| | sdmphx777
Posts:0
| | 12/28/2007 12:48 PM |
Alert | Posted By hastings1066 on 12/27/2007 7:40 PM
Most of us are in favor of less polution and a wiser use of resources, including using sustainable energy. However, to criple our economy to conform to some pop science theory while letting India, China, and the entire undeveloped world continue business as usual would be foolish. This is just another facet of the blame America first foolisness that much of the world, including much of the American left, enjoys.
Funny you mention China.
...if the United States were to meet the Chinese standards announced in September (2004), average auto fuel economy would need to increase by 5% in 2005 and 10% in 2008.
http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=9128
Also according to CDIAC the US ranks number 1 when it comes to annual carbon dioxide emissions accounting for 22.2% of the world's CO2 emissions. (Population 300 million)
China ranks number 2 with 18.4% of the world's CO2 emissions although they are closing in on us due to increased industrialization. (Population 1.33 billion)
India ranks 4th with 4.9% of the world's CO2 emissions. (Population 1.13 billion)
You have to remember in comparison to China, India, and other less industrialized nations, much of the population is poor, does not own cars, and have small homes without electricity or limited electricity. Russia and the European Union (and of course the US) are more to blame than China and India.
Here are some comparisons on ownership of items in the US and China (per 1000 people):
Cars:
China - 6
United States - 476
Bicycles:
China - 583
United States - 361
and most importantly,
Electric power consumption (kilowatt-hours per capita):
China - 827
United States - 12,322
The important thing is global warming does exist, however there is some debate as to what is causing it, whether it be natural or caused by humans.
The point is it doesn't matter what the reason; if those that don't believe that humans are the cause are wrong and it is caused by humans, then we'll just be passing our problems on to our kids, grandchildren, and so on. If those that think it is caused by humans are wrong then there is no adverse effects as a result of reducing emissions. | | | |
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| | sdmphx777
Posts:0
| | 12/28/2007 1:07 PM |
Alert | Plus, wouldn't it be great to get rid of the brown cloud? | | | |
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| | GilaGuy
Posts:789
| | 12/28/2007 3:43 PM |
Alert | Posted By sdmphx777 on 12/28/2007 1:07 PM Plus, wouldn't it be great to get rid of the brown cloud?
It won't. Blowing dust creates fine particulate matter which hangs in the air due to atmospheric conditions anyway. There isn't much we can do about the weather. 
As for China, their growth has propelled them past us in CO2 emissions already, and as it continues they will outstrip us in our per capita emissions as well. It's only a matter of time...which is why no environmental protocol that lets them of the hook is worth the paper it is printed on. | | | |
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| | CliffinAZ
Posts:405
| | 12/28/2007 3:49 PM |
Alert | | Yes, the brown cloud and not global warming is the main reason I'd be in favor of some degree of regulation. GilaGuy, I agree that simple economics (e.g., the rising price of gas) are ultimately going to drive people towards a lot of the "greener" solutions, as they rapidly improve and become more affordable. | | | |
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