Cynical Nation

Aw! Leave Jennifer Garner alone. At least she hasn't run anyone over or worn Uggs while being a PETA spokesperson (seriously, Pamela Anderson apparently didn't understand she was wearing sheepskin when she wore those). Relatively speaking, she seems almost normal.

>Relatively speaking, she seems almost normal.

K, c'mon. Normally I'd agree with you? But dude, she had sex with Ben Affleck.

Well, yes. But it's not like she's sleeping with Marc Anthony.

Actually, regardless of the global warming issue, I've always supported alternative energy because it reduces the power of oil producing nations to influence the US. When I published my Open Letter to Jon Corzine on his campaign web log in 2005, I urged him to make an Energy Race a centerpiece to his campaign, not because of global warming, but because of job creation and the benefits that could accrue to the US (and to NJ if we led the way) if we found an alternative to fossil fuels that would free us from dependence on foreign oil, cut the cost of energy, owned and exported the technology for, like, gobs of cash, and had all the jobs it would create.

My biggest complaint all along has been that nimrods like Rush Limbaugh laugh at global warming and pretend it doesn't exist when, as you noted, there is a warming trend and the debate is about whether human activity causes it.

Global Warming is Junk Science. Jennifer Garner is a cow, and a shitty actress.

My fondest hope is that GWB will announce at his next and last SOTU address that he has reconsidered his position on Kyoto and will immediately submit the treaty to the Senate for ratification (something Bill Clinton never did) so the Democrat controlled Senate can pass it without delay -- or, if they prefer, make it part of the 2008 political campaign during the upcoming primary season.

mon Dieu! Comment pouvez-vous écarter le corps de l'évidence ?

Has anybody noticed that these twits never mention that the polar caps on Mars are melting as well?

Gee, wonder why?

>Has anybody noticed that these twits never mention that the polar caps on Mars are melting as well?

It's because of the emissions of that damn Martian rover.

It's like this, Barry: these people are basically the same who buffaloed thru the junk science of second-hand smoke.

They employ exactly the same tactics:

a) declare that the debate is over when it isn't

b) attempt to discredit any and all scientists who disagree with them, never admitting that their side has ulterior motives and high-powered funding on the line as well

c) make up the numbers as they go along. Have you heard the latest from a group that wants any movie showing smoking to be rated R-17? They toss out numbers claiming that kids are 2 1/2 likelier to smoke if they've seen their heroes smoking and the annoucne that this extrapolates to almost 800,000 kids/yr.

Excuse me? Based on what hard scientific evidence?

Answer: none. But why worry, nobody has the balls to challenge any of their numbers.

By their definition, I should be dead or crippled given that both my parents smoked both at home and in the car.

How did I ever get two letters for running cross country and the mile?

Just lucky, I guess.

Barry, unlike you, I am not a big fan of guns but I understand now why the NRA refuses to give the do-gooders the satisfaction of swallowing their poison pill of banning obvious guns.

Because the left will not stop at one. They get their foot in the door and keep pushing as they did with us smokers, reducing your options one by one.

Accept the move of smoking in films to R-17 and they'll be back next year seeking a complete ban on smoking in films.

It's just their MO.

>Barry, unlike you, I am not a big fan of guns but I understand now why the NRA refuses to give the do-gooders the satisfaction of swallowing their poison pill of banning obvious guns.

Because the left will not stop at one. They get their foot in the door and keep pushing as they did with us smokers, reducing your options one by one.

Exactly, Mal. Camel, nose, tent, all that.

Who would have thought an intelligent guy like you would allow himself to be snookered by a bunch of ex-oil industry lobbyists?

And I can't believe a bright gal like yourself struggles so with basic reading comprehension, at least inasmuch as you persist in grossly misrepresenting my opinions.

And I can't believe a bright gal like yourself struggles so with basic reading comprehension, at least inasmuch as you persist in grossly misrepresenting my opinions.

Sounds exactly like something a stooge for the oil industry would say!

Barry and mal, your problem is you hit the nail on the head and now you got the wingnuts and moonbats started with the name calling and insults because they have NO other argument.

Brother Al has spoken and his word hath all the wisdom and thou shalt not spake against he. Thy sheep shall blat all the lies and pull they wool over thine eyes. Yea, and ne'r do they hear the truth, for Brother Al has already nay-sayed all but His word. So sayeth the deaf, blind and ignorant.

(I never said we couldn't participate in the derision. But Al's disciple's use it first as a mechanism to take the focus away from the facts)

"Who would have thought an intelligent guy like you would allow himself to be snookered by a bunch of ex-oil industry lobbyists?" (Jill)

I've never seen Barry or anyone else here write that they get their info on global warming from the government, so this article is moot. If anyone has been 'snookered' it's those listening to Gore, isn't he nothing but a politician?! Who sells carbon credits?
THERE'S a reliable source.

There's no conclusive evidence that global warming is attributable to human activities, however there is an increasing amount of evidence that strongly supports that theory.

This is from the EPA’s website:

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/stateofknowledge.html

State of Knowledge
Related Links
CCSP
• Product 5.2 - Best practice approaches for characterizing, communicating, and incorporating scientific uncertainty in decisionmaking
• Vision for the Program and Highlights of the Scientific Strategic Plan
What’s Known | What’s Likely | What’s Not Certain
As with any field of scientific study, there are uncertainties associated with the science of climate change. This does not imply that scientists do not have confidence in many aspects of climate science. Some aspects of the science are known with virtual certainty1, because they are based on well-known physical laws and documented trends. Current understanding of many other aspects of climate change ranges from “likely” to “uncertain.”
What's Known
Scientists know with virtual certainty that:
• Human activities are changing the composition of Earth's atmosphere. Increasing levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere since pre-industrial times are well-documented and understood.
• The atmospheric buildup of CO2 and other greenhouse gases is largely the result of human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels.
• A warming trend of about 0.7 to 1.5°F occurred during the 20th century. Warming occurred in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, and over the oceans (NRC, 2001).
• The major greenhouse gases emitted by human activities remain in the atmosphere for periods ranging from decades to centuries. It is therefore virtually certain that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will continue to rise over the next few decades.
• Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations tend to warm the planet.
Top of page
What's Likely?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stated "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities" (IPCC, 2001). In short, a number of scientific analyses indicate, but cannot prove, that rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are contributing to climate change (as theory predicts). In the coming decades, scientists anticipate that as atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases continue to rise, average global temperatures and sea levels will continue to rise as a result and precipitation patterns will change.
Top of page
What's Not Certain?
Important scientific questions remain about how much warming will occur, how fast it will occur, and how the warming will affect the rest of the climate system including precipitation patterns and storms. Answering these questions will require advances in scientific knowledge in a number of areas:
• Improving understanding of natural climatic variations, changes in the sun's energy, land-use changes, the warming or cooling effects of pollutant aerosols, and the impacts of changing humidity and cloud cover.
• Determining the relative contribution to climate change of human activities and natural causes.
• Projecting future greenhouse emissions and how the climate system will respond within a narrow range.
• Improving understanding of the potential for rapid or abrupt climate change.
Addressing these and other areas of scientific uncertainty is a major priority of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP). The CCSP is developing twenty-one Synthesis and Assessment products to advance scientific understanding of these uncertainty areas by the end of 2008. More information.
Top of page
References
• IPCC, 2001: Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Houghton, J.T., Y. Ding, D.J. Griggs, M. Noguer, P.J. van der Linden, X. Dai, K. Maskell, and C.A. Johnson (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 881pp.
• National Research Council (NRC), 2001. Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions. National Academy Press, Washington, DC
1 Throughout the science section of this Web site, use of "virtual certainty" (or virtually certain) conveys a greater than 99% chance that a result is true. Other terms used to communicate confidence include "very likely" (90-99% chance the result is true) and "likely" (66-90% chance the result is true). These judgmental estimates originate from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2001).

Here's one of the problem that Gore's folowers have; even if a significant amount of the global warming witnessed over the past half century is anthropomorphic, there seems to be very little we can do about it.

One thing's for sure, Kyoto is NOT the answer! Is a 30% reduction in energy use for compliant nations for a (negligible) 0.05 degree Celsius change in temperature, worth it?!

Doesn't seem so.

According to all geologists, we're more than halfway between Ice Ages and are, for better or worse, well on our the way toward the next one. The natural earth cycle should warm up and raise sea levels and begin the glacial movement southward.

Since Ice Ages have been regularly scheduled events since the earth's existence, wouldn't it seem that our money might better be spent trying to find ways of dealing with the inevitable Ice Age, rather than on forestalling it?

Green house gases implies more than one. Can anyone name the other green house gases? Can any of you egghead scientist types tell me how and why certain gases are green house gases? Probably not. I've got to agree with BNJ. Conservation Yes. Alternative fuels Yes. New technologies to aid conservation Yes. Al Gore No. Worry about the sky falling No. Kyoto No.

>Can anyone name the other green house gases?

Well, water vapor, evidently. Seriously. I just had a "discussion" with a French person who opposed nuclear power because it produces a lot of water vapor, which contributes to global warming.

"Can anyone name the other green house gases?" (John the Marine)


That's a great question.

I think CO2 is the leading greenhouse gas (over 60%???...maybe over 65%).

I think methane is another and flourocarbons...or is it flourohydrocarbons (?) is another.

I think it's flourocarbons, because most hydrocarbons are fuels, or at least, most fuels are hydrocarbons.

There's at least another one, maybe two, but I can't even hazard a guess as to what it or they are.

The thing I've always heard about CO2 is that carbon dioxide is "oxygen to plant life," in that plants "breathe" in carbon dioxide and expell oxygen.

Some have said that as carbon dioxide levels rise, plants (including algae) grow and release even more oxygen into the atmosphere as a result.

P.S. I had a course on this a few months ago, and I guess this shows I have a pretty bad memory.

I could check my notes....if only I could read them!

I never got that penmanship down, despite those Nuns.

I checked and CO2 is listed as being the lead "greenhouse gas" - at 75% of the total...not 60 or 65 percent

So that's probably why it's the focal point.

Things like Methane, FLOUROcarbons, nitrous oxide and water vapor make up the rest.

Decay gives off methane, so do living things - Gore's Earth in the Balance blamed large herds of cows, used for beef consumption, as a large source of methane.

The entire earth is a living system, and it expands and contracts with Ice Ages and intermediate periods of warmings in between, it would seem that a better way to spend our finite resources would be in finding ways to deal with the earth as it is, rather than on trying to keep it from going though these inevitable cycles in the first place.

The bad news is that there's no way we're going to stop the next Ice Age from coming.

The good news is that for anyone who lives long enough to witness it (estimates range from some 3,000 to 8,000 years from now) it'll probably be very exciting.

About 11,000 years ago, scientists claim that over 10 million square miles of North America, Asia, and Europe were covered by ice. Today only about 10% of the erth's surface is covered in ice - mostly in Antarctica, the Arctic and Greenland.

John the Marine seems to have summed it up (w/ Barry's input, of course) pretty logically. Which means intelligently.

Semper Fi, John.

(no, I'm not a Marine, I was Navy, but Dad, sis, brother-in-law and now nephew are Marines. Only nephew is active duty, of course)

“Green house gases implies more than one. Can anyone name the other green house gases? Can any of you egghead scientist types tell me how and why certain gases are green house gases?
.” – John the Marine

If you have an issue with the wording you ought to complain to the EPA, it’s from their website. Many greenhouse gases are naturally occurring such as: water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.
The major anthropogenic greenhouse gases are: Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and several groups of fluorinated gasses (sulfur hexafluoride, HFCs, CFC’s and PFCs).

Greenhouse gases are components of the atmosphere that contribute to the Greenhouse effect.

The Greenhouse Effect is:
“When sunlight reaches the surface of earth, some of it is absorbed and warms the earth. Because the Earth's surface is much cooler than the sun, it radiates energy at much longer wavelengths than the sun (see black body radiation and Wien's displacement law). Some energy in these longer wavelengths is absorbed by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere before it can be lost to space. The absorption of this longwave radiant energy warms the atmosphere (the atmosphere also is warmed by transfer of sensible and latent heat from the surface). Greenhouse gases also emit longwave radiation both upward to space and downward to the surface. The downward part of this longwave radiation emitted by the atmosphere is the "greenhouse effect."”

As I mentioned and the EPA’s page states it’s known for certain that there has been an anthropomorphic increase in greenhouse gases. It’s also a certainty that “a warming trend of about 0.7 to 1.5°F occurred during the 20th century.”

What’s uncertain is the level of correlation between the two. There is increasing evidence of a correlation, however it’s not conclusive.

You can belittle Al Gore as a hypocrite, or Chicken Little, however IMO he is doing a service by bringing attention to this issue, even if he comes off as an alarmist. Or is it preferable to head towards the other extreme of denial where climate scientists are silenced by 24 year old political appointees who haven’t even completed a degree in journalism, let alone undergone any form of scientific training.

Dan O, Semper Fi to you as well. the Navy is Like the Corps' brother. We fight and bust each others balls but at the end of the day we all protect and love the same great republic. Wish; Dad, sis, brother-in-law and nephew well for me.

Now a few of you named some other green house gases good for you. However, the second question, Why, you failed with a capital F. Green house gases like CO2 absorb infrared (heat)enegery. This is because they have a dipole moment. Diatomics like O2 and N2 do not becuase there is no difference in electronegativity between the two O's or N's atoms in the respective molecules. Therefore there is no dipole moment.

I brought this up because most of the public is ill informed about the science. Just like you won't here the MSM talking about warming and cooling trends in the past. Example: about 1500 AD the Earth was a bit warmer than it is now. Now what do you know? Pre-Industrial Revelution. How could this be? Perhaps it is because the Earth is what in Science is called a "dynamic system" constantly changing. The Earth's temperatures have never been static and never will. Al Gore and circus don't talk about these inconvenient facts because they would rather run their sorry asses over to Congress and cry tears to Leftist Moron Senators. So, I hope the enviro-chicken littles will excuse this Marine for not being impressed.

Oh, one last thing. during the Carter Administration the impending disaster was "Global Cooling" Leftwing meat heads just can't seem to make up their little minds.

“Now a few of you named some other green house gases good for you. However, the second question, Why, you failed with a capital F. Green house gases like CO2 absorb infrared (heat)enegery. This is because they have a dipole moment. Diatomics like O2 and N2 do not becuase there is no difference in electronegativity between the two O's or N's atoms in the respective molecules. Therefore there is no dipole moment.” – John the Marine

I did more then name some, I named the most prevalent ones, and I divided them between those that are naturally occurring and those that are anthropogenic (man-made).

I’m really not sure why you believe I “failed” since I said as much as you did above, and more in fact since you don’t mention the fact that greenhouse gases also emit longwave radiation, both towards space and towards the earth, which also contributes to the greenhouse effect.

“I brought this up because most of the public is ill informed about the science. Just like you won't here the MSM talking about warming and cooling trends in the past. Example: about 1500 AD the Earth was a bit warmer than it is now. Now what do you know? Pre-Industrial Revelution.” – John the Marine

There’s a problem with that, accurate temperature measurements have only been kept and recorded since the mid 1800’s. We don’t have definitive detail for specific years before that. Instead we have to rely on proxy data from tree rings, corals and ice cores. There’s been some recent research suggesting a medieval warm period lasting from 800-1300 AD, followed by a Little Ice Age of which the specific dates are sketchy. It’s typically defined by known events such as 1250 AD when the Atlantic ice pack began to grow, 1300 when warm summers stopped in Europe, 1607 when the Thames River froze, 1780 when New York Harbor froze over and Iceland was surrounded by Ice for miles in all directions.
Obviously this isn’t widely known or reported. There’s no clear consensus on what caused this, theories range from decreased solar radiation, to volcanic activity, to climate patterns and finally to human activity.
What is known with certainty is the broad temperature trend over the last 450,000 years. “This temperature record was computed from analysis of the Vostock ice core; a 3,623-meter-long sample pulled from the ice sheet at a Russian research base in Antarctica.”

You can see the graph produced from that data here: http://www.seed.slb.com/en/scictr/watch/climate_change/change.htm

When you examine the 450,000 year chart an obvious trend becomes apparent. Temperature rises and falls between it’s two extremes in an approximately 100,000 or so year cycle. According to that chart we came out of the last ice age about 12,000 years ago and temperatures peaked for this cycle about 5,000 years ago. So temperature trends should be going down, however when you look at the detail for the last 2000 years or even the last 150 years the trend seems to be an upward one. Of course that could be deceiving since a few hundred years won’t make a noticeable impact on a 450,000 year trend unless the change is dramatic, which climate changes are usually not.

The bottom line is as I stated that scientists agree that there is currently a warming trend, they disagree on the specific causes. It’s generally accepted that we should try to minimize our anthropogenic footprint as much as we can regardless of the cause.

"The bottom line is as I stated that scientists agree that there is currently a warming trend, they disagree on the specific causes. It’s generally accepted that we should try to minimize our anthropogenic footprint as much as we can regardless of the cause." (GZ)


I'd readilly agree with that provided the proviso "as much as is practicable," were added to that last line.

For instance, Kyoto, according to Dr. Fred Singer would deliver a 0.05 degree Celsius reduction in global temperature ("almost immeasurable," in Singer's words) in exchange for a 30% reduction in energy use by nations like the U.S.

That is not at all practical at this point.

Moreover, I'm more than a little skeptical about politicians, like the Gore-bot who's apparently seeking to use this issue to rationalize his own micro-managing the lives of everyone else.

Sorry, but judging by the evidence I should be micro-managing Gore's life...NOT the reverse.

I could help that fat bastard drop some serious tonnage, but I doubt, he'd want me exerting control over his most personal choices, so he should understand and accept that folks like myself don't want him exerting control over ours.

Personally I want the government as uninvolved in all this as is humanly possible. I believe that the most practical solutions will come from the private sector and they will be incentive driven and not used as rationales for the controlling/exploiting of others for some fat-assed politician's personal agenda.

Crises are opportunity's for profit and growth to the private sector, where serving the customer/public always comes first, but for government, crises are always excuses or rationalizations for some extremely personally flawed folks to seek to exert an unnatural control over others - in my view, that's blatant exploitation of a crisis for personal gain and that's as despicable as those vultures who tried to make money off 9/11.

“I'd readilly agree with that provided the proviso "as much as is practicable," were added to that last line. I'd readilly agree with that provided the proviso "as much as is practicable," were added to that last line.” –JMK

I’d agree with that. I agree that Kyoto is largely impractical. There are 3 ways to approach it, one is to sign on knowing that you’ll never be able to adhere to it – which is disingenuous but looks good. Another way is to just denounce it and refuse to join. A third is to open a real dialogue at the accords with other nations and discuss practicalities. The goal should be to get results, and the only way that can happen is if all parties are honest about what’s really achievable and what’s not.

"The goal should be to get results, and the only way that can happen is if all parties are honest about what’s really achievable and what’s not." (GZ)


Therein lies the problem.

It's in many politician's perceived best interests to rationalize greater government involvement and control over the lives of the citizenry. In Gore's case, he and Tipper once led the lyric "obscenity labelling" movement, so he's a major supporter of government micro-managing the lives of its citizen-rulers.

The U.S. Constitution was designed to make clear that government was a servant, and not a master of the people, so that's my problem with Gore, and many others as well.

It also appears to be in the best interests of many other nations to support things that are deleterious to the U.S.

Kyoto, for instance, would burden the U.S. greatly, while giving a pass to major and growing polluters such as China and india.

In fact, it would allow places like the U.S. to farm out their polluting manufacuring to those places for a price!

What good is that?!

Same amount of pollution, just a different locale...and just one planet.

While I understand that moving beyond self-interest is very difficult, this debate cannot really move forward in any meaningful way until people do just that.

There are those, for instance, who see in this, a chance to take down "Big Oil."

That's foolish. For one thing, it's not "Big Oil," it's "Big Energy" and those companies will almost certainly be controlling whatever alternatives the future needs, as they have a distribution network already in place.

But those energy companies will have to be forced to give up on the idea of suing every last bit of oil before making the switch to a viable alternative.

My problem isn't with those who honestly want some progress GZ, it's with those Luddites who believe that business is the disease and government's the cure.

I don't believe you're really in that camp, at least not most of the time.

“My problem isn't with those who honestly want some progress GZ, it's with those Luddites who believe that business is the disease and government's the cure.
I don't believe you're really in that camp, at least not most of the time.” – JMK

I’m never in that camp with the sole exception of social security. I believe it’s our societal responsibility to take care of those who cannot take care of themselves adequately. Not to institutionalize them, but to do what we can to live the best lives they can. I also believe in providing retirement benefits through social security. It’s not a lot, but it helps many of the elderly get by. I don’t believe that the private sector can ever do this job adequately, their interest would always be the bottom line, while the interest should be in providing what’s needed.

I’ll complain about bad business practices, and I’ll hold companies accountable, but I’m not looking to destroy Big Oil, or knock down the capitalist system. It provides me with a nice income.

As to Kyoto, I already know what you stated, and I pretty much agree with you. I realize that self-interest is an issue as long as it’s self –interest divided on a nation scale. True self-interest would mean that we all collectively are concerned with what is truly best for the planet and how we can actually achieve the best outcome. It’s a tough nut to crack. You can’t really fault the developing nations from wanting to do exactly what we did to get to the place we are in, and it’s impractical to believe we can shutdown industry over here. It’s also disingenuous to shift US pollution overseas, and as you said still bad for the planet.

What Kyoto should be about is coming to a global consensus on reasonable and attainable methods to gradually convert existing industry to a cleaner system, while at the same time providing developing nations with incentives to minimize pollution as they continue to grow. It has to be more of a work in process than a line in the sand approach.