Vast cracks appear in Arctic ice

[Darth Wong]

I'd just like to know why he thinks it's "hubris" to think that dumping 25 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year might actually have an effect on it. When people ask how we know we're having an effect, I have to ask: why the fuck do they think such massive-scale dumping WOULDN'T have an effect?

Most of these people are so ignorant that they think it can't have an effect because other greenhouse gas sources are larger, which is a lot like saying that your gambling has no effect on your finances because your mortgage payments are a lot bigger than your gambling losses.

[Kitsune]

One problem without getting into the debate of Global Warming is one of the ways we can at least reduce CO2 production still keeps getting shot down.

I live in the United States. There should be plans to produce five or six hundred new nuclear power plants / reactors (I understand the US needs around four hundred to be fully independent but we need potentially a lot additional power for electrically powered cars, cracking hydrogens for fuel cells, and such) and it should be pushed as a number one priority. That is what congress should be doing.

There should be massive tax incentives for power companies to build nuclear power plants to stimulate their building. In the next year or two, plans should be made to begin building one hundred or so followed by more in the next few years.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

One problem without getting into the debate of Global Warming is one of the ways we can at least reduce CO2 production still keeps getting shot down.

I live in the United States. There should be plans to produce five or six hundred new nuclear power plants / reactors (I understand the US needs around four hundred to be fully independent but we need potentially a lot additional power for electrically powered cars, cracking hydrogens for fuel cells, and such) and it should be pushed as a number one priority. That is what congress should be doing.

There should be massive tax incentives for power companies to build nuclear power plants to stimulate their building. In the next year or two, plans should be made to begin building one hundred or so followed by more in the next few years.

The situation is so bad that I would be willing to accept the construction of an RBMK-type reactor in my backyard. Or, for that matter, to work on one, if that would but make things faster and cheaper. Whatever gives us the most power with the greatest ease of construction, we need to simply choose it and start mass producing components for the assembly of as many reactors as possible.

[Kitsune]

Congress just dances though, mouths the words and comes up with nothing concrete. Maybe I am selfish but I don't want to give my ability to drive to work or have air conditioning. I also want to play on my computers.

I looked at a carbon footprint website and they attacked such things as having a bank account as adding greenhouse gas. There is so much craziness with that many people just want to throw up their hands. We want to help but we want to come up with a logical solution to the problem and something we can really do.

[JBG]

Whether or not global warming is caused by us is completely irrelevant to the argument anyway: the points to take note of are a) is it happening and b) is it bad for us. If the answer to both points is "yes", then it's an issue that needs to be addressed, regardless of the cause.

I mean, if you saw some guy get hit in a hit and run, you'd go and help him, right? You wouldn't just stand by and say, "Sorry - not my fault." Why should the environment be any different?

Not sure re the first paragraph, IMVHO it should be a) is it happening, b) why is it happening and then c) is it bad for us. Point (b) is a must. Point (a) describes and point (b) allows prediction, assisting in (c). It is helpful of course to be able to describe changes in temperature. Without the "why" we are always only observers, simpliciter, however and not able to understand such that we can predict what, within limits of course, what will happen.

[PeZook]

I'd just like to know why he thinks it's "hubris" to think that dumping 25 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year might actually have an effect on it. When people ask how we know we're having an effect, I have to ask: why the fuck do they think such massive-scale dumping WOULDN'T have an effect?

But...but... but there's only 0.7% of CO2 in the atmosphere! How can it possibly be harmful!

Because, you know, only gigantically enormous concentrations of a chemical are actually bad. Like, I don't know know...VX nerve gas, which is, naturally, completely harmless in 1% concentrations in the air

[The Big I]

Regarding the Lieberman-Warner Debate, Rep. Rohrabacher: “Do you really think the world is filled with morons?”
5

06

2008


From the Congressional Record, this speech was given on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. It is worth reading and posting elsewhere.

Lieberman-Warner Debate: Congressman Rohrabacher’s Floor Speech on Global Warming

http://rohrabacher.house.gov/News/Docum ... ntID=91424


MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING

House of Representatives - May 14, 2008

—

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Space). Under the Speaker’s announced policy of January 18, 2007, the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) is recognized for 60 minutes.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I preface my remarks with a personal statement that, while I am opposed to the advocates of man-made global warming theories, I am committed to a clean and healthy environment, to purifying our air, our water, and our soil; all of this for the sake of the people of this planet, including my three children, Anika, Tristan and Christian. I do this not because of some paranoid theory that humans are changing the climate of the world, but instead, I am very concerned about the health of the people of the world and, thus, committed to clean air, clean soil, and clean water.

Thus, we have, today, to take a look at the issues of global warming and pollution that confront our society because there are enormous implications to this whole discussion of what has been called “man-made global warming.”

Only 18 months ago the refrain “Case closed: Global warming is real,” was repeated as if the mantra from some religious zealots. It was pounded into the public consciousness over the airwaves, in print, and even at congressional hearings, “Case closed.” Well, this was obviously a brazen attempt to end open discussion and to silence differing views by dismissing the need for seriously contrary arguments and seriously listening to both sides of an argument. And rather than hearing both sides of the argument, this was an attempt to dismiss arguments even though the person making the arguments might have a very impressive credential or might be a very educated scientist or someone else who should be listened to.

And yes, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of prominent scientists and meteorologists, the heads of science departments at major universities, and others, who are highly critical of the man-made global warming theory. There is Dr. Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been adamant in his opposition, as has a Bjarne Andresen of the University of Copenhagen, Adreas Prokoph, a professor of earth sciences at the University of Ottawa, Dr. William Gray, a famous hurricane expert and former President of the American Meteorological Association, and Dr. Kevin Trenberth, the head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center of Atmospheric Research. All of these are respected scholars, all skeptical of the unwarranted alarmism that we are being pressured to accept.

But their views and those of so many more prominent scholars and scientists don’t matter. The debate is over. Al Gore has his Nobel Prize, and the film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” its Academy Award. So shut up and get your mind in lockstep with the politically correct prevailing wisdom, or at least what the media tells us is the prevailing wisdom. And no questions, please, the case is closed. We heard that dozens and dozens of times.


So what is this theory that now is so accepted that no more debate is needed or even tolerated? The man-made global warming theory may be presented as scientific truism, but it is not. It is a disturbing theory that the Earth began a warming cycle 150 years ago that differed greatly from all the other warming and cooling cycles in the Earth’s past. This warming cycle of 150 years ago, we keep being told, is tied directly to mankind’s use of fossil fuels, basically oil and coal, which, of course, oil and coal and these fuels, these so-called fossil fuels, have powered our industries and made modern civilization possible.

Fossil fuels, we are told, puts an ever-increasing so-called level of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and the most prevalent of these gases, of course, being carbon dioxide, CO2. This increase in CO2 causes the warming that we are supposedly experiencing today. This man-made warming cycle, according to the theory, is rapidly approaching a tipping point when the world’s temperatures will abruptly jump and accelerate with dire and perhaps apocalyptic consequences for the entire planet.

For skeptics of this hypothesis, the consequence of accepting this theory, the consequences are far more dire than any of the consequences we’re supposed to be suffering out of a predicted rise in temperature. And by the way, that rise in temperature, of course, isn’t really happening, which we will discuss a little bit later.

If one accepts this as fact rather than theory, this idea that man-made global warming is overwhelming our planet, then one would be expected to also accept controls, regulations, taxation, international planning and enforcement, mandated lifestyle changes, lowering expectations, limiting consumer choice, as well as

personal and family sacrifices that are all going to be necessary for us to save the planet from–well, from us.

It really takes a lot to frighten people into accepting such personally restrictive mandates that would result from implementing a global warming-based agenda. People’s lives will change if we decide to implement a global warming-based agenda. Yes, people’s lives will change, but not for the better if we have to end, for example, discount airline tickets and cheap travel.

Most people who listen to the global warming advocates don’t understand that the global warming advocates believe that jet planes are some of the worst CO2 polluters, and thus they have to be restricted, according to the theory. So how many people really do want to end the cheap airline tickets that can be had over the Internet?

Obviously one of the goals will be to severely restrict the use of private automobiles. Sure. Now, we know that. The fact that the automobile has been targeted for the last 20 years certainly suggests that automobiles are on the hit list. But don’t worry, we may have to give up our automobiles, but the rich and the government officials will still have their private jets, their Suburbans, and even their limousines. But the rest of us, of course, will be relegated to public transportation. And we will have very limited travel rights unless we can, of course, afford the higher and higher prices.
Global warming predictions appear designed to strike fear into the heart of those malcontents who just won’t willingly accept the mandates in their lifestyle changes that are needed in order to save the planet. These people, of course, won’t accept things like higher food prices, which will come with an implementation of global warming mandates. And of course they certainly won’t accept less meat in their diet. That’s right, part of the manmade global warming theory and how we’re going to solve this is to wean mankind away from meat.

A 2006 report entitled “Livestock’s Long Shadow” to the United Nations mentions livestock emissions and grazing, and it places the blame for global warming squarely on the hind parts of cows. Livestock, the report claims, accounts for 18 percent of the gases that supposedly cause the global warming of our climate. Cows are greenhouse-emitting machines. Fuel for fertilizer and meat production and transportation, as well as clearing the fields for grazing, produce 9 percent of the global CO2 emissions, according to the report. And also, cows produce ammonia, causing acid rain, of course.

Now, if that’s not bad enough, all of these numbers are projected in this report to double by the year 2050. Well, not only are we then going to have to cut personal transportation, which will keep us at home, but when we stay at home, we can’t even have a bbq. And heck, they won’t even let us have a hamburger.

I would like to point out that before the introduction of cattle, millions upon millions of buffalo dominated the Great Plains of America. They were so thick you could not see where the herd started and where it ended. I can only assume that the anti-meat, manmade global warming crowd must believe that buffalo farts have more socially redeeming value than the same flatulence emitted by cattle. Yes, this is absurd, but the deeper one looks into this global warming juggernaut, the weirder this movement becomes and the more denial is evident.

Ten years ago, for example, the alarmists predicted that by now we would be clearly plagued by surging temperatures. In testimony before Congress 20 years ago, now, says James Hansen, a man who has repeatedly challenged people who simply want to make sure that his views are balanced off at NASA, but NASA’s James Hansen 20 years ago predicted CO2 would shoot up and global temperatures would shoot up by more than one-third of a degree Celsius during the 1990s.

So a rise in temperature was predicted, and it would lead to what? Rising sea levels. In the end, we’ll have rising sea levels, perhaps even cities under water, droughts and famines, and of course an increase in tropical diseases. Yes, tropical diseases. Sometimes it’s difficult for me to hear it when certain environmentalists use that as an example, considering the fact that tropical diseases, namely malaria, has killed millions of children in the Third World because the environmentalists have been successful in banning DDT. But that’s another issue.

But the point is there are serious consequences, perhaps unintended consequences to following nonsensical extremism in the arena of the environment.

So were the predictions of global heating correct? Forget “case closed.” The question needs to be answered. Were all of these predictions correct? Mr. Hansen said it would rise by a third of a degree just a little over a decade ago. And the answer is that the predictions of a decade ago have turned out to be dramatically wrong. Temperatures during that decade rose only one-third of the jump predicted by Hansen, a modest 0.11, one-third of what he had predicted.

Furthermore, numerous and powerful hurricanes that were forecast by the National Hurricane Center, for example, at NOAA and others, well, by now we haven’t seen such a trend, and by now we were led to believe there would be a drought and a melting of the ice caps would be clearly upon us. My beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountains in California were due to heat up, dry up, brown up, and burn, burn, burn. Yep, during the entire Clinton administration, we heard these predictions over and over again. During the Clinton administration, we saw scientists produce study after study predicting the horrific impact of the unstoppable onslaught of man-made global warming, which we were led to believe would be overwhelming us right now. Right now. Of course, if there was even a hint that the conclusion of their research wouldn’t back up the theory of man-made global warming, these scientists wouldn’t have seen one red cent from the Federal research pool during the Clinton administration.

In a September, 2005, article from Discovery Magazine, Dr. William Gray, now an emeritus professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University and a former president of the American Meteorological Association, was asked if funding problems that he was experiencing and has been experiencing could be traced to his skepticism of man-made global warming. His response: “I had NOAA money for 30 years, and then when the Clinton administration came in and Gore started directing some of the environmental stuff, I was cut off. I couldn’t get any money from NOAA. They turned down 13 straight proposals from me.” This man is one of the most prominent hurricane experts in the world, cut off during the Clinton-Gore administration because he had been skeptical of global warming.

In fact, Al Gore’s first act as Vice President was to insist that William Harper be fired as the Chief Scientist at the Department of Energy. Now, why was that? Well, that’s because William Harper had uttered words indicating that he was open minded to the issue of global warming. So off with his head. They didn’t want someone who was open minded. They wanted someone who was going to provide grants based on people who would verify this man-made global warming theory. Now, that was 1993 when Mr. Harper was relieved, the first year of the Clinton-Gore administration. So for over a decade, all we got was a drumbeat of one-sided research, setting the stage for the false claim that there is a scientific consensus about whether or not man-made global warming is real.

Unfortunately, for all those scientists who went along with the scheme, now, over a decade later, there is a big problem. Contrary to what all those scientists living on their Federal research grants predicted, the world hasn’t been getting warmer. In fact, for the last 7 years, there has been no warming at all, which has been verified even by, for example, Michel Jarraud of the World Meteorological Organization. He’s their Secretary General. He reluctantly admitted that global temperatures have not risen since 1998, according to a BBC article. Global snowfall is at record levels and there are fewer, not more, hurricanes.

Furthermore, there is some melting in the Arctic. We all know that there is some melting in the Arctic because we hear about it over and over again. In fact, NBC did some special on the melting of the Arctic and how bad it is and showed the pictures of penguins sitting on a diminishing piece of ice in the Arctic. Except there was a problem with that story. You see, penguins don’t live in the Arctic; they live in the Antarctic. There are no penguins in the Arctic. So NBC had it wrong. Somebody must have told them that the penguins from the Arctic were being victimized by global warming. In fact, in the Antarctic, where the penguins are, there is a buildup of ice. It is getting cooler. And in the Arctic, of course, we do recognize there has been a warming in the Arctic, likely due to ocean currents that have changed in the last few years and not due to CO2 that comes from somebody’s SUV.

After hearing about the extinction of the polar bear, which has been drummed into our heads, we now hear that–and by the way, just today the polar bear was put on an endangered species list. But are the polar bears really disappearing? We now hear from Dr. Mitchell Taylor from the Department of the Environment under the Canadian territory of Nunavut and other experts, I might add, who suggest, yes, all but one or two species of the polar bears are flourishing. Yes, of the twenty-odd species, there are perhaps one or two that are suffering and not doing well, but all the rest of the species of polar bear are expanding. In fact, we don’t have a situation with fewer polar bears; we’ve got more polar bears. Yet our government is putting the polar bear on an endangered species list, saying that if the ice cap melts, the polar bears will all be going away because their habitat has been destroyed.

Unfortunately, the debate on this case is not closed. So explaining emerging obvious differences between the reality and the theory needs to be addressed by the people who have been advocating global warming. The case is not closed. The gnomes of climate theory now have to come up with explanations for us of why it was predicted that the weather would be this way at this time and it is not. Why is it that basically we’ve had stable weather, if not a little cooler weather, for the last 8 years?

[The Big I]

LEARN TO FUCKING DRESS YOUR LINK DUMBASS


Just something to think about.

[Darth Wong]

In other news, a drop in the Dow Jones industrial average has disproven the concept of equity growth!

PS. The Earth has not gotten cooler in the last few years: just the average surface air temperature. Enormous amounts of heat were required to melt all of that Arctic ice, and that is what we call "warming". Unless, of course, you think the entire Earth is the average surface air temperature even though the air has far less heat capacitance than the ice and water.

Also, it's worth noting that many of the "opponents of man-made global warming theory" do not actually dispute the theory; they simply disagree with certain projections drawn from it. I have seen many cases of people who simply thought the projections were a few degrees off, whose positions were exaggerated by the head-in-sand crowd into "skeptics of man-made global warming".

[Patrick Degan]

So... why is the North Pole melting, Mr. Rorabacher?

[Darth Wong]

So... why is the North Pole melting, Mr. Rorabacher?

He'll probably say that for every square metre of ice melting in the Arctic, there is a square metre of ice forming in the Antarctic. I've heard this claim before, although not with a source.

[Patrick Degan]

So... why is the North Pole melting, Mr. Rorabacher?

He'll probably say that for every square metre of ice melting in the Arctic, there is a square metre of ice forming in the Antarctic. I've heard this claim before, although not with a source.

So, I suppose the exchange would have to be like this:

ME: Why is the North Pole melting, Mr. Roarbacher?

ROARBACHER: Even if it is, there's new ice forming at the South Pole for each square foot of ice lost up north.

ME: Really? Then why are Delaware-sized chunks of the Antarctic ice shelf calving off into the sea, Mr. Roarbacher?

[Count Dooku]

I'd just like to know why he thinks it's "hubris" to think that dumping 25 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year might actually have an effect on it. When people ask how we know we're having an effect, I have to ask: why the fuck do they think such massive-scale dumping WOULDN'T have an effect?

Most of these people are so ignorant that they think it can't have an effect because other greenhouse gas sources are larger, which is a lot like saying that your gambling has no effect on your finances because your mortgage payments are a lot bigger than your gambling losses.

Ever human caused global warming naysayer, for whatever idiotic reason, says we can't possibly be contributing to global warming because, and I kid you not, the Earth has gone through heating and cooling periods in the past. That's it. That's all the explanation they give as to how we couldn't have contributed to global warming. I, as a chemist, try my little heart out to explain the basic concepts of thermodynamics and green house gases. Energy retention makes no sense to these people.

What I'm worried about is the methane hydrate at the bottom of the ocean(s). If the ocean's heat up enough, that stuff is going to melt, and them we'll have the molar equivalent of CO2 in methane in our atmosphere in a short period of time, and methane is a much more potent green house gas than CO2 is.

[Justforfun000]

The Duchess of Zeon Wrote:

That is the way we argue here. You'd never hear me say such things in person--god, I'm blushing right now just thinking of the idea!, I really--but it's simply the way we argue here, and at this board's predecessor of ASVS. I learned a long time ago that if you want to stay in the sandbox here, you have to be able to stand the heat--I don't hold any actual anger toward the little shit, it's simply what you do here, point illustrated, I daresay. It really is a hard climate to adapt to because you have to set aside your outsider mannerism and do things as calculated gestures--insults for sake of form rather than emotion--to drive home the point and overwhelm the person you're arguing with.

And god I know that it can drive people off, some of them being quite decent folks, but, it's simply the way things have been done in this community since its foundation, and being a conservative, who am I to argue with traditions? *grins*

Just to expound on this side topic for a second, I want to say that as difficult as it is to deal with this kind of very harsh board policy, it is VERY refreshing in the long run. You stand or fall on your own individual intelligence and ability to coherently support and defend your posts. If you cannot and you get flamed, then it's brutal yes, but it's very determining.

In real life, people are given slack for everything. Slack for being a nice guy, slack for family problems, slack for religious belief, etc etc. In reality, almost all forms of social interation are tinged by politics and the need to speak as a politician. Being very blunt and straightforward will in many real life situations land you in the hot seat and can actually destroy careers and personal relationships.

Here this is all put aside to what I would venture to say is the one TRUE God of this board. Truth. If you cannot demonstrate it, defend it or even remotely produce it, you fail. Period. Don't pass Go or collect $200. You'll be called an idiot and that's the way it'll stay until you EARN more respect.

A very hard society to accept for many people, but ultimately a very valuable opportunity to be really relevant in your discussions throughout life. We're lucky to have this raw, insulting playground.