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I bet not, because you'd need an awful lot of calories to row across the Atlantic. The carbon footprint of transporting the food to you is probably more than the carbon footprint of transporting you when you consider the efficiency of the plane vs your body.
On the other hand, wind power is the way of the future. They should probably use sailboats.
Phurfur said:
Swim #####es.
Jonessed is correct in stating that China has massive coal reserves. So does the US (but try to open a coal mine here and we get Escalane Staircase).Having said that, China's reserves are not developed to the point where they are self-sufficient. The Australian export numbers I saw recently showed that coking coal exports to China in November were 2.9 million metric tons, while thermal coal exports to China totaled 1.15 million metric tons.
Or the Catholic Church deleted the Gospel of Thomas?
But in the meantime, while scientists are doing science, what should the politicians do? What this entire scandal has shown to me is that nothing is settled, and until the science is done over, nothing is really known to any degree of certainty.
I have to quibble with this statement. If the science is unsettled as the skeptics believe, then then the evidence that things are no longer functioning "naturally" just isn't there. Things may be functioning perfectly naturally, and we may be in a warming trend. Or not. When a model is built that returns the same results no matter what the input, it's a self-fullfilling prophesy, not a scientific experiment. The model builders should have tested his possibility. That they didn't is in itself bad science.
I am sure that if grants were offered for this, that some people would be.One of the problems with science and the peer-review process is that repeating tests and verifying results, especially when said repetition is expensive and as time-consuming as this would be (man-decades of work), is that no one wants to pay for it, and no scientist wants to spend that kind of time just to say "yeah, my results agree with Mann's."The process just isn't as simple as you'd like to think. A little thing called hman nature alwas gets in the way.
I'm sorry, cherry-picking data is very damaging. Opinion polls aren't proof of concept.
Herein lies the problem. Of what value is this "intellectual property" and can we really wait another 20 years for someone to build another model? How does releasing his "intellectual property" damage him?The problem with the model is not only that it does not appear to accurately predict climate over a period of a decade. There are deeper problems:1. It produces the same results no matter what the input.2. It is being used by people with much shorter time frames (i.e. the election cycle) to detrmine economic and environmental policy.I find this situation unacceptable.
...and a majority of meterologists (who think in very short ime frames) are also skeptics. I'd love to see the data on archeologists, as they too have a perspective on climate change. astronomers too.I am using AGW to mean anthropomorhic global warming, not anti-global warming, so don't get confused.There is overlap between geologists and climatologists. If you look at ice cores (see the Hockey Stick over Time Youtube video), you'll see that even in a historic sense, the latest increase in global temperature is noise compared to the overall signal. Ice cores (which the GW crowd uses when it suits them and ignores when it doesn't) show remarkable short-term variations in temperature not only in geologic, but in a historic timeframe. Is that honest science, to only use the data when it supports your theory? Perhaps not, but you would be surprised how prevalent that is.The ice cores bring up an interesting point about the politics of the scientists involved in investigating GW. Several months ago NCCommish posted a reference to a paper discounting the Medieval Maximum. The conclusions of that paper were pretty damn weak, and, IMO, that paper should not have been published. But anything can get published these days, even in peer-reviewed liteature. Hell, I have a peer-reviewed paper published in the Biological Society of Washington's publication (it was about geologic controls of hot springs off of San Pedro, in LA county. Biologists were interested because there are megabacterial growths associated with the springs). and it was co-authored with a scuba diver, because I don't dive and frankly, it wasn't my best work. (I did it on a bet that I could do it.) I've also reviewed and rejected papers for Economic Geology that have ended up appearing elsewhere. Bottom line is how and where many papers get published depends on politics and friendships almost more so than on quality of the science. Ouch - I digressed. Sorry. Back to ice cores. Ice cores and ancedotal history say the Medieval Maximum was real. The paper NCC cited examined trees (I think it was) in the southern hemisphere and concluded there was no evidence of climate change during the Medieval Maximumand therefore it didn't happen. Well if the northern hemisphere got warmer and the southern hemisphere stayed the same, I guess the planet on average must have gotten warmer right? But that simple logic seems to escape the pro-AGW crowd. Ice cores were ignored, I guess.Now it is human nature to see what one wants to see, and I think we are seeing that with a lot of the AGW crowd. But it is bad science. The argument that the hockey stick is unprecedented is also dishonest in a historic as well as geologic sense. There were obviously some pretty steep warming periods, even in the historic period. Lots steeper than the hockey stick. You can see it in the ice core graphs.If you look at the first hockey stick graph on that YouTube piece, you'll see a warming trend centered about 1700. In the 1600s, a missionary wrote that the forests were so dense between San Luis Potosi and Zacatecas in Mexico that they blotted out the sun. You could ride between the two cities and not see the sun for days at a time. Now I think that is probably an exaggeration, but I don't doubt that there were huge forests in Mexico during that period. The timber frames in the old mines thaat I have reopened - the 400 year old wood doors on the older building in those two cities, had to come from somewhere nearby. But there is archeological evidence too. In Zacatecas, the Spaniards built Roman-style aquaducts to transport water from a river to the city. They built covered aquaducts to divert perennial streams around mine openings so they wouldn't flood. Along one river, they built patios where they amalgamated silver using mercury, then dumped the processed material into the river. The river washed the mercury-laden material into a nearby lake, and then from the lake downstream where rivers deposited this contaminated material onto the flood plain in deposits up to two meters thick. This created one of the largest mercury-contaminated areas in the entire world.Then between 1680 and 1720, the climate changed. The rivers dried up and the forests died. There are people, aurprisingly, that blame deforestation on the Spaniards, as wood was used to support bad areas in the mines and for cooking and heating. The argument just doesn't hold water though - too many trees and not enough Spaniards. Today, the river is gone, and is barely a trickle in the rainy season, even after a heavy thunderstorm. The lake dried up. There is actually a company that processes the downstream contaminated deposits to recover more silver (and mercury), charging the farmers a fee to remove contaminated soil and also selling the silver and mercury recovered. The climate change lowered the hydrologic baseline and now arroyos cut into the areas that were once lush flood plains. The trees are gone and we have deserts filled with various species of creosote, succulents, cactus and and other desert species instead.Climate change - global warming. Obvious in the historic/archeological record and detectable in ice cores. And a geologist can think about it, and consider the evidence. Carbon dioxide increase from AGW in 1680-1720? I think not. Again, this popular foundation (CO2) that AGW proponents cite doesn't hold up to closer scrutiny.The solar cycle has been mentioned before in these threads. It has been noted that GW corresponds very closely to the solar cycle, more so that to variations in CO2 does. It has also been noted that increases in CO2 in the atmosphere tend to happen after warming begins rather than preceeding it. The AGW crowd tends to discount the solar cycle by saying that the change in energy incident on the planet cannot acount for the increase in observed temperature. In this case they have a point, but they may also be missing a very important point too. What changes would an increase in solar radiation have on the planet that might trigger a response. Obviously, looking at the data, the increae in solar radiation may explain atmospheric CO2 variation. So what causes that? We don't know. We know the earth as many buffering systems, some that we don't quite understand. For example, why has ocean salinity remained constant over geologic time while rivers are constantly and naturally) pumpng more salts into the ocean, substantial amounts of water are removed from the ocean basins during glacial periods, etc.? The answer is there for those who look for it. But you never hear the AGW crowd talk about how the earth may have natural buffering systems that may actually reduce or correct variations in greenhouse gases. You do hear them talk about how long CO2 stays in the atmosphere compared to that other greenhouse gas (dihydrogen oxide). This might be a difference between the way geologists and climatologists think - I don't know. I do knbow that climatologists like to talk more about theoretical "tipping points" than they do about buffer systems.Basically, IMO the AGW crowd looks for AGW and doesn't consider the big picture. They also tend to try to discount or discredit data that doesn't agree with their hypotheses. Again, this is human nature and we all do it. Those who expect scientists not to do so hold scientists in higher esteem than what is deserved.Damn, I wrote a book and only part of it deals with our question. The short answer to your question, I think is that geologic training does not prohibit a person from thinking in shorter time frames. There may be a problem for people trained to think in shorter time frames to think in the other direction. Ten million years is a hard thing to comprehand, even for a lot of geologists. 100 million years even more so. I don't know how climatologists tend to think with regard to large time frames.What I do know is that we have seen periods in the historic past where we have had climate change. It sometimes has happened very quickly and it sometimes has changed ecosystems. But life on earth adapted, and the human species survived (though maybe certain tribes had to invade other homelands in order to do so - why did the Cimbri migrate from Jutland (probably) into Roman territory looking for a new place to live? Is coastal flooding caused by "global warming" the reason?) Given what I can see in geologic and historic (or archeologic if you prefer) records, I think that even if there is AGW contributing somewhat to climate change, we are getting far too upset by it.This doesn't mean we shouldn't plan for a post-fossil fuel world. Someday, fossil fuels will be exhausted. I happen to think that day is still a long ways away, while others, IMO, discount how effective geologist can and will be in the discovery procress. Somewhere on my bookshelf I have a pamphlet written by credible sources back in 1975ish about the mineral position of the United States. That pamphet predicted we would be out of most commodities, and raised a big red flag on some of them. One of the comoidities that would presumably be exhausted was molybdenum. We are swimming in molybdenum. So I've seen the alarm bells before. Again, I think it is all part of human nature. As if we don't have enough to worry about or fight over.It also doesn't mean we shouldn't be good stewarts of our planets. I doubt anyone today would condone a company doing what the Spaniards did in Zacatecas. Cutting down on pollutants, where we can is a good thing.I do think though, that we should be putting more emphasis on basic research into the geology and geochemistry of things like neodynium and tellurium, so we have some science behind the process of exploring for those minerals. We can't have wind or solar someday without abundant supplies of both those metals. (See, where you stand does depends on where you sit!)
Why would they go to Stockholm?Also the limos and such weren't ordered by the protesters, but rather the heads of state and their entourages.
I actually agree. As a scientist, I'm going to fall back to a position of agnosticism regarding the anthropogenic nature of climate change. However, I think that the world should limit CO2 emissions for other reasons, namely lessening the dependence upon non-renewable resources and increasing the power of authoritarian regimes that control access to fossil fuels.I cannot abide cherry picking data and obfuscating the scientific process.
This has been my position all along. However, the world was being force-fed AGW and radical solutions. Carbon taxes and cap and trade are not reasonable nor workable solutions. I've always been in favor of incentivizing development of new energy technologies and take advantage of greater efficiencies. I am opposed to dis-incentives.
That's a fair statement and actually not that different from my position, thouh I would state it differently.To wit: The world needs to start thinking about the post-fossil fuel era and how we are going to keep our civilizations from crumbling without a reliable energy source for transportation.The reason for the change is that advocating lowering CO2 emissions isn't really consistent with agnosticism regard AGW. To be truly agnostic would mean you would be neutral about the amount to CO2 in the air. It shouldn't be an issue for you. Don't you think?
To me the evidence suggests they actually did. They've seen the criticisms of their work for some time and fought to get it censored as best as possible. They were aware that their science was designed to produce the results that it did - there's no other explanation for why they felt it was rational to mix proxy values and real temperatues on the same graph when the proxy values deviated from what they wanted them to say.
That's exactly what I'm implying. These guys were fully aware their work was going to produce dramatic results no matter the input. It was done by design. And then they tried to block out anyone that said differently.
...and this is the problem with you and others of your ilk. You immediately associate the science with the politics. To make a comparison: denying AGW is relative to denying evolution, while implying that belief in AGW demands immediate and dramatic economic changes is relative to suggesting that belief in evolution demands a dismisal of God. Neither are good positions to hold.
Dude! Do you watch TV? That's EXACTLY what the "libruls" are trying to do. You can't separate the two because the "libruls" have intertwined them so much.
There's little doubt at this point that the group of scientists responsible for creating this historical temperature data had an agenda. That agenda happened to align with the agenda of many of these politicians. This is less open to debate than the AGW theory is at this point.
http://www.nationalpost.com/m/blog.html?b=...r&s=OpinionThere was another one a couple days ago where McIntyre was showing some of the climategate emails that indicated Jones was acting as reviewer for some of the submissions critical of their work to some of these magazines. He fought to get papers kept out of the IPCC review process, stating he'd do everything in his power including changing what is considered peer review literature.
It makes it even harder when what these "scientists" were engaging in would be far better described as politics than science.
jeebus that's horrid. if I were a liberal that leaned toward global warming/climate change alarmism i'd be ####### pissed off right now. This is the kind of stuff that completely undermines your basic belief system. "oh by the way, we lied to you and covered up dissenting opinions so you couldn't be influenced".
Yes, you would think a clear-thinking liberal would step back and re-asses their belief. But, of course, you know that will never happen because there is no such think as a clear-thinking liberal. They've all taken the bait; hook, line and sinker.
Wow. That's almost unreal. Wrote or re-wrote 5000 articles!? Banned contributors that he disagreed with? Talk about a total indictment of Wikipedia at large. Of course, they did exactly the same thing everywhere else as well. I just didn't expect them to actually have authority at Wikipedia like that.
Top ALL of that off with the huge amount of money Gore is making off of this scam. Of course, the GW crowd will continue to say "nothing to see here" and deny all evidence to the contrary.
So is this global warming just a sham to cover up the real arguement for population control? I am not sure what the angle is with this point. Sure population grows exponentially for a while, but now it seems to be leveling off and is expected to peak. Population growth is not really exponential in that the rate of growth changes and can not just keep growing to inifinity.
There is a point here, it just wasn't made very well. Natural resource depletion and fossil fuel burning is a function of population, You would agree with that observation, I would think.
Old thread, but Wei-Hock 'Willie' Soon was being funded by fossil fuel companies all along.
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.
Peer review in the academic community requires funding disclosure and a conflict statement.
Never knew who this guy was or ever quoted any of his work. But I really don't see how private-sector money is that much more tainted than government money. Those doling out government money have an agenda too unfortunately and it influences what gets funded and what doesn't.
There's a difference between the government choosing what gets funded and the private sector telling the people they funded what the results need to be.
If government-paid scientists are faking the numbers, then where are the opposing peer-reviewed studies that easily and conclusively disprove them? Every attempt at a peer-reviewed challenge of GW has been a total failure.
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