An inconvienent Truth and Global warming

[Clocker]

This country is rather more heterogeneous than the average European or Asian nation, too.

What's the significance?

 

[Stereodude]

What's the significance?

Got me... I was going to ask, but decided against it.

 

[Stereodude]

What's the significance?

After thinking about it I think he was trying to say there are stupid rednecks in the south bringing down the scores or something.

 

[jtr1962]

What's the significance?

The significance is that when teaching a homogeneous population there are many common frames of reference, and thus less opportunity for miscommunication or misunderstanding during the teaching process. In a more diverse society, you'll have multiple languages, multiple dialects of the same language, even in the same locality, differing income levels, differing exposure to things in the world (i.e. a good many poor people may not take travel much or be exposed to things the middle class takes for granted), parents who may not take interest in their children's studies, etc.. Because of all these factors, teaching in a heterogeneous environment is much more difficult. I still think the schools could do better, but to some extent the deck is stacked against them. I also blame the teacher's unions for a lot of arcane work rules which work against the educational process.

 

[Mercutio]

After thinking about it I think he was trying to say there are stupid rednecks in the south bringing down the scores or something.

I don't have a problem with stupid rednecks. They can go about their beer swilling and varmint-eating ways.
I have a problem with anti-science fundie-types, but those folks are hardly limited to the south.

Anyway, I don't know if anyone else has ever tried teaching, but it's part of what I do in life. It is very hard to teach in an environment with students from wildly different cultural and economic backgrounds. It's much easier if everyone is more or less on the same page

 

[ddrueding]

Anyway, I don't know if anyone else has ever tried teaching, but it's part of what I do in life. It is very hard to teach in an environment with students from wildly different cultural and economic backgrounds. It's much easier if everyone is more or less on the same page

Couldn't agree more. That is why I love teaching (Argentine Tango) at Stanford; all the students have a solid frame of reference and come prepared.

 

[Mercutio]

 

[udaman]

Passing the Buck on Environmental Damage


http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/122/2

As it pretends to be a pointing the blame game type of study, besides the fact it is seriously flawed with inaccuracy, not much point in doing such 'studies', IMO...raising thought/discussion based on rational, concrete data, properly analyzed might be helpful though .

More chilling 'inconvienent truth' Al Gore did not win the Nobel for:

Rain forests fall at 'alarming' rate


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080202/ap_on_re_af/60_acres_a_minute_i

no reference to the source of the statement (but I'll assume it's from the FAO report, could be based in science or not):

The burning or rotting of trees that comes with deforestation — at the hands of ranchers, farmers, timbermen — sends more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all the world's planes, trains, trucks and automobiles. Forest destruction accounts for about 20 percent of manmade emissions, second only to burning of fossil fuels for electricity and heat.

Once again, the underlying factor is population growth, that which fuels more of the world's problems than anything else.

The latest data from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) helped spur delegates to action.
"Deforestation continues at an alarming rate of about 13 million hectares (32 million acres) a year," the U.N. body said in its latest "State of the World's Forests" report.
Because northern forests remain essentially stable, that means 50,000 square miles of tropical forest are being cleared every 12 months — equivalent to one Mississippi or more than half a Britain. The lumber and fuelwood removed in the tropics alone would fill more than 1,000 Empire State Buildings, FAO figures show.
Although South America loses slightly more acreage than Africa, the rate of loss is higher here — almost 1 percent of African forests gone each year. In 2000-2005, the continent lost 10 million acres a year, including big chunks of forest in Sudan, Zambia and Tanzania, up from 9 million a decade earlier, the FAO reports.
Across the tropics the causes can be starkly different.
The Amazon and other South American forests are usually burned for cattle grazing or industrial-scale soybean farming. In Indonesia and elsewhere in southeast Asia, island forests are being cut or burned to make way for giant plantations of palm, whose oil is used in food processing, cosmetics and other products.
In Africa, by contrast, it's individuals hacking out plots for small-scale farming.
Here in Nigeria's southeastern Cross Rivers State, home to one of the largest remaining tropical forests in Africa, people from surrounding villages of huts and cement-block homes go to the forest each day to work their pineapple and cocoa farms. They see no other way of earning money to feed their families.
"The developed countries want us to keep the forests, since the air we breathe is for all of us, rich countries and poor countries," said Ogar Assam Effa, 54, a tree plantation director and member of the state conservation board.
"But we breathe the air, and our bellies are empty. Can air give you protein? Can air give you carbohydrates?" he asked. "It would be easy to convince people to stop clearing the forest if there was an alternative."
The state, which long ago banned industrial logging, is trying to offer alternatives.

LOL, I still get that spinning wheel when I hit the quick edit/save option...nothing happens, it's not my imagination , only way to edit now is to go to 'advanced edit' and then 'save changes', before the 5min time period expires.

 

[ddrueding]

LOL, I still get that spinning wheel when I hit the quick edit/save option...nothing happens, it's not my imagination , only way to edit now is to go to 'advanced edit' and then 'save changes', before the 5min time period expires.

Yup, me too. About 90% of the time now.

 

[udaman]

The whole point of discussing the issue outside of mudslinging politics and mental masturbation is how does this information change the way I live my life.

In order to examine the issue and come to a final understanding we must answer some basic questions:

What is happening? Is the earth warming, cooling or something else?
Why?
What can we do about it?

Let's see if we can keep it civil and free from hyperbole. I present this article to start.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...18.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/18/ixnewstop.html

I present this article to end

Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling

(note: with both FF & Camino under Mac OSX 10.3 that I'm running, couldn't stop the page re-load fast enough to get away from DailyTech's coding flaw that only temporarily allows you to view the page, before the comments section or side bar sections cause the main body to just display blank white space, I used Safari to quickly 'stop loading page')


Solar Activity Diminishes; Researchers Predict Another Ice Age

text of the whole article below:

Dr. Kenneth Tapping is worried about the sun. Solar activity comes in regular cycles, but the latest one is refusing to start. Sunspots have all but vanished, and activity is suspiciously quiet. The last time this happened was 400 years ago -- and it signaled a solar event known as a "Maunder Minimum," along with the start of what we now call the "Little Ice Age."

Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council, says it may be happening again. Overseeing a giant radio telescope he calls a "stethoscope for the sun," Tapping says, if the pattern doesn't change quickly, the earth is in for some very chilly weather.

During the Little Ice Age, global temperatures dropped sharply. New York Harbor froze hard enough to allow people to walk from Manhattan to Staten Island, and in Britain, people reported sighting eskimos paddling canoes off the coast. Glaciers in Norway grew up to 100 meters a year, destroying farms and villages.

But will it happen again?

In 2005, Russian astronomer Khabibullo Abdusamatov predicted the sun would soon peak, triggering a rapid decline in world temperatures. Only last month, the view was echoed by Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. who advised the world to "stock up on fur coats." Sorokhtin, who calls man's contribution to climate change "a drop in the bucket," predicts the solar minimum to occur by the year 2040, with icy weather lasting till 2100 or beyond.

Observational data seems to support the claims -- or doesn't contradict it, at least. According to data from Britain's Met Office, the earth has cooled very slightly since 1998. The Met Office says global warming "will pick up again shortly." Others aren't so sure.

Researcher Dr. Timothy Patterson, director of the Geoscience Center at Carleton University, shares the concern. Patterson is finding "excellent correlations" between solar fluctuations, a relationship that historically, he says doesn't exist between CO2 and past climate changes. According to Patterson. we shouldn't be surprised by a solar link. "The sun [is] the ultimate source of energy on this planet," he says.

Such research dates back to 1991, when the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study showing that world temperatures over the past several centuries correlated very closely with solar cycles. A 2004 study by the Max Planck Institute found a similar correlation, but concluded the timing was only coincidental, as the solar variance seemed too small to explain temperature changes.

However, researchers at DMI continued to work, eventually discovering what they believe to be the link. The key factor isn't changes in solar output, but rather changes in the sun's magnetosphere A stronger field shields the earth more from cosmic rays, which act as "seeds" for cloud formation. The result is less cloud cover, and a warming planet. When the field weakens, clouds increases, reflecting more light back to space, and the earth cools off.

Recently, lead researcher Henrik Svensmark was able to experimentally verify the link between cosmic rays and cloud formation, in a cloud chamber experiment called "SKY" at the Danish National Space Center. CERN plans a similar experiment this year.

Even NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies -- long the nation's most ardent champion of anthropogenic global warming -- is getting in on the act. Drew Shindell, a researcher at GISS, says there are some "interesting relationships we don't fully understand" between solar activity and climate.

 

[RWIndiana]

Watch for UFOs too hard and you'll get hit by a train.

This is why people who suggest "doing something" about "global warming" are dangerous. I'm all for reducing pollution. It's very bad for health. But perhaps we should be more concerned about an ice age, which would be far more damaging.

Do not meddle in things you can not even begin to understand.

 

[udaman]

The new "low-carb" diet

so stop eating meat & cheese & dairy products, become a vegan & a "locavore" (eat locally produced foods)...toss that BBQ ddrueding .

*note* LATimes typically removes stories from their website within a short time period, so they can make you pay for archived versions.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/orange/la-me-lowcarbon22apr22,1,7221912.story

cow methane, produce 143lbs/yr which has 23x warming potential compared to CO2!!! Cows or cars!?!?

 

[ddrueding]

cow methane, produce 143lbs/yr which has 23x warming potential compared to CO2!!!

All the more reason to kill and eat them

 

[timwhit]

I've been reading the book Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air for the past couple days. It's written by a professor of physics at Cambridge. An almost complete rough draft is available for download, the finished version is supposed to be out sometime this year and will also be available for free. It's quite interesting and he presents numbers in such a way that is easily digestible. I would recommend it if you want to dig a bit deeper into the sustainable technologies that the media like to proclaim are going to "save us" as carbon emissions become a bigger problem and the cost of fossil fuels rise in price.

 

[mubs]

Will there be a respite? Is the sun going to cause a mini ice-age, giving humans time to correct their self-destructive ways? Let's hope so.

 

[udaman]

With all the ranting and raving by *cough* some *cough* of the Oz SF member contingent/bretheren...about how bad the USA is with regards to polluting the planet, wasting energy, poor efficiency and all. Wonder why there is not more outrage about the per capita Oz "contribution"

While China is building more nuke power plants than any country presently, it will not cap their ever increasing use of coal Will be kind of ironic I think, China manufacturing will probably be the world's leading producer of solar panels and other altermative 'green' technologies, but still overtake the USA in total amounts of pollution generation in the next few decades.

I was ignorant of OZ's dirty little secret (being facetious)


http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page38?oid=56333&sn=Detail

PROTEST MAY BOOST COAL PRICES
Australian environmental activists will block world's largest coal port and rail line

A planned protest by up to 1,000 activists may disrupt coal prices from Australia’s Newcastle port, giving another boost to near record coal prices, which have already tripled in the past year.
Posted: Tuesday , 08 Jul 2008
CANBERRA (Reuters) -

Environmentalists plan to block one of two rail lines into Australia and the world's biggest coal export port at the weekend, they said on Tuesday, amid international wrangling over efforts to combat climate shift.
Any disruption to coal shipments from the Newcastle port could give another boost to benchmark coal prices that are already near record highs at nearly $195 a tonne, having more than trebled in a year. Up to 1,000 protesters are planning on Sunday to block the rail line into Newcastle port, north of Sydney. The export terminal plans to ship 95 million tonnes of coal over the next year.
"You could say it's drastic action but it's simply because these are drastic times. We need to actually start taking serious action," Friends of the Earth spokesman Cam Walker said.
Activists from a coalition of green groups would start a "camp for climate action" from Wednesday and planned to sit on one rail line into the port to halt coal trains travelling from the nearby Hunter Valley coal mining region, Walker said.
Smaller protests would also happen on Monday and could include more rail line sit-ins, as well as actions aimed at other port installations, another Friends spokesman, Damien Lawson, told Reuters.
With consistent demand, mainly from energy-hungry China, 38,679,777 tonnes of coal were exported from Newcastle in the first five months of 2008, versus 37,154,848 tonnes a year earlier, port data showed last week.
Coal exports from Newcastle port surged to 2.059 million tonnes last week, while queues for loading slightly eased to 38 ships. The port is aiming to cut the shipping queue to around 20 vessels before the end of September.
The Newcastle protest will follow the G8 meeting of rich nations in Japan, where leaders were on Tuesday were preparing to take an "important step" forward on fighting climate change after negotiators agreed on a joint summit statement.
The European Union has pressed the United States to go beyond a commitment at last year's summit in Germany to "seriously consider" carbon emissions cuts of 50 percent by 2050 by now agreeing to that target and the need for shorter-term action.
"We want to send a message to the G8 and to Australia's government following the recent Garnaut report (into climate change and emissions trading)," Lawson said. "Coal is a major cause of global warming."
Australia is the world's biggest coal exporter and the biggest per head producer of greenhouse gases, emitting five times more per person than China, due to use of coal for for almost 80 percent of the country's electricity.
Australia's net greenhouse emissions totalled 576 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, or about 1.5 percent of world emissions. (Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by Valerie Lee)

 

[udaman]

You would think that now with Bush gone, Tannin would be elated with the greenie Obama and Dem party controlled congress now in charge...where's the anti-USA ranting Tannin now?

With a near term record projected $42Billion state deficit, the Govenator fighting it out with both the controlling Dems, and minority Repubs in the state legislature...wonder if there's any money around after they levy the nation's highest sales tax, and add additional fees and other methods of "revenue" increases (more taxes ); if there's going to be any money left for all these stimulus/incentive programs? Arnold won't be in office much longer, so who will hold the torch after he's gone?

I don't have access to a high enough speed Net connection to watch the program online, so I'll watch the over-the-air broadcast Jan. 20, 2009. You'll all watch this ahead of time so you can bask in the empowerment of the inauguration of the 1st black messiah :rr: of the new millennium ?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/energy/

 

[LunarMist]

Global warning, my a$$! It is freeeeeeezing.

 

[sechs]

That's the thing with global climate change... not everyone gets warmer, like us in California.

There's expectation, for example, that Europe may become a very cold place.

 

[Stereodude]

So it's not global warming, but regional warming now?

 

[sechs]

No, it's global climate change. And your local climate will change, one way or another.

 

[ddrueding]

I thought they had been calling it climate change for a long time now.

 

[Stereodude]

No, it's global climate change. And your local climate will change, one way or another.

But everyone still needs to cut back on CO2 emissions even the people who are cooling right?

 

[ddrueding]

But everyone still needs to cut back on CO2 emissions even the people who are cooling right?

I suppose you could build a bubble around your area, if you feel it is too cold. Mythbusters actually did this, BTW. The temperature in the bubble full of CO2 got much higher than the temperature in the bubble full of regular air.

 

[Stereodude]

Have you guys heard about the darkness crisis? We're losing a few minutes of darkness every day. At this rate we're going to run out within a year. We have to act now!

 

[ddrueding]

-1 Troll

 

[Stereodude]

Aww... I guess my analogy hit too close to home.

 

[ddrueding]

No, I just don't believe that an intelligent person still doesn't understand the concepts behind climate change. This only leaves 2 options, and I'm assuming you are intelligent. The alternative would be that you are intentionally taking a false stand for some other reason. Trolling would be the most likely.

 

[Stereodude]

No, I just don't believe that an intelligent person still doesn't understand the concepts behind climate change. This only leaves 2 options, and I'm assuming you are intelligent. The alternative would be that you are intentionally taking a false stand for some other reason. Trolling would be the most likely.

You clearly missed my point. The climate has been changing for longer than we've been around. The earth has warmed and cooled, many times. In fact the climate has always been changing. It never is a constant. The climate changes on cycles. We haven't been around long enough to know where we are on the cycle. To assume that we humans are responsible for the climate changing is nothing but sheer arrogance are the part of some people. These people are then being used by other people who use environmentalism as a front for pushing a particular political agenda.

And, in case you can't figure it out, There is a cycle to the change of the amount of daylight and darkness too. It just happens much faster an we know where we are on the curve...

 

[ddrueding]

That is true, but it is a seperate issue. Which one of the following do you disagree with.

1. That combustion of fossil fuels produces CO2, Methane and other gasses
2. That humans are using more fossil fuels and producing more of these gasses
3. That our increased production of these gases is changing the makeup of the atmosphere
4. That more heat is retained in an atmosphere that contains more of these gasses

The matter of when or how much are really not relevant. Neither are other natural cycles.

 

[Stereodude]

I don't disagree with any of them. I just haven't seen any proof that the sum of them ads up to a statistically significant component in climate change. Correlation does not equal causation.

CO2 is only ~385PPM (by volume) in our atmosphere. On Mars the atmosphere is nearly 95% CO2, yet Mars is very cold. Clearly CO2 concentration is not the only factor in the climate.

 

[jtr1962]

Let's take global warming out of the equation for a minute. Are there other good reasons to stop using fossil fuels? I can certainly think of a bunch:

1) Pollution for burning fossil fuels has greatly increased cancer and asthma rates. Both illnesses are very costly in terms of medical care plus lost productivity. Foul-smelling air is also a significant quality of life issue even if it wasn't harmful.

2) We currently consume more fossil fuels than we can produce locally. Most of the money spent for exporting oil goes to regimes hostile to the US, or on luxuries like man-made islands in countries which aren't (while those who fund these frills struggle to pay higher fuel prices). Domestic sources are not enough to satisfy us at our current rates of consumption. Even if they were, it makes little sense to destroy irreplaceable natural ecosystems just for a temporary oil fix. It's like selling the family jewels for a night on the town.

3) As oil supplies dwindle, those nations dependent upon them will eventually need to fight. In fact, to some extent the US military is already used to secure oil supplies. Do we really want to continue to do this? Johnny Rambo shouldn't have to die just because Joe or Jane Sixpack feels entitled to cheap gas for their obnoxious SUV.

4) Besides the effects on living things, burning of fossil fuels create acid rain and soot. Both contribute to infrastructure deterioration. Yet more unnecessary spending.

5) We would create loads of jobs by making energy saving products, or alternate energy technologies. This can be BIG business, even bigger than what it's replacing. Of course, those who stand to lose the most will fight for the status quo.

It's important to note also that the end users of fossil fuel don't pay for the indirect damages their use causes such as pollution, infrastructure damage, or military invention. As a result, fossil fuels compete unfairly against alternatives. This in turn has stymied development of alternatives.

I've been saying for a long time that it doesn't matter which way the consensus goes on global warming, or if you want, climate change. It doesn't change the fact that getting off fossil fuels yesterday would be of great benefit to everyone except those in the business. Why on Earth environmentalists chose global warming as their poster child is beyond me. I guess showing cancer wards full of people sick from air pollution isn't as dramatic as showing large chunks of ice shelves breaking off, even though the former affects more lives.

 

[Stereodude]

I'm all for using non fossil fuels. Call me when we find one that's actually viable. Ethanol from corn sure isn't.

 

[jtr1962]

I'm all for using non fossil fuels. Call me when we find one that's actually viable. Ethanol from corn sure isn't.

Nuclear fission is the best bet for now, nuclear fusion perhaps 50 years from now. Solar and wind can certainly find a lot of niches where they would work also but they'll never supply more than 25% of our power combined (and that's an optimistic estimate). Geothermal and tidal are a few more, again good mostly for niche uses.

No arguments on ethanol. Stupid idea period.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm certainly not going to argue that fossil fuels aren't necessary today, but not working toward reducing our dependency on a limited resource is stupid anyway.

 

[Handruin]

I don't disagree with any of them. I just haven't seen any proof that the sum of them ads up to a statistically significant component in climate change. Correlation does not equal causation.

CO2 is only ~385PPM (by volume) in our atmosphere. On Mars the atmosphere is nearly 95% CO2, yet Mars is very cold. Clearly CO2 concentration is not the only factor in the climate.

You also have to consider that Mars is 37 million miles further from the sun compared to earth. That could affect how CO2 plays with the temperature even if it's 95% of the atmosphere.

 

[Stereodude]

You also have to consider that Mars is 37 million miles further from the sun compared to earth. That could affect how CO2 plays with the temperature even if it's 95% of the atmosphere.

Yes, I realize that. I was attempting to illustrated the absurdity of focusing only on one characteristic and making it the sole focus.

 

[CougTek]

The surface of Venus is hotter than the surface of Mercury, even though it's much farther from the Sun. Maybe the composition of its atmosphere has something to do with it.

Our atmosphere is so thin, arguing that we can't affect it is nonsense.

 

[ddrueding]

Yes, I realize that. I was attempting to illustrated the absurdity of focusing only on one characteristic and making it the sole focus.

Focusing on elements that we can't control (like our distance from the sun) is a waste of time.

 

[Howell]

Focusing on elements that we can't control (like our distance from the sun) is a waste of time.

That's the same argument against trying to regulate CO2 emissions.