Beyond Al Gore: The OPF Global Warming Debate! [Archive]

Asher Kelman

February 26th, 2007, 09:57 AM

Al Gore Oscar For Documentary on Global Warming:[/B] No big surpise but an important recogniton of the importance of facing the reality of climate change whether dirve by narual geoplanetry cycles or man.

This and recent reports by various study groups have sought to shift discussions from scientifc papers in geophysical journals and sociological academic and tree "huggers" to the main stream debate.

As pointed out indbay.org ( http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/02/26/18368868.php)one can argue geopolitical reasons and a huge lobbying presence of the petrochemical and other major industires have to date stymied attempts to bring the issue to the forefront.

Questions:

So now how legitimized is the debate?

What is needed to go from here?

Do we have the will curtail activities that enhance global warming.

Will we decrease the impact on our biosphere.

Can the economic industrial engines by switched to eco-neutral fuels and materials.

How will this impact society structure and quaility of life, now and in the next 50 years, our childrens life time!F

Asher

Asher Kelman

February 28th, 2007, 04:07 PM

What could you estimate is the environmental benefit of digital photography.

After all we now are not millions of tons of chemical, spewing millions of tons of pollutants or trucking the film and chemical all over to get them into the commercial supply chain.

Digital film requires no gasoline to transport. I can't imagine that the 4GB CG card uses anywhere near the resources of the silver gelatin it replaces and inkjets further sweeten the equation!

Sound good!

Now is it really? I personally don't know. IOW what do you think are the real effects of digital photography on our planet?

Asher

Aaron Strasburg

February 28th, 2007, 10:18 PM

OK, Asher, I'll bite. I think much of the environmental hysteria we hear day in, day out is a load of hooey.

You'll get no argument from me that the earth is warming. I will argue:

Much of the warming took place before the industrial revolution, so "we" didn't start this. The earth has been warming since the 19th century, after the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period).
Global warming is happening at a linear rate and is expected to continue at a linear rate.
Gore's claim that melting ice will raise sea level by 20 feet is completely unsupported by science. The latest IPCC report suggests 8-17" by 2100. And that's not a given, as earlier this month Science published a report that the accelerated rate of ice loss in Greenland has now reversed itself.
The Kyoto Protocol, even if it were fully implemented and adhered to by its signatories, would only reduce warming by about 0.14C in the next century, an amount too small to measure. And none of the signatories are meeting their goals!
Energy fuels the economy. Economic growth raises our standard of living. If you want to reduce carbon emissions you must slow economic growth. Maybe that's not a catastrophe in wealthy countries like the US and in Europe, but do you really want to condemn the rest of the world to their current standard of living? Make no mistake, the US and Europe can't solve this. It would require the same from China, India, and every other developing economy in the world.

Are we willing to do what it will take to reverse global warming? I doubt it. I doubt that it's even possible and I have serious questions about whether it's even desirable. Reducing our energy consumption means that we can't take off in our cars to the mountains or shore for a photo shoot. We can't leave our computers on so we can post on OPF at all ours. Heck, we shouldn't even have computers. Think of the amount of energy involved in making this iMac in front of me.

I ride a motorcycle to work almost every day. It weighs 450lbs and gets 40+MPG. Think of the energy I save compared to the rest of the people around me in their cars blabbering away on their cell phones. And it was cold and windy on the way home from work. If people are really serious about this why don't they ride motorcycles, or even better a bicycle? How about here on OPF? How many of us are willing to make the sacrifice? Didn't think so.... And do you know what? I don't care. Do what you want to do, just don't try to make me feel guilty about what I do. Especially if your name is Al Gore.

Paul Bestwick

March 1st, 2007, 03:04 PM

Harvey Moore

March 1st, 2007, 03:41 PM

Ray West

March 1st, 2007, 04:30 PM

There is another effect, not so well documented, but called 'global dimming'. It is connected with the pollution in the atmosphere causing clouds to form as smaller droplets, and thus they reflect sunlight away from the earth more effectively than the clouds of 30 years ago. At the moment, it is counteracting to some extent the global warming/green house effect caused by co2. The tricky thing is to make the correct changes, at the correct speed, if anyone even knows what that may be. Of course, Global dimming explains why most of us can't see as clearly as we used to...

Another thing, not widely known about co2, is that it is a depressant. It probably explains why welders are so miserable.

A lot of folk are jumping on bandwagons, a lot more will be making fortunes out of 'going green'. I have never heard so much garbage talked about wind power and the like. (I have no idea if that relates to the video mentioned, but it is more of a sort of response to the other opinions mentioned here.)

Best wishes,

Ray

Bart_van_der_Wolf

March 1st, 2007, 04:43 PM

I do not believe the myth of global warming.

I wish you were right, but how to convince the majority of the scientific world that they are wrong, and you are right ...?
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7128/full/445567a.html (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7128/full/445567a.html)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7128/full/445578a.html (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7128/full/445578a.html)
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/WG1AR4_SPM_Approved_05Feb.pdf (http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/WG1AR4_SPM_Approved_05Feb.pdf)

Bart

Asher Kelman

March 1st, 2007, 04:53 PM

I too would love to learn of the refutation of all the scientific data and accept that we can add "Global Warming" to other "Mythologies" like "Evolution"!

My father, may his soul rest im peace, would be comforted since he held it was all ordained in heaven and described in the bible and if it wasn't "Then of what importance could it be?"

I think the hungry birds in Southern California would be reassured that the insects and food that is coming to life early, way before they are arrive here are going to stick around just to feed them!

Asher

Louis Doench

March 1st, 2007, 06:53 PM

I do not believe the myth of global warming. Yes I can see a planetary change at the moment but believe that is part of a natural cycle. I believe the global warming con, which is close to mass hysteria is part of a plan by the world ruling elitists to bring in the one world government. This in turn under the guise of protecting the world will only serve to enslave it. These are very freaky times

Regards to all my photographer friends around the world.

Paul

Let me get this straight... The "world ruling elites" want to bring in "one world government" in order to "enslave" the world? And you think Global Warming is crazy?

If they are "world ruling elites".... then they don't need to "enslave" anybody! By definition... They rule the world! Why do they need to set up a one world government? They rule the world!

I like a lil paranoia as much as the next guy... but according to you, they're not out to get us.. they've already got us!

Don Lashier

March 1st, 2007, 07:22 PM

Gimme a break - any rational thinker knows that global warming is due to Planet X (aka Persephone).

- DL

Nill Toulme

March 1st, 2007, 07:28 PM

Impossible. Planet X is round, and the earth is plainly flat.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

Nikolai Sklobovsky

March 1st, 2007, 08:33 PM

I wish you were right, but how to convince the majority of the scientific world that they are wrong, and you are right ...?
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7128/full/445567a.html (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7128/full/445567a.html)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7128/full/445578a.html (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7128/full/445578a.html)
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/WG1AR4_SPM_Approved_05Feb.pdf (http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/WG1AR4_SPM_Approved_05Feb.pdf)

Bart

With all due respect... After being in and around a scientific community (uber mathematical physics) for almost 15 years (that is, long time ago, but I highly doubt they have changed) I can swear on the Bible, Quran, my kid's lives or whatever object you hold sacred that for each "research" proving "A is happening/true" there will be at least ten proving otherwise.
If you think politics is dirty you never saw what happens inside so called "scientific circles"...
It's all a matter of:

1) money
2) personal preferences

in this order.
If you somehow managed to scramble a lot of 1st you then may have a luxury to follow the 2d. But it would be *personal* anyway.

So it's up to who do you believe and whom you can make a believer of.
As to the "truth"... Just as in photography (or any art), there is no such thing, there are only various points of view....

Cheers! http://www.dgrin.com/images/smilies/beer.gif

Bob Krueger

March 1st, 2007, 10:14 PM

...As to the "truth"... Just as in photography (or any art), there is no such thing, there are only various points of view....

I'm afraid I'd have to agree with that. There are no facts. There are only data and various interpretations of it...no matter the subject.

Jeff O'Neil

March 1st, 2007, 11:34 PM

It's comforting to bury ones head in the idealistic notion that change has always been a factor of our environment.

But, there are too many changes over the last 20 years to ignore. I can't speak for any other part of the world other than where I live. Southwestern Ontario Canada. My dad and I were talking about this the other night. When I was a young lad we always had snow by mid December and lots of it. Not now. We don't see snow until Mid january at the earliest.

We no longer have a fall season with a gradual cool down nor do we have a gradual warm up in the spring.

We have tree species not doing well that have thrived for centuries. We have lakes that no longer freeze..ever. We have far hotter summers albeit in shorter time frames but much hotter than 25 years ago.

Look at you own local environment. What has been the difference in the past 20-25 years that you can actually sit back and thing about?

I look at it this way. There are some pretty dedicated scientists telling us we have to change our ways and change soon. Then there are the nay sayers. I liken it to the tobacco situation. (I am a smoker btw) For ever study that comes out somehow there are some experts that say NO!

Are they and their research supported by tobacco firms? We may never know.

The same logic applies to global warming. Who has the most to lose? And do they have substantial weight in lobbying? Who has the most to lose...Big Oil companies. It's not in their favor if we switch to more fuel efficient cars, home heating and alternative electricity.

Right now the idea of making cars electric is nice but not a reality. California goes through brownouts every summer. Imagine if everyone had to charge up their car on that electricity grid? The electrical infrastructure is not there.

While it's nice and comforting to say..these people disagree...I don't think we can ignore those that are trying to tell us we are in trouble.

Fixing the problem is not a global issue. It's an issue that lives in every community around the world. How can we become less dependent on fossil fuels and how can we manage our substances when we're done with them?

The argument about change is fundamentally wrong when you consider that 25 years ago there were very few plastics and petro chemical creations to dispose of. Twenty five years ago most garbage was more like a compost heap. A little methane was released but that was natural decomposition. Now it's nothing more than a toxic waste dump for future generations to deal with.

Is that our legacy in our own community?

I can't change the world. But here in Toronto we have 3 types of garbage. Food products that get picked up every week. Recycled materials that get picked up every other week and just plain garbage that gets picked up on the off week. In Ontario we have a glass program now that separates the colors of glass. Why? Because you can't mix up all the glass as it's unusable for new glass if it has different colors in it. Now we separate the colored glass.

We're making a difference in our local area.

Global warming is a factor. You can bury you head, you can point to studies that try and prove otherwise but please do the research to find out who paid for the study. Thats one of the most important points to consider.

I'll go recycle now and be quiet!

Jeff

Duke Beattie

March 1st, 2007, 11:57 PM

With all due respect... After being in and around a scientific community (uber mathematical physics) for almost 15 years (that is, long time ago, but I highly doubt they have changed) I can swear on the Bible, Quran, my kid's lives or whatever object you hold sacred that for each "research" proving "A is happening/true" there will be at least ten proving otherwise.
If you think politics is dirty you never saw what happens inside so called "scientific circles"...
It's all a matter of:

1) money
2) personal preferences

in this order.
If you somehow managed to scramble a lot of 1st you then may have a luxury to follow the 2d. But it would be *personal* anyway.

So it's up to who do you believe and whom you can make a believer of.
As to the "truth"... Just as in photography (or any art), there is no such thing, there are only various points of view....

Cheers! http://www.dgrin.com/images/smilies/beer.gif

I love this!! I have been working at a university for the last 20+ years. I have always been amazed by the tenure process . Probably the most political thing in the world. I work in an electronics support shop. We fix the equipment they break. The big joke is to ask what kind of numbers they want, so we can adjust the instruments properly. I am very suspicious of scientific findings. Every "fact" charges yearly and becomes wrong. We had a professor who refused to talk to colleges at another university because "they don't know what they are talking about" Remember - on any university campus it's "publish or perish" Personally I am waiting for global warming to cause the next ice age. That's the theory I like best. . . .

Nikolai Sklobovsky

March 2nd, 2007, 01:01 AM

It's comforting to bury ones head in the idealistic notion that change has always been a factor of our environment.

Please, let's not use these type of cliches. If I don't agree with you or somebody else it does not necessarily means I'm ignorant, it simply means I have a different opinion.

But, there are too many changes over the last 20 years to ignore.
I can't speak for any other part of the world other than where I live. Southwestern Ontario Canada.
My dad and I were talking about this the other night. When I was a young lad we always had snow by mid December and lots of it.
Not now. We don't see snow until Mid January at the earliest.

Well, in this case let me speak for the part of the world where I live, and I live next to LA.
This year we had snow in Malibu. That was pretty much unheard of.
Next to my house (20 miles from Malibu) we only had hail,
but just another ten miles further West we also had this (second year in a row, mind you):

http://nik.smugmug.com/photos/127155118-O.jpg

Those hills are only 1000-2000 ft high, not even remotely close to have snow any time of year at our longitude..

Applying your own logic, we should expect the next Ice Age in a few years
(and comfortably blame the Democrats for that, cause it would happen on their watch:-)

Jokes apart - yes, there are some climate changes.
However, whether they are caused by us humans or by some cosmic powers remains a BIG question.
And as far as I know, many of such climatic changes are cyclic, many caused by 11-years Bethe's cycle
and another one (forgot the name), which is considered to be 110 years long.
I'm more inclined to blame the Sun than I am to British Petroleum.

There is an officially registered record about the whole northern part of Russia
didn't have any snow until the mid January one year in early XIX century.
I bet there was a lot of press hailing that the end of the world is coming and the polar caps are going to to melt.
That's been about 200 years ago.
Polar caps are still in place and I don't have any solid fact about big chunks of lands disappearing under the water...

Wait a minute...

Of course!

New Orleans!

Yes, it MUST be a global warming!

Cheers! :-)

Nikolai Sklobovsky

March 2nd, 2007, 01:16 AM

....Personally I am waiting for global warming to cause the next ice age. That's the theory I like best. . . .
Yay, that's what I'm talking about!

You'll have hot spa with chicks, you'll have ice cold martiny/Vieux Vieuve...
Don't forget the MarkIII to capture this beautiful scenery :-))

And hell with the scientists, they are all nerds anyway :-))

Asher Kelman

March 2nd, 2007, 01:50 AM

Sorry to apprear preachy, but here are the facts:

There are indeed long term cycles of warming and cooling. However, the industrialization of the planet has coincided and correlates with the fact of markedly increased global warming over the last 80 years. Only recently have we had the technology to map global water tempertaures and to integrate findings from many scientific disciplines. All support the conclusion of global warming.

All the costing in our lives and the growth of crops and livestock are dpendant or narrow margins of temperature consitons for economic function. Global warming has been made some "evil myth" like Marxism, to be ablated from the minds of the young lest they go astray!

The fact of global warming is something that the corporations and the Republican party in the USA have dismissed. We do not have advanced alternative sources of energy because our wind stations and solar plants are still too primitive as we've pretty well ignored this because of cheap oil.

Similarly, the left, fearing ecological disasters, has pressured to halt nuclear plant construction so that technology has languished in the USA. There are no modern, safe protected plants to take the place of dirty oil. The latter causes wars and relseases noxious material into the air.

We biuild with steel and not wood! wood takes Carbon out of the atmosphere.

We have millions of methane producing cows in fields and millions of tons of fertizers to those fields to grow the fodder for the animals. The methane is not recaptured and worsens our heat load for hte planet.

People can deny as much as they like that there's global warming. They many or may not understand the physics of shifts of the polar axis of roataion of the earth and magnetic flux upheavals or the massive dam building in China which are among the myriads of hard to deal with contributors to climate change and seal levels.You want ot reallocate blame between competing factors, fine by me! After all you are not being nominated for a professor ship in envoronmental technology and neither am I. However, the fact of global warming is undeniable.

So we are left with climate change!

A large percentage of birds expected in the UK last year did not arrive because their Sahara watering places wehre dired up! We are looking at having to plant southern California plants in N, Ca and in Canada to maintain the populations of birds and insects needed for hte ecosystems to survive. All due to early spring and flowersbirds and butterfiles coming at non synchronized times.

Climate change means hotter summers and more air conditoning and more water to cool facotry production proceses which are temperature dependant. This increases costs to the companies that make things!

There is no big mythological figure persuading people to keep air conditioners on longer.

Fact is, it's hotter!

Fact is humans are toxic to the planet!

Asher

Paul Bestwick

March 2nd, 2007, 02:31 AM

[QUOTE=Louis Doench;20693]Let me get this straight... The "world ruling elites" want to bring in "one world government" in order to "enslave" the world? And you think Global Warming is crazy?

If they are "world ruling elites".... then they don't need to "enslave" anybody! By definition... They rule the world! Why do they need to set up a one world government? They rule the world!

Hey Louis,

I wish I knew the exact nature of the hidden agenda, I don't. I just know that it is happening.
& yes , of course they rule the world

Cheers,

Paul

Ray West

March 2nd, 2007, 03:10 AM

Hi Paul,

I wish I knew the exact nature of the hidden agenda, I don't. I just know that it is happening.

fud, and muddy the water to catch the fish - and then you got no fish left to catch. I do not think you really want to know the agenda.

Best wishes,

Ray

Paul Bestwick

March 2nd, 2007, 03:21 AM

Hey Ray,

I have an inkling of an idea...........lets start with 4/5ths reduction of the world population.......
How about ww3......already started.
Me personally, I just want to take photos, make art, drink nice red wine have good friends. So, that is what I do & ignore reality as much as is feasible.

Heavy huh.

Paul

Bart_van_der_Wolf

March 2nd, 2007, 03:24 AM

As to the "truth"... Just as in photography (or any art), there is no such thing, there are only various points of view....

While true, if the vast majority of the scientific community shares a common vision (despite margins of (im)probability), the probability of them being right in their evaluation exceeds the chance of the nay sayers being right by a pretty large margin. I'd say there might be some 'truth' in the concensus.

Bart

Bart_van_der_Wolf

March 2nd, 2007, 03:39 AM

I'm afraid I'd have to agree with that. There are no facts. There are only data and various interpretations of it...no matter the subject.

Unfortunately there are plenty of facts. In fact there are so many facts, some of them are conflicting, that it takes fundamental research to separate the outliers from the trends. There finally (since early February'07) is formal consensus (http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/WG1AR4_SPM_Approved_05Feb.pdf) in the scientific community about the probabilities (90%). That leaves only a margin of 5% that things may be turn out better than expected, and a 5% chance that things will turn out worse.

Just being realistic, sorry,
Bart

Ray West

March 2nd, 2007, 04:12 AM

Hi Bart,

thanks for the link. I wonder if our political leaders have enough brain cells between them, to get it sorted out, or even have the balls to get China, USA, etc. to comply with whatever regulations are required. There is no system in place to enforce international law, afaik. Anyway, if no action is taken, it will be self regulating. Anyway, it getting hotter here on earth, will be good training for the next place many of us think the others will go to.

Best wishes,

Ray

Bart_van_der_Wolf

March 2nd, 2007, 04:25 AM

A large percentage of birds expected in the UK last year did not arrive because their Sahara watering places wehre dired up! We are looking at having to plant southern California plants in N, Ca and in Canada to maintain the populations of birds and insects needed for hte ecosystems to survive. All due to early spring and flowersbirds and butterfiles coming at non synchronized times.

Yep, we have many bird species in the Netherlands that are supposed to follow their food sources into Africa during the winter, they didn't.
This year's winter was on February 8th, with snow. Several decades ago, I could still ice skate in the streets of my hometown, not anymore.
Many insects are supposed to perish during the winter (survival of the fittest), leaving a slightly more pleasant environment during the rest of the year, most don't perish.
We have bug infestations at our latitude, that are common to the Mediterranean latitudes (e.g. ones causing sheep diseases like 'blue tongue' we never used to have before), even African Malaria mosquitoes are gradually gaining ground in Europe.
We see plants that are deemed to not survive our winters, thriving.
My bird feeder was left almost untouched this winter, there are plenty of insects available for birds so they don't have to come close to the homes.
Last year was the hottest summer, and we now have the hottest winter, at least since 1706 (systematic/reliable measurements were recorded since then, not having to rely on tree-rings and such)!
The list goes on, and on, ...

Besides the trend, there is also little doubt that human intervention/industrialization is adding to the underlying long term trends. All one has to do is look around (and I even don't need to look at the hockey stick graphs of trends over the last 10000 year, although they do confirm the same trend).

Bart

Don Lashier

March 2nd, 2007, 04:50 AM

Fact: The Antarctic ice sheet is losing as much as 36 cubic miles of ice a year

Fact: Greenland ice sheet is losing 240 cubic kilometres per year, 3x faster than previously thought

Fact: Arctic ice has thinned by four feet since 1953 - a 40 percent decrease.

Fact: Average glacier is thinning by 1 foot a year.

Fact: Island nations in the Pacific are being inundated

Fact: Coral reefs are dying off

pictures of above (http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org) (by a fellow photographer here on the Oregon Coast)

What's not a fact is the cause of all this, but clearly CO2 levels are suspect:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e9/Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr-2.png

I agree that scientist's prognostications are suspect - they've been wrong and totally reversed their theory too many times in the past, but here the evidence seems overwhelming - even GB (the ultimate sellout to oil) has admitted this after censoring government scientists on this matter for years. Climate models (let alone weather models) are incredibly complex and highly inaccurate. For instance, one thing that's widely overlooked is that Krakatoa suppressed temperatures by about 1 degree for nearly 100 years masking the onset of global warming.

Am I worried? Not -really - I could use a little excitement before I die (like the Greenland Icesheet sliding into the ocean) and now that the threat of nuclear holocaust has subsided this is the best bet we have, and I live three houses back from the ocean so all the collapsing cliffs are only increasing my property value and I may be oceanfront soon :) With any luck I won't have to move to Florida for a warmer retirement although summers have been cooler here recently as all the heat inland just sucks in more ocean air cooling us on the coast. Winters have been warmer though - we haven't had a good freeze in nearly a decade.

Am I concerned? Certainly, and I do my part by recycling and using energy efficient stuff where possible, but the fact is that without major changes in lifestyle worldwide it's unlikely imo that anything will be averted. The dice have been rolled and all we can do now is sit back and watch the show.

- DL

Ivan Garcia

March 2nd, 2007, 05:23 AM

Am I concerned? Certainly, and I do my part by recycling and using energy efficient stuff where possible, but the fact is that without major changes in lifestyle worldwide it's unlikely imo that anything will be averted. The dice have been rolled and all we can do now is sit back and watch the show.

- DL

Hi Don
Welcome back, where have you been?
interesting places I hope.
Please don’t take me wrong, I appreciate the fact that you recycle and use energy efficient resources.
But that statement is just pants my friend, there is plenty we can do.
For starters, we all know that one of the mayor causes of CO2 is the personal vehicle, there is a way forwards for this contributor to global warming to cease it’s emissions, Electric cars are not the option, hydrogen is the answer, the technology exist and is safe to use, what is needed is a change of politics, a severe and radical change in our laws, banning fossil fuels, will accelerate the deployment of this source of energy, which only waste product is pure water. We only need some one, with enough balls to do it.

Paul Bestwick

March 2nd, 2007, 05:45 AM

well me....i am gonna buy another car......a v12 & learn to drive both my cars at once. Then I am gonna turm my 20 ac units up to overdrive cos I don'tt believe it does dick. Why, Mt ST Helens etc anon probably did more then 1000 yrs human activity.What a crock......no offence intended

Cheers,

Paul

Ivan Garcia

March 2nd, 2007, 06:27 AM

Hi Paul.
Me?... I just got myself a 21 speed racing bike… guess what? I leave your V12 car standing in city traffic every time, and because I am moving, I don’t need air-con…

Paul Bestwick

March 2nd, 2007, 07:42 AM

I Live in Hobart.....we don't have traffic. We melt bikes for scrap

Edward Bussa

March 2nd, 2007, 08:19 AM

Nice picture of Al Gore in front of that map, did you take that?

=D

Asher Kelman

March 2nd, 2007, 11:08 AM

There are thress issues:

1. convincing the holdouts that it's not a some "crock". My later father in law had that attitude when I reacted to the purple green effluent from power plants going miles out into Tampa Bay Florida. He dismissed it and walked out the room, calling me a naive socialist (I'm neither).

Now Artie was a great fisherman! He had a fast ChrisCraft twin engined fishing boat and then an old wooden rowboat. That was his favorite and he knew the sky, the birds and the ripples in the water as much as God knows the world.

Well, two years later, Artie's on the phone, "Asher, those bastards killed all my fish!' The chemicals fed algae which consumed the oxygen and wiped out the fish! Then he joined!

He still dismissed as naive and mythological the following:

a) Global Warming,

b) New Orleans and other low lying place set for inundation

c) Digital photography.

However, he did do some brilliant photography which I'll scan and post and was a wonderful friend who shared hundreds of hours in the darkroom and at sea with me photographing, fishing and then enjoying the children.

2. Slowing the contribution man makes to greenhouse gases. We can at least stop growing tons of CO2 and methane (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=227)producing cattle (http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/env99/env220.htm)! Beef is fine, just work out how to grow kindly them indoors and trap the methane!

3. Zero Emmision cars: We can't keep releasing trapped carbon and other gases from fossil fuels into the atmosphere anymore. We need new industries to either scrub the gases clean or else use hydrogen or electricity. Or else if we grow it we can burn it as the cycle has zero net gass effect.

4. Replace Oil and Coal as indistrial fuels with either scrubbed or alternate energy. Massive new energy plants that are clean.

5. Safe secure underground nuclear generators that produce all the energy we need. Within 10 years we'd get the design perfect. Another 15 years and we could replace everything we have now.

6.Education and financial incentives to suppress population growth: We only need enough people to feed and service the population.

At least this approach should slow things down enough to allow us adapt.

Asher

Nikolai Sklobovsky

March 2nd, 2007, 11:26 AM

Asher Kelman

March 2nd, 2007, 12:05 PM

With all due respect, but it's exactly the "scientific-looking" proofs akin to the diagram you brought that makes it very hard for me to believe to anything they say...

Does anyone here seriously think they were systematically collecting CO2 data at 1000 AD? My home town in Russia is a host to one of the world's seven(!) Meteorological Data Centers, and according to people who work there there was no world-wide regular data collection until late XIX century.

I'm just thrilled at a thought how Pizarro was sending his windchill and humidity data back to the Queen of Spain along with the Aztec gold...

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for the alternative fuels, etc.
But if you want to be scientific - please don't bring the proofs that would not hold a third grader's questioning...

Nikolai,
I excuse this from you! Why because you already have defied logic and been right in your own way!

I do know that you (like the humming birds that indeed can fly) have already overcome the dictums! You missed the discipline British ordered training systems in photography, and without getting so educated, you defy odds and take pictures! Actually surprisingly good pictures that even I admire!

However, this good fortune does not extend to science.

The data for the CO2 measurements comes from many sources including trapped CO2 in ice (that is found in cores of ice drilled from extreme depths) to go backward in time. With each level we can get samples of the gases and chemicals at that level.

Further we have the tree rings and many other sources.

Nikolai, the data today that we look at comes from myriads of sources that together affirm and complement one another.

Now anyone who can formally show that these data are wrong, will be hailed as the first 21st Century Einstein, become industries’ main spokesman and have the income and jet fleet of a top evangelist!

In fact I could see a government cabinet position, a Nobel Prize and of course, 70 certified virgins while this distinguished thinker is yet still alive !

Oh, yes plus a new MF digital system of your choice and a voucher from Costco for unlimited free prints and t-shirts!

Asher

Edward Bussa

March 2nd, 2007, 01:03 PM

Your post contains a new thought for me: "if we grow it we can burn it" - I was under the faulty assumption that things like ethanol were no better for the environment... but after all, plants consume carbon - duh!

However, with products like ethanol and biodiesel, our energy markets will interfere and compete with our food markets - which doesn't sound like a great idea to me.

Also, this will be a long road, and even longer without levity. I am definitely for humans living efficiently - after all - its efficient. The complex part is that energy is not our only resource and it competes with other resources, mainly time. If we can save time by spending more energy, obviously, time wins every time!

It looks the time for nuclear energy is coming - but that will not last forever either, will it? Does anyone know the estimated world reserves for nuclear metals?

Nikolai Sklobovsky

March 2nd, 2007, 01:10 PM

Asher,

I am by no means a person qualified to hold all those wondorus positions you've mentioned:-)

But since I have at least half a brain (the one I use when I take pictures, you can't deny its existence:-), I cannot stop thinking....

The tree rings... They record CO2 levels? Only? Or the whole periodic table? I know CO2 is a major contribuor to the plants' lives, to make sure there is a correlation you have to have a different data source. Official data has not been collected long enough for such a long term processes, so we need something else...

Air trapped in ice... OK. Doesn't it strike you as a possibility that the longer the air has been trapped, the more factors can actually affect its "mixture"?

This whole thing reminds me the (in)famous "carbon dating". Everybody was so glad to find it and use it, until (at the end of the XX century) it was discovered that the half-time value is not exactly what they thought it was and fluctuates with the time, basically making it useless for any dating longer than a few centuries.

So, yes, there are data in favor of the theory of the global warming. However, there are other theories. And, as you may agree, science is not about the majority vote. Gallileo and Darwin were way outnumbered by their esteemed colleagues.

Where can I get that MF? ;-)

Nicolas Claris

March 2nd, 2007, 01:26 PM

Since I've read State of Fear written by Michael Crichton (http://www.amazon.com/State-Fear-Michael-Crichton/dp/0066214130) each time I hear/read about global warming (global warning?) I tend to ask myself if all of this is not fake… something I share with Nikolaï's half brain!

Don Lashier

March 2nd, 2007, 01:39 PM

But that statement is just pants my friend, there is plenty we can do.
For starters, we all know that one of the mayor causes of CO2 is the personal vehicle

Hi Ivan,

The reason I said the die is cast is that the life of CO2 in the atmosphere is 200 to 400 years so it's a little too late for any immediate impact, especially with China now getting motorized. But I do my part - when I lived in LA I used to drive 30,000 to 50,000 miles per year, but for the last 20 years I drive 3,000 to 5,000 miles per year. Simple solution - move closer to work. I also rode my bike to work for many years.

> Welcome back, where have you been?

Toward the end of last year I started remodeling my bathroom and it became an all consuming project. I've only got so much time for forums and was spending it at a tiling forum (www.johnbridge.com). Project has been done a few weeks now so I'm back.

Here's a photo. BTW, those mountains had snowcaps when I started but it's all melted now ;)

http://www.lashier.com/images/cat74666p.jpg

- DL

Don Lashier

March 2nd, 2007, 01:50 PM

The tree rings... They record CO2 levels?

Nik, trees feed on CO2 so the size of the rings correlates with atmospheric levels.

In any case I don't think even the most ardent skeptics question the CO2 data. What they question is the causality link claiming that rising CO2 levels are a symptom (result) of warming, not the cause. They may have a point - one of the primary scientific fallacies is to assume that correlation implies causality. This has been the reason for much of the scientific backtracking in recent years, particularly wrt dietary recommendations.

The other argument you hear is that 95% of CO2 is from natural causes. This may be true but the fact is that the industrial component can be identified by radioactive tracing and has risen drastically in the past century upsetting the natural balance causing a disproportionate rise (50%?) in atmospheric concentrations.

- DL

Asher Kelman

March 2nd, 2007, 02:15 PM

Ivan Garcia

March 2nd, 2007, 03:03 PM

Hi Ivan,

The reason I said the die is cast is that the life of CO2 in the atmosphere is 200 to 400 years so it's a little too late for any immediate impact, especially with China now getting motorized. But I do my part - when I lived in LA I used to drive 30,000 to 50,000 miles per year, but for the last 20 years I drive 3,000 to 5,000 miles per year. Simple solution - move closer to work. I also rode my bike to work for many years.

> Welcome back, where have you been?

Toward the end of last year I started remodeling my bathroom and it became an all consuming project. I've only got so much time for forums and was spending it at a tiling forum (www.johnbridge.com). Project has been done a few weeks now so I'm back.

Here's a photo. BTW, those mountains had snowcaps when I started but it's all melted now ;)

So .. to resume you were up on those montains having a bit of a wintery holliday sking ... thgen global warning moved in and spoiled your fun by melting the snow.... tch, tch ,tch...
Is good to have you back... so I gues I like globalwarming after all lol.
PS.. good on you driving 300M a yea... I'll try and get on my bike moe often now that I've got one.

- DL

So... to resume, you were up on those mountains having a bit of a wintry skiing holiday ... then global warming moved in, and spoiled your fun by melting the snow.... tch, tch ,tch...
Is good to have you back... so I guess I like global warming after all lol.
PS... Good on you driving 3000M a year... I'll try and get on my bike more often now that I've got one.

Nikolai Sklobovsky

March 2nd, 2007, 04:15 PM

... one of the primary scientific fallacies is to assume that correlation implies causality....

exactly my point... Post hoc, propter hoc logic is ancient, and it's exactly where it belongs to: the museum.

I'd say - when any issue becomes to be politicized at that level, and so much money is involved, digging for the truth is pretty much pointless. You will only find mud, more mud and then even more of it, untill you are all covered with it and are so tired that you simply choose the side that has less mud to throw at ya...

So I personally stick to photography. I did my part to not waste silver-based chemicals or paper anymore, so you can call me a greenie :-)

Jeff O'Neil

March 3rd, 2007, 12:57 AM

Don...Like the new bathroom! Excellent job.

Global warming is essentially the new buzz word.

Here in Canada with an Election looming all 3 political parties are trying to outgreen the others. On the surface it's humorous but when you look closely it's quite sad. Six months ago no one in politics seemed to care. Now with the election coming they ALL are in favor of the Kyoto accord.

Myself I've only recently become a green convert.

I believe what so many astute scientists are telling us. We, globally are in trouble.

It's interesting and convenient to point out a nuance and say the numbers are wrong based on ONE single fact. It's an overall effect. No one chemical or process is causing this.

I watched Al Gore's film. It as an eye opener. But as a 30 year veteran in the media I was skeptical as I always am for manipulation. It's always there. But photo's from 20 years ago of Lake Chad, glaciers that have all but disappeared...how can you really refute the evidence? Lake Chad and the glaciers have been there for a thousand years and in 20 they are almost gone?

How can I not feel we've made some huge mistakes?

I have narrated corporate videos for mining companies with holdings in Indonesia. In the video they had some spectacular video of the quasi mountain where the refining mill was located. I mentioned to the producer how beautiful the shot was. He told me it took 3 weeks for the crew to get 10 seconds of clear air over the mill. It emits gasses and smoke without regulation. Since the mill is located near the top of this peak the effluence runs down troughs directly into the ocean. The sea is brown for as far as they eye can see. These shots were taken in early 2006. The effluence runs through the communities where the workers live on the mountainside. would that happen in North America? Not on your life! And this is a company that has received multiple awards for it's lowering of pollution in North America. Outside the continent they are don't even care!

We have no idea what is happening around the world. Thankfully this forum is multi national and such occurrences may well be documented.

My long winded point is ..we need to focus on the big picture not specific numbers.

I read reports and replies that are based on science but I can't reason the arguments to what's happening world wide.

I keep coming back to my jaded media outlook that tells me some of thee reports are from people and companies that do not want profits to erode and the hell with the damage.

Thats my conundrum with all of this. WHO do we believe?

Who can I trust?

I can only trust my own instincts that tell me what the evidence shows.
Right now I trust people like Al Gore as there is no apparent political or corporate agenda.

There are no easy answers and dissecting specific numbers does not come close to a solution.

I have no idea what the ultimate solution is. It's beyond my abilities.

But it has to start happening and people have to bring their head out of the sand and say yes..this is a problem.

Jeff

Nicolas Claris

March 3rd, 2007, 06:21 AM

Nicolas,

Of course I could say, yachts travel because of a little green man on the dark side of the moon.

You however as a boat builder, ships captain and photographer know that I'm wrong.

You would have total friendship with Arty, my late father in law, also a distinguished photographer and sea captain and close friend, who trivialized science and the limits of man's abuse to nature.

This attitude short-changes both you those you influence. My father -in-law could have moved a lot of industrialists to protect Florida Everglades, New Orleans Coastal life and the Tampa Bay had he been not so dismissive and ridiculed any warnings.

My own training as a scientist and physician tells me there's no faking here. Spend time with bird photographers in Europe and you will see it is not some myth!

It appears that we will lose some 30% of birds in the next 15-20 or so years. We are now facing the largest species loss in thousands of years.

If I was going to sea, I'd be happy with you as the captian and navigator, because you have the experience and training to know what it's all about. Likewise, my own training and experience should at least give you pause before you, of all people, would even jokingly say:

I've had many cancer patients who refused treatment since the pastor had prayed with them and their Saviour was delivering them from that cancer and therefore treatment was not needed. Of course, in each case, the patient returned a year later, with terminal cancer, now ready for curative treament. By then, all solutions were long gone.

It as no use trying to explain to such persons that they were in dire danger, since they did not need science to tell them anything, devalue any proofs offered, all with a smile of the "saved".

While I have no doubt in their faith and their own rights to make choices they wish, we cannot do this for whole communites of people and for the fish, birds and other life who's future we control.

We've assumed power over the entire planet. So we must deal with this with rationalism not belief systems. Until you Nikolai or someone else shows otherwise, the prepondance of informed trained careful scientific reports find that with more than 90% certainty we are experiencing man-made global warming excacerbation due to greenhouse gases and other human activites.

Mockery of good science is great disappointment. It does demonstrate, however, the price of a self-indulgant society that looks for immediate satiation, albeit with appropriate showing of tears for the oppressed. I know all this because I live by Los Angeles and Hollywood, "LALA land" where delusion a la mode is part of the way of life!

Asher
Asher

I wrote I tend to ask myself if all of this is not fake
This means only that I don't want to take all this as true, as a dogma…

Of course during the tens of thousands of nautical miles (1852 metres compare to land miles that are about 1600 metres) I sailed on merely all oceans and seas of the World (yes, I did that) I saw so many disgusting pollution due to humans (from land, from yachts, from ships).
I also saw fishermen nets that were made of too small squares and capture too small fishes.

Of course some of the infos collected about air, water, ice, warms etc are unquestionable.
What may be questionable is the analysis that are made from these statistics.

I know that one of the marketing theory is to speak soooooo loud, preaching the worse to be heard.
I am strongly against this theory as it tends to use our fear to manipulate us.
In the best case it relies on the assumption that we are too stupid to understand.
In the worst case… read Michael Crichton's book

Now, anyway, I agree, we have to change our habits and behavior.
But haw can we:
Keep and lock our car in the garage
Be carefull with biofuel - price of corn may increase so much that third world people couldn't afford it anymore
Shut the light (and computers!)
Light the candles
Ban all products made in China or India (and Russia!) as they are polluting countries
Sign 2 billions time the Kyoto act… and assume it
Forget about nuclear energy as we don't know what to do with the used uranium (or whatever it is called) that have millions year of life.
Stop making children (OK I'm old enough for this) so they won't have any "bad future"

And then, may I add : ban tobacco to avoid all lung, throat, tongue cancers.

I'm not joking or playing or being ironic, I'm just tired with all these do, don't etc.

If it's bad, let's ban. For all of us. No privilege.

But are we so sure we're not manipulated? Are we so sure that these predictions are correct?

I AM NOT

Some birds are missing? what about dinosaurs?

Jeff Donovan

March 4th, 2007, 11:51 AM

Asher, hotter summers would generally mean warmer winters. So one would think the increase in power use in the summer (which would only happen in the industrialized world, btw) would be offset by the decreased use of heating fuels in the winter.

In the 1970s global scientific consensus was that we were going through a cooling phase and that an Ice Age might be in the offing. Curious how things have taken a 180 since then.

Asher Kelman

March 4th, 2007, 09:37 PM

Sorry Jeff,

It doesn't really work out like that.

We have today the most phenomenal working together of scientists from geology, geophysics, engineering, chemistry, oceanography, climatology, mathematic modeling, statistic, probability, biology, waste management, economics and every government planning body who come together on the massive economic consequences of the climate changes we're facing.

New Orleans is just a tiny taster.

It's not just heating bills it's how to find drinking water?

It's what to do with a 100,000 angry people who have no jobs and future and want to kill you for it.

Global warming isn't just a matter of adjusting some thermostat or budgeting for the heating bill!

Our very premises for how many babies we should have, how markets grow, who does out dirty manufacturing and more has to be looked at again.

Yes, there's an economic side to this, but the ecological side of it is awful.

Asher

Asher Kelman

March 4th, 2007, 09:45 PM

Nicolas,

Alas! You want to equate the loss of the dinosaurs with the loss of their descendants, the birds.

"Hello, hello, Nicolas, are you O.K. there in the dark coal mine, a mile underground lost with no mine parrot to watch because you did not look after it?

Mon ami, That still bird was the sentinel!"

In the coalmine, the birds told miners that there was enough oxygen and so the miners would be fine too.

In the planet, the birds are our own sentinels. When there is a bloody die-out of thousands of species because we polluted the rivers and the insects brought that to the frogs and to the birds, then we killed them too.

Sure over hundreds of millions of years the dinosaurs ruled and then vanished. We're here for 50,000 years, that's all. We wont even make it to 1% of the dinosaur success.

In breast cancer, the infestation of lymphatics and lymph nodes in the armpits is not the cause of death and in itself can be tackled well. However, it's an ominous sign of the serious ness of the human condition and that millions of potentially lethal cells have already escaped and gone past freely and that a battle for life itself is underway.

Same with the current massive extinction that we are amongst. The bird’s loss is our warning!

Asher

Paul Bestwick

March 4th, 2007, 10:11 PM

Asher,

I nominate we eliminate all birdlife. That way we will rid ourselves of the worriesome burden that we may inadvertently kill them all off.........& while we are at it......

Paul

Asher Kelman

March 5th, 2007, 12:30 AM

Oh, Paul,

in case you were going to add amphibians to the list, we are currently seeing projected loss of up to 70% of the worlds frogs toads and their bros! Partly man's fault, part due to a fungus among us!

So if you have an appetite for frogs legs or toad flambé, then consume all you can while they're still in abundance!

I heard you are an avid consumerist!

Do not think of receiving a 1DIII. They're hazardous. Don't even undo the box, you will lose all judgment and sense of the real danger you are in!

As soon as the package arrives, just send it my way and be assured it will bother you no more! I am this willing to extend myself for you!

Asher

Richard McNeil

March 5th, 2007, 08:45 AM

New Orleans is just a tiny taster.

Asher

Asher,

The main reason for New Orleans had to do with the building of the Levies. They stoped the mud flow into the Gulf so the dunes (or whatever they are called) decreased in size. That allowed the Hurrican to hit MUCH harder than "normal". I would highly recommend a documentry called The Hurrican which address this specific issue.

Richard

Tim Dolan (Longwatcher)

March 5th, 2007, 09:35 AM

My thoughts on "Global warming"
There are three separate issues:

1. Global warming/cooling
2. Man's influence on the environment
3. Man's influence on current Global warming.

As to #1: I would like to point out that at times in the past the earth has been far warmer then it was today, including periods where humans existed. Greenland being a fine example - it got its name from being green, not covered in ICE. So the fact that we happen to be in a warming trend does not necessarily mean that it is outside of a normal occurance for the planet which has existed for quite sime time before we showed up and especially in the short period of time we have had anything resembling accurate records.

As to #2: Yep, we affect the environment in negative ways and I for one would like to reduce both mine and others influence on the environment in a joint effort to protect it. I would like to see environmentaly designed products and technologies coming to fruition (such as solar power roofs (whole things - replace the shingles - make it mandatory ). I would also like to see industrial pollution reduced not just in the US, but around the world. Of note as a percentage of energy produced the US is one of the lowest producers of pollution on the planet, however in total we tend to be one of the larger. I would like to see the percentage reduced around the world.

As to #3: As far as I am concerned the issue is in doubt based on what I have read about temperature assesments from more then 1000 years in the past. Also of note that I don't hear a lot about is we are apparently approaching a magnetic pole shift which is probably messing everything up as well. And that is definately not man-made or influenced.

Just my opinion, now back to photography.

Asher Kelman

March 5th, 2007, 11:00 AM

Tim,

The back-to-photography ending of your informed remarks does bring us full circle!

It's in large part photographs that have documented everything we talk about: ecological disruptions, and the disasters of the hurricanes, flooding, hunger, starvation and land shifts that we have witnessed.

1. Global warming: we agree that's a fact: naturally caused in long cycles with periodic re-setting of the earths magnetic and actual axis adding their own effects. The recent sharp rose in temperatures is extraordinary and undeniably, with at least 90% certainty, caused by our own actions, CO2, methane from domestics ungulates and a litany industrial gases.

2. Global Pollution: alongside #1 the effluents to our rivers have polluted, poisoned and pretty well wiped out or fragmented habitats all over the world.

3. Significance of Biosustainability to man. The die-off in birds and amphibians are sentinel events to our own vulnerability.

Role of Photographers: Professional agencies use photography to document, measure and interpret all the changes we are currently seeing. Nature photographers, Travelers to the Arctic and Antarctic, the forests of Africa and lakes and streams all over the planet bring back to us the reality of climate change and our harm to nature globally.

Photography can help us get clean and green!

Now, as you say, back to photography!

Asher

Tony Bonanno

March 8th, 2007, 12:24 AM

I've been too busy to check in for awhile, but now that I have, WOW, what a thread ! Good to see the discussion and pleased that it appears mostly civil.

Prior to my photography career, I spent a lot of time on the "green side" and have a graduate degree in Geosciences.

Personally, I think global warming is VERY real and probably the most serious environmental issue facing the human species today.

I once heard the late Dr. Louis Leakey speak about the "psycho-social" evolution of the human species. He suggested that the critical issue for humans was how we were evolving intellectually. He questioned whether we would have the capacity to use technology for the betterment of the planet and ultimate health of the species.. OR, would we fall in the trap of short term gains at the expense of catastrophic long term consequences...

What do you think ?

Cheers,

Tony Bonanno

Ray West

March 8th, 2007, 05:17 PM

I have just seen an 1 1/2 hour video on Channel 4 in UK, entitled ' The Great Global Warming Swindle'. I did my best to take notes, but have 3 or 4 pages of scribble. It said that the temperatures _lead_ the CO2 levels by about 800 years, based on samples from drilling's in the ice caps. This is supported by several surveys. A question of Al confusing cause and effect, I guess. Volcanoes and dying vegetation contribute a large amount to CO2, but most comes from the oceans. It can take thousands of years for climate temperature to effect the oceans, due to mass of ocean. The biggest contribution to green house gas is water vapour. About the only thing that effects global temperature is the sun, there is a high correlation between sunspots and temperature, virtually none between CO2 and temperature. A Swedish scientist? (I didn't note his name) was more or less the first public figure to mention CO2, and he said he thought that the industrial release of CO2 _may_ help reverse the cooling effects - this was in the 1970's, when the next ice age was being foretold.

The political take up, the ensuing hype which persists today was due to Maggie Thatcher and the Berlin Wall.

Many of the facts I can verify, I well remember Maggie, and I do know something about electricity generation. I have more notes than stated here, most of the speakers were, as far as I can tell, genuine. A couple were Nigel Calder, a former New Scientist editor; and Patrick Moore(sp?), the co-founder of Greenpeace.

It is now a multi-billion dollar industry, mainly funded by western governments, with a possible agenda of preventing the industrial development of Africa, and other non-industrial countries. (You can't run a steel mill, or a railway on windmills and solar panels, even if you could afford them).

I'm not sure if any of the video is on line, or whether it will be shown elsewhere.

Best wishes,

Ray

Asher Kelman

March 8th, 2007, 06:38 PM

Ray, Let me address the last part, since it exposes more than anything the sheer ignorant, naive and irresponsible claptrap spewed merely as represented by your report.**

It is now a multi-billion dollar industry, mainly funded by western governments, with a possible agenda of preventing the industrial development of Africa, and other non-industrial countries.

The Kyoto agreement allows even China and India, massively growing industrial powers to continue to pollute. That in fact, is what causes the clouds of chemical soot and droplets that own much of the skies in the rapidly consuming eastern economies.

African countries are not, TTBOMK, involved in the same way as they are protected from most of the regulations. So it is plane nonsense and an almost a religious obsession against the Western governments to talk of some evil motive.

Much of Africa has grown instutions of commerce, education, hospital care and even heavy industry that are competant, vibrant and self sustaining.

African countries are, however, pulled down by a number of issues that even predate colonialism*. One of them is hostility between cultures. For example, Nigeria, the area that boasted the marvelous kingdom of Benin, where bronze art marvels were cast by lost wax technology way ahead of most other cultures, friction between Yoruba, Hausa and Ibo ways of life to a considerable extent hold the nation back as well as corruption and poor distribution of oil wealth.

African nations are now pulled down by education and clean water without planning for exploding populations that result in cities, as villages are no longer fit for the educated young people. The loss is the cultural values developed over thousands of years to enrich and nurture people.

So people who flood to the cities away from self-sustaining communities, are exposed. Yes they might become fulfilled and get rich or else they might be dragged down to alcohol, crime, loss of self worth that is the loss of yet another generation and repeated all over the world, even in the largest Western cities.

All this has nothing to do with Kyoto and threats of Global Warming. To think otherwise is far-fetched and delusional at the very least.

Now add to all this the crippling effects of poor government, such as in Zimbabwe, where a food exporting state has been reduced to poverty by a foolish dictatorship or the tragedy of aids in societies where the solution is sex with a young girl and 30 percent of much more are infected with this scourge. Add then the centuries old tribal hatreds in Sudan, Congo and the bestial barbarism of child soldiers with machetes slicing off limbs and faces in Sierra Leone and Northern Uganda, there is no need to look for other causes of misfortune.

I'd really like to see how Climate Change discussion is some real threat to them. On the contrary, recognizing and then accommodating to Global Warming might avert further humanitarian disasters.

The shame of the West is not the recognition of Global Warming, rather the devaluation of suffering at the hands of thugs that has allowed, (under the guise of "Non-interference in "Internal Affairs of Sovereign Countries"), continued brutalization of millions of innocents.

Still no western armies in the Sudan to protect the millions of brutalized, robbed, raped, burned and dispossessed black people of Darfur. Why? Because no one wants to hold the Sudan Government accountable. Why? Whose friends have the oil we need? Whose friends can buy our goods? So the Blacks, with no leverage elicit just a few tears.

Where are the protesters against Bush in Iraq (where thousands are killed) in being outraged at the deaths of ten times that number in Darfur alone? You see, we have selective outrage. Darfur, like da fur coats, is not really fashionable with the far left. To be of concern, real concern, first the suffering must be attributable to the Americans. Everyone else gets a pass in this wicked practice of "selective outrage" To me, all life is equally precious.

Asher

*You might talk of slavery, on which Dutch, spanish, Portuguese and British wealth grew for up to 100 years. Well, you might not know thart capturing other African men, women and children as slaves has been done for centuries by stronger tribal groups. There were 3 markets: internal, then Arab traders that dominated East Africa and then of course the Dutch, French and British and other trading ships plying the coasts of West Africa (convenient to the European continent), which took advantage of this rape of weaker peoples.

***The rest we can hold pending identifying the video which I'd be happy to study. However, for now put it aside and in the category of "There was no landing on the Moon", The 911 attack did not occur", "The world was created just about 5800 years ago" "Evolution is a religious belief" and Hobbits built the Tower of london, you know what I mean. However, don't think I am pushing things aside just like that with no accountability! when the video is found, we'll revist!

Ferenc Harmat

March 8th, 2007, 08:58 PM

It said that the temperatures _lead_ the CO2 levels by about 800 years, based on samples from drilling's in the ice caps. This is supported by several surveys. A question of Al confusing cause and effect, I guess.

...If you plot the temperature ramp-up with the CO2 levels, the mystery deepens even further: almost perfectly correlated. That is temperature rise on the past 150 years comes out almost perfectly correlated with the rise of human activity, pollution and CO/CO2 production...

But what really, really worries me is the fact that, when you see BIG, LARGE companies like EXXON visibily and vocally cutting their ties and connections with the "skepticals", and now joining forces with the "believers", it makes you wonder how SERIOUS the problem is... And I mean worried, because as soon this happens, the underlying issue is typically far, far advanced in development and complecity (too far to be corrected in the short term), and may be signalling potential economic troubles/downturns for these companies (which they may try to early-avoid), as well as irreversible environmental damage.

Just my 0.02 on what seems plain, simple and evidently obvious.

Asher Kelman

March 8th, 2007, 10:25 PM

...If you plot the temperature ramp-up with the CO2 levels, the mystery deepens even further: almost perfectly correlated. That is temperature rise on the past 150 years comes out almost perfectly correlated with the rise of human activity, pollution and CO/CO2 production...

Even when we take into account Methane released from the ocean and other natural sources, the change in the magnetic pole and the axis of the earth's rotation and more, the human causality is pretty well correlated to 95% certainty (would have been 99% but for lobbying by industrial giants and polluting nations, gues who, not the USA!

But what really, really worries me is the fact that, when you see BIG, LARGE companies like EXXON visibily and vocally cutting their ties and connections with the "skepticals", and now joining forces with the "believers", it makes you wonder how SERIOUS the problem is... And I mean worried, because as soon this happens, the underlying issue is typically far, far advanced in development and complecity (too far to be corrected in the short term), and may be signalling potential economic troubles/downturns for these companies (which they may try to early-avoid), as well as irreversible environmental damage.
Exxon and Shell have been trying to be on the right side of public opinion. These guys have made more profit that any business in history! however, they see the tide has started to shift and all of the following are true at the same time:

1. We are not prepared to have nuclear wars to guarantee oil.

2. The whole world economy is threatened with widespread hunger, wars and disruptions of supplies and markets. Oil is not the future, it is the past lasting for another 30 years perhaps, who knows?

3. Some oil suppliers may have been lying about how much oil there is. We may be ending up short and depending even more on nutcase regimes who'll ferment violence with the revenue.

4. We are about to move to Nuclear energy and they want to be part of it not the enemies of it.

5. They don't give a damn whether or not they are contributing to global Warming they just want to appear as pro-ecology as part of their usual PR crap so they don't get taxed on their trillions!

Asher

Ray West

March 9th, 2007, 01:08 AM

Ray, Let me address the last part, since it exposes more than anything the sheer ignorant, naive and irresponsible claptrap spewed merely as represented by your report.**If you wish to rephrase the above, or link to the ** then I may consider answering the rest of the queries you have raised, concerning the video. Just because a point of view does not agree with yours, or the majority, does not mean it is wrong. The people concerned were well qualified in their particular field. I have only presented a very small part of the program, I am reluctant to mention anything about it any further, since it seems to irritate your pre-conceived ideas.

The program was concerning global warming, not pollution, not much on other world issues, just about how the current frenzy re global warming has arose.

Best wishes,
Ray

John_Nevill

March 9th, 2007, 01:14 AM

Ray West

March 9th, 2007, 01:35 AM

Hi Ferenc,

.If you plot the temperature ramp-up with the CO2 levels, the mystery deepens even further: almost perfectly correlated. That is temperature rise on the past 150 years comes out almost perfectly correlated with the rise of human activity, pollution and CO/CO2 production...Something akin to this was mentioned. iirc it was along the lines that average global temperature had risen by half a degree Celcius in the last 150 years, but not steadily. Most of this half degree was before 1940. I think they were saying it was not related to CO2.

A bit of my view - FUD has been spread so far and wide, that it will be virtually impossible to verify any figures readily available. It seems that the IPCC report was biased, a number of the scientists were ignored, although their names appeared on the report. At least one guy had to threaten legal proceedings to get his name removed, he said there was no effective peer review. Where have I heard similar??

It may be better that fortunes are spent tilting at the windmills of global warming, compared to firing missiles at other countries, but I guess only time will tell.

Best wishes,

Ray

Asher Kelman

March 9th, 2007, 01:43 AM

John,

A good part of the severe weather iappears to be due to shift in the axis of the earth and also the new wind cycles due to the Eastern MFR pollution smog.

So there are lot of processes going on at the same time: man-made to geophysical.

One cant expect a spinning sphere with a center of molten iron (swirling in its own underground storms) to have balmy conditons on the surface just as a matter of course!

It's the delicate balance of ecosystems that keep the planet fine to live on. However we carve, rip and smoke the planet like a hunk ofv venison! To know what is happening, we have multidisciplinary how much vegetation there is, the water transpiring to the air, the land mass being deforrested, the soot on the ice and much more which needs to be put into computer models to work out what is going on.

However, we are pretty damn sure that despite all we don't know all (and should know) that we already do know that we are foolishly trapping more heat under a blanket of pollutants!

Just because science challenged reporters or Al Gore might give simplistic explanations should not detract form the quality of the science. There, complexity is well recognized and aggressively addressed.

Asher

John_Nevill

March 9th, 2007, 02:41 AM

Thanks Asher, I believe there's too much supposition at play here. Thats why I don't watch a great deal of TV. One minute the BBC runs an "end of the world is nigh" documentary on global warming, then Channel 4 counter it a with the "Great rock and roll swindle"
At the end of the day resources are finite, economies thrive at the expense of poverty and politician's idealogies change with the wind. Que sera!

Asher Kelman

March 9th, 2007, 12:48 PM

A new thread name today so people don't think this is news on Cameras!

Asher

Ferenc Harmat

March 9th, 2007, 04:10 PM

5. They don't give a damn whether or not they are contributing to global Warming they just want to appear as pro-ecology as part of their usual PR crap so they don't get taxed on their trillions!

Asher

...This is so true, that it basically forces to question who does this planet really belongs too... There is simply no real, genuine respect for children, for women, for birds, for nature, environment... It is all a fake, it is forced because of laws, but not ingrained in the cultural fabric that make up these organizations.

And these organizations (as well as many others) will be opposing people's common interests in favor of our core economic principles, which is "share holder value".

This is why, in the short term, we are trapped, my friend, and we are in deep s... :-(

Diane Fields

March 9th, 2007, 04:13 PM

Don...Like the new bathroom! Excellent job.

Thats my conundrum with all of this. WHO do we believe?

Who can I trust?

I can only trust my own instincts that tell me what the evidence shows.
Right now I trust people like Al Gore as there is no apparent political or corporate agenda.

There are no easy answers and dissecting specific numbers does not come close to a solution.

I have no idea what the ultimate solution is. It's beyond my abilities.

But it has to start happening and people have to bring their head out of the sand and say yes..this is a problem.

Jeff

And---he's not coming to this recently. I have a book of his from quite a number of years ago--long before he ran for president--where he was making the same case. I would rather believe people like him (and many scientists) and be wrong--than NOT believe him, not work for changes.

This will not affect me--I don't have that many years left--and I don't have kids nor grandkids--but I DO care about this world, the people and creatures that will come after me and I make an effort to understand what is happening and what I, as one person (in concert with other likeminded people) can do to change. I do agree with Don, though---that we've sort of made our bed for the future---but we can work towards not making it worse and reach a 'neutral' base.--which will affect things FAR in the future.

BTW--I like the bathroom too *smile*

Diane

Ferenc Harmat

March 9th, 2007, 04:13 PM

It seems that the IPCC report was biased, a number of the scientists were ignored, although their names appeared on the report. At least one guy had to threaten legal proceedings to get his name removed, he said there was no effective peer review. Where have I heard similar??

Let us forget about the charts, numbers, etc. for one second. Let me ask you:

Do you know what the Moulins are? Have you seen them? If so, what do you think about them, their origins and their implications?

Let us try to ground ourselves in what is really happening, rather than the interpretation of the numbers.

Ray West

March 9th, 2007, 05:49 PM

Hi Ferenc,

I have not seen moulins, I only have an idea about what they may be after a quick google. I was merely trying to relay a small part of what was stated about the human contribution to global warming by the various people in the programmme. So far, I've only relayed a small part of the programme's content.

Best wishes,

Ray

Ferenc Harmat

March 9th, 2007, 08:23 PM

Hi Ferenc,

I have not seen moulins, I only have an idea about what they may be after a quick google.

That's ok. I have not seen them in person, but I have seen in pictures their nature and their devastating effects (in any case, you may have seen them, but not the "coined" name).

The "Moulins" are WATER-FOUNTAINS formed over the surface of the ice-masses that are being melted up-there like butter spread over your pancakes. These moulins, while looking (and sounding) seemingly harmless , appear to run freely and unbounded the surface of the ice, and, at some point the suddenly dissappear into the depth of the ICE mass...

However, here comes the sinister part of the act: these "Moulins" are not stopping somewhere. They diabolically continue to carve the ice-masses (now on the Y-axis) *all the way down*, like drilling it slowly (and painfully)... to the point where it is just a matter of time before this water will reach the bottom, which is pure rock.

The next (and catastrophical) step of the carving is a sudden change of displacement of water, now going into the X-axis, and guess what happens? The water begins to carve the ICE on the ROCK-BED and unlocking it from where it has been stuck for God know's how much time... and then letting go into the sea... the Moulins and Ice, altogether like a big, lost ship, adrift.

IMAGINE! My house, in South Florida, which is 18miles straight from the SEA will be covered in water up to four (4) feet, effortlessly.

This is Global Warming in real, cold action. (and we keep trying to come up with numbers...)

Just a few thoughts, for tonights bed-time...

Asher Kelman

March 9th, 2007, 11:11 PM

Well, Ferenc,

What about pumping supercold water into the Moulins to stop them drilling? We set up solar powered heat exhangers and pull heat out of the water!

Is your house below sea level?

Asher

Don Lashier

March 10th, 2007, 01:23 AM

The ironic this is that the clean air movement has probably accelerated global warming as pollution (particulate matter, soot, sulfer dioxide) actually have a cooling effect. Intentional pollution has even been proposed as a solution to global warming. - Could smog protect against global warming? (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003433914_webwarming16.html)

Volcanos btw also provide a cooling effect. As I mentioned before the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa reduced the earth's temperature by around a degree for nearly a hundred years and it was recently reported that the cold water is still there 123 years later (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/02/BAGMOK9FJ21.DTL&type=science)

- DL

Ferenc Harmat

March 10th, 2007, 08:48 PM

Well, Ferenc,

What about pumping supercold water into the Moulins to stop them drilling? We set up solar powered heat exhangers and pull heat out of the water!

Well, it is hard to tell as to what different measures we could take / do... Now, considering how massive the issue is, I even wonder if there is something we can really do, for now.

The main problem lies on the colling/heating cycles that the ICE up there is exposed to. And it seems that those cycles are converging in MELTING the ICE, rather than keeping or cooling. Therefore, if a massively "cold" solution is devised, how can we keep it from not melting, again? :-/

Is your house below sea level?

Nope, but it is a few few above it.... very vew, indeed.

Tim Rucci

March 16th, 2007, 09:11 AM

Ferenc Harmat

March 16th, 2007, 02:16 PM

With all due respect for Al Gore (which isn't much), I think he's full of baloney. I believe he would do anything to further his cause and his opinion.

...What you believe (or not) about him, or your opinon of him, has little or nothing to do with what is really happening in our planet, worldwide.

I do believe that the earth cools and warms in cycles, and I also believe that what man does or does not do, contributes only a very minute amount to the process.

Let me debunk this, immediately: your proposition sounds like you want to on "God's" and "Evil's" side, at the same time. Regardless of whatever happened in the past (cyclically), we have one major problem: only during the last 150 years, the earth has been exposed to an ever increasing and unstoppable levels of human-driven contamination which NEVER EVER were present before.

Therefore, any "past" cycles or "harmonic" assumptions about climate development and behavior are, unfortunately, severely questioned, as the variables we have today never existed before.

Just that simple.

Asher Kelman

March 16th, 2007, 02:48 PM

With all due respect for Al Gore (which isn't much), I think he's full of baloney. I believe he would do anything to further his cause and his opinion.

What I believe really doesn't matter, but here it is just so you folks know where I'm coming from.

I do believe that the earth cools and warms in cycles, and I also believe that what man does or does not do, contributes only a very minute amount to the process. Natural events such as volcanic eruptions do a lot more to effect warming than anything we are capable of doing.

So does this mean that I think we should pollute the earth? Of course not. We need to be responsible, but let's call it what it is rather then get all tied up in Al Gore's fuzzy math.

He created the internet, didn't he?

Tim,

I agree that Al is not the messenger that we would select for this subject. I think he is trying to remold himself for the 2012 elections. He has picked on an important subject of public interest but he is not fully informed and he is probably only 95% sincere and 120% driven by delusion of full comprehension.

Summary: Yes, every once in a while a meteor wipes out a 100 square miles or so, but until then, we need to protect what we have, just like we would on any short hike in the wilderness. For that we are aware of nature, conserve water and food and not get over-heated! That, after all, is what our life journeys are really about. At this time, we're overheating, poisoning and disrupting what we and our grandchildren love and need.

Explanation:

That having been said, the natural disasters wipe out millions of years of species development. That has happened before and will happen again. Some of these cycles are simply caused by natural cyclic shift in the earth’s axis and so the moon's pool on the water is changed and consequently temperate zones shift and seasons care earlier or later and plants and animals either adjust or lose out.

This we know.

We also know that mass planting of the wrong plants, such as fir tees replacing natural chaparral on the hills above winding rivers in S. Africa, dried up the rich rivers to trickles threaten all the thousands of creature, fish, birds animals in the food chain that depended on them.

One woman got permission to replace the natural vegetation to its wild state with native species and cleared the pines. The tributary subtended by that land refilled with water and life was rescued. Now they applied her work to the rest of those man abused hills.

We know that the acid droplet perpetual mists in China are changing weather patterns. More work is being done. But the Kyoto agreement foolishly allowed India and China to be shielded to protect them because they were developing countries!

The U.S. corps of Army Engineers helped all the communities to tame the mighty Mississippi and so essential silt no longer washed down the flat swamp lands wit hits own fragile ecosystems of anchoring plants that break the force of hurricanes, and so they can now roar in at almost full force over a fraction of the wetlands, now vanished that slow them down.

So what we do does change the planetary interconnected systems.

Add to that the blanket effect of green house gases we worsen the situation.

As a scientist, I am more convinced than not that the increase in industrial and churned up gases and decaying millions of tons of waste food in garbage dumps and the methane from cows contributes to global warming.

I feel that we can easily remedy this damage.

Of course, nothing we do matches the spasms of nature. We are always under threat of another volcano erupting or a meteor crashing devastating life for a long time.

In the meanwhile, in practical terms, we are the principal cause of climate change in our own life spans. That is what I consider the facts are.

However, even if this was not true, the climate is changing and without addressing this by all amelioration possible we will have industrial disruption, food shortages and tragic famines. There will also be blame on the West and further fuel for wars.

Even if that did not happen, we still have almost total loss of fish and other native aquatic life in most major rivers in the industrial word. The organic man made toxins have altered the sex of fish, wiped many out and the ones we catch are laden with some degree of these toxic substances.

Besides this 30% of all bird species and 70% of all news, frogs, toads and the like will be wiped out over the next 10 to 50 years. Pollution, season and climate change, introduction of non-native species are robbing our offspring of the planet's richness.

So let’s broaden our idea of "Climate change" to represent that all we do without necessity to destroy what we have gained dominion of: the entire plane.

Asher

Paul Bestwick

April 11th, 2007, 06:58 PM

This story is from our news.com.au network Source: AAP

Top scientist debunks global warming
By Simon Kirby
April 11, 2007
MANKIND is naive to think it can influence climate change, according to a prize-winning Australian geologist.
Solar activity is a greater driver of climate change than man-made carbon dioxide, argues Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology at the University of Adelaide and winner of several notable science prizes.

“When meteorologists can change the weather then we can start to think about humans changing climate,” Prof Plimer said.

“I think we really are a little bit naive to think we can change astronomical and solar processes.”

Speaking tonight after presenting his theory for the first time, to the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy in Sydney, Prof Plimer said he had researched the history of the sun, solar and supernovae activity and had been able to correlate global climates with solar activity.

“But correlations don't mean anything, you really need a causation,” Prof Plimer said.

So he then examined how cosmic radiation builds up clouds.

A very active sun blows away the cosmic radiation, while a less active sun allows radiation to build up, he said.

“So you can very much tie in temperature, cloud formation, cosmic radiation and the sun,” he said.

The next part of Prof Plimer's research was to examine the sources of carbon dioxide.

He said he found that about 0.1 per cent of the atmospheric carbon dioxide was due to human activity and much of the rest due to little-understood geological phenomena.

Prof Plimer also argued El Nino and La Nina were caused by major processes of earthquake activity and volcanic activity in the mid-ocean ridges, rather than any increase in greenhouse gases.

Nor does the melting of polar ice have anything to do with man-made carbon dioxide, he said.

“Great icebergs come off, not due to temperature change but due to the physics of ice and the flow of ice,” Prof Plimer said.

“There's a lag, so that if temperature rises, carbon dioxide rises 800 years later.

“If ice falls into the ocean in icebergs that's due to processes thousands of years ago.”

On the same basis, changes to sea level and temperature are also unrelated to anything happening today, he said.

“It is extraordinarily difficult to argue that human-induced carbon dioxide has any effect at all,” he said.

Prof Plimer added that as the planet was already at the maximum absorbance of energy of carbon dioxide, any more would have no greater effect.

There had even been periods in history with hundreds of times more atmospheric carbon dioxide than now with “no problem”, he said.

The professor, a member of the Australian Skeptics, an organisation devoted to debunking pseudo-scientific claims, denied his was a minority view.

“You'd be very hard pushed to find a geologist that would differ from my view,” he said.

He said bad news was more fashionable now than good and that people had an innate tendency to want to be a little frightened.

But Prof Plimer conceded the politics of greenhouse gas emissions meant that attention was being given to energy efficiency, which he supported.

The professor, who is writing a book on the subject, said he only used validated scientific data, published in reputable peer-reviewed refereed journals, as the basis of his theories.

One argument amongst many no doubt...........As usual I support the minority view. There was a time in history when people believed the world to be flat. Similairly today there is a belief that humans cause global warming.

Cheers,

Paul

Asher Kelman

April 14th, 2007, 06:33 PM

Paul,

The professor, a member of the Australian Skeptics, an organisation devoted to debunking pseudo-scientific claims, denied his was a minority view.

I see red! He's part of an organization, like a religion, whose pulpit is "debunking".

Of course this man does provide a good base for argument.

However, I'd respect his views more if they came from an academic not part of an agenda based organization whose survival and public image is constructed from controversy.

Asher

Ray West

April 14th, 2007, 06:53 PM

One argument amongst many no doubt...........As usual I support the minority view. There was a time in history when people believed the world to be flat. Similairly today there is a belief that humans cause global warming.

Hi Paul,

In the 1970's the political consensus was that we were going to enter another 'ice age'.

Best wishes,

Ray

Murray Foote

April 15th, 2007, 10:16 AM

I agree with and support Asher's views.

I believe the case for Global Warming is well established and the main unknowns are how quickly changes will continue and to what extent an effective response is likely.

One problem is inertia in the biological system so that even if we completely cease greenhouse emissions worldwide immediately (!) it will still take some time before the current rate of change reverses itself. This means we cannot wait for the changes to have occurred because by then it will be too late.

Another problem is the possibility of an ecological tipping point - a point at which our narrow band of ecological comfort disappears forever. There have been mass extinction events every one or two hundred million years in which up to 90% or life diappears and we risk creating one ourselves.

One such possible cause is the warming of the oceans (accelerated by the melting of arctic ice) reaching a point at which methane dissolved in the seabed evaporates into the atmosphere in significant quantities. Methane is a more critical greenhouse gas than CO2 and has the potential to not merely accelerate the greenhouse effect but also to usher in irreversible changes to the composition of the atmosphere.

I don't claim to be a scientist. I am an economic historian by qualification, systems developer by employment and photographer by inclination. This topic is too important for any of us to ignore.

I saw Al Gore's film and while I don't have any fundamental issues with it I found it maybe a touch superficial and perhaps a bit too anecdotal at times. Still, he does say it's intended to communicate to all and it is no doubt admirable in those terms.

However, I would recommend to people who disagree with what I say or who would like to know more to read Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers (http://www.amazon.com/Weather-Makers-Changing-Climate-Means/dp/0871139359/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-4737861-5426424?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1176651002&sr=8-1). This is a remarkable book that is very easy to read yet at the same time densely packed with scientific information.

Tim Flannery is an Australian scientist who has written a remarkable series of books. Initially he wrote books on Australian and PNG mammals and marsupials. Next he wrote several books on the ecological history of the Earth (The Future Eaters, The Eternal Frontier). Then The Climate Makers on the ecological balance between the past and the future, what is inevitable and what we can change. Well worth a read.

Regards,
Murray

Klaus Esser

April 15th, 2007, 11:09 AM

Well - besides my opinion that an election of Al Gore for President some years ago would have the world moved in another direction as it is now - he´s a polititian and ALL polititicians have a short-sighted mind as i learned.
Politicians are not stupid enough (well, okay . . . ) not to realize facts that are modelling our future.
But can they act as they possibly would as a private person? I doubt.

I´m not sure how much we have influence on the global climate in reality to INITIATE a change of climate - fact is, we can ADD negative effects which can accellerate changings.

Starting at ourselves: stop smoking! It´s a FACT, it harms us. Why do we smoke anyhow?

Can we expect politicians to be wise if we ourselves avoid to be?

best, Klaus

Bart_van_der_Wolf

April 28th, 2007, 04:55 PM

I believe the case for Global Warming is well established and the main unknowns are how quickly changes will continue and to what extent an effective response is likely.

One problem is inertia in the biological system so that even if we completely cease greenhouse emissions worldwide immediately (!) it will still take some time before the current rate of change reverses itself. This means we cannot wait for the changes to have occurred because by then it will be too late.

Another problem is the possibility of an ecological tipping point - a point at which our narrow band of ecological comfort disappears forever. There have been mass extinction events every one or two hundred million years in which up to 90% or life diappears and we risk creating one ourselves.

Well, for several days already, April in the Netherlands (moderate sea climate at 52 degrees latitude) has set new record highs. This is partly due to the higher than usual sea water temperature, and a persistent high pressure system, which are due to ...

The average monthly temperature in April was the highest since 300 years, with still a few days to go, the number of sunshine hours (270 hours versus 158 hours normally) was higher then ever recorded before, and there hasn't been as little (0,3 mm) rain/precipitation since 100 years ago. The precipitation (rain + snow) deficit (precipitation minus evaporation) has not yet been as severe in this period since now.

The official Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute's conclusions (http://www.knmi.nl/kenniscentrum/zomer_in_april/index_en.html):
"Global warming has increased the probability of an extremely warm April as the one we observed in 2007. However, on top of this it still was a highly unlikely event, with an estimated return time of more than 300 years. The record warm, dry and sunny weather was caused by a persistent high pressure system over our part of Europe".

Not that I'm complaining about the summer temperatures in the spring, but it is so dry that food crop seeds haven't germinated (even weeds haven't). There are likely going to be significant wasp (and other) infestations, and there is a serious concern that dykes (the water restraining wall kind) may dry-out and collapse (which is serious when 1/3rd of the country, and most of the economic activity, is below sea-level).

And we all know what that means for us photographers, higher temperatures and drought means more sensor noise and dust ...

Bart

John Sheehy

April 29th, 2007, 05:06 AM

This story is from our news.com.au network Source: AAP
One argument amongst many no doubt...........As usual I support the minority view. There was a time in history when people believed the world to be flat. Similairly today there is a belief that humans cause global warming.

That's not a very good analogy. The flat world was the ignorant, assumed view that had always existed from people who didn't have the means to see/know better. The concept of global warming is not an assumed view that has always existed. The assumed view that has always existed is that the earth is here for humans to use at their own discretion, and that everything would take care of itself. *That* is the analog of a flat earth.

Jeff Donovan

May 27th, 2007, 10:39 PM

My late two cents here.

I think it's somewhat silly to act as if humans have had no effect on the environment the last 200 years. Any rational person has to accept this. We can argue about the degree, but I believe the first point is fairly inarguable.

While I'm not entirely convinced of global warming, I think it's silly for us not to take steps to reduce the human footprint on the planet. Drive fuel efficient cars, conduct research to develop more "green" energy sources, etc. Personally my wife and I own one car, every light bulb in my house is flourescent and will be disposed of properly when the time comes and we minimize our use of electricity as much as possible. We also recycle our garbage as much as possible.

I view the costs as an insurance premium. I pay my insurance for my car despite the fact that I have never in my 20+ years of driving had an accident that was my fault (knock on wood.)

I'd rather start paying an environmental premium now than have to pay the full (and likely massive) cost of an accident down the road.

An aside on solar power. I was reading in the Wall Street Journal this week that we are potentially running short of some of the rare-earth elements (gallium, halfnium) that are essential to the way we currently build solar panels.

Getting off fossil fuels might be even more difficult than we think!

Another aside. I moderate a message board for my undergraduate college and we have never had an AGW thread go five pages without becoming a slam-fest. It speaks well of the maturity here that such an issue can be discussed, and some admittedly "out-there" viewpoints be shown and people here still remain (for the most part) polite and focused on the issue.

Asher Kelman

May 28th, 2007, 12:53 AM

Thanks Jeff for your input. Yes, we should reduce our footprint on ther planet!

We are just guests, after all and we shouldn't trash the place.

It's nor just global warming that concerns me, rather the heavy boots of us all over the planet. Our uneccessary additions to Global warming are just one consequence of our dirve to constantly grow.

This expansion of human enterprise has costs.

Now that we can store food, have efficient weapons, clean water and medicines, do we still need endless growth?

Is it like having genes for storing fat or for being deceptive, which helped us survive the harshest times, we now have no way for using restraint. There is no way to tell the genes which make us so competitive and greedy to just settle down to neutral efficiency, but with no net growth!

Why isn't enough, enough?

Asher

Nicolas Claris

May 28th, 2007, 01:56 PM

I have to damit that Jeff arguments are quite convincing...
But Asher, are you ready to get back to your Retinette? (mine was 1B!) would it be enough?
Do you think that people starving have enough? Though I do not agree with the actual generalisation use of "Genetically modified organisms" (I don't know the ewact term in English) I am sure we do have to search again and again for these enhancements to agriculture will help a better use of our ground.
I do believe science will bring the solutions while we shall follow the wise advices of Jeff.

I am still wondering why USA and Australia are the only big countries that have not signed the Kyoto Protocol...

Asher Kelman

May 28th, 2007, 02:33 PM

I have to damit that Jeff arguments are quite convincing...
But Asher, are you ready to get back to your Retinette? (mine was 1B!) would it be enough?

Well, the Retinette uses chemistry which might or mioght not be more polluting. However, we could rest with what we havew right now!

Do you think that people starving have enough?

It's not a question of whether "starving people have enough", of course they do not, but it is the self-defeating policy of providing only food, water and antibiotics without a context that motivates the collaps of increased population growth and poverty as a consequence. The thousands of children in Africa who's lives I saved, are now great grandparents with massive families that cannot have sufficient sustainance. So what good did I do besides feeling great and kind at the time?

I am still wondering why USA and Australia are the only big countries that have not signed the Kyoto Protocol...

Nothing complicated. China and Inia have pretty well been excused. France Germany and the U.KI. have not dropped CO2 production by even 1micro gram. With Europe and Asia mega industry spewing out billions of tons of CO2, the Kyoto treaty is a farce.

Now Bush has other reasons, like thinking 1 ton SUV's can drink as much gasoline as he wishes and that's just a "way of life".

In reality, we can deal with this fast. We could have safe, protected nuclear power plants all over, gasoline cars banned in cities, free city transport, electric cars, insulated homes, wood for homes (withdraws CO2 from the artmosphere) etc. In this way we would cut the indistrial and transport CO2 production by 50% in the next 20 years.

Also Cows have to be kept indoors and the methane (worse than C02) captured and used for synthesis of useful materials.

Kyoto, IMHO, is a dangerous delusion!

So far, Europe has pretty will done nothing significant in spite of Kyoto!

Also China and India are not fragile societies but industrial power players that need to be addressed as strictly as everyone else!

Asher