Global Warming

[B. Max]

You stretch out the same line every time. All those things can be improved. Aircraft can be made more efficient. Much military flying could be eliminated. Routes can be rationalized. Even if it did "restrict your right to go on vacation", then most certainly I would restrict it by limiting your choices. Your right to go on vacation is not nearly so inakienable as the right to life for others.

Shipping can be made more efficient. There is a huge tonnage of older snaller vessels that can and should be replaced.

It really does not matter very much whether deforestation for oil purposes is MINIMAL. IT is one part of the puzzle that can be fitted in. Most of the contributors are mininal. Added up they are not.

I said "packaging", not "food packaging." Food packaging is a small part of that. And, the alternative is not nitrogen. It is less unnecessesary packaging and recyclable materials.

You should read a little more on the cloud cover - you are not being entirely truthful. Why is there increasing cover and where does anyone say that this is countering the Greenhouse effect?

I have, in an earlier post, dealt with the few areas where glaciers are thickening. That also, is a consequence of global warming. And, I have access to more information on that than you will ever find on the Web.

The Antarctic is not cooling: it has lost, if I recall the amount correctly, about 30% of its ice cover in volume. The two greatest breakaways in researchable history have happened in the last five years: one is now going on.

Read the reports of theUN Secretariat on Desertification before you post that nonsense about greening deserts. The world's drylands are disappearing.

Climate models have nothing to do with any of these aspects of warming. These are observations of events in progress.

I did at over one short period of time, visit many oil fields. That does not mean anything at all. Though I experienced a lot about the equipment used in oil fields for years. How does that bear on what the oil fields are doing to the climate?

You really don't know what you're talking about.

http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Arctic.htm

The two greatest breakaways in researchable history have happened in the last five years: one is now going on.

Yes natural breakaways because the ice is always moving until it reaches a point where it can nolonger support its own weight.

How does that bear on what the oil fields are doing to the climate?

The oilfields are doing nothing to the climate. They are however driving much of the economy in the country.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear Pateris,

It is likely that the earth's climate is self-regulating.

It is, and has been for hundreds of millions, if not billions, of years. However, mankind's influence on what naturally occurs in this 'self regulation cycle' is unprecedented, so we cannot predict it's immediate effects with any certainty. We can in the long term, though.

Humans, as a species, reflect a specific 'modus operandi' that is akin to another un-natural (some may claim natural) anomaly. Cancer. What cancer is to humans, humans are to Earth. We just choose to live in denial that we could ever irreparably harm, let alone kill, our host.

[Slavik44]

Humans, as a species, reflect a specific 'modus operandi' that is akin to another un-natural (some may claim natural) anomaly. Cancer. What cancer is to humans, humans are to Earth. We just choose to live in denial that we could ever irreparably harm, let alone kill, our host.

have you been watching the Matrix

[Guest eureka]

Shall I recommend a good text on logic for you? Also one that would show the benefit of truthfulness.

I have referred to you the UN Secretariat on Desertification which, a few short years ago after exhaustive studies, concluded that 70% of the earth's dry lands had degraded in the previous twenty five years. You are trying to say that the opposite is occuring!

I am not in the least interested in what you think about laws of dynamics. You are becoming the epitome of the adage that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." The world is going to hell in a hurry and you try to argue that you can too turn lead into gold based on your understanding of science.

The Antarctic is warming. The open water has increased dramatically. I have already explained the thickening of ice IN PARTS to you. That does not need science: it is very simple to understand. There is nothing natural about the size of the two recent breakaway icebergs, The latest one is probably going to irreversibly reduce the penguin population of the area They now must leave their young and travel for many hours to get to a food source.

I can't be bothered with your nonsense about cloud cover. Water vapour and its causes and effects have been covered ad nauseam. NASA, BTW, is to launch two small satellites sometime this year. One of these will be going only through the stratosphere and will be concerned to discover more about what is driving the change there.

You really should read something about that and not make claims that NASA spports your dreams. There are increases and decreases in the diferent layers. Scientists have explained all these and how all are a function of the same problem.

It may well be that the earth's climate is self regulating and that life survives. But, how many mass extinctions have there been? how many times has it become uninhabitable for life of our nature.

Perhaps you can cheerfully contemplate the extinction of your own species and say that life will survive. Perhaps you could even go into some sort of frozen state somewher and emerge in a few hundred thousand years to compete with the worms and slugs that are going to evolve into some new, higher form of life.

I think of survival as something quite different. I prefer that we try to survive as we are on a planet that is more or less congenial to our species.

[ndpnic]

Many of the posts on this topic show the pure selfishness of the human race.

It is going to take Sacrifice on the part of Humans to improve the quality of life on Earth.

The money that Canadians have sent for the Tsunami relief is enough to pay for next years car models to ALL be Green powered, but that wil never happen.

It is enough money to switch coal powered plants to Green power. But, that won't happen either.

I, personally would give up many of todays "conveniences" if it would prolong the planet, therefore prolong the Human race.

[Pateris]

Eureka,

Perhaps you can cheerfully contemplate the extinction of your own species and say that life will survive.

Even the most extreme predictions of climate change DO NOT result in a climate that is unlivable for humanity...

Yes, some species may disappear. Guess what, that happens all the time. The rate of extinction waxes and wanes, but it is ALWAYS there.

And while humanity has an impact (I never denied we did), if you think we are actually going to change it BACK, you are dreaming. That is doomed to failure because we DO NOT UNDERSTAND all the influences. You cannot say you do.

As for the NASA stuff - I read it on their website. And even the most basic knowledge of physics will tell you that more clouds will reflect more solar energy back into space than less clouds. That is inherently clear. Will they hold more heat in - yes. But where is the balance - you cannot claim to know that, because science has not figured it out yet.

And you completely misunderstood my earlier statement - regarding the laws of thermodynamics. These are fundamental rules of how the universe works. If you want to understand science you MUST understand thermodynamics.

Finally, I love how you claim efficiency improvements will get us what you claim we need. Then I show that isn't possible, so you fall back on the socialist idea of "limiting choice" in how we live our lives. Caesar said I don't have to go on a foreign vacation. Guess what - NOT HIS DECISION. My decision. And only mine.

The human race will not extinguish intself through the minor changes in the climate. And to try to change it - even you won't be willing to pay for the change.

[B. Max]

Many of the posts on this topic show the pure selfishness of the human race.

It is going to take Sacrifice on the part of Humans to improve the quality of life on Earth.

The money that Canadians have sent for the Tsunami relief is enough to pay for next years car models to ALL be Green powered, but that wil never happen.

It is enough money to switch coal powered plants to Green power. But, that won't happen either.

I, personally would give up many of todays "conveniences" if it would prolong the planet, therefore prolong the Human race.

Many of the posts on this topic show the pure selfishness of the human race.

Nonsense, those of us who do not buy into the global warming fear mongering, do so based on the facts. Global warming and all the resulting cataclysm is a hoax. The claims of the global warming crowd have all been debunked and proven to be total frauds, leaving them to attack the messenger rather than defend their claims with science and fact.

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=16260

[Pateris]

An the government begins the spin on Kyoto failure:

Since 2002, the federal Liberal government has described its Kyoto obligations as a requirement to cut output of greenhouse-gas emissions by 240 megatonnes.

"We now think the gap is more like 300 MT," senior officials warned the PMO and other departments in a recent critique of climate-change abatement proposals titled "Project Green: Overview and Summary Analysis."

And further:

"Improvements in energy efficiency have been offset by [gross domestic product] growth of 40 per cent between 1990 and 2002" alone, officials at Natural Resources and Environment Canada wrote in a Jan. 5 document called "Climate Change — Lessons Learned and Future Directions" and prepared for cabinet ministers.

Interesting how economic growth (which keeps us financially afloat) is making this impossible... Guess we will have to restrict the economy to make the required reductions.

[Guest eureka]

In the first place, I do not say efficiency alone will do it. I also talked quite strongly of the need for technological innovation. If thar will not do it, then sacrifice will be necessary and essential.

Perhaps you should reread the NASA Website and try to understand it. It says nothing about the balance and is clear that the double effect is not helpful and, indeed is part of climate change. Why would they be sending a spacecraft to measure just how serious it is.

You know what you can do with the laws of thermodynamics! Understanding them has sweet nothing to do with this and bringing them in is not productive. We are heading for catastrophe on irrefutable evidence of this. The laws do not change that.

What is your point in posting evidence that the problem in Canada is growing ever more serious through neglect? Does that not strengthen the case for taking heads out of the sand? I can't imagine how you think that it is an argument for your "Panglossian" optimism.

[B. Max]

A good insight into the thinking of the crackpots that drive all the environmental nonsense. These people are all in the same league as the paul pots of the world.

Environmentalists don't really have a problem with CO2 (what tree hugger could object to plant food?) but rather with energy and humanity's use thereof. Misanthropist quotes are abundant in the movement, here's a few from The Environmentalists' Little Green Book, U.S. Chamber of Commerce (ISBN:0-615-11628-0):

"Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun." -- Paul "Population Bomb" Ehrlich.

"Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover the source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it." -- Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute.

"Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't our responsibility to bring that about?" -- Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (the so-called Earth Summit) held in Rio de Janeiro.

"We've already had too much economic growth in the US. Economic growth in rich countries like ours is the disease, not the cure." -- Ehrlich again.

"The planet is about to break out with fever, indeed it may already have, and we [human beings] are the disease. We should be at war with ourselves and our lifestyles." -- Thomas Lovejoy, assistant secretary to the Smithsonian Institution.

"The only real good technology is no technology at all. Technology is taxation without representation, imposed by our elitist species (man) upon the rest of the natural world." -- John Shuttleworth, FoE manual writer.

"The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can't let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the U.S.. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are." -- Michael Oppenheimer, senior scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund.

"People are the cause of all the problems; we have too many of them; we need to get rid of some of them, and this (ban of DDT) is as good a way as any." Charles Wurster, Environmental Defense Fund.

"Man is always and everywhere a blight on the landscape." -- John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club.

"The world has a cancer, and the cancer is man." Alan Gregg, former longtime official of the Rockefeller Foundation.

They don't like people and they are quite prepared to use any excuse to inhibit enabling technology, chemicals and affordable energy. Why are we pursuing a course set by people haters?

[Pateris]

Eureka,

If the climate warms by a couple of degrees over the next 100 years, there will not be a catastrophe... Humanity and most life will EASILY survive that. There is no catastrophe coming...

And I am very wary of those who claim "irrefutable proof" about the future...

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear Pateris,

Even the most extreme predictions of climate change DO NOT result in a climate that is unlivable for humanity...

If the climate warms by a couple of degrees over the next 100 years, there will not be a catastrophe... Humanity and most life will EASILY survive that. There is no catastrophe coming...

You seem to be claiming to know; that which you claim to be unknowable...

Global warming poses it's greatest threat not from an overall miniscule climb in mean temperatures, but from the aberrant weather it causes. 9 feet of snow in California, or snow in the UAE for the first time in recorded history, for example. The Bow River in Calgary is facing record lows because the Bow Glacier has receded

at least 25% in the last 100 years. It is possible it is a 'cyclical event', but it is more likely caused by ...melting. From heat. More heat than 'normal'.

Yes, some species may disappear. Guess what, that happens all the time.

Not at the rate Humans extinct them. Perhaps you can write an 'open letter to God', telling him how he frittered his time away in a wasteful fashion, creating all those species that humans can evidently live without.

[Pateris]

Thelonius - there is NO evidence of increase severe weather events. Further, NONE of the climate models predict more severe weather.

This is simply a scare tactic by the greens to scare us.

There have not been more hurricanes, tornados, droughts, storms , or any of these things.

[August1991]

Pateris,

Human activity has an effect on the planet's environment. There is no doubt about that.

Furthermore, this effect is generally not included in the price people pay for goods and services. Hence, there is good reason to believe that we "overuse" the environment because it is largely free.

If environmentalists use scare tactics, you go to the other extreme and pretend no problem at all.

[Pateris]

August,

I do not deny that humanity impacts the environment. And there are obvious negative impacts like acid raid, water pollution, and deforestation of tropical rainforests.

Those are easy to show they exist and that the impact is negative.

The whole "climate change / global warming" issue is trying to make me take a flyer and change my life based on some VERY questionable scientific research.

1. So there is evidence the climate is changing in many places.

2. So there is evidence that the atmospheric composition is changing slightly.

3. So we know that industrial activity puts more of the component in question (CO2) into the atmosphere than happened before industrialization.

I can accept the link between points 2 and 3. That's not a great big leap that 2 is caused by 3.

But where is the link between 1 and 2? A flaky computer model with more assumptions than real data?

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear Pateris,

There have not been more hurricanes, tornados, droughts, storms , or any of these things.

If you'll recall, four large hurricanes in a row hit Eastern North America in 2004. I will not attribute this, for now, to climate change. However, it makes me think of a question for those that oppose the notion that mankind is damaging the planet. Since you seem to argue that no scientific evidence is valid,(save those few reports done by 'scientists' in the employ of oil companies) at what point, or, what events, would have to unfold for you to accept or acknowledge empirical evidence? 5-7 hurricanes Hitting florida for a period of 10 consecutive years? Or would the number have to be higher, say 20?

Drought, that can be a real killer. How many consecutive years would it take to convince you? After two years, as history shows us, millions may start dying. (There is plenty of evidence that cyclical droughts occur, and their impact is devastating , though any one region would be less prone to mass starvation than in the past)

[Pateris]

Yes, four hurricanes hitting Florida in one year is unusual. But I'm sure it has happened before. There have been numerous occasions in the last 100 years that 3 hit.

And one century is a pretty small data set.

Drought happens. It happened in the 1930s across a good chunk of North America. It happened in Africa in the 1980s. And it will happen again. In fact, the soil evidence in the prairies of North America indicate that the "wet period" from about 1800 until recently is 'abnormal', and that for at least 300 years prior to that it was much drier...

If there was a trend showing an increasing number of hurricanes and typhoons over 20 year period I might say there are more storms. But there is no evidence of this.

And no one is seriously predicting this in the future.

[Guest eureka]

I have slowly arrived at the conclusion that you are nuts. Of course the number of weather events has increased over the last twenty years. That cannot be denied. And, all climatologists are predicting this and worse for the future.

The number of El Ninos is greater than before and, for the past time frame you are now using, they are stronger and have shorter intervals between them than previously. That cannot be denied, either. These are also a consequence of the changing temperaturs and currents of the oceans.

[Pateris]

Eureka,

Look at the data... stop listening to Suzuki. There has NOT been an increase in the number of severe weather events. There has however been more NEWS COVERAGE of such events.

[Black Dog]

Nonsense, those of us who do not buy into the global warming fear mongering, do so based on the facts. Global warming and all the resulting cataclysm is a hoax. The claims of the global warming crowd have all been debunked and proven to be total frauds, leaving them to attack the messenger rather than defend their claims with science and fact.

No. The main debate is over whether the phenomenon of climate change is caused or facilitated by human activity.

What you need to admit is that the economy is essentially capitalist (think Adam Smith) and that changes in behaviour in the economy must be driven by dollars.

It's almost sad to see people trapped in the tiny bubble of economics (funny, too given that its the greatest junk science of all), people who can't see the big picture that exists beyond their wallets...

Even the most extreme predictions of climate change DO NOT result in a climate that is unlivable for humanity...

Yes, some species may disappear. Guess what, that happens all the time. The rate of extinction waxes and wanes, but it is ALWAYS there.

And while humanity has an impact (I never denied we did), if you think we are actually going to change it BACK, you are dreaming. That is doomed to failure because we DO NOT UNDERSTAND all the influences. You cannot say you do.

...I feel less sorry for those who would consign so much of nature to the rubbish heap, who put a small portion of humanity's desire for trinkets ahead of the needs of others., or who espouse the kind of fatalist, defeatist rhetoric as above. "Yeah, so what if we wipe out a few thousand species through our rapaciousness. They were hjust going to go extinct eventually anyway." It's short-sighted and self-centred, like the mentality of a two year old child.

We can argue till the cows come home as to what impact human activity has on the climate and the biosphere. But from a common sense perspective, is it wise to carry on as we have been?

[B. Max]

Nonsense, those of us who do not buy into the global warming fear mongering, do so based on the facts. Global warming and all the resulting cataclysm is a hoax. The claims of the global warming crowd have all been debunked and proven to be total frauds, leaving them to attack the messenger rather than defend their claims with science and fact.

No. The main debate is over whether the phenomenon of climate change is caused or facilitated by human activity.

So when global warming fails the test of science you trot out climate change. Well the climate has been changing since day one. Everyone knows that. However climate is something that can only be measured over thousands of years, and those thousands of years have to pass, not be predicted in order to be able to make a measurement. Now according to measurements over the last 40 years we are in a cooling trend. Not a warming trend like the fearmongers would have us believe. That throws the entire greenhouse gas think out the window. Of course some are still pushing the old faultiy computer models for the more easily fooled.

Cover Story

Global warming through the crystal ball

by Judi McLeod, Canadafreepress.com

January 18, 2005

With the world looking at the wake of South Asia’s devastating tsunamis, Canadian geographers are looking at warmer summers they claim are headed our way--50 years from now.

A new study published by Dan Scott, a University of Waterloo geographer, says even the most cautious projections indicate that climate change will bring a major boost for tourism in the Land of the Maple Leaf.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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The boost could even erase Canada’s $1.7 billion international tourism deficit, largely created by people fleeing long Canadian winters.

"If we’re slightly above zero in average temperatures for half the winter, then I’m not out of here to someplace south," Scott, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Change and Tourism," told the Toronto Star.

The global changes of half a century away are slated to create perfect conditions. Not only would Canada’s "snowbird" population melt away like a summer afternoon’s ice cream cone, sweltering hot summers south of the border would drive more American "sunbirds" over the Canadian border in search of our relatively cooler and less humid conditions.

According to some geographers, global warming can cure anything, and even melt away the frosty anti-Americanism that thrives in socialist dominated Canada.

The local weatherman might often be off the mark. But Scott used technology, basing his analysis on computer-projected changes in seven climate variables important to tourists–maximum and average daily temperatures, minimum and average daily humidity, precipitation, sunshine and winds–combined into overall rating.

Under a more extreme climate change scenario for 2050, only two U.S. cities had "desirable tourism climates" in July, while 17 Canadian cities still rated ideal or excellent. By 2080, however that number dropped to nine as Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa all became too hot and muggy for comfort with average temperatures as much as 9C higher.

Big benefits will also be headed Canada’s way by virtue of stretching out the summer tourism season, as the "very good" climate line for April is pushed 1,200 kilometers north across a large swath in central North America. At that time, the tourism climate in May and June becomes reliably welcoming across most of the country.

Guess some geographers have never read Fight Kyoto author Ezra Levant’s explanation of global warming.

"Using computers to predict the future is simply a high-tech veneer over the plain fact that climate modeling is sheer guesswork," Levant wrote.

"Dr. Vincent Gray, one of the expert reviewers on the UN’s IPCC climate science panel, points out that no UN climate model has ever successfully predicted any climate sequence. How could a model possibly predict the climate one year–or one hundred years–into the future, if it cannot predict tomorrow?

"Future forecasts presented by the IPCC are nothing but informed, but heavily biased guesses, processed by untested models. The forecasts are therefore easily manipulated to comply with current political expectations or demands."

Yet Scott insists that his study provides an economic perspective for governments dealing with climate change.

The predicted warmer summers coming our way 50 years from now are not the worry of the masses. It’s the estimated more than $1 billion cost of meeting Kyoto greenhouse gas targets creating sleepless nights.

Canada Free Press founding editor Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the media. A former Toronto Sun and Kingston Whig Standard columnist, she has also appeared on Newsmax.com, the Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, and World Net Daily. Judi can be reached at: [email protected].

[Guest eureka]

It is really sad that those who so strongly wish to bake in the hot desert suns of the Canadian North cannot understand the simple little pieces they read. That piece clearly does not deny the fact of climate change. It is, I hope with an attempt at humour, welcoming of the warming.

[Black Dog]

So when global warming fails the test of science you trot out climate change.

Uh...no. "Global warming" hasn't been the crux of the scientific debate for years.

Well the climate has been changing since day one. Everyone knows that.

No kidding? Gee, I guess that's what I meant when I said

The main debate is over whether the phenomenon of climate change is caused or facilitated by human activity.

Ah..the Canada Free Press: the online equivilant of the deranged homeless man ranting at unseen enemies on the street corner.

[Pateris]

Ah..the Canada Free Press: the online equivilant of the deranged homeless man ranting at unseen enemies on the street corner.

Funny how the left can say this but I get pilloried for saying the CBC as unbiased as Pravda...

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear Pateris,

Funny how the left can say this but I get pilloried for saying the CBC as unbiased as Pravda...

I do believe my response was "Actually, I like the CBC..." I am not sure where your personal persecution came from out of that, unless you're willing to call me Amalek for it.