" Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation."
Carbon dioxide and other air pollutants collect in the atmosphere, trapping in the sun's heat. The good news, is that there are simple steps you can take to take, to help do your part in the fight against global warming!
Carbon dioxide and other air pollutants collect in the atmosphere, trapping in the sun's heat. The good news, is that there are simple steps you can take to take, to help do your part in the fight against global warming!
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Signing UpStep 1: Your Home
Lights
One of the easiest things you can do, to help with global warming, is change your light bulbs. Start using Compact Fluorescent bulbs. It takes about three CF bulbs to use the same amount of energy as one traditional light bulb. Plus, they last longer.
Turn off the lights when you leave the room, you don't need them on, so why have them on? It will save the world, and money.
General Electricity Usage
Even when one of your electronic devices is turned off, it still uses electricity. So buy a power strip, and just unplug it whenever you aren't using your stuff.
Don't leave your computer on all day. If you won't turn it off, at least put it on hibernate or stand by when you're gone.
Don't run your dishwasher, unless it's totally full
Air dry your clothes, instead of using the dryer
Take shorter showers, and use a low-flow shower head
The House
Make sure all of your walls and ceilings are insulated.
Switch to double pane windows, they keep more heat in your home.
Buy some caulk and weather stripping for you doors and windows that sometimes leak out air.
Wives will like this one - Replace those old energy inefficient appliances, in favor of newer ones that use less energy.
Ask your electric company if you can purchase renewable energy. It will cost more, but you'll have piece of mind.
A low flow toilet is a good idea too. Toto and American Standard Cadet are two brands that are supposed to make good low flow toilets.
Water Heater
Insulate your water heater, and turn it down to 120 degrees Fahrenheit
Switch to a tank less heater..water will be heated as needed, instead of keeping a tank of heated water.
One of the easiest things you can do, to help with global warming, is change your light bulbs. Start using Compact Fluorescent bulbs. It takes about three CF bulbs to use the same amount of energy as one traditional light bulb. Plus, they last longer.
Turn off the lights when you leave the room, you don't need them on, so why have them on? It will save the world, and money.
General Electricity Usage
Even when one of your electronic devices is turned off, it still uses electricity. So buy a power strip, and just unplug it whenever you aren't using your stuff.
Don't leave your computer on all day. If you won't turn it off, at least put it on hibernate or stand by when you're gone.
Don't run your dishwasher, unless it's totally full
Air dry your clothes, instead of using the dryer
Take shorter showers, and use a low-flow shower head
The House
Make sure all of your walls and ceilings are insulated.
Switch to double pane windows, they keep more heat in your home.
Buy some caulk and weather stripping for you doors and windows that sometimes leak out air.
Wives will like this one - Replace those old energy inefficient appliances, in favor of newer ones that use less energy.
Ask your electric company if you can purchase renewable energy. It will cost more, but you'll have piece of mind.
A low flow toilet is a good idea too. Toto and American Standard Cadet are two brands that are supposed to make good low flow toilets.
Water Heater
Insulate your water heater, and turn it down to 120 degrees Fahrenheit
Switch to a tank less heater..water will be heated as needed, instead of keeping a tank of heated water.
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Go Pro Today »
To Global Warming skeptics: remember that laymen like me and you are likely to misunderstand certain science, which could lead us into trouble.
EU
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23411799-7583,00.html
LOL there's YOUR sign!
So you take your science from the newspapers! I'm really impressed!
I have to make do with science from scientists. Sniff!
FYI the so-called â€expert†in the â€Australian†article was Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist!
What do biologists study? Erm, they study biology. Duh!
What Marohasy went on to say was dishonest cherry-picked facts, lies and deceit. Nothing to do with science. She has political & ideological reasons for what she says!
What are the scientists called that study the climate? Erm, I know this, they're mm..., they're called climatologists!
What do biologists know about climate science? Zip!
Marohasy is not looking quite so expert in climatology now!
So, it might be an idea to look at what world respected working climate experts are saying about the climate!
It can be clearly seen that the graph wiggles, but that the overall trend is clearly upwards. There is no reason to expect anything very different in the foreseeable future.
Source of graph Climatic Research Unit and the UK Met. Office Hadley Centre:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/gtc2007.gif
See http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/ for a description of the data and this graph.
Similar graphs are available from NASA / GISS
Introductory material on a variety of climate-related subjects intended for the interested layperson.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/
A small selection:
The American Institute of Physics http://www.aip.org/gov/policy12.html
The American Geophysical Union
http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/positions/climate_change2008.shtml
The American Meteorological Society
http://www.ametsoc.org/amsnews/2007climatechangerelease.pdf
National Academies of Science
http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/climate_change_2008_final.pdf
The American Association for the Advancement of Science
http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2007/0218am_statement.shtml
Please don't mistake these for actual science, they are press releases and policy regarding climate change, but are based upon solid science. The science is absolutely amazing, and worrying.
I'm not sure that I want to make further long posts on this Instructable, because I have no intention to derail it any more than it has been. In fact I apologise for my posts which only occurred because of certain individuals who were spreading untruths.
I am NOT being accusatory, but in my experience, most people who are genuinely interested look for themselves, although it has to be said that it is difficult to know where to start. It is a sad truth that most (but not all) enquiries like this are not genuinely innocent inquiries for help or knowledge but in-fact deteriorate and mutate into being intentionally provocative and are troll-behaviour.
Back to your question: â€What happened before1850?â€
To be honest, I'm not absolutely sure.
Personally, I'd have to research this. If you are really interested in the answer to this question, I would recommend that you research this yourself. But I am happy to give you some pointers.
One good reason for suggesting that you research this yourself. is that I might not be being truthful, it is the nature of argument is that someone who is less knowledgeable can never win against the more knowledgeable, even if the expert is lying. There is a lot of bad information out there and most of it is funded by ExxonMobil, laundered by being disseminated by a large network of intermediary individuals (including some scientists) and organisations. Another, reason for self-reliance, is that I cannot possibly answer all potential questions. So a curious individual would be best advised to learn how to satisfy their own curiosity.
I try to avoid the intermediary sources and look at the science, but it has to be said that some science is pretty opaque to the non-specialist and the next-best choice is a non-political blog like www.realclimate.org (RC). RC is a not-for-profit site run by working climatologists, who demystify the science for the layman.
If you don't like RC, there are few AFAICT non-political alternatives.
A good place to start is http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/
Lists of common (so-called) skeptical arguments can be found together with links to numerous sources of information.
Many sites that claim to â€tell the truth about the climate†are in reality, thinly disguised sources of a venomous political ideology and serve a range of cleverly crafted climate fallacies, cherry-picked science, and barefaced lies, intended to deceive the unwary. Examples are www.john-daly.com, www.climatepolice.com and www.junkscience.com (at least two of these are funded to some extent by Exxon).
Science and politics do not mix! Politically motivated individuals often think they know better than the scientists, the truth is that they rarely do! Political interference with science deemed inconvenient is common.
Google political interference with science
Now back to your question:
It is useful to understand the background to early measurements.
The background to the above dataset is explained here:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/HadCRUT3_accepted.pdf
A more general background
Northern Hemisphere Surface Air Temperature Variations: 1851–1984
P.D. Jones, S.C.B. Raper, P.M. Kellyo, and T.M.L. Wigley
http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0450/25/2/pdf/i1520-0450-25-2-161.pdf
Travelling backwards in time, progressively earlier instrumental temperature measurements decline in coverage, resolution and accuracy and end in 1592 with the invention of the thermometer by Galileo.
CET
Central England Temperature is representative of a roughly triangular area of the United Kingdom enclosed by Bristol, Lancashire and London. The monthly series begins in 1659, and is the longest available instrumental record of temperature in the world. Now CET is clearly not global.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/obsdata/cet.html
It is reasonable to deduce that temperature measurements before a certain date cannot rely upon instrument measurement and must be derived from proxy measurements. Proxy measurements are imperfect, but the evidence obtained so far are in good agreement.
IPCC WG1 AR4 Report
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
Historical Overview
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch01.pdf
Paleoclimate
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch06.pdf
Page 467, Fig. 6.10 Past temperature reconstructions, going back ~2000 years.
I hope this helps you, but you really are on your own, apart from guidance you can obtain here and there.
If you really get stuck, you can contact me through Instructables.
Here is a process that is simple and is already functional now..ready to use and as you will see most of your items around your house were created and powered by this very process or a variation of it...
C02 levels?///??Hmmm...well arguing whether they are increasing or not is pointless...I say create your own non polluting fuel/power at home and kill two birds with one stone...and while your at it...think bigger....
how about 7 with one blow
A simple process that every product around you right now was probably created by
yet why is this not being used to combat C02 levels...I think its better to ect that question to your local politician, as if they know anything about anything ....be warned though you may get a few strange cars and phone taps if you ask this particular question..
I have at home Several solar power Electrolyser( a big one!!) to produce Hydrogen on demand...Home built very efficient...
I got sick of hearing people whinging about Co2 levels......My advice is
act for yourself....
the old line " 7 with one blow..."
Want to never pay for fuel/ power again....?
One device...many applicationss...based on a system that is already
happening in the natural world....one that the industrial world has used since its inception to create the product s needed
Ion
Blah blah
its just that we have so many little engines
in the world busy making heat....do an experiment at home...
put 10 motors inside a closed box and watch the temp rise...
Why do you think computers have exhaust fans...
its not the co2 its the heat of so many billions of engines ....
There is a way.....
The internal combustion engine ICE when created in 1838 or there abouts was powered by water electroloysis...then some clever cookie decided that they couldnt have people running around just having free transport..
Way too much freedom for the government to handle....
so they decided to use a substance that they could charge you for and also
while they were at it..a substance that damages the engine so badly that you need to get regular services to maintain the exceedingly poor state of combustion that is found when you use that particular fuel..
and to top it off burns so inefficiantly that up to 40% of the fuel you pay good money for goes out the exhaust unused to pollute our lungs and water etc
I am talking about Petrol here...
No need to think really hard about it...its simple business..
If you could figure way to delude people into paying for something they dont really need then you have a guaranteed source of income ...
and then if you create all kinds of scenarios that potentially threaten the supply of said product then then you can ask any price you like for it..
Basic premise of business....create a demand (Advertising)...feed it (product) then raise the price( income)
Save time and money on energy / fuel ...make it at home
and reduce Co2 levels yourself.....If I can do this and I have only High school education and a creative brain...
Its all about asking the right questions
dont look where the finger is pointing...rather what the other hand hiding..
why the big wigs arent really doing anything about the problem.......its simple really
Ok check these out....do your research kids...and build it....real simple
Save money ...never pay for fuel or power again....and create your own
chem lab factory in your back yard....
make any chemical or compound you light and figure it out...
just be nice and dont hurt anyone..or create bombs....bombs although fun are
guaranteed to get unwanted attention turn in your direction
Waiting for the Government to do something is pointless
The truth is that the gov only wants your money so they can build more weapons and buy extra gear for their mansions...I say build your own mansion..and help out every one you know......Free yourself from the yoke of
slavery that we all allow from ignorance
its called "uninformed consent."
google that if you like
its your planet dudes...do you want a dead one or a cool living one
ok enuff preaching.....heres the links to get you started...
Remember...Keep it Simple Sweetheart
Einstein said that all the best ideas are simple but no more than that..
just do your research and then build your own multi tasking machine that
produces power/water/fuel/Chemicals
Geez i ramble a bit too much really...so anyway to the actual stuff you can build
Link 1 for Co2 reduction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_hydroxide
do the math...
link 2 for electrolysis or read a highskool chemistry book
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis
then read about
Ultra violet light effect on electrolysis
and then variable Harmonic frequency modulation..
or just you tube Sololuminescence
Stanley meyer or
The Joe cell...have a laugh and enjoy your self..
and never stop learning.....
Truth & Will
Ninja Wombats are cool
I would never condone Genocide, so let's scratch that off the list. I only mentioned it to help people realise the magnitude of this problem. If global warming is as bad as certain people would have us beleive, then I suppose the powers that be will continue to keep people in the dark for as long as possible. Ironically for our own good, since human behaviour is irratic enough, without mention of armaggedon. (the apocalyptic event, not movie)
What I think that everyone is going to have to agree upon is that there is no way it's going to be easy. Like any other addiction, our first stage of denial is drawing to a close, and it's probably the easiest stage.
According to our brightest minds, by the year 2050 we can expect our population to be anywhere from 8 to 11 billion people. Combine that with the exessive strain added by new disease, increased poverty and added tension as world power shifts from the west back towards the east, the likelyhood that we will meet an 87% reduction in global emissions is proposterous.
I can hear your mind turning right now, considering how far we've come in modernizing energy wasting appliances. We've devised new ways to power our devices, and certainly our overall KNOWLEDGE alone should make it easy to acheive such a lofty goal.
But consider how many new people are getting computers every day, how many people are hooking up their cells, their TV's and DVR's...China alone will no doubt consume more energy than all other countries combined, as their currency surges, and more and more people there are moving above the poverty line.
And what about that poverty line? What ever happened to saving the whales? I must say, for all their muster, a tree huggers attention span is frightfully short lived.
It won't be until we can bring everyone in the world the amenities we take for granted at an emission rate one tenth of that we expect for our own daily lives, that a balance can be acheived.
As an analogy, it's as though 30% of the earth's population got addicted to X and has called a global intervention for their problem. Meanwhile, the other 70%!! are sitting around going "what are we doing here?", or "I'm not addicted yet, but if I want to try it, why not? They did it!" Realistically, it won't be global warming, but good 'ol Hubris that turns this planet into a bubbling mass of magmatic goo, and deep sea-vent shrimp will eat platters of crispy humans with a side of marinera.
Whether or not the necessary 87% energy reduction is difficult, it's essential! The alternative is dangerous climate change! Together with the side-effect of increasing atmospheric CO2 levels - ocean acidification, which poses a second major threat to the ocean life.
Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/displaypagedoc.asp?id=13314
You denigrate the tree huggers's attention span, but you are mistaken, it's just that these stories have largely dropped out of the media. The tree huggers are still active. Much of this is now mainstream!
For example, the save the whales campaign was mostly successful, most whaling was stopped and depleted populations have been recovering. But baleen whales are now threatened by global warming, which reduces the krill stocks.
I think you are being disingenuous, the world's poor will bear the brunt of climate change. They have not been forgotten!
Warming Tax that is based on unfounded science and could
cripple our economy. A vote is expected before summer.
I just signed a petition and am asking you to join me.
Please go here:
http://www.grassfire.org/106/petition.asp?PID=16756291&NID=1
Here is a process that is simple and is already functional now..ready to use and as you will see most of your items around your house were created and powered by this very process or a variation of it...
C02 levels?///??Hmmm...well arguing whether they are increasing or not is pointless...I say create your own non polluting fuel/power at home and kill two birds with one stone...and while your at it...think bigger....
how about 7 with one blow
A simple process that every product around you right now was probably created by
yet why is this not being used to combat C02 levels...I think its better to ect that question to your local politician, as if they know anything about anything ....be warned though you may get a few strange cars and phone taps if you ask this particular question..
I have at home Several solar power Electrolyser( a big one!!) to produce Hydrogen on demand...Home built very efficient...
I got sick of hearing people whinging about Co2 levels......My advice is
act for yourself....
the old line " 7 with one blow..."
Want to never pay for fuel/ power again....?
One device...many applicationss...based on a system that is already
happening in the natural world....one that the industrial world has used since its inception to create the product s needed
Ion
Blah blah
its just that we have so many little engines
in the world busy making heat....do an experiment at home...
put 10 motors inside a closed box and watch the temp rise...
Why do you think computers have exhaust fans...
its not the co2 its the heat of so many billions of engines ....
There is a way.....
The internal combustion engine ICE when created in 1838 or there abouts was powered by water electroloysis...then some clever cookie decided that they couldnt have people running around just having free transport..
Way too much freedom for the government to handle....
so they decided to use a substance that they could charge you for and also
while they were at it..a substance that damages the engine so badly that you need to get regular services to maintain the exceedingly poor state of combustion that is found when you use that particular fuel..
and to top it off burns so inefficiantly that up to 40% of the fuel you pay good money for goes out the exhaust unused to pollute our lungs and water etc
I am talking about Petrol here...
No need to think really hard about it...its simple business..
If you could figure way to delude people into paying for something they dont really need then you have a guaranteed source of income ...
and then if you create all kinds of scenarios that potentially threaten the supply of said product then then you can ask any price you like for it..
Basic premise of business....create a demand (Advertising)...feed it (product) then raise the price( income)
Save time and money on energy / fuel ...make it at home
and reduce Co2 levels yourself.....If I can do this and I have only High school education and a creative brain...
Its all about asking the right questions
dont look where the finger is pointing...rather what the other hand hiding..
why the big wigs arent really doing anything about the problem.......its simple really
Ok check these out....do your research kids...and build it....real simple
Save money ...never pay for fuel or power again....and create your own
chem lab factory in your back yard....
make any chemical or compound you light and figure it out...
just be nice and dont hurt anyone..or create bombs....bombs although fun are
guaranteed to get unwanted attention turn in your direction
Waiting for the Government to do something is pointless
The truth is that the gov only wants your money so they can build more weapons and buy extra gear for their mansions...I say build your own mansion..and help out every one you know......Free yourself from the yoke of
slavery that we all allow from ignorance
its called "uninformed consent."
google that if you like
its your planet dudes...do you want a dead one or a cool living one
ok enuff preaching.....heres the links to get you started...
Remember...Keep it Simple Sweetheart
Einstein said that all the best ideas are simple but no more than that..
just do your research and then build your own multi tasking machine that
produces power/water/fuel/Chemicals
Geez i ramble a bit too much really...so anyway to the actual stuff you can build
Link 1 for Co2 reduction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_hydroxide
do the math...
link 2 for electrolysis or read a highskool chemistry book
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis
then read about
Ultra violet light effect on electrolysis
and then variable Harmonic frequency modulation..
or just you tube Sololuminescence
Stanley meyer or
The Joe cell...have a laugh and enjoy your self..
and never stop learning.....
as for saving whales.....I am totally up for that...
dont wait around for others to do that
build a hydrogen fuel vtol powered jet plane ( about 6 months work with the right tools) and go save them yourself...
Truth & Will
Ninja Wombats are cool
Actually...
Global warming is a vicious rumor put about by many thousands of scientists who have observed that the world is indeed warming!
The overwhelming majority of independent climatologists agree that the EVIDENCE shows that the cause of GW is NOT the sun or volcanoes, it is greenhouse gases of which the most important is CO2. CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere. Isotopic analysis shows this to be from combustion of fossil-fuels and is therefore man-made. Other GHGs are also increasing as a result of human activities.
Observations match closely the climate models, which are based upon the physical behaviour of the various components in the atmosphere, on land and in the ocean.
Please make a reasonable attempt to learn your facts before mindlessly repeating the lies and propaganda spread by the fossil-fuel companies and big business, often 'laundered' via so-called 'independent' organizations in Washington or elsewhere.
Big business want to delay carbon taxes for as long as possible to boost their profits. Scientists want emissions reduced and controlled,because they are alarmed at what the science is telling them.
The question is:
Who to trust?
Big business with their vested interest?
Or independent scientific experts? There are lots of them!
Ignore the small number of scientists who get paid to promote the fuel-lobby's lies.
Common-sense would indicate that we should give more credence to the independent experts, than the commercial interests.
We should also consider what is the worst that could happen in each case.
1) We ignore the scientists' warnings and carry-on as normal:
a) If the scientists are wrong and catastrophe is not approaching, we pay normal taxes and the commercial interests will carry-on making huge profits.
b) If the scientists are correct and catastrophe is approaching, WE ARE SCREWED!
2) We take whatever action is required to avert catastrophic climate change:
c) If the scientists are wrong and catastrophe is not approaching, we will pay higher taxes and the commercial interests will make smaller profits. We survive.
d) If the scientists are correct and catastrophe is approaching, we will pay higher taxes and the commercial interests will make smaller profits. We survive.
Common-sense indicates that we should avoid 1) because it risks disaster, and opt for 2) where the worst that can happen is life gets more expensive.
Seems like a no-brainer! Why do you have a problem with this? Is it so hard? DOH!
You are advised to treat any GW related article that has an author listed in:
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Climate/Climate_Science/CliSciFrameset.html and click on Contrarians
and
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf
as very probably fossil-fuel company propaganda.
I have done some research on the diffusion of gases in ice-cores and based upon my limited understanding, it appears that once the ice has formed that's it. There is diffusion through snow and firn, but if the ice is in good condition there is no problem. There have been cases where the ice-core condition has been suspect and the data have been discarded.
In practical terms, diffusion only occurs down a gradient of concentration.
First Principles A
Horizontal diffusion outwards in a lateral direction, will be exactly balanced-out, by diffusion in the reverse direction. THIS CAN BE IGNORED.
Thermally-caused vertical diffusion through pores in firn (old snow) is isotopically selective and the isotopic enrichment is used as a measure of abrupt climate change. (1)
First Principles B
Vertically, diffusion is likely to be almost the same as horizontal because the year to year atmospheric changes are minor, again acting to limit diffusion, although at greater depths the amounts of time available seem likely to increase diffusion effects. Diffusion up or down, if significant, will tend reduce the resolution. It is also reasonable to infer that any diffusion effects will only tend to reduce year-to-year differences, thereby tending to mask rapid climate change and reduce resolution.
From the ice-core record, where rapid changes occur at considerable depth, this would indicate that any through-ice diffusion effects are minimal, or that the climate changes are even more abrupt than the record would seem to indicate, or a mix of the two.
Negligible fractionation rates and therefore diffusion rates are confirmed for larger molecules including CO2 through firn, presumably since ice is denser it can be expected to be less prone to diffusion. (2)
I identified some studies regarding gas diffusion through ice, but could not access them without a subscription. The detail in the abstracts was insufficient.
My experience is that the climatologists have already thought of every conceivable possibility and then some!
1
Ice-core evidence of abrupt climate changes, Alley
2
Evidence for molecular size dependent gas fractionation in firn air derived from noble gases, oxygen, and nitrogen measurements,
Huber, Beyerle, Leuenberger, Schwander, Kipfer, Spahni, Severinghaus,Weiler
Both are available free
The media are prone to hype and are therefore unreliable. The propaganda from the fossil-fuel industry is all pervasive since it emanates from so-proclaimed 'independent' organizations such as the Cato Institute, George Marshall Institute, and many others that receive funding from that very same fossil-fuel industry. This is typically disseminated to the public via The Wall Street Journal, Time, NewsWeek & various right-wing outlets. Nowadays that includes the web
Climate change was not properly understood in the 60s, even in the mid 70s, climate models were in their infancy. So it would have been impossible to quantify any predictions. In-fact, during the 70s, when contrarians make their fatuous claims that there were predictions being made of a forthcoming ice-age, no corroborating scientific papers have ever been identified. There were predictions, but they were equivocal about warming or cooling. Clearly there was a trend of cooling from the 40's to the 70's, but this was caused largely by sulphate aerosols from the post WW2 industrial boom.
It is known that man is burning fossil-fuels, the estimates of carbon emissions tally with the growing CO2 in the atmosphere, the isotopic analysis shows the CO2 is man-made. The climate models are based upon the behaviour of the atmosphere and also can model other events with good and increasing accuracy. The warming is in-line with the various GHGs in the atmosphere.
The climatologists think the GW trend is alarming, but increasing temperatures are not of themselves the only cause of concern. They bring the risk of releases of vast reserves of methane from methane clathrates, which are icy deposits. Because they are icy, they are highly temperature sensitive. Methane is an important GHG. This threatens to stimulate further massive releases and a runaway greenhouse effect. Such an event happened about 55 M y ago. It's called the PETM or Paleocene Eocene Thermal maximum. It was followed by a mass extinction. It could happen again and if it does, it will be very bad news!
Some people seem to have the belief that H. sapiens is immune from extinction! This is not true!
Regarding CO2 and ice-core methodology, I suggest that you ask a climatologist. CO2 and ice-core methodology hasn't even made it onto the list yet! I would suggest www.realclimate.org, but you need to read the faqs first, and be careful, you are at risk of getting some science! My experience has been that when a contrarian says the climatologists haven't even thought of xxx. It's always proved to be lies, they always have and it's been documented and sometimes it's been known about for decades.
My very rough and unresearched first principles approach is that CO2 Mwt=44 is more massive than H2O Mwt=18 and from the kinetic theory of gases, it's likely to move significantly less than the H2O molecules. Even disregarding Van de Waals forces & etc, it seems likely to stay put.
One gets very cynical about the contrarians, many have told outrageous lies. An example is Patrick Michaels who in testimony in congress in 1998 deleted the bottom two curves of Hansen et al 1988, in order to give the misleading impression that the models were unreliable. I'm sure that lying to congress is a serious offence, he should be punished. See http://www.giss.nasa.gov/edu/gwdebate/
Of course there other examples.
I am not a climatologist and I am struggling slowly through the science. I have read some unsettling contrarian works that almost had me convinced until I sat-down and did the research and bit by bit I saw the cunning lies and deceit.
What you must remember, is that opinions don't count! It's actions that matter! The problem is that the fossil-fuel lobby don't have to be right, they only have to convince enough people that the scientists are divided. Which is why they disseminate their lies.
Richard Feinman said â€nature cannot be fooled†and he was right!
That, is a scientific theory..and according to you, it will eventually be proven wrong, meaning, not all scientific theories are eventually proven wrong.
World's Nobel Laureates And Preeminent Scientists Call On Government
Leaders To Halt Global Warming
Science Daily - (Washington, DC - September 30) More than 1,500 of the world's most distinguished senior scientists, including the majority of Nobel laureates in science, have signed a landmark consensus declaration urging leaders worldwide to act immediately to prevent the potentially devastating consequences of human-induced global warming. The "World Scientists' Call for Action at Kyoto" was presented to the Clinton Administration today at a Science Summit on Climate Change in Washington, DC.
Let there be no doubt about the conclusions of the scientific community: the threat of global warming is very real and action is needed immediately, said Nobel laureate Henry Kendall, Chairman of the Union of Concerned Scientists and author of the scientists' statement. It is a grave error to believe that we can continue to procrastinate. Scientists do not believe this and no one else should either.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/10/971002070106.htm
That's precisely what ExxonMobil and its helpers have achieved, latterly aided and abetted by the Bush Administration. Denial, obfuscation, prevarication and delay, meanwhile the problems have worsened, the costs spiralled, and their profits from oil have grown.
Last summer we added two rooms to our house. The contractor installed all incandescent bulbs. I replaced 12 of his incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents and so far I've only had to replace 25% of them versus none of the incandescents. I would seriously disagree with the notion that the CFs last longer. I'm not sure what the manufacturer's test conditions are but in practice, the CFs break faster than any other bulb I've tried. Plus I have to drive 60 miles round trip to properly recycle the CFs because they have mercury in them. I'm hoping the price of LEDs comes down to something affordable before I go broke saving the world.
One of the purposes of our remodel last year was to put in new windows, insulation and reside the house. We had them put Tyvek on and tape the entire length of every edge of Tyvek carefully around the windows and doors. It really does make a difference in heating and cooling.
Air drying the laundry is a good idea if you live somewhere where clothes actually dry outdoors. Fortunately that is most of our country but not always within 100 miles of the Gulf of Mexico.
Low flow shower heads are a good idea but the current trend is to put six or eight shower heads in the shower. So whether you use low flow or not, try and use only one shower head.
Regarding gas mileage: I have not run these numbers all the way out but I think if you already own a car, no matter what the gas mileage is, buying another car only encourages the car manufacturers to make more cars. MAKING the cars is where all the energy gets used. Carpooling is where all the after sales savings comes from.
Ceiling fans waste air. Personal fans can actually cool you. I've tried a lot of fans but Vornado makes the best. I own five and at least one has been running 24/365 since 1995. They never wear out.
One summer in San Antonio I did not have air conditioning. I slept indoors in a Oaxaca style hammock (very open weave, wrap around) with a window exhaust fan at one end of the house and an open window at the other end of the house. I had to put the exhaust fan on a timer because by 2:00 am, I was freezing cold with the wind chill. So I had the fan turn off at 1:30 and come back on about 5:30 when it started to warm up again.
There are two low flow toilets on the market that really do use less water without having to flush and flush over again to wash everything away. These toilets have been redesigned rather than relying on parts from the old high flow toilets. Toto is the more expensive brand and the American Standard Cadet "3" are the two that work well. Another new technology in these toilets is the development of a ceramic glaze that prevents the growth of fungus and bacteria. Thus cleaning is easier when you have to do it.
If it is the latter, this is clearly a half-baked attempt to simultaneously undermine the role of anthropogenic CO2 and other GHGs, while offering moral support to the unproven solar hypothesis.
Of your references, they referred to: Pluto; Not Neptune, but its moon,Triton; and Mars
Well, the evidence for GW on some of the planets is tenuous at best and certainly far from conclusive. AFAIK, there is currently no evidence of warming on Neptune, although it has increased in brightness. Triton is warming but the causes have not been determined, but the article suggests changes in albedo and not an increase in solar output.
What's causing warming on Mars?
The mean temperature of the Martian atmosphere is particularly sensitive to the strength and duration of hemispheric dust storms.
Solar radiation on Mars & Neptune are 36% and ~ 0.1% what Earth receives. Orbital periods for Mars 1.88 years / 687 days, Neptune 165 years and Pluto 248 years respectively.
The observations are too limited for proper conclusions to be drawn.
Neptune Warming?
Quote from Abstract
Although correlations between Neptune's brightness and Earth's temperature anomaly—and between Neptune and two models of solar variability—are visually compelling, at this time they are not statistically significant.., low formal statistical significance. If changing brightnesses and temperatures of two different planets are correlated, then some planetary climate changes may be due to variations in the solar system environment.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2006GL028764.shtml
Since, the fossil-fuel lobby are eager to prove the solar hypothesis and therefore disprove the man-made CO2 link, it is reasonable to infer that they have already fully explored the potential of Martian warming and have rejected it. Otherwise, they would fund numerous reports, doubtless authored by Baliunas & Soon. The lack of reports speaks volumes.
Whereas the evidence for GW on earth is well understood and the consensus is quite overwhelming.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26065-2004Dec25.html
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/306/5702/1686.pdf?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&author1=oreskes&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&fdate=//&tdate=//&resourcetype=HWCIT
The sharp increase in global temperatures on earth does not correlate with solar output. The sharp temperature rise of the earth of nearly 1 degree C since 1900 is '"significant"'. That warming is about 1/5 of the total warming of the globe from the depths of the last Major Ice Age (about 20,000 years ago) to present. Over the last century it's been about 50 times faster than it has been for the rest of the ~ 19 900 years!
Mmm, let me see, if plotted as a graph that would look just like a hockey stick! Not the same as the reconstructions, because these would be average trend lines and the reconstructions only cover the last millennium or so.
There is a strong correlation between the atmospheric concentrations of various gases and CO2 in particular and global warming. This correlation is supported by a mechanism - the infra-red activity of these gases in the atmosphere, which is why they are known as GHGs. The increase in CO2 concentrations is identifiably anthropogenic because of the different isotopic composition, which identifies its source from the combustion of fossil-fuels.
Solar hypothesis
The solar hypothesis is far from proven, nor has it been totally disproven, but the mechanism is unclear and more research is required. Solar irradiance is now well measured by satellite and has been declining slightly over the last few years as it moves towards a solar minimum. So a solar cause seems rather unlikely and any solar contribution looks rather minor at most. http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/proceedings_a/rspa20071880.pdf
Another problem with the solar hypothesis, never overtly raised is that of climate sensitivity. Thus far, the proponents of the solar hypothesis have resorted to jiggery-pokery to get it to work!
You really have a problem with your facts! Every one has been wrong - so far! Are you a clone of Cheiron? You certain have the same problem with getting your facts right.
You have it all upside-down. The reason consensus is important, not because of consensus itself, but that it is because the overwhelming majority of climate scientists are convinced of the man-made causes of GW is because of the overwhelming weight of evidence. There is little if any peer-reviewed scientific evidence that GW is anything other than man-made.
1) Scientific consensus and evidence is not the same as policy. The Bush Administration has a real problem with science and has made great efforts to suppress inconvenient science and certainly does not base policy upon science.
See ww.ucsusa.org and follow the links for political interference. Examples are mercury as a toxin. Mercury levels from coal-fired power plants. Global warming. You name it!
Clearly policy should always be based upon good science. The science regarding GW and its man-made causes is irrefutable – there would need to be many thousands of peer-reviewed scientific reports to significantly undermine the science. There aren't!
The models – while imperfect but already good enough can tell us a great deal about possible warming scenarios. I refer you to my latest large post.
One of the problems of your fallacious arguments is that you assume that we have any alternative to halting man-made GW. There are significant reasons to believe that above a certain rise, the whole basis of our civilisation could collapse because of the narrow environmental range our infrastructure is able to cope with (world wide).
Try listening to this interview with Dr Chris Rapley, former Director of the British Antarctic Survey, now Director of the Science Museum in London.
http://www.electricpolitics.com/media/mp3/EP2007.08.31.mp3
quote
since a far greater number of people disagree with massive climate change than disagree with simple warming.
end quote
I don't know where you get your information. I suspect that there is no (peer-reviewed scientific) evidence for this claim.
However, I would suggest that mere opinions alone are insufficient. Only scientific evidence is useful and valid. It is known that much greater arming has occurred previously and there are good reasons to show that it could therefore reoccur. While this remains an area for research, there is good reason that we are nearing the tipping points that could lead the earth to returning to the same conditions. It seems unlikely that any large vertebrates including humans could survive in such a world, except in very small numbers, if at all.
2) If you had read the article about scientific consensus properly, you would have noticed that the article was not as you claim written by NEWSPAPER REPORTERS, but by the author of the original peer-reviewed scientific essay (Associate Professor Naomi Oreskes) with the aid of her scientifically-trained research assistants. Therefore your statement is demonstrably FALSE.
Her credentials were hidden at the end of the article
quote
The writer is an associate professor of history and director of the Program in Science Studies at the University of California.
End Quote
Oreskes is a historian of science trained to analyze and understand scientific arguments, their development, their progress, etc., and her specific expertise is in the history of earth science.
If you are interested there is an update to this:
http://scienceblogs.com/strangerfruit/Oreskes2007.pdf
Even just assuming that Oreskes was wrong, where are all the thousands of those peer-reviewed, published scientific studies? Sorry – they aren't to be found!
All hypotheses about catastrophic future global warming are unproven too, seeing as how it hasn't occurred yet. So if you are unwilling to accept conjecture of any kind, then you should stop worrying about any of this, on either side of the argument.
"The sharp increase in global temperatures on earth does not correlate with solar output."
Interestingly, it also does not correlate with CO2 output. Take a look at the following graph from NASA with CO2 emissions and global temperature. Note the 30-40 year period where temperture went down steadily and CO2 rose exponentially higher:
CO2 vs. temperature
No amount of ad nauseam repetition of flawed science will prove your case.
The reason why the solar hypothesis is unproven , is because it's unproven!
Especially since the sun output is at a minimum and the sun's out put has either been showing no trend, or reducing slightly for around two decades, depends upon the scientific article one refers to.
Regarding GW and its man-made nature I refer you to
The Discovery of Global Warming - http://www.aip.org/history/climate/
Regarding CO2 and temperature. You omit the fact that the cooling was caused by aerosols.
Completely disingenuous. Answered in my previous post.
Standard misleading contrarian claims. Widely debunked!
I'm gonna say you bought low quality bulbs.... There's plenty of information on the internet about quality and feedback for CF's ;) I say this, because I did some homework before I bought my bulbs... I have had one ballast go bad @ 4 years (the bulb still worked though). The rest of the bulbs (5) have been living well for a little over 6.5 years.
Speaking from the viewpoint of a gadfly, rather than a InstructoGod, a status to which I can only aspire, I think it would be a good idea!
However, certain potential problems might arise!
Perhaps a disclaimer such as DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME
apparantly NOAA (where al gore gets his weather readings) has been "cooking the books" all along. Placing thermometers beside burn barrels and air conditioner exhaust vents, and then "tweaking" the numbers once they get them.
By the way, this is not the only source for stories like this. Apparently numerous climatologists do not believe in Global warming. Most of the one's Al Gore quotes are Biologists (study insects and critters) not the people who study the climate. Another thing worth noting is that our climate has shifted numerous times in the past my more than 3 degree's, at present the only scientists that do believe in global warming say that we have had an increase of 0.5 degrees. Our planet is always in flux, its just part of the cycles this world goes through. Like the tides and volcanoes just happens over a longer period of time than one human life is around for. There was actually a warmer period during the renaisance followed by a "mini ice age" during the Victorian period. It is pure arrogance to say that man is so all powerful that we are the ones controlling a natural phenomena as large as the warming and cooling cycles of this planet.
I think that you should be more careful to check your facts are correct before posting information which is distinctly misleading.
When you stated that NOAA (where al gore gets his weather readings) has been "cooking the books" all along. Placing thermometers beside burn barrels and air conditioner exhaust vents, and then "tweaking" the numbers once they get them.
This is blatantly and manifestly untrue
The earliest station is South Carolina beginning the earliest 1871. Records from 158 stations begin prior to 1900, with that of Charleston. Most station records are essentially complete for at least 50 years; the latest beginning year of record is 1948.
Reworded only
From http://cdiac.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ushcn/ndp070.html
From this it is reasonable to infer that many if not all the buildings were not present when the weather stations were originally installed.
I examined a few photos and this is exactly what I found!
The fact that the stations are modern, means only that they have been replaced by modern electronic stations to enable remote reading, rather than the old type which had to be visited for expensive eyeball reading.
The station location has been maintained to preserve continuity of records. That is why there have to be corrections made to allow for the changes caused by the less than ideal proximity of buildings, caused by construction & other human activity. So the actual truth is rather different from that what you portray.
I have not seen Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, but I am convinced that the testimony of non climatologists was given to affirm the effects of global warming only. As to the scientific consensus, the scientific consensus is overwhelmingly in agreement that GW is happening and that it's caused by man's activities. Which is exactly the opposite of your claim.
Not one contradictory article out of the 928 peer-reviewed scientific articles climate change were published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, ref. 'The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change' by Naomi Oreskes. www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/306/5702/1686.pdf
Where are these peer-reviewed articles contradicting man-made GW?
There must be hundreds of them, if what you say is true!
Except there aren't!
The medieval warm period was localised and not global, as was the little ice age, what has been shown is that the current warming is much greater than the medieval warm period, it is global and it's caused by man, as shown by the isotopic fingerprint. It matches the increases of GHGs especially CO2 in the atmosphere. It is not solar related. It is also confirmed by the fact that man is burning ~7 GT of fossil-fuels per year.
Just because you don't believe something does not amount to a dismissal of overwhelming scientific proof!
Question:
What's the difference in temperature beween ice at -0.5 degrees C and water at 0 degrees C?
So 0.5 degrees C can be significant!
It seems that the arrogance is that humans can believe that polluting the earth is OK!
Humans are consuming the earth's resources at three times the level which is sustainable.
Could not be previewed
1) There may not be as many dissenting papers, but there are still quite a few. And majority does not = correctness, as we know from oh so many episodes of science history. Note also that many of the dissenting papers do not say things like "global warming is nonsense and will not happen." Often, they say things like "Hey, you know how we can't even predict the weather tomorrow? Well it turns out my models suggest that we can't do it 100 years in the future either. So we have no idea either way." Most meta-studies do not include conclusions like that (they only include "pro" or "con," not "we don't know"), leading to a misleadingly high proportion of "let's freak out about global warming" papers being tallied. if you want a list of some interesting studies, the best compilation I know of is the bibliography of Crighton's "State of Fear." Some of the things he cites are also meta-studies, and will have citations for countless more relevant papers, but I haven't had the time to research all of that, since I, you know, have a job and such. It's there for you to peruse, though.
2) You are correct to say that weather stations could not have been placed next to air conditioning vents if they were placed in 1870. But think about this for a second. If in 1870, there were no buildings, and now there are, then that weather station is going to report massive temperature spikes in its climate. But it won't really be the climate. It will be the fact that there was a city built right next to the weather station! And cities are hot, way hotter than the land around them. This makes that weather station completely useless for 1870-present data. If they used stations like that, their readings will say it is getting hotter than it is, or in other words, that global warming is more imminent than it may be. There's even a name for this - it's called the "urban heat island effect." And since the majority of weather stations back in the day were built in clusters in the wilderness NEAR towns (somebody had to walk out there and take readings. Thus, they did not put stations more than about 10 miles out the vast majority of the time), if not in them, almost all have since been swallowed up by suburbia. But not nearly as much of the world's actual land proportionately has been swallowed up by suburbia. Thus, inaccurate statistical conclusions from that data.
First of all apologies for a long, rambling post.
It is disappointing that apart from majority does not = correctness and Crighton wrote "State of Fear." There was virtually nothing that you stated in your short post that was correct! Even then you managed to mis-spell Crichton's name.
Like Cheiron, who I chided for not being more careful to check his facts were correct before posting information which is distinctly misleading. You have fallen into the same trap!
I try very hard to check my sources and avoid errors, but not always successfully.
Sadly, you chose to believe the unbelievable Crichton rather than the great numbers of scientists who have dedicated their lives in the search for the truth, because that is what science in its purest sense is all about.
Yet there is a widespread and irrational distrust of scientists, which is strange when we have scientists to thank for every piece of technology that we use, or rely upon, whether it's chemical, pharmaceutical, medical, electronics & computers, optical, genetic & etc. – because it's science based! The real problem would seem to be the public opinion of science. This is where Crichton comes into the picture.
Crichton tells tales i.e. He writes fiction for a living.
In (http://web3.streamhoster.com/idstaff/pdf/ebookexcerpts/9780060820640.pdf), Crichton states:
Quote
.., However, references to real people, institutions, and organizations that are documented in footnotes are accurate. Footnotes are real.
Endquote
The author of the pdf file is listed as 'Michael Crichton'.
There is little doubt that Crichton is quite good at fiction, but if the "State of Fear" and his 2005 statement to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works Hearing are any guide, he is not so good at the truth, or getting his facts right. The reader is left decide for himself / herself! However, it seems fair to say that there is a tendency for Crichton (which some might describe as systematic) to cherry-pick science, use half truths, use science out of context, introduce inaccuracies, manipulations & deliberate distortions in order to further what seems to be his hidden agenda. It is fiction with scientific pretences. Crichton has seen fit to undermine the science of man-made GW, repeat spurious claims (in "State of Fear" and his 2005 Senate statement). There are too many errors and all apparently leading in the same direction, surely these errors cannot be random, they seem to indicate a deliberate intent to misinform public opinion of the true state of evidence. Dr. Crichton is certainly no fool. It is almost certain that he has relied upon most people not exploring and examining the references. Please don't forget that the increasingly unbelievable Crichton claims these are accurate.
Accuracy is not negotiable - except perhaps in the world of fiction.
Quote
My recent novel State of Fear concerns the politicization of scientific research. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this subject. What I would like to emphasize to the committee today is the importance of independent verification to science.
Endquote
U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works - Hearing Statements Date: 09/28/2005
Statement of Michael Crichton, M.D. - The Role of Science in Environmental Policy-Making
http://epw.senate.gov/public/hearing_statements.cfm?id=246766
What Crichton nearly said and what everyone should be concerned about is the politicization of science! Isn't that precisely what Crichton has been doing? - What humbug!
Quote from State of Fear
Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough.
Endquote
Once again Crichton only tells the part of the story that is convenient to the point he is making. The scientific consensus is not the reason anybody should accept the science of global warming. The reason consensus is important is that the majority of climatologists are convinced by the overwhelming evidence. Almost all the climatologists who claim not to be convinced by the overwhelming evidence that GW is man-made, have been or are receiving money directly or indirectly from fossil-fuel industry or other high energy use industries. So the wily Crichton has deliberately turned the argument into a straw-man, just so that he can knock it down.
Crichton is not above claiming support from scientific papers that do not support his arguments! It is notable that a number of the scientists he quotes, have complained at his misrepresentation of their work to suit what is presumably his political agenda.
URLs debunking Crichton's "State of Fear." here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74
-
Etheridge objects to Crichton's claims generated by researchers who believe firmly in global warming.. But Etheridge says he objects to this characterization of his so-called beliefs.
Quote
There is little indication for Crichton of what beliefs I may or may not have, he said via email. My work as a professional scientist allows me only to produce and deal with evidence, not beliefs.
Endquote
Dr. Douglas R. Hardy disagrees with Crichton
Quote (my emphasis)
Again, Crichton supplies references. But UMass-Amherst climatologist Douglas Hardy, a coauthor of the 2004 paper on Kilimanjaro cited, says Crichton is distorting his work. Crichton is doing what I perceive the denialists always to do, says Hardy. And that is to take things out of context, or take elements of reality and twist them a little bit, or combine them with other elements of reality to support their desired outcome.
For example, while the case of Kilimanjaro does seem more complicated (with factors like drier conditions and less cloud cover also implicated in its glacial retreat), Hardy notes that for other glaciers, especially in tropical latitudes, the link is very clear between changes in tropospheric temperature and [glacial retreats]. And even in the case of Kilimanjaro, Hardy adds, climate change may be playing a role.
As for the notion that replanting the forest at Kilimanjaro's base will help the glacier to grow again, Hardy says: The forests need replanting for many reasons, but I think that [Crichton's] idea is preposterous, without some larger-scale changes.
Endquote
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/02/06/checking_crichtons_footnotes/
-
Michael Crichton’s State of Confusion - by Gavin Schmidt, Earth Institute climate scientist and RealClimate.org contributor (Note: Schmidt's boss is James Hansen)
http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/news/2004/story12-13-04b.html
-
Crichton makes several attempts to cast doubt on scientific evidence regarding global warming.
First, he highlights the â€urban heat island effect.†- Dealt with in another post.
Second, Crichton argues that global temperature declines from 1940-1970 disprove, or at least cast
doubt on, scientific conclusions with respect to global warming. - Aerosols.
Third, Crichton offers graph after graph showing temperature declines during the past century in
places such as Puenta Arenas (Chile), Greenville (South Carolina), Ann Arbor (Michigan), Syracuse
(New York) and Navacerrada (Spain). - Global warming does not mean warming everywhere.
Note: All are half-truths, with the important piece missing.
Michael Crichton and Global Warming - by David B. Sandalow
http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/fellows/sandalow20050128.pdf
-
Carbon Dioxide, Global Warming, and Michael Crichton's "State of Fear" - Rust
http://math.nist.gov/~BRust/pubs/Interface2005/PrePrint.pdf
http://math.nist.gov/mcsd/Seminars/2005/2005-09-13-rust-presentation.pdf
-
Quote
Michael Crichton’s latest fictional novel, â€State of Fearâ€, designed to discredit concerns about global warming, purports to use the scientific method. The book is sprinkled with references to scientific papers, and Crichton intones in the introduction that his 'â€footnotes are realâ€'. But does Crichton really use the scientific method? Or is it something closer to scientific fraud?
End quote
Michael Crichton’s â€Scientific Method†- Hansen
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/hansen_re-crichton.pdf
-
The Global Warming Debate - By James Hansen — January 1999
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/edu/gwdebate/index.html
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The Global Warming Debate - AARST, Nov. 20, 1998, New York - Statements by Dr. James Hansen
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/edu/gwdebate/gwdebate.pdf
-
One of the papers cited by Crichton as evidence against GW
Modern Glacier Retreat on Kilimanjaro as Evidence of Climate Change: Observations and Facts – See quote from one of the co-authors below.
http://www.geo.umass.edu/faculty/bradley/kaser2004.pdf
-
Climate Debate Gets Its Icon: Mt. Kilimanjaro
Quote (my emphasis)
Other authors of the new study said they were particularly dismayed that the industry-supported group had portrayed their paper as a definitive refutation of the idea that melting from warming was involved.
We have a mere 2.5 years of actual field measurements from Kilimanjaro glaciers, unlike many other regions, so our understanding of their relationship with climate and the volcano is just beginning to develop," Dr. Douglas R. Hardy, a geologist at the University of Massachusetts and an author of the paper, wrote by e-mail. "Using these preliminary findings to refute or even question global warming borders on the absurd."
Endquote
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Kilimanjaro.pdf
-
Further evidence of Crichton's bias is evidenced by his misleading comments during his statement to a Senate Committee:
In his statement, Crichton unjustifiably criticised the peer-reviewed Mann et al. (1998) hockey stick paleoclimate temperature reconstruction and then repeated the spurious allegations made by McIntyre and McKitrick in the non peer-reviewed Energy & Environment which have been extensively rebutted and shown to be false. McIntyre and McKitrick's paper was rejected during the peer-review process at 'Nature'. McIntyre and McKitrick's spurious claims have never been retracted.
Crichton states
Quote from Crichton's 2005 statement
McIntyre and McKitrick had to go to great lengths to obtain the data from Mann's team, which obstructed them at every turn.
End Quote
Mann et al. cunningly obstructed McIntyre and McKitrick at every turn - by having already posted all the data, so that it was publicly available on Mann's website – I believe it had been there for ~ nearly two years. Yet another incorrect and misleading claim repeated by Crichton.
It's hard to understand why Crichton had not seen fit to contact the Mann et al. (1998) team or read the comprehensive rebuttal by Mann et al. 2004, he would have learned of the series of errors that McIntyre and McKitrick had made. There are other allegations about what Crichton is claimed to have said, but confirming references couldn't be identified, so they are not repeated here.
U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works Hearing Statements
Date: 09/28/2005 Statement of Michael Crichton, M.D. Author, Doctor
The Role of Science in Environmental Policy-Making
http://epw.senate.gov/public/hearing_statements.cfm?id=246766
-
Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries Mann et al. 1998
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/MannBradleyHughes1998.pdf
http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu/shared/articles/MBH98-corrigendum04.pdf
-
Climate Over Past Millennia - revised 4 February 2004; Jones & Mann
http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu/shared/articles/JonesMannROG04.pdf
-
On Past Temperatures and Anomalous late-20th Century Warmth - Mann et al. 2003
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/EosForum2003_revised20June.pdf
-
Note on Paper by McIntyre and McKitrick in "Energy and Environment"
http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu/Mann/EandEPaperProblem.pdf
-
Corrections to the Mann et. al. (1998) Proxy Data Base and Northern Hemispheric Average Temperature Series - McIntyre and McKitrick
http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/mcintyre.mckitrick.2003.pdf
-
The McIntyre and McKitrick (M&M) Critique of the MBH98 Northern Hemisphere Climate Index: Update and Implications
http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/mcintyre.ee.2005.pdf
-
One of Crichton's many State of Fear deceptions begins with a satement of fact: he correctly states that atmospheric CO2 was increasing while (Northern Hemisphere) temperatures actually fell during 1940-1970. What Crichton omits to mention is that during the post WW2 industrial boom, there was something else, a huge increase in sulphate and nitrate aerosols emitted in the Northern Hemisphere. These aerosols cause cooling and it is believed that this increase can probably account for most if not all of the cooling. Whilst during the same period in New Zealand and presumably in the rest of the Southern Hemisphere, GW continued. (Salinger, M.J., and J.M. Gunn (1975) - "Recent Climatic Warming around New Zealand." Nature 256: 396-98. abstract only read). Now of course, it's more complicated than that, but you get the general idea.
-
Crichton also repeats in State of Fear Patrick Michaels' 1998 mendacious manipulations of Hansen's testimony to congress in 1988. Ten years later, Patrick Michaels during his testimony to congress in 1998 on the danger of anthropogenic global warming. During that testimony he presented a graph -- part of a paper (Hansen et al. 1988) published after Hansen's testimony in 1988. This graph was published with had three plots on it, representing three scenarios based on three projections of future emissions and volcanism.
Line A was a temperature trend prediction based on rapid emissions growth and no large volcanic event; it was a steep climb through the year 2000 and beyond.
Line B was based on modest emissions growth and one large volcanic eruption in the mid 1990s.
Line C began along the same trajectory as Line B, and included the same volcanic eruption, but showed reductions in the growth of CO2 emission by the turn of the century -- the result of hypothetical government controls.
Michaels erased the bottom two plots in order to give the impression that the models were unreliable and that his assertion believable that Hansen's predictions had been off by 450 %, (Crichton changed this to 300%) . Some have called this act by Michaels, chicanery, it is certainly a lie by omission.
The fact that Crichton saw fit to repeat these deceptions is sufficient evidence for why the â€State of Fearâ€, is of absolutely no use scientifically, despite Crichton's bold claims that his footnotes are real, maybe they are, but they are not true and correct!
Summary of Crichton's statements
Of the statements examined, every one was found to be factually incorrect. Some were merely untrue and repeated by Crichton with or without material changes. His failure to correct the errors indicates that either he is incompetent because he failed to check his facts were correct, or that he is biased and deliberately set-out to deceive his readers. Since Dr. Crichton is intelligent and well educated, . It seems that the former is unlikely. One can only conclude that the numerous manipulations, distortions, fallacies and other tricks were deliberate and included intentionally.
The fact that the â€State of Fearâ€, is full of errors, distortions and deceptions, renders it absolutely useless scientifically, despite Crichton's bold claims that his footnotes are real, maybe they are, but they are not true and correct!
No evidence was identified to support the view that Crichton is reliable as a witness or source of information. It appears that all reports of Crichton's accuracy are a work of fiction.
Quote
Hey, you know how we can't even predict the weather tomorrow? Well it turns out my models suggest that we can't do it 100 years in the future either. So we have no idea either way."
End quote
No scientific paper will ever use these words, or anything like this!
First, you need to understand the fundamental difference between weather and climate.
Here is a Grade 6 to 8 explanation - "Differences Between Climate and Weather".
http://www.ucar.edu/learn/1_2_2_8t.htm
Secondly, the quote is simply factually incorrect! The increasing accuracy of climate models, via increased spatial resolution is evidence of this. However these models are increasingly complex and in-turn, require increasingly powerful supercomputers. The models are able to closely reconstruct the observations. They can also model paleoclimatic events, although I believe that there remain some problems remaining with the ice-age terminations. But science is like that, as questions are answered, more previously undreamed-of questions arise. It often takes more time to derive new theories and gather data to answer these new questions. One major factor you have overlooked is when anyone is attempting to model potential future climate, it is inevitable that there are numerous assumptions about the future that have to be made. Differences between the assumptions and what actually transpires can have significant effects.
First, how are the man-made emissions and other activities likely to change?
Secondly, since volcanic eruptions cannot currently be predicted. Assumptions can be made as to how large such a potential eruption is likely to be.
Clearly there are various other natural variations that need to be factored in, but this is why large numbers of runs are required, each with different assumptions. Naturally modelling potential future climate is fraught with difficulties.
General climate model information
http://www.research.noaa.gov/climate/t_modeling.html
A useful overview
The Discovery of Global Warming - http://www.aip.org/history/climate/
About ground meteorological stations.
I stated in a previous post
The earliest station is South Carolina beginning the earliest 1871. Records from 158 stations begin prior to 1900, with that of Charleston. Most station records are essentially complete for at least 50 years; the latest beginning year of record is 1948.
Reworded only
From http://cdiac.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ushcn/ndp070.html''
Note: They all date from 1948 or earlier.
In that very same previous post, I refer to the Urban Heat Island effect. The UHI effect was first recognised by G.S. Callendar back in 1938, and he made efforts to compensate for it. All subsequent workers have taken it into account. The basic problem is that meteorologists (climatologists too) require continuity. Moving a station is the absolute last resort. So, if compensation for the UHI effect is possible, the station is left where it is. Otherwise the continuity of the records will be lost.
NASA / GISS take the UHI effect very seriously and use satellite data to classify stations as rural and urban and corrects the urban stations so that they match the trends from the rural stations before gridding the data.
Increasing temperatures from the UHI effect only occur during the transition phase from rural via semi-rural to an urban locality, after this there is a temperature offset, there is no upward trend, once urbanisation is complete.
Note: Presumably the 2001 Hansen et al. may be affected slightly by the recently reported ground station discontinuity which averaged at 0.15 deg C. No, I did not check!
A closer look at United States and global surface temperature change.
J. Hansen, R. Ruedy and M. Sato
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2001/2001_Hansen_etal.pdf
-
GISS analysis of surface temperature change.
Hansen, J., R. Ruedy, J. Glascoe, and Mki. Sato, 1999:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1999/1999_Hansen_etal.pdf
-
RealClimate on UHI
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/07/no-man-is-an-urban-heat-island/
You appear to have jumped carelessly to the same completely unwarranted and unjustified conclusion that many others including Cheiron have: namely that scientists are all rather stupid. Otherwise, how could they make such a basic and rather obvious mistake? Scientists are certainly human and do make mistakes, but they are very intelligent, and those with higher degrees i.e. Ph.D. & etc. are significantly more so than the average non-scientist. Scientists also try very hard not to make mistakes or other errors, because it's potentially disastrous for a scientist's reputation and standing. A scientist's reputation is slow and hard to build but can be quickly and easily lost. Scientists are therefore desperate to avoid risking their reputations. All of which are reasons why they are scientists and the rest of us are not!
Acknowledgements
Coby Beck
Tim Lambert
RealClimate
Hansen, Schmidt, Mann and all the scientists who unravel the mysteries.
A note to the casual observer:
Some posts are made by people with a hidden agenda.
I include links so that for those who are interested can see for themselves – there is no need to take my word for it! After all I could be lying or might make a mistake! Believe me, I do make mistakes!
I am not a scientist as any scientist would probably guess. Readers are invited to look at the references.
My agenda should be fairly obvious: Science must take complete precedence over politics, religion and commercial interests.
It's nice for one's posts to be appreciated.
Sometimes, I get the distinct impression that I'm being a nuisance. Which is of course true!
However, it's essential to prevent misinformation being left unchallenged.
Why can't people look to real science sites like www.realclimate.org rather than believing the garbage science pumped-out by Crichton and all the other ExxonMobil et al channels? RC is a massive short-cut to the science and the non-science=nonsense.
Regarding your comment on technology, there is little doubt that we cannot continue as we are and have been. Things will have to change: for an overview of why:
Here are two videos featuring Lester Brown who has been describe as â€one of the planet's most important thinkers†He is founder of the Worldwatch Institute and the Earth Policy Institute, and author or co-author of 50 books related to the environment.
Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble
The President of the Earth Policy Institute asks how the global economy can be restructured to become environmentally sustainable dropping knowledge is a global initiative to turn apathy into activity. By hosting an open conversation on the most pressing issues of our times, we will foster a worldwide exchange of viewpoints, ideas and people-powered solutions.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7913220204273223776
China: Forcing the World to Rethink Its Economic Future
Convincing new evidence from China shows that its existing fossil-fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy cannot sustain progress much longer. Lester Brown will look at both China's current consumption of basic resources, which now exceeds that of the U.S., and at China's future consumption in 2031 when its income is projected to reach that of the U.S. today. Dr. Brown will discuss ways to restructure the global economy so that it can sustain economic progress through renewable energy, the reuse and recycling of materials, and a diverse transport system.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4449532225517541673
You were right about doing research. It's a shame you didn't do any!
Is this Michael Crichton a climatologist or a writer of FICTION?
Yes, it's fiction! But fiction with a political motive!
Crichton misunderstands or misrepresents science and uses selective science to support his viewpoint.
For the facts about this fiction, they're quite a read!
Some points covered and explained / debunked:
Post WW2 cooling due to sulphate aerosols
cooling of Antarctica's interior
misleading and selective recollection regarding Jim Hansen's testimony to congress in 1988
p315, it is claimed that "in the 1970's all the climate scientists believed an ice age was coming"
Urban Heat Island Effect
sea-level rise
See:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74
and
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/02/06/checking_crichtons_footnotes/
Mercury does indeed have to be dealt with -- but that's what's great about CF... You can deal with it and recycle it. The mercury emissions to run a incandescent from a coal fired plant are much higher -- and that's what we can't capture(at least, not yet - and not until there's more accountability for it).
Image sourced from US EPA -- June 2002.
My CF bulbs cost me something like $2.00 each -- compared to the incan. bulbs that I was paying 70 cents each.
GW aside, I think almost everyone can see the benefits of resource conservation and better air/water/etc. quality standards. At least, I wouldn't think that someone wants to breathe polluted air, drink polluted water and have to deal with a lack of energy resources....
I lived in the USA for three years, and I was grossed out with the sickening wasting culture there. You guys should stop being bully and ignorant, and learn from the other parts of the world... I didn't have much prejudice against the USA earlier, but around the time I decided to leave this country I only pitied the consuming culture there... Poor fellas, really.
Anyways. I hope someone will get your point boy. Who gives a crap to Global Warming? I don't care if it is real or not. Can't you see how your environment is ruined with your cars, and garbage and energy consumption?..
In my house use florescent lighting (both compact and standard). We also barely use AC/Heat -- even though it is a cost standpoint rather than a environmental one. We heat the pool (We're in New England, the pool will stay below 80 without it, which is colder than it seems when they day is so hot) with solar.
Our cars aren't the super efficient hybrids, but they aren't nearly as bad as hummers.
Also, make sure you use the word "Theory" correctly. In everyday use, it means something unproven; yet when applied to science/math, it means something that is proven. I don't know where you lived, but it would be impossible to see our whole nation, nowhere near enough to stereotype us like that.
To be honest.... He's pretty damn near right.... I'm in the Bay Area right now.... while there's a lot of eco friendly people here -- Monday I'm headed to Stanford to go dumpster diving because people are just throwing things out based on the school term cycle.
On my cross country trip, it went from bad -- to worse, to a little better to why the hell can't I see the mountains (smog) to bad. <-- In terms of pollution. I went from high HAA5 in my water to having water with F'ing Alpha particles in it. There's a problem when someone down the street says "I drink it (water) raw."
Just based on my trip, the people I met and some of the places I stopped.... There's pockets of people that don't fit the stereotype whereas the rest of us fall into, at least partially, the stereotype. Stereotypes have to come from somewhere :/
So yes, what you were doing was stereotyping, actually in two cases.
And yeah, it is hard to get people to change their minds. I've been trying to do it without anyone rethinking it for awhile now.
Also, thanks for saying that. Helps to know how it is in some urban areas.
Stereotypes are useful when we need to raise awareness...
So, I'll repeat... USA is engrosses me with its waste culture...
Hello, people! Ever heard of the SUN? Maybe it's SOLAR warming. Heck, 30 years ago, it was global cooling that freaked people out and thought it was doomsday. Humans play a role in the situation, a role that is so insignificant it's like a blister: everyone makes a mountain out of a molehill, about how we're all gonna die, and eventually it just bursts, and stings, and is forgotten.
In the caveman era, there was an ice age, but to you see ugga-ooga the caveman driving a hummer??? NO YOU DON'T! Wake up people! Don't be sheeple!
Love and world peace,
ichipoodle
Weissensteinburg, you missed an option on step 3. Electric vehicles! Trust me, they work! we've put 6,000 miles on ours in town in just the past year and a half! Also, "Check often that your tires are fully inflated" is a misnomer. Overinflated tires can be just as bad as underinflated tires. "Check often that your tires are properly inflated" is a bit more appropriate.
What you say about GW being caused by the sun is interesting, but how can this be?
If what you say was true, then there would be a correlation, but there is not. Since there is no trend in solar output since 1978 and the temperature rise does not correlate with solar output!
Warming does correlate with increasing CO2 concentrations and isotopic analysis of the atmosphere shows that this is from man-made burning of fossil fuels. We are adding ~6 gigatonnes of carbon to the atmosphere per year and are not taking any out.
Regarding the warming on Mars, there is every reason to believe that it's caused by increased dust storms.
Especially, since the solar output has fallen slightly in the last two years (new data).
Glen Beck, as far as I can tell, is a self-opinionated, politically motivated individual. He is not a reliable source of scientific information.
I suggest you obtain your science from a reliable source.
The Royal Society is one of the oldest and most respected academy of science in the world. You can look at any National Academies of Science from anywhere and find the same information. It will be the same, because the science is established, it's overwhelming and we all live on the same planet!
I have provided the links to pdf files which you can download and read. Please don't get depressed! Just get everyone you know to read them and do something about it. It can be averted, if we all act together, rather than believing the oil companies' lies, ( mostly from Exxon-Mobil ).
Exxon-Mobil have spent between 1998 to 2006 nearly $23 Million, on persuading the public that global warming is a myth, or it's not caused by man, or it's good or anything that's nothing to do with burning carbon-based fuels. Because Exxon-Mobil don't want to reduce their profits and they are prepared to wreck the planet in-order to maintain their profits. It's your planet too!
http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/full-report-exxon-s-weapons-o.pdf
http://www.exxposeexxon.com/facts/ExxonSecretsAnalysis.pdf
A statement issued by the science academies of the G8 nations, Brazil, China and India, in June 2005, called on world leaders to take prompt global action to tackle climate change.
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/document.asp?id=3222
The Royal Society has produced this overview of the current state of scientific understanding of climate change to help non-experts better understand some of the debates in this complex area of science.
This is not intended to provide exhaustive answers to every contentious argument that has been put forward by those who seek to distort and undermine the science of climate change and deny the seriousness of the potential consequences of global warming. Instead, the Society - as the UK's national academy of science - responds here to eight key arguments that are currently in circulation by setting out, in simple terms, where the weight of scientific evidence lies.
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/trackdoc.asp?id=4085&pId=6229
Facts and fictions about climate change
It has become fashionable in some parts of the UK media to portray the scientific evidence that has been collected about climate change and the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities as an exaggeration. Some articles have claimed that scientists are ignoring uncertainties in our understanding of the climate and the factors that affect it. Some have questioned the motives of the scientists who have presented the most authoritative assessments of the science of climate change, claiming that they have a vested interest in playing up the potential effects that climate change is likely to have.
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/trackdoc.asp?id=1630&pId=4761
Report: Big Money Confusing Public on Global Warming
ExxonMobil Tactics Similar to Tobacco Industry, Group Found
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/print?id=2767979
You say there was no ice age.
I believe you are mistaken. I suspect you have been misled at church.
I would like to point-out the caves in SW & SE France where there are beautiful charcoal drawings, carvings and polychrome paintings of woolly mammoths, woolly rhinoceros, reindeer caribou for North Americans , there are also Tarpan wild horse, wolf and Musk Ox. Musk
Ox are still found on the Tibetan plateau,
http://tw.strahlen.org/praehistorie/dordogne/22047-RouffignacNashorn.jpg
http://homepage.hispeed.ch/philipp.wehrli/Evolution/Datierungsmethoden/Mammut_Rouffignac.JPG
The caves are called Chauvet Cave, Lascaux, Font de Gaume, Rouffignac. There may be others.
http://donsmaps.com/chauvetcave.html
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/data/2001/08/01/html/ft_20010801.6.html
These paintings date to 35,000 to 9,000 years bce. That is 37,000 to 11,000 years ago.
Surprisingly, there are many scientists that believe there was an ice-age in Europe at the time!
Re-issued to add Chauvet cave and Musk Ox.
(_)' i replied to the wrong comment...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720024.ece
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_ice-age_031208.html
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=192
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17952631/
http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Global_Warming_Hits_Mars_Too_999.html
"New data points to the possibility it is emerging from an ice age."
"...used by some to infer an external common mechanism for global warming on Earth and Mars..But this is incorrect reasoning and based on faulty understanding of the data."
"However, this is essentially due to large scale dust storms that were common back then, compared to a lower level of storminess now."
there are no dust storms on earth my friend. mars is a very different planet compared to earth. The ice is melting on mars because it is leaving an ICE age causing co2 levels to raise and dust storms are creating temperature changes. and what do you mean "there was no ice age"...theve have been plenty on both mars and earth. and i eat apples alot actually..
Ignore Al Gore, he got it generally right, but there were inevitable simplifications necessary for editorial reasons. But the overall gist was correct!
This is in contrast with the falsified documentary 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' that has been shown to be a bunch of lies from beginning to end. In-fact it was so 'accurate', that there are at least four different versions where the most obvious faked parts have been successively removed.
<a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/video-abc-australias-tony-jones-dissects-debunks-martin-durkinâ€</a>
<a href="http://www.durangobill.com/Swindle_Swindle.htmlâ€</a>
Even those that deny global warming's causes are saying that GW exists! Even though they used to deny even its very existence. There is so much evidence, not just from climatologists, but from many other scientists, whose observations agree with the effects of GW.
What you call these 'rash claims' about global warming are being made by the overwhelming majority of climatologists, who have been deceived by the science, data and observations. The questions regarding validity are from the usual suspects. If you try reading the science first, the agreement between climatologists is compelling although it can never be 100%.
<a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/â€</a>
<a href="http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.htmlâ€</a>
There are many half-baked attacks on the the climate scientific community, that are doubtless based-upon fossil-fuel funded propaganda. It is disingenuous for such people to suggest that climatologists are so completely incompetent that they would have overlooked some crucial piece of evidence that is glaringly obvious to the average layman. When one actually examines what has been investigated, these attacks are utterly outrageous and baseless.
As you state quite correctly, as science progresses, new discoveries can sometimes produce 'paradigm shifts', which overturn previous theories. Such 'paradigm shifts' are important, but rare. It seems unlikely in the extreme that GW will either go away or be found not to be related to the rise in anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere. But who knows!
The solar hypothesis is far from proven especially since the solar output which varies with an 11-year cycle, but has no increasing or reducing trend since 1978. A recent report has identified a decline in solar output, but this has yet to be confirmed by further studies. If solar effects did affect global temperatures in the ways claimed, then there must be a correlation between recent solar output and global temperatures – there isn't. Clearly, the sun effects us, but this has been included in the IPCC evaluations.
There is a significant correlation between atmospheric CO2 and global temperatures. The changes in the isotopic composition confirm that the increases in atmospheric CO2 are man-made from burning fossil fuels, because the isotopic make-up of fossil-fuels is different from non-fossil carbon. The increases in temperature are consistent with the increases in atmospheric CO2 and other man-made GHGs. The CO2 concentration is now the highest for ~600,000 years.
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Pub_FAQs.pdf
Some people naively believe that humans are uniquely immune to climate change. This is not true. An example that shows how even in a first-world country, citizens are not immune to climate change, is the current unprecedented drought in the Murray-Darling region of Australia, which is being attributed to GW, even if it is subsequently proved not to be, it will still however serve as an example of what to expect to occur as a result of GW.
It is currently notoriously difficult to pin-down a particular event to GW, but the predictions are that climate patterns will shift, although the finer detail is beyond current science. But the large-scale is relatively straight-forward. The zone between the topics is set to become hotter, some areas colder and it's not good for use or the rest of the life on the planet!
Of the pseudo-science that denies anthropogenic GW, it is largely published in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post or Time Magazine. Some of it has never been published, except on the web. To be considered seriously, it has to be peer-reviewed and it has to be repeatable. This is where denialist science fails, denialist science has managed to evade peer-review mauling literally only a few times and get published, but bad can never be repeated! For more on flawed peer-review see:
<a href="http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Climate/Climate_Science/CliSciFrameset.html</a>and click on 'Contrarians' in the left frame.
It is notable that only a very few scientists and even fewer climatologists are involved in promulgating the anti-man-made GW myth. It is also notable that most, if not all are or have been in receipt of fossil-fuel funding, directly or indirectly.
<a href="http://www.realclimate.org/irea_letterJul06.pdf">http://www.realclimate.org/irea_letterJul06.pdf</a> <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf</a>
Please note, the criticisms below are aimed at the people I see every day near my home.
The beef about SUV / 4WD, there are few that criticise those that really need them, where I live, the suburbs, with no vast tracts of wilderness and hardly any mud! It's the SUV drivers who use their vehicle as some kind of bizarre fashion accessory or to make them appear 'macho' - sad bastards - & never drive off-road, except to visit a supermarket, but still on asphalt. Some of these drivers are so completely ignorant about their vehicles and 4WD in particular, that they don't know what a differential lock is or what it's for. There have been numerous cases of drivers wondering about the tyres squealing and a new noise, so they visit the garage, only to be told that they've trashed their transmission and tyres because they've been fiddling with those knobs and left the diff-lock on!
Reposted because bug affected display
If you restrict your reading to scientific sources, rather than those funded directly or indirectly by fossil-duel interests and big business, you will have real difficulty in refuting the science! You have to be very careful about media outlets, because many of them are sensationalist, and more than a few have a political agenda which often leans away from awkward science.
You certainly could do worse than try www.realclimate.org which is run by climatologists and they are friendly. You can find out about the latest science and find-out about debunked pseudo-science like The Great Global Warming Swindle.
If you do venture to realclimate.org, you will learn why climatologists are so concerned about anthropogenic GW.
Another site to visit is the Union of Concerned Scientists www.ucsusa.org
You could try any of the following.
The National Academies of Science (or their respective equivalent) of China, France, United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil, United States, Japan, Italy and and Germany (http://www.rsc.ca/files/media/other/G8_climatestatement2005-en.pdf); the UK's Royal Society (http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/downloaddoc.asp?id=1630); the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (http://www.ipcc.ch)/; NASA (http://www.giss.nasa.gov)/; and NOAA (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html), to name just a few.
You could also try any of these [Google]
The American Geophysical Union
The American Meteorological Society
The American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Institute of Physics
For information about big business, fossil-fuels, people and organizations involved in GW disinformation see the following!
http://www.realclimate.org/irea_letterJul06.pdf www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf
If you read all or just some of these, you will realise that there are a lot of lies and half truths about GW being passed-off as truth!
I'm not sure if you are aware, but there has been an unprecedented degree of political interference under the Bush Administration. Political interference has happened under Democratic and Republican administrations, but it is by far the worst under Bush. for more details see
http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/
Primarily it occurs in the areas of global warming / climate change, abortion / birth control and stem cell research. In-fact any aspect of science that GW Bush doesn't like!
Regarding the link, it worked while I was typing the post. Yes it's still working, here it is again, just in-case there's a character killing it.
http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/
Yes I suppose it's extremist and one sided, but it's the way GWB works.
If you read the information at the link there are the personal accounts of scientists who have been on the receiving end of this interference.
Sorry about the bold.
Our next car will be a hybrid.
http://www.instructables.com/group/livingwithoutoil/
There are tons of ways to reduce our carbon footprints, so I've been adding any Instructables relevant to a "post-peak-oil" future, there. Feel free to add others that you find, and discuss other solutions.
Another thing you can do is cancel your carbon emissions using
sustainable travel international. Basically you plug in you total distance that flied into the trip calculator and it says that you need to donate blank amount of money to them in which they will plant trees with. Here is the site for air travel.
W/ref heating, it is more efficient to leave your central heating on a low setting continuously, as opposed to having it fire-up to hot twice a day.
(Trust me, it does work)
L
What I men by the central hating thing, is exactly waht I have said. Run your boiler continuously, but at a low water temperature e.g. 35oC
L
http://static.instructables.com/orig/FMP/Z9KW/F2ZL548Y/FMPZ9KWF2ZL548Y.jpg
(The add picture doesn't work..)
Oh, and Global Warming may not exist, but it doesn't hurt to live by these things!