funded in part by CLIMATE CHANGE SKEPTICS - specifically, the Koch Foundation - OIL MEN. They had an agenda from that regard
Who else was in on the funding and how much was funded by OIL MEN?
Koch contributes money to all sorts of organizations and causes. Are you sure their money didn't wind up here without their knowledge and that this is not more twisting from the dirty tricks division of the GW cult? That would certainly be my guess as Berkeley certainly has their own agenda.
Gary says, "The tax payers of CA are not benefiting from her good education, are they? "
Was that tongue-in-cheek? I hope so.
Because everyone knows that the well-educated normally have higher income, and unless they are really tricky, pay higher taxes, than people with less education.
States and schools give scholarships as an act of greed, not an act of gifting.
They know that successful, highly paid alumni can pay big benefits for the school and the state in later years, and generations. Send their kids there, etc.
Because everyone knows that the well-educated normally have higher income, and unless they are really tricky, pay higher taxes, than people with less education.
That is, IF, they stay in the state that granted them the gift. If they go to another state or to another country how did that benefit the tax payers of CA that subsidized their education? It was not as much the education granted as the cost of that education to the state. We happen to pay our Professors an obscene amount of money while employed and after retirement. That is my gripe not the education itself. CA has gone way over the top in spending for education. We need a Scott Walker not a Moonbeam for governor.
Not NEARLY enough to support our University system. We have 10 campuses and 150,000 employees. It is the largest employer in the state of CA. With starting salary for professors over $100k per year. Check out your universities and tell me what they are paying their Profs.
But to say a state or university does not benefit from successful alumni is incorrect.
I would hope those that get through college would be benefited. The point is, someone that comes to CA and gets what many consider a better education and leave the state to pay taxes elsewhere are NOT benefiting the CA tax payer in any way. It is the CA tax payers that are on the hook for the enormous salaries and retirements that our state supported system is paying. Berkeley alone has 365 people making over $200k per year. University of AZ only 109 over $200k with your top paid getting less than half of what they are paying the Berkeley coach per year. That is my gripe.
Yes, a lot of people buy RV's just for those Sat. afternoons. It would be a lot more fuel efficient if crowds were banned from all entertainment, and the teams just played, and the games televised. Look at all the tax money that could be saved by building these ridiculously expensive arenas and stadiums.
IN this city where Toyota Priuses clog the roads and battery-powered Tesla Roadsters and Chevrolet Volts can be spotted at the organic farmers market, the engine factory in a gritty industrial neighborhood near San Francisco Bay is a throwback to the automotive past.
Or a harbinger of the future. In the middle of a metal building, stacked with hulking racecar engines from the internal combustion engine’s golden age, sits a small contraption hooked to a forest of red, white and green wires and tubes that hang from the ceiling and snake around the floor.
In a control room at Hasselgren Engineering, a technician flips a switch and the device roars to life as a large computer screen displays the performance of this new type of engine, which its developer, Pinnacle Engines, says will be up to 50 percent more efficient than today’s power plants.
As the first mass-produced electric cars hit the streets, Pinnacle is just one of several start-ups backed by prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalists aiming to reinvent the century-old internal combustion engine. The big promise: vast improvements in fuel economy and reduced greenhouse gas emissions at a lower cost.
“While the buzz is all about electrics, the people who will actually adopt electrics are not a majority of the market,” said Monty Cleeves, who has kept Pinnacle under wraps since he founded the company in 2007. “The impact we will have over the next 15 to 20 years will be much larger than the impact of the electrics.”
Not long ago, the idea that entrepreneurs could attract tens of millions of dollars in venture capital to develop a new kind of engine would have seemed ludicrous. The big automakers have kept engine development to themselves, steadily improving the performance of a profitable technology that has served them well for more than a 100 years.
“Our engines are built into the DNA of our vehicles,” said Brett Hinds, engine design manager for Ford in Dearborn, Mich. “We at Ford are still committed to thinking of engines as part of our fundamentals.”
But the upheaval in the global car industry, new fuel efficiency standards for commercial vehicles, climate change concerns and the rise of China and India as automotive markets have opened the door to start-ups like Pinnacle
“Many automotive houses don’t buy engines from outside, but in the truck market people do,” said Rohini Chakravarthy, a partner at NEA, a venture capital firm in Menlo Park, Calif., that has invested in Pinnacle. “In Asia, there’s tremendous demand, and you’re not going up against the same level of incumbents.”
All three companies are developing variations on an opposed piston engine, a technology used in airplanes and ships in the mid-20th century, but long considered too expensive and unworkable for automobiles.
Opposed piston engines eliminate the cylinder head, which serves as the combustion chamber for a conventional engine. Instead, two pistons face each other and the space between them forms the combustion chamber where fuel is ignited. Discarding the heavy cylinder head allows opposed piston engines to be lighter and cheaper to make. Typically, two-thirds of the energy generated by a conventional engine is wasted as heat; an opposed piston design is able to tap more energy to propel a vehicle.
The facts are out. This was the coolest March in 15 years. Kind of puts a 180 on the hockey stick.
March 2011 ended up as the coolest March globally since March of 1994. The actual global temperature anomaly for the lower troposphere last month was negative 0.026 C.
This is also the first month since June of 2008 that the global temperature anomaly was in the negative.
If man is causing the planet to warm, it has to be continuous. As we continue to spew more CO2 into the air. In the history of our planet it was at one time at least 12 degrees warmer than today. My guess is, we are headed into the next mini ice age.
PS So CA is hitting near record cold so far this month.
Ah...........the Napier Deltic. Commissioned in 1943 by the Royal Navy and used, very successfully, in a series of British railroad locomotives and many marine applications. The railroad engines were de-rated to around 3500hp but the marine versions cranked out circa 4500bhp, IIRC. And they were, of course, diesels.
Wiki is you friend for this or google Napier Deltic; there are some good animations around. A very interesting idea for automotive use and was used in WWII German aircraft :
There are thousands of weather inputs - pollution is only ONE of them.
There are a lot in the scientific community that claim dust is the major contributor to both warming and cooling. You should read "The Secret Life of Dust". While it does not discount man's involvement. It does not point a finger at the US as the major culprit, like the UN does. The Sahara and Gobi deserts are major players in CC.
In case anyone was worried that the polar bears were going to be extinct as a result of the US addiction to fossil fuel. Here are a few reminders that the polar bears are still doing well in the Arctic. This is in the village of Kaktovik. Smack dab in the middle of ANWR. One of the techs sent me these pictures he just took of one of the other techs having a close up encounter with a polar bear. I know they like to play with their food before they eat it. This meal got away.
People growing marijuana indoors use 1 percent of the U.S. electricity supply, and they create 17 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year (not counting the smoke exhaled) according to a report by Evan Mills, an energy analyst at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
After medical pot use was made legal in California in 1996, Mills says, per-person residential electricity use in Humboldt County jumped 50 percent compared to other parts of the state.
In order to produce some 17,000 metric tons of marijuana this year, Mills estimates authorized growers will use $5 billion worth of energy. That works out to the output of seven big electric power plants.
Yesterday I read that Seattle has had above average temps exactly twice this year, and April could be the first on record without a 60F high temp - bring on some of that warming!
We are averaging at least 10 degrees below normal on our daytime highs. We hit 58 degrees yesterday. Supposed to make it to 70 today. It really shows HOW LITTLE scientist know or understand climate change.
So how do you KNOW that you are averaging 10 degrees below this "SUPPOSED NORMAL?"
It is a WAG. :P
Because you are right, the data we get from the different sources rarely agrees. So someone's scientific readings and or calculations are wrong. Sadly the Left tries to build a taxing agenda on a lot of flawed information.
Now to reality. We are colder than normal from simple observation of our individual thermometers. We had snow last week down to 2500 feet. Last time that happened in April is not recorded in the annals of weather recording. To snow it has to be colder. hmmmm I wonder why it is cold enough snow down to that elevation when LARSB and the AGW Cult swear it is getting warmer???? Temperature gauges and their data can be manipulated. Snow ON THE GROUND cannot. And it can be verified.
PS We went out to the desert again Tuesday. Stopped at the Borrego Park HQ. Talking to the Ranger he said it was the coldest Spring on record. So the flowers are not what they should be. He could be telling a fib. But like snow, flowers don't lie.
Wet conditions have continued over most of Australia with March 2011 ranking as the wettest March on record nationally. Daytime temperatures were also exceptional ranking as the coldest on record for Australia.
I already did. I trust my own thermometer. I gave you the stats from the Governments that you seem to trust. Get use to the coming Ice Age. Which dust scientists believe is on the way. We are past due.
I am thinking of moving someplace that is warmer on a more consistent basis. I cannot even grow decent fruit with late freezes.
Looking at Lake Havasu, my old stomping grounds from the 1980s, and it is downright cool there. We were always in the high 90s and low 100s by April and the Chili Cook-off.
Sounds like you only believe the weather reports when they back your agenda as well. I posted and you poo pooed them. :P
Gary says, "Sounds like you only believe the weather reports when they back your agenda as well. I posted and you poo pooed them."
I haven't poo-pooed anything, except my pants in the 1st grade when the teacher wouldn't let me go to the bathroom (permanent trauma) :sick:
P.S. I don't have an "Agenda" other than to keep investigating what's going on and not make assumptions that nothing man is doing could POSSIBLY have an effect.
State's Rights is a pretty interesting doctrine. There's an upcoming test about it concerning relicensing of the Vermont Yankee nuke plant. The feds ok'd the renewal of the license but Vermont is telling the company to shut it down.
That issue is off to the federal court soon, and perhaps will wind up before the Supremes too.
How much "interference" from the federal government do you want? How many emissions from your neighboring state do you want to breathe?
The states don't seem to have any rights concerning immigration when it conflicts with the Feds so why should they have any rights when it comes to pollution?
It's a good question. Boils down to whether you want a unified approach to an issue on a national level or leave it to the states. California took the lead on CARB and many states followed, making their rules a de facto national standard. So if the feds try to trump California, they have to deal with ~16 other states who have adopted the California emissions standards.
As I recall, Bush II took away some CARB rights from California and Obama reinstated them.
You joke, but there's a lot of truth in what you say.
Meanwhile, the Supremes are indicating that they aren't too happy with using public nuisance laws to limit greenhouse gas emissions. But oral arguments don't necessarily mean that the final ruling will follow the questioning.
Spiral energy-saving light bulbs could cause cancer, German scientists have found.
They say the compact fluorescent lamp bulbs should not be left on for long as they send poison into the atmosphere when switched on, according to a report in Britain’s Daily Telegraph.
And in particular, the scientists warn, they should be kept away from people’s heads due to an “electrical smog” of phenol, naphthalene and styrene.
“For such carcinogenic substances it is important they are kept as far away as possible from the human environment,” warned Peter Braun, who carried out research in Berlin.
Fellow researcher Andreas Kirchner added: “They should not be used in unventilated areas and definitely not in the proximity of the head.”
Earlier this year an Israeli report suggested CFL bulbs could trigger breast cancer and there have been fears about the environmental damage they could cause if dumped in landfills.
Despite those worries — and the fact they can cost up to six times as much as traditional incandescent bulbs — the CFL bulbs are in wide use worldwide. They are said to cut energy costs significantly and have a much longer lifespan.
Whether the institution is nominally private, or publicly funded, he points out, most scientific research is held captive by heavy infusions of federal money.
Around the time he heard that the Proceedings of the National Academy would publish the article, Art said: "If we just had a few thousand scientists pursuing their own goals, we'd really be able to get some new research done in this country. As it is, most of them are trapped."
Trapped by government money. Filling out grant requests, politicking to be well-liked, serving on grant review boards, going to the meetings to be seen by others, will take half your time. The project itself had better be popular. "You're only going to get the money for something that everyone has heard of and thinks is the coming thing," he said. As for politically sensitive areas such as global warming, "your research had better come up with the results they want." At private research institutions, where half the money may come from private endowments, the research is nonetheless still held hostage. "Professors in these universities who are candid with you will say, Well, we can't really do what we want here because half of our money comes from the government so we can't afford to put it at risk." A better system, Art thinks, would be to give one-time grants to a couple of thousand scientists a year, with no further oversight or reports.
Is it Global Warming or just natural weather patterns? TX & OK are getting hit hard enough to Pray for rain. Much of Northern Europe is getting the same drought conditions.
Europe prays for Easter rain in worst drought for a century Either way, prayers in Europe this Easter holiday weekend are as likely to call for rain as anything else -- with serious fears over the wheat harvest, its impact on already sky-high global food prices and, of course, devastating brush fires.
A year ago, it was Russia that bore the brunt of global warming
The drought in western Switzerland over the last 12 months is as severe as those recorded in 1884 and 1921, Meteosuisse said.
If it is automobiles causing GW and the drought conditions in 2011, what caused it in 1864 & 1884? Thankfully CA is about double our normal rainfall. The reservoirs are near capacity and the snow pack in the Sierras is at record levels. Does that mean a mass migration to CA like the one in the 1930s? We have a depression and drought at the same time.
I do wonder sometimes about all the Californians that left for Texas in the last decade. Jobs, fewer taxes and regulation and no earthquakes or fires and mudslides above Malibu. But right now they have no water and fires are lapping at the edges of Austin. Tornadoes are common too.
But is it GW or just 100 year weather events? I don't see the Joads packing up anytime soon.
“We found that more than half of the added carbon dioxide was pulled from the atmosphere within 30,000 to 40,000 years, which is one-third of the time span previously thought,” the expert explains.
Maybe after the ice ages trees sprout and gobble up the excess CO2. I am just not buying into the theories that man is the major culprit. I have no doubt that the industrial revolution has changed the planet. Just not sure it is more than a few percentage points. We know it had to be MUCH hotter for the Arctic to be tropical. Palm trees were growing and mastodons were roaming the Arctic Circle sometime in the past.
As far as CAFE, that to me is a smokescreen, so convoluted and politicized, that it is just a joke to most people. No doubt CFL bulbs have cut energy consumption. At what cost to human life? That is yet to be seen.
Gas consumption is interesting. I remember checking the mileage on my 52 Studebaker V8 on a regular basis back in the early 1960s. It got consistent 21 MPG on my 42 mile roundtrip to work in downtown San Diego. I don't remember gas being a big part of my budget. Even though I was only making $62.50 per week at the phone company.
We found that more than half of the added carbon dioxide was pulled from the atmosphere within 30,000 to 40,000 years, which is one-third of the time span previously thought,” the expert explains.
“We still don’t know exactly where this carbon went, but the evidence suggests it was a much more dynamic response than traditional models represent,” adds Bowen, who also holds an appointment as a member of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center.
This is exactly why I keep saying it is foolish of scientists to state that they have a firm understanding of mankind's effect on the climate. This is a huge error in the climate model that's referred to - 67% !! not just off 5 or 10% !
To base public policy on incomplete research and errant models is foolish. If you read any books on different eras in science, you will see a trend/pattern - every generation feels they have reached the pinnacle of knowledge! they want to wrap up their field, and declare "we now know everything about ______ (astronomy, particle physics, climate, anthropology ...). It is a flaw in human nature.
And there are always people from the days of witch doctors to our modern politicians who are only too happy to embrace that supposed truth and use it to control the populace in some false crusade.
BTW - I did not enjoy the snow yesterday that fell. I see no problem with any warming if there is. Warming could not come quick enough, before I move to somewhere tropical.
We got three inches yesterday that everyone ignored. Melted by the late afternoon. Great Spring day here today with bulbs popping up everywhere.
They also plowed the sidewalk along the shore - of the sand. Lots of walkers and bikers out, and we had a nice long stroll on the beach.
My GW activity this week was getting a programmable thermostat installed. Was always forgetting to turn the heat down before heading up the stairs to bed.
Did I post the link about Costco selling several solar kits now? They are about half of what my off-grid friend in Taos paid for his, but his price included installation. $3,600 to $18k. (link).
Comments
Who else was in on the funding and how much was funded by OIL MEN?
Koch contributes money to all sorts of organizations and causes. Are you sure their money didn't wind up here without their knowledge and that this is not more twisting from the dirty tricks division of the GW cult? That would certainly be my guess as Berkeley certainly has their own agenda.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Was that tongue-in-cheek? I hope so.
Because everyone knows that the well-educated normally have higher income, and unless they are really tricky, pay higher taxes, than people with less education.
States and schools give scholarships as an act of greed, not an act of gifting.
They know that successful, highly paid alumni can pay big benefits for the school and the state in later years, and generations. Send their kids there, etc.
That is, IF, they stay in the state that granted them the gift. If they go to another state or to another country how did that benefit the tax payers of CA that subsidized their education? It was not as much the education granted as the cost of that education to the state. We happen to pay our Professors an obscene amount of money while employed and after retirement. That is my gripe not the education itself. CA has gone way over the top in spending for education. We need a Scott Walker not a Moonbeam for governor.
Not NEARLY enough to support our University system. We have 10 campuses and 150,000 employees. It is the largest employer in the state of CA. With starting salary for professors over $100k per year. Check out your universities and tell me what they are paying their Profs.
But to say a state or university does not benefit from successful alumni is incorrect.
I would hope those that get through college would be benefited. The point is, someone that comes to CA and gets what many consider a better education and leave the state to pay taxes elsewhere are NOT benefiting the CA tax payer in any way. It is the CA tax payers that are on the hook for the enormous salaries and retirements that our state supported system is paying. Berkeley alone has 365 people making over $200k per year. University of AZ only 109 over $200k with your top paid getting less than half of what they are paying the Berkeley coach per year. That is my gripe.
Did you miss when I said,
YES
THEY
ARE.
??????????????????
If you pay federal taxes, from WHATEVER STATE you live in, it goes into the federal money pot.
The states get money from that federal money pot.
So, indirectly, EVERY AMERICAN TAX PAYER, even me, contributes to CA tax payers. And all the other 49 states too.
I mean, really, you can't put one on a car. :shades:
Not the standard blade type, but the "miniature paddleboat" type.
Not to power the car directly, but it could be stored in a hybrid or EV battery.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/business/energy-environment/31ENGINE.html?_r=3- - &ref=businessspecial2&pagewanted=all
IN this city where Toyota Priuses clog the roads and battery-powered Tesla Roadsters and Chevrolet Volts can be spotted at the organic farmers market, the engine factory in a gritty industrial neighborhood near San Francisco Bay is a throwback to the automotive past.
Or a harbinger of the future. In the middle of a metal building, stacked with hulking racecar engines from the internal combustion engine’s golden age, sits a small contraption hooked to a forest of red, white and green wires and tubes that hang from the ceiling and snake around the floor.
In a control room at Hasselgren Engineering, a technician flips a switch and the device roars to life as a large computer screen displays the performance of this new type of engine, which its developer, Pinnacle Engines, says will be up to 50 percent more efficient than today’s power plants.
As the first mass-produced electric cars hit the streets, Pinnacle is just one of several start-ups backed by prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalists aiming to reinvent the century-old internal combustion engine. The big promise: vast improvements in fuel economy and reduced greenhouse gas emissions at a lower cost.
“While the buzz is all about electrics, the people who will actually adopt electrics are not a majority of the market,” said Monty Cleeves, who has kept Pinnacle under wraps since he founded the company in 2007. “The impact we will have over the next 15 to 20 years will be much larger than the impact of the electrics.”
Not long ago, the idea that entrepreneurs could attract tens of millions of dollars in venture capital to develop a new kind of engine would have seemed ludicrous. The big automakers have kept engine development to themselves, steadily improving the performance of a profitable technology that has served them well for more than a 100 years.
“Our engines are built into the DNA of our vehicles,” said Brett Hinds, engine design manager for Ford in Dearborn, Mich. “We at Ford are still committed to thinking of engines as part of our fundamentals.”
But the upheaval in the global car industry, new fuel efficiency standards for commercial vehicles, climate change concerns and the rise of China and India as automotive markets have opened the door to start-ups like Pinnacle
“Many automotive houses don’t buy engines from outside, but in the truck market people do,” said Rohini Chakravarthy, a partner at NEA, a venture capital firm in Menlo Park, Calif., that has invested in Pinnacle. “In Asia, there’s tremendous demand, and you’re not going up against the same level of incumbents.”
All three companies are developing variations on an opposed piston engine, a technology used in airplanes and ships in the mid-20th century, but long considered too expensive and unworkable for automobiles.
Opposed piston engines eliminate the cylinder head, which serves as the combustion chamber for a conventional engine. Instead, two pistons face each other and the space between them forms the combustion chamber where fuel is ignited. Discarding the heavy cylinder head allows opposed piston engines to be lighter and cheaper to make. Typically, two-thirds of the energy generated by a conventional engine is wasted as heat; an opposed piston design is able to tap more energy to propel a vehicle.
March 2011 ended up as the coolest March globally since March of 1994. The actual global temperature anomaly for the lower troposphere last month was negative 0.026 C.
This is also the first month since June of 2008 that the global temperature anomaly was in the negative.
Maybe it was the high cost of gas. :P
http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/climatechange/story/48140/coolest-march-since-1- 994.asp
PS
So CA is hitting near record cold so far this month.
Wiki is you friend for this or google Napier Deltic; there are some good animations around. A very interesting idea for automotive use and was used in WWII German aircraft :
Napier Deltic
I don't know that I agree with that at all, and neither should anyone else.
And it is continual - year after year lately has been among the warmest on record.
TEMPORARY weather patterns such as El Nino and all those little guys have an effect too.
There are thousands of weather inputs - pollution is only ONE of them.
I always lived that way..
We go through "climate change" every day, so just relax and worry about something else..
There are a lot in the scientific community that claim dust is the major contributor to both warming and cooling. You should read "The Secret Life of Dust". While it does not discount man's involvement. It does not point a finger at the US as the major culprit, like the UN does. The Sahara and Gobi deserts are major players in CC.
After medical pot use was made legal in California in 1996, Mills says, per-person residential electricity use in Humboldt County jumped 50 percent compared to other parts of the state.
In order to produce some 17,000 metric tons of marijuana this year, Mills estimates authorized growers will use $5 billion worth of energy. That works out to the output of seven big electric power plants.
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2011/04/12/marijuana-causes-global-- warming.html?ana=e_pft
That's a buncha bullcorn.
All it shows is that your local weather today is cooler than the average.
An Average which you disagree with the data about anyway, right? You don't trust historical temp data?
So how do you KNOW that you are averaging 10 degrees below this "SUPPOSED NORMAL?"
I hope you see the irony of my point.
It is a WAG. :P
Because you are right, the data we get from the different sources rarely agrees. So someone's scientific readings and or calculations are wrong. Sadly the Left tries to build a taxing agenda on a lot of flawed information.
Now to reality. We are colder than normal from simple observation of our individual thermometers. We had snow last week down to 2500 feet. Last time that happened in April is not recorded in the annals of weather recording. To snow it has to be colder. hmmmm I wonder why it is cold enough snow down to that elevation when LARSB and the AGW Cult swear it is getting warmer???? Temperature gauges and their data can be manipulated. Snow ON THE GROUND cannot. And it can be verified.
PS
We went out to the desert again Tuesday. Stopped at the Borrego Park HQ. Talking to the Ranger he said it was the coldest Spring on record. So the flowers are not what they should be. He could be telling a fib. But like snow, flowers don't lie.
I don't think it applies.
If you have 100 such spots around the globe that report a cooler-than-average Spring, then you might have a global weather pattern.
Phoenix had the second-earliest 100 degree day ever this year. What does that mean to Global climate? Not much of anything.
As does your cold Spring also mean nothing.
I already posted where the data mongers at the Federal level have said it was the coldest March in 15 years.
http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/climatechange/story/48140/coolest-march-since-1- 994.asp
From Canada to Australia they are reporting the coldest March on record.
Though typically the last month of winter; March 2011 will be the coldest.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/Mikeman444/comment.html?entrynum=29
Wet conditions have continued over most of Australia with March 2011 ranking as the wettest March on record nationally. Daytime temperatures were also exceptional ranking as the coldest on record for Australia.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/aus/summary.shtml
Can you explain that contradiction to us?
This is also the first month since June of 2008 that the global temperature anomaly was in the negative.
I don't think going so long between negative indicates much of a trend.
I already did. I trust my own thermometer. I gave you the stats from the Governments that you seem to trust. Get use to the coming Ice Age. Which dust scientists believe is on the way. We are past due.
I am thinking of moving someplace that is warmer on a more consistent basis. I cannot even grow decent fruit with late freezes.
Looking at Lake Havasu, my old stomping grounds from the 1980s, and it is downright cool there. We were always in the high 90s and low 100s by April and the Chili Cook-off.
Sounds like you only believe the weather reports when they back your agenda as well. I posted and you poo pooed them. :P
I haven't poo-pooed anything, except my pants in the 1st grade when the teacher wouldn't let me go to the bathroom (permanent trauma) :sick:
P.S. I don't have an "Agenda" other than to keep investigating what's going on and not make assumptions that nothing man is doing could POSSIBLY have an effect.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
On a more serious note, hopefully, the Supreme Court will quash the various state lawsuits to be able to control emissions.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
That issue is off to the federal court soon, and perhaps will wind up before the Supremes too.
How much "interference" from the federal government do you want? How many emissions from your neighboring state do you want to breathe?
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
As I recall, Bush II took away some CARB rights from California and Obama reinstated them.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Meanwhile, the Supremes are indicating that they aren't too happy with using public nuisance laws to limit greenhouse gas emissions. But oral arguments don't necessarily mean that the final ruling will follow the questioning.
High Court Voices Skepticism Over States’ Global Warming Suits (WSJ)
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Friday, April 22, 2011 10:53 AM
Spiral energy-saving light bulbs could cause cancer, German scientists have found.
They say the compact fluorescent lamp bulbs should not be left on for long as they send poison into the atmosphere when switched on, according to a report in Britain’s Daily Telegraph.
And in particular, the scientists warn, they should be kept away from people’s heads due to an “electrical smog” of phenol, naphthalene and styrene.
“For such carcinogenic substances it is important they are kept as far away as possible from the human environment,” warned Peter Braun, who carried out research in Berlin.
Fellow researcher Andreas Kirchner added: “They should not be used in unventilated areas and definitely not in the proximity of the head.”
Earlier this year an Israeli report suggested CFL bulbs could trigger breast cancer and there have been fears about the environmental damage they could cause if dumped in landfills.
Despite those worries — and the fact they can cost up to six times as much as traditional incandescent bulbs — the CFL bulbs are in wide use worldwide. They are said to cut energy costs significantly and have a much longer lifespan.
CFL Hazards
Around the time he heard that the Proceedings of the National Academy would publish the article, Art said: "If we just had a few thousand scientists pursuing their own goals, we'd really be able to get some new research done in this country. As it is, most of them are trapped."
Trapped by government money. Filling out grant requests, politicking to be well-liked, serving on grant review boards, going to the meetings to be seen by others, will take half your time. The project itself had better be popular. "You're only going to get the money for something that everyone has heard of and thinks is the coming thing," he said. As for politically sensitive areas such as global warming, "your research had better come up with the results they want." At private research institutions, where half the money may come from private endowments, the research is nonetheless still held hostage. "Professors in these universities who are candid with you will say, Well, we can't really do what we want here because half of our money comes from the government so we can't afford to put it at risk." A better system, Art thinks, would be to give one-time grants to a couple of thousand scientists a year, with no further oversight or reports.
http://www.independentscientist.com/
Europe prays for Easter rain in worst drought for a century
Either way, prayers in Europe this Easter holiday weekend are as likely to call for rain as anything else -- with serious fears over the wheat harvest, its impact on already sky-high global food prices and, of course, devastating brush fires.
A year ago, it was Russia that bore the brunt of global warming
The drought in western Switzerland over the last 12 months is as severe as those recorded in 1884 and 1921, Meteosuisse said.
If it is automobiles causing GW and the drought conditions in 2011, what caused it in 1864 & 1884? Thankfully CA is about double our normal rainfall. The reservoirs are near capacity and the snow pack in the Sierras is at record levels. Does that mean a mass migration to CA like the one in the 1930s? We have a depression and drought at the same time.
But is it GW or just 100 year weather events? I don't see the Joads packing up anytime soon.
In any event, it looks like CAFE and CFL bulbs have already made an impact:
Global Warming Recovery May Be Faster than Anticipated (softpedia.com)
Maybe after the ice ages trees sprout and gobble up the excess CO2. I am just not buying into the theories that man is the major culprit. I have no doubt that the industrial revolution has changed the planet. Just not sure it is more than a few percentage points. We know it had to be MUCH hotter for the Arctic to be tropical. Palm trees were growing and mastodons were roaming the Arctic Circle sometime in the past.
As far as CAFE, that to me is a smokescreen, so convoluted and politicized, that it is just a joke to most people. No doubt CFL bulbs have cut energy consumption. At what cost to human life? That is yet to be seen.
Gas consumption is interesting. I remember checking the mileage on my 52 Studebaker V8 on a regular basis back in the early 1960s. It got consistent 21 MPG on my 42 mile roundtrip to work in downtown San Diego. I don't remember gas being a big part of my budget. Even though I was only making $62.50 per week at the phone company.
“We still don’t know exactly where this carbon went, but the evidence suggests it was a much more dynamic response than traditional models represent,” adds Bowen, who also holds an appointment as a member of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center.
This is exactly why I keep saying it is foolish of scientists to state that they have a firm understanding of mankind's effect on the climate. This is a huge error in the climate model that's referred to - 67% !! not just off 5 or 10% !
To base public policy on incomplete research and errant models is foolish. If you read any books on different eras in science, you will see a trend/pattern - every generation feels they have reached the pinnacle of knowledge! they want to wrap up their field, and declare "we now know everything about ______ (astronomy, particle physics, climate, anthropology ...). It is a flaw in human nature.
And there are always people from the days of witch doctors to our modern politicians who are only too happy to embrace that supposed truth and use it to control the populace in some false crusade.
BTW - I did not enjoy the snow yesterday that fell. I see no problem with any warming if there is. Warming could not come quick enough, before I move to somewhere tropical.
They also plowed the sidewalk along the shore - of the sand. Lots of walkers and bikers out, and we had a nice long stroll on the beach.
My GW activity this week was getting a programmable thermostat installed. Was always forgetting to turn the heat down before heading up the stairs to bed.
Did I post the link about Costco selling several solar kits now? They are about half of what my off-grid friend in Taos paid for his, but his price included installation. $3,600 to $18k. (link).