Are automobiles a major cause of global warming?

stever

Well, we did just live through the warmest decade on record. Also the highest level of tropical hurricane activity. Fingers point toward GW as the cause. (Yahoo)

Seems like a pizza night.

houdini1

Is that the same GM (Government Motors) whose CEO, Barrack Obama is trying to get rid of oil and coal so we will buy his Volt ?

Gosh, I wonder why he would issue an order like that !!

gagrice

$15,000 wouldn't cover the Starbucks bill for the Institute would be my guess. I am Surprised Government Motors would hand out any money to a Conservative cause. Must have been an over sight by Obama's GM Czar.

Has BEST been peer reviewed, or just bits and pieces thrown to the dogs in the MSM?

And if in the end we are in a warming period, so what? We as humans either adapt or die. I cannot see how handing large wads of US tax payers cash to foreign dictators by the UN will change anything. If anything the research and debate has proven very little about the past, present or future climate variations. We are in one of the coldest Springs here in CA. Our daytime highs are well below normal. My SIL in Indiana says he is enjoying the warm Spring without the high cost of CA living. I am demanding a refund on my exorbitant Property taxes. :shades:

stever

Sometimes stuff works in strange ways.

"The Chevy Volt is a sales success for GM, just not in the United States. The Opel Ampera, a re-badged version of the Volt sold in Europe, is on its way to meeting GM’s sales targets for this year. Chevy has shifted so few Volts this year that it had to shut down production to get rid of overstock, so why is the same car so popular in Europe?"

Strong demand for the Chevy Volt's European cousin (Yahoo)

Gagrice, you can find "complete data and software code" over in Berkeley at the BEST website. Remember that these guys have "not addressed issues of the tree ring and proxy data, climate model accuracy, or human attribution." If they do publish data saying GW is man made, the Koch brothers will really be bummed. :-)

gagrice

This to me is a key statement from the BEST website:

It appears that Berkeley Earth's analysis shows a temperature rise greater than others had previously published. Is this so? Can you explain?

Berkeley Earth has not yet begun to analyze ocean temperatures (we hope to do this in the next year), so the plotted data is land only. Land warms more than oceans, so when we include the ocean we expect the total global warming to be less.

I think many have bought into the myth that somehow the Koch Klan are our enemies. They provide 1000s of great jobs to Americans. They provide vital services to all of US. They are demonized by the Left because they will not fall in line with the Limousine Liberals that control this country. The Soros, Bloomberg, Gates, Kennedy's, Corzine etc are the true enemies of America.

stever

Ya, they just verified all the "heat island" readings and decided that the denier's claims that the weather readings weren't accurate were wrong.

The Kochs got flack because they gave the money to a known denier scientist. Just poetic justice that the first findings supported the GW crowd. And it was good to see that Mueller didn't try to hide the results they came up with, even though he didn't think the data was right when they first started plowing through the studies.

gagrice

Was Mueller an AGW denier or skeptic? There is a World of difference. I have never denied that climate changes. I am still very skeptical that man is a major cause of the warming trends. I am more convinced that coal generation can cause cooling.

For the MSM to spew out that BEST says GW is fact before the ocean temps are included is what I despise about the whole AGW cult. They have used half truths and bald faced lies to push their AGW Political agenda.

stever

What's funny is that the Real Science website still thinks Mueller is a denier even after publishing the first BEST study.

In the end, the data will out.

gagrice

Real Science is a new one for me. It all makes my headache. Got to get out and do some yard work. Another cold day in So CA. Barely hit 61 yesterday unless you go by the official RAWS POC temps. Should be high 70s this time of year. Probably due to fact I have only driven my Sequoia once since a trip to Phoenix at Thanksgiving. Need to get out and burn some fossil fuel and warm this place up.

houdini1

The Volt will be a hit in the U.S. if Obama is re-elected and we have $9.00 gasoline like they do in Europe. That is the plan...but hopefully, instead, he will be enjoying those extended unemployment benefits next year.

gagrice

Spring Snow in So CA is not a sign of Global Warming.

stever

You call that snow?

Looks like your dryer vent blew a hose and dumped lint on your patio. :P

gagrice

We got almost this much 4 years ago as well. They got almost 10 inches of snow a 1000 ft higher than we are. We are right at 2000 ft elevation. Today it barely hit 55 degrees. Normal is 75+ this time of year. It's an ice age coming on US.

carnaught

......as has been pointed out, we all know that weather is not the same as climate.

stever

But weather extremes have been attributed to ....

monksterman

Your last paragraph I find to be an excellent point! Never thought of it in that way, but you're right.

I mean, we're still a capatalistic country. At least they provide legit jobs in an industry under attack from the administration, and as far as I can tell, haven't participated in taking down countries via currency manipulation & speculation a la Soros.

gagrice

Hardly a day goes by when some city is losing money trying to keep up with the trend toward alternatives. Not to mention our Federal government handing out $billions to losing alternative ventures. When will fiscal responsibility be used in these decisions? We the tax payers are getting the royal shaft all in the name of the GREEN AGENDA.

NV Energy windmill program generates rebates, little electricity


Solar Company Seeks Bankruptcy Despite $2.1 Billion Govt Loan

$90 million spent and nothing to show for it. This is getting to be the trend in alternative energy projects where the Feds are involved. They guarantee loans with one hand and block projects with the other.

Solar Trust listed assets of up to $10 million and debts of up to $100 million. The company's two main assets are the Blythe project and a proposed 500-megawatt Palen solar project in Riverside County. The Palen project 10 miles east of Desert Center hasn't gotten Bureau of Land Management approval.

carnaught

But weather extremes have been attributed to ....

"Man", if you believe Al Gore.

monksterman

Not to get political, buuutttt.....(WTH okay it's political!!! )
I think there's a pattern here. Let's see, all pomp and circumstance, "...this plant will ....." Nice video promo tour on the nightly news....then in the not too distant future: Bankrupcy proceedings. :mad:

And the heirarchy (read big political donors; wink, wink; nod, nod) walk away with huge salaries (read your and my tax dollars) scott free.

Who the hell is writing these contracts, giving the $$ with not strings attached and no performance clauses?!?

That would never fly in corporate world, nor pass the smell test. Folks would go to jail.

Where's the MSM coverage of the outrage?!?

Just sayin'

gagrice

Not to get political, but the buck goes through the WH. Look no further than (high gas prices wanted) Chu our DOE director. The whole Green Agenda is a sham and a scam. When they did not get Carbon Tax they went around the other way to pay back their benefactors.

stever

lol, you don't think the Koch brothers funding of BEST wasn't political? At least they were actually funding some science instead of hiring lobbyists or pollsters.

Several carbon dioxide stories were in the news today. The most notable thing about them were the cool pics of ice cores. (sciencemag.org). Another good one at the BBC.

houdini1

Wow, those dinosaurs were passing an awful lot of gas back then. We all know that CO2 comes mostly from animal farts and automobiles, and autos were fairly scarce back then.

Plus, do we just have their word for it? Has all this new info been peer reviewed? Have these guys shared all their data with others...or are they still scheming to hide parts of it, or simply destroying any data they don't want seen?

Gimme a break. Show me where the pattern of deception has been broken. Their past lies and deceptive practices have cast doubts on anything they come up with IMO. A little too convenient for me.

Another thing this study proves, if we can believe it, is that the widespread use of fossil fuels had nothing to do with this huge warming trend. Hmmm, maybe it was just a natural occurring event.

My bet is that eventually this study will be found to be full of flaws, just like all the others. Once again they managed to prove just what they set out to prove, that they were right after all, rather than just doing a blind study to see what they came up with. Laughable.

stever

Until the Time Magazine "little ice age" story, this one has legs. We'll be posting GW study links in here for the next decade.

The upshot of the current link, per one talking head in the BBC link, is "although climate might seem quite steady to us because it's been relatively steady for the last few thousand years, it is actually capable of undergoing big changes."

gagrice

I don't think many would argue that climate changes radically over 100s or 1000s of years. What I don't buy is man being the MAJOR cause of the changes we are seeing over the last couple hundred years. And the USA should pony up $trillions to the UN for mitigation of our possible impact on the climate. We as humans are more likely to survive a warming trend than another Ice Age. The simple solution to the warming is to build more coal powered generators. It has been proven that SO2 will help block the sun and cool the planet.

Problem solved....

KISS is always my motto....

stever

How about over decades?

Offsetting CO2 could create a big industry. (newscientist.com). Just think about the jobs.

gagrice

One thousand times bigger than the biggest industry on earth. That would probably be oil industry. Say it is $5 trillion per year. These fellows are saying 1000 times $5 trillion per year. Added to World debt that has many countries on the brink of financial ruin. I am not sure conjecture about CO2 being a problem could even justify 1/1000th of the cost of the largest industry. It all seems so silly with the myriad problems facing the World we would try to change the climate. We should start with something simple like teaching the poor and needy how to be self sustaining. Or ending all the conflicts around the World. Work up to changing the climate maybe in a couple hundred years. If we don't kill each other off before then. That is a much more pressing issue than swamping a few luxury villas along the coasts of the World.

carnaught

It would seem that you're going to kill an awful lot of plants/vegetation.

kernick

I think the main point you get from that article is that while the science exists to remove CO2 from the atmosphere using filters and such, the effort to do so would be ridiculously high.

From a scientific point -of-view the problems are not $$ to build such an industry. But the mere construction of such an industry, and to run the equipment to do so would in itself use so much fuel, that there would be no gain.

I would think that in order to have an industry that could make a net-reduction to CO2 in the atmosphere, you'd need an excess of some non-CO2-producing energy source. Do we have an excess? So when we have more solar, wind, nuclear, or other exotic energy source than mankind needs, ... well, no need to even finish that.

Until the relatively-taboo topic of Overpopulation is tackled, there will be no resolution to any environmental problem. I remember when the world population hit 4B. Now it's 7B+? So everyone would have had to cut back 3/7, just so we didn't increase resource usage.

Oh, and then every governments' goal is to gropw the economy. And modernize.

So really I don't see how any progress can be made when 1) population is growing, and 2) governments want growth (which however you slice it, uses natural resources).

What do you think the world looks like when we hit 10B? or 15B? people. And everyone wants food, electricity, hot water and a vehicle.

gagrice

What do you think the world looks like when we hit 10B? or 15B? people. And everyone wants food, electricity, hot water and a vehicle.

I wonder how much more CO2 people are exhaling. Is that the increase scientist see. So many variables to consider. For instance Brazil keeps burning off more land to plant sugar Cane to make ethanol. One scientific report posted here claims it takes 99 years of raising sugar cane for ethanol to mitigate the GHG from the initial clearing and burning. How much pollution and GHG is put out every time they burn off the sugar cane prior to harvesting? Add to that the pollution to make all our alternative solar and wind generators. I don't see any good solution. I don't see any good reason to hand more money over to corrupt governments including our own to experiment.

stever

relatively-taboo topic of Overpopulation

Good point; don't hear much from the ZPG crowd these days.

houdini1

Dry ice is essentially a solid form of CO2. A lot of it is locked up in various cold regions of the world.

There has to be some type of heat source applied to the dry ice (solid CO2) before it turns into a gas that is released into the atmosphere. These brilliant scientists are trying to say that the opposite occurs. That when the CO2 is released (how?) it causes the heat to occur.

I think they know better, but are trying to confuse the gullible with a chicken and egg scenario. What comes first, heat, or converted CO2 ?

gagrice

ZPG folks are the same Limousine Liberals that want to allow open borders and amnesty for all. It does not take any kind of education to see it is the immigrants both legal and illegal that are having most of the babies. Most are either Muslim or Catholic with a real problem using BC.

New Study: Illegal Immigrant Birthrate at 340,000


So much for ZPG in the USA:

In 2002, immigrant women (legal and illegal) from the top-10 immigrant-sending countries had 2.9 children on average, compared to a fertility rate of 2.3 children in their home countries -- a 23-percent difference.

Among Mexican immigrants in the United States, for example, fertility averages 3.5 children per woman compared to 2.4 children per women in Mexico. Among Chinese immigrants, fertility is 2.3 in the United States compared to 1.7 in China. Immigrants from Canada have 1.9 children compared to 1.5 children in Canada.

stever

Yeah, but all the reports I've ever seen say that the birth rate falls by the second generation.

Multitasking and missed most of the story, but NPR has a blurb about climate change and how farmers in Iowa are planting already. Something like a month ahead of schedule.

Kirstie_H

Same here in Missouri. My neighboring farmer finished plowing over the weekend, well ahead of normal. I'm putting my peppers in the ground today. No danger of heavy frost. In truth, I could have put them out several weeks ago and been fine. The cherry tomato plant that I grew over the winter is out on the deck and has some not-yet-ripe fruit on it.

stever

It's spitting snow here today so we're tempering Spring fever as much as we can.

gagrice

Just came across this great site. It brought back my annoyance with the city of Lake Havasu, AZ in the 1980s. I had a wonderful hillside lot facing the lake. I wanted to build an underground house. The City was not interested in the new technologies available to build such a home. I eventually gave up the idea and sold my lots and house and went to Hawaii. They seem to be gaining popularity in 1st World countries. As we slide down the slope of ignorance in this country. Thanks to over regulated government agencies.

http://www.recyclebank.com/live-green/4-amazing-underground-dwellings/#.T4mhYdkf- 8nN

stever

You need to head back to NM and check out the earthships near Taos. Not my cup of tea, but some are better looking than others. Put the parking under the sod too. :-)

I Know It's Here Somewhere (WSJ)

"planting enough trees to shade 50% of the surface-lot area [of parking lots] in the U.S. would remove 1.2 million tons of carbon dioxide per year from the atmosphere and return 822,000 tons of oxygen. Unfortunately, he also estimates that the area currently shaded by trees to be around 2%. That's a lot of missing trees. Landscape design requirements for surface lots are typically weak and often left to developers' most minimal—that is, cheapest—interpretation."

gagrice

Not only is our health care provider the best model in the industry. They are also green minded. Our Kaiser clinic has just finished a solar project that covers the outside parking lot and the top floor of the parking garage. I would imagine the 1 mw of power saves them a lot of electricity cost. Not to mention the gas it saves cooling down an overheated car parked in the sun.

hoosiergrandad

Planting trees is usually a good idea ( I've planted hundreds), but in parking lots you'd need " No pigeons allowed" signs.

gagrice

Looking at the solar panels laying flat on the parking lot. I wonder how much bird poop accumulates? How do you get up to clean them off? I like parking under the shade of a tree while I go into the store. Just hate the white blotches you get from time to time.

I have planted a lot of trees over the years as well. It was nice to see the blue spruce forest I planted in 1979 on a 2009 trip back to my farm in MN. I was going to raise Christmas trees and planted 3000 trees. Then in 1980 went back to work in Alaska. So the trees just grew and created a rather dense forest 30 years later. I am sure it is a good place for the birds and deer. And probably more than enough to mitigate my 5,000 miles a year driving.

gagrice

ECO Fascism is alive and well in the USA.

Writing for Forbes Magazine, climate change alarmist Steve Zwick calls for skeptics of man-made global warming to be tracked, hunted down and have their homes burned to the ground, yet another shocking illustration of how eco-fascism is rife within the environmentalist lobby.

http://www.infowars.com/climate-alarmist-calls-for-burning-down-skeptics-homes/

stever

Sounds like his analogy backfired on him. Did get him a bit of media attention though (just in time for Earth Day).

houdini1

How long do we have to wait to see which side is right? A couple of million years maybe?

If the warmists are wrong will they pay back all the money they wasted? Fair is fair.

stever

Ohhh, good question.

Some ideas in this MSNBC story - 8 Ways Global Warming Is Already Changing the World.

How about in 8 years? We could peg it to corn prices.

Warming set to make corn prices pop (france24.com)

In the polls:

Americans connect dots between global warming and extreme weather (Washington Post)

For Earth Day I drove an hour to hike an hour. And had a hamburger steak for lunch. But we did walk to the movie last night.

fintail

I wonder how much he practices what he preaches regarding his residence, vehicles owned, and personal hobbies and habits. I bet he doesn't back it up.

So now we only have to wait 8 years, funny. When we have cold weather, it is just weather - not climate. But when we have warm weather, it's the end of the world. And now a link to a funny poll - a poll given to a group of which maybe 95% has no education in meteorology past 9th grade earth science. Their opinion counts.

It's all just a one worlder handicap to help dumb down first world nations a little more.

stever

Looks like your options are zero years (already happening), eight years, or maybe a million or three.

What, you don't think a guy who used to trade futures and now op-eds for Forbes lives in a 700 sq. ft. efficiency and has a Leaf?

There's a pretty gung ho woman I run into now and then. A bit on the green preachy side but she hasn't bugged me yet. When she does, I'm going to ask her why she has five kids.

gagrice

I see Obama is advertising on WUWT.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/19/climate-craziness-of-the-week-forbes-steve- -zwick-loses-it/

stever

Well, loading a bunch of ads isn't very green since it's takes electricity to send those packets down the pike, so I use ad blocking software on most sites (ahem, most everywhere but here) and don't see it. :shades:

With persistent cookies and clear gifs, most ads are targeted these days, so I guess the marketers have your number, lol.

gagrice

That ain't right. The last thing I want to see when I pull up a website is that goofy looking Michelle plugging husband.

fintail

I'm voting for the latter.

I am sure that "author" has consumed far more resources than the average first world dweller....and now he is gaining undeserved gold by preaching against it. Funny how that works.

Oh yeah, on Earth Day I drove my hybrid...it burns both gas and oil :shades: