He probably studied pure science and applied science very little and decided this would be a good way to get a Nobel Prize
If memory serves me, Al Gore majored in Journalism. That is the perfect course of study for someone that wants to sway people with words. That he has done quite well. Even bamboozled the Nobel and Oscar people with his line of BS (baseless science).
I think some people on this board and other places need a little basic info as to what "Global Warming" means and what it "does NOT mean."
It MEANS that there are forces at work, man-made and natural, which are driving weather patterns toward a WARMER TREND overall, across the entire planet as a whole.
It does NOT MEAN we will see the end of all blizzards, cold snaps, abnormally cold weather, snow, sleet, ice storms, Florida Citrus Freezes, etc. etc.
There will still be cold places on this planet. Places who do not normally get ice storms will still occasionally get them. West Texas will get snow in April. Florida will see Freezes in early January. The Northwest USA will get 100-inch snowstorms.
Global warming does not mean the end of cold planet-wide.
What it means is that for example:
In 2007, every single U.S. state except for Texas will be warmer than average for the year.
How much automobiles contribute to that, if at all, is the debate here.
driving weather patterns toward a WARMER TREND overall, across the entire planet as a whole.
And with the examples you listed, that is not a good thing? If many of these areas saw a 2-3F increase that wouldn't be good? So if my area now has -10 to 95F temp. range, I shouldn't want that range to go up to -7 to 98F? Certainly I do. if i can have less days with snow, less ice, lower heating bills, less days below 0F, I want that.
How much automobiles contribute to that, if at all, is the debate here. Well it's not a debate but a fact that transportation as a whole is putting about 20-25% of the man-made CO2 into the atmosphere. That includes planes, trains, ships, trucks, buses, and cars. CO2 though is only 1 of other GHG's so what % CO2 is of the GHG's - water vapor and methane being others; well it only lowers the effect of cars.
So in summary our personal autos are only a very small part of any GW going on. And I know people don't like change, but change is naturally ever-present, and I personally feel GW would be in the right direction to a more fruitful environment overall. Yes we are talking averages - some species lose, but others gain.
Apparently, neighbors of Leo diCaprio are suing him for building a huge b-ball court in his back yard, and get this - it was because he bulldozed a ton of brush to build it.
Mr. Holier than Thou, driving his Prius around town, de-forested his own back yard to build a court.
In your example of your personal colder area going up 3 degrees? There are certainly a lot of people in the USA who would DEARLY wish that would not happen. Myself here in Phoenix being one of them.
Our hottest day last year was 116 degrees on July 4th. Would we want that to be 119 degrees? I think the answer is obvious.
Do we want the ocean levels to rise and obliterate literally trillions of dollars of oceanside development in the USA and other countries? Of course not.
The problem is, we can't tell Global Warming, " Hey, we want North Dakota to be warmer and Phoenix to be cooler." We will get what we get.
And so far, all the recent data I have seen says that what we are likely to get is not going to be good.
I am surprised he got past the bulldozing part before they shot him down. A fellow I met here in San Diego wanted to build a tennis court on part of his 3 acre estate. The homeowners association got an injunction to stop him. He had all the required permits from the County. He just did not get permission from the neighbors. This was in Rancho Sante Fe one of the areas that got burnt out in the recent fire. The environmentalists have a stranglehold on homeowners cutting any brush that could be habitat for endangered species. Now the county is sending out notices to cut brush that could be a fire hazard.
As far as De Caprio. If he has been vocal against cutting native brush, shame on him.
There are certainly a lot of people in the USA who would DEARLY wish that would not happen.
Yes I knew you mentioned Phoenix before. It is not surprising your personal interest is involved. But question why you and many others decided to build up that area when it was very similiar the last 100 years? Is that my fault you make a bad decision? Am I going to feel bad for people who all of a sudden decide to build in Death Valley? I think it's a horrible decision to keep building in SF for earthquake reasons, also! And I don't agree with rebuilding below sea-level in New Orleans These things make no sense to me.
There are many cities and countries much closer to the equator than Phoenix in the world that are habitable, so you are looking at an extreme situation, and then you decide to move there, and then realize that maybe that area should be left to the desert.
Do we want the ocean levels to rise and obliterate literally trillions of dollars of oceanside development in the USA and other countries? Again a very bad decision to build along the coast long-term. People don't think long-term though, want to enjoy the ocean, and figure they can make some $ by reselling in 5 or 10 years. Coastlines have always changed and been heavily damaged by storms.
kernick says, "But question why you and many others decided to build up that area when it was very similiar the last 100 years? Is that my fault you make a bad decision? Am I going to feel bad for people who all of a sudden decide to build in Death Valley? I think it's a horrible decision to keep building in SF for earthquake reasons, also! And I don't agree with rebuilding below sea-level in New Orleans These things make no sense to me"
By that logic, we should all be living in Hawaii, where the temps are virtually 75 degrees all year and the hurricanes are "relatively" rare and virtually all other weather disasters are also rare.
Every USA location has some sort of weather downside. You can't go living your life and basing your locale on the area which will be "least dangerous weather-wise" to you. If that were a good policy we would all be living in places where there are no weather problems AT ALL. Does such a place exist? I don't know of any.
As far as defending Phoenix from a weather-related standpoint: we have VERY little to deal with other than the heat here.
No tornadoes - or at least they are VERY VERY rare and we do not have a "tornado season." No earthquakes - again, we have had them, but we are not along a major fault line and are not in danger of a seriously damaging event. No hurricanes - the most we ever have from a hurricane is a little rain that makes it this far up. No snow storms or ice storms - lowest recorded official temp is 17 degrees above zero. No Flooding - we have middling-to-mildly-serious flooding in some areas on occasion but nothing that would cause millions and millions of dollars of damages.
The worst thing that happens here is the "rainy season" in late summer that might produce a couple of dust storms and maybe a power outage from high-ish winds.
Were you living in Anchorage when the security guard at Alascom shot himself in the foot? He was on mids during a Union negotiations. The last person to see him said he was sitting at the front desk with his feet propped up playing with his revolver. I guess a few minutes later they hear sirens and an ambulance came in the gate. They found him holding his foot with a big hole in it. He could have killed someone. I don't remember the rent a cop service involved.
I think I would take the solar facility. Though I don't think it will ever be a large part of our energy.
Every USA location has some sort of weather downside.
We're not talking about every sort of weather problem. We're talking about heat or temperature. And you and others in phoenix are living in the wrong place if the temp. is going up. You are living at the edge of what is tolerable.
But many of the rest of us; the vast majority of the U.S. is not living on the edge of the high temperature extreme. Most of the country and all of Canada would certainly not mind 99% of the days being a few degrees warmer. Even in your Arizona, you can find much cooler places, like up towards Flagstaff.
I think some people on this board and other places need a little basic info as to what "Global Warming" means and what it "does NOT mean."
The problem is that there is not a single meaning to the term "global warming." What we are hearing about mostly is the political meaning of the term in which mankind is inherently evil and must be punished with taxation and sacrifice. A more refined political definition is that global warming is "climate change" to allow for the fact that global warming doesn't quite fit with the scientific facts and so, for example, the record cold in the southern hemisphere for the past three seasons is included. This still allows the possibility that you are inherently evil.
The most meaningful and accurate definition of the term global warming has to do with the fact that climate change has been occurring for a billion years and that we are in an interglacial period. The pleistocene ice age is in temporary remission (see Frozen Earth by Doug Macdougall, e.g.) and the long term trends are toward a colder planet. Perhaps we should be driving more SUVs to delay or prevent the planet from becoming a snowball again?
problem is thatthere are a lot of well meaning people who are quite ignorant about the planet except the blaring headlines they see from Al Gore...the planet has always experienced CHANGE, as nothing is ever static...
The mountains in Arizona were once underwater, hence the stratified layers laid down over millions of years...but, who knows how long it actually took for the earth to push those mountains up from the surface???...traumatic events often happen quickly, such as earthquakes and tsunamis and volcanoes...
We like things as they are, but nature likes thing to change...we may note the loss of various species, simply because we don't see them anymore...but the opposite, the creation of new species, we may never notice, simply because we do not know what to look for...
The Ice Age is the perfect example...those who now fear global warming would literally, if they were alive back then, be trying to STOP the warming, which melted the glaciers and gave us many rivers and probably raised the level of the oceans...who knows, the Continental Shelf may have been completely exposed years ago, but we weren't here to see it, so what we see now is "normal" to us...
Imagine glaciers covering North America down to Mexico, no Rocky Mountains, and the coastlines of Atlantic and Pacific are a few hundred miles east and west of where they are now...that COULD have been normal back then, and the Beautiful Pacific Coast Highway may have been hundreds of miles from the coast...
Just because it inconveniences us does not mean that things aren't happening exactly as they should...
With an obvious exception...while man made global warming is a hoax, we obviously should not be spewing garbage and waste into our waterways...not because of any climate change, but because we have to drink that water...Yet, even after all the pollution of the Hudson River for many years, once we stopped, the river has purged itself and much of it is drinkable...and, while I do not advocate throwing old tires into the Hudson, given enough time, Nature would have cleansed itself anyway, just not in time for Mankind to drink it...
Last thought: speaking of pollution...doesn't the blowing off of one volcano spew enough crap into the air within seconds that is more than Man could spew into the air within decades???...what do environmentalists do when a volcano blows, call Congress to outlaw volcanoes???...blame George Bush because they are too stupid to do anything else???...did they blame Carter when Mt St Helens blew in 1979???
Just remember this: before you EVER listen to ANY person who calls himself an environmentalist, be sure to ask to see their medical record...they are probably taking Valium or Lithium, and their brain function and sanity should ALWAYS be questioned...
but is there an irony that you are in charge of the SUVs discussion and suggest that more driving of SUVs could be what we need!!!
LoL! Good point. But seriously, I don't drive an SUV and probably never will unless I acquire a real need for one. Obviously, my SUV comment was intended as a humorous note and I'm glad you appreciated it.
There are many good reasons to reduce CO2 emissions. I just don't think that "global warming" is one of them. Despite the grand hyperbole, the science just isn't there yet and I think it will be a mistake to take drastic political action based on weak data and dubious computer simulations.
Speaking of science, has anyone ever compared the amount of CO2 put out by your average volcano with the amount put out by cars? I seem to remember reading that the amount of greenhouse gas put out by a modest volcano in one day was equal to the out put of all the cars in the world for decades.
Perhaps someone smarter than I could look that up.
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
Speaking of Hawaii and volcanos. Today marks the 25th year of steady volcanic action from Kilauea.
We report a new CO2 emission rate of 8,500 tons/day (t/d) for the summit of Kilauea Volcano,
I think that is equal to about 1000 SUVs CO2 output for a year. When Al baby finds out he will be over looking to sell some Carbon Credits to Pele.. :shades:
A little more data on volcano emissions for Al Gore to contemplate. If you have spent a lot of time in Kona Hawaii as I have you can attest to the VOG that is blown around the island from the Volcano. It is sometimes worse than living in San Bernardino. Not very often though.
Anyone who has stood downwind of Kilauea’s vents, and sometimes even people who live in Honolulu, 250 miles away, know first-hand how these emissions can affect air quality and life on the regional scale. It’s a fact that Kilauea has been releasing more than twice the amount of noxious sulfur dioxide gas (SO2) as the single dirtiest power plant on the U.S. mainland.
Gas studies at volcanoes worldwide have helped volcanologists tally up a global volcanic CO2 budget in the same way that nations around the globe have cooperated to determine how much CO2 is released by human activity through the burning of fossil fuels. Our studies show that globally, volcanoes on land and under the sea release a total of about 200 million tonnes of CO2 annually.
We will simply set fines in the billions of dollars and mail them to each volcano that erupts...then, each volcano must take a course in political correctness and diversity sensitivity...if they refuse to do that, they will be shut down permanently...
Why do I have to think of all the answers while the rest of you just waste time with questions???...that is why I am the problem solver... :P :shades: :confuse:
You guys are killing me with natural examples. I did like the humor. Just because a Valcano, does it naturally does not mean we as humans should just not give a rat. :confuse:
We should be concerned about our environment. It needs to be balanced with reason. Just as we were discussing the Energy bill and the NO incandescent light bulb issue. We are just moving the pollution to China and all the jobs along with it. Making CFLs with mercury in China then shipping back to the USA is not a reasonable solution to our energy problems. We need to come up with a safe energy efficient light bulb that can be Made in the USA. This Congress is owned by big business and the environmental kooks.
I seem to remember reading that the amount of greenhouse gas put out by a modest volcano in one day was equal to the out put of all the cars in the world for decades.
That may be true but it is also true that significant volcanic eruptions occur only once every few decades or so while we we drive our vehicles, heat our homes, run our factories and so on every minute of every day without interruption. Some estimates indicate that mankind puts about 100 times the amount of CO2 into the atmosphere as do volcanoes (10 billion tons vs. 100 million tons), I'm not sure of those figures regarding man's output of "greenhouse gases" but here's one source addressing volcanic emissions: Effects of Volcanic Gases.
The article does correctly indicate that the effects of volcanoes on the atmosphere are much more complex than just a simple CO2 inventory, however, and so other emissions such as sulfur dioxide, chlorine gas and so on matter. I will note that the same caveat applies generally to the notion of anthropogenic climate change: focussing on the CO2 inventory can be misleading, and misguided and probably leads to incorrect conclusions.
Agree but it sounded like many in here don't care about the enviroment thus we should just run straight pipes and take off the filters on our diesel engines. :surprise:
Simple human nature to want more power. Whether it is in a car or over your fellow man. CA has no emissions tests for diesel PU trucks so people do what gives them more power. Same goes for all the tuners with the rice rockets running all over the place. They put the smog crap back on for the test. Then off it comes for two years.
An interesting story of how a supposedly great idea isn't; when the reality of actually building it and dealing with government bureaucracy and regulations screws it up. Note that the project is being mainly funded by the government; if it was a great idea you'd see all private money being thrown at it.
I get the impression that some people 'round chere seem to have this sentiment:
"Since other, non-man-made events contribute more to global warming than man EVER could, let's just abandon our human efforts to pollute less and stop trying to find solutions to our own global warming impact."
If you have that attitude, shame on you !!!
Man can only do what man CAN DO, but to do nothing AT ALL is ridiculous !!!
Lots of research gets funded by the feds. Some good, some not so good. You may have heard of something called ARPANET that the DOD funded.
"The development of the Internet demonstrates that federal support for research, applied at the right place and right time, can be extremely effective." (link)
Some of this energy research may save our bacon in 40 years.
btw, I know from firsthand experience that the DOE can waste money. I got to ride along to a DOE sponsored conference 15 years ago or so. The Holiday Inn didn't have enough space I suppose so they wound up putting everyone up at the Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City. :sick:
Wouldn't surprise me to see some pols hand in this decision that appears to be jumping the gun on the DOE or overruling them entirely. Who represents central Illinois anyway, Obama? Durbin?
I have a mailbox on carspace???...where, when, how, I ain't seen nothin' before...and how do you know how to get into it if I don't even know that I have it???
In the gray header bar on the top of this page, at the left it says "Carspace" and going across near the right side it says mailbox.
It operates like a limited web-based mail program. I don't recall if I had to do setup. I think you can set it to receive only mail from other carspace addresses or receive mail from everywhere.
Wander around there. Also it looks like your Carspace area isn't set up. You have the ability to put a picture up, receive friends, put in pictures in photo albums and use those pictures in albums to put into posts here in the discussions.
You also can run your own blog there and bunches of things I haven't done. I was reluctant to fiddle with any of these things at first. And then one-by-one I started using them. Neat.
That mailbox in the gray bar shows a number after it if you have messages waiting. You can access the mailbox from the gray bar words or from the CarSpace page.
Isn't technology wonderful? :sick:
>Am I the only one in the dark on this???
Nope.
To send or get mail at carspace it's the username plus the "at" sign and carspace.com
Also at the bottom right corner of the page is a help button/hot link. Go there and there are bunches of questions with answers about how to do and how to use things here on Edmunds.
larsb: "Since other, non-man-made events contribute more to global warming than man EVER could, let's just abandon our human efforts to pollute less and stop trying to find solutions to our own global warming impact."
If you have that attitude, shame on you !!!
Man can only do what man CAN DO, but to do nothing AT ALL is ridiculous !!!
Or maybe what upsets you is that some people have looked at all the evidence, and decided that the verdict on man-made global warming is definitely not settled, and aren't going to accept policies or regulations that could be ruinous in the long run, and may even backfire.
Realistically, as energy costs rise, people will take steps on their own to reduce energy consumption. (From what I can see, energy costs will continue to rise.)
They may not take the steps YOU want them to take (they may keep the Tahoe, but drive it less by consolidating trips), and they may not be the subject of fawning stories in People or USA Today about how they are jetting to conferences on global warming or making their 20,000 square foot house more energy efficient, but that doesn't mean that they aren't taking action.
grbeck, do you have kids? If so, here is an analogy you might understand:
You think your daughter is getting sick because of something you serve at home all the time, say for example a certain brand of peanut butter. You have narrowed it down to five foods, and you are not sure what foods to change to solve the problem.
Does it make more sense to "stop using all five foods completely" to eliminate the problem immediately, or does it make more sense to stop using the foods one at a time over a period of a few days and see your daughter suffer the whole time until the final culprit is established?
Which avenue makes more sense?
I think most reasonable people would say that stopping all five of the suspect foods at the same time would be the best option. Even though you are not EXACTLY CERTAIN which food is causing the problem, by attacking the problem with multiple points of logic, you can eliminate the problem more quickly.
Same with Global Warming.
Although we do not know FOR CERTAIN that man-made pollution is a cause, does it not make more logical sense to take the data that SOME OF THE BRIGHTEST MINDS IN THE WORLD have determined JUST MIGHT BE exacerbating the problem and make use of that data immediately, instead of waiting for a full, definitive verdict?
Even if the data is flawed in the long run, nothing can be harmed by encouraging people to use less fuel and less electricity and to pollute less and to reduce their own personal carbon footprint.
I have personally been recycling and conserving for most of my adult life ( after age 25 when you really hit your best reasoning capability and your brain fully matures ) and I think, no, I KNOW for a fact that my conservation and recycling has been beneficial to the planet.
And most of all, it's been beneficial to my own mental health. There is a definite emotional satisfaction with knowing you are doing the right thing.
I have personally been recycling and conserving for most of my adult life ( after age 25 when you really hit your best reasoning capability and your brain fully matures ) and I think, no, I KNOW for a fact that my conservation and recycling has been beneficial to the planet.
How can you be so sure of yourself? It is a FACT that recycling of many scrap materials is more energy intensive than using raw materials. Energy used is mostly fossil fuel burnt in the World. What is saved from the landfill could be polluting the air.
Not everyone agrees that slowing the growth is the right thing. The new Prime Minister of Australia after promising to sign Kyoto has had second thoughts. He was not told that it would raise the cost of electricity for example, by 25% in his country. That one thing could throw Australia into recession. Is it worth it to cause recession on the possibility that we are causing climate change? I don't think so.
We could save a lot of energy and trees by banning newspapers and catalogs. It is all on the Internet. Cancel your paper and save a tree
It is a FACT that recycling of many scrap materials is more energy intensive than using raw materials.
I'd be curious to hear of specific examples (link). Of course, if you are having to recycle at the curb, you aren't practicing enough conservation upstream.
Oh btw, Michael Pollan has a new book out - In Defense of Food. AKA ""edible foodlike substances."
I generally plant fruit and citrus trees for food. The juniper was our Christmas tree. They do not take a lot of water to maintain. I do not plant eucalyptus or pine trees here. They grow fast but serve little else, and are messy. My new place has some beautiful old live oak trees. Probably 200+ years old.
I will have to research the energy used in recycling.
DId you read Pollan's new book. Some reviewers claim it is a rehash of the Omnivore's Dilemma. It reminded me that I gave my copy away and should get another.
It takes less energy to recycle or continue using something old than to manufacture something new. You have said that many times yourself in these forums: "Keep a car 20 years instead of buying a new one."
Seems like "it would raise electricity costs 25% in my country" is a bit of the old political Rhetoric. What he more likely means is "it would cost too much and all my rich friends would lose a lot of money." Kyoto was a bad idea anyway - the USA was just one of the smart countries who stayed out of it.
We are not in a forestation shortage. More new trees and plants are being grown these days than ever before.
Recycling is a booming success and high recycling rates are achieved in many countries around the world. In Europe, for example, the recovered paper industry met the voluntary target of a 56% recycling rate by 2005.
I personally put my recycle bin on the curb about twice a month and put my garbage bin on the curb about once every 6-8 weeks. I'm not alone. Just in my little neighborhood of 83 homes, almost every blue recycle bin is on the curb every Monday morning.
I buy two newspapers every morning to bring to work for the office breakroom and they are both fully recycled after being read and enjoyed by 10-20 employees during the day. We have a recycle bin right in the breakroom that is picked up and emptied by our recycling vendor every week. Almost every used piece of paper in our company gets recycled. And all of our cardboard. And our bottles and cans.
You have yet to make the case that the Earth is "sick"; so the analogy isn't really correct. A better analogy is that the Earth's climate changes, just like the heartbeat of a person does. Sometimes the heartbeat is at 60 and sometimes it can go to 160. But it changes. Now to continue the analogy, we could say that since we are coming out of an Ice-Age and know that the Earth has been much hotter millions of years ago, we might say the earth;'s "heartbeat" now is about 90. The question we are debating here is how much man changes that heartbeat? and how much of that change is due to autos?
If you look at the amount of CO2 (only 1 of several GHG)released naturally vs. man-made, the man-made CO2 is a small amount. Of that small amount, about 20% is from transportation, and that means all transportation.
So in my estimation by mankind driving automobiles, we are changing the earth's heartbeat from 90 to about 90.1. If you want to consider all manmade CO2 emissions let's call the heartbeat then 90.4. It's a very small effect we have on the climate.
I KNOW for a fact that my conservation and recycling has been beneficial to the planet.
Wow, you're nearly omnipotent then? That kind of flies in the face of the reality that mankind is very weak, clinging precariously to life on 1 small planet - having to live within very narrow atmospheric composition and temperature ranges, and unable to travel far in space or occupy other planets, and unable to protect ourselves from the most common of space-rocks in our solar system.
Your benevolent view of nature is very Disney-like; you should read some science books instead, and learn that nature itself does not care if it pulverizes or pollutes the Earth far beyond anything humans can currently do. You do realize that nature has a very hot future in mind for the Earth, when the Sun ages and turns into a red-giant?
If so, here is an analogy you might understand ...
A fatally flawed analogy is not a compelling argument even if it is understandable. To anthropomorphize the planet is bad enough but to cast it in the form of your ailing daughter is an appeal to emotion.
Try this one on for size. A river runs through a town. The water level has fluctuated up and down for eons. You move into the town at high noon on a quiet Sunday and notice the water level is rising. You also notice that a factory further up the river is emitting particulate matter into the air.
You reason that particulate matter provides seeding for condensation thereby increasing rainfall and forcing the river's water level to rise. You get a scientifically literate buddy or two to confirm your observation. By one o'clock you're demanding the factory to be shut down based on your scientific consensus.
I'm not the one tasked with "making the case the Earth is sick." That is already done. There is no more debate about "if Global Warming is occurring" because we know it is.
What is causing the sickness is the issue at hand and what to do to help stop or slow down the problem.
All you "GW deniers" are just trying to be difficult and ignoring facts.
that global warming is actually a fact that is beyond the normal variations in the many and varied homeostasis factors in the earth. The global warming folks want to state that there definitely is and you can't prove otherwise; while in reality the global warming is not proven. It was only a short time ago the same environmental activists were pushing to effect "cures" about the coming ice age.
>All you "GW deniers" are just trying to be difficult and ignoring facts.
Sounds familiar.
>What is causing the sickness is the issue at hand and
As I said the usual logic is in error by assuming global warming to be actually occuring and to be beyond the normal rhythms of Mother Earth
What's another strange occurance is that despite the huge amounts of other pollutants from sources and carbon dioxide from other sources, the people with the wrong assumptions to their logic have the magic cure already. It's something some in the cause don't like to begin with and that's the automobile.
Odd the cure is known before the problem is known to exist.
When real climatologists start telling me that there is a problem beyond the normal variation and beyond a reasonable outlier value, then I can believe it. What we have is politicians and TV meteorologists who suddenly have great expertise in real science, not their area, and can know how to interpret and collect all the data. It's odd that ice is growing in areas while the GW folk point to areas where the ice is shrinking. What about the other; Oh, I see, it doesn't fit the cause therefore we ignore it.
Like I said - you deniers just like to be contrary. Go ahead and keep denying. That's a good way to solve a problem - ignore it and it will go away !! (Tongue only PARTIALLY in cheek.)
Global warming is proven. Google it. Now so many more deniers are coming on board and seeing the truth because they see the facts and process them and are not just trying to be cool by denying it.
The cause is not yet determined, and the SOLID 100% proof that humans are a partial cause is not yet completely scientifically established. But it will be. And even a denier thinking clearly must admit that human activity SURELY looks to be a contributor.
I know how personalities on these forums work. Some of us like to be contrary just to be contrary and to promote discussion. I'm all for that. If we all agreed 100% on all the issues, this would become a robotic and boring forum and it would be abandoned due to boredom.
Comments
If memory serves me, Al Gore majored in Journalism. That is the perfect course of study for someone that wants to sway people with words. That he has done quite well. Even bamboozled the Nobel and Oscar people with his line of BS (baseless science).
tidester, host
SUVs and Smart Shopper
It MEANS that there are forces at work, man-made and natural, which are driving weather patterns toward a WARMER TREND overall, across the entire planet as a whole.
It does NOT MEAN we will see the end of all blizzards, cold snaps, abnormally cold weather, snow, sleet, ice storms, Florida Citrus Freezes, etc. etc.
There will still be cold places on this planet. Places who do not normally get ice storms will still occasionally get them. West Texas will get snow in April. Florida will see Freezes in early January. The Northwest USA will get 100-inch snowstorms.
Global warming does not mean the end of cold planet-wide.
What it means is that for example:
In 2007, every single U.S. state except for Texas will be warmer than average for the year.
How much automobiles contribute to that, if at all, is the debate here.
And with the examples you listed, that is not a good thing? If many of these areas saw a 2-3F increase that wouldn't be good? So if my area now has -10 to 95F temp. range, I shouldn't want that range to go up to -7 to 98F? Certainly I do. if i can have less days with snow, less ice, lower heating bills, less days below 0F, I want that.
How much automobiles contribute to that, if at all, is the debate here.
Well it's not a debate but a fact that transportation as a whole is putting about 20-25% of the man-made CO2 into the atmosphere. That includes planes, trains, ships, trucks, buses, and cars. CO2 though is only 1 of other GHG's so what % CO2 is of the GHG's - water vapor and methane being others; well it only lowers the effect of cars.
So in summary our personal autos are only a very small part of any GW going on. And I know people don't like change, but change is naturally ever-present, and I personally feel GW would be in the right direction to a more fruitful environment overall. Yes we are talking averages - some species lose, but others gain.
Did you guys hear the news this morning?
Apparently, neighbors of Leo diCaprio are suing him for building a huge b-ball court in his back yard, and get this - it was because he bulldozed a ton of brush to build it.
Mr. Holier than Thou, driving his Prius around town, de-forested his own back yard to build a court.
Another example Do as I say, not as I do.
Here's a link to the suit:
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gju0i2F10MsC7h_MzAXLVuis7klg
Whether they win or not, he tore down lots of greenery to build that court.
In your example of your personal colder area going up 3 degrees? There are certainly a lot of people in the USA who would DEARLY wish that would not happen. Myself here in Phoenix being one of them.
Our hottest day last year was 116 degrees on July 4th. Would we want that to be 119 degrees? I think the answer is obvious.
Do we want the ocean levels to rise and obliterate literally trillions of dollars of oceanside development in the USA and other countries? Of course not.
The problem is, we can't tell Global Warming, " Hey, we want North Dakota to be warmer and Phoenix to be cooler." We will get what we get.
And so far, all the recent data I have seen says that what we are likely to get is not going to be good.
As far as De Caprio. If he has been vocal against cutting native brush, shame on him.
Yes I knew you mentioned Phoenix before. It is not surprising your personal interest is involved. But question why you and many others decided to build up that area when it was very similiar the last 100 years? Is that my fault you make a bad decision? Am I going to feel bad for people who all of a sudden decide to build in Death Valley? I think it's a horrible decision to keep building in SF for earthquake reasons, also! And I don't agree with rebuilding below sea-level in New Orleans These things make no sense to me.
There are many cities and countries much closer to the equator than Phoenix in the world that are habitable, so you are looking at an extreme situation, and then you decide to move there, and then realize that maybe that area should be left to the desert.
Do we want the ocean levels to rise and obliterate literally trillions of dollars of oceanside development in the USA and other countries?
Again a very bad decision to build along the coast long-term. People don't think long-term though, want to enjoy the ocean, and figure they can make some $ by reselling in 5 or 10 years. Coastlines have always changed and been heavily damaged by storms.
By that logic, we should all be living in Hawaii, where the temps are virtually 75 degrees all year and the hurricanes are "relatively" rare and virtually all other weather disasters are also rare.
Every USA location has some sort of weather downside. You can't go living your life and basing your locale on the area which will be "least dangerous weather-wise" to you. If that were a good policy we would all be living in places where there are no weather problems AT ALL. Does such a place exist? I don't know of any.
As far as defending Phoenix from a weather-related standpoint: we have VERY little to deal with other than the heat here.
No tornadoes - or at least they are VERY VERY rare and we do not have a "tornado season."
No earthquakes - again, we have had them, but we are not along a major fault line and are not in danger of a seriously damaging event.
No hurricanes - the most we ever have from a hurricane is a little rain that makes it this far up.
No snow storms or ice storms - lowest recorded official temp is 17 degrees above zero.
No Flooding - we have middling-to-mildly-serious flooding in some areas on occasion but nothing that would cause millions and millions of dollars of damages.
The worst thing that happens here is the "rainy season" in late summer that might produce a couple of dust storms and maybe a power outage from high-ish winds.
For the nuke pundits, would you rather live next to a poorly guarded coal or natural gas or solar facility? Or a nuke one?
Video of Sleeping Guards Shakes Nuclear Industry
Actually, living close wouldn't matter - living downwind would be the problem. Wackenhut sure has a good rep, don't they?
I think I would take the solar facility. Though I don't think it will ever be a large part of our energy.
We're not talking about every sort of weather problem. We're talking about heat or temperature. And you and others in phoenix are living in the wrong place if the temp. is going up. You are living at the edge of what is tolerable.
But many of the rest of us; the vast majority of the U.S. is not living on the edge of the high temperature extreme. Most of the country and all of Canada would certainly not mind 99% of the days being a few degrees warmer. Even in your Arizona, you can find much cooler places, like up towards Flagstaff.
The problem is that there is not a single meaning to the term "global warming." What we are hearing about mostly is the political meaning of the term in which mankind is inherently evil and must be punished with taxation and sacrifice. A more refined political definition is that global warming is "climate change" to allow for the fact that global warming doesn't quite fit with the scientific facts and so, for example, the record cold in the southern hemisphere for the past three seasons is included. This still allows the possibility that you are inherently evil.
The most meaningful and accurate definition of the term global warming has to do with the fact that climate change has been occurring for a billion years and that we are in an interglacial period. The pleistocene ice age is in temporary remission (see Frozen Earth by Doug Macdougall, e.g.) and the long term trends are toward a colder planet. Perhaps we should be driving more SUVs to delay or prevent the planet from becoming a snowball again?
tidester, host
SUVs and Smart Shopper
The mountains in Arizona were once underwater, hence the stratified layers laid down over millions of years...but, who knows how long it actually took for the earth to push those mountains up from the surface???...traumatic events often happen quickly, such as earthquakes and tsunamis and volcanoes...
We like things as they are, but nature likes thing to change...we may note the loss of various species, simply because we don't see them anymore...but the opposite, the creation of new species, we may never notice, simply because we do not know what to look for...
The Ice Age is the perfect example...those who now fear global warming would literally, if they were alive back then, be trying to STOP the warming, which melted the glaciers and gave us many rivers and probably raised the level of the oceans...who knows, the Continental Shelf may have been completely exposed years ago, but we weren't here to see it, so what we see now is "normal" to us...
Imagine glaciers covering North America down to Mexico, no Rocky Mountains, and the coastlines of Atlantic and Pacific are a few hundred miles east and west of where they are now...that COULD have been normal back then, and the Beautiful Pacific Coast Highway may have been hundreds of miles from the coast...
Just because it inconveniences us does not mean that things aren't happening exactly as they should...
With an obvious exception...while man made global warming is a hoax, we obviously should not be spewing garbage and waste into our waterways...not because of any climate change, but because we have to drink that water...Yet, even after all the pollution of the Hudson River for many years, once we stopped, the river has purged itself and much of it is drinkable...and, while I do not advocate throwing old tires into the Hudson, given enough time, Nature would have cleansed itself anyway, just not in time for Mankind to drink it...
Last thought: speaking of pollution...doesn't the blowing off of one volcano spew enough crap into the air within seconds that is more than Man could spew into the air within decades???...what do environmentalists do when a volcano blows, call Congress to outlaw volcanoes???...blame George Bush because they are too stupid to do anything else???...did they blame Carter when Mt St Helens blew in 1979???
Just remember this: before you EVER listen to ANY person who calls himself an environmentalist, be sure to ask to see their medical record...they are probably taking Valium or Lithium, and their brain function and sanity should ALWAYS be questioned...
but is there an irony that you are in charge of the SUVs discussion and suggest that more driving of SUVs could be what we need!!!
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
LoL! Good point. But seriously, I don't drive an SUV and probably never will unless I acquire a real need for one. Obviously, my SUV comment was intended as a humorous note and I'm glad you appreciated it.
There are many good reasons to reduce CO2 emissions. I just don't think that "global warming" is one of them. Despite the grand hyperbole, the science just isn't there yet and I think it will be a mistake to take drastic political action based on weak data and dubious computer simulations.
tidester, host
SUVs and Smart Shopper
My bags are packed,let's go.
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
Speaking of science, has anyone ever compared the amount of CO2 put out by your average volcano with the amount put out by cars? I seem to remember reading that the amount of greenhouse gas put out by a modest volcano in one day was equal to the out put of all the cars in the world for decades.
Perhaps someone smarter than I could look that up.
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
We report a new CO2 emission rate of 8,500 tons/day (t/d) for the summit of Kilauea Volcano,
I think that is equal to about 1000 SUVs CO2 output for a year. When Al baby finds out he will be over looking to sell some Carbon Credits to Pele.. :shades:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001AGUFM.V22E..10G
Anyone who has stood downwind of Kilauea’s vents, and sometimes even people who live in Honolulu, 250 miles away, know first-hand how these emissions can affect air quality and life on the regional scale. It’s a fact that Kilauea has been releasing more than twice the amount of noxious sulfur dioxide gas (SO2) as the single dirtiest power plant on the U.S. mainland.
Gas studies at volcanoes worldwide have helped volcanologists tally up a global volcanic CO2 budget in the same way that nations around the globe have cooperated to determine how much CO2 is released by human activity through the burning of fossil fuels. Our studies show that globally, volcanoes on land and under the sea release a total of about 200 million tonnes of CO2 annually.
We will simply set fines in the billions of dollars and mail them to each volcano that erupts...then, each volcano must take a course in political correctness and diversity sensitivity...if they refuse to do that, they will be shut down permanently...
Why do I have to think of all the answers while the rest of you just waste time with questions???...that is why I am the problem solver...
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
-Rocky
That may be true but it is also true that significant volcanic eruptions occur only once every few decades or so while we we drive our vehicles, heat our homes, run our factories and so on every minute of every day without interruption. Some estimates indicate that mankind puts about 100 times the amount of CO2 into the atmosphere as do volcanoes (10 billion tons vs. 100 million tons), I'm not sure of those figures regarding man's output of "greenhouse gases" but here's one source addressing volcanic emissions: Effects of Volcanic Gases.
The article does correctly indicate that the effects of volcanoes on the atmosphere are much more complex than just a simple CO2 inventory, however, and so other emissions such as sulfur dioxide, chlorine gas and so on matter. I will note that the same caveat applies generally to the notion of anthropogenic climate change: focussing on the CO2 inventory can be misleading, and misguided and probably leads to incorrect conclusions.
BTW, here's another article you should find interesting: Where did global warming go?
tidester, host
SUVs and Smart Shopper
-Rocky
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2008-01-06-futuregen_N.htm
"Since other, non-man-made events contribute more to global warming than man EVER could, let's just abandon our human efforts to pollute less and stop trying to find solutions to our own global warming impact."
If you have that attitude, shame on you !!!
Man can only do what man CAN DO, but to do nothing AT ALL is ridiculous !!!
"The development of the Internet demonstrates that federal support for research, applied at the right place and right time, can be extremely effective." (link)
Some of this energy research may save our bacon in 40 years.
btw, I know from firsthand experience that the DOE can waste money. I got to ride along to a DOE sponsored conference 15 years ago or so. The Holiday Inn didn't have enough space I suppose so they wound up putting everyone up at the Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City. :sick:
Wouldn't surprise me to see some pols hand in this decision that appears to be jumping the gun on the DOE or overruling them entirely. Who represents central Illinois anyway, Obama? Durbin?
Wasn't that something Al Gore invented? or had a substantial hand in planning? or ... something?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Am I the only one in the dark on this???
It operates like a limited web-based mail program. I don't recall if I had to do setup. I think you can set it to receive only mail from other carspace addresses or receive mail from everywhere.
Wander around there. Also it looks like your Carspace area isn't set up. You have the ability to put a picture up, receive friends, put in pictures in photo albums and use those pictures in albums to put into posts here in the discussions.
You also can run your own blog there and bunches of things I haven't done. I was reluctant to fiddle with any of these things at first. And then one-by-one I started using them. Neat.
That mailbox in the gray bar shows a number after it if you have messages waiting. You can access the mailbox from the gray bar words or from the CarSpace page.
Isn't technology wonderful? :sick:
>Am I the only one in the dark on this???
Nope.
To send or get mail at carspace it's the username plus the "at" sign and carspace.com
Also at the bottom right corner of the page is a help button/hot link. Go there and there are bunches of questions with answers about how to do and how to use things here on Edmunds.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
No it was something the builder of Dubya's house invented since Bush, is so green now. :P
-Rocky
I don't think Bush is green.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I'm trying to fulfill my part of the carbon credits. Will one Sequoia tree be enough for one Toyota Sequoia? :confuse:
If you have that attitude, shame on you !!!
Man can only do what man CAN DO, but to do nothing AT ALL is ridiculous !!!
Or maybe what upsets you is that some people have looked at all the evidence, and decided that the verdict on man-made global warming is definitely not settled, and aren't going to accept policies or regulations that could be ruinous in the long run, and may even backfire.
Realistically, as energy costs rise, people will take steps on their own to reduce energy consumption. (From what I can see, energy costs will continue to rise.)
They may not take the steps YOU want them to take (they may keep the Tahoe, but drive it less by consolidating trips), and they may not be the subject of fawning stories in People or USA Today about how they are jetting to conferences on global warming or making their 20,000 square foot house more energy efficient, but that doesn't mean that they aren't taking action.
You think your daughter is getting sick because of something you serve at home all the time, say for example a certain brand of peanut butter. You have narrowed it down to five foods, and you are not sure what foods to change to solve the problem.
Does it make more sense to "stop using all five foods completely" to eliminate the problem immediately, or does it make more sense to stop using the foods one at a time over a period of a few days and see your daughter suffer the whole time until the final culprit is established?
Which avenue makes more sense?
I think most reasonable people would say that stopping all five of the suspect foods at the same time would be the best option. Even though you are not EXACTLY CERTAIN which food is causing the problem, by attacking the problem with multiple points of logic, you can eliminate the problem more quickly.
Same with Global Warming.
Although we do not know FOR CERTAIN that man-made pollution is a cause, does it not make more logical sense to take the data that SOME OF THE BRIGHTEST MINDS IN THE WORLD have determined JUST MIGHT BE exacerbating the problem and make use of that data immediately, instead of waiting for a full, definitive verdict?
Even if the data is flawed in the long run, nothing can be harmed by encouraging people to use less fuel and less electricity and to pollute less and to reduce their own personal carbon footprint.
I have personally been recycling and conserving for most of my adult life ( after age 25 when you really hit your best reasoning capability and your brain fully matures ) and I think, no, I KNOW for a fact that my conservation and recycling has been beneficial to the planet.
And most of all, it's been beneficial to my own mental health. There is a definite emotional satisfaction with knowing you are doing the right thing.
How can you be so sure of yourself? It is a FACT that recycling of many scrap materials is more energy intensive than using raw materials. Energy used is mostly fossil fuel burnt in the World. What is saved from the landfill could be polluting the air.
Not everyone agrees that slowing the growth is the right thing. The new Prime Minister of Australia after promising to sign Kyoto has had second thoughts. He was not told that it would raise the cost of electricity for example, by 25% in his country. That one thing could throw Australia into recession. Is it worth it to cause recession on the possibility that we are causing climate change? I don't think so.
We could save a lot of energy and trees by banning newspapers and catalogs. It is all on the Internet. Cancel your paper and save a tree
That would be a clever ad campaign but probably focuses too much on car "issues" to pass muster with Toyota.
Planting trees isn't necessarily the green thing to do either, at least not plantation trees.
Tree-planting projects may not be so green (The Guardian)
It is a FACT that recycling of many scrap materials is more energy intensive than using raw materials.
I'd be curious to hear of specific examples (link). Of course, if you are having to recycle at the curb, you aren't practicing enough conservation upstream.
Oh btw, Michael Pollan has a new book out - In Defense of Food. AKA ""edible foodlike substances."
I will have to research the energy used in recycling.
DId you read Pollan's new book. Some reviewers claim it is a rehash of the Omnivore's Dilemma. It reminded me that I gave my copy away and should get another.
Many reasons.
It takes less energy to recycle or continue using something old than to manufacture something new. You have said that many times yourself in these forums: "Keep a car 20 years instead of buying a new one."
Seems like "it would raise electricity costs 25% in my country" is a bit of the old political Rhetoric. What he more likely means is "it would cost too much and all my rich friends would lose a lot of money." Kyoto was a bad idea anyway - the USA was just one of the smart countries who stayed out of it.
We are not in a forestation shortage. More new trees and plants are being grown these days than ever before.
Recycling is a booming success and high recycling rates are achieved in many countries around the world. In Europe, for example, the recovered paper industry met the voluntary target of a 56% recycling rate by 2005.
I personally put my recycle bin on the curb about twice a month and put my garbage bin on the curb about once every 6-8 weeks. I'm not alone. Just in my little neighborhood of 83 homes, almost every blue recycle bin is on the curb every Monday morning.
I buy two newspapers every morning to bring to work for the office breakroom and they are both fully recycled after being read and enjoyed by 10-20 employees during the day. We have a recycle bin right in the breakroom that is picked up and emptied by our recycling vendor every week. Almost every used piece of paper in our company gets recycled. And all of our cardboard. And our bottles and cans.
You think your daughter is getting sick ...
You have yet to make the case that the Earth is "sick"; so the analogy isn't really correct.
A better analogy is that the Earth's climate changes, just like the heartbeat of a person does. Sometimes the heartbeat is at 60 and sometimes it can go to 160. But it changes. Now to continue the analogy, we could say that since we are coming out of an Ice-Age and know that the Earth has been much hotter millions of years ago, we might say the earth;'s "heartbeat" now is about 90. The question we are debating here is how much man changes that heartbeat? and how much of that change is due to autos?
If you look at the amount of CO2 (only 1 of several GHG)released naturally vs. man-made, the man-made CO2 is a small amount. Of that small amount, about 20% is from transportation, and that means all transportation.
So in my estimation by mankind driving automobiles, we are changing the earth's heartbeat from 90 to about 90.1. If you want to consider all manmade CO2 emissions let's call the heartbeat then 90.4. It's a very small effect we have on the climate.
I KNOW for a fact that my conservation and recycling has been beneficial to the planet.
Wow, you're nearly omnipotent then? That kind of flies in the face of the reality that mankind is very weak, clinging precariously to life on 1 small planet - having to live within very narrow atmospheric composition and temperature ranges, and unable to travel far in space or occupy other planets, and unable to protect ourselves from the most common of space-rocks in our solar system.
Your benevolent view of nature is very Disney-like; you should read some science books instead, and learn that nature itself does not care if it pulverizes or pollutes the Earth far beyond anything humans can currently do. You do realize that nature has a very hot future in mind for the Earth, when the Sun ages and turns into a red-giant?
A fatally flawed analogy is not a compelling argument even if it is understandable. To anthropomorphize the planet is bad enough but to cast it in the form of your ailing daughter is an appeal to emotion.
Try this one on for size. A river runs through a town. The water level has fluctuated up and down for eons. You move into the town at high noon on a quiet Sunday and notice the water level is rising. You also notice that a factory further up the river is emitting particulate matter into the air.
You reason that particulate matter provides seeding for condensation thereby increasing rainfall and forcing the river's water level to rise. You get a scientifically literate buddy or two to confirm your observation. By one o'clock you're demanding the factory to be shut down based on your scientific consensus.
There is not such a simplistic case with Global Warming.
What is causing the sickness is the issue at hand and what to do to help stop or slow down the problem.
All you "GW deniers" are just trying to be difficult and ignoring facts.
>All you "GW deniers" are just trying to be difficult and ignoring facts.
Sounds familiar.
>What is causing the sickness is the issue at hand and
As I said the usual logic is in error by assuming global warming to be actually occuring and to be beyond the normal rhythms of Mother Earth
What's another strange occurance is that despite the huge amounts of other pollutants from sources and carbon dioxide from other sources, the people with the wrong assumptions to their logic have the magic cure already. It's something some in the cause don't like to begin with and that's the automobile.
Odd the cure is known before the problem is known to exist.
When real climatologists start telling me that there is a problem beyond the normal variation and beyond a reasonable outlier value, then I can believe it. What we have is politicians and TV meteorologists who suddenly have great expertise in real science, not their area, and can know how to interpret and collect all the data. It's odd that ice is growing in areas while the GW folk point to areas where the ice is shrinking. What about the other; Oh, I see, it doesn't fit the cause therefore we ignore it.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Global warming is proven. Google it. Now so many more deniers are coming on board and seeing the truth because they see the facts and process them and are not just trying to be cool by denying it.
The cause is not yet determined, and the SOLID 100% proof that humans are a partial cause is not yet completely scientifically established. But it will be. And even a denier thinking clearly must admit that human activity SURELY looks to be a contributor.
I know how personalities on these forums work. Some of us like to be contrary just to be contrary and to promote discussion. I'm all for that. If we all agreed 100% on all the issues, this would become a robotic and boring forum and it would be abandoned due to boredom.
Exactly! Thank you for making my point.