Global Warming - the truth

[ErikViking]

My opinion is the enviroment is fine. Man could not destroy the Earth, even if we wanted to

I agree.
But I don't include the survival ourselves in that belief.

I think we should reduce our impact on the environment. We are clearly messing with things we don't understand.

 

[red states rule]

I agree.
But I don't include the survival ourselves in that belief.

I think we should reduce our impact on the environment. We are clearly messing with things we don't understand.

Those who speak the most about reducing our "impact" on the enviroment - do the least to reduce their impact

To me that means there is not a problem

 

[ErikViking]

Common sense tells anyone that if you think it is a bad thing to generate carbon dioxide, you should curtail your activities that do so. Anything else is morally fraudulent.

I disagree!
We are experts of economy - nevermind moral! If we can tune economy in to reducing the impact on the environment, lets do so.

I guess it could take some time to get used to, but I see it a bit like with stock brokers. They add to economy without providing value. Abstract ownership in companies you know nothing about or specualtion of currency rates going down and stuff like that. Give them a new tool! Layers and layers over practical economic realities. An environment level couldn't hurt. It will only increase the number of ways to get rich. And poor.

 

[ErikViking]

Those who speak the most about reducing our "impact" on the enviroment - do the least to reduce their impact

To me that means there is not a problem

You are not half as cynical as I am regarding this.

 

[red states rule]

I disagree!
We are experts of economy - nevermind moral! If we can tune economy in to reducing the impact on the environment, lets do so.

I guess it could take some time to get used to, but I see it a bit like with stock brokers. They add to economy without providing value. Abstract ownership in companies you know nothing about or specualtion of currency rates going down and stuff like that. Give them a new tool! Layers and layers over practical economic realities. An environment level couldn't hurt. It will only increase the number of ways to get rich. And poor.

Why lower our standard our living, lower our economic standards, and allow the enviro wackos to take over - when their is not a problem?

 

[ErikViking]

Why lower our standard our living, lower our economic standards, and allow the enviro wackos to take over - when their is not a problem?

I think we should increase our standard of living and our economical standard. "Enviro whackos" are nothing more than concerned people. Sometimes maybe not so practical. They see the SUV and connect it with the environment.

I see the SUV and connect it with our desires.

We want the SUV. 50000 years of progress came up with the SUV. Now that we know that we live in an utterly complex system (which we cannot even hope to understand fully) we recognize the hazard of ruining this system from our POV.
That doesn't take away the need for SUV's.

So while maintaing the pursuit of our desires we need to involve environment. We can do it. It has been done before, in shorter timespan though that could be covered in a lifetime. Consider farming. Initially farming burnt out the land. The need to rotate land for farming was realized. That ment you had to lower the production a tad, but the effect was a gain in just one or two generations.

There is only a "problem" if you have the desire to increase the possibility of earth being a good host for mammals in the long run. This desire has to be as strong as the desire for a SUV. It is a question of humans vanity.

I suspect there are very few problems with the environment we can actually be sure to "fix" as of now, next year or even our own or our childrens lifetime. We can only start to even the odds a bit.

 

[red states rule]

I think we should increase our standard of living and our economical standard. "Enviro whackos" are nothing more than concerned people. Sometimes maybe not so practical. They see the SUV and connect it with the environment.

I see the SUV and connect it with our desires.

We want the SUV. 50000 years of progress came up with the SUV. Now that we know that we live in an utterly complex system (which we cannot even hope to understand fully) we recognize the hazard of ruining this system from our POV.
That doesn't take away the need for SUV's.

So while maintaing the pursuit of our desires we need to involve environment. We can do it. It has been done before, in shorter timespan though that could be covered in a lifetime. Consider farming. Initially farming burnt out the land. The need to rotate land for farming was realized. That ment you had to lower the production a tad, but the effect was a gain in just one or two generations.

There is only a "problem" if you have the desire to increase the possibility of earth being a good host for mammals in the long run. This desire has to be as strong as the desire for a SUV. It is a question of humans vanity.

I suspect there are very few problems with the environment we can actually be sure to "fix" as of now, next year or even our own or our childrens lifetime. We can only start to even the odds a bit.

I remember all the doom and gloom stories being reported as fact in the 70's

Newsweek ran an artical on global cooling and all the farm land in the US would be covered in ice

The US feeds the world and now we are being told about global warming

Enviro wackos are just that - wackos. They demand how everyone else reduce their standard of living but they still fly around in their jets and have every light on in their mansions

Several high ranking people at the weather channel have said we are in the same weather patterns now as we were in the 40's thru the 60's

The liberal media has ignored how the number of hurricans dropped over the last two years, and yet three years ago we were told how the storms wuld continue to hammer the US due to global warming

 

[red states rule]

Our tax dollars at work....................


Gore set to change climate on Hill
By Christina Bellantoni
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 19, 2007


Democrats, environmental activists and presidential hopefuls are angling to share the spotlight with former Vice President Al Gore this week as he comes to Capitol Hill to testify on global warming.
Mr. Gore, who has made a personal crusade out of climate change, will appear Wednesday before House and Senate panels to urge Congress to attempt to halt climate change, and he expects to bring a mailbag filled with the nearly 300,000 postcards he has collected since Christmas.
"You and I know that political will is a renewable resource, and enough already exists to start solving this crisis," Mr. Gore, a Democrat, told supporters Friday in an e-mail, noting he's collected 294,000 cards and is aiming for at least 50,000 more. "We just have to communicate that forcefully to the political leaders of our country."
The testimony caps a lengthy stint of popularity for Mr. Gore, with headlines and buzz unmatched by any politician. Mr. Gore starred in the film "An Inconvenient Truth," which was honored with an Oscar for Best Documentary and caused hundreds of articles to speculate on the 2000 presidential nominee's political future and reinvigorated "Draft Gore" movements.
Taking advantage of the panel hearing are environmentalists, who will march on the Capitol as part of Climate Crisis Action Day tomorrow. They also will hold a rally there from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., starring members of Congress and state leaders.
"Temperatures are rising across the globe, and the impacts are devastating," reads one advisory for the rally, being promoted by the liberal activist group MoveOn.org. "But a new Congress is in session, and we have an opportunity unlike any we've seen in years."
One group promised to walk the halls of the Capitol, lobbying for "sensible solutions" to global warming, a "path to a clean energy future," and "permanent protection" for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which is eyed as a potential source of oil and gas.
Presidential candidates are jumping onto the bandwagon as well.
Several senators making 2008 bids for the White House have sponsored a bill aimed at curbing carbon emissions, but those outside of Washington have plenty to say on the topic.
Two Democratic presidential hopefuls Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina appealed to their supporters last week on climate change.
"Global warming doesn't stop at party lines, and neither should our commitment to preventing it," Mr. Edwards said in a campaign e-mail, noting he is attempting to run a "carbon neutral" campaign.
To do so, the Edwards campaign is buying carbon offsets to balance the "enormous" energy it takes to travel the nation and run for president, and he encouraged all his challengers to do the same.

"Good ideas for achieving carbon neutrality should be shared freely," he said.
Not to be outdone, a Richardson staffer sent an e-mail touting his boss's record on energy independence.
"Take a moment to tell five friends who are committed to curbing global warming and expanding alternative energy that Governor Bill Richardson is the candidate with an outstanding record of real accomplishments," the message read.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, was among the lawmakers trumpeting Mr. Gore's expected appearance, saying: "His testimony will help us shape the kind of reforms we need and garner even more attention to this growing crisis."
Mrs. Pelosi has been one of the biggest champions of climate-change legislation, creating a special committee for global warming and calling for staffers to implement "green" practices in the Capitol.
"Reversing the effects of global warming may be the greatest challenge of our time, setting at risk our economy, environment, national security and our children's future," Mrs. Pelosi said in an e-mail from the Democrats' campaign-fundraising group. "Every choice we make can help it can be as simple as walking instead of driving or installing energy-efficient light bulbs."
Lawmakers say that Mr. Gore's appearance can ratchet up pressure for doing something about global warming. The speaker set a summer goal for voting on a legislative package.
Mr. Gore will testify Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at a joint hearing of House Energy and Commerce energy and air quality subcommittee and the House Science and Technology energy and environment subcommittee. At 2:30 p.m., he will appear before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee for a hearing titled "Vice President Al Gore's Perspective on Global Warming."
In between, he's sandwiched meetings with politicians and environmental leaders for what staffers have nicknamed "Gorefest."

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20070319-124822-3788r.htm

 

[ErikViking]

I remember all the doom and gloom stories being reported as fact in the 70's

Newsweek ran an artical on global cooling and all the farm land in the US would be covered in ice

The US feeds the world and now we are being told about global warming

Enviro wackos are just that - wackos. They demand how everyone else reduce their standard of living but they still fly around in their jets and have every light on in their mansions

Several high ranking people at the weather channel have said we are in the same weather patterns now as we were in the 40's thru the 60's

The liberal media has ignored how the number of hurricans dropped over the last two years, and yet three years ago we were told how the storms wuld continue to hammer the US due to global warming

I can see your perspective. Mine is entirely different. It is also entirely different from most enviro wackos.

This makes me agree with you on one level and disagree on another.

Interesting however: Only you cared to discuss this. Initially only from a political stand point. Maybe because "Global warming" carries a political stigma now a days.
My point of view here is also critical to your political counterparts, they however has failed to post.

Even though I tried to be provocative with " - the truth" thing. I don't know the truth of course. In all honesty.

 

[red states rule]

I can see your perspective. Mine is entirely different. It is also entirely different from most enviro wackos.

This makes me agree with you on one level and disagree on another.

Interesting however: Only you cared to discuss this. Initially only from a political stand point. Maybe because "Global warming" carries a political stigma now a days.
My point of view here is also critical to your political counterparts, they however has failed to post.

Even though I tried to be provocative with " - the truth" thing. I don't know the truth of course. In all honesty.

So we can agree top disagree

It is my nature to see how those lecturing me to change my life style, because it is to save the Earth, lives theirs

If you look closely at the enviro wackos they do not alter their lifes to save the planet. That tells me the problem must not be as bad as they claim

Of course, the liberal media and enviro wackos will not address the point - they attack anyone who points it out as being "in the pocket of the oil companies"

Alos, have you ever noticed all the trash left on the ground after the Earth Day gatherings or other enviro rallies? Very telling

 

[red states rule]

March 14, 2007
AP Global Warming Writer Over the Top - Again
By Marc Sheppard


Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press has written another truly frightening little sci-fi piece entitled Warming Report to Warn of Coming Drought. The article, which claims to have scooped the findings of the IPCC 4th Assessment Working Group 2 (WG2), and predicts a coming eco-apocalypse, has created quite a stir since being published last Saturday. This, despite the fact that the very same author made similar predictions last month regarding the findings of another IPCC group - predictions which proved to be baloney.


On February 1st, the AP published Borenstein's Working Group 1 (WG1) forecasts under the politically sensational headline Warming Linked to Stronger Hurricanes. This preposterous "leak" claimed that the pending report would place the blame for stronger Atlantic hurricanes "such as Katrina" squarely on the shoulders of man-made global warming. Of course, the very next day revealed an appraisal which made no such broad claims. To the contrary, qualifying footnotes such as these used whenever human contribution was declared "more likely than not," thereby revealing hypothesis rather than conclusion, were mysteriously absent from the article:

"Magnitude of anthropogenic contributions not assessed. Attribution for these phenomena based on expert judgment rather than formal attribution studies."
And while WG1 was charged with assessing the physical science of climate change, WG2's charter focused on its impact, as well as mankind's adaptation and vulnerability to it. With that in mind, it certainly appears that the latter quasi-subjective areas provide the agenda-driven with a more malleable landscape on which to spread their fictional fertilizer.


Indeed, this time out, Borenstein's predictions were way over-the-top -- even by eco-maniac standards. He wasted no time capturing the attention of kindred alarmists with this dramatic overture:

"The harmful effects of global warming on daily life are already showing up, and within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people won't have enough water, top scientists will say next month at a meeting in Belgium."
The "science writer" then forewarned of a not-too-distant-future world of cataclysmic floods, widespread disease, species extinction and global starvation. We're talking devastation of Biblical proportions here, folks. Hmmmm ... Noah Borenstein - it does have a catchy sound.


Is it time to plan crash-courses in animal husbandry and history's longest ocean voyage? Not quite - especially given Mr. Borenstein's less than stellar track record of "scooping" the IPCC. In fact, last month's impulsive hype-piece was so completely wrong that it prompted this reaction from Professor Neville Nicholls, the Lead Author of WG1's Chapter 9 [emphasis added throughout]:

"I was disappointed that after more than two years carefully analyzing the literature on possible links between tropical cyclones and global warming that even before the report was approved it was being misreported and misrepresented."
Then, specifically addressing the bogus claims made in the February 1st AP article, the scientist rebuked:

"We concluded that the question of whether there was a greenhouse-cyclone link was pretty much a toss of a coin at the present state of the science, with just a slight leaning towards the likelihood of such a link. But the premature reports suggested that we were asserting the existence of much stronger evidence."
So it stands to reason that once the initial daffy-dust of next month's WG2 report settles, the current AP version will bear no closer semblance to reality than did last month's WG1 preview. As to Mr. Borenstein's overreaching hysteria - might it be more fairly attributed to an overactive enthusiasm gland than a tree-hugging political agenda? Not likely - particularly considering the choice of these words to climax his current bit of demagoguery even after being chided for such previous nonsense:

"Many - not all - of those effects can be prevented, the report says, if within a generation the world slows down its emissions of carbon dioxide and if the level of greenhouse gases sticking around in the atmosphere stabilizes."
As the science of mankind's impact on increasing global temperatures is yet unsettled, isn't it beyond unlikely that even a UN backed science consortium would dare suggest such horrible prospects yet such elementary, immediate, and politically expedient remedies? Furthermore, given that it has yet to be proven by anyone that climate can be impacted even by a single degree Celsius in either direction by man's imposing hands, might the IPCC propose such urgent and unproven Kyoto-style solutions as quick fixes? Especially after last month's lowered WG1 estimates and rationally longer term GLOBE recommendations? Again -- not likely.


Naturally, this leads to speculation as to whether the Associated Press ‘s blatantly unprofessional approach to climate change reporting is limited to matters concerning the Intergovernmental Panel on the subject. Any guesses?


Last year, an article also penned by AP Science-writer Seth Borenstein and deceivingly entitled Scientists OK Gore's Movie for Accuracy was singled out by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works as having raised "some serious questions about AP's bias and methodology." Primary to its many complaints, the committee admonished the news agency's decision to ignore the "scores of scientists who have harshly criticized the science presented" in the film.


And just last month, Borenstein declared that January was "by far the hottest ever" in the opening line of a similarly titled scare piece. Then, just a few paragraphs later, he confessed that US temperatures had been "about normal," adding that:

"The nation was 0.94 degrees Fahrenheit above normal for January, ranking only the 49th warmest since 1895."
Reading this guy's awful stuff prompted a quick trip over to the AP.org website in search of an answer to the inescapable FAQ, What [if any] are AP's News Values and Principles? Preceding the link to the detailed answer sits a short quip which claims that:

"The AP believes firmly in a fair and objective news report."
Once you've stopped laughing, dare click on that statement of "values and principles." You'll be taken to a redirect page, which will invite you to "Click here if this page does not load automatically." Should you accept the invitation, you'll indeed find their standards page, which includes Chicago Daily News founder and AP General Manager Melville E. Stone's 1914 words which we are flippantly assured are just as true today:

"the thing [AP] is striving for is a truthful, unbiased report of the world's happenings ... ethical in the highest degree."
Strangely and fittingly, if the redirect page is instead allowed to auto-load, at the time of this writing the link mistakenly lands the inquisitive voyager on a somber testament to a once great news organization no longer worthy of Stone's words -- their Pulitzer Prizes page.


Is there such a thing as a Freudian Slip Redirect?
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/03/ap_global_warming_writer_over.html

 

[jasendorf]

the only thing that needs to be is, yes there is a relation between co2 and temp. when the temp goes up, co2 goes up. not the other way round. ie, man is not responsable for global warming.

You're right. Man is usually irresponsible. Anyone who's worked near a child support enforcement agency knows that.

 

[Vintij]

Like i said, climate change does exist and has existed for centuries. What we are trying to do now is figure out if the recent change in climate temperature is caused by man made green house gasses and emissions.
In other words, global warming is natural.....anthropogenic global warming is not.

Nobody said stop driving cars, stop buying gas, and shut down the power plants. What we are saying is put some money into the RESEARCH of climate change on a atmospheric and tropospheric level. That way we KNOW if global warming is a natural phenomena that will balance out, or if it was man made greenhouse gasses, or c02 (which by the way we have scientific proof that light can be trapped in a chamber of c02 due to The c02's long lifespan in an atmosphere) Which means, when the sun shoots off billions of photons of radiation light energy, 1 astronomical unit away (8 minutes at light speed) our earth naturally absorbs it depending on rotation, and our magnetic sheild. Thats alot of energy to be stored in the earth, So what the earth does is naturally release nearly all of that energy back into space when the light bounces off the earth floor and heads back up into the atmosphere. C02 would cause that radiological light energy to be trapped in the atmosphere, most likely causing melting of the polar ice caps in the arctic and antarctic.

Our technology is not powerfull enough to compare a chamber of co2, with the entire planet. So no there is no physicall proof of Global Warming but theoretically it is possible and could be happening right now because of us. We dont have enough evidence to make either of those a fact.

So when you say man made global warming does not exist because you just pushed ten inches of snow off your driveway, your an idiot because anthropogenic global warming could be one of the causes of that amount of snow in the first place. Its not just warming that happens, its extreme weather, sea rising, tsunamis, hurricanes and yes even snowing.

Trust me its better to find out about it now than forget about it, and have it destroy us 50 years from now with no way of reversing it.

 

[red states rule]

Scientists Blame Hollywood for Global Warming Hysteria
Posted by Noel Sheppard on March 19, 2007 - 13:21.
March 2007 might go down in science history as the month the global warming skeptics struck back.

From a British documentary debunking myths currently being advanced by the alarmists to Al Gore being challenged to a debate, scientists across the questionably warming globe have clearly thrown down the gauntlet.

The most recent event transpired at a conference in Oxford today, where some noted scientists stated that Hollywood is not doing the world a service by overstating and exaggerating the risks of climate change.

As reported by the Daily Mail (emphasis added throughout):

Leading climate change experts have thrown their weight behind two scientists who hit out at the "Hollywoodisation" of global warming.

Professors Paul Hardaker and Chris Collier, both Royal Meteorological Society figures, criticised fellow scientists they accuse of "overplaying" the message.

Wise words, wouldn’t you agree? The article continued:

Professor Hardaker warned against the "Hollywoodisation" of weather and climate seen in films such as the 2004 smash hit film The Day After Tomorrow, which depicts terrifying consequences after the melting of the Arctic ice shelf.

Such films, he said, only work to create confusion in the public mind.

Hardaker offered suggestions:

"I don't think the way to make people pay attention is to make them afraid about it," he said.

"We have to help them understand it and allow them to make choices - because the impact of climate change is going to mean we have got some quite difficult choices to make both in policy and as members of the public.

"Unless we can understand the science behind it, we can't be expected to get our heads around making these difficult choices."

Presenting events such as the shutting off of the Gulf Stream, creating a cooling effect, and the rise of temperatures together could be "confusing", he said, unless it is made clear that the former is far less likely than the latter.

He said the scientists should avoid being forced to make wild predictions about the future in response to climate change sceptics such as those seen in Channel 4's recent programme, Global Climate Swindle.

He said: "We must be careful not to sensationalise our side of the argument or Hollywoodise the argument otherwise you end up in an ever increasing cycle of claim and counter-claim.

"We have to be clear about what our level of understanding is and to be clear about where we are making judgements based on understanding."

Hardaker wasn’t alone in these sentiments:

Dr Peter Stott, manager of understanding and attributing climate change at the Hadley Centre for Climate Change, said he believes scientists have to make it clear there is a long way to go until we know how bad climate change will be.

He said: "There is a lot more research to do to understand about exactly what effects its going to have on you and me in the future."

He said that while he welcomed a growing public awareness about the dangers brought about by films and headlines, informed debate was vital.

"I think it is important that having said there is a problem, it would be unfortunate if people got the impression that there's nothing we can do about it because there is a lot we can do to change the future of climate change," he said.

Hmmm. Reasoned debate? About a scientific issue that has now been politicized by politicians and media representatives in several countries?

What a concept.
http://newsbusters.org/node/11512

 

[red states rule]

Al Gore Challenged to International Global Warming Debate
Posted by Noel Sheppard on March 19, 2007 - 11:35.
It’s put up or shut up time for soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore who was formally challenged to defend his well-publicized global warming theories in a debate with a former advisor to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

As reported by PR Newswire (emphasis added throughout):

In a formal invitation sent to former Vice-President Al Gore's Tennessee address and released to the public, Lord Monckton has thrown down the gauntlet to challenge Gore to what he terms "the Second Great Debate," an internationally televised, head-to-head, nation-unto-nation confrontation on the question, "That our effect on climate is not dangerous."

How marvelous. The press release continued:

Monckton, a former policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher during her years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, said, "A careful study of the substantial corpus of peer-reviewed science reveals that Mr. Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, is a foofaraw of pseudo-science, exaggerations, and errors, now being peddled to innocent schoolchildren worldwide."

Just spectacular. The release continued:

Monckton calls on the former Vice President to "step up to the plate and defend his advocacy of policies that could do grave harm to the welfare of the world's poor. If Mr. Gore really believes global warming is the defining issue of our time, the greatest threat human civilization has ever faced, then he should welcome the opportunity to raise the profile of the issue before a worldwide audience of billions by defining and defending his claims against a serious, science-based challenge."

Of course, it seems doubtful that Gore will accept Lord Monckton’s offer. After all, this issue has already been decided by a so-called consensus of scientists, correct?

As such, it seems quite simple for Dr. Gore to just say he’s too busy to bother debating “facts.”

Yet, it will be interesting to see if the American media bother covering this challenge, or whether they sweep this under the rug along with most questions about this junk science. After all, their goal must be to preserve the appearance of a consensus at all costs.

As always, we will know in the fullness of time
http://newsbusters.org/node/11505

 

[ScreamingEagle]

The enviro wackos are the new form of commie activity today. This guys post sums up "the truth" about global warming pretty well.

"I think what is going on here is this. Global warming is the touchstone that has given socialists a new home now that communism is finally discredited. These socialists see consumption itself as immoral, and now have a scientific hypothesis with at least some credibility to demonstrate that this immorality has real world consequences. For socialists, the environment is the excuse not the goal. Their goal is the suppression of capitalism. I believe this explains the limited role of technology and R&D in green policy, when it seems to me technology is central. Technology promises ever higher consumption alongside ever lower environmental effects - win-win to anyone except a socialist.

The socialists have found in true environmentalists - these are the ones that actually care about the planet - a common goal in the suppression of consumption.

Just a hypothesis, but if correct then the global warming movement promises disaster. Socialism killed more people than war last century. The suppression of DDT, on which the environmental movement was founded, has killed 10-30 million. Now these two movements have joined forces. Again I say Al Gore is the most dangerous man on the planet."

http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2007/02/the_political_e.html

 

[red states rule]

Whose Ox Is Gored?
The media discover the former vice president's environmental exaggerations and hypocrisy.

Monday, March 19, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

The media are finally catching up with Al Gore. Criticism of his anti-global-warming franchise and his personal environmental record has gone beyond ankle-biting bloggers. It's now coming from the New York Times and the Nashville Tennessean, his hometown paper that put his birth, as a senator's son, on its front page back in 1948, and where a young Al Gore Jr. worked for five years as a journalist.

Last Tuesday, the Times reported that several eminent scientists "argue that some of Mr. Gore's central points [on global warming] are exaggerated and erroneous." The Tenessean reported yesterday that Mr. Gore received $570,000 in royalties from the owners of zinc mines who held mineral leases on his farm. The mines, which closed in 2003 but are scheduled to reopen under a new operator later this year, "emitted thousands of pounds of toxic substances and several times, the water discharged from the mines into nearby rivers had levels of toxins above what was legal."

All of this comes in the wake of the enormous publicity Mr. Gore received after his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Oscar. The film features Mr. Gore reprising his famous sighing and lamenting how the average American's energy use is greedily off the charts. At the film's end viewers are asked, "Are you ready to change the way you live?"

The Nashville-based Tennessee Center for Policy Research was skeptical that Mr. Gore had been "walking the walk" on the environment. It obtained public records showing that for years Mr. Gore has burned through more electricity at his Nashville home each month than the average American family uses in a year--and his consumption was increasing. The heated Gore pool house alone ran up more than $500 in natural-gas bills every month.

Mr. Gore's office responded by claiming that the Gores "purchase offsets for their carbon emissions to bring their carbon footprint down to zero." But CNSNews.com reports that Mr. Gore doesn't purchase carbon offsets with his own resources, and that they are meaningless in terms of global warming.

The offset purchases are actually made for him by Generation Investment Management, a London-based investment firm that Mr. Gore co-founded, and which provides carbon offsets as a fringe benefit to all 23 of its employees, ensuring that they require no real sacrifice on the part of Mr. Gore or his family. Indeed, their impact is also highly limited. The Carbon Neutral Co.--one of the two vendors that sell offsets to Mr. Gore's company, says that offset purchases "will be unable to reduce greenhouse gas emissions . . . in the short term."

The New York Times last week interviewed many scientists who say they are alarmed "at what they call [Mr. Gore's] alarmism on global warming." In a front-page piece in its science section, the Times headline read "From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype."
The Times quoted Don Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, as telling hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America that "I don't want to pick on Al Gore. But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data." Mr. Easterbrook made clear he has never been paid by any energy corporations and isn't a Republican.

Even James Hansen, a scientist who began issuing warning cries about global warming in the 1980s and is a top adviser to Mr. Gore, concedes that his work may hold "imperfections" and "technical flaws." Other flaws are more serious, such as Mr. Gore's depiction of sea level rises of up to 20 feet, which would cause Florida and New York City to sink below the surface.

Sober scientists privately say such claims are exaggerated. They point to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that released its fourth report on global warming last month. While it found humans were the main cause of recent global warming, the report also indicated it was a very slow-moving process. On sea levels, the U.N. panel reported its s best high-end estimate of the rise in sea levels by 2100 was three feet. The new high-end best estimate is less than half the previous prediction, which was still far below Mr. Gore's 20 feet. Similarly, the new report shows that the panel's 2001 report overestimated the human influence on climate change since the Industrial Revolution by at least one-third.

In an email message to the Times, Mr. Gore defended his work as fundamentally accurate. But it's increasingly clear that far from the "consensus" on global warming we are told exists, scientists are having a broad and rich debate on many aspects of it. Nearly two decades after Mr. Gore first claimed that "we face an ecological crisis without any precedent in historic times," we don't know if that is really true.

Then there is the Gore zinc mine. Mr. Gore has personally earned $570,000 in zinc royalties from a mine his father bought in 1973 from Armand Hammer, the business executive famous for his close friendship with the Soviet Union and for pleading guilty to making illegal campaign contributions during Watergate. On the same day Al Gore Sr. bought the 88-acre parcel from Hammer for $160,000, he sold the land and subsurface mining rights to his then 25-year-old son for $140,000. The mineral rights were then leased back to Hammer's Occidental Petroleum and the royalty payments put in the names of Al Gore Jr. and his wife, Tipper.
Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider claims the terms of the 30-year Occidental lease agreement gave the Gores "no legal recourse" to get out of it. She said the Gores never thought about selling the land and would not comment on whether they ever tried to void the lease. "There is a certain zone of privacy once people go into private life," Ms. Kreidler said. She said critics of the arrangement should realize it should be viewed in a "1973 context, not a 2007 context. . . . There was a different environmental sensibility about all sorts of things."

But what about a 1992 context? That is the year Mr. Gore published "Earth in the Balance," in which he wrote: "The lakes and rivers sustain us; they flow through the veins of the earth and into our own. But we must take care to let them flow back out as pure as they came, not poison and waste them without thought for the future." Mr. Gore wrote that at a time when he would be collecting zinc royalties for another 11 years.

The mines had a generally good environmental record, but they wouldn't pass muster either with the standard Mr. Gore set in "Earth in the Balance" or with most of his environmentalist friends. In May 2000 the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation issued a "Notice of Violation" notifying the Pasminco mine its zinc levels in a nearby river exceeded standards established by the state and the federal Environmental Protection Agency. In 1996 the mine twice failed biomonitoring tests designed to protect water quality in the river for fish and wildlife. "The discharge of industrial wastewater from Outfall #001 [the Caney Fork effluent] contains toxic metals (copper and zinc)," the analysis stated. "The combined effect of these pollutants may be detrimental to fish and aquatic life."

The Gore mines were no small operations. In 2002, the year before they shut down, they ranked 22nd among all metal-mining operations in the U.S., with total toxic releases of 4.1 million pounds. A new mine operator, Strategic Resource Acquisition, is planning to reopen the mines later this year. The Tennessean reports that just last week, Mr. Gore wrote SRA asking it to work with a national environmental group as it makes its plans. He noted that under the previous operator, the mines had, according to the environmental website Scorecard, "pollution releases from the mine in 2002 [that] placed it among the 'dirtiest/worst facilities' in the U.S." Mr. Gore requested that SRA "engage with us in a process to ensure that the mine becomes a global example of environmental best practices." The Tennessean dryly notes that Mr. Gore wrote the letter the week after the paper posed a series of questions to him about his involvement with the zinc mines.

Columnist Steven Milloy recalls talking with Mr. Gore in 2006 about the 1997 Kyoto Protocol he helped negotiate as vice president. "Did we think Kyoto would [reduce global warming] when we signed it? . . . Hell no!" said Mr. Gore, according to Mr. Milloy. The former vice president then explained that the real purpose of Kyoto was to demonstrate that international support could be mustered for action on environmental issues. Mr. Gore clearly believes that the world hasn't acted with enough vigor in the decade since Kyoto, which may explain his growing use of the global-warming hype that concerns many mainstream scientists.
Mr. Gore has called the campaign to combat global warming a "moral imperative." But Mr. Gore faces another imperative: to square his sales pitches with the facts and his personal lifestyle to more align with what he advocates that others practice. "Are you ready to change the way you live?" asks Mr. Gore's film. It's time people ask Mr. Gore "Are you ready to change the way you live, as well as the way you lecture the rest of us?"

http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110009804

 

[red states rule]

I think we should increase our standard of living and our economical standard. "Enviro whackos" are nothing more than concerned people. Sometimes maybe not so practical. They see the SUV and connect it with the environment.

I see the SUV and connect it with our desires.

We want the SUV. 50000 years of progress came up with the SUV. Now that we know that we live in an utterly complex system (which we cannot even hope to understand fully) we recognize the hazard of ruining this system from our POV.
That doesn't take away the need for SUV's.

So while maintaing the pursuit of our desires we need to involve environment. We can do it. It has been done before, in shorter timespan though that could be covered in a lifetime. Consider farming. Initially farming burnt out the land. The need to rotate land for farming was realized. That ment you had to lower the production a tad, but the effect was a gain in just one or two generations.

There is only a "problem" if you have the desire to increase the possibility of earth being a good host for mammals in the long run. This desire has to be as strong as the desire for a SUV. It is a question of humans vanity.

I suspect there are very few problems with the environment we can actually be sure to "fix" as of now, next year or even our own or our childrens lifetime. We can only start to even the odds a bit.

Crazy-Sounding Ideas May Help Combat Global Warming
Monday, March 19, 2007

WASHINGTON — Crazy-sounding ideas for saving the planet are getting a serious look from top scientists, a sign of their fears about global warming and the desire for an insurance policy in case things get worse.

How crazy?

There's the man-made "volcano" that shoots gigatons of sulfur high into the air. The space "sun shade" made of trillions of little reflectors between Earth and sun, slightly lowering the planet's temperature.

The forest of ugly artificial "trees" that suck carbon dioxide out of the air. And the "Geritol solution" in which iron dust is dumped into the ocean.

"Of course it's desperation," said Stanford University professor Stephen Schneider. "It's planetary methadone for our planetary heroin addiction. It does come out of the pessimism of any realist that says this planet can't be trusted to do the right thing."

NASA is putting the finishing touches on a report summing up some of these ideas and has spent $75,000 to map out rough details of the sun shade concept.

One of the premier climate modeling centers in the United States, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, has spent the last six weeks running computer simulations of the man-made volcano scenario and will soon turn its attention to the space umbrella idea.

And last month, billionaire Richard Branson offered a $25 million prize to the first feasible technology to reduce carbon dioxide levels in the air.

Simon "Pete" Worden, who heads NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., says some of these proposals, which represent a field called geoengineering, have been characterized as anywhere from "great" to "idiotic."

As if to distance NASA from the issue a bit, Worden said the agency's report won't do much more than explain the range of possibilities.

Scientists in the recent past have been reluctant to consider such concepts.

Many fear there will be unintended side effects; others worry such schemes might prevent the type of reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are the only real way to fight global warming.

These approaches are not an alternative to cutting pollution, said University of Calgary professor David Keith, a top geoengineering researcher.

Last month, Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, told the nation's largest science conference that more research must be done in this field, but no action should be taken yet.

Here is a look at some of the ideas:

___

The Geritol solution

A private company is already carrying out this plan. Some scientists call it promising, while others worry about the ecological fallout.

Planktos Inc. of Foster City, Calif., last week launched its ship, the Weatherbird II, on a trip to the Pacific Ocean to dump 50 tons of iron dust. The iron should grow plankton, part of an algae bloom that will drink up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The idea of seeding the ocean with iron to beef up a natural plankton and algae system has been tried on a small scale several times since 1990. It has both succeeded and failed.

Planktos chief executive officer Russ George said his ship will try it on a larger scale, dumping a slurry of water and red iron dust from a hose into the sea.

"It makes a 25-foot swath of bright red for a very short period of time," George said.

The concept gained some credibility when it was mentioned in the 2001 report by the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which cited it as a possible way to attack carbon emissions.

Small experiments "showed unequivocally that there was a biological response to the addition of the iron," the climate report said.

Plankton used the iron to photosynthesize, extract greenhouse gases from the air, and grow rapidly. It forms a thick green soup of all sorts of carbon dioxide-sucking algae, which sea life feast on, and the carbon drops into the ocean.

However, the international climate report also cautioned about "the ecological consequences of large-scale fertilization of the ocean."

Tim Barnett, a marine physicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said large-scale ocean seeding could change the crucial temperature difference between the sea surface and deeper waters and have a dramatic effect on marine life.

Cicerone, a climate scientist who is president of the National Academy of Sciences and advocate for more geoengineering research, called the Geritol solution promising. However, he noted that such actions by a company, or country, can have worldwide effects.

George, Planktos' CEO, said his company consulted with governments around the world and is only following previous scientific research. He said his firm will be dropping the iron in open international seas so he needs no permits.

Most important, he said, is that it's such a small amount of iron compared to the ocean volume that it poses no threat.

He said it's unfair to lump his plan in with geoengineering, saying his company is just trying to restore the ocean to "a more ecologically normal and balanced state."

"We're a green solution," George said.

Planktos officials say that for every ton of iron used, 100,000 tons of carbon will be pulled into the ocean. Eventually, if this first large-scale test works, George hopes to remove 3 billion tons of carbon from the Earth's atmosphere, half of what's needed. Some scientists say that's overstated.

Planktos' efforts are financed by companies and individuals who buy carbon credits to offset their use of fossil fuels.

___

Man-made volcano

When Mount Pinatubo erupted 16 years ago in the Philippines, it cooled the Earth for about a year because the sulfate particles in the upper atmosphere reflected some sunlight.

Several leading scientists, from Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen to the late nuclear cold warrior Edward Teller, have proposed doing the same artificially to offset global warming.

Using jet engines, cannons or balloons to get sulfates in the air, humans could reduce the solar heat, and only increase current sulfur pollution by a small percentage, said Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

"It's an issue of the lesser of two evils," he said.

Scientists at the Center for Atmospheric Research put the idea into a computer climate model. The results aren't particularly cheap or promising, said NCAR scientist Caspar Ammann. It would take tens of thousands of tons of sulfate to be injected into the air each month, he said.

"From a practical point of view, it's completely ridiculous," Amman said. "Instead of investing so much into this, it would be much easier to cut down on the initial problem."

Both this technique and the solar umbrella, while reducing heating, wouldn't reduce carbon dioxide. So they wouldn't counter a dramatic increase in the acidity of the world's oceans, which happens with global warming, scientists said. It harms sea life, especially coral reefs.

Despite that, Calgary's David Keith is working on tweaking the concept. He wants to find a more efficient chemical to inject into the atmosphere in case of emergency.

___

Solar umbrella

For far-out concepts, it's hard to beat Roger Angel's.

Last fall, the University of Arizona astronomer proposed what he called a "sun shade." It would be a cloud of small Frisbee-like spaceships that go between Earth and the sun and act as an umbrella, reducing heat from the sun.

"It really is just like turning down the knob by 2 percent of what's coming from the sun," he said.

The science for the ships, the rocketry to launch them, and the materials to make the shade are all doable, Angel said.

These nearly flat discs would each weigh less than an ounce and measure about a yard wide with three tab-like "ears" that are controllers sticking out just a few inches.

About 800,000 of these would be stacked into each rocket launch. It would take 16 trillion of them — that's a million million — so there would be 20 million launches of rockets. All told, Angel figures 20 million tons of material to make the discs that together form the solar umbrella.

And then there's the cost: at least $4 trillion over 30 years, probably more.

"I compare it with sending men to Mars.I think they're both projects on the same scale," Angel said. "Given the danger to Earth, I think this project might warrant some fraction of the consideration of sending people to Mars."

___

Artificial trees

Scientifically, it's known as "air capture." But the instruments being used have been dubbed "artificial trees" — even though these devices are about as treelike as a radiator on a stick.

They are designed to mimic the role of trees in using carbon dioxide, but early renderings show them looking more like the creation of a tinkering engineer with lots of steel.

Nearly a decade ago, Columbia University professor Klaus Lackner hit on an idea for his then-middle school daughter's science fair project: Create air filters that grab carbon dioxide from the air using chemical absorbers and then compress the carbon dioxide into a liquid or compressed gas that can be shipped elsewhere.

When his daughter was able to do it on a tiny scale, Lackner decided to look at doing it globally.

Newly inspired by the $25 million prize offered by Richard Branson, Lackner has fine-tuned the idea. He wants to develop a large filter that would absorb carbon dioxide from the air.

Another chemical reaction would take the carbon from the absorbent material, and then a third process would change that greenhouse gas into a form that could be disposed of.

It would take wind and a lot of energy to power the air capture devices. They would stand tall like cell phone towers on steroids, reaching about 200 feet high with various-sized square filters at the top. Lackner envisions perhaps placing 100,000 of them near wind energy turbines.

Even if each filter was only the size of a television, it could remove about 25 tons of carbon dioxide a year, which is about how much one American produces annually, Lackner said. The captured carbon dioxide would be changed into a liquid or gas that can be piped away from the air capture devices.

Disposal might be the biggest cost, Lackner said.

Disposal of carbon dioxide, including that from fossil fuel plant emissions, is a major issue of scientific and technological research called sequestration. The idea is to bury it underground, often in old oil wells or deep below the sea floor.

The Bush Administration, which doesn't like many geoengineering ideas, is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on carbon sequestration, but mostly for power-plant
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,259590,00.html

 

[red states rule]

I agree.
But I don't include the survival ourselves in that belief.

I think we should reduce our impact on the environment. We are clearly messing with things we don't understand.

Have no fear - Al Bore is here


Can Gore Let It Rip?

Next time he runs for president, things will be different. That was Al Gore's pledge to Democrats after the 2000 election: "If I had to do it all over again, I'd just let it rip. To hell with the polls, the tactics and all the rest. I would have poured out my heart and my vision for America's future."

Those words had a familiar ring. Fifteen years ago -- before he was vice president -- Gore wrote about his internal struggle between ambition and conscience: "I have become very impatient with my own tendency to put a finger to the political winds and proceed cautiously." He added, "Now, every time I pause to consider whether I have gone too far out on a limb, I look at the new facts that continue to pour in from around the world and conclude that I have not gone nearly far enough."

Gore's topic then was global warming -- the same subject that brings him, fresh from the Oscars, to Capitol Hill.

Will Gore run in 2008? The question will echo throughout his appearances Wednesday before the House and Senate committees dealing with climate change. It likely will echo through all of American politics for months to come. There are two ways to ponder the question.

The logic of politics suggests Gore has already given his answer. He is not raising money. He is not urging friends and associates to stay on the sidelines until he makes a decision. He has said repeatedly that he has no plans to run. Shouldn't we take him at his word?

Not yet, we shouldn't. The logic of psychology and even history suggests that Gore should run. And if he should run, it is hard to believe that a man who has organized most of his adult life around public service and the pursuit of the presidency won't in the end actually do it.

For the moment, Gore's legacy in American politics rests on two opposing facts:

-- From the perspective of Democrats, no politician has been more right, more often, on more important questions. On global warming, words that had a radical edge in 1992 -- and still do, to many conservative ears -- Gore wrote "Earth in the Balance," anticipating mainstream liberal rhetoric by a decade. Many Washington Democrats cringed at what they regarded as his shrill people-vs.-powerful 2000 convention speech, when he warned that a Bush presidency would favor special interests and the wealthy. They cringed even more in 2002 at what they regarded as Gore's naive warnings that the coming Iraq war was a disaster in waiting and a distraction from other fronts in the campaign against terrorism. But within a year or so of both speeches, most Democrats inside Washington and beyond essentially embraced Gore's argument and tone.

-- From the perspective of people who believe, as nearly all Democrats do, that the Bush presidency has been a historic debacle, no Democratic politician is more culpable for these consequences than Gore himself. A more poised, focused and self-confident campaign surely would have won the election and not just the popular vote in 2000. As the chosen leader of his party, Gore had a responsibility to wage that campaign.

Both Gore's success in perceiving issues and his failure as a political leader powerfully suggest an unfinished career. Will this highly competitive man not wish to confront and transcend what surely counts as the most agonizing defeat in U.S. presidential history? Will a man who has spent decades thinking about the direction of the country and world not sense an obligation to seek a job where he would have by far the most influence on both?

It is too late for a conventional campaign. But it is not too late for an unconventional one -- probably the better choice for someone who has had an ambivalent and even tortured relationship with conventional politics. If the competition between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) leaves the Democratic field unsettled for months, as seems entirely possible, Gore could forsake organization and plunge into the race as late as next winter, instantly transforming the contest.

That scenario would confront Democrats with the same question they have about Clinton and Obama: Who is the best bet to win the White House? In Gore's case, the question has a more personal subtext: Why is it that running for office seems for him such an exquisitely awkward endeavor?

One place to look for an answer is comparing him to the man for whom running for office is an exquisitely joyful endeavor. Reporters who have spent time around Bill Clinton in off-the-record settings discover an entirely familiar figure. One perks up hearing profanity from a president. He is more candid in such settings about his political calculations, and those of his rivals, than he would ever be in public. But it is a narrow distance between what the private Clinton thinks and says and what the public Clinton thinks and says. That is why politics is easy for him.

Gore in private can be enormously engaging -- curious, funny, self-aware and self-mocking -- a side he sometimes showed reporters as vice president. He can also be maddening -- brooding, self-righteous, sarcastic and condescending -- a side that White House and campaign subordinates saw more often than they wished.

In "Earth in the Balance" -- written at a time when Gore had put aside presidential politics -- he revealed how a man whose public profile was as a moderate Southern Democrat actually harbored the intellectual instincts of a Utopian. He called for eliminating the internal combustion engine by 2017 and for making environmentalism "the central organizing principle for civilization." But in 2000, environmentalism was not even an organizing principle of his own campaign.

What all these fragmentary sides of Gore show is the gulf between what the private Gore thinks and what the public Gore, most of the time, believes he can safely say. That is why politics is hard for him.

All ambitious politicians wrestle with what they think is right versus what they think is politically possible. In Gore's case, this process has been more painful -- and his stumbles more consequential. At the Capitol this week, Gore will again be inching out on that limb he wrote about 15 years ago. Is he ready to just let it rip?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3203.html

 

[red states rule]

the earth isn't dying, just warming up a bit, it will probably cool down again in forty years, you havn't lisend to a word i've said.

This is to good to be true



Interfaith group braves storm in climate change trek
By Adam Gorlick, Associated Press Writer | March 16, 2007

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. --As the world's warmest winter on record drew to an end with a weekend snow storm, a group of religious leaders started walking across the state Friday to bring attention to global warming.

"People have been asking me what happens if it snows," said the Rev. Fred Small of the First Church Unitarian in Littleton. "I tell them: 'we walk.'"

The nine-day haul from downtown Northampton to Copley Square in Boston was planned far before forecasts called for a weekend of snow and sleet just a few days before the start of spring.

"It was windy and cold. I was walking on the front of the line and I felt like I was bow of a ship with the wind just coming into my face," said the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas of the Grace Episcopal Church in Amherst, where the group warmed up on bowls of lentil and minestrone soup after walking eight miles in deep snow from Northampton to Amherst.

Bullitt-Jonas said the walkers kept their spirits strong by singing "Keep on walking forward, never turning back," a hymn they had chanted in prayer services before the march to Boston.

The Rev. Andrea Ayvazian of the Haydenville Congregational Church said the snow was so deep, it felt like she was breaking trail.

In all 24 clergy members will walk the entire distance from Northampton to Boston, while some 800 people will join for smaller portions. The group hopes to have more than 1,000 gather in Boston for a final rally.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Thursday that in the past century, global temperatures have increased at about 0.11 degrees per decade. But that increase has been three times larger since 1976.

The report comes just over a month after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said global warming is very likely caused by human actions and is so severe it will continue for centuries.

"God has given us this Eden, and our behavior is making a mess of it," said the Rev. Jim Antal, president of the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ, the state's largest Protestant denomination.

The religious walkers are part of Religious Witness for the Earth, a 6-year-old national interfaith environmental organization. Supporters include clergy from the Catholic, Unitarian, Jewish, Episcopalian, and Muslim faiths.

The leaders are calling for individuals, businesses and government entities to reduce fossil fuel emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

With most of its members based in the Northeast, it made sense for the group to walk in Massachusetts. The multiday event includes prayer and information sessions along the way before ending with a rally on March 24.

Not all the walkers are expected to make the entire journey. But synagogues and churches on their route will feed and shelter the multi-day hikers.

Many members of Religious Witness for the Earth have used their position from the pulpit to make their congregations aware of climate change.

"The interfaith aspect of what we're doing heightens awareness among everyone," said Rabbi Justin David of Congregation B'Nai Israel in Northampton. "Climate change is a moral issue and it's a collective issue. It transcends the differences of faith and politics and generations. This is something everyone needs to pay attention to."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/mas...change_tr ek/