JAE, to me that's kind of the whole point. If one wants any FACTS much digging is required. If one wants agenda presented as fact one only has to turn on the TV or pick up the newspaper. Too many people don't seem to know that the science is not at all settled. I really hate the way that the media treats the subject.
However, it is complicated and the media is NOT in the business of explaining complicated matters, whatever the subject.
What a bunch of socialist Marxist nonsense (ooo! watch out for the Black Helicopters!). The writer, Catherine Austin Fitts, is obviously an idiot--check out the link at the bottom of her diatribe, it really speaks to the credibility of the editorial writer:
This appeared in my local paper recently. I think the whole discussion would be much more grounded in reality if more of this kind of discussion was availble in the mass media.
A little rationality, SnTMan, added to the discussion. Unfortunately, there appears to be very little movement in that direction, spending fed. gov't budget on engineering R&D in these areas.
Beyond the rhetoric and politicalese, the facts are these:
1) increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere increase the heat retained in the atmosphere
2) burning fossil fuels releases amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere beyond that which would naturally occur
3) the earth has some finite capacity to process CO2 without a response
4) the effects of global temperature rise, regardless of cause, will be devastating to ecology worldwide
" So what are we doing about it? Bugger all. Read the weekly ‘cars’ section of your local paper (or the SAE magazine ): the emphasis is on more power, bigger engines, and faster cars. The gains our brilliant mechanical engineers are making in harnessing the energy of gasoline is being used to make cars faster rather than more economical. If every new car had an acceleration and speed governor (easy to program into the ECU) how much fuel could be saved? Would it work? Not a chance."
The sad fact is that the car industry can only sell the cars that people want to buy. If they don't like them much, they won't pay as much for them, so we have to bribe them to take the cars off our hands. Losing $4000 on every car is not a recipe for success.
If we fit stonking big engines, 22 cup holders, dead cow seats and dead tree trim, and a couple of extra seats just in case, then our customers will pay us enough money to stay in business.
In a recent survey of US new car buyers fuel economy came 19th out of a list of 20 reasons to buy a car. (in Canada oddly it came 3rd)
At $3 per gallon, a rational human being will know that fuel is only a small proportion of the annual cost of running a new vehicle, and buying a more economical car will typically involve trade-offs that are less acceptable.
This does annoy me, but the cold hard fact is oil is not, and will never be (unless heavily taxed), so expensive as to force affluent people into small economical cars. There are several ways to make oil, profitably, for the current price. If the price remains high you will see those methods introduced.
Sorry I realise this is thread drift, peak oil (etc) is not really related to climate change.
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
Were those historic swings in temperature devastating in the long term? Nope. Were they devastating in the short term? Evidently. I notice that the dinosaurs didn't make it through one (or several?) of those swings.
"1) increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere increase the heat retained in the atmosphere"
Just because A causes B doesn't mean all of B is caused by A, or even that it can be detected.
"2) burning fossil fuels releases amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere beyond that which would naturally occur"
Minutely. Remember that the ocean constantly purges CO2 to the atmosphere and sucks it in at the poles. It's an "equilibrium" of sorts. The warm coke effect.
"3) the earth has some finite capacity to process CO2 without a response"
Maybe. All the models don't realistically handle the increased robustness of flora from an enhanced food supply.
"4) the effects of global temperature rise, regardless of cause, will be devastating to ecology worldwide"
The last time Earth was in a stable climate warmer than this it was the pliocene, where temps at the equator were about the same as they are now. We don't know if the effects will be "devestating" - in fact, Homo sapiens have always thrived in warming climates. When climate cools it becomes problematic.
Remember, more people live at the equator than at the poles. Doesn't sound like more warming would necessarily be "devastating."
The dinosaurs all perished because they stampeded over a cliff when they thought that the days were getting hotter and the end was near. Mass dino hysteria. Or was it a meteor?
Forgive my odd humor here, Beggar, but you do have a good point there.
This asteroid hit a pre-dino deposit of oil and coal, burning and dumping CO2 into the atmosphere thereby causing a warming trend sending the dinos into a media frensy communicating that the world was ending thereby causing the dinos to stampede off the cliff. The asteroid is the precursor SUV. That's why some SUV's are called dinosaurs.
Or something like that. I'm so glad it's Friday and I don't do Saturdays. ;-)
I've heard of multiple mass extinctions on our planet (in audio books).
One of the more interesting ones was a supernova radiating on our sun changing the radiated wavelengths of our sun to something that didn't support life for a while.
maybe, just maybe. everybody is wrong. nobody is right. That is why we bias the data for our own objective. It helps form a consensus, get things mobilized, hopefully it is positive direction. Ever wonder what several well placed earth penetration nuclear bombs will do when ejaculated and detonated precisely into the "best known oil-fossil fuel reserve locations?". (this an option that could well get us into action, good kick start). Best burn it up, and by the way look into cheaper alternatives that keep the scholars and red necks busy working. Dinesaurs were of limited intelligence, or did they, maybe they were busy storing oil for the future?
................. That is, for-seeing their eminent demise......... they devised a scheme by which using implanted best rapidly evolving DNA in the most robust survivor types.. they could dominate again... When the programed "CO2-GW" conditions are right. With a lot of munchy crunchy food available, we can flourish again!!!!
Proven oil reserves have increased in the last ten years. Oil sands, heavy tar pools, coal gasification, collection and development of natural gas facilities are all technologies that become feasible with $70/barrel oil. Chicken little and doomsayers need to put on the rose tinted specs for the future is bright with solar, wind, tidal, and nuclear power technologies. (one eruption from Mount St Helen, Pinatubo, Mayon, Apo or any other active volcano can produce CO in a single day equal to decades of mankind fuel burning. It is hubris to claim modern man is a major factor in climate change.)
They claim that the surface of the earth is smoother than a ping pong ball, in relative terms. How could microscopic – nanoscopic activities possibly effect this?
But yet, driving down to LA from the mountains there is a yellow-brown haze, static, unnatural, thick, and sickening. Acid rain, CFC, nuclear fall out, all products of volcanic, meteors, or other natural phenomenon. However the “smoke-oil-gas” was mainly attributed to poorly regulated night time refining of the local petrol. Not as bad as it used to be, sure it still is a problem, in areas like the lower San Joaquin valley, where the San Francisco green people’s pollution tends to gather, over the farmland, bottled up by the Sierra Nevada mountains.
So believe what you want, but, some areas of this nano-scopic human activity has demonstrated, and is widely recognized, as having a negative impact on the air quality.
Just walk on a sidewalk in Caracas, as a herd of two stroke mopeds putter past. You can just watch the blue-green haze, float in the air, like the ever present demons of my mind.
The engineering mind can easily understand that the Urban Heat Island is only a concentration of albedo difference. It's not some magical thing, only a heat collecter - and a square yard of Asphalt pavement contributes the same to global warming whether it's in the middle of a city or in the middle of the country. Global warming alarmists are compartmentalizers vs. the cool headed integrators; anecdote collecters vs. conceptualizers. Check out these blogs:
