errata

That's 'too' keen.

Just a diversion

This will no doubt turn into a christian right VS evil democrat debate.

GWest

OK, if you want to pursue that childish line of argument, Garth, I'll trade you a Berman for your Ball. And I'll even go you one better, I'll trade you a Suzuki for a Gore.

Re your bringing up of Teller's Physics degree, if you were as smart as you profess to be, you'd be embarrassed to be caught trailing such a red herring, for many, if not most "experts" become proficient in disciplines outside of their acedemic training.

If you hadn't been so busy dissing Mopled with your ad hominem attacks, you would have read the many trustable and informative sites which named names and credentials which he posted along with, unfortunately, the inclusion of a few sites dedicated to crazies.

So if you had been interested in seeking the "truth", you would have seen that many of these "deniers" are heads of, or highly placed in University climate studies departments as well as in US Gov't agencies such NOAA.

If you read the NOAA site dealing with GW....

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html#intro

.....and read it carefully, you will find that all the GW indicators are very caefully phrased and ultimately qualified with the following escape clause:

"For Northern Hemisphere temperature, recent decades appear to be the warmest since at least about 1000AD, and the warming since the late 19th century is unprecedented over the last 1000 years"

OF COURSE, since this period includes the abnormal Little Ice Age - approx 1350-1850 - (and includes, interestingly, the Maunder Minimum - 1645-1715), and so a very large proportion of posited GW in the past 150 years can be explained.

AND, you will also notice that NOAA also acknowledges that the GW CO2 climate models as posited are speculation only, and as yet cannot be proven. This is also noted in the petition.

Few impartial observers think that Carbon taxation and Cap and Trade are anything but scams, and even Warmists are coming to that conclusion, but they are tied to their shopworn shibboleths of oil-heted and opposition to nukes, and changing their positions would be an admission of error.

Still, they cling to their beliefs that impending irreversible doom is due within 10 years, despite the irefutable fact that the only quick-fix possible is nukes and even that only in an optomistic minimum of 20 year.

RMan is right, you're a bunch of gullible religionists.

correction

third paragraph from end should read oil-hatred instead of oil-heted. :- )

Which begs the question ...

... were the ' global heating scam' to be proven in the next 10 years, will all the hydro-carbon fuels have disappeared? Will the 'oil-haters' have so thoroughly re-educated the entire population of the globe that no-one will remember how to burn oil?

Berman's a scientist?

Don't think so...she's a shill...far as I know no one puts 'her' in the IPCC...

You want to finesse Timmy, I'll give you Andrew Weaver though.

No they don't ME2

This is the era of the specialist, not the generalist.

Gwest

Are you saying that if one doesn't have am academic background specifically in climate science, they can't become a specialist or expert in that field? Surely you're joking.

Do all the IPCC members have an academic degree specifically in climate science?

Specialists don't cut it...

...the believers need the help of abstractists. As before, God is on their side.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/richard-alleyne/6146656/Maybe-religion-is-the-answer-claims-atheist-scientist.html

realistically, maybe bias is the answer ...

... to why the same speech is reported differently in different newspapers :

http://richarddawkins.net/article,4270,Speech-by-Lord-May-of-Oxford-the-president-of-the-British-Science-Association-,The-Independent-and-The-Telegraph

The road to Damascus

realisticman, last year during our discussions vis a vis the carbon tax you declared global warming was a huge problem and we had to do something about it and the carbon tax was a great idea.

Do you have any beliefs of your own or do you just follow the party line on everything?

Not saying that at all ME2

I'm simply responding to your allegation that this is the age of the generalist, remember, THIS, is what YOU wrote:

...many, if not most "experts" become proficient in disciplines outside of their academic training.(ME2)

IT was that part of your highly 'personal' diatribe I was responding to.

I don't think it's true - everyone I know and read in the hard sciences is a 'specialist' - often in a very narrow area of expertise...it goes with the territory and is an outgrowth of the drilling down into things that modern education and technology have led us into. The growth of knowledge in the sciences during the past forty or fifty years has meant that working scientists - especially empiricists in the hard sciences - have become specialists. Often in the most esoteric and narrow of inquiry fields.

That's all.

And delivered, I hope, without even a hint of personal animus or vindictiveness.

Cheers!

And by the way I think you'd be advised to avoid Teller the same way I avoid Al Gore.

Cheers.

However, if one really wants to have a substantive discussion

However, if one really wants to have a substantive discussion about how perilously far we have travelled up the river of no return, some of the following might be a decent (and up to date) place to start:

Susan Solomon, Gian-Kasper Plattner, Reto Knutti, and Pierre Friedlingstein, 10th February 2009.
Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions. PNAS, vol. 106, no. 6, pp1704–1709.
http://tinyurl.com/mgyd6d
Myles R. Allen et al, 30th April 2009. Warming caused by cumulative carbon emissions
towards the trillionth tonne. Nature 458.
http://tinyurl.com/dmg7qj
Myles Allen et al, 30th April 2009. The exit strategy: Emissions targets must be placed in the context of a cumulative carbon budget if we are to avoid dangerous climate change. Nature
http://tinyurl.com/n4dx7o
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, 30th April 2009. On the way to phasing out emissions: More than 50% reductions needed by 2050 to respect 2°C climate target.
http://tinyurl.com/kwjumc
Sadly, you won’t be able to access every full article in Nature without a subscription…

A trial may be the only way to resolve the issue

The climate change hysteria needs to be examined, and more importantly cross examined. A court of law may be the best forum, as it removes the politics.

Climate change "scientists" have been able to make the most bizarre claims, which have been repeated by the media without any examination.

Having to testify under oath and face cross examination, must be be truly terrifying for most of the climate change crowd.

Frank

I don't profess to be an expert on sunspots, solar flares, CO2, or anything. I just comment on the way the wind seems to be blowing. We've had NGO Science, Academic Science, Ideological Science, anti-globalization Science, etc. Now, it seems to going towards Pulpit Science.

Road to Damascus

realisticman, I wasn't commenting on science at all. I simply pointed out that over a year ago you were all for Campbell's carbon tax "because we have to fight global warming" and now today you say you don't believe in global warming.

One can assume you are now against the carbon tax but as that would mean not supporting a Campbell policy I doubt you would agree.

What would Galileo say?

Frank, as a democrat, for want of a better and acceptable system, I accepted the majority view that a carbon tax would lead to better use of fuels and more efficient ways of using fuels. I didn't say I don't believe in global warming because, as I said, I am not an expert. I do know that there are not any sunspots lately and that is unusual. What I do believe is that there are many gullible nutters that are riding the 'global climate change' bandwagon and for a variety of reasons, many of which have little to do with science and in many cases their fervor borders on religion.

Galileo would say Campbell isn't the centre of the universe

"What I do believe is that there are many gullible nutters that are riding the 'global climate change' bandwagon and for a variety of reasons, many of which have little to do with science and in many cases their fervor borders on religion."

Is Gordon Campbell a "nutter" then?

Pragmatism vs Flat Earth

No Frank, he's accepted the majority view that a carbon tax would lead to better use of fuels and more efficient ways of using fuels. Democracy Frank. Lots of greenies out there and the government responded. You wouldn't want a government that didn't listen to the people would you?

Listening????? I don't think so

From a very good new blog...just the voices of a few journalists:
http://northerninsights.blogspot.com/2009/09/verdict-is-in-guilty-of-deceit.html

Not listening at all...

Campbell and the carbon tax

CTV.ca, July 6, 2008 - "One week into B.C.'s contentious carbon tax plan, Premier Gordon Campbell said he's willing to pay a political price at the polls to lower the province's future greenhouse gas output.

"We felt it was important for us to think as a generation . . . to reduce the (carbon) burdens of future generations," he said on CTV's Question Period Sunday"

Also consider this official gov't statement:

Climate Action Plan
http://www.livesmartbc.ca/government/plan.html

"The Climate Action Plan is B.C.’s roadmap to a new, prosperous, green economy for the province. It outlines strategies and initiatives to take B.C. approximately 73 per cent towards meeting the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 33 per cent by 2020."

I think it's safe to assume the carbon tax is part of this 'action plan.'

A Retraction?

Many of those journalists have been repeatedly called the "Liberal bought and paid for press", by the same scribe who now touts them for support.

I guess that if the shoe fits.....

So, forget the planet we're back to Campbell bashing. Where's Carole?

rman

"No Frank, he's accepted the majority view that a carbon tax would lead to better use of fuels and more efficient ways of using fuels."

Much as I love your tap dancing I can't help but point out to you that I can quite easily, with the help of google, post quotes of Campbell saying the carbon tax was implemented to combat global warming. The same global warming you think exists in the imagination of "nutters" and "religous extremists".

But I much prefer to watch you claim Campbell is not one of your "nutters" when he agrees with and implements "nutter" policies.

"You wouldn't want a government that didn't listen to the people would you?"

I look forward to having one in the future.

Christmas in happy Denmark

Will you be flying off to Copenhagen in December to lobby, Frank? It is important to study the happy people and also to try and convince any fence-sitters that the planet is looking at them for salvation. If ever there were a need to splurge on some carbon credits it is now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8244223.stm

Copenhagen?

Lobby for or against what? Liberal supporters in BC that can't disagree with their dear leader no matter what?

I didn't realize Copenhagen was the place I had to be in when wondering why people who don't believe in global warming were such big supporters of the carbon tax.

waste of time

Frank, Frank, Frank: You know better than to discuss anything with Rman.

He will be for (or against) whatever suits his mood at that particular moment, damned if it goes against his previous meanderings.

Be it global warming or flat earth ideas, there is no point discussing it with some of the posters on this site.

Your only satisfaction will be that when we all succumb to the final destruction of the earth, you can say: "I told you so"!

Not sure yet about CO2

Haven't made up my mind regarding potential effects CO2 might be having. Yes, with coal, oil, gas and trees..humans have dumped alot of CO2 into the atmosphere the last 100 years or so. But what effect does irrigation have? How many hundreds of millions of acres of land now grow crops where before there was nothing but arid, desert land? All that dry land now being irrigated surely should be taken into account as far as CO2 plant uptake is concerned. Not only irrigation...but by using fertilizer and creating new plant species...how much more plant mass grows (that absorbs CO2) where before little or none would flourish? It's only been a couple hundred years since humans have been putting lots of CO2 into the atmosphere...its been many thousands of years since humans first started irrigating previously barren lands.

How about the northern treeline? In northern Quebec and Nunavut there's hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of land that currently grow no trees...if the tree line moves north (either naturally or artificially) won't all those trees absorb billions and billions of pounds of CO2? How far has the tree line advanced in the last 100 years?

What about iron fertilization? Iron is one of the main nutrients concerning the cycle of life in the ocean food chain. The lack of iron is a factoring in limiting ocean biomass growth. How much errosion from land based (and manmade) iron sources is now making its way to the ocean? How much iron from the thousands of iron hulled ships corrodes into the oceans each year allowing for algae growth that absorbes CO2? How about the many shipwrecks...are they fertilizing the oceans allowing for more CO2 uptake? Perhaps with unnatural human induced land irrigation and crop growing fertilizers combined with iron fertilization of the oceans...maybe CO2 levels would be dangerously low if not for fossil fuel consumption the last 100 years. That's not to say we shouldn't look for alternatives to coal/oil/gas...just seems like pricing CO2 may in fact benefit the very industries who pumped all the CO2 into the atmosphere should they be phased out. Coal company could say after shutting their power plant down..."we want carbon credits for stopping our activities"...when the economics of wind/solar/biofuel stopped the competitiveness of said coal plant not environmental reasons...perhaps environmentalists should beware being played for pawns by the very industry they're trying to shut down...

CourtGQuinn

Much common sense you write. There are also all those forest fires, some still burning here in BC and thousands more all over the world. What about a volcanic burp! How many Chevys do we have to crank up to match the awesome volume of Co2 those puppies pump? Nevertheless, if you even so much as own a light-bulb, never mind an infernal combustion vehicle, then, according to some, you are a sinner brother and the path to salvation is not paved but muddy, but you shalst take it with the utmost haste before we spiral into an abyss of right-wing globalized consumerism greed and waste.

Invalid comparisson.

If the whole world consumed the way Canadians do the existing plant would be a lot better off.

Canadians may consume more energy per capita but there are significantly fewer of them per square kilometre than in places like China and India. Our energy footprint is much smaller than the fear mongers would have us believe.

There is absolutely no need for panic in this country, rather measured solutions to help solve problems globally and not so much in our back yard.

Climate science eh?

realisticman- not sure if my thinking about CO2 is correct or not...just seems like more questions need to be asked...

here's a climate model i came up with a few months ago while researching the nuclear industry. Did you know that the Athabasca basin in northern Saskatchewan not only provides (and has provided) a great percentage of the uranium used for weapons and power plant fuel rods...but said massive U ore deposits also happen to be greatly concentrated. Looking at the geography around the Athabasca basin...it seems the physical landscape was created under unusual circumstances. Remember, 10 000 years ago most of Canada was under 1 kilometer of glacier ice. Wonder if all that athabasca basin based uranium played a part in helping to melt the ice sheets above western Canada...perhaps a natural nuclear reactor not only helped end the ice age...maybe the oilsands located west of the A basin were formed via the combined actions of a tremendous amount of ice pressure plus massive uranium deposits/heat plus rock/soil water landmass errosion. If another ice age/glacial period were to hit Canada...have we removed the natural means to melt the glaciers? Should nuclear wastes be put back near the athabasca region to ensure future climate patterns aren't disrupted?

It's not just energy it's our ecological footprint

It's everything.

But don't take my word for it, see for yourself:

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/national_assessments/

for those who can't bear to do the digging themselves

here's a link to the pdf:

http://assets.wwf.ca/downloads/canadianlivingplanetreport2007.pdf

volcano facts

According to the USGS, volcanoes release about 130 - 230 million tonnes of CO2 annually.

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/index.php

This link - http://environment.about.com/od/globalwarming/a/autoemissions.htm

claims that personal vehicle in the U.S. alone releases nearly double to triple that amount (314 million tonnes) annually.

Trees sequester CO2, and of course release it when burned. While that CO2 may remain 'in' the tree for hundreds of years, our climate has remained relatively similar for that period of time. That's a big difference when compared to the CO2 released from fossil fuels sequestered in a much more distant past, in a far different climate.

Suggesting that humans can't affect the climate by invoking either volcanoes or forest fires doesn't seem to hold up to even a cursory examination of the facts.

Further, volcanic activity and forest fires are practically as old as the Earth itself and one might suggest the climate has developed the ability to handle these inputs without positive feedback loops occurring. Human-based CO2 release on the current scale however, is very recent and it's pretty hard to believe that our climate can handle these massive CO2 injections in the same manner.

Unless the numbers I've quoted are suspect, the comparison actually reinforces the possibility that humans can and do have a big impact on the climate.

Note that a single volcanic explosion in 1883 (Krakatoa) and its attendant airborne ash cooled our climate and oceans for decades. If one volcano can do that, then 6 billion fossil-fuel burning humans can certainly create their own set of climate problems.

natural nuclear reactors

" Wonder if all that athabasca basin based uranium played a part in helping to melt the ice sheets above western Canada...perhaps a natural nuclear reactor not only helped end the ice age.."

A naturally-occurring nuclear fission reactor is pretty easy to spot, even if it occurred billions of years ago, due to anomalous spectrometric readings. If what you suggested had happened, based upon the three examples where such a phenomenon is believed to have occurred it would be both quite obvious and perhaps still in effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor

Read about nat nuke reactors before..

Chris Keam- thanks for post. While i was reading about the potential/possiblity of the Athabasca basin a few months ago...i stumbled upon your wikipedia link. The thing about athabasca basin U deposits is this...how can 1 kilometer of ice/pressure above said deposits be modeled in a lab/experiment? And Gabon didn't have 1 kilometer of ice overhead to act as a neutron moderator. And perhaps the melting of the ice/glacier scoured away any "proofs" that may have allowed for easy detection. Anyway, it's just a theory i came up with...like other climate science models perhaps more work needs to be done to prove one way or another...

ice depth

The average depth of the ocean is approx. 4 km. I'm not a geologist but wouldn't the same kinds of pressures you are talking about w/r/t a glacier exist even today?

"like other climate science models perhaps more work needs to be done to prove one way or another..."

There's a wealth of data supporting the arguments for human-initiated climate change. The work that needs doing now is on an individual level and relates to how we can each find ways to contribute to solutions IMO.

Business Journal too

The Puget Sound Business Journal published this week a guest editorial on the same subject, wondering where NW companies stand on this "trial"
http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2009/09/07/editorial2.html

Galileo

was referenced a while back by the Deniers. His dispute was not actually with the Church but with the literal interpretation of the Old Testament's placement of Earth as the stable centre of the universe with the sun, the moon and the stars revolving around it. His evidence was the logical synthesis of observation, including some anomalies (the retrograde motions of certain 'stars' which were called 'wanderers' or 'planets').

The establishment sought to have him recant, and admit that the Earth must be permanently fixed in space, but while he publicly renounced his beliefs, he murmured, sotto voce, "But it still moves."

So say I. In spite of volcanoes, sunspots, and Edward Teller's name, "Anthropocentric Global Warming still happens, along with shit and other unpleasant things."

Des

Good job you weren't around to condemn Galileo because you would have. You are a true believer and even those that do not profess to know one way or the other, you condemn as Deniers.

You are the establishment you speak of.

realistically, establishing Gallileo ...

... as condemnable was conducted by non-scientific non-experts with massive vested interests - financial and philosophical/theological - who controlled one of the biggest PR machines known to humanity.

Just like the Oil Corps today.

Gallileo was a leading member of the scientific establishment of the day with supporters among the Jesuits, Carmelites, Popes and princes.

Just like the IPCC today.

http://galileo.rice.edu/chron/galileo.html

R'man

India alone has 30 times the population of Canada and they aren't going to buy this religious witch hunt fervor. "India has no intention of signing the new ‘climate change’ treaty in Copenhagen in December..."

Well, aren't you the village idiot today.

India is damned worried about climate change - not so much mitigating it for the future, but dealing with the already-20% drop in GDP due to climate change effects that have already devastated Tamil Nadu in storm surges, salinization of groundwater and deforestation by temperature change.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/2009/08/23/stories/2009082359730500.htm

Try reading an actual Indian newspaper if you're going to comment on India and global climate change.

PS - the Hindu is the conservative organ, and its archive has more than 60 articles concerning reactions to climate change in the past year alone. Imagine if I got at one of the socialist newspapers from West Bengal like the Calcutta Post or even the more conservative Telegraph - how long would your idiot assertion stand then?

snert

"Canadians may consume more energy per capita but there are significantly fewer of them per square kilometre than in places like China and India. Our energy footprint is much smaller than the fear mongers would have us believe."

And what would you do with all the Chinese and Indians that didn't fit when you ran out of earths at the Canadian rate of resource consumption? Gas ovens?

zalm

Are these references kosher? India has not accepted that excess CO2 is the cause and therefore they are not interested in worshiping at the Church of Carbon.

http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/deepak-lal-spikingroad-to-copenhagen/367985/

The Indian Minister for Environment and Forests (MoEF) Mr Jairam Ramesh said, "India should not, cannot and must not take legal binding targets on emission level decrease at the Copenhagen meet."

http://www.weeklyblitz.net/index.php?id=935

"..Union Minister of state for Forest and Environment Jairam Ramesh...The minister said that India wants a fair and equitable international agreement on the issue of climate change and global warming that does not stifle its development aspiration at the forthcoming United Nations Summit on Climate Change (UNSCC) at Copenhagen
. ...The fact that around 15,000 Himalayan glaciers are receding is beyond doubt, Ramesh said, adding, however, that what still needs to be established is the cause of the recession.

He said that while the western school of thought attributes the recession of glaciers to global warming, Indian scientists are of the opinion that there is still not enough solid evidence to substantiate it. .."

Times of India

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/environment/flora-fauna/States-to-get-incentives-to-maintain-forest-cover-Ramesh/articleshow/4978605.cms

Ha ha.

"The world was astounded that an enlightened country like the United States seemed to be slipping back into the Dark Ages."

realistically, Stock and Flow problems

... are old hat for 'Superfund'

http://www.cfr.org/publication/11311/

- regardless of church membership.

AGW

is the only synthesis of all the evidence available to science anent the absolute fact of global warming. If the "anthropocentric" adjective is what bothers so many deniers, too bad. Guilty conscience can rouse rejection and displacement of feelings, shifting the blame for something away from the shoulders on which it is properly placed. You know, "The dog ate my homework."

Realisticman, I have never, ever, belonged to the 'establishment.' I would have sat with the Church for Galileo's trial, but I would have stood up for him when he explained the science of his astronomy, and then preached the truth of his assertions to the 'unbelievers' in the crowd. Just like today, trying to open closed minds.