Global Warming

[[AK]Squidly]

Shunned by the BBC for doubting global warming...

A good read, and a break from all the election stuff.

[[AK]Camelwalk]

Back to the election stuff, just wait for carbon tax, global tax for emissions, and the emegeance of a new agency on enviromentalism to deal with just global warming and has powers to inact laws in the name of mankind.

*Makes tinfoil hat* or I could just be about right.

[[AK]Clay]

Back to the election stuff, just wait for carbon tax, global tax for emissions, and the emegeance of a new agency on enviromentalism to deal with just global warming and has powers to inact laws in the name of mankind.

*Makes tinfoil hat* or I could just be about right.

As to the environment, Europe is already in the midst of wrecking their petrochemical industies (do a google on REACH. Heck, do a google on "tin whiskers"), and their CO2 policies have been a failure. Here's hoping that economic damage is so sever in Europe folks in the US will pay attention.

Seriously, Obama wants to reduce us CO2 emmisions to 80% of 1990 levels by 2050 - does he have a clue how utterly devistating that would be to the US economy? But it sure sounds good! It means shutting down massive sections of the US heavy industries, transportation, and automotive industries. Now there's a good idea. If he's serious, it's time to start building a crap-ton of nuclear power plants in a hurry. But wait, nuclear's bad - so we'll just wait for some as-yet to be invented technology to fix it. Same government-think that lead fools to throw away the blueprints to the SR-71 and the Saturn rockets - they were so much better than what we had in the 60's, that by the 80's surely we'll build something twice as good right?? Yea.

[[AK]Squidly]

Could global warming really be an elaborate, covert liberal scam?

[[AK]Bribo]

Could global warming really be an elaborate, covert liberal scam?

Global warming (or the new catch phrase "Climate change") has become the new religion of the left. If you are a scientist and question it's validity you are branded a heretic and excommunicated.

[[AK]Squidly]

I don't know if human-caused climate change is fact or fiction. I do know that scientists, media, and politicians closing debate on a topic flies in the face of the accepted scientific method (a never-ending process of research and adjusting and improving your theories.)

For a group that likes to rub their intellectual superiority in the face of all and sundry, it seems here that they are pissing in their own holy water.

[[AK]Hylander]

These are the same scientists who guaranteed the hole in the ozone layer and a new ice age.

[[AK]Clay]

I don't know if human-caused climate change is fact or fiction. I do know that scientists, media, and politicians closing debate on a topic flies in the face of the accepted scientific method (a never-ending process of research and adjusting and improving your theories.)

For a group that likes to rub their intellectual superiority in the face of all and sundry, it seems here that they are pissing in their own holy water.

Well said Squidly. I'm a Ph.D. researcher. The vast majority of my research conclusions are along of the lines of - we've found this correlation of behavior to changes in parameters: so we're pretty sure those parameters are what's causing the changes. Damn little do I put a pin on the board and say by-God this is indisputable scientific law. I've had to revise plenty of my theories and explanations over the years as new data and understanding comes to light. I work in the larboratory and field scientific world - controlled settings where all parameters are known, repeatable, and adjustable at my whim. These guys are claiming global warming as indisputable scientific fact based on some observations of the not so controllable natural environment. In the lab, it's also, based on the observation that CO2 has a depressing effect on infred light transmission, and that infrared light is how the Earth cools itself at night time. That part is real. Water vapor and methane also have this effect - and we've got one Hell of a lot more water vapor and clouds on this planet than we do CO2. We also have an indisputable trend of increasing temperature on this planet. Surprise, global temperature varies naturally.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be concerned, shouldn't monitor, and shouldn't think about these things. But I am saying we aught to have a care before we decide to knock the standard of living (and mortality rates) back to something that's going to be pretty unpleasant. Or worse, do so unilaterally while some guys across the pond decide not to - and we find ourselves wondering why we're the 3rd world country now.

One other point to ponder - most global warming research is done by academia. Academia, while hugging themselves in their ivory towers and saying they're above petty money, is really all about petty money just like anyone else. They get their money from grants. Grants are reviewed and awarded by academia. What's easier money - further research on the popular academia topic that many of these reviewers made their careers on - or research with the hypothesis that will descredit your reviewers life's work?