Roody

In the last month there have been a couple big events that impact on carfree and alternative transit. Like the Bali conference and the US energy bill. I haven't seen any comment here on either event. Any opinions?

gerv 

There's an interesting article at grist.org https://grist.org/feature/2007/12/20/top/index.htmlintimating that "Green has gone from "dead" to ubiquitous in just a few short years, and it peaked with the crazy buzz of 2007".

The article list 15 major trends in this year and it is worth a read.

Surprisingly:
1. Transportation issues were not mentioned much and the word bicycle wasn't mentioned at all. I was a little surprised because from my observation, there are a lot more folks moving around lately on 2 wheels.

2. The awakening of the US politicians towards Green issues was a major step forward.

Still, where it all matters, there's a lot of talk and very little action. At Bali, Bush seems like he was able to finesse a "no-action" stance and , as long as he is the President, meaningful steps in the right direction are unlikely.

As for the recent energy bill, a lot of steps were made in the right direction, but very little towards supporting alternate energy like solar and wind. It's fortunate that the leadership in this area comes from some of the US states, because the US federal government is a generation behind.

ChipSeal

The Bali conference was heralded as "the last chance" to avoid catastrophe by many green organizations and scientists, as reported in British newspapers.

Since the only thing they successfully accomplished was to agree to meet again within two years, does that mean we have passed the point of no return on GW? Can we please just get on with enjoying the warmer climate now?

wahoonc

I have read a few reports from the Bali Conference, the incoherent reporting along with the lack of any general consensus that emanated has convinced me that my beliefs pertaining to the upcoming issues are going to be best solved on the local level.

Act locally, think globally...to borrow and old phrase. It is going to take individuals doing the best they can on a local level to survive. Too many people in the US look to the federal goverment for direction...others look to the state level. I am convinced that it it going to be individuals working together literally house by house to make things work, and a lot of it will be by trial and error. We will have to decentralize to survive.

Aaron

gerv 

Probably right that there needs to be some great momentum coming from individuals.

But, at the same time, a federal government action to, let's say, introduce carbon taxes (which would serve to foster a lot more green electricity and other initiatives...) would have been a nice thing to see. We are starting to see the United States seriously marginalized at these types of meetings and I think the US voters are demanding otherwise.

What I don't want to see happen is a lot of talk about meeting commitments, then gradually backing out of the commitment because of "loss of jobs" or "serious economic impact." I think Canada is seeing some of this, where they've committed to Kyoto emission levels, but then invested heavily in the heavily polluting Tar Sands project. Too bad...

wahoonc

I think a lot of governments, the US in particular are going to get caught with their pants down and are doing too little too late. I realize that some stuff that goes around has the chicken little appearance to it, but Peak Oil has been pretty well proven and I suspect we won't hear any "official" word on it until it is too late. Then we spend the next 4 years+ pointing fingers, chairing commissions, commissioning studies, ad nauseum. But if we wait on the US federal government to point the way we will have waited too long, and that is assuming that it is still solvent at that point.

Aaron

ChipSeal

Source with link to an excel spreadsheet of the raw data:

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/..._schmyoto.html

And Kyoto was to roll back carbon emissions to 1990 levels, right? I wish you a lot of luck, Aaron, on offsetting that 55% carbon increase from China!

Seriously, given that mankind is responsible for about 5% of the CO2, EDIT: Mankind is responsible for .28% of it- (S.M. Freidenreich and V. Ramaswamy, "Solar Radiation Absorption by Carbon Dioxide, Overlap with Water, and a Parameterization for General Circulation Models," Journal of Geophysical Research 98 (1993):7255-7264) and we would in the most drastic measures simply reduce our CO2 output, (not eliminate our net production) I doubt the USA could make a difference. If we all just sat down in the corner of a dark room and tried not to breath we would be adding CO2 to the atmosphere!

wahoonc, carbon taxes? That is just a new revenue stream for the federal government and feeding the beast! It sounds good on paper but there would be many unintended consequences.

Look fellas, it will be far less costly to prepare for a warmer climate than it would be to try and change it.

wahoonc

Chip Seal,
To me the Global Warming/Carbon Tax is a side issue. I am looking more at the depletion of natural resources, the Peak Oil (no we are not going to run out but it is going to get expensive) as well as the possible crashing of the World economy, and if not the world at least several of what are considered first world nations, as well as further problems in the third world. Things are going to get expensive, some things are going to disappear and the standard of living for a lot of people is going to slide. I really am not a doom and gloom guy, but the current US economy is based on a shell game and nothing more. We are addicted to oil, we have a minimal manufacturing base and all we do is consume, the US dollar has become worthless as a world currency. We owe our souls to the Chinese and other outside investors, when they call their notes...down we go. This is one of the reasons I firmly believe that it is going to take local solutions to survive, we are not going to be able to depend on the goverment for much of anything, also they have been so out of touch with the common man in the US for decades. There is also the technology loss that Roody pointed out earlier, I have been reading on that, but not quite sure how it plays into the big picture.

Aaron

gerv 

This is a ridiculous argument. The majority scientific opinion right how is that we might be able to offset the worst effect of climate change by taking action in the next 10-15 years.

If the majority of scientists are wrong, we stand to live in a world where we live with a little less (think biking to work instead of driving the car...). If these scientists are correct, we could be jeopardizing the very lives of our grandchildren.

Your argument is that it's too much trouble. Let's just roll over and fall asleep.

ChipSeal

Wait! So if mankind reduces the CO2 we produce to say, 4.9% of total CO2 being produced from all sources, we will affect world climate? Ha! EDIT: Man produces .28% of all CO2- see my edit in prior post.

Oh, where to begin? Perhaps our grandchildren would burn up? What horror awaits them? The worst case scenarios call for a 2 degree Celsius (4 degree Fahrenheit) average rise in global temperature and less than 18 inches of sea level rise. (We experienced an 18 inch sea level rise in the last century, and nobody noticed!)

A warmer climate may even be a net good for humanity! Fewer winter deaths, and longer growing seasons. Vineyards could once again be planted in Nova Scotia! Woo Hoo!

The hysterics insult my intelligence with the claim that a gas that comprises 250 parts per million (250/1,000,000) changing to 400 parts per million (400/1,000,000) in our atmosphere will change world wide climate. Imagine a straight line one kilometer long. It represents our atmosphere. The amount of change is 15 centimeters in a kilometer. Out of every 100 tons of CO2 produced, man is responsible for producing just five tons. Do you really think halving our CO2 production would make a difference? Half a degree Fahrenheit maybe? Please!

Ah, but to avoid an unlikely doomsday scenario, we have to overthrow western society!

My argument is NOT that it is too much trouble, my argument is that it cannot stand up to a cost/benefit analysis. The "cure" is more harmful than the disease, and there hasn't even been a proper diagnosis yet!

When nations that pledge to roll their CO2 production back to what they were 8 years prior, yet increase their production by 21% in five years instead, doesn't that suggest the game is up? People are not going to change their way of life for 150 parts per million. You can force people to change, but it will be a heavy handed reduction of presently enjoyed freedoms. Is that what you want done, forced change? The only other alternative then, (Since persuasion has failed, despite ever more dire and apocalyptic predictions!) is to prepare for warmer weather.

JusticeZero

Heat is not the big issue. There are two things that are.
The weather system is essentially a big heat pump. Increase the amount of free energy, and suddenly, the catastrophic storms, massive droughts and such we're seeing become routine weather; the desert states cease to exist, massive floods become like rainstorms are today. Take the weather we're seeing now and turn the volume up to 11. Lots of property damage and loss of life.
Environmental disruption. I'm seeing massive changes in the plants and animals where I live. We've already lost our mountain goats decades ago; they went extinct in the space of a year or two. Now we're losing ubiquitous, trademark of the place plants and it's blowing out the whole ecosystem in freakish ways. As a result we've got things like a pack of wolves eating peoples' pets in the city. That's just making a lot of wierd things happen in unpredictable ways, and a lot of those things end up coming back to bite us and cost us money.

Another point.. Aren't you being a bit racist? Most of the people who are going to be killed by these things are in Africa and Asia. But I guess nobody cares if a bunch of people with yellow or black skin die from massive disasters, huh?
The reason the U.S. had so little increase in CO2 despite not signing Kyoto is because the US is already about as bad as it can get. Everyone is already in SUV's and had a massive carbon footprint, unlike developing areas.

By the way: Going green is a net boost to the economy; it creates booms as infrastructure is rebuilt and requires people to get jobs to upgrade.

gerv 

I don't know where you come up with this version of the worst case scenario. I'm reading in this article that the worst case scenario is more likely 3 feet. The source of this prediction is the US EPA and I would hardly credit them with overstating the issue.

Fact is, no one actually knows what the sea rise will be. That fact alone, and the rate at which we observe glaciers melting in Greenland and Antartica, lead me to worry.

Again, I have no real idea what the effect of a warming would have on us or our future generations. From what I read, the picture is a little less rosy than you paint.

But let me speak from my experience: Before I lived in the US Midwest, my home was Eastern Canada. In the early 1990s, that area of the world experienced a change that saw the destruction of the deep sea cod fishery. At first, the change was suspected to be solely over-fishing, but since the fishery hasn't really ever returned in the 20 years since, scientists are now partially blaming a 1 degree C rise in water temperature. They feel that this was sufficient enough to stress the fish so that they could no longer reproduce.

The net effect of this disaster is that the entire fishing industry in the area died... and suddenly. It is as if Iowans woke up one morning and discovered their land could no longer support growing corn. You can imagine the devastation!

And I read that there are other significant climate changes already taking place. And none of them are as rosy as the ones you describe. A good example is what's happening in Darfur. Of course, a lot of the trouble is political, no doubt. But the drying up of Lake Chad is also a significant stressor. You can't grow anything if you don't have water and water is a diminishing resource in the area.

So, I have no idea what the temperature will be like in 50 years. Things may not be as bad as the majority scientific opinion seems to think. Or, it could be that they are right. One the basis of all know facts, I need to reduce my carbon footprint on this earth. From my point of view, it is a question of morality.

Cyclaholic

Surely not even you can be this ignorant.... please tell me you're just trolling!
Your reasoning is akin to saying that Japan became an economic powerhouse thanks to the two nukes that were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima therefore nuclear proliferation may even be a net good for humanity!

ChipSeal

The UN IPCC report table 3.1. Their estimate of sea level rise in 100 years is between .2 meters and .5 meters.

In figure 3.6 they give a range of temperatures in the event of no mitigation of CO2 a hundred years out. Depending on the computer model used it will be as low as one degree Celsius to a high of 6 degrees Celsius. Since the IPCC's estimate of of total GHG (green house gas) five year growth projection five years ago was high compared to reality, it would be safe to expect the same in these guesses too.

As is pointed out by many scientists, the IPCC is a political document. to wit:

https://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=164002

I am therefor particularly skeptical of the higher end estimates of IPCC's claims.


My point about vineyards in Nova Scotia is a reference to what the Vikings found when they landed there. Apparently things were warmer then. I would submit that maybe that was the optimum temperature of the earth, not the temperature in 1990.

As the glaciers in Switzerland retreat, they are finding interesting things. They have found the entrances to mines! And just inside, neatly arranged are the mining tools waiting for the miners return. It is speculated that in warmer times, the miners quit for winter one year and couldn't return due to glacier growth. It is foolish to think the normal climate is what we have experienced in our lifetime!

gerv 

You better hope these estimates are on the high side. In the last century we saw a 1 degree Fahrenheit rise in global average temperature. That's partly why the last 12 years were the hottest on record. A global temperature rise of 6 degrees C would be catastrophic. Forget growing grapes in Nova Scotia. There wouldn't be much left alive in the Southern half of the US.

jimisnowhere

Naw, I gotta move away from the shore for the climate change, but I can change the climate wicked easy

10speed

Why argue greenhouse. Debate greenbacks! Encouraging those who either don't believe(myself included) or have given up, you can scream at the top of your lungs and it won't matter.But if you tell them that if they get tons of people riding bikes to work and using less gas which then lowers the demand for gas so the price drops. BLAM a litebulb goes off in their head,more people on bikes means its cheaper to fill their Hummer then watch them say TREK ANYONE!!!

ChipSeal

Yes, the data used to determine past global temperatures has been flawed. NASA has recently revised them downward. Naturally they have not trumpeted the news. For example, 1998 is not the hottest year in the last 1000 years as previously claimed. That honor now belongs to 1934! Here is the top ten ranking of hottest years in order: 1934, 1998, 1921, 2006, 1931, 1999, 1953, 1990, 1938, 1939.

https://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blo...al-us-cli.html

The revised chart can be found here:

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D_lrg.gif

(Edit!) Big problems with computer models-

"The study — authored by David Douglass (University of Rochester), John Christy (University of Alabama-Huntsville), Benjamin Pearson (also University of Rochester) and S. Fred Singer (University of Virginia) — compared all 10 available observational data sets with the major models used by the IPCC.
Douglass et al. report in the new study that observational data are in drastic disagreement with the climate models.
The models predict significantly warmer atmospheric temperatures than have actually occurred, despite that "the last 25 years constitute a period of more complete and accurate observations and more realistic modeling efforts."
"We suggest, therefore, that projections of future climate based on these models be viewed with much caution," they concluded." https://www3.interscience.wiley.com/c...TRY=1&SRETRY=0 (End edit!)

So now about your second assertion. When grapes were cultivated in Nova Scotia, (Named Vineland by the Vikings.) were there whole regions of the earth "where there wasn't much left alive"?

JusticeZero

Look, arguing that the scientists might be wrong is like arguing that the revolver you're pointing at your head isn't -completely- full of bullets, only -partly- loaded, so it's fine to pull the trigger.
I'm not comfortable gambling with the fates of generations to come that a large number of people who's job it is to be right, are all wrong.

gerv 

Sorry... but I've got to question you on this one. I come from that neck of the woods and I can tell you that the only serious signs of Viking communities was in northern Newfoundland, not Nova Scotia. All evidence points to the fact that the inhabitation was a brief one... years not decades.

The rumour about grapes strikes me as rather silly, in fact. First of all, it takes several growing seasons to establish grape cultivars. Secondly, the area around this settlement abounds in all kinds of berry growth, particularly blueberries, which is often used to make a nice, red wine. Why would a practical Viking bring grapes to North America (in open boats where the trip would take several months...) when their new home already had grapes.

The earliest mention of this grape thing is from the 11th century. This from Wikipedia "The earliest etymology of "Vinland" is found in Adam of Bremen's 11th-century Latin Descriptio insularum Aquilonis ("Description of the Northern Islands"): "Moreover, he has also reported one island discovered by many in that ocean, which is called Winland, for the reason that grapevines grow there by themselves, producing the best wine." (Praeterea unam adhuc insulam recitavit a multis in eo repertam occeano, quae dicitur Winland, eo quod ibi vites sponte nascantur, vinum optimum ferentes). The implication is that the first element is Old Norse vín (Latin vinum), "wine"."

In all likelihood, these "grapes" were blueberries which have grown in Newfoundland throughout history.

So please spare me this "fact" from The Medieval Warming Period mythology so often quoted by the doubters of climate change.

ChipSeal

I see your point, but I find your analogy flawed.

All the doomsday projections are based on computer models. When these models are fed data from as little as ten years ago they are unable to "predict" todays temperature or weather. In other words, they fail when tested against reality.

Based on this we are to impoverish western civilization? I reckon the analogy this way:

We are at a fork in the road. To the left is certain disaster and poverty(GW). To the right is a fading possibility of hardship and opportunity (GW deniers). (The effects of a warmer GW are not all negative, and most effects cannot be predicted.)

If we go left, our children and grandchildren will have a poorer life than we. If we go right, they may prosper and GW could fizzle like the "The Next Ice Age" did in the 1970's. Or if we go right and the hysterical claims are all true, our offspring will have greater flexibility in dealing with it, for they will have more resources at their disposal.

We could turn left, and all the hysterical GW claims could be correct anyway! (After all, newspapers were quoting "scientists" who were saying that Bali was the last chance for the world to avoid disaster. What if that claim turns out to be true? Then it would be too late to avoid catastrophe no matter what we do now, isn't it?) Our precious children would be facing this horror while being in poverty too!

So ruining a health and prosperous society is a foolish way to deal with an uncertain future.

cerewa

MMMMMMMmmmm, blueberry wine!

That's all I have to say.

Thor29

What's being missed is that a massive restructuring of the economy needs to take place. As long as we continue to believe that economic growth and consumerism are good things, no amount of "green" legislation will help - it will only prolong the inevitable. If you reduce greenhouse gases but continue to deplete the earth's natural resources, you still end up in the same place. The only solution is to create a steady-state economy based mostly on local production of basic living necessities combined with population reduction. Since nobody wants that to happen because they love TVs, cars, Ipods, and babies (aren't the little buggers cute?) too much, we are basically doomed.

JeffS

Referencing multiple blogs who don't reference their sources doesn't prove your point - it's just misinformation. You've obviously put some thought and time into your posts, but if you're going to try to present data as fact (instead of opinion) you should at least back it up with something credible.

Once you established your position (that you need absolute proof-positive that global warming and atmospheric pollution are actually a problem), I feel that you lost all credibility in these discussions. You're going to be anti-everything reform/cleanup related so of course you will come up with a reason why it's bad. In reality though, you have already made up your mind before the idea is presented.

ChipSeal

The blog linked to the raw data, which is why I included it. The data is in a file format that I cannot view, though it is a common one.

I am sure that you really do have these extraordinary powers to know my state of mind and how I assess data. That must be a very helpful ability as you progress through your life.

"Absolute proof-positive" is overstating my position, but you are probably more comfortable with straw-man arguments rather than the points presented. Perhaps it is because you see world around you in black and white terms?

You see Jeff, (Can I call you Jeff?) the supposed catastrophe is so outlandish, and the demanded remedy so destructive, it seems to me to require a more certain evidence then has been presented so far. At a minimum the GW proponents should at least address the counter-factuals! Simply asserting that the science is settled is not enough considering the gravity of their medicine. Slander and innuendo are used to disguise their inability to counter conflicting data. Do you think I am paid by the petroleum industry Jeff?

I am interested in alternative fuels because peak oil will come someday. America has nothing to be ashamed about when it comes to cleaning up after herself, we've done a better job of it then anyone else. But it is a stretch to call what we exhale and plants feed on a pollutant.

The GW folks have a credibility problem. they have pulled numerous hoaxes on the American people over the last 40 years, and this one is presented in the same apocalyptic hysteria. I think I have good reason to be skeptical of them.

What is the Atheists keep saying to the Christians? Oh yes- "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."