Didn't even fight it this morning. Just got on the trainer like it was January.

Here you go...

http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.htm

I am real. Look at the graphs you posted. They're published by the UN and contain data which has been thoroughly debunked in the scientific community. Do you realize the UN has an agenda and are using global warming pseudoscience to promote that agenda? Please stop being so gullible.

I keep hearing how the rest of the world is melting and heating up. It's hard to find the time to dig into each report to determine whether it's authentic or hype. What is easy to do is consider my local climate. This winter I had the largest snow piles next to my driveway in almost ten years of living here.

I also don't use air conditioning and so get to experience the actual temperatures during the summers. When I was a kid I would sleep outside most of the summer because of the heat. Last year was a good sleeping year, only a couple of nights were really uncomfortable. And don't think it's because the house I have now is cooler, the old house was shaded by wonderful giant elm trees - don't see those anymore.

You can not argue that autos are much cleaner today than in the past. A Honda Accord going at 55 mph puts out less pollution than a 1962 Ford that was NOT EVEN TURNED ON! Let the market and technology work and get the idiots like Gore out of this issue.

Nobody wants dirty air but I am not joining in until the Chineese and Indians are on board. Why do they get a total pass and the US is the devil in this thing. China recently "discovered" 10 brand new coal fired electic plants with 1/10 the capacity of the UK with NO POLLUTION CONTROLS AT ALL! The whole thing is designed to make you feel bad about yourself while the "undevloped countries" are given a pass. Look at all the Made in China tags proudly displayed on almost every Trek under $1000.

Yes! That was the Global-cooling scare. Global cooling or the talk of the coming Ice age ended the day Mount St. Helens erupted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_St._Helens
That event according to the global cooling and nuclear winter scaremongers should have plunged the Earth into a several decades long population killing year round winter. The end result of this massive eruption was pretty sunsets for about 2 years. The same people pushing the Global-cooling scare started the ozone hole scare. Dupont's patents on Freon were about to run out so anyone anywhere could start producing and selling it. Dupont's strategy was simple. Produce an alternative to Freon with patents and have Freon made illegal to be used in this and other countries. Environmentalists are an easy target and are easily duped into supporting anyone pushing an agenda to eliminate anything that can be clamed to be a pollutant. As an example of how successful this is every animal on this Earth is now emitting a so called greenhouse gas "pollutant" with every exhale of it's breath. This same exhaled gas is required by plants in order to survive. Animals require Oxygen and plants require Carbon Dioxide. Plants produce Oxygen and animals produce Carbon Dioxide. So what do the Environmentalists want to do? Kill off all the plants?!

Food for thought.
If we just do what the Chinese and Indians do, we will be like them.
I do not think that will appeal to you or me.
We need to do better.
Do not be so sure that a cleaner environment and cleaner manufacturing will not produce a better way of life. I suggest that we are careful that other nations do not show us the way and we loose our position in the global economy.
This statement has nothing to do with environmental activism. It is opportunism.:)

This source argues that there are other factors besides temperature that can affect ring growth (although it would seem to me that temperature must be one of the main factors..)
.
That's why it's important to use other sources. This is a list of most of the other proxies besides tree rings. The source isn't an environmentalist group or the Al Gore site. It's your National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/proxies.html

I suppose they could be blowing smoke. But they do seem to think that trees rings and all the other proxies combined have a compelling story to tell.

I'd think ring growth is only secondarily related to temperature. During the very hot but dry dust bowl years the surviving trees showed almost no growth. It probably depends more on what is the limiting factor to growth in the given habitat and how whatever that limiting factor is varies from year to year. The interpretation of proxy data has many "ifs" that need to be chained together and is susceptible to subjective interpretation as has been shown to happen.

At least the Global Warming Crisis has replaced the "Bird Flu Pandemic" CRISIS......and it's a diversion from the media keeping a scoreboard for the enemy in Iraq.
IMO the epitome of scietific/political/intilectual expertise ditraibe/hype/ was the Y2K "end of the world as we know it" CRISIS.
What was the CRISIS in the early 70s that was promoting the puschase of Silver to offset the resulting looming economic colapse???
We should start a pool on the what the next human eliminating CRISIS might be.
http://www.cafepress.com/buy/news/-/...C_20070405wire

Scientists and farmers around the world are debating a very serious subject at the moment. Cow farts. Yes, really, they're talking about farting cows. They're talking about cow burps as well, and sheep burps, and even sheep farts.

Farts and burps are basically pockets of gas that get released from human and animal bodies.

This gassy mixture isn't useful, so our bodies push it out and away as best they can... in burps and farts. Got it so far? Hope you're not giggling by the way, this is very serious science.

One of the gases found in farts and burps is called 'methane'. A certain amount of methane in the atmosphere is natural, and is a good thing. Along with other so-called 'greenhouse gases' methane collects in the sky and traps warm air around our planet.

A scientific report published in California recently claimed that dairy cows in the area were producing almost 20 pounds (in weight, that's almost 10 kg) of gas every year, each. That's a huge, huge amount.

If that figure is accurate, it could mean that cow farts were causing more global warming than pollution from cars in that region, as millions of cows live there.

There’s an “Inconvenient Truth” for you. :rolleyes:

Maybe we should consider destroying/eliminating the swamps and Jungles....I mean Rain Forrests ....because of methane gasses emitted. Are we intruding on Hindu religion's opinions/perception of the Cow? Has anyone measured varoius degrees of flatulence between all species?.....or have we singled out cows and other human oriented livestock due to convenient speculation?

http://users2.wsj.com/lmda/do/checkL...ays_us_opinion

The statiticians who reviewed the data came very very close to calling Mann a fraud.

Glad I learned about the hockey stick graph. I never knew.

This is what Mr Mann had to say about it in Scientific American.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?cha...EF83414B7F0000

The tree ring data only changes to a limited degree with temperature so it lessens the extremes and flattens out the data. Not to mention many other problems with tree rings as a temperature indicator such as lack of data and sensitivity to temperature independent parameters. Mann's claim of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warming Period being regional phenomena is debated.

Mann used tree ring data up to about 1980 then used measured temperature data for the rest of his graph. Measured temperature data has lots of problems but flattening out the extremes is not one of them. Regardless, the hockey stick is awful science as it uses one data source for a broad period then suddenly switches to a second source and the entire conclusion drawn is solely based on the differences in the two data sources. Not the kind of thing you'd want to do on your statistics homework.

Of course all that would need to be done is replace the measured temperature data with more current tree ring data. Amazingly this hasn't been done and the main reason cited is that it would be too expensive to get updated data!

Steve McIntyre can be found on the web and he has done a-lot of work rigorously investigating the science around the topic of global warming. There is certainly reason to doubt whether climate change is occurring at all before even considering whether human activity could be the cause.

Gerv, you ask good questions and obviously have an open mind. I think if you continue to research into this issue you'll find there is much to be questioned and feel a lot less concern over our impending doom. Well, as far as global warming. My $$$asteroid$$$ is still out there though.

I'm not an expert, but I know a couple of experts. Professors from the UW-Madison Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. I was chatting with one a couple of months back and asked him how widely was human-caused global warming accepted by the nation's top scientists in atmospheric sciences / meteorology. Was is 60-40, 80-20, or 90-10? He said it was more like 97-3. A handful of the 98 still think it is a minor contributor, so it might be more like 90 feel it is a strong factor, 7 a weak factor, with 3 undecided.

Here's a recent article from National Geographic:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...l-warming.html

Asking professors at UW-Madison about a liberal consensus makes as much sense as asking Kentucky Fried Chicken to comment on whether PETA is a good organization or not.

I'm amazed how political this crap is becoming. On the Weather Channel, Al Sharpton and Wes Clark are now contributing their insight into the weather. These are people I don't want to see when I'm trying to find out whether it's going to rain tomorrow or not.

BTW, the truth is not subject to a vote.

This article is nothing but a rehash of a political document. I don't give it much credence.

Asking tenured professors, who are recognized experts in their field, is actually a very reliable thing to do. Discrediting them because of the political climate in their city is ridiculous. I know very few true scientists who allow political views to influence their scientific findings, as much as the conservative press likes to pretend that it does.

And note that I was asking him for what his colleagues nationally believed, not what was believed just here in Madison.

Plus this particular department is very highly regarded in national rankings. If they allowed political biases to influence their science, it would hurt them academically.

Since most of us here are over the hill, I don't think there is much question about our impending doom. I was almost nailed by a tree branch on my bike ride this afternoon :)

For anyone interested in this topic, here is a link to a fascinating paper on this subject, written by a person who was previously a skeptic in the 1990s:

http://www3.brookings.edu/views/pape...k/20060517.pdf

Of all of the groups on BF, the one that will be least impacted is this group.

Unless we are talking about impacts with trees, road surfaces, and vehicles.

My reply to the local newpaper that had an article by Dr Thomas Sowell on that Channel 4 story. Believe it or not our local newspaper is called "The Laramie Daily Boomerang." Perhaps the only newspaper in the country named for a mule.


What Dr. Sowell Didn’t Tell Us

Dear Editor:

I have to admit that I get a kick out of reading Thomas Sowell’s opinion pieces in the Boomerang. As one of today’s leading Contrarians, he publishes, shall we say, interesting views on a variety of subjects. Recently in the Boomerang it was global warming
I am not an expert on global warming nor is Dr. Sowell (he is an economist), but he does have strong opinions about it, calling it a, “crock” and a “swindle.” His diatribe on the subject is based on a TV documentary from Britain’s Channel 4. Dr. Sowell indicates that the documentary is based on the testimony of many renowned experts.
There are some things, however, that Dr. Sowell did not tell us. Foremost among these is that the producer of the documentary is Martin Durkin. This is not Durkin’s first documentary on such issues. His previous environmental piece, also appearing on Channel 4 in 1997, was so widely criticized for misquotes and taking other quotes out of context that after it ran, Channel 4 issued a public apology.
Nor did Dr. Sowell tell us that Durkin is at it again. Already one of the scientists interviewed in the latest documentary has complained. Dr. Carl Wunsch, professor of physical oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says he had been “completely misrepresented” by the program, and “totally misled” on its content.
Dr. Sowell also did not tell us that Channel 4 does not even agree with the documentary it ran. On their web site they state, “Little doubt exists among the scientific community that human activity is changing the climate.”
Dr. Sowell is correct that there are scientists who disagree on the subject. But he did not tell us that the large majority now agree that humans are a leading cause of the current warming.
Finally, Dr. Sowell did not tell us that unlike him and Mr. Durkin, scientists who work for the American taxpayers have their views on the subject edited to “align these communications with the administration’s stated policy.” We learned this recently from Conrgressional testimony by the former Chief of Staff, White House Council on Environmental Quality (who resigned under fire and now works for Exxon Mobil).
Dr. Sowell should tell us the whole story.



Kim Viner

You miss the point entirely. We are doing 1000% better than the Chineese and we are the Anti-Christ in this issue? Makes me want to puke.

OK. I believe in global warming. Just what do you think we should do about it?

I personally am going to follow Algore's example: be an energy hog and buy carbon credits.

But what do YOU think we should do about this mess?

A very interesting article. I wish there could be more of this sort of rational study then the "sky is falling" "no its not" facts being thrown at us by both sides.

Amen, and pass the potatoes.

+2

As in any debate involving unknowns, the first step is for each interested party to admit, "I don't have all the answers; I am willing to listen to cogent, rational arguments and to share my beliefs and my reasoning behind them respectfully and constructively."

First, what are (or should be) our objectives? Mine would be to preserve the natural environment, including a rich diversity of species in varied habitats, to lead a materially comfortable "first world" lifestyle, to protect and enhance my health and the mental, physical, and emotional health of those around me, and to try to leave the world a better place for my sons and their eventual progeny, for many generations to come.

Second, what do we know? We lack absolute proof, but we have very strong circumstantial evidence that anthropocentric global warming is real at some level, and we can present ample rational physio-chemical evidence.

Third, what should we do? As always, look for the win-win, such as an energy-and-materials efficient, conservation-oriented lifestyle. Specifically, avoid those short stop-and-go trips in the car when you can reasonably walk, jog, or ride your bike. Underheat and undercool your house. Install thermal and/or photovoltaic solar panels where it makes economic sense to do so. Buy a more fuel-efficient car, perhaps a hybrid, next time around. Switch to double-paned windows. Support nuclear energy research and development, fission for the short term and fusion for the long term, in addition to research in carbon sequestration.

What is my "carbon" allocation? Defined/specified by whom? Who establishes/determines the allowance parameters/crieria?? At what point (carbon units expended) will the purchase of carbon offsets be recommended/required??? Oversight and monitoring of carbon offsets will be performed by??? Will carbon offset vendors be domestic or international?? Licensed & bonded?....by whom???
How much of YOUR individual freedoms are YOU willng to forfeit for another political/special interest oriented CRISIS??
Follow the DOLLARS!!!

Yup. I argued initially that global warming is real and suggested we may have F'ed up our own planet. I still believe humans are contributing to the greenhouse gasses, but I'm not sure there's much to be done. Our reduced use of fossil fuels will occur for other reasons anyway. It's entirely possible we are in a cycle of increasing CO2 anyway. Humans may have meerly given it a healthy push.

The theory I had accepted that attempted to explain glaciation cycles was: "gradual global warming eventually caused sufficient ice sheet meltwater to disrupt ocean currents causing climate changes in Europe and NA conducive to continental glaciation --which eventually restored ocean currents leading again to gradual global warming, etc, etc,.."

These cycles are tens of thousands of years and more. Statistically, our species will be lucky to last long enough to see any measurable piece of such cycles. And we certainly have time to adapt to the changes.

So I am going to avoid establishing future family estates in low lying coastal areas, tend to hang near large freshwater systems, and otherwise: ride, eat pie, repeat.