Katrina

Not to mention the effects industrialization has on improving human society, to the point where any negative effect of global warming will be offset by technological advancement for the world's poor. Its easier to survive a hurricane, or a heat wave when you live in a sturdy house with air-consitioning.

Would you rather live in a world without global warming, but have 300,000 people die each year of extreme weather, or a world with global warming but only 3,000 people die of extreme weather?

I would check this out:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/05/sci_nat_how_the_world_is_changing/html/1.stm

Wade

Mark, I have 2 questions for you.
a) Why is it you ignore studies that point to global warming being very real?
b) why is it science means nothing to you until it helps you? for example you dismiss evolution as nothing more than a theory and yet its based on real science, you dismiss global warming when its based on real science then point to studies that may dismiss global warming.

Mark,

I subscribe to Nature and have the article. You DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE HECK YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.

Bottom line is that this article suggest the climate sensitivity or expected warming for a doubling of "effective atmospheric CO2" is between 1.5–6.2 K instead of some ranges that go from 1.5 to 7.7 or even from 1.5-9.0 on the high side.

The low and midrange estimate has not changed and even the very lowest amount of 1.5C warming will likely result in massive climate change and negative climate effects. More energy in the system means more rain, more droughts, wilder swings in weather, flooding, more intense hurricanes ect...

The best evidence shows that civilized man has lived in a world who's temperature has swung by only about 1.0C and this over 300 to 500 years. We've already seen a change of about 0.8 C the most recent 100 years and could easily seen another 2-3 C of warming that will dwarf any climate change that civilized man has ever endured.

When you guys say "climate changes naturally so why worry?" it shows a complete lack of understanding of the magnitudes of natural change compared to what we expect for man made change.

Also we are already warmer then anything civilized man has endured and more warmth could result in a sudden "state change" where world climate suddenly and drastically changes causing massive societal disruptions.

Learn your facts dudes...ignorance is very dangerous.

Jimmy, as for your idiotic comment, most current research into global warming suggests large amounts of land mass will infact be flooded due to rising sea levels, no technology will not save us from that, so unless you are willing to support america giving up a large chunk of its land (id say around 80% of your land mass will be required, at the choosing of the victims) do not say the ends justify the means.

Would you rather live in a world without global warming, but have 300,000 people die each year of extreme weather, or a world with global warming but only 3,000 people die of extreme weather?

Posted by: Jimmy the Dhimmi at April 23, 2006 12:56 AM

What a false dicotomy Jimmy, the technological improvements in "housing" will be there with or with out climate change.

How'd the USA's high tech houses, damms and levies fair against might Katrina supercharged by the warmest waters in the Atlantic ever?

THINK MAN THINK...eventually your life may depend on thinking.

*Sighs*

Okay my friend answer this then. What do we do about it? Seriously, if we're living in the warmest climate of all time then what can we do about it? Obviously it's going to happen since "everything" says it will. So what then?

As you say our "modern homes" can't save us from the weather so what do we do? Do we just curl up and die? Do we stop using any and all modern technology in an effort to roll back our changes to environment?

Or do we, as Mark suggests in his last paragraph, focus on what we can do to live with these changes. If, as many seem to conclude, we are in for some serious weather changes we shouldn't just claim the sky is falling and run around like chickens with our heads cut off. We should prepare for future changes and figure out how to deal with them.

Adapt and live, that's what we do.

Kiwi,

Where did you ever get the idea that I dismiss the theory of evolution?

At any rate...

Lets suppose for a moment that the global warming alarmists are right - that the world is warming, that it is due primarily to human agency, and that said warming will be quite high...with glaciers melting and sea levels rising rapidly.

Now, most predictions I have seen are that the worst case will show up in about 100 years. None of the proposed solutions to global warming suggest that we'll arrest - let alone reverse - the affects of global warming within the next 100 years. Given these two things, you'd think that the global warming people would be giving some thought to how to relocate people away from the soon-to-be-flooded coastal areas...

Can you direct me to such a study? This would be massively important, if the alarmist version of global warming actually had some basis in fact...you see, we can't stop it fast enough to prevent low lying areas from floodings...the homes and businesses of hundreds of millions of people are to be lost, and not a single preparation has been made to adjust to this...

You've got to put two and two together, Kiwi - you've got to look at the whole picture...what I wrote above is part of it; other parts of it are things like the fact that Kyoto is most severe on the US...as if the US is the primary culprit in human-caused global warming; a patent absurdity.

There's a lot said about global warming, none of it convincing to me in the least...

Whatever "global warming" turns out to be, it is very irresponsible to assert that it is the cause of hurricanes like Katrina. The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been studying hurricanes for many years, and have concluded that we are simply in a "warm phase" of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO).

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/amo_faq.php

This is a very interesting phenomena where the Atlantic Ocean goes through warm and cool phases lasting 20-40 years at a time. This would explain how the incredibly intense Labor Day Storm of 1935, a Category 5 storm that hit the Florida Keys, could have existed prior to "global warming." The same can be said of Camille, a Category 5 storm that hit Mississippi in 1969. Both storms occured during a "warm phase" of the AOM.

Science is a tool that can be used for our benefit, or for our detriment, and I propose that the scientists at NOAA know more about hurricanes than Al Gore.

Mark, thanks for responding to my comment, only took 3 attempts ;) (was really hoping you would take up my challange on the communist post), at this very moment no i cannot give you a study that will tell you exactly if and how we can reverse global warming, but does this mean we should do nothing to prevent further adding to the problem? As for relocating people, i do not want to leave my homeland because other countries do not want help cure the problem thats threatening it, while I'll admit american isnt the biggest culprit, america is a large part of the problem, if I had my way china would be forced to do something as well (first we need to somehow remove the chineese government). As for your first question, I'm sorry, I did make an assumption there, since ID and evolution cannot go hand in hand I assumed you dismiss evolution as "just a theory" as so many seem to do so.

Maybe we need to study the matter more.

Yeah, let's have Exxon/Mobil or BP do another study for the vice president's office.

Your inference here Matt is that we'll be dead and long gone when this happens, and you are right, however our children and their children will be here.

That is, if GW Bush doesn't committ the world to WW III

-Joe

Somebody doubts global warming?

It was 102 degrees this week. Ice caps are melting. Ravaging hurricanes. Using my senses I'd have to say the globe is warmer. No scientist can produce any kind of report that would convince me that the globe is cooling.

Kiwi,

Actually, evolution is only explicable as an act of ID...but that is antoher debate.

What I'm trying to point out to you is that NO ONE is planning on what to do was the oceans rise to catastrophic level. Since this planning isn't happening while AT THE SAME TIME we cannot HALT or REVERSE global warming in time to stop the flooding, I see a problem - someone isn't telling the whole truth; and it must be the alarmists.

Mark, you may infact be right, it may be too late to reverse the effects. If so then we are in a very very difficult situation, we need to stop using oil ASAP, we need to funnel huge amounts of money into new technologies such as hydrogen car research, and we need to punish those who add to the problem (eg impose fines on companies who emit more carbon dioxide. moving people away from the areas that will end up flooded is by no means a good solution, the world is already over populated thus we need the landmass. slowing down global warming may not fix the problem, but at the very least it will prevent it for a longer period of time which will allow scientists to do more research into ways to reverse it.

Mark, you're playing the same game you always do - when convenient, acknowledge truth - when not, ignore it. In between, spin it to fit your world view.

I've seen you post ridiculous climate science and claim global warming is a bunch of huey. Now you take the tack that we can't do anything to stop it, so why bother. Well, guess what, we can stop continuing the trajectory that we're currently on. Yes, Kyoto is flawed. Yes, it's difficult to make large carbon emisson cuts. It's also difficult to occupy a foreign country where we're not welcome. Why do you think it's such a bad thing to commit to solve a difficult problem?

Or are you secretly wishing for armadeggon so you can float to heaven and the rest of us can burn in hell?

Joe,

In the long run, we are all dead...including our children; the whole world dies, eventually. Trying to preserve it is a fool's errand...I want it clean and neat for our own human needs, not because of a non-existic intrinsic value.

In the long run, we are all dead...including our children; the whole world dies, eventually. Trying to preserve it is a fool's errand...I want it clean and neat for our own human needs, not because of a non-existic intrinsic value.

Mark, that is a horrible, horrible way to look at anything. But thankfully you have shown 2 major points without knowing it. the first being why we must remove god from all debates that affect the planet, when people include god they think "well god has already predetermined when the world will end so why worry", the second is you have shown why the left will eventually rule the earth. the right looks at the short term, while the left looks at the long term, whats best for the planet, whats best for mankind, and what will happen in 100 years because of their decisions.

Don't bother trying to preserve the world? What about your children's children, and so on?

Is your view similar to the evangelical view that the earth and everything on it is god's gift for man to use up as he sees fit and also that the "end of days" is imminent, so why bother preserving anything for the future?

People say that democrats have no ideas. On this issue more then any other single issue the difference between Progressive Democrats and Republicans is clear.

Republicans wish to deal with this long term issue in a POLITICAL fashion...appeasing the fossil fuel industry to the detriment of our long term future. They have thus chosen,like Bush reading My Pet Goat while we were under attack, to do nothing but obfuscate. Like Bush who chose to ignore the Hart-Rudman report prior to 9-11 and like Bush who had no questions to ask about the impeding crash of Katrina along the Gulf shores.. The republicans chose to do nothing.

The Democrats and progressives approach the issue as statesmen with a long term plan and vision realizing a win win situation. They are proposing to clean our air, end our dependence on fossil fuels minimize the risk of climate change and promote new high tech industries that will be an economic boom. Likewise in the Progressives future individuals will be able to make their own energy from readily available resources. No more need for un American Multinational conglomerates to get our energy by blow up mountains in West Virginia, by dealing with them Middle East or Nigerian dictators. The suggestion is for an Apollo or Manhattan like project which could have easily been paid for with a fraction of the money going to Iraq war profiteers.

Progressives have long term win win SOLUTIONS. Neocons have excuses and lies and science to deny and donors to please. It's a no brainer.

FROM DRUDGE;

Bush warns of 'tough summer' with higher petrol prices

Who is the frickin moonbat NOW? I don't blame Bush for high oil prices. I blame Reagan for reversing on the course set for energy independence by a far-sighted Jimmy Carter and I blame the STUPID LAME BRAIN American public for being lazy, ignorant, greedy and short-sighted driving around in their gas guzzlers complacent as a frog in a pot of warming water.

extra,

It is just reality - the world will die; count on it. You can't preserve it forever, even if you try. This is whether you believe in the Apocalypse or are just a complete athiest evolutionist...the world dies; wrap your mind around that fact...once you do, you get to stop thinking in "Bambi" terms about the environment and realise that our task, as humans, is to use the environment in a way that benefits us for the longest period of time.

"I want it clean and neat for our own human needs"

Human needs only? Come on mark this planet belongs to whales and spiders and snakes and dolphins as well as to humans. Any effort to preserve and protect this planet must include what is best for our fellow travlers as well.

kiwi, what do you have to say about the fact that in my part of the United States, temperatures have been going DOWN since 1998?

What do you have to say about the Japanese scientists warning us of an impending mini ice age, within the next few years, due to decreased solar activity?

What do you say to the many scientists who keep trying to tell us that this warming trend, like the others over the millenia, is caused PRIMARLILY by the recognized and measured increase in solar activity?

What are your solutions to what you see as the problem? Al Gore's solution of simply getting rid of all internal combustion engines? Now THERE'S a winner!! Solar power? Great idea---till you realize that if even a small percntage of electrical use in the world today was switched to solar power, the number of lead/acid batteries dumped into the environment would be overwhelming. (Ditto, by the way, for the electric car fad.) Wind generators? They kill birds, and, oh, yes, that DC electricity generated still has to be converted to AC and often stored---in batteries.

Now, I am a problem solver by nature. I see all of these things as mere problems which can surely be addressed and resolved. But none of them can be addressed, OR solved, until we stop the squabbling and infighting and dependence on ideology to trump reason.

And the Blame Game is extremely unproductive.

Jim made a very good point, and got riducled and called names for it. We do have to evaluate the pluses and minuses of temperature increases, because to a point they can be beneficial. They are certainly easier to deal with than temperature drops. Slightly higher temperatures increase crop yields and decrease energy demands, for starters. It is REASONABLE to examine the facts and try to find a point at which increases in temperature create more problems than they solve.

And, BTW, the claims of flooding, of lots of land, or even countries, being under water are just bogus. kiwi's claims of losing 80% of the land mass of the United States is simply ludicrous, and has not been supported by any reputable science I have been able to find. It's goofiness like this that clouds the picture and makes it impossible to deal with the real problem. Murky evidently quoted or cut and pasted some more of the radical sky-is-falling stuff, along with his name-calling, but it's that kind of exaggeration that makes it so hard to find and focus on the truth.

It is ideologically-based irrationality that makes it so hard to actually dig through to the real problems and then address them. But it just FEELS too good to blame Bush for everything, or to blame higher temps for hurricanes, or to BLAME at all. And what I see here, with kiwi and murkyego and Joe and aitch, is a kind of circle jerk of pseudo-environmental groupies who love the way their passion makes them FEEL and have no intent of ever letting science or reason get in the way.

The simple---and unpalatable, to some on the left---fact is, President Bush is working toward solving many of these problems. I have a lot of personal knowledge of the growing biodiesel industry, and the Bush Administration is behind it all the way. I know of advances in getting light crude oil from all sorts of materials, and if this is perfected, we would solve the imported oil problem and the landfill problem at the same time. This administration is supporting work on developing hydrogen energy. More has been done to actually IMPLEMENT alternatives in the past four or five years than at any other time.

Science can keep up with the demands for decreasing emissions and cleaning up internal combustion engines. Industry---the dreaded Big Corporations---is already at work. Those plants that Ford just shut down? They are being retooled to produce more energy-efficient engines and vehicles.

Again---the Doers and the Sneerers.

Jimmy Carter, far-sighted? You gotta be kidding.

Noonan,

Yea, we all die eventually, so why try to prolong life? So why prosecute murderers, if that is your fatalistic approach to life?

I'll give a short answer. We want a good quality of life while we are here, for ourselves, and our offspring.

Yes, the Earth will be swallowed up by a supernova of the Sun some day, maybe a billion years from now, so why not destroy it 100 years from today, is that your reasoning? Wow.

"I am working with the Congress to create a new Department of Energy.....

The ninth principle is that we must conserve the fuels ......

The tenth principle is that we must start now to develop the new, unconventional sources of energy we will rely on in the next century."

Jimmy Carter April 18 1977

Thirty years ago Jimmy Carter stated what. 30 YEARS AGO. The Decider in Chief just admitted after 5 years in office and after 2,300 dead 17,000 injured in a war over the Middleast.

Yeah dude that's called far sighted while Bush is a frickin blind blithering idiot.

We chose a different path after Carter. Brazil followed through and now runs their country on ethanol.

"The world will die" -- wow, there's a revelation.

Since that's the case, I guess the best thing to do is just sit back and wait for the apocalypse.

For that matter, why waste our time fighting foreign wars when surly God will provide and solve our problems until it's time to say, "bye-bye."

Give me a break! Do you realize how ridiculous you sound, Mark? I've read some of the most amazing things at this blog, but that comes close to taking the proverbial cake.

Oh, and "evolution is only made possible by ID?"

Get a clue.

Salveninus,

Mark is one of us....he's just confused....give him time and he'll come over.

Actually, evolution is only explicable as an act of ID...but that is antoher debate. - Mark Noonan.

Oh my.

George Bush has been working on energy issues since his inauguration. He has been promoting the advancement of alternative energy sources, such as biodiesel and ethanol, and the development of hydrogen as a fuel for homes and vehicles. He has been working to get drilling allowed in a remote and desolate part of Alaska---heard of that, doc? Solar and wind sources for electricity have increased dramatically in the past five years....('cept for that wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod, blocked by Teddy K---thought it might interfere with his yachting.)

You appear to only remember the last thing you heard, so it is understandable that you think the latest speech is the only speech.

Under Carter, we had long gas lines, the highest gas prices in history up to that point, and eventually alternate days for buying gas. Remember how the last digit on your license plate was the deciding factor on whether you got to buy gas that day or not? And the cost of the gas, related to income, was more than it is today. What a genius.

And what did Carter say we should DO? Did he have any ideas, or was he just tossing out a commentary, an observation, and then leaving it up to someone else to do the heavy lifting? Beyond creating a new department, what exactly did he DO? Oh, that's right---he ran out of time, being soundly defeated after a stretch of poll ratings in the low 20's, and went down in history as the most pathetic and useless president of the 20th century. Really, his only legacy was handing Iran over to the mullahs---and we can see how that has worked out.

So funny you should be so passionate about the most religiously-driven president in history, while you sneer at the Christian president we have now. Carter's fundamentalist orthodoxy was so much more rigid that Bush's Christianity is, but you looooove Carter and ridicule Bush's beliefs at every turn. But it's all relative....

"George Bush has been working on energy issues since his inauguration."

You have entered the "Chicane Hall of Fame" with
that statement.

He has been working to get drilling allowed in a remote and desolate part of Alaska

Ain't gonna happen, Alms. So he needs to move on. And it is only desolate if you are a human. The caribou seem to think it's a pretty important place.

"Somebody doubts global warming?

It was 102 degrees this week. Ice caps are melting. Ravaging hurricanes. Using my senses I'd have to say the globe is warmer. No scientist can produce any kind of report that would convince me that the globe is cooling."

Posted by: Aitch

..."a duck...
Who is this man so wise in the art of science..."
(The search for the Holy Grail for those of you in Rio Linda)

Today it snowed in Portillo Chile and it f***ing freezing.

So Aitch, your point is????

Mark said,

"There's a lot said about global warming, none of it convincing to me in the least..."

In November last year, I emailed your blog and challenged any of the main bloggers there to bet me over whether global warming is happening. I heard nothing in response.

I suggest you amend your comment that I've just quoted, or that you bet me over whether global warming is happening.