Basejumper.com - archive

Some guys hacked a British climate research institute and published the hole mailbox from it. It seems that there was some serious data cooking.
http://www.youtube.com/...ture=player_embedded

here's the mailbox(it wasn't me)
http://www.filedropper.com/foi2009

and a documentary supporting that angle of view..
http://www.youtube.com/...type=3&more_url=

Hey, no matter the conspiracy theories I'd still rather larks head the rubber band
Take care of the environment !

I don't remember the leaked data saying it was a hoax. Just that the findings were a bit over-amplified.

 
And another presentation on that point of view:

http://www.youtube.com/...ot#p/u/0/UNRW5qMRnIU

yeah the sweetest part was that as soon as word got out, the greenland icecap started growing again! like, just last month!

we just have to hack those pesky darwinists' laptops next, and you'll practically be able to see the earth getting 5 billion years younger.

not a hoax. scientist trying to figure how to be politicans, because perception is everything. carbon loading of the atmosphere is a danger serious enough IMHO that I am contemplating not having kids, due to the 2050 prediction by head of the DOE and other nuclear physicists.

2050 will be but a shadow to the havoc wreaked by the predicted Zombie Apocalypse of 2049.

where do you kids get your numbers?
it will be a lot sooner than that.

Yeah. 2012 is just a few years away. That's when the Mayans come back as zombies and devour all humanity, yo.

The shocking truth about Global Warming..... the South Park version
http://vids.myspace.com/...&videoid=1265135

The temperature of the earth has been going up and down since before the existence of man. Carbon increases have followed global temperature increases, not the other way around. Water vapor is the number one greenhouse gas, by a long shot. I suggest we build water tanks as big as mountains all over the globe. Then by removing or adding water to the atmosphere we can change the global temperature more effectively.

Another great South Park clip about global warming.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9wmczxnT3c

Since long before the existence of man, too.

In the mesozoic, carbon in atmo was 10 % higher than it is now, and they've speculated that that's why dinosaurs could get as big as they did--they had bird-type lungs, that were way efficient.

And milankovitch cycles are between 1,000 and a million or so years, depending on which cycle.

There's a lot going on with global climate that can't be simplified with just "we did it."

Then, they took everything about me and put it into a computer where they created this model of my mind. Yes! Using that model they managed to generate every thought I could possibly have in the next, say, 10 years. Which they then filtered through a probability matrix of some kind to - to determine everything I was gonna do in that period. She knows everything I'm ever gonna do before I know it myself. How's that?

so, you're saying the atmosphere was very similar to what is was tens of millions of years ago or hundreds of millions years ago and therefore no conclusions should be drawn based on tens of thousands of ice core samples?

I wouldn't suggest that. I would say that Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant and that cap and trade is a just another way for big government to take more of your money and gain more control. According to data from NASSA satellites the earth has not become any warmer in the last ten years, and many scientists believe that it may start cooling soon. You don't hear much from these scientists because they aren't part of the liberal left, which controls the mainstream media, and when they speak out they are shunned by all the proponents of global warming. How much have you heard about the emails that leaked on CBS, NBC, or CNN? Why are they so quiet? Why did the scientists adjust the numbers? There are millions of dollars in grant money at stake for the scientists if they are wrong about global warming, and big government stands to take trillions if cap and trade passes. I'm sure that at least most environmental scientists involved at one time had the best intentions, but now they are in so deep and there is so much at stake that they have to perpetuate the idea of man caused global warming no matter what the data says.

WELL SAID!

When I was a kid we were told that "global warming will happen soon if we don't change". not much have been done since then. Now the last years it's barely been snow for xmas here (I live in Oslo, Norway). Maybe things haven't changed much in South Carolina, but here up north the winters have become noticeable warmer the last years.

You might blame all kinds of reasons for this, but if scientists tell something is going to happen and then it does, I tend to think they know what they are talking about.

huh?
I generally watch NBC and they reported on the leaked e-mails. More than once even.


as far as global warming goes...
it's generally quite easy to document the disappearance of glaciers, the loss of arctic ice, the opening of northern shipping lanes, etc.

the big question remains are these changes purely a natural cycle, influenced by man's activities, or totally caused by man.

are we collecting enough data?
do we have enough historical data?
do we understand the processes involved?
probably not.

can most human minds grasp the complexity of all the data we have collected?
no. (and not me.)

there will always be people who find enough evidence to support their beliefs. (And they may be right.) these debates are nothing new.
heliocentric vs earth as the center
flat earth vs round earth
creationism vs evolution
etc.

I can imagine all the naysayers at the Spanish court telling the queen that the country could ill afford Columbus' reckless adventure...

some people will always be quick to believe. sure they may have a vested interest. (being an early adopter sure helped Bill Gates!)

others will be very hesitant to change their opinion. the established thinking might even try scientists for heresy. court battles still rage over the contents of science textbooks in the US.

skeptics of big tobacco used to say, "if smoking is good for you, why do so many smokers get lung cancer?"

you get to believe what you want. is global warming real? do I have the skills to survive a BASE jump at this new exit point, in these conditions? should the government pass a 2000+ page health care bill? was Obama born in the US? will a surge in troops in Afghanistan help or hurt? which organization has created more fear and suffering amongst the average US citizen, Al Qaeda or the TSA? do the tax codes favor [fill in the blank]? is abortion murder?

there will never be consensus on many issues. that is why mankind created court systems.

I think it is terribly arrogant of man, as a species, to credit ourselves with the destruction of this planet. Are we helping? probably not. we are like parasites, unable live in balance with our environment. However, to assume that changes in our atmosphere and global climate conditions, based on the relatively limited information we have (we've been studying this for a few years, the historical record of this planet is considerably longer than that) is our fault, is ridiculous.
not to paralell the discovery channel series "after man" or whatever it is, but take a look at an abandoned building some time - just a few years after we leave it alone, nature starts to reclaim it's territory. if man were to disappear today, within a few hundred years, there would be barely a trace of us, except for the few barren areas that used to house nulcear power plants.

FYI, i have absolutely no scientific basis for the above rant, just my opinion.

I can't claim to have studied the subject in depth either...

That said, I think "destruction of this planet" is a bit harsh. Humans can't currently kill the planet. It will continue to support life. It's just that the type of life will change.

I don't think it is arrogance to note that humans have caused numerous species to go extinct. European diseases led to the deaths of countless peoples in the Americas. Rick H. led legal efforts to help save the Everglades. Many people study how human activity increase the size of deserts.

Individually, we are extremely petty, insignificant creatures. Collectively, we undeniably can upset local ecosystems. Is it possible to disrupt the global ecosystem? It is hard to comprehend.

-----

I'm curious as to the "chemistry" of the planet way back when. From my childhood geology classes, it appears that much of the oil and coal deposits came from the same geological ages. That time frame "sequestered" gobs and gobs of carbon that we release now. The carbon existed, but in what form?

I doubt folks will ever actually know.

Can't help but think of George Carlin...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Miv4NHsDo

True, but irrelevant to the current situation. The rate, the reasons, the causes, and the effects are the issues now


CO2 can appear to lag changes, but it is involved in amplifying the temperature swing. Historical appearances of "lagging" do not have any bearing on whether or not CO2 can trap heat and drive temperature change (which it does, and that point is rather trivial to demonstrate with basic scientific equipment)

for a more comprehensive explanation:
http://www.realclimate.org/...etween-temp-and-co2/


you can pull water out of the atmosphere, but won't the ocean just replace it as fast as you can collect it?

This page has an interesting bit on the complexities of the water vapor cycle: http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/gases.html

Bonus points: calculate how much energy it would require to put a dent in the global atmospheric wator vapor level, and then calculate how much fossil fuel carbon would be released by generating that much energy.


that's one of the sillier "skeptical" claims. Take a look at these graphs:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
it's plain to see that you can find numerous intervals where, if you just looked at that interval and nothing else, you can show several years of "cooling." Obviously they are variations within a larger, obvious trend.

Climate change does not start and stop in 10 years.


who?


Because even if those scientists did act improprietously it does not change the data. Or the reality.


There is still no reason to suspect they "cooked of the numbers," so to speak. Numbers can be corrected for known sampling error, and enormous volumes of data sometimes have to be sampled or filtered to be useful. Their methods are transparently described in their papers, if you choose to read them. Neither case is the type of adjusting you are afraid is going on.


Sounds like we got ourselves a good old-fashioned conspiracy theory here!!

http://www.911truth.org/

There was a climate summit held to discuss global
cooling way before global warming became a concern,
I want to say it was in the mid to late 70's...

Here is my own cheeky line regarding climate change:

Worrying about that problem is like worrying about
possible water damage to your wooden boat while
you are sitting in said boat and it is sinking in the
middle of the ocean, ha ha ha.

Before you get the wrong idea, I do hug trees, recycle,
compost, conserve, use compact fluorescent lights, and
hate people who litter...

However, until we address the over-population problem
then all the other measures ring hollow, just like Gore
who failed to say this at the end of his movie.

I should have known... "WE" didn't do anything! It was the Army of the Twelve Monkeys!!

9/11 Conspiracy Theories 'Ridiculous ,' says Al-Qaeda.

http://www.theonion.com/..._conspiracy_theories

compact fluorescent lights??? Ay yay yay!!! They're horrible for the environment!! They utilize mercury, a very real pollutant...sinner.

I think most sensible people would agree that we need to be good stewards of the environment in which we live, but to think that we humans have had that much impact, well, that's just pure conceit.
George Carlin said it best when he said "If the planet wanted to, it would shake us off like a bad case of fleas"
This spinning blue ball is a LOT tougher than all of the ultra conservatives combined.
Also, to steal another quote from Carlin, "Ask those charred figures in Pompeii how big of an impact mankind is making versus the delicate planet"

Actually, no, not even close. I said that at the time of the dinosaurs, over 65 million years ago, carbon dioxide in the atmo was very high, much higher than now, which means that humans aren't the only reason CO2 can increase. I can't say whether humankind plays a role or not, because, well, I don't know. And not even a hundred years worth of global change has much weight against a couple billion years of historical climate change. I don't know how much mankind contributes to the change--and I don't know of anyone who can say for sure how much we do.

I do think we have a large impact on the environment. We are overpopulated. But how much does that impact global climate? i don't know.

I also don't know what you are getting at with "ice core samples" as though they are the end-all-be-all of evidence.

Are you saying that we should ignore billions of years of historical and radical climate change because of a few (because tens of thousands is nothing compared to billions of years) ice core samples? No? Then don't make lame conclusions about what I say, either. The cool thing about the planet is that it's not a simple thing. Everything's impacting everything. The World is a nifty place.

I wouldn't begin to claim to know anything about it for sure, much less draw conclusions about it.

i'm not discounting what your saying. i think it's great that this is being discussed. and i don't mind being wrong but the warming thing is a great concern for me.

so what time scales should be used to determine if changes are happening too rapidly? the ice core samples i'm talking about are arctic ice samples. they reflect atmospheric conditions such as temperatures and carbon loading. some very rapid carbon loading events might occur and some very rapid global cooling events may occur due to volcano events or other globally significant events. these should stand out in very distinct ways. that's one way the current data can discern a significant trend based on some timescale... the timescale is the basis of a lot of the controversy because it's really out of the scope of most people outside the climatology field. i didn't read the emails with those scientists, but i can tell you, scientists publish in peer reviewed journals and it's intellectual bloodsport. the only comparison i can compare to is professional pool, MMA, trial law, or politics. every other scientist wants to take down every other one with a better interpretation. if one scientist publishes something and he has invoked tricks or altered the data, another scientist will come out and discredit them, similar to what happened to Pons and Fleishman with the U. of Utah cold fusion experiments, and the subsequent complete destruction of their scientific careers.

My whole point in that post was I don't know. I was stating what I'd heard, and that it's never as simple as we think it is. the impact of humans on the earth is a concern of mine, as well.

Is the impact of people on scale with a massive volcanic eruption? I dunno. i doubt it, though, those are crazy. Can human impact build up so that a hundred years of human output is comparable to a volcanic eruption? Sure, why not. Can we right now say that what we're seeing in the world is definitely because of us? I don't know. THAT'S my point. People can spout all the evidence they want, but until this is all hindsight by a few million years, and some alien species is saying "look at this, this carbon spike is at the exact time these creatures began their industrial revolution, and ends with them," I'm not so sure how anyone can say anything definitively. And even then, it would be just because they coincide.

But things like the massive drifts of trash in the pacific? Mercury in fish and ocean dwelling mammals? That's much easier to trace to us. There's a direct, quick reaction to those actions. Plastic doesn't come naturally. Climate change does.

I'm not disagreeing with you. I don't think right and wrong should even factor into the discussion. That doesn't matter. But please don't assume i'm trying to say I really know anything about this or that what I say i'm saying because it is. I certainly don't assume anyone here knows what they're talking about ;P

human activity vs. volcanic CO2 output... great synopsis here:
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/...h/2007/07_02_15.html

In terms of this analogy, one might look at it this way:

We see plastic bags in the pacific ocean. We conclude they came from us, because we don't know how nature could turn raw hydrocarbons into plastic bags. The only known mechanism for turning those hydrocarbons into plastic trash bags is human technology.

In the atmosphere, the high CO2 levels are like that weird, unnatural plastic bag... we find smaller amounts of CO2 naturally from a lot of sources, but human fossil fuel technologies are the only ones that we have observed continually producing it in such vast quantities. And we see high CO2 levels in the geological record, but they happened slowly on a human time-scale (even if it was "rapid" on a geologic scale). The rate at which change is currently occuring is truly unprecedented. We haven't found natural events in history that can match what we've done, at least not any that are occuring now. So given that something weird is going on, what else but human technology could have created it? And maybe there is something else causing it, but we're still stuck with the consequences.

Scientists are happy to discuss how the earth has been so hot, or so cold, in the past. And they're happy to tout the adaptability of nature to new environmental conditions. But there are some big differences in the pre-industrial climate changes that set them apart from human climate change... briefly,
1) how fast is it changing? "fast" in geologic time is still pretty slow compared to what we see post-industrial revolution.
2) in the past, local climates may have changed drastically and fast, but since it's only local, there will be other habitats created where nature can move without having to adapt too drastically.
3) humanity adds to the adaptive stress a species faces. Maybe a species could handle climate change, but maybe they can't handle climate change plus widespread habitat destruction plus toxic pollution.
4) even if we weren't causing the climate change, we're still going to have to deal with the effects, so it's still worth studying, and not exacerbating.

Thanks for responding intelligently instead of telling me I'm arguing against it. :)

As i said before, i don't know, but obviously someone does ;)

As Einstein said, "never stop questioning."

If the gets heated, don't take it personally.

What's the height of, say, 50% of the atmosphere?

Key point on confusion regarding the climate debate: "time scales." How can one make a conclusion minute to minute about something that has existed billions of years (sorry Mrs. Pailn, not 6000 years)?

There was an astronaut from my lab and I saw a talk at my university after he did a flight. From the shuttle in the circa 1990, most of Brazil was extremely shrouded by heavy plumes of smoke due to deforistation. He asked what is it and someone said "oil fires from the first gulf war."

I think the comments of overpopulation are quite correct. Having been in India and China, I am convinced that in the next 3-6 years that he undoing of humanity will be ... crasdf will dog needs a wlak.

+1

I think the comments of overpopulation are quite correct.

When I was a kid:
USA population was 280 million
World population was 3+ billion

I am now 37:
USA population is ~310 million
World population over 6 billion

Imagine how many people there will be
eating, shitting, texting, and driving by
the time Avenfoto's daughter is my age?

Any time a couple has more than 2 kids
they are increasing the world's population
forever... Hopeless

with so many fucking people, i don't know how reincarnation can exist. i mean, chicken and egg regarding the origins of life...

maybe every time there is a news item about some heroic figure saving lives, requests for some poor starving child, guilt trip to become an organ donor, etc. people should just respond, "bullshit, let'em die!"

the population of Ethiopia has been starving for several decades now, but has doubled it's population, IIRC. it makes no sense to me.

Starving Ethiopians, HAHAHahahaha . classic Sam.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0q4o58pKwA
.

It makes perfectly sense. The more dangerous an environment is the more offspring one has. This goes both for animals and for humans.
According to the UN Norway has the highest standard of living in the world and our population is, if you ignore immigration, decreasing. Maybe the best way to stop overpopulation is to stop hunger and poverty.

it's a bit of chicken vs the egg argument.
you say if Ethopia was not poor and starving, it's population would not grow.
but if it's population was limited to what the land could sustain, then there would be limited poor and starvation.

the planet has natural control mechanisms. societies do was well. (one facet is that without a social safety net, larger families give parents hope of surviving in old age.) food aid disrupts these mechanisms without replacing them.

will the poor countries willingly change the social structures that impede their development? where is the resounding example that it is possible?

if all the impoverished countries DO develop, what would that do to the CO2 in the atmosphere? there already is a fear about how providing automobiles to the rapidly increasing middle class of India and China will effect commodity prices, economic disruptions, and Global Warming.

until those issues are resolved, is it really kind and humane to let 1 million starving grow to 2 million starving? isn't that just increasing suffering?

decades ago, China decided population growth needed to be controlled and introduced the 1 child/family policy. that seems to be the most effective example of "success" to date. being able to feed their people surely contributed to their economic development over that same period.

Maybe the best way to stop overpopulation is to stop hunger and poverty.

When a society has better education, health, food, etc.
then they naturally behave differently. As women of
the world get greater access to BIRTH CONTROL and
education then we will see the birth rate decline...


But I am not holding my breath

oh shit dude, jesus hates you now. he'd fuckin kick you in the teeth if he weren't all ascended into heaven and shit already.

Global warming is not a hoax, it IS happening. However, it has little to do with us except for it being used by the global elite to take your money and freedoms.
Global warming is natural and occurs, like most things, in cycles. Just look at the data and determine for yourself what it looks like is going to happen... to me it looks like we are on the brink of an ice age Ice ages have always followed periods of 'global warming'... most not caused by humans.
All things are cyclical!
don't sell your coats yet!
http://www.redorbit.com/...arth_facing_ice_age/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...and_science-science/

Kind of interesting that the level of CO2 is at the moment about 30% higher than at any point in the 400.000+ years of your graph...

A part of the cycle?

I'm just curious why you hold that opinion, despite the scientific consensus. Do you not trust the scientists? Do you think the data or the methodologies are flawed? Do you think they are overstating what you consider a legitimate yet tentative conclusion? Something else?


It is true that there are historical cycles. That is firmly established. I'd like to ask what your scientific basis is for disagreeing with researchers who consider the current situation a departure from historically observed trends. I'm even more curious as to what you think is, in fact, driving this new change.

As for any anticipated ice age, it has been hypothesized that the climate is/was on the brink of another ice age. And that anthropogenic effects may divert that possibility. I'm open to the suggestion that that's even a good thing. But we don't know.

hi Colm & Han,

there are many great resources out there that provide information for both sides of the argument. I have, as I'm sure you have, researched many if not all aspects of this argument and I have come to my conclusion, as you have yours. I use logic, reason and what just feels right to me. I appreciate your curiosity in my opinion but it is not my job to convince you of my opinion, nor is it your job to convince me of yours. All we can do is offer each other information that may not have been seen or possibly overlooked. I only provided one aspect of this argument there are many more if you dig deep, as I'm sure you know.

Hi base570,

Well, suit yourself, I guess... If there are some arguments for a natural cause of global warming, that you think are valid, or at least not sufficiently refuted (and apparently you think some fit that bill) I'd be interested to study them.

Virtually all of the current, public criticisms of global warming research are thoroughly discredited. But that doesn't stop people from repeating arguments which are scientifically indefensible. I think the people who are familiar with research should take the opportunity to stand up for good science when they see it.


(Edited to change wording)

Check out this video, the best part starts at 3:20

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLcvCp4DHJw

those poor polar bears!

on a side note, i wonder how much Co2 Al Gore has expelled while discussing this issue??

i don't know of any climatologists who do not believe firmly in significant global warming.

interestingly, much of the controversy against global warming was fueled (no pun inteneded) by by Exxon-Mobil. the principal owners of E-M, the Rockefellers, have been in-fighting significantly about the ethics of this misinformation campaign. Fox News is towing the Exxon-Mobil line.

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

Man we have seen all this in other areas as well. Propaganda works.

Do we do the planet any good with our consuming lifestyle? Can we do better than pollute our planet? Would we feel better in a clean city? Would it improve our life quality, if we started using more new clean energy? Would the world be better if we concentrated on doing a bit more important things than building another Las Vegas or Dubai city?

Imagine China and India start consuming as much as USA do?

I listened to the entire video. Some things it did not contain:

data
scientific references
scientific arguments
a single point that contradicted points i've made earlier in this thread

it did contain a lot of childrens voices, and a lot of irrelevancies, and a lot of empathetic arguments.

it did attack some strawman arguments associated with Al Gore. And I will admit I have a hard time taking seriously any dude who claims to have invented the internet, or ever put his name behind the clipper chip. gore is a publicist, and a politician, and there's no neutrality behind "an inconvenient truth." that being said, it doesn't mean that there isn't a very powerful message that needs to be conveyed when it comes to climate change. do yourself a favor, and recognize the "john stosse; report" for the piece of propaganda bullshit that it is.

Hi Colm,

This is one that seems pretty valid to me...


article with video link http://seekingalpha.com/...lt-of-the-physicists
direct video link
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1181073/

Thanks, I'll take a look at it over the next few days.

Likewise.

Funny, this kind of debate only exists between fox-news-fed american people... Is the rest of he world that dumb?

Think about this one.

Agreed. The only country in the world who have huge corporations spending millions on undermining the research (source: http://www.ucsusa.org/...Warming-tobacco.html) is also the only country who still is wondering if global warming is true or not.

FYI - some of us actually do NOT watch any television.

I personally think the arguements over global warming
are as useful as a morbidly obese person warning all
of us about the dangers of supernovae.

Most societies will be ruined by war, pollution, and the
effects of over-population long before the oceans rise
and force everyone to learn how to swim.

It's as if these people think the world is static, and conditions never change. Sorry, but I don't have much sympathy for people losing their homes because they decided to live on a sand bar, coral reef, or below sea level.

So if I buy the property uphill from you, and build a sewage treatment plant, and just dump everything on the ground and it flows downhill into your yard & your house, you'd be totally cool with that?

I mean, it's not like I forced you to live below me...

Global temperature, climate, carbon dioxide levels, coastlines, land masses, and sea level, are in a naturally occurring state of flux. It's a proven fact. I might be more open to the idea that keeping the environment in an unnaturally constant state might be a good idea, if it wasn't for the more obvious power grab going on by the government. I agree with GreenMachine that war is a much bigger concern in the world.

there is a neat addage in economics theory... pollution would be greatly reduced if everyone owned some parcel of the atmosphere.

i don't think the CERN lecture scientist is correct regarding sun activity. will address at another time. the influence of cosmic rays, etc on our atmosphere is still an ongoing debate. only recently has it been hypothesized that cosmic rays initiate lightning.

One a side note, interestingly, i discovered recently from a weather physicsts the concept of gropple, ice that exist far above room temperature in a strong electric field.

I will say that I believe population growth exacerbates all other issues. it seems that ignoring that simple fact avoids responsibility.

and that is another issue with relying on economic theory...
how do people actually measure value creation?
transforming one item into another typically creates a by-product. the businesses optimize profit by dismissing the costs of the by-product. they decline the need to take care of these residual items and thus avoid responsibility. few companies survive 60 years, thus the profits get dispersed long before the recognition of problems of these by-products, which may later be labeled toxic/harmful/waste/etc.

I know I'm not as well read on economics as you. I don't see how hidden/ignored costs, the costs of cleaning up after oneself, are properly incorporated into economic theory.

care to enlighten me?

(thus I wonder if carbon emissions should be controlled like sewage, or ignored like water vapor.)

cosmic rays? far out, man.

Still haven't been able to steal an hour to watch the whole thing... Will try to take a look at it sometime early next week. I haven't forgotten about it.

Why is that? Yeah, it may be presented in an "alarmist" and sensational way, but that doesn't mean it is BS... Have a look at this (you will recognize the scientists that were on Stossels' report): http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=EA20B42EAE54782A&search_query=global+warming+swindle

Do yourself a favor: research what IPCC does and how it will affect your future life.

And now something a bit more entertaining: it's all Norway's fault!
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,501145,00.html

Because i'm bored, I did some math and discovered that Norway's 120,000 moose population annually pollutes (in Co2) as much as driving 969,339,059 MILES in a car.
Those farting belching critters are a MENACE!
(i wonder how much Co2 120,000 rounds of ammo creates...)

The Chicago school of Economics which is probably
one of the best in the world did some calculations
that found if everyone in the world would go just
one day a week without eating meat it would be
enough to end global warming.


As I said I personally think Global Warming is mostly
hype and propaganda... however, the wife and I are
NOT having kids and do NOT eat meat every day.


I would like to hear from the believers --- what steps
are you taking to reduce your impact on the planet??

what if we ate the most carbon polluting humans? that seems like a more effective method!

They just came out and said that owning a dog constitutes 2x the carbon footprint as a large SUV. Where does the stupidity end??
http://news.yahoo.com/...tewarminganimalsfood

...even hippies like dogs, man.
____________________________________________________
i think al gore would taste like bacon!

ok, man, what's the carbon loading of farts by a person who eats at nothing but mexican restaurants?

sounds like we need to eat dogs, people who drive big SUVS, and people who frequent Mexican restaurants. this ain't gonna be easy and will most likely require lots of spices...

How long before there is a "breathing tax" for people? What's the carbon foot print for war?

just throwing this out there, but the human body is roughly 18% carbon.

So, yeah, if you're reading this, you should feel GUILTY!

There is just no denying anymore, we have to get father christmas an electric scooter!!!

like this?

Ya although the taxidermy thing would freak my little one out...

Took me a while to get around to it, but I finally had a chance to watch Kirkby's entire video and I really enjoyed it. Thank you for the link.

I'm neither a physicist nor a climatologist, but it sounds like Kirkby's CLOUD experiment will be informative to climate science in one way or another, especially if they can establish a direct link between GCR and clouds. Again, I'm not a climatologist but I have the impression that clouds are one of the next big "wild cards" that need to be addressed in climate modeling and prediction. And the relationship between clouds and Glactic Cosmic Rays (GCR) seems like a worthy enough scientific topic to investigate.

So, relating this bit of science to the current thread...

Nowhere in the lecture does Kirkby deny anthropogenic causes, or the role of greenhouse gasses. The cynical folk will say that's because he doesn't want to lose his funding. Indeed, statements attributed to him many years ago(1) reflect the sentiment that GCR could explain all of global warming. In this lecture, however, he speaks of GCR as one among many significant players in the game. He also repeatedly emphasizes that the link between GCR and cloud formation is not scientifically established yet. Maybe he's become more politic, or maybe he has been swayed by the published science over the last 10 years. Of course, anyone would be thrilled to show that their research baby was the dominant climate effect. And I think we'd all love it if CO2 could be shown to be irrelevant.

Anyhow, I assume that what interested you the most was Kirkby's section about paleoclimate and sun cycles. I had two main thoughts, and I'll leave it at that for brevity's sake.

Basically, Kirkby argues that GCR cycles are correlated to all the major climate cycles as far back as we can estimate.

1) I think that's a reasonable enough hypothesis. But the context in which he presents this hypothesis, and the context in which it would be most valid, is a pre-industrial climate. If the climate has been variable (which is has), and CO2 was not forcing the cycles (which, pre-industrialization, I'll assume it wasn't), then at least one other thing (like GCR, maybe) is obviously at work. That still does not invalidate the large body of evidence that CO2 is currently forcing a climate change.

2) One point that frequently irked me throughout Kirkby's introduction, is that he is constantly superposing curves to demonstrate correlation, without actually demonstrating any statistical correlation. In fact, at the end of lecture, the very first question he gets asked by an audience member asks him to explain exactly that. Sadly, Kirkby does not answer the question (maybe he misunderstood it--I doubt he was trying to "dodge" anything). His case would be a lot stronger if he could show an r statistic or something like that, that "x% of the variation in curve A is explained by variation in curve B." Instead, he relies on visual superposition. Well, you can superpose the chart of any stochastic datastream, such as the dow-jones industrial average for example, with many natural (and completely unrelated!) phenomenon and claim "correlation by inspection." It's quite a weak argument until he does the math. Even if it "looks obvious." But I think the statistics would strengthen his argument, not weaken it, in this case.

So, man, this is plenty long already-- but there are no crushing attacks on AGW to be found in Kirkby's presentation. Even if there were... AGW is a theory, and Kirkby has a hypothesis. If he wants to upset the theory, he has to present some very rigorous data and models that 1) explain climate change better than the current models, 2) explain why CO2 is not actually responsible for effects that are both predicted and demonstrated, and 3) make new predictions that can be tested.

One thing that separates Kirkby from those on the fox-news-climate-bandwagon, is that he's actually doing science.

(1) http://www.canada.com/...40-b687-a1672ed1f684

Here's why... it's propaganda because it is deliberately spread, with the main intention of convincing people of a certain message or movement. (Just like "An Inconvenient Truth")

And it's straight up bullshit, because it deliberately misrepresents, ignores, or contradicts established science, without presenting any rational argument for its case. The tragedy here is that most people aren't scientifically literate enough to see through bullshit. The science may be right or it may be wrong, but at least be able to tell it apart from non-science.

I haven't seen A.I.T. but if it cherry-picks data, takes its opponents' quotes out of context, and hides from counterarguments, that's pretty bullshit too.

I watched that first 10 minute segment of your youtube video and i lost count of the number of patently incorrect statements after about 2 minutes, so I dont think I could suffer the next 7 segments. I'll gladly sit through an hour of Kirkby's video, even if he skullfucks endangered baby seals and drives a hummer, because at least he's creating data and publishing research!

PS i liked the moose article... i think we should eat more of them

I heard an interview with a train conductor on the radio a while ago and he told that it is a problem with all the moose running on the tracks. His personal "record" was killing 13 moose on one trip from Oslo to Trondheim (about 7 hours). I guess that means that trains are environmentally friendly in more than one way