the Global Warming debate

[GaryC 7]

Its controversial, sure - but far from unproven. Rather like that whole evolution/creationism thing - environmentalism vs. capitalism has taken on an almost religious character.

Whether its true or not doesn't matter to me. Pumping millions of tonnes of exhaust gases into the atmosphere can't be good - for anyone. With regards to California are you saying then that the prescence of significant air pollution plays no role whatsoever in the increase of local ambient temperature in valley cities? Heat island effect is to do with population density and massive concentrations of a/c units, I thought.

Incidentally, Britain got slapped with the label of "the dirty man of Europe" a few years back because our industrial emissions were being blown northward and degrading the air quality as far away as Stockholm.

I think you missunderstood me. The problems with smog in LA are a local problem. It's because everything that gets pumped into the air gets trapped between the mountains and has no where to go. The heat island effect is something different if I understand it correctly. All the concrete and steel absorbs the heat and radiates it back out creating a warmer local temp. The smog may hold some more of the heat in, I don't know.

It is totaly seperate from the Global Warming debate.

Please don't missunderstand me, Anything we can do to clean up the planet is a good thing. But the idea of trashing our economy over the idea that Global Warming is going to kill us all is just wrong. Your right, it is a political debate and not a scientific one. That is my whole point!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Gary, you said that you saw An Inconvenient Truth, yet you dismiss all of it as junk science. Then you proceed to give reference to 'other' publications that talk science as if they are legitimate. What is your criteria for determining what is legitimate science vs. junk science?

[GaryC 7]

Gary, you said that you saw An Inconvenient Truth, yet you dismiss all of it as junk science. Then you proceed to give reference to 'other' publications that talk science as if they are legitimate. What is your criteria for determining what is legitimate science vs. junk science?

Put the shoe on the other foot Steve, Prove to me that what AlGore is saying is true. The imperical evidence is clear. Global Warming is not a fact but only an unproven theory. To jump off the deep end and totally trash our economy on an unproven theory is nothing more than "feel good" legislation.

Here is some more for you:

Green Myths On Global Warming — Debunked

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 MYTH Planet earth is currently undergoing global warming

FACT Accurate and representative temperature measurements from satellites and balloons show that the planet has cooled significantly in the last two or three years, losing in only 18 months 15% of the claimed warming which took over 100 years to appear — that warming was only one degree fahrenheit (half of one degree Celsius) anyway, and part of this is a systematic error from groundstation readings which are inflated due to the 'urban heat island effect' i.e. local heat retention due to urban sprawl, not global warming...and it is these, 'false high' ground readings which are then programmed into the disreputable climate models, which live up to the GIGO acronym — garbage in, garbage out.

2 MYTH Even slight temperature rises are disastrous, ice caps will melt, people will die

FACT In the UK, every mild winter saves 20,000 cold-related deaths, and scaled up over northern Europe mild winters save hundreds of thousands of lives each year, also parts of ice caps are melting yet other parts are thickening but this isn't reported as much (home experiment: put some water in a jug or bowl, add a layer of ice cubes and mark the level — wait until the ice has melted and look again, the level will have fallen). Data from ice core samples shows that in the past, temperatures have risen by ten times the current rise, and fallen again, in the space of a human lifetime.

3 MYTH Carbon Dioxide levels in our atmosphere at the moment are unprecedented (high).

FACT Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, currently only 350 parts per million have been over 18 times higher in the past at a time when cars, factories and power stations did not exist — levels rise and fall without mankind's help.

4 MYTH Mankind is pumping out carbon dioxide at a prodigious rate.

FACT 96.5% of all carbon dioxide emissions are from natural sources, mankind is responsible for only 3.5%, with 0.6% coming from fuel to move vehicles, and about 1% from fuel to heat buildings. Yet vehicle fuel (petrol) is taxed at 300% while fuel to heat buildings is taxed at 5% even though buildings emit nearly twice as much carbon dioxide!

5 MYTH Carbon dioxide changes in the atmosphere cause temperature changes on the earth.

FACT A report in the journal 'Science' in January of this year showed using information from ice cores with high time resolution that since the last ice age, every time when the temperature and carbon dioxide levels have shifted, the carbon dioxide change happened AFTER the temperature change, so that man-made global warming theory has put effect before cause — this shows that reducing carbon dioxide emissions is a futile King Canute exercise! What's more, both water vapour and methane are far more powerful greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide but they are ignored.

6 MYTH Reducing car use will cut carbon dioxide levels and save the planet

FACT The planet does not need saving, but taking this on anyway, removing every car from every road in every country overnight would NOT produce any change in the carbon dioxide level of the atmosphere, as can be seen using the numbers from Fact 4, and in any case it is pointless trying to alter climate by changing carbon dioxide levels as the cause and effect is the other way round — it is changes in the activity of the Sun that cause temperature changes on earth, with any temperature rise causing carbon dioxide to de-gas from the oceans.

7 MYTH The recent wet weather and flooding was caused by mankind through 'global warming'

FACT Extreme weather correlates with the cycle of solar activity, not carbon dioxide emissions or political elections, the recent heavy rainfall in winter and spring is a perfect example of this — it occurred at solar maximum at a time when solar maxima are very intense — this pattern may well repeat every 11 years until about 2045.

8 MYTH The climate change levy, petrol duty, CO2 car tax and workplace parking charges are justifiable environmental taxes.

FACT As carbon dioxide emissions from cars and factories does not have any measurable impact on climate, these taxes are 'just another tax' on enterprise and mobility, and have no real green credentials.

9 MYTH Scientists on the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issue reports that say 'global warming' is real and that we must do something now.

FACT Scientists draft reports for the IPCC, but the IPCC are bureaucrats appointed by governments, in fact many scientists who contribute to the reports disagree with the 'spin' that the IPCC and media put on their findings.

The latest report suggests that the next 100 years might see a temperature change of 6 Celsius yet a Lead Author for the IPCC (Dr John Christy UAH/NASA) has pointed out that the scenarios with the fastest warming rates were added to the report at a late stage, at the request of a few governments — in other words the scientists were told what to do by politicians.

10 MYTH There are only a tiny handful of maverick scientists who dispute that man-made global warming theory is true.

FACT There are nearly 18,000 signatures from scientists worldwide on a petition called The Oregon Petition which says that there is no evidence for man-made global warming theory nor for any impact from mankind's activities on climate.

Many scientists believe that the Kyoto agreement is a total waste of time and one of the biggest political scams ever perpetrated on the public ... as H L Mencken said "the fundamental aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary" ... the desire to save the world usually fronts a desire to rule it.

Source: http://www.abd.org.uk/green_myths.htm

I think your starting to get my point here. For every source you can name that says Global Warming is true I can name one that says it isn't. So why go to such drastic measures on something that can't be proven when the consequences of taking that action will harm us so badly?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

... the idea of trashing our economy over the idea that Global Warming is going to kill us all is just wrong. Your right, it is a political debate and not a scientific one. That is my whole point!

Who is advocating the destruction of our economy? Is placing fuel efficiency standards on the auto industry hurting the economy? Is investing in alternative energy going to destroy our economy? Is requiring industry to reduce it's emissions by a percentage going to put them out of business? Is reducing our dependency on oil - and most importantly foreign oil going to destroy our economy? Give specifics of how you believe the economy is going to get trashed instead of just stating politically charged rhetoric.

Edited August 23, 2006 by Steven_and_Jinky

[Fuzzness 2]

just as i thought. money is more important than the health of our planet.

[Ban Hammer 13,334]

very interesting reading gary. i'll roflmao if the sun dims and we have an ice age

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Gary, you said that you saw An Inconvenient Truth, yet you dismiss all of it as junk science. Then you proceed to give reference to 'other' publications that talk science as if they are legitimate. What is your criteria for determining what is legitimate science vs. junk science?

Put the shoe on the other foot Steve, Prove to me that what AlGore is saying is true. The imperical evidence is clear. Global Warming is not a fact but only an unproven theory. To jump off the deep end and totally trash our economy on an unproven theory is nothing more than "feel good" legislation.

See my above post. Specifically, how is our economy going to be trashed?

[GaryC 7]

Ok Steve, here is one for you:

Kyoto Cutbacks in Energy Use Would Devastate America's Economy

WASHINGTON—The Kyoto Protocol for the control of greenhouse gases arrived stillborn in mid-February, and the event was a cause for celebration for anyone who cares about America’s economy and its workers.

Indeed, even as the champagne corks popped, Kyoto’s apologists were quietly admitting that the treaty would not prevent global warming, stating its importance was largely “symbolic.” After eight years and tens-of-millions of tax dollars spent: Kyoto is, indeed, an expensive symbol!

Contrary to the claims of America’s critics, the United States did not kill the treaty—rather, the seeds of Kyoto’s demise were planted in its very heart when it was created in Japan eight years ago.

If every country party to the treaty met their greenhouse gas targets, the Earth will be a negligible 0.07 degrees Celsius and 0.19 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than it would be absent Kyoto.

This is because swiftly developing powerhouses like China and India are not obligated to cut their emissions, even though they produce nearly half of all current greenhouse gas emissions and are predicted to produce as much as 85 percent of the future increase. Thus, if developed countries stopped all their greenhouse gas emissions, levels would still increase.

Kyoto wouldn’t help the environment, but it would do immense harm to the economy. According to Dallas Federal Reserve economist Stephen Brown, Kyoto’s emission cuts would reduce U.S. gross domestic product somewhere between 3.6 percent and 5.1 percent by 2010. The Department of Energy estimated that Kyoto would cause gasoline prices to rise by 52 percent and electricity prices to rise by 86 percent.

Wisely, the Bush administration charted a different course on global warming. In fact, it has spent more money—more than $6 billion per year—than any other government on the creation and promotion of technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while continuing economic growth.

These efforts include annual expenditures of $700 million in tax credits to promote clean technologies, $3 billion in research on new clean technologies and $200 million to transfer clean technology to developing countries. In the United States, industry is on course to meet the administration’s goal of reducing annual emissions of greenhouse gases per 1.5 percent per unit of GDP.

The administration also raised vehicle fuel efficiency standards for the first time in nearly 30 years. The modest increases should not result in people being forced into less safe vehicles, but will improve vehicle efficiency and thus lower greenhouse gas emissions.

In addition, the administration’s “Healthy Forests” plan should reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires that, in addition to harming wildlife and causing air and water pollution, annually release tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Healthy Forests also will replace stands of dead timber with living trees—dead trees release carbon, while live trees use carbon to grow.

In conjunction with industry, the U.S. government has taken the lead in research into carbon sequestration technologies. As a result the oil and gas industry annually pumps tons of carbon dioxide underground. This removes carbon from the atmosphere while boosting yields from marginal oil and natural gas fields.

Finally, the Bush administration crafted an international treaty turning the powerful greenhouse gas, methane, into a marketable product.

Department of Energy projections show that by 2015, the Methane to Markets program will remove 1 percent of all greenhouse gases that humans emit into the atmosphere.

This is the equivalent of taking 33 million cars off the road, or shutting down 50 coal-fired power plants or heating 7.2 million homes. In contrast to Kyoto, the program also produces some very tangible economic benefits.

Plugging leaks in natural gas pipelines means saving product. Methane captured at factory farms and landfills or produced from animal and plant waste can be used to fuel local power plants.

Neither the Kyoto Treaty, nor the Bush administration’s efforts will prevent further human-caused global warming. But at least the administration’s efforts have the virtue of promoting continued economic growth, which is necessary if the world is to adapt to the impacts of a warmer world—regardless of the cause.

Source: http://eteam.ncpa.org/commentaries/kyoto-c...mericas-economy

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Please don't missunderstand me, Anything we can do to clean up the planet is a good thing. But the idea of trashing our economy over the idea that Global Warming is going to kill us all is just wrong. Your right, it is a political debate and not a scientific one. That is my whole point!

Its become a political debate - but it would be wrong to suggest that it isn't based on a scientific premise and active, ongoing research. But yes it is far from proven "conclusively".

As I said I'm not sure whether or not it matters if Global warming is true - if we are honestly prepared to adopt responsible attitudes towards the environment cities like LA wouldn't be choking on exhaust fumes. Neither would Brazilian villagers be deforesting the Amazon at massive, unsustainable levels.

The problem here is that the short term pursuit of profit has always come before before all other considerations. Its that mindset that has yet to change - so it seems to me that a degree of suspicion is healthy. In this case.

[Ban Hammer 13,334]

i don't know about any of you, but doubling the price of electricity and gas would put a hurt on my pocket. and even more so on those with a fixed income. did anyone consider that?

[GaryC 7]

Please don't missunderstand me, Anything we can do to clean up the planet is a good thing. But the idea of trashing our economy over the idea that Global Warming is going to kill us all is just wrong. Your right, it is a political debate and not a scientific one. That is my whole point!

Its become a political debate - but it would be wrong to suggest that it isn't based on a scientific premise and active, ongoing research. But yes it is far from proven "conclusively".

As I said I'm not sure whether or not it matters if Global warming is true - if we are honestly prepared to adopt responsible attitudes towards the environment cities like LA wouldn't be choking on exhaust fumes. Neither would Brazilian villagers be deforesting the Amazon at massive, unsustainable levels.

The problem here is that the short term pursuit of profit has always come before before all other considerations. Its that mindset that has yet to change - so it seems to me that a degree of suspicion is healthy. In this case.

Thats all I am saying. Lets know what we are dealing with before we try to "cure" it. We can't cure something if we don't even know if there is a problem!!

[PsychoKat 0]

i don't know about any of you, but doubling the price of electricity and gas would put a hurt on my pocket. and even more so on those with a fixed income. did anyone consider that?

Or maybe the government could release some of the 4000 patents that have been quietly hidden away containing a multitude of amazing and proven discoveries of cleaner, cheaper and amazingly efficent power and energy, that were squashed in the past to protect the oil industry.

[GaryC 7]

Ex-Clinton aides admit Kyoto treaty flawed

By Jonathan Weisman, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — As President Bush headed off Monday to face environmental critics in Europe, he fired a parting shot at the global warming treaty he has rejected. He called the Kyoto Protocol unrealistic, costly and "fatally flawed."

In that assessment, he has some unexpected supporters: Clinton administration experts.

Economists from the Clinton White House now concede that complying with Kyoto's mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases would be difficult — and more expensive to American consumers than they thought when they were in charge.

That reassessment helped fuel Bush's decision to reject the Kyoto treaty, said Lawrence Lindsey, the president's economic adviser. Instead of embracing binding limits on greenhouse gases, Bush pledged on Monday a modest package of actions to combat global warming. They include a research initiative to fill gaps in scientists' understanding of climate change and increased use of renewable energy. But he didn't call for new money.

"America's unwillingness to embrace a flawed treaty should not be read by our friends and allies as any abdication of responsibility," said Bush, who is expected to hear vociferous complaints about his approach during his five-nation tour of Europe. Bush said the treaty would harm the economy and exclude China, the world's second-biggest producer of greenhouse gases after the USA.

The treaty, negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, aimed to combat emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that most scientists believe trap heat in the atmosphere. The treaty required the United States to reduce its emissions by 2012 to 7% below its 1990 levels.

At the time, the Clinton White House estimated that the cost of reaching that target was relatively low: about $7 billion to $12 billion a year starting in 2008, when binding reductions would begin phasing in. An average household's energy bills would rise $70-$110 a year, and gasoline prices would inch up no more than 6 cents a gallon, the White House said.

Other government cost estimates were far higher. The Department of Energy estimated that gasoline prices would have to rise 66 cents a gallon — or 53% over a projected 2010 price — to meet Kyoto's emissions targets.

To keep his cost estimates down, President Clinton envisioned an emissions-trading system in which countries unable to meet the greenhouse-gas reduction targets would get credits for helping other nations exceed the standards. The idea was that when all the treaty's members averaged out their emissions, the world's total output would meet a global target.

For example: If the United States wanted to emit more carbon dioxide one year, it could help Russia get below its emissions standard by paying high-polluting Russian industries to adopt technologies to clean up their dirty plants.

Clinton administration economists say that, in retrospect, their low cost estimates were unrealistic. They assumed that:

China and India would accept binding emission limits and would fully participate in the emissions-trading system, even though they never signed the treaty.

European opposition to emissions trading could be overcome.

Most industries and consumers would quickly adopt new, energy-efficient technologies, such as advanced air conditioning systems and gas-electric "hybrid" cars, without financial incentives.

Since 1997, however, it has become clear that consumers love their gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles and aren't embracing energy-efficient technologies; China has no intention of participating in the treaty; and Europe still wants to limit emissions trading as a partial solution to global warming.

Todd Stern, Clinton's global warming coordinator, says that the Europeans would likely go along with an unlimited trading system if the Bush administration would return to the negotiating table to produce a revised treaty it could sign. However, he concedes that China won't participate for now.

Leaving China out of a trading scheme would double the Clinton cost estimate, says Joseph Aldy, who helped develop the estimates for Clinton. "We always thought the (emissions) targets were very ambitious," he says. "But the thing that made us really uneasy about our analysis ... was that if our assumptions didn't come true, you could come out with costs that were much, much higher."

Another problem is that energy-efficiency breakthroughs have stalled as governments argue over the treaty, says a supporter of the treaty. "As the clock ticks, this becomes a more and more difficult job," says Kathleen McGinty, who chaired Clinton's Council on Environmental Quality.

Even so, Clinton economists say, Bush could have tried to revise the treaty to reflect these new realities. By simply walking away from it, he is letting the Europeans portray the United States as the villain, even though they privately admit that they, too, may be unable to comply with the treaty. "George Bush has done all the work for the Europeans," says Robert Lawrence, a Clinton administration economist now at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

Lindsey, however, insists that the Kyoto Protocol is beyond repair. "The models are not even close in suggesting Kyoto was the right approach," he says. "It was wrong. I think we did the right thing."

See! Even the Clinton administration says that Kyoto is wrong and would have hurt us without doing anything to help the enviroment.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Ex-Clinton aides admit Kyoto treaty flawed

By Jonathan Weisman, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — As President Bush headed off Monday to face environmental critics in Europe, he fired a parting shot at the global warming treaty he has rejected. He called the Kyoto Protocol unrealistic, costly and "fatally flawed."

In that assessment, he has some unexpected supporters: Clinton administration experts.

Economists from the Clinton White House now concede that complying with Kyoto's mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases would be difficult — and more expensive to American consumers than they thought when they were in charge.

That reassessment helped fuel Bush's decision to reject the Kyoto treaty, said Lawrence Lindsey, the president's economic adviser. Instead of embracing binding limits on greenhouse gases, Bush pledged on Monday a modest package of actions to combat global warming. They include a research initiative to fill gaps in scientists' understanding of climate change and increased use of renewable energy. But he didn't call for new money.

"America's unwillingness to embrace a flawed treaty should not be read by our friends and allies as any abdication of responsibility," said Bush, who is expected to hear vociferous complaints about his approach during his five-nation tour of Europe. Bush said the treaty would harm the economy and exclude China, the world's second-biggest producer of greenhouse gases after the USA.

The treaty, negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, aimed to combat emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that most scientists believe trap heat in the atmosphere. The treaty required the United States to reduce its emissions by 2012 to 7% below its 1990 levels.

At the time, the Clinton White House estimated that the cost of reaching that target was relatively low: about $7 billion to $12 billion a year starting in 2008, when binding reductions would begin phasing in. An average household's energy bills would rise $70-$110 a year, and gasoline prices would inch up no more than 6 cents a gallon, the White House said.

Other government cost estimates were far higher. The Department of Energy estimated that gasoline prices would have to rise 66 cents a gallon — or 53% over a projected 2010 price — to meet Kyoto's emissions targets.

To keep his cost estimates down, President Clinton envisioned an emissions-trading system in which countries unable to meet the greenhouse-gas reduction targets would get credits for helping other nations exceed the standards. The idea was that when all the treaty's members averaged out their emissions, the world's total output would meet a global target.

For example: If the United States wanted to emit more carbon dioxide one year, it could help Russia get below its emissions standard by paying high-polluting Russian industries to adopt technologies to clean up their dirty plants.

Clinton administration economists say that, in retrospect, their low cost estimates were unrealistic. They assumed that:

China and India would accept binding emission limits and would fully participate in the emissions-trading system, even though they never signed the treaty.

European opposition to emissions trading could be overcome.

Most industries and consumers would quickly adopt new, energy-efficient technologies, such as advanced air conditioning systems and gas-electric "hybrid" cars, without financial incentives.

Since 1997, however, it has become clear that consumers love their gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles and aren't embracing energy-efficient technologies; China has no intention of participating in the treaty; and Europe still wants to limit emissions trading as a partial solution to global warming.

Todd Stern, Clinton's global warming coordinator, says that the Europeans would likely go along with an unlimited trading system if the Bush administration would return to the negotiating table to produce a revised treaty it could sign. However, he concedes that China won't participate for now.

Leaving China out of a trading scheme would double the Clinton cost estimate, says Joseph Aldy, who helped develop the estimates for Clinton. "We always thought the (emissions) targets were very ambitious," he says. "But the thing that made us really uneasy about our analysis ... was that if our assumptions didn't come true, you could come out with costs that were much, much higher."

Another problem is that energy-efficiency breakthroughs have stalled as governments argue over the treaty, says a supporter of the treaty. "As the clock ticks, this becomes a more and more difficult job," says Kathleen McGinty, who chaired Clinton's Council on Environmental Quality.

Even so, Clinton economists say, Bush could have tried to revise the treaty to reflect these new realities. By simply walking away from it, he is letting the Europeans portray the United States as the villain, even though they privately admit that they, too, may be unable to comply with the treaty. "George Bush has done all the work for the Europeans," says Robert Lawrence, a Clinton administration economist now at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

Lindsey, however, insists that the Kyoto Protocol is beyond repair. "The models are not even close in suggesting Kyoto was the right approach," he says. "It was wrong. I think we did the right thing."

See! Even the Clinton administration says that Kyoto is wrong and would have hurt us without doing anything to help the enviroment.

It's a bit peculiar that you would openly accept economic 'estimates' as legitimate, while easily dismissing scientific estimates on Global Warming as bunk. Secondly, if you going to talk about costs and trashing the economy, I think you're ignoring the bull in the china closet - Iraq. Comparitively speaking, would ratifying the Kyoto Protocol cost us any more than the war in Iraq? There are going to be intitial costs and growing pains of converting to alternative fuel sources, but you've got to see the long term benefit in doing so, both to our economy and our quality of life.

Yes, there is much debate as to whether the benefits outweigh the costs. When it comes to the environment though and our quality of life, how can we effectively compute that into a 'cost' factor? What price do we put on a pristine lake? Or an old growth forest? Working for a sustainable future is going to be a constant recalculation and analysis to allow economic growth while protecting our quality of life. It sounds like you agree to that notion.

But that only addresses your argument against public policy change.

I'd like for you to look at the OP of this thread and explain to me what part of that explanation of Global Warming do you dismiss as junk science? Scientific theory does not equate to junk science - that is simply ludicrous.

[dalegg 143]

Hey, I'm curious. What specific thing would be the most effective thing the U.S. could do to help stop global warming? Just briefly paraphrase please without posting whole web pages or links to other web pages.

I mean, is it car-pooling, watching less television, giving up porn, whatever. Something simple and tangible.