Poll

Is anthropogenic global warming actually happening?

Only registered users are allowed to vote for this poll.
18 votes were received.

Of course, it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, so it's a duck.	9		50%
I'm waiting for real proof and won't believe it until the ice caps are 100% melted and our coastal cities are underwater.	3		17%
Muller has been brainwashed by Al Gore. The chairmen of the coal corporations are the only objective people studying this question.	4		22%
Science is bogus. I don't believe in evolution either. It's not in god's plan for man to alter the climate.	2		11%

---

...changes his mind.

One of the most staunch and probably the most respected of the global warming deniers has been Richard Muller. He's respected because he's a physicist and he went to a lot of effort to pursue grant money from organizations that oppose any action on global warming (e.g. the Koch Brothers) so that he could assemble a group of scientists to debunk the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis by thoroughly reviewing and fixing the multitude of problems that he had previously identified in the data and models.

The only problem is that after they did all that they found that global warming approximately of the magnitude suggested by the IPCC IS happening and that it is clearly largely the result of human activities. Note that a couple of scientists on his team still don't entirely buy into the anthropogenic part of the hypothesis being completely proven, but bear in mind that they are funded by companies that would be hurt if it were true.

I'm not sure who the deniers will turn to now. The rest of the deniers are for the most part blowhards who don't actually do real science.

Quote
Prof Richard Muller
"Call me a converted sceptic." "These findings are stronger than those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], the United Nations group that defines the scientific and diplomatic consensus on global warming."
[www.bbc.co.uk]

---

"So be proud to be a decent American instead of just a w'anker whipping up fear!" - Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland

>>I'm not sure who the deniers will turn to now.

They don't need to turn anywhere. They have each other.

---

There's obviously too many people on this planet.
I submit that everyone within 500 miles of the left coast should immediately and with no further contemplation voluntarily walk into the Pacific.

---

[www.freethegrapes.org]

norwegian wood reality TV

[www.youtube.com]

Quote
billb
There's obviously too many people on this planet.
I submit that everyone within 500 miles of the left coast should immediately and with no further contemplation voluntarily walk into the Pacific.

I think those suggesting such solutions should lead by example.

---

"So be proud to be a decent American instead of just a w'anker whipping up fear!" - Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland

Quote
mattkime
>>I'm not sure who the deniers will turn to now.

They don't need to turn anywhere. They have each other.

echo chamber

I for one welcome the loss of hard winter and the rising of the seas. Sitting pretty up here with lots of fresh water, increased rainfall forecasts for the next 100 years, lots of arable land, and 500+ feet above sea level.

What bothers me most about the various 'solutions' bandied about is that they all read like wall street shell games. Carbon Credit Market ? What a lot of BS hooey. Designed to enrich a few of the "1 %" and pauper everyone else.

And now the US is going to back entirely out of Fusion research. Can't seem to properly incentivise or fund Solar power. Getting nuclear fission, wind, or tidal power systems running is a lengthy struggle with interlocking , interventionistic , and idiotic ideologues in and out of governments.

The last 40 years of laws that were focused on stopping EVERYTHING have come home to roost, and are interfering with the development and implementation of technologies that can save us. When it all goes dark, our great grandchildren will happily curse us while enjoying snail darter boullabaise and spotted owl stew.

[news.yahoo.com]

Quote

[Exxon CEO] Tillerson, in a break with predecessor Lee Raymond, has acknowledged that global temperatures are rising. "Clearly there is going to be an impact," he said Wednesday.

But he questioned the ability of climate models to predict the magnitude of the impact. He said that people would be able to adapt to rising sea levels and changing climates that may force agricultural production to shift.

"We have spent our entire existence adapting. We'll adapt," he said. "It's an engineering problem and there will be an engineering solution."

Unstated: "But don't expect US to adapt in any way that will cost US profit."



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2012 01:18PM by Ted King.

Quote

I'm not sure who the deniers will turn to now.

They will try to silence the educational system that enables scientific work. GO BEARS!!

Having worked in the carpet industry for many years, early in my career, I kept having trouble reading this.


den·ier 2  (dn-y)
n.
1. also (dnyr) A unit of fineness for rayon, nylon, and silk fibers, based on a standard mass per length of 1 gram per 9,000 meters of yarn.
2. also (d-nîr)

---

Alpharetta, GA (Atlanta suburb)

Quote
cbelt3
I for one welcome the loss of hard winter and the rising of the seas. Sitting pretty up here with lots of fresh water, increased rainfall forecasts for the next 100 years, lots of arable land, and 500+ feet above sea level.

I'm about 1 mile from the head-of-tide but about 25 miles from the ocean, so perhaps if I wait long enough, I'll have that oceanfront home I've always dreamed of.

Quote
cbelt3
What bothers me most about the various 'solutions' bandied about is that they all read like wall street shell games. Carbon Credit Market ? What a lot of BS hooey. Designed to enrich a few of the "1 %" and pauper everyone else.

cbelt3, those schemes were devised as ways to sell the reduction of CO₂ emissions to your GOP pals. If it were up to me, I would just tax the hell out of greenhouse gases or ban them outright in some cases, but the oligarchs that control the world's economy (and who own the world's politicians) would have none of those restrictions holding back the wheels of commerce.

Quote
cbelt3
And now the US is going to back entirely out of Fusion research. Can't seem to properly incentivise or fund Solar power. Getting nuclear fission, wind, or tidal power systems running is a lengthy struggle with interlocking , interventionistic , and idiotic ideologues in and out of governments.

Again, Big Oil is making money hand-over-fist and is throwing it around to own Congress and the Executive Branch. Conservatives cry "Solyndra" every time the Administration comes up with any tiny idea to wean our addiction from foreign oil or cheap coal. In 2012, no politician has the guts or the will to dream big and accomplish something that will go beyond the next election cycle.

Quote
cbelt3
The last 40 years of laws that were focused on stopping EVERYTHING have come home to roost, and are interfering with the development and implementation of technologies that can save us. When it all goes dark, our great grandchildren will happily curse us while enjoying snail darter boullabaise and spotted owl stew.

I'm not sure what your getting at here. Do you mean that attempts to stop pollution, preserve national treasures and protect endangered species are the reason why no one has come up with cheap, non-polluting energy? Poppycock. Living in the toxic stew of NJ with contaminated sites on every corner, I'm glad that Big Government stepped in relatively quickly to preserve my health, because industry sure wasn't getting it done.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2012 02:27PM by the_poochies.

Quote
cbelt3
And now the US is going to back entirely out of Fusion research.

I don't think that is correct. The Obama administration wanted to reduce funding for it because the possibility of usable results is so distant, but a large chunk of funding was instead approved for DOE fusion research.

Quote
cbelt3
Can't seem to properly incentivise or fund Solar power. Getting nuclear fission, wind, or tidal power systems running is a lengthy struggle with interlocking , interventionistic , and idiotic ideologues in and out of governments.

This is just more fact-free cbelt FUD. Solar and wind power implementation is going great guns, though US solar manufacturers have been financially impacted by chinese dumping of cheap solar panels on the US market. Not a problem at all for implementation though. Tidal systems are very site-specific and have massive environmental impacts...regulations are for good reason. Fission is not economically feasible without massive subsidies and liability waivers from the feds (meaning more subsidies when things go wrong), and suffers from massive opposition from the public. There are good reasons for intervention to stop our tax money pouring into the nuclear fat cats' pockets.

Quote
cbelt3
The last 40 years of laws that were focused on stopping EVERYTHING have come home to roost, and are interfering with the development and implementation of technologies that can save us. When it all goes dark, our great grandchildren will happily curse us while enjoying snail darter boullabaise and spotted owl stew.

More broad-brush FUD based on nothing. If you can't come up with specifics, please @#$%&.

---

"So be proud to be a decent American instead of just a w'anker whipping up fear!" - Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2012 02:58PM by davester.

I also agree there are far too many people using up this planets resouces. Mother Earth needs to send out a massive pandemic wiping out 25% of the population. Harsh, you bet but where we are heading isn't so great either...

Quote
Dazed & Confused (Mobile)
Mother Earth needs to send out a massive pandemic wiping out 25% of the population. Harsh, you bet but where we are heading isn't so great either...

Or alternatively we could achieve an even better result by spending money educating women and improving access to safe contraception, which has been proven to dramatically reduce birth rates.

A 25% cut in population but still the same birth rate would only knock us back to where we were 20 years ago. A cut in birth rates would have a much more dramatic effect.

Let's see now, which would be better...pandemic or education?

---

"So be proud to be a decent American instead of just a w'anker whipping up fear!" - Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2012 03:12PM by davester.

Let's see now, which would be better...pandemic or education?

Well, I understand your point, no one wishes for a pandemic of course it's just a more immediate solution and won't piss off the Catholic Church as much.

D & C

It's not even a more immediate solution. Unless your pandemic wipes out 90% or more of earth's population it is not going to have a significant effect on the problem. It's the steepness of the graph that is the problem, not the location that we're at on it. Killing people off has only miniscule effects on the problem compared to even small changes in the birth rate.

---

"So be proud to be a decent American instead of just a w'anker whipping up fear!" - Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland

I really don't care if global warming is fact or fiction. What I care about it pollution and the covering up of it's effects on us. Not just by businesses responsible for polluting our air, water, and food supplies but the pharma industry with their latest pill to counteract pollution's effects. I'm all for making money but how these people can sleep at night is beyond me. If there is a hell I hope they all go there to wallow in the crap they created.

FUD ?

Well, my opinions are based on personal observations and second hand information from people who are directly involved that I trust implicitly. So I don't have a letter fact checking me from the New York Times or the Progressive Policy Institute. Sorry. I've posted them here, so here are a few:

1- Nuclear. I have friends in the industry. Getting a permit is a multi-decades long labyrinth that is *almost* impossible to navigate.

2- Wind. My company installed the largest wind generator in Ohio. We were initially denied the permit because the EPA required us to do a 'bird kill impact analysis'. Despite it not being in any of the rules. We almost had to cancel the project because it was delayed by a year and a half. The actual statistics are confidential, but I have it on good authority that the turbine has killed fewer birds that one engineer's picture window at his house.

3- Tidal.. oh, your points are quite accurate. Guess what ? Are you willing to kill off 40% of all sea life, or a few thousand fishies a year ?

4- Solar. Have you TRIED to get a permit to install solar panels ? No ? Thought not. Every nimrod and their brother thinks they look 'ugly'. Just google a bit. My mother in Missouri wanted to install them on the farmhouse. No neighbors in view.. the closest is half a mile over a hill. She was denied because they were 'unappealing'.

40 year interlocking laws::; Dude, I WAS in the environmental movement in the 1970's. I read the briefing papers. This was a defined and well executed strategy. It worked.

Fusion: US's funding of basic research into high energy physics and fusion is a freaking JOKE. Seriously. My sister works on the LHC at CERN through her university in the US. Her name is on the HIggs Boson paper.

Want to know who funded her work for the last year ?

A private donor. The DOE cancelled their participation in the project. And you DO Know that the US is not a 'participatory nation' in the LHC. We didn't play, because we were going to make a Texas Sized Supercollider, that fed a lot of pork happy Congresscritters until it was canceled. If we even want to play, we have to do it on a cash on the barrel basis.

cbelt - the frustration is clear. your desired direction forward is not.

---

I'm not going to comment on points 1, 2 and 3 because you didn't present any information.

Quote
cbelt3
4- Solar. Have you TRIED to get a permit to install solar panels ? No ? Thought not. Every nimrod and their brother thinks they look 'ugly'. Just google a bit. My mother in Missouri wanted to install them on the farmhouse. No neighbors in view.. the closest is half a mile over a hill. She was denied because they were 'unappealing'.

Yes. my house is 3/4 solar powered. The permitting was simple. Perhaps in your mother's jurisdiction there is a problem but singular examples are meaningless. Solar implementation rates are high in much of the US so it is not a widespread problem.

Quote
cbelt3
Fusion: US's funding of basic research into high energy physics and fusion is a freaking JOKE. Seriously. My sister works on the LHC at CERN through her university in the US. Her name is on the HIggs Boson paper.

You are conflating nuclear fusion research with unrelated subatomic physics research. It's nice to have a relative working on a cool experiment that bears on the nature of the universe, but it has nothing to do with developing fusion power for power generation.

---

"So be proud to be a decent American instead of just a w'anker whipping up fear!" - Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland

Quote

Well, my opinions are based on personal observations and second hand information from people who are directly involved that I trust implicitly.

Be objective, are those your criteria for reliable, factual information from the supposedly liberal institution you disdain?

I think that is a very fair question.

Davester- Glad to hear you've got solar running. I have relatives in southern France who get a nice 100 Euro cheque every month from their solar panel roof. Solar is an amazing opportunity, but it cannot be a universal fix. Local governments need to get with it or get out of the way.

The LHC experiment and fusion research are all centered around the physics of high energy. There is a HUGE convergence of technologies. Magnetic containment ? Supercooling ? Superconductivity ? And the physics of sustainable energy producing fusion may be somewhat known, but the engineering is not there. Fission was demonstrated by Teller et. al in a Chicago basement in the 1930's. With a lot of lead and a Safety Control Rod Axe Man. (with an Axe). Fission takes a critical mass. Fusion takes a star, or equivalent in micro for a controllable experiment.


August-
I'm happily pointing out flaws. Solutions ? Solve the flaws. Pancake the laws.

"Any state, county, city, or town that denies the installation of solar panels loses all Federal funding".

"Any state, county, city, or town that denies the installation of a wind generation station loses all Federal funding".

Etc.

It's a political bully move, but it works. For cripes's sake, it's ENGINEERING. All Politics can do is get in the damn way. If you're serious about it, make sure government gets out of the way. But it involves hard decision. Make them.

I LOVE sustainable energy production. I want it to succeed. I know oil will run out. I know coal will run out. I know coal is a nasty thing to burn. for the sulfurs and acids alone. I want the wild areas in the world to survive. I love them. But I would much rather see wind turbines atop a scenic hill than the hillside become denuded and desertified due to warming, acid rain, or other net effect.

Blah, blah, blah...

Scientists can state that human-induced global warming is killing our planet. No one really cares and nothing will really change until a cataclysmic event occurs. Hopefully then it won't be too late.

Quote

I'm happily pointing out flaws.

Well, in that case, your FUD is not worth considering.

Quote
rgG

den·ier 2  (dn-y)
n.
1. also (dnyr) A unit of fineness for rayon, nylon, and silk fibers, based on a standard mass per length of 1 gram per 9,000 meters of yarn.
2. also (d-nîr)

Well, those climate change deniers are good at telling yarns, so this might actually have some relevance.

---

"So be proud to be a decent American instead of just a w'anker whipping up fear!" - Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland

FUD? No, experience. And , again, there are flaws that need fixing . Not ignoring.

The poll results are interesting. I only put the third one in as a joke, but it's gotten three votes. One crazy or sarcastic person voting that one is believable, but three? Are these tongue in cheek or is that how people really think?

---

"So be proud to be a decent American instead of just a w'anker whipping up fear!" - Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland

In an unusual turn of events, I agree with mac-a-matic. I think that so much of the human populace is concerned with where the groceries are coming from tomorrow and how they can get shiny SUVs like those rich americans that they won't care about invisible long-term issues like global warming. The classic "tragedy of the commons" will be the overriding mechanism so that the biggest polluters and greenhouse gas creators will reap benefits from the self-rationing of environmentally concerned people. IMHO, the only hope for derailing anthropogenic climate change (if that is what really is happening) is that the insatiable thirst for fossil fuels by the developing world will create shortages and price hikes, thereby driving quicker development of cheaper less-damaging technologies such as affordable solar and good battery technology. Like it or not, it's the market that will drive adoption of non-fossil energy sources, and it's going to take a while.

---

"So be proud to be a decent American instead of just a w'anker whipping up fear!" - Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland

You can't put joke answers in a poll and not expect people to click on them. I've done it myself.

---

"Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences." ~ Brian Eno

Quote
$tevie
You can't put joke answers in a poll and not expect people to click on them. I've done it myself.

Agreed.

Or post a push poll...

Quote
freeradical

Quote
$tevie
You can't put joke answers in a poll and not expect people to click on them. I've done it myself.

Agreed.

Or post a push poll...

You're free to post your own answers.

---

"So be proud to be a decent American instead of just a w'anker whipping up fear!" - Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland