The Environment

[Shapley]

OT,

As Haggis points out, I have seen the movie, spread out over twenty years of Gore speeches and presentations. There is nothing in the movie that he hasn't covered before. I have listened to his speeches, or read the transcripts. I have seen his presentations (I used to be a C-Span junkie). I've read the science, pro- and con- regarding the human aspect of global warming. But I don't change my mind everytime a new presentation comes along. Whenever something is presented that challenges what I know, or what I thinke I know, I research to find the facts or, where facts are lacking (as in Gore's presentations), what the science behind the predictions tell us.

I'm not yet convinced that dogs are turning into chickens and ducks. I want to see what's behind the fence.

V/R
Shapley

[Shapley]

I just read that an 'unusually large' solar flare has erupted on the sun, driving astronauts aboard the space station into shelter to avoid the solar radiation. If another barrage is aimed at Earth, I guess we can expect a slight tick in global temperature, which I'm sure will be blamed on greenhouse gas emissions.

Which reminded me of this:
Solar Flares and Global Warming

Unless some other underlying cause is responsible for the unlikely correspondence between solar flares and the earth's temperature, the research suggests that for the large part variations in global temperatures are beyond our control and are instead at the mercy of the sun's activity.

On the bright side, or rather dim side, sunspots are supposed to be on the downward trend, and we can expect a decrease in the amount of warming brought about by the sun.

V/R
Shapley

[Trumpetmaster]

they said on the news last night that the unusual warm weather
we are having here in the Northeast is due to El Nino.....

It was like this a few years ago through December...

Then January came and we were socked with cold weather and
tons of snow...

I hope history does not repeat itself... BUT it stays mild this winter!!

[Nicole Marie]

I am a BIG follower of the Farmers Almanac... it's never failed me!

http://www.almanac.com/

Check out your area. In the NorthEast we will have a mild winter and spring comes early. The summer (for us in New England) will have below normal rain. Water your plants!

[Trumpetmaster]

I am a BIG follower of the Farmers Almanac... it's never failed me!

http://www.almanac.com/

Check out your area. In the NorthEast we will have a mild winter and spring comes early. The summer (for us in New England) will have below normal rain. Water your plants!

Thanks Y.R.H.!
You're only a few hours north of me....
I will definitely check this out....

[navneeth]

If another barrage is aimed at Earth

Here you go...
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/pickoftheweek/

[Shapley]

I fall into the "Ohio Valley" region, for which the Almanac says:

Winter temperatures will be slightly below normal, on average, with near-normal snowfall. Rainfall will be above normal, especially in the southwest. The coldest temperatures will be around Christmas and in early, mid-, and late January and early February. The most widespread snowfalls will be in early December, mid- and late January, and late February.

The first half of April will be rather cold, but mid-April through May will be much warmer than normal, with some of the yearÕs hottest temperatures in mid-May. Precipitation in April and May will be near or slightly below normal.

Summer temperatures will be near normal, on average. Rainfall will be a bit below normal in the east, a bit above in the west. The hottest periods will be in late July and mid-August.

September and October will be cool, with near- or slightly below-normal precipitation. Expect the first widespread snowfall in mid- to late October.

This is from the free excerpt. You have to register and pay $5 to get the full forecast.

[barfle]

I'm coming into my sixth winter on the east coast, and about all I can say is that based on the previous five, I am unable to establish a pattern. I've seen the whole area snowed in for two days, and I've also seen an entire winter with three days total of visible snow on the ground.

[barfle]

While only periphally related to environmental issues, this is interesting.

[Shapley]

I wonder how much underwater timber there is to be harvested? That new Chinese Dam should open new avenues for them, but I would think they would log out after a relatively short period of time.

I suppose the next question is: Can we replenish underwater forests? They provide a healthy environment for fish, I understand, which is why many farmers in this area through their old Christmas trees into their ponds. Would it be possible to develop a seaweed/pine hybrid that could be grown and harvested below the waterline? It would be an interesting concept.

V/R
Shapley

[analog]

Well, this should cheer things up......




http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/12 ... /#more-964

In promoting biodiesel – as the European Union, the British and US governments and thousands of environmental campaigners do – you might imagine that you are creating a market for old chip fat, or rapeseed oil, or oil from algae grown in desert ponds. In reality you are creating a market for the most destructive crop on earth.

We could really use that "Mr Fusion" from Doc Brown's Delorean about now.

https://portfolio.du.edu/portfolio/getp ... ?uid=44317

a.

[barfle]

Nukes.

But let's see if we can clean up the mining and the disposal issues there, too.

[dai bread]

That article about biodiesel reminds me of John Wyndham's book "The Day of the Triffids". It's an interesting book, and apart from the magical meteor shower that starts the story off, only too credible.

[shostakovich]

It would help alleviate the overcrowding that Shos is so concerned with. I think we're probably looking at 10, maybe 20 million deaths, depending on the breeze. Acceptable Civilian casualties. A small price to pay for preserving the purity of our precious bodily fluids...

My push for birth control is the alternative to this kind of solution to overpopulation.
Shos

[Haggis@wk]

[rant on]
Why am I skeptical of Gore’s and other organizations dire prediction of global warming? Mainly because the track records of Gore et al are so dismally wrong.

On May 22 2006, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued its 2006 Atlantic Hurricane Outlook forecasting an

“80 percent chance of an above-normal hurricane season, a 15 percent chance of a near-normal season, and only a 5 percent chance of a below-normal season…

…a very active 2006 season, with 13-16 named storms, 8-10 hurricanes, and 4-6 major hurricanes.”

NOAA based its forecast on

“an expected continuation of conditions associated with the multi-decadal signal, which has favored above-normal Atlantic hurricane seasons since 1995. These conditions include considerably warmer that normal sea surface temperatures, lower wind shear, reduced sea level pressure, and a more conducive structure of the African easterly jet [stream].”

And NOAA was quite sure of upcoming calamitous storms.

“The main uncertainty in this outlook is not whether the season will be above normal, but how much above normal it will be,”

the agency stated in the section of the report entitled, “Uncertainties in the Outlook.”

NOAA predicted only a 5 percent chance of a below-normal hurricane season – but a below-normal season is precisely what happened. If NOAA’s experts can be so wrong about an hurricane season one month before it began, How can I be expected to have any confidence in far more complex predictions of climate change 100 years into the future?

Remember DDT? That terrible stuff that weaken bird eggs?

Last September’s announcement, barely mentioned in the MSM, that the World Health Organization lifted its nearly 30-year ban on the insecticide DDT is perhaps the most promising development in global public health since… well, 1943 when DDT was first used to combat insect-borne diseases like typhus and malaria.

Rachel Carson’s shameful legacy should be reviled for the villainess she was. She started the DDT hysteria with her pseudo-scientific 1962 book, “Silent Spring.” Along the way she so materially misrepresented DDT science in order to advance her own anti-pesticide agenda that if she was still alive she could be tried for mass murder.

She and Audubon were the leaders in the attack on DDT, including falsely accusing DDT defenders (who subsequently won a libel suit) of lying. Not wanting to jeopardize its non-profit tax status, the Audubon Society formed the Environmental Defense Fund (now simply known as Environmental Defense) in 1967 to spearhead its anti-DDT efforts.

In a February 25, 1971, media release, the president of the Sierra Club stated that his organization wanted “a ban, not just a curb” on DDT, “even in the tropical countries where DDT has kept malaria under control.

Then-Environmental Protection Agency administrator William Ruckelshaus banned DDT after ignoring an EPA administrative law judge’s ruling that there was no evidence indicating that DDT posed any sort of threat to human health or the environment. Ruckelshaus never attended any of the agency’s hearings on DDT. He didn’t read the hearing transcripts and refused to explain his decision.

There are no new facts on DDT — all the relevant science about DDT safety has been available since the 1960s.

The toll of purely personal beliefs, junk science and in Ruckelshaus case a very lucrative anti-anything career, was the terrible toll in human lives (tens of millions dead — mostly pregnant women and children under the age of 5), illness (billions sickened) and poverty (more than $1 trillion dollars in lost GDP in sub-Saharan Africa alone) caused by the tragic, decades-long ban.

In 1992 while in Mogadishu I saw my translator, Madhi Hersi, use a wheel barrow to transport three small children suffering from maleria to a local clinic about three miles away.

And most of this human catastrophe was preventable.

Now we are being told by the UN that cows contribute more greenhouse gases than SUVs.

So, sorry, color me skeptical whenever I hear Gore, Audubon and Sierra Club talk about global warming.

[rant off]

[Marye]

New measurement for greenhouse gases

Scientists usually tie their estimates of the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming to sources such as land use changes, agriculture (including livestock) and transportation. The authors of Livestock’s long shadow took a different approach, aggregating emissions throughout the livestock commodity chain - from feed production (which includes chemical fertilizer production, deforestation for pasture and feed crops, and pasture degradation), through animal production (including enteric fermentation and nitrous oxide emissions from manure) to the carbon dioxide emitted during processing and transportation of animal products.

Good article you posted Haggis. It still means to me that humans are the cause, though, don't you think?

[piqaboo]

Interesting article, shapley.

Correlary - if we burn 400 yrs worth a year, we are indeed going to run out at somepoint.

Some of these 'alternate' fuels puzzle me. Why is corn being grown for ethanol? Corn is a picky plant, and the fruit is the only part being used.
Why not grow a plant with highly starchy leaves (I cant remember what those plants are, but they exist) and ferment the whole dang plant?

Solar use - solar use may not translate to cars etc easily, but its fabulous for heating water out here, and it would work part of the year in most places.

Drops in the bucket as it were, but each drop makes a difference.


Separate topic -
re polution, CO2 levels (co2 in water acidifies the water) etc,
read up on buffers.
Buffers tend to absorb all kinds of gunk without showing a change, until a key point (the pK in buffer speak) is reached, when all buffering capacity is lost and things change very rapidly.

I used to make a buffer for work. 1 L of buffer would take ~ 6% of its volume in concentrated HCl, with only minor changes in pH. However, once the pH got close to the pK, one drop too much (~ 0.01% vol) would cause the pH to change by 3-4 units (on a scale of 14).

The ocean is both huge and mildly buffered, so the finding that pH is changing is cause for much serious thought and followup research.

In some cases, the world is subject to 'natural phenomena' which we may wish to prevent. Deadly Nightshade is natural, I'll pass on eating this cousin of the tomato. Landslides are natural, but I think I'll stabilize my hillsides. Fires are natural, but I think I'll thin the growth near my house. Snow on the ground is natural, but shovels are popular. So the arguement that we shouldnt try to control warming is specious.

That we dont fully understand the cause/effect of warming is true.
That many of the putative causes are also correlated to other kinds of pollution and damage is also true. What is the problem with reducing emissions, since we know that regardless of warming, they cause alla kinda other problems?

I think its amusing that some folks are "dont change the business environment, that will cost money!" and are the same who are "dont do research on these materials, be smart and find away around the ban!" about aspects of science. Are the business people not as smart as the scientists then, to your way of thinking?

[Haggis@wk]

Piq,
For a close up and slightly distrubing article on corn look at this article from the Smithsonian. I thought it seemed a little overwrought burt I can't criticize it since I really don't have that much knowledge.

I have to admit i was shocked to learn that

There are some 45,000 items in the average American supermarket, and more than a quarter of them contain corn

[Shapley]

What is the problem with reducing emissions, since we know that regardless of warming, they cause alla kinda other problems?

I've got no problem with reducing emissions, making cleaner fuels, alternative fuels, or more efficient fuel-burning vehicles. I just don't think we should be forced to do so under the false pretense of some doomsday scenario.

I think its amusing that some folks are "dont change the business environment, that will cost money!" and are the same who are "dont do research on these materials, be smart and find away around the ban!" about aspects of science. Are the business people not as smart as the scientists then, to your way of thinking?

I don't know who these people you're talking about are. The business environment is always changing. I don't know anyone who is opposed to change, but we are opposed to government-imposed changes being implemented in order to prevent some unprovable consequences.

I find it interesting that so many are willing to accept the impositions by government mandates on their lifestyle due to the perceived threat of global warming but they don't want anyone looking at their library card in the interest of heading off the very real threat of murderous violence. I read the posts from those who decry the 'loss of freedom' supposedly implemented by the President in the name of the war on terror, while applauding such things as 'tattletale' boxes installed on your automobile's emission system to alert the authorities if your car is out of tune. I think their priorities are all screwed up, but that's just my opinion.

People are upset that we were supposedly lied into war with Iraq, costing thousands of lives. Yet there seems to be little concern that, as Haggis points out, we were lied into banning DDT, with an even greater cost in terms of lives lost.

V/R

Shapley

[piqaboo]

Govt bans one thing, but "lied into banning DDT"?

Um? Defend, explicate, explain?



Govt bans -yup, those gov;t encouraged changes never work... no more clean rivers for us...