The Environment

[piqaboo]

Shapley,
the largest reason auto contributions to the general atmosphere have dropped (net) is due to removal of older cars from the roads.
That a current SUV emits less than a 30-yr old Toyota is a result of government regulation. It nevertheless burns more fuel and thereby emits more than a current small car.

In CA, there is (or was) a program to buy older cars and scrap them, just to get them off the road and thus reduce emissions. This is one reason we use the ugly truckling rarely and for short hauls.

[BigJon@Work]

So CA wants to be a more expensive place to live than it already is?

[piqaboo]

If we dont keep the place pretty, no one will want to live here. If we do keep it pretty, people are willing to pay. Eatcher heart out! :raz:

[Shapley]

I lived there once. I have no desire to do so again. I live out here in the beautiful Midwest. Lots of trees, grass grows on its own, no need to import water for it. We have winters that actually get cold. It's a good life.

V/R
Shapley

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

I've seen the midwest. :shudder: There's all these creepy trees growing everywhere, the grass doesn't stay where it belongs, there's way too much rain and there's all this horrible stuff called "humidity" in the air. And part of the year is too cold for shirtsleeves!

Why, there's hardly a decent piece of desert to be found.

[barfle]

I've lived in the midwest, too, which is why I spent over forty years of my fifty eight in Southern California.

A hurricane approaches DeeCee even as I write these words, not to mention that horrid phenomenon called "winter," when it's so dry your cabinet doors shrink.

[analog]

Odd how the CO2 level rises so sharply every 100k yr or so. Has mankind existed before? Or is there something going on that nobody's talking about?

The CO2 and temperature plots coincide. The eggheads are debating what's going on. There seems to be concensus that earth's wobble on its axis and the non-circularness of its orbit are primary drivers for the cycle, CO2 is probably a feedback that amplifies their effect.

Some think we're due another ice age real soon and man-made CO2 might just prevent it. I love that irony!

from http://www.aip.org/history/climate/cycles.htm , which is a good summary:
"The invaluable fruit of a century of ice ages research was the recognition of how complex and powerful all the feedbacks could be. ...Among these feedbacks, the most obvious and momentous was the close connection between global temperature and greenhouse gas levels through the ice age cycles. Relatively straightforward analysis of the data showed that a doubled level of CO2 had always gone along with a rise of a few degrees in global temperature."

Here's two quite readable (and shorter) articles.

http://muller.lbl.gov/pages/IceAgeBook/ ... imate.html

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

Bottom line is nobody really knows. At least nobody who's in a position to really know.



a.

[Shapley]

analog,

Looking at the ice core chart you posted earlier, the current levels seem to be consistent with the nromal cycle. In ancient times, Charlatans would use the eclipsing of the Sun to fool people into giving them power, and then would 'save the Earth' by making the Moon move out of the Sun's path. Are our modern climatologists really that much different? Should we give the Al Gore's of the world the power to make CO2 go away and return the Earth to it's normal state? Do we really believe that the Al Gore's of the world even have an inkling of how to do that?

I read several opposition pieces to McIntyre and McKitrick's piece. Most do not refute the science involved, but rather make the (erroneous) claim that Mann et. al. have already done so. The primary arguments are that 1.) their research is funded by Petroleum Companies and 2.) they are not climatologists, so they are not qualified to question the work of climatologists.

The first argument is easily refuted. The Petroleum companies have a valid interest in this research, so it is understandable that they would be willing to fund research into the issue. The validity of corporate-funded science is no less than is government-funded science. Governments have as much to gain, if not more, by research that supports their viewpoint.

The second argument is laughable. McIntyre and McKitrick challenged the mathematics used in the modeling to prodcue the 'hockey stick', not the climatology. The argument seems to be that climatology numbers behave differently than other numbers, sort of like Bistromath, and that only climatologists are capable of understanding that behavior. The argument could the turned around to say that Mann is not a mathematician, and thus is not qualified to construce complex mathematical models.

McIntyre and McKitrick, by the way, did not refute the 'blade' portion of the 'hockey stick', but rather the 'handle'. They showed that Mann ignored data that showed wide variations in temperatur between 1,000 and 400 years ago, temperatures that, at times, were at least as high as they are currently. In the link posted by OT, the authors expressed 'a high level of confidence' in Mann's values only as far back as 400 years.

V/R
Shapley

[barfle]

return the Earth to it's normal state

That state, of course, is one of constant change.

[Shapley]

So it's very easy to claim success!

[analog]

.......... Do we really believe that the Al Gore's of the world even have an inkling of how to do that?


Thanks for your (as usual) thoughtful observations.

I'm not enough of a mathematician to appreciate their math models. Maybe Shos is. I gather the climatologists are largely still looking backward trying to curve fit. The more wiggly the line the harder the fit.

I have tinkered with automatic controls enough to appreciate that closed-loop feedback systems behave profoundly different than simple forward connected cause-effect ones. In fact, that mathematics was one of the war prizes brought back from WW2 Germany. When I see the climatologists start talking about 'feedback mechanisms' I know they're finally applying the right kind of math.. I also worked around simulators enough to know that programmers get so involved in the computer they lose distinction between their models and reality. I haven't found an article that describes how they're modeling GW. I'd guess they've miscalculated or omitted some of Mother Nature's feedback mechanisms.


And --- No I don't trust Al Gore's science.

"In 1965, Gore enrolled at Harvard College, the only university to which he applied...... He scored in the lower fifth of the class for two years in a row [8] and, after finding himself bored with his classes in his declared English major, Gore switched majors and worked hard in his government courses and graduated from Harvard in June 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government. [5].

So for now I'll trust in Mother Nature's affinity for balances, and F=G/(1+GH).

Will post something thoughtful when (if?) it comes to me.
a.

[BigJon@Work]

That's my biggest gripe against the high priests. The power of the climate will overwhelm, by many magnitudes, anything we can do to change it. The climate will turn colder again, it always has. If we spend a whole lot of money to try and soften the peak, it will all be for naught when it turns colder again.

Waste, waste, waste, waste. And it would be a sin to waste all that money when there is so much real work to be done to relieve human suffering.

[Shapley]

Mind you, I'm not averse to cleaning the environment. I like clean air. The problem I see here is that the global warming activists are calling for a significant handover of power in order to achieve questionable gains. I question their motives as much as I question their science.

I'm glad we're cleaning the air. Less smog is good, because it makes it easier to breathe. If we can lower the incidence of asthma, lung cancer, or broncitis, good. But if we're talking about major economic impact to help cool an earth that's going to cool anyway, I say forget it.

[piqaboo]

At the moment, most of the proposals made in hopes of affecting global warming have a pretty well documented effect on smog/etc reduction.

I think there are easier ways to cool the world, but most of them dont renew the skyline. (Its amazing. There are mountains on the edge of Riverside County. A couple days a year, one can see them. It would be nice if they became visible most of the time).

[Serenity]

I don't see anything happening this year until after elections. Even then I don't see anything happening. If this board is a reflection of discussion in government, nobody is convincing anyone enough to change their tune.

[Shapley]

I take it the Los Angelians are still avers to incorporating such forms of mass transit as electric trains, trolleys, and subways?

[piqaboo]

LA installed a trolley a couple years ago, in downtown.
San Diego has a trolley system, which was greatly expanded in the past 4 years, and with plans for further expansion. (I used to be able to walk to it in < 5min.)

In both cases, they failed to take them to the airport. Miami made same mistake. Taxi drivers must have good lobbyists.

We have critical failure of mass transit up the I-15 corridor.

[Shapley]

I sued to be able to walk to it in < 5min.)

Who did you sue? As long as you were in litigation, you should have sued to get it down to 2 min. or less.

[barfle]

The Washington DC subway serves National airport, but not Dulles, which is quite a ways out of town. The reason I don't use Metro to go to the airport is because the parking lots at the subway stations don't allow you to park overnight.

Must be bureaucrats working your tax dollars.

[Serenity]

Mexico City's subway kicks butt.