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bachar
Gym climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Apr 24, 2009 - 06:44pm PT
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bookworm,
Thanks for the link - good article.
I'm skeptical myself. I ain't no scientist, so I have no idea what's causing what as far as climate goes.
Whether or not humans are causing/accelerating global warming/cooling, I don't know. I don't think most scientists know either (for that matter). Heck, meteorologists get the weather wrong a lot of times - they're scientists right?
Either way, it still ain't cool to pollute the air, water, food, and ourselves. We should find other ways to do things so we don't mess stuff up too much.
Like George Carlin said,
"The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages...And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet...the planet...the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!"
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Apr 24, 2009 - 08:51pm PT
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Either way, it still ain't cool to pollute the air, water, food, and ourselves. We should find other ways to do things so we don't mess stuff up too much.
John, I don't think anybody disagrees with that. But that ain't what Al Gore is pushing for really. He's in it for the money. Cap and Trade, baby! Cha-ching!
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bachar
Gym climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Apr 24, 2009 - 08:55pm PT
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blue, I know, cap and trade.... typical scam material like the global war on terrorism.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Apr 24, 2009 - 09:16pm PT
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typical scam material like the global war on terrorism.
Maybe. There are a bunch of loony Islamists that wanna kill the 'great Satan', but Bush/Cheney interests profiteering on it is very suspicious.
I agree somewhat.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Apr 24, 2009 - 09:47pm PT
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I just want to repost my previous post cause few commented on it. No matter what you believe, ice is melting and sea level may rise no matter what we do
"The real question that is not being asked yet or often enough isn't whether man has had a hand in climate change, but rather what scope could man's further actions have in changing the course of climate change?
How much of our money should go to cleaner technology and how much to moving all the port cities of the world to higher ground within 100 years?
Tough call, better get used to thinking about it and less pretending. "
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Apr 24, 2009 - 10:14pm PT
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No matter what you believe, ice is melting and sea level may rise no matter what we do
If sea ice melts water levels will drop or remain the same. It's the ice-in-a-glass-of-water effect. As the ice in your glass melts, the level drops a bit. The ice has already displaced the water, by melting it actually lowers a bit I believe, maybe remaining the same level, depending on the water source of the ice.
There are issues of fresh-water melting into salinated water too which is kind of an issue, but it's small scale. It's not very significant in the big picture.
The whole deal is overblown by people with an agenda.
John makes a good point though, focus on less over-fishing and pollution and sh#t like that. Not some nonsense by a has-been politician like Gore, who was always a putz!
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bachar
Gym climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Apr 24, 2009 - 10:42pm PT
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"If sea ice melts water levels will drop or remain the same."
Whew, I can stop construction on my Ark...
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Apr 24, 2009 - 10:48pm PT
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I don't really think that pro-environmental groups have the dollars to fund the number of scientists that have expressed their belief in man-caused climate change.
Further, bluering, can you while you're right that melting of sea-ice will not change ocean levels, significant melting of glacial ice in Greenland and Antarctica would.
Melt of sea ice has a different bad effect. It reduces the albedo, causing further oceanic warming and further melt.
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pk_davidson
Trad climber
Albuquerque, NM
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Apr 24, 2009 - 10:58pm PT
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Crichton is playing fast and loose with his data.
For example, he shows a graph from the peer reviewed journal Wired (yes, I'm biting on my tongue) purporting that it proves the statement:
“This population explosion is overstated. In the next hundred years, population will actually decline.”
The graph does nothing of the kind.
First off, it shows the % Growth Rate over time.
Since the rate is always positive, the population can't decline !
His point seems to be that since the %GR is declining, it will continue to decline until it's negative thus causing the population to decline.
But that graph is extrapolated out into the future.
If you look at the data from the Census Bureau:
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/worldpopgraph.html
you see an average positive slope.
The Bureau claims we'll see positive growth just at a slower rate than recent rates.
Just one example of how the neo-warmists manipulate data to try to make it say what they want it to say when in fact it doesn't support their claims.
As for the Glen Beck video, a lot of those "experts" aren't. They're policy wonks from neo-conservative "think tanks" and lawyers and the ones who are actual climatologists, their work is discredited or tainted by a beginning bias.
Don't forget the UN report:
http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2007-2008/
which was overwhelmingly supported by a substantial majority of the world's climatologists and environmental scientists. Just look at the contributors to the report.
Plenty of solid science and data in this report.
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Dick_Lugar
Trad climber
Indiana (the other Mideast)
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Apr 24, 2009 - 11:03pm PT
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BW says "in the meantime":
http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-ourenvironmentalfuture.html
Michael Crichton?, a smoker, who died prematurely from throat cancer...Hmmm...I guess he didn't buy all that "junk science" done on the hazards of smoking???
Honestly, I couldn't make this stuff up...
Edit: BTW, when did the right start turning to writers of fiction and filmakers for advice?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Apr 24, 2009 - 11:28pm PT
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BTW, when did the right start turning to writers of fiction and filmakers for advice?
...when they made more logical sense than politicians like Al Gore.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Apr 25, 2009 - 12:03am PT
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"If sea ice melts water levels will drop or remain the same. It's the ice-in-a-glass-of-water effect. As the ice in your glass melts, the level drops a bit. The ice has already displaced the water, by melting it actually lowers a bit I believe, maybe remaining the same level, depending on the water source of the ice. "
Problem would be Greenland and Antartica
http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/03/10/scientists-sea-level-rise-worse-than-thought/
"Climate scientists meeting in Copenhagen Tuesday warned that sea levels could rise to almost three times that of the official worst-case estimates, threatening hundreds of millions of people.
The landmark 2007 report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that sea levels would rise 18 to 59 centimeters – about 7 to 23 inches – by the end of the century. That would be enough to submerge several small island nations, and would inundate low-lying and densely populated deltas in Africa, East Asia, and on the Indian subcontinent.
But researchers gathered at the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change now say that those estimates are too conservative, that a rise of less than 50 centimeters is unlikely, and that sea levels are likely to rise about one meter.
The UN panel deliberately excluded from its calculations the loss of ice from the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets. More recent climate models are better able to predict how ice sheets react to warming and how they interact with oceans.
Agence France-Press quotes German climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf, who says that the new model predicts “a range of sea level rise by 2100 between 75 and 190 centimetres when we apply the IPCC’s temperature scenarios for the future.”
A press release from the climate congress quotes Konrad Steffen, an Arctic climatologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder: “The ice loss in Greenland has accelerated over the last decade. The upper range of sea level rise by 2100 might be above 1m or more on a global average, with large regional differences depending where the source of ice loss occurs,” he said."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/4975053/We-should-be-alarmed-about-rising-sea-levels.html
"And worryingly, the last time the planet was as warm as it is today, about 120,000 years ago, the oceans were six metres higher than today. Indeed, some say the Greenland ice sheet is a relic of the last ice age, already past its melt-by date.
And the danger is clear: even a one-metre rise would flood the homes of around 100 million people in Asia, mostly in eastern China, Bangladesh and Vietnam. Around 14 million Europeans would be threatened around the shores of the North Sea, and eight million each on the west coast of Africa and the northern shores of South America. Megacities such as Shanghai, Karachi, Lagos and Bangkok would have to spend tens of billions of dollars on protecting themselves, or be submerged. Towns along the US eastern seaboard would mostly go too, including great chunks of Florida. New Orleans and Venice would disappear. The Netherlands reckons it can protect itself – at a cost of $5 trillion. But Britain, which has one of the longest coastlines in the world, may not even try. Low-lying areas vulnerable to rising tides – and the increased storminess that climatologists also predict – include East Anglia, the Wash, the Somerset Levels, the Trent Valley and Romney Marsh."
All debatable but the data shows levels are already rising and that's a fact no matter what's causing it
Peace
Karl
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Apr 25, 2009 - 12:12am PT
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some say the Greenland ice sheet is a relic of the last ice age, already past its melt-by date.
So does that mean humans are causing it or it's an unfortunate natural cycle?
It's definately unfortunate, but we'll adapt to it and help others who can't. We always have, no?
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bachar
Gym climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Apr 25, 2009 - 12:12am PT
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Uh-oh, back to my Ark project, BBQ cancelled for now...
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Apr 25, 2009 - 01:18am PT
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"It's definately unfortunate, but we'll adapt to it and help others who can't. We always have, no?"
Wishful thinking Bluering. Will we adapt to it after Miami is under water or will we take steps before total disaster sets in?
Again, how to we allocate resources be arresting climate change versus dealing with the negative effects of inevitable climate change versus maintaining denial and the status quo?
Peace
Karl
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bachar
Gym climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Apr 25, 2009 - 12:41pm PT
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Invade and conquer China?
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Will Hobbs
Trad climber
Santa Monica, CA
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Apr 25, 2009 - 04:09pm PT
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"If sea ice melts water levels will drop or remain the same. It's the ice-in-a-glass-of-water effect. As the ice in your glass melts, the level drops a bit. The ice has already displaced the water, by melting it actually lowers a bit I believe, maybe remaining the same level, depending on the water source of the ice."
Except that when the perennial sea ice melt there's no longer anything to buttress ocean-terminating glaciers and ice sheets, as observed by accelerating glaciers in Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula.
Reading you guys discuss geophysics is like listening to tourists at the Church Bowl wondering how the climbers get their ropes to to the top. Worse, actually, because at least the tourists know that they're clueless.
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Apr 25, 2009 - 07:33pm PT
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"BTW, when did the right start turning to writers of fiction and filmakers for advice?"
yeah, who wants advisors with these credentials?
"Crichton graduated from Harvard, obtaining an M.D. in 1969, and undertook a post-doctoral fellowship study at the Jonas Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, from 1969 to 1970. In 1988, he was a Visiting Writer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology"
qualifications to be a foreign policy advisor for barack obama"
"He attended Northern Kentucky University from 1979 to 1981 and, very briefly, the University of Cincinnati, but did not graduate from either."
that would be george clooney
qualifications to be a policy advisor for al gore"
"he attended Beverly Hills High School with Richard Dreyfuss and Albert Brooks. He went on to enroll at the University of California, Los Angeles"
that would be rob reiner
by the way, did you ever wonder why the ice covered and desolate island is called "greenland" and the beautiful, verdant island is called "iceland"? CLIMATE CHANGE!
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Apr 25, 2009 - 08:53pm PT
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Will Hobbs:
Reading you guys discuss geophysics is like listening to tourists at the Church Bowl wondering how the climbers get their ropes to to the top. Worse, actually, because at least the tourists know that they're clueless.
Will calls it right.
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