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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Nov 25, 2009 - 04:03pm PT
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great joke from james taranto (wsj online)
Q: How many climate scientists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. There's a consensus that it's going to change, so they've decided to keep us in the dark.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Nov 25, 2009 - 04:12pm PT
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chiloe, the climate ALWAYS changes; it's been changing for BILLIONS of years...all those big rocks we like to climb were carved by glaciers; thank GOD it got warm enough to melt them
Bookworm, you're being silly.
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Nov 25, 2009 - 04:20pm PT
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"such as wealthy people who pay as little tax as they can get way with"
Remember, the top 10% of the people pay 90% of the tax.
I'll give a readers digest of the events that transpired the last few days:
1. The earth is getting warmer - we know that.
2. Carbon emissions are causing it to be warmer than it would normally be.
3. Global Warming models were created to show that, at our current rate, we are in the line of fire of a worldwide disaster.
4. The same people who created these models were hacked, and in their email accounts were 70mb worth of information pertaining to altering said models to show greater and far more dire consequences.
Here's the next step. The company (and the far left, for that matter, who receive a good portion of their grants from the basis that the world is ending) have claimed that the emails were shown out of context. That is all well and good, but for that claim to be substantiated, they would need to provide the context in which these discussions are not blatently falsifying data and misleading billions of people (and dollars).
With the exception of providing documents that say something to the effect of "Hey, lets all pretend we corrupt our data in the interest of achieving a certain result just for fun, for the next several years" they will be hard pressed to show how these emails were 'cherry picked.'
Think of it as walking into a bank and accidentally dropping a note that says "Hand me all your cash and safety deposits or I will kill the bank tellers." Sure, you could claim it was taken out of context, but then you would have a lot of explaining to do.
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Nov 25, 2009 - 04:23pm PT
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I'll reiterate my note, in classic Craig Fry style.
You are wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong,
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong,
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong,
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong,
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong,
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Nov 25, 2009 - 04:25pm PT
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Ya can type "wrong" a thousand more times, but it won't truthify the points you make up (3 and 4).
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Nov 25, 2009 - 04:32pm PT
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It was an analogy to our favorite Revolutionist, but I'm glad you caught the reference ;D
3 and 4 are fact. The emails are found. You can keep your head in the sand, thats fine with me.
I heard the news same as everyone else. Nothing will change. Those on the far left will still be begging for more money, those on the right will not have changed much of their beliefs. Fact of life. There is still a flat earth society and people that believe the world is ten thousand years old.
To each his own. I am honestly not trying to convince people of what is already available.
Little known fact by many Climate Change Chaos subscribers - in the last hundred years the east coast sea level has raised over a foot. No one has noticed, or will. The world adapts, as it has, as it will.
Sure, I respect the environment and take care of it, but I don't believe in preparing for a doomsday scenario. I want my mountain air clean and my rivers clear. But that doesn't mean I want to put the future of my children in more debt because Al Gore and his cronies have an idiotic agenda to push.
First 'green' Billionaire. Seriously guys?
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franky
climber
Davis, CA
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Nov 25, 2009 - 04:39pm PT
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ban on DDT kills 500 million Africans, typical Glenn Beck bullsh#t. DDT use in malarial regions didn't stop due to the environmental lobby, it stopped because it wasn't effective anymore and the cost associated with it wasn't worth it. Go spray some DDT on a mosquito in Africa and watch nothing happen. Also, in those countries it wasn't used indiscriminately to protect cash crops from pests the way it was used here. They used it only in living areas because it was understood that it was extremely harmful to the environment.
slowing the growth of nuclear power. I propose that before you build a new plant, you first make a place to put the waste. There is currently not one single waste repository in the entire USA. All nuclear waste generated sits on site at the plant. Solve that problem before you propose building more.
The ban on CFCs has done a lot to save the ozone, and it is quickly recovering. UV radiation rates can be directly measured and have shown a decrease, that is bad how???
Acid rain does cause damage, much of which has been averted by much more strict sulfur scrubber requirements on coal plants (made due to acid rain concerns, oh those terrible environmentalists).
Environmentalists tend to line up in the anti-ethanol from corn side of the debate. That is a Bush era non-solution to the problem of foreign oil and greenhouse gas.
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franky
climber
Davis, CA
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Nov 25, 2009 - 04:48pm PT
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Glenn Beck told me so daddy, he told me so!!! I didn't know I was supposed to think for myself!!! WHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
I'm sorry everything is f*#ked up now, it is his fault not mine!! He lied to me!! WHAAAAAAA WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Nov 25, 2009 - 04:50pm PT
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3 and 4 are fact
No, they're false. Climate models were not invented to show doom, they were developed to try to untangle natural from anthropogenic effects in complex dynamic systems. One possible outcome would be that all the observed changes in recent climate are accounted for by solar or other natural factors, but that has turned out not to be the case -- you cannot account for observed climate changes from natural forces alone.
There are a number of different climate models and many climate modelers; I'll be spending all of next week associating with a bunch of them who have nothing to do with the Hadley Centre. (Not that they're a lost cause, though the blogosphere is spinning at full speed.)
By their nature the big climate models tended to show gradual change, unfolding over centuries. But the paleo scientists, GISP 2 and GRIP projects f'rinstance, were bringing back hard evidence that real climate had changed drastically and rapidly, on scales of decades to years, in the not-too-distant past -- like the Younger Dryas transitions. How could that be, the modelers wondered? It seemed the answer must lie with circulation, because big things like oceans and ice sheets have too much thermal inertia to warm or cool quickly. So what could switch circulation quickly, like turning off the Gulf Stream? While the paleo data posed this challenge to oceanographers, and they started talking more about MOC, the SHEBA data from an icebreaker transit found the Arctic Ocean had changed a lot since the 1970s, glaciologists phoned in that a lot of their ice was melting, biologists noticed changes in the ranges of birds, fish, insects and even vegetation ... the field data kept coming in. Modelers were scrambling to keep up, trying to make the models more accurate in reflecting the real world which seemed to be changing faster than the models could, at first.
I've attended meetings where glaciologists, oceanographers or paleoclimate folks sounded more worried, looking up from their data; and climate modelers looking at their data sounded much less alarmed -- though concerned about the obvious discrepancy.
That's just a sketch, but one example of how political spin has inverted what actually happened.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Nov 25, 2009 - 05:02pm PT
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I find myself in the bizarre position of agreement with much of what you say in this thread, franky. I think you overstate the DDT issue, but so does Beck, which is your point.
While I have no doubt that some people in climate change research have preconceived notions of both nature and the political solution, it doesn't mean that those who claim that anthropogenic warming is the major reason for climate change aren't right. There's enough good science to support that position.
I do, however, have a particular disagreement with your statement on nuclear power: "slowing the growth of nuclear power. I propose that before you build a new plant, you first make a place to put the waste. There is currently not one single waste repository in the entire USA. All nuclear waste generated sits on site at the plant. Solve that problem before you propose building more." When you say this, you're committing the "grass is greener" fallacy.
Specifically, you've shown that nuclear power currently has undesirable environmental consequences. You then conclude that we should not build more such power plants. That's a non-sequitur. Showing something is imperfect does not make its alternative better. Coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, geothermal, wind and solar power all have issues that make them imperfect, too. I rather suspect that more envirnmental degradation occurs from our current non-nuclear methods of power generation than from nuclear power.
John
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franky
climber
Davis, CA
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Nov 25, 2009 - 05:08pm PT
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The nuclear power thing is a funny issue. The waste isn't nearly as toxic as some things that people don't mind having in their backyard, but somehow it is more scary to people.
I don't think that the nuclear waste problem makes nuclear power non-useful, I just think you need a cradle to grave plan for what to do with radioactive material before you generate it. A plan that has some common sense in it. Most radioactive waste is just clothing or other material that was worn or used in radioactive areas, no more radioactive than table salt. The lack of understanding and fear people have of radioactivity make even that waste a political problem.
There is almost a complete lack of understanding on the nuclear issue. One side thinking everyone is going to glow green if a plant is within 100 miles, one side thinking it is totally consequence free energy screaming "build baby build".
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Ray Olson
Trad climber
Imperial Beach, California
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Nov 25, 2009 - 06:35pm PT
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tip-toe thru the tulips
in the garden
that's where I'll be
come tip-toe through
the tulips, with meeeeeeee!
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Nov 25, 2009 - 07:34pm PT
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Chloe
Duly noted. Thanks for the information, I've got to pour through some more research. The science aspects usually leave me somewhere in the dust - not surprisingly given my background (climbing bum). However, the realities of the events, as they pertain to the participating parties (and not the community as a whole) I feel I've made a good point on. The emails, if they are real, warrant explanation. So far we haven't seen that.
Let us know how your meeting goes, and heck, post a trip report. If its environmental its definitely "OT."
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 25, 2009 - 07:41pm PT
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JEleazarian
Nuclear Coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, geothermal, wind and solar are not answer.
We are all looking outward for the solution.
We ourselves and every individual on the planet are the problem.
The transformation starts with us.
This is the root .....
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jstan
climber
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Nov 25, 2009 - 08:12pm PT
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I hate it when ideas show up on threads.
I think data is showing the cheapest solution to the energy problem is reduced use. That alone could allow us to bridge to the time when we actually have a solution. Werner has called it out. I wish the transportation problem had such an excellent "out."
John E has pointed out the critical point that we need to have a plan for the hot waste whose economics support nuclear as a viable answer long term. No "externalization" of hidden costs onto the taxpayer!!!! That is not economy. That is fraud and special interest. We have more fraud than we have garbage. They both need to be beaten into something useful. I wish we would get on with that task.
Right now alternative energy, and specifically solar plants located in the desert areas of CA and NV are involved with nimby. This is normal and it is to be expected. May I suggest something? Rather than continuing to treat industrial plants as a corporate fiefdom, as we do now, we can work our way through nimby by making local communities partners in power generation. Then people have a positive to weigh against what is otherwise, simply a negative. Municipalities could float bond issues and become true functional partners with the power companies. They would negotiate a measure of control on operation, building plans, and would benefit from the power generation itself - long term.
Power companies willing to work with the municipalities would be the ones getting the go-ahead from the state. We would hear all manner of principaled objection until it became clear this was what the business is. Profit always trumps principle.
That, in a nutshell, is what business is.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Nov 25, 2009 - 08:38pm PT
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GDavis:
The emails, if they are real, warrant explanation. So far we haven't seen that.
I haven't seen anyone claim the emails were false, just cherry-picked and misinterpreted. They could make a hash of your emails or mine with those tactics too.
Haven't seen any explanations? Here's a start, by real climate scientists who aren't affiliated with Hadley. Follow any of their links.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack-context/
Let us know how your meeting goes, and heck, post a trip report. If its environmental its definitely "OT."
If the weather is nice Saturday there might actually be an on-topic TR outta this gig. If not, maybe just sharing a few beers with the Boulderite tacos.
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MH2
climber
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Nov 26, 2009 - 04:32am PT
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The transformation starts with us.
The London Times once asked several emminent people to say what they thought was wrong with the world. Most of them pointed to such evils as the threat of nuclear war, poverty, and such. The shortest response came from G.K. Chesterton:
Me
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dirtbag
climber
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Nov 26, 2009 - 12:10pm PT
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Happy Thanksgiving.
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