All good point, quarkhead.

However, the proposals are not cost neutral and the proposed solutions do not even attempt to be "fair". There may or may not be an "agenda", but I doubt anyone would agree that there will be a small impact to some aspects of life. I have not seen a realistic short-term plan for reducing CO2 emissions, for example. Investing in alternative energies is already occurring and investing more will not necessarily speed along the process. (This is debateable, of course).

While your points about pollution are noted, many APW proponents say that it was pollution (in the form of particulates in particular) that reduced the impact so far from rising CO2. So, at least from this point of view, certain types of pollution were good (from a certain point of view).

So I disagree with your conclusion that we should "do something" regardless if the science behind it is 10% or 99%.

Schmed:

Yes, the Cretaceous Period was a long time ago. But is the claim being made that all was so different that no valid comparison can be made? If so, I find that claim laughable. As to why I find the same laughable [see: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/...31104063957.htm ]:

"Decomposition of organisms in the deep ocean could have caused an overabundance of carbon dioxide, which is lethal to many oceanic organisms and land-based animals.

'However, we find mass extinction on land to be an unlikely consequence of carbon dioxide levels of only seven times the preindustrial level," Kump told attendees today (Nov. 3) at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Seattle. "Plants, in general, love carbon dioxide, so it is difficult to think of carbon dioxide as a good kill mechanism.'"

And not only did [do] plants love CO2, but so did the dinosaurs that ate the plants, and so did the dinosaurs that ate the dinosuars that ate the plants [ http://www.ncsu.edu/news/press_releases/04_01/026.htm ]:

"Decherd studies the ecology of the Cretaceous period, some 160 million years ago, when Earth’s atmosphere contained more oxygen and more carbon dioxide and was, in her words, “a hothouse.” She believes, and is working to demonstrate, that this richer atmosphere helped plants grow bigger and faster. With lots of food, herbivorous dinosaurs thrived -- and became lumbering prey for their carnivorous cousins.

Both plant-eaters and meat-eaters grew fearsome, in effect, because food was plentiful.
***
'Research has shown that elevated carbon dioxide levels result in higher productivity, faster photosynthetic and growth rates, and greater rates of carbohydrate synthesis,' she says. 'My work involves measuring how modern ginko trees react to Cretaceous-like atmospheres, and how the higher levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide affect the leaves’ nutritive value and digestibility. We’re also comparing these experimental ginko leaves with fossilized ginko leaves from the Cretaceous period to help verify our work.'
***
Decherd hopes her research can resolve a scientific conundrum: How could the limited North American land area of the Cretaceous period – when water in the east and mountains in the west left only a relatively narrow band of arable land – grow enough plants to support the numerous, diverse and very hungry herbivores of the time?

'I hope to demonstrate that the enriched atmosphere of that time had a profound impact on plant productivity,' Decherd says. 'Others have shown that oxygen was 50 percent higher and carbon dioxide was 500 percent higher in the Cretaceous atmosphere. Both of these gases affect the growth of plants, which are very sensitive to changes in oxygen and carbon dioxide levels.'"

As to relevance, well, she apparently believes what you do not:

"Does that explain the massive size of the dinosaurs? It might, but Decherd prefers to focus on the plant-growth aspects of her research. 'The larger issues my work could help illumine aren’t the dinosaurs,' she says, 'but rather the ecology of the Cretaceous period, the addition of our data to environmental and climatic models, and perhaps some insight into current concerns about greenhouse gases and global warming.'"

As I've said prior, the added CO2 should be a boon to plant life, but more on that in a bit.

But first, for more on relevancy [ http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=coul...p;tb=1&pb=1 ]:

"Another recent study attempts to test climate models by looking back 84 million to 100 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period. The lead author, Karen Bice of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, presented the results at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in February (as discussed in The Economist and Science). The team published its paper last week, and it is worth looking at for an appreciation of the uncertainties involved in paleoclimate data and how scientists wrestle with them."

And, Schmed, why leave out the long term history? The long term history is that our atmosphere once was 50X more dense than now. The earth has been forever cooling owing to CO2 sequestration. The trend was leading to a more or less permanent "ice house" condition with some rather short interglacial periods. As I remarked prior, compared to living in an ice age world, a Cretaceous-like world would be the equivalent of a Sunday picnic. Millions upon millions upon millions of humans will die if we have another ice age, since, among other items, the North American breadbasket of the world would be no more. So if the choice is, we move back from the coast a bit, and in exchange we can feed ever more humans owing to increased plant growth and longer growing seasons, well, let me just say that the call is an easy one to make, i.e., life over all else. It strikes me as strange that those who claim to care about life could be against that, though my suspicion is that some really don't care about life, since I've read more than I'd care to from these same people about how the world is overpopulated. Presumably, such persons envision our third world brothers and sisters being the ones to do the dying off (as it were). I find that attitude both racist and heartless and otherwise not something that I can support in any way, shape, or form. Actually, I lied, increased water from ice melts will be compensated for, as in Greenland, as the studies show, by increased snowfall in the interior. So while we might have to move back a hundred meters or so, the move will not be catastrophic.

Now for more relevancy [ http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/96/961028.archer.shtml ]:

"The implications of rising carbon dioxide levels are not fully understood. “There have been times in the geologic past when the earth has had much higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and life has flourished–for example, during the Cretaceous period when dinosaurs were alive,” Archer said. “It’s not having a warmer climate that’s a problem as much as the transition. Human communities have developed in areas that are suitable for agriculture, for example. If an area that has in the past gotten a lot of rain suddenly begins to experience prolonged and unremitting drought, it will be devastating to society.”"

So might I suggest that we all start moving inland now? And why he is speaking of drought when the general rule of science is that the hotter it is, the wetter it is? Never mind, since for more on relevancy [ http://www.igsb.uiowa.edu/inforsch/greenhse/grnhouse.htm ]:

"The mid-Cretaceous Period (about 100 million years ago--during the "Age of Dinosaurs"), however, does represent a recent geologic analog in earth history that can be used to predict future greenhouse conditions.

The "Cretaceous Greenhouse World" refers to an episode of earth history that lasted from about 110 to 90 million years ago. During this time, submarine volcanic CO2 emissions were released into the atmosphere at rates high enough to cause atmospheric CO2 concentrations in excess of 1,000 ppm. This CO2 buildup resulted from rapid sea-floor spreading related to the breakup and drifting apart of the Earth’s continents. The buildup lasted for about 10 million years, and the ensuing period of peak warming coincided with an explosive growth in the genetic diversity of flowering plants, social insects, birds, and mammals--organisms that dominate modern terrestrial ecosystems. The consequences of a similar greenhouse buildup occurring over the course of only a few hundred years, however, are likely to be highly disruptive to natural ecosystems. Plants and animals live in zones of predictable temperature and precipitation. If this climate is altered too quickly, the species may not have sufficient time to migrate and adapt."

And on another point, the greenhouse effect of CO2 is not a linear thing. Instead, the more CO2 we add, the less the effect of each addition [call it a case of ever diminishing returns]. Most people don't know that and assume the opposite, i.e., the linear.

Now for a final word on relevancy:

http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/viewAr...e.do?id=13366#5

So, the Cretaceous apparently is relevant.

Sorry, one more, the reason why I am a skeptic:

"How confident are you of the accuracy of the models?
PETER WINSOR: There are very large uncertainties in these model projections. They reproduce a lot of climate responses well, but they lack other important key processes. For example, they’re not very good with clouds and water vapor." They’re doing a so-so job with reproducing the present climate, so we—at least myself—have a hard time putting too much trust in what they show 100 years from now. But it does give you a hint of what the climate response might be in the future."

As I've mentioned before, without modeling clouds, we don't have an accurate picture, and as we all know, water vapor is a far more potent greenhouse gas than is CO2.

And I hope that this is truly accounted for in the models:

"There are also compounds emitted to the atmosphere that can lead to net cooling. When we burn fossil fuels, we actually release sulfates that produce small sulfate particles or aerosols. You can think of these as very bright little particles in the atmosphere that actually reflect a lot of sunlight back to space. One of the areas of considerable scientific debate concerns the balance between warming due to CO2, and cooling due to sulfates. The exact balance has not been that well quantified, and that’s one of the sensitivities of the climate models that we don’t know that well."




TedN5:

I trust that you understand that even without Kyoto, we have reduced our CO2 emissions as measured in relation to GDP. And please see my remarks above about the models and how much we don't know. And re pollution controls, careful what you wish for [going back to my remark that the chic thing for a while was planting trees though it appears that trees help increase temp while grasses help reduce temp]:

"This may be significant because as a lot of countries start to reduce their sulfate emissions, which is associated with air pollution and acid rain, we may see sulfate aerosol levels in the atmosphere going down over time. The carbon dioxide emissions will go up, and we suddenly may see a dramatic jump in warming that’s been masked by this release of sulfate aerosols."

And please note the diagram on that same site [you too Schmed] re just how much effect the rise in sea level will have on our coasts. And then please note the disclaimer:

"Of course, we don't know if 6 meters will occur in 100 or 1000 years. That we are headed for this scenario is likely given past interglacial sea levels and the added perturbation due to man's influence."

And then please note that Ms. Bice has apparently not read the studies on how trees increase temp, and that we should be planting grasses instead:

"And at the same time, we also know that, through deforestation, we’re taking way one of the short-term sinks for CO2, which is forest growth."

And since the one fellow spoke of a Greenland without ice:

"Q. How will global warming affect rainfall patterns?
A. TERRY JOYCE: The conventional idea is that if you warm up the atmosphere, it will hold more water vapor and increase the potential for more rainfall. That’s more or less true, but projections indicate that this is not going to be uniform everywhere."

Yeah, except that it will be snow in Greenland and it will accumulate in the interior as the studies I cited previously have reported. And pity that some can't seem to make the connection, since after a Greenland without ice, we have:

"We’re already seeing examples from Ruth Curry’s research that we’re getting more evaporation—and less rainfall—in subtropical areas. We’re getting more water at high latitudes, falling as rain and snow."



quarkhead:

The problem you have is that absent any catastrophic warming, CO2 is simply not a pollutant and need not be treated as such.

Amlord is otherwise correct, since the recommended or suggested fix is going to cost us big time. You can find an estimate of the continuing running cost here:

http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Kyoto_Count_Up.htm

And re the agenda, why not? Do you care if the price of oil goes through the roof if you own a couple hundred thousand shares of Shell Oil? Or if you're the CEO of Shell Oil? Or in this context, fine, there will be a cost, but you'll be handsomely paid to deal with the cause of that cost, so what do you care?

Oh, and for more junk science, recall DDT. Not a danger to us. But here's the cost, though the numbers may be a bit off, since more and more nations in Africa are using DDT, and the rest of the world be damned:

http://www.junkscience.com/malaria_clock.htm

In any event, the enviroNazis have already killed more than I care to contemplate with their junk science, and not that you care, but so I'm not in any rush to jump on this latest train of theirs.

quarkhead:

Sorry, some citations re DDT, malaria, and Africa:

http://www.fightingmalaria.org/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4264374.stm
http://www.igreens.org.uk/malaria_and_ddt.htm
http://www.aaenvironment.com/DDT.htm
http://www.aaenvironment.com/AAPSResolution.htm
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=19127
http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cidinthenews/ar...igest_1200.html

And back to racism, from the aaenvironment.com website:

"The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) held a conference in New York in January 2004 to address this issue, among others. The conference, titled, 'Eco-Imperialism: The Global Green Movement's War On The Developing World's Poor.' CORE supports the use of DDT in African countries. CORE spokesmen Cyril Boynes and Niger Innis described how the traditional environmental movement is imposing the views of mostly wealthy, Americans and Europeans on mostly poor Africans. Paul Driessen, author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death, described how traditional environmental groups are "preventing needy nations from using the very technologies that developed countries employed to become rich, comfortable and free of disease." Patrick Moore, founder of Greenpeace and Greenspirit also supports these views."

And as they ask, so too must I:

"We will leave readers with one question to answer in this regard: Would you exchange the life of one child for all the eagles in a country?"

As is obvious, you know my answer, so let me simply report that the motto of the "traditional environment groups" is, save a bird, kill a child....with such one such group being the World Wildlife Fund. And re the numbers of dead children, the WHO estimates that there are 300-500 million cases of clinical malaria each year, with somewhere between 1.4 and 2.6 million deaths, mainly among African children. Now another word from Ray Innis:

"In other words, if callous activists want to exaggerate the risks from trace amounts of insecticides and ignore the very real, life-or-death dangers those insecticides could prevent, the EU's hands are tied. It can't even do anything as simple as issuing an official statement attesting that DDT is safe and effective and represents no threat to EU consumers. If more Africans get sick and die, that's a shame, but we Europeans have our own concerns--that's the EU's position.

The struggle for human rights--especially the fundamental right to life itself--is obviously not over.
***
Not surprisingly, there has been another holocaust of Africans every few years, and malaria deaths since the 1972 DDT ban may in fact exceed the entire World War II death toll. The West's policy on DDT has been a travesty worse than colonialism ever was, a human rights violation of monstrous proportions.

I have seen this devastation with my own eyes. Malaria destroyed the lives of my wife's African friends and family members. Last Christmas, my nephew returned to a Ugandan school that he sponsors, to find that 50 of its 500 young students had died from malaria in just 12 months. My daughter-in-law lost two sisters, two nephews, and her little son."

So Roy and our friends at JunkScience agree, not science, not environment friendly, not humane, but instead, genocide. Brought to you by the same people who now ask us to add to the poverty load of the Third World by some irrational fear of a gas that is responsible for the existence of all life on this planet. And if you doubt the similarity, well, then, please see:

http://www.overpopulation.com/articles/2000/000048.html

and

http://www.ncpa.org/ba/ba241.html

And, for one more, please note from that last that cholera increased in Peru thanks largely to the rather homicidal efforts of our enviroNazi friends...

If Global Warming is a serious threat to the human race how do we stop it?
Well I don't think it is as serious a threat to the human race as WMDs are. I'm still not clear whether or not warming would occur if there weren't the human influence. But to cut to the quick we have 3 ways to reduce the human factor.
1. Cut back on use of fossil fuels and develop alternatives including perhaps carbon sequestration programs that recover carbon from the air.
2. Plant more trees particularly to suck up the CO2 and clean up our waterways so algae and other photosynthetic plants can flourish. We have badly, for instance degraded and destroyed our estuaries and have created growing hypoxia(dead) zones in many of our coastal areas.
3. Diminish our population by whatever humane, legal and just means possible, principally through education and support clinics. The problem of population in contributing to global warming hardly needs explanation.

Should the world invest resources into eliminating the problem or into adapting with the changes?
Under some sort of normal circumstances the answer would have to be an unqualified yes, let's get on with the business of eliminating the problem as much as we can. However there is a huge dilemma. That is the WMD challenge that could make our efforts irrelevant. I would rather put the greater portion of our money into a full court press to ban and then internationally control against the harboring of WMDs. That's where our real challenge lies. Short of that, the disasters attached to global warming may turn into a kind of horrible blessing. String together enough Katrinas and their consequent costs and we won't have enough left over to spend them on WMDs.

I use to hear the comment thrown around that the only way to get the world working together would be to have an alien invasion. Perhaps global warming and its consequences may turn into a version of that. It's alway chancy to use a negative to produce a positive, but with the lack of apparent alternatives you've got to go with what you've got.

As much as I am working in college to end up in some profession that surrounds conservation biology or environmental science I find the debate to be pointless for the reasons I have.

Basically anytime people need more they get it, in one form or another. Other forms of life or related such behavior has an impact on or, environment, or ecology in general comes second. Toxic environments via our current methods of survival not only exist but are accepted, anyone experience the atmosphere in the fine state of California. I obtained red sore eyes and a sore throat by being in the state for one day and night, I am glad I do not live there permanently.

This toxic atmosphere is just but one aspect of what leads to global warming, and of course without any real desire to change this will continue to get worse, days where you have to were a gas mask to go outside a jog, I am sure Nike will make this trendy.

From the first point of a debate, accepting evolution as fact which many don’t, changing the environment that various organisms came to be in alone will have its physical action and reaction, then to try and understand this on its own takes immense resources in respects to human resources. Anyone downloaded and read any EPA reports lately, stuffs not for the casual reader to say the least, I wonder how inclined various business professionals or politicians happen to be in regards to just bare scientific data to support the alarm over global warming.

Animals get treatment in general the gives me the impression most people really do not accept that they happen to be alive or really don’t care, this will not help any support to maintain ecology for any species even our own over a long enough period of time on this planet as we know it, maybe those pictures of the future where everything is a big city and books is the last environment for animals really was not far fetched.

I don’t mean to be dire on it, but this is the reality I perceive from how humanity reacts to it. Our populations keep growing, we all share the planet not with just our fractured cultures of a specie but every other thing that happens to live, we come first, so what have you. Not only this, our current behavior in regards to day to day living or survival is simply not environmentally sound, I see no real desire to change this by any party and most all environmental policy basically reflects negativity in the eyes of people because currently it means cutting back because we cannot establish anything environmentally sound in its place, so basically environmentally policy becomes only a slowing of the destructive policy humans generally hold to the planet, and people think lions tiger and bears are scary.

When a specie becomes instinct, only genetics or evolution will happen to bring it back, so its basically lost I would say. For those that think a global change of one degree is not much, just think about how much energy that really is to heat the entire planet one degree in that aspect. When a single type of organism in a ecology is brought to the brink of extinction or becomes instinct that is part of a food chain, it comes to bear on everything else in that ecology, such as what aided the black plague.

It becomes so complex that a person why decides not to pay any real attention to why some people are able to say things like don’t pollute will not aid the situation either, this truly would require a grassroots movement with youth so that later it will reflect, present culture I feel is a lost cause when it comes to protecting the environment or life basically.

Michael Crichton sums up the "science" of Global Warming in his Caltech lecture of 17 Jan 03. He argues (quite convincingly to the open minded) the blame lies in the infamous Drake equation, which he points out is quite similar to that used in models offered as "proof" of global warming.

MC's opinion is his and this is not his area of expertise. I don't think the analogy of GW and the Drake equation is worth the effort to study it.

If Global Warming is a serious threat to the human race how do we stop it?

I don't believe anyone knows. So far as I know, climate and weather are both examples of "chaotic systems" (the technical definition meant here!) "Control" (the technical definition meant here!) is an open question, with very few examples of how it "might" be done!

Should the world invest resources into eliminating the problem or into adapting with the changes?

The world "should" invest way more of its assets in measuring and modeling most of its systems much better than it does! That's both the best I believe possible in eliminating and/or adapting at this time, in my opinion.

p.s. The Drake equation is a long shot attempt to make an equation to predict the number of "worlds" in the universe able to commlunicat one to another.

KivrotHaTaavah, you have gone overboard again in attributing every malaria death to environmental bans on DDT. To begin with, as even your own links show, the EPA ban on DDT use in the US in 1972 was not worldwide. Yes, there have been more recent efforts to ban DDT worldwide but to date it hasn't been. Again even your links, like the one to the South African spraying program, make clear that it is still in use. HERE is a link that makes the regulatory picture a little clearer while taking about some of the dangers it may pose even with limited use.



So once again the situation is much more complex than you imply. I'm no expert on the subject but think I would opt for limited use of DDT for malaria control at least until a more effective and economic solution has been clearly identified. This is not to say that the EPA's '72 decision was in error. One has to remember that DDT was then used in broad agricultural applications. Banning such general use in the US, and gradually elsewhere, not only was sound environmental policy but helped prevent vectors like the ones that spread malaria from developing immunities to the substance.

Of course this is a red herring so far as this topic is concerned. With your admiral concern for those sickened and dying from malaria I'm surprised you didn't raise the most relevant issue that relates to GW, namely the increasing area and thus populations that will be at risk. And, yes, I am aware that this is not a settled issue. (Listen to THIS NPR interview with Harvard's Dr. Paul Epstein).

]

These are all good questions that merit sober answers. I would have responded previously but was tied up. To begin with Nemov and I debated the issue of the effect of increased levels of carbon dioxide about a year ago in this thread. (See Nemov's post 134 and work backward from there if you are interested). I remain convinced that the agricultural effects in the tropics and subtropics, where more than one half the worlds population lives, will be catastrophic - partially because of increases in ground level ozone. I am less certain of the effects in the US but GCMs predict a drying of continental interiors and this appears to be happening in many areas of the world. When this is considered with the impact of a predicted increase in extreme weather events (hail, high winds, intense cloud burst and the like) the consequences to US agriculture is likely to also be negative. Areas like Russia and Canada may have better temperatures for agriculture but may also suffer additional and more intense weather events. Recent studies also indicate that adaptive species that are mostly weeds benefit disproportionally to increases in CO2.

In short, precipitation increases are only a benefit if it occurs in areas that lack optimal water resources. This does not appear to be a likely outcome. Areas close to large bodies of water in prevailing wind pattern will receive most of the increase. Even where this might be of some benefit other consequences of GW can complicate the issue. Take my corner of the US, the Pacific Northwest. The last thing coastal regions need is more rain, but that is what is predicted, but it will occur in winter with less snowfall in the mountains. Summers will be drier and there will be less snowpack to replenish streams. For the arid eastern part of my state, the reduced snowpack will be even more serious.

TedN5:

I suppose that if the world is the boat, better that I'm overboard, or if you prefer, if the world is sane, call me crazy. But for more on just who jumped ship:

"Malaria is a global plague, killing more than 2 million people annually, equivalent to 7 jumbo jets full of people crushing every day, year in year out. Although Malaria is found in more than 90 countries of the world, 90 percent of those affected live in sub-Saharan Africa. It is a mass killer because every day, more than 3,000 African children under the age of 5 succumb to this deadly disease. And yet Malaria can be controlled and eradicated in Africa as it was done in Europe and the USA. Despite billions of dollars and decades of research, there is still no vaccine that is good for more than a few weeks. According to the UN World Health Organisation (WHO), Malaria kills one child under the age of 5 every 30 seconds. "It is a death toll that far exceeds the mortality rate from AIDS," according to the WHO fact sheet on malaria. These are the grim statistics which Hon. Lukyamuzi must no[t] lose sight of.

What Hon. Lukyamuzi and many of the arm chair and the so-called expert environmentalists may not know is that scientists and health experts are unanimous that many of these deaths can be prevented with the use of DDT. It is cheap, three to five times cheaper than the pyrethroid insecticides prescribed by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). And it is more effective than the alternatives.
***
Developed countries and Western environmentalists who today lead the crusade against the use of DDT, cannot escape the accusation of criminal callousness about poor helpless peoples in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world. They used DDT to eliminate Malaria in their own countries including the USA. They used DDT to eliminate Malaria in Southern Europe. Now that they are free from the deadly scourge, they care more about the birds than about African children.

African leaders like Hon. Lukyamuzi should not join that crusade. If he did so out of ignorance, the time is now, that he is better informed. "Not using DDT is criminal, and it has been criminal for a long time," said Professor Roberts who has focused on Malaria and its prevention for 35 years. As Africans we should learn from the experience of South Africa. We should tell donors who threaten to withhold aid should we use DDT that saving millions of African Children is better than saving birds."

And so said Uganda's Ambassador to the UN [see http://medilinkz.org/Features/Articles/jan2003/ddt.asp ].

Oh, and I didn't otherwise go overboard, as I myself said that the numbers on the Junk Science site were probably off as some in Africa are using DDT and, as I said, the world be damned. But for a glimpse of the holocaust/genocide, simply consider [ http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cf...36846/story.htm ]:

"South Africa stopped using the insecticide in 1996 due to international pressure but re-introduced it four years later after other insecticides were found to be less effective due to drug resistance.

'This change in insecticide was one of the main contributing factors to the decline in malaria cases in the past five years in South Africa,"'Health Minister Mantombazana Tshabalala-Msimang said in written reply to a parliamentary question.

'South Africa has reduced malaria morbidity and mortality by approximately 88 percent and 86 percent, respectively, compared to the year 2000,' she said."

So, DDT reduces malaria morbidity by 88% and malaria mortality by 86%. So, your're right, not all, but a good many nevertheless.

And, Ted, have you ever heard of West Nile Virus? So maybe we ourselves might want to use some DDT again.

And now back to Professor Roberts [see http://www.malaria.org/tren.html ]:

"In summation, there is hope for more cost-effective uses of DDT and other insecticides for malaria control. However, we are presently confronted by a global environmental agenda that opposes a major public health need. On the environmental side there is a clearly defined plan for DDT elimination through UNEP negotiations. On the public health side, there is no operable plan for controlling the current global epidemic of malaria or for controlling malaria once DDT is eliminated. So today, with malaria control positioned in organisational structures that are not compatible with vector control programmes; guided by strategies that de-emphasise vector control measures; pressured economically and politically by environmental groups and developed countries to eliminate use of DDT; combined with the political force of ongoing UNEP negotiations, the malaria endemic countries are experiencing an unmitigated disaster as numbers of malaria cases increase at unprecedented rates."

Oh, and Ted, so we are clear on the numbers [ http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports...cfm?DR_ID=37951 ]:

"The use of the pesticide DDT in South Africa has helped reduce the country's malaria morbidity and mortality by about 88% and 86%, respectively, since 2000...The country recorded 7,754 cases of malaria and 64 deaths from the disease in 2005, compared with 64,622 cases and 438 deaths recorded in 2000, according to official data."

So, without DDT in 2000, 64,622 cases and 438 deaths, while with DDT in 2005, we have 7,754 cases and 64 deaths, which works out to a yearly difference of 57,000 or so malaria cases and 374 or so deaths. And as I am sure you can imagine, in terms of malaria in Africa, South Africa was always a "better off than most" country.

And, lastly, if the NY Times, that bastion of American liberalism, says it, well, then it simply must be true:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...757C0A9629C8B63

And as that article demonstrates, the fear of resistance ought to go in the other direction [as already alluded to above]:

"As malaria surges once again in Africa, victories are few. But South Africa is beating the disease with a simple remedy: spraying the inside walls of houses in affected regions once a year. Several insecticides can be used, but South Africa has chosen the most effective one. It lasts twice as long as the alternatives. It repels mosquitoes in addition to killing them, which delays the onset of pesticide-resistance. It costs a quarter as much as the next cheapest insecticide. It is DDT.

KwaZulu-Natal, the province of South Africa where Ndumo and Mosvold are located, sprayed with DDT until 1996, then stopped, in part under pressure from other nations, and switched to another insecticide. But mosquitoes proved to be resistant to the new insecticide, and malaria cases soared. Since DDT was brought back in 2000, malaria is once again under control. To South Africans, DDT is their best defense against a killer disease."

And, Ted, the ones who went overboard are on your side of the fence. No one is advocating spraying fields like DDT was rainwater, as such was way overboard. And we learned from that mistake. But this exercise does not concern a clock and so no need for the pendulum to swing all the way back in the other direction, as it most certainly did. And maybe, just maybe, you could help push the pendulum back the other way, as has and is the NY Times:

"Yet what really merits outrage about DDT today is not that South Africa still uses it, as do about five other countries for routine malaria control and about 10 more for emergencies. It is that dozens more do not. Malaria is a disease Westerners no longer have to think about. Independent malariologists believe it kills two million people a year, mainly children under 5 and 90 percent of them in Africa. Until it was overtaken by AIDS in 1999, it was Africa's leading killer. One in 20 African children dies of malaria, and many of those who survive are brain-damaged. Each year, 300 to 500 million people worldwide get malaria. During the rainy season in some parts of Africa, entire villages of people lie in bed, shivering with fever, too weak to stand or eat. Many spend a good part of the year incapacitated, which cripples African economies. A commission of the World Health Organization found that malaria alone shrinks the economy in countries where it is most endemic by 20 percent over 15 years. There is currently no vaccine. While travelers to malarial regions can take prophylactic medicines, these drugs are too toxic for long-term use for residents.

Yet DDT, the very insecticide that eradicated malaria in developed nations, has been essentially deactivated as a malaria-control tool today. The paradox is that sprayed in tiny quantities inside houses -- the only way anyone proposes to use it today -- DDT is most likely not harmful to people or the environment. Certainly, the possible harm from DDT is vastly outweighed by its ability to save children's lives.

No one concerned about the environmental damage of DDT set out to kill African children. But various factors, chiefly the persistence of DDT's toxic image in the West and the disproportionate weight that American decisions carry worldwide, have conspired to make it essentially unavailable to most malarial nations. With the exception of South Africa and a few others, African countries depend heavily on donors to pay for malaria control. But at the moment, there is only one country in the world getting donor money to finance the use of DDT: Eritrea, which gets money for its program from the World Bank with the understanding that it will look for alternatives. Major donors, including the United States Agency for International Development, or Usaid, have not financed any use of DDT, and global health institutions like W.H.O. and its malaria program, Roll Back Malaria, actively discourage countries from using it.

And more specifically re the pendulum having swung the other way:

"Given the malignant history of American companies employing dangerous drugs and pesticides overseas that they would not or could not use at home, it is understandable why Washington officials say it would be hypocritical to finance DDT in poor nations. But children sick with malaria might perceive a more deadly hypocrisy in our failure to do so: America and Europe used DDT irresponsibly to wipe out malaria. Once we discovered it was harming the ecosystem, we made even its safe use impossible for far poorer and sicker nations."

And, Ted, the response to the claim re global warming and malaria:

"Today, westerners with no memory of malaria often assume it has always been only a tropical disease. But malaria was once found as far north as Boston and Montreal."

Was there global warming in Boston and Montreal at the time? Or could the female Andropheles give a rip?

And yeah, to borrow from that song, DDT did a job on me:

"In Southern Europe, Latin America and Asia, DDT played an even more prominent role in controlling malaria. A malaria-eradication campaign with DDT began nearly worldwide in the 1950's. When it started, India was losing 800,000 people every year to malaria. By the late 1960's, deaths in India were approaching zero. In Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon, 2.8 million cases of malaria per year fell to 17. In 1970, the National Academy of Sciences wrote in a report that ''to only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT'' and credited the insecticide, perhaps with some exaggeration, with saving half a billion lives."

So call it a good job... And sorry, but re the health risk:

"What about DDT's impact on the people inside the houses? The most serious evidence of DDT's harm to humans are a few studies showing that higher levels of DDE (the form DDT takes when it metabolizes) in a mother's blood is associated with premature birth and shorter duration of breast-feeding. But other studies have found no such associations. There was suspicion that DDT causes breast cancer, but study after study has found no connection. In general, DDT is feared for its effect on the environment, not on humans. It has been used on such a huge scale over the last 50 years that it is reasonable to think that if it had any serious effect on human health, we would know it by now."

And, lastly, my nominee for best quote, but sorry, it is not from an AD member:

"DDT killed bald eagles because of its persistence in the environment. ''Silent Spring'' is now killing African children because of its persistence in the public mind."

Sorry, I lied. And so, just as some still advocate planting trees to stop global warming, even though the studies indicate that trees increase the problem while grasses lessen it, well, the malaria-DDT version of the same phenomenon:

"''Why it can't be dealt with rationally, as you'd deal with any other insecticide, I don't know,'' said Janet Hemingway, director of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. ''People get upset about DDT and merrily go and recommend an insecticide that is much more toxic.''"

Call it the quintessential illustration of our saying, to wit, a little knowledge is rather dangerous thing...

When a chemical like DDT enters the bloodstream of a mammal I am not absolutely sure but I think it never leaves, so in one instance from that small exposures over time could lead to larger build ups within a population.

While I agree that something of course should be done about malaria I do not see DDT being the prime candidate for such, as it was outlawed basically because its not sound in regards to living things like humans for instance. Many things that first world nations describe as negative towards the environment like cfcs become common in third world or under developed parts of the world, so in the end it never really fixes the issue.

If Global Warming is a serious threat to the human race how do we stop it?


The very first thing we must do is recognize that we have a problem.










Amlord,

So much for your claim of zero evidence.

Now, of course, you may try to counter by saying that 4 to 8 inches of sea level rise might as well be zero. Who cares, right? Not enough to worry about. But, in order to come to that conclusion, you would also have to ignore all the evidence that the problem is accelerating.

Since your claim of zero evidence of rising sea levels has been shown to be false, will you now also claim that there is zero evidence that warming has accelerated?


Now, for the rest of us who have seen more than zero evidence, carbon dioxide capture and storage might be one way to reduce the release of carbon dioxide in the first place.

Source: IPCC Special Report, Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage, September 2005

There exists absolute evidence to support global warming. Most of the right wing people that denounce it probably only listen to right wing explanations of such, this will not aid them to understand it.

Storage of co2 as in underground currently is not safe and overtime presents its own environmental hazard.
Just read about it, its already been done before.

I actually appreciate the fact the right will not accept environmental policy, it will be a serious downfall for them, the flip side of it is it will take the issue to get really bad before those people will react, as is this stance simply comes from them being in power currently and the historical fact they are anti environmental when it comes to making policy.

I know its sad to say something like that, but its the reality I perceive from them as a political body or institution.


We as a culture do posses the ways or means to rid a large amount of what leads to global warming or simply being anti green, but it would take understanding of the issue to hit home at large, the simple point is the gravity of the situation has not reached the point of react to extinction yet for our species.

More the point the science or factual understanding of global warming exists, so does an understanding of it pathologically speaking. The technology to change this also exists, the only thing missing anymore is a broad social conscious that wants this change, this is the avenue that really needs to be worked on anymore, I will of course always support the desire to know more by those that study such or science in general, but the main roadblock to saving life or the planet if you will is peoples perceptions.

In the most basic aspect of it all, as it may seem un-American to such, new greener technology should be offered up to the current top of the food chain in regards to energy, so that they can keep their positions. This would also stem much of our need to pay attention to the middle east.

Interesting.

But the average sea level rise over the last 7.500 years is 1/16" per year, or

6.25 inches per century.

Wow, we've been exactly average over the past 100 years.

The IPCC never claimed that rising temperatures contributed to rising sea levels. In fact, they claim nothing: they can not explain what's going on. The literature has no consensus.



Can 20th Century Sea Level Changes be Explained?

and IPCC: Global Average Sea Level over the Last 6,000 Years

If Global Warming is a serious threat to the human race how do we stop it?


The very first thing we must do is recognize that we have a problem.








In order to recognize the problem, we have to open our eyes. Not keep them closed.

schmed, from your link on sea levels. http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/436.htm#1166


This supports Amlord's assessment that the report claimed no such thing. Even using your own quote, "very likely" is hardly scientific fact.

If Global Warming is a serious threat to the human race how do we stop it?


Once again, the very first thing we must do is recognize that we have a problem.





If we continue to deny the words of the scientists, how can we ever address a scientific problem?

Excuse me, I should have been more clear.

The IPCC does not claim that rising temperatures (which I do not deny are happening) have contributed to sea level rise in an amount that is outside of the historical average.

Certainly the temperature has risen (0.6 degrees C) over the past century plus. This certainly contributes to sea level rise (via thermal expansion--simple, undeniable physics). However, the combined total of this thermal expansion plus the addition of ice melt should have caused a much greater rise in sea level.

But it hasn't.

Why?

We don't understand something here. Either the ice caps are not melted as predicted, or the sea is not warming as we thought, or we don't understand the concept of thermal expansion. I'll eliminate option 3. The ocean has definitely expanded by 0.0126% (approximately) over the past 100 years or so. [The coefficient of thermal expansion for water is 0.0021 per 1 deg. C at 20 deg C. We have seen 0.6 deg. C temperature rise, so the product is .000126]. Of course, the bulk of the ocean is at a much lower temperature than 20 deg. C, more like 5 deg. C (a guess on my part) where the coefficient of expansion is significantly lower. Of course, we don't know for sure that the oceans have warmed by 0.6 deg. C as we have no data to support that. We can guess that however. Some thermal expansion is likely to have occurred.

But not anything outside of the historic rate.



Now that's what we need to find out, isn't it?

For example, Thomas Malthus predicted in 1798 that the earth's population growth would outstrip the food production growth and we would have massive worldwide starvation. And yet, though the population of the Earth is six times that of Malthus's time, food is relatively abundant. The Earth's population has grown by 500 million in the last decade! Malthus was wrong. His predictions were wildly inaccurate (he predicted a 512 fold increase in population in 200 years based upon projections. The real number is six times).

There is evidence that the increased temperatures over the past century have positively contributed to our ability to grow enough food to feed all of these new mouths.

I will go back to a few points I have brought up repeatedly:

1. Scientists are unable to predict the climate of the past 100 years using their climate models. How can we reasonably expect that these same models are correct for the next 100 years?

2. CO2's effect on global warming is logarithmic in nature. link The effects of increasing CO2 slows down as CO2 levels rise.

3. Many aspects of the climate are poorly understood. We need a fundamentally better understanding of what is going on here. The bulk of temperature increases are not directly from greenhouse gases, but from feedback loops. These

4. I feel there are great uncertainties even in the surface temperature record. The effects of the heat island effect have been greatly downplayed and yet are apparent when you look at individual temperature station readings. As one guy put it: apparently global warming only occurs in places that you've heard of. In remote or unheard of places (i.e. rural areas) global warming is missing.

4. Kyoto, the major response to CO2 climate change, has cost an estimated $200 billion dollars since February 2005. The temperature rise saved for that money is about 0.002 degrees C. Kyoto was designed to prevent a 0.07 degree C temperature rise by the year 2050. Kyoto Count Up

For a sense of how good the IPCC's prediction capability is, check out this graph from their 2000 Report: Price of Oil and the effects of Kyoto

$18 a barrel of oil!!

To stick to the economics, look at the IPCC's predictions of decline of global GDP needed to stabilize the CO2 level: Global average GDP reductions in the year 2050 A 1-4% decline to achieve 450 ppm levels of CO2. Yikes. The cost of that in dollars? What will it cost to stabilize CO2 levels? How does 400 trillion to 1,800 trillion dollars sound?

I agree with Amlord. There is NOT conclusive evidence there is a problem. There is strong evidence that temperatures are rising currently. This is NOT conclusive evidence there is a problem---note the lack of expected symptoms Amlord mentions. Further, even those most strongly arguing that global warming is a real issue indicate that the earth is at its warmest point its been in 2,000 years (from recent Time article). This indicates that 2001 years ago, the earth was warmer than it is now....yet we're still here, aren't we? Clearly nothing disastrous happened, else we wouldn't even be here to have this discussion. Further, unless civilizations at that time were FAR more mechanized than we had previously thought, temperature rise at that time was NOT due to anything caused by humans. So, the last time we had temperatures this high it was just natural cycles, and nothing disastrous (or even noticeable? -- can anyone point me to ANY symptom then?) happened. This clearly indicates that much more work needs to be done before anyone can conclusively state we have a problem, particularly one of the magnitude that many environmentalists seem to indicate.

This strikes me as the classic problem of environmentalism vs. business. On the one hand we have environmentalists drawing extreme conclusions which aren't supported by fact, and on the other we have businesses ignoring environmental impacts of their processes. Personally, I don't think it needs to so complicated. The real question here is: "Is it a good thing to be spewing toxins into our atmosphere?". Hmmmm. Doesn't seem like it should take a rocket scientist (or even an environmental one) to answer that. So, let's work on reducing them. This can be done without ever bringing chicken little into the conversation...and probably done in a way that is good for business too.

Amlord,

I appreciate your response.

I also welcome the points of agreement I think you and I have reached so far. Small as this seems, it is a start we can build on. Correct me if I am wrong, but from your last posts I believe we agree on the following:

1. Global temperatures have risen about 0.6 degrees C for about the last 100 years.
2. Global sea levels rose during the 20th century due to thermal expansion of sea water and glacial melting.
3. The accuracy of tide gage data needs to be improved as 20th century estimates were spread out over a wide range (between 0.1 meter to 0.2 meter rise) over the century.


Now I would like to address some of the points you raised in hopes of narrowing our focus and finding more significant points to agree upon.




I'm going to have to ask you where you got your premise here. I don't believe there is a problem with measured vs. expected sea level rise. Please show where you believe this to be a problem.



In fact, current models have been shown to be accurate beyond the past 100 years . Take notice to the accuracy of the following model, which correctly modelled the last 140 years:

Source: IPCC:Page 11, graph C: All Forcings; SIMULATED ANNUAL GLOBAL MEAN SURFACE TEMPERATURES


These climate forecasting models are being refined as we speak. Since February, the largest climate change model in the world has simulated over 12 billion climate-years using a network of over 33,000 computers:




Amlord, if you feel that accurate climate prediction is important, I hope you will join me and use the link above to add your computer to the computational network. Current climate models are accurate but not perfect. With the amount of expertise and resources behind this project, the refinements should satisfy even you.



Your link, Junkscience.com, is junk. And you know it. Steve Milloy, who runs the site and wrote the article from which your misleading graph came from, is as sleazy as they get. And you knew this. Remember when TedN5 told you this? It was the last time you tried to palm off this identical graph, in April.

TedN5 Post 205, Five Links Discrediting Steve Milloy



Steve Milloy's mission is not to seek the truth. He seeks to confuse and create uncertainty. Milloy thinks that having his work looked at by the American Petroleum Institute constitutes peer-review. He is a paid front to advocate the position of big oil. His site exists to give his clients arms length anonymity. He is a joke. He is a mere political operative. The taint of his being is obvious to anyone willing to look. To reference his "work product" as unbiased science is insulting to anyone old enough to count. Any honest science found on his site is there purely by accident or coincidence. Any isolated reference to him or his site should include a disclaimer.

Now, if you would like to look at a graph created by a scientist, as opposed to a political hack, that was designed to illuminate not confuse, that includes documentation which provides meaning to the pretty little wavy lines, please reference Figure 26 below:

Source: IPCC: Projections of Future Changes in Response to CO2 Stabilization Profiles

The graph clearly shows a strong relationship between CO2 concentration and temperature rise.

Milloy wants you to think from his political site that a 4-fold increase in CO2 concentrations (from 300ppm to 1200ppm) will only yield an increase of 1-2 degrees. Figure 26, on the other hand, shows a 300ppm concentration would graph out at about a 1.5-2.0 degree rise. And a 1200ppm concentration (while off the scale high) would graph out at about a 6.0 degree rise. Or, a 4-fold increase in CO2 concentration yields about a 3- to 4-fold increase in temperature change, from a 1.5 to a 6.0 degree rise.

So, Amlord, your claim above was presented by a discredited and dishonest political thug, it was specifically debunked by a climate scientist who called the claim bizarre, and it was completely contradicted by a group of international climate scientists using methods that have survived the peer-review process.


To be continued...

If Global Warming is a serious threat to the human race how do we stop it?
First establish a solid factual basis for making a decision. It is hard to move seriously in any intelligent direction without hard facts that provide guidance. Here is a graph that was posted on another thread. It makes the point essentially that the relationship between the level of CO2 and the temperature is quite clear, roughly so but ultimately solidly linked. And the relationship is not logarithmic. It appears very direct unless the mathematics of the Antarctic CO2-temperature relationship operates, in principle, totally different from the temperate zones. I seriously doubt that.

Core sampling in Antartica gives us record of CO2-temperature coordination

On the other hand schmed's link from above suggested there was little to be concerned about during this century as far as the ocean rising. Gore had given me a different impression. Check figure 27 at the bottom of the page. Not much glacier runoff from Greenland in this century from any of the temperature models.
Rising ocean and temp-CO2 coordinates.

The relationship in the Antarctic between CO2 and temperature is most certainly different than that in temperate areas.

CO2's absorptive wavelength areas are significantly overlapped by the much more abundant gas: water vapor.

The climatic effects of water vapour

Graph of absorptive spectra of major greenhouse gases

It seems from the graph that only the ~2 and the 4-4.5 micron wavelength bands would be influenced by an increase in CO2 concentrations. In other areas where CO2 has absorptive properties, the atmosphere is already absorbing 100% of the available energy, mainly due to H20 and not CO2.

Also, the absorptive properties of gases are most definitely logarithmic and not linear. This is known as Beer's Law or the Beer-Lambert Law

What's all that have to do with the Antarctic? Well, in places with low concentrations of water vapor, such as deserts and very cold regions, the CO2 plays a much more significant role in absorption.

The graph you linked even says that the Antarctic has gone through much more dramatic temperature shifts than the more temperate areas.

Very interesting graph of historical temperatures. It's good to note that we're not as warm today as we were 300,000 years ago.

Notice something periodic in the graph? The CO2 levels (and temperature) seem to rise dramatically and then fall back down. The frequency is rather regular and on the order of every 100,000 years or so. Based on the natural frequency of this data, one would expect the global temperatures to start falling eventually leading to yet another ice age.

This phenomena is obviously far more dominant than anything man-made unless you can point to the "carbon footprint" of man 300,000 years ago as a major factor in climate change. Can we? Oh, but we've been measuring CO2 in a "systematic way" (according to this web page) since 1957!

That's some set of historical data.

The Global Warming advocates OWN DATA indicates that the planet was warmer 300,000 years ago than it is TODAY. It CLEARLY shows a periodic characteristic where the temperature and the CO2 rise rapidly, and then fall every 100,000 years or so. And recent data? We should be increasing to a peak given the historical data. No surprise there whatsoever. If you ask me, the man made CO2 is highly likely a factor in preventing the next inevitable ice age which has been predicted by the frequency of the historical data.

Man can live in a warmer climate and if he has to move up the beach a little to get away from a rising tide, it's really not that big of a deal.

But an earth under hundreds of feet of ice is just not habitable by many humans.

We should be careful what we wish for. We just might get it.

Amlord,

Some very simple questions for you:

1. First, do you have any scientific basis that the heat island effect has been downplayed? If so, please show me your evidence so I can evaluate your claim. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:



2. Second, just who exactly do you believe has downplayed the heat island effect? Is it your contention that the scientists of the IPCC have downplayed it? If so, please read the following:



This doesn't seem like downplaying to me. As much as my tiny little brain can decipher, it appears as though they looked pretty long and pretty hard at the urban heat island issue. They quantified the effects and included these in their overall report.



Amlord,

From my previous post you are fully aware that my opinion is that your source, junkscience.com, is junk.

Steve Milloy, who runs the site, forfeited his membership to the human race decades ago. Anytime his site is referenced, the honest debate on global warming takes one giant step backward.

All that being said, the cost issue you raise is a legitimate one.

Even so, you and I are so far from a meeting of the minds on the question of whether or not a problem even exists, it would be pointless to debate the economics. I'm going to hold out hope that we will, in fact, come to a general agreement on the question of global warming at some point. Until then, I'd like to focus my energies on resolving the scientific debate.

If Global Warming is a serious threat to the human race how do we stop it?

Below is an example of what is being done today--in countries that have concluded that global warming is a problem:




It's amazing how much progress can be made toward a solution
Once you've faced the fact that you've got a problem.

Tell me: why does the IPCC not even mention studies that show that the UHIE may be larger than the total measured global temperature rise of 0.6 degrees C?

Ongoing review of 1986 Jones et al papers compiling global temperature trends that now define "IPCC global warming"



That site notes that the "peer review" of Jones' paper received no Comments that were published in the Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology, despite it being "backed up by ~350 pages of station documentation for over 4,000 stations and at least a reel of magnetic tape".

That site also notes that a published review of the Jones paper done by Fred B Woods in 1998.

A summary of the Woods criticism, along with responses by Jones and Wigley and comments by the page's author can be found here.

The UHIE is a known effect. In fact, most major cities have planning commissions in place to reduce the impact this localized effect has on the local climate. And yet, for the most part, this effect is ignored.

Warwick Hughes examines city-by-city the observed and uncorrected UHIE in major cities here.

The IPCC claim:


0.12 degrees C is not "significant" when the total estimated global warming is 0.6 plus or minus 0.1 degrees C? That might be up to a 25% error.

And the problem is not going away. Rural temperature stations have been closing since about 1970. That leaves: even more urban stations with uncorrected UHIE. Prior to 1970, 22% of stations were rural. Today, the number is 8%. Rural by this definition is in a city of less than 10,000.

Again, Hughes claims that the GISS data actually inserts warming into rural stations (in at least one case) due to the smoothing techniques that it uses. How NASA GISS inserts warming into USA rural Temp data

Peterson did a study and concluded that the UHIE was not present. He "homogenized" the data and concluded that urban stations were not warming at a greater pace than rural stations. However, one of his observations was that rural sites are not "pristine". You see, over time, temperature readings will naturally rise at a station if the station is not properly kept up. The stations are initially white to reflect heat away. They are clean, with free circulation around them to minimized effects.

Peterson also notes that 42% of urban stations were below nearby rural stations (58% were above). He fails to note that the variance of the lower temperature urban stations varied by about 0-0.2 degrees C while the hotter (and more numerous) stations ranged upwards of 0.6 degrees C. Weighted, that seems to me to be about a positive 0.26 degree C bias.

On page 12 he has a graph of unadjusted temperature anomalies. You can see from the graph that rural stations average about 0.25 degrees below zero in anomaly. Urban stations (again, far more numerous) average a little more than 0.2 degrees.

That paper does illustrate the many ways that temperatures are measured in the US and attempts to "homogenize" the data by adjusting each reading by some amount to account for altitude, time of observation (a major source of error), type of instrument, etc. Recall that this uses a definition of rural as population of less than 10,000. Whether or not the methodology is valid is up to the reader, I guess.

EDIT to add:

This page suggests that temperature changes can be correlated to non-climate factors, such as economic development.




And with respect to your discounting of a point-of-view because it comes from a certain source, I'd ask you to look at the data and not the spokesman for the data. I'd hate to suspect that you'd discount my point-of-view simply because I am a self-described Conservative.

So, water vapor is a greenhouse gas and there is a lot more of it than CO2 and methane. There are plenty of systems that can be changed dramatically by micro changes of certain rare elements. What percentage of our bodies are made up of selenium? Could we live without it? Apparently not.

I'm not getting into certain atomic features of absorbtion because I'm not a chemist and unless a clear track is laid down for me between those facts and global warming it serves no purpose as far as I can see. My point about the graph is that there is a direct nonalgorythmic correlation between temperature and the CO2 level. Look at the graph again. 200 ppm of added CO2 equals 4 degs. rise in temperature consistently throughout the 350,000 recorded years.

And yes, as the graph-article says, the temperature swings are much more extreme in Antarctica but that doesn't mean the changes in the temporate zone temperature aren't just as regular relative to the CO2 rise. Since they both share the same terrestrial system, water vapor, CO2 and all, it would be queer if they were separated by a whole different math. I assume and can probably establish that the temp-CO2 regularity holds up in the temperate climate as well. Difference in degree doesn't mean difference in kind.


Yes it does appear periodic but the CO2-temperature connection still holds and since we are sky rocketing the CO2 level by burning fossil fuels and cutting down trees that connection would presumably keep sending the temperature ever higher following its CO2 tracer as it has done roughly for 150 years. If you have some evidence, other than historical patterns, that natural forces are going to bring the human induced CO2 level down, and thus the temperature I am very open to seeing it. I don't think you do.


The graph is too imprecise to determine whether we have naturally peaked yet.


Here are some folks along with some polar bears who might disagree with you and this is just at a very early stage.
Global warming begins to exact its punishment

There are some interesting facts about the science of meterology that otherwise rational people seem quite willing to dismiss.

#1 - the worst offender in terms of greehouse effect gases is actually argon gas, not CO2.

#2 - The 'Science' of meterology cannot accurately predict what the weather will be next week, and we do not have nearly the understanding of weather and it's interaction to make reliable predictions about LONG TERM (i.e. beyond next week) effects of weather. How many of us have been caught unaware by a thuderstorm that wasn't supposed to happen, or sat inside trying to wait out a rai9n storm that never occured? Pulling long term accurate predictions based on generalities arising from such an unpredictable base are not unpredjudiced, objective facts.

(Saying we knew Katrina was going to be after the fact is a report not a prediction.)

#3 - Is anyone else worried that we are paying scientists to agree with the Greenhouse Theory while cutting the funding for those who don't? Obviously paying more people to agree with you will yield more people who agree with you, just ask Congress. But doesn't this subvert the very scientific credibility upon which we are asking Americans to make potentially expensive public policy?

#4 - our technology to control pollutants continues to expand, and new ways of controlling pollution are constantly coming on line. I hate to say this, but the state of the US environment is actually MUCH better than it was in the 1970's.

#5 - stating these facts does not mean that a person believes that it is a good idea to dump pollution into our atmosphere. I would very much like to avoid emotional rants if possible.

What bothers me most about this idea is that people are jumping on board based on facts and figures related to an, at best, barely understood science believing that doom lies just around the corner. If I were to say that God says the world will end in 100 years unless we attend church mpre vililantly (I could even pay people to agree with my opinion) I would simply be laughed at.

What is clear is that pollution is a problem, but it is not a crisis. There are methods and solutions that can be emplaced to help continue to reduce the effects of pollution without treating the issue like a cirsis and exacting enormous spending and costs that are diproportionate to the actual issue.

Despite all the negativity, the disaster that was New Orleans was not caused by Green house gasses, it was caused by human neglect of flood control and mismanagement of disaster relief operations.

We aren't all going to die, and the problem is both definable and manageable. No need for psuedo-science and fear tactics.

Its a simple equation. Human population has technology it uses for day to day life, or survival. It happens to be that this technology produces a constant amount of co2. Then you take that amount of co2 and as a gas where do you suppose it goes? It happens to hang out in the atmosphere really.

So everyday you have all the co2 production of just the US to consider, the add in the rest of the worlds, then you take this amount, which will grow and lump it over fifty years. Its a whole lot of co2, and what does co2 do in the atmosphere, oh that’s right, it keeps more of the energy from the sun in earth. This energy or entropy or whatever is then measured, typically I think in degrees. So the more you have over a longer period of time and what do you think happens. What happens is you get a bunch of scientists with data showing you that in our history the actions of people and the technology they are using is heating the planet, mainly via what is called greenhouse gases, the prime culprit many finger being co2.

Now don’t get me wrong, its hard to study being its global, but the fact is many scientists do study it, with fury and vigor, and the data they get back is alarming, and its free to any single person that wants to study it, its out on the net. I am not talking about people just saying things like co2 can or will do this, but that it is doing this as I write this.

Global warming is just but one aspect of the danger we as a specie happen to be brewing for ourselves, things need to be done before it gets way out of hand. There are many things to consider in what global warming will impact, a simple one is the impact changing weather and temperature will have on life on earth, which I must admit could be rather bad, from a simple point of what will coastlines look like in 50-100 years from now.

America does not have to sacrifice itself as many mainly in the republican side of things would suggest in order to be green, all it would require is a change mainly in the technology we use and how we use it to stop a major portion of our co2 production, this technology exists but really cannot get out into the market as it stands, this would take government support and really a minimal short term sacrifice, but the gains would far outweigh the losses if we don’t. Its a real problem that should be open to common sense and can be shown via simple lab experiments.

The other option is life is seriously is not mortally wounded for short term temporary and flawed means of survival, and I will not even start on the species extinction rates and the jump in those which can easily be traced back to homo sapiens.

Its basically like sitting in your car, trying to use the exhaust to kill yourself, it takes a bit of time but eventually it works you know. Its not just what you do, or the co2 from one company, you have to consider all the co2 that is being produced by people the world over, another aspect one can simply take into account on this is the fact as humans mover and terraform there typically is associated with this a loss of the prior ecosystem, like plants, then all the burning that is man made of plants, it’s a recipe for disaster overall, and it should not take the problem to get real bad for our instincts to take over and prevent this natural selection labeling us guilty, Darwin’s courtroom is always in session.