Gore

[jutaw22mu]

I'm all for nuclear power.  It's cleaner and more efficient than burning coal.  If only we would start recycling our spent fuel rods we wouldnt have to store them underground in the desert and we would save even more energy.  That's about the only thing the French have right is their nuclear power infrastructure which the US should adopt.  The problem is that people dont want nuclear power plants in their back yard which I can't blame them for because they cant get images of Chernobyl out of their minds.  I grew up near an nuclear power plant, it was no problem at all.

[mviale]

chicos - are you disagreeing only because Gore lead this? Get out of your partisan bickering and lets do something good for our kids.

[Murffieus]

mviale-----we don't have any control over weather patterns----world temperatures have fluctuated since the beginning of man (probably before)-----Gore just latched onto an issue that environmentalists have championed.

I ask you-----why is Mars heatiing up as well?

[spiral97]

mviale-----we don't have any control over weather patterns----world temperatures have fluctuated since the beginning of man (probably before)-----Gore just latched onto an issue that environmentalists have championed.

I ask you-----why is Mars heatiing up as well?

<whisper> Not to stir up the old gender debate but I think you meant Venus </whisper>

[Murffieus]

No, I mean Mars----but quite possibly Venus as well!

[ChicosBailBonds]

chicos - are you disagreeing only because Gore lead this? Get out of your partisan bickering and lets do something good for our kids.

Sigh again.

Yeah mviale.  That's it...you nailed it.  I love the "good for our kids".  Good grief, why didn't you bring out grandma in this post...it's equally effective. 

It has nothing to do with patrisianship at all.  It has to do with spending trillions of dollars on something that we can't control.  It has to do with getting into agreements that don't include India and China. 

It has nothing to do with my kids, your kids or anyone's kids.  It has to do with policy and whether spending trillions of dollars is wise.  I think it's rather magnanimous to believe we can control the global climate when we don't even know what's causing the global climate to act the way it does in the first place.

[ChicosBailBonds]

They will have a different take on it...yes, it's Stossell the dreaded conservative.

Is he right...I don't know.  I don't think anyone knows and that's the point.

-----------------


"20/20” co-anchor John Stossel is going on the attack against “experts” who warn about manmade global warming – along the way berating Al Gore for saying the debate over climate change is over.

In a release from ABC previewing Stossel’s report on Friday’s “20/20,” the veteran newsman who won 19 Emmys exposing scammers and con artists – says:

“This week on ‘20/20’ (in our new 8 p.m. Eastern time slot) I say ‘Give Me a Break!’ to our Nobel Prize-winning Vice President.

“Mr. Gore says ‘The debate is over,’ and those who disagree with his take on global warming have been ‘purchased’ in order to create ‘the illusion of a debate.’ Nonsense. It's as if the Vice President and his allies in the environmental movement plan to win the debate through intimidation. I interview some scientists who won't be intimidated, even though one has had his life threatened for speaking up.

“The Vice President's much-applauded movie, ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ claims warming is man’s fault and a coming crisis! While the earth has certainly warmed over the last century, plenty of independent scientists say scientists cannot be sure that man caused the warming or that warming will be a crisis.

“They say the computer models that are used to predict the disasters don’t include important variables because scientists don’t fully understand them. For example, warming may cause cloud formations that reflect sun and cool the earth. The computer models cannot know. These scientists call global warming activism more of a religious movement than science.”

Gore's film is filled with “misleading messages,” says Stossel.

“It suggests polar bears are disappearing and that ‘sea levels worldwide would go up 20 feet.’ I interview children who are scared. They believe the polar bears are already going extinct and that the oceans will soon rise even higher than 20 feet, drowning them and their parents.

“But polar bear populations appear to be steady or increasing, and a 20-foot rise is a theoretical possibility that wouldn't happen for millennia. The IPCC, the group that shared last week’s Nobel Prize with the Vice President, says in 100 years the oceans might rise 7 to 24 inches, not 20 feet. Now a British judge has ruled that British schools must disclose to students nine inaccuracies in ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ if they play the movie in class.”

Stossel said it’s “nonsense” for Gore to suggest that we can stop global warming by doing things like changing light bulbs and driving less.

“The only practical thing we can do today that would make a difference in CO2 output is to launch a major shift toward nuclear energy. But the environmental movement rarely utters the word nuclear.

“I suspect that next year's government boondoggle will be massive spending on carbon-reducing technology.

“It reminds me of George Mason University Economics Department Chairman Don Boudreax's suggestion that such schemes really mean ‘government seizing enormous amounts of additional power in order to embark upon schemes of social engineering - schemes whose pursuit gratifies the abstract fantasies of the theory class and, simultaneously, lines the very real pockets of politically powerful corporations, organizations, and “experts."’

“He is so right. The abstract fantasies of the theory class will soon send huge chunks of your money to politicians, friends, activist scientists, and politically savvy corporations.

“The debate is over? That makes me say GIVE ME A BREAK!”

[mviale]

chicos - you can keep your partisan rant and keep hating.  I will take BART tomorrow and it wont cost a trillion dollars for me to do that.

[Murffieus]

I don't see any "hate"-----just common sense. I keep asking you and you can't answer-----if global earth's warming is due to gas emissions, why is the climate on Mars warming as well?

[ChicosBailBonds]

chicos - you can keep your partisan rant and keep hating.  I will take BART tomorrow and it wont cost a trillion dollars for me to do that.

Ah yes, now the hate charge.  Well I'll take the carpool lane tomorrow and it doesn't cost trillions either.  I don't recall me saying I'm against any of those things. 

You haven't answered why Mars, Jupiter, Neptune, etc are warming at the same time.  That would help me a lot in getting on board that spending trillions makes sense.

[Pakuni]

You haven't answered why Mars, Jupiter, Neptune, etc are warming at the same time.  That would help me a lot in getting on board that spending trillions makes sense.

Here's why:

The conventional theory is that climate changes on Mars can be explained primarily by small alterations in the planet's orbit and tilt, not by changes in the sun.

"Wobbles in the orbit of Mars are the main cause of its climate change in the current era," Oxford's Wilson explained. (Related: "Don't Blame Sun for Global Warming, Study Says" [September 13, 2006].)

All planets experience a few wobbles as they make their journey around the sun. Earth's wobbles are known as Milankovitch cycles and occur on time scales of between 20,000 and 100,000 years.

These fluctuations change the tilt of Earth's axis and its distance from the sun and are thought to be responsible for the waxing and waning of ice ages on Earth.

Mars and Earth wobble in different ways, and most scientists think it is pure coincidence that both planets are between ice ages right now.

"Mars has no [large] moon, which makes its wobbles much larger, and hence the swings in climate are greater too," Wilson said.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming_2.html

For an astrophysicist's view, see here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=192

For the record, I don't buy everything Al is selling about global warming, but the Mars thing appears to be a bit of a red herring. As Murff likes to say ... apples and oranges!

That said, the bottom line is that whether global warming is caused by human factors, natural factors or a combination of both, we know greenhouse gasses are bad. And that being the case, why not seek reasonable measures to see them reduced? Wouldn't that be a more productive use of our time and resources than bickering over the accuracy of every detail in an Al Gore flick?

[Murffieus]

Pakuni----doesn't the SAME sun warm Mars as well as the earth-------why would Mars be warming at the same time as earth? The answer would have to be a hotter sun-----bigger explosions on the sun-----I mean it's far fetcehed to think that the sun will generate the same amount of heat ad infinitum----it doesn't have a thermostat does it?

[ChicosBailBonds]

Nice response Pakuni, though the one from several NASA scientist is quite different and doesn't blame the wobble at all, but puts the blame squarely on this large gaseous ball called the Sun.  Proving once again that NO ONE REALLY KNOWS.

In fact, some scientists have claimed that earth is in a WOBBLE now as well, also explaining why we are warming NOW and then cooling and then warming and then cooling.

As for greenhouses being bad....that's not a truism either.  In fact many scientists argue greenhouse gases will lead to better crop yields, more production, etc.  No one knows.

Tune into 20/20 tonight, your favorite conservative is on.

By the way, in that SAME article on National Geographic you didn't note the following...how come?

Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.

Strange that you left that out.   
 

[ChicosBailBonds]

Pakuni----doesn't the SAME sun warm Mars as well as the earth-------why would Mars be warming at the same time as earth? The answer would have to be a hotter sun-----bigger explosions on the sun-----I mean it's far fetcehed to think that the sun will generate the same amount of heat ad infinitum----it doesn't have a thermostat does it?

Perhaps just a fluke...seriously.  No one knows and that's the underlying point that so many don't want to accept.  Could, possible, perhaps...all these are the key words being used by scientists today and yet politicians and activists take "could" and translate that into "DEFINITE" or a truism.  That is my problem with it.


---------------


Other warming worlds

Others have pointed out anomalous warming on other worlds in our solar system.
Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist at Liverpool John Moores University who monitors studies and news reports of asteroids, global warming and other potentially apocalyptic topics, recently quoted in his daily electronic newsletter the following from a blog called Strata-Sphere:

“Global warming on Neptune's moon Triton as well as Jupiter and Pluto, and now Mars has some [scientists] scratching their heads over what could possibly be in common with the warming of all these planets ... Could there be something in common with all the planets in our solar system that might cause them all to warm at the same time?”
Peiser included quotes from recent news articles that take up other aspects of the idea.

“I think it is an intriguing coincidence that warming trends have been observed on a number of very diverse planetary bodies in our solar system,” Peiser said in an email interview. “Perhaps this is just a fluke.”

In fact, scientists have alternative explanations for the anomalous warming on each of these other planetary bodies.

The warming on Triton, for example, could be the result of an extreme southern summer on the moon, a season that occurs every few hundred years, as well as possible changes in the makeup of surface ice that caused it to absorb more of the Sun’s heat.

Researchers credited Pluto’s warming to possible eruptive activity and a delayed thawing from its last close approach to the Sun in 1989.

And the recent storm activity on Jupiter is being blamed on a recurring climatic cycle that churns up material from the gas giant’s interior and lofts it to the surface, where it is heated by the Sun.

[Pakuni]

Nice response Pakuni, though the one from several NASA scientist is quite different and doesn't blame the wobble at all, but puts the blame squarely on this large gaseous ball called the Sun.  Proving once again that NO ONE REALLY KNOWS.

In fact, some scientists have claimed that earth is in a WOBBLE now as well, also explaining why we are warming NOW and then cooling and then warming and then cooling.

As for greenhouses being bad....that's not a truism either.  In fact many scientists argue greenhouse gases will lead to better crop yields, more production, etc.  No one knows.

Tune into 20/20 tonight, your favorite conservative is on.

By the way, in that SAME article on National Geographic you didn't note the following...how come?

Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.

Strange that you left that out.   
 

Sigh.

I didn't leave it out. I provided the entire link. Please don't suggest I was trying to hide something when, quite obviously, that's not the case.
Now, please explan why we should take the theory of this one Russian scientist over those of the great majority of experts in the field?

[ChicosBailBonds]

I know you provided the link, I just found it funny that you skipped over to the very next paragraph.


As for this notion that it's "one Russian scientist"...you're starting to sound like Marc Mviale when he says things like NO ONE DISPUTES this.  It's hyperbole.  Maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong.  Was there a time when the experts in the world said the world was flat or leaching was the best way to cure a patient...were they right?

If you read just the subject of Mars alone you find all kinds of reasons.  The Sun, dust, wobble, melting of ice caps, etc etc....each one of these theories goes to show that no one knows, they're just theories.  Just like here on earth.  Then you go and read about Triton or Pluto or Jupiter and there are many theories there as well.  Just as there are many theories here on earth, some which say man is the cause, some which say its cyclical, some which say man is partial cause, etc.  NO ONE KNOWS.

I ask this one, simple common sense question which will get a reactive "you hate" from Marc.  Has the earth and the solar system (the universe for that matter) not changed for BILLIONS of years?  Long before humans were here and certain since humans are here?  Has it not changed for warmer, cooler and everthing in between over recorded history, even when there weren't even a billion people on this planet, let alone the industrial age?

A quick search which I don't want to spend a lot of time on reveals many more that hold that same viewpoint


Different theories on Mars

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720024.ece   (NASA scientist says it might be dust)

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=edae9952-3c3e-47ba-913f-7359a5c7f723&k=0   (NASA scientist says it might be MARS coming out of an ice age)

Then we have a NASA scientist saying it's the wobble.   Three NASA scientists saying 3 different things.  But wait, there is more as others associated with NASA and JPL have theories it's the Sun much like our Russian friend.

Now, since Al Gore and mviale say the science is SETTLED, I ask you why isn't it settled just at NASA let alone around the world with other agencies?  I don't think that's a hate question...do you?



Here are other articles on other planets and bodies in the Solar System warming....who's right...who's wrong?  I don't know, but there sure seem to be a lot of different theories from a lot of smart people....one thing is for sure, the science sure as hell isn't settled.


http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/pluto_warming_021009.html

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2006-05-04-jupiter-jr-spot_x.htm?POE=TECISVA

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980526052143data_trunc_sys.shtml

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20060419/Feature1.asp

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1998/triton.html

etc, etc, etc  No one knows. 

[mviale]

Just like a neo con - most people are concerned about terrorism, neo-cons concerned about iraq.
Most people concerned about global warming, neo-cons concerned about Mars.

True to form

[ChicosBailBonds]

Just like a neo con - most people are concerned about terrorism, neo-cons concerned about iraq.
Most people concerned about global warming, neo-cons concerned about Mars.

True to form

True to form, when you have nothing to say....you say nothing.

By the way...MOST CONCERNED ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING?  Better check your polls. 


"Looking ahead 50 years from today, do you think global warming will be a major threat to human life on earth, a minor threat, or not a threat?"
               
Major Threat 46%
Minor Threat 27%
Not a threat 18%
Unsure 9%

Poll on 8-2-2007 Newsweek

Mviale, the hyperbole king.