Climategate

[Kid Cid]

You are right to a large degree, but you also need to realized part of doing that would require the government to allow us to drill in domestic areas that are currently off limits such as ANWAR and certain coastal areas. If the left was truly concerned with our dependence on middle eastern oil they would do this, but that concern is just a red herring.

So let me get this straight. The answer to using less oil and moving to renewable energy sources is to drill for more oil so that it remains cheap and there is no less need to move to renewable energy sources? That's double speak worthy of any politician perch.

[Perchoutofwater]

So let me get this straight. The answer to using less oil and moving to renewable energy sources is to drill for more oil so that it remains cheap and there is no less need to move to renewable energy sources? That's double speak worthy of any politician perch.

 

That is the answer to using less foreign oil yes, not to using less oil overall. Also unfortunately we can't just snap our fingers and make nuclear power plants, wind farms or solar farms appear. It takes time, drilling is a bandaid until the renewable and cleaner sources of energy can come on line.

[Kid Cid]

That is the answer to using less foreign oil yes, not to using less oil overall. Also unfortunately we can't just snap our fingers and make nuclear power plants, wind farms or solar farms appear. It takes time, drilling is a bandaid until the renewable and cleaner sources of energy can come on line.

Here's the problem with that line of thinking IMO. That puts a carrot out in front of the American people with specific benefits for the existing oil companies, to continue on doing what they are currently doing. It may in the short run incentivize this country to reduce it's dependance on foreign oil but it does nothing in the long run to incentivize a move away from oil altogether.

 

Although, there is a counter argument to be made for continuing our depandance on foreign oil. The quicker we use up what they have in the ground, the quicker we can run them out of money. The sooner they are out of money, the sooner they'll go back to fighting amongst themselves because they won't have a stable enough economy to play on teh world stage anymore.

 

In the mean time, we still need to develop a sane, coherrent plan on moving this country toward non-fossil fuel type energy. Something that none of the politicians can come to grips with because of their need to do enough to get themselves elected again rather than to do the right thing. Those items are sometimes the same thing, but it seems that most often, they are not.

[Itsnottatooma]

That is the answer to using less foreign oil yes, not to using less oil overall. Also unfortunately we can't just snap our fingers and make nuclear power plants, wind farms or solar farms appear. It takes time, drilling is a bandaid until the renewable and cleaner sources of energy can come on line.

This Dilbert cartoon seems appropriate.

 

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2006-02-19/

[Perchoutofwater]

The Fiction Of Climate Science

Gary Sutton, 12.04.09, 10:00 AM EST

Why the climatologists get it wrong.

 

Many of you are too young to remember, but in 1975 our government pushed "the coming ice age."

 

Random House dutifully printed "THE WEATHER CONSPIRACY … coming of the New Ice Age." This may be the only book ever written by 18 authors. All 18 lived just a short sled ride from Washington, D.C. Newsweek fell in line and did a cover issue warning us of global cooling on April 28, 1975. And The New York Times, Aug. 14, 1976, reported "many signs that Earth may be headed for another ice age."

Article Controls

 

OK, you say, that's media. But what did our rational scientists say?

 

In 1974, the National Science Board announced: "During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade. Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end…leading into the next ice age."

 

You can't blame these scientists for sucking up to the fed's mantra du jour. Scientists live off grants. Remember how Galileo recanted his preaching about the earth revolving around the sun? He, of course, was about to be barbecued by his leaders. Today's scientists merely lose their cash flow. Threats work.

 

In 2002 I stood in a room of the Smithsonian. One entire wall charted the cooling of our globe over the last 60 million years. This was no straight line. The curve had two steep dips followed by leveling. There were no significant warming periods. Smithsonian scientists inscribed it across some 20 feet of plaster, with timelines.

 

As most things do these days, this article reminded me of a quote: "As short a time ago as February, the Ministry of Plenty had issued a promise (a 'categorical pledge' were the official words) that

 

Last year, I went back. That fresco is painted over. The same curve hides behind smoked glass, shrunk to three feet but showing the same cooling trend. Hey, why should the Smithsonian put its tax-free status at risk? If the politicians decide to whip up public fear in a different direction, get with it, oh ye subsidized servants. Downplay that embarrassing old chart and maybe nobody will notice.

 

Sorry, I noticed.

 

It's the job of elected officials to whip up panic. They then get re-elected. Their supporters fall in line.

 

Al Gore thought he might ride his global warming crusade back toward the White House. If you saw his movie, which opened showing cattle on his farm, you start to understand how shallow this is. The United Nations says that cattle, farting and belching methane, create more global warming than all the SUVs in the world. Even more laughably, Al and his camera crew flew first class for that film, consuming 50% more jet fuel per seat-mile than coach fliers, while his Tennessee mansion sucks as much carbon as 20 average homes.

 

His PR folks say he's "carbon neutral" due to some trades. I'm unsure of how that works, but, maybe there's a tribe in the Sudan that cannot have a campfire for the next hundred years to cover Al's energy gluttony. I'm just not sophisticated enough to know how that stuff works. But I do understand he flies a private jet when the camera crew is gone.

 

The fall of Saigon in the '70s may have distracted the shrill pronouncements about the imminent ice age. Science's prediction of "A full-blown, 10,000 year ice age," came from its March 1, 1975 issue. The Christian Science Monitor observed that armadillos were retreating south from Nebraska to escape the "global cooling" in its Aug. 27, 1974 issue.

 

That armadillo caveat seems reminiscent of today's tales of polar bears drowning due to glaciers disappearing.

 

While scientists march to the drumbeat of grant money, at least trees don't lie. Their growth rings show what's happened no matter which philosophy is in power. Tree rings show a mini ice age in Europe about the time Stradivarius crafted his violins. Chilled Alpine Spruce gave him tighter wood so the instruments sang with a new purity. But England had to give up the wines that the Romans cultivated while our globe cooled, switching from grapes to colder weather grains and learning to take comfort with beer, whisky and ales.

 

Yet many centuries earlier, during a global warming, Greenland was green. And so it stayed and was settled by Vikings for generations until global cooling came along. Leif Ericsson even made it to Newfoundland. His shallow draft boats, perfect for sailing and rowing up rivers to conquer villages, wouldn't have stood a chance against a baby iceberg.

 

Those sustained temperature swings, all before the evil economic benefits of oil consumption, suggest there are factors at work besides humans.

 

Today, as I peck out these words, the weather channel is broadcasting views of a freakish and early snow falling on Dallas. The Iowa state extension service reports that the record corn crop expected this year will have unusually large kernels, thanks to "relatively cool August and September temperatures." And on Jan. 16, 2007, NPR went politically incorrect, briefly, by reporting that "An unusually harsh winter frost, the worst in 20 years, killed much of the California citrus, avocados and flower crops."

 

To be fair, those reports are short-term swings. But the longer term changes are no more compelling, unless you include the ice ages, and then, perhaps, the panic attempts of the 1970s were right. Is it possible that if we put more CO2 in the air, we'd forestall the next ice age?

 

I can ask "outrageous" questions like that because I'm not dependent upon government money for my livelihood. From the witch doctors of old to the elected officials today, scaring the bejesus out of the populace maintains their status.

 

Sadly, the public just learned that our scientific community hid data and censored critics. Maybe the feds should drop this crusade and focus on our health care crisis. They should, of course, ignore the life insurance statistics that show every class of American and both genders are living longer than ever. That's another inconvenient fact.

 

Forbes Link

[Yukon Cornelius]

Yet many centuries earlier, during a global warming, Greenland was green. And so it stayed and was settled by Vikings for generations until global cooling came along. Leif Ericsson even made it to Newfoundland. His shallow draft boats, perfect for sailing and rowing up rivers to conquer villages, wouldn't have stood a chance against a baby iceberg.

 

 

All of this is so untrue that it does not eve need to be debated. Greenland was covered in ice when the Vikings tried to settle it. Erik the Red named it Greenland so he could get settlers to move there with him because he was expelled from Iceland for killing one of his wives. Lief was sent west by his father, Erik, to find new lands because they were running out of food in Greenland.

[cre8tiff]

All of this is so untrue that it does not eve need to be debated. Greenland was covered in ice when the Vikings tried to settle it. Erik the Red named it Greenland so he could get settlers to move there with him because he was expelled from Iceland for killing one of his wives. Lief was sent west by his father, Erik, to find new lands because they were running out of food in Greenland.

 

Nice fact-checking by FORBES.

[The Irish Doggy]

So lets see... because some climate scientists were wrong 35 years ago, they are all wrong now as well.

[evil_gop_liars]

Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after 'Danish text' leak

 

 

The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.

 

The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement worked on by a group of individuals known as "the circle of commitment" – but understood to include the UK, US and Denmark – has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was finalised this week.

 

 

 

We win.

[Pope Flick]

All of this is so untrue that it does not eve need to be debated. Greenland was covered in ice when the Vikings tried to settle it. Erik the Red named it Greenland so he could get settlers to move there with him because he was expelled from Iceland for killing one of his wives. Lief was sent west by his father, Erik, to find new lands because they were running out of food in Greenland.

 

 

And they didn't travel in canoes but used plesiosaurs.

 

Seriously, what kind of credibility is left with that author after that blatant lie?

[bpwallace49]

A link so nice I had to post it twice!!

[Yukon Cornelius]

The period from 2000 through 2009 has been “warmer than the 1990s, which were warmer than the 1980s and so on,” said Michel Jarraud,

 

all lies i tell u

[bushwacked]

The period from 2000 through 2009 has been “warmer than the 1990s, which were warmer than the 1980s and so on,” said Michel Jarraud,

That's not what Rush is telling all the ditto heads.

[bpwallace49]

That's not what Rush is telling all the ditto heads.

 

He just blames his hot flashes on menopause . . .

[Jimmy Neutron]

We win.

 

That's really what this has become all about - political factionism. Reality is lost somewhere in the middle.

[bushwacked]

That's really what this has become all about - political factionism. Reality is lost somewhere in the middle.

 

 

Ummm, EGP is specifically referring to how industrialized countries are going to get a ton more leeway in any kind of treaty.

Edited December 9, 2009 by bushwacked

[Perchoutofwater]

Hide the Decline

[Azazello1313]

Here's the problem with that line of thinking IMO. That puts a carrot out in front of the American people with specific benefits for the existing oil companies, to continue on doing what they are currently doing. It may in the short run incentivize this country to reduce it's dependance on foreign oil but it does nothing in the long run to incentivize a move away from oil altogether.

 

well when gas was 4 bucks a gallon, all the people who oppose more domestic exploration were saying "oh that extra supply -- say an extra 10-20% domestically -- will be a drop in the bucket of world supply, it will barely affect the price of oil either way". and my thought at the time was, well, ok, but isn't it still better economically and geopolitically to be buying that oil from alaska (domestic jobs, taxes, etc.) than from the state-run oil empires like saudi arabia or venezuela?

[Duchess Jack]

That's not what Rush is telling all the ditto heads.

 

Nobody finds in funny that Rush fans are called ditto-heads by Rush himself? Great name for people who let that guy 'think' for them and parrot, word for word, everything that blowhard says.

[bpwallace49]

well when gas was 4 bucks a gallon, all the people who oppose more domestic exploration were saying "oh that extra supply -- say an extra 10-20% domestically -- will be a drop in the bucket of world supply, it will barely affect the price of oil either way". and my thought at the time was, well, ok, but isn't it still better economically and geopolitically to be buying that oil from alaska (domestic jobs, taxes, etc.) than from the state-run oil empires like saudi arabia or venezuela?

 

You are exactly right, and that WOULD help in the short-term.

 

I really need to find that link to the hazards of the methane (more dangerous than CO2 as a greenhouse gas) trapped in permafrost . .

[Perchoutofwater]

UN Security stops journalists questions about climategate.

[cre8tiff]

UN Security stops journalists questions about climategate.

 

Actually, if you watch this, the professor answers the question, saying he would need to see all of the emails before forming an opinion. The reporter evidently didn't like that answer and wanted to badger him. There are quite a few jump cuts in this film, so I suspect this is "creative editing" to prove a situation that may or may not have occurred.

 

Much like a birther wanting a follow-up from the White House press secretary.

[Perchoutofwater]

Actually, if you watch this, the professor answers the question, saying he would need to see all of the emails before forming an opinion. The reporter evidently didn't like that answer and wanted to badger him. There are quite a few jump cuts in this film, so I suspect this is "creative editing" to prove a situation that may or may not have occurred.

 

Much like a birther wanting a follow-up from the White House press secretary.

 

Did I say anything about the response? No, I said UN Security stopped a journalist from asking questions. Now that you bring up the response, yes the professor responded with very weak and evasive responses.

[Azazello1313]

this pretty thoroughly destroys all the evasive spin with regard to the "trick"/"hide the decline" email

[Perchoutofwater]

Don't forget about the hockey stick.