Global Warming - What Do You Believe - O. T.

[cyclonenum1]

It's logically possible that you are wrong.

I'd say the chances of me being wrong on gravity are incredibly small but the chances you are wrong on global warming is quite large!

But somehow you fail to see that it is "logically possible that you are wrong" about global warming.

By the way, I would not call culling wikipedia "research".

[herbicide]

It's logically possible that you are wrong.

No, gravity actually it is one of the few things that in the scientific world is considered a scientific LAW.

Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation (part of classical mechanics) states the following:
Every single point mass attracts every other point mass by a force pointing along the line combining the two. The force is proportional to the product of the two masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the point masses:

F is the magnitude of the gravitational force between the two point masses
G is the gravitational constant
m1 is the mass of the first point mass
m2 is the mass of the second point mass
r is the distance between the two point masses

Man's actions causing Global warming is a THEORY.

[Kyle]

I'd say the chances of me being wrong on gravity are incredibly small but the chances you are wrong on global warming is quite large!

Relatively speaking, yes. My point though is that there are levels of certainty where it makes sense to believe. You kept saying no one knows anything about global warming for certain as if that meant that we should disregard what virtually all people who study the climate for a living are telling us. Similarly, no one knows for "certain" that gravity will exist tomorrow. But, the only reasonable conclusion is that it will.

But somehow you fail to see that it is "logically possible that you are wrong" about global warming.

Wrong. The realm of logical probability is quite large. I would even admit there is a very real possibility that we are having next to no impact on the climate. But, this possibility is small enough that the reasonable conclusion is that we are.

By the way, I would not call culling wikipedia "research".

Again, I welcome any sources you have. I have also cited a few non-wikipedia sources.

[Kyle]

No, gravity actually it is one of the few things that in the scientific world is considered a scientific LAW.

Logical possibility.
Logical possibility - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also, I find it rather ironic that you posted Newton's formula, because it is only a close approximation. Hence the introduction and popularity of general relativity.

[Wesley]

Pelosi: Climate Change Is a RealityEmail this StoryMay 28, 7:36 PM (ET)

By GEIR MOULSON



BERLIN (AP) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday she led a congressional delegation to Greenland, where lawmakers saw "firsthand evidence that climate change is a reality," and she hoped the Bush administration would consider a new path on the issue.
After meeting with German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, Pelosi praised Berlin for its leadership on the issue.
Her trip comes ahead of next week's Group of Eight summit and a climate change meeting next month involving the leading industrialized nations and during a time of increased debate over what should succeed the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 international treaty that caps the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted from power plants and factories in industrialized countries. It expires in 2012.
President Bush rejected that accord, saying it would harm the U.S. economy and unfair excludes developing countries like China and India from its obligations. Pelosi, who strongly disagrees with that decision and many other of Bush's environmental policies, said Friday she said she wants to work with the administration rather than provoke it.
Pelosi said she hoped Bush would be open to considering a "different way" in the future.
The California Democrat pointed to her delegation's weekend stop in Greenland, "where we saw firsthand evidence that climate change is a reality; there is just no denying it."
"It wasn't caused by the people of Greenland - it was caused by the behavior of the rest of the world," she said.
Scientists have noticed that Greenland's output of ice into the North Atlantic had increased dramatically, doubling over the decade that ended in 2005.
"We hope that we can all assume our responsibilities with great respect and that our administration will be open to listening to why it is important to go forward perhaps in a different way than we have proceeded in the past," she told reporters.
Gabriel and Chancellor Angela Merkel have made the fight against global warming a key point of Germany's presidencies of the G-8 and European Union. Still, Merkel has said that progress at the June 6-8 summit in Heiligendamm is not assured.
According to comments on a document released by the environmental group Greenpeace, the Bush administration is preparing to reject new targets on climate change at the summit. The White House declined to confirm the comments were from U.S. officials.
"We regret very much that we must so far have the impression that it is difficult to reach concrete results with the American administration," Gabriel said after meeting Pelosi.
Gabriel said industrial nations must take joint responsibility for the global warming that has occurred thus far.
"For the climate change of the future ... we need readiness on the part of China, India and today's other developing countries to take responsibility themselves," he added. "We can and will only achieve that if industrial nations do justice to their responsibility."
Pelosi, who is to meet with Merkel on Tuesday, said she wanted to "salute Germany's leadership on this very important issue," and said she hoped for a diplomatic debate within the United States.
Gabriel welcomed increasing interest in climate change at state and city level in the U.S. and hailed Pelosi's decision to set up a select committee on energy and global warming.
"This shows that there is a great deal of movement in the United States, too, and we naturally hope that we will achieve progress in Heiligendamm," he said. The G-8 meeting has already drawn protests from antiglobalization activists; 21 demonstrators were arrested Monday during unrest that broke out after a march in Hamburg.

[Wesley]

Global warming is now climate change.

[Wesley]

Freak snow storm hits Nepal
May 29 2007 at 03:15PM Dozens of people were feared killed in remote parts of north-western Nepal after the areas were hit by a freak snow storm, officials said on Tuesday.

The casualties were reported in the remote north-western mountainous district of Dolpa, about 450 kilometres north-west of the Nepalese capital, on Monday.

"We have reports that at least 16 people died and about a hundred others were blinded by a freak snow storm and blizzard," Home Ministry spokesperson Baman Prasad Neupane told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The snow storm is said to have hit a mountainous area where hundreds of people had gathered to collect an herb locally known as Yarshagumba, which is thought to increase sex drive.

[Wesley]

Argentina Rations Gas to Companies, Chile Amid Cold (Update1)

By Bill Faries and Eliana Raszewski
May 29 (Bloomberg) -- Argentina rationed electricity to companies and severed natural gas supplies to Chile as a cold wave prompted record demand for electricity in South America's second-largest economy.
The temperature in many parts of Argentina fell below freezing yesterday, pushing electricity demand to a record 18,300 megawatts, according to the country's energy regulator. Argentina cut shipments of gas to Chile to meet the surge in demand, forcing their neighbor to rely on residual gas in the pipeline.
Rolling blackouts and gas shortages in Argentina threaten more than four years of economic growth of over 8.5 percent per year. The ban on gas deliveries to Chile jeopardizes supply for an estimated 1.2 million residential users in eastern Santiago and may lead to increased energy costs for mining companies as power generators switch to more expensive diesel fuel.
``There's no short-term solution to the shortage of gas,'' energy consultant Francisco Mezzadri, the former head of natural gas operations at CMS Energy Corp., said in a phone interview. ``Electricity prices have been frozen since 2002, a new pipeline from Bolivia has yet to be built and domestic gas reserves are declining. It's a critical situation.''
`Contingency Plan'
Chile's mining companies may face rising energy costs as generators try to pass on higher costs related to running power plants with diesel fuel, Senator Ricardo Nunez, chairman of the senate energy committee, said in a phone interview. Chile supplies 34 percent of the copper from mines worldwide.
``This could affect mining companies' earnings significantly,'' Nunez said.
Chilean Energy Minister Marcelo Tokman said the country has a backup plan to secure enough natural gas for homes should supply from neighboring Argentina run out.
``There would be normal gas supply for the bathroom and the kitchen,'' Tokman said today in comments broadcast by Television Nacional. ``We're talking about a contingency plan for an eventuality that we don't think is going to happen at this point.''
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said she expects Argentina to follow through on commitments to deliver gas.
``Argentina is passing through an exceptional moment,'' Bachelet said in a news conference during a visit to Helsinki. ``But there is an agreement that this will be resolved tomorrow.''
Schools Closed
About 100 schools in Buenos Aires province are closed today for lack of sufficient heating, newspaper Clarin reported. The national weather service predicted the below-freezing temperatures will continue tomorrow before rising later in the week.
Cristian Folgar, Argentina's undersecretary for fuels, said in an interview with state-run Telam news agency that the country won't have problems meeting demand.
``We're calm,'' Folgar said. ``Our two systems of gas and electricity are functioning at full capacity and this will be sufficient to meet the demand we have.''
Norberto Garcia, president of the Argentine Chamber of Toy Manufacturers, said his industry plans to shift production times in July, the peak production period and the middle of winter, to avoid blackouts.
``In July we'll probably have to work two shifts and we may need to work at night, when energy demand falls,'' he said by phone from Buenos Aires. ``When a businessman invests in a company, he counts on being able to at least get basic services.''

[Wesley]

U.S. Rejects EU-Asia Emissions ReductionMay 29 12:23 PM US/Eastern
By CONSTANT BRAND
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BERLIN (AP) - The United States rejects the European Union's all-encompassing target on reduction of carbon emissions, President Bush's environmental adviser said Tuesday.
James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the United States is not against setting goals but prefers to focus them on specific sectors, such as reducing dependence on gasoline and cleaner coal. "The U.S. has different sets of targets," he said.
Germany, which holds the European Union and G-8 presidencies, is proposing a so-called "two-degree" target, whereby global temperatures would be allowed to increase no more than 2 degrees Celsius—the equivalent of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit—before being brought back down. Practically, experts have said that means a global reduction in emissions of 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
Connaughton, who is on a one-week bipartisan trip to Europe with members of the House of Representatives, said the U.S. favors "setting targets in the context of national circumstances."
European and Asian foreign ministers agreed to set a 2009 deadline to complete negotiations on a new international climate change pact to limit greenhouse gases, diplomats said Tuesday.
Under the agreement, which came during two-day talks here, Asian nations—including China and India—will not have to adhere to binding targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
Instead, ministers outlined the responsibilities of richer and poorer nations in combatting climate change, the diplomats said on condition of anonymity.
The meeting of the 40-some ministers, chaired by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, also agreed to coordinate the promotion of more sustainable energy use, the diplomats said.
China and India balked at carbon dioxide emissions cuts after the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.
Diplomats said setting the 2009 deadline goal to reach a new emissions agreement was necessary to avoid a lapse when the Kyoto Protocol expires.
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said the EU should not expect developing countries like China or India to share the same burden of cuts as richer nations. He said China "was not to blame for the problem" of climate change, but said his country had taken measures to reduce its emissions.
The 27-nation EU bloc is eager to get China and other major polluters on board a new climate change pact and negotiations are scheduled to begin in December in Bali, Indonesia.
Japanese officials have also expressed reservations about setting specific targets in the early stages of negotiations for fear of discouraging major emitters—such as the United States, China and India—from participating.
Tokyo has said the new pact should be flexible, strike a balance between environmental protection and economic growth, and promote new green technologies.
China has called on the EU to share more green technologies with developing nations to speed up moves for economies to become more environmentally friendly. European nations have been reluctant to allow more technology transfers to China unless Beijing moves to give more market access for European goods and services.
A U.S. government report issued Tuesday said Asian nations could reduce a quarter of their greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 if they increase renewable energy use, improve coal-fired power plant efficiency and switch to biofuels.
However, the report from the U.S. Agency for International Development did not mention setting mandatory greenhouse gas emission cuts, which European countries and many environmentalists say should be part of the solution.
Failing to implement cleaner technologies will result in heat-trapping greenhouse gases more than tripling by 2030 for much of Asia, said the USAID report, the latest dire warning that inaction could be catastrophic for the planet.
With Asia's energy demand soaring Europe remains eager to promote renewable energies and energy efficient technologies to cut overall consumption and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The Europeans also need carbon credits from investments in clean energy projects in developing countries to meet their commitments under the Kyoto treaty.
The Hamburg talks were seen as an attempt by the EU ally itself with Asian countries as a means of persuading the United States to come on board. The U.S. refused to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol limiting emissions because developing countries were not included. Rising economic giants, China and India, are exempt, and the treaty says nothing about post-2012 cuts. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is hoping to make progress on persuading the U.S. and others at the June 6-8 G-8 summit in Heiligendamm, but preliminary meetings including an EU-US summit in Washington have not offered promising results.

[Wesley]

Get Rich over Global warming.

Recently, UBS Investment Bank took advantage of the furor over this testy subject by introducing the Global Warming Index (GWI ). The GWI is an index like any other and trades on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Simply speaking, if you are a global warming flag bearer and believe the temperature will rise in the coming years, you can buy the index. Conversely, if you are of the inclination that Al Gore is a fool and the weather will cool, you can sell it.
At present, the GWI is a little like "World" Series baseball in that only U.S. cities are invited to play. In its initial incarnation, the index tracks 15 major U.S. cities but there are plans to include European and Asian cities in the near future, making the GWI truly "global." There is certainly the demand for it, too. Between the periods 2004-05 and 2005-06, weather derivatives trading on the CME rose from $9.7bn to $45bn.
As one Rude reader casually observed in our climate change mailbag last week, "The weathermen get paid whether they are right or wrong, so why not you? Take advantage of trends that create money in the short run. Who cares if it's bogus?"

[Wesley]

Study Finds Hurricanes Frequent in Some Cooler Periods
J. Donnelly
On the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, members of the Woods Hole research team collected sediments left by hurricanes of earlier times.

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By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: May 24, 2007
Over the last 5,000 years, the eastern Caribbean has experienced several periods, lasting centuries, in which strong hurricanes occurred frequently even though ocean temperatures were cooler than those measured today, according to a new study.
Unearth Our Stormy Past (July 24, 2001)



Intense hurricane activity over the past 5,000 years controlled by El Niño and the West African monsoon (Nature)




The authors, from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, say their findings do not necessarily conflict with recent papers asserting a link between the region’s hurricane activity and human-caused warming of the climate and seas.
But, they say, their work does imply that factors other than ocean temperature, at least for thousands of years, appear to have played a pivotal role in shaping storminess in the region.
The study compared a 5,000-year record of strong storms etched in lagoon mud on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques with data on ocean temperatures and climate and storm patterns. The analysis is being published today in the journal Nature.
The Woods Hole team found that stormier spans, including one from 1700 until now, were associated with a relative paucity of El Niño warm-ups of the tropical Pacific Ocean and also with periods of heightened monsoon intensity in West Africa.
El Niño episodes tend to change wind patterns in ways that weaken Atlantic Ocean hurricanes, and Africa is a nursery for storm fronts that can drift westward and develop into hurricanes.
Storm records extracted from sediments on the Gulf Coast by other scientists, and near New York City by the Woods Hole team, show a similar pattern, implying that the shifts from quieter to stormier times are not just a local phenomenon, the authors said.
Jeffrey P. Donnelly, the lead author, said the findings pointed to the importance of figuring out an unresolved puzzle: whether global warming will affect the Niño cycle one way or the other. More intense or longer Pacific warm-ups could stifle Atlantic and Caribbean hurricanes even with warmer seas, Dr. Donnelly said.
“Warm sea-surface temperatures are clearly the fuel for intense hurricanes,” he said. “What our work says is that without sea temperatures varying a lot, the climate system can flip back and forth between active and inactive regimes.”
He added that a disturbing possibility was a warming of waters while conditions in the Pacific and Africa are in their hurricane-nurturing mode.
“If you flip that knob and also have warming seas,” Dr. Donnelly said, “oh boy, who knows what could happen?”
Judith A. Curry, an atmospheric scientist at Georgia Tech, said the new study, together with other recent research on warming and storms by her and others, added to a picture of rising risk and lagging government action on reducing vulnerability of coastal populations in the Atlantic and Caribbean hurricane zone.
“The bottom line is that we are in an unusually active period of hurricane activity, as a result of a combination of natural variability and global warming,” Dr. Curry said. “Analyses have been done, plans have been put on the table, but nothing seems to be happening.”

[Cyclonepride]

Good Lord, this thread is still going? I thought the Earth would have flooded by now, or we would have all boiled like eggs. Oh well, I'll just go back to my bunker and wait it out some more. Oh, and any argument siting Nancy Pelosi as a reference is automatically lost. Man Law!

[Wesley]

Europe furious at US climate call

By Fiona Harvey in London, Hugh Williamson in Berlin and George Parker in Brussels
Published: June 1 2007 19:52 | Last updated: June 1 2007 19:52

Germany and the European Commission reacted angrily to President George W. Bush’s apparent change of heart on climate change on Friday, setting the stage for a stormy G8 summit of rich industrialised countries next week.
A spokesman for Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor and current G8 president, said Germany’s stance that climate talks should take place within the United Nations was “non-negotiable”. Stavros Dimas, the EU environment commissioner, dismissed the proposals for climate talks as vague and “the classic US line”.

Mr Bush on Thursday appeared to suggest a parallel process to the UN, by which the world’s 15 biggest emitters of greenhouse gases would within 18 months “establish a new framework on greenhouse gases when the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012” and “set a long-term global goal on reducing emissions”.
His proposal marked a reversal of the US policy of refusing to discuss emissions cuts and rejecting a global framework such as Kyoto.

VIDEO

Fiona Harvey , environment correspondent, analyses whether Bush’s reversal on climate change offers any hope

But the plans are starkly different from the proposal tabled by Germany for next week’s G8 summit, which would require leaders to agree to prevent global temperatures rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius and require stringent emissions cuts.
Attitudes within Europe hardened on Friday as some politicians and activists accused Mr Bush of trying to wreck next week’s summit, and UN negotiations on climate change, set to take place this December.
José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, told the Financial Times Mr Bush should be “more ambitious” and said the UN must “remain the basis for setting – and achieving – binding, measurable and enforceable targets”.
Sigmar Gabriel, the German environment minister, said Mr Bush’s speech could mark a “change in the US position or a manoeuvre aimed at causing confusion”.
A comment by Mr Bush to German media that Ms Merkel “will be pleased” with his proposals, which run counter to her own, was seen as provocative.
There were signs on Friday night that Mr Bush’s proposals would split the G8, which some sceptics argue is his intention. Stephen Harper, Canada’s prime minister, welcomed the plans, as did Tony Blair, Britain’s outgoing prime minister, and Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister.
“It’s absolutely intended to split the G8,” said John Sauven, director of Greenpeace.
Mr Abe said: “I believe the United States too is finally getting serious in dealing with global warming.” Tokyo’s position is that binding targets have failed because they leave out the world’s biggest emitters, especially the US, China and India. It is championing a vaguer approach, in which the world’s biggest emitters pledge to use technology to tackle emissions.
Yasuhisa Shiozaki, the chief cabinet secretary, said: “We believe Prime Minister Abe and President Bush share the same perspective and look forward to achieving significant progress [next week].”

[Wesley]

Dutch try to grow enviro-friendly meat in lab

Fri Jun 1, 2007 1:14PM EDT
By Reed Stevenson
UTRECHT, The Netherlands (Reuters) - Dutch researchers are trying to grow pork meat in a laboratory with the goal of feeding millions without the need to raise and slaughter animals.
"We're trying to make meat without having to kill animals," Bernard Roelen, a veterinary science professor at Utrecht University, said in an interview.
Although it is in its early stages, the idea is to replace harvesting meat from livestock with a process that eliminates the need for animal feed, transport, land use and the methane expelled by animals, which all hurt the environment, he said.
"Keeping animals just to eat them is in fact not so good for the environment," said Roelen. "Animals need to grow, and animals produce many things that you do not eat."
Developed nations are expected to consume an average of 43 kg per capita of poultry, beef, pork and other meats this year, an amount that rises around 2 percent annually, data from the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation shows.
Asked whether people would be repulsed by lab-grown meat, Roelen said he believed there would be enough demand, as much of what people eat today is already extensively processed, from the feed that animals consume to the conditions under which they are raised and the preparation of meat after slaughter.
"I can imagine that some people will have problems with it," he said. "People might think it is artificial. But some people might not realize that some part of the meat they eat is artificial."
Research is also under way in the United States, including one experiment funded by U.S. space agency NASA to see whether meat can be grown for astronauts during long space missions.
But it will take years before meat grown in labs and eventually factories reaches supermarket shelves. And so far, Roelen and his team have managed to grow only thin layers of cells that bear no resemblance to pork chops.
Under the process, researchers first isolate muscle stem cells, which have the ability to grow and multiply into muscle cells. Then they stimulate the cells to develop, give them nutrients and exercise them with electric current to build bulk.
After perfecting that process, scientists will then need to figure out how to layer tissues to add more bulk, since meat grown in petri dishes lacks the blood vessels needed to deliver nutrients through thick muscle fibers.
And then there is the question of fat, to add flavor.

[Wesley]

NASA chief unsure of need to tackle global warmingJun 1 12:23 PM US/Eastern


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Debate raged on Friday after NASA chief Michael Griffin said he was unsure global warming was a "problem we must wrestle with," drawing the ire of his own agency's top climate change expert.
Griffin, who has come under fire in Congress for cutting programs aimed at monitoring climate change, said in a US radio interview Thursday he had "no doubt that a trend of global warming exists."
But, he told National Public Radio, "I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with."
James Hansen, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's top official on climate change, expressed shock at Griffin's comments in a later interview with NPR.
Asked his response, Hansen said: "I almost fell off my chair."
"It was a shocking statement because of the level of ignorance it indicated with regard to the current situation," Hansen told NPR.
"He seemed unaware that 170 nations agreed that climate change is a serious problem with enormous repercussions, and that many people will suffer if it is not addressed," he said.
Griffin said it was "NASA's responsibility to collect, analyze and release information," according to a statement issued later.
"It is not NASA's mission to make policy regarding possible climate change mitigation strategies," he added.
Bart Gordon, chairman of the Science and Technology committee in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, also took a shot at Griffin.
"Based on NASA's own five-year budget plan, the agency will be unable to start any of the new Earth observations initiatives recommended by the National Academies for the foreseeable future.
"That's not going to get us where we need to be in our understanding of climate change." Griffin's comments came on the same day US President George W. Bush said he would urge major industrialized nations at a summit next week to join a new global framework for fighting climate change after the Kyoto Protocol lapses.