Hotest March on record, broke all the records

[Ecomike]

I recall reading that one coast is rising faster the other, thus the other coast is seeing the sea level seem to rise faster.

 

[XJEEPER]

That would explain where the coconuts came from......

 

[5-90]

Jon,
The climate change carpetbaggers have turned a natural occurrance into a cottage industry like the 'homeless' situation in this country. Follow the money true that.

The change is real, the boreal forests have been steadily shrinking for 20K years, the oceans have risen over the same period. Man's influenece has been but a blip on the screen.

Precisely my point. I'm not arguging that change isn't taking place - it is, in a cyclic manner (I also consider global population to be a bigger problem than "manmade climate change" - frankly, I think we're overpopulated for just this one rock anymore.)

What I do argue is our perceived role in the climate change. Considering assorted natural events (Santorini, Mt. St. Helens, Tunguska 1909, Pompeii, the Gulf of Mexico 65mya) - any one of which has had more instantaneous global impact than H. sapiens has been able to have in the entire span of our existence - I think that the Chicken Littles running around need Valium or Thorazine. Whichever - the last thing they need is money or airtime!

As you said, "Man's influence has been but a blip on the screen." I think you're giving us too much credit, but it's a good deal more realistic of an opinion than the Greenies have of us.

Considering that population pressures and competition for resources is what has most often lead to war in human history, I'm wondering when the next major conflict will start - and it's probably going to be bloodier than the rest of the wars in recorded history - combined. Maybe we'll learn from it this time...

 

[tbburg]

..,I'm wondering when the next major conflict will start - and it's probably going to be bloodier than the rest of the wars in recorded history - combined. Maybe we'll learn from it this time...

We learn from every major conflict. The problem is we seem to have some kind of species-wide Alzheimer's and we forget after about 10 years.

 

[5-90]

We learn from every major conflict. The problem is we seem to have some kind of species-wide Alzheimer's and we forget after about 10 years.

Yah. DoD keeps fighting WWII, but Korea showed us the changing face of modern warfighting strategy, Vietnam should have driven the lesson home (and didn't,) and everything else that's happened since - but we still known pretty much squat about fighting an entrenched indigenous enemy.

Someone explain that to me? We don't seem to have any institutional memory in higher-higher (as far as the voting public, amnesia kicks in at about ten minutes after, I think. If the voting public could think past the end of their collective nose, we wouldn't need to agitate for term limits.)

 

[urban yan]

The biggest problem with climate change debates comes down to false balancing. Journalists often put scientific consensus alongside opposing quotes from lobbyists creating an illusion of equivalence; they do this because journalists are short on time and lobbyists are handy for a quote. An unsuspecting reader will see the lobbyist quoted along the scientist and assume they're equally knowledgeable. They won't know details like how -- on the dawn if the Kyoto Protocol in 98 -- the American Petroleum Institute convened a task force at the cost of 5.9million to discredit climate science or how scientists are often targeted and sued via funds from the petroleum industry.

Moreover, science is full of unknowns, lobbyists will exploit small details until they overshadow the bulk share of facts. i.e. Scientists will argue that climate change is real, but perhaps disagree on the extent attributed to human involvement, or the exact increase over a specified period of time. A lobbyist will build a case based on that uncertainty to discredit the entire field. They will make the science look out of touch with reality based on those unknowns. Suddenly you have a population that’s groomed to believe we’re not, in any way, responsible for these events.

Personally, I feel that climate change is a combination of natural and man-made factors, and there’s no crime mitigating our footprint on this planet. There used to be a time when people would open the windows when it got hot opposed to running the AC 24/7, they would walk to the convenience store rather than drive their SUV. We used to farm and manufacture our goods locally opposed to getting them shipped from halfway across the world (I have a jar of Polish Pickles in my pantry that came from India for Christ’s sake). To be honest, I’m less concerned with temperature increases and more concerned with the decrease in common sense.

 

[Beezil]

We used to farm and manufacture our goods locally opposed to getting them shipped from halfway across the world (I have a jar of Polish Pickles in my pantry that came from India for Christ’s sake)

By buying polish-indian pickles, you;ve helped secure the market and demand for polish-indian pickles.

American consumers continue price shop while continuing to demand disproportionate wages.

hence, polish-indian pickles.

 

[Ecomike]

The biggest problem with climate change debates comes down to false balancing. Journalists often put scientific consensus alongside opposing quotes from lobbyists creating an illusion of equivalence; they do this because journalists are short on time and lobbyists are handy for a quote. An unsuspecting reader will see the lobbyist quoted along the scientist and assume they're equally knowledgeable. They won't know details like how -- on the dawn if the Kyoto Protocol in 98 -- the American Petroleum Institute convened a task force at the cost of 5.9million to discredit climate science or how scientists are often targeted and sued via funds from the petroleum industry.

Moreover, science is full of unknowns, lobbyists will exploit small details until they overshadow the bulk share of facts. i.e. Scientists will argue that climate change is real, but perhaps disagree on the extent attributed to human involvement, or the exact increase over a specified period of time. A lobbyist will build a case based on that uncertainty to discredit the entire field. They will make the science look out of touch with reality based on those unknowns. Suddenly you have a population that’s groomed to believe we’re not, in any way, responsible for these events.

Personally, I feel that climate change is a combination of natural and man-made factors, and there’s no crime mitigating our footprint on this planet. There used to be a time when people would open the windows when it got hot opposed to running the AC 24/7, they would walk to the convenience store rather than drive their SUV. We used to farm and manufacture our goods locally opposed to getting them shipped from halfway across the world (I have a jar of Polish Pickles in my pantry that came from India for Christ’s sake). To be honest, I’m less concerned with temperature increases and more concerned with the decrease in common sense.

X2!!!!:clap:

 

[MT Mike]

You'd think some super smart climate expert would be able to spell "hottest". :gee:

 

[Ecomike]

You'd think some super smart climate expert would be able to spell "hottest". :gee:

The smartest ones can't shpel worth shit! LOL

 

[5-90]

The biggest problem with climate change debates comes down to false balancing. Journalists often put scientific consensus alongside opposing quotes from lobbyists creating an illusion of equivalence; they do this because journalists are short on time and lobbyists are handy for a quote. An unsuspecting reader will see the lobbyist quoted along the scientist and assume they're equally knowledgeable. They won't know details like how -- on the dawn if the Kyoto Protocol in 98 -- the American Petroleum Institute convened a task force at the cost of 5.9million to discredit climate science or how scientists are often targeted and sued via funds from the petroleum industry.

Moreover, science is full of unknowns, lobbyists will exploit small details until they overshadow the bulk share of facts. i.e. Scientists will argue that climate change is real, but perhaps disagree on the extent attributed to human involvement, or the exact increase over a specified period of time. A lobbyist will build a case based on that uncertainty to discredit the entire field. They will make the science look out of touch with reality based on those unknowns. Suddenly you have a population that’s groomed to believe we’re not, in any way, responsible for these events.

Personally, I feel that climate change is a combination of natural and man-made factors, and there’s no crime mitigating our footprint on this planet. There used to be a time when people would open the windows when it got hot opposed to running the AC 24/7, they would walk to the convenience store rather than drive their SUV. We used to farm and manufacture our goods locally opposed to getting them shipped from halfway across the world (I have a jar of Polish Pickles in my pantry that came from India for Christ’s sake). To be honest, I’m less concerned with temperature increases and more concerned with the decrease in common sense.

I'm not arguing that we shouldn't make some effort to minimise our footprint overall - not so much because of the environment, but because it should reduce consumption of resources. If the damned City would let me run a small incinerator, we'd have no landfill footprint and my wife's roses would be positively amazing (ashes are great for growing things.)

We already recycle everything we can - if I can get money for it, I take it in. If I can't, the City picks it up. (And yet, it took four years of constant kvetching at the City in order to get a second recycle bin, you'd think they'd have been happy to issue it.)

I've been recycling since before it was cool - and I used to make extra money doing it, as well (remember hooking your old Radio Flyer wagon on your bicycle, collecting newspapers, and taking them to the paper man? Or rounding up soda bottles and cans and taking them in for the deposit? It started out as spare money as a kid, and grew from there.)

And, I do it because I want to do it, not because someone tells me to.

I've said it before - if you want to encourage recycling, stop telling people to do it. If you force something down someone's throat, they'll vomit. It's a known fact.

Instead, you have a one-semester course, about middle school, in "practical survival." The final is a practical test - you get dropped out in the woods for a week or two with just what you can carry in your pockets (say, a three-pound limit.) Survive? You pass. Die? You fail. Need to get picked up? You fail.

The only excuse for not going through the final will be signed by a minimum of two medical doctors, attesting that you are either physiologically or psychologically incapable of dealing with the stress.

Why? Because if people learn how to live as part of the environment, they'll learn to better take care of it. I started camping when I was five or six, I started hunting when I was eight.

Learning to live as part of the environment should cause an uptick in conservationist impulses - an "environmentalist" wants to protect the environment from people, a "conservationist" wants to protect the environment for people.

Big difference, and not at all semantic.

 

[urban yan]

By buying polish-indian pickles, you;ve helped secure the market and demand for polish-indian pickles.

American consumers continue price shop while continuing to demand disproportionate wages.

hence, polish-indian pickles.

That brand was always made locally in Canada; I never thought to check. To this day, I can't get the logistics -- fuel expenditures and profit margins -- out of my head. The sad part's that the store isles are expending with Chinese/East-Indian food products that are better suited for manufacture locally.

 

[kastein]

Wonder how much melamine or GHB is in those polish-indian pickles?

I'm in the "volcanoes and the sun effect more climate change than we ever have" camp. Not opposed at all to recycling etc (I love it, in fact - especially for energy-intensive or limited resource stuff like glass, plastic, and aluminum. Not so sure on paper products, but still recycle or reuse them) but I am not much of a believer in our greenhouse gas impact being larger than that of nature.

Also not against protecting the ozone layer... we had a demonstrable effect on that, and the R12 ban was definitely needed. http://www.theozonehole.com/images/111ozone-20060830-graph-browse.jpg shows it pretty well, and seems fairly credible/non biased as it also shows how a volcanic eruption affected the ozone layer as well.

 

[Ecomike]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3310_sun.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/contrail-effect.html