Over the next week or two, we are planning on running several articles talking about what the new administration should be doing. If one tries to think like a politician interested in getting elected, it seems like there is relatively little one can do. Borrowing more to "stimulate" the economy seems to be the big one, even though excessive debt to stimulate the economy (and no real growth to pay back the interest) is how we got into this mess.

Gail;
I greatly appreciate the work you and others do here on TOD, and found the presentations/talks by Morey, Jeff and Tom worthwhile. As for Mr Backer, I am afraid I share Steve From Virginia's cynicsm regarding the political process. It does't matter whether it's coming from the Democrats or Republicans; neither side wants to deal with the reality of a planet with finite resources. Both parties are never going to deal with the issues of energy production or climate change; the solutions to both of these problems is a threat to the status quo (conservation, change of lifestyle for our fellow citizens, having to do with less) and flies in the face of what they have to do and support to get elected. As much as I am loathe to quote the man, Dick Cheney was right; the American way of life is non-negotiable, and our political class will do everything possible to keep the party going...until it can't.

Dred

Borrowing to pay for imported products (RE: oil), certainly was not a sound economic plan. Either was the left wing policiy of not allowing new oil production inside the US.

CO2 caused global warming is a complete hoax. If the new Administration and Congress implement the same insane policies as the EU, it will be more bad news for the economy.

I for one would like to see the ASPO and other peak oil activists drop the whole CO2 global warming argument. In fact, we may be entering a major cooling period due to solar activity (or inactivity). Which should make the depletion of fossil fuel resources all the more of a concern.

So which part of GW is a hoax:

The fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas (established by Arrhenius over one hundred years ago)?

Or the fact that we have emitted hundreds of billions of tons of CO2 since the beginning of the industrial revolution in the 1800's?

Or the fact that during that time atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have risen by over thirty percent, from around 280 ppm to around 380ppm?

Or the fact that CO2 concentrations had never risen above 300 ppm for the last ten thousand years, and levels have not been as high as they currently are for at least the last million years?

Or the fact that every single established scientific group in the world that has weighed in on the matter has concluded that anthropogenic global warming is real and a threat?

Which of these facts do you find to be a hoax? Please inform us and supply evidence.

If none of these is a hoax (in fact if just the first two are true, as they indisputably are), then AGW is not a hoax.

I for one would like to see the ASPO and other peal oil activists drop the whole GW denialist argument. Anyone who can't understand figures and science this basic (or who chooses to ignore it or misrepresent it) has no business posting on serious forums such as this.

And of course there is no cooling as has been pointed out repeatedly here, though it does still snow sometimes in Sweden and in the Himalayas in winter, which according to some here is proof positive that GW is a hoax.

How about the FACT that temperatures have been steadily cooling over the last 10 years. Even though man made CO2 has risen to an all time high. That should be enough for anyone with a brain.

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/

Houston, we have a troll.

(I honestly don't know why I bother.)

Sigh,

Hello Conservationist,

The UK link is for the **full* northern hemisphere. Your NOAA link is just for the lower 48 states. It is very possible due to major circulations such as El Nino for one section of the northern hemisphere to be warmer than the rest of the hemisphere.

The Jet Stream can ride along the northern US border blocking cold air intrusion into the US while making Canada colder than normal. That fact does not show up in the NOAA statistics.

You have to compare apples to apples. Global Climate change is about the whole world.

Yes you correct, that link was just for the US. Another interesting fact is that 1934 was the warmest year on record for the US, not 2005. So here we are in 2008 with cooler temperatures than 1934 - even with all the CO2 that has been generated since then.

Globally, at least 4 sets of data show a cooling trend over the last 10 years. Links to the data are on this site:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-say-globall...

I for one, do not see how CO2 could be responsible for the Earth's warming. Considering so much CO2 has been added over the last 10 years, yet temperatures have been trending downward.

So you refuse to address any, even one teenee weenee one, of my points. That means you concede them and accept that there is AGW and it is very serious. Well, I'm glad we're in agreement on that.

If you think that short term data on one part of the globe prove anything definitive about global data, you are beyond hope and help.

And of course you are cherry picking the one outlier year, 1998, to try to make some other inane point.

I'm done feeding this troll.

Grow a brain. Grow a conscience. Introduce them to each other. Then get back to me.

Sure you want everyone to be in agreement with your AGW nonsense. That's the propagandist's dream. Get everyone to "believe". Better wake up and smell the coffee. Kyoto is proving to be a disaster, you've lost the left wing media, AND TEMPERATURES KEEP GETTING COLDER!

Must be hard to attract new "believers" these days.

{chuckle}

No offense dohboi, but you were warned.

A valiant effort nonetheless.

Cheers,

Bob

Indeed I was. No more troll feeding from me.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha,

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha,

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha,

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Conservationist, I'm not laughing with you, I'm laughing AT you.

... Watch docu The Great Global Warming Swindle.... it's on the web

Hello Again,

I took a look at the site you referenced. If I understand their argument, what they are saying is that we have to adjust downward the current station temps because urban sprawl is raising the average temps. But isn't that part of global warming? WE create more and larger heat islands and therefore we affect the global temperature. Is that not so?

Next comes the effect of anthroprogenic, terragenic, and celestial sources on the temps. Is it large? small per source? Does the variability of the sun and its cycles play a part? Does volcanic activity play a part? Does the circulation of the earth in its orbit play a part? What are the sources? What are the sinks? how do they interact? What are the other greenhouse gases and where are they stored (methane, water vapor, etc.)?

My ultimate temperature guage is the arctic ice cap. Is it shrinking or is it expanding or is it staying about the same? That is the critical question.

We all should be asking more questions and **working** to try to find better answers than throwing garbage comments at one another.

The "urban heat island effect" was adjusted for long, long ago, but denialists just keep on reviving old issues long since resolved, hoping that someone in the audience won't know that it is just a canard.

The folks at realclimate have nicely summarized most of these pseudo-arguments and addressed each one.

Photobucket

LOL!

Good one magyar.

Hey, Super G, can we get a button to single click post this as required? ;-)

Cheers

I totally disagree with Conservationist -- but I also think that it is improper to be overly disparaging of his point of view. It's shared by others.

But this is not the place to argue it much, either for or against. There are oodles of sites that make the arguments, and the vast majority of the scientists studying the issue have confirmed the reality of GW. The best thing is go up against THEM, not against energy people. Once you've convinced even a significant minority of them, then you might be able to convince readers here to take a second look. But you've got a big uphill battle. Even some of the biggest corporate opponents of the GW idea have started caving on the issue.

Also, how does opposition to drilling here put one in the "left wing"? Actually, never mind.

Dave,

I see your point and it's well taken.

I am more than willing to debate views but simple gainsaying of a position, or offering "proof" that is no proof at all, tells me that there is little interest in rational discussion. All in all, it gets a little tiring, which was why I was not willing to spend the time explaining the errors in Conservationist's logic. If he had shown a sincere desire to learn, I'm sure I, and many others would have offered tons of input.

Consider it my effort in energy conservation. :-)

Bob

Perhaps it's you that needs to learn.

CO2 only comprises .037% of the Earth's atmosphere.

Ice cores prove that CO2 increases lag temperature increases.
(Therefore CO2 is NOT the cause of warming)

Mann's hockey stick graph has been completey discredited.

The medieval warm period was warmer than the last century.

Increased solar activity caused the warming in the last century.

Decreased solar activity has caused the cooling over the last 10 years.

Arctic ice that melted last summer has now returned to 1979 levels. Antarctic ice has increased dramatically.

Record low temperatures are now being recorded around the world.

10 years of cooling is probably not enough for the hard core "believers" but don't worry, it's going to get a lot colder.

Ok, contrary to my own instincts I'll try to follow Aniya's lead down thread:

Emotional honesty, together with compassion, might be more pragmatic than what is considered pragmatic.

Dear Conservationist,Please read: Rebuttal to your points

nr.16 doesn't address the issue at all
If you go to page 675 of http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter9.pdf you see that IPCC computer models predict a relatively greater warming some 10 km above the tropics caused by greenhouse gasses. This has simply not been observed at all, not by weather balloons (http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadat/hadat2/hadat2_monthly_tropical.txt, 200hPa and 300hPa should, according to IPCC models, show more warming than 850hPa), nor by satellite measurements: http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html, these data are managed by the very authors of the paper cited by the site you give, in fact this paper is given on this site too, and it actually says lower troposperic temperatures had been given values that were too low (which isn't about the issue of the predicted greater warming 10 km above the tropics at all); so what you should see on this site, if IPCC models are correct, is a greater warming in channel TTS (figure 5) than in channel TLT (figure 3) around the equator.

Please do not believe me.
Look at the data and conclude for yourselves.

Exactly, just look at the data.

There is absolutely no data that links CO2 to global warming. Whereas warming and cooling directly correlate to solar activity and Milankovitch cycles.

AGW proponents have made the mistake of just looking at irradiance. Whereas solar effects on lower cloud formation, albedo, and water vapor were completely overlooked.

Writing their own data to support their theories is another trademark of AGW proponents. Mann's hockey stick graph was actually "peer reviewed" by his own associates. The Wegman report completely discredited his methods.

CO2 caused global warming is a complete hoax.

Yeah, just like that so-called continental drift. There ain't no way a bunch of eggheads are gonna convince the likes o' me with their fancy-schmancy science that land moves around. I mean, what kind of moh-rahn do they think I am? My land is exactly where it was when my grand daddy homesteaded it -- right here. Jeez luh-WEEZ!

If one tries to think like a politician interested in getting elected, it seems like there is relatively little one can do.

Gail, you've hit the nail right on the head. The people in charge have to start thinking like statesmen rather than politicians.

We aren't desperate enough for statesmen and statesmanship may be a lost art, anyway ... like plastering.