DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: sirs on November 27, 2006, 11:50:31 AM
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Hurricane Predictions Off Track As Tranquil Season Wafts Away
11/27/06
It was not the hurricane season we expected, thank you.
With cataclysmic predictions that hurricanes would swarm from the tropics like termites, no one thought 2006 would be the most tranquil season in a decade.
Barring a last-second surprise from the tropics, the season will end Thursday with nine named storms, and only five of those hurricanes. This year is the first season since 1997 that only one storm nudged its way into the Gulf of Mexico.
Still, Florida was hit by two tropical storms, Alberto and Ernesto. But after the pummeling of the previous two years, the storms barely registered on the public's radar.
So what happened? Lots.
Storms were starved for fuel after ingesting masses of dry Saharan dust and air over the Atlantic Ocean. Scientists say the storm-snuffing dust was more abundant than usual this year.
In the season's peak, storms were curving right like errant field goals. High pressure that normally hunkers near Bermuda shifted far eastward, and five storms rode the clockwise winds away from Florida.
Finally, a rapidly growing El Nino, a warming of water over the tropical Pacific Ocean, shifted winds high in the atmosphere southward. The winds left developing storms disheveled and unable to become organized.
As they say about the stock market: Past results are no indication of future performance.
This year's uneventful season provides no assurance that next year will be as calm:
•The Atlantic remains in a 20- to 30-year cycle of high hurricane activity that started in 1995. Water temperatures are above normal.
•El Nino probably won't be around to decapitate storms.
•There's no promise that the Saharan dust will be as abundant.
BY THE NUMBERS
9: The number of named storms this year
17: The number of named storms predicted May 31 by a team at Colorado State University led by Professor William Gray
45 mph: The wind speed when Tropical Storm Alberto hit the Florida Panhandle near Adams Beach on June 13, the strongest winds over Florida all season
56 percent: The average homeowner rate increase Citizens Property Insurance Corp. requested even after no hurricanes struck Florida
27 percent: The Citizens rate increase approved to start Jan. 1
$100 million: Estimated damage in the United States from Tropical Storm Ernesto
0: The number of storms that formed in October, the first time since 2002 that no storms formed that month. Also, no Category 4 or 5 storms formed this year for the first time since 1997.
http://www.tbo.com/news/metro/MGBHKNBE0VE.html
(http://media.tbo.com/photos/trib/2006/nov/1126hurr2.jpg)
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Hurricane Predictions Off Track As Tranquil Season Wafts Away
Hmmm. Since the bad seasons were caused by global warming (according to some), does this mean that global warming has gone away?
Or could it be that something else was at play?
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Hmmm. Since the bad seasons were caused by global warming (according to some), does this mean that global warming has gone away?
Or could it be that something else was at play?
The more likely scenario is that this tranquil season is a direct result of Global Warming. I mean that snowstorm that hit NY, when Gore was giving his big Global Warming speech was supposedly due to the Global Warming. If the weather stays consistently good, it's undoubtedly due to Global Warming. If we have another bad Hurricane season or Winter Whitewash, that's proof positive of Global Warming. Anything & everything is now due to Global Warming. What are we to do, Ami??
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You guys are funny.
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So Hurricanes can be suppressed by a little dust in the right part of the atmosphere?
Lets burn some coal.
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Sirs officially outed as a DRUDGE reader.
Tsk, tsk...
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/27/drudge-gore-global-warming/ (http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/27/drudge-gore-global-warming/)
Lots of relevant rebuttal to Drudge's, Sirs' and others' out right willful ignorance at the link. And by the by, I watched An Inconvenient Truth yesterday for the first time. It is a tremendous presentation and full of lots of crazy things called FACTS. And the whole time I was thinking, "This guy could have been the president but instead we got a moron who wouldn't know the first thing about a PowerPoint presentation, let alone FACTS."
Drudge Blows It: Latest Attack On Gore’s Global Warming Stance Falls Flat
This morning, the Drudge Report has an enormous headline implying that Al Gore got it wrong in his movie, An Inconvient Truth, when he said that global warming would create more intense storms:
First, Gore never predicted that there would be more storms in 2006. He said that global warming made it more likely that there would be more intense hurricanes in the future.
Second, the fact that there were fewer hurricanes in 2006 does not suggest that global warming is not real or not dangerous. There are other factors — on a year-to-year basis — that can reduce the number and intensity of hurricanes. The article Drudge links to makes it clear that these factors were in play:
Storms were starved for fuel after ingesting masses of dry Saharan dust and air over the Atlantic Ocean. Scientists say the storm-snuffing dust was more abundant than usual this year.
In the season’s peak, storms were curving right like errant field goals. High pressure that normally hunkers near Bermuda shifted far eastward, and five storms rode the clockwise winds away from Florida.
Finally, a rapidly growing El Nino, a warming of water over the tropical Pacific Ocean, shifted winds high in the atmosphere southward. The winds left developing storms disheveled and unable to become organized.
Notably, none of this suggests that future years will be a repeat of 2006. The Saharan dust, for example, may not be around in significant quantities next year. The Tampa Tribune notes, “This year’s uneventful season provides no assurance that next year will be as calm: The Atlantic remains in a 20- to 30-year cycle of high hurricane activity that started in 1995. Water temperatures are above normal.â€
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Also, next year, when/if we have the mother of all Hurricane Seasons and Bush loses ANOTHER US CITY, I want all of you to be posting something along the lines of...
"Well, since I said that a light hurricane season is indicative of NO global warming, I guess this horrible hurricane season in which we lost the whole southern tip of Florida means that global warming is real. I should have paid attention."
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we got a moron who wouldn't know the first thing about a PowerPoint presentation
PowerPoint is Evil (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.html).
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we got a moron who wouldn't know the first thing about a PowerPoint presentation
PowerPoint is Evil (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.html).
\
Humorous despite its' strawman purposes.
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Also, next year, when/if we have the mother of all Hurricane Seasons and Bush loses ANOTHER US CITY, I want all of you to be posting something along the lines of...
"Well, since I said that a light hurricane season is indicative of NO global warming, I guess this horrible hurricane season in which we lost the whole southern tip of Florida means that global warming is real. I should have paid attention."
Is it a fact that warmer oceans that stay warmer later in the season and further twards the poles could cause increased snowfall?
Is it a fact that increased snowfall increases the amount of Solar heat reflected to space rather than adsorbed?
Is it possible that increased Ocean tempretures can lead to decreased land tempretures?
Is it a fact that the interrelation of weather systems and processes is caotic and complex and hard to predict?
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Also, next year, when/if we have the mother of all Hurricane Seasons and Bush loses ANOTHER US CITY, I want all of you to be posting something along the lines of...
"Well, since I said that a light hurricane season is indicative of NO global warming, I guess this horrible hurricane season in which we lost the whole southern tip of Florida means that global warming is real. I should have paid attention."
you have to be more specific .....If you are speaking of the land of the chocolate mayor.... Bush didn't lose that city, nor did the hurricane 'Katrina', it was the damn fools that just stayed in that bowl with their fingers crossed. That event was predicted decades ago. Let's put the blame where it belongs. Now you could say that it is Bush's fault (looking at the liberal thinking big government is gonna bail my ass out yet agin). Since it is the Federal governments job to run the Federal government so that federal policies and services are unilateral over all states, you may want to blame it on the Governor of Louisiana for not doing her job and making sure the State has its proverbial ducks in a row. You can follow that up with Nagin who clearly just kept on skimming with one hand behind his back, fingers crossed. BUT when all is said and done, for New Orleans, anyway...it is the fault of the people because they encourage the likes of Nagin by re-electing him.
I didn't notice me being any closer to the Keys this year so what southern tip are you talking about. Jeb has done a fine job with the handling of hurricane emergencies.
Regarding the cost of homeowners insurance... you are right... it ain't pretty
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Sirs officially outed as a DRUDGE reader.
A) What the hell is a "Drudge reader"? someone that looks at links collected at a particular sight that has stories and news reports from all over the globe??
B) Gore and the Global Warming nuts were falling all over themselves claiming how last year's Hurricane season was just the tip of the iceberg as it relates to how destructive Global warming was becoming, and just wait for the next season. Here it is, here it was, and there it went.
C) Does it mean Global Warming doesn't exist? no. Does it mean we won't have a bad Hurricane season next year? no. Does it mean if we do have a bad Hurricane season next year it's proof positive of man-induced Global Warming? Hell no
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Gore's 'Truth' splits hurricane scientists
By Tom Carter
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
May 29, 2006
Al Gore's new movie on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," opens with scenes from Hurricane Katrina slamming into New Orleans. The former vice president says unequivocally that because of global warming, it is all but certain that future hurricanes will be more violent and destructive than those in the past.
Inconvenient or not, the nation's top hurricane scientists are divided on whether it's the truth.
With the official start of hurricane season days away, meteorologists are unanimous that the 2006 tropical storm season, which runs from June 1 through November, is likely to be a doozy. The first tropical storm of this season showered light rain yesterday on Acapulco, a Mexican Pacific resort, but forecasters said the weather could worsen. Tropical storm Aletta was stalled 135 miles from Acapulco, with maximum winds of 45 mph, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami, which said the storm could move toward land today.
The 2004 and 2005 Atlantic hurricane seasons broke many records, and as forecasters predict 15 named storms, nine or 10 making it to hurricane strength and four or five of those major, 2006 is shaping up as another bad one.
The top names and brightest minds in hurricane science are divided, writing papers and publishing rebuttals regarding the nature and causes of the current "active period" that began in 1995 and is expected to run at least another 10 to 15 years. They study the same facts, but draw opposite conclusions.
Scientists disagree
In one corner, subscribing to the theory that the Atlantic Basin is in a busy cycle that occurs naturally every 25 to 40 years, are Chris Landsea, science and operations officer at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, and William Gray and Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University, who pioneered much of modern hurricane-prediction theory.
"There has been no change in the number and intensity of Category 4 or Category 5 hurricanes around the world in the last 15 years," Mr. Landsea said, in a telephone interview from Miami.
On the other side are Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the most respected hurricane scientists in the world, a team of meteorologists from Georgia Tech led by Peter Webster, an MIT-educated monsoon specialist, and Greg Holland, who earned his doctorate at Colorado State under Mr. Gray.
"You cannot blame any single storm or even a single season on global warming. ... Gore's statement in the movie is that we can expect more storms like Katrina in a greenhouse-warmed world. I would agree with this," said Judith Curry. She is chairwoman of Georgia Tech's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and is co-author, with Mr. Webster, Mr. Holland and H.R. Chang, of a paper titled "Changes in Tropical Cyclones," in the Sept. 16 issue of Science, a weekly publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The paper concluded that there has been an 80 percent increase in Category 4 and Category 5 hurricanes worldwide.
Balancing the atmosphere
Tropical cyclones, rotating wind systems that include hurricanes, are heat engines -- nature's way of balancing extremes, mechanisms for taking heat from one place and taking it to another, as part of balancing the Earth's atmosphere.
All agree that in the past 30 years, the waters off the West Coast of Africa, where most Atlantic hurricanes are born, have warmed by about 1 degree, to about 81 degrees Fahrenheit, and as much as two-thirds of that increase is attributable to greenhouse gases, or global warming. Where the scientists disagree is what that means for the number and intensity of hurricanes.
Mr. Emanuel of MIT said that, globally, the number and intensity of hurricanes are unchanged over the past 30 years, and that according to Japanese models, global warming could even lead to a modest decline in the number of hurricanes worldwide. However, he said that in the Atlantic Basin, where just 11 percent of all tropical storms occur, there is a "quite nice correlation" between the rise in sea surface temperature (SST) and an increase in the number and intensity of hurricanes.
Mr. Emanuel, author of the book "Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes," said that while the 1-degree rise in ocean temperature has been recorded globally, the correlation between SST and hurricane frequency does not appear in other parts of the world.
Hurricanes double
"Since 1981, the number and intensity of [Atlantic] hurricanes has almost doubled," said Mr. Emanuel, based on his research published in a letter in the Aug. 4 issue of Nature, which surveyed 55 years of hurricane and ocean-temperature data in the Atlantic and Pacific. "In my mind, the jury is not out. The upswing since the 1980s is largely a global-warming signal. But if you polled my colleagues, I think you'd find they are divided on the issue."
The Georgia Tech meteorologists used data collected around the world and arrived at similar conclusions.
"The best available data shows that the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes globally has almost doubled since 1970," said Ms. Curry at Georgia Tech, in an e-mail response to questions. "In the North Atlantic, there has been a comparable increase in intensity, and also a 50 percent increase in the total number of North Atlantic hurricanes. This increase in hurricane activity has been linked to a 1-degree Fahrenheit increase in global tropical sea-surface temperature since 1970. This global temperature increase since 1970 is attributed to global warming."
Asked about Georgia Tech's findings regarding Category 4 and Category 5 hurricanes, Mr. Emanuel said that he had reviewed their data.
"I came up with the same result. I think they are right," Mr. Emanuel said.
Rebuttal published
But Mr. Landsea of the National Hurricane Center vigorously disagreed with Mr. Emanuel in a rebuttal to his paper, published in Nature in December, saying, in effect, that Mr. Emanuel tortured the data until it confessed what he wanted to hear.
Regarding Georgia Tech, Mr. Landsea's argument is that primitive measuring techniques, here and especially in Asia, where most of the major tropical storms occur, made for imperfect data, and inaccurate "data sets" generate incorrect conclusions.
"At the beginning of the [Georgia Tech] study, in 1970, there wasn't even a tool for determining wind speed and how strong a hurricane was. The Dvorak Technique [for measuring wind speed] did not come into being until 1972," he said, adding that it wasn't perfected until 1984. "The incomplete data sets artificially causes the number of Category 4 and Category 5 hurricanes to go up."
Asked about the increase in Atlantic hurricanes, he said: "I think that is real, but the largest component of that is the natural cycle," he said.
According to NOAA hurricane records going back into the mid-1800s, hurricanes come in cycles. There have been quiet periods, with less hurricane activity, followed every 25 to 40 years by active periods, that last about 25 years. The current active period began in 1995 and is expected to last another 10 to 15 years.
Greenhouse gases
Mr. Landsea agreed that the 1-degree rise in ocean temperature is largely a product of greenhouse gases -- that is to say global warming -- but he said it was not a primary factor in determining the size and intensity of recent hurricanes.
"Models show a 2- to 4-degree temperature increase by the end of the 21st century, and hurricanes will get about 4 percent stronger for every 2-degree increase," he said, citing Princeton's Geophysical Fluid Dynamic Laboratory and Tom Knutson for the research in this area.
In other words, the 1-degree water temperature increase off the coast of Africa could fuel a Category 3 hurricane at landfall, like Katrina, with 130-mph winds, to increase by about 2 percent. Two or three miles per hour of Katrina's winds could have been the result of global warming, Mr. Landsea said.
"One or 2 percent stronger? That is a very tiny change today, and even in 100 years from now, it is very small," he said.
Offset in Pacific
At Colorado State University, Phil Klotzbach wrote a rebuttal, published in the Geophysical Research Letter last week, to the Georgia Tech and MIT papers, and concluded that where sea-surface temperature has increased, there is in fact a slight decrease in hurricane activity.
"With regards to the number of Category 4-5 hurricanes, there has been a large increase in North Atlantic storms and a large decrease in Northeast Pacific storms," wrote Mr. Klotzbach in "talking points" for the paper on his Web site. "When these two regions are summed together, there has been virtually no increase in Category 4-5 hurricanes."
Like Mr. Landsea, Mr. Klotzbach attributes the Georgia Tech findings to bad data. Ms. Curry of Georgia Tech says that while there have been inconsistencies in processing the data over time and in different regions, no one has demonstrated that there is actually a major problem with the data itself.
"The key issue is whether you can distinguish a Category 4 from a Category 1 hurricane from satellite [data], the answer is almost always yes," she said.
Clearly, it is a busy period for the number and intensity of academic research papers being published on global warming and hurricanes, but Mr. Landsea said all remains collegial in the meteorological community.
Polite disagreements
"These are my friends and colleagues. The disagreements are civil. This debate is essence of science that is alive. Everyone here is doing science. This debate is confusing for us. I'm sure it is confusing for everyone else," said Mr. Landsea.
Mr. Emanuel said that for all practical purposes, the real problem of hurricanes is not number and intensity, but demographics and the desire of people to live by the sea.
If a hurricane blows itself out over the ocean or hits an unpopulated area, there are few consequences to life or property. However, if a major hurricane hits a populated area, like New Orleans, Miami or the Outer Banks of North Carolina, it can be catastrophic.
"By regulating insurance, by holding insurance rates down, we are subsidizing risky behavior. We are underwriting the drive to [build and populate] the coastline. That is the big hurricane problem in the United States," he said.
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20060529-124851-7254r.htm
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What the hell is a "Drudge reader"?
I thought it funny when he posted that , immediately followed by a link to thinkprogess, which i believe is Soros funded.
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What the hell is a "Drudge reader"?
I thought it funny when he posted that , immediately followed by a link to thinkprogess, which i believe is Soros funded.
:D
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Jeb has done a fine job with the handling of hurricane emergencies.
Regarding the cost of homeowners insurance... you are right... it ain't pretty
[/quote]
Jeb has done a fine job staying in front of the camera. The truth is, people in Florida have less security than Jeb admits to. I75 goes north and south, the turnpike, and 95. When and if there is an evacuation, one leaves quick and finds themselves now completely locked in unmoving traffic grid. Most sane Floridians I know would never evacuate, knowing they could afford better protection for themselves and their familes than being stuck on a raised road of stalled traffic, a sitting duck, and on
the two big exits, 75 and 95, just inland, at crosswind to the gale force.
Some will outrun the storm, but only a small percentage; the rest would congeal in mass, stupid suicide, on any hurricane above a 3.
While not mentioning any of that, Jeb does indeed mention flashlight batteries, duct tape, battery radio, plywood, food and water for three (!) days, and don't forget the pets.
Those most especially appreciative of Jeb are your aforementioned insurance companies and all those real estate people and developers.
In some ways, developers--who pay little to no taxes now--are moving into communities performing grand theft.
In Pasco County, not a week ago, local news covererd the plight of a man who owns a small marina
on the Gulf Coast. His county commissioners assessed his taxes with a new increase this year to the tune of $47,000 extra dollars. Their rationale?
A spokesman for the County Commission told local news that the assessment was one of potential; they calculated the taxes on what the property WOULD be if there were a large, modern condomium there instead of the small marina.
He could sue, but there you are, owning a business one day, told to produce $47,000 in tax increase the next, based on an invisible but flush developer's rah rah predictions. And when they hit you with that meant-to-be-impossible demand, you can go out and spend what you may have left to hire an attorney, who may be a good ole boy too. In fact, you might bet on that, should the paucity of lawsuits against these reapers be a clue.
In all of Florida, there is a strange disconnect with people and their county commissions; while in earlier years, one would expect that a country commissioner would work to protect the residents (and therefore constituents), here we find them suddenly acting with imperial imperviousness, bold in their downshits and, locally anyhow, mighty shy of tv camera. Instead of storming the commission meetings, a large number are sheltered in their mega-churches, carrying on like they-shoot horses don't they, convinced that the Bushes are going to take care of them in the Christian long run.
In Florida, after tourism, your prevailing industries are big sports and casinos, the lion's share of the profit goes to out-of-state pockets, or if you prefer, corporate pockets. Any saavy business guru will tell you that Florida is the worst state to attempt to start a small business. It is a corporate state.
Insurance claims in large numbers from the last four hurricanes are ignored by the lofty Jeb, while persistent rumors of Cubans in the Miami being paid promptly and superflously as way of political payback continue.
And the spin is? It is you saying Jeb is doing a heck of a brownie job, while he meantimes does a list of photo-ops: empty blond newscasters paint him Tom Edison in Stormville.
The real story of the hurricanes is the taxes, the lack of taxes, the Klondike gold in property turnover,
and the unprecidented insurance bonanzas, which are simillar to Halliburton in Iraq.
Jeb, by the way, is the real NEOCON in the family, while his putty brother mimes tough for the oil companies, but without a clue. Jeb, I will grant you, has a clue.
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Also, next year, when/if we have the mother of all Hurricane Seasons and Bush loses ANOTHER US CITY, I want all of you to be posting something along the lines of...
"Well, since I said that a light hurricane season is indicative of NO global warming, I guess this horrible hurricane season in which we lost the whole southern tip of Florida means that global warming is real. I should have paid attention."
you have to be more specific .....If you are speaking of the land of the chocolate mayor.... Bush didn't lose that city, nor did the hurricane 'Katrina', it was the damn fools that just stayed in that bowl with their fingers crossed. That event was predicted decades ago. Let's put the blame where it belongs. Now you could say that it is Bush's fault (looking at the liberal thinking big government is gonna bail my ass out yet agin). Since it is the Federal governments job to run the Federal government so that federal policies and services are unilateral over all states, you may want to blame it on the Governor of Louisiana for not doing her job and making sure the State has its proverbial ducks in a row. You can follow that up with Nagin who clearly just kept on skimming with one hand behind his back, fingers crossed. BUT when all is said and done, for New Orleans, anyway...it is the fault of the people because they encourage the likes of Nagin by re-electing him.
I didn't notice me being any closer to the Keys this year so what southern tip are you talking about. Jeb has done a fine job with the handling of hurricane emergencies.
Regarding the cost of homeowners insurance... you are right... it ain't pretty
Good lord. You run down any involvement in government saving Americans in New Orleans and then praise Jeb for handling hurricane emergencies well. Guess we know where you stand.
Plus you go with "Blame the victim." Good one. The stupid ole poor folk, just too damn stupid to start hoofing it northward. Hell, they had three days warning! Get on the road. Drag grandma out of her bed. Get on the highway and run!
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Sirs officially outed as a DRUDGE reader.
A) What the hell is a "Drudge reader"? someone that looks at links collected at a particular sight that has stories and news reports from all over the globe??
B) Gore and the Global Warming nuts were falling all over themselves claiming how last year's Hurricane season was just the tip of the iceberg as it relates to how destructive Global warming was becoming, and just wait for the next season. Here it is, here it was, and there it went.
C) Does it mean Global Warming doesn't exist? no. Does it mean we won't have a bad Hurricane season next year? no. Does it mean if we do have a bad Hurricane season next year it's proof positive of man-induced Global Warming? Hell no
A) Look in the mirror.
B) *yawn*
C) It does exist and it is real and we are the cause. EVERY valid study has shown this. Every study conducted by someone with a vested financial interest "casts doubt". How stupid are you anyway?
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C) It does exist and it is real and we are the cause. EVERY valid study has shown this. Every study conducted by someone with a vested financial interest "casts doubt". How stupid are you anyway?
What are you doing about it?
Replaced all your lightbulbs with flourescents?
Walk to work?
Ride a bicycle?
Check the insulatation in your house?
Set the thermostat to 60?
It adds up.
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It does exist and it is real and we are the cause. EVERY valid study has shown this. Every study conducted by someone with a vested financial interest "casts doubt". How stupid are you anyway?
Good gravy, Brass is in full meltdown mode. You have a bad day at the office, bug guy? I can almost hear the jumping up and down, and the screaming at the computer "it does exist... it does exist....Elvis is ali...I mean Global Warming does exist and you capitalist nazi scum are the cause"
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C) It does exist and it is real and we are the cause. EVERY valid study has shown this. Every study conducted by someone with a vested financial interest "casts doubt". How stupid are you anyway?
What are you doing about it?
Replaced all your lightbulbs with flourescents?
Walk to work?
Ride a bicycle?
Check the insulatation in your house?
Set the thermostat to 60?
It adds up.
Indeed it does. What have you done? Any of those things?
I just yesterday called a guy to come over and at least tell me how much to redo the insulation. I have zero money to put to that right now but I will.
We have gone around and filled in all the cracks we can to help insulate. I rarely run the heat and try not to run the ac in the summer but since global warming is in full effect, I can't bear it most times.
Michelle has sworn to get those flourescent bulbs but money is tight right now. You know?
We are thinking about trading both the cars in on a hybrid. But that will be after the first of the year. We're doing what we can but this is a capitalist society that doesn't care if the world is going to hell in a handbasket just that the check clears.
So, in the end the answer to most of those is No. But we're working on it.
But at least, I have the balls to admit it.
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Indeed it does. What have you done? Any of those things?
I have replaced all the bulbs, a couple of years ago.
I keep the thermostat at 52. I close off unused rooms.
I walk 10 feet to work as i telecommute or work at home. I have driven less than 3000 miles since january. The average is > 1000 a month. You do the math.
On really cold days i heat with the wood stove. I usually get the firewood for free. I cook in bulk and portion the leftovers for later meals. I dress in layers. I rarely watch tv. I got rid of cable 3 years ago. I replace my refrigerator 6 months ago with one with a much better energy rating. My utility bills have been cut in half since 3 years ago. I took the leaf blower to my dryer vents and cut drying time in half.
And i'm not doing this because of global warming. I'm doing it because i have better places to put my money than in a utilities coffers.
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Tap free heat from the sun with these solar hot-air collectors.http://www.motherearthnews.com/Alternative_Energy/2006-12-01/Buyers-Guide-to-Solar-Heating
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Alternative_Energy/2006-12-01/Build-a-Simple-Solar-Heater
http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC26/TOC26.htm
One of the articles in What Is Enough? (IC#26)
Summer 1990, Page 58
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I applaud your noble efforts to save the planet by saving your own money.
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The trend to build larger houses might be halted or reversed by energy cost.
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I applaud your noble efforts to save the planet by saving your own money.
Thank you. Just so you know, i can name three people who did the same thing with their dryers after they saw or heard of what i did to mine. They have the same savings. It adds up. One person at a time. That is how you affect change. You don't preach and scream and come off holier than thou. No one pays attention to that.
You just persuade by quiet example. Try it.
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I applaud your noble efforts to save the planet by saving your own money.
Thank you. Just so you know, i can name three people who did the same thing with their dryers after they saw or heard of what i did to mine. They have the same savings. It adds up. One person at a time. That is how you affect change. You don't preach and scream and come off holier than thou. No one pays attention to that.
You just persuade by quiet example. Try it.
You know I might try that leaf blower thing on my dryer , though I just bought a brush designed to root out the duct , the blower sounds easyer.
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I had to replace the belt on it and was amazed at how much lint collects all throughout it. I have a short run to the outside so i replaced the flex exhaust with a smooth pvc pipe. Works great.
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It does exist and it is real and we are the cause. EVERY valid study has shown this.
No study has shown that humans are the sole cause of global warming. Please provide at least one that does so.
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No study has shown that humans are the sole cause of global warming. Please provide at least one that does so.
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So what?
Humans are a significant cause of global warming. If humans act to diminish their contributions to global warming, then it will be less intense.
Other causes should be studied, and everything that can be done to decrease this should be done.
Doing nothing because one is not the only cause of the problem is just stupid.
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So what?
Well, that was the claim that was made.
Humans are a significant cause of global warming. If humans act to diminish their contributions to global warming, then it will be less intense.
No study has shown that humans are a "significant cause" of global warming, either. The Vostok ice core samples show that CO2 levels have periodically spiked upwards from before human industry - before human agriculture, even.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/77/Vostok_420ky_4curves_insolation.jpg/800px-Vostok_420ky_4curves_insolation.jpg)
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What a purty graph! I know I am impressed!
So, you believe that humans have nothing to do with global warming?
How about the disappearing of the ozone layer?
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So, you believe that humans have nothing to do with global warming?
When did I say that?
I said that we're not the sole, or even a significant, source of trace greenhouse gases. I never said that we didn't contribute at all. Many volcanos produce, in one large eruption, the amount of greenhouse gases that humans produce over a period of time. There are other natural sources of greenhouse gases as well.
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http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleid=0CD49ECD-E7F2-99DF-3CAAC6A116763415
Since 1978 chemists at the University of California, Irvine, have been collecting air in 40 locations from northern Alaska to southern New Zealand. Using gas chromatography, the scientists have measured the levels of methane--CH4--in the lowest layer of our atmosphere. Although not nearly as abundant as carbon dioxide--CO2--methane remains the second most important greenhouse gas, both because each molecule of CH4 in the atmosphere traps 23 times as much heat as carbon dioxide and it helps create more ozone--yet another greenhouse gas--in the atmosphere. During the two decades of measurements, methane underwent double-digit growth as a constituent of our atmosphere, rising from 1,520 parts per billion by volume (ppbv) in 1978 to 1,767 ppbv in 1998. But the most recent measurements have revealed that methane levels are barely rising anymore--and it is unclear why.
"The trends of major man-made sources such as rice fields and cattle have greatly slowed down over the last two decades," notes physicist Aslam Khalil of Portland State University. "As these--rice and cattle--were once big sources, their lack of continued increase would then cause atmospheric methane to stop increasing as well."
" Nor does it predict whether that trend will continue. "There is no reason to believe that methane levels will remain stable in the future," Simpson says. "For example, in the future methane levels could increase as a result of increased natural gas and energy use, climate change feedbacks and/or ...."
" "Over the long term, CO2 emissions will determine the rate and severity of climate change," says NOAA's Ed Dlugokencky. "Slower growth in CH4 buys us some time to find ways to reduce CO2 emissions." "
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Almost all of the systems that have been looked at are in positive feedback ... and soon those effects will be larger than any of the effects of carbon dioxide emissions from industry and so on around the world," he added.
Scientists say that global warming due to carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels for power and transport could boost average temperatures by up to 6C by the end of the century causing floods, famines and violent storms.
But they also say that tough action now to cut carbon emissions could stop atmospheric concentrations of CO2 hitting 450 parts per million -- equivalent to a temperature rise of 2C from pre-industrial levels -- and save the planet.
Lovelock said temperature rises of up to 8C were already built in and while efforts to curb it were morally commendable, they were wasted.
"It is a bit like if your kidneys fail you can go on dialysis -- and who would refuse dialysis if death is the alternative. We should think of it in that context," he said.
"But remember that all they are doing is buying us time, no more. The problems go on," he added.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=74A338894D9BEDBC6DDF6746BEFE1245
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It would be convenient if we could offset the CO2 emissions with CH4 emissions.
So, if we fly to Europe on a jet, and this causes a huge amount of Co2 e,miossions, we can make up for it by eating beans for 43 0days and farting more than usual.
I don't think this is true, but it should be.
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Global Warming Mug
The animated gif you're looking at now says it all--fill this mug with hot liquid and watch the coastal paradises of the U.S. sink beneath the waves like so much half-baked climate-change contrarianism. No more effective demonstration of the seriousness of sea levels rising has been conceived, nor could it be. Now drink your coffee.
$12
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=F800CBE7-E7F2-99DF-34D20E586BBF26E3&pageNumber=3&catID=4
(http://www.sciam.com/media/inline/F800CBE7-E7F2-99DF-34D20E586BBF26E3_mug.gif)
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It would be convenient if we could offset the CO2 emissions with CH4 emissions.
So, if we fly to Europe on a jet, and this causes a huge amount of Co2 e,miossions, we can make up for it by eating beans for 43 0days and farting more than usual.
I don't think this is true, but it should be.
CH4 is even worse than CO2 but the rise of CH4 has stopped increaseing , we don't know why .
This article goes on to state that lots of Methane will be released if the tundra warms up , produceing a cascade effect warming the earth at an accellerated rate.
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(http://media.salemwebnetwork.com/TownHall/Car/b/gm061129.jpg)
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Crane,
sorry this has taken so long. I notice that there was no comment on the hole in the ground and moral fiber of New Orleans... so I will take that as an agreement.
I also appreciate your words regarding Florida and Jeb Bush. To this I would like to add...
You are right he has taken lots of photo opps - but most of them are on site in the thick of it and I do appreciate that.
You are also correct about the evacuation fiasco... most people that die in Florida hurricanes are for health reasons and traffic accidents.
One thing you didn't mention that I believe bears note is the fact that new construction has much more stringent rules as to elevation and wind tolerance. Anything built after August 2002 is more likely to suffer a Cat 3 with merely a shingle or two loss. I have also seen elevation requirements go up considerable since June 2006.
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[/quote]
Good lord. You run down any involvement in government saving Americans in New Orleans and then praise Jeb for handling hurricane emergencies well. Guess we know where you stand.
Plus you go with "Blame the victim." Good one. The stupid ole poor folk, just too damn stupid to start hoofing it northward. Hell, they had three days warning! Get on the road. Drag grandma out of her bed. Get on the highway and run!
[/quote]
HAHA... are you happy now? You got to judge me... yippee.
You are too willing to give people a pass, Brass... you would fast end up in trouble if you had a government to run.
Scientists Prove It: Nobody Likes a Freeloader
By Ker Than
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 06 April 2006
02:01 pm ET
Nobody likes a freeloader. Social parasites live off the work of others, and a society infested with too many of them falls apart.
Given the chance, most people will punish moochers with "freeloader fines," even if it means taking a financial hit themselves, a new study finds.
Researchers at the University of Erfurt in Germany recruited 84 students to play a game in which they were given the choice of joining a group that punished freeloaders or one that didn’t.
The students were given 20 units of fake money, which they could trade in for real cash after the experiment. Players could hoard their money or contribute to a group pot. At the end of the game, the pot was increased by about two thirds and then divided equally among all the players, regardless of their contributions.
After contributions were made, the amount that each player donated was made known to other team members. In the group that allowed punishment, players could fine freeloaders three units, but it meant being docked one unit themselves.
The game was repeated thirty times. After each round, players had the option of remaining in their current group or switching to the other one.
Going into the first round, nearly two thirds of the students chose the punishment-free group. After the 30th round, however, the group that punished freeloaders was by far more popular; only a few stragglers were left in the punishment-free group.
The finding supports the idea that institutions able to police themselves foster cooperation between their members and out-compete institutions that let freeloaders go unpunished, the scientists say.
The study, led by Ozgur Gurerk, is detailed in the April 7th issue of the journal Science.
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060406_punish_moochers.html
It is people like you that make it okay to do nothing.
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http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060406_punish_moochers.html
I love this , could this exercise be a required class in colledge?
Would it be civics?
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http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060406_punish_moochers.html
I love this , could this exercise be a required class in colledge?
Would it be civics?
It should be... more a division (off shoot) of poli sci.
There was an interesting article on the 'Golden Rule' that was pretty interesting and would explain the lack of said rule in large cities. If 'reap what you sow' has meaning, one can only presume that the problems with crime and apathy in large cities is the lack of being held accountable to your peers.
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Don't Believe the Hype
Al Gore is wrong. There's no "consensus" on global warming.
BY RICHARD S. LINDZEN
Sunday, July 2, 2006
According to Al Gore's new film "An Inconvenient Truth," we're in for "a planetary emergency": melting ice sheets, huge increases in sea levels, more and stronger hurricanes, and invasions of tropical disease, among other cataclysms--unless we change the way we live now.
Bill Clinton has become the latest evangelist for Mr. Gore's gospel, proclaiming that current weather events show that he and Mr. Gore were right about global warming, and we are all suffering the consequences of President Bush's obtuseness on the matter. And why not? Mr. Gore assures us that "the debate in the scientific community is over."
That statement, which Mr. Gore made in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC, ought to have been followed by an asterisk. What exactly is this debate that Mr. Gore is referring to? Is there really a scientific community that is debating all these issues and then somehow agreeing in unison? Far from such a thing being over, it has never been clear to me what this "debate" actually is in the first place.
The media rarely help, of course. When Newsweek featured global warming in a 1988 issue, it was claimed that all scientists agreed. Periodically thereafter it was revealed that although there had been lingering doubts beforehand, now all scientists did indeed agree. Even Mr. Gore qualified his statement on ABC only a few minutes after he made it, clarifying things in an important way. When Mr. Stephanopoulos confronted Mr. Gore with the fact that the best estimates of rising sea levels are far less dire than he suggests in his movie, Mr. Gore defended his claims by noting that scientists "don't have any models that give them a high level of confidence" one way or the other and went on to claim--in his defense--that scientists "don't know. . . . They just don't know."
So, presumably, those scientists do not belong to the "consensus." Yet their research is forced, whether the evidence supports it or not, into Mr. Gore's preferred global-warming template--namely, shrill alarmism. To believe it requires that one ignore the truly inconvenient facts. To take the issue of rising sea levels, these include: that the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940; that icebergs have been known since time immemorial; that the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average. A likely result of all this is increased pressure pushing ice off the coastal perimeter of that country, which is depicted so ominously in Mr. Gore's movie. In the absence of factual context, these images are perhaps dire or alarming.
They are less so otherwise. Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why.
The other elements of the global-warming scare scenario are predicated on similar oversights. Malaria, claimed as a byproduct of warming, was once common in Michigan and Siberia and remains common in Siberia--mosquitoes don't require tropical warmth. Hurricanes, too, vary on multidecadal time scales; sea-surface temperature is likely to be an important factor. This temperature, itself, varies on multidecadal time scales. However, questions concerning the origin of the relevant sea-surface temperatures and the nature of trends in hurricane intensity are being hotly argued within the profession.
Even among those arguing, there is general agreement that we can't attribute any particular hurricane to global warming. To be sure, there is one exception, Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who argues that it must be global warming because he can't think of anything else. While arguments like these, based on lassitude, are becoming rather common in climate assessments, such claims, given the primitive state of weather and climate science, are hardly compelling.
A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing even without any external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse. Regardless, these items are clearly not issues over which debate is ended--at least not in terms of the actual science.
A clearer claim as to what debate has ended is provided by the environmental journalist Gregg Easterbrook. He concludes that the scientific community now agrees that significant warming is occurring, and that there is clear evidence of human influences on the climate system. This is still a most peculiar claim. At some level, it has never been widely contested. Most of the climate community has agreed since 1988 that global mean temperatures have increased on the order of one degree Fahrenheit over the past century, having risen significantly from about 1919 to 1940, decreased between 1940 and the early '70s, increased again until the '90s, and remaining essentially flat since 1998.
There is also little disagreement that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have risen from about 280 parts per million by volume in the 19th century to about 387 ppmv today. Finally, there has been no question whatever that carbon dioxide is an infrared absorber (i.e., a greenhouse gas--albeit a minor one), and its increase should theoretically contribute to warming. Indeed, if all else were kept equal, the increase in carbon dioxide should have led to somewhat more warming than has been observed, assuming that the small observed increase was in fact due to increasing carbon dioxide rather than a natural fluctuation in the climate system. Although no cause for alarm rests on this issue, there has been an intense effort to claim that the theoretically expected contribution from additional carbon dioxide has actually been detected.
Given that we do not understand the natural internal variability of climate change, this task is currently impossible. Nevertheless there has been a persistent effort to suggest otherwise, and with surprising impact. Thus, although the conflicted state of the affair was accurately presented in the 1996 text of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the infamous "summary for policy makers" reported ambiguously that "The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." This sufficed as the smoking gun for Kyoto.
The next IPCC report again described the problems surrounding what has become known as the attribution issue: that is, to explain what mechanisms are responsible for observed changes in climate. Some deployed the lassitude argument--e.g., we can't think of an alternative--to support human attribution. But the "summary for policy makers" claimed in a manner largely unrelated to the actual text of the report that "In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations."
In a similar vein, the National Academy of Sciences issued a brief (15-page) report responding to questions from the White House. It again enumerated the difficulties with attribution, but again the report was preceded by a front end that ambiguously claimed that "The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability." This was sufficient for CNN's Michelle Mitchell to presciently declare that the report represented a "unanimous decision that global warming is real, is getting worse and is due to man. There is no wiggle room." Well, no.
More recently, a study in the journal Science by the social scientist Nancy Oreskes claimed that a search of the ISI Web of Knowledge Database for the years 1993 to 2003 under the key words "global climate change" produced 928 articles, all of whose abstracts supported what she referred to as the consensus view. A British social scientist, Benny Peiser, checked her procedure and found that only 913 of the 928 articles had abstracts at all, and that only 13 of the remaining 913 explicitly endorsed the so-called consensus view. Several actually opposed it.
Even more recently, the Climate Change Science Program, the Bush administration's coordinating agency for global-warming research, declared it had found "clear evidence of human influences on the climate system." This, for Mr. Easterbrook, meant: "Case closed." What exactly was this evidence? The models imply that greenhouse warming should impact atmospheric temperatures more than surface temperatures, and yet satellite data showed no warming in the atmosphere since 1979. The report showed that selective corrections to the atmospheric data could lead to some warming, thus reducing the conflict between observations and models descriptions of what greenhouse warming should look like. That, to me, means the case is still very much open.
So what, then, is one to make of this alleged debate? I would suggest at least three points.
First, nonscientists generally do not want to bother with understanding the science. Claims of consensus relieve policy types, environmental advocates and politicians of any need to do so. Such claims also serve to intimidate the public and even scientists--especially those outside the area of climate dynamics.
Secondly, given that the question of human attribution largely cannot be resolved, its use in promoting visions of disaster constitutes nothing so much as a bait-and-switch scam. That is an inauspicious beginning to what Mr. Gore claims is not a political issue but a "moral" crusade.
Lastly, there is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition. An earlier attempt at this was accompanied by tragedy. Perhaps Marx was right. This time around we may have farce--if we're lucky.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008597
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(http://www.cnsnews.com/cartoon/nowakimages/2006/Global-Hype.jpg)
(http://www.cagle.com/working/061130/ramirez.jpg)
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(http://catmydog.comicgenesis.com/comics/20061123.jpg)
http://catmydog.comicgenesis.com/d/20061123.html