Hey Old Fart... Merry Christmas to you and the gang. Happy New Year too! One of my resolutions will be to cool it() a little for the new year in this forum.
Wow, a decade since Y2K, it seems more like a blink than ten years. 1/100th of the great, new millennium...gone.
I suppose the "libs" will be here countering, badgering, blathering etc. Our opposite views give each other such prime material for the show! I do wish your views would change a little but not your fight or energy.
Research the authors and sponsor's of it, as well.
It's actually quite good science, a bit odd-ball, and largely inaccurate, but it looks pretty, and the Deniers lap it up, and Henrik Svensmark, Nir Shaviv and the others who contributed to it are fairly respected scientists.
Lars Oxfeldt Mortensen is a happy corporate propagandist. It seems he's found a niche market for exposing Denier theories, no matter how outlandish they are.
Interesting reading.
Sun sets on sceptics' case against climate change
Critics who say global warming is not man-made are using the summit in Copenhagen to make their case. Steve Connor explains why the science is flawed
Monday, 14 December 2009
Climate sceptics who dispute the link between global warming and carbon dioxide emissions frequently argue that the increase in world temperatures over the past half century is part of a natural cycle. They cite previous periods in history when the climate has swayed into extremes, such as the "medieval warm period" when vines grew in northern England and the Vikings settled in Greenland. Or they quote the Little Ice Age, which happened somewhere between the 14th and 18th centuries, when the Thames froze over and the Bruegels painted their snowy winter landscapes. History shows that climate is a variable feast, they argue, and what we are getting now is just another side dish.
The heart of this view is the belief that natural variations in the Sun's activity are responsible for the warming of the past few decades. No one would dispute that the Sun is the main driver of climate – without it we would not have any climate. But what the sceptics are arguing is more subtle and complex.
They cite the work of two Danish scientists – Professor Eigil Friis-Christensen, director of the Danish National Space Centre, and Henrik Svensmark, who works in the same institute. Together, they have provided the rationale for believing that global warming has got more to do with natural variations in the cycle of sunspots on the solar surface than man-made emissions of CO2.
The theory is not that the intensity of the Sun has simply increased. Scientists are confident from 31 years of accurate, direct measurements of total solar radiation by satellites that there has been no overall increase in the amount of sunlight coming to Earth. Total solar irradiance, as it is called, has stayed remarkably constant and so cannot be held responsible for the warming of the past half century.
No, the theory of Friis-Christensen and Svensmark revolves around a far more subtle argument connected to the well-established 11-year cycle of sunspots that appear on the surface of the Sun. Sunspots are dark pools of magnetic activity that well up to the solar surface in periodic peaks of 11 years or so. When there are a lot of sunspots, the Sun is said to be more active.
In fact 11 years is only the average length of the activity cycle, which can vary between seven and 17 years. Shorter cycles of 10 years or less are associated with a more magnetically active Sun, when the solar wind of charged particles streams out towards the Earth with greater-than-normal intensity.
When sunspots are most active there is also a slight increase in solar intensity of 0.1 per cent. But this is hardly enough to account for the increase in global warming over the past half century, and this cyclical variation is not what Friis-Christensen and Svensmark are proposing as the cause of global warming.
The two Danes believe instead that there is a complex relationship between the length of the solar cycle and the amount of low-level cloud that forms in the Earth's atmosphere. Because shorter cycles are associated with a more magnetically active Sun, this affects the cloud cover and hence the climate on Earth.
The crux of their argument relies on several unproven suppositions. The main one is that clouds are more likely to form when solar activity is at its lowest and fewer magnetic pulses reach Earth. A second is that there will be enough of these clouds to reflect sunlight and lower global temperatures significantly, perhaps accounting for that famous Little Ice Age.
They also argue the opposite effect, involving yet more suppositions. When solar activity is at its height, the magnetic field and solar wind coming from the Sun is at its strongest – few scientists dispute this. However, they argue, this protects the Earth from the cosmic rays that emanate continually from deep space as a by-product of exploding stars.
Most controversially of all, they argue that cosmic rays are also responsible for creating charged particles in the air that become the seeds around which water condenses and clouds form. The effect of higher solar activity, so they claim, is to make the world less cloudy, and so warmer, by shielding the Earth from cosmic rays. It is an elaborate idea and its sophistication is often lost on the many lay apologists of climate scepticism, including some who write for this newspaper. For them, it is just easier to cast doubt on the entire science of climate change, arguing that scientists disagree on the causes of global warming because some of them at least have evidence that it is a natural phenomenon connected with variations in sunspots.
But there is one lay observer who understands the theory better than most. His name is Nigel Calder, a veteran science writer who was editor of New Scientist in the early 1960s and is now a vocal climate sceptic. Calder has also co-authored a book with Svensmark outlining why solar activity and not man-made CO2 is behind global warming. "Disdain for the Sun goes with a failure by the self-appointed greenhouse experts to keep up with inconvenient discoveries about how the solar variations control the climate," Calder wrote in 2007 when his book was published.
"[Svensmark] saw from compilations of weather satellite data that cloudiness varies according to how many atomic particles are coming in from exploding stars. More cosmic rays, more clouds. The Sun's magnetic field bats away many of the cosmic rays, and its intensification during the 20th century meant fewer cosmic rays, fewer clouds and a warmer world," he wrote.
So influential was Calder in promoting the solar activity theory of global warming that he was asked to give a seminar on the idea in the late 1990s at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) in Geneva. Later, in 2000, he was acknowledged on the proposal document for a €1.5m experiment at Cern to test the idea that cosmic rays can generate the formation of clouds.
This proposal was co-authored by almost 60 leading scientists from some of the most prestigious laboratories across Europe. It cited from the outset the work of Friis-Christensen and Svensmark as the inspiration for the Cloud experiment, because of the apparent correlation they had found between global warming, solar activity, cosmic rays and cloud formation.
"If the link between cosmic rays and clouds is confirmed it implies global cloud cover has decreased during the last century. Simple estimates indicate that the consequent warming could be comparable to that presently attributed to greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels," the Cern proposal states.
Most importantly, the Cern document reproduced two key graphs from previous scientific papers of Friis-Christensen and Svensmark. One showed an almost perfect correlation between global temperatures from 1860 to 1986 with the length of the sunspot cycle, taken from a Friis-Christensen study published in the journal Science in 1991. The other showed an equally dramatic correlation between cloud cover, solar activity and cosmic rays, taken from a joint Svensmark-Friis-Christensen study published in 1998. "These observations suggest that solar variability may be linked to climate variability by a chain that involves the solar wind, cosmic rays and clouds. The weak link is the connection between cosmic rays and clouds," stated the Cloud proposal, which planned to test that weak link experimentally.
However, many scientists who have studied the work of Friis-Christensen and Svensmark point to a far more serious weak link. They argue that the two key graphs reproduced in the Cern proposal are based on flawed data. There is no correlation between global warming and solar activity, and no correlation between cloud cover and cosmic rays, the critics say.
The flaws were first identified by Peter Laut, a Danish scientist who was once science adviser to the Danish Energy Agency. Laut, now retired, demonstrated in a study first aired in 2000 and published in a peer-reviewed journal in 2003 that both graphs contained serious errors. When these flaws were corrected, the apparent correlations between global warming and solar activity, and cosmic rays and cloud cover, disappeared.
"Henrik Svensmark has never published a defence against my accusations in any scientific journal. Eigil Friis-Christensen has only once tried to refute my accusations," Laut said. "But, as I show in great detail in my 2003 article, his revised values are created artificially by introducing arithmetic errors. If you correct these, any support of global warming disappears.
"In spite of the non-existence of any proper defence, they both state publicly that they have rebutted my accusations many times. The proponents of solar influence upon global climate should be asked why they still cling to results that have been proven to be manipulated?" Friis-Christensen and Svensmark deny that their data contain flaws, or have been manipulated, and both have questioned Laut's scientific credentials. "One may wonder about the reason for Peter Laut's strong and unusually insulting wording in a scientific paper. However, it fits well with his methodology consisting of first writing false accusations, then totally neglecting the refutations, and finally referencing his very own claims as corroboration when publishing new accusations," Friis-Christensen said. Asked why he has not replied to Laut's criticism, Svensmark replied: "I thought the comments so absurd, I didn't spend the time on doing that. Peter Laut is not a scientist. Of course he could have a point, but his only work in science is to make a critique of my papers and the papers of Eigil Friis-Christensen." But other scientists working in the field have told The Independent that Laut's critique is correct and that the original papers published in 1991 and 1998 are seriously flawed. Six leading experts, including one Nobel laureate, agreed with Laut's analysis that the graphs of Friis-Christensen and Svensmark showing apparent correlations between global warming, sunspots and cosmic rays are deeply flawed. Friis-Christensen now accepts that any correlation between sunspots and global warming that he may have identified in the 1991 study has since broken down. There is, he said, a clear "divergence" between the sunspots and global temperatures after 1986, which shows that the present warming period cannot be explained by solar activity alone.
Professor Jon Egill Kristjansson, a leading geoscientist at the University of Oslo, said that the divergence between global warming and solar cycles in the late 20th century "is now undisputed". He also points out that if Svensmark is right, there should have been a decrease in cosmic rays, but in fact over the past 50 years they have, if anything, slightly increased – despite statements to the contrary in the Cern proposal of 2000. "Following Svensmark's mechanism, it seems that any cosmic ray explanation of current global warming can be ruled out," Egill Kristjansson said. Although the Cloud experiment has only just begun and results are not expected for several years, Svensmark continues to promote the idea that cosmic rays play a significant role in cloud formation. However, other studies into cosmic rays, by both Egill Kristjansson and a separate team of Finnish scientists, have failed to find a link. Egill Kristjansson said that there is still uncertainty about the "intriguing question" of cosmic rays but that does not mean everything else we know about global warming has to be thrown aside. "We should acknowledge that there is no doubt that the rapid 40 per cent increase in CO2 over pre-industrial levels that we have already experienced, and an expected continued increase, will inevitably lead to significant global warming, with possibly very dramatic consequences for life on Earth," he said.
So there is no need to invoke a complicated explanation for global warming involving disputed data on sunspots, cosmic rays and clouds, as some sceptics continue to do. The answer lies not in elaborate suppositions, but in the science and the data we can trust."
You could start your cool by coming to North Texas. Bring your snow shovel.
First white xmas in 80 years !
I could use some AGW right about now.
Patience, Nero.
2010 is predicted to be a hot one, and that cold water I've mentioned as coming down from the melting Pole may just give you some rain, so fix up that roof as soon as you can.
Dry Gulch may end up being not so dry.
Good time to build a gray water stockage system. You could maybe sell the water to the Great Plains Speedzilla'ites ?
Wet weather tires may be needed, too, if you're planning on track days.
Sorta like the "we're going to have a bad hurricane season" predictions each year? Until they get one right then they act like they knew it all along...
Merry Christmas from Maggie Valley, where they had an early Winter present this past week....10" of snow...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Le Kiwi
Patience, Nero.
2010 is predicted to be a hot one, and that cold water I've mentioned as coming down from the melting Pole may just give you some rain, so fix up that roof as soon as you can.
Dry Gulch may end up being not so dry.
Good time to build a gray water stockage system. You could maybe sell the water to the Great Plains Speedzilla'ites ?
Wet weather tires may be needed, too, if you're planning on track days.
However, it fits well with his methodology consisting of first writing false accusations, then totally neglecting the refutations, and finally referencing his very own (false)claims as corroboration when publishing new accusations," Friis-Christensen said.
This isnt science to follow, this is a flaw in a ding-a-ling's 'so called' scientific processes. This is what we must stop along with carbon emissions. This is how the entire GOP of today has been built, it is what it stands upon. This is why the GOP has to be renewed with credible conservatism and apologies.
Quote:
Happy Holidays to everyone else who understands what the Winter Solstice is, and knows that Santa and the rest is just myth.
So I woke up a little bored this a.m. while the kids are playing with their new toys.
I was surfing the usual forums and started to dig into this early pages of this thread, and was reminded how silly ppl can get when they're so absorbed into their party's agenda.
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Originally Posted by cutter
And I would love to hear about these mystical tax hikes that will destroy America, please share the links that show how one came up with those facts.
So cutter if you still poke your head in here from time to time, do you STILL think this subject has nothing to so with $$$$$$$$$$, which will lead to increased taxes and/or costs somehow?
Quote:
COPENHAGEN — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced that the United States is prepared to join other rich countries in raising $100 billion in yearly climate financing for poor countries by 2020.
Thats a shared cost proposal... and it's 10 time less than Iraq..
You wern't complaining when the neocons invaded Iraq. Now that a nation busting endeavor was proved to be a lie, a waste and wrong, are we supposed to accept advice and direction from the neocons about how to mitigate and defend ourselves against global warming?... I think not. One must put theses neocone failures where they belong... on the very long list of failures and with the constitution assaulter's collection of self inflicted harm and waste. The failures must also be put into perspective.. the right wing has flopped.. has cost America boatloads of cash, status and equity...it has failed and continues to talk shit.... really, I kid you not.
Do the math.. COSTOFWAR.COM - The Cost of War
Not about the money huh?
In evaluating the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen -- with more than 15,000 participants from 192 countries, including more than 100 heads of state, as well as 100,000 demonstrators in the streets -- it is important to ask: How is it possible that the worst polluter of carbon dioxide and other toxic emissions on the planet is not a focus of any conference discussion or proposed restrictions?
The Pentagon has also fought EPA efforts to set new pollution standards on two toxic chemicals widely found on military sites: perchlorate, found in propellant for rockets and missiles; and trichloroethylene, a degreaser for metal parts.
Trichloroethylene is the most widespread water contaminant in the country, seeping into aquifers across California , New York , Texas , Florida and elsewhere. More than 1,000 military sites in the U.S. are contaminated with the chemical.
For the past several years, Pentagon security analysts have looked anew at climate change, as if they were facing a potential enemy army or naval fleet. Global warming is now shaping their future military missions and nowhere more so than in places like Egypt, which is so dependent on its unique resource – fresh water.
...
Get with the program will ya? At least talk about reality instead of silly, outdated, erroneous denials. Just look at the money spent on crap and then think of what you're saying. Your complaints are about spending money on global stability, safety and security. That sounds so familiar doesnt it? Like a Rumsfeldian flop me thinks. Or the executive decisions of a corporation who sees the short term profits to be had in pocket by cutting safety costs. We all know what happens. Dont we?
Current Republican philosophy is akin to Chinese building practices. Concrete construction that collapses because re-bar was too expensive and inconvenient. Shit quality products. Mass environmental poisonings because doing it safely and properly was just too expensive yet, look at the cost of failure! Does it ever get cleaned up? Um no. At least in China they shoot people like Rumsfeld In the west he gets speaking engagements to further his failed policies to the ignorant people who are too smart to be 'hoaxed'....
Global Warming and Pollution are the left and right arm of the beast... help deal with it instead of pretending its a liberal conspiracy...
Stop being the head of the beast!
Pretty clear, Gog, you always talk about waste under GWB but forget about the bigger waste of funds beeing racked up by Obamanomics. He is the one sending in the troops now you know. He is the one not pulling out of Iraq faster like he said he would. When someone talks about 100 billion for GW efforts you talk war money and old politics. Keep on target with out current spening sprees by the party for the people and you can at least make a timely point. You sound stupid perseverating over 2000-2008 and forgetting the here and now.
Since when is investment in you own country a waste? What cheap claims you make.
100 billion is what was suggested as a sum to be raised by a coalition of the willing. Are you aware that the Pentagon has determined Global Warming to be a threat to the USA? Do you really give a shit or is anti liberalism worth choking yourself to death over? If you are aware of your top defensive Dept's announcements and suggest doing little or nothing, you are employing the same failed outlooks and reasoning that landed America in a very bad situation with it's coalition of the shilling. The group with one disastrous idea after another.
I am sure you can appreciate that GWB inherited a surplus and a good hand. Dont give me the crap about 911 and not Bush's watch and Clinton's fault BS! I am sure you know what he was handed and what left for Obama. A huge failed state of affairs. Making silly claims that it's all Obama are just that, silly.
We wouldnt have to worry about a fix except Republicans are still talking the same bs that landed us all in the shit house. The only difference from frothing ridiculousness is the degree, they're acting even more derelict and depraved.
Now what do you say, today? Is the Pentagon now involved with NASA and 95% of the scientific community to suggest MMGW is here, and is the next big issue...
Why wait for stupid Republicans to figure it out? We(humans and most mammals) cant afford "the fundamentals are strong" type of response to MMGW. We cant afford another 'mission Impossible' or a buffoon ride that you seemed to pay to get on. We cant afford to watch while lies, egregious incompetence and deceit ruin a country, a nation a community and the globe. What dont you get?
Your confidence in hack, moronic scientists and their pathetic, skewered and biased agendas are laughable. They've been debunked a thousand times over, leaving your dismissal of good science, as a hoax, as a dangerous and delinquent attitude that glares in the light of the 2000-2008 era of American tragedy.
You trade the likely for the unlikely without a shift in odds or payoff... you guys are the world's worst gamblers....
They've been debunked a thousand times over, leaving your dismissal of good science, as a hoax, as a dangerous and delinquent attitude that glares in the light of the 2000-2008 era of American tragedy.
GW has been debunked...yet you still believe it. So what's the difference?
All that Gog, and, yet again, not one bit of Obama bashing for outspending every president before him. I make no excuse for GWB, but you cannot seem to live in the present. Your solution to GW is for primarily EU countries and the US to float more bonds to China to then give that cash to other nations who will administer with a level of corruption too common in the developing world. I guess you consider that the cost of doing business. Tax and spend at it's best. How about save and spend. No bonds, no printing press, no higher taxes. Just lower taxes, watch the federal coffers increase as they have with every tax cut in the last 60 years, spend less and use the surplus to pay for GW policies. Let the states pay for and tax for the services each individual state needs, and local and state politicians will pay for the frivolities of their pet programs and nanny sensibilities. EU nation debt for the major players is 74-88% of GDP and that does not include Italy because they are too far gone. You are putting the cart before the horse. You simply cannot make the case for spending money we do not have unless you can figure out how to pay for it. Oh and if you want to stop the wars, tell Obama and his Chicago cronies to not spend more on them as they are about to do. Don't be a hypocrite.
Gog, oh Gog, Le Kewi, help us stop spending on unnecessary programs and ask Obama to finally end our wars, bring back our troops, cut defense spending in half, stop bailing out banks, stop bribing old people with tax check refunds before tha election year, stop more cash for no work for the unemployed. Then we can help you on your noble quest to cleanse the earth of dirty energy and deforrestation and higher tides. Help us help you. Just don't forget to telll the Chinese and Indian it is all for nought if they ignore the rest of us.
"May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."
D.E.
Twin nut... I speak at your most skewered of ding-a-lings who lead your party. Putting right wing morons in charge of our most critical resources and predicaments is like putting Chinese tires on our motorcycles. Bad quality, poor value in the long term and outright, downright dangerous.
I have said it many times before. If Republicans had to pay their governmental bills, like capitalists are supposed to pay their business bills, to keep their business alive, they would be bankrupt. Foreclosed on!!!!! Hand them a surplus, look what they do. Look what they say they will do and look at what is actually done... It is the redemptive nature of a successful collective that allows them to slither back to the underbelly where they chant lies and plan deceit and traitorous, treasonous agendas.
Think I'm lying, exaggerating? Of course you do. Like the guy who gets pardoned and then re offends...they take that distracted, enacted mercy of the collective and slither, to another charge, claim or counter with patriotic nonsense and self inflicted disorder. Whining about taxes when their meddling, dishonest 'state churches' pay none while crossing a harmful, unconstitutional divide between their precious self service and the state's laws and order. How long will they be allowed to to do so?
From this lowly, slimy meeting place(faux news and heartland institutes ) they pontificate to other slitherers that they are right and everyone else is wrong. Wink Wink, clink clink. "This is evil and that is evil". Reasonable, normal, well adjusted teachers, scientists, philosophers, environmentalists are all out to get them with hoaxing agendas.
Similar things happened in Waco complexes regarding the message of Christianity. The edicts, guidelines, tenants?... Gone. The truth? Look at the record. Honor? Look at swiftboating et al. Lets hope they dont get to do with the constitution what they did with the bible.
MMGW....? What sad, sad, preposterous propositions, explanations, lack of solutions and denials.
I ask yet again... What if you ding-a-lings are wrong? I have asked so many lefty, 'libby' and even lunatic people what they would do if they were wrong about MMGW and the general answer is pretty consistent... rejoice!
Yet, not one answer from right wing, nut job central about what they would do if they were wrong. Why is that? Sound like Iraq? Sound like Katrina? Sound like fundamentally strong? On and on and on and on.... gamblers often say the same as ding-a-lings, one more bet(it's the house at stake but...) my luck will change on this bett, gimmie one more gimmie one more ...
This sounds painfully familiar. Republicans are not wise and they have had more than enough time to prove it. Whats so great about reacting when it's too late or dreadfully overdue?.. thats not a good enough offering, even for a third world country. The record speaks for itself... I wouldn't set sail with right wingers, they are dangerously arrogant, reckless and not very wise, they dont respect the sea and because, instead of learning from mistakes, they change history, facts, science, math etc... and blame self inflicted mistakes on others... They are not 'conservative' by much of a definition these days
Gog, your entire port is another example of yesterdays news. Who has control of congress, the executive, the cabinet. I don't think I have to tell you though do I. You can complain about republicans all you want, I am not a member of the party or have I ever voted for a republlican. You can hold the current admin responsible for furthering the fiscal nightmare we have. Change indeed. Does the first year of change impress you. Are you looking forward to more of the same or is that change we all voted for always just one year in the future. Come on Gog, Obama has had his chance to wind down Afghanistan or spend spend spend more money and lives that could have gone to AGW. The check is in the mail. If you will be critical now as you are of the past I can have an ounce of respect for your views but not if you continue to be a hypocrite. Fiscal conservatism is the only way forward. Look at the less slowly crumbling socialism in Europe as an example as to why it does not work.
) a little for the new year in this forum. 
Linear Mode
