Posted on 02/07/2007 11:35:13 AM PST by cogitator
ping
This entire article is a bunch of garbage.
If governments are going to "do something", carbon taxes are probably the least worst solution.
>I've argued before for a high oil tax...
Last time I checked, I paid $0.75 in taxes on every gallon. How much higher is he talking about?!
Actually, he makes excellent points.
If global warming is happening, we could not change it if we tried.
And, IMO this is of interest:
Opinion Journal of WSJ:
snip:
U.N. scientists have relied heavily on computer models to predict future climate change, and these crystal balls are notoriously inaccurate. According to the models, for instance, global temperatures were supposed to have risen in recent years. Yet according to the U.S. National Climate Data Center, the world in 2006 was only 0.03 degrees Celsius warmer than it was in 2001 --in the range of measurement error and thus not [*NOT*] statistically significant.
The models also predicted that sea levels would rise much faster than they actually have. The models didn't predict the significant cooling the oceans have undergone since 2003--which is the opposite of what you'd expect with global warming. Cooler oceans have also put a damper on claims that global warming is the cause of more frequent or intense hurricanes. The models also failed to predict falling concentrations of methane in the atmosphere, another surprise.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009625
And moreover:
All our models of the earth climate are incomplete.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/..._probably.html
So many in the "global warming" debate act as if the whole matter is settled and done - over, the Fat Lady is singing and the Earth is going to ROAST!!!
What is the Truth about our computer driven Climatic Models?
The real world is full of x's, y's and z's, far more than we can write little models about. How do you extract the human contribution from a vast number of unknowns?
That's why constant testing is needed, and why it is so frustrating to do frontier science properly.
Science is difficult because nature always has another surprise in store for us, dammit! Einstein rejected quantum mechanics, and was wrong about that. Newton went wrong on the proof of calculus, a problem that didn't get solved until 1900. Scientists are always wrong --- they are just less wrong now than they were before (if everything is going well). Check out the current issue of Science magazine. It's full of surprises.
That's what it's for.
LOL!
Global Warming's Simple Remedy
"The question now is whether these same Europeans will start taking the solutions seriously. If so, they must begin by abandoning the bankrupt Kyoto treaty on climate change and encouraging the United States to do so, too." ...
"Fortunately, there is such a solution, one that is grippingly unoriginal, requires no special knowledge of economics and is easy for any country to implement. It's called a carbon tax, and it should be applied across the board to every industry that uses fossil fuels, ... Immediately, it would produce a wealth of innovations to save fuel, as well as new incentives to conserve. More to the point, it would produce a big chunk of money that could be used for other things." ...
"Most of all, though, the successful use of carbon taxes does not require "American leadership," or a U.N. committee, or a complicated international effort of any kind. It can be done country by country: If the British environment minister or the German chancellor wants to go ahead with it tomorrow, nothing is preventing them. If a future American president wants to rally the nation around a patriotic and noble cause, then he or she has the perfect opportunity. If the Chinese see that such a tax has produced unexpected benefits in America and Europe, they'll follow. And when that happens, we'll know that the apocalyptic climate change rhetoric has finally been taken seriously."
Global warming is quite simple. The sun is the source of all heat on earth. Greenhouse gases have no heat. The Libs are trying to say that they act as an atmospheric insulator.
If that is so, then why do global temperatures track solar activity:
The mini-Ice Age that caused the Dark Ages coincided with extremely low solar activity.
Water is the most important greenhouse gas, accounting for 95% of the effect:
Global warming is political ideology thinly disguised as science.
"fuel-efficient light bulbs..." I have tried the CFLs and they are a waste of money. The claims about their benefits are vastly over blown. You wind up with poor illumination and a lot of dark areas in a house.
Thanks for the Ping reminder!
Case Study:
Al Gore [see below] attempted to make much of hurricane Katrina - a Cat' 3 storm at landfall. (Katrina did *NOT* get "stronger and stronger and stronger" as it came over the Gulf of Mexico; rather, it was category 5 over the ocean and was downgraded to category 3 when it made a landfall)
Many jumped on that bandwagon.
Quote:
"...in previous IPCC reports, the sections on hurricanes, in which Landsea was a major player, were quite accurate and comprehensive. In the Second Assessment Landsea contributed a graphic showing that the average maximum wind speed attained in Atlantic Ocean tropical storms and hurricanes had been declining from 1944 to 1993
(Figure 1 - Hot Link)
Landsea, C.W., et al., 1996. Downward trends in the frequency of intense Atlantic hurricanes during the past five decades. Geophysical Research Letters, 23, 1697-1700.
snip.....
An update of this data through 2004 shows that even with the upswing of hurricane activity in the past decade, there has been no long-term change in the average maximum wind speed.
This observation runs counter to the proclamations that anthropogenic changes to the earth’s atmosphere have been making hurricanes more severe. Landsea, probably would have included this updated figure in his IPCC contribution, now, it is unlikely to appear.
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2005/01/18/2500-less-1-2
Al Gore is a Big Fat Repudiated Fraud!
On hurricanes, Gore implies that new records are being set as a result of human greenhouse gas emissions. Besides clumsy errors in the presentation of the facts (Katrina did not get "stronger and stronger and stronger" as it came over the Gulf of Mexico; rather, it was category 5 over the ocean and was downgraded to category 3 when it made a landfall), Gore fails to note that the only region to show an increase in hurricanes in recent years is the North Atlantic. Hurricane specialist Tad Murty, former senior research scientist Department of Fisheries and Oceans and now adjust professor of Earth sciences at U of O, points out, "In all other six ocean basins where tropical cyclones occur, there is either a flat or a downward trend."
Murty lists 1900, 1926 and 1935 as the years in which the most intense hurricanes were recorded in the United States. In fact, Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, has stated that global warming has nothing to do with the recent increase in hurricane frequency in the North Atlantic. Murty concludes, "The feeling among many meteorologists is that it has to do with the North Atlantic oscillation, which is now in the positive phase and will continue for another decade or so."
Article w/hotlink:
The gods are laughing [at Al Gore]
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=d0235a70-33f1-45b3-803b-829b1b3542ef&p=2
I won't try to dissuade you. But... a couple of weeks ago I accidentally wandered into a FR discussion of CFLs. While there were detractors, they were significantly outnumbered by the proponents. I learned a few useful things, like I shouldn't put them in sockets controlled by a rheostat (dimmer switch). Some really strong cost-savings were reported. I haven't used them everywhere, but the soft whites I am using provide as much light as the incandescents, and not a noteworthy difference in light quality.
Hurricane frequency is too highly variable to be a reliable indicator of climate change.
bttt
Nothing else will do. All the evidence in the world won't force people to pay the economic and social costs that come with a real reduction in energy use, abandonment of economic growth and development of open lands, and population control.
Carbon taxes are precisely the objective of the entire Global Warming scam. A totally new revenue stream for big government.
Already posted: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1780559/posts
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