Originally Posted By JohnS1 "Take a bowl. Fill it half full of water." So, would that make the bowl half full or half empty? Hmmm?
Originally Posted By mrichmondj << That's what you said last quarter. You were spectacularly wrong. >> Nope. I have been fairly consistent in my observations that I believe the economy has a high probability of entering a recession in the 2nd Half of 2007. The economic data is pointing in that direction. If it continues to deteriorate at the current trend, we might be in recession by the end of this quarter. If you think I have said otherwise, I'd encourage you to go back and re-check what I have said here.
Originally Posted By mrichmondj << Regarding the ice caps have you guys ever tried this little scientific experiment? Take a bowl. Fill it half full of water. Add a lot of ice cubes or a block of ice. Mark the level of the water once that is done. Let it melt. Note the water level has not risen because the ice melted. Ice caps are sometimes floating masses. >> So what happens when all that melting ice is on top of a land mass like Greenland or Antarctica and isn't already floating in the bowl?
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Right. That one fails to support. It also makes the point that the loss of Antarctic and Greenland ice mass only contributes about 1.4 inches per century to the average global sea-level rise.> Greenland and Antarctica do not contain the only glaciers on earth that are melting, and while important, are not the only contributors to sea levels rising. This article says the seas are rising 3 millimeters a year, which would be an inch about every 8 years. It also said that the melting of Greenland and Antarctica was accelerating. <One and a half inches of sea level rise every one hundred years is not going to cause massive flooding, and is hardly worth taking drastic measures for, even if it's established that we are causing global warming.> Again, it's an inch every 8 years even if it doesn't accelerate, according to your source. Once again you have chosen a source that really doesn't say what you think it does.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh You didn't say anything that contradicted what I said. Again, according to that report, melting of glaciers over Greenland and Antartica is only causing the seas to rise 0.35 milimeters per year. Something else is causing the seas to rise the other 2.65 milimeters per year.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "Something else is causing the seas to rise the other 2.65 milimeters per year." Yeah? What?
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Yeah? What?> I don't know. I read a long article on Wikipedia about it this afternoon and I'm still not sure. Best guess is something called "thermo expansion" - hot water is bigger than cold water.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer Stop having kids... <a href="http://www.news.com.au/story/0" target="_blank">http://www.news.com.au/story/0</a>,23599,21684156-5009760,00.html >>HAVING large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanour in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a big car and failing to reuse plastic bags, says a report to be published today by a green think tank. The paper by the Optimum Population Trust will say that if couples had two children instead of three they could cut their family's carbon dioxide output by the equivalent of 620 return flights a year between London and New York. John Guillebaud, co-chairman of OPT and emeritus professor of family planning at University College London, said: "The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights. "The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child." <<
Originally Posted By Darkbeer Heck, the users here at LP are a "Virus"... We should all die to save the planet... <a href="http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2007/20070506180903.aspx" target="_blank">http://www.businessandmedia.or g/articles/2007/20070506180903.aspx</a> >>Apparently, saving the whales is more important than saving 5.5 billion people. Paul Watson, founder and president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and famous for militant intervention to stop whalers, now warns mankind is “acting like a virus†and is harming Mother Earth. Watson’s May 4 editorial asked the question “The Beginning of the End for Life as We Know it on Planet Earth?†Then he left no doubt about the answer. “We are killing our host the planet Earth,†he claimed and called for a population drop to less than 1 billion. The commentary reminded readers that Watson had called humans a disease before and he wasn’t sorry. “I was once severely criticized for describing human beings as being the ‘AIDS of the Earth.’ I make no apologies for that statement,†the column continued.<<
Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://www.wecnmagazine.com/2007issues/may/may07.html" target="_blank">http://www.wecnmagazine.com/20 07issues/may/may07.html</a> >>Some people are lucky enough to enjoy their work, some are lucky enough to love it, and then there’s Reid Bryson. At age 86, he’s still hard at it every day, delving into the science some say he invented. Reid A. Bryson holds the 30th PhD in Meteorology granted in the history of American education. Emeritus Professor and founding chairman of the University of Wisconsin Department of Meteorology—now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences—in the 1970s he became the first director of what’s now the UW’s Gaylord Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies. He’s a member of the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor—created, the U.N. says, to recognize “outstanding achievements in the protection and improvement of the environment.†He has authored five books and more than 230 other publications and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world. Long ago in the Army Air Corps, Bryson and a colleague prepared the aviation weather forecast that predicted discovery of the jet stream by a group of B-29s flying to and from Tokyo. Their warning to expect westerly winds at 168 knots earned Bryson and his friend a chewing out from a general—and the general’s apology the next day when he learned they were right. Bryson flew into a couple of typhoons in 1944, three years before the Weather Service officially did such things, and he prepared the forecast for the homeward flight of the Enola Gay. Back in Wisconsin, he built a program at the UW that’s trained some of the nation’s leading climatologists. How Little We Know Bryson is a believer in climate change, in that he’s as quick as anyone to acknowledge that Earth’s climate has done nothing but change throughout the planet’s existence. In fact, he took that knowledge a big step further, earlier than probably anyone else. Almost 40 years ago, Bryson stood before the American Association for the Advancement of Science and presented a paper saying human activity could alter climate. “I was laughed off the platform for saying that,†he told Wisconsin Energy Cooperative News. In the 1960s, Bryson’s idea was widely considered a radical proposition. But nowadays things have turned almost in the opposite direction: Hardly a day passes without some authority figure claiming that whatever the climate happens to be doing, human activity must be part of the explanation. And once again, Bryson is challenging the conventional wisdom. “Climate’s always been changing and it’s been changing rapidly at various times, and so something was making it change in the past,†he told us in an interview this past winter. “Before there were enough people to make any difference at all, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing, okay?†“All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd,†Bryson continues. “Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air.†Little Ice Age? That’s what chased the Vikings out of Greenland after they’d farmed there for a few hundred years during the Mediaeval Warm Period, an earlier run of a few centuries when the planet was very likely warmer than it is now, without any help from industrial activity in making it that way. What’s called “proxy evidenceâ€â€”assorted clues extrapolated from marine sediment cores, pollen specimens, and tree-ring data—helps reconstruct the climate in those times before instrumental temperature records existed. We ask about that evidence, but Bryson says it’s second-tier stuff. “Don’t talk about proxies,†he says. “We have written evidence, eyeball evidence. When Eric the Red went to Greenland, how did he get there? It’s all written down.†Bryson describes the navigational instructions provided for Norse mariners making their way from Europe to their settlements in Greenland. The place was named for a reason: The Norse farmed there from the 10th century to the 13th, a somewhat longer period than the United States has existed. But around 1200 the mariners’ instructions changed in a big way. Ice became a major navigational reference. Today, old Viking farmsteads are covered by glaciers.<<
Originally Posted By jonvn "I don't know." Well, it seems that the people who are actually studying the issue do seem to have a good idea, and it's not "I don't know."
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <You didn't say anything that contradicted what I said. Again, according to that report, melting of glaciers over Greenland and Antartica is only causing the seas to rise 0.35 milimeters per year. Something else is causing the seas to rise the other 2.65 milimeters per year.> As I stated before, Antarctica and Greenland do not contain the world's only glaciers.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Well, it seems that the people who are actually studying the issue do seem to have a good idea, and it's not "I don't know."> Actually, it seems that the people studying the issue have lots of ideas.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <As I stated before, Antarctica and Greenland do not contain the world's only glaciers.> Just most of them.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Methinks you need a little geography lesson. There are glaciers all over Alaska, Canada, Russia, Iceland, and even in lower lattitudes at high elevations (Switzerland, etc.) At any rate, you are making conclusions the author of your piece was not. The melting of glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica is neither the only contributor to sea level rise, nor the only problem associated with global warming. BTW, my folks went to Alaska not long ago and stood on a huge glacier. However, the tour company had to go much further inland than they used to. It has shrunk a lot, just in the 20 years or so the company has been operating.
Originally Posted By Disneyman55 I wish it would warm up. It snowed on Easter Day, April 8th. I was trying to have a nice warm beautiful spring day to go to church on, but no, it had to snow. But I digress. What we really need to do is put a massive tax on cars and travel to cut back on emissions. We also need to give everyone a carbon limit so that they are taxed massively if they go over thier limit. Honestly, what we really need is to force everyone to completely minimize thier carbon footprint. No food from less then a 100 miles away. Only 6 hours of electricity a night. Compost all waste. Eat only organic foods. Make no more than one baby. Also, we all know that Global Warming is caused by our consumer crazy economy. This obviously is the destructive part about capitalism. It would be much better if we instituted a control economy and let the better educated and more capable people who work in the government have complete control of the economy. Also for the sake of mother earth, we should put in force the same law that Communist China had on the books. Namely one child per family. Obviously, this would only apply to first world countries as they are the source of all problems in the world. Now this is going to cause major sacrifices from everyone involved, but if we are all going to survive, we must put in place now a means to weather this storm. Before New York City disappears under a tidal wave, let us all give up our individual rights for the sake of the collective good of mankind. Know why tyrants always use mass hysteria to sieze power? It works.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Methinks you need a little geography lesson.> You think wrong. I'm well aware of the fact that there are many glaciers around the world. I'm also well aware that they are relatively small, compared to the amount of ice covering Greenland and Anartica. <The melting of glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica is neither the only contributor to sea level rise, nor the only problem associated with global warming.> I'm well aware of that, and have already admitted it.
Originally Posted By mrichmondj Meanwhile, the first named storm of the year formed in the Atlantic basin today -- 3 weeks before the official start of hurricane season. This isn't surprising the very temperatures in the Atlantic from November through January allowed the ocean to not cool as much as it would normally do in a winter cycle. Let's just hope that this is an active year for the Atlantic Ocean and not the Gulf of Mexico. With gas prices over $3 a gallon already in some parts of the country, it will be a painful summer at the pump if Gulf hurricanes disrupt gasoline production and send prices soaring even further.
Originally Posted By Disneyman55 Actually Dabob, it wasn't hyperbole as much as it was sarcasm and an intent to cause people to look at it from a different perspective. And while it may seem to be an outrageous stretch for some, there truly are people in the environmental movement who suggest these very solutions. I truly did read about the null carbon footprint guy in the New York Times. Lived in New York humorously enough. The British are the ones supporting the personal carbon allowance and the carbon tax on airplane flights. Your average university in the nation has at least one professor that believes Capitalism is the root of all evil. And the extremists are already talking about limiting child birth. Of course the only way to enforce that in a third world nation is by force and we can't have that so it would only be binding on first world countries. Really what I posted is not hyperbole but instead stringing all the thoughts together and pointing out an issue. But calling it hyperbole is a lazy way of dismissing it.
