Calling Al Gore: Where are you?

George_1950 · Jan 13, 2009, 10:00 AM

"BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - Residents of the upper Midwest bundled up or just stayed inside Tuesday as a wave of bitterly cold air barreled south out of the Arctic, following on the heels of a fast-moving blizzard.
Some schools closed because of the cold and temperatures hit the single digits as far south as Kansas and Missouri.

The coldest air spilled across the Canadian prairie into the Dakotas and Minnesota. Grand Forks, N.D., dropped to a record low of 37 degrees below zero Tuesday morning, lopping six degrees off the old record set in 1979, the National Weather Service said.

In northern Minnesota, it was 35 below zero in Roseau and 36 below in Hallock, with wind chills down to 45 below in Hibbing. Just to the north, Winnipeg, Saskatchewan, also hit minus 36, according to Environment Canada.

In North Dakota, the Minot area got 6 inches of snow, on top of about a foot that fell late last week, and Bismarck collected 4. Bismarck, Fargo and Grand Forks all broke snow records for December, each with more than 30 inches."
Sharp cold wave shocks upper Midwest, temps to -36

Skell · Feb 16, 2009, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by George_1950

Thanks, Skell; I undertand the cause of those fires is arson.

No! One or two out of about 30 - 40 fires was deliberately lit. The rest were natural. But again i'm not necessarily blaming global warming. Although many are ill reserve my judgment. Continual dry and hot weather couple with some neglect to carry out controlled burning played a huge part in this.

speechlesstx · Feb 19, 2009, 02:45 PM

What's a half million square kilometer error?

Quote:

"The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has been at the forefront of predicting doom in the arctic as ice melts due to global warming. In May, 2008 they went so far as to predict that the North Pole would be ice-free during the 2008 'melt season,' leading to a lively Slashdot discussion. Today, however, they say that they have been the victims of 'sensor drift' that led to an underestimation of Arctic ice extent by as much as 500,000 square kilometers. The problem was discovered after they received emails from puzzled readers, asking why obviously sea-ice-covered regions were showing up as ice-free, open ocean. It turns out that the NSIDC relies on an older, less-reliable method of tracking sea ice extent called SSM/I that does not agree with a newer method called AMSR-E. So why doesn't NSIDC use the newer AMSR-E data? 'We do not use AMSR-E data in our analysis because it is not consistent with our historical data.' Turns out that the AMSR-E data only goes back to 2002, which is probably not long enough for the NSIDC to make sweeping conclusions about melting. The AMSR-E data is updated daily and is available to the public. Thus far, sea ice extent in 2009 is tracking ahead of 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, so the predictions of an ice-free north pole might be premature."

Figure 1. Daily Arctic sea ice extent map for
February 15, 2009, showed areas of open water
which should have appeared as sea ice.
—Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center

tomder55 · Feb 21, 2009, 02:53 AM

Quote:

What's a half million square kilometer error?

Roughly the size of California.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center ?????? Now theres an agency worthy of elimination .

So based on drifting censors we have to fundamentally change our life style ?Did anyone give this info to no clue Chu ?

speechlesstx · Feb 21, 2009, 05:18 AM

By the way, here's the link I forgot.

Yes tom, things such as drifting sensors, computer models and homogeneity-adjusted data from weather stations are all behind this forced lifestyle change.

George_1950 · Feb 24, 2009, 05:21 PM

"Staying married is better for the planet because divorce leads the newly single to live more wasteful lifestyles, an Australian lawmaker said Tuesday.

"Senator Steve Fielding told a Senate hearing in the Australian capital Canberra that divorce only made climate change worse.

"When couples separated, they needed more rooms, more electricity and more water. This increased their carbon footprint, Australian Associated Press (AAP) quoted Fielding as telling the hearing on environmental issues."
Stay married and save the planet - Aussie lawmaker

speechlesstx · Feb 25, 2009, 07:49 AM

I love it...

A collapsing carbon market makes mega-pollution cheap

'Roll up for the great pollution fire sale, the ultimate chance to wreck the climate on the cheap. You sir, over there, from the power company - look at this lovely tonne of freshly made, sulphur-rich carbon dioxide. Last summer it cost an eyewatering €31 to throw up your smokestack, but in our give-away global recession sale, that's been slashed to a crazy €8.20. Dump plans for the wind turbine! Compare our offer with costly solar energy! At this low, low price you can't afford not to burn coal!"

Set up to price pollution out of existence, carbon trading is pricing it back in. Europe's carbon markets are in collapse.

Yet the hiss of escaping gas is almost inaudible. There's no big news headline, nothing sensational for TV viewers to watch; no queues outside banks or missing Texan showmen. You can't see or hear a market for a pollutant tumble. But at stake is what was supposed to be a central lever in the world's effort to turn back climate change. Intended to price fossil fuels out of the market, the system is instead turning them into the rational economic choice.

That there exists something called carbon trading is about all that most people know. A few know, too, that Europe has created carbon exchanges, and traders who buy and sell. Few but the professionals, however, know that this market is now failing in its purpose: to edge up the cost of emitting CO2.

The theory sounded fine in the boom years, back when Nicholas Stern described climate change as "the biggest market failure in history" - a market failure to which carbon trading was meant to be a market solution. Instead, it's bolstering the business case for fossil fuels.

Understanding why is easy. A year ago European governments allocated a limited number of carbon emission permits to their big polluters. Businesses that reduce pollution are allowed to sell spare permits to ones that need more. As demand outstrips this capped supply, and the price of permits rises, an incentive grows to invest in green energy. Why buy costly permits to keep a coal plant running when you can put the cash into clean power instead?

All this only works as the carbon price lifts. As with 1924 Château Lafite or Damian Hirst's diamond skulls, scarcity and speculation create the value. If permits are cheap, and everyone has lots, the green incentive crashes into reverse. As recession slashes output, companies pile up permits they don't need and sell them on. The price falls, and anyone who wants to pollute can afford to do so. The result is a system that does nothing at all for climate change but a lot for the bottom lines of mega-polluters such as the steelmaker

This guy's solutions are as much a joke as the cap and trade system itself. How do you rescue a system that's a sham to begin with? Everything about it is artificial...except The Goracle's profits from it of course.

tomder55 · Feb 25, 2009, 08:01 AM

speaking of pollution . How about the carbon foot print of the NASA climate satellite that just crashed ?

speechlesstx · Feb 25, 2009, 08:45 AM

Good question tom. More good news though, Obama plans to have emissions revenue by 2012.

speechlesstx · Feb 27, 2009, 09:27 AM

Yet another cause of climate change - the Charmin effect.

Quote:

The national obsession with soft paper has driven the growth of brands like Cottonelle Ultra, Quilted Northern Ultra and Charmin Ultra — which in 2008 alone increased its sales by 40 percent in some markets, according to Information Resources, Inc., a marketing research firm.

But fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.

Customers “demand soft and comfortable,” said James Malone, a spokesman for Georgia Pacific, the maker of Quilted Northern. “Recycled fiber cannot do it.”

The country’s soft-tissue habit — call it the Charmin effect — has not escaped the notice of environmentalists, who are increasingly making toilet tissue manufacturers the targets of campaigns. Greenpeace on Monday for the first time issued a national guide for American consumers that rates toilet tissue brands on their environmental soundness. With the recession pushing the price for recycled paper down and Americans showing more willingness to repurpose everything from clothing to tires, environmental groups want more people to switch to recycled toilet tissue...

Environmentalists are focusing on tissue products for reasons besides the loss of trees. Turning a tree to paper requires more water than turning paper back into fiber, and many brands that use tree pulp use polluting chlorine-based bleach for greater whiteness. In addition, tissue made from recycled paper produces less waste tonnage — almost equaling its weight — that would otherwise go to a landfill.

Still, trees and tree quality remain a contentious issue. Although brands differ, 25 percent to 50 percent of the pulp used to make toilet paper in this country comes from tree farms in South America and the United States. The rest, environmental groups say, comes mostly from old, second-growth forests that serve as important absorbers of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas linked to global warming.

OK, but can we call it something besides "recycled toilet tissue?" That just sounds nasty. I know Americans are to blame, we just can't seem to deem "a rough sheet of paper" as sufficient. Perhaps the new administration will require us to make better use of our corn cobs in the near future?

tomder55 · Feb 27, 2009, 09:41 AM

Quote:

we just can't seem to deem "a rough sheet of paper" as sufficient.

and let's not forget it's the quantity as well as the quality that we need to mea culpa about .
YouTube - Sheryl Crow On Global Warming: WIPE MY A _ _ !!!