[excon]

But fluffiness comes at a price

Hello again, Steve:

Yup, there's a price to pay. And, since it's our collective a$$, we make light of it. But it really IS our collective a$$, and the price is much bigger than that.

I don't know. I'm not Al Gore. I'm not a scientist. I'm not smart.

But, our atmosphere has more CO2 in it than it has for the last 20 thousand years. At the same time, we're chopping down our rain forest as fast as we can. It's the rain forest that cleans the air.

That doesn't bode well for us - even you righty's.

excon

[speechlesstx]

I don't know, ex. Trying to find reliable data on forest coverage (like anything else regarding climate change) is like finding that needle in the haystack. And what gets me is scientists seem to be surprised when they discover things like all that "extra" CO2 seems to help trees grow and in turn absorb more CO2.

Fifth of World Carbon Emissions Soaked up by Extra Forest Growth, Scientists Find
20/02/2009 by THE GUARDIAN

Trees across the tropics are getting bigger and offering unexpected help in the fight against climate change, scientists have discovered.

A laborious study of the girth of 70,000 trees across Africa has shown that tropical forests are soaking up more carbon dioxide pollution that anybody realised. Almost one-fifth of our fossil fuel emissions are absorbed by forests across Africa, Amazonia and Asia, the research suggests.

Simon Lewis, a climate expert at the University of Leeds, who led the study, said: "We are receiving a free subsidy from nature. Tropical forest trees are absorbing about 18% of the carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere each year from burning fossil fuels, substantially buffering the rate of change."

The study measured trees in 79 areas of intact forest across 10 African countries from Liberia to Tanzania, and compared records going back 40 years. "On average the trees are getting bigger," Lewis said.

Compared to the 1960s, each hectare of intact African forest has trapped an extra 0.6 tonnes of carbon a year. Over the world's tropical forests, this extra "carbon sink" effect adds up to 4.8bn tonnes of CO2 removed each year - close to the total carbon dioxide emissions from the US.

Although individual trees are known to soak up carbon as they photosynthesise and grow, large patches of mature forest were once thought to be carbon neutral, with the carbon absorbed by new trees balanced by that released as old trees die.

A similar project in South America challenged that assumption when it recorded surprise levels of tree growth a decade ago, Lewis said. His study, published tomorrow in Nature, was to check whether the effect was global.

The discovery suggests that increased CO2 in the atmosphere could fertilise extra growth in the mature forests.

Well duh! I learned that in elementary school.

[tomder55]

Back before the asteroid struck , the world was lush and green and had a great deal of C02 floating around.Elevated carbon dioxide levels result in higher productivity, and faster animal and plant growth rates.Both animals and plants were bigger... much bigger.
Dinosaurs' World Heated By Greenhouse Effect: Study

[inthebox]

Gore Pulls Slide of Disaster Trends - Dot Earth Blog - NYTimes.com

Two days after the talk, Mr. Gore was sharply criticized for using the data to make a point about global warming by Roger A. Pielke, Jr. a political scientist focused on disaster trends and climate policy at the University of Colorado. Mr. Pielke noted that the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters stressed in reports that a host of factors unrelated to climate caused the enormous rise in reported disasters (details below).

G&P

[George_1950]

“Natural living” advocates unveil their latest planet-saving invention - the reusable toilet wipe.
Bottom reached | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

[speechlesstx]

Just in time for “a mass non-violent civil disobedience” in D.C. called Make Climate Justice History scheduled for today as announced by It's Getting Hot in Here, “between three and 12 inches of snow” blanketed the capitol.

LOL, I do believe God has a sense of humor. Now That's climate change justice.

[speechlesstx]

In part 2 of today's climate news, Obama's EPA intends to regulate farm dust. OK all you farmers out there, please confine your dust to your property.

[speechlesstx]

In today's episode of "It's getting hot in here," recent study shows global warming is on hold... even though many have been saying this for some time.

Global Warming: On Hold?
Michael Reilly, Discovery News

March 2, 2009 -- For those who have endured this winter's frigid temperatures and today's heavy snowstorm in the Northeast, the concept of global warming may seem, well, almost wishful.

But climate is known to be variable -- a cold winter, or a few strung together doesn't mean the planet is cooling. Still, according to a new study, global warming may have hit a speed bump and could go into hiding for decades.

"This is nothing like anything we've seen since 1950," Kyle Swanson of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee said. "Cooling events since then had firm causes, like eruptions or large-magnitude La Ninas. This current cooling doesn't have one."

Instead, Swanson and colleague Anastasios Tsonis think a series of climate processes have aligned, conspiring to chill the climate. In 1997 and 1998, the tropical Pacific Ocean warmed rapidly in what Swanson called a "super El Nino event." It sent a shock wave through the oceans and atmosphere, jarring their circulation patterns into unison.

How does this square with temperature records from 2005-2007, by some measurements among the warmest years on record? When added up with the other four years since 2001, Swanson said the overall trend is flat, even though temperatures should have gone up by 0.2 degrees Centigrade (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) during that time.

Yes, nature is "conspiring" to ruin the climate change agenda.

[excon]

Hello again, Steve:

I still can't figure out what you have against the idea of global warming... Do you own energy stocks? Do you work for an energy company? Are you looking for an excuse to keep doing business as usual? Do you LIKE spending $4 for gas? Do you deny that oil is running out? Do you deny that we're going to need an alternate energy source?

Really. I can't figure out, other than it's a Republican talking point, WHY you say what you do?

And, even if global warming is wrong, should we continue throwing our trash into the air? That's really the question I have for you.

If you think so, why don't you just say so, and argue with me that it's OK to do that?

If you don't, then who cares what some crackpot says? If his solution is right, even though his premise is wrong, the result will still be good, no?

excon

[speechlesstx]

Hello again, Steve:

I still can't figure out what you have against the idea of global warming...

I don’t like being scammed by religious zealots. Do you?

Do you own energy stocks?

Probably somewhere in my IRA.

Do you work for an energy company?

Um, no. We do fire and security systems.

Are you looking for an excuse to keep doing business as usual?

Look it up ex, I’ve always stated conservation and a clean environment are good things.

Do you LIKE spending $4 for gas?

No.

Do you deny that oil is running out?

Actually I’m not sure we’re getting the truth.

Do you deny that we're going to need an alternate energy source?

Of course not. I’d love to install a solar system but it’s cost prohibitive.

Really. I can't figure out, other than it's a Republican talking point, WHY you say what you do?

You really can’t figure that out? Do you like being lied to? Do you think science should be honest? Is allowing a different opinion a good thing? Should conflicting evidence be considered or should the consensus disregard it out of hand? How do you measure a global ocean rise of a few centimeters? Do you trust computer models, because our weather guys can’t seem to guess what’s going to happen more than a few minutes before it does.

And, even if global warming is wrong, should we continue throwing our trash into the air? That's really the question I have for you.

For the thousandth time, clean air is a good thing. Do you think like some extremists do that "global warming deniers" (ie: scientists with different data) should be prosecuted for environmental crimes?

If you think so, why don't you just say so, and argue with me that it's OK to do that?

Perhaps you will finally remember all the times I’ve said clean air is a good thing instead?

If you don't, then who cares what some crackpot says? If his solution is right, even though his premise is wrong, the result will still be good, no?

Wow, after everything I’ve read from you on our rights I’m really surprised you don’t get it. It’s not just some crackpot, it’s a religion, it’s rampant, it’s misleading, dishonest and it seeks to impose some really bad things on the world, like “voluntary human extinction.”

No? Even the beloved Jacques Cousteau said "This is a terrible thing to say in order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350000 people per day."

Do you believe ants are more valuable than people?

[tomder55]

I just wonder when the global warming extremists will learn not to hold rallies in the middle of winter ?

Speaking before Bill Clinton's Global Initiative in New York City last Nov. 2, Gore advocated the concept of civil disobedience to fight climate change. "I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration," Gore said to loud applause.
Following Gore's lead, a group called Capitol Climate Action organized a protest that took place Monday at the 99-year-old Capitol Power Plant in southeast Washington, D.C. Its Web site invited fellow warm-mongers to "mass civil disobedience at the coal-fired" plant that heats and cools the hallowed halls of Congress.
The site features Gore's quote as well as a video by Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a leading global-warming activist, urging attendance at the event. The storm that hit the Northeast and dropped upwards of three inches of snow on the nation's capitol should not discourage those attending the global- warming protest, he says on the video.
Hansen has called such coal-fired facilities "factories of death" and considers climate-change skeptics guilty of "high crimes against humanity and nature." In the video he says what "has become clear from the science is that we cannot burn all of the fossil fuels without creating a very different planet" and that the "only practical way to solve the problem is to phase out the biggest source of carbon — and that's coal."
What is clear is that Dr. Hansen has had problems with the facts. Last Nov. 10 he announced from his scientific perch that October had been the hottest on record, and we were doomed. Except that it wasn't true.
Scores of temperature records used in the computations from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running, something your high-school science teacher wouldn't allow.
Despite Dr. Hansen's hysterical animus toward carbon, the fact is that CO2 is still a mere 0.038% of the gaseous layer that surrounds the Earth, and only 3% of that thin slice is released by man. According to Dr. William Happer, a professor of physics at Princeton University, current atmospheric CO2 levels are inadequate in historical terms and even higher levels "will be good for mankind."
Happer, who was fired by Gore at the Department of Energy in 1993 for disagreeing with the vice president on the effects of ozone to humans and plant life, disagrees with both Gore and Hansen on the issue of the impact of man-made carbon emissions. He testified before the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) on Feb. 25 that CO2 levels are in fact at a historical low.
"Many people don't realize that over geological time, we're really in a CO2 famine now. Almost never has CO2 . . . been as low as it has been in the Holocene (geologic epoch) — 280 (parts per million) — that's unheard of," said Happer. He notes the earth and humanity did just fine when CO2 levels were much higher.
"You know, we evolved as a species in those times, when CO2 levels were three to four times what they are now," Happer said. "And, the oceans were fine, plants grew, animals grew fine. So it's baffling to me that . . . we're so frightened of getting nowhere close to where we started."
"Jim Hansen has gone off the deep end here," one of Hansen's former supervisors, Dr. John Theon, said. Theon, a former senior NASA atmospheric scientist, rebuked Hansen last month in a letter to EPW. "Why he has not been fired, I do not understand," Theon said. Neither do we.
Critics contend that Hansen's involvement in the protests is a violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from engaging in partisan political activity. If he wants to agitate for policy changes, let him do it on his own time and on his own dime. The science can speak for itself.

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- James Hansen's Political Science

[speechlesstx]

I just wonder when the global warming extremists will learn not to hold rallies in the middle of winter ?

You'd think they would learn... but the irony is delicious.

[N0help4u]

Talk about irony NOW this is worse than irony and hypocrisy.
I heard that Sorros and some others that back Gores global warming have stock in the EVIL coal industry, Now WHY would that be??

[speechlesstx]

An failed Obama prophecy... "this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow." -Obama June 3, 2008

Northeast US to suffer most from future sea rise

The northeastern U.S. coast is likely to see the world's biggest sea level rise from man-made global warming, a new study predicts.

However much the oceans rise by the end of the century, add an extra 8 inches or so for New York, Boston and other spots along the coast from the mid-Atlantic to New England. That's because of predicted changes in ocean currents, according to a study based on computer models published online Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience.

An extra 8 inches — on top of a possible 2 or 3 feet of sea rise globally by 2100 — is a big deal, especially when nor'easters and hurricanes hit, experts said.

"It's not just waterfront homes and wetlands that are at stake here," said Donald Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, who wasn't part of the study. "Those kind of rises in sea level when placed on top of the storm surges we see today, put in jeopardy lots of infrastructure, including the New York subway system."

For years, scientists have talked about rising sea levels due to global warming — both from warm water expanding and the melt of ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica. Predictions for the average worldwide sea rise keep changing along with the rate of ice melt. Recently, more scientists are saying the situation has worsened so that a 3-foot rise in sea level by 2100 is becoming a common theme.

But the oceans won't rise at the same rate everywhere, said study author Jianjun Yin of the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies at Florida State University. It will be "greater and faster" for the Northeast, with Boston one of the worst hit among major cities, he said. So, if it's 3 feet, add another 8 inches for that region.

Sorry, tom... better move inland.

[tomder55]

Cool!! That should make my home ocean front then!

You see the real deal is that global recession has sort of put the concern and priority of "global climate change " on the back burner ;which in turn is alarming the alarmists .

So they needed more scare mongering lest their coffers diminish.They see the way that public $$$ has shifted to the bankers and they long for a slice of the pie.

Tweek the computer models slightly an voilà..! NYC gets swamped like in the Day After Tomorrow.

[tomder55]

For an alt explanation see
Basic Geology Part 3 - Sea Level Rises During Interglacial Periods « Watts Up With That?

[excon]

Hello Dudes:

Wow, it snowed yesterday. That Gore don't know crap.

Bwa, ha ha ha.

excon

[speechlesstx]

Good point tom, nothing like an ocean sunrise from your deck.

Yes, they seem to be ramping up the fear mongering lately.

[speechlesstx]

Yeah it snowed here in Texas twice last week. I looked for The Goracle but he was busy ducking debates again.

[speechlesstx]

EU bans use of 'Miss' and 'Mrs'

What does this have to do with climate change? Referring to "man-made" climate change is not gender neutral. It shall therefore be called by its more appropriate name, "artificial climate change."

Bwa ha ha!