[paraclete]

2009 is officially Australia's hottest ever winter | National News | News.com.au

Parts of Australia have had their warmest day this year, in the middle of winter.

No, it's not a joke or a prank report. Now I want to know if we can have 37 degrees C in winter what are we to expect in summer and let's face it what can you expect?

This surely tells us that the unusual has come to stay

[Skell]

I suspect they will link you to articles about snow storms in Texas as their evidence it is all a big lie.

In my opinion both arguments are silly. An article telling me about a freak snow storm or a hot winter doesn't tell the whole story.

But in saying that, I am glad you posted this article because for months much of the skeptics arguments have been based on similar articles to yours. Maybe now they will see that it is a futile argument.

Frankly where I live (close enough to Sydney), it seems to be getting warmer in winter and cooler in summer. But I'm sure some Victorians would argue with me about the latter comment given the heat they experienced last summer.

[paraclete]

. An article telling me about a freak snow storm or a hot winter doesn't tell the whole story.

But in saying that, i am glad you posted this article because for months much of the skeptics arguments have been based on similar articles to yours. Maybe now they will see that it is a futile argument.

Hey while they were talking about 37'C up North we were freezing here in the mountains, but it doesn't answer the question how can we experience such radically unseasonal weather? Victoria appears to be history, no rain, high winds, fires we can only hope this doesn't advance north as apparently weather patterns are said to do. We have had no summer to speak of in the last couple of years and the flowers here tell me spring is here

[Skell]

Hey while they were talking about 37'C up North we were freezing here in the mountains, but it doesn't answer the question how can we experience such radically unseasonal weather? Victoria appears to be history, no rain, high winds, fires we can only hope this doesn't advance north as apparently weather patterns are said to do. We have had no summer to speak of in the last couple of years and the flowers here tell me spring is here

I know. I'm certainly not an old man but I have to say that in my time I have noticed distinct changes in the weather patterns. It seems gone are the days of long hot summers with consecutive days in 40 deg. C range. But in contrast winters don't seem near as cold as they used to.

Im not sold on global warming completely, but I will admit that there certainly appears to be climate change. Is this natural change or not? Im not so sure.

[tomder55]

This surely tells us that the unusual has come to stay

Climate Change Happens (it is a bumper sticker I think I'll market if it isn't being sold already )

Really now ,desertification happened on this planet long before the introduction of the internal combustion engine ;and even before humans existed . And the largest desert on the planet is in one of the coldest places.

My latest theory on this whole warming /cooling stuff predicts that all of us had better start buying fleece lined jackets... and all will be encouraged to blow out as much C02 as possible
CO2 Science

[speechlesstx]

Yeah Clete, I'm always told that one oddity does not make the case. I'm certain I was told that when I had 4 foot snow drifts in late April this year (that was for you, Skell).

[spitvenom]

The only thing I know is the weather seems to be different here in Philly. When I was a kid I remember throwing snow balls at the SEPTA buses in November and school being closed. Now I don't even remember the last time there was a really big snow storm in November.

It seems to me like the season are getting pushed back if that makes any sense. For example usually I turn my AC on at the end of May beginning of June this year I didn't have to turn it on until the middle of July. Not a big thing but that is not normal. My heat was on until about the middle of April that isn't normal either.

[ETWolverine]

2009 is officially Australia's hottest ever winter | National News | News.com.au

Parts of Australia have had their warmest day this year, in the middle of winter.

No, it's not a joke or a prank report. Now I want to know if we can have 37 degrees C in winter what are we to expect in summer and let's face it what can you expect?

This surely tells us that the unusual has come to stay

Intererstingly enough, we in the USA have been experiencing the COLDEST summer in memory, which followed the coldest spring in living memory. We didn't hit 90% in New York until two weeks ago, and we usually hit the 90s in late June and stay there until the end August.

How do I explain it? It's called weather. It changes. Sometimes it changes UPWARD, sometimes it changes DOWNWARD.

This does NOT tell me that the unusual has come to stay. It tells me that the unusual came and went.

When we had a freak snowstorm in late April '93 (springtime) was that a sign that "something unusual had come to stay"? And if so, what is that "something unusual"? And most importantly, is it being caused by anything WE are doing?

The only trend that I have seen in global warming is that every time Al Gore opens his mouth to talk about global warming, it ends up being the coldest day on record. Which just proves that Al Gore is sucking the energy out of whatever place he happens to be standing. But it doesn't tell us anything about global warming, or cooling, or climate change.

Elliot

[galveston]

Wonder what Al Gore would have made of the "dust bowl" had he been around then?

It was so bad that many simply gave up on the region and left. Nothing grew, and sometimes you couldn't see due to the dust.

Today that region feeds much of the world.

Just remember, change is certain, and as for the weather, there is NOT ONE THING that we can do about it.

Let's not kill ourselves tilting at windmills.

[ETWolverine]

One thing that global warming theory supporters can never answer is THIS question.

What is the optimal temperature for the planet Earth?

If the temperature is getting "too high" it must be because it is over a certain level and is causing problems.

If the temperature is getting "too low" it must be because the temperature is getting below a certain level and is causing problems.

So what temperature is "just right"? What is the optimal temperature for the planet Earth?

Until you can define what the correct temperature should be, it seems silly to say that it is getting "too high" or "too low".

BTW, does anyone here know what type of environment is the most hospitable to the largest number of species on Earth?

Swamps.

Hot, humid, high-temperature, dirty, disgusting swamps. Swamps have more spieces of insect, mammal, reptile, fish, plant, BACTERIA, VIRUS, etc. than any other environment on Earth. You can learn more about natural history from a swamp than from any other environment in existence. There is more life there than exists anywhere else.

So tell me that a rise of even 2 degrees across the entire planet is BAD for life on Earth. Creating more wetlands and expanding swamps is a bad thing? I don't buy it.

Elliot

[paraclete]

Let's not kill ourselves tilting at windmills.

Haven't you heard windmills are one of the answers maybe quixote had something

[tomder55]

Check this out .

Remember when the President said he was going to restore science to it's proper place ? Turns out that science's proper place is in the trash heap .

Al McGartland, director of the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics(NCEE), has chastised the authors of an EPA study that knocked gaping holes of logic in the agency's decision to label life-sustaining carbon dioxide as a pollutant. McGartland's "cease-and-desist" warnings to the two scientists came to light in four e-mails, obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based think tank that vigorously defends free market principles.
The authors were told by McGartland not to publish the report or "have any communication with anyone outside" the NCEE about the EPA's decision to classify carbon dioxide as an "endangerment" to our health and the environment. Because the study so adamantly opposed the administration's decision to name carbon dioxide a pollutant in order to control energy usage, Al McGartland issued the following series of blunt "thou shall nots."

One e-mail noted: "There should be no meetings, emails, written statements, phone calls etc" about endangerment.
Another declared: "The time for such discussion of fundamental issues has passed. The administrator and administration has decided to move forward on endangerment and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision."
Yet another cautioned: "I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in this process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office."
And finally came the unambiguous order: "I don't want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change. No papers, no research, etc." The report. Which has circulated widely on the Internet, graphically illustrates why EPA kow-towers to Obama's sweeping wanted it buried -- perhaps in a lead-lined container deposited in Yucca Mountain.
Authors Alan Carlin and John Davidson -- both holders of Ph.D.s -- found that the EPA "paid too little attention to the science of global warming." Instead, they observed, the EPA accepted findings from other groups such as the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change without a "critical examination of their conclusions and documentation." They devastatingly noted that the EPA's conclusion that CO2 was harmful was based on old science which is no longer accurate. Specifically, the study by Carlin and Davidson noted:
• "Global temperatures have declined extending the current downtrend to 11 years. At the same time atmospheric CO2 levels have continued to increase and CO2 emissions have accelerated."
• "The consensus on past, present and future Atlantic hurricane behavior has changed.. . Now the consensus is much more neutral, arguing that future Atlantic tropical cyclones will be little different than those of the past."
• "The idea that warming temperatures will cause Greenland to rapidly shed its ice has been greatly diminished by new results indicating little evidence for the operation of such processes."
• "A new 2009 study suggests that the U.N.'s IPCC used faulty solar data in dismissing the direct effect of solar variability on global temperatures. Their research suggests that solar variability could account for up to 68% of the increase in the earth's global temperatures."
The authors also warned the EPA not to make a hasty decision in calling CO2 an endangerment to health saying, "Given the downward trend in temperatures since 1998 (which some think will continue until at least 2030) there is no particular reason to rush into decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data."
Needless to say the usually intrepid investigative reporters at the New York Times, Washington Post and the mainstream TV networks somehow managed to miss a truly scandalous story with ramifications for the American people.

Transparency apparently not on EPA's agenda | detnews.com | The Detroit News


Here is the document by Carlin and Davidson.
Proposed NCEE Comments on Draft Technical Support Document for Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Gle


Now it turns out that the EPA is considering shutting down Carlin's unit ;the NCEE for their heracy .The NCEE's task is to “analyzing the economic and health impacts of environmental regulations and policies, and … informing important policy decisions with sound economics and other sciences.”

Dr. Carlin must have thought that his role was to examine the orthodoxy and rationale behind EPA decision based on scientific fact and to weigh those facts against the economic costs of EPA regulations . But in the brave new world of the Obot ,such factors are inconvenient truths.

[ETWolverine]

haven't you heard windmills are one of the answers maybe quixote had something

Yep. Windmills are the high-tech new technology... only about a thousand years old.

There's a reason that windmills were abandoned in favor of other methods if transmitting energy. They are inefficient, and it takes more energy to transport power from a windmill to an end-user than is generated by the windmill. That has NOT changed significantly in over 100 years. Unless someone can figure out how to make this old tech more efficient, it's not going to go very far.

Elliot

[speechlesstx]

Yes, Obama Aims to Shield Science From Politics.

"It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda _ and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology."

Just words...

[spitvenom]

Windmills are tough I think they need a steady stream of wind at least 12mph for 75% of the day to make any real energy. Or something along those lines. I still think Solar is the way to go. We use Solar panels to power some of the controllers I work on that are in remote areas that you can't run power out to. Works great even if the sun is not out.

[ETWolverine]

Windmills are tough I think they need a steady stream of wind at least 12mph for 75% of the day to make any real energy. Or something along those lines. I still think Solar is the way to go. We use Solar panels to power some of the controllers I work on that are in remote areas that you can't run power out to. Works great even if the sun is not out.

No, the true way to clean, sustainable, SAFE, independent electrical energy is through NUCLEAR POWER.

Solar is good, but it is diffuse, susceptible to interruption due to weather, difficult to store, and expensive to transport over distances compared the amount of energy it produces (better than wind, but still relatively expensive to transport). The only real advantage of solar energy over the fossil fuels we currently use is its sustainability, which I agree is an important step, but not the ONLY important step.

Nuclear has none of the same difficulties. It is not susceptible to weather problems, it is concentrated energy, easily stored, easily transmitted, cost effective, and sustainable in the long term. Nuclear energy is where we need to concentrate, I think.

Elliot

[spitvenom]

I know Nuclear would work but it scares me. Not the environmental impact but just the safety of it. If those cooling tanks fail and they can't get it working again a lot of people are going to die.

Solar would be better if it was on every house but it is too expensive. Plus not all houses will get the proper sun.

[tomder55]

spit . Using the French example. Check out their system. Most of the electricity generated there is nuclear using breeder reactors.

The breeder reactor recyles the waste until it is so small that it is almost non-existant .

At its best, the Breeder Reactor system produces no nuclear waste whatever - literally everything eventually gets used. In the real world, there actually may be some residual material that could be considered waste, but its half-life - the period of time it takes for half the radioactivity to dissipate - is on the order of thirty to forty years. By contrast, the half-life for the stuff we presently consider nuclear waste is over 25,000 years!

http://www.argee.net/DefenseWatch/Nuclear%20Waste%20and%20Breeder%20Reactors.htm


Two incidents illustrate the safety issue
1. 3 Mile Island had inherent safety features built into it and the incident was contained .
2.The Chernobyl reactor did not have a containment structure like those used in the West and is the only incident where a breach occured. As bad as it was ;the accident destroyed the reactor and killed 56 people ,although many more received some form of radiation exposure.


The point is that nukes already in the worse of cases have a pretty impressive safety record. Certainly better if you compare them to the safety record of coal hydropower and natural gas plants and especially compared to worker safety .

Many of the old reactors do need to be decommissioned ;but new ones being built have even more redundant safety featured built in.

[ETWolverine]

I know Nuclear would work but it scares me. Not the environmental impact but just the safety of it. If those cooling tanks fail and they can't get it working again a lot of people are going to die.

Solar would be better if it was on every house but it is too expensive. Plus not all houses will get the proper sun.

People tend to point to Three Mile Island as an example of what you are talking about, Spitvenom. BUT, the truth is that Three Mile Island showed us how well the safety systems of nuclear facilities work, not how badly they fail. Despite the mechanical failure at Three Mile Island, there was NO RADIATION LEAKAGE WHATSOEVER. The reactor shut down just fine despite the control errors. The "accident" that scares so many people is actually an example of everything going RIGHT, not everything going wrong.

Nuclear energy is even safer today than it was in 1979. The controls are better, more redundancy has been built into the systems, and the system is actually cleaner today.

I understand your fears, but the fact is that you get more radiation tanning yourself in the sun for 15 minutes than you would by taking a stroll on 3 Mile Island or any other nuclear facility site. There is more dangerous radiation from a traditional COAL power plant than there is from a nuclear power plant.

Elliot

[jetstream7]

Well, we're looking at a relatively small bit of time when it comes to recorded weather - maybe 200 years? There have been MUCH greater weather fluctuations in the past during human history. We may just be in the band of a minor fluctuation - or not. :)