So I'm browsing Drudge Report...

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

Quote:
YES! You get it! You get it! You really get it. I feel like Sally Field.

My sister and I were discussing income inequality last week or so. I was on my soapbox. I thought the NYT article was a good summary. Easy to understand. And yeah it does tie into space exploration if you think about just a little. Funding is fun and fundamental.

Remember, in the event of a major upheaval it's usually the people with all the books and big words that end up in the village soup pot. Yummmmm.

Yeah, I know. I am just counting on being too old and stringy to be good eating.

I always tell my students people may look up to professors, but they need garbage collectors. In the grand scheme of things garbage collectors are waaaay more valuable.

 

[wendy]

LOL on the Global Warming/Climate Change....PC has always been funny!!

 

[PurpleChicken]

I have WHAT in my yard? :

Yeah, I know. I am just counting on being too old and stringy to be good eating.

I always tell my students people may look up to professors, but they need garbage collectors. In the grand scheme of things garbage collectors are waaaay more valuable.

That gave me a good chuckle. Thanks.

My dad used to tell people he was a garbage collector when I was younger. I could never quite figure it out and as a kid it bugged me. I didn't want people to think my dad, a police sergeant, was a garbage man.​

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
Funny looking maybe.

 

[Organics North]

Quote:
even the IPCC only thinks 20 inches or so of sea level rise. Going with the flow would be MUCH cheaper.

Even at that, I think the IPCC overestimates the damage of warming and underestimates the benefits. North Dakotans and Russians sure ain't scared of a little warming.

I wouldn't mind being moved to Zone 8, either.

Ok first off on climate change, Q9 I vehemently disagree with "your type"on this subject.. I am surprised you even acknowledge climate change....

20 inches of sea level change puts what 1/4 of the worlds population underwater, along with the a substantial, amount of low lying flood plain..ie fertile land!!
Yikes! I do not take that lightly.. (Or is it I live on high ground who cares what happens to those poor folks in Bangladesh on low ground??)

Besides it is not the water level increase from the ice caps melting that concerns me, it is the rate that they melt.. Changing ocean currents sending places like Europe into an ice age..... I see no way for us to go with the flow and build cities and farm on mile thick sheets of ice...
Going with the flow is cheaper for who? The current wealthy? The current polluters? Besides I see business and profit opportunities in a new economy not based on oil. I live in the forest and own tracts of forest land... I can make money by selling carbon credits...

I won't go any further on that but use the leaving the oil based to make my next point... ...............

.............I agree with Dunkopf, we will not be getting to far in space travel until we develop better propulsion systems and IMO better fuel sources... My personal dream is that in my life time we outgrow fossil fuel.. Why, because I dream of great leaps and bounds in technology growth for our species once we leave the internal combustion engine behind..... Driving that technology just for going to the moon, is to expensive, the technology needs do be driven by practical needs hear on earth...

Then again it is a good thing we can not go to far....(Keeping our greedy destructive narrow minded nature contained to just one planet..)

Yepper.... I did love the movie Avatar.... Thats how I see a certain group of people in the USA behave. (It is all about profit, and kill anything different than you.....)..

ON

 

[Dunkopf]

At least most of Europe is on the right track. Too bad they will have all the technological gains, while we are still putzing around with fossil fuels. Even China, the worlds worst polluter is kicking our rear ends on green energy. Hopefully people here in the USA will wake up before it's too late.

I hope our corporations can figure out a way to make huge profits on green energy. Otherwise we're stuck with melted ice caps and flooded cities. They might do it anyway. They would lose a lot of cheap labor sources if they let the oceans rise 20 inches.

 

[Q9]

Quote:
even the IPCC only thinks 20 inches or so of sea level rise. Going with the flow would be MUCH cheaper.

Even at that, I think the IPCC overestimates the damage of warming and underestimates the benefits. North Dakotans and Russians sure ain't scared of a little warming.

I wouldn't mind being moved to Zone 8, either.

Ok first off on climate change, Q9 I vehemently disagree with "your type"on this subject.. I am surprised you even acknowledge climate change....

20 inches of sea level change puts what 1/4 of the worlds population underwater, along with the a substantial, amount of low lying flood plain..ie fertile land!!
Yikes! I do not take that lightly.. (Or is it I live on high ground who cares what happens to those poor folks in Bangladesh on low ground??)

Besides it is not the water level increase from the ice caps melting that concerns me, it is the rate that they melt.. Changing ocean currents sending places like Europe into an ice age..... I see no way for us to go with the flow and build cities and farm on mile thick sheets of ice...
Going with the flow is cheaper for who? The current wealthy? The current polluters? Besides I see business and profit opportunities in a new economy not based on oil. I live in the forest and own tracts of forest land... I can make money by selling carbon credits...

I won't go any further on that but use the leaving the oil based to make my next point... ...............

.............I agree with Dunkopf, we will not be getting to far in space travel until we develop better propulsion systems and IMO better fuel sources... My personal dream is that in my life time we outgrow fossil fuel.. Why, because I dream of great leaps and bounds in technology growth for our species once we leave the internal combustion engine behind..... Driving that technology just for going to the moon, is to expensive, the technology needs do be driven by practical needs hear on earth...

Then again it is a good thing we can not go to far....(Keeping our greedy destructive narrow minded nature contained to just one planet..)

Yepper.... I did love the movie Avatar.... Thats how I see a certain group of people in the USA behave. (It is all about profit, and kill anything different than you.....)..

ON

Well, it's hard to disagree that change is happening. It's just not catastrophic to any degree. The IPCC used to promote Michael Mann's horribly disproven "Hockey Stick" chart, and then later took it out when they were called on it. They're about as reliable as an uncleaned M-16 in Southeast Asia.

Sorry, had to make the gun analogy...

The fact is, the caps are not melting catastrophically. Even supposing ALL of Greenland's ice melted, it would mostly form a gigantic lake due to the bowl-like depression made by its own weight. Antarctica, as mentioned before, is cooling, so no worries except from the rather small Peninsula. The Polar ice sheets wouldn't create any rise at all, even if they all melted. The IPCC is absolutely loony, IMHO.

Besides, fossil fuels are NOT even a remotely likely cause of warming. The one puny degree we've experienced over the past century took place mostly before WWII, before GHG emissions were significant. Around the 60's, there was a cooling trend until near the end of the century. It has since been warming at a miniscule degree. Also, humans account for a grand 3% of total CO2 emissions, and that includes breathing. A slightly larger percent for methane, but still insignificant. Any time a volcano burps, it puts a ton of GHGs into the sky.

Interesting tidbit - the EU is actually increasing emissions faster than the US.

 

[Q9]

Just realized a Moron Moment I had. Guess I need one every day.

I meant 20 centimeters, not 20 inches!

Yeah, even with that correction, I'm still pretty confident I could fertilize my garden with the IPCC's stuff.

 

[Organics North]

Quote:
Q9,
You put a smile on my face... I enjoy your witty, durable personality.. (Note, that I did not say I agree with you in the least bit...

)

20 inches ----- 20 centimeters....... That can happen to any of us...

I question your sources on what they consider "natural CO2" verses "man made"
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

I bet dollars to donuts they but the burning of fossil fuels in the "natural" category...After all oil is not from outer space? right?


So who is going to start the global warming discussion thread????????

ON
May your M16 remain clean...

 

[Dunkopf]

Statistics are fun things. They are so easy to manipulate. As with anything you read or hear, it all depends on who you choose to believe. I look around and see the changes happening. I pay attention to what is happening in other parts of the world.

I choose to believe the 90% of scientist that say global warming is real and is a problem. I choose to believe that the 10% of scientist that say global warming is a farce are in the pockets of big oil. There is a lot of money behind the people wanting us to believe that global warming is a non issue. A lot more than the money that is behind Gore.

If global warming has nothing at all to do with man kinds efforts to destroy the earth. It can't hurt to cut down on pollution. It can't hurt to reduce oil consumption as much as possible, so we can quit having wars over oil and polluting our natural resources trying to pull it out of the ground.

It's hard to get anything done when there is a huge propaganda machine trying to convince everyone that we have unlimited fossil fuels and there is no need to try to develop anything better. Plenty of oil and coal to go around and they don't effect our atmosphere at all. Don't worry we will take care of everything.