Bush ok's Gulf of Mexico Drilling

[micks]

http://www.alaskareport.com/z45169.htm

Cliffs: oil pipeline breaks, oil spill in the gulf, divers fix it, degree of environmental damage is unknown.

 

[steeliejim]

Look on the bright side. IF as Uncle AL is screaming (a REALLY BIG "IF") ocean temperatures "rise", resulting in a general "rise" of sea level the worlds coral reefs will move north again, and the Condo rubble of South Fla will create enough hard substrate for extensive reef growth all the way north to Orlando. That reef rock ridge has been underwater before, and will be again. When is the only question.

OTOH pacific reefs may make it all the way up to the canyon off your place.

Disregarding Uncle Al's fear mongering red herrings the place to watch for changes is the Bearing Sea. When a land bridge or grounded ice bridge again starts to form there we are in real trouble. The ice age cycle will again start and the earth again goes into the deep freeze for a few hundred thousand years. That one passage being open or closed is the key to ice age ocean current formation with the existing continent mass configuration. That gap is necessary for the Great Southern Ocean wind driven trans-arctic flow that keeps a stable fresh water lens from forming in the arctic sea. As long as there is no stable fresh water lens the density currents will flow, or restart after a decade or so and existing climate conditions will tend to prevail, plus or minus a few hundred miles north or south. Once the stable lens forms the restart cycle is measured in tens of thousands of years.

NOTHING man can do with earth based resources will stop this cycle. We have a variable star driving this system. Unless we can do something to take out that variation the cycle will continue until the continental masses move again and create a gap between continents that negates the need for the trans-arctic current. BTW that current is measure in cubic miles of water per month, not in the same class as the Gulf Stream and Japan Currents, but just as important if not more so.

FT

Not sure if you are denying that warming is occurring or if you just don't think it's being caused primarily by man's activities. There were/are an awful lot of people denying that global warming was even occurring, mostly because it doesn't fit their beliefs.

 

[micks]

Simply put.. watch "an inconvenient truth", that'll set your head on straight about global warming.

 

[ReefHound]

Not sure if you are denying that warming is occurring or if you just don't think it's being caused primarily by man's activities. There were/are an awful lot of people denying that global warming was even occurring, mostly because it doesn't fit their beliefs.

Most people I know would say there is global warming, the doubt is the degree of effect of the activities of mankind. We know there have been warming and cooling cycles long before man walked the earth.

Though getting an accurate global measurement is difficult. There are always locations that are warming and locations that are cooling, determining a true global average depends on a fairly distributed sampling. It is also often to determine with a climate cycle, to put it in stock market terms, a rally in a bear market or a pullback in a bull market.

 

[micks]

Most people I know would say there is global warming, the doubt is the degree of effect of the activities of mankind. We know there have been warming and cooling cycles long before man walked the earth.

Though getting an accurate global measurement is difficult. There are always locations that are warming and locations that are cooling, determining a true global average depends on a fairly distributed sampling. It is also often to determine with a climate cycle, to put it in stock market terms, a rally in a bear market or a pullback in a bull market.

yes, these cycles WERE normal.. THIS cycle IS NOT NORMAL! It is WAY ABOVE the normal level of warming.. refer to the graph below.. you see these annual averages go up and down- relatively normal.. but with the increase of CO2 trapped in our atmosphere (due to our lifestyle), the warmer this planet gets..

:shakehead it saddens me to know that there are oblivious people out there..

 

[Bill51]

http://www.alaskareport.com/z45169.htm

Cliffs: oil pipeline breaks, oil spill in the gulf, divers fix it, degree of environmental damage is unknown.

If the current estimates prove true, this will be the worst US offshore drilling spill since 1980. From the article, “expected to have minimal effect on the environment.” Get the story straight.

 

[kneptoon]

I recently read a very disturbing article regarding the increasing acidity of the world's oceans and the likely effect on coral. I know that a debate continues (not for me) as to wether there is or isn't global warming. What is undeniable is that we have, through industrialization, pumped billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere which has been taken up by the oceans waters. I have pasted the link to The New Yorker Magazine article here:
1. ANNALS OF SCIENCE
THE DARKENING SEA
by ELIZABETH KOLBERT
What carbon emissions are doing to the ocean.
Issue of 2006-11-20
Key word for search isteropods

 

[Bill51]

Simply put.. watch "an inconvenient truth", that'll set your head on straight about global warming.

There are other threads on this board about greenhouse global warming, but why is a movie called “Inconvenient Truth” when so much of the truth was inconveniently left out.

The most important players on the greenhouse stage are water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide has been increased to about 0.038% of the atmosphere (possibly from about 0.028% pre-Industrial Revolution) while water in its various forms ranges from 0% to 4% of the atmosphere and its properties vary by what form it is in and even at what altitude it is found in the atmosphere. In simple terms, however, the bulk of Earth's greenhouse effect is due to water vapor by virtue of its abundance. Water accounts for about 90% of the Earth's greenhouse effect -- perhaps 70% is due to water vapor and about 20% due to clouds (mostly water droplets), some estimates put water as high as 95% of Earth's total greenhouse effect. The remaining portion comes from carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, ozone and miscellaneous other "minor greenhouse gases." As an example of the relative importance of water it should be noted that changes in the relative humidity on the order of 1.3-4% are equivalent to the effect of doubling CO2.

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

Professor Robert Carter of Australia states, “Gore’s circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention.” Professor Carter works at the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia. Climatology as it relates to the oceans is one of his disciplines. He knows whereof he speaks and yet, you will not find his remarks concerning Al Gore’s movie carried by the MSM. (Mainstream Media) Professor Carter is one of hundreds of meteorological and climatological scientists who are not part of a government group, or lobby group, or industrial group who might have a “vested interest” in seeing any agenda pushed forward. In addition, all of these non-vested scientists are highly qualified in their respected fields. In fact, these unquoted and ignored scientists are experts in climate change and they contest the hypothesis that humans are responsible for climate change through the increase of CO2 emissions that have been made by humans. The scientists that Gore uses to push his agenda think it is immaterial that they do not work in the field in which they are discussing. This would be akin to an atheist expressing the characteristics of a God he does not believe exists.

http://capitolhillcoffeehouse.com/more.php?id=453_0_1_0_M

For example, professional sociologists at the London-based Institute for Policy Research urge that “the task of climate change agencies is not to persuade by rational argument. … Instead, we need to work in a more shrewd and contemporary way, using subtle techniques of engagement. … The ‘facts’ need to be treated as being so taken-for-granted that they need not be spoken“.

http://neveryetmelted.com/?p=1711

It should amaze and anger people that the U.S. government has spent $18 billion on climate research since 1990, three times as much as any other nation. None of it has demonstrated that the global warming theory has any validity.

That was mostly while Gore was directing the research and looking for cherry picked results.

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/caruba050106.htm

 

[captain]

yes, these cycles WERE normal.. THIS cycle IS NOT NORMAL! It is WAY ABOVE the normal level of warming.. refer to the graph below.. you see these annual averages go up and down- relatively normal.. but with the increase of CO2 trapped in our atmosphere (due to our lifestyle), the warmer this planet gets..

:shakehead it saddens me to know that there are oblivious people out there..

That graft covers 140 years out of thousands and I am pretty sure there are more and more accurate measurements made today than 140 years ago. That 140 years is a grain of sand on a beach and really proves nothing except what happened in the last 140 years and is no indicator of what will happen in the next 140 years. The prediction in 1970's by the "experts" was the world would be out of oil by 1990. We still don't really know if or when we will run out. Time after time we see mans work defeated by the natural forces of nature but we as a species egotistically believe we can control nature when in actuality it is nature which is controlling us.

 

[H2Andy]

wow

you'll believe what you want to believe, and pick the quotes you want to pick

there is no global warming, we have nothing to worry about. all the data is wrong.
all the loss of glaciers and icecaps in both poles is just a liberal lie.

there is no mass extinction going on. all the data is wrong. some spider in Malasia goes extinct and the liberals cry wolf.

don't worry, be happy


(if i hear the water vapor canard one more time, i swear i am going to cry)

(and no, I have not watched An Inconvenient Truth ... i know better than to get my science from politicians)