Uh oh another one jumps ship

[trigfunctions]

Nice try trig ...lets see tenure, full bennies, life time employement with 6 figure salaries and if they publish they get nice bonuses...hmmm now try that again ...Oh did I mention fed, state, and corporate grants for research ....

Not to many starving research scientists ...they may not be capitalist pigs like me ...but they are hardly struggling ...specially the ones who get published...

:rolleyesbecausethispersonhasnoideahowscienceworks:

 

[DennisS]

Northwest Passage was open for the first time this summer. Polar ice caps are shrinking, glaciers are receding, global cooling, I don't think so.

Arctic Melt Opens Northwest Passage

 

[deeper thoughts]

Guess again. I believe China has passed us, or soon will, within a year or so.

China to overtake US with world's highest CO2 emissions this year- IEA
November 09, 2007: 01:34 AM EST


Nov. 9, 2007 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) --

BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - China will this year surpass the US in terms of carbon dioxide emissions and will become the world's biggest oil consumer by 2010, the International Energy (OOTC:ILGL) Agency (IEA) said.

Speaking at the release of the agency's World Energy Outlook report here, Nobuo Tanaka, IEA executive director said that China needs to invest about 3.7 trln usd in energy supply infrastructure to meet demand.

'The sustained high economic growth of both China and India are the drivers behind rising global energy (NASDAQ:GEGT) demand,' Tanaka said.

He noted that rising oil and gas prices are making coal a more competitive fuel and rising coal use is driving up energy-related carbon dioxide emissions.

The IEA report observed that China became a net coal importer in the first half of this year and imports are expected to grow.

China's net oil imports will jump from 3.5 mln barrels a day in 2006 to 13.1 bln barrels a day in 2030 while new vehicle sales are expected to exceed US sales by 2015, it said.

The IEA's chief economist, and author of the report, Faith Birol, said that China needs to increase energy efficiency.

'Efficiency standards of refrigerators and air conditioners alone (could) cut electricity use by 83 Terawatt hours -- this is almost equivalent to annual electricity generation by the Three Gorges Dam,' Birol said.

Echoing this sentiment, Tanaka said that China should look to other IEA member states for guidance on energy efficiency.

'China can learn more from other IEA countries about car emission standards, air conditioning units, refrigeration,' Tanaka said.

'Price mechanisms also play a very important role,' he said. 'China should eliminate price controls and subsidies.'
But Tanaka stated that whilst the IEA has made many recommendations to governments on energy policy, including to China, immediate execution of plans to reduce harmful emissions and slow energy consumption is needed.

'Actions and decisions should be made now,' Tanaka said.

'It is not resources, it is not money, it is time that is the issue. We don't have time,' he said.

Tanaka said that the IEA has been working with the National Development and Reform Commission, China's state planning agency, to develop the country's strategic oil reserves and technology transfers to improve efficient use of the nation's energy supplies.

 

[mrjimboalaska]

You might want to be careful with that one - the US is the biggest polluter, i.e. "Dirty Country", in the world still. Has been for a long time.

Our Manufacturing plants that have come online in the last 15 years are the cleanest around, BAR NONE.......the EPA is almost the SOLE contributor to Companies moving overseas, it's cheaper than building a Modern Facility. China dumps raw waste from factories right in the rivers.....
How much do you really travel?

We need to get away from the whole man-made GW crap and move towards Conservation of our natural resources. This will get more people onboard with changing our systems, and it can be done without destroying our economy.
That, and hang the Futures Traders, they are the reason oil is a 100 a barrel.....

 

[Kim]

Our Manufacturing plants that have come online in the last 15 years are the cleanest around, BAR NONE.......the EPA is almost the SOLE contributor to Companies moving overseas, it's cheaper than building a Modern Facility. China dumps raw waste from factories right in the rivers.....
How much do you really travel?

We need to get away from the whole man-made GW crap and move towards Conservation of our natural resources. This will get more people onboard with changing our systems, and it can be done without destroying our economy.
That, and hang the Futures Traders, they are the reason oil is a 100 a barrel.....

So how come the US has the highest per capita carbon output if you're so clean!!!!

Please....... China *might* surpass the US in global emissions this year/soon? Well about time - they've got a population around 4 times bigger than yours! How about my earlier question regarding everyone being treated equally? And even if they DO become the prime polluter....the US will still be the second filthiest country on the face of the planet. Is that a cause for pride? Should we all stop buying US product until you change your ways? Do you really think that you've been such a great example to everyone else that you can really get away with "Do as I say, not as I do"?????

As for $100/barrel oil - I hope it makes $200. If you guys insist on using so much more than the rest of us I want you to pay for it. (I can afford it....I run a cheap, fuel efficient car....and my bicycle costs me nothing! ) Anyway - it's not really futures traders, it's the greed of the US sub-prime market and the consequent weakness of the dollar. Oil is only getting more expensive for dollar based economies.

Still - I suppose trying to blame China is at least a step forward as it already implies a recognition of the problem that has been denied. I mean.....if GW is just a "cult" thing and not really happening...or at least not caused by humans, then it doesn't really matter what China does, does it?

 

[mrjimboalaska]

Kim, you're always good for a laugh....
You missed my point. The U.S. Environmental Laws have gotten so tough as to drive away our manufacturing, we should not have to trade with countries that less stringent laws.
Yes, we produce the most pollution in the world at the present time. No one complained when we were feeding the world, at the expence of the US Taxpayer, and family farmer.....
Sin Tax on oil is what you're after eh? That's ok by me, I can afford it, hell, I paid $7.00 a gallon for gas in Germany and more in England years ago(before the EURO). But people who cannot afford it, it hurts. there is NO reason for it either, other than to make people "feel good", and line the pockets of government.
NBC pulled a "Greenie" move on Monday Night Football, at that moment, I turned on ALL the lights in the house and did the laundry. I will leave the porchlight and the garage lights on 24/7 until they get that green peacock off my TV screen! hey, this greedy American can afford it!

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

Ok, so have we been told to conclude that CO2 emissions are not harmful yet?

Question to those who doubt Global Warming: is the quantity of our CO2 emissions harmful or beneficial? If you cannot answer one way or the other, and with proof, then why are you willing to risk the chance that it is harmful? I am not willing to take that chance; I don't care about the street you live on but I do care about my street. Perhaps you are just antagonists getting a kick out of being belligerant.

Let's try this again, slowly:

In the real world, we respond (or should respond) to a perceived risk with a response measured against that risk. I already gave an example in a previous post: we KNOW that asteroids and comets have struck the earth in the past and will again. If a single asteroid measuring two or three miles across hits us, we will be wiped out in a matter of weeks. We may have relatively little warning, maybe weeks or months if that. Thus, the case can be made that we should develop technology now to divert to destroy asteroids of this size or greater. But at what cost? Are you willing to spend a billion, a trillion, ten trillion for such technology? Are you willing to divert, say, all cancer research funds into giant laser beam technology for such use? No, because the risk is small. Remember: it isn't the outcome only that matters (total global annihilation), but the temporal likelihood of that outcome. People enter into commercial planes all the time, even though the POTENTIAL risk of doing so is to be burned alive horribly in a crash. We do so because the actual temporal risk is minute, less than one death per one million flight segments.

The simple platitude "if you don't know if it's harmful, then we should act anyway" is so ludicrous as to be beyond comprehension. I could ask you: why haven't you built a 250,000 dollar steel canopy over your house? Don't you know that houses have been destroyed by ice falling from aircraft and meteorites? You can't possibly KNOW that your house won't be leveled by toilet ice from a 737, so your failure to act to prevent this must be condemned! The simple truth is, we trade risk for cash or lifestyle on a daily basis. We drive cars because we need to, we dive because we like to, it's all a matter of balance.

We aren't going to spend 200,000 dollars to protect a 100,000 property from a one in a million chance of destruction. That would be stupid. True risk/benefit analysis of a course of action requires complex and detailed knowledge of the costs, risks, and benefits involved. NONE of that is available here. Even if some GW is a certainty, I see no one venturing a intelligent qunatitative guess as to the property or economic damage that will occur (or how it might be OFFSET by benefits of warming, like reduced winter fuel use, better agriculture in certain areas, and so on). I see no guessimates of how much it will cost to reduce the earth's temperature by a certain amount. All I hear is: we're doomed, open your checkbook, the carbon taxes are coming...

To have the correct response to GW, if it exists, we must know the precise risk of GW balanced against the cost of stopping it versus the cost of dealing with it. For example, say GW by 2050 will hurt crop production by x dollars, harm coastal property by y dollars, and so on, if left unchecked. If it costs 10 times more money and effort to stop a certain degree of GW than it would to deal with the potential damage such warming might do, it's best just to let it happen and deal with the consequences.

When the space shuttle was built, the cost planning included a total vehicle loss of one per 100 launches. To make the vehicle safer would cost far more than simply absorbing the economic and political fallout of one shuttle disaster every decade or so. That's the way the world works. We can't eliminate every risk or prevent every bad outcome, particularly if, in doing so, we incur more injury eliminating the risk that the risk itself might ever cause. A warmer climate might, in the end, cost us less grief ---economically, culturally, socially --- than trying to slam the brakes on our current way of life. But why do I worry...that isn't going to happen and we all know it.

I hear that this ice cap is melting, blah, blah, blah. The best I can extract from the UN report is, in worst case scenario, the oceans rise 39 inches by 2100 and the temp goes up by several degrees. Is such a slow rise of the sea level or air temp really going to produce such havoc that we must spend any amount of our resources to stop it? Is this rise going to harm coastal economies more than, say, beach erosion and weather already affect it. Won't we slowly adapt to such gradual changes as they occur? Why the "sky is falling" atttitude? Will driving fuel efficient cars or using curly light bulbs across the globe really impact this slow trend to a degree that offsets the increased costs of such technologies?

I see only one reason for the "act now" approach: grab the handles of power while people still believe this bunk. Fads have a short half-life and I suspect this one is already going the way of the bird flu. Hence the strident, panicked tone of GW advocates.

 

[deeper thoughts]

Let's try this again, slowly:

In the real world, we respond (or should respond) to a perceived risk with a response measured against that risk. I already gave an example in a previous post: we KNOW that asteroids and comets have struck the earth in the past and will again. If a single asteroid measuring two or three miles across hits us, we will be wiped out in a matter of weeks. We may have relatively little warning, maybe weeks or months if that. Thus, the case can be made that we should develop technology now to divert to destroy asteroids of this size or greater. But at what cost? Are you willing to spend a billion, a trillion, ten trillion for such technology? Are you willing to divert, say, all cancer research funds into giant laser beam technology for such use? No, because the risk is small. Remember: it isn't the outcome only that matters (total global annihilation), but the temporal likelihood of that outcome. People enter into commercial planes all the time, even though the POTENTIAL risk of doing so is to be burned alive horribly in a crash. We do so because the actual temporal risk is minute, less than one death per one million flight segments.

The simple platitude "if you don't know if it's harmful, then we should act anyway" is so ludicrous as to be beyond comprehension. I could ask you: why haven't you built a 250,000 dollar steel canopy over your house? Don't you know that houses have been destroyed by ice falling from aircraft and meteorites? You can't possibly KNOW that your house won't be leveled by toilet ice from a 737, so your failure to act to prevent this must be condemned! The simple truth is, we trade risk for cash or lifestyle on a daily basis. We drive cars because we need to, we dive because we like to, it's all a matter of balance.

We aren't going to spend 200,000 dollars to protect a 100,000 property from a one in a million chance of destruction. That would be stupid. True risk/benefit analysis of a course of action requires complex and detailed knowledge of the costs, risks, and benefits involved. NONE of that is available here. Even if some GW is a certainty, I see no one venturing a intelligent qunatitative guess as to the property or economic damage that will occur (or how it might be OFFSET by benefits of warming, like reduced winter fuel use, better agriculture in certain areas, and so on). I see no guessimates of how much it will cost to reduce the earth's temperature by a certain amount. All I hear is: we're doomed, open your checkbook, the carbon taxes are coming...

To have the correct response to GW, if it exists, we must know the precise risk of GW balanced against the cost of stopping it versus the cost of dealing with it. For example, say GW by 2050 will hurt crop production by x dollars, harm coastal property by y dollars, and so on, if left unchecked. If it costs 10 times more money and effort to stop a certain degree of GW than it would to deal with the potential damage such warming might do, it's best just to let it happen and deal with the consequences.

When the space shuttle was built, the cost planning included a total vehicle loss of one per 100 launches. To make the vehicle safer would cost far more than simply absorbing the economic and political fallout of one shuttle disaster every decade or so. That's the way the world works. We can't eliminate every risk or prevent every bad outcome, particularly if, in doing so, we incur more injury eliminating the risk that the risk itself might ever cause. A warmer climate might, in the end, cost us less grief ---economically, culturally, socially --- than trying to slam the brakes on our current way of life. But why do I worry...that isn't going to happen and we all know it.

I hear that this ice cap is melting, blah, blah, blah. The best I can extract from the UN report is, in worst case scenario, the oceans rise 39 inches by 2100 and the temp goes up by several degrees. Is such a slow rise of the sea level or air temp really going to produce such havoc that we must spend any amount of our resources to stop it? Is this rise going to harm coastal economies more than, say, beach erosion and weather already affect it. Won't we slowly adapt to such gradual changes as they occur? Why the "sky is falling" atttitude? Will driving fuel efficient cars or using curly light bulbs across the globe really impact this slow trend to a degree that offsets the increased costs of such technologies?

I see only one reason for the "act now" approach: grab the handles of power while people still believe this bunk. Fads have a short half-life and I suspect this one is already going the way of the bird flu. Hence the strident, panicked tone of GW advocates.

Please I am still recovering from the ice age that the "consensus of scientists" predicted during the 1970s:froze::froze:

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

Please I am still recovering from the ice age that the "consensus of scientists" predicted during the 1970s:froze::froze:

How about the pandemic of bird flu that the consensus of experts said would have consumed a third of civilization by now? Their models of a single virus epidemic couldn't accurately forecast a year or two into the future, but we can allegedly predict the global atmospheric/oceanographic behavior a century into the future?

Uh huh.

Or how about the swine flu scare of the Carter era --- we had to act, lest we all perish! Rush the vaccine into production or risk calamity!! The result? More people were wrecked by the vaccine, which didn't work anyway. If there is a more apt parable of why we shouldn't feel compelled to "act" just because some group of supposed experts forecast gloom and doom, I can't think of one.

The first rule of surgery: no matter how bad you think things are, you can always **** them up even more if you really try. That rule applies to a lot of other aspects of life as well.

 

[Far_X]

Let's try this again, slowly:

In the real world, we respond (or should respond) to a perceived risk with a response measured against that risk.

Won't we slowly adapt to such gradual changes as they occur? Why the "sky is falling" atttitude? Will driving fuel efficient cars or using curly light bulbs across the globe really impact this slow trend to a degree that offsets the increased costs of such technologies?

I see only one reason for the "act now" approach: grab the handles of power while people still believe this bunk. Fads have a short half-life and I suspect this one is already going the way of the bird flu. Hence the strident, panicked tone of GW advocates.

You seem to be of the opinion that viable energy alternatives with less emissions are a bad thing and people should not waste their time and money doing R&D on them. Why is that? I don't want to try and adapt if there are changes caused by our own pollutants. You must have seen documentaries showing that there is a link to people's health and the toxic wastes factories dump. I am referring to factories around the world not just the USA. Or do you think all that is hyperbole? Are mercury levels in fish something to worry about? A few hundred years have past since the Industrial Revolution. You'd have thought that that is sufficient time to have done something about greatly reducing polution levels. Once you have cooked an egg, how do you make it non-solid again?