....Cooling Underway: Global Temperature Continues to Drop in May

'Significantly Colder' - 16-month temperature drop of -0.774°C! ...

Zillions of people are scheduled to die when sea levels decline...

It is June 9 and I have to wear a jacket to go outside. The temperature today at around 2:00 pm is something like 10 degrees C!

Zillions of people are not going to die because of sea levels rising; they will all have frozen to death long before.

Oh well, just a thought...

The Mendacious Minx....Sheri

The Wonderful ....xyzDonna

Perhaps handlewanker has been "Deep Throat" for a while, and is now emerging with a very great deal of mischief.

Best wishes,

Martin

Hmmmmm, it seems the humanoids are denying themselves, just like their species, blame someone else for their problems......who cares, a mere sub species....Johnny come lateley's.

97T, you wouldn't even qualify to apply for deportation to Paradise Island where they really are living in dreamland.

For other members of your species, if you were to be insulted by certain remarks, then you must have been aware of the home truths in them.

To really insult someone, you would have to get down to their level, but in so doing the present problems (that you have) are not going away, no matter how much you evade the real issues.

Did anyone understand my "parable" on the trees on the small block?
No?
See, just evading the REAL issue by looking the other way, pathetic humanoids, too timid to grasp the nettle.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Chinese are apparently making big plans to control THEIR problems, I just wonder if the rest of the world has woken up to the fact that they too have a problem.

Now as it has been told, supposing you had 100 gallons of bio diesel and there were just 100 people left on the coil to share it with, that would mean each person would get 1 gallon each to go where they pleased.

Supposing they had an increase in their numbers by 100%, do you suppose they would actually want to reduce their travel requirements to cater for the increased feeders or would there be a denying of assets for the new arrivals?
Ian.

To really insult someone, you would have to get down to their level, but in so doing the present problems (that you have) are not going away, no matter how much you evade the real issues.




We aren't insulted as much as we are annoyed by the continual inefficient repetition of the same story. Over and over. The UN should promote a cap and trade scheme for the number of words people are allowed to use on sites like this one.

We don't expect problems we don't acknowledge to go away.

The real problem is not so much one of overpopulation, but that there are too many gullible socialists eager to take directions from their self-appointed masters. Who elected the UN to formulate policy against climate change?

The oil hasn't run out until we have drilled everywhere it is known to exist and sucked the wells dry. You asked what to do about the oil supply shortage: drill.

Let's see: A pound of megalomania, a cup of messianic complex, a dash of narcissism and just a twist of schizophrenia extract for flavor. Stir until it's word-soup, garnish with pure ignorance and then half-bake. OK, I think have the recipe; Handwhacker Souffle.

Mariss

Handwhacker Souffle.



That's brilliant!

97T, you wouldn't even qualify to apply for deportation to Paradise Island where they really are living in dreamland.

You don't have to worry. As long as you stick to the script you keep repeating here, I'm sure you will qualify as a teacher.

You will be able to live in relative comfort and not required to work the fields with your charges. And you will be free to flaunt your superiority to your hearts content. All while stopping global warming, preventing sea level rise, and fixing the population problem at the same time. Just think of all the respect you'll get, without having to earn it or give it!

--97T--

The thing about Trolls is they post something inflammatory. You react to the inflammatory post with a heartfelt rebuttal. It makes you feel good. The Troll replies with another inflammatory response. You reply to it with a rebuttal. The circle is completed and you go around and around.

At some point you should wonder about what is the purpose of all this effort. You wonder about how you are being played as a fool to even respond.

Handwhacker cannot and does not respond to reason. That should tell you to stop using reason as a response. He has a different agenda. His is to extract a rise from you for his own prurient and sophomoric satisfaction. Notice the way he fine-tunes his responses when he knows he's edging to the verge. He adjusts.

It's foolish to indulge someone whose only pleasure is to bait you. That's all he is capable of. He is not clever and he is not seeking truth, rather baiting fills what must be a daily horror show of a life. He expresses himself in this sad twisted way. Look at the alienating "humanoid" phrase construct and see what it means.

You will never convince him or have honest dialog because conviction isn't something he's seeking. He is one little sad man that has landed on the end of what this earth has to offer and he has never made peace with it. He rails and and intentionally irritates because that's the only thing he knows how to do. I honestly feel sorry for him. He is probably a good person at heart but his personal devils keep everyone else at bay. He doesn't realize how if he were just up front no one would judge him.

I cannot do anything about that. What a pity though. Life is so short and you only get one revolution on the merry-go-round. Why waste it like this?

Mariss

ditto!

Handwhacker is someone whose only pleasure is to bait you.


Handlewanker has had so much practice he might even qualify as a master baiter.

Mariss,

The only difference is that I don't feel sorry for him. There are innovators and then there are frustrated little Mussolinis cheering on the destroyers. I'm watching progress on your new board with great interest! I hope you can release them before the Great Flood, I know they're only a few days away but we can never be too sure about the malevolent universe, can we?

--97T--

97T,

Already got the malevolent side covered. We have a contract with the universe's darker forces to insure their engines of destruction will be powered by our drives. Hope for some cold solder joints:-)

Mariss

Sticks and stones etc etc.....
Make some intelligent observations and you won't attract the flack you've been getting.
Ian.

What is referred to as "flack" can be spelled more efficiently: BS.

It's the same as Al Gores' BS

Dick Z

Oops there goes another fine consensus... :)

..Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007 ....

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport

Australia: Prize-wining Geologist Dr. Ian Plimer, a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide in Australia: "There is new work emerging even in the last few weeks that shows we can have a very close correlation between the temperatures of the Earth and supernova and solar radiation."

The over 400 skeptical scientists featured in this new report outnumber by nearly eight time the number of scientists who participated in the 2007 UN IPCC Summary for Policymakers. The notion of "hundreds" or "thousands" of UN scientists agreeing to a scientific statement does not hold up to scrutiny. (See report debunking "consensus" LINK) Recent research by Australian climate data analyst John McLean revealed that the IPCC's peer-review process for the Summary for Policymakers leaves much to be desired. (LINK) & (LINK) (Note: The 52 scientists who participated in the 2007 IPCC Summary for Policymakers had to adhere to the wishes of the UN political leaders and delegates in a process described as more closely resembling a political party’s convention platform battle, not a scientific process - LINK)

Atmospheric Physicist Dr. Garth W. Paltridge, an Emeritus Professor from University of Tasmania, is another prominent skeptic. Paltridge who was a Chief Research Scientist with the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research before taking up positions in 1990 as Director of the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies at the University of Tasmania and as CEO of the Antarctic Cooperative Research Center. Paltridge questioned the motives of scientists hyping climate fears. "They have been so successful with their message of greenhouse doom that, should one of them prove tomorrow that it is nonsense, the discovery would have to be suppressed for the sake of the overall reputation of science,"

Paleoclimatologist Dr. Robert M. Carter of Australia;

Louis Hissink M.Sc. M.A.I.G., Editor AIG News and Consulting Geologist, Perth, Western Australia;

Mathematician & Engineer Dr. David Evans, who did carbon accounting for the Australian Government and is head of the group "Science Speak," recently detailed his conversion to a skeptic. "I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause. I am now skeptical," Evans wrote in an April 30, 2007 blog. "But after 2000 the evidence for carbon emissions gradually got weaker -- better temperature data for the last century, more detailed ice core data, then laboratory evidence that cosmic rays precipitate low clouds,"


......hmmmmmm.....There's even Australian skeptics!

btw, I previously posted Bob Carter's video link, his presentation in 4 parts.

Sticks and stones etc etc.....
Make some intelligent observations and you won't attract the flack you've been getting.
Ian.

How odd for you to say that. :rainfro:

Make some intelligent observations


Ok. Being that you are an intelligent being, I would like to observe your response after you have read this report: http://www.epw.senate.gov/109th/Carter_Testimony.pdf

Please read it and tell us what you think.

Thanks for the link, dynosor!
...Another good presentation, with many of the same points as found in many other presentations, but this time by an "esteemed" Australian.

I hope you watched Carter's video too!

.......just in case some of us missed the link.... :)
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/videos/bobcarter.html

Good article, but as the man said there are tens of thousands of scientists throughout the world........WHAT! I don't believe it, are they all blind or just plain stupid?

This is tantamount to saying that if ten thousand monkeys said "good morning" in Arabic, we would immediately assume that it was indeed a good morning, whereas if ten thousand other monkeys said nothing, then by the laws of common assumption and logic it would be a bad choice to plan anything for the coming morning period.

I wonder actually WHO is paying all of the scientist's wages, assuming of course that they are not doing it in their spare time or during the normal work period as an aside project.

I doubt that all of these scientists have independent means to indulge their whims, but if they are seriously studying the weather, funded in their research by the end man, The Taxpayer, and can only come to the conclusion that "it aint gonna get warmer", or " It sure as hell is gonna piss down soon", then I would have to draw an assumption of my own that I for one aint getting the full two bobs worth from my tax demand.

I would think it very reasonable, that whomsoever is in power, could demand a refund of the money paid to these so called "experts", hypothesising one theory or another, because they haven't delivered the goods.

I know my employer of previous years would have terminated my employment if I so much as stuffed up on a job or two now and again,

How many thousands of billions of dollars are being spent on global event research, when by all accounts it's just a natural turn of events, and even the hand of the humanoid fraternity has no impact on the matter.

When it comes to the choice, Global warming or no Global warming, it's a bit like religion, if you want to go to Heaven better have paid your dues.

As I have said before, I have never done ANY research on this topic, I have EXPERTS that are far better studied to give answers to the important issues, to whom I can refer if required, the choice is endless, like the man said tens of thousands and all with a different point of view.

Would anyone with a calculator or two like to calculate just how much ten thousand scientists doing useless global warming studies cost the tax payer annually, assuming each one is an expert in his/her field and earns the going rate.

Then you can hypothesise what effect it would have if they were all directed to find a solution to the energy crisis or be struck off the payroll for non production.

A question in your shell like ears, is it better, from a recycle point of view, to have millions of electric cars running on lithium batteries or lead acid type batteries, or something else in the same vein, and how much non recycle left overs would you expect to have, using storage battery technology as opposed to fuel cells?
Ian.

Yup. That's a frood who really knows where his towel is.

Typical rant of the self centered. If it doesn't fit my view of reality, then it must not be true. And I will find some way to make your view sound stupid.

It must be from living upside down?!?!?!?!:confused:

Translation:

Knowledge is unnecessary and irrelevant in any case, the truth is like a smorgasbord - you pick the opinions of whatever expert suits you. In this case, you pick the opinions of those who seek to destroy those you envy the most.

I like the part about global warming being like a religion....

We should all pay carbon taxes,......just in case. (nuts)

Epistemology belongs to the category "forbidden thoughts", it hurts the brain to consider it too closely.

Patrick Michaels mentions in his book Meltdown the dollar amount spent in between the TAR and AR4 that resulted in the projected temperature range for the coming century getting wider..I'll have to see if I can dig that up. If I can find where I left the book...:)


THIS JUST IN....

Science fraud....interesting discovery by Doug Keenan..
http://freebornjohn.blogspot.com/2008/06/climate-fraud-allegations.html

Steve McIntyre has been addressing this ever since he ran into this with the MBH98 Hockey Stick sham.

The people down under always spend their money wisely!


Sudoku puzzles (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080611/od_nm/sudoku_dc_1)

...and here in the U.S. we hope they continue! Their biggest source of imports is the U.S.

I'd love to see them spend more of their tax dollars on research to prove gorebal warming!!

......Meanwhile, Stephan Schneider's at it again...stirrin' it up on Good Morning America

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeff-poor/2008/06/09/gma-features-professor-who-blames-greenhouse-gases-current-heat-wave

This is the guy who also said that exaggerating science was a good thing, that scaring people was justified...the ends justified the means.. That, I'm sorry, is NOT what science, never mind GOOD science, is about.

THIS JUST IN....

Science fraud....interesting discovery by Doug Keenan..
http://freebornjohn.blogspot.com/2008/06/climate-fraud-allegations.html

Steve McIntyre has been addressing this ever since he ran into this with the MBH98 Hockey Stick sham.

Dear fizzissist,

Thank-you for that link. It quite made my day.

Actually a pod of dolphins grounded in Cornwall recently and about 30 have died. Sad stuff. I have been waiting for some "expert" to tell us all that Climate Change is to blame. So far, no experts have made that connection (drowning polar bears etc), but I do not think it will be too long.

Best wishes,
Martin

Sorry about too many best wishes. I can't seem to edit the duplicates.
Martin

Well now all you Pseudo scientists and even more grandly, Pseudo economists, it would seem that according to certain whistle blowing sources, the world of late has now been "blessed" with an over proliferation of anyone who wants to get a word across the masses and impress them with their worldly mind wanderings, namely the Phd in Physics mob, or "how to make money and soak the tax payer without really trying".

Whoever coined the phrase, "bulsh1t baffles brains" was someone who has been there and done it.

It is now also very painfully obvious that, even with the very broadest interpretation, the opinion of these "worldly wise wizards of diverse and meaningless doctrines", is so opinionistic and self esteem generated, that it is without a shadow of a doubt hogwash of the highest order, and now can be taken with a pinch of salt whenever ANYONE, no matter how long they have been postulating theories and grand money soaking hypothesises, so much as publishes a paper, to be "peer reviewed" (by other self esteemed and paper publishing doctoraters), that there will be a general hissing and booing for all scientific findings.

According to reliable? sources, Professor Wei Chyung Wang has been professing his whatever at the state University of Albany for THIRTY YEARS!!!!! and has admitted to perpetrating fraudulent findings etc etc etc, all in the name of science.

THIRTY YEARS!!!! how bloody stupid are the peer reviewers when anything this "esteemed" person has had a hand in is fraudulent, and at tax payers expense too.

I hate to think of the countless minds that were influenced by this "learned person" during the THIRTY YEARS that he sat on the seat exercising his prerogative.

I can see plainly now that I've been in the wrong game for years, the old boy network has been working at the boil for a long time, and now it can only be said that the scientific industry is a bunch of self generating ALCHEMISTS who have found at last the secret of converting lead into gold, only the lead is in the pencils they have used to publish the bulsh1t they have been so long and well paid for.

Would it be not unreasonable to request, nay demand, a refund of the funds "invested" in their findings, due to the so very and far reaching nonsense scientific hypo-theory papers published ad finitum ad nauseum.

Who was it who recently said that there are tens of thousands of "scientists" out there all plugging away at something or other, and if 50% of them are bulsh1t artists peer reviewd by other bulsh1t artists, then this is tantamount to saying that the whole industry is a sham and anything that comes out of it is peer reviewd homogenised sterile bullsh1t.

Perhaps I could venture to say that ANYONE who wishes to enter the field of Alchemy cum scientific research, they do so at their own expense, and their findings as such would then be available to be sold at auction to whomsoever required them, and as such the payback for the years of research would reflect the validity placed on them by the peer reviewers and end users, or is this also tantamount to prostituting an art form such as the world has never seen before.

Would you pay the ferryman if he didn't know where the other side was?
Ian.

Sorry about too many best wishes. I can't seem to edit the duplicates.
Martin

Martin, your best wishes are always appreciated. :)
------------------------------------------------------------

Here's something I've been looking for from Lindzen on the Iris Effect!!!

from page 14:

"....Are there any reasons to suppose that model
feedbacks are wrong?

There are actually quite a few, some of which we will
refer to later in this talk. However, the most obvious
reason to, at least, consider the possibility of negative
feedbacks actually arises from the most common
defense of models: namely that they replicate the
record of global mean temperature....."

http://lubos.motl.googlepages.com/iris-effect.pdf

It all starts with the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, and continues from there. Only a few learn from these early lessons to question every seeming paradox, to root out contradictions in their own thought processes, to verify axioms. Most people dare not question beyond a certain point, and so they are easily led by those who can use this limitation to smuggle invalid concepts into their thought process. There are many who discover that the easiest way to seize the reins of power is to perpetuate the most widely believed fables, regardless of whether they are true. And there are many more who are only too happy to climb on the bandwagon, line up at the trough, and stay with the herd, getting their daily bread from the sweat of others and overusing metaphors like they are going out of style.

--97T--

Like using metaphors that illustrate what you yourself are doing? At least he's amusing in that respect.

===================================
From Roy Spencer:

(April 19, 2008 update): I am becoming increasingly convinced that the main reason climate models produce so much global warming is because of a mixing up of cause and effect when climate researchers observe cloud and temperature variability in the real climate system. In "feedback analysis", it is always assumed that cloud variability is 100% the result of temperature variability, when in fact causation also flows in the opposite direction. Not accounting for this effect can lead to climate models built upon cause and effect assumptions which then result in the models producing too much warming.
http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm

9ST, I am inclined to really agree with you on post #3632, too many pseudo's just hitching a ride wherever it's going.
Beats "walking" for a living.
Ian.

"....If the ice is relatively young—less than a hundred thousand years old or so—it could mean the planet has a fluctuating climate, with brief warmer periods when the ice melts and then re-freezes. Such an active climate might increase the odds that microbial life has survived beneath the frozen surface of Earth's neighbor...."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-mars_14jun14,0,1931771.story

Say it isn't so!!! Mars' climate CAN'T fluctuate...there's no anthropogenic greenhouse gasses!!! Polar caps melting at an alarming rate???

NASA's Phoenix is pseudo science!!!

...it's all an M. Night Shyamalan movie...

Hush now child, let the men at Nasa do their thing, remember it's your money their doing it with, so you'd better be good and back them all the way, no derogatory heretic remarks like "pseudo science", otherwise they'll think you aren't "on the team" and when Flash Gordon appears in the picture, that will be the sum of all fears come to bite you in the butt.
Ian.

Maybe you should get the honor of very last post on this thread. Your nihilism is a fitting coda.

Your nihilism is a fitting coda.


More like a spitting cobra...

Maybe you should get the honor of very last post on this thread. Your nihilism is a fitting coda.

I think you're right.. we should afford him the honor.

I'm reminded of my dog's squeeky toy. If I step on it, it squeeks. Neither pleasant or unpleasant, it just makes a noise. The noise itself without meaning.

Seems like this thread has it's very own squeeky toy.

WOW!! Damn humans!

Nothing of the Universal machine happens in the human time scale.( A general philosophical statement, but I'm not a philosopher! ) It's a simple fact.

If IT does humans have created IT! To recap, negitive climate change is real. It's the extinction of plants, animals, and insects. It's also creating new, on the human scale, bugs or virus, stronger plant pollens, and offsetting the insect population cycles. Systems are beginning to run away.

It has been created by humans, as this phenomenon is in the human time scale. Over population yields over depletion which yields excesses, and excessive waste. This is a human problem not a GOD problem.

We think we can get off this planet, we'll I've go news, WE CAN'T... What's interesting is it took a few billion years to setup, and it only took humans a few decade to tear it down. It's really unimportant what were doing to human kind, the issue is what were doing to the innocent, the plants, animals, and insects in short the planet.

We'll guy's it's been real, don't sell your tools yet! Interesting thread.

Watch your excesses. Be thoughtful when your doing. Humans are at the top of the food chain and we have the greatest responsibility. Our depletion effects everything. I could rant for days, but I'd rather make parts. See ya, as I may or may not visit this thread again.

FT

Ft = IAN

Sure wish I could channel all that hot air into my house during winter!!
-----------------------------------------------------------------

And speaking of cold, how 'bout that ozone hole?
Looks like it's healing, and whew! Am I glad!! Was getting worried about Antarctic Penguitic Ozonic Melanoma...

...Nothing worse than a relaxing bake in on the beach at Mt. Erebus and having to worry about skin cancer!

"....By then, the so-called ozone hole should no longer appear over Antarctica every polar spring and persist until autumn. And the cancer-causing ultraviolet (UV) rays that ozone filters out of sunlight will largely be blocked from hitting the surface...."

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/612/2

But hold on a minute....the article says too "SAM has blocked warmer air from reaching Antarctica, resulting in an icier continent but warming just about everywhere else south of the equator..."

Really? Like where?? Audits of weather stations in the southern hemisphere have proven to be more problematic than the ones here in the U.S. when it comes to UHI effects.

Maybe our factory friend could point us to the proof of this claim of warming everywhere else?

Let's see what Jonathan Lowe has to say...from a first hand perspective, of course (Is Melbourne close enough???)

http://gustofhotair.blogspot.com/2007/01/australias-climate-is-not-changing.html

Hush now child, let the men at Nasa do their thing, remember it's your money their doing it with, so you'd better be good and back them all the way, no derogatory heretic remarks like "pseudo science",.........
Ian.

"OF course, there are other issues here that we’ve visited previously: like why, NASA has been unable to locate data for Wellington NZ for nearly 20 years, but that’s a different story. "............http://www.climateaudit.org/ re: GISS Step 2

Wow!! Ian!!! Here's your chance to help save the planet by helping the men at NASA do their work AND Steve McIntyre solve one of the countless puzzles left by erroneous or missing data!!

You'll probably even see some problems with Steve's code!!

The only way to end 'pseudo science' is to bury it with real science, and you're our only hope!!

....(fade in Jim Dandy to the Rescue music)......

Ian = pollution? Fixed the power steering leak on the aging merc yet?

:withstupiI had said I would not entertain this thread. But someone has called to my attention....

It would appear as though most think they have a right to some thing or things, because they were born. This is the same narcissistic, egomaniacal mentality that got us here. I see indiviuals everyday that, REALLY, "you should not breed"! You have the stupid gene.

So, genuinely naive or perhaps simply stupid, think that there is and always will be enough for everyone. OR, that it will come to an "END" before that happens, or perhaps it's part of a devine plan. huh!

Excesses need to be in check, everyone cannot have everything. Mindless waste is at an all time high!

The climate, as we know, has changed many times, over eons, not decades. Get real.

By.. :bat:

Don't know about everyone else here, but my excesses are always in check....ya know what they say....

"Everything in moderation, including excess." ...oh, ok. I said that.

btw....I've got some old 6.3 parts available (including some new bellows)...but sorry, no power steering.

I don't know about FT_factorytuned but I have never had enough money to get anything excessive.....I think he is one that starts screwing people at the bottom and then works his way up until everyone is calling each other comrade..

"Climate has changed many times.....???" Not according to many environmentalists. There is a pristine temperature and this temperature could be controlled until the evil Americans destroyed everything. Even the sun has nothing to do with weather or global warming so say many of the MMGW scientists.

FT_factorytuned.....Why don't you spell out exactly what each person can do or have so that we can all benefit from your wisdom.

I will make an assumption that these limits will not include Al Gore and his ilk..

Ilk is too nice a word to use in the same sentence as Al Gore.

Was watching him at the 2006 TED conference and he made a very interesting comment that seemed to go unnoticed....he said that we could solve the "problem" and profit at the same time....

If this is a big problem that needs all of us to solve it, then no one should profit unless everyone does, and I'm not speaking rhetorically. I mean in the same context as Gore was speaking. Profit, with a capital P, as in ...whoops, I can't say that here!

The best part of watching that program was knowing that all the swooning over him was by some of the best minds in the world, but before they knew that his movie would be shot full of holes within a year for its grand deceptions.

Algore is stumping for Obama. Looks like there will be plenty of communism for everyone!

--97T--

Don't know what's worse...listening to Al Gore stump for Obama, or no more FT_factorytuned here with infinite wisdom.

I wonder if FT types in front of a mirror.....

Waiting anxiously for FT_factorytuned to stroll down from the mountaintop and dispense his wisdom to we, the great un-washed.

I realize that this will be lowering himself to some unfathomable level but this is ofttimes required of the elite in order for them to fulfill the obligations of their station in life.

Even Barbara Streisand broke a finger nail while stooping down. Martin Sheen kicked a homeless person off of a heat vent so he could stay there for a night to prove the plight of the down trodden. Should we expect any less from FT_factorytuned??

But, alas, it is now postulated that homelessness is the correct wave of the future. Not only do they live a minimalist existence, they require others to support their meager needs. A perfect society is being formed in situ.

One thing that I cannot understand though is how people that want to cut the population down to size can be so passionately anti-war. What better way to eliminate the human animal and the edifices that he has constructed than a massive exchange of bombs, missiles, and such. I know that a few of the elite and elite 'wannabes' may get caught in the crossfire but, some collateral damage is to be expected.......

Blessed are the homeless, for they are the least polluters.

Just a point of information......

Hottest place on Earth?

El Azizia in Libya recorded a temperature of 136 degrees Fahrenheit (57.8 Celsius) on Sept. 13, 1922 the hottest ever measured. In Death Valley, it got up to 134 Fahrenheit on July 10, 1913.

Was Al Gore roaming around then ???

Where was Al Gore when he was needed ?????

CO2 levels at historic levels (at the time).....

"Vostok station (Russian) NEW RECORD SET IN 1997!!! This is an unconfirmed report from Vostok Station during the winter of 1997. -91 °C (-132 °F) This is colder than Dry Ice! The "official"record is also from Vostok station on July 21, 1983 -89.2 °C (-128.6 °F)"

CO2 levels at historic levels (at the time).....

"Vostok station (Russian) NEW RECORD SET IN 1997!!! This is an unconfirmed report from Vostok Station during the winter of 1997. -91 °C (-132 °F) This is colder than Dry Ice! The "official"record is also from Vostok station on July 21, 1983 -89.2 °C (-128.6 °F)"

I have always taken these claims with a grain of salt. Dry ice condenses at -76 degrees Celsius so I think it should be possible to this if these are actual temperatures. I suspect they are really wind chill temperatures which are not the same thing.

I should think that someone would easily discern the difference between -50deg F and -130deg F.... after all, we're looking at a differential of 80 degrees!!

A simple test would be to stand beside a shield, placing one un-gloved hand in the wind, and the other un-gloved hand shielded from the wind. The time difference between frostbite will give an indication of windchill.

I read an account of Sir Edward Hillary.
He said the most difficult task he has ever accomplished was to be hanging from a rope on a cliff face some 12,000 feet high in minus 124 degree weather with the wind blowing at around 70 MPH.....and nature called.

Not a porta-potty in sight.....

I should think that someone would easily discern the difference between -50deg F and -130deg F.... after all, we're looking at a differential of 80 degrees!!

A simple test would be to stand beside a shield, placing one un-gloved hand in the wind, and the other un-gloved hand shielded from the wind. The time difference between frostbite will give an indication of windchill.

That reminds me of the old, tried and true way to get rid of crabs.

One shaves one side and sets fire to the other then stab the little critters with an ice pick as they come running out.....

One thing that I cannot understand though is how people that want to cut the population down to size can be so passionately anti-war. What better way to eliminate the human animal ...than a massive exchange of bombs, missiles, and such.


How about driving up the cost of staple food until it is unaffordable? Turn it into renewable energy to save the planet. Being anti-war makes you seem benevolent...

How about driving up the cost of staple food until it is unaffordable? Turn it into renewable energy to save the planet.

Sounds like a plan.......maybe this is already in effect.......but I can't say for sure, haven't heard from FT_factorytuned yet. I am sure that this would meet with his approval...

The establishment has it backwards. The global warming is causing the CO2 increase, not the other way around.

Phoodieman

The establishment has it backwards. The global warming is causing the CO2 increase, not the other way around.

Phoodieman

Yep, 400 to 800 years after.........................

:withstupiI had said I would not entertain this thread. But someone has called to my attention....

It would appear as though most think they have a right to some thing or things, because they were born. This is the same narcissistic, egomaniacal mentality that got us here. I see indiviuals everyday that, REALLY, "you should not breed"! You have the stupid gene.

So, genuinely naive or perhaps simply stupid, think that there is and always will be enough for everyone. OR, that it will come to an "END" before that happens, or perhaps it's part of a devine plan. huh!

Excesses need to be in check, everyone cannot have everything. Mindless waste is at an all time high!

The climate, as we know, has changed many times, over eons, not decades. Get real.

By.. :bat:

So who gets to decide couples that can breed, you? I guess only people that share your views are "worthy" to copulate.

Ahh, the environmentalist fantasy of 95% of the world's population dying off in some apocalypse. Then they, the enlightened elite, will rebuild and re-populate the world (Not too many people though) in their image. This was a popular environmentalist view in the 70's and it's coming back into fashion. A whole group of people wanting the destruction of most of humanity because they don't live, act, and think like "should". How unbelievably self-centered.

So who gets to decide couples that can breed, you? I guess only people that share your views are "worthy" to copulate.
This was a popular environmentalist view in the 70's and it's coming back into fashion. A whole group of people wanting the destruction of most of humanity because they don't live, act, and think like "should".

There was a big movement of this kind during the 60s also. Some groups in the sex, drugs, rock and roll crowd that wanted everyone else to pay their way through life were keen on telling everyone else how to live was putting out the "Zero Population Growth" idea back then. Free sex, free abortions, free drugs, free everything. I always wonder and even asked a few of them if they want everyone to live as they do, who is going to pay for their life style. Most of them replied with 'communism'. That was the answer. I then asked who is going to have to work in order for you to to live your free life style. I never did get an answer.
All these people vote now. usually voting themselves something or taking something away from someone else. In the name of freedom, they are going to tell you how to live and what to think. Sounds like FT_factorytuned, IAN, and XYZ or close to them.....


As an aside........

My brother fell for the commune life style for a while. After a few months, it was just he and another guy doing all the work while everyone else in the commune kicked back. He announced that he was leaving and the other guy chimed in. The rest of the group became agitated, asking what were they going to do without him and the other guy. They might have to support themselves.... The commune broke up in a couple of weeks.

Ha Ha Ha, the commune broke up, I thought that was so funny, (LOL) still, they were non committed humanoids, not really "doing their own thing", more like having somone else do it for them, so who cares? Water will always find it's own level.

I watched a program on the TV the other night, and in part of it they showed a road system, somewhere in the USA, that had eight lanes going one way and eight lanes the other.

The presenter commented on the fact that when (not if) the car finally became obsolete, due to the lack of a viable fuel source, there wouldn't be a means of removing the millions of acreage of concrete and tarmac that the road system had used during the relatively short time of the automobile's existence, (100 years), and the future generations would be reduced to having exceptionally wide footpaths to tread as they went from burnt out city centre to burnt out city centre looking for some means to survive.

The problem with you humanoids is you don't have spectacles strong enough to see your shortcomings, but give it a few thousand years and nature will add a layer of soil to the present surface of your world, and then even the tallest building will dissapear, you don't think it can happen?

In the UK an archaeological dig went down 6 metres in a ploughed field, looking for a Roman villa that was abandoned only 2000 years ago.

When the oil finally stops flowing down to the consumer, there won't even be enough energy to sweep your streets clean or light them, so look forward to your shortsighted approach to life and be happy, just have confidence in your system LOL.

Incidently, what are you going to plough the vast acreages of fields with to feed your STILL increasing population of indescriminate breeders when the oil runs out?

Not electric, bio diesel, hydrogen fuel cell or any other limited fuel source, it would take more bio diesel type fuel just to plough the land that you would try to derive the bio diesel oil from anyway, without the means to harvest it, and that doesn't leave much for the car to get you (the lucky priviliged few) to the town or city centre to buy the food that is going to be in very short supply, such as it will be.

Also, don't expect a totally homogenised, sanitised, double wrapped in plastic, quality controlled with a use by date this century type of product, more like take it or leave it, next please.

Perhaps you Humanoids could form a commune and all work together to eke out an existence by copying the Indians and Aboriginals as they did when they were living off the land before the whites came and "civilised" them.

Your population IS going to increase because you don't think it shouldn't.

Some civilisation, only problem is how do you get rid of all that concrete and tarmac that cars used to run on in the "good old days", so that all the increasing feeders will still be well fed?

Easy, do as you've always done to the planet Earth, ignore it and it will go away.

Sometimes you just have to grasp the nettle, but that's usually as a very last resort, so happy motoring, order that Hummer now while the oil lasts, only XYZ days to meltdown.

Better order that 'plane ticket now for a getaway holiday to discover the lost Greenland snowfields, (I hear that jet fuel has reached a new high), ROTFLMAO.
Ian.

Sirgizmo, If you don't think the Humanoids need a lesson in coppulation control, you'll soon find out the reasons for having one, commonly called "the survival of the fittest".

From all accounts the USA has a very good reason to keep guns in the hands of it's citizens, (just don't tell them there's no ammo).

By the time you are living in armed camps you will be fully aware of "the sum of all fears" syndrome.
Ian.

It would appear as though most think they have a right to some thing or things, because they were born.
No. Here in America at least, if you earn and have the money to buy something and it's available to you then you have the right to it.

This is the same narcissistic, egomaniacal mentality that got us here.
Got us where? Living indoors with heat, lights, running water and sanitation? Where? Markets loaded with goods for you to buy whenever you like? You should go live somewhere with none of those things if it makes you feel better about yourself. I'll be here drinking beer, barbecueing and toasting you for saving the planet.

I see indiviuals everyday that, REALLY, "you should not breed"! You have the stupid gene.
It's true. It's just a shame they're the majority and have the right to vote.

So, genuinely naive or perhaps simply stupid, think that there is and always will be enough for everyone.
Excesses need to be in check, everyone cannot have everything. Mindless waste is at an all time high!.
This is why those of you that believe in this so fantically should quit consuming altogether so there will be enough for those of us that like to.

Get real.
(nuts)

Perhaps you Humanoids could form a commune and all work together to eke out an existence by copying the Indians and Aboriginals as they did when they were living off the land before the whites came and "civilised" them.

ROTFLMAO.
Ian.

did somebody step on a duck??

Wise man/woman Fizzwizz, when you're stuck for words best say nothing, not even a quote from the shoulders of giants going in the wrong direction?
Ian.

Sirgizmo, If you don't think the Humanoids need a lesson in coppulation control, you'll soon find out the reasons for having one, commonly called "the survival of the fittest".

From all accounts the USA has a very good reason to keep guns in the hands of it's citizens, (just don't tell them there's no ammo).

By the time you are living in armed camps you will be fully aware of "the sum of all fears" syndrome.
Ian.

Ian, can you please debate rationally without these constant "end of the world, the sky is falling" imaginary future scenarios, one after the other? I mean really, going from climate change to overpopulation to armed camps? You could have said something about the possibility of rationing in North America, which is probably the worst that could happen if things go really bad for an extended period of time. That is a very unlikely outcome, but at least plausible. Armed camps is ridiculous.

Overpopulation has been brought out as a doomsday scenario for over 40 years. There is no over-population problem in the first world. None. Population growth in the USA, Canada, the wealthier countries in South America, all of Europe, Russia, Japan, Australia and several other countries is very minimal. I know that any population growth here in Canada is due to immigration, not people having too many kids.

Population growth is largely occuring in the second/third world: most of Africa, Central America, and some countries in the middle east are the major ones (population growth in India and China has levelled off.) How do you propose we here in the first world address overpopulation in poorer countries? Any "awareness" campaigns or handing out condoms will do nothing.

I do somewhat agree with you that some folks are flat out wasteful and overly materialistic. People buying houses that they simply cannot afford to "keep up with the Jonses" is a prime example. No down-payment, 40 years and adjustable rate while living paycheck to paycheck. Really, really, stupid. But they got what was coming to them. The bubble burst. The market, eventually, took care of things. Hopefully the taxpayers who bought a house they could afford and made their payments on time will not be asked to bail the greedy ones out with bailouts derived from tax hikes. Same thing with some SUV's. Many were sold to customers who wanted to project a "sporty" lifestyle with no other use for the capacity or off road capability. But gas prices have skyrocketed, and now the only people buying these vehicles are the ones that need them.

The price of natural gas has gone way up and coal is getting more expensive to run "cleanly". So nuclear has become the only economical alternative to producing the large amounts of energy required at a reasonable price. Fuel costs account for only 10% of a nuclear plant's operating costs, unlike the 80-90% for other power sources. So what fuel prices are doing doesn't matter. The construction of two plants has been approved in Ontario, with more expected in other provinces across Canada. As a bonus, very little waste is produced (New ways are being developped to re-use/recycle the waste as well) and there are virtually no emissions. The only negative is the high (very high) initial startup cost but after that it's decades of large quantities of affordable power.

The point? Sometimes the market is capable of correcting itself. We shouldn't be rash in asking politicians to impose new laws, new/higher taxes, and a new energy policy without first understanding the correct way to proceed. The push for corn ethanol is a glaring exapamle of this problem. A total failure that had unforseen consequences. Most (well, most in Canada anyway)politicians are former lawyers who are frankly clueless when it comes to economics or science. They should not be imposing new laws, regulations, and taxes on a whim or based on poll numbers.

Serge

There's plenty of ammo in my bunker, and plenty of room for the two dozen or so remaining honest people on earth. We will be just fine. After all the tax pigs starve each other out in an orgy of self-immolation and ineffectual rage against the competent, we will emerge to repopulate the world. And our Australian Energy Project will provide free people with plenty of sustainable bio-fuel as people who come to believe that other humans should sacrifice for them are put to work living out their own philosophy. A world of plenty!

--97T--

Wise man/woman Fizzwizz, when you're stuck for words best say nothing, not even a quote from the shoulders of giants going in the wrong direction?
Ian.

I'm not in the least stuck for words. Unlike you, my words are chosen carefully. The duck comment, fyi, since you missed it, was a reference to a comment in a movie. If anyone remembers Caddy Shack, they'll know exactly what I meant. For those who don't, the indirect barb was suggestive of verbal flatulence. If that's still lost on you, it was directed at you.

As for your arguments, nobody here needs to stand on the shoulders of giants to show you're going the wrong way.

....we patiently await your 28 paragraph meandering response....

Well Sergizmo, 9ST's got a bunker, full of ammo too, gonna be one hell of a bang when that stuff ages and goes off, maybe he'll have used it up defending the camp site, but the weird thing is he's gonna emerge after the long hard winter of discontent and repopulate the world, FROM A GENE POOL OF TWO DOZEN PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's awesome, even Noah didn't think like that, a real physicistttt.

I think he'd better bring a few animals into the bunker too, just in case the natives get a bit restless and go on a BBQ spree with the wildlife.

Who's gonna qualify for bunker entry, 12 males and 12 females of presentable appearence and impecable qualifications, probably all in the PHD line, nothing like the old boy network to start the humanoid race again.
I wonder who they'll make president, that'll be a hard one seeing as how they'll all be on the same side.

BTW, Sergi, on the Yahoo news site 5 days back, a couple of families voiced their fears about food shortage and have decided to go to the country, maybe do a bit of farming, (typical city folks), and stock up with the necessities and plenty of artillery pieces to fend off the anticipated hungry prowling city dwellers fighting for survival.

That didn't come from me, but your good ol' USA citizenry.

Far be it from a doom and gloom prediction I make, the present situation is getting towards a definite shortage of food due to the planting of cash crops to burn in the fuel tanks of the rich and famous, aint gonna be any left for you poor folks 'cause it will be priced out of your reach by those that have ripped you off and are living on your bare bones.

When you've got money coming out of your ears, who cares if fuel costs $10 a litre, just as long as you can get the stuff, money is no object.

During the last world war my father had the foresight to heavily plant his garden with vegetables etc and we never went short, to the extent that he also supplied the neighbours with vegies for extra milk sugar and butter, but we never had to resort to an armed camp to protect our goods.

The climate is going to change, I've said it because there are others more gifted than I in the weather prediction department that have made a lifetime study of it and they should know, so who am I to blow against the wind?

The inevitable outcome of using up a finite resource just because it was gotten for free is the price you Humanoids will pay for not being more thoughtfull, but then thinking is such a difficult process when you've got your head up your rear end.

The terrible part is you Humanoids could slide easily from one situation to another without a drama of massive proportions tearing at your lifestyle, but that is a wish list for beggars who are going to eat the horses they cannot ride.

Any hiccup in the food supply chain is a disaster waiting for a place to happen, due to the massive population burden you carry and the lack of people gifted in working the land as a resource.

Before the Europeans came to America it was populated by a group of people that had been living there for thousands of years and left no mark of their presence, but within a period of 300 years the continent has gone from a sustainable environment to an overpopulated fossil fuel reliant consumer society, but all that's going to change.

It won't happen today, and it won't happen tomorrow, but it WILL happen.

When, not if, the cheap fuel runs out, and don't tell me that the present price rise is going to level out and then go back to pre 2000 prices and every thing in the garden will be rosy, what will the alternative be?

Everyone on bicycles?, digging their gardens for dear life (in a condo?), wake up, things are going to change, and I hope the expected weather change patterns aren't one of them, the last thing you want is the Greenland melt water upsetting the conveyor belt, then you can kiss your arrrrs goodby big time, going South for the winter means for a very long time.

I didn't mention the Chinese did I?
Well what kind of problems can you have when you've got a large peasant population that are well gifted in land management and at the drop of a hat can do what they've been doing for thousands of years and will do again if necessary.
Ian.

I didn't mention the Chinese did I?
Well what kind of problems can you have when you've got a large peasant population that are well gifted in land management and at the drop of a hat can do what they've been doing for thousands of years and will do again if necessary.
Ian.

You are absolutley hilarious!!!!!!

So much for keeping up with the disasters (man made, that is..) China has been building for the last 50 years....

Polluting their rivers, watershed, air, etc...... and the impact on the planet with Three Gorges.... Where have you been?

Typical Fizzwizz, misread the post, listen up sport, I didn't say they were environmentally responsible, I said they will come out of the present problems of food shortage better than the USA or other countries that are mostly consumer orientated, because they have a large peasant population used to working the land, as opposed to the consumer population of the rest.
Ian.

You are absolutley hilarious!!!!!!

So much for keeping up with the disasters (man made, that is..) China has been building for the last 50 years....

Polluting their rivers, watershed, air, etc...... and the impact on the planet with Three Gorges.... Where have you been?

Handlewanker hates the west, probably even hates Australia. Judging from his past posts, the country that he wishes most to disappear would be the USA. He sounds like the typical, extreme, far left doom and gloom socialist. His way or no way. It is only natural that he bends over for Al Gore and others like him. An elitist wannabe filled with hate.. He should have stayed in South Africa, he could have learned something....

Yeah, coulda, woulda, shoulda.....

Chinese cities hold some 40% of their 1.2Bil population, up from 29% in '97. I can see it now,,,, all those "peasants" cheerfully migrating back to the countryside....and gleefully assimilated by those who have been working the land for survival. Uh huh. Sure.

Maybe handlewanker would like to explain to one and all why it was that large diameter PVC pipe became so scarce when Australia passed its gun ban after Port Arthur's '96 killing spree?

And you'd expect what to happen should Melbourne empty into the fertile zones expecting to take over growing for their own benefit? Oh sure....fellow Aussies will welcome them with open arms..."Here ya go, Mate! Help yourself to what's mine!! Take whatever ya need!"

....then you'll find out where all that PVC went.

Reality and Ian will seldom be found in the same sentence where reality is being discussed.

In reply to handlewanker's post #3673.

OK. I'll give this one last shot.

A couple of families going in to the bush to get away from the world is hardly new and is too insignificant to be considered a trend for what will happen large scale. This has been done by religious nuts, "survivalists" and the like for many decades. The fact that a few people have done this over food paranoia instead of "the government will take our guns!" paranoia is hardly significant.

Remember the Y2K scare and how that was going too cripple our modern, computerized society? Nothing happened. Just because a few people (and "experts") predicted grave consequences and some people believe them doesn't mean it's going to happen.

There is no "consensus" on man made climate change. I think the videos posted earlier made that quite clear. There are many scientists more than qualified who disagree with this entire trend. But they just aren't getting the marketing and media time that the pro side are. It has nothing to do with science, and everything to do with trends, marketing, white guilt, and people thinking they can "change the world" or "make a difference".

The shine is gone from corn ethanol. No one cares about this "lets grow our energy, not drill for it" feel good crap when food prices start to go way up, and that is what is happening. Plans for new ethanol processing plants have been scrapped and some are being shut down. Once the land used to grow this crop is put back to use in growing wheat, animal feed or other stuff food prices will plateau. Again, market forces will help to correct things.

Oh and Ian, I'm from Canada, not the USA. We have huge reserves of food and oil. (along with huge reserves of water, metals and other minerals). The situation will not be as you describe here for an extremely long time, if it ever does happen. We have lots of time to research and develop energy sources outside of fossil fuels. The new nuclear plants being built are a start. Also, the USA has massive reserves of oil that are still untouched. The Gulf of Mexico, upper shelf (offshore), some of Texas and as a last resort Alaska. The Americans will start drilling in these places if things get really dire to buy more time until more nuclear and other sources of energy have been built. Necessity is the mother of invention, it will happen.

Regarding nomadic cultures, they are extremely destructive per capita compared to modern civilization. They go from place to place, killing everything and using up all resources before moving on. Running entire herds of buffalo off of cliffs being one example. The damage was limited due to small numbers and the nomads being forced to move away, giving the area time to heal again. This is no example to look to.

The Chinese are having massive farming problems. They have been using 2-3 times the amount of fertilizer per acre than we have to get anything close to a decent crop yield. They do not rotate (alternate) fields often enough, further depleting topsoil nutrients. If you want to talk about a situation that is unsustainable, this may be one. Why do you think such a large percentage of their population grows food? Because they are terribly inefficient.

I have to ask, have you been watching the Mad Max movies a lot lately? Australia, apocalypse, nomadic gangs, fighting over oil...

Serge

sergizmo.........

You are beating a dead head Australian. Handlewanker works with one way valves on his brain and drinks a lot of Koolaide. He/she will never listen to anyone except proven wrong scientists and socialists spouting doom and gloom. He already has shown that he knows more about most countries than the people that live there.
Check his past posts. Even in the regular CNC forums he was a contrarian. Nobody could handle their own CNC problems unless Handlewanker sets them straight. No one knows anything except Handlewanker.

I don't think that you should lower yourself to Handlewanker's level and attempt to debate or even present facts. He can't handle the trurh.. You would get farther communicating with a fence post, the post, would at least, show more intelligence.

dufas !

I had Ian (handlewanker) visit me for an enjoyable debate and a cuppa in my CNC workshop. He likes a good stir, and so do I. Anybody else want the mickey taken out of them. I'm ganging up with Ian. Who's next... come on..!
There is talk about making more Hybrid Toyotas. 5+ liters / 100K. I get that with my diesel 1.9L turbo for $10K less. Nobody really wants to save fuel otherwise they would make diesel hybrid and get it well bellow 3. Peugeot nearly there?

dufas !

I had Ian (handlewanker) visit me for an enjoyable debate and a cuppa in my CNC workshop. He likes a good stir, and so do I. Anybody else want the mickey taken out of them. I'm ganging up with Ian. Who's next... come on..!
There is talk about making more Hybrid Toyotas. 5+ liters / 100K. I get that with my diesel 1.9L turbo for $10K less. Nobody really wants to save fuel otherwise they would make diesel hybrid and get it well bellow 3. Peugeot nearly there?

First of all the argument isn't over who has the best mileage car. My Honda 600 got near 60 mpg when I kept my foot off the throttle, my Fiat got a few miles less. Big deal. As far as diesel hybrids, while there are some here, Big Brother has a problem with the particulate matter that diesels spew into the air.

The argument is whether everyone should except Al Gore's speculations blindly without looking at other evidence which Handlewanker and I suspect that you blindly follow so debating with you would be like trying to communicate with the fence post next to Handlewanker.....Doom and Gloom forever... Do we address you as comrade ????

i am going to change my name to wot u like.
We can walk in the parks. Walk ride on the paths. Drive on the roads.
Go to the libraries.
Those things cost a heap more than the public transport system, and they are free. I they really wanted us to use public transport it would be free.

Anybody else want the mickey taken out of them. I'm ganging up with Ian. Who's next... come on..!


Gimme your best shot. So far, you've talked about some cars. Big deal...that's NOT what this whole discussion centers around. It centers around "climate change" (something that is constantly happening anyway), and whether man is responsible or not.

Do ya wanna just get drunk and fight like handlewanker seems to like to do, or do you really have anything of consequence to contribute or use to support your position??....like handlewanker seems unable to do.

i am going to change my name to wot u like.
We can walk in the parks. Walk ride on the paths. Drive on the roads.
Go to the libraries.
Those things cost a heap more than the public transport system, and they are free. I they really wanted us to use public transport it would be free.

Like Handlewanker, you only think so far. None of those things are free. Parks, paths, roads, libraries are all paid for by taxes. We have bicycle paths that have cost more than interstate highways. There are many parks, roads, and other tax paid for government facilities that one has to pay to use. Like your statement about public transport, the government gets paid twice for use by the public.Many times, the taxes are diverted to some politicians pet project, upkeep declines and taxes are raised higher to pay for what should have been taken care of in the first place. Just as government health care total costs are, in truth, higher than pay as you go systems or private health care systems. But these are proven facts that no one wants to listen to. It doesn't fit the political correct information of today.

The "comrade" comment was a facetious remark concerning communism or socialism as a way to address you. Your comment about things should be free indicates that you have socialist tendencies. How about free housing, free food.....maybe even free fuel...........


Do you think, as Handlewanker has mentioned, that everyone else is stupid morons and that only you and Handlewanker are the true intellectual giants of the world ?? I noticed that in his posts to you, he actually communicated like a normal human being. Well, this may be because of the bonding that occurred when you hand sharpened drill bits together. Your mutual admiration society is a private club.....

sergizmo.........

You are beating a dead head Australian. Handlewanker works with one way valves on his brain and drinks a lot of Koolaide. He/she will never listen to anyone except proven wrong scientists and socialists spouting doom and gloom. He already has shown that he knows more about most countries than the people that live there.
Check his past posts. Even in the regular CNC forums he was a contrarian. Nobody could handle their own CNC problems unless Handlewanker sets them straight. No one knows anything except Handlewanker.

I don't think that you should lower yourself to Handlewanker's level and attempt to debate or even present facts. He can't handle the trurh.. You would get farther communicating with a fence post, the post, would at least, show more intelligence.


Yeah, you're right. There had been a lot of name calling on both sides earlier on, and I thought by debating rationally without insults or nonsensical arguing would encourage him to do the same. I guess not.

He does seem to be "arguing just to argue" instead of debating. I think he goes off on 38 different tangents every post to make it difficult to even try to have any kind of logical discussion. I fell into his trap and wasted a bit of time typing out some lengthy replies. He then takes a bit of a reply and goes off on another zillion tangents, and so on and so on. That's it, no more.

Unfourtunately XYZDonna (Sherri) and Handlewanker are the only two pro GW "regulars". There have been others, but they come and go in 2-3 posts.
These two seem to ignore all factual material and argue with their feelings instead of their heads. Not that I mind seeing new posts with data/articles/videos etc... debunking GW, but it would be a little more interesting with some debate.

Yeah, you're right. Not that I mind seeing new posts with data/articles/videos etc... debunking GW, but it would be a little more interesting with some debate.

Yes, I agree.. I have a bunch of videos of scientists taking on Al Gore, The United Nations, and even the British education system on my hard drive and I have converted most to DVDs. I even gave one of the DVDs that covered both pro and con MMGW to my daughter's science teacher but he refused to look at the con videos. My daughter talked to him and he finally admitted that if the school administration found out that he even whispered about an alternative GW view, he would lose his position.

I watched a British video how a tenured American professor lost his teaching position because he was discussing big holes in the MMGW theory. With this kind of pressure from authorities, idiots like Handlewanker are going to make a self fulfilling prophesy come true meaning that various governments are going to ruin society as we know it. {governments would love to control the weather....]

I wonder what Handlewanker says about the Thames river freezing during winters in the past......

LOL!!!

I thought the debate was over!!!

Algore Jimhansen say it is.........

And there's the pseudo science claims. Not one single qualified rebuttal, not even a cut & paste quote.

Their heroes??? Guys like Jim Hansen...who can't tell you what the real temperature is...James Hansen, the guy from NASA..... We don't know what the real temperature of the earth is, but we know that it's rising??? (ok, I'm taking some liberties here, but you know what I'm getting at)

The Elusive Absolute Surface Air Temperature (SAT)

Q. What exactly do we mean by SAT ?

A. "I doubt that there is a general agreement how to answer this question. Even at the same location, the temperature near the ground may be very different from the temperature 5 ft above the ground and different again from 10 ft or 50 ft above the ground. Particularly in the presence of vegetation (say in a rain forest), the temperature above the vegetation may be very different from the temperature below the top of the vegetation. A reasonable suggestion might be to use the average temperature of the first 50 ft of air either above ground or above the top of the vegetation. To measure SAT we have to agree on what it is and, as far as I know, no such standard has been suggested or generally adopted. Even if the 50 ft standard were adopted, I cannot imagine that a weather station would build a 50 ft stack of thermometers to be able to find the true SAT at its location."
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/abs_temp.html

If we don't know the real surface temp, then maybe the lower troposphere could be a good place to start looking for trends...Hey Lookey!! John Christy and Roy Spencer thought it might be a good idea too!!

They looked at data from 20deg N to 20deg S from 1979-2004......

"....Relative to several data sets, the RSS data show a warming shift, broadly occurring in 1992, of between +0.07 K and +0.13 K. Because the shift occurs at the time NOAA-12 readings began to be merged into the satellite data stream and large NOAA-11 adjustments were applied, the discrepancy appears to be due to bias adjustment procedures. Several comparisons are consistent with a 26-year trend and error estimate for the UAH LT product for the full tropics of +0.05 ± 0.07, which is very likely less than the tropical surface trend of +0.13 K decade−1. "

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2005JD006881.shtml

Yup. Warming in the lower troposphere. +.05, ....+/-.07

(Wouldn't ya just love to have tolerances like that on YOUR prints???)

If we don't know the real surface temp, then maybe the lower troposphere could be a good place to start looking for trends...

Actually all you Physical Science Johhnies should do what Botanists do; look at things like treeline elevations on mountains, date of germination of spring growth or budding on trees. All these are indicators of temperature change and for a long time they have all been showing that global temperatures are rising, with the odd bobble down.

Ok, I'll bite. Seems like something that would be obvious to the casual observer...

Have some insights to where I could get some confirmation on that?

Have you seen the new research that's saying trees regulate leaf temperature? That's throwing a lot of researchers for a loop!

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/33137/title/Goldilocks_tree_leaves

...Have some insights to where I could get some confirmation on that?....

Try looking at photographs taken 50 or more years apart in the same region.

I am not interested in trying to convince you.

I wasn't asking you to convince me.

'allo Dufas you poor old fool, we (dinkum Aussies) as a culture enjoy free speech without the need to have somone in a legislative position put it in black and white in case some politician denies you your "divine" rights.

Apart fom that, kindly quit the personal attack, whilst I have a thick skin and can tolerate anything you (anyone with half a brain) likes to say, I find it irksome to continually make notes from so many posts back, trying to keep track of the retorts you et al, class as debate, when all it is, is heckalling.

I have my own point of view, and will fight to the last drop of your blood for your right to hear it.

I've heard it said that you cannot preach to the converted, so if you are having a ball in your neck of the woods, then you are truly smoking something strong.

When the global climate change takes effect, and it isn't happening tomorrow so don't bother looking out of your window, you have my word on that, but IT WILL HAPPEN.

You cannot with any intelligence say that the world climate isn't taking a change from the ideal climate we've been having for years, well the rest of the world maybe, seems like you lot have upset someone big time with all the bad weather you've been having, (maybe the wicked witch in the West?), ah well, that's life, aint gonna get out of it alive anyway.

Just for your information, and I know you might be experiencing a traumatic emotional experience just reading this post, but what the heck, just hang in there for a moment.

I don't dislike you people from over the pond, some of you are quite nice, and I bet if the climate changed so much that you had to bite one of your bullets and come cap in hand to get into this country, we'd be just too glad to give you the once over and see what you've got to offer in the way of climate control expertise, like water divining etc, we've got a drought on 'ya know.

It has been said by some very knowledgeable people, that know all about these things, that the energy requirements for the future will not be met by any method we have at present, no matter if we flooded the world with Nuclear power makers, or wind turbines and grew only crops to make fuel for rich folk's cars.

That still leaves a huge shortfall for the production of food crops to meet the GROWING population, even if you aren't making the feeders yourself, the foreign imports are certainly going to swell your ranks, and they will want housing and jobs and lots of money, so where is this extra capacity going to come from, given that there is going to be a less than favourable world to live in when the climate gets a bit tacky?

The Chinese may be doing things their way, it's their right, and if they get it wrong they'll just put it right without asking the rest of the world for permission.
At least they learn by their mistakes.

I'll be watching with interest their progress on the greening of a large area to produce bio diesel for the future.

Sometimes you just have to get off your finger and grasp the nettle, that's what makes the difference, doing something instead of thinking about it.
Ian.

Hi Neilw, hope the oil (power steering oil) didn't ruin your day, I guess the Merc is feeling it's age, but like all veterans "once a king always a king", can't say that for the Nissens, Toyotas, Hondas, Fords etc etc, only made to be sold for scrap.

I get the impression that some people on this forum are non believers of the climate change, well maybe when it happens they'll realise that there are other eminent people that have been doing the research instead of just quoting someone whom they seem to fancy.
Ian.

'allo Dufas you poor old fool,
kindly quit the personal attack, Ian.

This is like the kettle calling the pot black. Every time you post something in this forum, it is a personal attack on someone. Your one way diatribes, spewing senseless, garbled closed minded trash does nothing but reveal some sort of dementia.

Why don't you try for an intelligent exchange for once.

Dufa' old sport, why don't you be a good chap and make some personal observation on the current climate topic, not me, I'm sure everyone is bored to death at the continued retorical remarks, and maybe we can see where YOU'R coming from.

Then, with the boot on the other foot, you can quote till you're blue in the face all your pet fancies, gleaned from whatever source you happen to believe in, otherwise you are becoming very tiresome.

It would be most interesting to see to whom you give your allegience as regards the present topic.

Perhaps I might venture to suggest, as an opener, your views on the melting of the Greenland ice, and it's effect on the impending seal level rise, seeing as it has been so VERY well researched AND publicised by eminent scientists who really know their stuff.
Ian.

You are all focussing on the wrong thing. Here is a real threat;

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/18/tech/main4191556.shtml

You are all focussing on the wrong thing. Here is a real threat;

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/18/tech/main4191556.shtml

I would respectfully suggest that if the earthquakes are related to "global warming", mankind has no hope of reversing either one.:drowning:

I think I'll go buy a hummer and a motor home to use as much energy as possible before the end arrives. No sense in conserving when we are all going to die from the earthquakes anyway. :bs:

Ya'll rest easy now!

Leon :rainfro:

Dufa' old sport, why don't you be a good chap and make some personal observation on the current climate topic, not me, I'm sure everyone is bored to death at the continued retorical remarks, and maybe we can see where YOU'R coming from.

Then, with the boot on the other foot, you can quote till you're blue in the face all your pet fancies, gleaned from whatever source you happen to believe in, otherwise you are becoming very tiresome.

It would be most interesting to see to whom you give your allegiances as regards the present topic.

Perhaps I might venture to suggest, as an opener, your views on the melting of the Greenland ice, and it's effect on the impending seal level rise, seeing as it has been so VERY well researched AND publicised by eminent scientists who really know their stuff.
Ian.

I as well as others have made and backed up with proven data concerning MMGW which you have ignored. Most of the consensus backed data has been shown to have glaring mistakes and down right lies. The popular data being published by well known scientists, most of that has been disputed by an equal number of other eminent scientists, which has been cut off from the mainstream by the media, Universities, and other controlling interests.

All of these points have been made here for you to look into. Allegiances must mean more than seeking truths which makes GW a political movement

As far as Greenland is concerned, the same applies. It has been stated many times that Greenland has had much less ice than the present day without major catastrophes occurring. Why do you think the place is called Greenland, because it is so white ????

The Arctic's ice caps have grown and shrunk many times before. The North Passage was open for shipping not too long ago. It will be open again and be closed again.

Your statement about the earths temperature being constant, suggests that your belief system has a few problems.

No one is or has disputed climate change. It is happening now just as in the past and it will happen in the future.

In reality, discussing most anything with you will just push you into a diatribe on how much better your car is than everyone else's or how your point of view trumps everyone else or how everyone else are morons. Your statement that you'll fight to the last drop of my blood indicates that you would resort to physical attacks in order for you to get your views accepted or get rid of anyone that disagrees with you.

Since when have you been chosen to speak for everyone else. From what I have observed, most people that post here are intelligent and have no problem speaking for themselves.....with much more eloquence than has been your forte..

Actually, your a waste of what probably could be a good human being..

Gore's Home Still Guzzling Energy

Tuesday, June 17, 2008 10:48 PM



In the year since Al Gore took steps to make his home more energy-efficient, the former vice president’s home energy use surged more than 10 percent, according to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.

“A man’s commitment to his beliefs is best measured by what he does behind the closed doors of his own home,” said Drew Johnson, President of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research. “Al Gore is a hypocrite and a fraud when it comes to his commitment to the environment, judging by his home energy consumption.”

In the past year, Gore’s home burned through 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power 232 average American households for a month.

In February 2007, "An Inconvenient Truth," a film based on a climate change speech developed by Gore, won an Academy Award for best documentary feature. The next day, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research uncovered that Gore’s Nashville home guzzled 20 times more electricity than the average American household.

After the Tennessee Center for Policy Research exposed Gore’s massive home energy use, the former Vice President scurried to make his home more energy-efficient. Despite adding solar panels, installing a geothermal system, replacing existing light bulbs with more efficient models, and overhauling the home’s windows and ductwork, Gore now consumes more electricity than before the “green” overhaul.

Since taking steps to make his home more environmentally-friendly last June, Gore devours an average of 17,768 kWh per month –1,638 kWh more energy per month than before the renovations – at a cost of $16,533. By comparison, the average American household consumes 11,040 kWh in an entire year, according to the Energy Information Administration.

In the wake of becoming the most well-known global warming alarmist, Gore won an Oscar, a Grammy and the Nobel Peace Prize. In addition, Gore saw his personal wealth increase by an estimated $100 million thanks largely to speaking fees and investments related to global warming hysteria.

“Actions speak louder than words, and Gore’s actions prove that he views climate change not as a serious problem, but as a money-making opportunity,” Johnson said. “Gore is exploiting the public’s concern about the environment to line his pockets and enhance his profile.”

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, a Nashville-based free market think tank and watchdog organization, obtained information about Gore’s home energy use through a public records request to the Nashville Electric Service.

Look Dufa', if Al Gore (Nobel Peace prize Hey!) wants to spend a million smackeroos per month on his "American dream", so let him, that's the fundamental right in YOUR society, where money buys rights.

Since when has the energy he consumes been RATIONED?

If it were rationed then you have every right to get up on your soapbox and blow your trumpet warning the world that you have an "energy predator" in your neighbourhood, and the world had better tear him down and trample him underfoot, but no, he has every right, if he can afford to buy it, to as much energy as he can use without the likes of you telling him otherwise.

The same goes for you, if you can only afford to burn a candle to light your miserable pathetic life at night, then aint no-one gonna tell you to blow it out to save the world, aint no-one, that's gospel, and I will fight to the last drop of your blood for your right to burn as many candles as you can afford, provided they aren't on ration and you are getting them on the black market and denying some poor old widow with 14 kids the right to a bit of light in their miserable hovel.

You have blinkers on if you can't see the difference between shortage and affordability.

When things are in short supply, they usually get rationed to provide some for all, no matter if you have a million bucks and your sh1t don't stink, but otherwise it's first in best dressed, know what I mean?

However, if things are going to get tacky in your neck of the woods, and some of you are going to be underpriviliged because of the money supply problem, then if rationing is not an option, have you considered changing your political platform to a more user friendly one that levels the society, chops down the tall poppies and provides for all regardless of their money grubbing ability or connections?

Before you choke on your gruel, consider this, "reds under the bed" was a phrase that originated in your world by people so filled with paranoid fear of an alternative government, that they tore the very heart out of some of your most gifted people and denied them the fundamental rights your constitution allows you to die for, some constitution.

But I digress, what has that got to do with climate change?

I have the right to declare that it is going to happen, and have very qualified sources of information that says it will, and no doubt you (anyone whoever) have heard that there are rumblings in the cosmos and it's time to sit up and take note.

If Al Gore, bless his little cotton socks, gets rich (I bought the DVD) by parading the facts as he has correlated them, so be it, (isn't that the American way?) in the meantime, PARRABELLUM, broadly translated for non Latin students, better pack a lunch box, by all accounts your gonna need it soon, but have a nice day, yo'all hear.

Open letter to Al Gore, "Yo'all have a nice day, mister Gore sir, 'case anyone tries to tell ya' udderwise, wish we could make a lotta dough like you, yassir, lotta dough, man, wouldn't life be easy".
Get outta here!!!!LOL
Ian.

BTW Dufa, greenland WAS green when it was colonised back when Cocky was an egg, but there was a huge build up of snow (above seal level) and since then it's been a lovely shade of white, but now it appears that's all going to change.
All that snow above sea level is going to add to the ocean volume and I leave you to do the sums, gonna need a big calculator.
Ian.

Consensus science flagrantly lifted from a treatise on flawed scientific practice.
===========================================================================

At the conference in Washington, during the question period, Ehrlich was reminded that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, scientists were quoted as saying nothing would grow there for 75 years, but in fact melons were growing the next year. So, he was asked, how accurate were these findings now?

Ehrlich answered by saying "I think they are extremely robust. Scientists may have made statements like that, although I cannot imagine what their basis would have been, even with the state of science at that time, but scientists are always making absurd statements, individually, in various places. What we are doing here, however, is presenting a consensus of a very large group of scientists…"

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it iis a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant.

What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let's review a few cases.

In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth . One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no. In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence. The consensus said no. In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent "skeptics" around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.

There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the "pellagra germ." The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory. Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called "Goldberger's filth parties." Nobody contracted pellagra. The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.

Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.

And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therapy…the list of consensus errors goes on and on.

Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2.

Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.

As the twentieth century drew to a close, the connection between hard scientific fact and public policy became increasingly elastic. In part this was possible because of the complacency of the scientific profession; in part because of the lack of good science education among the public; in part, because of the rise of specialized advocacy groups which have been enormously effective in getting publicity and shaping policy; and in great part because of the decline of the media as an independent assessor of fact. The deterioration of the American media is dire loss for our country. When distinguished institutions like the New York Times can no longer differentiate between factual content and editorial opinion, but rather mix both freely on their front page, then who will hold anyone to a higher standard?

And so, in this elastic anything-goes world where science-or non-science-is the hand maiden of questionable public policy, we arrive at last at global warming. It is not my purpose here to rehash the details of this most magnificent of the demons haunting the world. I would just remind you of the now-familiar pattern by which these things are established. Evidentiary uncertainties are glossed over in the unseemly rush for an overarching policy, and for grants to support the policy by delivering findings that are desired by the patron. Next, the isolation of those scientists who won't get with the program, and the characterization of those scientists as outsiders and "skeptics" in quotation marks-suspect individuals with suspect motives, industry flunkies, reactionaries, or simply anti-environmental nutcases. In short order, debate ends, even though prominent scientists are uncomfortable about how things are being done.

When did "skeptic" become a dirty word in science? When did a skeptic require quotation marks around it?

To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back in the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight to a conclusion: "These results are derived with the help of a computer model." But now large-scale computer models are seen as generating data in themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world-increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward. There can be no observational data about the year 2100.

There are only model runs.

This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right. Because only if you spend a lot of time looking at a computer screen can you arrive at the complex point where the global warming debate now stands.

Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?

Stepping back, I have to say the arrogance of the modelmakers is breathtaking. There have been, in every century, scientists who say they know it all. Since climate may be a chaotic system-no one is sure-these predictions are inherently doubtful, to be polite. But more to the point, even if the models get the science spot-on, they can never get the sociology. To predict anything about the world a hundred years from now I remind you that in the lifetime of most scientists now living, we have already had an example of dire predictions set aside by new technology. I refer to the green revolution. In 1960, Paul Ehrlich said, "The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines-hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death." Ten years later, he predicted four billion people would die during the 1980s, including 65 million Americans. The mass starvation that was predicted never occurred, and it now seems it isn't ever going to happen. Nor is the population explosion going to reach the numbers predicted even ten years ago. In 1990, climate modelers anticipated a world population of 11 billion by 2100. Today, some people think the correct number will be 7 billion and falling. But nobody knows for sure. This is simply absurd.


But it is impossible to ignore how closely the history of global warming fits on the previous template for Carl Sagan's nuclear winter. Just as the earliest studies of nuclear winter stated that the uncertainties were so great that probabilities could never be known, so, too the first pronouncements on global warming argued strong limits on what could be determined with certainty about climate change. The 1995 IPCC draft report said, "Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced." It also said, "No study to date has positively attributed all or part of observed climate changes to anthropogenic causes." Those statements were removed, and in their place appeared: "The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on climate."

What is clear, however, is that on this issue, science and policy have become inextricably mixed to the point where it will be difficult, if not impossible, to separate them out. It is possible for an outside observer to ask serious questions about the conduct of investigations into global warming, such as whether we are taking appropriate steps to improve the quality of our observational data records, whether we are systematically obtaining the information that will clarify existing uncertainties, whether we have any organized disinterested mechanism to direct research in this contentious area.

The answer to all these questions is no. We don't.

I believe that as we come to the end of this litany, some of you may be saying, well what is the big deal, really. So we made a few mistakes. So a few scientists have overstated their cases and have egg on their faces. So what.

Well, I'll tell you.

In recent years, much has been said about the post modernist claims about science to the effect that science is just another form of raw power, tricked out in special claims for truth-seeking and objectivity that really have no basis in fact. Science, we are told, is no better than any other undertaking. These ideas anger many scientists, and they anger me. But recent events have made me wonder if they are correct. We can take as an example the scientific reception accorded a Danish statistician, Bjorn Lomborg, who wrote a book called The Skeptical Environmentalist.

The scientific community responded in a way that can only be described as disgraceful. In professional literature, it was complained he had no standing because he was not an earth scientist. His publisher, Cambridge University Press, was attacked with cries that the editor should be fired, and that all right-thinking scientists should shun the press. The past president of the AAAS wondered aloud how Cambridge could have ever "published a book that so clearly could never have passed peer review." )But of course the manuscript did pass peer review by three earth scientists on both sides of the Atlantic, and all recommended publication.) But what are scientists doing attacking a press? Is this the new McCarthyism-coming from scientists?

Worst of all was the behavior of the Scientific American, which seemed intent on proving the post-modernist point that it was all about power, not facts. The Scientific American attacked Lomborg for eleven pages, yet only came up with nine factual errors despite their assertion that the book was "rife with careless mistakes." It was a poor display featuring vicious ad hominem attacks, including comparing him to a Holocaust denier. The issue was captioned: "Science defends itself against the Skeptical Environmentalist."

Really. Science has to defend itself? Is this what we have come to?

When Lomborg asked for space to rebut his critics, he was given only a page and a half. When he said it wasn't enough, he put the critics' essays on his web page and answered them in detail. Scientific American threatened copyright infringement and made him take the pages down.

Further attacks since have made it clear what is going on. Lomborg is charged with heresy. That's why none of his critics needs to substantiate their attacks in any detail. That's why the facts don't matter. That's why they can attack him in the most vicious personal terms. He's a heretic.

Of course, any scientist can be charged as Galileo was charged. I just never thought I'd see the Scientific American in the role of mother church.

Is this what science has become? I hope not. But it is what it will become, unless there is a concerted effort by leading scientists to aggressively separate science from policy. The late Philip Handler, former president of the National Academy of Sciences, said that "Scientists best serve public policy by living within the ethics of science, not those of politics. If the scientific community will not unfrock the charlatans, the public will not discern the difference-science and the nation will suffer." Personally, I don't worry about the nation. But I do worry about science.

BTW Dufa, greenland WAS green when it was colonised back when Cocky was an egg,....
Ian.

Oh, Ian, that is plain utter nonsense. Sometimes you overstep the boundary from baiting the Yanks and being amusing, into utter idiocy. Fortunately for the Aussies you were born elsewhere so they can disown you if needed.

So is the climate going to change for the better or for the worse?

Better for some, worse for others. Just like anything that changes.

Mariss

Correlation does not imply Causation. Never has, never will.

Never mind; operator error

I've been puzzled so I read a few dozen of Ranting Wanker's other, technical posts. For someone who sometimes seems outright brain damaged on this forum, he is surprisingly lucid, thoughtful and polite on the technical forums. I picked a typical post example at random for your perusal:

-------------------------------------------------------
QUOTE: "Hi John, nothing wrong with wood, the only problem might be from a deformation standpoint that led to wear and short life, bearing in mind that the application is for a transmission screw so end loads against the screw flanks are equal to the force required to move the table against the cutter, maybe nylon grooved inserts on a steel thread might be longer lasting as it's a rolling force as opposed to a rubbing force like in bronze nuts.

I might venture to add that if using soft grooved inserts the centre housing could be spring loaded against the other two housings at 90 deg to the thread axis,to maintain a constant thread flank thrust as long as the inserts didn't bottom on the thread due to flank wear, which would lead to backlash."
----------------------------------------------------

No 'humanoids', hostility, condescension or messianic writing style to be found anywhere.
Just a perfectly normal, nice and knowledge reply. They get Dr. Jeykll-Handle while we get Mr. Hyde-Wanker. How to account for that?

First off it's obvious is Mr. Hyde-Wanker isn't dealing squarely or honestly with anyone on this thread. One cannot change their intellect at will, so one manifestation has to be an affectation and that is the Mr. Hyde one. He is playing everyone for a fool here. He knows better but pretends not to.

The why doesn't matter that much. Some people enjoy the idle and cruel pleasure of pulling wings off of flies. They enjoy feeling the transient sense of power and superiority when they inflict pain and consternation. I guess it temporarily fills some horrible void in the psyche.

It's a shame Dr. Jeykll-Handle didn't feel brave enough to post here in his true persona. He is clearly an intelligent man and his posts would have been kindly received. Instead we got Mr. Hyde-Wanker, an affected and ridiculous caricature. Pity.

Mariss

I brought up the Wankers rational posts in other forums and he became upset....plus,....

How do you know handywanker hasn't posted here in a lucid, thoughtful manner, communicating with brevity and intelligence.....?