Friday, December 25, 2009
Moral question of the day
Am I an enemy of the Earth because I look up the outside temperature on Weather.com?
16 Comments:
By 
, at
Fri Dec 25, 05:08:00 PM:
An Inconvenient Truth?
"The 3 inches recorded Thursday at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport was the first measurable Christmas Eve snowfall since the National Weather Service began keeping records in 1898."
"Oklahoma City had received 14 inches of snow by Thursday night, breaking a record set back in 1914 of 2.5 inches."
Oooops, we meant "global cooling." We've always been at war with Eastasia !
By 
JPMcT, at
Fri Dec 25, 07:48:00 PM:
We really are getting Orwellian.
"How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?"
In other words, pay no attention to the fact that 2/3 of the US is currently covered in snow, that the data has been tortured and then disposed of, that there is no room for dissenting opinions - even from one's "peers", that we are in a markedly decreased period of solar activity, that all the planets are showing the same climate trends as ours...
pay no attention...
The real problem is MAN...and he must be controlled.
The fact that this bizarre theater is getting a fraction of the attention it deserves makes me wonder whether we are all suffering from a slow virus.
By , at
Sat Dec 26, 12:52:00 AM:
You should be using the Weather Underground.
By , at
Sat Dec 26, 12:57:00 AM:
Blah, blah blah, just cause there is snow that means that there is no global warming??? That's like the low lifes on Jerry Springer saying, "That baby ain't mine. He don't look like me." Makes about the same amount of sense.
Idiots.
By Don Cox, at
Sat Dec 26, 04:58:00 AM:
The problem is that the steady change is very small. It is reckoned to be an increase of about half a degree so far. Temperatures go up or down by more than that in half an hour.
So climatologists are trying to detect a very weak signal in a lot of noise.
Imagine you put a CD on to play. As it is playing, you slowly advance the volume control, so that after an hour it is 1 dB louder than at first. How easy would it be to detect that? Could a listener detect it with his unaided ears?
By joated, at
Sat Dec 26, 06:22:00 AM:
I find the weather.com readings next to useless. They do not tell you where the instruments are located and are never within several degrees of either my PA home or my 'Dacks camp. Weatherunderground is better in that they tell you the exact location of the stations but even then, there are none close to my PA home where terrain plays a major role in temperature determination. In the 'Dacks there's a farm that maintains a station 3-4 miles away from the camp. Still, its sensors are 300'lower in elevation and not housed in a protected shield and are, therefore off by several degrees.
I'm thinking of setting up my own station just so I can get accurate readings.
Forget the forecasts. Especially those that reach out more than 36 hours.
By , at
Sat Dec 26, 09:42:00 AM:
"So climatologists are trying to detect a very weak signal in a lot of noise."
This goes to the heart of the problem. AGW climatologists are only looking for signals that point up. Their funding comes from sources that want that answer. Our national 2009 white Christmas doesn't prove global cooling, but it is an inconvenient data point for global warming. One of the Climategate e-mails acknowledges that the last several years of data don't fit the AGW models, so White Christmas 2009 isn't just a rogue random data point.
"in a lot of noise" ... Anything that AGW climatologists think they're measuring is problematic in several respects. There's published work by physicists which says that you can't determine an average global temperature -- that for purposes of thermodynamics it's an oxymoron. This doesn't mean that you can't say that on average Miami is warmer than Anchorage. It does call into question one's ability to infer that a given "system" is getting warmer or colder by averaging discrete temperature measures within it.
Made simple, this is an issue over the accuracy of measurement. You can't measure microns with a yardstick. If global temperatures had gone up everywhere by ten degrees in the last decade, or the oceans risen by a foot or two, this would be moot -- but they haven't, so it's not.
There's science out there that suggests that decreased sunspot activity will make Earth colder over the next many years. At some point, the big macro effect will kick in and we'll tip into another Ice Age (next year? 1,000 years from now? ....) So what's a mother to do?
Earth does have issues over population growth, resources and pollution ... but not over CO2.
The USA does have issues over Energy, but windmills and solar and Van Jones-installed weather stripping aren't the answer.
By , at
Sat Dec 26, 09:59:00 AM:
So here's a throw down to Vicki Pasadena. Why exactly am I a "Jerry Springer idiot" for being an AGW skeptic?
I assume that you believe that AGW is true. Can you tell me why you believe so -- the basis for it.
I've got a thing about AGW because it's not a small issue. Among other things, the EPA has already declared CO2 to be a pollutant. This could have momentous consequences, even if the Energy bill isn't passed. I also expect that Obama will try to sell us on "green jobs" as the answer to unemployment -- that this will get pride of place in his upcoming State of the Union address. If he does, it'll be a tell that he's still intent on pushing his shithead ideas no matter the consequences.
By , at
Sat Dec 26, 10:09:00 AM:
The Truth is Out There:
The USA does have issues over Energy, but windmills and solar and Van Jones-installed weather stripping aren't the answer.
Certainly Obama's claim that energy saved from inflating tires would yield the energy equivalent to increasing domestic drilling is the claim of an ignoramus. Worse that he wouldn't admit he was wrong.
While I agree with you that windmills, weather stripping et al are not THE energy answer, it is more accurate to say that they are PART of the energy answer. In addition, we need more oil and gas drilling, more nukes, coal to oil conversion, improved electrical transmission lines. Et al.
My household electricity comes from wind energy.
By , at
Sat Dec 26, 01:31:00 PM:
Yes, the answer is "all of the above" and that includes conservation.
Current US electric production -- rough numbers:
Coal 50%
Natural gas 20%
Nuclear 20%
Hydro 6%
Other renewables (including wind / solar) 2.5%
From what I've looked at, "wind, etc" have real issues scaling past 10% -- which would be half of what we currently get from the 100 old nuclear reactors we already have. To think our energy future lies with "wind etc" alone is madness.
We have a lot of new sources of natural gas, but there's political obstacles to drilling for it. Nuclear has been -- and will continue to be -- impractical solely because of NIMBY political and legal reasons.
The net/net is that US electrical production has probably peaked, and will likely decline. kwh costs will go up, maybe a lot. Industries that depend on power will decline in the US, but will move to dirtier places abroad. And that's even before we plug in our new mandated electric Obama-mobiles.
Don't get me going on the details of the House Energy bill, especially after the lobbyists got through with it, as it makes much of the above even worse. Energy takes a bad script and writes it into stone. But at least Al Gore and Kleiner Perkins will make money -- lots of it -- if it gets passed.
By , at
Sat Dec 26, 03:16:00 PM:
The Truth is Out There:
We are basically on the same page.
By , at
Sat Dec 26, 05:47:00 PM:
I posted this on another site today -- where it was on point -- but I thought it worth repeating here:
The "NASA-Goddard Institute" which makes the AGW predictions has an affiliation with NASA and with Columbia University, but may be accountable to neither. The common link is James Hansen, who heads the Institute. If you had to pick one person as the most influential in developing AGW theory it'd be James Hansen.
Once upon a time, Hansen did work for NASA on the atmosphere of Venus -- which is 96.5% CO2. Hansen then fell to Earth. He claims affiliation with NASA, and to be an adjunct professor at Columbia, but it looks like he's operated independently. As I understand it, along with the East Anglia gang in England, Hansen's "Institute" is the other keeper of the global climate data bank.
Hansen seems hung up on CO2 because of his Venus experience, even though CO2 is a trace gas in Earth's atmosphere -- less than 400 parts per billion, instead of 965,000,000 parts per billion. There are several basic differences between Earth and Venus which can readily explain why its atmosphere is so different than ours -- and thus probably irrelevant to ours -- including that its day is longer than its year and that it lacks a magnetic field, so that gases which are lighter than CO2 have tended to float away over millions and billions of years.
This is not a small point as Hansen was a pioneer in creating computer models of Earth's atmosphere. He literally adapted his Venusian models to do this. This led to his hook-up with Al Gore and to Hansen's warning Congress about global warming back in 1988.
From 2005 until 2008, Hansen was in a PR fight with various parts of the federal government about his statements about AGW. In 2006, he went on 60 Minutes to say that his views were being suppressed.
In 2008, Hansen went on ABC TV and elsewhere to say that fossil fuel company executives should be put on trial for "high crimes against humanity and nature", because they have actively spread doubt and misinformation about global warming.
In 2009, Hansen became a proponent of civil disobedience and a harsh critic of Copenhagen as being too little too late. He now believes that unless we shut down all the coal plants in the world within the next 20 years that the Earth will boil over. With this in mind, he managed to get arrested with Daryl Hannah and thirty others at a protest in West Virginia in June 2009.
The "NASA-Goddard Institute" is based at 112th Street and Broadway near Columbia University in NYC, and is literally above the Seinfeld Diner. Like in "Get Smart" you enter through the telephone booth at the back of the diner. They share space and a receptionist with the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, which has its own separate entrance through Del Floria's Tailor Shop around the corner .... OK, only the Seinfeld Diner part is true. See here: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/about/
By JPMcT, at
Sat Dec 26, 08:40:00 PM:
"Blah, blah blah, just cause there is snow that means that there is no global warming???"
HAHAHAHAHAH!....<<>>....HAHHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!
Thanks for that comment. I really needed that.
What vickie DOESN'T say is the the "snow" is present in places that have not had snow in decades....like Copenhagen (there IS a God), Houston, Southern France, etc., etc. etc.
Hey, vickie...can you give us a few ...hell...how about ONE...example of unusual WARMING?
Just one....??
The problem is global stupidity...for which I can come
up with a host of examples....
By , at
Sat Dec 26, 11:42:00 PM:
How's this for a Holy Shit theme:
All the leaders of the World flew to Copenhagen to dance to a tune called by One Guy. This One Guy taught Al Gore all that Al knows about global warming. This One Guy's office is one floor above the Seinfeld Diner, literally ... and this One Guy is completely nuts.
By , at
Sun Dec 27, 10:57:00 AM:
JPMcT:
By now you should realize that our friend Pasadena Vicki is a one-trick pony. The only thing she has to add to the conversation is her heartfelt conviction that conservatives are stupid, ignorant, bigoted, racist, rude, hateful, knuckle-draggers. In contrast to Pasadena Vicki, of course. “ You neocons are…..(fill in the blanks), and I, Pasadena Vicki, am not.” She cannot document her statements because her statements are based not on what she has read, but on what she FEELS. Expecting Pasadena Vicki to engage in reasoned dialogue is like expecting a two year old to recite the Gettysburg Address: ain’t gonna happen.
OTOH, you may have made your comment knowing full well that Pasadena Vicki would not reply. Anything beyond a drive-by snark is apparently beyond her capabilities.
By , at
Sun Dec 27, 05:27:00 PM:
I don't expect Pasadena Vicki to respond, but she might. It's a simple request:
"I assume that you believe that AGW is true. Can you tell me why you believe so -- the basis for it."
Is it because Al Gore said so and got a Nobel Prize and an Oscar for saying so? Because the New York Times and ABC have been saying so for so long?
