World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown

[busyb555]

I ask the global warming believers to tell me where this is wrong!!

World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown - Times Online

[paulswetdog]

Well, let me put it this way. If one person out of a group of one hundred diagnosed with an incurable, fatal disease suddenly recovers, does that imply all the rest of those people are also safe? One flawed assertion out of thousands does not make much difference. The glaciers are still melting, just not as fast as was thought. Whoopie, they might last a hundred years longer than we thought. That sure makes me feel like going out and buying a Hummer.

The media wants to portray any controversy like a prize fight. "Denier lands fatal blow on Believer, game over". Its like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. What does it matter if the glaciers last 25 more years or 100? They will still be gone, in a relatively short time, and the oceans will rise to wipe out coastal regions (a lot of our food comes from areas not very high above current sea level.) So, our kids might not see the end, but their grandkids might.

Google stuff like "global large fish decline". One flawed finding is not going to sweep away the undeniable fact that humanity is eating the planet as fast as it can.

I hope God does not mind what we are doing to His work.

I ask the global warming believers to tell me where this is wrong!!

World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown - Times Online

[paulswetdog]

Well, let me put it this way. If one person out of a group of one hundred diagnosed with an incurable, fatal disease suddenly recovers, does that imply all the rest of those people are also safe? One flawed assertion out of thousands does not make much difference. The glaciers are still melting, just not as fast as was thought. Whoopie, they might last a hundred years longer than we thought. That sure makes me feel like going out and buying a Hummer.

The media wants to portray any controversy like a prize fight. "Denier lands fatal blow on Believer, game over". Its like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. What does it matter if the glaciers last 25 more years or 100? They will still be gone, in a relatively short time, and the oceans will rise to wipe out coastal regions (a lot of our food comes from areas not very high above current sea level.) So, our kids might not see the end, but their grandkids might.

Google stuff like "global large fish decline". One flawed finding is not going to sweep away the undeniable fact that humanity is eating the planet as fast as it can.

I hope God does not mind what we are doing to His work.

I ask the global warming believers to tell me where this is wrong!!

World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown - Times Online

[Clancy]

Of course, you are correct, but it's irrelevant to our resident RW whacko.

What's scary about so called 'conservatives' nowadays is that they seem to be completely clueless about the value and virtues of intellectual integrity.

Well, let me put it this way. If one person out of a group of one hundred diagnosed with an incurable, fatal disease suddenly recovers, does that imply all the rest of those people are also safe? One flawed assertion out of thousands does not make much difference. The glaciers are still melting, just not as fast as was thought. Whoopie, they might last a hundred years longer than we thought. That sure makes me feel like going out and buying a Hummer.

The media wants to portray any controversy like a prize fight. "Denier lands fatal blow on Believer, game over". Its like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. What does it matter if the glaciers last 25 more years or 100? They will still be gone, in a relatively short time, and the oceans will rise to wipe out coastal regions (a lot of our food comes from areas not very high above current sea level.) So, our kids might not see the end, but their grandkids might.

Google stuff like "global large fish decline". One flawed finding is not going to sweep away the undeniable fact that humanity is eating the planet as fast as it can.

I hope God does not mind what we are doing to His work.

[someguy]

Of course, you are correct, but it's irrelevant to our resident RW whacko.

What's scary about so called 'conservatives' nowadays is that they seem to be completely clueless about the value and virtues of intellectual integrity.

Id just like to point out that not only RW conservatives challenge the theory of global warming.

Also you talk about intellectual integrity as if all of the scientists who claim global warming to be true have just that. Unfortunately "Climategate" kind of slams that notion down a lot.

[Clancy]

"Climategate" is a tempest in a teapot.

Ask yourself this. If the oil industry's shills had a leg to stand on, why wouldn't they be publishing their own scientific studies refuting the consensus of the world's climatologists instead of sniping from the sidelines?

Id just like to point out that not only RW conservatives challenge the theory of global warming.

Also you talk about intellectual integrity as if all of the scientists who claim global warming to be true have just that. Unfortunately "Climategate" kind of slams that notion down a lot.

[someguy]

why wouldn't they be publishing their own scientific studies refuting the consensus of the world's climatologists instead of sniping from the sidelines?

Well don't shell and chevron and most of the big oil companies have large investments in solar and other renewable energy technology development?

[Clancy]

What's that got to do with the question?

They have an army of scientists on their payrolls, yet they can't refute the world's climatologists, and they don't even try.

Well don't shell and chevron and most of the big oil companies have large investments in solar and other renewable energy technology development?

[someguy]

What's that got to do with the question?

They have an army of scientists on their payrolls, yet they can't refute the world's climatologists, and they don't even try.

It has to do with the question because if they are investing in solar etc... publishing studies to disprove global warming might hinder their future profits. Also a study from a for profit industry holds little value in any discussion, because its sure to be biased.

[Clancy]

It has to do with the question because if they are investing in solar etc... publishing studies to disprove global warming might hinder their future profits. Also a study from a for profit industry holds little value in any discussion, because its sure to be biased.

No, they'd love to disprove man-made global warming, it would be far more profitable for them to do so.

And studies by "profit industries" are routinely made and published, they're the ones with the most motivation to pay for it. Look at the pharmecutical companies for instance. That's one reason scientific studies are peer-reviewed.

That they don't suggests they know their studies will not produce results they want.

[someguy]

No, they'd love to disprove man-made global warming, it would be far more profitable for them to do so.

And studies by "profit industries" are routinely made and published, they're the ones with the most motivation to pay for it. Look at the pharmecutical companies for instance. That's one reason scientific studies are peer-reviewed.

That they don't suggests they know their studies will not produce results they want.

I dont think it would be far more profitable for the oil industry to continue producing oil when everyones constantly talking about peak oil. These industries understand oil wont be around forever. They also understand that probably the majority of people in the industrialized nations believe in global warming and that if they took a stance against it they would be more hated by these folk than they already are.

But third parties with no financial/political interest either way have published studies refuting global warming. Such as Lord Monckton.

And pharmaceutical industry studies are always double checked by a 'trusted' government agency. I doubt there exists a government agency that would double check an oil industries study before it is presented to the public.

Either way the oil companies have made the financial investment in alternative energy and I am sure they are protecting those investments since they know eventually the world is going to get off of fossil fuels. I think they are just not trying to rock the boat to stay in the game.

[Clancy]

No, the point is that it's far more profitable for the world to think they're not responsible for global warming, that's much different than your assertion.

And, you're making big assumptions about their motives and intentions for alternative sources of energy, and you're somehow assuming that 'belief' in manmade global warming would somehow harm those intentions, seems just the opposite to me.

And finally, peer review in science isn't done by governments per se, it's done by the scientist's peers, in science journals. I guarentee, if science showed that global warming wasn't manmade, the oil industry's scientists would be inundating the world with scientific proof, and the issue would be no more.

My browser is acting very bizarre, I won't be posting more until I figure out what's going on.

I dont think it would be far more profitable for the oil industry to continue producing oil when everyones constantly talking about peak oil. These industries understand oil wont be around forever. They also understand that probably the majority of people in the industrialized nations believe in global warming and that if they took a stance against it they would be more hated by these folk than they already are.

But third parties with no financial/political interest either way have published studies refuting global warming. Such as Lord Monckton.

And pharmaceutical industry studies are always double checked by a 'trusted' government agency. I doubt there exists a government agency that would double check an oil industries study before it is presented to the public.

Either way the oil companies have made the financial investment in alternative energy and I am sure they are protecting those investments since they know eventually the world is going to get off of fossil fuels. I think they are just not trying to rock the boat to stay in the game.

[busyb555]

The big issue for me is the Cap and Trade, tax gang. I am all for private enterprise, if you can make it and it works, sell it and thats the basis of a growing economy. I do not support the government of any country creating a tax scheme in the name of global anything especially energy or emissions. For Obama to have let the EPA declare CO2 toxic is a joke and yet another spanking the boy president will most likely get.

And, how about the election we just got to witness? More to come I would say.

I dont think it would be far more profitable for the oil industry to continue producing oil when everyones constantly talking about peak oil. These industries understand oil wont be around forever. They also understand that probably the majority of people in the industrialized nations believe in global warming and that if they took a stance against it they would be more hated by these folk than they already are.

But third parties with no financial/political interest either way have published studies refuting global warming. Such as Lord Monckton.

And pharmaceutical industry studies are always double checked by a 'trusted' government agency. I doubt there exists a government agency that would double check an oil industries study before it is presented to the public.

Either way the oil companies have made the financial investment in alternative energy and I am sure they are protecting those investments since they know eventually the world is going to get off of fossil fuels. I think they are just not trying to rock the boat to stay in the game.

[Hotspring 44]

The "Climategate" argument is 1/1,000th of the whole story (or statistically less). Why grasp so hard at that almost insignificant straw?

as far as GW is concerned, note the "Anthropogenic effects" line in this link's graph https://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol326/issue5960/images/medium/326_1646_F8.gif

Yes those whom have a vested interest in the status-quo of energy, financial, and political power do have an arguement that is largly fueled by misinformation by the shear politics of money power.
have you noticed how advertising a crappy product using certain psychological manipulation techniques actually works in spite of the lacking of good quality of a particular product?
The $$ behind the anti GW's are in that category for the most part as far as I am concerned....
...Bad product but hard-sell, manipulative advertising sells!...
...So some will buy the crappy product and most of them will virtually never admit in public that the Titanic they bought into was shoddy to begin with!... ...Be they RW conservative or not!

Id just like to point out that not only RW conservatives challenge the theory of global warming.

Also you talk about intellectual integrity as if all of the scientists who claim global warming to be true have just that. Unfortunately "Climategate" kind of slams that notion down a lot.

[someguy]

No, the point is that it's far more profitable for the world to think they're not responsible for global warming, that's much different than your assertion.

And, you're making big assumptions about their motives and intentions for alternative sources of energy, and you're somehow assuming that 'belief' in manmade global warming would somehow harm those intentions, seems just the opposite to me.

My browser is acting very bizarre, I won't be posting more until I figure out what's going on.

What makes you think that its far more profitable for the world to think they're not responsible for GW? People need fossil fuels as it is right now. They dont have much of a choice. So really what does it matter if they are or aren't responsible? People are completely reliant upon them, and when we finally ween ourselves off of oil, we will still be dependant on the same companies providing us oil today.

Well I am making assumptions about their motives and intentions which I believe are profits. And I cant say that im 100% clear on what you mean by this: and you're somehow assuming that 'belief' in manmade global warming would somehow harm those intentions, seems just the opposite to me.??Maybe you could elaborate or re-word or something.

I do think Ive made my point very clear. That either way (on or off fossil fuels) the big oil industry wins. So I don't think it is very necessary for them to produce such studies. They could produce them (like third party scientists have done), but its such a complicated issue that most people aren't concerned about the facts. And unfortunately facts won't necessarily persuade this mass movement of GW believers. Especially when the pushers of GW are telling everyone to believe it and change or die. I think when most people are given that kind of ultimatum rational thinking becomes irrelevant. Especially when that rational thinking (by means of scientific studies) comes from the same (big oil) industry the GW pushers are claiming to be killing us all.

[Clancy]

And here is what many conservatives don't seem to understand about the value of intellectual integrity.

When you consistently post outright lies and disinformation, nobody cares that you post an occasional grain of truth, you're still just an intellectual weasel.

The big issue for me is the Cap and Trade, tax gang. I am all for private enterprise, if you can make it and it works, sell it and thats the basis of a growing economy. I do not support the government of any country creating a tax scheme in the name of global anything especially energy or emissions. For Obama to have let the EPA declare CO2 toxic is a joke and yet another spanking the boy president will most likely get.

And, how about the election we just got to witness? More to come I would say.

[Barry]

And here is what many conservatives don't seem to understand about the value of intellectual integrity.

When you consistently post outright lies and misinformation, nobody cares that you post an occasional grain of truth, you're still just an intellectual weasel.

Clancy, I have demanded that Bruce treat our members with respect, despite how misdirected he may think they are. And I demand the same of you.

Regarding the climate issue at hand, its quite possible that some people have gotten over-zealous, but that does not invalidate basic stipulation of man-made climate change.

[someguy]

The "Climategate" argument is 1/1,000th of the whole story (or statistically less). Why grasp so hard at that almost insignificant straw?

as far as GW is concerned, note the "Anthropogenic effects" line in this link's graph https://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol326/issue5960/images/medium/326_1646_F8.gif

Yes those whom have a vested interest in the status-quo of energy, financial, and political power do have an arguement that is largly fueled by misinformation by the shear politics of money power.
have you noticed how advertising a crappy product using certain psychological manipulation techniques actually works in spite of the lacking of good quality of a particular product?
The $$ behind the anti GW's are in that category for the most part as far as I am concerned....
...Bad product but hard-sell, manipulative advertising sells!...
...So some will buy the crappy product and most of them will virtually never admit in public that the Titanic they bought into was shoddy to begin with!... ...Be they RW conservative or not!

I wasn't grasping at any straw, I was simply just pointing out a misuse of intellectual integrity to further an agenda. Believe me there is a lot more to the GW skeptics position than climate gate.

For me, the problem is not that I like fossil fuels. In fact, Im a pretty green guy. But I consider this a humanitarian issue. If we want to regulate co2 emissions on a global scale through taxation that would have a grand affect on millions of extremely impoverished people.

Truthfully I want the US to be energy independent, and completely on clean renewable energy. It could be done, very easily, right now. We could line up solar panel from Idaho down to Nevada that could power a vast landscape. And I can;t seem to understand why we haven't done that already. But taxing fuel while we ween in renewable energy is a bad, bad, Very bad thing to do to poor people. Trust me Ive lived in third world countries before.

[stuartdole]

I ask the global warming believers to tell me where this is wrong!!

World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown - Times Online

I did a little checking, and found that there has been some good science done on Himalayan glaciers (see below). I do know that the Sierra glaciers are retreating - lace up your boots and go look for yourself next summer. In general, mountain glaciers are fickle - they can be plenty cold but not get enough snow to keep up with evaporation (like Kilimanjaro). Depends more on local weather patterns.

Here's the article from Science:

Big Melt Threatens India's Water
By Pallava Bagla
ScienceNOW Daily News
12 January 2007

The massive glaciers of the Himalayas, which hold one of Earth's largest reserves of snow and ice, have dwindled by one-fifth in the past 4 decades. A team of Indian geologists and remote sensing experts published the alarming news this week--a grim warning that if the trend continues, it could jeopardize the fresh water supply of more than 500 million people in India.
The study, reported 10 January in Current Science, compared data from the oldest known glacial maps of the region (the 1962 Survey of India) to recent data from Indian remote sensing satellites. Anil Kulkarni of the Indian Space Research Organization in Ahmedabad and his team estimated glacial retreat for 466 glaciers in three major river basins, the Chenab, Parbati, and Baspa. They found that glacial extent had declined from 2077 square km in 1962 to 1628 square km at present, or about 21%. At the same time, the number of glaciers increased due to fragmentation. Ice fields and small structures known as glaciarates have shown more extensive deglaciation. For example, 127 glaciarates and ice fields less than 1 sq. km retreated 38% from 1962. "Small glaciers are more sensitive to global warming," Kulkarni notes. The results indicate that glacial fragmentation, higher retreat of small glaciers, and climate change are all influencing the sustainability of Himalayan glaciers.

For India, the crucial question is, how long will it be before the glaciers fade away? A veteran Himalayan geologist, John Shroder of the University of Nebraska at Omaha suggests it won't happen soon. "Overall, the larger Himalayan glaciers are going to last a fairly long time because the mountains are so high." Westerly winds and the monsoon will continue to replenish the snow on top, he says. "But if the monsoon starts to fail in any significant way in the lowlands," a dramatic decline could occur. The dwindling of smaller glaciers is already reducing irrigation water elsewhere in the region, most significantly in central parts of Afghanistan's Hindu Kush. "There you will already see profound drought stress to crops and people," says Shroder, and "this will only add to the political uncertainty in the region."

[Clancy]

So, posting lies and disinformation is okay if we do it politely? I agree with you that some people may have gotten overzealous about the issue at hand, and the grain of truth I was referring to is the article he posted above, which is a far cut above his usual RW propaganda.

Respect is earned, by acting with integrity, consistently.

In the meantime, as a concession to you, I'll go back to not responding to Bruce.

Clancy, I have demanded that Bruce treat our members with respect, despite how misdirected he may think they are. And I demand the same of you.

Regarding the climate issue at hand, its quite possible that some people have gotten over-zealous, but that does not invalidate basic stipulation of man-made climate change.

[Hotspring 44]

I wasn't grasping at any straw, I was simply just pointing out a misuse of intellectual integrity to further an agenda. Believe me there is a lot more to the GW skeptics position than climate gate.

There has been far more cherry-picking on the GW denier's side of the fence than the pro GW "climategate" situation has. Example; ocean acidification for one (that is directly related to the (human caused increase of CO2) Anthropogenic effect.

For me, the problem is not that I like fossil fuels. In fact, Im a pretty green guy. But I consider this a humanitarian issue. If we want to regulate co2 emissions on a global scale through taxation that would have a grand affect on millions of extremely impoverished people.

I in some way I agree with that assessment. But only to the temporary point as far as the shorter term is concerned. But in the long term if and / or when the ocean level rises a few more meters, it is like a Carbon mortgage that can not be paid-off in time that gets foreclosed on some of the very same impoverished people you claim to care so much about in the form of oceanic inundation of their homes and croplands.

Although the "Cap & Trade" scheme is as far as I can tell, merely another mass media frenzy, placebo that sidetracks the issue of energy independence of people (us, me & you) from foreign and domestic dictatorial behavior from some that would rather have us as their slaves then as truly free people.

Truthfully I want the US to be energy independent, and completely on clean renewable energy. It could be done, very easily, right now.

Maybe not so "easily" but in due time; doable for the most part.

The unemployment situation would be helped also, so long as the greedy industry super powerful capitalist's do not have the ability to have cheap foreign labor costs of production sell us out like what happened to the auto industry and the computer help line labor and all has done in the past.

We could line up solar panel from Idaho down to Nevada that could power a vast landscape.

And also windmills. Some environmentalists would try to stop allot of that from ever happening in much of those areas. And yet the Mining industry would of course still be able to fracture drill natral gas in those same places anyway; (grandfathered in).

And I can;t seem to understand why we haven't done that already. But taxing fuel while we ween in renewable energy is a bad, bad, Very bad thing to do to poor people. Trust me Ive lived in third world countries before.

If the so-called carbon tax were spent only on direct costs of proven renewable energy in the form of incentives, then that, if done carefully could spur the renewable into forward motion. But with the recent Supreme Court decision about political funding that would at best be ruined and screwed-up if not used to further the worst of the energy dependence situation. Just like the health care thing got royally F't-up.

[paulswetdog]

Follow the money.

Ask yourself this question: Who gains by GW denial/belief?

A tiny handful of scientists, whose work must pass peer review to be accepted? What do they get, other than a paycheck (which the oil companies would probably triple)?

Or the oil companies with their gargantuan profits?

Two guesses, and the first one doesn't count.

(And yes, a couple of "bad apples" have caused some trouble for GW believers. So what? Out of the thousands of scientists and studies you think there will be no mistakes, no egomaniacs, no fools? Science produces the best answers we can get, but that does not mean the answers are always correct. Try to get an oil company to self-correct in favor of the truth as opposed to profits. When pigs fly.)

[someguy]

While I'm thinking about this idea of clean energy independence...

If Obama really has our best interests in mind, why doesn't he push for more subsidies on solar and wind and geothermal? Look at what we subsidize right now! Soy, corn, OIL!!!! Subsidies for all renewable energies are only a fraction of the subsidies for oil. And most of the renewable energy subsidies go to ethanol, which is useless. Seriously, why doesn't Obama talk directly to the American people and say, "We can be free of foreign oil, we can be free of all oil! We can have zero emissions! We can create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and we can fire up our factories and become an industrious country once more! We can be the envy of the entire world! All you have to do is call up your congresspeople and demand subsidies for solar and wind energy. Tell them that you want a job building solar panels, developing green technology. Tell them that you're sick and tired of our country being dependent on dirty oil and coal, and you DEMAND affordable clean energy for EVERYONE, not just rich people. Tell them to end all subsidies for non-renewable energy. And most importantly, tell them you'll never vote for them again if they fail to act on this."

Obama is supposed to be about hope and change, he advertised himself as the "yes we can" candidate. So what is holding him back??? Obama had so much support when he came into office. He had all of the young people passionately behind him, and a damn good portion of the older folks as well. People are passionate about Obama even today, and if he were to say these things, I guarantee that most everyone would be 100% behind him. I guarantee that a huge percentage of voters would call their congresspeople and let them have it. With Obama cheerleading, people would follow through with their promises and vote out of office those who failed America.

I mean, who could seriously be opposed to subsidizing solar instead of oil? You would have to be out of your gourd. You would look like a complete jackass saying you don't want to create clean energy jobs in America right now. And what senators and representatives want most is to be re-elected, so they surely don't want to look like un-American jackasses.

So how would we pay for it? Well, getting rid of oil and coal subsidies would more than do it. Getting rid of subsidies for corn and soy would give us a bunch more money that we could use to refurbish our decaying factories. Most of that corn and soy is going either to cows (who are not meant to eat grains and suffer immensely because of it) or to ethanol (which is a joke and a scam).

Obama is supposed to be so intelligent, and yet he couldn't even think of a simple idea like subsidizing clean energy. There are probably a lot of other simple ways to solve our problems. He's either not as intelligent as he's advertised as being, or he doesn't really care about the American people.

Obama claims to care so much about climate change and yet he's not willing to do something simple like subsidize solar to 'save the planet'. If the United States went zero emissions and energy independent at the same time, while turning our recession into a booming economy, we would literally be the envy of the entire world, and the world would follow suit. Even if China somehow didn't want to be super cool and have free energy like everyone else, just the US, the EU, and Russia going zero emissions would cut 40% of the world's carbon emissions.

List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


And yet, Obama does nothing. That leads me to believe that one of the following is true:

A) Obama knows that man-made climate change is not true.

B) Obama doesn't care about the future of the world, or America, or even his own children and grandchildren.

C) Obama is incredibly stupid. As dumb as a rock.


I believe the correct answer is A. Obama is not stupid. I don't think he's nearly as intelligent as they say, but he's not dumb as a rock. That was George W. Bush. And it's obvious that Obama cares about his kids. Even the most sold-out politician cares about his children's future. Part of the reason so many politicians are sold out to lobbyists and the like is because it allows them to provide incredible luxury for their families.

So my conclusion is that Obama knows that global warming is not man-made, and in fact is not global warming at all but natural variations in climate. He knows it is not a real problem and that is why he is pushing for carbon taxes instead of clean energy. If he really believed his children's future was at stake, he would do anything in his power to save that future, just like any other sane parent would. And Obama happens to have tremendous power and a platform to say anything he wants to the entire world and be taken seriously, so what's stopping him?

[podfish]

There's a problem when someone can use resources that aren't solely theirs, or impose their costs on society at large. Any solution to that is likely to be fairly artificial. A big part of the reason for the concept of "private property" is that it defines boundaries for what you control. It's an idea that really doesn't always work very well. No-one really cares (at least at this point) whether you're using more than your fair share of oxygen. But we -do- likely care whether you're dumping C02 into the air.
This is eight-grade level economic theory, but somehow most people in this country seem to act as if these ideas have never been developed.

The big issue for me is the Cap and Trade, tax gang. I am all for private enterprise, if you can make it and it works, sell it and thats the basis of a growing economy. I do not support the government of any country creating a tax scheme in the name of global anything especially energy or emissions.....

[paulswetdog]

Whoa. Let me get this straight.

"And yet, Obama does nothing. That leads me to believe that one of the following is true:

A) Obama knows that man-made climate change is not true.
B) Obama doesn't care about the future of the world, or America, or even his own children and grandchildren.
C) Obama is incredibly stupid. As dumb as a rock.

I believe the correct answer is A. Obama is not stupid. ... "

It sounds to me like your argument goes something like this: "I am a smart guy. I am a GW sceptic. Obama is a smart guy. Therefore, since smart guys are GW sceptics, Obama is a GW sceptic."

Ever take a course in logic? "All dogs are four legged animals. That animal over there has four legs, therefore that animal is a dog." Notice anything wrong with that argument? I didn't think so.

[someguy]

[QUOTE]

It sounds to me like your argument goes something like this: "I am a smart guy. I am a GW sceptic. Obama is a smart guy. Therefore, since smart guys are GW sceptics, Obama is a GW sceptic."

Ever take a course in logic? "All dogs are four legged animals. That animal over there has four legs, therefore that animal is a dog." Notice anything wrong with that argument? I didn't think so.

Well no... My argument is that if Obama knows that GW is a man-made catastrophe that will destroy his grandchildren or even children then he would do something about this right now. Something like I suggested. Or, he just doesn't understand (or take the time to understand) the grave threat and he is simply ignoring it, and that makes him stupid if he actually does believe in a GW doomsday scenario. My argument has nothing to do with what you said at all.

["Mad" Miles]

[quote=someguy;105728]

Well no... My argument is that if Obama knows that GW is a man-made catastrophe that will destroy his grandchildren or even children then he would do something about this right now. Something like I suggested. Or, he just doesn't understand (or take the time to understand) the grave threat and he is simply ignoring it, and that makes him stupid if he actually does believe in a GW doomsday scenario. My argument has nothing to do with what you said at all.

Someguy,

Ever heard of the limits of possibility in the political and social arena? President Obama is doing exactly what he said he would do when campaigning: govern from the center, escalate in Afghanistan, etc., etc.

Only those who bought the empty rhetoric of his campaign, i.e. "Change We Can Believe In" are disappointed or surprised. Anyone paying attention to the details of his positions, and the wiggle room of what he didn't specify gave him, is not surprised. Disgusted quite often, sometimes pleased, but not surprised.

As for the claim that alternatives to oil are easily within our grasp. I recommend this report from the Post Carbon Institute. It's pretty sobering.

Zut!

"Mad" Miles

[Valley Oak]

Well said.

What surprises and disappoints me (not really) is that most citizens are so gullible, Republican, Democrat, Independent, that they continue to swallow the same shallow lies year after year, generation after generation, without ever realizing what the real issues are.

The problems are systemic, forcing ALL political candidates, especially for the office of the POTUS, to lie, distort, or mislead. Any candidate who doesn't lie inevitably will not get elected. I think that Jimmy Carter comes the closest to an "honest" president and look at what happened to him. He got fired! (There are other reasons, of course.)

If we want a democracy that comes MUCH closer to fully representing the American people then we need Proportional Representation and a multi-party system. But this sounds way too foreign or far fetched for people to warm up to. Heck, most people have never even heard of those terms.

With a political system as obsolete as the two-party system in the U.S., the only person who can ever get elected is the one who gives the most effective lie under the current political institutions.

We need a new constitution, a parliamentary system of government, a bicephalous executive state, as well as PR and multi-party. But it's never going to happen, at least not for another couple hundred years. We Americans prefer our love/hate relationship with our poor quality democracy.

Edward

Someguy,

Ever heard of the limits of possibility in the political and social arena? President Obama is doing exactly what he said he would do when campaigning: govern from the center, escalate in Afghanistan, etc., etc.

Only those who bought the empty rhetoric of his campaign, i.e. "Change We Can Believe In" are disappointed or surprised. Anyone paying attention to the details of his positions, and the wiggle room of what he didn't specify gave him, is not surprised. Disgusted quite often, sometimes pleased, but not surprised.

As for the claim that alternatives to oil are easily within our grasp. I recommend this report from the Post Carbon Institute. It's pretty sobering.

Zut!

"Mad" Miles

[someguy]

Someguy,

Ever heard of the limits of possibility in the political and social arena? President Obama is doing exactly what he said he would do when campaigning: govern from the center, escalate in Afghanistan, etc., etc.

Only those who bought the empty rhetoric of his campaign, i.e. "Change We Can Believe In" are disappointed or surprised. Anyone paying attention to the details of his positions, and the wiggle room of what he didn't specify gave him, is not surprised. Disgusted quite often, sometimes pleased, but not surprised.

As for the claim that alternatives to oil are easily within our grasp. I recommend this report from the Post Carbon Institute. It's pretty sobering.

Zut!

"Mad" Miles

I entirely agree that Obama never said that he would do any of this. I wrote the first part of that for the many people who seem to think he was going to transform into someone else.

Although I do still think after reading your article that if we really wanted to put our minds and efforts into it, that emission free energy independence could quickly become a reality. It would be hard, but i compare this to early America's intercontinental railroad project. Its gonna be hard, but it could be done, and along the way our lives would get better and better.

[Barry]

Glaciers and the IPCC

Off-base camp
Jan 21st 2010
From The Economist print edition


A mistaken claim about glaciers raises questions about the UN’s climate panel

Corbis

Still there

THE idea that the Himalaya could lose its glaciers by 2035—glaciers which feed rivers across South and East Asia—is a dramatic and apocalyptic one. After the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said such an outcome was very likely in the assessment of the state of climate science that it made in 2007, onlookers (including this newspaper) repeated the claim with alarm. In fact, there is no reason to believe it to be true. This is good news (within limits) for Indian farmers—and bad news for the IPCC.

The IPCC, like ancient Gaul, is divided into three parts. Working Group I looks at the physical science of climate change. Working Group II is concerned with impacts, vulnerability and adaptation. Working Group III deals with mitigation. The claims about Himalayan glaciers come from a short “case study” in a chapter on Asia in WG-II’s report from 2007. Like all of the IPCC’s work, this was meant to be an expert assessment of relevant research, resting mostly on peer-reviewed sources but also, at times, on the “grey literature”—reports by governments and other organisations that are not commercially or academically published.

The WG-II case study cites a grey report by the WWF, an environmental group, as the source of the date 2035. The WWF in turn cites a study presented in 1999 to the International Commission on Snow and Ice (ICSI) by Syed Hasnain, chair of ICSI’s working group on Himalayan glaciers.

But the passage about 2035 that the WWF report quotes comes not from that ICSI report (which was unpublished) but from an article that appeared around the same time in Down to Earth, an Indian magazine. This article was based in part on an interview with Dr Hasnain, who was also quoted by New Scientist as saying it was possible the glaciers would be gone in 40 years. The article in Down to Earth claims that the area covered by glaciers would drop from 500,000km² to 100,000km² by 2035, a claim found in the IPCC report but not in the WWF report. This suggests the Down to Earth article was itself a source for the IPCC, though Murari Lal, a retired Indian academic, now a consultant, who was one of the four co-ordinating lead authors of the chapter, says this was not the case.

There are two further problems with the area figure. One is that the research in question was looking at all the world’s glaciers, not just the Himalaya’s. The other is that the research was looking at the prospects for 2350, not 2035.

Georg Kaser, a glaciologist at the University of Innsbruck, explains that a timescale of centuries, not decades, is far more plausible for the Himalaya. Politics and logistics make a comprehensive study of Himalayan glaciers difficult, but if those individual glaciers which have been studied recently are representative, then the glaciers are retreating. This retreat, however, is likely to take a long time. To melt a glacier at an altitude above 6,000 metres, where many of the Himalayan glaciers are found, requires a lot more warming than can be expected by 2035—a point made forcefully in a letter to Science by Dr Kaser and others, published this week. Jeff Kargel of the University of Arizona, one of its authors, stresses that its criticism is aimed at this specific claim, not at the IPCC in general, and should not be seen as undermining the panel’s conclusions.

On January 20th the IPCC released a statement reiterating its overall conclusion on water from seasonal snow packs and glaciers in a warming world: that it is likely to be scarcer and available at different times. The statement also says that in the case study on the Himalaya’s glaciers “the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures, were not applied properly.” Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology, who is now the co-chair of WG-II, says the fact that the review process failed to catch the problem needs to be looked into.

That a review process which included 40,000 comments did not catch the error proves that size is not everything—especially since the error was quite catchable. Dr Kaser read the chapter after it was reviewed but before it was published. As a glaciologist—he was an author of the relevant chapter in the WG-I report, a much more thorough take on the subject which makes no grandiose claims about the Himalaya—he found the passage absurd, and alerted the IPCC. Problems he had with a passage on glaciers in WG-II’s chapter on Africa were subsequently addressed. Those in the chapter on Asia were not.

This poses two questions. One is why Dr Kaser, or some other glaciologist, did not see the chapter earlier on. Like Gaul’s three parts, the IPCC’s working groups, rooted in different disciplines, have different tribal structures; they do not communicate as well as they should. Dr Field says he is determined to try to do something about this in the process leading up to the next set of assessments in 2013.

The other question is why, when alerted by Dr Kaser, the IPCC did nothing. When open criticism began last year, it was airily dismissed by Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the IPCC and runs an institute in India where Dr Hasnain now works on glaciology. If he had not heard the claims were wrong by that stage, he should have done. This mixture of sloppiness, lack of communication and high-handedness gives the IPCC’s critics a lot to work with.
Meanwhile, the future of water resources in the places served by the glaciers remains unclear. Glaciers in monsoonal climates, unlike high-latitude glaciers, gain mass from precipitation during the same warm season in which they lose mass from melting, which makes their behaviour complex. And there are other water-related questions to be addressed, including possible changes to the monsoons and massive depletion of groundwater. There is an urgent need to study these things, and to synthesise the results in a way that can be relied on.