Interesting.

Though a grain of salt is always reccomended...

-Blast

It is all a matter of perspective I suppose. Benjamin Franklin came up with a great idea how to vex his competition when publishing his almanac. He kept reporting in it that his competitor had died, despite the fact that his competitor was still alive. This went on for some years, until finally one day his competitor did in fact die. To which Mr. Franklin was proud to announce his "see, I told you so" response. The point was because he was considered a man of some influence and notoriety, and his publication mostly contained interesting, if not always concise, information and had a relatively large circulation, a lot of people came to believe his competitor was dead long before he had actually expired.

Don't believe everything you see, hear, or otherwise learn about, unless you can verify it for yourself.

Our little world changes constantly. Mountains of rock will become sandy beaches someday. Changes occur whether we want them to or not, whether we think we can effect change or prevent it, and we will either learn to adapt or go the way of the dinosaurs. To think that us puny humans can have such a grand effect on our environment is foolish arrogance. On the grand scale of things, we have about as much influence over what happens on this planet as ants do.

Hey Blast,

Maybe your company should put two-way valves on that underground carbon sequestration project you have going.

Guess you might want that gas back one day for a global thermostat.

Cheers,
Nemo.

Global Warming now, Imminent Ice Age in the '70s, Oil shortage perpetually, Dust Bowl, Locusts, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Evil coal, Hyper-evil Nuclear energy, Nalgene BPA, Marriage, Divorce, Teenagers. The world is full of problems. I'm just not sure which ones are real. If we continually stay focused on all these issues we will live in what I call "Stable Chaos". I'm tired...

Here's some good links I have on the topic:

Michael Crichton paper on Climate Change

Documenty on GW

Scientists need money to do research. Where is all the money being spent these days? I saw a message by a scientist who was wanting to study something (say mating habits of marsupials). He wasn't able to get funding until he amended his research topic to include the global warming effect.

Check out the book, "Not By Fire, But By Ice" , I forget the good professor's name, at the moment.

The professor's theory is that the Global Warming the politicians and main stream media have been harping on so much, is false. His theory puts forth the idea that global warming is the precursor to us entering another ice age.

His theory makes a great deal of sense, to me.

LOL.

Pretty typical denialism scree.

Easily discounted because of one line:
"Disconcerting as it may be to true believers in global warming, the average temperature on Earth has remained steady or slowly declined during the past decade, despite the continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, and now the global temperature is falling precipitously."

This isn't "disconcerting" at all to the vast majority of climatary scientists who see GW as a real threat. The GW documentation covers hundreds of thousands of years. A ten year decline is, in the scale of things, nothing.

Even if we had another little ice age it wouldn't even begin to dent the contention that GW is real and a very real threat. In fact if people don't pat attention we may very well get lulled into inaction by these partisan screes and short-term and regional cooling. Only to find ourselves on the rising side after a little ice age and a self-imposed long-term GW trend. The double whammy with nothing left to do but embrace the horror.

But here again perhaps the biggest clue to how much weight to place in this report is the line:
... "my guess is that the odds are at least 50-50 that we will see significant cooling rather than warming in coming decades…"

The man evidently has never considered that we could get small cycles of cooling within a larger context of GW.

Yes, but more importantly is what can be effectively done about it now? Reducing our carbon emissions isn't going to stop or even slow it down, so if nothing we do seems to make much difference to the outcome, then why get all worried about trying to stop change, and just learn to live with it. Those who refuse to accept that change is inevitable, that this planet is going to always be in a state of change, are going to waste valuable resources and effort trying to stop the unstoppable. Even if we were to put a halt to all man-made carbon emissions tomorrow, there would still be a tremendous amount of carbon continously being released to atmosphere despite us. We need to face the facts: in a thousand years, the environment on this planet could be dramatically different than it is today. The people of that time will have to deal with whatever those conditions might be, whether it is an ice age, or the atmosphere has warmed up by 10 degrees, or whatever. Carbon emissions now are a worthy concern, in the context that they are but one of a myriad of issues we need to manage responsibly, balancing economics against the prudent use of our resources. We as a race tend to favor economics most of the time, we like to get the biggest bang for our buck, but we are living in an age now where we are no longer able to be truly naive, nor arrogant, about our role on this planet.

I cannot buy in to this silly notion that we are able to make that much difference to what happens on this planet, one way or the other. This planet has been heating up and cooling down without any help on our part for a lot longer than we've been around, and will continue to do so for a long time to come. Besides, so long as the same morons that espouse our need to curb our consumption of carbon fuels also insists we need to maintain a hands-off approach to managing our forests, how can they expect anything other than a net-zero change in emissions? Either you do it all, or else don't bother with any of it.

Part of the reason for this may be because it is only during a time of increased warmth, which increases precipitation, that glaciers can build. See? Lots of snow equals big glaciers. I'm sure an increase in glacial cover will cool things down a bit. The cooling will decrease precipitation and cloud cover allowing radiational cooling of the planet surface. Next up will be an "ice age" or period of overall cooler temperatures. The cooler temperatures will decrease precipitation and create more deserts and possibly dust bowls. Eventually the planet will self-correct and warm up. And then the whole cycle will start all over again.

How's that?

Well, it's going to be interesting to see how this all works out.

I'm neither a "true believer" nor a "true denier." I suspect that human activities are an accelerant on a set of existing conditions. From that perspective, it's prudent to use fossil fuels much more efficiently than we are now, and to find smarter ways of doing things.

The beauty of this is that it's all very practical. It fits nicely with my broader goals of self-sufficiency and reduced dependence on the grid. And with the soaring costs of energy, the investments I'm making will pay handsomely down the road.

Compared to ten years ago, I've taken steps to upgrade the insulation in my old house, updated my old furnace, started retiring energy-pig appliances, bought more efficient office equipment, and put in a high-efficiency wood stove. I grow more of my own food. I have a small bank of solar panels to recharge batteries and run laptops. I've found a way to telecommute through a broadband wireless setup. And when I do have to drive, my vehicle gets twice the gas mileage as my old one. In the future, I'd like to put in a ground-loop geothermal setup for heating and cooling.

I certainly haven't felt any degradation in my lifestyle as a result of my personal push for energy efficiency. Quite the opposite.