I got no problem with global warming (65 on today on Long Island)...I do have a problem with excessive pollution from the burning of fossil fuels which we continue to unnecessarily rely on for our energy requirements.
Hmmm... I wonder if somehow the two are related. I guess we'll never know.
I got no problem with global warming (65 on today on Long Island)...I do have a problem with excessive pollution from the burning of fossil fuels which we continue to unnecessarily rely on for our energy requirements.
By Jonathan Fildes Technology reporter, BBC News, Oxford
A plan to build a 6,000km-long wall across the Sahara Desert to stop the spread of the desert has been outlined. The barrier - formed by solidifying sand dunes - would stretch from Mauritania in the west of Africa to Djibouti in the east. The plan was put forward by architect Magnus Larsson at the TED Global conference in Oxford.
A 2007 UN study described desertification as "the greatest environmental challenge of our times". "The threat is desertification.
My response is a sandstone wall made from solidified sand," said Mr Larsson, who describes himself as a dune architect. The sand would be stabilised by flooding it with bacteria that can set it like concrete in a matter of hours. North African nations have promoted the idea of planting trees to form a Great Green Belt to prevent the spread of the sand.
A similar proposal - known as the Green Wall of China - has also been proposed to stop the spread of the Gobi Desert. Ballooning idea In 2007, the UN issued a report that said that one third of the Earth's population - about two billion people - are potential victims of desertification. “ The idea is to stop the desert using the desert itself ” Magnus Larsson It is concerned that the slow creep of the sands will displace people and put new strains on natural resources and societies.
Problem areas include the former Soviet republics in central Asia, China and sub-Saharan Africa. "It affects about 140 countries," Mr Larsson told BBC News. Mr Larsson showed pictures of a village called Gidan-Kara in Nigeria which had had to be moved because of the creep of the dunes. He said it was one of many examples. The architect's proposed wall across the desert would be a complement to, rather than a replacement, of the Great Green Belt proposal. "It would provide physical support for the trees," he said. Crucially, he said, it would leave a barrier even if the trees were removed.
"People are so poor in these countries and these regions that they chop them down for firewood." The wall would effectively be made by "freezing" the shifting sand dunes, turning them into sandstone. "The idea is to stop the desert using the desert itself," he said. The sand grains would be bound together using a bacterium called Bacillus pasteurii commonly found in wetlands. "It is a microorganism which chemically produces calcite - a kind of natural cement."
Mr Larsson got the idea for using the bacteria from a team at the University of California Davis, which had been investigating its use for solidifying the ground in earthquake prone areas. Mr Larsson envisages injecting the dunes with the bacteria on a massive scale or using a barrage of giant bacteria-filled balloons. "We allow the dune to wash over this structure then we would pop the balloon," he told BBC News. The scheme would also have advantages for nearby populations, he said. For example, it could be excavated he said to provide shade, shelter or as a structure to collect water. However, Mr Larsson admitted that the scheme faced numerous practical problems. "There are many details left to explore in this story: political, practical, ethical, financial. My design is fraught with many challenges," he said. "However, it's a beginning, it's a vision; if nothing else I would like this scheme to initiate a discussion," he added.
TED Global is a conference dedicated to "ideas worth spreading". It runs from the 21 to 24 July in Oxford, UK. Story from BBC NEWS
Global warming e-mails prompt Republican letter to EPA
GOP members of Congress ask the administration to put climate-change measures on hold because messages from scientists in Britain appear to cast doubt on the idea of man-made warming.
By Jim Tankersley and Alexander C. Hart — December 3, 2009 — Reporting from Washington
Citing e-mails that critics say cast doubt on global warming, congressional Republicans called on the Obama administration Wednesday to suspend efforts to combat climate change until the controversy is resolved.
In a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency, the lawmakers requested that a pending move to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act be halted, along with plans to limit emissions from vehicles, power plants and other sources, "until the agency can demonstrate the science underlying these regulatory decisions has not been compromised."
At issue are more than 1,000 electronic messages that were apparently obtained and released by a computer hacker. Most involve scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit in Britain, one of the few institutions in the world that collect the historical temperature data relied on by climate researchers.
At the heart of the controversy is whether human activity causes climate change. Skeptics argue that global temperatures may be warming naturally. They say that the e-mails suggest that scientists may have manipulated evidence to bolster their claims. The scientists dispute that and say that their words have been taken out of context.
Republicans used otherwise unrelated hearings Wednesday in the House and Senate to demand congressional investigations, but Obama administration officials and congressional Democrats pushed back.
"The e-mails do nothing to undermine the very strong scientific consensus . . . that tells us the Earth is warming, that warming is largely a result of human activity," Jane Lubchenco, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told a House committee. She said that the e-mails don't cover data from NOAA and NASA, whose independent climate records show dramatic warming.
The controversy flared up just before a summit in Copenhagen next week at which President Obama and other world leaders will attempt to make progress on an international climate-change treaty.
In some e-mails, a prominent climate scientist urges colleagues to destroy records rather than release them under public disclosure laws. In others, scientists appear to discuss how to discredit research they disagree with.
One of the leading figures in the scandal, East Anglia climate scientist Phil Jones, stepped down temporarily this week amid an investigation into his work and e-mails.
In a 1999 e-mail, Jones wrote of using a "trick" to hide an apparent decline in recent temperatures on a chart being prepared for a meteorological organization. Warming skeptics seized on the line, which Jones said was "taken completely out of context" because he was simply looking for a clearer way to chart global warming.
Critics have also focused on an e-mail from Penn State University scientist Michael Mann as evidence that climate researchers have sought to downplay findings indicating that the Earth warmed naturally 1,000 years ago.
In a 2003 e-mail, Mann said that "it would be nice to 'contain' the putative" Medieval Warm Period.
Mann said in an interview last month that the e-mail reflected his desire to identify exactly when the period began — not to downplay it. He also said that he had declined to act on Jones' request to destroy e-mails sought under freedom of information laws.
Republicans who have long questioned global-warming science say that the e-mails show a pattern that undermines the theory of man-made global warming.
"One cannot deny that the e-mails raised fundamental questions concerning . . . transparency and openness in science," Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) said at a hearing Wednesday.
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), one of the authors of the letter to the EPA, said in a news release Wednesday that the e-mails "read more like scientific fascism than the scientific process. . . . It's time to take back the notion that the 'science is settled.' "
Some climate scientists have expressed alarm at the contents of the e-mails. But many scientists and environmental groups have aggressively challenged the notion that the messages undermine climate science.
"The body of evidence that human activity is a prominent agent in global warming is overwhelming," James McCarthy, chairman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) in a letter Wednesday.
"People write ridiculous e-mails when they're in the middle of a fight," Boxer said. "To me, what's important is, e-mails aside, is there global warming? Is it being affected by human activity? And there's nothing out there that says otherwise."
First, I rejected long ago, membership in that Union...it is and always has been, heavily slanted LEFT. Second, Sen. Boxer proves herself an endless idiot. Those emails, using terms like 'travesty', or threats to destroy naysayers, or how to treat data not supportive of a preconceived notion, speak for themselves. Dummying data, adding data, using a 'trick' and on it goes, all to suppress the real working of the data and all to support what has become a religion among some, that of climate change, nee, global warming. If you remove the 'trick', you see as the emailers acknowledged, a decline in global temps since the 60's. That is why the 'trick' was used: add in data and by doing so, block the real data. Oh, what a true travesty and not a 'travesty' because damn it, temps are supposed to be increasing, not decreasing. And for those who think a few angered researchers in England tapped out emails they didn't mean to, the 'trick' is courtesy of a Penn State researcher, suggesting this hoax, this grand scale breakdown in solid science and ethical integrity, is well spread.
Global warming e-mails prompt Republican letter to EPA
GOP members of Congress ask the administration to put climate-change measures on hold because messages from scientists in Britain appear to cast doubt on the idea of man-made warming.
By Jim Tankersley and Alexander C. Hart — December 3, 2009 — Reporting from Washington
Citing e-mails that critics say cast doubt on global warming, congressional Republicans called on the Obama administration Wednesday to suspend efforts to combat climate change until the controversy is resolved.
In a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency, the lawmakers requested that a pending move to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act be halted, along with plans to limit emissions from vehicles, power plants and other sources, "until the agency can demonstrate the science underlying these regulatory decisions has not been compromised."
At issue are more than 1,000 electronic messages that were apparently obtained and released by a computer hacker. Most involve scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit in Britain, one of the few institutions in the world that collect the historical temperature data relied on by climate researchers.
At the heart of the controversy is whether human activity causes climate change. Skeptics argue that global temperatures may be warming naturally. They say that the e-mails suggest that scientists may have manipulated evidence to bolster their claims. The scientists dispute that and say that their words have been taken out of context.
Republicans used otherwise unrelated hearings Wednesday in the House and Senate to demand congressional investigations, but Obama administration officials and congressional Democrats pushed back.
"The e-mails do nothing to undermine the very strong scientific consensus . . . that tells us the Earth is warming, that warming is largely a result of human activity," Jane Lubchenco, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told a House committee. She said that the e-mails don't cover data from NOAA and NASA, whose independent climate records show dramatic warming.
The controversy flared up just before a summit in Copenhagen next week at which President Obama and other world leaders will attempt to make progress on an international climate-change treaty.
In some e-mails, a prominent climate scientist urges colleagues to destroy records rather than release them under public disclosure laws. In others, scientists appear to discuss how to discredit research they disagree with.
One of the leading figures in the scandal, East Anglia climate scientist Phil Jones, stepped down temporarily this week amid an investigation into his work and e-mails.
In a 1999 e-mail, Jones wrote of using a "trick" to hide an apparent decline in recent temperatures on a chart being prepared for a meteorological organization. Warming skeptics seized on the line, which Jones said was "taken completely out of context" because he was simply looking for a clearer way to chart global warming.
Critics have also focused on an e-mail from Penn State University scientist Michael Mann as evidence that climate researchers have sought to downplay findings indicating that the Earth warmed naturally 1,000 years ago.
In a 2003 e-mail, Mann said that "it would be nice to 'contain' the putative" Medieval Warm Period.
Mann said in an interview last month that the e-mail reflected his desire to identify exactly when the period began — not to downplay it. He also said that he had declined to act on Jones' request to destroy e-mails sought under freedom of information laws.
Republicans who have long questioned global-warming science say that the e-mails show a pattern that undermines the theory of man-made global warming.
"One cannot deny that the e-mails raised fundamental questions concerning . . . transparency and openness in science," Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) said at a hearing Wednesday.
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), one of the authors of the letter to the EPA, said in a news release Wednesday that the e-mails "read more like scientific fascism than the scientific process. . . . It's time to take back the notion that the 'science is settled.' "
Some climate scientists have expressed alarm at the contents of the e-mails. But many scientists and environmental groups have aggressively challenged the notion that the messages undermine climate science.
"The body of evidence that human activity is a prominent agent in global warming is overwhelming," James McCarthy, chairman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) in a letter Wednesday.
"People write ridiculous e-mails when they're in the middle of a fight," Boxer said. "To me, what's important is, e-mails aside, is there global warming? Is it being affected by human activity? And there's nothing out there that says otherwise."
The black mark earned by alarmists during the 1970s, for predicting continued global cooling, may be replicated for global-warming alarmists. The real tragedy, however, may be that - one day - scientists will cry wolf to a public that has learned to ignore them.
M, here's a scientist I believe wrote most of chapter 7 in the IPCC report. He reportedly agrees with some 90% of the info, however the 10% he disagrees with is apparently enough to get him labeled a contrarian.
Where does he get the number 11 in the expression (0.5)11 or (0.2)11?
What he's referring to is probability of independent events all occurring - for example, 8 heads in 8 coin tosses, or a sequence 1,2,7,2,3 in 5 tosses of a die. To calculate that, you multiply the probabilities of each event.
I count 11 little squares in the slide, so that has to be where he gets the 11. So he's saying that for global warming to be credible requires all 11 squares to be events that occur, each with probability of 0.5 or 0.2. The first is "emissions". Well, the probability of increased emissions in past years sure as hell isn't 0.5, it's 1.
That's inaccuracy number one - he's playing some games with probability theory. What makes more sense is if he's saying that there has to be all these events happening for global warming to be a problem:
increased emissions produce high atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases, and high atmospheric levels lead to high radiative forcing, and high radiative forcing leads to global response, and global response leads to regional wind, and humidity, and temperature, and rainfall, and cloudiness, and there are other factors influencing impact.
I think he needs some or's in there after the "global response" block. You don't need to have all the problems with wind, humidity, temperature, rainfall, and cloudiness for global warming to have a harmful effect. In fact, rise of ocean levels would be the worst effect of all. The "other factors" influencing impact doesn't have to be part of the chain at all. Plus, the first item, increased emissions produce high levels of greenhouse gases, has to have a probability of more than 0.5
It's games like this that reduce my confidence in this man - who berates the public for scientific illiteracy - radically.
He also engages in emotional scare tactics himself, presenting a slide which implies that we'll become like North Korea if we cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80%.
He mentions a couple pieces of work that differ from the global warming scenario, then use them as proof that the whole thing is absurd, and how could people be so stupid as to believe such absurdity? Oh, it must be because they're whipped into a frenzy by the politicians and the liberal media.
Polar bears thriving compared to 50 years ago? I thought they were hunted to near-extinction 50 years ago, so of course their numbers will be higher than 50 years ago. It turns out that it wasn't until 1973 that international efforts to curb intensive polar bear hunting were made. It turns out that their numbers are now stable, but are projected to decline by >30%. Five of 19 subpopulations are in decline, which hardly seems thriving. The US Department of the Interior has classified them as a threatened species, but that's the government and they're in on the conspiracy, aren't they?
More Right wing Corporate fear mongering from the Carbon Industry. I get all my electricity from wind farms and I pay only 10% more for it. In Germany they offer Solar Power panels for customers subsidized by the govermnment and the EXCESS YOU CAN SELL BACK to the utility.
I love how you see that everything is always a right wing sponsored hoax. The right is always at the bottom with everything wrong with this country. The solution should be easy, a left wing dictatorship, that will fix everything wrong with the world.
OBTW: here in Ohio, we have been able to sell excess energy back to the suppliers for years, be it in the form of electricity or natural gas. Many people in NEO (that's North East Ohio) have gas wells on their properties. Maybe you should lobby your state to allow electric meters to run backwards and sell back your excess energy to the provider as we do in Ohio. We can't be the only state. You infer that selling back excess energy is not allowed in the US. Maybe that is another right wing hoax. You should dig a little deeper and consider that there is more than one source of information.
More Right wing Corporate fear mongering from the Carbon Industry. I get all my electricity from wind farms and I pay only 10% more for it. In Germany they offer Solar Power panels for customers subsidized by the govermnment and the EXCESS YOU CAN SELL BACK to the utility.
fuh, feel free to read the material and objectively rebut.
