[raptorguy]

I don't know about climate change.

  What  I do know, however, is that the so-called 'science' around the global warming/climate change issue is the most pathetic I've witnessed in almost 35 years as a geologist. It's more akin to groupies drinking the purple kool-aid and then getting into a frenzied apocalyptic hysteria.

 The Earth may be warming, cooling, heading for disaster or just churning along...but the perversions put out in the name of science do not provide an answer.

I've always been a strong environmentalist and it's sad to witness ideology trumping science. Most so called environmentalists today are urbanites completely removed from Nature who are 'experts' on Somalia one moment...'experts' on energy production the next and then 'experts' on climate change. In reality they are ignorant windbags who couldn't tell a spruce from a pine tree and probably couldn't point Somalia out on a map.  Whatever they 'believe' on climate change is what they 'want to believe'.

 So, the ideas are driven by all types of politics, ideology, etc.  Somehow even the word 'fairness' gets squeezed into scientific debates.

[JimBob]

I suspect that the reason there is a perception of "bad science" is due to the many theories that abound. The fact is that the average temperature of the earth has risen precipitously in the last 200 years cannot be disputed. It has done this. The conclusion that temperatures were probably warmer in the Jurassic-Cretaceous Ice ages than they are now is not in dispute.



See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All_palaeotemps.png for discussion of how this was put together. Also note that there are four ice ages shown in this and that there was at least another one before the graph began.

The problem is the cause. In reality, there is no good SINGLE cause. Warming is occurring. Why is another thing all together. It is this area where what is seen as poor science by some occurs. It seems everyone wants their own field of science to be the area where the answer is found.

Global warming is happening - why is another matter.

[frethack]

I don't know about climate change.

  What  I do know, however, is that the so-called 'science' around the global warming/climate change issue is the most pathetic I've witnessed in almost 35 years as a geologist. It's more akin to groupies drinking the purple kool-aid and then getting into a frenzied apocalyptic hysteria.

 The Earth may be warming, cooling, heading for disaster or just churning along...but the perversions put out in the name of science do not provide an answer.

I've always been a strong environmentalist and it's sad to witness ideology trumping science. Most so called environmentalists today are urbanites completely removed from Nature who are 'experts' on Somalia one moment...'experts' on energy production the next and then 'experts' on climate change. In reality they are ignorant windbags who couldn't tell a spruce from a pine tree and probably couldn't point Somalia out on a map.  Whatever they 'believe' on climate change is what they 'want to believe'.

 So, the ideas are driven by all types of politics, ideology, etc.  Somehow even the word 'fairness' gets squeezed into scientific debates.

This might be the most sensible thing said on the climate debate in this forum in a VERY long time.

[litespeed]

Raptor; Fret RE: "In reality they are ignorant windbags who couldn't tell a spruce from a pine tree and probably couldn't point Somalia out on a map."

In the old days I hob-knobbed with the Liberal Elite up on Capitol Hill. Environmentalists all.  Did all the rounds: display of wonderful Christmas House decorations in the Winter. The Outer Banks in the Summer. I doubt even one of them had an electric bill less then $500 per month.  As I recall I even confirmed this with diplomatic finess, since it seemed so extreme.

Now I simply ask when was the last time you purchased an incandescent light bulb? [Under counter lighting does not lend itself to fluorecent tubes - just to big and gouche.] I have not purchased an incandescent or halogen light bulb in probably 20 years. I beseach the climatistas to do a lighting inventory of their own homes.

[peppercorn]

Most so called environmentalists today are urbanites completely removed from Nature who are 'experts' on Somalia one moment...'experts' on energy production the next and then 'experts' on climate change. In reality they are ignorant windbags who couldn't tell a spruce from a pine tree and probably couldn't point Somalia out on a map.

I'd hope that isn't on this site.  I think if there are people on this forum claiming to be experts who aren't (on either side of this emotive argument) then they are shown up for what they are.
It is true that the public often believe the political doom-munger's worst predictions, right or not.  After all bad headlines have always been populist.

An excellent graph posted by JimBob.  Just a quick glance at it seems to show that things aren't as simple as cold temperature equates to glacial periods.

The next point is that Global Warming concerns have been taken seriously by climatologists for much longer than it has been on the political agenda.  In all the time it has been studied there must have been testable theories to explain much of these apparent inconstancies.

Raptorguy can you explain what you find so abhorrent about the science used by climate modellers.  Further, are you really claiming that an inability to tell two types of tree apart is going to limit their ability to tell good environmental science from bad?

[litespeed]

Pepper

Your concerns are legitimate. However, it is clear neither one of us has any influence with the Chinese Coal Power jugernaut.  One party states: I worked in Romania back in the 1980's, and I can tell you it was a Dante's Inferno. In Bucharest I slept with a wet washcloth over my face.

On the weekend I rented a car to see Dracula's Castle.  The polution was so bad we could not see more then about 100 meters from the car on either side. It went on so long I began to consider the immediate health concerns and the possible need to retreat for simple survival. At about that time we broke out into a higher elevation.  Down below was a thick soup of poison you could have stirred with a spoon. Until it disolved.

Right out of The Lord Of The Rings. It chills me to this very day.

[Geezer]

No need to run the risk of being turned into a vampire. Just go to Salt Lake City in the middle of winter and you'll see something similar.

[peppercorn]

Down below was a thick soup of poison you could have stirred with a spoon. Until it disolved.

Sounds f'ing awful!
In some ways it's a shame CO2 isn't a nasty green colour or something!

[frethack]

Sounds f'ing awful!
In some ways it's a shame CO2 isn't a nasty green colour or something!

I think the foliage might disagree with you on that.  []

[Geezer]

Sounds f'ing awful!
In some ways it's a shame CO2 isn't a nasty green colour or something!

I think the foliage might disagree with you on that.  []

Apparently, trees (and all plants?) continually live right on the edge of suffocation due to insufficient CO2. I came across that recently (can't remember where) and I was quite surprised. Is it true?

[frethack]

Apparently, trees (and all plants?) continually live right on the edge of suffocation due to insufficient CO2. I came across that recently (can't remember where) and I was quite surprised. Is it true?

I couldnt tell you on that one.  I do know that plants use water more efficiently with higher levels of CO2, but that is all.

[Geezer]

Apparently, trees (and all plants?) continually live right on the edge of suffocation due to insufficient CO2. I came across that recently (can't remember where) and I was quite surprised. Is it true?

I couldnt tell you on that one.  I do know that plants use water more efficiently with higher levels of CO2, but that is all.

I'll start another thread!

[litespeed]

Geezer - You wrote, regarding polution in Rumania: "No need to run the risk of being turned into a vampire. Just go to Salt Lake City in the middle of winter and you'll see something similar."

Sorry Geeze, but you have NO idea what that Rumanian polution was like. Embassy staff would change their shirts at least once a day. Like I said, I placed a wet washcloth on my face at night to breath through.  The polution in the country side was WAY worse, like serious FOG. Driving through it I actually became concerned for our IMMEDIATE health.

It was scary bad.  I am not kidding: visibility might have been reduced to a couple of hundred yards....

[Geezer]

I do not doubt your observations. My only point is that, because of inversion, the conditions in Salt Lake City in the winter can be really bad too. Much worse than Los Angeles as I recall.

If you are up on the mountains and look down, you can see that SLC is immeresed in an evil yellow/brown soup.

BTW, I actually remember the smog that was common in the UK when everybody burned coal fires. You could hardly see the other side of the street. It killed a lot of people.

[litespeed]

Geezer,

Are you describing the proverbial Pea Soup!

[Geezer]

More apocryphal than proverbial.

[litespeed]

Geezer,

We burned coal when I was a kid back in the Black and White 1950's. A ton or so of bituminous lump, plus split oak from the wooded area of the farm. To this very day my sister and brother-in-law primarily heat with wood, and even sell some to local customers.

The coal was really noxious, even in the country.  However, almost everyone switched to fuel oil in the 1970's.  As a result, the retail demand for coal dried up and has not been available since. Side Note: Back then anthracite coal was also available. It required special furnaces, I believe, because it burned hotter.  In addition, it did not leave much ash, just a residual 'clinker' to be plucked out from time to time.

My grandmother had a 'stoker' machine that automatically fed walnut sized pieces of anthracite into the furnace from a bin we would fill a couple of times a week. Quite exotic!

[Geezer]

Don't talk to me about anthracite!

We had a Rayburn oven/cooker with a back boiler to heat the hot water. It ran on "smokeless" anthracite, which was kept in a cellar under the house, but only accessible from the outside. Guess who had to haul the freekin' stuff up from the cellar in all weathers?

[litespeed]

Geezer

This thread was listed as random post of the day. I really get a kick out our discussions of coal home heating! You mentioned "Guess who had to haul the freekin' [antracite] stuff up from the cellar in all weathers [from outside]?

Ah, the good old days! Our bituminous was dumped right down into the basement right next to the furnace itself. I would stand there with a water hose to damp down the dust, then shovel the stuff back against the wall where it might not catch fire.

Do you remember the Monty Python skit where two guys start talking together about how hard each of them had it back in the old days? I think they started out with the old standard 'I had to walk five miles in the snow to school.' Finally the other guy said they were so poor they had to move into the nearby lake and swim 1/2 mile to school much of the time.

Several of my relatives had out-houses, which weren't so bad EXCEPT in the Winter. In fact, thats what we routinely used during 'The War'. I won't mention which one. The human condition has improves so much in the last century it boggles the mind.  My own great grandmother moved West in a wagon in the 1870's, but lived long enough to fly back in a Boeing 707.

I suppose youthful ignorance becomes more of an issue when they don't even know anyone who had relatives die of cholera. As the family historian I have photographs of three little graves from the middle 1800's where my great great great great grandparents buried three young children from the disease all in one year.

As for natural catastrophies? I have first hand accounts of the New Madrid earthquake series of 1812, 1813. My relative was working a barge of barreled flour down the Ohio then Mississipi(?) when one of them hit. It drove the barge miles back up one or another tributary and nearly killed him when a barrel shifted. He is famous for having walked back to Ohio.

And I worry about whether my cold hardy pansies will bloom well this January in N. Georgia.