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Global warming?
Comments
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I don't think
anyone here disagrees that the earth is getting warmer . The big debate is ... why ?0 -
Poor Planet
Hey Ron... some people are actually in denial of any evidence. Maybe they could help "feed" the polar bears who had no arctic iceflows to travel on throughout this past winter?
The NorthWest Passage is now getting so wide open that I'm surprised nobody had hosted offshore boat races along it.0 -
I read
and watch all I can about this subject , and I bet the ratio is 100 to 1 in favor of global warming being man-made . Call it what you will - biased reporting , hidden agendas , whatever . I have to wonder about where the emissions from hundreds of millions of cars , heating appliances , coal oil and gas electric plants are going . I don't think the ever shrinking rain forests and tree populations can handle the ENORMOUS extra burden of emissions we've seen in the past few decades . I'm still not ready to see Godzilla and the Smog Monster battle it out
Of course , this is just my humble opinion .0 -
I will say this
Everyone here can look at a huge commercial heating system and then look at a small residential heating system and say no one is no harder than the other. The same priniciples of thermal dynamics apply. So why is it so hard to interpret the earth as a whole, heating up or cooling down? When we talk about the artic circle thawing out, I have a question to ask. Does a ice cube melt slower or faster the smaller it gets? Am I supposed to be surprised that as the ice pack melts and the melted water runs over and through and under the glacier ice pack it melts the whole faster and faster? The Earth operates in cycles. I am sorry there is no parallel shift in its programming! We are stewards of this planet. I do not care if it turns out oil will be here forever or a few more short years. We must conserve whatever we have. Nowhwere in the bible does it say to be hogs. How many of you talk the smak about mother earth and then sell or install the most bottom line efficiency unit here is? In this case government can make a huge difference. Mandate that nothing under 90% period can be installed! This is exactly what the founding fathers wanted government to be a referee in. Not telling us that it is okay for two people of the same sex to marry.0 -
*~/;) Green is good:)
i know some old Eskimo words .....just tell them
"Koo mucks" are climbing all over you...then they will remember bug words :)and think..this guy maybe from some cousins in the south Ta Koo Glen...
i just seen Chilly Willys Igloo the other day IT IS on the Internet! 0 -
Weezbo
I don't think I'll do that - too many sounds that are similar - some of which are just plain rude. :-) (you golfing yet in the south??)0 -
Does...
... anybody remember the "Y2K" panic? It was endlessly in the media as well. Self appointed experts writing books and producing scary TV documentaries. Zillions of dollars spent worldwide to "solve" a problem that never was. At the other end of the scale, there were countries and companies that didn't spend a nickel on the Y2K scare - and suffered no particular problems that I can recall. Does anybody even remember the names of any of the "experts"?
I've seen the shots of melting glaciers. I'm thinking that it's much more to do with normal warming/cooling cycles than anything. The Vikings settled Greenland during a warming trend in the middle ages. A couple of hundred years later, things had cooled off, and they either bailed out, or froze/starved to death. The historical records for the period a little sketchy, but there seems to have been few smoke-belching factories at that time, and even fewer cars.
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Global warming
It was global warming that melted the glaciers that once extended to the middle of Illinois. And while the people of Chicago (or anyone else for that matter) had nothing to do with it, they remain grateful. Man has been here but for the wink of an eye compared to the BIG picture. While we do have responsibilities, we're not necessarily responsible for all that happens here.0 -
Actually
Y2K was a big deal for many of us in the IT world. We spent over two years working on testing and code changes for business software. Date fields that were not compatable with the century change had to be found, tested to see what needed to be done and what was dependent, code changed and retested and so on.
The media hoopla was to sell stories, just like today on the weather channel.
Many companies did not have a problem because they invested in extra hardware, people and time to deal with the problem. Some companies had the problems but did not publish that fact, it was too embarassing. But they scrambled when their systems did not do things like a correct accounts receivable report because the date math was not working.
There were those that liked to be in the limelite with books and stories. The rest of us just took care of the problem so there would not be one. Howver in your Y2K comparison to temperature changes, the Y2K problem had known, understandable, testable and fixable issues. Too bad a short term code fix won't correct the pickle we find ourselves in now as consumers of 25% of the world's energy.0 -
True,
but we are responsible for all that we decide to do or not to do. For example, there exists good technology to make coal burning plants cleaner. We choose not to use it. Wars do not happen by chance. Plumbing with PONPC is a decision.
>>>>While we do have responsibilities, we're not necessarily responsible for all that happens here.<<<<
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While...
... there were no doubt some problems, they were pretty minor with respect to the "end of the world" predictions that were presented ad nauseum in the media. I recall that there were some of the more well known crystal-ball gazers interviewed on major news programs after Jan 1 2000, who were kind of sputtering & stuttering about why nothing much had happened, and that "we're not out of the woods yet - some of these problems won't manifest themselves for weeks or months..." Nothing happened. Whole countries spent nothing, or next to nothing. Nothing happened there either. I would suggest that the vast majority of the money spent was little more than wasted. I'm still using the same dumpy old computer that I had before Y2K. Never missed a beat.
Here's a question - in the face the pictures of retreating glaciers that populate the news these days, has anyone actually measured a rise in ocean levels? Not that I know of. In fact, I saw one documentary done by Swedish scientists on some very low-lying islands in the Indian Ocean that showed a great big nothing with respect to ocean level changes there. I saw one news show one global warming & ocean levels recently where they brought up Venice, in Italy. I was in Venice in 1973, and bits of it were underwater then. The problem isn't the ocean - Venice is built on a swamp & it's been slowly sinking for centuries. Kind of like a large city in Louisiana, that has been in the news recently.0 -
Mercury in the
atmosphere gets there primarily by processes used by man. Burning coal is a good example and if I recall corectly, about half the US electric power is coal generated. However, the US contribution to the global mercury pool is a very small percentage.
Mercury in the earth as the element is mecuric oxide and when heated, turns to the metallic form we used to use in school to make coins shiney. It is used in a variety of processes and products.
Near where I live in Maine, a company called Mallinckrodt, possibly one of the worst polluters in the country, had a plant that used mercury, about 80 tons on site. They dumped loads into the Pnobscot river and there are 5 lagoons on site that contain it. When Mallinckrodt got out of the business, Honeywell and another primary invester took over and formed a shell company called Holtrachem. Then they closed and left a huge mess.
The executives of these companies should be tried for crimes against humanity. And of course Honeywell and the other outfit whose name I don't remember claimed they were just investers.
If you can't sleep some night, read the mercury report, or at least the summary. We do appear to be making some progress in reducing mercury releases.
http://www.weblakes.com/Mercury/mercury_report.html0 -
I gotta' ask
What did you think of the article I posted?
Did you read it?
What are your comments on the article?
Mark H
To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"0 -
Tony,
You make a number of excellent points, one of which is that the media endlessly hypes subjects until most of us get sick of them.
That said, Tuavalu and a number of other Pacific islands are threatened today because they are mere centimeters above sea level. According to Wikipedia, sea levels have risen 20cm or about 10" in the last 100 years. The present rate of 2mm a year is 2x from what it has been over the last 5000 years according to the British Antartic Survey.
Areas prone to compaction like the netherlands, New Orleans, Venice, etc. will thus suffer from a double whammy, i.e. dropping land levels and rising sea levels. Even areas that are typically not prone to damage will suffer, however. Any rise in sea levels will make it that much easier for sea water to infiltrate into local acquifers, for example.
PS: Y2K, with people running out and buying gensets and preparing for the apocalypse was a non-event, but only thanks to a lot of people putting in a lot of time to fix the problem. I liked the cost-effective approach at the SSA.0 -
Yes,
I did read it. And I thought it presents a good example of the reaction to the difficulties of presenting facts in light of insufficient and imprecise measurements. The community resorts to some speculation and embellishment to make a point, the extreme alarmist's approach.
His comment on the gagging of government scientists and the reluctance of "climate sceptics" to publish is interesting. Governments have been hiding information and science for years to cover incompetence and bad or illegal behavior. But I don't buy the wholesale hiding of the climate sceptics. They perhaps have not had the same 'press' and other media exposure, but they are out there, albeit shadowed by the "It could happen tomorrow" Weather Channel episodes.
Personally, I am more concerned about the things other than carbon dioxide that we dump into the air and water. For example, what are the long term effects of the low level anti-biotics and estrogen containing compounds that are showing up in many bodies of water which provide drinking water? They may turn out to be far more harmful that the nitrogen and phosphorus from agriculture runoff as well as atmospheric CO2.
I must admit though that in my short time above the grass, I see marked changes in weather. Places where I have lived where there are no more 10 foot snows or the stream behind one house that used to be a source for ice (prior to mechanical cooling) but we rarely could skate.
I will watch with interest for Bob Carter to document the AP6 happenings and recommendations since it appears that he is not one his gagged scientists. And with 3 scientists in the family we do tend to have different dinnertime conversations.0 -
But Doug.............
Surely you can't expect us all to take personal responsibility for our actions...................That would be unthinkable. It's always someone else's fault or due to abusive third cousins on the mother's side of the family, or something like that.
Personal responsibility has been legislated and law suited out of existence in today's world.0 -
Just so difficult to sort the "natural" from the "man-made"...
Around 100 years of reasonably accurate and consistent temperature data isn't much to go by.
Recorded human history [seems] to show that climate shifts are the rule rather than the exception. Some are widespread and short-lived (think a single generation); others are long-term and regionalized. At best the methods used to determine "average" global temperature seem subject to interpretation; at worst they seem manipulated to secure research funding via alarmism.
So many routine and [seemingly] cyclical natural factors come into play that it appears truly impossible to determine a norm. On top of the routine are natural catastrophic events of sudden, significant, global significance. Throughout all life continues--some thrives, some dies. I'm not a defeatist--I'm a realist.
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*~/:) Glen!! We rolled out the outdoor hot tub ,today!
Fred ,Dave and i rolled the tub up onto the deck from the garage Fred's wifer commin home today so we keepin him in the clear :)Bit Chilly out though Fred had to take the snow wheeler with the 4 plow up the hill a coupla few times after we broke out the shovels and ice scrapers to break thru the snow and ice to get it on the deck:)Fred made a cool swoopy light deal in copper for "Spot" heating Golf is tricky cause everythings white
Just so you have a warm fuzzy feeling of the south 0 -
froze the fingers to the key board 0
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it's important
to keep those important to us warm and happy - good luck with the tub - if you are enjoying the same weather as me - skates might be in order - not bathing suits. I was quite surprised how much snow the north has this year. I have had to dig out more than one meter set - balmy -20 this morning. Keep your stick on the ice!0 -
So...
... what happened to the sea levels during the warming trend that let the Vikings settle Greenland? What happened the sea levels when it turned colder a couple of hundred years later and drove them out?
What about countries - I believe South Korea was one - who spent little or nothing on the Y2K scare?
The various media has at least as much interest in grabbing viewer/reader numbers to boost adverstising revenue as any burning desire to dig for and report the truth.
When was the last time anyone can remember a "doom & gloom" scenario, as depicted by the media, came true? Taiwan was supposed to uninhabitable 20 years ago because of pollution. The South American rainforest is supposed to be gone by now. I remember when we only had enough oil to last until 1985. It's all based on calculations using the most extreme end of a set of judgement call variables. Here's the one I liked the best, from about 10 years ago:
"If current trends continue, by the year 2034, everyone on earth will be an Elvis impersonator."
Current trends NEVER continue.0 -
Retired and loving it.0
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Bone dry since 1958
What resonated the most with me and the Standard Oil pamphlet is:
"The prime requisite to success in (oil finding) has been the freedom to (drill wells everywhere in search for oil). In these freedoms America has been blessed."
Freedom being the key word here, perhaps there is something ominous about the way the author used the past tense as in, has been. The oil industry, like most others, is assailed by a mountain of stifling government bureaucracy.
Today, the government's portion in oil tax is much greater than the portion that goes to rewarding the shareholder's risk taking. Indeed, me here, when I buy heating fuel I am charged the road use tax?!? Why? because the state says it is the same stuff, mind you, they provide a method for recapturing this road tax (or some at least) if you hire yourself a CPA, keep all your paperwork, and fill out the requisite schedules. Gasp, more stifling bureaucracy to the rescue.
Our European cousins suffer a more advanced case of this disease. This should scare us like an epidemic of scarlet fever.
Isn't it May when a whole bunch of new EPA things get kicked in that are the cause of some of the current rise in cost we are seeing?
Seems to me the oil industry should have said back in 1958: "It's gone with the abominable paperwork or we shut the tap. Deal? or... no deal?" Because there is no point in even having oil if there is no freedom to use it.
Your library is a phenomenal asset to all of us. Thanks HeatingHelp, thanks Dan, for the freedom to use it.
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I heard last week
Cuba is preparing to drill a deep offshore test well in the Gulf only 45 miles from our shores. Supposedly the prospects for a good find are better than 50/50. The ironic part of this is that the enviro's have so far prevented US companies from drilling in the same area for fear of contamination. Which country do you think will be more careful about spills?0 -
Interesting...
I wasn't aware that the government charged the same tax on heating oil as on automotive use stuff, I thought the taxes on fuel oil were considerably lower. Perhaps it's a state by state thing, but around here, #2 is cheaper than Diesel. The only thing that separates the two is red dye and allowable contaminants, so I imagine that the tax burden on #2 has to be lower.
As for the bureaucracy, I'm aware that some areas have some pretty stiff opposition to new oil rigs. The coastal property owners in CA have the same reaction to new oil rigs on the horizon as Cape Cod coastal land owners seem to have to off-shore wind farms. They want to see the sea, not man-made structures.
That said, it turns out that a number of abandoned drilling rigs in CA-waters will probably not be dismantled because they offer a good habitat for endangered fish, saving the oil companies many millions of dollars for the same reason they have to spend millions to prevent spills, i.e. environmental considerations.
This is not to defend all actions on behalf of the government. There is plenty to be critical of, but also plenty to be grateful for. We get the government we deserve as it's in our power to choose who gets to represent us. If something really irks you, get involved, fight for change, and get it done, that's the beauty of democracy.0 -
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From this \"decadent democracy\" and towns like Titusville
Titusville must have looked like the cover on The Oil For Tomorrow brochure.
What a throw back to the big talk of the cold war era. It's nearly all become laughable, for those of us who were untouched by it. Almost. Thankfully.
Dayton made big contributions to the way we drive. The very first gallon of octane adjusted gas was sold here at a station on sixth and main. It was the result of the Delco connected research department, the same as the Delco ignition coil and the electric self starter.
In what seemed to be another age, the son of local Charles Kettering (of Kettering Sloan fame), the engineer in charge of all this, had been sent on his honeymoon trip with a trunk full of gasoline samples to test in the Colorado mountains, along with his new bride, Virginia, to keep detailed records of this.
I am confident as ever in our ingenuity to find ways to make life better. You don't have to think much farther than the big inventions such as the Wright brothers' first plane.
Where I am a bit more doubtful, is when details get in the way. I know, at least locally, fuel colorings are required by various federal and state agencies in... , of course, conflicting shades of dye. What one agency wants in red, another proscribes. How grand. I have never noticed consistency in my fuel colors either, for all I know, it probably is all the same stuff.
Fortunately it's nothing a bunch of tax schedules can't fix. For heating, pay the road tax up front and work out a refund with your state income tax return. For putting the stuff in trucks, there is another set of quarterly state tax forms to fill in with including odometer readings and additional use tax. Obviously, we're not trying to save trees here, but if you have lots of hair to pull off your head, you're OK.
The Mead paper company was from here locally... Carbonless copy paper is also a local invention. So make those tax forms in triplicates... why not.
I've always wanted to go visit Titusville in Pennsylvania, where Col. Drake first had the idea to dig for oil - which, until then, every farmer thought was a polluting nuisance. Naturally occurring puddles of crude oil were nasty stuff to step into.
Do we thank Standard Oil and Rockefeller for cleaning all this up? nooooo!
Anyway, there also was a major boiler factory called the Titusville Iron Works.
Is anyone from around there? Is there really lots to see? I am looking forward to visiting one day.
Thanks again for the library privileges.0 -
Bradford, PA
Is having a big celebration this year, I think around Labor Day. Things are booming there with the price of oil being up. The oldest, still operating refinery in the USA is in Bradford.
Not too far from there is where the first oil in North America was dicovered, the Cuba Oil Spring.
A little farther, hidden in the trees on a side road, is a marker for the first successful well in NYS.
Also, in Bolivar NY, is a museum completely devoted to the early oil industry.
You would be amazed at the difference in our landscape from now back 100 years.
To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"0 -
who has this data??
"The present rate of 2mm a year is 2x from what it has been over the last 5000 years according..."
It is available as a download, who the hell has records from 5000 years? I know they can give educated guess from geological and other data, but come on... maybe 50 years of factual data, 4950 of guessing0 -
I recently heard that
WE, meaning HVACR techs, may be headed for an interesting time
If you work with Refrigerants you know about the EPA and HFC, CFC & HCFC's
CFC like R12 banned and HCFC on the out due to the Ozone depletion also known as ODP Ozone Depletion Potential
now we are left with HFC like R134A...or are we????
HFC's have a zero ODP BUT have a high GWP GLOBAL WARMING POTENTIAL, 25,000 times more than any other thing released in cluding auto emmisions
If you recall we backed out of the Kyoto Treaty, why?? well in the EU they are banning HFC's my friends, yep so what are we left with???
rumor is possibly Co2 but if the EU bans R134A auto manufacturers will not making cars for there and here
change is coming if the U.S. is involved or not
in the meantime Joe Schmoe can go to the local dept store and buy R134A and recharge their car or just let it go
check here for more info--http://www.euractiv.com/Article?tcmuri=tcm:29-117491-16&type=LinksDossier
personally I believe we are affecting the climate, have to be, and to put profit above and not care about the only place we know we can live on in the universe is to put it mildly.....
STUPID0 -
Did anyone see
the special on this past Sat or Sun morning , the one about a noticable change in air temperature following 9-11-2001 , when most air traffic was grounded a few days ? I was just waking up when it was on , can't remember what network it aired . Did anyone else catch it ?0 -
CO2 as a refrigerant..........
And we think 410A runs at high pressure........We ain't seen nothin' yet baby!!
Forget brazed copper, now we are talking welded steel if I read the tea leaves correctly.0 -
Survey Says...
OK, With apologies to Richard Dawson,I didn't really take a survey, but the Biblical take is this:
Human beings should have dominion over the earth. It was made for us.
Human beings should be good stewards over the earth and all the critters living here. (Selfishness BAD)
God will ultimately destroy the whole place anyhow and rebuild it good as new, so while being reasonably "green" is OK, don't worship the creation. (see Romans chapter 1 in the new testament) Thanks for letting me weigh in on this topic. Kevin0 -
I remember that news item...
The supposition was that the lack of air traffic placed far fewer (try zero) contrails across the sky and a result of that was that the temperature rose. Or fell. Or both. Two reports citing the same data directly contradicted one-another. It did get warmer, then it got cooler. I shrugged, for it does that regardless.
Rooster crows. Sun rises. I would not dare to think that the rooster is essential to the process 0 -
0
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that is but
one religions view in a sea of many, to think that WE rule is wrong, I believe people have taken that passage and twisted it, for it does not say everything here is ours to do as we wish, it says everything including the animals are in our care, judgement day will take into account how well we have cared for this planet and all living things
how do you think we're doing so far??????????
do we really think that god would say, "go, keep corporate profits up even if it means damaging the planet"??
that being said there is only one way to find out what is on the other side
I don't know about you but I am in no hurry to find out0 -
OK, I'm back. Short on time at the moment, but here's a quick read that gets at a bunch of the questions raised throughout this thread.
Two-Mile Time Machine
Richard Alley is a truly amazing human. Brilliant scientist. Excellent communicator. Able to frame issues and problems in ways that are easy to understand. Largely devoid of politics. I have had the privilege of hearing him speak a number of times, talk over a few beers, and spend some time one-on-one.
In the excerpt above, you will find only the slightest hint of bias, and that is manifest essentially as "we really should be funding more scientific research into this, because important parts of predicting the future lie in understanding the past." Can't fault him much for that, a) he's a climate scientist, and b) he's at least partly right (probably more than partly...).
He is also quite concerned about the potential for "abrupt" climate change. After several years thinking about it and looking at various datasets (mostly marine, my specialty) I am now more concerned about it than I was a couple years ago. Adapting to gradual will be difficult. To abrupt even moreso.
Sea-level changes, particularly over the past several thousand years, are an important area of my current research. Somebody asked about the last 5000 years compared to the last hundred or so. Short answer is they are quite different. A lot of the relevant data and interpretations have been published in copyrighted media (professional journals) and are thus not readily accessible by the public (another topic; don't get me started, I don't like that it is...). I'll rummage around the web and see if I can point you to some authoritative material that is easily accessible.
To me, one of the neat things about all this is that you guys are in a profession that can absolutely make a difference.
Gotta run.
Hey is there an easy way to post links into messages so they come up as links rather than "http text"? I did the above by hand, not efficient.0 -
great article
thanks for the post
I also remember seeing something about the Earths poles fluctuating, currently they seem to be weakening and scientists sem to think we are near a switch of poles, North becomes South and vice versa.
This could explain alot because fluctuating electrical fields will wreak havoc and influence the weather.
They are also in disagreement as to whether this change will be sudden or gradual or when, they do feel it is going to happen though, some say it will take 5,000 years but we do not know when it started.
stuff that will keep you up at night--hehe0 -
Gene, reread my post. Sloowly this time.
It's not so far removed from what you said, yet you really took issue with it. Why? Is it because I used the "B-word?"
Kevin0 -
no
I thought I took your original thought and expanded on it
I think it is off subject and off the mark of this site though0
This discussion has been closed.
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