If anyone is overly sensitive and doesn't like being insulted, then I strongly recommend that he/she delete this email now.
I think some people would call this a "target rich environment". To borrow a quote from Winston Churchill "Never have so many, jumped to so many conclusions with so few facts."
Let me take some of these recent posts in order:
On April 4 Brian says he can imagine that a 1.8 degree change in temperature can lead to catastrophe. He says "Look at the Swiss Alps. At Saas Fee, for example, the glaciers have retreated up the valley over 1 km (250 m altitude) in 35 years." Well, if these glaciers began retreating 35 years ago, then the cause must have been something that started well before 1972. How many years did it take to heat up enough to start melting those glaciers. And how many years did it take human activity to create the conditions that caused the melting? Unless you want to adhere to a theory that this all occured in an instant, then you have to admit that whatever caused the Saas Fee glaciers to retreat had to occur long before oil burning became widespread. As I recall, back in the 1970s all the talk was about a global winter.
I don't think I have to repost the stories written over a hundred years ago about the glaciers retreating in Alaska.
For the life of me I can't figure out why everyone jumped on me for saying "... don't you think the 'GW' ” people have to ask themselves, “Am I 100% sure that all global warming is" caused by human activity? "Because if they are not 100% sure, they could be inviting [economic] disaster for all of us. If they are sure, they need to come up with unassailable proof—the burden is on them."
That is almost an EXACT quote from Harvey's post. Harvey said "The “Swindle” people have to ask themselves, “Am I 100% sure that all global warming is beyond the control of humans?” Because if they are not 100% sure, they could be inviting disaster for all of us. If they are sure, they need to come up with unassailable proof—the burden is on them."
The point I was making by using Harvey's own language was to ask why both sides to a debate aren't bound to the same standards. What gives the GW crowd the holier-than-thou position? And since when is the burden of proof on the party challenging the theory. I thought under generally accepted rules within the scientific community the person proposing the theory had the burden of proof. If the GW Swindle people have to be 100% sure then so should the GW Theory proponents.
April 7 Brian posts... "(the WHO estimates 3,000,000 deaths p.a. from energy-related causes and possibly 10 x as much illness requiring treatment)."
Would it be too much to ask Brian to give us the source for that? His statement is pretty darn broad. What are deaths from "energy-related causes"? Does that include deaths of people killed at the well site from falling drill pipe? Does it include people who electrocute themselves in the bath. Does it include all of those people who die from having to inhale smoke from wood or animal dung fires in their homes because they are denied affordable electricity? Cities around the US are banning the construction of wood burning fireplaces in new homes because of claims of adverse health affects. Is that energy related?
For a race of people who are dying from their own pollution the people in the Western world are living longer and healthier than at any time in history. According to data from the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, in 1900 the average life expectancy in the US was 48, today it is about 78. See http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus06.pdf#027
So when someone wants to claim that mankind is killing itself off because of its own pollution shouldn't that person have to come up with some facts to support that claim? By the way, malaria has killed tens of millions over the last few years SOLELY because of bans on DDT imposed by the Western industrial countries. How come no one ever complains about that?
Brian also says: "... combatting climate change will create jobs and boost the economy in both developed and developing countries." Can you provide the source for that statement? As any economist will tell you, it may create NEW jobs (only in the sense that such jobs did not exist before) - but will there be a net gain in jobs and will the jobs that are created be financially equivalent to the jobs lost? - and at what cost? How many jobs will have to be lost to create these NEW jobs? How much investment in other endeavors will have to be diverted to create these "new" jobs?
But Pratap Singh's post of April 7 really takes the cake .... and why does everyone use this forum to spout off about their personal politics?
Pratap says "You can not argue with this bunch. They have one track mind and facts
are only the statements they put forth themselves based on their own theories. It seems there are people in US who have made up their mind and it is - 'Their way or High way[sic]'. These people think they do nothing wrong, others should do as they say, nobody should disagree with them."
The problem Pratap is that you are describing the Global Warming advocates. They are the ones trying to stifle debate, they are the ones saying the debate is over. Wasn't it Heidi Cullen, the chief meteorologist of The Weather Channel, who said that TV weather forecasters who were skeptical about man-made global warming theories should lose their professional certification?
As far as "'Things are getting Better' (when people are dying every day)." can you point to any time when people were not dying every day"? And can you tell us just what these people are dying from, and how many? Oh, by the way. I have it on good authority that people are being born every day, too.
Pratap goes on to say "These 'can not do any thing wrong' groups do not admit mistakes and when others do not follow their dictum, they raise the specter of National Security and Economical collapse. They are very skillful at using scare tactics."
Skillful at using scare tactics? Like Al Gore for example??
On April 8, Harvey Miller posts
"Now that policy has culminated in a ruinous war that will cost us a trillion dollars. We needed that money to rebuild our crumbling physical infrastructure and our inadequate educational K-12 system. Now we have lost precious lives, antagonized the world, and incurred long-term medical obligations."
"crumbling physical infrastructure", "inadequate educational K-12 system", and "have lost precious lives". Why Harvey, you are not engaging in scare tactics are you?
Now I will be the first to admit that the roads in California are a mess, but can you point to some real examples of "crumbling physical infrastructure". Just where is this happening?
Long term medical obligations? Can you explain that one, it escapes me what you are talking about. By the way, aren't medicare and the new pre-scription drug program "long-term medical obligations"? Are you opposing those? Are they bad? What do they have to do with GW?
As for inadequate educational K-12 system, well, all I can say is that you clearly do not know what you are talking about. Is our educational system in a shambles? Yes, without any doubt. Is it due to lack of money? Absolutely not. Look at the data. Both in real and adjusted dollars the US has consistently been spending more and more and more on education yet the quality of education declines. According to the U.S. Department of Education, in the 1919–20 school year, expenditures per pupil (in constant 2000–2001 dollars) were $367. By 1960, real expenditures had more than quintupled. In the 2000–2001 school year, per-pupil expenditures were approximately $7,000—nearly 20 times as high as in the 1919–20 school year. At the present time California spends well over $7000 per student (in K-12) wich ranks it about 24th (maybe 25th - it has been a while since I looked at the data) among the other states and Washington DC. Yet in performance on standardized tests it ranks at
the bottom, only (as best I can recall) Arkansas, Alabama and Washington DC rank lower. And it is Washington DC that spends more per student than any state except New York and New Jersey. There is NO correlation between money spent per student and the performance of those students on standardized tests. It is not the money. California, whose GDP would make it the 6th highest in the world if it were a seperate country, spends over 50% of its budget on education. 42% goes to K-12 and 10+% goes to colleges and universities. The reason schools in the US are so crappy is because you have incompetent teachers protected by tenure and a system that puts the education of students low on the priority list. Social engineering is more important than education. For data on school expenditures and student performance go to any of
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind06/c8/c8.cfm?opt=1&selected=yes&action=data%20table&colname=810
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/stateprofiles/
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/2006352.pdf
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d05/tables/dt05_162.asp
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/states/
http://www.nea.org/edstats/RankFull06b.htm
http://ftp2.census.gov/govs/school/04f33pub.pdf
Harvey goes onto say: "I believe that the reins of power in this country are about to shift from energy companies to technology companies." Let's all keep in mind that the energy companies only SUPPLY the energy, the technology companies CONSUME the energy. What is going to make them suddenly stop using energy when they grab the reins of power?
On April 8, Steve Gregory says .. "Alternative energy other than burning fossil fuels must be developed if for no other reason than that it's going to run out, and a lot sooner than many realize..."
First, the world will never "run out" of oil. Who will (i.e. can afford to) buy, that last barrel of oil? There will come a time when the use of oil becomes so uneconomical that no one can afford it, so no one will buy it and no one will go to the trouble and expense of producing something that no one can afford. The world will never run out of oil. But that is only semantics.
And let's not forget the "precautionary principal". Will any alternative energy source ever be allowed if it can not be shown to be 100% harmless? What form of energy can pass that test?
On April 8 Yvonne Shevnin says:
"In answer to Chuck's assertion that the GW people must ask themselves "Am I 100% sure that all global warming is caused by human activity?" "
I did not say that. Harvey said that. I just made the point that what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
Yvonne goes on to quote "Amory Lovins, CEO of RMI, a think tank in Colorado, asserts that through well-designed, energy-conservative/efficient buildings, infrastructure (moving to hydrogen, etc.) and commercial and passenger vehicles (utilizing new approaches in applied physics) we can address the dual-headed dragon of unsustainable energy/fuels and human CO2 release."
Can we move into the real world for a moment? Let's assume that Lovins is correct that we can achieve massive savings in energy consumption with "well-designed" buildings. If we start today, how long will it take us to take down every standing building in the world today and replace it with one of Lovins' new buildings. What will be the cost? And if we are spending our resources on replacing every building in the world what sort of things are we willing to give up to pay for that? Nothing is free - we have to forego spending on other causes (medical care, education, foreign aid) in order to be able to afford this. And how much fossil fuel energy is going to be consumed just in the process of tearing down the old and putting up the new buildings?
Maybe Lovins means we don't do it all at once, but over time and only with new construction. OK, but then how long will that take, and at what price? Maybe if we start right now all buildings will be Lovins' buildings in maybe 100 years, 200?
Who among us is ready to tear down his or her home and build one of Lovins' new homes? Who among us can afford to do it? Who is ready to turn in their present car for scrap and buy a new Lovins' car? After all, there is no value in the old clunker, since no one will be permitted to drive it, so it just goes to the junk heap for recycling of its metals. So you get $50 for the scrap and the pleasure of knowing you have done your part for the environment. And you have to fork over $45,000 for one of those new vehicles (assuming you have any money left over after you tore down your home and built a new one).
April 8 MA/NY DDave posts:
"The only thing I can remember seeing recently was an article about how
some Congressman from Oklahoma brought a Science Fiction writer to
testify that Global Warming was hogwash."
Sources please. Who was the Congressman and who was the Science [sic] fiction writer and what precisely was said? Is that too much to ask?
And since when did this become a forum for political whining?
MA/NY DDave says "That was the recent Cheney Republican Congress so it was pretty much A Full Political Theatre to manipulate public opinion since the Executive Branch was running the entire government." Before you answer my other question can you please explain the phrase "Cheney Republican Congress" Since when does the Vice President have anything to do with the Congress. He may be president of the Senate but he has no vote except in the case of a tie, and I don't recall that happening during Bush'es terms. So what on earth do you mean by that?
How on God's green earth did the subject of slavery come up?
April 8, MA/NY DDave posts
"It is interesting how he mentioned slaves so much, and used numbers in
this presentation since 50 years ago would have been the 150th anniversary
of the UK's decision to abolish it and we in the US were going through another
transitory phase to full integration around the 1957 time frame."
Get your history right. Britain tried (with little success) to outlaw the slave TRADE (i.e. shipping slaves on British ships) within the empire in 1807, but it did not end slavery itself until 1833. That is NOT 200 years ago. The US banned the importation of slaves in 1808, pursuant to a provision in the Constitution when it was adopted 20 years earlier (Article 1, Section 9 - Limits on Congress; The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, ...) In fact, during the 18th century several colonial legislatures tried to ban the import of slaves, but they were overruled by the British Parliament and the Crown, because it was too lucrative for Britain and they were not about to give up the fortune they were making by shipping slaves across the Atlantic.
April 4 Joe Feldstedt says
"It will also be interesting to see if he [Gore] does step back into the ring. He was elected president of the USA by the people one time, no reason to think that he can't be elected again... ;-)"
Joe, I hate to break the news to you, but Al Gore was never "elected President of the USA by the people". That is not how the process works. The President is elected by electors, not by a popular vote. There have been several instances in American history where someone won a majority of the popular vote but was not elected President. Bill Clinton did not get a majority of the popular vote in 1992, yet he became President. And if you are making an offhand reference to the Florida vote count, go back and check your "facts". There was no count or recount (done by anyone) that would have given Gore the Florida electors. Every recount still gave Bush the victory.
Can we just stick to environmental issues on this forum and lay off the inane politicking?
Chuck Dolci
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