[helene_t]

Actually, most Europeans drive cars. It's just that the cars we drive spend less gas than the ones Americans drive, mainly as a consiquence of higher gas taxes. And for various reasons (denser population; better bicycle paths, pedistrian paths and better public transit; shorter home-to-shop distances; less paranoya about criminal who might attack you if you walked through the city; lower body weight which makes it easier to walk etc.) we tend to use the cars less.

But I admit that the higher prices of transportation make the European workforce less flexible and thereby might contribute to the higher European unemployment rates. Just a theory. Other factors that might contribute to the higher European unemployment rates, include:
- European immigration policy attracts immigrants that are less motivated for learning the local language and otherwise qualify themselves for work, as compared to the immigrants attracted by the U.S.
- Higher European unemployment secutity payouts make it less attractive to work.
- Higher European unemployment secutity payouts make it more attractive for unemployed people to register as such.
- Less geographic mobility make it easier for young people to depend on their parents instead of finding work.
- Shorter prisoning terms cause a lot of young men who in America would have been registered as prisoners to show up in the unemployment statistics.
- Language barierers make it difficult to move to regions with better employment.
- A lot of reasons that I haven't thought of.

[DrTodd13]

http://news.bbc.co.u.../tech/56456.stm

[Sigi_BC84]

DrTodd13, on Apr 7 2006, 10:21 PM, said:

http://news.bbc.co.u.../tech/56456.stm

Interesting article, but its title when ripped out of context sounds pretty retarded:

Scientists blame sun for global warming.

[joshs]

Sigi_BC84, on Apr 7 2006, 04:47 PM, said:

DrTodd13, on Apr 7 2006, 10:21 PM, said:

http://news.bbc.co.u.../tech/56456.stm

Interesting article, but its title when ripped out of context sounds pretty retarded:

Scientists blame sun for global warming.

We need to move this post to my best headlines thread.

[DrTodd13]

Gerben42, on Mar 31 2006, 01:59 AM, said:

Dwayne please explain why global warming is a farce in context of this graph (from Wikipedia) showing the global mean surface temperature as a function of time. Let us marvel why all the leading climatologists are wrong.

This graph says nothing about causation. The people that are skeptical are not saying this graph isn't accurate. They are just saying that they don't believe it to be conclusively proven that humans are the cause of the warming. About 1/2 of the
warming occurred before there was a car in every driveway. Anybody know what percentage of total CO2 emissions are from cars? Anyway, like that article I just posted, it is evidently not unanimous in climatology circles either or we wouldn't still be seeing papers like this one. I always hear things like "we have accounted for every possible natural cause of warming and the only thing left is human-caused warming" from the majority. Then other people who are experts in solar radiation come along and say that the majority have not adequately accounted for the primary cause of earth's temperature.

[joshs]

As we can see from the graph, the period from 1940-1980 was the heyday of the COLD WAR, hence global warming stopped. So I figure Reagan gets credit for ending this cooling period along with the cold war.

[the saint]

Note to the Bush administration.

The US complains that cutting emissions will hurt the economy when its per capita energy use is easily the highest in the world. It also has a problem with high oil prices which are giving regimes it has a problem with (notably Iran and Venezuela) a lot of cash to cause more mayhem. Yet...

Why does everyone in the US have to drive a 6 litre V8 pickup? (I have been to Alabama...) It is not your 'God-given' right. (There is no God, but that is for later) You don't need cars that big. Drive smaller more fuel-efficient lower emissions cars. You will use less oil AND that will reduce world-wide demand which will.... lower the cost of oil as the demand and supply balances out which will... give those regimes you dislike less cash which will... give them fewer resources to create mayhem for you. Problem solved. Easy.

And learn to walk/cycle. You will solve your obesity crisis at the same time, reduce your health costs and gain more man-hours labour to boost your economy further. And use less fuel and give off fewer emissions.

ITS SIMPLE SO DON'T COMPLAIN WHEN THE WORLD THINKS YOU ARE BEING GREEDY.

[luke warm]

joshs, on Apr 7 2006, 06:31 PM, said:

As we can see from the graph, the period from 1940-1980 was the heyday of the COLD WAR, hence global warming stopped. So I figure Reagan gets credit for ending this cooling period along with the cold war.

finally he gets credit for something!!!

[Winstonm]

One would think the hole in the ozone at the top of the earth would be an escape point for all this build up of heat - the "jiffy pop" effect I've heard it called.

[DrTodd13]

Another GW story.

[hrothgar]

DrTodd13, on Apr 10 2006, 11:42 PM, said:

Another GW story.

As DrTodd points, scientists rarely walk in lock step. Its certainly possible to dredge up a bunch of different studies spouting a variety of opinions. For example, DrTodd posted one article from the BBC claiming that current temperature spikes are due to our being in the midst of a peak in the Sunspot cycle. Now he is posting another that claims that we aren't seeing a temperature spike. In general, its often bests to go and look for broad consensus rather than mining the fringes for countervailing opinions. Case in point: I can find scientists who believe in Intelligent Design and economists who argue that decreasing taxes increases government revenue. However, you really don't want to base your policy decisions based on the opinions of ideologues.

From my perspective, the evidence surrounding global warming that I find most convincing is related to ecosystem destruction. As I noted earlier, we're seeing worldwide destruction of coral reefs due to coral "bleaching". Rising temperatures are killing off coral reefs in the Indian Ocean, the Carribean, and numerous other parts of the world. These coral formations evolved over thousands of years. They are clearly quite sensitive to temperature extremes. This alone suggests that we're experiencing unusually warm temperatures. I readily agree: we could be seeing some kind of bizarre cosmic coincidence. Perhaps all this CO2 has nothing to do with the coral die off. Me, I've always had faith in Occam's razor. I tend to go with relatively simple solutions.

In a similar fashion, there is a very real chance that Canada is going to lose its pines forests due to warming trends. (There are some rather nasty beetles whose range is shifting quite a bit further to the North. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6022801772.html )Here once again, the potential collapse of a previously stable ecosystem suggests very significant systemic changes.

[Al_U_Card]

DrTodd13, on Apr 10 2006, 03:42 PM, said:

Another GW story.

It is good to have both sides of an issue presented. It remains to decide if we fear one or the other more (warming or cooling) and if there is anything that we can do that will benefit our continued existance.......

[mike777]

"scientists rarely walk in lock step. Its certainly possible to dredge up a bunch of different studies spouting a variety of opinions."


Sigh...do not scientists do studies that spout facts and leave out opinions anymore?

We got 4 pages of posts but no one has told me the definition of global warming that scientists are debating. Great debate over undefined thesis with undefined terms.

[Gerben42]

There have been extreme views on both sides of the medal. The article Todd posts is an example. People go through many lengths to disprove the obvious if it does not suit them.

On the other hand all the "end of the world" scenario's are also self-serving.

Let's keep it to:

* Man is increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
* Greenhouse gases increase the global temperature
* Climate changes are not well understood but cause global temperature changes as well
* The global temperature has increased by a lot the last 50 years
* A further rise in temperature would be A Bad Thing ™

Conclusion: If we decrease the man-made part of the temperature increase, we are better off. And that's what it's all about.

[DrTodd13]

Gerben42, on Apr 10 2006, 02:10 PM, said:

* Man is increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
* Greenhouse gases increase the global temperature
* Climate changes are not well understood but cause global temperature changes as well
* The global temperature has increased by a lot the last 50 years
* A further rise in temperature would be A Bad Thing ™

Conclusion: If we decrease the man-made part of the temperature increase, we are better off. And that's what it's all about.

1. There is no doubt burning fossil fuels puts greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
2. There must be some system of checks and balances that within some tolerance prevents either run-away cooling or run-away heating. If the Earth did not have such a system then previous cool or warm periods would have resulted in run-away cooling or heating. Once you go past the point-of-no-return you may get run-away heating like on Venus but the Earth must have some system where temperature can vary within some range without creating a run-away effect.
3. Sure, all the people on the coasts think global warming is bad because a lot of their property will be flooded. Nevertheless, species will adapt to new climates. Things will thrive where it was too cold to thrive before. I see no reason to believe that the average temperate of 100 years ago is the ideal temperature for earth. I think the concept of an ideal temperate is an extremely difficult one and think that people who want to believe that we just happen to live at a time where the temperature is "ideal" are not very good at probabilities.
4. A recent study I saw said that we just passed the point in December where we have extracted half of the oil that we are ever going to extract from the earth. How long will it take us to use the remaining half of the oil at current rates? Probably a lot less time than it took to use the first 1/2 when consumption was lower. So, what do we have left? 30 years? 40 years? We are already making progress with fusion reactors which can generate power to be used for electrolysis and then have everything based on fuel cells. Given my view that the transition to hydrogen-based fuel and energy sources are inevitable and not that far off, I see less of a need to worry about temp. increases over the next 40 years.

[hrothgar]

DrTodd13, on Apr 11 2006, 01:52 AM, said:

Nevertheless, species will adapt to new climates.
Things will thrive where it was too cold to thrive before.

Evolution is a wonderful thing...
Some species will definitely adapt.

However lots of other ones will simply die off. Simply put, trees aren't migratory...

There are a wide number of examples of mass extinctions throughout earth's history in which 70-95% of all species died off. Said extinctions had a variety of different causes (Strangely enough several are believed to have been caused by temperature changes)

Personally, i think that bio-diversity is a good thing in and of itself. I'd consider a world where 90% of the existent species died out a much less interesting place. As I've noted in the past during actual bridge related discussion, monocultures suffer from a number of flaws.

In much the same way, I am going to miss the snow cap atop Kilimanjaro. I suspect that the farmers who rely on this snow cap to smooth out irragation over the course of the year will miss it even more...

[Impact]

It is all but unarguable that "we should take care of our environment".

It is very arguable about the form that should be adopted - or indeed the precise nature of the danger.

Self-flagellation and self-denial per se may make some people feel good (have you ever tried using some of that recycled toilet paper?), but the economics and damage coefficients of many suggested programmes make little or no sense.

Kyoto falls into that category in that the failure to place limits on the fast-developing nations negates the point, while causing disruption to those economies. I note with that European sanctimony on the point is reached because no sacrifice whatsoever is required as the replacement of obsolete Eastern European (read formerly communist/Iron curtain) plant, produced the requisite level of improvement.

However Kyoto did raise consciousness of some of the potential problems - and that is not a bad thing in itself.

The problem is that the feelgood nature of protest and the money thrown at "being green" does not equateto real progress (imagine the same amount being spent on famine relief and agricultural improvements!!). The fact is that notwithstanding the stagnant or declining populations of some Western nations the global population is on the rise.

Short of exponential application of Chinese law as to population control, that situation is not going to change.

Further the very source of European relief (improved technology) is the likely answer both in the long and short terms: exporting improved technology to developing countries so as to avoid a repeat of the worst of the excesses already encountered in the OECD but on a far larger scale given the (rising) populations of India and China is the short term answer. Improving technology and changing it is the longer term answer.

Surely it is also time to seriously consider the efficacy of efficient use of nuclear technology with modern (3-layer redundancy) safeguards. The disposal of nuclear waste should be a serious research project on an international basis, but there are fairly safe storage mechanisms now if we can overcome the NIMBY (not in my backyard) attitudes.

The strange thing is that the very middleclass people who promote much "green" refuse to make sacrifices tehmselves but expect everybodyelse so to do - with the exception of the idological apologists who always feel that whatever the consequences if only we (read "the West") had tried a bit harder teh terrible consequences of (name your poison: war, suicide bombers, disease, pandemic, global warming....) could be averted


I don't know the answers, and unlike some here, I am no scientist, but the vast majority of the "solutions" proposed by the various lobbies are clearly windowdressing and do NOT address the main issues of rising populations and developing countries (often intertwined) with economic and ecological sustainability.

regards

[cherdano]

I will stay out of this discussion but note that anybody who wishes to have an informed opinion on the matter cannot ignore the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control and its reports. The IPCC is a mostly UN-funded organization with the intent to distill existing scientific consensus and present it to the public and "policy makers".

Arend

[DrTodd13]

Yet another GW article.

I'm not going out and looking for these. They just seem to be appearing on drudgereport and slashdot a lot recently. There was some discussion of cloud cover and this is what the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT has to say.

"When I, with some colleagues at NASA, attempted to determine how clouds behave under varying temperatures, we discovered what we called an "Iris Effect," wherein upper-level cirrus clouds contracted with increased temperature, providing a very strong negative climate feedback sufficient to greatly reduce the response to increasing CO2."

This is the sort of non-intuitive result that you wouldn't know unless you had done the research. This seems to be part of the atmosphere's checks and balances that prevents either run-away heating or cooling.

[Al_U_Card]

Checks and balances being what they are, on the macro scale (last 500,000 years or so (Petit and Jouzel, Nature, 1999) The graphs of CO2 variation over time when compared with Temperature variation (around those of the present) over time , say that we are on the brink, and how....