We better start doing something. There is one coming 2030. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/asteroid_2030_001103.html I am going to start storing up food, water and emergency suppy by 2025 to give it some room for error in case it arrives early.
My original thesis was concensus does not necessary mean something is factual or true, it just means a lot of people agree on something. It wasn't intended to debunk global warming or promote the hypothesis. Let's take this a step further. At the time Saddam was threatening the world with WMDs , our intelligence agencies had the "best information and analysis available" which indicated WMDs "in fact" existed. Now we're embroiled in this conflict, and the armed services haven't found any WMDs. I'm not making a pro or con statement, just stating a fact. Oh, in case anyone forgot, Hillary (Bush's polar opposite) voted yes on the Iraqi invasion based on the same intelligence Bush had. Consensus? I'll agree Global Warming is a hypothesis, but that's all it is. And every day I moved tons of snow from my driveway over the winter I asked myself.... "global warming?"
There is huge different between science facts and clandestine intelligent collection. There is no scientific measurement the accuracy of clandestine intelligent collection. A spy could play one side, other side or both sides and whatever intelligent information could pass through many spies that also could play one or both sides. The info could be wrong. Lets not forget that Iraqi WMD is not only confirmed by U.S. intelligence who determine the existence, it is also confirmed by similar intelligence agency in Britain, German, France, Russian, Egypt, Jordan... to name a few. Plus the U.N. also determined and firm that Iraq did have WMD. Lets also don't forget the U.N. security council did come up with resolution on mandating Iraqi dismantle and surrender of Iraqi WMD. If it is a mistake, it is more than the U.S. that made the mistake. I do believe WMD was removed from Iraq to else where (possibly Syria or Iran) before the war was started. Global warming is entirely different. It is not scientifically proven.
The heat's in the sun The Deniers - Part XIV LAWRENCE SOLOMON, Financial Post Friday, March 09, 2007 We live in extraordinarily hot times, says Sami Solanki of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany. In 2004, he led a team of scientists that, for the first time, quantitatively reconstructed the sun's activity since the last Ice Age, some 11,400 years ago. Earth hasn't been this hot in 8,000 years and, he predicts, the hot spell will carry on for a few more decades before the sun turns down the heat. The 19th and 20th centuries are especially noteworthy. "The sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively recently -- in the last 100 to 150 years," he says. "The sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures." Dr. Solanki gives cold comfort to those who claim that global warming took off with the Industrial Revolution, and that the warming we've seen over the last century is mostly man-made. To demonstrate how unlikely this is, Dr. Solanki shows an almost perfect correlation between solar cycles and air temperatures over the land masses in the Northern hemisphere, going back to the mid 19th century. For example, when the length of solar cycle increased dramatically, as it did in from 1910 to 1940, so did the temperature on Earth; when it decreased, as it did from the 1940s to the 1960s, so too did Earth temperatures. Dr. Solanki's startling correlation marked a pivotal point in the climate change debate: Its publication, more than any other single event, caused researchers around the world to examine the role that the sun plays in heating and cooling our planet. Not that Dr. Solanki discredits the role of man-made greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide. These have probably played a large role in Earth's climate, he believes, but only since 1980 or so, when the sun's almost perfect correlation with Earth temperatures ended. He also believes that evidence that greenhouse gases have played a larger role in climate change may some day turn up, because his near-perfect correlation does not constitute proof. To date, however, he hasn't seen anything compelling that undermines his own findings. The answer to most of the global warming we have seen over the past century, Dr. Solanki believes, will likely be somehow associated with the sun, and involve one or more of its parameters. It could be the sun's total irradiance, he states, citing work by others that he respects, or it could be the solar spectral irradiance, in particular with regard to ultraviolet radiation in the stratosphere. Or it could be the sun's open magnetic flux, which modulates the galactic cosmic-ray flux. Or it could be other factors -- many potential solar drivers of our climate exist. Dr. Solanki is especially taken with the work of the Danish National Space Agency, which demonstrated the dramatic effect that cosmic rays can have on cloud formation, and thus temperatures -- "the mechanism is just too beautiful to ignore," he offers. Among the factors that he believes hold great promise, and that cry out for investigation, are the sun's irradiance and its magnetic field, which underlie all solar activity. "Unfortunately, regular and detailed measurements of the sun's surface magnetic field are only available for a few decades, not long enough for comparison with climate," he says on his Web site. "Records of the solar irradiance are available for an even shorter length of time" -- accurate measurements began in 1978 using instrumentation aboard spacecraft. With knowledge of these fundamental determinants of Earth's climate still in their infancy, we cannot act with confidence on climate change. Dr. Solanki's recommendation: more research, and lots of it. To uncover a possible connection between solar irradiance and magnetic-field variations and climate, he thinks it necessary to extend the irradiance record to earlier times with the help of models. To understand the mechanisms responsible for variations in solar brightness, it is necessary to study solar variability on time scales of days to centuries. Until the research is in, he believes, the story of what drives climate change remains unknown. LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Urban Renaissance Institute and Consumer Policy Institute, divisions of Energy Probe Research Foundation. CV OF A DENIER: Sami Solanki is director and scientific member at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany. Previously, he was appointed professor of astronomy at the University of Oulu in Finland in 1998 and Minnaert Professor at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands in 1999. Among his research interests are solar physics, the physics of cool stars, radiative transfer and astronomical tests of theories of gravity. Dr. Solanki obtained his doctorate from the ETH in Zurich in 1987. His Web site is www.mps.mpg.de/homes/solanki; see also www.mps.mpg.de The Series: Statistics needed -- The Deniers Part I Warming is real -- and has benefits -- The Deniers Part II The hurricane expert who stood up to UN junk science -- The Deniers Part III Polar scientists on thin ice -- The Deniers Part IV The original denier: into the cold -- The Deniers Part V The sun moves climate change -- The Deniers Part VI Will the sun cool us? -- The Deniers Part VII The limits of predictability -- The Deniers Part VIII Look to Mars for the truth on global warming -- The Deniers Part IX Limited role for C02 -- the Deniers Part X End the chill -- The Deniers Part XI Clouded research -- The Deniers Part XII Allegre's second thoughts -- The Deniers XIII The heat's in the sun -- The Deniers XIV For this story and links to the above parts in the series to date: http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=67ac2d90-ec56-4460-a831-75aacc20670d
I've read countless technical journals and textbooks on climate and GW. While Im not an expert, I probably know more than 95% of the population (who get their facts from a 2-paragraph story in the paper.) I will say this: there is no scientific evidence that GW is caused by CO2. In fact there are just as many facts to the contrary. GW is a political event, not a scientific one. Anyone who says there is conclusive scientific evidence has conveniently left out contrarian facts. People will argue that it's better to be safe than sorry, but what about the cost of being wrong? It's easy for us in a rich country like the US to reduce CO2 use by spending more on expensive alternatives like wind power, but what about poorer nations? If we only get a fraction of our power from "green" sources because they're so expensive, how can you expect a poorer nation to adopt them? It's selfish for industrialized nations who already have everything to tell others they can't.
You know what's funny. When people blame every weather event on GW. Last summer we had 2 weeks of record high temps and all these people were saying, "see, look at what global warming's doing". Those weeks were followed by 4 weeks of below average weather and those same people didn't say a word. This winter we had very cold weather and those people still are very quiet. But just wait, the next time we have a week of unseasonably warm weather, we'll be hearing from them again.
I don't understand how people who believe that the weatherman can't give us a reliable 7 day forecast can have so much confidence in a 100 year prediction involving a stupendous number of variables using scientific understanding that is only just evolving. The margins of error involved in ANY conclusion are simply mind boggling. What pisses me off is the fact that there are so many people without any common sense to speak of. Then you have ruthless operators like scumbag Gore to take advantage of these idiots. Tell these people "I am here for you" or "it's for your own good" they fall for it every time and then they call you a selfish "right-winger" because you don't want to "fight for good cause". Why is it so hard for them to understand that politicians (ala Gore) do not give a fuck about them in reality??? Regarding the quoted statement, you don't need to be smart, you don't need to be educated, you just need a little common sense to understand that GW is a crap science that's all.
Climate to reshape British Columbia Scientist Sees Dramatic Shift in Forecast By Tom Fletcher, Black Press, Mar 24 2007 Reducing greenhouse gas emissions may slow the impact of climate change, but it wonât stop dramatic shifts in weather and vegetation that are on the way, a B.C. climate scientist says. The greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere and the viable options for reducing it mean B.C.âs climate and particularly its forests are in for major changes, says Richard Hebda, curator of botany and Earth history at the Royal B.C. Museum and professor of Earth and ocean sciences at the University of Victoria. Those shifts can already be seen, such as in dying cedar trees on the drier east side of Vancouver Island, Hebda says. They are consistent with climate change models that predict B.C. will receive increased rain overall, but with longer drought periods in summer and more severe storms in winter. Richard Hebda, curator of botany and Earth history at Royal B.C. Museum, shows a section of fir tree recovered from the bottom of a Vancouver Island lake that shows a sudden climate shift took place 3,850 years ago. BLACK PRESS Photo Hebda is continuing to study sediment and trees from a Vancouver Island lake bottom, which show a rapid climate shift that took place nearly 4,000 years ago. After early years of rapid growth, rings of a preserved Douglas fir show a sudden slowdown in just a few years. âDouglas fir responds and grows best when there are warm and moist springs, and so this almost certainly has something to do with dry springs, maybe cold, dry springs,â Hebda said in an interview. âWhat it really demonstrates is that the climate, at the times of shifting global patterns or states, can change pretty quickly.â B.C. forest policy may have to adapt just as quickly. Forests Minister Rich Coleman says reforestation is increasing towards 250,000 trees per year, particularly in areas hit by the mountain pine beetle infestation. The Forests Ministry maps the huge infested area by satellite each year, and efforts are underway to use dead pine forest for power production and replace trees. NDP forest critic Bob Simpson said the governmentâs approach is still focused too much on replacing pine forests. The goal of six billion trees planted by next year, mentioned in the recent throne speech, is a sign that timber values rather than viable forests are still the goal, he said. âWhat the chief forester is trying to get this government to pay attention to is, what do you do on the land base?â Simpson said. âWe know we have to put deciduous back in. We know we need mixed genetics, because what we do is take the narrow band of genetics and put it back on the ground again. We havenât changed the requirements for silviculture out on the land base.â Hebda agrees with the recent finding by the B.C. Forest Practices Board that leaving beetle-killed trees standing can have beneficial effects, leaving dead trees to rot and feed a new generation. Hebda emphasizes that tree planting should focus on diverse stands that can survive rapid changes to come as B.C.âs average temperature increases, and keep forests from shifting to grassland. tfletcher@blackpress.ca