What Global Warming?

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

After reading this, I'm sure glad a certain leader of the free world rolled back provisions to allow companies to dump more pollutants into the air.

Winters Could Disappear by 2080 - Report
By Anna Mudeva

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (Reuters) - Europe is warming up more quickly than the rest of the world, and cold winters could disappear almost entirely by 2080 as a result of global warming, researchers predicted Wednesday.

Heat waves and floods are likely to become more frequent, threatening the elderly and infirm, and three quarters of the Swiss Alps' glaciers might melt down by 2050, the study prepared by the European Environment Agency (EEA) said.

"This report pulls together a wealth of evidence that climate change is already happening and having widespread impacts, many of them with substantial economic costs, on people and ecosystems in Europe," EEA executive director Jacqueline McGlade said in a statement.

The average number of climate-related disasters per year doubled over the 1990s compared to the previous decade, costing economies around $11 billion a year, said the report, the first by the European Union (news - web sites) body on the impact of global warming on Europe.

"Projections show that by 2080 cold winters could disappear almost entirely and hot summers, droughts and incidents of heavy rain or hail could become much more frequent," the report said.

Climate changes are likely to increase the frequency of floods and droughts like those that hit Europe in the past years, damaging agriculture and making plant species extinct, the Copenhagen-based EEA concluded.

The floods that swept through 11 European countries in 2001 killed about 80 people, while last year's heat wave in western and southern Europe claimed the lives of more than 20,000.

GREENHOUSE GASES

The EEA findings echo those published last week by U.S. climate researchers who predicted that heat waves might become more common as global warming heats the earth and said regions already prone to heat, such as the U.S. Midwest and Europe's Mediterranean area, could suffer even more.

The concentration of carbon dioxide, one of the heat-trapping greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, in the lower atmosphere is now at its highest level for at least 420,000 years and stands 34 percent above its level before the Industrial Revolution, the EEA report said.

According to the agency's study, temperatures in Europe have risen by an average of 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 100 years and are projected to climb by a further 3.6 to 11.3 degrees this century due to the rise in greenhouse gases emissions.

This compared to a global rise in temperatures of 0.36 to 1.26 degrees in the past century and a forecast of another rise of 2.52 to 10.4 degrees this century, said the report.

The researchers said glaciers in eight of Europe's nine glacial regions were at their lowest levels in terms of area and mass in 5,000 years.

They forecast that sea levels in Europe would rise at a pace more than two-to-four times faster than the rise seen in the last century -- a threat to low-lying countries such as the Netherlands, where half the population lives below sea level.

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you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[PhillyKev 0]

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The concentration of carbon dioxide, one of the heat-trapping greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, in the lower atmosphere is now at its highest level for at least 420,000 years and stands 34 percent above its level before the Industrial Revolution, the EEA report said.

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The researchers said glaciers in eight of Europe's nine glacial regions were at their lowest levels in terms of area and mass in 5,000 years.

Haven't you been listening? Polution has nothing to do with it. It's just the natural cycle of the earth.

[Kennedy 0]

And if I cared to look, how long would it take me to find a bunch of scientists who dispute everything in that article?

It didn't take long last time there was a global wrming thread posted.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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[billvon 3,120]

> And if I cared to look, how long would it take me to find a bunch of
> scientists who dispute everything in that article?

As long as it takes you to go to the Halliburton site. Not that that means much - if I did a search on "assault weapons ban saves lives" how many experts do you think I could find who would prove that point? Would finding several of them mean anything to you?

[Kennedy 0]

Paid mouth pieces hardly qualify as solid evidence of anything other than bias.
(for the AWB thing, just about everything released by Brady or VPC has been discredited a number of times)

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As long as it takes you to go to the Halliburton site. Not that that means much - if I did a search on "assault weapons ban saves lives" how many experts do you think I could find who would prove that point? Would finding several of them mean anything to you?

OK, maybe I should have said scientists who have some credibilty, or at least aren't bought and paid for by someone in the debate.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[billvon 3,120]

>OK, maybe I should have said scientists who have some credibilty, or
>at least aren't bought and paid for by someone in the debate.

I think you will be very hard-pressed to find an unbiased scientist who does not believe that global climate change is real, or that CO2 is a strong greenhouse gas, or that we are the cause of higher CO2 concentrations. Of course, you will be able to find plenty of scientists on oil company payrolls that say the three have nothing at all to do with each other. This happened in California about 20 years ago when contractors were required to get seismic surveys of the land they wanted to build on. If they didn't like the results they could get a second opinion. And guess what happened? The survey companies that mapped faults accurately went out of business, and the ones that said "No faults found!" did really well. So guess what you'll hear when you get a seismic survey nowadays?

Unfortunately, earthquakes do not obey the laws of economics. Neither does global warming. The earth will continue to warm as we pump greenhouse gas into the atmosphere no matter what you can find on the web, and no matter how much money anti-warming scientists make from oil companies.

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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> And if I cared to look, how long would it take me to find a bunch of
> scientists who dispute everything in that article?

As long as it takes you to go to the Halliburton site. Not that that means much - if I did a search on "assault weapons ban saves lives" how many experts do you think I could find who would prove that point? Would finding several of them mean anything to you?

It wouldn't matter. If something is not objectively true, it cannot in fact be proved. The most that could be done would be to convince people that it was proved, but somewhere in that proof would have to be a fallacy, making the entire proof false.

You are talking about convincing, not proving. There is a huge difference. Proof exists only for things that are actually true.

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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

Quote

After reading this, I'm sure glad a certain leader of the free world rolled back provisions to allow companies to dump more pollutants into the air.

Winters Could Disappear by 2080 - Report
By Anna Mudeva

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (Reuters) - Europe is warming up more quickly than the rest of the world, and cold winters could disappear almost entirely by 2080 as a result of global warming, researchers predicted Wednesday.

Heat waves and floods are likely to become more frequent, threatening the elderly and infirm, and three quarters of the Swiss Alps' glaciers might melt down by 2050, the study prepared by the European Environment Agency (EEA) said.

Does George W. Bush rule Europe now?

The first paragraph of your article here talks about Europe warming more quickly than the rest of the world. Either you're saying that America's policies about pollution are causing Europe climate to warm by remote control, or America should be bitching at the Europeans for fucking with the climate and causing global warming that will eventually harm us!

And I agree with Kennedy that we are more likely seeing and recording changes to the environment that occur naturally with or without man's involvement. Come on, there have been ICE AGES for millions of years before man was around. When you stop and look at the fact that all we may be seeing is the end of the recession of the last ice age, you see a bigger picture and realize that if we existed in a different time we might have been finding ourselves arguing over how to stop the world from getting too COLD.

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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[nacmacfeegle 0]

"And I agree with Kennedy that we are more likely seeing and recording changes to the environment that occur naturally with or without man's involvement."
I agree that weather is cyclic, however I also believe that we are accelerating the process. A bit like picking at a scab and not letting it heal. Ultimately that graze on the knee will result in gangrene.

The EEA report is nicely summarised here.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3570602.stm

"There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities."

Is that clear enough for everybody?

Rape the land and poison the sea,
just don't take away my SUV.

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He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[mnealtx 0]

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Winters Could Disappear by 2080

Ok, so if the world is getting warmer overall, why did Lakes Erie, Huron and Superior all freeze over in the winter of 2002-2003?
Great Lakes Freeze Over

In carefully inspecting the data presentations of Assel et al., it appears that in addition to 2002, prior complete freeze-overs of Lake Erie occurred in 1998, 1997, 1979, 1978 and 1977. Lake Superior, on the other hand, froze over completely only twice before, in 1996 and 1979; while Lake Huron never completely froze over during the prior period of time stretching all the way back to 1963. In addition, the data reveal that only once before have two of these three Great Lakes ever experienced 100% ice cover in the same year (1979); and never before, in the period from 1963 to the present, have all three of them completely frozen over in the same year.

Do we humans affect the environment around us? Of course we do.

Is our affect on the environment the doom-n-gloom that the environmentists think it is? Too soon to say, IMO.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[nacmacfeegle 0]

"As long as it takes you to go to the Halliburton site."

Aw c'mon Bill, I'm going to deploy the
'we were only following orders' defence here.

Haliburton, Bechtel, AMEC, Costain, Agip, Aker etc design and build (amongst other things)petrochemical facilities around the world. They all generally work to a basis of design provided by their clients. This BOD will detail things like, amongst others, limits of environmental disharges, fugitive emmissions etc etc. The limits on environmental performance are placed upon the designers by the clients and are generally a combination of local license agreements with the host's government (huge effect), the clients own enivironmental policies (medium effect), and Halliburton's code of business conduct (very limited effect).

So for example a refinery in Nigeria's Delta region, will be dirty and dangerous because the local laws allow it, and project economics (client will normally only pay to adhere to the license agreement) dictate it.

Until we have governments tightening up the license agreements, a bit like your EPA rules for cars, it is very difficult to make a business case (cost benefit analysis and prosecution of the ALARP argument) for improved environmental performance and safety, to the client from the designers point of view.

The real baddies in this case are the local governments, and the the people who refuse to pay for environmental 'responsibility' as what is often seen as a nice to have. Those baddies are the clients, eg Exxon Mobil, Conoco Phillips, BP, Shell, TFE, Texaco Chevron etc. NB I have included European majors in this list, and I am currently working on projects for most of those on that list.

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He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[nacmacfeegle 0]

"Too soon to say, IMO"
But are we too late to change our effect on it?

That report suggests that even if we cutback CO2 emmissions RIGHT NOW, it will take a huge time for the scab to heal.
"The EEA underlines the very long time it would take to slow the rate of climate change, because of the longevity of many gases. "

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He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[billvon 3,120]

>Ok, so if the world is getting warmer overall, why did Lakes Erie,
>Huron and Superior all freeze over in the winter of 2002-2003?

Cause "warming" doesn't mean it gets warmer everywhere. For example, in San Diego, warmer ocean temperatures would mean more evaporation, which would mean more clouds over land, which would mean cooler temps in my area.

>Is our affect on the environment the doom-n-gloom that the
>environmentists think it is? Too soon to say, IMO.

Imagine what would happen if you took that approach to skin cancer. "Is that big bleeding discolored lump skin cancer? I'm not sick yet. Too soon to say. I'll wait until I feel sick, or until I feel pain somewhere else." Sometimes waiting for the disaster before you do anything is a bad idea.

[nacmacfeegle 0]

Hey Bill, relatively good news for those of us with a wee bit of a belief in our duty of care...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3598148.stm

Shell fined $1.5 bn for environmental damage in Nigeria's Delta region.
Overdue if you ask me, but its a start.

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He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson