Yikes! Where is Santa gonna take up residence?

[Okla-homey]

Okay, we got it. We're all scroo-ed. Now, would Al please report to the Fortress of Solitude and we'll call him if we need him.

Climate change 'significantly worse' than feared: Al Gore
Jan 24 04:20 AM US/Eastern

Climate change is occurring far more rapidly than even the worst predictions of the UN's Nobel Prize-winning scientific panel on climate change, Al Gore said on Thursday.

Recent evidence shows "the climate crisis is significantly worse and unfolding more rapidly than those on the pessimistic side of the IPCC projections had warned us," climate campaigner and former US vice-president Gore said.

There are now forecasts that the North Pole ice caps may disappear entirely during summer months within five years, he told a gathering at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a massive report the size of three phone books on the reality and risks of climate change, its 4th assessment in 18 years.

Global warming is a key theme at this year's meeting of the world's business and political elite in Davos.

[Harry Beanbag]

He betrayed this country! He played on our fears!

What a dooshbag.

[Jerk]

I'm not the sharpest pencil in the drawer, but I have a memory like an elephant when it comes to these things.

You can bet this will be brought back up in 4 years.

[1stTimeCaller]

Maybe we can have some oceanfront property in Oklahoma within 5 years. This could be awesome!

[soonerinabilene]

We are getting dangerously close to ManBearPig running wild. Its half bear. Half man. And half pig. ManBearPig.

[Jimminy Crimson]

Hey, Al, you idiot! Couldn't you have delivered a message to them via-satellite, instead of flying there on your private jet?

Al Gore is a huge fan of the 'do what I say, not what I do' movement.

[BigRedJed]

Well, now at least there is a timeline. If the ice caps come nowhere near melting during the summer months five years from now, it will be incontrovertible evidence that Al and co. are being alarmist. If they do melt, we're screwed.

All I know is I watched a Nightline piece in the mid-late eighties that was the first thing that ever called my attention to the concept of global warming. The scientists on that program said without a doubt most of North America would be a desert by 2000.

Of course, my memory of that episode might be a little foggy, thanks to the mushrooms.

[BigRedJed]

Oops. Was that too much self-disclosure?

[BillyBall]

Of course, my memory of that episode might be a little foggy, thanks to the mushrooms.

Sounds like the first semester of my freshman year...

[Okla-homey]

I recall scientific concern about a new Ice Age being caused by all the pollution blotting out the sunshine a few decades back.

Or was it "Nuclear Winter" caused by nuclear detonations in the inevitable nuclear weapons exchanges between the US and the now defunct USSR? I forget.

And, lest we forget, life was supposed to cease as we know it at midnight on 12/31/1999. Heck, I even filled up my bathtubs for drinking water on that one.

Oh, and Bird Flu. Don't forget the Bird Flu.

I'm not dismissing the concept of Global Warming outright. I'm just skeptical about it being man-made. Somebody needs to tease out the man made "influences" from the ordinary climatic warming/cooling cycles the Earth has undergone since creation before I drink the Kool-Aid.

Afterall, Oklahoma had to have once been a rain forest/jungle-y place. How else would all the carbon have been laid down that bajillions of years later was pumped out as oil and gas? Ditto Alaska for cryinoutloud. There were'nt any mans around to make that a man made phenomenon.

Bottomline: I beleive we should use less carbon-based fuels in order to become less dependent on Achmed. period.

[soonerinabilene]

I recall scientific concern about a new Ice Age being caused by all the pollution blotting out the sunshine a few decades back.

Or was it "Nuclear Winter" caused by nuclear detonations in the inevitable nuclear weapons exchanges between the US and the now defunct USSR? I forget.

And, lest we forget, life was supposed to cease as we know it at midnight on 12/31/1999. Heck, I even filled up my bathtubs for drinking water on that one.

Oh, and Bird Flu. Don't forget the Bird Flu.

I'm not dismissing the concept of Global Warming outright. I'm just skeptical about it being man-made. Somebody needs to tease out the man made "influences" from the ordinary climatic warming/cooling cycles the Earth has undergone since creation before I drink the Kool-Aid.

Afterall, Oklahoma had to have once been a rain forest/jungle-y place. How else would all the carbon have been laid down that bajillions of years later was pumped out as oil and gas? Ditto Alaska for cryinoutloud. There were'nt any mans around to make that a man made phenomenon.

Bottomline: I beleive we should use less carbon-based fuels in order to become less dependent on Achmed. period.

But what about manbearpig? Im serial about this.

[BigRedJed]

Eww. Homey drinks bathwater.

[mdklatt]

Somebody needs to tease out the man made "influences" from the ordinary climatic warming/cooling cycles the Earth has undergone since creation before I drink the Kool-Aid.

People have. Repeatedly. Read the IPCC reports.

[Okla-homey]

People have. Repeatedly. Read the IPCC reports.

Three phonebooks in thickness (per the piece cited in my initial post). You aren't serious are you?

Let me put it this another way; if the proximate cause of climate change is manmade, someone ought to be able to articulate their reasoning and support for such a proposition in reasonably cogent and relatively brief terms.

IMHO, anytime folks have to use a lot of words to explain causation of an occurrence, you better watch out. An awful lot of half-truths, innuendo, implied facts not in evidence, unproven assertions, and other specious drivel often camouflage a theory and paint it as fact.

I'm just sayin'

[Okla-homey]

Eww. Homey drinks bathwater.

No.

But, if anyone ever markets certified bottles of Sela Ward's bathwater, put me down for a few.

[SoonerInKCMO]

I recall scientific concern about a new Ice Age being caused by all the pollution blotting out the sunshine a few decades back.

Right... but we've drastically reduced the particulate matter that we put into the air.

Or was it "Nuclear Winter" caused by nuclear detonations in the inevitable nuclear weapons exchanges between the US and the now defunct USSR? I forget.

That could've happened too. Fortunately, no one pressed the big red button.

And, lest we forget, life was supposed to cease as we know it at midnight on 12/31/1999. Heck, I even filled up my bathtubs for drinking water on that one.

Legitimate problems with computing systems that rely on dates for their processing being reported on by news people that can't tell an OS kernel from a corn kernel => great misrepresentation of the situation. Billions (trillions?) were spent rectifying the problems (I billed for a few hundred thousand myself ) and the ignorant general public, rather than realizing that it was all that hard work that kept things humming, think Y2K was just a big ol' lie.

Oh, and Bird Flu. Don't forget the Bird Flu.

Next time you run into a general news reporter, ask her what she knows about trans-species viral infections.

I'm not dismissing the concept of Global Warming outright. I'm just skeptical about it being man-made. Somebody needs to tease out the man made "influences" from the ordinary climatic warming/cooling cycles the Earth has undergone since creation before I drink the Kool-Aid.

That's been done. You must not be looking in the right places for the information.

Afterall, Oklahoma had to have once been a rain forest/jungle-y place. How else would all the carbon have been laid down that bajillions of years later was pumped out as oil and gas? Ditto Alaska for cryinoutloud. There were'nt any mans around to make that a man made phenomenon.

I think Oklahoma was actually in the ocean back in the day.

Bottomline: I beleive we should use less carbon-based fuels in order to become less dependent on Achmed. period.

That's a good reason too.

[mdklatt]

way, if the proximate cause of climate change is manmade, someone ought to be able to articulate their reasoning in reasonably cogent and relatively brief terms.

Again, this has been done repeatedly. It's just that won't ever see it in a James Inhofe press release or a Michael Crichton novel.


Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. If you put more CO2 into the atmosphere, you will get more warming. Humans have been putting more CO2 into the atmosphere for more than a century. Based on physics, the amount of warming observed over the past century or so is what would be expected based on the observed rise in CO2. No known natural cause explains the observed warming.

For man-made global warming to be falsified you need to answer these questions:


1) How can the release of gigatons of CO2 from fossil fuels not cause any warming when we know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas?

2) What is causing the warming? "Natural causes" is not an answer. What is the specific physical mechanism?

[Frozen Sooner]

Point of order: there's plenty of vegetation on the Alaska North Slope right now. Just because it's not a jungle doesn't mean there's no vegetation.

[SoonerInKCMO]

Let me put it this another way; if the proximate cause of climate change is manmade, someone ought to be able to articulate their reasoning and support for such a proposition in reasonably cogent and relatively brief terms.

Various gases are relatively opaque to infra-red frequency light. They prevent these light waves from reflecting back into space. This causes heat retention. This becomes obvious when comparing the temperatures of the Earth and Moon - night time temps on the moon are ~-150 Celsius. Brrr. If the amount of greenhouse gases naturally present are enough to raise the Earth's temperature by more than 150 degrees Celsius, it's plenty reasonable to expect our pumping of more into the atmosphere to raise the temperature a few more degrees - and measurements from the last couple hundred years agree with this expectation.

[Frozen Sooner]

Various gases are relatively opaque to infra-red frequency light. They prevent these light waves from reflecting back into space. This causes heat retention. This becomes obvious when comparing the temperatures of the Earth and Moon - night time temps on the moon are ~-150 Celsius. Brrr. If the amount of greenhouse gases naturally present are enough to raise the Earth's temperature by more than 150 degrees Celsius, it's plenty reasonable to expect our pumping of more into the atmosphere to raise the temperature a few more degrees - and measurements from the last couple hundred years agree with this expectation.

OK, this is what confuses me, and I'm sure there's a relatively simple answer to this that I'm not getting.

If CO2 prevents IR from radiating back out into space, wouldn't it also prevent it from heating the earth's atmosphere in the first place?

Seriously, I'm sure there's something I'm totally missing here.